Hole Mole, Frijoles?!?

Sometimes, I stumble on a recipe so weird I just want to try it. That, coupled with a strong desire to raid the Hostess cart for the past week or so, led to me trying this recipe from Mothering.com.

Of course, I had to edit it some. I reduced the maple syrup, for one thing. The first time, I added the amount of "coffee substitute" in real instant coffee. And finally got to sleep at 4 a.m., with the distinct sensation of my skin vibrating. (That batch is in a freezer marked "ZOOM brownies"!) The second batch, I forgot the coffee altogether, which is probably good, because I'm not supposed to have it, anyway.

These aren't low in fat or calories (about 160 kcal for 1/16th), and at $5.65 a pan they aren't overly cheap, either. But, they're really, really, really good. And only one (teeny) brownie will fill you up + satisfy the worst chocolate craving! They also happen to be gluten-free. You'd never know. I also have a sneaking suspicion that they'd work with Splenda or Stevia instead of the maple syrup, because the flavor is so intense + a little bitter.

Fudgy dark chocolate brownies

1 can (~15 oz) of black beans, 1/2 to entirely drained
4 squares of unsweetened baking chocolate
1/2 c. (= 1 stick) of butter
1/2 c. maple syrup
4 eggs
(optional - 1 t (+?) of Stevia-lactose blend)
(optional - 1 T of instant coffee (or more, if you need ZOOM))
(optional - 1 C. of chopped nuts, if you eat them...)

Preheat the oven to 350F. Melt the butter and the baking chocolate on low heat, stirring regularly. Grease a 8x8 or 9x9 pan with the butter wrapper. Puree the can of beans in a blender or food processor. Beat the eggs and the maple syrup together (and the stevia). Add the melted chocolate and butter. Add the pureed beans. Add any "optional" ingredients. Pour into prepared pan. Bake for 40-45 minutes, or until the middle is entirely "set" and a small dent remains when you press on it - do not overbake!


Other advantages? They're high in protein, at least for something that small! And if you're a student (or, say, a pagan keeping a Yule vigil..) they'll keep you up all night WITHOUT the blood sugar drop crash that regular brownies would.

The best part is that I liked it and DIDN'T want to eat the whole pan at once! It also gets the husband seal of approval, which means that "regular people" will enjoy eating it, too.

Fettuccine alfredo?

A little while back I noticed Hodgson Mill now makes whole wheat lasagna and fettuccine noodles. I picked up some of the fettuccine a little while back because I prefer my pasta thicker, and I noticed that they had a recipe for an alfredo I could ALMOST eat on the back! This was my variation, and it was SUPER yummy.

Fettuccine Alfredo with Spinach and chicken

1.5 T butter
1 T Whole Wheat flour
~1 t minced garlic
1 medium egg
1 c whole milk
~ 1/4 cup of Farmer's Cheese
1/2 t dried tarragon
1/2 t salt
1/2 c frozen spinach
2 c cooked chicken

Cook and drain about 1/2 box of Fettuccine noodles.

Melt butter in a small to medium saucepan over medium heat. Add the garlic. Add the flour, stirring constantly (I love my silicone spatulas for this!), until you have a paste. Add the egg and the milk, keeping up the stirring. Add the tarragon and the salt. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the mixture thickens slighly. Add spinach, cheese + chicken, and continue to cook until the mixture is hot again. Add to pasta. Done!

This made about three "lunch" sized portions. It would have made a "dinner" with a veggie on the side. Don't mistake the spinach for a whole serving of veggies - if you're like me, any spinach you ENJOY eating is a wonder, but it really only breaks down to about 1/6 of a cup per meal. Maybe next time, I'll see if the recipe can absorb 3/4 or maybe even a whole cup?

Oven-baked "French Toast"

Sometime in the past decade or so, a new family holiday tradition snuck up on us - oven-baked pancakes on Christmas morning. My Dad found the recipe somewhere (probably in the hunt for the elusive Finnish Pancake Recipe) and it was good enough to "stick". The original oven-baked pancakes are a fluffy, eggy dish with no sugar in the actual recipe - just in the sauce. They puff up in the oven and are really a sight to see! And all the fluff is caused by the eggs - no yeast, and not even any corn-tainted baking powder.

