New Facebook page

I recently started a new facebook page for my blog: https://www.facebook.com/ginnyslowcarbkitchen

I am still learning the settings, and have not done much with it, but am working on it. Unfortunately, I am not real tech savvy and am having trouble figuring out how to add the code on my blog permanently for people to see and get to it from here.  I have done websites, used html, etc. but blogger is tricky for me to figure out how to use.  I can't just add html code where I want, and don't know how to do this.  Anyone that can help, it would be appreciated!  I haven't had the time to search it out and read forums, or whatever to find out how.  I tried their help which was no help.  So hopefully will get this figure out soon.

Ham and Cheese English Muffin Sandwich

I tried Jennifer's english muffin today.  Boy was it good!  Yes, definitely a break through!  She is a genius when it comes to these things.

This tastes, feels, butters, and looks like an English muffin from the old days.  I may even try them on my husband.  He loves his English muffins every day... several times a day, for breakfast lunch and dinner.

Here is what they looked like before toasting, right out of the microwave:

Looks like an English muffin doesn't it?  :)  Yep, and I liked that it was soft the texture was great.  I am thinking they would make a great hamburger bun also, untoasted even.  Either way, I like them.  They toast so nice and are crispy, like real toast and butter like real English muffins.  Well, they are "real" English muffins, and better, in my book, than the store bought wheat kind any day.  Thanks Jen for another great one!!  I had to share my review of them.  Too good not to.

Made a really nice ham and provolone cheese sandwich today for my lunch...

I think they'd be great for mini pizzas.  I think that may have to be the next thing I use them for.  It's going to be my breakfast tomorrow morning with egg, bacon and cheese.

Recipe on Jennifer's blog: http://low-carb-news.blogspot.com/2012/01/english-muffin-really-gf.html

Browned Butter Squash

This is not a super low carb side dish, for those of us following Dr. Bernstein's 6-12-12, but it is a low carb, gluten free side dish.  It's wonderful for special occasions or a holiday dinner especially.

It especially went very well with our turkey meatloaf we had for supper tonight.

The browned butter, the seasonings, all just worked together very well for a wonderful taste sensation.



                   
Browned Butter Squash

1/4      cup  butter
3 1/2   cups  butternut squash -- diced
1 1/2   cups  zucchini squash -- diced
1/4      large  onion -- sliced thin
1         tablespoon  Brown Sugar Twin
1/2      teaspoon  sage
1/2      teaspoon  thyme
1/2      teaspoon  rosemary
1/2      teaspoon  salt
1/8      teaspoon  pepper

Have all of your ingredients nearby and ready to place in the pan.  Place butter in large non-stick saute pan.  Melt butter and continue to heat while swirling until butter just begins to turn brown.  It can burn very quickly so you need to watch it closely.

As soon as the butter is browned, dump in butternut squash, zucchini squash, and onion slices.  Stir together.  Sprinkle over all, Brown Sugar Twin, sage, thyme, rosemary, salt and pepper.  Stir all together well, coating all with the butter in the pan.

Cover, reduce heat to medium low, and cook for 8 to 10 minutes.  Uncover and stir.  Cover and let cook about 5 minutes longer.  Check for tenderness, cover and cook a couple minutes longer. About every 2 minutes or so stir, until vegetables are the tenderness you prefer.  The time it takes will depend on how tender you like them.  It took me around 15 min. altogether.  When they are about done, uncover and let cook about 3 minutes on medium heat, to let them brown on the bottom.

check bottom to see if they are nicely browned and pour out into a serving bowl.

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5 Servings/Per Serving: 134 Calories; 9g Fat (58.7% calories from fat); 2g Protein; 13g Carbohydrate; 2g Dietary Fiber;

Lemon Muffins with Lemon Frosting

I know I haven't posted for a while.  I've had some issues to deal with lately. I'm recovering from losing most of my recipes in a software crash.  That's right, my MasterCook software for some unknown reason got totally wiped out.  I shut down my computer one night and saw that I had forgotten to close my MasterCook so it was forced to close and my computer shut down.  I thought nothing of it.  But when I went to open it the next day I found everything in it had been wiped out.  No recipe books, nutrition info, or any other information that was in there was there.  It was an empty shell.  All was gone.  I had a bit of a meltdown you might say.  I couldn't bring myself to think about recipes for a week.  I had to unstress and get my perspective in order.  But recipes continued going through my head and I continued to cook none-the-less.

I finally got my new software installed and now I'm in the tedious process of trying to find any of the recipes I lost on my blog, on forums, wherever I may find them, to add once again to my new MasterCook.  It's especially frustrating since I'm in the process of writing my cookbook for volume 3 of Low Carbing Among Friends, and I could not continue until I got my recipes in there, with nutrition info.  That means adding again all the products and ingredients I use into the ingredient list which is also a tedious process.

