I love those cheese cracker sandwiches with peanut butter inside of them, and could easily eat a dozen before I thought about it, if I let myself. Which, of course, I don't. So I wanted something that might be reminiscent of those, that was cheap'n'easy of course, but a little better than cheese baked until crisp and schmeared with peanut butter. And these little gems definitely fill the bill!

2c finely shredded cheese (I used mild cheddar - next time I'll use sharp)
1c light peanut flour
2 flax eggs
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
hot water

Line a 14x20 baking sheet with parchment paper; spray with nonstick cooking spray

Toss first 2 ingredients in a mixing bowl; add the next 3 ingredients and mix well with hands to form a soft dough - if dough is stiff or crumbly, add hot water by the tablespoonful until it is soft enough to work with easily.

Spread dough on parchment-lined pan; pat down as flat as possible with wet hands; cover with sprayed plastic wrap; roll out until dough is thin and even; this will take the dough all the way to the edges of the pan and shape it naturally into a rectangle about 1/8" thick.

Place in 175 degree oven overnight. Break apart to eat. (If you want perfect squares, wait until crackers are set but not crisp and score with a knife. I don't care about perfect squares.)

These hold up to being spread with room temp butter or cream cheese or peanut butter. They are also great topped with some tuna salad or, I'd imagine, any other kind of salad. And they are great all by themselves!

It took me about 10 minutes to make the recipe, from lining the pan to putting them in the oven. Very very easy, and definitely worth the time!

The entire recipe has about 18gN carbs and cost me a little less than $2 to make. So far it has lasted - just stored at room temp on the countertop - 5 days and we've nibbled and munched our way through about 3/4 of them.



 
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This was a GREAT supper! What you see here is creamed spinach, cheesy caulimash, half of a NY strip steak, and sauteed onion!

For the spinach, it's simply chopped frozen spinach, cooked, with butter, sea salt, and then onion chip dip mixed in. (I am using chip dip instead of sour cream a LOT lately - so much more flavor! And Kent Altena recently recorded a video about how make your own!)

The caulimash is kind of pink because I added ham which I chopped in the food processor and it turned it all pink. But who cares, it was SO GOOD! I also added butter and LOTS of shredded Monterey Jack cheese...I have some left over which I'm looking forward to digging into for a snack later! (As you can see I added a big hunk of butter on my plate, as well as to the spinach. Everything is better with butter!)

The onions I just put in the electric fryer, sliced, with some olive oil over medium low, covered them, and let them cook until soft, stirring occasionally. When they were soft and starting to brown I moved them to the side and cooked the steak in there; by then the onions were started to get really dark (like we like them!). I of course took the fatty half of the steak!

This was a dinner that wasn't as cheap as most but I wanted to make something special, and this was definitely it!

 
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I started the day with some cheese melted in butter with bacon, so naturally I wasn't hungry for many hours. Later this afternoon I nibbled on some ham slathered with full fat mayo.

Tonight I didn't want a huge supper so this was it. Tuna salad (just canned tuna, mayo, and some chopped onion) on a slice of store-bought low carb bread (which I hardly EVER eat!), with some slices of swiss on top, put under the broiler. And some frozen cauliflower chunks, tossed with olive oil and sea salt, put on the top shelf of the oven @ 400; tossed when starting to brown with parmesan (from the can) and garlic powder, then left until golden brown with crispy bits.

A lot of food on my plate, too much for me actually, but have plenty of leftover cauliflower to reheat for snacking tomorrow.

Sometimes the simplest meals are the best!

 
I have been eating more than usually low carb/high fat lately. For almost 3 weeks actually, with only 2 carbier* meals during that entire time. I'm down 13#. Golly - wasn't expecting THAT! Thought I'd take off 20# or so, but now I'm not so sure, as just with the 13# I'm dealing with increasing saggy flab and I hate that so much, it is the whole reason I choose not to lose any more weight than I already have.

But if I eat the way I feel the best, I automatically lose. Whether I want to or not. Since my Nissen Fundoplication 2 years ago, I tend to lose weight more easily. I lost 40# in the 7 months following that surgery and I was eating more carbs during that time as well; I've been gaining/losing by a few pounds ever since, depending on how in balance my macronutrients are. The lower the carbs/higher the fat, the more I lose - and the better I feel, of course...but I'd rather be at a higher weight than bumping my tummy skin with my knees when I walk!

Anyway, not sure how this will all turn out, maybe I'll keep the weight loss going (keeping the fat content this high is NOT EASY but it means my weight goes down easily) until I can't stand the flab anymore. Or maybe I'll change my mind again...all I know is that we are eating so well these last few weeks - like royalty! And it's all low carb/high fat, delicious, cheap, and easy!

* to me, a "carbier" meal means one that either has one carby food in it, or has more carbs than I would usually eat in a meal. Carbier doesn't mean going crazy and eating every carby food in sight. I usually do have 1 carbier meal every week.
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This was our breakfast/lunch today. And it was DELICIOUS! My 3YO grandson had his with ranch dressing; he eats EVERYTHING with ranch dressing! As you can see, it is very cheesy. But this is a teaser. I plan to do a post showing how it was done the next time I make it. So you'll have to wait until then...sorry!

