You can never have too many recipes for salmon. This one is easy and quick. Rich? Yes. So good, though.

Another one of the recipes from the salmon class with Phillis Carey. Very simple to make – done all in one pan. You’ll need some fresh dill (which really adds so much flavor) and heavy cream and a lemon. The salmon is pan-seared then removed while you make the sauce. Once it’s done, you add the salmon back in and cook it for a minute or two at the most. See? Easy. Phillis suggested serving this with orzo and spinach. You’ll want something carb (orzo, rice) or carb-like (riced cauliflower, millet) to soak up any extra sauce and juices from this.

What’s GOOD: how easy. Delicious. Tender texture. Loved the dill in it.

What’s NOT: nothing at all.

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Trust me on this one – so delicious. The Brussels sprouts are raw – it’s the bacon dressing that makes it kind of warm.

This was a stunner of a recipe at a recent class with Phillis Carey. She made a huge amount of it and I gobbled every bite on that plate. I have all the ingredients in my frig right now, to make it myself. The recipe came from Rachel Ray (from her magazine, I think).

Phillis cut up the apples in advance and kept them soaking in Sprite (or use water with some lemon juice) until she was ready to assemble. The pecans were toasted ahead also. The dressing she made at the moment – mostly because you start off with some bacon slices and you use the bacon fat + some EVOO (yes it needs it) to make a bacon vinaigrette. If you made the dressing ahead, the bacon at room temp would congeal and you’d have to heat it up anyway. So just keep the bacon grease in the pan once you’ve fried up the bacon pieces.

She told us that for this salad she uses her food processor to slice the Brussels sprouts – she likes them sliced at 3mm (one of the slicing disks that comes with a food processor) and she stands each trimmed B.S. in upright (several of them in the feed tube) and slices away. It takes just a minute or two to make enough for this entire salad. The Manchego cheese may be grated or in small slices/shaved. The recipe calls for Fuji apples, or Ambrosia. Phillis said she bought Ambrosia and mentioned that if you buy organic (sweet crisp style) you can leave on the peels.

What’s GOOD: this salad is stupendous. It will be my dinner tonight, and probably for a couple of nights to come. I won’t mix it up to keep it, however. Maybe the B.S. can be done ahead, the pecans too. The dressing except the bacon fat could be done ahead too.

What’s NOT: there are several steps to making this . . . would be a marvelous one to make or take to a Thanksgiving dinner, just saying .. .

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Pure heaven. How could it not be pure heaven when there is so much heavy cream in it.

This is another recipe from a Phillis Carey class. And I’m telling you, these sweet potatoes are just to-die-for. And funny thing, on this anti-lectin diet I’m on, I can have  heavy cream and Parm AND sweet potatoes (because they’re a resistant starch). I ate every bite, and would have been happy to have seconds, but I didn’t.

This dish is very easy – truly it is. You can make it up ahead, sliced, layered, add the cream mixture, or wait until later. Either way is fine. If you’re going to transport this, I’d suggest waiting to add the liquid. Takes about an hour to bake in the oven. Feeds a lot – although if they’re anything like me, and seconds were available, it wouldn’t feed as many! On my notes I wrote “beyond fabulous.” Does that tell you what you need to know?

What’s GOOD: how unbelievably silky tasting these are – the cheese (not all that much) – the cream. The little bit of cayenne. Oh my yes, make this.

What’s NOT: well, only the fat grams. Don’t read the nutrition on this. Know it’s something you’ll have as a special occasion.

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A variation on a hummus theme. So delicious. You’d never know it was made with zucchini!

I’ve kind of begun to tire of hummus. Actually – no, I AM tired of hummus. Seems like it’s become so commonplace, and so popular, nearly every hostess serves it. Therefore, I got tired of it. But then, now that I’m on this anti-lectin thing, regular hummus or garbanzo beans are out. Besides the calories (although I know – I know – beans are good for us – I just can’t eat them unless they’ve been pressure cooked, which kills the lectins), I’m kind of past the taste of garbanzo – they do have a unique flavor.

So, when I saw this recipe for hummus made from zucchini, I knew I could adapt it to fit my lectin-free diet. I just had to peel and seed the zucchini. Everything else in this was fine. And the taste? Oh gosh. It was fabulous! Even though I’m tired of hummus, somehow, eating this I felt differently about it – just knowing it was zucchini. It has the texture of hummus. It has the flavor of hummus. But better, by far.

