Crazy Good

Any experimentation I've done with substituting cauliflower for carbs e.g. potatoes, bread, etc, has been successful in that it was tasty and I didn't go blind after eating it. The consistency of these dishes was usually a little disappointing in that there's no way a plate of mush could double as a grilled cheese... until today. A small series of minor yet unforseen events led to a lovely cauliflower thin crust that not only holds it's shape, it holds it's shape very well and can be handled easily sans total destruction. Warning: the following instructions are just what I did personally, I'm sure there are other ways of achieving similar results... I'm just winging it over here.

Italian Seasoned Crazy Bread

Bread:
1 lb cauliflower florets (I used half of a frozen 1 kg bag)
1/2 cup parmesan
4oz cream cheese, cut into chunks
1/2 tsp garlic salt
1/4 tsp onion flakes
1/4 tsp sea salt
2 eggs
2 tbs olive oil

Preheat oven to 375. I used the world's loudest food processor to finely chop the frozen cauliflower until it was the basically the consistency of uncooked rice with a few larger chunks remaining for good measure. I spread it evenly in an ungreased 13 x 9 baking pan then baked it for about 20 minutes to cook out some of the moisture. Removed the pan from the oven and let it cool about 10 minutes then scraped the cauliflower into a large cloth (use a tea towel... I didn't have a tea towel. Mistake AND a lame story) twisted it closed and squeezed the shit out of it over the sink to extract the water. It took a few tries but I was left with a dense lump of 'dough' that looked like it measured about a cup in volume. I was all, whaaaaat? That's it that's all that's everything?? But I pressed on.
Placed the dough in a medium mixing bowl added all the remaining ingredients. I first kind of mashed it all together with my hands (mistake) then used a blender to smooth it all out. Tasted it and corrected the seasoning with another shake of salt. Greased the same baking pan with the olive oil then scraped the cauliflower mixture into the pan and evenly patted it flat. I was horrified... the layer of veg was like 1/4 of an inch thick (mistake) I'd underestimated how far the pound of cauliflower would go, but whatever right? Popped the pan back in the oven, baked for 12 minutes until it was puffing up and brown around the edges. Took it out of the oven, then prepared the topping.

Seasoning:
5 tbs parmesan
1 tbs italian seasoning
1/2 tsp sea salt
2 tbs unsalted butter, melted

I combined the dry ingredients and set them aside. Drizzled the melted butter all over the cauli bread, then sprinkled the seasoning evenly and liberally all over the butter. Put the pan back in the oven one last time and cranked it up to broil. Kept a close eye on it for about 4 minutes until golden (it browned very abruptly) and remove it from the oven. Leave it to cool in the pan about 10 minutes then cut it into squares... and whaddya know, it held together! My stupidity pays off!!

Just Because I Need You Doesn't Mean I Want You

Identifying LCHF peeps through work is like shooting low-carb fish in a barrel: any time a person orders an unsweetened anything with heavy cream? I pounce, asking a few questions in the name of chitchat: the cream in your coffee, is it a flavor thing or a carb thing? If they answer with the latter, conversation ensues, we swap stories, I let them know about my blog should they be inclined to check it out, yadda yadda yadda. (Should they respond with the former, I usually just say "oh" and let the convo die a natural death.) This tactic works great with women, we tend to seek support of the similarly minded. Men, however, seem to believe that showing minute interest must mean I want them. Seck-sually. There was this one particular guy who asked for coffee with heavy cream and I asked the flavor v. carb question. He said he's LCHF, and I asked if he cooks. He does. I told him about my blog, and he looked first skeptical, then smug. Yeah zip up there sparky. I asked about carbs, not your dick. And you're not that hot.

I'm just looking to meet new peeps. LCHF is a big part of my life and not having to explain myself to people would be cool.
"Ew, how can you eat that?" Um, it's delicious?
"Do you know how many calories are in that??" Yep. Thousands.
"Yeah well I KNOW because I was reading online that..." Please stop talking. Please.
"Oh come on, one cookie won't hurt!" Seriously, fuck off.
"How long are you going to be on this crazy diet?" Ummm... forever? It's a lifestyle, dumbass.

Okay, rant over.
Class dismissed.