However.  I did make some headway today, and I should move right along now with the newest recipes I've recently done.  I've done several things lately, like low carb gluten free "noodles", cannelloni, Mexican tortilla pie, all low carb and gluten free.  But those will be in Vol. 3 of the book.

Last night I made some lemon muffins that have been churning in my brain lately, and they came out pretty good.  This is a versatile recipe that can be used with variations.  You can use your imagination.  It also uses Jennifer Eloff's Splendid Gluten Free Bake Mix which is also in Volume 1 of Low Carbing Among Friends along with her wonderful recipes.

These rose so nice...

They were not flat like so often low carb muffins can be.  They have a wonderful lemony flavor.  I would have added poppy seeds if I had had them, but you can do that if you like.


    Lemon Muffins with Lemon Frosting

1 cup  Jennifer's Gluten Free Bake Mix
1 cup  flaxseed meal, golden (you can use brown if you like, I prefer the taste of     golden)
1 tablespoon  baking powder
12 packets  Truvia -- or 1/2 cup equivalent
1 teaspoon  lemon peel
1/4 teaspoon  salt
1 teaspoon  lemon extract
1/2 cup  Torani Vanilla flavored sugar free syrup
1/4 cup  coconut oil, melted
4 large  eggs, beaten
    Lemon Frosting
3 ounces  cream cheese -- softened
3 tablespoons  butter -- softened
1/3 cup  powdered sugar substitute
2 tablespoons  lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon  lemon extract

Muffins:  Preheat oven to 400 F.  Spray 12 muffin tins with non-stick cooking spray.  In a medium sized mixing bowl, stir together bake mix, flaxseed meal, baking powder, truvia, lemon peel, and salt.  Make a well in the middle of dry ingredients and add lemon extract, vanilla sugar free syrup, coconut oil, and eggs.  Mix together well.  Bake for 18 to 20 minutes or until lightly browned.  Remove from tins onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Frosting:  In a small bowl, add cream cheese, butter, powdered sugar substitute, lemon juice, and lemon extract.  Beat with electric beater until smooth and creamy.  Frost each cooled muffin.

Variations:  Add poppy seeds for lemon poppy seed muffins.  Add dried cranberries for lemon cranberry muffins.  In place of lemon peel and lemon extract in muffins use orange peel and orange extract for orange muffins.  Use orange extract in frosting in place lemon extract and skip the lemon juice.

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12 servings/Per Serving: 207 Calories; 17g Fat (72.6% calories from fat); 6g Protein; 9g Carbohydrate; 5g Dietary Fiber

My Eye Exam Surprise Today and Seco-De-Pollo

Wow!  I have not been to the eye doctor for an exam and especially a diabetic checkup since 2008.  I had no idea it had been that long.  I just kept putting it off and forgetting.  Today I finally got in there and had my eyes examined thinking they were probably going to be worse and I'd need a stronger prescription.  I'm nearsighted.  To my surprise, my eyes have improved!!!!  I'm less nearsighted than I was.

 I have no idea what to credit that to.  Lowcarbing?  Going wheatless?  I haven't done anything else different other than that.  Does this just happen sometimes?  I have no idea.  Supplements I'm taking maybe?  It would be nice if I could pin it down to something so I know what I'm doing right.  Maybe all of the above?  I don't know.  I'm just happy that my eyesight is improving.

I was diagnosed with diabetes in 2005 and have been low carbing the Dr. Bernstein way since then.  I went wheat free a year ago.  I'm taking Codliver oil, Vit. D, B-complex, inositol, benfotiamine, magnesium, and Insulow every day, plus my daily kefir.  I guess I'll just keep doing what I'm doing.  Won't that be nice if my eyes continue to improve.  No signs of retinopathy, or any other problems.  My eyes look A-OK.  This in spite of the fact my A1C has creeped up each year.  After being initially diagnosed I brought it down to 5.7 by lowcarb and exercise.  Over the years it has creeped up to 5.9, which I'm not happy with, but the doctor thinks is wonderful and won't give me anything because she's afraid of me going too low.  *Sigh*

So it is a mystery to me that my eyesight has improved, and I don't know that I'll be able to understand what made it improve. I'm just thankful it has.  I wish I could tell everyone, "Do what I'm doing and your eyes will improve".  But I don't know what I'm doing that is making them improve.

So with that, I'd like to introduce a video that is not by me, but one that caught my eye and I tried it last night.  Only hers looks so easy.  Mainly because she has a sharp knife to cut her chicken with so she didn't wrestle with it like I did.  I really need to get some new kitchen knives!  On my wishlist.  It's called "seco-de-pollo".  I also can't rate it because I did not have all the seasonings and ingredients she used and used my own which did not come out so well.  Also, I like only chicken breast, and I don't care for the dark meat.  This uses legs and thigh meat.  So if you are a fan of the dark meat I think you'll like this recipe.  Hers looks so wonderful!  She puts it on rice.  You could put it over cauli-rice.



