Attempt to win over a non-low-carb person with an attractive keto recipe falls a little short

(Michael Wallace Ellwood) #1

I’m not really a recipe kind of guy. I can happily ring the changes with steak, lamb chops or a lamb joint, eggs, butter, and occasional liver and kidney, day in day out and never get bored.

However, I’m gently trying to steer my other half towards a more low-carb, and eventually keto way of life, and (call it instinct, or call it when she keeps saying "you eat too much meat!..) something tells me that encouraging her to eat exactly like me isn’t going to quite cut it.

So I thought I’d better check out some keto recipes and try to be a bit more inventive with cooking.

I heard Richard describing his cream cheese spinach, and I thought that sounds good and so easy even I could manage it.

Well, I couldn’t find all the ingredients, so I had to approximate/extemporise a bit, but my biggest mistake was forgetting that spinach shrinks drastically when cooked. Fortunately, I had also included some kale that we had in the fridge, and by pure luck, the stalks were lovely and crunchy, and gave the thing a nice mouth-feel, and helped to bulk out the insufficient spinach.

Well, give her her due, she did agree to try it, and said it tasted quite good, but then said:

“…this would make a great topping on a baked potato…”.

Doh!

Well, anyway, she did make quite a good fist of eating it, although couldn’t quite finish it, so I finished it for her…and then had difficulty finishing my own! My word, that stuff is filling (in a good way).

BTW, a question to fellow UK-ers: Have you ever found onion powder or garlic powder in the supermarket? Nearest I could find was garlic salt. I don’t fear salt, but prefer to add it separately. This was Waitrose. For any UK-er who has no problem finding it, where was it, and if a supermarket, which section? (I was looking in the herb and spices section).

A similar question, although not for that recipe: do we have almond flour in the UK?
Ground almonds, yes, but it’s not as fine as flour is it, and wouldn’t work in quite the same way would it?

(Admittedly, my wife has made a Torte de Santiago several times using ground almonds (which would be good, except that that was with sugar - maybe one day I can get her to make it with a “safe”(?) sweetener of some kind, but I’m not going to risk it now at what I consider is still a fairly delicate stage of my keto journey).

(Stickin' with mammoth) #2

(shudder) How to live without garlic powder? My morning eggs would never be the same!

If you could order it from somewhere, you could immediately seal up half in a very airtight container and set to using the rest. Hoarding is good.

(Barbara Greenwood) #3

I have garlic powder… it’s either Tesco or Sainsbury’s own brand, but can’t check at the mo as I’m not at home.

Yes, we do have almond flour. I’ve got it from Holland &Barrett, but decidedly not cheap. I bought it when on a buy one get one half price offer. People say you can use ground almonds (which are a lot cheaper) and it works as well in most recipes.

(bulkbiker) #4

yes ground almonds work for me exactly like almond flour… I used them in Carlshead Pizza and they were fine… if you think they are a bit to rough ground then just wizz them up in a food processor to make them finer.

#5

If you have trouble finding dried garlic, you can make roasted garlic paste, and store in fridge. Take a head of garlic, don’t peel it, roast in oven. Then squeeze out the roasted garlic pulp from individual cloves (as you would a tube of tooth paste).

(Stickin' with mammoth) #6

Can you make your own flour from unblanched almonds or does it wreck the chemistry of the recipe?

(Jan) #7

Yes ! Roasted garlic is a must-have for me. I roast several whole heads (5 -10 at a time), squish out the roasted cloves, then freeze them. They thaw quickly, and are always at hand for whatever you are cooking. I mashed some up with fresh rosemary & sea salt the other day, then added the paste to flax seed/chia cracker batter…yum.

#8

Home ground almonds usually only gets to the almond meal grind (coarse grind) while super fine almond flour is done with equipment suited for finer grind. It will change the texture of the final baked goods. It can still work, but you need to be ready to make adjustments (possibly, not always) as coarse grind doesn’t absorb liquid as much as fine grind.

Grinding whole almonds is ok. Doesn’t change the chemistry, just the appearance a bit with brown specks (not a bad thing, I don’t mind that at all).

(Stickin' with mammoth) #9

Excellent. If I grind and sift, grind and sift with my food processor, would that yield viable flour? I’m assuming the almond skins are fiber rather than carbs, and I like hedging my macro bets that way.

#10

Yes, sifting would create a finer almond grind and come very close to flour, and maybe even equivalent to what you can buy.

#11

Buy the way, if you are up to removing the skins, easiest way to do it is flash poach (dunk in boiling water for a few seconds). Put them in a cloth towel, and rub off softened skin.

(Stickin' with mammoth) #12

Yee-haw. Because Trader Joe’s almonds are way cheap.

Wait, do they need to be toasted?

(bulkbiker) #13

Just found some waitrose garlic granules in the cupboard… threw them in with scallops and prawns and butter and dried chillis… damn that was good… have some bacon with it… now just have to work out the macros…forgot to weigh them…

(Stickin' with mammoth) #14

Holy crap, that sounds amazing!

As I’m on the coast, more or less, it’s kind of shocking that I haven’t taken a bash at a creamy seafood chowder yet.

(looks at bank statement)

Okay, now I remember why.

(bulkbiker) #15

not the cheapest meal and pretty high protein. I have just started monitoring my macros and this one was not a great meal although very enjoyable!

(Stickin' with mammoth) #16

Hey, every once in a while, you gotta be king.

(Michelle) #17

Here is a video on how to make your own almond flour

(Stickin' with mammoth) #18

I love him!

(Michelle) #19

Love the name of this thread! :smile:

I’m working on my cooking prowess, and until I get better, I’m not attempting the sharing.

(jketoscribe) #20

A better way to make almond flour is to make almond milk and then dry and grind the resulting pulp. Simply grinding almonds yields a fattier meal that doesn’t work as well as almond flour.