Almond Biscotti (Low Carb, Gluten Free)

I love almond biscotti. I learned to make it when I was young (like, middle school?) and somehow never got cut on gratter boxes. I also haven't had one in about 2 years, because traditionally they aren't very low carb.

But I have recently discovered the power of XANTHAN GUM. And yes it sounds like a space alien but it's 'all natural' and more importantly it acts like the protein/binder gluten, which DH can't have and isn't found naturally in any of my low carb flours, especially not my prefered one, almond flour.

The first step is to make almond paste that isn't full of sugar. Fortunately, if you have almond flour, egg whites, and your prefered granulated sweetener of choice (I like Splenda, because I don't have to convert the volume measurement, and erythritol makes my tongue break out, so goodbye Truvia) you can make almond paste! Just throw equal quantities of almond flour and sweetener into a food processor, pulse to combine, then add a couple of egg whites. Start with one and keep adding until it is roughly the consistency of play dough. Voila! Almond paste. If you want marzipan, add more sugar. A nice extra touch is to add about 1/2 tsp of almond extract per cup of almond flour.

After that, it follows standard biscotti procedure. How many it makes depends on how you cut them--if you like your biscotti thick there will be fewer. at about a 3/4 inch slice, I got about 18 large biscotti. They stay slightly moist on the inside. You could leave them in a warm oven, or slice them thinner

YUM

Recipe
 1 batch almond paste (1 cup almond flour, '1 cup' sugar sub, 2 egg whites, 1/2 tsp almond extract)
 4 tablespoons cold butter, cut into small pieces

 1 3/4 cup almond flour + 1 1/2 tsp xanthan gum
 1/2 cup sweetener (3 tbsp honey also works, but raises carb count)
 1/2 tsp baking powder
 heavy pinch salt (to taste)
 2 eggs
 1/2 tsp vanilla

Pulse almond paste and butter together in food processor (or stand mixer). Add almond flour, xanthan gum, sweetener, baking powder and salt. Pulse/mix until well blended. Add eggs and vanilla and pulse/mix until mixture is uniform. Form mixture into a large loaf measuring about 6 inches by 18 inches and 1 inch high for large biscotti,or two loaves about 4 inches by 12 inches by an inch for small biscotti, on a baking sheet lined with a silpat or parchment paper. Bake at 350 F about 30 minutes. It should be lightly golden and springy to the touch. Gently transfer to a cutting board and let cool 5 minutes. Use large, sharp knife to cut into even slices, 1/2 inch to 1 inch thick. Lay them cut side down on the baking sheet, bake another 10 minutes. Flip slices gently, and bake another 10 minutes. Cool on tray, then store in a dry place. May soften over time; if that happens, place in a warm oven(even a toaster oven works!) for 10 minutes, and the crunch should be restored.

Shifting Cooking Gears

Cooking has always been about experimenting for me. Going by the recipe is fine for somethings, like candy making or if I know I enjoy this person's particular formulation of the dish, but by and large I like to tweak recipes. Non-baking recipes I'll usually just make up as I go along. Baking recipes are more chemistry dependant and therefore harder to do on the fly.

Lately though, I feel like I am having to reinvent the wheel, knowing what a wheel looks like but having to make it with very limited and somewhat unsuitable materials. It's exhausting trying to do that for every dinner.

Lately I've been having PCOS flare ups, partly just because and partly because there has been some stress in my life, so I've had to switch back to a stricter low-carb/low-GI diet. This would be annoying but par for the course, if we hadn't started a gluten-free diet for DH. He's had 'stomach problems' all his life, which I have been trying to solve for the 3 years we've been married and I've been in charge of procuring his food. Gluten-free was the last on a long list of things we've tried, and so far seems to be the most successful. We'll look into having proper testing done at some point, but since he just took a new job in a new city, the timing is not right for finding a specialist in our current area.

