Low-Carb Burger Buns and the Great American Eclipse

Good afternoon, all! I am actually making it back to the blog before too many weeks have passed since the last time I was here! I tell ya, life gets busier and busier!!

Since I posted last, my little man turned 1!

We have picked over 50 pounds of figs from one tree! Yes, that is correct! This particular tree is 19 years old and has always produced well. I think it has out-done itself this year though! I quit weighing them once we reached 50 lbs. Thankfully, we are about done with the picking. The honey bees are enjoying what is left.

Speaking of the honey bees, we have also gotten some honey from our first-year hives! We have hives in 5 different locations and have discovered that honey from those hives tastes different! The honey from one of the locations reminds us all of butter pecan ice cream!

 

We here in the south are anticipating the Great American Eclipse coming in less than 48 hours now. My hometown happens to be in the path of totality, so we are expecting kaboodles of extra people on Monday! Actually, they are already arriving. Traffic is heavier than normal for a Saturday; hotel rooms are booked over 70 miles out; and eclipse glasses are no where to be found! I read an article today about the 12 busiest cities along the line of totality for the eclipse…the 12 cities that will see the largest influx of people for the eclipse. Three of those 12 cites are in my state! I think I will just stay home on Monday!

Since last night, I received Face Time calls from 3 of my 4 kiddlets! I love this modern technology! It is just so amazing to be able to see them at the same time I am speaking to them, even though they are so very far away.

Surprise!  Last night I actually tried a new recipe! I know…it has been forever since I did that! But I’m really trying to get back on the THM wagon and stay there! This low-carb bread is amazing. I decided to divide the dough into 8 small pieces which were the perfect size for burger buns…sliders to be exact. I made my burger patties to match the size of the buns. By adding burger toppings, we had a great meal.

Yes, that is a jar of honey with some honeycomb in the back ground. This bread would be amazing  with some local honey drizzled over the top! You can find the recipe here.  Enjoy!

 

Low-Carb, Gluten-Free “Tater” Tots

So here we are in the third week of January…already! In some ways January always goes slowly for me. Even though the days are getting longer, to me,  January seems like a dark and dreary month. Having cold, rainy, cloudy days lately hasn’t helped! It doesn’t matter if the temperatures have been reaching for 70…if it is rainy, it is dreary and depressing!

But in spite of the weather, I’ve had happy family moments. This happened the other day! I love how these pictures  turned out! Can’t wait to make some prints.

On Friday (another dreary, rainy day), the hubby walked in the door with these! Day was made!

Ben had to leave yesterday for AF training, and he won’t be back until the end of May…saddness! However, he tends to make the best of things, and the other day he had fun with Little Miss Mia.

I made this basket out of old t-shirts about 2 years ago. Mia uses it for some of her toys and books. Ben decided it would be a great pack for carrying Mia! She was thrilled! Yesterday afternoon when she and her parents arrived for Sunday dinner, Mia walked in the front door and announced, “Hello, Nemmie! I’m home!” I tell ya, my heart just melted!

Yesterday afternoon I got to FaceTime with the Little Man! He is so adorable! I can’t believe that he will be 6 months old soon! I didn’t take a picture of him while we were FaceTiming because I am not skilled at doing that. (Last time I tried it, I cut off the person I was FT with!) However, Barbi shared this picture of him a week or so ago. He is getting chunky!

For dinner tonight I realized that I needed to use some cauliflower that I had in the fridge. I searched through some of my THM recipes and decided to create my own version of tater tots. If you follow THM or other low-carb eating styles, you already know that cauliflower can be used in place of potatoes. These made a great side dish for salmon and a green salad!

• 1/2 large head of cauliflower
• 1-2 eggs
• 2-1/2 tbsp. almond flour (add more if mixture is too wet)
• 3/4 tsp. salt (or to taste)
• 1 tsp. basil
• 1/2 tsp. onion powder (or to taste)
• 1/4 tsp. garlic powder (or to taste)
• 1/4 c. Parmesan cheese

Cut the cauliflower into bite-sized pieces and place in sauce pan with a small amount of water. Bring to a boil and gently cook until fork-tender. Drain the cauliflower, and then squeeze it to remove excess water. **Take the time to do this! You want to get rid of as much moisture as possible! I actually got an extra cup of water from mine after I had drained it! Use cheese cloth or a strainer…whichever works for you.

Chop the cauliflower into tiny pieces. You can mash it or put it into a food processor and gently grind it. DO NOT over-process!

Put the cauliflower into a mixing bowl and add all the other ingredients. Season to taste, adding more spices if needed.

Using an ice cream scoop, shape the mixture into balls. Heat coconut oil in a large skillet and fry balls until golden brown.

