Low Riders & Other Announcements

1. My jeans are loose, but I can still wear them, which is a good thing. I'm not ready to go shopping! They're on the edge though of falling off--pretty soon I won't have to unbutton them to put them on or take them off.

2.My capris from last season are falling off though and can't be worn out of the house for fear I'll moon someone.

3.I can't find the USB cable for my camera which means I haven't been able to update recipes with photos! Grrrr. Hopefully I find it soon!

Ciao!

Carb Conscious Peanut Butter Cookies

Before low carb, I was an accomplished baker.

As in people fought over my cookies. On occasion they would hoard them and squirrel them away from others. Hubby took some to school once and he has one professor that still, to this day, occasionally emails to ask for the recipe. If I do say so myself, I make some damn fine sweets.

I still make a few things but just for the holidays. I briefly contemplated trying to sell cookies (some of my recipes are original) but realized I would not be able to abstain from the sugar. It was best to give it up for my health.

Anyway, with the current weight loss effort, I've been approaching things more holistically in the sense of challenging myself to learn how to cook all over again.

The hubby says my cooking has improved. :) Although he misses the cookies. :(

Recently, the toddler started driving me nuts with a constant refrain of 'I'm huuuuuuuungry!' I almost bought snack crackers for her at the store. I was that tired of the whining and scrambling to find food to keep up with her appetite, but I couldn't find any with a food label that passed muster.

So instead I decided to make a 'protein' cookie for her in the hopes that would help appease her increasingly demanding appetite. It's gotta be a growth spurt, she's out eating both myself and the hubby of late.

The end result of my experiment was a gluten free, protein packed peanut butter cookie. These are really delicious and very simple to make.

Ingredients
1 cup natural peanut butter (I nuked it a bit to make it runny)
1/2 cup sugar or sweetener (again, I don't feed the toddler chemical sweeteners)
1/2 cup almond flour OR ground flax meal
1 egg
Some vanilla
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 cup sugar for coating cookies prior to baking

Optional add ins like chocolate chips. I had some white chocolate laying around that I tossed in (I know, not the greatest thing but 6 white chocolate chips aren't going to do anyone in).

Instructions

Blend the peanut butter, egg vanilla and sugar.

Add the almond flour/flax meal and baking soda and chocolate.

Mix the ingredients--you might need to use your hands.

Form into small balls (about the size of a big marble).

Roll in sugar.

Bake 10 min at 350F. Not a second longer or they'll burn.

Makes about 16 small cookies.

Not a super low carb food, more a balanced protein-fat-carb food, but good for growing toddlers I think. If I were making it for me, I would use dark chocolate chips as well as the Splenda brown sugar blend but still dip in sugar.

These were really yummy. I had to slap the hubby's hands away (else he would've eaten them all and the asphyxiated me with peanut induced farts all night). Hopefully, they'll fill the toddler's tummy.

Just in case, I made some pumpkin spice almond-flax muffins too.

The toddler will probably be around 6' at full height and she eats like it too! I hope I can keep up with her appetite.

Apple Cheese Nut Salad

This gorgeous salad is very similar to Panera's Apple Fuji salad in flavor.

I changed some of the elements up, which you can easily change to more closely match Panera's salad.

The key to the flavor is the salad dressing, everything else can be mixed and match and it will still taste delish.

The recipe is part of my Scrumptious Salads ebook available on Amazon.com for just 99 cents.

Low Carb Meal Plan: 2 Week Menu

I don't think I'll be posting a daily food diary any longer here. I actually keep it for my doctor and the format here wasn't working. I ended having to transfer everything into a table, which was time consuming. I'd rather just keep the table instead of posting here and then having to make the table too. It's too much busy work.

But I do want to post my meal plans. Because when I feel less-than-inspired, it's helpful to go back and see what strikes my fancy.

So here's the next 2 weeks. Some things have changed already due to just life or lack of available ingredients. As usual, I'll post any good recipes for you to try.

1-almond pancakes

2-orange chicken

3-greek meatballs

4-ricotta meatballs

5-Balsamic caper chicken

6-mustard jalapeno flank steak

7-Italian marinated chicken with arugula salad garnished with grapefruit

8-dry rub chicken drumsticks with butter & collard greens

9-cajun bleu cheese burgers & butternut squash fries

10-Lemon garlic caper chicken with a pan sauce

11-Taco Salad

12-Asian meatballs and gingered cabbage coleslaw

13-Steak

14-Jamaican jerk pork

Tex-Mex Flank Steak with Roasted Jalapeno Onion Chutney

This is DELICIOUS and you MUST make it this summer. The roasted jalapeno onion chuteny is sweet and spicy. The marinade nicely tenderizes the meat with a mix of mustard, cumin and other spices.

This is what happens when taco salad grows up.

The recipe is part of my Scrumptious Salads ebook available on Amazon.com for just 99 cents.