there's no catchup in this pot roast

so this last week i was sick.  like sleep for thirty out of thirty six hours sick.  this means that i was not all up for bloggin' bout foods.  but i'm mostly better now and here's my ketchup.

i made a pot roast last tuesday on mine and boyfriends meat kick.  i made a reduced mushroom sauce like with that lamb roast that one time.  the only carbs in this come from the stupid mushrooms, which also provide me with vitamin d so i can't be too mad at them.  cook time + prep time: ~4.5 hours, yields like 8 servings, so less than a carb per serving

ingredients:

2 cups pearl onions - peeled
4 cups mushrooms
1 cup celery - chopped
4 cloves garlic - chopped
1 tsp beef base
2 lb boneless pot roast
2 tbsp italian seasoning
2 cup red wine
2 tbsp olive oil

• season the meat with the italian seasoning.  in a heavy bottomed pot (i used my awesome cast iron) brown the meat in the olive oil for about thirty seconds on all sides.  put aside.
• put celery, garlic, and onions in pot to deglaze.  if there's not enough oil, add just a bit of the wine so nothing gets burned.  when a little bit golden, add remainder of ingredients, put the roast back in, and turn the stove about as low as it will go, while still maintaining a simmer.  cook for about 4 hours until beef is fork tender.  remove it from the pot and let it rest
• turn heat up to high and boil off liquid so you have a super yummy mushroom gravy for on top of the beef.

end result:

it was pretty good, and really beefy.  because there was beef in it.  i'm not sure you can tell.

its green and creamy and delicious.

i make a good pesto.  ask anyone, my pesto is bomb-tacular.  its probably all the cheese and the dash of cream i add.  i once went to this restaurant and the pesto was a bit creamy and since then i've always added a little bit of cream to mine and its always been well received.  i thought i would make this pesto later in the week for some delicious something or another or whatever, but the basil leaves that i bought yesterday are already weeping so i decided i'd make it today.  cook time + prep time: 5min, a million servings like five total carbs or something, i don't know

ingredients:

2 cups fresh basil leaves
1.5 cups grated fresh parmesan (not the dry stuff in the shaker PLEASE)
0.5 cups pine nuts
a ton of garlic like 6 cloves, peeled
1.5 cups light flavor olive oil
0.25 cup heavy cream
1 tsp salt
0.5 tsp crushed red pepper

• toast your pine nuts.  i do this sometimes in the oven at 350F with some non stick cooking spray and toss em around until they're a bit golden, but i was too lazy to turn on the oven so i did it in a pan over the stove at about medium heat following the same sort of rules
• put everything but the pine nuts in a blender and mix it all well.  i use light flavor olive oil because sometimes i find with pesto especially if its heated, extra virgin tastes a bit strong.  mix in the pine nuts with a spoon and serve.  i'll prolly toss it with spaghetti squash and chicken breasts or something.

**warning** extremely high carb pictures ahead

i was clearing out my cell phone camera, and i found this bunch of pictures that i took at my friend kk's birthday party that i hosted.  i made some appetizers of which I ATE NONE AT ALL.  i don't even know if they tasted good.  'cept they were all gone.  i'm pretty sure they were good.

prosciutto, pear and brie bites

deep fried spicy cilantro mac n' cheese balls

meat balls stuffed with cheese.  i can't remember the other details

mushrooms stuffed with spicy italian sausage

not actually edible, so technically low carb

cheese caked bottomed (with graham cracker crust) homemade spice cake topped with spiced buttercream birthday cupcakes! yay!

this time, i stuffed it and baked it.

i bought low carb tortillas.  turns out they're lower in carbs and higher in fiber than the stuff i worked so hard to make.  le sigh.  anyway, i call this leftover enchilada surprise!

wrapped up in low carb tortillas, topped with cheese and hot sauce, and threw 'em in the oven at 350F for about 15 minutes.  delicious.

i'm pretty sure angels aren't bakers

i wanted to make some sort of nom nom trifle because i wanted to.  i figured that angel food cake might be easy to turn into a low carb recipe because its mostly egg whites.  so i attempted to make one.  i figured granulated splenda was even lighter than regular sugar so it wouldn't make the eggs collapse.  i do know that almond and hazelnut meal are heavier than normal flour but i thought i'd be okay.
my stupid angel food cake collapsed.  i think its because boyfriend poked it too hard.  anyway, here's the recipe.  cook time + prep time: 1 hour, yields 12 servings, 1 net carb per serving

ingredients

0.5 cup almond flour
0.5 cup hazelnut flour
1.5 cup egg whites
1.5 tsp cream of tartar
1.5 tsp vanilla
1 tsp almond extract
1.5 cup granulated splenda ground up so that its powdered
1 cup granulated splenda regularish