Something Something Something Supper

My daughter decided a year or so ago that she's a vegetarian, so I'm always trying new recipes that we can share for supper... because I ain't cooking twice. She'll eat eggs and veggies, hence the abundance of soufflé activity. Today's version includes, as always, shit I had lying around in the fridge: the last of the broccoli slaw, last of the parm, a few eggs, and frozen cauliflower. Y'all should probably know that I cook mostly by feel, mostly just following my instincts, so the measurements are sorta imprecise but I tried. 

Creamed Veggie Soufflé

1 cup broccoli slaw

2 cups frozen cauliflower florets

1/4 cup unsalted butter + another 1/4 cup melted unsalted butter

1/2 cup heavy cream

2 egg yolks

3 egg whites (I had an extra in the fridge)

1 tsp lemon juice

1/2 tsp + 1/4 tsp garlic salt

1/2 tsp sea salt

1/2 shredded parmesan, reserve 3 tbs

Preheat oven to 400. First, boil the broccoli slaw and cauliflower together in salted water until the veggies are very soft. Drain, toss them back into the pot and shake them over medium heat to evaporate the excess water. Add the first amount of butter to the pot, stir until melted and coating the vegetables. Add the cream, the first amount of garlic, and half the salt. Stir until liquid is reduced. Remove from heat. Use an immersion blender or food processor to blend the mixture until smooth and creamy. Liberally butter a 1 quart casserole, pour the creamed vegetables into the dish. Set aside. 

Whisk the egg yolks and lemon juice together in a stainless steel bowl until the mixture is thick and light. Place the bowl over a pot of barely simmering water, the bottom of the bowl shouldn't be touching the water. Continue to whisk rapidly, careful to not let the eggs get too hot because they'll scramble. Slowly drizzle in the melted butter and continue to whisk the eggs until the sauce is thick and hollandaisey. Remove from heat, whisk in the second amount of garlic salt and set the yolk mixture aside to cool. 

In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff but not dry. The yolk sauce should be around room temperature by this time, gently fold the egg whites into the sauce 1/3 at a time, alternating with the larger amount of parm. Everything should still be fluffy but well combined. Turn it out into the casserole, sprinkle the reserved parmesan evenly over the top. Put it in the oven and immediately reduce the temperature to 375. Bake for about 25 minutes, DO NOT PEEK for the first 20. Serve immediately.

Jim? Jim Who?

My project today was making jello shots for a BBQ tomorrow night. Orange, grape, and sugar-free lemon all mixed with whipped cream flavored vodka (guess which ones I'm having). Last minute inspiration due to today's supreme court decision led to an idea for pride shots... but I was too slow on the uptake to procure the red, green, and blue jello and by this time every store is closed. Pfft. Small towns. 

Sugar-Free Jello Shots

1 small pkg SF jello, any flavor

1 cup boiling water

1/2 cup vodka (I used whipped cream flavored vodka)

1/2 cup cold water

This recipe is super basic and also applies to regular jello if you're into that sort of thing. Pour powder into bowl, add boiling water, stir until jello is completely dissolved. Add cold water and vodka, stir. Pour into disposable shot glasses (shockingly available at a dollar store near you) or small paper cups or what have you. Chill 4 hours or over night. Party on.

Nothing fancy for dinner tonight, instead the other big accomplishment today was the purchase of a home gym. Fancy, 700 bucks but got it half priiiiiice! The bestie and I went to buy it, and three store employees with a heavy duty cart loaded it into the truck. I hope you have someone to help get it into the house, they said. Fuck off, we thought. Thank you, we said. And yes, we managed to unload it ourselves. In case there's any lingering doubt, we rock. Hard.

Shake N Fucking Bake

I'm essentially lazy. I don't want to deal with the mess of a dozen fucking bowls and fucking spatulas and fucking brushes and shit, so I use the simplest method of seasoning and cooking a steak ever: a fucking bag.

