Wheat Free French Toast - Gluten Free, Grain Free, Sugar Free - can be made dairy free

Wheat Free French Toast

Today I took the psyllium husk bread from the post on 6/4 and turned two of the slices into French Toast!  It was perfect, exactly like the French Toast I've made with regular bread.   I ate it with a bit of leftover steak and Nature's Hollow Raspberry Syrup.

1 egg
1 T milk (optional)
4 slices psyllium husk bread
1-2 t butter or coconut oil

Beat egg and add milk (if you are dairy free, you can use water or just leave it out and use just egg).  Heat 1-2 t butter or coconut oil in a large non-stick skillet on medium low heat until a drop of water sizzles.  Soak bread slices in batter while butter is heating up then brown on both sides, making sure insides are firm.

Makes 2 servings of 2 slices each.  Per serving (without syrup or steak), 310 calories, 22 grams carbohydrates, 16.6 grams fiber.

Easy Sunny Side Up Eggs

Sunny Side Up Eggs

Ever have trouble with Sunny Side Up Eggs?  Yellow part all hard, or top still not done?  Here's the easiest way I've found to do them.  Heat one teaspoon of butter in a non-stick pan.  Take a drop of water and test the pan, once it's hot enough it will "sizzle" when it hits the pan.  Crack eggs into the pan and add 1 T water and cover the pan.  Leave it for two minutes - don't be tempted to peek - empty your dishwasher or something.  The steam from the water will poach the tops of the eggs to get them done perfectly while keeping the centers soft.

I had mine with a strip of bacon and a slice of yesterday's bread, toasted.

Calories?
Two eggs cooked in about 1 t butter - 150 calories.  One slice of precooked, frozen bacon from Costco - 40 calories, 1 slice of bread 110 calories = 300 calories total.  Carbohydrate count is only from the bread - 10 grams carbohydrates with 8 of them being fiber.

Psyllium Husk Bread - Gluten Free/Wheat Free/Grain Free/Sugar Free/Dairy Free

Psyllium Husk Bread

I've had such hit and miss luck with psyllium husk bread, that for months I was hesitant to try baking it in a bread pan.  But I think I cracked the "code."  The trick is to weigh the almond flour and psyllium husk and also to never take it out of the oven too early.  It may look "done" but leave it in there the full time!  It turned out perfect by doing that.

This recipe is from Maria Emmerich (http://mariamindbodyhealth.com/amazing-bread/), basically the same recipe as the psyllium husk buns from April 29th, doubled and baked in a bread ban.

10 oz almond flour
90 grams psyllium husk (Jay Robb's psyllium husk ground in a coffee grinder work best)
4 t baking powder
1 t salt
5 T cider vinegar
7 oz egg whites
1 1/2 C boiling water

 Combine dry ingredients, add egg and vinegar, beating.  Add boiling water, beating until all the same consistency (to me it looks like cream of wheat cereal at this point).  "Plop" (I'd say pour, but it really is more like a plop) into an oiled bread pan.  I used parchment to line the bottom of the pan to make it easier to remove.
Bake at 250 degrees for 1 hour, 10 min - no less!

Cool and slice.

From Maria's website:  10 servings, 220 calories each, 20.7 grams carbohydrates, 16.6 grams fiber - yes, that fiber count is right.  If you need more fiber in your diet, this is a great way to get it!

Diet 7-Up Pound Cake - Wheat Free/Grain Free/Gluten Free/Sugar Free

Diet 7-Up Pound Cake

7-Up Pound Cake was one of those things that showed up at every Picnic, School Bake Sale and Church Social in the 1970s.  It has just the right amount of tartness and sweetness so I really wanted to try to recreate it.  This turned out so much like the old favorite that I bet you can't taste the difference!

Cake
1/2 C butter (one stick) softened or at room temperature
1/2 C Swerve or similar sugar substitute
1 t. lemon extract
3 eggs
1 1/2 C almond flour
1 t baking powder
1/4 C vanilla protein powder
1/3 C diet 7 Up

Glaze:
1 t lemon zest
1/3 C confectioners Swerve or sugar substitute, you can "powder" it by putting it in a coffee grinder.
1-2 T lemon juice - alternately you can use 1 t lemon extract and 1-2 T milk.

Beat the butter in a mixer, add sugar substitute, lemon extract and beat in eggs one at a time.  Combine dry ingredients and beat them in.  Pour in 7-Up (gently or it will foam all over your mixing bowl).  Continue mixing until smooth.

Coat a bread pan with coconut oil or coconut oil spray and line the bottom with parchment paper.  You really do need the parchment paper or you'll never get it out of the pan without it breaking up.  One of the difficulties with gluten free baking is the gluten acted like glue to hold stuff together, so gluten free recipes tend to fall apart and crumble easily.  Parchment paper helps with that.
I have no idea why Blogspot randomly likes to turn some of my photos sideways, but it's not worth fighting it.

