Spinach frittatas

I found this recipe in an ad on my Facebook page (for once, my Facebook ads actually turned out something that interested me): http://www.opsm.com.au/eyeamhealthy/recipes

I decided to give it a go on a Monday night I wanted to pre-prepare some lunches without spending too much time in the kitchen. I didn't really fine-read the method before getting the groceries, and I realised a bit too late that it was a little too laborious for my liking, involving lots of zesting and wilting and chopping and beating and what-not. The OPSM guys promised it should take only 15 minutes to prepare - but for me it took at least 30... But then again, I'm such a slow-poke in the kitchen.  Also, you want to save this one for a day you are in the mood for doing large amounts of dishes: My kitchen was soon swimming in colanders, baking bowls, saucepans and bits of floppy spinach. 

Anyway, the frittatas turned out pretty well, and now I'm happy to have my lunches sorted for the rest of the week. Also it doesn't hurt to know that these frittatas are good for your eyes, especially if you spend a large part of the day staring at a screen. 

It's also such an improvement to see that something containing three types of full-fat cheeses is marketed as a healthy option!  

This is my take on the recipe. 


Ingredients:
1 small zucchini
120 g (1 bag) baby spinach leaves
1 teaspoon sea salt
375 g ricotta cheese
100 g grated Parmasan
2 green shallots
2 cloves garlic
20 g fresh dill
zest of 1 lemon
2 large eggs
85 g crumbled feta 



Method:

• Grease 12 muffin-cups with oil.
• Grate the zucchini. Combine the zucchini with 1 teaspoon of salt in a colander and let sit to drain for 15 minutes.  Squeeze out as much liquid as possible using a spoon. 
• Steam spinach in 1/4 cup of water in a saucepan for a couple of minutes until floppy-looking. Then drain and set aside. 
• Beat the eggs well. 
• Combine ricotta, half of the Parmasan, feta, shallot, garlic, dill and lemon zest. Then stir in the beaten eggs, zucchini and the spinach. 
• Divide the mixture into the muffin-cups and bake for 35 minutes. 
• Sprinkle with  the remaining Parmasan and return to the oven until the cheese has melted. In my oven, it took roughly five minutes.  
• After removing from oven, allow the frittatas to cool down so they set. 

PS: Thanks to everyone who still keeps visiting my blog, even though it's updated once every leap-year... I can't promise that my presence here will be any less erratic, but I might pop by when I feel a sudden urge to blog. Sorry about not having answered comments recently! 

Flourless, sugar free chocolate mug-cake

First of all, I'm sorry that my presence on this blog is rather erratic. Weekly Wednesday updates - yeah right!!! Also, my apologies that I'm so slow to follow up on all your comments. I had this optimistic idea that since my job now involves less travelling, I'd have all this spare time and energy to spend on blogging. Only that my job still turned into a 6-days and 50-hour  a week scenario. And in my spare time, I've been fighting a never-ending respiratory infection (probably due to all the stress). Therefore, my Friday night snack yesterday was immune-boosting frozen blueberries.... with just a tiny bit of flourless chocolate cake on the side ;-) 

The recipe came from a blog that a friend of mine linked to on Facebook. She had made it more primal by changing a recipe that she found. I again made it LCHF and more blood-sugar-friendly by swapping honey for erythritol. 

Ingredients

1 Tbsp butter

1 egg

1/4 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp vanilla powder

1 1/2 Tbsp cocoa

1 Tbsp thickened cream

3 Tbsp erythritol 

Procedure

• Melt butter in a mug in the microwave. 
• Add the egg and beat with a fork. 
• Throw in rest of ingredients and stir. 
• Nuke for around 1.5 minute in your microwave oven and - voila -  a chocolate-miracle!  
• Serve with whipped cream and blueberries 

You may want to experiment with the cooking-time depending on your oven-type. Perhaps 1.5 minute will make it rubbery, then try a few less seconds next time. 

I know it doesn't look too delicious from the photo - but trust me, it is!

Omelette with feta, basil and sun-dried tomatoes

Oooops, I completely forgot to blog something last week. Suddenly, I'm super-busy again and time is just flying... I hope you will forgive me! But when life was more relaxed a few weeks ago, I used the opportunity to enjoy looooong, gourmet breakfasts on my front-veranda.I discovered that it doesn't take much to "pimp" that boring old omelette to something that could be served in the trendiest breakfast-place in Brisbane. So, I thought I'd share a breakfast recipe for a change. This is a slightly modified version of a recipe I found in the book  "Lavkarbo husmannskost" by Anna Hallen.

