Orange Coconut Pecan Pancakes

I made these this morning and they were wonderful. I hope that you enjoy them as much as I did. When I tested my blood glucose 2 hours after eating them it was only 96. This recipe is a keeper.

Orange Coconut Pecan Pancakes

3 Tablespoons Wheat Gluten (5g)

2 Tablespoons Heavy Whipping Cream (0.8g)

1Tablespoon Oil

1/2 Teaspoon Baking Power (0.35g)

2 Eggs (1.2g)

1 packet of Splenda

Few shakes of Cinnamon if desired

1 teaspoon pure vanilla

½ teaspoon McCormick Valencia Orange Peel

2 Tablespoons coconut (unsweetened)

2 Tablespoons chopped pecans

Mix first 8 items in a bowl with whisk. Stir in remaining three ingredients and mix well. I use a nonstick pan and still spray with Pam to prevent sticking. Cook as you would normal pancakes.

This is a serving for one person.

Beer Braised Beef

Mike and I put this in the crockpot while we were busy painting the dining room and kitchen on Saturday. We had a huge snow storm and while most of our neighbors were playing in the snow we tried to get a lot done on our never ending kitchen remodeling project. The entire day we kept commenting on how wonderful this recipe smelled while cooking. The scent was overwhelming at times. While we did enjoy the recipe I think that the cooking time was a bit off from the cookbook that I got this from. I found that the spices were a bit dulled and the texture was a bit overdone. Instead of cooking 5.5-6 hours I would only do 4 hours next time. I think that would make it perfect. I would also add more onion than it calls for and add carrots so I am adding those in the recipe below.

Beer Braised Beef

4 strips of bacon, diced

2 pounds beef stew meat, cut into 1 inch cubes

1/2 teaspoon pepper

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 onions- cut into wedges

1/2 a bag of carrots cut into coin shaped discs

1 teaspoon minced garlic

1 bay leaf

1 can (12 ounces) beer- low carb

1 Tablespoon soy sauce

1 Tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

1 teaspoon dried thyme

2 Tablespoons all-purpose flour

1/2 cup cold water

In a large skillet, cook bacon until crisp. Remove to paper towels: drain, discarding drippings, Sprinkle beef with pepper and salt. In the same skillet, brown beef in 1 Tablespoon of bacon drippings. Transfer to 5 quart crock pot.

Add the remaining ingredients except for the flour and water. Mix thoroughly and cook on low for 4 hours.

In a small bow, combine flour and water until smooth. Gradually stir into slow cooker. Cover: cook on high 30 minutes or until thickened. Only took 20 minutes for me. Discard bay leaf and serve.

Moroccan Steak

A few weeks ago while shopping with Donna I bought a large bottle of VH brand of Moroccan Spice Blend at Home Goods. I searched online and found recipes that could help me with finding a recipe to use these seasonings. I found one that I thought would work. Mike and I were pleasantly surprised with the results. The picture is not appealing so I won’t be sharing it with this recipe. Sorry folks. I don’t need Samantha coming after me like she did with another recipe. She can be vicious. LOL

Moroccan Steak

4 large tenderloin steaks

2 teaspoons dried parsley, finally chopped

1/3 cup olive oil

1/2 small onion, grated

1 Tablespoon tomato paste

1 Tablespoon vinegar

2 1/2 teaspoons of Moroccan Spice Blend

Mix all but the first ingredient in a bowl and spread liberally over the steaks. Place in crockpot on low for 5-6 hours until steaks are tender.

Rotisserie Style Crockpot Chicken

Mike and I did enjoy this recipe but I am still looking for the perfect blend of spices to make the Rotisserie Style Chicken that I get at my local Walmart. In a pinch this recipe will do. I do love the website that this came from and will provide the link to it and not post the recipe as I made it exactly as she had written it.  This very interesting lady spent the entire year of 2008 making a different crockpot recipe each day and adding it to her blog. While many of them are not low carb many of them are. You have to pick and choose which fit your lifestyle and health needs. 

http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/2008/10/crockpot-rotisserie-style-chicken.html

Doesn’t this look yummy? Very tender and exactly the same texture as Rotisserie Chicken but with less mess. Be sure to use balled aluminum foil in the bottom to keep the chicken from sitting in the juices while it cooks.

Pepper Beef Roast

This is one of those recipes that is very good the first day but after it sits in the fridge it is twice as good the next. For this I suggest doubling the recipe if at all possible. When Donna came by today to get her “cheeto hug” from Caleb she tried this and said she would be making it too.

