Pizza

There's no denying that wheat has a few awesome properties that I now and then miss while baking. This is especially true when making pizza. I've tried various recipes for pizza crusts, and either they end up like a big sponge or like an omelette on steroids. That was untill I found this recipe that gives quite a decent pizza crust (still not like a proper wheat-crust, but good enough for putting on all the yummy pizza fillings). I've found the recipe on the fabulous blog http://lchf-bloggen.blogspot.com. My partner, who isn't much of a low-carb fan, actually approves of this pizza. 

Here's the recipe for the pizza base: 

4 eggs
4 dessert spoons of cream 
2 dessert spoons of oil 
1 teaspoon baking powder 
2 dessert spoons psyllium husk fibre
200 ml grated cheese 
2-3 dessert spoons ground sesame seeds 
salt 
oregano 


Preheat the oven to 250 degrees Celcius. 
Mix all ingredients in a bowl and let the mixture swell for approximately 15 minutes. Spread mixture out on a baking tray covered with baking paper, using a spatula. Cook until golden. Cooking time will vary depending on how thin / thick you have applied the dough on the baking tray. 

Then, remove from oven and add whatever pizza toppings you feel like!

I like to spread pesto across the base, then add some pepperoni, bacon, onion and paprika, and LOTS of cheese. Did I mention lots of cheese? 

Put the pizza back into oven and continue to cook until the cheese on top is melted.

Bon appetite! 

If I remember correctly, this pizza is made doubling  the recipe
above. I tend to make huge pizzas, then have it for lunch
several days in a row. 

Salmon-bake

I've found a whole lot of yummy recipes involving meat, but not so many recipes with fish. Of course, fish in itself is perfect low carb food, just bake a piece of salmon in the oven and have it with an interesting salad and some dressing. But being Scandinavian and having grown up with all kinds of fish-recipes, I was longing to make something more exciting with fish.

Then I found this gratinated salmon recipe, from the wonderful blog www.linn-sin-verden.blogspot.com
I've translated it to English:


500 grams of salmon
1/2 cauliflower
1/2 capsicum
1 onion
1 tub of Creme Fraiche
1 packet of  chopped, frozen spinach
Grated cheese
Salt, pepper and dill

Dice salmon and put in a heat-resistant tray. Add cauliflower- buquettes, chopped capsicum and chopped onion. Sprinkle on some salt, pepper and dill. Mix ingredients together. Then make a dressing of the Creme Fraiche and the spinach (defrosted), and spread it on top of the fish-and vegetable mix. Lastly, add a generous sprinkling of grated cheese on top.

Bake in the oven on 200 degrees Celsius for approximately 25 minutes.

Easy as that! This recipe is enough to make 3 dinners for me and my partner.

Cream cheese wrap

This recipe is perfect for those days when you neither have time nor fantasy to come up with a very complicated and fancy lunch. Which for me means most of the time. That's why this recipe has become a favourite lunch of mine.

1 lo-carb wrap
a generous serving full fat Philadelphia cream-cheese
Around 75 grams of smoked salmon.

The secret is to make sure you really pile on the cream-cheese!  As you can see, I use A LOT.
If I have this lunch at 1 pm, I feel no need to refuel untill at least 7 pm.
I use a wrap that contains ten grams of carbohydrates per wrap.

Salad

To save time I often make a HUGE bowl of salad that lasts me for several lunches. I prefer home made salads, as the problem with restaurant-bought salads  is that they tend to hold back on the good stuff: Mostly the salad is just a pile of veggies with the odd chicken-piece thrown in, with a microscopic dash of fat-free high sugar dressing on top. Such a meal leaves me ravenous after a couple of hours.  My salads, on the other hand, are packed with nutrients. After eating a grown-up sized bowl of this salad, I don't need to refuel for another 5-7 hours. Here comes the recipe:

First, I add all the good stuff:
1 feta cheese
1 glass of sundried tomatoes
1 bag of pine nuts
100 - 200 grams of chicken (for example with tandoori-spices)
1 can of olives

Making sure you have added enough protein and fats, now add the veggies, for example
1 capsicum
2 tomatoes
lettuce leaves untill the bowl is almost full.

Then, importantly, you need to add some dressing to make sure the salad is filling enough.
Most of the time I just throw in some cream and stir. Or, I use a creamy ceasar dressing like the one from Paul Newman. For the salad on the photos I've used the creamy ceasar dressing, and as you can see I've been very generous with it...

Who says salads have to be boring?
Enjoy! 

Chocolate

This pretty much sums up my feelings on chocolate:

For me, life wouldn't be the same without being able to enjoy some chocolate now and then. That's why
chocolate will always be part of my life, even though I am limiting my carbohydrates. 
I've tried completely sugar free chocolate sweetened with maltitol before, but it just tastes funny and makes my stomach funny if I have more than two bites. But now I have discovered the 85 % chocolate from Green and Black's Organic: 

It is softened with vanilla, so it doesn't have that bitter aftertaste. And best of all, the whole chocolate bar of 100 gram only contains 22 grams of carbs!

Tuna fish salad

Now this is a recipe that would have the Biggest Loser contestants scream out with horror: Both Creme Fraiche, cheese AND mayonnaise in the same recipe - all that fat!!! In other words, a perfect meal for a LCHF'er. This recipe was enough to make me two very filling lunches.

1/2 large can of tuna
1 capsicum
Approximately 100 grams of tasty cheese
1/2 tub of Creme Fraiche
3 dessertspoons of full-fat mayonnaise.

Chop the capsicum, grate the cheese and simply mix all ingredients in a bowl.