Here's my first attempt at a revision that might make this even friendlier.

Oven-Baked French Toast
3 lg eggs
1/2 c. whole wheat flour
1/2 t salt
1 t ground cinnamon
dash of ground clove
1/2 t ground nutmeg
1 t Torani Sugar-free vanilla syrup
1/2 c milk
2 T melted butter

Pre-heat oven to 350F and grease a medium cast iron skillet or a 2-3 qt casserole. Beat the eggs. Add the flour to the eggs slowly. Add the remaining ingredients. Pour into the greased skillet/casserole and bake for ~ 20 mins, or until the sides are high and brown and the center is puffy and cracked.

Sauce
2 T melted butter
2 T warm orange juice

Combine melted butter and orange juice.

To serve - cut at least in halves, place on plates or in bowls, top with sauce.

Assuming two servings (I ate the whole thing myself this morning- yum!), this contains about 450 Kcal, 15g protein, 28g carbs and only 5g of sugar - including the sauce! I might try this with less flour or another egg next time - most of the carbs are from the flour, and the texture might be better with less flour, anyhow.

Almost entirely unlike cookies

It's the holidays.

Holidays are *hard* with allergies. Anything social that involves eating is hard. And almost everything social involves eating or drinking!

I attempted several "dessert" recipes around Thanksgiving. You never heard about them because they didn't work. And I am STILL trying to get merainge off of the cookie sheet. The pumpkin custard never got off the drawing board, but the pumpkin + flour added to the merianges that never fluffed up made very good french toast! (Not very good pumpkin bread though - it didn't have nearly enough sweetener in it)

So this was another attempt at sugar-free cookies. Sugar-free Sugar Cookies, actually. I pulled the original recipe out of Diabetic Living, but what I'm posting here has been edited heavily - first to make it "cheat" less, then because the actual recipe doesn't seem to have had NEARLY enough liquid to actually make it work.

Sugar-Free Sugar Almost Cookies

1/2 c. butter (1 stick, softened)
1/2 c. sugar substitute - or, in my case, 1 t. stevia blend, 4 t. maple syrup. I should try at least 2t of the stevia-lactose blend next time.
1t baking powder
1/4 t salt
1/3 c. canola oil
2 eggs
1 t. Torani sugar-free vanilla
a few drops of orange flavoring
13/4c white flour
3/4c whole wheat flour (the magazine suggests "white wheat" flour)

Beat butter for about 30 seconds on high. Add sugar substitute, baking powder and sale, beat until fluffy. add eggs oil, vanilla + orange flavor. Beat in flours. Divide in half, cover, chill for 1 to 2 hours.

Preheat oven to 375F. On a lightly floured surface, roll out dough to 1/8-inch thickness. Cut with cookie cutters, arrange on cookie sheets.

Bake for 6-8 minutes or until firm, cook on wire racks.


I had more luck if I left the dough a bit thicker - probably because it was still too dry (I've uped the butter and eggs in this copy). They *look* like cookies, but mostly taste like a maple whole wheat biscuit. My housemate insists they taste like nothing at all.

We both agree that they might work as "sugar cookies" if they had sugar or frosting on top of them. They also might make a good "graham cracker" crust for, say, a pumpkin custard pie....

Why I've lost 15 pounds since I started learning to cook:

Tonight I tried another recipe, this one called for 2 cups of tuna, but noted that other fist would work fine, too. Tuna is just fine, but wild salmon contains less mercury, so when I saw cans of it, I grabbed a few! (I also always worry about getting, say, snowed in with no power. Cans of fish will keep for longer than the meat in the freezer...)

There are many differences between canned tuna and canned salmon, but tonight I discovered the only one I really cared about.

Canned salmon has BONES in it. Ew.

Ew. Ew. EW.

Not just a few virtually-nonexistent ribs, either. VERTEBRAE.

Now, I used to be a vegetarian because I didn't like the idea of eating things with spinal columns. Yes, I pulled them all out, but... ew.