This makes about 10 “tater” tots

 

Fig Cookies

Once again, we have had an abundance of figs on our fig tree! I thought that we had a lot last year, but I think that we have even more this summer. I have a bunch in the freezer to use in smoothies; we have dehydrated quite a few pounds; the hubby has been eating them fresh; we have sold some; and we have given some away. And I still have several pounds in the fridge!

A friend shared this recipe on Pinterest the other day, and I thought that it sounded pretty good. I don’t necessarily eat Paleo, but this recipe is very good. I tried making fig cookies several years ago, but I struggled with getting the cookie just right. This recipe is better, but still a little crumbly. Next time I might use some oat flour with the almond flour.The flavor of the fig filling is amazing! I really like it since there is no added sugar!

Mine didn’t turn out looking as pretty as hers did, but I think that it is because I should have used more figs. The recipe calls for 10 ounces of dried figs. I didn’t weigh the figs, so I probably didn’t use enough. All my figs were fresh, so I dried some in my dehydrator for about 2 hours. That process took out most of the moisture without making them too dry.

Low-Carb Flour Blend

Finding the right type of flour to bake with while trying to eat on the THM plan has not been easy. The family still loves baked goods, but wheat flour is full of carbs. After playing around a bit with mixing flours, I think that I have found one that works for us. I might still toy with it, but for the most part, this blend works. It has just 31 grams of carbs per cup as opposed to 88 grams per cup of all-purpose flour and 117 grams/cup of whole wheat flour. Lots of ladies over on the THM Face Book page have created their own flour blends, and there are quite a few on Pinterest. If you are wanting to cut back on your carb intake this holiday season, but still want to have yummy baked goods, give this a try…or create your own! It isn’t that hard at all!

2 c. oat flour*

1 c. coconut flour

1 c. almond flour

1/2 c. ground flax

Mix together and keep in a labeled container. That’s all there is to it! Enjoy some low-carb baking!

*I buy old fashioned oats and grind them in my Ninja to make oat flour.

VBS 2015

We just completed VBS at our church today! It was a wonderfully busy, crazy week! We had more children this year than we’ve had any other year! The most we had was 169, but the average per day for the week was closer to 163.  I loved working with the youngest age group! They were well-behaved and responded well all week long! What a blessing to be able to teach these little ones about Children of the Bible, which was the theme this year!

Throughout the week workers will take home-baked goodies in for all the helpers to snack on. I took various muffins and brownies this week, but the favorite was my Kilo Crunch Bars that I would make for my son when he was a cadet at The Citadel. You can find that recipe here.  This time I used oat flour and an oat/almond/coconut/flax flour blend that I put together instead of wheat/white flours.  It was fantastic!

Low-Carb Cream Cheese Waffles

Here in the South we are experiencing what my mother always called the January Thaw.  While we had seriously cold temperatures not long ago, and then 6 days of dreary skies with no sunshine last week, today was beautifully sunny and close to 60 degrees! Unfortunately, the wind has a bite to it, but I have enjoyed the warm sun today!

Last week I decided to make some low-carb waffles. I discovered the recipe back before Christmas, but just didn’t get around to making these waffles.  They are absolutely delicious!  You can see the recipe here.  The only change I made was to use oat flour instead of oat fiber.  I also made up half the recipe because I didn’t want lots of left overs if the hubby didn’t like them. That was a mistake! We both loved them! Give them a try! You will love them, too!

Low-Carb, Gluten-Free Cranberry Upside-down Cake

Many thanks to all of you who have patiently read this blog over the years, especially this year of 2014. I had set a goal of 15,000 (total) views to reach by December 31. I’d like you to know that I am almost 1,000 views beyond that as of today!!!  I need fewer than 180 more to reach a total of 16,000! You readers are amazing! I’d love to reach 16,000 by Wednesday night!

Last week I needed to make a dessert for a church gathering. Since the hubby and I have been trying to eat more of a low-carb diet, I didn’t want to make a rich dessert like I used to do at Christmas. I came across this recipe on the THM page and immediately thought it would be perfect. It was! If you like cranberries, this is the perfect recipe for something sweet. It pairs perfectly with a cup of hot tea or coffee.  You can see the recipe here.   I used a teaspoon or two of orange extract in place of the grated orange rind.

If you are on pinterest, you can see the pin here.

Enjoy!

 

Cherry Nut Bread, Low-Carb Style

I’ve been learning a lot by following the Trim Healthy Mama Facebook page, and it is not just about  recipes! The ladies on that page come up with wonderful ideas to help make life easier as they try to lose weight and get healthy.  My favorite tip so far has to be this creative way to make pouring those half-gallon Mason jars full of wonderful beverages.

 

Isn’t this a great idea? I just cut around a pour spout from a carton of almond milk and used it as the flat lid with the ring to my Mason jar.  Seriously, why didn’t I think of this?  I’m telling you, these ladies are absolutely brilliant!