Easy LCHF breakfast

Put some frozen berries in the microwave and defrost.
Add some full fat Greek yoghurt. If you think the yoghurt tastes too "sharp", add  a little bit of cream.
Add a mixture of chopped nuts, for example hazelnuts, macadamias, almonds and walnuts.
Enjoy with a cup of black coffee with full fat cream.

Keeps me full for six hours!

We spent Christmas on the Sunshine Coast, and I had breakfast each morning enjoying this view, after coming back from my morning walk along the beach. Oh how I wish I could wake up to this view every day... 

Yummy cheesecake with lime and jelly

Well well... Turns out my second recipe will be a cake as well. I guess I just like baking better than cooking... :-) This cheesecake with nuts and chocolate base and a jello-coating is so yummy! And, best of all, you can serve it to your low carb-sceptic friends, because no-one can tell this is actually low carb. I baked it for Christmas for my Australian family, and they all loved it! The best thing about this cake is that it doesn't need baking!

Base:

100 grams of dark chocolate

125 grams of roughly chopped hazelnuts

1 dessertspoon liquid coconut oil

Fits a 22 cm springform 

Cheese-filling:

300 ml full fat cream

200 grams of full fat Philadelphia cream cheese

150 ml erythritol

Juice from one small lime

Jelly-coating:
1 packet of Sugar free jelly. Prepare after recipe on packet. 


Melt the chocolate in a teflon coated pan. Add fluid coconut oil. Chop the nuts roughly and stir them into the chocolate. Use a spatula and evenly spread it out inside the spring form. 


Put the spring form into fridge until the base has set. 


Whip the cream fluffy. 
Whip cream cheese and erythritol thoroughly in another bowl. Then, mix the cream and the cheese mass carefully. Add the juice from the lime and mix it quickly into the mix. 


Spread the mass onto the cake base.  
When the jello has cooled down, carefully pour it on top of the cheese cake. 


Enjoy :-) 


PS: The cake tastes even better if you make the jello from scratch. 


If you do, here is the jello recipe:

200 grams of raspberries
500 ml water
150 ml erythritol
6 plates of gelatine


Let the gelatine plates sit in cold water for 10 minutes. Bring water to a boil, and let berries boil for around 10 minutes. Use a sieve and pour the berry mixture into a bowl. Use a spoon to squeeze all the liquid out of the berries. (You use the liquid and throw out the berry-rests). Add erythritol.


Squeeze the water out of the gelatine and stir it into the raspberry-liquid until cool. Put in the fridge and cool a bit more. 

The recipe is from the delicious baking-book by Cecilie who has the blog  www.fristendelavkarbo.no  

PS: I'm happy to get constructive feedback on how to improve my "baking lingo". When trying to translate my recipes from Norwegian to English I realized that I was lacking the vocabulary for a few of the baking-related items. (Like I had to show my partner the spatula, spring form as well as the type of spoon I used for the coconut oil and have him tell me the name hahaha) 

NB: A change in the cupcake recipe

I just changed the cupcake recipe from saying "table spoons" to "dessert spoons". That's because a Norwegian table spoon is 15 ml, not 25 ml like here in Australia. What comes closest I guess is the dessert spoon size. I think it is important to get the balance right when using sweeteners, as I find that too much erythritol gives a very "cold" taste.

Cupcakes

My first receipe here on the blog will be these yummy cupcakes:

4 eggs
4 dessert spoons of erythritol
1 teaspoon vanilla powder
1 teaspoon baking powder
100 ml coconut flour
100 ml full fat cream

Topping:
200 grams Philadelphia cheese
1 teaspoon vanilla powder
6 dessert spoons erythritol (the finely ground, icing sugar type)
100 grams of softened butter


Cupcakes:
Beat eggs and erythritol fluffy. Then add coconut flour, vanilla powder and baking powder. Finally, add the cream, whip lightly.

Put the muffins into silikon muffin shapes (approximately 12).

Bake on 175 degrees C for 18 minutes in the middle of the oven.

Add the topping and enjoy!


Topping:
Whip the Philadelphia cheese until fluffy. Then add the rest of the ingredients while stirring.

Bon appetite :-)

The recipe is from the delicious baking-book by Cecilie who has the blog  www.fristendelavkarbo.no  

NB: I have changed the recipe from saying "table spoons" to "dessert spoons". That's because a Norwegian table spoon is 15 ml, not 25 ml like here in Australia. What comes closest I guess is the dessert spoon size. But just try and see how sweet you like them, I find that too much erythritol gives a very "cold" taste.

Calories

I’ve heard many people state with certainty that the number of calories you eat on a low carbohydrate diet doesn’t matter. I believed this to be true myself in the beginning. My initial experience was that I was losing weight on 1800-2000 calories per day, which was approximately how much I had been eating before - and gaining weight! What I failed to realize was that on average I had started to eat less: Those uncontrolled binging sessions where I inhaled half a kilo of lollies or chocolate had come to an end (for the first time in my life!). And I think this is true for most people.

I still believe the old “calories in minus calories out” to be true. But the reason a low carb diet works is that it so efficiently allows you to control your calorie intake – without having to worry about counting those calories.

By the way, a low carb diet can be so many things. When you cut the carbs you need to replace them with something. Adding lots of protein isn’t as efficient as replacing the carbs with more fats (think avocado, nuts, full fat sour cream, sauces made from butter, full fat cream etc). The reason is that excess proteins are converted to carbs in our bodies, leading to the increased insulin and thereby fat storage that we are trying to avoid in the first place by eating low carb. 

Low carb eating in Scandinavia

The last few years low carb eating really has taken off in my home country. Norway even ran out of butter before Christmas, because of an increased demand for butter coupled with decreased production.   This is an article about what's happening in Scandinavia:

http://blog.euromonitor.com/2012/02/welcome-back-fat-the-booming-low-carb-trend-in-scandinavia.html