For this recipe you will need Sugar Twin brand of brown sugar. This is a sugar substitute that it is very good in recipes.   We can only find it at Foodland in our state so you may have to order it online or see if your store can check into getting it for you.

Pepper Beef Roast

1 boneless beef roast 3-4 pounds

1/2 cup ketchup

3 Tablespoons Sugar Twin Brown Sugar Substitute

1 Tablespoon ground mustard

1 Tablespoon lime juice

2 teaspoons celery salt

2 teaspoons pepper

2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1 teaspoon onion powder

1 teaspoon Liquid Smoke

1/8 teaspoon Tabasco sauce

Cut roast in half and place in a 6 quart slow cooker. Combine remaining ingredients and pour over roast. Cover and cook on low for 8-9 hours or until meat is tender. Use forks and shred beef.

I made this in my programmable crockpot since I work and have to be out of the house for more than 8-9 hours each day. With the programmable crockpot it switches to keep warm once the time has run out for cooking. I found that by it going to warm for such a long amount of time after cooking that it became a bit hard on the outside while the inside was wonderful. After sitting overnight in the fridge the leftovers seemed to have softened the meat and I did not find any hard spots. I will be making this again but will probably wait to do this on the weekend so that I don’t need to use the keep warm feature.

Apple Dijon Pork Roast

I want to be totally honest and say that I loved this recipe but Mike hated it. I think it was the apple flavoring that did him in. As I have mentioned before he is a meat and potatoes and pinto bean kind of guy and seldom strays from that course. I did enjoy this and will probably make it again for myself when he has leftovers to finish off.

The original recipe was in the Taste of Home Slow Cooker Classics Cookbook. I had to change the apple juice to apple flavored drink. What I did was purchase the single drink size packets from Walmart of their imitation of Crystal Light. I bought the apple flavor and instead of mixing it with 16 ounces of water I mixed it with 8 to make it more concentrated.  This eliminated a lot of the carbs without changing the flavor of the recipe.

The recipe calls for using cornstarch to make a gravy with the pan drippings. After figuring out how very little of the gravy you would actually use I came to this having about 1 carb per serving.  Just look at how good this looks.

Apple-Dijon Pork Roast

1 boneless whole pork loin roast (2-3 pounds)

1 14.5 ounce can of chicken broth

1 cup of apple flavor drink (see above instructions on this)

1.2 cup Dijon mustard

6 tablespoons cornstarch

6 Tablespoons cold water

Cut roast in half; place in a 5-quart slow cooker. Combine the broth, apple juice and mustard; pour over roast. Cover and cook on low for 4- 4.5 hours.

Remove roast and keep warm. For gravy, strain cooking juices and skim fat. Pour juices into a saucepan. Combine cornstarch and water until smooth; gradually stir into juices. Bring to a boil; cook and stir for 2 minutes or until thickened. Serve with pork.  Lightly drizzle on top.

Snickerdoodles

I am in a cookie mood. I guess the holidays do go hand in hand with always having cookies. Now that I am a Diabetic I feel the need to find low carb options for my cookie cravings. I searched online for many recipes and after checking out the carb count decided which ones were worth my sharing my precious carb count on. Many sounded wonderful but I am not about to use 6 carbs on a single cookie. For this reason I chose Snickerdoodles from this website.

http://kalynskitchen.blogspot.com/2005/10/attempting-low-carb-dessert-recipea.html

I swear that I could not tell the difference between these cookies and the sugar laden cookies that I had before I was diagnosed with Diabetes. These were excellent. The only changes that I made with the recipe was that I used Parchment paper to bake them on. Instead of leaving them in a ball on the cookie sheet I flattened them in my hand to the size of a quarter and then dipped the tops of the cookies in the Splenda and Cinnamon mixture prior to baking.

 LOW CARB SNICKERDOODLES
(from Recipezaar.com, makes 15-20 cookies)

1/2 cup butter at room temperature (1 stick)
1 1/2 cups almond flour
1 cup granular Splenda
1 egg
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. cream of tartar

for rolling cookies:
2 T granular Splenda
1 tsp. ground cinnamon

In mixing bowl, beat butter with electric mixer about 30 seconds. Add half almond flour, 1 cup Splenda, egg, vanilla, baking soda, and cream of tartar and blend well with mixer until thoroughly combined. Beat in the rest of the almond flour, cover bowl and chill one hour.