One of the favorite recipes in our home at Christmas is this delicious cherry nut bread. I first discovered this recipe while I was still in college. I baked it for my parents who just loved it.  Once I got married, I made it for the hubby and for friends as gifts. You can read the recipe here.

Now that we are trying to eat a low-carb diet, I had to figure out a way to make this recipe without all the carbs, so that we could still enjoy it. While it doesn’t taste the same, it is a good substitute. I followed the basic recipe but made these substitutions:

1. I replaced the 2 c. flour with a combination of almond, coconut, and oat flours. I used 1 c. almond flour and 1/2 cup of each coconut and oat flours.  I think when I make this again, I will switch the amounts of oat and almond flours.

2. I used stevia as my sweetener instead of sugar.

3. I used 1 cup of tart pie cherries instead of maraschino cherries.

We liked the flavor of this bread, but it is rather crumbly.  I made the recipe into 16 muffins so that I could try to figure out the carbs per serving.  If I did my math right, it comes out to 7 carbs per muffin. For those following the THM plan, these would be an S.

 

Cheesy Biscuit Low-Carb Pizza Crust

Ok, so, yeah, it’s been awhile since I’ve shared any recipes.  It isn’t that I haven’t had the time, for I certainly do have time.  It is mainly because I haven’t been experimenting with any new recipes recently. We did have a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner with some of the kiddlets here.  We missed our oldest and our youngest this year. Having the fam spread out from Phoenix to Charleston and from Greenville to Virginia Beach does make it hard for all of us to gather together any more. For a while it looked like all four would be here for at least a day or so at the same time at Christmas. However, the retail business is keeping my girl away. So, the hubby and youngest 2 sons and I are planning to visit with her for Christmas while the oldest son, daughter-in-law, and my sweet darling will be visiting the other grandparents and family.  While I will miss having them all together again (it has been over a year), I am so happy that Hope’s family will get to enjoy them and the Little Lady for over a week.  I know they can’t wait to give the hugs and kisses!

Last night the hubby surprised me with an early Christmas gift. Since he has started to do more cooking, he felt that my old faithful pots and pans needed to be replaced with some updated new ones. Believe me, it was a real surprise!! I know I will enjoy using them, but now I have a dilemma…what to do with the old ones. I mean, they have served me well for over 26 years and are like old friends! While I am not a pack-rat in the true sense of the word, I am very sentimental, especially when the items were given to me by my parents or when part of the set actually belonged to my mom.  Well, they will be boxed up for now. I’m just not ready to dispose of them yet.  Here are my old ones:

 

And here are the new ones:

Ok, enough rambling!  The other night the hubby and I were both interested in having pizza. We used to order pizza quite often, especially when there were college football games on. Since we’ve been eating the THM way, we haven’t ordered much pizza! This is remarkable for us!  A few weeks ago I made the cauliflower crust pizza which really wasn’t bad at all.  However, we both thought we wanted more of a bread-like crust, but needed to keep it low-carb.  Someone over on the THM facebook page shared the idea of using a biscuit recipe as a pizza crust.  The idea is brilliant!

The basic recipe that I used can be found here.  This is what I did to make a pizza crust instead of biscuits.

1. I used a combination of oat flour and almond flour instead of the coconut flour.

2. I doubled the recipe which made enough crust for a 12-inch pizza.

3. After spreading the dough on the pizza pan (it is sticky, so don’t be worried), I baked it at 350* for about 7 minutes.  After that, I added all the toppings that the hubby wanted and baked it again for about 7 more minutes or until the cheese melted into wonderful gooey-ness!

This was pretty amazing pizza! We both really enjoyed it.  Give it a try! You will enjoy it, too!

Baking Powder-Coconut Oil Biscuits

This recipe began as an experiment and turned out amazingly well! I saw the basic recipe on line but decided to make some changes just because I could.  I loved the results, and the hubby did, too!  I used a 3-inch diameter glass to cut out the biscuits instead of a regular biscuit cutter.

2 c. all-purpose flour, divided

1/2 c. almond flour

1/2 tsp. salt

4 tsp. baking powder

1/4 c. coconut oil, softened but not melted

3/4 c. almond milk

1-2 tbsp. soft butter

Mix 1-1/2 c. all-purpose flour, almond flour, salt and baking powder in a large mixing bowl.  Cut in the coconut oil. Add almond milk and stir until blended and a soft dough forms. Using the remaining flour, knead the dough a few times. (I just kept the dough in the bowl and turned it with my hands.)

Press dough out on a floured surface to 1/2″ thick. (Again, I just used my hands instead of a rolling pin.) Cut out using a biscuit cutter or inverted glass.

 

Place on baking sheet. Bake at 425 degrees for 10 minutes.  Brush with butter and bake for another 3-4 minutes or until golden.  Serve with your choice of jam or honey!  Using the glass to cut out the biscuits yielded 7.