Low Carb Brownie Recipe

I made the chocolate covered peanuts recipe from the other day again today. It's a real winner, everyone in the house likes it, which means I keep running out. Anyway, after I made it, as I was licking the pan before washing it, I had an epiphany. I thought the chocolate part would make a good base for brownies. And boy was I right! Everyone loved these brownies:

Brownies (Low Carb, cake type)

1 stick butter (8 T.)
2 T. cocoa

2 eggs
3/4 c. splenda
1/4 c. erythritol (buy it here)
1 tsp vanilla
3/4 c. almond flour (buy it here or grind your own)
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

Melt butter on very low heat. Add cocoa and stir until smooth. Remove from heat.
In mixing bowl, beat eggs until light. Add sugar and stir well.
Then add the above together (after the cocoa has cooled off a little).
Add vanilla and stir.
Add dry ingredients and mix thoroughly.

Bake on 350 degrees in a well greased 8x8x2 pan for thirty to thirty-five minutes.

Recipe: Chocolate Peanut Butter Bark

I have come up with the perfect treat if you're eating low-carb. It tastes just like chocolate covered peanuts but in the form of something like toffee bark, in that it is poured into a pan.

I'm calling it:

Chocolate Peanut Butter Bark

1 stick + 2 T. of butter (total of 10 T.)
6 T. cocoa

4 T. peanut butter
1 1/2 c. splenda
1/2 c. erythritol (buy it here)
2 packets stevia
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
heavy cream as needed (appx. 3-4 T.)

2-3 c. peanuts (depending on how much cream you add)

Melt the butter on low heat in a sauce pan. Add cocoa and stir until smooth. Add the the peanut butter and stir again until smooth. Turn the heat off.

Add sweeteners and vanilla, and again, stir, but it won't be smooth. At this point, you'll want to add enough cream to make it smooth again. You may need to turn the heat back on at this point. If the mixture winds up a little thin, it's okay because it will harden in the fridge.

Don't stop stirring while the heat is on

Add peanuts and stir until they are thoroughly covered. For the last batch I made I tried peanuts from a local place that still had the skin on them, and they came out just fine.

Pour the mixture into a quarter sheet pan that is covered with parchment paper. Spread the mixture over the pan.

Parchment paper is the best thing since sliced meat :P

Refrigerate for a few hours until hardened. Once hardened you can break into chunks and put them in a container and freeze them. It's very good frozen! Actually it's just damned good :)

The final product, great for everyday snacks or a party

The entire recipe has the following nutritional content (according to the Nutrition Data website):

5645 calories (all that butter yum!)
505 g fat
139 g saturated fat
213 g carbs
64 g fiber
184 g protein

That's 149 grams of net carbs in the entire recipe. You can eat maybe three pieces before you've really had quite enough. There's probably about 5 grams of carbs per chunk, depending on the size of the chunk. And a whole lot of yummy fat to mediate those carbs.

Homemade Mayonnaise Recipe

I have found that making mayonnaise from scratch is very easy! It may seem counter intuitive, but doing it by hand is actually easier than trying to get an emulsion in a mixer or blender.

There are a few things that I have learned that will be helpful to you if you decide to try to make your own. The first is, use fresh farm/yard eggs. I don't know what they've done to our commercial egg supply, but the yolks are not the same. I know, you find that incredibly hard to believe. {/snark} Fresh yard eggs will make an emulsion and keep it without you even having to do anything, I mean unless you just dump all the oil in. If you pour the oil slowly and stir fast, the emulsion makes itself (or in Soviet Russia emulsion makes you!)

Secondly, you will want to use "light tasting olive oil" like this here (or whatever brand you'd rather have). Other types of olive oil can have a very strong flavor, which might be okay in some instances, like if you're making dressing out of it. Don't use lard. Trust me on this.

Finally, I've found that a mixture of sherry wine vinegar and lemon juice really makes the best mayonnaise.

So the recipe? There are literally dozens of them, maybe hundreds, but I've found the best one to make by hand is based on the one from Mastering the Art of French Cooking* by Julia Child, et al.