If you make this, you don’t have to peel and seed the zucchini like I do – but I think taking off the green skin will keep this looking more brown, like hummus – with the green skin, I’m not sure about the color. What’s on top – black sesame seeds, some good EVOO, some ground cumin, and I’d forgotten the smoked paprika (I added it after I took the photo).

Everyone ate it – that bowl was gone by the time I served dinner. I have a little bit left in my frig, and I still have a few of the fresh-cut carrots and celery. Maybe I’ll have that for my lunch.

The only time-consuming thing was roasting the zucchini. It took longer than the recipe indicated – and you definitely do not want to roast these to the point of drying out. That would not be good. Into the food processor everything else goes (garlic, cumin, oil – maybe water, although I didn’t add any) and some tahini – sesame seed paste). That last part is what gives it the hummus taste. Sesame seed paste is, in and of itself, a very unique flavor. So when my guests ate it, they thought it was garbanzo hummus. Everyone was intrigued – even the guys in the group – and liked it.

What’s GOOD:  it’s lower in calorie than regular hummus, that’s for sure. Tastes as good if not better than. You’re eating vegetables instead of beans . . .altogether deliciousness. Yes, I’ll make it again.

What’s NOT: maybe just the time it takes to make – you can buy ready made hummus inexpensively, but this tastes so much better.

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Decadent tasting, full of chocolate, chocolate chips and chopped almonds. AND gluten free.

Last week I had a new friend come to visit for a few hours. She’s a Type 1 diabetic (like my DH was) and she does her best to avoid carbs. I introduced her to chaffles (you can google it – it’s quite a phenom in the low carb world). My chaffle is not really one made with cheese (that what the ch means in the name, the affle means it’s made in a little Sur La Table Dash Mini Waffle Maker waffle iron which makes one waffle round). Mine was made of egg and a tetch of almond flour, a tablespoon of mayo, baking powder and water. I doubt many of you would be interested in any of this, but they make a great substitute for bread. Put two together and you have a sandwich. If you’re interested in the recipe, click that link.

Anyway, when I pulled out my bag of Costco’s Kirkland almond flour to demonstrate how easy it is to make a sandwich chaffle, my friend Vicki asked if I’d tried the almond brownie recipe on the back of the bag. Nope, had not. But it got my taste buds hankering for brownies.

Daughter Sara and her husband were here this weekend so I had a reason to make these brownies. I did use Hershey’s cocoa powder extra dark – so the resulting brownies were really dark/black. Regular cocoa powder might not make them so dark colored. Me? I’m all into the intense flavor. But, if I’d made them for myself, I’d have eaten them all – myself. Not good. Even though they’re GF, and not too high in fat, they’re still calories. As I’m writing this, there are just 4 left. Maybe I’ll freeze them so I can dole them out to myself slowly. We’ll see how THAT goes! I cut them into small squares – I think I got more than 16 out of the 8×8 pan. But you can cut them any size you want.

Because I loved them. And I know my cousin Gary, who loves carbs and chocolate, but is GF, will love these too. He’s not much of a baker, so I’ll make a batch for him when he comes to visit next month. I mixed these up in a bowl with my hand mixer and they baked for about 30+ minutes. Once cooled, these were still quite wet/sticky, but by this morning they were perfect for picking up in hand and didn’t fall apart. I forgot to put more almonds on top. Made no never-mind in the end. These are delicious. I did use some sugar (not supposed to have any sugar, but I used half and half with artificial sugar). I think next time I’ll use a little less sugar and Swerve – I think they’re quite sweet.

What’s GOOD: the intense chocolate flavor. Love that I can have a brownie recipe that satisfies my desire for something brownie-like. The longer I’m on a no-flour diet, I realize how much white flour is used in everyday cooking, and how incredibly versatile it is. AND how important it is to making baked goods have the texture they do. Can’t get that with any of the substitute flours out there. Anyway, I loved these and will most definitely be making them again.

What’s NOT: nothing really – you do need almond flour. Trader Joe’s brand does have the skins in with the flour in their bag (which I can’t have on this diet – lectins live in the skins of almonds, amongst hundreds of other places in various foods). Kirkland’s is ground up blanched almonds. That’s what I buy now and keep it in the freezer to store it so it stays fresher, longer. What these don’t have if a ton of chewiness – they’re quite tender and soft. You won’t get chew from almond flour, I guess.