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This was our supper tonight. Meatloaf, baby corn, and mashed "taters" with lots of cheese and butter.

The meat loaf was just ground beef with finely chopped onion, crushed porkies (pork rinds), an egg, some of my ketchup, and seasoned salt. 

The baby corn (just 10gN for the whole can!) always tastes just a tiny bit pickled to me. So tonight I rinsed it, added just a drop of EZSweetz to about 1/4c of melted butter with some salt, and simmered it in that. It helped.

The "taters" are from a box. Once or twice a month we have them as a guilty treat. They're probably awful for us, but we're not paleo eaters, just low carbers, so we do indulge. There are 17gN per serving; doesn't matter - they're great! You could, of course, sub fauxtatoes with cauliflower, as I usually do.

Between these 2 meals I've been full all day. No snacks, no need for anything else except coffee, tea, and water.

Is it so awful that I love my own cooking so very much???

 
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This was our Christmas Dinner. The sandwich wasn't low carb. Well, it wasn't TOO bad, at about 30gN per big slice of bread. You can see how huge it was on this 9" plate - I ate half of a sandwich (or 1 slice). The bread was sourdough, and it was fried in loads of butter, with 5 kinds of cheese inside. And that's all I'll say about that!

Parenthetical note, without the parentheses: On special days, when I eat carbier, like Christmas, I still try to keep my total carbs under 100gN. Today I had probably half of that. Just a steak for supper later. YAY for me!

I've posted a tomato soup recipe before, and it will end up here eventually, as I'm still working - but not very hard - at moving all of my recipes here from my old blog. Anyway, I made it differently today, and I think it's even better!


Here is how I made today's version:

2 large cans crushed tomatoes (NOTE: if you are here from the NF group and want to eat this during early healing, substitute tomato sauce so there are no chunks or seeds!)
1 big can of tomato juice
24 oz container of full fat ricotta cheese
7 drops EZSweetz (or equivalent)
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp salt
1 tsp white pepper
1 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp garlic powder
2 Tbsp dried basil flakes
2Tbsp balsamic vinegar
pint of half'n'half
grated asiago for garnish

Using a BIG pot (mine was bigger than a dutch oven and about 2/3 full), warm the first 2 ingredients until they steam, stirring to prevent scorching; this will make the cheese melt more easily.

Whisk in the ricotta cheese until fully melted.

Whisk in remaining ingredients EXCEPT half'n'half and asiago; keep whisking as you bring soup back up to a simmer.

When fully blended and starting to simmer (it will be pretty thick at this point) stir in the half'n'half and return to a simmer. Once it is simmering, lower heat to medium low, cover, and let simmer, stirring occasionally, for 15-20 minutes.

Ladle into soup bowls; grate asiago cheese over the top.



 
I will start moving my recipes here from my blogger pages, and hope to have them all moved by the end of the year. I will also save the entire blog from over there to a pdf file, which I will make available for download, if anyone would like it. It will contain my menus, past shopping lists/costs, and general lowcarb-related posts; I don't think that the program I'll be using will save all of the comments that were posted to the blog, I'm sorry about that...

As of the 1st of the year (2013) I will be blogging only here, and no longer at my blogger site.  In the meantime, what you see here will be copies of the recipes I had there, ordered by date as they were originally, and I plan to add some photos as well, if I have them available. (I'm usually too impatient to take pictures of my meals before I eat them!)

And that's that :).

 
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Tonight I made a "triple meat" dish. Sounds strange but was SO GOOD! As always, super easy...not as always, a little pricier - but I didn't have to buy the can of crab meat ($2! I'd never buy it!)

I started with b/s chicken thighs, which I flattened. Onto each piece I put a generous blob (technical culinary term) of a mixture of cream cheese and crab meat - 1 block and 1 can, respectively. Then I rolled them up, wrapped them in bacon, and stuffed them - literally - in a Pyrex loaf pan; after 90 minutes in a 325 oven they were done. SO EASY but fancy-looking and delicious! No seasoning required.

With it I served some Dreamfield's penne pasta tossed with chopped spinach and butter, seasoned with sea salt, and sprinkled some Italian blend shredded cheese.

GREAT MEAL!

 
I know it says breasts but I think it would be great with thighs also...I had breasts I'd just gotten on sale though (99¢/lb) so I used those.

For the stuffing I combined equal parts (maybe a couple of Tbsp each) of full-fat cream cheese, butter, and parmesan from the green can. Then I mashed in about a Tbsp of Knorr's Alfredo sauce mix.

I took the resulting glop and, after separating the skin from the meat to make a pocket, stuffed the breasts. (I didn't think of it, but afterward I realized I could have cut slits into the meat to get the flavor even more into it.) After all 4 were stuffed, I brushed the tops with olive oil and put them into a 375º oven; because the breasts were enormous, it took them nearly an hour to get done.

But OHHHHHHH were they worth it! The meat was so juicy, and infused with the flavors of the stuffing...it was AMAZING!!!