gluten free

Chocolate Eggs AKA Total Fail

Hey, y’all…happy Friday. 🙂

I’m kinda liking the whole Instagram thing now. Thank you to those of you who are checking me out there…where you may have already seen some of this stuff. 🙂

JATGAHB

Since we last met…I took a road trip with the fam. Bluebonnets and lunch…loaded fajitas. No tortillas of course.

Just kidding. I don’t workout so that’s just my face in general when a good song comes on. 🙂

Cheesy cauli mash over left over roast and green beans.

Love this. 🙂

New before and current pic.

So…I tried to make some chocolate cream eggs. (This is the only one that survived and even it broke into a big ‘ol mess the second I bit into it.)

Do y’all love Cadbury Cream Eggs as much as I do?  I was in second grade when we got those perfect nuggets of delish in our little town and I’ve had an Easter love affair with them ever since. Mama B was the room mother of my class that year. Ok every year but specifically that year. When Easter was over and all the candy went on clearance she bought up all the little boxes of cream eggs and then when we had our end of  year picnic she gave them out to the whole class as our treat. My classmates thought she was the coolest.  Which of course she is.  And to this day she still gets me a box of cream eggs every single year. 🙂

Anyway…they’re my absolute fav Easter candy. I’m happy to say that this year I haven’t had one at all so far. I will be taking the day off for Easter and will devour a box of the real eggs but I saw this mock low carb version and decided to give it a try.

Things started off so well.

Cocoa butter, baking choc, powdered choc, butter, powdered vanilla,

powdered erythritol, sunflower lecithin. It looked so pretty and shiny.

This egg mold I ordered from Amazon was much bigger than described.

So my choc would only coat the sides of the egg holes in a super thin layer

which became a huge problem later.

Filled with choc and let set up in the freezer for a few minutes then filled with cream.

Let it set again then topped with choc.

I only made half the recipe and combined with the huge size of the

egg mold I didn’t end up with enough choc to cover that one egg.

Yeah.

Epic fail. The choc sides of the eggs were so thin it couldn’t support the filling.

I just dumped ’em all in a bowl and am eating it by the spoonful.

The taste is just barely ok and nothing I’ll ever attempt again.

Nothing can touch the real so I’ll just happily stick to the real thing once a year. 🙂

🙂

Ok that’s all for today. Y’all have a great weekend. 🙂

Check me out on Instagram for more frequent updates or I’ll see you back here soon. 🙂

 

 

Sugar Free Chocolate

Hey, y’all. 🙂

I’m just gonna jump right in today. When we last met I was waiting to see a Dr. about my ultrasound results. I’m going to have to have some vein surgery on my clot leg. I don’t have a date for it yet…waiting on insurance to approve it. I’m kind of scared but it’ll be considered out patient even though sedation is involved.

I decided to give Instagram a try.  JATGAHB

I don’t know though. I don’t know how I feel about it. I thought because my blog posting has slowed down since it’s taking awhile to get enough to post about that maybe just doing an Instagram pic every day or few days might be better.  Can’t say I love it though. I’m probably more of a sit down and pour it all out into one long post kind of girl.  We’ll see though.

I just truly cannot believe how proud some people are of being willfully and purposely unintelligent.

Went out today for a little retail therapy. 🙂  Wings and a caeser at the outlet mall.

Used this recipe to make some sugar free caramel. Mine is a little lighter in color than hers because I didn’t use as much molasses or coconut sugar as she did. It still turned out super delish. 🙂

I don’t know if it’s because I’m worried about my vein stuff or what but I’ve really been struggling with the whole keto thing for about the last 10 days or so. I haven’t fallen face first into a vat of chocolate…yet…but for the first time since I started back in September it feels hard.  Until now it really was easy.  I had a will of steel but right now that’s just not happening.

To help stay on track I made some sugar free chocolate and caramel. I’d actually experimented with SF chocolate several times before but they all ended in kitchen disaster. This was perfect. I used the ratios from the candy bar recipe in this book.  The book is paleo though and I needed mine to be more keto so I used:

65g cup cocoa butter

14g cocoa powder

20g erythritol / splenda blend

1 tbsp dry milk

big pinch of vanilla powder

1/2 tsp sunflower lecithin

I melted the cocoa butter in the microwave on 1/2 power til melted

While it was melting I put all the dry ingredients in the Vita mix and powdered them.

Then whisked dry into butter.

Poured into molds.

The taste was great but it was a little too liquid-y. It set up fine but you can see in the molding pic how thin it was.  The original recipe calls for 2 tbsp coconut butter.  I didn’t have any because I really can’t stand the taste of it but I think it’s probably needed for thickness so next time I’ll add it and see.

