Monthly Archives: January 2014

Not a recipe but related to food…

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Just for grins and to see what my body would do, I tried a ketogenic diet for a few days (for various reasons that I don’t want to go into here).  Well, for about three days I ate a high-fat, medium-protein, and low-carb diet.  I ran two times–four miles on the first day and five miles on the last day–just to make sure all my glycogen was gone.

I crashed late at night the last day.  I couldn’t get to sleep because my heart was pounding and I had started to wonder what I had done to myself.  So at 11pm I got up and “carbed up” a bit with a banana, some corn syrup (for that extra kick of carbs), and some garbanzo beans.  I could feel my heart doing less pounding but still wasn’t able to get to sleep.  The carb-kick lasted for a a few hours and then I was back to a pounding heart and a sleepless night.  I slept maybe 2 hours and got up at 5am to eat a big bowl of steel cut oats and to start my recovery from too few carbohydrates.

For any of you who do want to try a ketogenic diet (there are some benefits from a low blood glucose level), you might want to check into cyclic ketogenic diet (CKD) as you get to replenish weekly (even mid-week!) so it might be more maintainable!

Lentil Hummus Salad

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These first ingredients are the same ones you assemble for Black Lentil Hummus (see recipe):

  • 1 tablespoon tahini
  • 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
  • 1 tablespoon lemon juice
  • 1 cup cooked and drained lentils (try black, green, French)
  • 1 crushed garlic clove
  • 1/2 – t teaspoon salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon cayenne

Stir. Add any combination and ratio of these vegetables according to your preference:

  • radishes
  • carrots
  • green onions
  • tomatoes
  • parsley

Black Lentil Hummus

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We happened to have cooked black lentils in the fridge one evening, and this recipe came into being. Lentils have more fat and protein than chickpeas, the usual hummus legume (but the same carbohydrate content). This gives lentil hummus an even lower glycemic index than traditional hummus. January 2014.

  • 1 tablespoon tahini
  • 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
  • 1 tablespoon lemon juice
  • 1 cup cooked and drained black lentils
  • 1 crushed garlic clove
  • 1/2 – t teaspoon salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon cayenne

Pulse in a small blender, adding only as much water as needed for pureeing. Serve with carrot sticks and romaine lettuce leaves.

Lentil Hummus Salad (a variation)

Assemble the ingredients for Black Lentil Hummus in a bowl, bypassing the blender step. Add freshly chopped vegetables like tomatoes, green onions, radishes, carrots and parsley. Toss.

 

German Chocolate Cake

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Following are two chocolate cake recipes, a coconut pecan frosting recipe and a dark chocolate frosting recipe.

Ma and I perfected the nutmeal cake recipe in late November 2014 after she had just turned 80. She sat at my counter while I baked, read the ingredients to me, and kept me great company. We talked about how Grandma Montoya, her mother, had not been afraid of baking powder. Neither are we.

Nutmeal Chocolate Cake

  • 1/2 cup dextrose
  • 1/2 cup brown rice syrup
  • 2 tablespoons vanilla
  • 1/4 cup coconut, almond, soy or hemp milk
  • 1 egg
  • 1/4 cup coconut fat, melted
  • 1/2 cup cocoa
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 2 tablespoons baking powder
  • 1 cup nut/grain/seed meal*

* Grind nuts/grain/seeds together in a mini-blender to a coarse flour. Grinding them all at once prevents the fattier nuts from collecting in the base of the blender. Try a 3-item combination of walnuts, pecans, cashews, hazelnuts, almonds, raw pumpkin seeds, flax seeds, oats, buckwheat and/or barley.

Grain-flour Chocolate Cake

Tried and true. We made this cake for Katie’s 21st birthday celebration with cousins Ben and Sasha.

  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1/2 cup ground cocoa beans
  • 1/2 cup cocoa
  • 3/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1  1/2 cup dextrose
  • 1 cup oat flakes, oat bran or ground oat groats (if oat flour, 3/4 cup)
  • 1/3 cup espresso or coffee
  • 1/3 cup canola or olive oil
  • 2 eggs

Combine dry ingredients. Combine wet ingredients. Combine dry with wet. Bake in three 6″  or two 8″ diameter shallow pans. Baked goods sweetened with 100% glucose do not rise as high as those containing sucrose.

Coconut Pecan Frosting

  • 2 tablespoons Dominican Republic or Mexican vanilla
  • 1 cup brown rice syrup
  • 1/4 cup coconut cream* from a can of full fat coconut milk
  • 1/2 cup coconut fat (or butter)
  • 1 cup unsweetened coconut flakes
  • 1 cup chopped pecans, walnuts or both

Melt coconut fat. Stir in vanilla. Stir in brown rice syrup until heated, but not hot. Remove from heat. Add remaining ingredients.

Dark Chocolate Frosting

  • 100 grams unsweetened chocolate
  • 100 grams coconut cream* from a can of full fat coconut milk
  • 70 grams dextrose

Melt chocolate on low. Stir in dextrose and cream until creamy. Cool.

Assembling the Cake

Spread tops of cake layers with Coconut Pecan Frosting. Stack layers. Spread sides with Dark Chocolate Frosting.

*Upon opening a can of room temperature coconut milk, spoon out as much cream as you can, then measure out the desired amount. Use the coconut water for another purpose.