"PRETZEL CRUST"-STRAWBERRY PRETZEL DESSERT ALTERNATIVE

                   
Everybody loves the Strawberry Pretzel Dessert when holiday season comes around.  Being low carb we can't do the pretzels but here is a very nice alternative.  This was an idea brought to me by a facebook friend, Jeanette, who did her own wonderful version and gave me the idea of using pork rinds.  Now, I'll have to say, I'm not really a fan of pork rinds.  I think they smell bad and I'd never eat them all by themselves.  They just gross me out.  But I've been discovering some really good uses for them when you crumble them up and use them in recipes or for breading on chicken or in this case, in a pretzel crust.  I couldn't believe how good it tasted in this crust! 

I made the cream filling from my Raspberry Delight


and then I decided since I had blueberries to make a blueberry topping this time.  But you can do any topping really for this that you like.  Any frozen berries can be easily made into a nice topping. My blueberry topping was made with thawed berries and Walden Farms blueberry syrup.  You can use the raspberry topping in my recipe above, or use strawberries instead if you want the strawberry pretzel dessert alternative.

I hope you'll be as excited about this as I was!  My non-low-carb family loved it, and nobody asked me what that was in the crust or questioned it.  I didn't tell them either.  That will be our little secret.

"Pretzel" Crust

Recipe By     :Ginny
Serving Size  : 16 

1  cup  pork rind crumbled in food processor
1  cup  finely chopped pecans
1/3  cup  whey protein
1/2 cup brown sugar replacement*see below
1/4  cup  coconut oil
1  tsp.  vanilla.

1. Preheat oven to 350F.

2. In 10-inch pie plate, add crumbled pork rinds, chopped pecans, whey protein, and brown sugar replacement. Stir together with a fork until well combined.

3. Melt coconut oil in microwave and add vanilla.  Pour over crumbs and stir together until well combined.

4. Press into bottom of pie plate.  Bake for 10 minutes.

*brown sugar replacement: I mix 1/2 cup of erythritol and 1/4 tsp blackstrap molasses in my food processor and pulse until it comes together and looks like brown sugar.  There are other brown sugar replacements as well available on Amazon.com.  You can use whatever you like, or just use plain sweetener such as Pyure (erythritol and stevia-double the sweeteness of sugar, so 1/2 cup equals 1 cup sugar) or erythritol, or Swerve, whatever you prefer.

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Per Serving:  166 Calories; 13g Fat (69.8% calories from fat); 12g Protein; 1g Carbohydrate; 1g Dietary Fiber