Preheat oven to 350. Cover cookie sheet with parchment paper. Combine 2 T Splenda and cinnamon in small dish. Shape dough into quarter size circles and dip the tops of each cookie in cinnamon-Splenda mix and put on cookie sheet 2 inches apart.

Bake 12 minutes.

 

Sofrito Chicken

I got the original recipe from The Everyday Low-Carb Slow Cooker Cookbook. I love this book but do have to change a few ingredients to please my husband. He is a stubborn man when it comes to food.

This was a very good and easy recipe. The recipe calls for 3 celery stalks cut into thin slices. We both found this to be way too much celery. I think next time I will just add celery flakes to the recipe and omit the celery all together. It also calls for chicken thighs. We do not care for chicken thighs so we used boneless chicken tenders. So the recipe below will be what I do.

Sofrito is a blend of tomatoes, green peppers, onions, garlic, olives and seasonings.

Sofrito Chicken

2 Tablespoons Olive Oil

2/3 cup Sofrito (purchased at Kroger’s in the ethnic aisle next to the Mexican food items)

2 Tablespoons minced garlic

1 teaspoon celery flakes

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

2 pounds of frozen boneless chicken tenders

Grease the slow cooker crock with spray Pam. Place frozen chicken tenders in the bottom of the crock. In a bow mix all of the remaining ingredients and pour over the chicken. Cook on low for 8 hours.

Simple Mexican Wraps

I saw this on the Ravelry Message Board and it was wonderful. You can see the original recipe here.

http://www.ravelry.com/discuss/crockpot-love/283460/376-400#387

Just look at this picture. Doesn’t it look good? I am wanting it now. So many recipes and so little time to enjoy them all. lol Mike really enjoyed this meat but he didn’t make them into wraps. He ate the meat as it was and of course had his usual sides of mashed potatoes and pinto beans. That man is so stubborn. It is a good thing that he isn’t a Diabetic like I am. I can’t imagine him giving up his potatoes.

Simple Mexican Wraps

2-3 pound Pot Roast

2 cups beef broth

2 packets of taco seasoning

1/2 onion

2 cloves of garlic

I put the slices of onion in the bottom of the crock and placed the pot roast on top of that.  I poured the beef broth on top and then sprinkled the taco seasoning and garlic on top of the roast so that it was completely covered. I cooked on low for 8 hours and with forks shredded the meat to make the wraps.

I used low carb tortillas and added salsa, cheddar cheese, tomatoes and black olives. You could add sour cream if you prefer. These were very yummy.

Beef, Bean and Bacon Stew

We had to make some drastic changes to this recipe. It was good but Mike and I kept talking about what could make it even better and what we felt was missing. We came up with the recipe below and were very pleased. Mike had his “Jethro” size bowls of it for two evenings. This is one of those recipes that will please both the low carber and the non-low carber.

We both wanted more veggies and bacon in the recipe and felt that the beef was a bit too much. The original recipe only called for 2 slices of bacon. We could not even taste it in the dish. The original recipe called for Kidney Beans. Mike hates Kidney Beans and since Pinto Beans have the same carb count I went with that. It is your choice. What we came up with on the second try is what is below.

 

Beef, Bean and Bacon Stew

cooking spray

1/4 cup olive oil

2 pounds beef stew meat, fat trimmed

2 teaspoons minced garlic

2 medium onions, chopped

1/2 bag of pre-sliced carrots on the diagonal (I am for speed and comfort)

2 large celery stalks, chopped into small pieces

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

1 14.5 ounch can diced tomatoes (undrained)

1/2 cup beef broth

2 teaspoons Worcestershire Sauce

1 1/2 teaspoons ground thyme

1 bay leaf

1 Tablespoon quick-cooking tapioca

1 can pinto beans drained and rinsed

half a pound of bacon, cooked and roughly chopped

Coat the inside of the slow cooker crock with cooking spray and set aside.

In a large skillet, over medium heat, warm the olive oil. Add beef and garlic and brown them. Remove from heat and place mixture in slow cooker crock.

Return the pan to the heat, add onions, carrots, celery, salt and pepper and cook until onions are softened.

To the slow cooker crock, add the tomatoes, beef broth, wine, Worcestershire sauce, thyme, bay leaf and tapioca. Stir to combine.

Add the reserved vegetables and stir to combine all ingredients. Cover and cook on low for 7 hours. Stir in the pinto beans and bacon. Cook an additional hour more. Before serving, remove bay leaf.