I've altered it though, because it says either sherry wine vinegar or lemon juice, but I insist that using both is better. I also reduce the amount of boiling water needed, maybe because I add more vinegar/lemon juice than she says to. I also suggest you buy the book, because it is one of the best cookbooks ever :)

Homemade Mayonnaise by hand

• 4 egg yolks

• 1 T. sherry wine vinegar
• 1 T. lemon juice
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp prepared or unprepared mustard

• ~17 oz bottle of light tasting olive oil
• Sherry wine vinegar and lemon juice as needed (about 3T. of each)
  

• 3 T. boiling water

All you need is a bowl and a whisk to make this. Make sure your bowl is warm (but dry!) so to take the chill off your eggs. Beat the egg yolks until they are thick and sticky, about two minutes.

Add the vinegar, lemon juice, salt and mustard. Beat for 30 seconds.

Then add the oil, a teaspoon at a time at first (don't stop stirring until you have an emulsion!), then once you have an emulsion (after about a quarter of the bottle) you can add a Tablespoon at a time. Once you do have an emulsion, make sure you whip it good after adding oil, before adding any more. When the mixture gets thick, add more sherry wine vinegar or lemon juice to thin it out, alternating between the two. I generally add about 3 T. of each during the course of adding the oil, a Tablespoon here and there. Once you have added all the oil, you'll want to add the boiling water to keep the mayonnaise from turning.

And buy the book! There are a lot more details about making mayonnaise in it, and all about how to fix turned mayonnaise and how to save a mixture that has lost the emulsion. I can't recommend it enough, it's really one of my favorite cook books of all time.

*The edition we have is an old one, so I don't know if they've changed anything in the newer versions

Low Carb Hearty Chicken Soup Recipe

The mum-in-law made this for dinner tonight and it was delish! It's pretty easy to make too, and something you can walk away from while it's simmering. It's a good dish to make if you're busy.

Low Carb Hearty Chicken Soup

10 slices of thick bacon, chopped
1 large onion, chopped
2 c. water
3 c. chicken broth
4 lbs boneless skinless chicken thighs
4 cloves garlic
1 T. salt
1 tsp pepper
15oz can of diced red bell pepper (or equivalent fresh)
2 1/2 c. green beans, frozen or fresh from garden
sour cream for topping (optional)


In a large pot sautée bacon and onion until bacon is crisp and onion is tender.

Pour in water, 2 cups of the chicken broth, add chicken, garlic, salt and pepper. Cook until chicken is done. Remove chicken and cut up into 1" cubes.

Add chicken back into pot, and add the red bell peppers and another cup of chicken broth. Cook approximately 30 minutes.

Add the green beans and cook until the green beans are tender.

Serve hot, top with sour cream if desired. Makes about 10-12 servings.

Notes on making: We used canned red bell peppers because that was what we had on hand. Feel free to use fresh if you have it. We also used frozen green beans, as we have some frozen from our garden from last year. Also, you could chop the chicken up before cooking it if desired.

Low-Carb Venison Meatloaf : Updated

UPDATED: New Pictures 2/15/2011

We had this the other night for dinner:

Low-Carb Venison Meatloaf

2 lbs. ground venison
2 T. pure lard (not hydrogenated crap)
2 eggs
2 c. pulverized pork rinds (put them in a zippy bag and use a rolling pin on them)
2 tsp salt
1 c. chopped onions
1/2 c. chopped green peppers (or sweet peppers)
15 oz. tomato sauce (or spaghetti sauce, make sure it doesn't have any added crap)

Mix all this in a large bowl until all ingredients are well mixed. Put into a casserole pan. Bake at 350 degrees for about an hour. Everyone here thought it was very tasty!

New Pics!

We made this again tonight (the 15th) and I took pictures so I could update this post. I think we put in more peppers than the recipe calls for, so take note.



Venison and ground pork rinds


Fresh Yard Eggs, and yes that is a green egg! I think the lady has some Araucana chickens.


Colorful peppers


Peppers are chopped


Mixing it up


In the pan, ready for the oven


And the final piece, enjoy!