Moussaka

I used to love moussaka as a child, but for some reason I had totally forgotten about this yummy, Greek dish. But last week I came across a recipe for low carb moussaka on a Norwegian blog that I follow. I was tempted, and of course I had to try it. I can highly recommend trying this recipe, but be aware that it's not exactly fast food! So make sure you save it for a day you're not in a rush. I think I spent 3.5 hours in the kitchen - partly because the sauce went a bit pear shaped, and I had to do it  over again (only the sauce-part of it, luckily...). Traditional moussaka calls for potatoes in addition to eggplant. But this recipe here contains only eggplant, so it should be a perfect LCHF meal. 

For the eggplant base you need:

2 eggplants

Salt

Pepper

Butter for frying

Slice the eggplants as thinly as possibly, and place them on paper towels on the kitchen bench top. Cover the slices generously with salt. (The salt draws out a lot of water from the eggplants, and prepares them for frying). Let sit out for half an hour, and then wipe off the water that has gathered on top of the eggplant slices. Sprinkle the eggplant slices  with salt and pepper after taste, then fry in generous amounts of butter. When the slices are nice and brown, spread them out in a medium sized baking tray. This now forms the bottom of the moussaka. 

Next, make the minced meat filling, which will go on top of the eggplant.

Minced meat-filling:  

500 g minced meat

2 red onions

4 cloves of garlic

2 teaspoons cinnamon (ground)

4 bay leaves

1 can of tomatoes

4 tablespoons tomato paste

200 ml red wine

2 teaspoons oregano

salt

pepper

Chop the red onions and the garlic finely.Fry this in some butter in a frying pan. Then, remove from frying pan and place in a saucepan. Brown the minced meat, then add this to the onion mix in the saucepan. Now add the rest of the ingredients in the list above. Reduce on low heat. Then, remove the bay leaves, and pour the minced meat mixture on top of the eggplants in the baking dish. 

Next step is to make a cheese-sauce which will go on top of the minced meat. (Beware! This is the step where I messed up...)

Cheese sauce:

500 ml full fat milk

3 tablespoons full fat cream

2 tablespoons butter

1 teaspoon nutmeg

4 eggs

250 g grated cheese

Salt 

Pepper

4 bay leaves

Beat eggs until fluffy.

Boil the milk together with cream and butter until it has thickened a bit. Then add the beaten eggs to the mixture while constantly stirring. Add the spices to taste. Finally, add the grated cheese, and stir, briefly, until even. Then add this cheese sauce on top of the meat-sauce. 

Note: The first time I think I stirred to much, and it all separated into one yukky fatty phase and one aqueous phase... But the second time I was quicker, and it went ok. 

Bake on 190 degrees C in the middle of the oven for about 45 minutes. 

Serve with a Greek salad, and enjoy! I made the salad with cherry tomatoes, red onion, olives, feta cheese and some store-bought tzatziki. 

The two of us got at least three meals out of this generous recipe. 

I found this recipe on the very inspirational blog fotballfrue.no 

Birthday cake

It was my birthday a few weeks ago, and naturally I wanted birthday cake! Last year I treated myself to some Cheesecake Factory, because those cakes used to be among (my MANY sugary) favourites. That birthday cake  must have been my one and only "sugar incidence" last year... Many people find that once they are off the sugar, the ''white poison'' doesn't quite taste the same. This wasn't the case for me though! I had one piece, then another one, and I was in heaven! However, those next few days was much less divine for me... I felt like I was climbing up the walls, desperately craving more sugar and cake, like a former drug addict thinking she'd have just ONE more shot of heroine, then totally falling off the wagon... I stayed strong though, knowing it would pass, and finally I got over it. But that incidence made me realise just how strong an effect sugar has on me, and that having sugary cakes just isn't worth it - not even once per year... This year, therefore, I baked a sugar-free LCHF cake. This way I can have my cake and eat it too, without the post-sugar blues and cravings.


Cecilie's pink low carb baking bible (www.fristendelavkarbo.no) once again came to my rescue, with this divine raspberry and chocolate mousse  creation. It took a few hours to make, but was so worth the wait!


Crust:
5 eggs
100 ml erythritol
5 tablespoons  cocoa
4 tablespoons coconut flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 tablespoon psyllium husk
50 g melted butter


Use a spring form measuring about 22 cm, and grease it with butter or coconut oil.
Beat eggs and erythritol until very fluffy. Combine cocoa, coconut flour, baking powder and the psyllium husk in a baking bowl. Sift  the mixture into the eggs. Then stir in melted butter.
Bake in the middle of the oven on 175 degrees C for 25 minutes.
Let the crust cool while you make chocolate mousse and raspberry mousse as per the instructions below. Then add one layer of chocolate mousse and then a layer of raspberry mousse on top of that. Decorate with a tray of fresh raspberries.


Chocolate mousse: 
200 ml cream
200 g 70 % Lindt chocolate
4 egg yolks
4 egg whites
4 tablespoons erythritol, the icing sugar kind


Melt the chocolate in a non-stick pan. Let cool a little.
Whip the cream and put it in the fridge.
Divide the eggs. Beat the egg whites stiff together with the "icing sugar" erythritol. Whip the egg yolks lightly and combine them with the melted chocolate.
Fold the chocolate mass carefully into the cream. Lastly, carefully fold the egg whites into the combined chocolate + cream mass.