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I know – I can hear you – this isn’t soup weather. Well, sorry about that. I eat soup year ‘round.

You may remember me mentioning a few weeks ago that I was on my 4th batch of a soup – this is the one. This time makes 5 times (over the course of 3 months). I just love-love-love this soup. I wasn’t sure that you, my readers, would be all that interested in this soup because it’s not got any carbs in it and really it’s cauliflower – Italian sausage – kale – and a creamy soup base. I now make a big batch of it whenever I do. I use part pork Italian sausage and part turkey Italian sausage. There’s a lot more flavor in the pork, obviously, but I like to make it a bit more healthy with the turkey type. Making it with all turkey lacks flavor (I tried that also), so do use some of the pork style.

There’s bacon in this which helps with the flavor. I’ve had the original recipe in my arsenal for awhile – it came from Kalyn’s Kitchen. After making it according to her recipe, I adapted it a little bit (a bit more broth, more cauliflower, adding coconut cream or milk to it). The recipe is a riff on Olive Garden’s Zuppa Toscana, which is a potato based creamy soup with a tiny bit of sausage in it, and the kale. Kalyn did a really super job of adapting the recipe to a low-carb soup – no potatoes, obviously. She added more meat to it. The only other change I made was how I cut the cauliflower. At Olive Garden, the potatoes in their soup are sliced. Small slices, actually. So, I did the same with the cauliflower. You’re not going to be able to avoid some florets out at the tips, but I sliced up the deeper parts, the stems and the main stem too.

Kalyn’s recipe was made in the Instant Pot, and I think the first time I made it that way too. But the next time I forgot and just made it in a regular big, deep pot. It doesn’t take much longer to cook it that way, in any case. I find that this soup tastes better after it’s sat in the frig for a day – as with lots of soups. If you want carbs in this, add some rice, maybe. Or some pasta. But not a whole lot – you might need more broth if you did that. When I made it today I used 2 heads of cauliflower (they were smaller than some) and with the cauliflower and kale in the pot, it was FULL. No room for anything else, unless you added more liquid. In any case, I thank Kalyn for devising the faux style of this soup, cuz it’s really delish.

What’s GOOD: the flavor profile is altogether good. Maybe I’ve gotten used to cauliflower, but I can’t really tell it IS cauliflower when I’m sipping on this soup. Unless you see some of the small florets, you can fool yourself that it’s potatoes in there.

What’s NOT: hmmm. Maybe just all the cutting and chopping of the cauliflower, but I do it so much, I’ve got it down pat.

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Since I’m really into soups these days, and since I’ve made this one three times in the last couple of months, I decided I should post it.

When Ree Drummond made a version of this soup, I decided to adapt it to my low carb diet and to a LF (lectin free) diet. You can find her recipe for this online – she adds flour and also prepares some of the mushrooms as a garnish. I merely cut to the chase – removed the flour altogether and partially blended the soup so it still had some chunkiness to it. And didn’t bother with the mushroom garnish. And, as mentioned above, since I’ve made it three times since early January, you should have this recipe.

Probably the Custom Culinary Gold Label Vegan Mushroom Base I use has a lot to do with the flavor. Buy it on amazon (link shown) for $16, I think it is. I use it often and it’s been in my frig for a couple of years without any problem. It pumps up the mushroom flavor. I added heavy cream, but you could use coconut milk if you’d prefer. And note there is 3/4 cup of sherry wine in it. That’s more than most soups would add, but I really like it – whatever it is that does! You do not taste the wine at all, but it must add some depth of character to the soup. The little squirt of balsamic vinegar is unusual, but also adds to the flavor profile.

What’s GOOD: the flavor, the texture, and by far, the low calorie aspect, though you’d not know it. In recent days I’ve had this for my lunch (with nothing else). At 200 calories or less, it’s a winner for me. And yes, I’m still losing weight, albeit slowly. At 77, you don’t lose weight very fast. The soup freezes well.

What’s NOT: really nothing – easy to make.

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EASY to make soup in the Instant Pot. Lots of flavors to savor.

So, Carolyn here – I’m still alive and well – I made this soup yesterday and it was so good I knew I needed to post it. I was supposed to have a group of friends over to my house to watch the academy awards last night, but a few days ago my Tivo went kaput – everything about my entertainment system goes through the Tivo. Tivo is sending me a new one, free, but it won’t arrive for about another week. Therefore I have no TV to watch in my family room. So we had our academy awards potluck dinner at someone else’s home. And I made soup.