So in short, I am facing the challenge of cooking both low-carb/low-GI (LCLGI) and gluten-free. Lots of LCLGI food is gluten-free because if you aren't using any grain-flours you aren't going to be including gluten. It's also rarely recognizable as analogous to its carb-loaded counterparts, and to a certain extent just requires recognizing that there is no substitute for pasta or bread. Gluten-free foods, of which there are TONS on the market right now all nicely labeled, are rarely LCLGI because they are made with rice starch, tapioca starch, potato starch, etc. Pretty much everything I can't eat. Thus I am faced with the choice to make two different dinners, or to try and find food that lies in the overlap that we both find palatable.

Of course, some things don't really change. Meat is gluten-free and low-carb. Vegetables, pace potatoes, ditto. But there is something so fundamental to having some kind of starchy thing, and that's mostly where the problem lies. DH can have rice, but I can't. There are both low-GI and gluten-free pastas on the market, but of course they occupy opposite ends of the spectrum. I can have rye or spelt bread in small amounts, but he can't. I can make risotto with rice for him and risotto with barley for me, but that seems absurd. The best LCLGI and gluten-free recipes feature coconut flour, which has a noticeable taste for me that I don't always want. Most of the recipes I've come up with use almond flour which is unavoidably gritty, or oat flour which is gritty and whole-wheat tasting unless you really work to hide it.

 Cookbooks are typically one or the other, and if they are both they are typically one of the crazier diet fads, like paleo. While that is the closest to what we are eating, I just can't say we are going paleo. The whole diet is based on bad or non-existent science, cheese is something I rely on, and I can't get over the absurdity whenever I see a paleo recipe call for things bananas or brussel sprouts. Those yellow bananas you get in the grocery store have existed for less than 200 years, and look nothing like a paleolithic banana. Brussel sprouts only popped into existence in the 1300s. Coconut flour also did not exist in paleolithic times.

In short, food posts are probably going to be a little less "here's a recipe I made up last week" and more musing on what works and doesn't work as I try to reformulate, replace and otherwise revamp my repertoire of foods in the coming months. A journaling of success and failures so I hopefully don't have to repeat the latter too often. Also most likely they will be shorter interludes as I work on my Basic Physics series. And if you happen to follow me on Twitter (@PhysicsGal1701), now you know what all the food posting is about.

Cheers!

Foods Falsely Feared: Souffle

There are certain foods that people will avoid making without ever having tried, or even read a recipe. Whether because it has a reputation for taking a long time to make, being particularly difficult in required technique, or just having a general air of requiring years of training to get right, people avoid making them like they will explode if done improperly.

Souffle is probably the best example of this. It is a dish that is beautiful in its simplicity, and demonstrates perfectly culinary aesthete which sits opposite to the over-the-top-must-be-huge-with-every-ingredient-possible-plus-bacon aesthete that seems popular right now. Whether savory or sweet, souffle is easy and pretty quick to make.

Cheese souffle, aka Friday's dinner

Taco Night!

Every now and then, I get a hankering for tacos. Which is strange mainly because they aren't a childhood comfort/fun food for me. I can't remember ever having tacos as a kid, but in college taco bar Wednesdays provided one of the few genuinely edible meals in the week, at least if you weren't the kind of person who could live off frozen pizza and chicken nuggets. And thus did I come to appreciate the lowly taco.

A year or so ago I found an even better way to make tacos than with the usual ground beef. Stewing beef and a crockpot or low oven and a lot of time. Yes, it means that taco night is no longer a quick I-forgot-to-plan-supper meal, but it has its advantages. No browning-meat grease splatter. Stewing beef has an extra beefiness compared to ground beef. It clings to the taco sauce a million times better than ground beef, and it stays in the shells instead of falling out.

And of course it couldn't be easier. Put chunks of stewing beef into your slow cooking vessel of choice, plus taco seasoning and enough water to cover it 3/4 of the way. Stir it a bit  to make sure the spices are mixed in, and then let it cook for hours, checking occasionally to how its coming, or cover it completely with water and just let it go. Its done when you can stir the meat with a fork and it just falls apart until it looks like this:

Now THAT is tender meat

Then its mostly a matter of assembling your tacos however you like. I like a using a low carb tortilla, a dab of refried beans, guacamole, tomato and lettuce if I have it on hand. But the beauty of tortillas is customizability. And so easy to make low carb. Enjoy!