Ingredients
3 eggs
50 ml cream
10 sun-dried tomatoes
10 cherry tomatoes
1 tbsp butter
7 feta-cheese pieces
10 basil leaves 
A few "twists" with your salt-and-pepper grinders


Procedure

• Combine eggs, cream, salt and pepper and whip lightly using a fork. 
•  Melt the butter in a frying pan, and pour over the egg-mixture. Let egg-mixture settle into an omelette (like normally).
• Cut the sun-dried tomatoes, cherry-tomatoes and feta-cheese cubes in halves. 
• When the omelette is nearly cooked, sprinkle the sun-dried tomatoes, cherry-tomatoes and the cheese on top, along with the basil leaves. 
• Leave to simmer for a couple of minutes under a lid. 
• Serve!

Rich low-carb chocolate cake

Father's Day is coming up on Sunday, so why not treat  Dad to some delicious chocolate cake? Best of all, it's healthy, and, if you don't tell him it's low-carb, he will never know. Once again, I've found the recipe in the fabulous baking book "Fristende Lavkarbo"

Ingredients
200 g 70% chocolate
200 g butter
50 ml strong coffee
100 ml erythritol (or another sweetener)
1 teaspoon vanilla powder
3 eggs
200 ml ground almonds

Procedure
Break the chocolate into pieces and melt in a pan together with butter and coffee. Remove from the heat and whisk in sweetener and vanilla. Let the chocolate mass cool down.

Meanwhile, whisk the eggs lightly in a different bowl. Then, add the eggs and ground almonds to the chocolate mixture and stir. Then, pour the batter into a  22 cm spring form that you have coated with butter/oil.

Bake on 180 degrees C in the middle of the oven for 20 minutes, and voila, you will make your Dad/father in the family very happy!

Serve for example with cream, berries, low-carb ice cream or some sugar-free jam, like I did here. 

Zucchini (squash) carbonara

It's Wednesday again, and time to share a new recipe. This time I'll share another quick dinner suggestion for all you fellow  time-poor people out there:

Ingredients
2 large zucchinis
2 large chicken fillets
250 g bacon
1 tbsp butter
2 cloves of garlic
100 ml cream
3 egg yolks
5 tbsp grated parmesan cheese
Salt and pepper

Procedure
Grate the zucchini using a julienne peeler. Fry diced chicken fillets and bacon. Whisk the egg yolks and the cream in a bowl. Fry the zucchini with the butter and the garlic in a medium-sized pot. Add the egg mixture to the zucchini and stir well. Then add parmesan and the spice. Lastly, add the meat and stir well.  That's it! Dinner in less than thirty minutes!

Note to self: Next time I'll use three zucchinis instead of two, if I use small ones like this time, as I would have liked to have a bit more green in this dish. 

Inspiration came from the beautiful blog www.sprudlendesunn.no/blogg/

Low carb scones for breakfast

This morning I was enjoying a slow start, and I decided to treat myself to home made low carb scones for brekkie. The recipe came from one of my Norway-treasures: The cookbook "Frisk med lavkarbo - 100 oppskrifter" by Norwegian  doctor Sofie Hexeberg and Gunn-Karin Sakariassen , currently not available in English (that I know of). 

Ingredients

80 g butter

120 g cheese

4 large eggs

120 g almonds

120 g walnuts

1 teaspoon baking powder

Olive oil 

Procedure

Coat a muffin tray  or large muffin cups with olive oil. 

Melt the butter, grate the cheese and whip the eggs lightly. 

Grind almonds and walnuts in a food processor. 

Add butter, cheese, almonds, nuts and baking powder to the whipped eggs and mix. Add a bit of water, should the batter feel too dry. (I didn't need to). Spread the mixture in a tray or muffin cups. I used a tray as shown in the photo below, and got 12 scones. 

Bake on 180 degrees C for 15 minutes. Then let the scones cool down before removing from the tray or the muffin cups. 

According to the authors, the scones are well suited for freezing. They may be kept in the fridge for 2-3 days, but apparently taste best when freshly baked or when heated up after being frozen. I can foresee this recipe going on repeat in my kitchen: SO yummy, and the scones will work for both breakfast, lunches or as a snack on-the-go. Next time I'll double the recipe and freeze most of it. 

I had mine with a bit of sugar free jam this morning, but they are probably even better with butter and cheese. 

The authors suggest adding bits of bacon, cooked ham or some spice to the batter for a bit of variation, and I might try that next time. 

New update each Wednesday!

I've got a little more time on my hands now that my job doesn't involve so much travel! This coincides with me returning from Norway, loaded with low carb cookbooks and inspiration for many many recipes to try out. Some of my readers have requested more frequent updates, and I'll make your wish come true: I've decided to try for weekly updates of this blog from now on, and Wednesday will be the day! That way, if I make something tempting (a cake, a low carb treat etc.), you'll have time to shop for the ingredients and try it out on the weekend! So, from now on, make sure to stop by my blog (at least!) each Wednesday.