Enjoy!

Written for kids as a super hero story (think Little Einsteins) this colorful book explains in kid lingo why (and how) to eat this way, and gets them invested in the process by involving them in both the selection and preparation of their own nutritious food. Kids–boys and girls–love to cook and even when they’re so small they need a stool to reach the counter, there are ways for them to help. To get the ball rolling, the book contains 10 or so easy and tasty paleo food recipes (i.e. without grains, dairy, or legumes) that will seem familiar to your kids — Paleo Pal Pancakes, Apple Sandwiches, Energizing Egg Mini ‘Muffins’– each with specific instructions for how even little kids can safely help.

I was fortunate enough to get two reviewer copies, one of which is going to my grandkids in Dallas and the other to my grandkids in Santa Barbara. I think it’s the perfect way to introduce kids to a healthy paleo lifestyle. After all, isn’t childhood a much better and more effective time to adopt good eating habits? Wiser by far to prevent the diseases of civilization by a lifetime of healthy eating than to be in the position of having to reverse or control them after a lifetime of damage!

Singled out in this week-long tequila fest, is the actual National Margarita Day, February 22, which means that our nation’s founding father, George Washington shares his birthday with Mexico’s greatest (or at least most famous) contribution to the cocktail lexicon.

So what better time to enjoy a tasty adult libation…or two? Easy to pimp lower carb for a SplendaRita (or if you prefer SteviaRita) by simply replacing half the Cointreau with water plus a packet of sweetener. (Or if you’re really keeping a tight rein on carbs and can’t even spare enough for the lime juice and tablespoon of liqueur, go for the No Carb mix version.)

Have a safe and sane National Margarita Week!

Well, here’s an adaptation of the traditional Italian (Piemontese) custard dessert called bounet that will fill that gap nicely. A true traditional bounet is like a chocolate amaretto flan, with a burnt caramel sauce that spills over the top. To my knowledge, there’s no good way to make a burnt Splenda caramel sauce. (I am not saying it’s out of the realm of possibility; I just don’t know how to do it and if you do know, please share it with the rest of us, here!) So, to give us all the taste of a bounet without all the carbs, here’s my adaptation. I’ve written sous vide instructions for those of you with a SousVide Supreme, followed by instructions for a traditional oven. Either way, it’s a sweet winner!

Low Carb Amaretto Chocolate Crème Brulee
Serves 4

Butter for the ramekins
10 ounces (350 ml) half and half
2 ounces (60ml) Amaretto di Sorrono liqueur
2 tablelspoons (25 g) cocoa powder, plus a bit more for decoration
1 tablespoon (15 ml) good vanilla extract
1/2 cup (100 g) granulated Splenda*
5 egg yolks
4 teaspoons (20 ml) Splenda Brown Sugar Blend (or regular brown or white sugar)

*Or use your favorite non-caloric sweetener, in an amount sufficient to impart the sweetening power of ½ cup sugar.

1.Elevate the perforated bottom grill of the SousVide Supreme water oven by placing it atop a non-rusting wire cooking rack or adjustable V-roasting rack.
2. Fill the ramekins you will use to cook your brulee with water and position them on the perforated bottom rack of the SousVide Supreme™ .
3. Fill the machine with just enough water to come within ½ inch (1.25 cm) of the top of the ramekin. Remove and empty the ramekins, dry them well, and generously butter their interiors.
4. Preheat the SousVide Supreme to 185F-194F/85-90C.
5. In a bowl, whisk the egg yolks with the sweetener until the granules have dissolved and the yolks are a pale yellow cream (about 2 minutes).
6. Add the cocoa powder, amaretto, vanilla, and milk to the egg mixture and whisk until all the ingredients of the custard are mixed.
7. Pour the custard mixture into the ramekins and carefully place them onto the perforated grill in the water oven.
8. Cook for 45 minutes to 1 hour with the lid on the water bath.
9. When the custards have set (a knife blade inserted into one should come out clean) remove the ramekins from the water bath and let them cool to room temperature.

For serving:

1. Sprinkle 1 teaspoon (5 ml) of Splenda Brown Sugar Blend (or regular brown or white sugar for a few more carbs) over the surface of each custard.
2. Use a kitchen torch to caramelize the topping.
3. Put each ramekin onto a dessert plate, dust a bit of cocoa over the plate, and serve.

Carbohydrate content per serving will be a shade under 10 grams, made with the blended brown sugar sweetener as the brulee topping. Full strength brown or white sugar will add 2.5 grams per serving and leaving off the brulee topping will save 2.5 grams per serving. Your call!

For those without a SousVide Supreme water oven (and if you don’t have one, what better Valentine’s gift could you have??) here are the traditional instructions:

1. Preheat the traditional oven to 300F/150C.
2. Generously butter 4 ramekins and set them into a shallow baking pan.
3. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks until they are pale yellow.
4. In a saucepan over medium heat, mix the half and half, cocoa, and sweetener, and cook, stirring often, until tendrils of steam begin to rise from the surface.
5. Whisking the egg yolks constantly, gradually dribble some of the hot cream into them to temper. After a few additions of cream, add the remainder of it and whisk together. (If you are a real purist, strain the mixture through a fine-mesh sieve to remove any strings of egg yolk from the custard mixture.)
6. Stir the amaretto and vanilla into the custard mixture and divide it evenly among the buttered ramekins.
7. Put the baking pan into the oven and fill the pan with hot water, sufficient to come half way up the side of the ramekins.)
8. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes. The custard should shake like jelly when you tap the ramekin.
9. Remove the custard from the oven and when cool, cover and refrigerate.

