Amish Salad

Going to a pot luck and want to stay Keto?? Here’s a great idea!

Recipe:

2 stalks of Broccoli Flower Canopies cut into florets
1/2 head of Cauliflower cut small (as shown)
3/4 C Mayo
3/4 C Sour Cream
1/4 C Truvia (a bit more maybe? – or equal
Low Carb / Keto Sweetener of your choice)
1/2 t Kosher Salt
8 oz Bacon – Cooked, chopped… BTW – anything worth adding 4 slices of bacon – is worth 5 slices!!
1 C Shredded Cheddar

Mix well – let come together overnight. Creamy, DELISH!! This goes great with BBQ!!

Real Low Carb Ice Cream

I’ve had the same experience as many others. I have never gotten any of those “internet shake – shake – shake” recipes to work. I’ve never gotten it to turn into anything I would call “ice cream”. I’ve tried everything – even an INDUSTRIAL SHAKER!!

However, I did recently make REAL, VERY LOW CARB Vanilla ice cream using a small Krups ice cream maker. It is LEGIT!!

The way this method works – generally… The cylinder is very cold and stored in a freezer.

The mixture is made (by whatever process for the particular ice cream recipe)… cooled and put in the very cold cylinder to be stirred until it changes consistency.

Ice Cream Recipe:
2 eggs
1 C Light Cream (I used Food Lion Light Cream – Listed at 9 gr carb per cup)
2 C Heavy Whipping Cream (I used Market Pantry – listed as “0” carb)
1/2 C Swerve
2 t Vanilla

I warmed the light cream on the stove top (NOT TO A BOIL). While this was getting started I beat the eggs and Swerve together WELL (hand mixer). Once beaten I added to the Light Cream and let heat a little longer. Do not allow to boil. Once these ingredients are mixed and slightly creamier… remove from heat, add Heavy Whipping Cream and Vanilla. Chill in fridge until very cold (several hours). Do not freeze this mixture. Do not use if it has turned to a semi-solid.

I removed the cooling cylinder from the deep freeze, assembled the ice cream maker, plugged it in and turned it on immediately. Once on and running I poured the ice cream mixture in through the pour opening (very easy).

Within several minutes I noticed changes – in 8-10 minutes, it starts developing some lumps. In about 20 minutes it was a pretty firm “home-made” ice cream consistency. It was VERY GOOD.

One could freeze this mixture for an additional several hours to tighten it up some more. I believe I could let it go another 8-10 minutes and gotten a different result – though it was super good and what I remember from my Grandma’s house over July 4th as a child.

You will LOVE THIS!!

Enjoy!!

(P.S. my next version will be Mint Chocolate Chip)

We’ve been making Avocado Eggs for years. They are a great Low Carb / Keto breakfast.

I’m sure you will find a number of different renditions for them out there – this is ours.

Ingredients:

2 Avocados
4 fresh eggs
Garlic Powder
Cayenne
Pepper
Cheddar
Scallions

1) Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

2) Slice the Avocados in half, and take out the pit (cool trick you can look up on You Tube – once you have the Avocado cut in half – in a smooth, but forceful downward motion “set” the edge of your knife into the pit and give a little twist – comes right out). Spoon out some of flesh from the center of the Avocado, just enough so the egg will fit snugly in the center.

Save this spooned out flesh for later – goes great as a snack with dip… or a mini-batch of Guac!!

One of two things should happen here – take out enough flesh to fit the egg, or use small eggs. Lately we’ve been using pullet eggs. These are eggs from our young hens… they fit right in a smaller cavity and leave a lot of Avocado for the final dish.

3) Place the Avocados in a small baking dish. I have used a oven safe dish, pie pan (as shown) – another great method is to use a muffin tin… this holds the Avocados in place nicely. They have a tendency to want to roll a little and let some egg run over once you get the egg in them.

4) At this point, I like to put a slight (very slight) dusting of Garlic powder, Cayenne, maybe even Onion powder across them – be sparing here. Let the Avocado and the Egg be the stars!!

5) Crack an egg into each Avocado half. Try your best to crack the yolk in first, then let the egg whites spill in to fill up the rest of the shell.

6) Place in the oven and bake for 15 to 20 minutes. Cooking time will depend on the size of your eggs and avocados. Me, personally – I go about 14 – 15 min… I like a juicy egg. If you like a firmer egg – just go a little longer, make sure the egg whites have enough time to set.

Remove from oven, add some cheddar on top, let them sit a minute to cool giving the cheese a bit to melt. They will be VERY HOT – so be careful.  Season with pepper, top with a sprinkle of Scallions or garnish of your choice and enjoy!

3-minute Mint Chocolate Cake

Well, not exactly 3 minutes… but if you had most of the stuff out or on hand (like we did) it happens pretty quick.

But let me back up a little – here’s how this got off the ground. I have this 3-minute Chocolate Cake recipe I’ve used for years (We’ve been messing with Low Carb off and on for 12 or 13 years). It’s really good and has a fairly low carb count.

A while back we ran across some Mint we had stored in a canister from a couple of years ago. It looked pretty green (though dried out) and seemed to have a lot of fragrance to it still. We made some Sugar Free Mint Sweet Tea out of it and I made a batch of Sugar Free Mint Simple Syrup (for flavoring things). What we had left was in the fridge.