Apple Butter Muffins

When I woke up this morning, I wanted muffins. It happens, especially on the weekends. As I puttered around making coffee, I decided that what I really wanted was applesauce muffins, like my mom used to make. But I didn't have apple sauce, and I didn't have her recipe, which I couldn't use anyway since it would use white flour. Time to be inventive.

I didn't feel like dealing with the fussiness of my totally-from-scratch muffin recipe. I decided to gamble on retrofitting the muffin recipe out of my Better Homes and Gardens cookbook, and use some apples-only apple butter I had in the fridge as both the apple sauce and the sugar.

This is what it produced:

Hello, delicious

It produced a muffin that did not collapse. That had the texture of a muffin. That had the taste of an applesauce muffin, without any sugar or artificial sweetner. That browned nicely.

Most importantly, it produced a muffin that my husband continued to eat through out the day to the point when I had to ask him to leave me some for breakfast tomorrow. I made a dozen. There are 2 1/2 left. Most were eaten by my husband who hate healthy hippie food. THAT, my dear readers, is called success. 

Apple Butter Muffins

1 2/3 cup fine oat flour

1/3 cup almond flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

2 large eggs

1/2 cup unsweetened apple butter

1 cup milk

1 tsp vanilla

Sift together dry ingredients in a large bowl. In a separate small bowl, beat eggs. Add apple butter, milk and vanilla extract and whisk to combine. Form a well in the dry goods,  pour the wet into the dry and whisk thoroughly to combine (overbeating is less a concern with oat flour). The batter is going to be thin. Ladle into greased or lined muffin tins, and let sit a minimum of 20 minutes (you can easily make this the night before, and just pop into the oven when you get up). Bake in a 350 F oven for 30-40 minutes, until muffins are springy to the touch and a toothpick comes out cleanly. Let sit 10 minutes before eating.

Low Carb Manicotti

Italian-American food has always been a favorite with me. How can you go wrong with cheese, tomatoes, garlic and bread/pasta? And of course, that last part is why I haven't enjoyed anything like italian food for well over a year. I tried making zucchini noodles (they taste like zucchini, fall apart like zucchini and sauces do not stick to them). I tried miracle noodles (texture: rubber band. translucent color--off putting when combined with tomato sauce). I had frankly resigned myself to longer having my favorite savory comfort food.

Earlier this week I had a moment of desperation/inspiration. I had read about people using tortillas for lasagna noodles, but always thought the texture would be oh so wrong. But earlier this week, I was desperate enough to try. Low and behold, it wasn't too bad. I over sauced it, but that was my fault.

Last night, I realized that there is another flat-sheet pasta/cheese/tomato sauce dish that requires less sauce, and a higher ratio of cheese to pasta: manicotti. We didn't eat it much when I was a kid, not when lasagna was so much easier than try to shove a cheese mixture into an oversized penne noodle. But the important thing was same ingredients, less sauce.

Doing it with flat sheets of pasta or tortillas is easy as pie. Mix up your favorite italian cheese combo (I like half and half ricotta and mozzarella, with black pepper, nutmeg and basil), making sure that there is a hefty portion of good melting cheese or a couple of eggs in there to hold the filling together. Cut your tortillas into roughly square pieces, however big you like. You can save the scraps for baked chips or just munch on. Evenly distribute a generous portion of the cheese mixture on one side, roll, and place seam side down in a baking dish with sauce on the bottom. Repeat until your dish is full or your ingredients are used up. Cover with another layer of sauce, top with grated mozzarella and parmesan, and cover the dish with either a heavy lid or tin foil. Bake in a 375 degree oven until it is bubbling throughout, then remove cover and allow cheese to brown slightly, another 10 minutes. Allow to sit outside the oven for 10-15 minutes before serving,

I forgot to take pictures before I started dishing out, and lets face it, manicotti once you start dishing out is not the prettiest thing, so I'll add pictures later. But it looks like manicotti. And it by and large tastes like manicotti. If you have ever eaten whole wheat pasta, you are already familiar with the taste and texture rendered by the tortillas. The nutmeg helps smooth the contrast between earthy whole-grain-y-ness of the tortilla and whatever the opposite of that is in the cheese and sauce. Overall, thoroughly edible, and even delicious.