Overall I was very happy with it and it was perfect for me.  I like some of the commercial sugar free chocolates I’ve tried but they all have at least one ingredient that doesn’t agree with my digestive system.

Erythritol does nothing bad or gross to me so it’s perfect for this chocolate.

It does need to be powdered though to keep it from recrystallizing as it cools.

Also, if you decide to do filled candies like I tried to do with the caramel…let the first bit of chocolate you put in the mold firm up before you add the caramel. If you don’t the caramel will sink down to the bottom and you will end up with ugly looking candies like the pic above. They taste great. They’re just not pretty to look at.

🙂

On that note 😉 I’ll leave you for today.  Have a great week and I’ll see you soon. 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

6 Months ~ 50.2 Pounds

Hey, y’all. 🙂

It’s been awhile again. 🙁

A bunch of stuff is going on here.

  🙂

The business is awesome. 🙂

 😉

I’ve been trying to get some health stuff taken care of before those @ssholes in congress / those of you who put them there condemn those of us with preexisting conditions to certain death. 🙁

(Thanks for the bumper sticker, democrats.org.  As always…love y’all but no not putting anything political (or anything other than the Aggie sticker) on the car.  I will however share it here.  🙂 )

 🙁

Two weeks ago I had to have a bunch of blood work and x-rays. Then last week I had to have both legs scanned for possible clots.

They gave me these lovely disposable plastic shorts to wear. Look how baggy they were. 🙂

I’ve always had some circulation issues from the previous clots but it’s gotten really bad over the last year or so and they were looking to see exactly what’s going on.  I won’t know results til next week when the dr gets back from spring break. (If there had been any bad clots they would have let me know immediately…so now it’s just waiting to find out what if anything else they found.)

 

Then Mama B got pneumonia 🙁  (She’s doing much much better today)  🙂  Poor thing was sick on her birthday. 🙁  Happy b-day, best Mom to ever walk the face of the earth. 🙂

I LOVE  this lime mineral water from Whole Foods.  I add a few drops of liquid splenda and it’s like a milder Sprite.

I got my blood work back and some great news…my iron is up. 🙂  The whole reason I started eating keto though was to get my inflammation down and those results were still awful. 🙁  But I’m ecstatic about the iron. Y’all know how I’ve struggled with it for years. I’d tried everything to get it up and now 6 months of eating this way and it’s finally within range. 🙂  I’m feeling it too. I’ve got energy I haven’t had in ages.

Other eating news…I’m back on dairy (cheese / butter / cream) and so super happy. 🙂 I take a digestive enzyme if I have more than a slice of cheese and it’s working great.  I missed it a lot.  It helps make eating like this easier and I’m all about staying on track right now.

So…last Monday was 6 months of no grains or sugar (I also had 3 1/2 months of no dairy mixed in there too).  6 months, y’all. I’m so proud of myself for sticking with this as long as I have…and for continuing to stick with it. 🙂

I was at the dr the next day and…I’ve officially lost 50.2 pounds…with clothes on. 😉

I also happened to go shopping after the dr.

Left pic: before. Other two pics:  last Tuesday.

I’ve been checking the clearance racks for any cheap left over spring-y / summer stuff since I’m still losing and don’t want to waste money on stuff that will only last a month or 2.

I saw this halter jumper and thought it was a halter dress. I didn’t want to get completely undressed so I just put it on over my leggings and then realized it wasn’t a dress.   By summer it will be perfect. 🙂

How did I celebrate -50.2?

Homemade ceaser dressing.

Salmon burger.

Ribeye.

Cherry keto fat bombs (cream cheese / cream / splenda drops / vanilla / cherries).

So, yeah I’m still going strong with this.  I did recently get back to strict 25 carbs or less 5 days a week. 50 grams or less 2 days.

For about 5 weeks I’d been doing more Paleo style eating and even though it was all safe food and I continued to lose weight the higher carbs were making me hungry all.the.time.  A couple days back on strict keto and that went away.

Ok that’s all for now. Y’all have a great week and I’ll see you soon. 🙂

 

 

 

 

Cashew Blender Bread

Hey, y’all.  🙂

I meant for this post to go up on Valentine’s Day but somehow scheduled it for March 14th instead.

So happy belated V-Day.  🙂

Hope it was everything…every single one of you…wanted it to be.  🙂

I’ve been busy working on my business which picked up hugely 😉 this month.

Still eating super boring so I don’t have much to share on that front.

Over the weekend we met Sister B for lunch and I did have some delish dry rub ribs but forgot to take pics.

I’m also busy with the resistance project. So proud of the work we’re doing. 🙂

Ok, y’all if you’ve got a high power blender you’ve got to try this.