Sugar Free Mint Simple Syrup:

2 – 3 T dried Mint
1 C Splenda (or similar)
1 C water

Dissolve Splenda into water over heat and add the dried Mint to mixture – as soon as the Splenda is dissolved and it’s been under heat for a little bit – turn off the heat and let it steep some. Doesn’t need to be long. Once it cools off – put some cheese cloth in a strainer and strain it into a small mason jar. It will be very sweet, Minty and fairly dark in color. This keeps in a fridge just fine.

Sugar Free Mint sweet tea: 

Pretty much the same process as above just don’t use near as much Splenda and more water. You decide how much. This stuff chilled in mason jars is just AWESOME!!

OK – back to today… this evening my wife says, “I think I want to do a whipped topping dessert…” GREAT!!

I suggested we add some of the Mint Syrup to the whipping process so we end up with a “Mint Chocolate” flavor… (man, that part turned out GOOD).

Then we decided to go one step further and do a 3-minute Chocolate Cake – adding some Mint Syrup to the mix and topping with the Mint Chocolate whipped topping at the end… Hmmmmmm??

Here’s the recipe:

3-minute Chocolate Cake

1/4 C Almond Flour
1 T Cocoa
1/4 t baking powder
3T + 1 t Splenda (normally) – What I did for the MINT Version was 2 T Splenda + 3 T Mint Syrup
2 T butter melted
1 T water (normally) – I skipped this in the MINT Version – because I was adding more liquid with the MINT SYRUP
1 Egg

Mix well – scrape sides of container down – wrap with some kind of cooking wrap – make small vent hole in top.

Microwave 1 minute (+ 20 sec?? if needed)

Whipped topping Recipe:

1 C Heavy Cream
1 T Cocoa
3 T Spenda
3 T Sugar Free Mint Syrup

Whip with electric mixer until it fluffs – it won’t take long.

To assemble – make the 3-minute Chocolate Cake – flip it over on a dessert plate (or make it in a mug). I let mine cool for a few minutes because if you put the topping on while it’s hot – it just melts right off. Once it cooled a bit, I put about 3 T of whipped topping on the Cake – or as much as it would hold!!

How did this idea work out?

Success level: EXCEPTIONAL!! This version has some CRAZY FLAVOR!! Really good stuff.

This is IT!! The best Low Carb Biscuits and Gravy you’ve EVER EATEN!!

Obviously, we were showing off a little with this setting. The whole idea behind this blog and format is real recipes, real pics, real low carb food. However, I’ve done these often and they are a really nice – LOW CARB treat. I really have no desire for biscuits and gravy anywhere else – low carb or not, these are my favorites. I hope you like them.

When we do the “full biscuit and gravy thing” – we usually tag team. I do the biscuits and Arlyne does the gravy. She does awesome gravy. In fact, she does a lot of stuff really well. Breakfast is her specialty though.

For the one above we used our Low Carb Biscuit recipe (see below), while she was doing the gravy she reserved some of the sausage off to the side for topping. Once the biscuit was cut in half, we added some butter on each half. We then spread a generous portion of gravy all over it. We topped it with the reserved sausage crumble. Next we tossed a “quickie microwave egg” on there and covered with with some shredded Cheddar. A little Salt and Pepper – and this meal deserved a BLOG POST IN HISTORY!!

We don’t normally go to those lengths. Usually – it looks like this…

Normally – these are getting eaten so fast – no one has a chance to bother taking pictures – ha ha!!

Tom’s Low Carb Diet 7-UP biscuits

2 C CarbQuick – I added 1/2 t Baking Powder to the dry mix (for a low sodium version – you can leave the Baking Powder out – no problem)

1/2 C Sour Cream

1/2 C Diet 7up or Sprite Zero (I have used both…) – I added 3 drops QuickSweet to the pop in a separate bowl

1/4 Cup melted butter

1. Preheat oven to 450 – Toss the butter in either a deep pie pan or a 9×6? pan and let it melt in the oven for a few while the oven preheats (5 min??)

2. Cut Sour Cream into dry mix (fingers).

3. Stir in Pop – working dough some more.

4. Sprinkle counter with a little dry mix (I use Coconut flour – it tastes GREAT, is dusty for folding and kneading and gives the biscuits a great finish).

5. Knead and fold – doesn’t take that much… I worked the dough to about 1″ thick (or more) and used a pretty big glass to cut them out… rework the dough and do it again. This makes 4 Cat Head biscuits (because they are as big as a Cat’s HEAD).

5.a. In another recent twist on this recipe… I bought a giant Muffin tin at Bed Bath and Beyond. It is a 6 holer and the biggest one I could find. Each hole is 3-3/4in across. I make this recipe x 1 1/2. 1 1/2 is the perfect size batch for 6 big biscuits (fills up my pan).

I make the whole batch – roll it into a log – cut it in half… then work each half a little, form them up and cut them into thirds. In the muffin pan I put a pat of butter in the bottom of each port. While the oven is pre-heating I let the butter melt in the oven for about 5 or 6 minutes. Once I take the butter out and the oven is pre-heated… I add the six biscuits to the pan.

6. Put biscuits on top of butter and bake for 12-15 min… they will soak up the butter and be AWESOME!!

Pro Tip: These biscuits tossed in Tupperware and refrigerated keep really, really well. They might even be better the second day than the first. Maybe not, but in any case – they are really good.

7. The Sausage gravy is pretty normal – use 1 lb Sausage and 2-4 T of Carbquick instead of flour – use Heavy cream, Light cream or Half and Half instead of milk.

Final comment: These biscuits work for all kinds of things. Breakfast, lunch, dinner – any day that ends in “y”!! Enjoy.