A dozen or so white mushrooms, halved

1 AAA striploin steak

Small red onion, thick cut into rings

Red wine (I used an impudent cabernet)

Olive oil

Coarse salt

Fresh ground black pepper

Garlic salt

A large freezer bag

Preheat oven to 400. Place meat and veg into the freezer bag, add seasoning, oil, and red wine to your heart's content. Seal and shake the bag until everything is well coated. Pour it all onto a foil-lined baking sheet, cook for about 20 minutes, check for doneness, turning steak and stirring vegetables. Bake for about another 10 minutes. Serve.

Fucking Awful But Fucking Good

Dinner. There's a half pound of lean ground pork in the fridge to be cooked now or never. Let's see... what else:

1/2 lb lean ground pork

2-3 cups broccoli slaw (find it pre-bagged in the salad section)

2 eggs

garlic salt

Newman's Own brand Lite Italian dressing

I started out by frying the pork, I had no idea what I was going to do with it. The meat was lean, very little grease in the pan when it was cooked. Olive oil seemed meh... peanut oil? Nah. Coconut oil and pork? Fuck. So I looked in the fridge door and saw the italian dressing was half oil, the rest seasoning sooooo why not? Shook it up, poured a bit in the pan with the meat, continued cooking to reduce the liquid and leave the fat. Threw in the broccoli slaw and stir fried the mixture for a couple minutes. Sprinkled liberally with garlic salt, continued cooking. Smelled pretty good but looked a little spartan so I beat a couple eggs, made a well in the center of the stir-fry and poured in the eggs, then pulled the cooked meat mixture over the center to distribute. Removed the pan from the heat (the eggs cook almost immediately and continue cooking off the burner) gave it a taste test for seasoning... looks fucking awful but tastes fucking good. Sorta chow-meiny without the noodles. 

That Stupid Song

It's nearly time for another grocery restock and as a result, today's meals were on the interesting side. First, a no-bake coconut lime cheesecake. The addition of coconut was a last minute inspiration based on the fact that I had some just sitting in the cupboard. So good.

2 + 1 tbs organic coconut

1 250g (8oz) pkg cream cheese, softened 

1 cup heavy cream

1 pkg sugar-free lime jell-o
1 tbs lime juice

1/4 cup boiling water

Whip the cream until stiff, set aside. Add jell-o to the boiling water, stir until completely dissolved. Beat the cream cream cheese until smooth, continue beating while slowly drizzling in the jell-o, then add the lime juice and thoroughly mix. Fold in the whipped cream gently, you want this to maintain it's fluffiness because awwwww! Fluffy! Set aside. Distribute two tablespoons of the coconut evenly between 12 paper-lined muffin cups. Spoon the cheesecake mixture into the cups, each should be about 3/4 full. Sprinkle the remaining coconut over the tops of the little cakes, refrigerate until firm (about 4 hours). Yum.

Saucy!

I had leftover slut muffins from this morning, and after deflating they looked sorta dogshitty so I wanted to dress em up with a nice cheese sauce, but without the flour/milk base. So I did what I always do: assume I know everthang and plow ahead. The result of my stubbornness? The richest, cheesiest sauce that ever cheesed OR sauced. I started with an egg yolk base, like the previous sauces. Super genius.

2 egg yolks (I'm storing the leftover whites for tomorrow's brainstorm)

1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted

1/2 cup loosely packed grated medium cheddar

good pinch of paprika

Whisked the yolks in a stainless steel bowl until thick and light then placed the bowl over a pan of barely simmering water... don't let the water touch the bottom of the bowl. Keep whisking the yolks while slowly drizzling in the melted butter. Continue to stir until the mixture thickens, add the cheese, whisk whisk whisk. When it's saucy thick, remove from heat and stir in the paprika. The sauce should still be pourable; if it's too thick add a few drops of water and stir. Correct the seasoning if you should feel the need.

Slut Muffins

Weird little egg-bacon-cheese concoction from the oven this morning... as I whipped the egg whites to give the batter a little body it occurred to me that I'm eating a lot of air lately in soufflé form. Again, these things were made from things I happened to have on hand.

