What causes heart disease

WORD!

http://preventdisease.com/news/12/030112_World-Renown-Heart-Surgeon-Speaks-Out-On-What-Really-Causes-Heart-Disease.shtml 

Fish-bake with whiting

I used to love a typical Norwegian fish bake-dish with lots of macaroni inside and with bread crumbs on the top. Naturally, this dish is not on the menu for me any more, and I was so happy to find a recipe for a dish just as good, but healthier.  Whereas I used to find it ready-made in the freezer in my local store at home, I had to make this dish from scratch. And surprisingly, it’s not much more time-consuming than buying the ready-made dish. Changing to a low carb lifestyle meant that I had to learn how to cook from ‘’scratch’’ rather than relying on ready-made food full of preservatives and cheap ingredients. And time after time it has surprised me how easy it actually is to cook healthy, using whole foods. Coming from someone who used to be a fast-food queen and who hated spending more than 5 minutes in the kitchen, it's quite a change... Well, enough rambling on, here is the recipe:

600 g white fish (I used whiting)

2 onions

4 eggs

200 ml cream

Salt, pepper, dill, other spices to  taste

Grated cheese

Chop the onions while you boil the fish. When the fish is well-cooked, mix fish with onion in an oven-safe tray. Beat the mixture of eggs, cream and spices lightly. Pour it over the fish. Sprinkle cheese on top and put the dish in the (pre-heated ) oven. Bake on 225 degrees C for around 25 minutes.  

Voila!

Let me know if you have got any suggestions on how to spice this dish up a notch: With other vegetables or perhaps some interesting herbs. I often find that plain fish can be a bit boring, but by making a fish-bake like this I ''camouflage'' the fish with lots of good stuff, so I trick myself into eating fish more often. 

This recipe is inspired by the wonderful Lena Beatrice who has the blog  www.lenabeatrice.net Unfortunately for the English-speaking world, it's in Norwegian... But google translator is improving day by day, so it's worth trying the translator function to see if it's making any sense. 

An excellent low carb book

Yay! This is SO exciting: The excellent low carb theory book by Norwegian doctor Sofie Hexeberg is now available in English, and can be bought on amazon.co.uk: http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Scandianvian-Diet-Scandinavian-ebook/dp/B007IMHCDQ/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1331380060&sr=8-6.

This is the book that had me convinced that low carbohydrate diets are actually good for our health.
The book is called The Scandinavian Diet. Getting healthy with low carb. If I remember correctly, the book has  recipes as well as excellent scientific explanations about the way we are meant to eat.
Dr Hexeberg has a clinic where she treats obese and diabetic patients (among others) with low carbohydrate diet - with amazing results!

(I've linked to the kindle edition, but it should be available on paper as well)

Chocolates with goji-berries

Goji-berries are super-healthy super foods, however with 65 grams of carbohydrates per 100 grams they aren't low carb. So if you are still in a weight-loss phase, you might want to skip these, or just have ONE...

Here is the recipe:

100 grams 70 % chocolate

2 tbsp liquid coconut oil

100 ml hazelnuts

100 ml goji-berries

Melt the chocolate and add coconut oil. Stir. Chop the hazelnuts and add to the melted chocolate. Add the goji-berries and stir. Spoon into ice-cube silicone moulds or special chocolate moulds. Keep them in the fridge, because the coconut fat makes them go runny in few minutes in room temperature. 

PS: I had to use peanuts, because I didn't have any hazelnuts.

Once again, this yummy recipe is from the delicious book Fristende Lavkarbo by Cecilie Theiste-Bratli who writes a blog with the same name: www.fristendelavkarbo.no   (Changed slightly)

Pecan chocolates

Sometimes I just love coming home on a Friday after a long work week, and lock myself in the kitchen - baking. An ice-cold glass of sauvignon blanc by my side and some Bon Iver songs playing on my laptop, and I'm relaxing.

Getting ready for a night of baking, with my low carb
baking book by my side 

Today I decided to make a few different things, and I started with this pecan nut chocolate recipe. It is easy to make and quick. I used 85 % chocolate (from Black and Gold's), but 70 % chocolate can also be used. Using 70 % chocolate makes the recipe more ''child-friendly''.

100 grams of dark chocolate
1 ∕ 2 cup pecan nuts

2 tbsp liquid coconut oil
1 ∕ 2 tsp sea salt

Melt chocolate and stir in coconut oil. Chop pecans roughly and add to the chocolate. Add sea salt that you have crushed in a mortar.  Spoon into confectionary cups\ paper cups or mini muffin cups. And that's it. Let cool in the fridge. Also, coconut oil plus room temperature is a bad idea, so make sure you store the chocolates in the fridge.

The recipe comes from the beautiful low carb baking book ''Fristende lavkarbo'' (Tempting low carb)by Cecilie who has the wonderful blog with the same name, www.fristendelavkarbo.no

First Iherb order

Yay! I got my first package from Iherb today. This is what I ordered

- Now Healthy Foods Erythritol
- 3 different stevia-extracts with different tastes.

I will definitely order from Iherb again. It is a lot cheaper than buying stuff from health food stores in Australia. 1 pound (454 grams) of erythritol costs 7 US$, compared with around 10 dollars for 250 grams at my local health food store... It took almost three weeks from I ordered untill I got the package, but I chose International Airmail. I heard there is another mailing option that is quicker, and quite cheap if you buy for more than 80 dollars. I will try that next time.

Low carb bread

Scandinavian people definitely eat lots of bread. Norwegian health authorities actually advice people to eat bread three(!) times daily. However, this is whole-grain bread with a lot more good stuff than even the healthiest bread we can get here in Australia. For example, the bread my mother bakes is heavy as a brick and fills you quite a bit.  Perhaps because  Scandinavians are so addicted to their breads, low carb blogs and forums are full of recipes for yummy low carb breads. What I love about low carb baking is that it's so easy: No hour-long waits for the bread to rise, just mix the ingredients together and pop it in the oven. Here is the recipe for my favourite low carb bread. One reason that I like this recipe is  it demands no mysterious ingredients that you have to venture to a health food store to get.

Recipe for one bread:
4 eggs
1 tsp baking powder
150 grams Creme Fraiche
60 grams natural bran
40 grams linseed
50 grams sesame seeds
50 grams sunflower seeds

 Mix ingredients and pour into a bread tray covered with baking paper.
Bake at the bottom shelf on 180 degrees (C) for around 50 minutes

Enjoy it for example with butter and brie, cheese with some ham and capsicum. Or with peanut butter and sugar-free jelly (if you can handle the extra carbs from peanut butter). Super-healthy and leaves you full and with a stable blood sugar for hours and hours.

PS:  I had to make a few changes when making the bread that's on the photo. I didn't have linseed, so I used LSA instead. And I added pumpkin seeds. In addition, my kitchen scales are broken, so I just had to improvise. I'm normally one who follows recipes strictly, but this time I actually had to play with the ingredients - and it worked!