Bake at 325 degrees for 35-45 minutes.  Test using a toothpick, the toothpick should come out with no crumbs or batter sticking to it.  Cool for 30 minutes in the pan.  Gently loosen the sides to make getting slices out easier, but you can leave it in the pan.  Mix the glaze by starting with the powdered sugar substitute.  Add the lemon zest and slowly add the lemon juice or lemon extract and milk until it's the right consistency.  It should be thinner than icing, but thick enough to drizzle, but not too drippy.  Spread evenly along the top of the pound cake.  Slice and eat!

This makes around 8 slices - 269 calories each, 5.6 grams carbohydrates, 2 grams fiber.  Bear in mind, I'm not counting any of the Swerve "sugar alcohols" as carbohydrates in recipes that call for that since most diets don't count it and it doesn't get processed into blood sugar like regular sugar does.  The "carb counts" in this are mainly from the almond flour.

Nacho Salad - wheat free/grain free

Nacho Salad

Lately I've been craving nachos - but because I've cut out corn as well as wheat and sugar, nachos is off my list (nachos are off my list?).  So I came up with an alternative - Nacho Salad.  Instead of the corn chips, I used romaine lettuce.  I also threw on some "spring mix" lettuce because I happened to have it, but they didn't hold their shape with the hot chili and cheese, but the romaine did great, still nice and crunchy.  So next time, I'd stick with just the romaine and not add anything else.

1 C Romaine Lettuce
1 C chili (see post from May 19th)
2 T salsa (I used pace medium)
1/4 C cheddar cheese, grated
5-6 pickled jalapeno slices
1 T sour cream - watch labels here, many sour creams are mostly other "stuff" like bean curd or guar gum.  Look for ones that have just cream in the ingredients.

Heat the chili in a separate container, meanwhile, loosely chop lettuce and layer it on a large plate.  Top with chili, salsa and cheese.  If the cheese doesn't melt from the heat of the chili, stick it back in the microwave for a few seconds (not too long, or the lettuce will wilt).  Dot the top with jalapeno slices and sour cream.

The chili had 211 calories (including beans) with 17 carbs.  Adding the rest of the ingredients here brings it to a total of 377 calories, 22 carbs, 3 grams fiber.

Almond Joy Fudge - redo - wheat free/sugar free/dairy free

Almond Joy Fudge - redo

A short while ago I tried making fudge out of an 85% dark chocolate bar, sugar substitute (Swerve), coconut oil and almonds.  It turned out good, but not quite what I had in mind.  At room temperature it was too soft and kept refrigerated it was harder than fudge (more like a chocolate bar).  It was still yummy and I ate the whole thing, but I thought I'd give it another try, this time using canned coconut milk instead of the coconut oil.

1/2 of a 14 oz can coconut milk
1/2 C Swerve, Truvia or other sugar substitute
3/4 C chopped almonds
2 - 3 oz bars 85% dark chocolate

Melt the sugar substitute into the coconut milk over medium heat in a sauce pan.  Cook, stirring until reduced by about half.  This makes a really good substitute for sweetened condensed milk, so if you want, double the recipe using the whole can and 1 C sweetener and use the rest of it in place of sweetened condensed milk in other recipes (key lime pie comes to mind, I may try that and post a recipe later).

Stir in chocolate bars and almonds until chocolate melts and pour into a plastic wrap covered long, shallow container.

Cool in the refrigerator overnight.  Cut into pieces and store in the refrigerator.

Neither recipe turned out to have as much of a coconut flavor as I anticipated, they are more like regular almond nut fudge, but still pretty good for sugar free, dairy free and wheat free!

Makes about 15 pieces, each have 129 calories, 14 grams carbohydrates, 2 grams fiber.

Egg Drop Soup - Wheat Free/Grain Free/Dairy Free

Egg Drop Soup

Today I woke up with a nasty cold and chicken soup sounded really good.  But I didn't have energy to spend hours chopping, cooking, etc.  And I didn't really feel like sipping plain chicken broth, but then it occurred to me, egg drop soup takes literally less than two minutes to make once the broth boils.  It was so good this is pretty much what I ate for both breakfast and lunch today.

3 Cups Chicken Broth

2 T Diced Vegetables

1 t sesame oil

1 egg

Start 3 Cups Chicken Broth (I just used 3 Cups water and 3 teaspoons gluten free, calorie free bouillon) boiling in a small pot on the stove.  Meanwhile, if you have leftover veggies you can use them.  I didn't, so I chopped up one small carrot and a slice off an onion - took me less than a minute.  Drizzle about a teaspoon of sesame oil (this gives it that "Chinese" smell) and microwaved them for 30 seconds until they were soft.  Add them to the boiling broth.   Beat the egg and while the broth is still boiling, slowly drizzle the egg into the boiling broth.

Serves 3 - 75 calories, 1.5 carbohydrates per serving.