2 whole eggs
2 egg whites
4 bacon strips, cooked + the fat
good pinch of salt
3 tbs heavy cream
1/2 + 1/4 cup of grated cheddar
a slice or two of havarti (I only had one but two woulda been cool)

Preheat the oven to 425. Cooked the bacon, then distributed the fat into 2/3 of a muffin pan (9 out of 12, doy). Broke the havarti slice into pieces and laid them in the bottoms of the greased cups. Beat together the 2 whole eggs, cream and salt until thick. Crumbled the bacon into the batter, sprinkled in the half cup of cheddar. In a separate bowl whipped the egg whites into a stiff meringue, then folded them into the bacon-egg-cheese mixture in 3 additions. Teased the batter into the muffin cups; pouring it means splat, all slides in at once. Instead, use finesse. Once the cups were about 3/4 full I topped each with the second amount of shredded cheddar. Put the pan in the oven then reduced the temp to 375, baked for about 10 minutes or until puffed and golden. Remove from the oven and serve immediately... the nature of the soufflé makes it real ugly, real quick. But yummy.

Over. Easy.

Finally my work week is over, today being my Friday. Interesting week, love (most) of my coworkers but sometimes I wonder what the actual fuck. We were talking about prosthetic limbs and I said, if I lost a leg I'd rock a beautifully decorated prosthetic, loud and proud. Someone said that, knowing me, it would look like a giant adult toy. I was semi-horrified yet not surprised. First, ew. And second, clearly this person doesn't know me at all and I think I'll keep it that way. Whatever, moving on. That afternoon there was more idle chatter, I was more on the outskirts than in. Suddenly attention was on me with the question: How many penises do you touch in a day...? I said well my daily average year-to-date is zero... but I'm optimistic. They countered with no, what is it... like, 60? 70? I was confused until listening to the continued convo, something about scientists and bacteria and lax handwashing routines. Ohhhhh, boys use the washroom, touch themselves, don't wash, then everything they touch afterward has penis on it. Gotcha. Then today. I was commenting on someone's choice of friends with, this guy is a bag of dicks, yet we have mutual friends. Is that all I am, another dick in the bag?? But I digress.
Decided to make something easy for dinner... had an 18 pack of eggs in the fridge, went from there. Eggs and hollandaise, which translates to eggs and eggs.

Make the sauce first, prepare the eggs any way you like. It's the zero carb version of eggs benny but I was too lazy to add meat or veggies. For the sauce you will need:

4 egg yolks
1/4 cup unsalted butter
1 tbs lemon juice
good pinch of cayenne
good pinch of salt
2 tbs real mayo

Whisk the egg yolks and lemon juice together in a stainless steel bowl until the mixture is thick and light. Place the bowl over a pot of barely simmering water, the bottom of the bowl shouldn't be touching the water. Continue to whisk rapidly, careful to not let the eggs get too hot or they'll scramble. Slowly drizzle in the melted butter and continue to whisk the eggs until the sauce is thick and hollandaisey. Remove from heat, whisk in the salt, cayenne, and mayo. Keep the sauce someplace warm until you're ready to use it, give it a quick stir and spoon it over the eggs to your heart's content.

Live. And Learn. And Eat.

Today was rough. Father's Day, or as I call it, "crippling emotional trauma" day.  I'll have my trauma with a side of eggs, please!

Decided on a lovely soufflé for dinner, but the recipes always call for a flour-thickened yolk base and as we all know, I'm a carb nazi. Instead I thickened the yolks by turning them into a hollandaise, folded together with the cheese and egg whites then scraped the mixture into a buttered dish that had been sprinkled with parmesan cheese. Turns out I shoulda used an extra egg because the dish was a bit on the large side. Live and learn. And Eat.

BT-dubs? No carbs.

4 eggs, separated

1/2 cup unsalted butter (melted) + more (unmelted) to grease a 1 quart casserole

1/2 cup grated cheddar

1/4 cup shredded parmesan

1 tbs lemon juice

1/4 tsp sea salt

hearty pinch of paprika

Preheat oven to 400. Grease casserole with unsalted butter and sprinkle in the parmesan. Shake the dish to distribute the cheese, set aside. Whisk the egg yolks and lemon juice together in a stainless steel bowl until the mixture is thick and light. Place the bowl over a pot of barely simmering water, the bottom of the bowl shouldn't be touching the water. You can also use a double boiler, but I'm not that fancy. Continue to whisk rapidly, careful to not let the eggs get too hot because they'll scramble. Slowly drizzle in the melted butter and continue to whisk the eggs until the sauce is thick and hollandaisey. Remove from heat, whisk in the salt and cayenne. Set the sauce aside. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff but not dry. The hollandaise should be around room temperature by this time, gently fold the egg whites into the sauce 1/3 at a time, alternating with the cheddar. Everything should still be fluffy but well combined. Turn it out into the casserole and put it in the oven immediately reducing the temperature to 375. Bake for about 25 minutes, DO NOT PEEK for the first 20. Serve immediately.