It took me an hour after I took my finished fish patties out of the oven to actually eat them. And then I could only manage one. The rest will go into the freezer for some time when I'm less grossed out.

Ew.

I'm telling you - the greatest glory of civilization is that we don't have to eat the icky bits. Or at least, we don't have to *know* that we're eating the icky bits!!!

Breakfast Granola

I mentioned a few posts ago that breakfast first thing was MANDATORY. And that I'm not trusted around sharp knives or hot things in the morning. Now, if you've gone looking recently, you know that there's a real lack of sugar-free, corn-free cereals. Mostly, my options are oatmeal (not really enough "stick with"-ness") or mini-shredded wheats. So, I try to usually make my own granola. It involves an oven, but only in the evening!

Kat's Granola
2 c. old-fashioned oats
2 c. puffed rice
2 c. puffed millet, or any other handy puffed cereal (wheat, etc.)
2 T. of each"small stuff" - flax seeds, wheat germ, wheat bran, hemp protien, for example)
2 t. of cinnamon, and possibly maple syrup if I'm feeling decadent
~ 2 T. sugar-sweetness equivilant of stevia
~1/2 t. of nutmeg
a dash of ground clove
1/2 c. water
1/4 c. oil

Mix together. Spread on a cookie sheet so that it's no more than 1" deep, put in a 350F oven for 30 mins, stirring half way through. Let cool before storing - best if stored in the fridge.

I really do mix in whatever's handy, too - the end of a box of "Woven Wheats", matzo crumbs, cereal I tried but didn't like - it all goes in the mixing bowl!

Treats - fluffy Ginger-maple banana muffins

Some cravings are harder than others to ignore. Sweets I've mostly stopped craving, partly because my palate has shifted a bit, and partially because I've got sugar-free Wether's for when they get bad (yes, sugar-free stuff generally has crap in it that's worse than sugar in many, many ways. But sometimes, it's that or a coke....). The cravings that really get me are pizza (?) and fluffy pastries. The Fluffy Pastry's modern incarnation owes much of it's texture to bleached white flour, white sugar, and soy shortenings - all forbidden foods. This weekend's food experiment was to create a Fluffy Baked Good with none of those things.

Fluffy (Ginger-Maple) Banana Muffins

2 bananas (my freezer is full of the damn things..)
1/4 c. canola oil
1/4 c. (that's 1/2 stick) of butter
3 eggs
1/2 c. water
1 c. of unbleached, unenriched whole wheat four
1/2 c. of unbleached, unenriched whole oat flour
1/2 c. of unbleached, unenriched white wheat flour (yes, it's cheating. A little.)
2 t. Trader Joe's stevia-lactose blend (sweetness ~ 2 T sugar)
2 t. baking powder
1 t. baking soda
1 t. salt
(1 T. of minced ginger)
(1 T. of real maple syrup, also a small cheat)

Pre-heat your oven to 325F. Put muffin cup liners in 12 muffin cups (I like the "If You Care" brand. The muffins never stick to them!).
Thaw your bananas, if they're frozen. Peel and mash the bananas. Melt the butter - if your bananas are still very cold, heat both (and maybe the water and oil) in the microwave or in your pre-heating oven. Use a blender to mix these and the eggs all together - don't worry if some of the butter re-solidifies, as long as it's flecks all throughout and not one big clump. If you are adding the ginger and the maple syrup, do that now, too.

Add the dry ingredients. I recommend blending in no more than 1 cup of flour at a time, and saving the baking powder and baking soda for last (their chemical reaction causes some of the fluffy - but it's only temporary. You want that reaction to peak as close to when the oven starts to solidify the mix as possible!) .

Pour/scoop your mix into your waiting muffin tin. I have to admit that I filled the cups all the way, and almost had extra! You could probably even use this recipe to make a few more muffins, but you'd need more muffin tins because you don't want to wait for the first batch to come out before cooking the second - remember that chemical reaction!

Bake at 325F for about 30 mins, or until the tops are slightly brown + a toothpick comes out clean.