Low-Carb Bread

Let me start off with the following: a food processor is NOT a coffee grinder! Learn from my mistakes.

Yesterday I tried my hands on the Carb-Free Bread from Tim Noakes' book the Real Meal Revolution. I couldn't find ground flax seed in the health shop so I had no choice than to go with the suggestion in the recipe to buy whole seeds and grind them myselves. Alas I don't own a coffee grinder as suggested in the recipe.

Trying to find a pragmatic solution I was confident that my food processor will do the job. It ground nuts and seeds in the past so why should flax seed be different?

So in with the flax seed with the setting on high. Unfortunately with very little success. Even after minutes of watching the noisy appliance the seeds remained whole. My next attempt was to soak the seeds for a while in the eggs/water required by the recipes and then process again. This made matters worse. I ended up with a gluey, sticky flaxseed-egg-water-blobb. Not a pretty sight and very difficult to clean.

This is when I remembered that my blender came with a spice mill attachment. Finally a solution which works! However I am now short of eggs since the "blobb" had to go into the bin. I only had enough eggs for half the recipe for the second attempt. This explains the heart-shaped little loaves on the picture because this is the only tin I own catering for 6 muffins instead of 12.

Low Carb Bread

I loved the result. In consistency really close to "real" bread and the flax seed adds an interesting flavoring. I will definitely make this recipe again.

Low-Carb Bread

Ingredients:
2 cups ground flax seed
2 eggs
5 egg whites
5 tablespoons coconut oil
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup of cold water
Tiny splash of stevia

Preparation:
1. Preheat oven at 180 degrees celcius.

2. Mix all ingredients briefly in the food processor.

3. Distribute in a muffin tin with 12 holes and bake for ca. 20 minutes until baked through.

Food confusion and an awesome Dip recipe

Ja... so much for regular blogging.

I guess I spent the last couple of months in eating and blogging confusion. My stomach is still giving me major hassles so I tried to avoid all ingredients which might make the symptoms worse. As a result I was left with a restricted collection of ingredients making it difficult for me to come up with yummy recipes. This made it very difficult for me to stick to the "allowed" food groups and I ended up cheating again and again and again. 

But hey if you fall down you need to get up again. Resilience is an important component to success in life. So in order to help my stomach to calm down I will avoid any kind of grains, sugar and dairy for the next 30 days. Regular updates on my progress will be given here.

What I can say for Day 1 so far: After a week of dining out my body is paying me back with severe cramps and pains. I am planning on an easy lazy Sunday. Not so lazy though that I am slacking in the workout department. It's not even 9 am yet and I already finished a 5 km run. Funny enough I realized over the last months that exercising in the morning helps me to make better food choices during the day. It's almost like it helps me to switch on the internal "health button". I have not entirely decided yet on what to cook today but might try my hand on the carb-free bread recipe from the new Tim Noakes book and a home-made version of mayonnaise with healthy fats. I let you know some time next week on the results.

In the meantime a few words and a picture of last Sunday's meal (unfortunately including ingredients I should avoid):

Auberging and Feta Dip (top left), Barley Risotto with Feta (top right), Ricotta Gnocci (bottom right) and Courgette and Nectarine Salad (bottom left)

The inspiration for 3 of the dishes comes from Any Fenner's book Taking it Easy. It's a lovely book featuring recipes and meal suggestions from 20 South African Chefs easy to make at home. 

I tried the Ricotta Gnocci with Gorgonzola Sauce, Grilled Courgette and Nectarine Salad and Roasted Aubergine and Feta Dip. Everything turned out lovely. I made some adjustments to the original recipes taking into account the ingredients I had available. The meal was complemented by the Barley Risotto with Feta inspired by the recipe in Ottolenghi's book Jerusalem. 

Roasted Aubergine and Feta Dip

Ingredients:

2 Aubergines

125g Feta Cheese, broken into small pieces 

50g roasted Almonds with the skin

2 tablespoons Tahini

4 tablespoons Olive Oil

Preparation:

1. Preheat the oven to 220 degrees and roast the aubergines until the skins are burned and the aubergines are soft inside. This should take around 30 minutes.

2. Let the aubergines cool down until cook enough to handle and scoop the flesh into the bowl of your food processor.

3. Add the other ingredients listed and whizz the dip with the food processor until the desired consistency is reached.

Raw Choc Chip Cookie Dough Balls

After the only half-successful cake I still decided to give the book Cake! 12 Healthy Recipes another try.

The No Bake Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Bars have a method I am a bit more used to than yesterday's coconut flour cake. I did some adjustments but the little balls turn out really yummy.

Healthy nuts and seeds with natural sweetness are always a winner! The vanilla and the maple syrup give the recipe a distinctive flavor. And who can say no to dark lindt chocolate?

For variation one could roll the ball in coconut flakes or raw cacao powder.


Raw Choc Chip Cookie Dough Balls
(yields around 25 small balls)

Ingredients:

100g raw cashew nuts
50g raw sunflower seeds (without skin)
150g fresh medjool dates
2 tbsp maple syrup
1/2 tsp vanilla powder
1 pinch of salt
20g of dark chocolate (I used the one with 85% cocoa content)

Preparation:

1. Soak the cashews and the sunflower seeds in cold water for 2-3 hours and then drain.

2. Put all ingredients besides the dark chocolate into a food processor and process to a sticky paste.

3. Tip onto a plate and mix in the chocolate which you chopped into small pieces.

4. Roll the mixture into small balls with your heads and store in fridge to harden slightly.

Coconut, Lime and Blueberry Cake

Are you as confused as me with all the health claims out there? Surrounded by the advocates for different lifestyles be it gluten-free, wheat-free, paleo or vegan to name just a few? Believers in intermittent fasting versus believers that leaving out breakfast will take you straight to hell on the nutrition highway?

