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.

Low and Slow Mexi Sauce

This recipe is from a crock pot "Low and Slow Pork Taco" video I saw on Food Network.
Low & Slow Pork Tacos

I didn't use pork because all the pork I could find had carbs in it (Farmland brand) so I used a beef roast instead. I think I may have cooked it too long because my roast was dry and the sauce was reduced too far with a bad flavor and way too spicy from the chipotle's. I was very disapointed in this recipe and I won't be trying it again.

There are 30 carbs for the whole recipe and I estimated at least 6 servings mixed in with the shredded meat, so it would be 5g of carbs per serving and totally not worth 1g.

Thanksgiving Recipes-Pumpkin

These are both from Linda Sue's site, here is a link to the recipe:


Crustless Pumpkin Pie
With granular Splenda:
Per Serving: 120 Calories; 10g Fat; 3g Protein; 7g Carbohydrate; 2g Dietary Fiber; 5g Net Carbs

With liquid Splenda:
Per Serving: 114 Calories; 10g Fat; 3g Protein; 5g Carbohydrate; 2g Dietary Fiber; 3g Net Carbs


Pumpkin Bake
Makes 6 servings
Do not freeze

With granular Splenda:
Per Serving: 228 Calories; 18g Fat; 9g Protein; 9g Carbohydrate; 3g Dietary Fiber; 6g Net Carbs

With liquid Splenda:
Per Serving: 220 Calories; 18g Fat; 9g Protein; 7g Carbohydrate; 3g Dietary Fiber; 4g Net Carbs

I want to say the one my mom made was the pumpkin bake and it tasted exactly like the filling in a pumpkin pie.

Thanksgiving Recipes-Tyler Florence Not Green Bean Caserole

4 cups fresh green beans, cleaned
4 slices thick cut bacon/diced (or pancetta)
2 cups sliced mushrooms (button or portabella)
2 cloves garlic (I used jarred minced)
2tbsp butter
1/2 cup sour cream
Salt & Pepper to taste
slivered almonds or canned fried onions to top

Blanch the green beans in a separate pot. (boiling water, salted, for about 5-8 minutes). Dice the bacon/pancetta and cook until some of the fat renders, add the garlic, mushrooms, butter and let cook for about 10 minutes until the mushrooms are dark brown and bacon is crisp. Add sour cream and melt in pan, add green beans and toss to coat with sauce. Add salt and pepper to taste. Top with slivered almonds or crush a few tbsp of the canned fried onions and top with that (the onions are 3g carbs per 2 tbsp).

I did not add his topping, I bought canned fried onions (3g carb per 2 tbsp) but ended up putting some slivered almonds on top which was excellent.

Nutrition per 1/6th of the recipe (minus almonds on top):
Cal: 133
Fat: 9.4g
Carbs: 8g

Thanksgiving Recipes-Cranberry

one of these are my recipe's, but I will be trying some of them this year:

This one is from Cleochatra's site:

Fresh cranberry sauce:

These two are from Linda Sue's LC site:

CRANBERRY RELISH

CRANBERRIES

I'm also very interested in trying Charski's recipe from LCF. It's a jalapeno cranberry sauce:
Charski's Cranberry Jalapeno Sauce

Updated 12/22/09- I ended up making Cleochatras version except I used liquid Sweet and Low instead of stevia. They were very very good.

Thanksgiving Recipes-Flax Stuffing

Ok so for the stuffing, I made a double batch of one minute flax muffins, minus the sweetner:

One minute muffin
1/4 cup Flax Meal
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. Splenda (I used 2 tsps Wholesome organic zero) (Minus this, I added no sweetner)
1 egg
1-2 tsp butter, melted

net carbs 3 (I figure about 1 without sweetner)

Mix together the dry ingredients in a large coffee cup. Add the egg and butter, mix well. Microwave on high 50-60 seconds. The muffin pops right out! Butter and enjoy. (I used a larger square container that is bread shaped).

I cooked it, cut it into cubes, they were fairly large cubes, about 1 inch, too big in my opinion. I toasted it in a dry pan because I didn't have time to dry it out, I would think the best bet would be to toast it in the oven.

8oz sausage
2 stalks celery, diced
1tbsp dehydrated onions
1/2tbsp sage
2 tbsp butter.

Cook sausage, celery, dehydrated onions (I had no fresh), sage, butter until the sausage was done and the celery was transparent and soft. At this point you would add the flax cubes and water and put in the oven, but I don't have an oven that works, so I added some water (on thanksgiving I will add chicken broth instead of water), put on very very low, covered and let cook for about 20 minutes. That's it. The one I made had a bit of slimy texture from the flax but that's because I didn't get to dry it out all the way. It wasn't very very slimy, just left a little on your tongue after. It was very good though, and with some cranberry sauce, I think it will hit the spot. ( I'm missing something in my stuffing, if you know what flavor it is, let me know )

Ok got the approx counts for stuffing:

Per 1/6th of recipe (using 1tbsp dehydrated onion):
Cal:211, Fat:17.4g, Carb:5, Net carb-1.85g

Per 1/4th recipe:
Cal:316.5, Fat:26.1g, Carb:7.5g, Net carb-2.78g

Thanksgiving Recipes-Flax Stuffing

Ok so for the stuffing, I made a double batch of one minute flax muffins, minus the sweetner:

One minute muffin
1/4 cup Flax Meal
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. Splenda (I used 2 tsps Wholesome organic zero) (Minus this, I added no sweetner)
1 egg
1-2 tsp butter, melted

net carbs 3 (I figure about 1 without sweetner)

Mix together the dry ingredients in a large coffee cup. Add the egg and butter, mix well. Microwave on high 50-60 seconds. The muffin pops right out! Butter and enjoy. (I used a larger square container that is bread shaped).

I cooked it, cut it into cubes, they were fairly large cubes, about 1 inch, too big in my opinion. I toasted it in a dry pan because I didn't have time to dry it out, I would think the best bet would be to toast it in the oven.

8oz sausage
2 stalks celery, diced
1tbsp dehydrated onions
1/2tbsp sage
2 tbsp butter.

Cook sausage, celery, dehydrated onions (I had no fresh), sage, butter until the sausage was done and the celery was transparent and soft. At this point you would add the flax cubes and water and put in the oven, but I don't have an oven that works, so I added some water (on thanksgiving I will add chicken broth instead of water), put on very very low, covered and let cook for about 20 minutes. That's it. The one I made had a bit of slimy texture from the flax but that's because I didn't get to dry it out all the way. It wasn't very very slimy, just left a little on your tongue after. It was very good though, and with some cranberry sauce, I think it will hit the spot. ( I'm missing something in my stuffing, if you know what flavor it is, let me know )

Ok got the approx counts for stuffing:

Per 1/6th of recipe (using 1tbsp dehydrated onion):
Cal:211, Fat:17.4g, Carb:5, Net carb-1.85g

Per 1/4th recipe:
Cal:316.5, Fat:26.1g, Carb:7.5g, Net carb-2.78g