Redding & Writting

I'll admit it. I'm looking for love online, just like everyone else. That being said, when a guy claims his interests include writing, but it's misspelled...? 

Deep Thought Of The Day

The toilets at the store were 'upgraded' to some weird space-age operation system. Which means when one is out of order, a team of specialists are summoned to the job. Which means I will never again have occasion at work to use the word "ballcock".

Cheesy Bacon Burger Balls

Tonight's entree... I don't really have a name for it. As usual, it's made from what I had on hand... havarti and parmesan cheeses, ground pork, bacon, and seasoning. Plus? I measured instead of eyeballing the seasoning so I can relate the information. See what I do for you?

I'm cooking just for myself because I have no one, so the recipe is fairly small... made 8 cheesy bacon burger balls... rolls right off the tongue, don't it? Hey, a name! And hey! No carbs!

1/2 lb lean ground pork

4 strips bacon, cut into halves

1 tsp dried parsley

1/8 tsp greek seasoning

1/2 tsp sea salt

1/2 tsp garlic salt + extra

2 tbs shredded parmesan

2 slices havarti cheese

Preheated the oven to 375. Then I started out by folding each slice of havarti into 4, then each quarter into 4 to approximate cheese cubes. Sounds lame, and it is, but again it's what I had on hand so shaddap.  I ended up with 8 little piles of cheese.

Mixed the pork, parsley, greek seasoning, salt, garlic salt, and  parm in a bowl then divided the meat into 8 equal pieces. Took a piece of meat, flattened it into a mini patty in my hand and plunked a havarti pile in the middle, then folded the meat around it careful to seal the edges, rolled it into a ball, and placed it in a foil lined pan. Repeated the process with the remaining meat.

Sprinkled the balls with garlic salt, then wrapped each ball with a piece of bacon, overlapping the ends.  I used toothpicks to secure the ends in case the bacon shrank, which just seemed to make sense to me and I didn't want the bacon just flopping around in the oven.

Baked them for about 40-45 minutes, and have a few thoughts after taking them out of the oven. First, the cheese in the middle isn't gooey enough. I'm thinking mozzarella would be better presentation-wise... but I'm only feeding myself so no complaints. Second, a sauce or something on the side for dipping would be nice but I'm a carb nazi so options are limited. This was an experiment that went well enough I'd do it again... huzzah!

Deli Chicken IV: Rise of the Leftover

I was staaaarving all day... fantasizing about stuffing the leftover chicken dip into some mushroom caps.  Soon as I got home from work that's what I did, haven't even taken off my shoes yet.

A dozen or so mid-sized white mushrooms
Yesterday's leftover chicken spinach dip
2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon lemon juice
Sea salt
Shredded parmesan

Had some white mushrooms in the fridge, wiped em clean and twisted out the stems. Melted together a couple tablespoons of unsalted butter and a tablespoon of lemon juice, dipped the caps one at a time into the mixture then arranged them on a foil lined pan. Drizzled the remaining lemon butter into each cap, then salted the works. Stuffed the mushrooms with chicken dip, sprinkled shredded parm on the tops, baked at 350 for 20 minutes.

So delicious, so delectable, I licked the tangy caramelized butter that glistened on my fingertips, tasted the savory and sweet filling, savored every bite, every morsel, reaching for them again and again feeling the pleasure building within me to an almost unbearable crescendo until... until...

God I need a man.