I'll count that as a win.

~PhysicsGal

NB: this is not a super low carb dish thanks to the cheese and the fruit sugars in the sauce, and the few carbs in low carb tortillas. But its low enough for me for dinner, so I thought I'd share.

Oatmeal Muffins

Hello, I'm PhysicsGal and I'm addicted to baked goods (Hello, PhysicsGal). The problem is, except in small amounts or special circumstances, I can't eat baked goods made with wheat flour. Which for this western-European-descended blogger, is basically all of them. Sorely missed for me at the moment, having found sufficiently low carb deserts, are muffins. Not English muffins, which are good and they already have low carb versions in my grocery store, but American-style muffins, which are basically icingless cupcakes by a different method.  If anyone has found a better way to start the day (pace bacon and eggs) than a homemade blueberry muffin out of the oven, I haven't been informed of it.

So for a while now I have been tinkering with making an oat-based muffin. Oats are afterall the breakfast grain of choice. Nutritious, full of fiber, nutty and cheap. Too bad I can't really stand oatmeal without a lot of brown sugar. Granola is ok, but you can only eat it so long before it loses its appeal. I had seen a couple dozen recipes for oatmeal muffins, but none of them really suited my needs.

So I tried making my own from scratch. The first couple were...interesting failures. The first was like a lumpy soft granola bar. The second had WAY too much salt and the consistency of stale cornbread.

This latest batch is I think a winner. They don't rise very much, but they have a nice, silky texture with a slight grittiness from almond flour, like a store bought cornmeal muffin. I make mine just barely sweet so I can have it for breakfast, but additional sugar could be added to taste. This batch was plain for testing purposes, but any number of additions could be made. I think mixed berries would be wonderful.

The trick as it turns out is to give the oat flour lots of time to hydrate. I made my oat flour from 'old fashioned' oats that I pulsed as fine as I could get in my food processor, so its a little on the coarse side, and it turns out that oats just don't absorb liquid all that quickly. Starch type? All that fiber? I have no idea, but I know that its true. But it does absorb a lot of liquid. When you mix up the dry ingredients for this, it will be genuinely soupy. Potato leek soup soupy. After about 4 hours its the consistency of cake batter. By the next morning it's the consistency of a muffin batter. Mix in your leavening,  and bake as you please. So long as you let the oats soak in all your liquid, and have a roughly 1:1 oat to liquid ratio, you can be pretty adventurous in other aspects I think.

Enjoy!

PhysicsGal's Oatmeal Muffins

The night before, combine:
2.5 cups oatmeal flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
[Opt: additional sugar to taste]

Stir in:
2 egg yolks, beaten with
1/3 cup oil or melted butter
1/4 cup honey
2 cups milk

Mixture will be very thin. Cover, and let rest in a refridgerator a minimum of 4 hours and preferably overnight.

When ready to bake, heat oven to 350 degrees.

In a very clean bowl, start beating the reserved egg whites to stiff peaks.

In a small bowl, combine 1/2 cup nut flour or oat flour with 1 tablespoon baking powder. Sprinkle mixture over the top of the refrigerated batter, and stir to combine.

When egg whites are glossy and peaks no longer collapse, stir in one third of the foam to the batter. Gently folding in the remaining whites.

Spoon into greased or lined baking cups. NB: since these don't rise very much, you can fill the cups almost to the top without the muffins baking into each other.

Bake 20-25 minutes, until tops are getting speckled with brown and a toothpick comes out clean.

Edit: These stay very moist for several days, and freeze beautifully. Allow extra time for thawing, since they have twice the moisture content of normal muffins.

Enjoy!

~PhysicsGal