Sometimes I am not sure if reading a lot is a blessing or if ignorance would be bliss. Over the last weeks I read lot's and lot's of books in the aim to find an eating plan suitable for me. Unfortunately with little success. Most books have convincing arguments. However if you compare notes in the end the arguments contradict. With some meal plans so constraining that I wonder where's the fun in live if one sticks to that?

I was hoping to find the easy way out by arranging for food intolerance testing in a lab. If there would not be all those published studies that those test results are not worth the paper they are printed on...

So I arrived at food intolerance testing through exclusion diet. This is based on the theory to exclude certain foods for a while from the diet in order to find out if changes in well-being can be detected.

But what's a baker without wheat, gluten and dairy?

Help was in sight with the recipe Coconut, Lime and Blueberry Cake from the book Cake! 12 Healthy Recipes.

Even though some of the ingredients are on the more unusual (and costly) side I was still keen on giving it a try. The recipe sounds easy enough. While preparing the batter some doubts start creeping up. This looks like nothing I baked before. Once all ingredients are mixed according to instructions I ended up with a result I would not call a batter but more a mix of weird crumbs. To be on a the safe side I added coconut milk to the recipe which resulted in some improvement in consistency but still more on the dry side.

The recipes requires the blueberries to be sprinkled on top. Due to the dryness of the cake batter that's also where they remain which I personally find a bit odd.

During baking the cake browned very quickly which made me a bit concerned about the baking time. Unfortunately the consistency of the batter did not allow for the usually poke test so I decided to stick to the 40 minutes mentioned in the recipe.

The taste test unfortunately confirms the dry appearance. The flavor is nicely coconutty which is complemented well by the fruity blueberries. The sweetness of the caramelly coconut sugar is balanced with the tangieness of the blueberries.

I will publish the recipe even though I don't consider it a success yet. Let's rather see it as a document of my learning journey...

Coconut, Lime and Blueberry Cake

Ingredients:
2 eggs
150g coconut sugar
150g grated courgettes
Juice and zest of two limes
100g coconut flour
100g desiccated cooconut
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
150ml coconut milk
150g blueberries

Preparation:
1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees.

2. Mix eggs and sugar well until foamy with an electric beater or mixer.

3. Add the rest of the ingredients besides the blueberries into the bowl and mix again until well combined.

4. Fill batter into prepared baking tin (with baking paper and greased sides) and sprinkle blueberries on top.

5. Bake for 40 minutes on a low level.

Took a break...

... back soon. It's amazing how fast time is running sometimes! It's more than 4 weeks since my last blog. 4 weeks to overcome my cooking confusion spent in winter hibernation. After a doctor's visit I had to realize that I need to change the way I eat. That does not mean I didn't cook at all recently. But I spent more time figuring out what to eat in future then writing about what I ate.

However below a few pics from the last weeks. I will be back to blogging regularly soon!

Delicious filled aubergine:

Some kind of souffle-style fluffy bake made with asparagus and bacon:

Crunchy chickpeas roasted with Mediterranean spices:

Sweet and sour Lemon Meringue:

Asian-inspired fish ball soup with glass noodles:

Pearl Barley Risotto with feta:

Cravings for garlic bread

After checking out foodgawker.com while still lying in bed this morning I really felt like warm and buttery garlic bread.

I still had leftover dough from the pita breads earlier this week so I decided to form this dough into small rolls and slather the rolls with garlicky butter. So delicious!

You can find the recipe for the dough here. The garlic butter is just salted butter mixed with crushed garlic. However I always crush the garlic myself. I find that the one you buy crushed already develops are very strong side taste I don't enjoy.

Homegrown Sprouts

Have you ever grown your own sprouts at home? It's super easy and so much fun. Also something cool to do with the kids. You just need a plastic container for sprouting (Wellness Warehouse for example sells them), some seeds and water. Within a few days you will be ready to eat your first fresh sprouts. Yummy in salads but also very good on a simple slice of buttered bread with a little bit of salt. Besides that sprouts look pretty when decorating plates and they super healthy because they super fresh when you eat them and there's no pesticides if you grown them yourselves. I added a few pictures to describe the process of growing sprouts.

The seeds need to be soaked over night in water. Once they in the sprouting container just pour water into the top layer twice a day. Be careful to empty the bottom layer regularly where the water collects. Depending on the kind of seed you are using it will take 3-7 days until you can harvest. I used broccoli and alfalfa seeds on the pictures below. The alfalfa grew much quicker.

The salad is an adaption from the recipe California Sprout Salad in the book Jamie's America. Thrown together in less than 10 minutes and wholesome enough to make up dinner together with some nice bread.

Salad with Sprouts, Chickpeas and Chorizo

Ingredients for 4 portions:

200g mixed shoots and sprouts
150g sugar peas, cleaned and cut in pieces
1 fresh red chilli, finely chopped
100g rocket leaves
4 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar
4 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon olive oil
150g chorizo sausage, sliced
200g cooked chickpeas
2 cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed
salt and black pepper

Preparation:

1. Mix the shoots, sprouts, sugar peas, chilli and rocket in a bowl and dress with the balsamic vinegar and the extra virgin olive oil.

2. Heat the tablesoon of olive oil in a pan and fry chorizo, chickpeas and garlic in the oil until slightly browned.

3. Dish the salad mix from the bowl onto individual plates, add the chorizo mix on top and add salt and pepper according to taste to each plate.