Finish for serving as per instructions above.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Caramel Hot Chocolate
1 serving

6 ounces (180 mo) Blue Diamond Unsweetened Chocolate Almond Milk
1/2 ounce (15 ml) Torani Sugar Free Caramel Syrup

Put the ingredients into a microwave safe mug and heat on high until warm. How long depends on your microwave, but should be between 60 to 120 seconds. Remember: time will vary depending on whether you’re heating from room temperature or refrigerator temperature.

Alternatively, you can make it in bigger batches, though for that I would not recommend heating it in the microwave. Rather, heat it in a pan on the stove top, in a slow cooker, or if you have one, in a zip pouch in your SousVide Supreme water oven at 160F to 180F, depending on how hot you like your cocoa.

Enjoy!

But now that we’re committed to the journey, I’m busy looking for easy, savory recipes, particularly for acceptable side dishes, that will keep us on the path and still satisfy. And I ran across one in my clip file that is quite simply delicious. It appeared in a column by Lee Svitak Dean titled Flavors of Fall picked up from McClatchy a couple of years ago in our local daily bugle and I clipped it and put it away to try and then completely forgot about it. I tried it the other night and it is, to quote Rachael Ray, YUM-O. As Ms. Dean says, they taste like green french fries! Here it is:

ROASTED GREEN BEANS
From Come One Come All, by Lee Svitak Dean
Serves 6

Why is it that the concept of roasted beans sounds so foreign? These are wonderful, inspired by those served at 20.21, Wolfgang Puck’s restaurant at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. They remind me of green French fries. The beans can be roasted at whatever temperature your oven is already set, if you are cooking something else at the same time.

Ingredients:

1 1/4 pound. fresh green beans, ends trimmed, if desired
Olive oil
Coarse salt
Freshly cracked pepper (tricolor peppercorns look particularly nice)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees (see Note).

2. Toss in olive oil and place in baking dish. Roast in oven for 15 to 20 minutes or so, until the beans are cooked through. They will have shriveled slightly.

3. Remove from oven and sprinkle with coarse salt and pepper. Serve immediately.

Enjoy!

They’ve carefully crafted a guidebook to comfort food eating that harkens back, not to your old granny, but to your biochemical and physiologic roots: the paleo diet that we, as humans, were molded by the forces of several millennia of natural selection to thrive on, before the dawn of agriculture (by which I mean wheat and corn farming) when our human diet was primarily meat (meaning that which we could hunt or catch with a pointy stick and our wiles) supplemented by seasonal roots, shoots, nuts, and berries.

The book is a comprehensive tool for the paleo kitchen, offering recipes for appetizers, sauces and staples, soups and salads, side dishes, mains, and yes, desserts (afterall, as we’ve always said, even the paleo hunter stumbled into a honey tree from time to time.)

Mike and I love their Steak Roll (stuffed with onions, celery, mushrooms, leeks and spinach) but we put a sous vide twist on it so that we can have it reliably medium rare but still tender. And cooked sous vide, it’s something you can prep, roll, vacuum seal, and drop in the bath at 134F to cook all day while you’re at work or busy doing something fun. Then it’s just a quick sear in hot lard to put a golden crust on it and golly Bob howdy, that’s good eats!

Paleo Comfort Food is sure to become an indispensable go-to resource in any low-carber’s kitchen, whether devoutly paleo or not.

And best of all, no low carb pimping required for this recipe to work for us. It’s perfect just the way it is.

To quote the author,

Watermelon is the perfect fruit to enjoy on a hot summer day, as it consists of about 92% water by weight. It is an excellent source of vitamins A and C, and a good source of potassium.

I couldn’t agree more! And paired with salty goat cheese and the tang of red onion all wrapped up in creamy prosciutto, it’s got my vote for most appealing summer appetizer.

Here’s his delightful recipe.

Prosciutto-wrapped watermelon
Sam Edelman

6 ounces spreadable goat cheese

1 small (about 3-pound) watermelon, seedless preferred, cut into 2-inch-by-1/2-inch spears

1 small bunch fresh basil, leaves removed, washed and thinly sliced

1 small red onion, thinly sliced

4 ounces prosciutto, cut into approximately 3-inch-by-2-inch pieces

Spread about 1/2 tablespoon goat cheese on each watermelon spear. Add sprinkle of fresh basil followed by a couple slices of red onion. Wrap each watermelon spear in prosciutto and secure with toothpick. Refrigerate until ready to serve. You can substitute fresh cantaloupe, honeydew or any other melon if preferred, or use a mix.

Yield: about 25 servings

Thanks, Sam!

On my recent Santa Barbara Choral Society performance tour to Spain, where temperatures were pretty toasty as well, Mike and I discovered the Spanish custom of enjoying ‘the wine of summer’ and drank about a 55-gallon drum of it each.

Much like sangria, but much lighter and more refreshing, tinto de verano substitutes lightly sweetened sparkling water for fruit juice as the diluent of the wine. And this makes for a much superior thirst quencher.

Give a try to my low carb version, but I warn you, they’re addictive!

Low Carb Tinto de Verano
Serves 8

1 (750 ml) bottle red wine (Spanish if you’ve got it)
2 ounces (60 ml) DaVinci Sugar-Free Simple Syrup
3/4 liter (750 ml) sparkling water

1. Pour the wine and simple syrup into a 2 quart pitcher
2. Quarter the limes, squeeze their juice into the wine, and drop in the lime hulls. Or slice the limes and just drop them in.
3. Add the sparkling water and stir to combine.
4. Serve in a tall glass over ice with another slice of lime to garnish

Prepare to be cooled off!