I had this recipe on hold for months because I was completely skeptical.  But it really does work.

I wasn’t willing to commit to a larger amount of cashews than this so I just made a small loaf pan and used these measurements:

5 oz cashew nuts soaked in cold water for about an hour

1/4 cup plus 1 tbsp cold water

1 egg

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 cup tapioca flour

Soak cashews for an hour. Drain and rinse.  Add nuts and water to high power blender and blend on high until completely smooth.  I had to use the tamper with mine to help get it going.  I blended for probably about 2 1/2 – 3 minutes on 10.

Once it’s completely smooth…and I do mean completely…add everything else and blend on high for about a minute.

Pour / spread in pan and bake at 325* for about 35 minutes. Cover with foil if it’s browning too quickly.  Then kick the temp up to 375* and cook 5 – 10 additional minutes uncovered til golden brown.

This was soft and bendy and delish. It didn’t taste like nuts at all. That’s just cooked down strawberries with a few drops of liquid splenda as a mock strawberry jelly.  My first PB&J in ages. 🙂

When I try this as a regular size loaf I’m going to triple the recipe.  I’m still kind of scared of trying a big loaf though because that’s a lot of nuts wasted if for some reason structurally is not strong enough to hold up to the weight of the amount of nuts needed to fill that large of a pan without sinking.

 🙂

Progress pic…

Taken last week.

Ok that’s all for now. Y’all have a great long weekend and I’ll see you soon.  🙂

 

 

 

Eating Evolved Chocolate

Hey, y’all. 🙂

Sorry it’s been a while.

January is a slow month for my business. I’ve been using the time to do taxes and restock so when it picks up this month I’ll be ready to go.

If I wasn’t getting a refund I would have seriously given some thought to not filing myself.  😉

Also I hadn’t written about this yet but after I’d made 100 out of 104 days of dairy free…I tried adding dairy back.  I ate if for a week and let’s just say that my body rebelled big time.

I’m back off of it now and feeling a lot better.

Because of that I haven’t done any kitchen experimenting since we last met.

Did make a pressure pot of short ribs yesterday. They were so good.  The gravy is the arrowroot thickened pan juices. This was also one of my higher carb days so yes, those are potatoes. 🙂

JKR…taking out the garbage one tweet at time. 🙂

Decided to try the Siete chips.  Right choice. 🙂 They are totally worth it. Totally. These are nacho flavor but they have no dairy at all. That’s a bowl of ‘Frito’ pie…subbing the grain free tortilla chips for the Fritos.  I don’t add the chips to the bowl all at once though I just do it a couple at a time so they don’t get too soggy.

So I ordered a sample box of Eating Evolved primal chocolate goods.

It comes boxed with a bow and they included two extra bars as a little gift.  If you like dark chocolate most of this stuff is pretty good.  Well, what I’ve tried of it anyway. I’ve tried the green bar (72% dark chocolate), the red bar (72% dark chocolate with almonds) and the banana cream cups. I don’t particularly enjoy dark chocolate but I’m trying. 🙂

The one thing I didn’t like AT ALL was the hot chocolate. I couldn’t get the taste out of my mouth for hours. It is super duper bitter and definitely not for someone who is just learning to like dark chocolate.

I’ll let y’all know what I think of the remaining items as I try them.  I only allow stuff like this a couple times a week though.

Thank you, Nordstrom. 🙂

We have to keep the pressure on these businesses, y’all. Let them know we won’t spend one cent in their stores if they support or give these monsters an outlet.   #GrabYourWallet

 More so than ever right now it’s up to each of us to be the good to counter all the hate and garbage. 🙂

 😉

 

Dear democrat senate and house members, over the last 6 years…every.single.day…the republican led senate acted out a ‘youtube-esque’ tutorial on government obstruction for y’all in living color. Take their blueprint and run, y’all. Obstruct this shit in every conceivable way (and some ways y’all don’t even know of yet).  Love and thanks, Texas Girl.  🙂

Also…if anybody in Texas wants to join us click that pic above and it should link to battle ground texas. 🙂

New current pic. Went shopping with Mama B and Sister B this past weekend. When I saw that seated picture I seriously asked them if I really look like that.  I struggle so much with seeing myself as I really am. In my mind I still look much larger and I’m still automatically drawn to tent like clothes. Automatically I pick up big baggy stuff.  Every time. Why is that?

I know part of it is style choice.  I love flowy / boho / hippy stuff but it’s really more that I just can’t see myself as anything other than huge.  It’s so annoying.  So if you see me in person and wonder why I’m wearing something 97 sizes too big…that’s why.  I’m working on it.  🙂

Anyway…that’s all for today.

Y’all have a great super bowl weekend and I’ll see you soon.  🙂