Raspberry mousse: 
300 g frozen raspberries
5 tablespoons erythritol
300 ml cream
3 leaves of gelatin


Defrost berries, and combine with erythritol using a hand blender. Remove the seeds from the berry puree by pouring it through a sieve (using the back of a spoon to "force" it through, as the puree is quite thick). I repeated this a couple of times to get rid of as many as possible of the seeds.
Place the gelatin leaves in cold water. Heat up a small amount of raspberry puree in a pot, then squeeze the water from the gelatin leaves and dissolve them in the heated raspberry puree. Now add this into the rest of the raspberry puree (which is cool)
Whip the cream and carefully fold it into the raspberry puree, little by little.


Enjoy!


The tablespoon measure used is the 15 ml size

LCHF breakfast rolls

My favourite Norwegian low carb blogger, Lena Beatrice on  www.lenabeatrice.net has written her first cookbook. Through the last year and a half I have found so much inspiration on her amazing blog. So of course I had to get her book! This amazing author personally mailed me the book all the way from Norway to Australia! Even with a very nice dedication and her autograph! Lena has lost 45 kgs following LCHF, and - like myself - she has found LCHF the solution for staying slim for life!

What I love about her cooking - and her book as well - is that the recipes are simple: Just yummy everyday foods with ingredients you can find in most food stores.

I thought I'd share her recipe for breakfast rolls: They are a bit oopsie-like and SO yummy. Enjoy!

4 egg whites
25 g almonds, grounded
25 g sunflower seeds, grounded
25 g linseed
25 g sesame seeds
1 teaspoon  baking powder
1 pinch of salt

Beat the egg whites stiff. Carefully turn in seeds and almonds. Use a spoon and place into four little piles on a baking tray covered in baking paper.

Bake on 175 degrees at the bottom shelf of the oven for around 20 minutes.

Winter is coming

Here is a sign that winter is just around the corner in the Southern Hemisphere.

My coconut oil has gone rock solid when stored in room temperature! 

For most of the year it stays a liquid when stored in my pantry in sunny Brisbane... 

Perfect LCHF breakfast

This has been my breakfast on most days this week:
Nannah's LCHF  crispbreads with a thick spread of organic macadamia nut paste that I found at the West End Market a couple of weeks ago. Of course, no breakfast of mine is complete without a large mug of coffee with cream. The jar of macadamia butter is quickly running out, so  I guess  I'll have to head for the markets this weekend as well!

Nannah's crispbreads

Nannah has been active on a Norwegian low carb forum for years, and she is wellknown for her amazing recipes. Her low carb crisp breads are a hit among Norwegian lowcarbers. This recipe is so good that it deserves to be made available for the English-speaking world, so I decided to post it here on my blog. Nannah has now started a low carb blog, where she posts recipes and photos of all her wonderful LCHF food creations. Have a look at it here, and use google translator: 

http://hanseloggretel.blogspot.com.au/2011/06/nannahs-knekkebrd.html

200 g sunflower seeds 

50 g linseed

50 g sesame seed

50 g natural bran

2 tbsp (the 15 ml size) psyllium husk fibre

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 tbsp erythritol 

500 ml water

Stir ingredients together.  Let the dough sit for 10 minutes for the psyllium husk to swell. Spread the mass on two baking trays covered with baking paper. Use a pizza wheel to divide into squares.  Bake on 160 degrees C for 1 hour 10 minutes, both baking trays in the oven at the same time. Let the trays switch place twice during the baking time, as well as turning the trays around once. 

Each crispbread should have less than 1 grams of carbohydrates (based on 32 plates)

The crispbreads tastes wonderfully when served with some butter and cheese. Can be eaten for breakfast, snack or even lunch.

LCHF chocolate chip cookies

I had bought 100 grams of 70 % Lindt chocolate for Easter, thinking that I would make LCHF chocolate eggs. But then I figured that I would probably just eat them all in one go, so I decided to make something where I could ''dilute'' the chocolate a bit. I settled on chocolate chip cookies from this wonderful baking book that I found on the West End market a couple of weeks ago:

I made a few changes to the recipe, for example swapping brown sugar for erythritol, as well as using half the amount suggested in the book. Here is my version:


1∕2 cup butter
1∕2 cup erythritol (the finely ground, icing-sugar-type)
5 eggs
1  teaspoon vanilla
1∕8 teaspoon salt
1 1∕2 cup dessicated coconut 
100 g 70 % Lindt chocolate 
1 cup coconut flour


Make chocolate chips from the dark chocolate. Mix together butter, erythritol, eggs, vanilla and salt. Stir in chocolate chips, coconut flour  and dessicated coconut. Drop batter in spoon-sized mounds on a sheet of baking paper. Bake on 190 degrees C for 15 minutes. Makes 20-25 cookies.


Note: The dough was a bit dry and crumbly. For a smoother dough, perhaps it could be worth trying to add a bit more butter or perhaps an extra egg. However, the crumbly dough didn't affect the end result - the cookies were divine and their texture improved further after a day in the fridge.