Because I had a whole chicken in the freezer, I chose to use it instead of the chicken thighs noted in the recipe – I used the same timing – so you can do that too, if you choose.

Into the Instant Pot went the chicken, some diced tomatoes (canned), a can of chopped green chiles, an onion chopped up, a shallot minced, a package of chili seasoning (or taco seasoning), a bit of extra ground cumin, canned enchilada sauce and chicken broth. I set the Instant Pot on “soup” for 20 minutes. I let it slow release for 15 minutes, then fast release. The chicken was removed to cool, then I shredded up all the meat from the chicken.

Meanwhile, I used the immersion blender on the broth part, added in the sour cream and crème fraiche, added back in the shredded chicken and let it reheat briefly. Don’t let it boil or the soup part will separate. Then I cut up the garnishes and let everyone help themselves. If you want tortilla chips, smash a few to garnish the soup (I didn’t because I didn’t think it needed it, plus I can’t have tortillas on my diet).

And how am, you want to know? I’m good. Very busy. Have a done any painting yet? Only a little. PEO has been taking up a bunch of my time lately. I’m taking a trip to San Francisco with 3 girlfriends next month which will be great fun. My grandson has been accepted at Clemson in the Fall, although he hasn’t officially told them yet (he’s interested in bio-science) – Clemson is where his sister goes to school (she’s a junior there), although she’s in Argentina studying this semester and is really struggling with the dialect. She got accepted to do a medical internship at a fertility clinic in the city where she is living. And she starts her semester classes later this week, all in Spanish (or, this Argentinian dialect, I should say). Sabrina is planning to take the MCAT in the fall to be accepted to med school. She’s the one who started out wanting to be a vet, but I think she’s certain now she wants to be an MD or a PhD research doctor. My other granddaughter is finishing her senior year at Sacramento State and hopes to go on to get a Master’s in Nursing. By the way, I’m still keeping up the “Currently Reading” section of my blog (left sidebar of the main page) in case you’re interested. Last summer I couldn’t WAIT for winter to arrive. Be careful what you wish for, right? It’s been SO darned cold here in Southern California. Coldest on record almost. But it’s been going on for weeks now. I had to dig to find more coats and wraps because it’s so cold even in the daytime.

What’s GOOD: how easy it was. I could have made it a day ahead, but as it was, I made it just before I toted it to my friend’s home. The flavor of the soup part is really, really good. Lots of Mexican flavor too. It was filling (and fairly low calorie too) and everyone thought it was really good.

What’s NOT: only the shredding of the chicken meat, and that took about 15 minutes, tops. I’m glad I still have some, because I’ll be having it for my lunch today.

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Oh my goodness. I’ve discovered nirvana. I can still have my cake and eat it too!

For the last many months, I’ve been on a diet (Steven Gundry, Plant Paradox diet) and the weight loss has slowed down to a trickle. So much so that if I go out to eat – and am still trying to order things that are within the diet – I gain a pound every time. (It’s probably portion control and salt and maybe sometimes a sauce or something like that served with the piece of fish or chicken.) Then it takes me another week or more to get that off. I’m quite frustrated. There are lots of foods I really miss – some carbs, even some vegetables like green beans (the seeds contain lectins). I miss a piece of toast now and then. I miss eating a sandwich, like a tuna sandwich on white bread. I miss desserts. There is a coconut milk ice cream that is acceptable (So Delicious brand) but I don’t like it all that much. I’m really missing Mexican food – I’d do just about anything to have a shredded beef taco right about now. Or a cheese enchilada. But no, I’m afraid that if I succumb to having it once, it would become a regular routine to go off the diet. But what I’m not missing is chocolate because I’m able to have an ounce a day. Yippee!

So, at one of the Phillis Carey cooking classes a month or so ago, she mentioned a chocolate mug cake that she can have on her diet (keto). She emailed the recipe to me. I promptly looked at the ingredients and decided that yes, I can have it too! I made it once and was not thrilled, but I decided afterwards that I could tweak the recipe and would buy some fresh(er) almond meal. The mug cake had a decided bitter aftertaste that I couldn’t define. The almond meal didn’t smell stale, but then I didn’t taste it straight, either and it definitely was past its use-by date. So, today, I was just craving something sweet (I don’t often have those cravings) and since I can have a tablespoon of cocoa a day (or regular chocolate, 1 ounce) I’d try making the keto mug cake again. I had a new bag of Trader Joe’s almond meal (almond flour is okay too).