I intend to try this again using chicken breast and her seasonings, minus half the salt she uses.  So in spite of my Just-ok results last night, I am posting this because mine was not hers and hers looks wonderful and I think you'll like it.

Tabbouleh, Pesto, or Tabbouleh Pesto?

I wanted a pesto sauce, usually made with basil leaves.  You cannot get two cups of fresh basil anywhere I know of around here unless you grow your own, which I have tried and failed at.  I don't have a green thumb.  People tell me it's easy to grow.  They don't know me.

So then I was thinking of Tabbouleh, which is made from parsley, vegetables, mint and lemon juice usually and served with wheat bulgar.  I went back and forth in my mind until I finally concluded I wouldn't be happy unless I came up with a Tabbesto, or Pestabbouleh, or something like that.  I'm just not sure what to call it, but it was good.  That's what counts.

So call it what you like, but try it.  If you want it more "saucy" like a pesto you could run it in your food processor.  I just chopped the parsley with a knife roughly and added the rest. 

                      

                             Tabbouleh Pesto

2  cups  Italian parsley, chopped roughly

3/4 cup  parmesan cheese

3/4 cup  extra virgin olive oil

1/4 cup  sunflower seeds, roasted and salted, chopped

1 tablespoon  minced garlic

Salt and pepper to taste

Mix all ingredients, stirring together well.  Store in fridge to use.

Description:

  "A cross between Tabbouleh and Pesto to use with zucchini pasta, or cauli-rice, or spaghetti squash for a great mid-eastern salad"

Yield:

  "2 cups"

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(4 servings)Per Serving: 492 Calories; 50g Fat (88.8% calories from fat); 9g Protein; 5g Carbohydrate; 2g Dietary Fiber

                     
Mideastern Zucchini Pasta Salad

2  medium  zucchini, made into sphagetti "pasta" noodles with a spiral slicer, or if you don't have one sliced into noodles with a vegetable peeler
1  cup  Tabbouleh Pesto,  *see above
5  ounces  cherry tomatoes, cut into fourths
4  green onions, chopped


1. Squeeze as much water as you can get out of the zucchini pasta by putting it in a cotton towel and twisting and sqeezing until you get as much out as you can.  Or you can salt it and let it sit in a strainer for a while until the water comes out.  I prefer the first way, since it is quicker and doesn't add salt.  Both ways gets about as much out.

2. Mix zucchini pasta together with Tabbouleh Pesto, tomatoes, and green onions.  Toss together well and serve.  Add some more parmesan or feta cheese if you desire.

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(4 servings) Per Serving: 271 Calories; 25g Fat (80.1% calories from fat); 6g Protein; 8g Carbohydrate; 3g Dietary Fiber; 0mg Cholesterol; 8mg Sodium.  Exchanges: 1 Vegetable.

Serving Ideas : Try this with cauli-rice instead of zucchini pasta, or spaghetti squash

Cinnamon Cranberry Coconut Crunch Cereal

I don't eat cold cereal that often, but now and then I like it.  I actually like it more for a snack or a light supper than I do for breakfast.  I did not figure out all the nutrition information for this particular mix here, because I just threw it together without measuring.  The cereal flakes come from my "Easy Cracker/Cereal" mix.  I used 3 servings of that, which is 2 TBS each with a tsp of cinnamon and about 1/2 to 1 Tbsp of Vanilla Torani Sugar Free Syrup in place of water.  Watch it in the microwave because it can burn quickly.  Microwave it for 50 to 60 seconds or until done all the way through.  When it cools it should be crispy.  After it cools break it up into "flakes".

I used dried cranberries that I dried myself in my oven since you cannot find dried cranberries at the store here that are sugar-free.  You can find a good recipe for them here. They can be used in so many ways that it's nice to buy up cranberries when you can get them and stick in your freezer and dry some to keep on hand for muffins, breads, cookies, or cereal, etc.  Sad that you can only get cranberries once a year but when I can get them I get several bags to freeze.  It's really not hard to do your own.  You control what goes into it then.

I also used organic coconut chips, available in your local health food store most likely or online.  I never tried them before but they looked interesting and a good addition to this mix.  If you can't find them use unsweetened shredded coconut instead.

Last but not least I chopped some walnuts to complete the mix.  All very healthy ingredients, full of omega 3's, fiber, vitamins, and filling as well, unlike most dry cereals that you have to have about 3 bowl-fulls to feel like you had anything substantial!  This is one reason I never ate cold cereal for breakfast.  The cereal flakes have zero net carbs because they are high enough in fiber to cancel out the carbs.  You can use So Delicious unsweetened coconut milk in place of milk, and sprinkle a couple packets of Truvia over all.

Happy eating! :)