• preheat oven 350F.
• mix flours and powdered splenda very well.  set aside
• whip extracts and tartar into egg whites.  then start whipping your stupid egg whites like a mad person.  i think i would have had more success if i had received my dang Cuisinart stand mixer that still hasn't even shipped yet!  instead, i employed the help of my my boyfriends superior mixing skills.  add the splenda in quarter cup increments and mix until its dissolvedish.  then start whipping it really fast until firm peaks form.  firm peaks, the internet taught me, is when it makes a peak that doesn't droop.  don't over whip though, because something happens to the eggs and they turn into something lame.
• fold in the flour mixture, small parts at a time, very carefully so that the eggs don't fall.
• very carefully spoon whole mixture into ungreased pan.  i think you're supposed to use some sort of bundt pan, but i just used this new loaf pan i bought for making bread.
• cook in oven for ~40 minutes or until it springs back when you touch it.  but don't touch it unless you think its done, because if you poke it too hard you'll break it and then it'll be all flat.
• i read a recipe that said to turn the pan over immediately when it comes out of the oven then leave the pan on until its cool to the touch, then remove the whole shebang from the pan.  so this is what i did.  thats when i realized the cake had fallen.  didn't matter though.  was still totally rad sauce delicious.  so crazy delicious.

boyfriend made some whipped cream and we topped it with some lower carbed berries and it was quite nice.

sorta like nachos. except not at all

boyfriend and i have been straight up desperate for red meat lately.  its nuts; we must be iron deficient or something.  we were sitting around this morning and boyfriend was all, "you should make a pot roast."  and i thought oooooooh beeeeeeeff aaaargggghhhhhhhh.  i used to make this shredded beef for tacos some years and years back.  i sort of perfected my process, but its been a long time, like more than five years since i visited the process.  and then when i was like, "how are we going to eat this?"  and i decided that i'd make some sort of tortilla bread type thing and it would be sorta like nachos.  here it is.  cook time + prep time 4.5 hours, yields 12 servings, 4 grams of net carbs per serving (that's all in the tortilla tho)

ingredients (for meat)

5lbs of boneless chuck roast - well marbled & cubed
5oz vinegar based hot sauce
1 bunch cilantro - chopped
3 serrano peppers - sliced
4 cloves garlic - smashed
4 tbsp worcestershire sauce
1 tsp beef base
2 bay leafs
2 tbsp hot chili powder
1 tbsp steak seasoning
1 tbsp ground cuman
1 cup dry white wine

• bust out your super rad cast iron cored dutch oven  put everything except the cilantro in it over low heat on the stove, mix it up as well as you can.  cover it.  after an hour stir it up some.  after another hour, stir it up some.  after another hour take a cooking fork or something not heat sensitive and hard and mash up all the meat until its all shredded.  add the cilantro and cover it back up.  wait another hour, turn up the heat just a tad remove the lid and cook off excess juices.  then its done!

ingredients (tortilla like bread)

1 cup soy flower

1 cup vital wheat gluten

0.5 cup butter - melted

2 tsp baking soda

2 tsp salt

1 egg

0.5 hot water

4 tbsp safflower oil

• mix up dry ingredients.  add melted butter and mix well until the dough is a little crumbly, then add egg.  mix it up and then add water, but not so much that the dough is sticky
• form the dough into golf ball sized spheres.  mash each one on a flat surface with the palm of your hand so it looks like a circle.  roll each circle out until its like an eighth of an inch thick.
• heat oil over medium heat in a medium sized pan.  cook each "tortilla" for ~3 minutes on each side until golden.  place on paper to drain off excess oil

finished product was this:

this was so fracking good, i can't even tell you.  the beef was so juicy and delicious, you wouldn't believe it.  would be fab on sandwich or salad or whatevs.  sucks that it takes so long to make, but sometimes that happens.

the french do amazing things with stale bread

i made my man french toast with the low carb bread.  you can do it too.

please take note of our new fancy fine china.  we're like totally grown ups now.