Cauliflower garlic sticks

This recipe came about by complete accident because I didn't have the right ingredients to make the garlic cauliflower bread sticks that I wanted to make, so I just bunged stuff in a bowl in the hope it would work. It turned out so well I thought I would put it on the blog, even with the terrible picture of only the finished product.

Feel free to play around with the quantities, I literally just used what I had in the fridge and eye balled it until it looked right. I imagine it's quite a versatile recipe as long as you don't end up with something too sloppy.

Ingredients- makes about 8 portions big enough for a side dish

280g Cauliflower (This was about 3/4 of my large cauliflower or a small cauliflower)

150g Full Fat Cream Cheese

Herb Mix- I put 1tsp garlic powder, 1tsp onion granules, 1tsp basil, 1tsp mixed herbs and 1tsp parsley.

40g Sainsbury's Basic's Hard Cheese ( or grate some parmesan)

70g Mature Cheddar (grated)

40g Butter melted with some garlic powder/onion powder in it.

You will also need- something to rice cauliflower so a grater or a food processor, a baking tray with baking parchment on it, a mixing bowl.

1. Preheat your oven to 220 C/ Gas mark 7.
2. Take your cauliflower, rice it with your preferred ricing method! Put it in a bowl, cover in cling film and microwave it for 10 minutes. Check on it a few times in that 10 minutes to check it isn't burning.
3. Pull your cauliflower out of the microwave and uncover it. WARNING! It will be hot, don't burn yourself on the steam like this idiot blogger did. 
4. In your mixing bowl, mix the herb mix, cauliflower, cream cheese, hard cheese and 50g of the cheddar.
5. Mix it until it's a soppy mixture but not wet, it should stick together loosely.
6. Pour the mixture onto your baking tray and flatten it into a rectangular shape. I used my hands as shaping it with a spoon was tricky, it stuck to the spoon more than it wanted to stay on the parchment.
7. Cook it in the oven for 15-20 minutes until it's golden brown.
8. Once it's lovely and golden brown. Melt your butter and mix in some more of the garlic and onion powder. Pour this over the top of the golden brown goodness and scatter the last 20g of cheddar on the top. If it doesn't look cheesy enough for you add some more!
9. Pop it back in the oven for another 5 minutes to melt the cheese.
10. Take it out of the oven and slice it into strips, leave it for a few minutes to firm up and then enjoy!

Nutritional Information (per serving)

Calories 146 kcal

Fat 13g

Protein 6g

Carbohydrate 2g

Fibre 1g

Review: Carbzone Low Carb Tortilla's

I'm a bit split in my review of these tortillas, I order them fairly regularly from Amazon when I'm doing a prime order, and like having them in the house. You can also get them from low carb megastore and carb life At 4g net carbs per tortilla, for a quick lunch, or if I'm making fajitas for the bf and fancy one they aren't bad.

They are £4.10 for 8 and are prime eligible and are part of the free delivery over £20 (Side note- can't believe that's now £20 what the hell Amazon!), so are a pricey alternative. But they keep forever and freeze well.

I've cut them up and fried them to make nacho like crisps. I've used two and put cheese and ham in the middle to make a quesadilla. I've used them to make a breakfast wrap with bacon, a fried egg and some sugar free ketchup.

But they aren't the best. They have a slight cardboard texture if you are eating them without heating them up. They aren't a direct swap with their carb laden counterparts and can be a bit chewy. If they were to disappear off the face of the earth I wouldn't be that bothered, although it might motivate me to find a home made version I like a bit more.

In summary- if you feel like occasionally you'd like to make your life easier. It might be worth keeping these around in the freezer. But don't feel like they are a must have low carb food!

Cheddar Drop "Biscuits"

I use the word biscuits lightly here, what it actually refers to are American biscuits which are more like scones in texture, but flatter. They are the perfect side accompaniments to things like soup, or as a quick snack with some butter. This week they have been coming to work with me to accompany my "mystery freezer lunches". I whipped these up after finding the recipe while I was looking up ways to use up the 30 eggs on my side.

I am a fan of any recipe which only needs coconut flour, and has 4 main ingredients. Keto is done best and most easily if it is simple in my opinion! I like things cheesy so be prepared to adjust the cheese factor down if you only like a hint of cheese.

Ingredients (Makes 10 Biscuits)

60g Coconut oil or butter melted
50g Coconut flour
4 eggs
75g Cheddar Cheese (grated)
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp onion powder (optional)
A pinch of salt

1. Pre-heat your oven to 180 degrees/ gas mark 7(if you don't have a fan).
2. Line a baking tray with baking paper.
3. Blend together the coconut oil, coconut flour, eggs, baking powder, onion powder and salt until smooth and dough like.
4. Mix in the grated cheese until it is thoroughly mixed in.
5. Divide the mixture up into 10 and flatten gently onto the baking tray.
6. Put in the oven for 15-25 minutes until golden brown and firm.
7. Remove from the oven and let them cool on a wire rack.

Nutritional Information (per biscuit)

Calories 119 kcal

Carbs 1.1g

Fat 10.2g

Protein 4.8g

Fibre 1.9g

Now your only task is to stick to eating only 1!

Update: Almond Flour Version, this made 8 biscuits so scale it up or down as you need!

I don't keep almond flour in the house and I don't normally cook with it because nuts of all kinds make me stall me. But these are as tasty as the coconut flour ones if you can't tolerate the coconut flour.

It's the same process as above except the quantities are different:

30g Coconut oil or butter melted
90g Ground almonds/almond flour
2 eggs
40g Cheddar Cheese (grated)
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp onion powder (optional)
A pinch of salt

Review: EZ-Sweetz (now on amazon)

Liquid sweeteners are the preferred method of sweetening desserts and coffee and tea and basically everything that needs to be sweet for low-carbers. Powdered sweeteners like Splenda, Canderel and the like contain the bulking agent Maltodexrin which means they aren't carb free, around 0.5g of carbs per teaspoon. If you are using them in your coffee that isn't so much to account for. But in baking that adds up quickly and the amount of Splenda needed in most recipes can turn your low carb recipe which is easy to fit into your < 20g carb day, into something that takes up 3/4 of your daily carb allowance.

No such bulking agent is used in liquid sweeteners, they are carb free, calorie free and do nothing except sweetener whatever they are mixed with. Up until now I have been using Hermestas liquid sweetener, it was the only one I had tried that didn't leave a horrible taste in my mouth, and it was available on Amazon so supply wasn't an issue. My one complaint was the sheer amount you needed e.g. 4 tbsp of sweetener in my fat bomb recipe. I hoped Ez-Sweetz would be a great alternative, their conversion is 1 tsp sugar = 1 drop of Ez-Sweetz. But alas it was forever sold out on low carb megastore and carb life, as well as being expensive for not very much.

Not any more!

I spotted it's appearance on Amazon at the start of the year and immediately bought some to try. £6.99 for 600 servings didn't seem so bad, if the reviews over the Internet were to be believed.

I wasn't disappointed. No horrible after taste, barely any was needed to sweetener my coffee, I've used it in baking with great success. It's definitely worth keeping some in your cupboard whether you bake and eat sweet things, or just have the occasional craving for something sweet.

For a comparison- I was using two tablets of Sweetex in my morning coffee to sweeten it. I need a single drop of Ez-Sweetz to get the same effect, and it doesn't have any odd after taste.

Success and a new cupboard staple!