Just because it's cute...

Going Organic and finding a sweetener...

So I watched an episode of Jessie Ventura's Conspiracy Theory last night and I have to say, it made a lot of sense and I threw away my sweet and low today and am going to try to find an alternative natural sweetener. I'm also going to try to buy as much organic food as I can afford. I'll just post the videos of the show, they are basically self explanatory.

Part 1 of 6

Part 2 of 6

Part 3 of 6

Part 4 of 6

Part 5 of 6

Part 6 of 6

So much of what they said in the show made sense, and it makes me wonder if they are the reason behind all of the salmonella and e-coli outbreaks we've had in the past few years. It also explains the swine flu and bird flu. I'm just going to try to eat healthier foods, IE less processed and preserved, and buy organic when I can. My Sweet and Low is going to be hard to replace though.

Got a Keurig!

I got a Keurig coffee maker for Christmas. It's awesome! I got a sample pack of different flavors of coffee's so I thought I would keep track of it here. I got the single cup mini brewer in red. It looks exactly like the one above. These are the flavors I got in the sample pack:
Caribou blend



The Caribou blend was ok. Nothing spectacular about it. I'm writing the review a week later and I hardly remember it, so probably not something I would buy again. It didn't Wow! me.









The Green Mountain Nantucket flavor is awesome on the other hand. I have a huge box of that, it's all I have left, but I'm not dissapointed. It has this light, fresh, carmel type aroma and it's not acidic at all. This is a very good flavor. It's not too overly heavy, a medium roast.



Timothy's decaf colombian-This was ok, one of the only flavors I had left so I tried it. I prefer caf vs. decaf, it was pretty light on flavor. So far I don't particularly care for the Timothy's brand.









Diedrich coffee french roast blend-Tried yesterday, not acidic at all, very good flavor and bold, robust flavor.










Newmans own extra bold special blend-This is very good. It's a very heavy, dark and bold coffee, just as the name suggest. It definately woke me up, but it was very good. I am out of sweetener so I drank it black. It was one of the better dark bold coffees I have tasted. I still like Deidrich french roast the best so far. The earl grey tea is giving all of them a run for their money though.

Timothys nicaraguan fair trade organic-tried this one this morning. It's good, but acidic, a little more acidic than I like in coffee. Probably wouldn't buy it again.











Tully's kona blend-This one is pretty strong, a little acidic, kind of reminds me of Timothys nicaraguan fair trade organic blend, but not as bad. It has a kind of nutty, floral after taste. It's not bad, quite enjoying it black right now. *update* The first few sips were ok, after that it got bad. It had a really bad after taste and the more I tried to drink it the more I couldn't choke it down. I ended up throwing it in the trash.



Gloria Jeans hazelnut-this one has a good flavor, doesn't need sweetener, but it's not sweet on it's own. Very "hazelnutty", but I'm not sure I like hazelnut...





Bigelow earl grey tea-This is awesome. I'm not a big hot tea drinker, but this is very good hot, doesn't need any sweetener, and it's got a slight citrus taste to it but not like a lemon zinger tea. This is very very good tea when you want something lighter than coffee.

Chocolate Coconut Bark

1/4 cup Coconut Oil (I use Louannas brand from Walmart in the oil section)
1.5tsp unsweetened cocoa
20 drops liquid sweet and low (or sweetener of choice, 20 drops is equal to 1.5tsp)
2tbsp nuts of choice (optional), I used almonds and walnuts

Melt CO in microwave for 1 minute, add cocoa and sweetener and mix well. Pour in a thin layer in baking dish or shallow bowl ( I used 3 very small plastic containers)/ top with a sprinkling of nuts and put in the freezer. When hardened its the same texture and taste as a chocolate bar.

For the chocolate, almond coconut bark:1/3 recipe the counts are:
Cal:171, Fat:19.2, Carb:0.87g

*In the picture, I made a batch, same recipe, and divided it into 9 cupcake papers and froze it into individual servings. The counts per 1/9th of the recipe are:
Cal:57 Fat:6.4 Carb:0.29

LC Puppy Chow

I just made some LC puppy chow from a basic recipe my friend, Nikkiluvslowcarb, told us about in our support group. It seems like everyone is eating this around the holidays so why should we be left out? I'm sorry if someone has posted a recipe similar to this, but here's my version of it if anyone is interested:

I just used 1 whole large bag of pork rinds and the mixture covered it quite nicely. I used:

1/2 cup Smuckers all natural, no sugar added peanut butter
3tbsp unsweetened cocoa
1/4 cup coconut oil
1/2 stick butter
sweetner to taste (in the mixture not coated), I used about 2tsp liquid sweet and low
1 large bag regular flavor pork rinds.

granular splenda

Melt the PB, cocoa, coconut oil, butter, and sweetner together, mix well, spread pork rinds out in thin layer and cover with mixture. I did go ahead and dust it in granular splenda because it needed the extra sweetness, especially having chocolate and needing 2 diff. sweetners so its not bitter. I don't see why non low carbers would need to use cereal and not pork rinds I just sprinkled the splenda over it, in regular puppy chow you put powdered sugar into a paper bag and put the mixture into it and shake until everything is coated, I didn't to lower carbs and because it really didn't need much.

Ok, with my ingredients (IE the liquid sweet and low and brand of peanut butter I used) I'm calculating the nutrition facts should be around:

Total batch: Cal:3132, Fat:246.2, Carb:36

Per 1/6th recipe: Cal:522, Fat:41.03, Carb:6
Per 1/8th recipe: Cal:391.5, Fat: 30.78, Carb:4.5
Per 1/10th recipe: Cal:313.2, Fat: 24.62, Carb:3.6

Sorry I don't do net carbs so I don't have that count. They would be a lot lower though if you do net.

I said 1 bag of pork rinds was about 8 cups, I'm estimating there, but that wouldn't increase the carb count anyways. It makes a pretty big batch and you could easily get 8-10 servings.

Mom's Cheese Ball

This is a lower carb version of my moms cheese ball she makes around holidays.

2-8oz bricks cream cheese
5 green onions-diced
2 small tomatoes-diced
4 oz ham (I used Hormel) diced
1/2 cup black olives-sliced or diced

Just let the cream cheese come to room temperature and mix in all the ingredients. If you can afford the carbs, she usually crushes pecans and rolls the ball in pecans. My counts do not include pecans. For non LC'ers, put on Ritz or butter crackers. I used pork rinds and it was just as delicious.

Counts for whole recipe:
Cal:1847, fat:169.3, carb:32.7

Counts per 1/20th (I got about 20 tbsps out of this)
Cal:92.35, fat:8.47, carb:1.64

Easy Cream Gravy

For this recipe I just used some bacon fat I had rendered, and added 1 tbsp of butter to it. In a separate bowl I put 1/2 cup of heavy cream and 1 egg and mixed them together. I slowly added the cream mixture in the grease/butter on very low heat, whisking the whole time, until all of the cream was added. I kept whisking for about 6 minutes until it thickened up and added salt and pepper to taste.

This gravy tastes very similar to regular white gravy thickened with flour. I put it over pork chops that I coated with crushed pork rinds and fried.