One thing I tweaked was the amount of sweetener. The original recipe called for 2 T of sweetener. Well, I think that’s way too much – I morphed it down to 1/2 tablespoon for the mug in its entirety. But perhaps that’s the Swerve. Taste the batter to make sure.

First I melted a tablespoon of butter in a mug in the microwave. (Now, technically, a tablespoon of butter is not on my diet, but even Gundry says that if butter is an important element to something go ahead and use it in moderation, so I did.) Then you add the almond flour, (there’s no wheat flour in this), baking powder, sugar sweetener in some form (I used Swerve, which is my new go-to sweetener), the tablespoon of cocoa powder, some coconut shreds if you want them (I didn’t), an egg and a tiny tetch of vanilla. Stir it up well in the mug and put it in the microwave. The recipe says 45-60 seconds. Mine is done perfectly at 45 seconds. The cake part rises up more than halfway in the mug and it kind of has a sponge-like look to the top. You sprinkle in just a few chocolate chips (optional – recipe calls for sugar free – I used the real thing, but only about 3-4) and pour on a tablespoon of coconut cream or heavy cream. Eat. Oohs and aaahs from here.

Whether I can have this regularly – well, probably not. But when I’ve had a really light lunch as I did today, I think the keto mug cake is in order. The calorie count is 427, so yes, this definitely needs to be an occasional treat!

What’s GOOD: nirvana for me, on this just-about-zero-carbs diet I’m on. Taste is wonderful – cake is moist and kind of sponge-cake like. Definitely a good chocolate taste/flavor. Not a large portion, which is good. Protein is in there (egg and almond meal) and I get my ration of chocolate too. Altogether wonderful. And it took all of about 4 minutes to mix it up and 45 seconds to “cook.”

What’s NOT: nothing at all, really. If you’re not dieting, use regular sugar – taste and add what you think it needs. Don’t use honey as it would change the chemistry – might need another tablespoon of almond meal if you used that route.

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Delicious, tender pork grilled on the outdoor barbecue, with a Greek influence.

Every so often I have to do some blog housekeeping, to transfer photos to CDs for long-term storage. (Although I hear that sometime in the not too distant future, we’re no longer going to be able to buy CDs, since that’s old-school now). Since I’ve been writing this blog for 11 years, I have a LOT of CDs filled with my food photos. Way too much to keep on my hard drive. At any rate, I was working on that this morning and realized that I hadn’t posted 3 recipes. So I’m fixing that now.

I’d invited friends over for dinner – this was back in early July, and my friend Cherrie’s husband took over as grill meister for me, and I told him whatever he did, not to cook these past 140°F. He was meticulous and brought them in and I snapped the photo. The recipe came from a post over at Kalyn’s Kitchen. I followed her recipe to the letter.

First I cubed up the pork (I bought a roast rather than pork chops as I wanted to make sure the cubes were thick enough), then I put the cubes into a Ziploc bag with all of the marinade ingredients. What is souvlaki,  you ask: from Wikipedia, it says – Souvlaki is a popular Greek fast food consisting of small pieces of meat and sometimes vegetables grilled on a skewer. It is usually eaten straight off the skewer while still hot. Greek marinades usually start with olive oil, then include a variety of herbs (usually dried oregano) and garlic for sure. This one uses lemon juice as the acid and also includes a tad of red wine vinegar. That was left to sit for 24 hours – although Kalyn said this could sit just 6 hours to work its magic. Do turn the bag over a few times so all the pork pieces are coated in the marinade.

The cooking time is short – max 15 minutes, as the pork is very lean and can go from juicy to dry in a matter of less than a minute. So watch the temp. I’d grill these at the low side of medium-high heat if you’re able to fine-tune your grill that way. Allow the pork to sit, tented in foil for about 5 minutes before serving. I served this with the Cauliflower Slaw I posted recently. It was a perfect accompaniment to the pork.

What’s GOOD: loved the Greek lemon juice and garlic flavors in this. Plus the oregano too. Easy to do for guests, as long as you have time to manage the grilling.

What’s NOT: nothing that I can think of – just don’t overcook them.

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