Deli Chicken: Part III

Aiiight, change of plans.
Artichokes. Looking for a fucking can of artichokes. Always in stock, always there, who the fuck eats cans of artichokes. Well list em for a dollar off and they FLY off the shelves. Literally zero to be found. Any other time I've perused the chokes the cans are dusty and the labels questionable. And AND Swiss was a no go, parm was cheaper.  I had originally planned a hot chicken artichoke swiss cheesy type dip thingy but shopping was a total cock block.
What's for dinner? Experimental chicken.
The measurements are approximate because I'm not a measurer. Shocking, I know.

Leftover chicken (approx. 2 breasts)
1 300g pkg frozen spinach, thawed
1 tub herb and garlic cream cheese
1 1/2 cups real mayo
1 cup shredded parmesan + 1/2 cup for top
1 tbs parsley
1/2 tsp garlic salt
1/2 tsp celery salt
1/4 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp paprika

I softened and mixed up a tub of herb and garlic cream cheese with an equal amount of olive oil mayo in a bowl, added a cup of shredded parm, celery salt, garlic, onion, sea salt, paprika, and parsley. Stripped the chicken carcass, tore up the meat, added it to the bowl along with one package of frozen spinach, thawed and squozen hard. That stuff is FULL of water.

Scraped it all into a 1 quart casserole and topped it with shredded parm, baked at 350 for approximately 40 minutes until it was nice and bubbly, then broiled for an additional 2 minutes to brown the top nice and good. I suppose it could be eaten with bread or crackers or tortilla chips if you're into that sort of thing, but I'm eating mine with a fork.

The Plot Chickens

I'm sitting with my doppio... planning... plotting my next adventure in poultry.  I don't have a mega huge appetite so that little rotisserie number lasts me 3-4 days. The 'good parts' have been stripped (my faves are the crispy skin and dark meat, which I ate in front of the TV while watching a Queer As Folk marathon) so I'm left with a couple of good-sized breasts to play with, which sounds weird but you know what I mean. The deli dealies are so plump and succulent... I don't know what they're doing with these chickens, but I doubt it's letting em walk around.
Groceries: artichoke hearts, celery, swiss cheese.

Doppio Undertow

I start most mornings with a handful of supplements (blah) and my coffee, the fabled Undertow: doppio espresso with a bit of heavy cream added while the shots are pouring. The cream doesn't dissipate in the cup due to it's viscosity or specific gravity or some shit; if you don't stir it, every sip has a hot layer of espresso and a cool layer of cream. So bomb.

Deli Chicken: Parts I & II

Bought a deli chicken yesterday... gnawed off a leg but it was kinda meh. I lost interest, bagged it (I store leftovers in large freezer bags to eliminate mess) then tossed it in the fridge. Deli chicken day 2: I mixed up some unsalted butter, sea salt, greek seasoning, paprika, and lemon juice. Heated it in the microwave about 20 seconds to super-soften the butter then slathered the unsuspecting poultry carcass.

Baked for approximately 30 minutes at 400... this thing is now genius. Brilliant.

Like, roasted Nobel Laureate. Foodporn in my mouth.

The Bacon Slut

A few things about me:
High fat, low carb, sugar free.  True story.
I was a huge fan of the low-cal movement, running on a daily caloric deficit in order to maintain my weight. Famine was fun and all, but crawling to work on my face every day? Not so much. Fat and protein and veggies are where it's at.
Kicked 99% of artificial sweeteners about 3 weeks ago... hard to believe it's been that long. I was a dozen or two Splendas per day kind of girl, added it to my coffee, tea, baking, did lines off the kitchen counter... well maybe not the last part, but pretty close. It wreaked havoc with my system and upped my carb intake by at least 12g daily. So fuck that shit.
Welcome to my food obsession, my foodporn addiction, my day to day stuff.
Bacon is my religion, all hail the pig.

So far today I've had two Undertows (ammmmazing) and a dish which can only be described as "Shit I Found In the Fridge".  I'm running low on groceries but want to use up what I've got before restocking, so I found a pack of zero carb salami (had to read 7 labels before I found a sliced meat that wasn't loaded with sugar.  Fuckers.), the remains of a bag of shredded cheddar, and some banana pepper rings.  Preheated the oven to 425, lined a pan with foil, layered on the meat, topped with the shreds, and scattered a few peppers over top.  Baked the thing for ohhh 15 minutes or so until it smelled like food.

The result? Gotta say, it didn't suck.