It's Hard To Describe...

Those four words are bad news to a zero-carber who is baking desserty treats!

I had decided to fast til dinnertime, since the pizza-fest last night was certainly doing a great job at keeping my appetite at bay. I had a productive morning of wrapping gifts, but when I couldn't bear to tear off another tab of sticky tape, I turned to my other favourite holidays activity - cooking!

Examining the contents of my pantry, I saw nuts, cacao, eggs, and not much else. Assuming I didn't have enough supplies on hand to try anything exciting, I got busy making the beau another batch of grain-free granola.

As I stirred the half-toasted nuts & coconut midway through the process, I had a sudden brainwave - couldn't I use the chunky texture of the granola as the base for some sort of pie? My Choc-Cherry Tart worked very well with the fine delicateness of an almond flour crust, but how about playing with something a bit bulkier?

I checked the freezer - lots of small, sweet berries... How about a layer or those on top of the nuts, topped with the choc mix from the Choc-Cherry Tarts since I had promised readers that I would play with cutting the amount of cacao and butter required, as well as trying a bit of cacao powder rather than just the pricier solids.

The result?


Primal Choc-Berry Pie!



Ohhh yes... I think I've found my contribution to the family Christmas party lunch!

And how is it that I am so confident?

Well, I served up a slice of pie to the beau, my devoted taste-tester... He took a bite, chewed thoughtfully...

"It's good..."

"And?"

"It's not very sweet. The fruit is sweet. The crust is very nice. The chocolate is a bit strong, but the fruit works with it..."

"So it's sweet enough?"

"I don't know."

"Is it nice?"

"Yeah... It's hard to describe."

ARGH!

So I did what any good chef would have done - I ate a slice.

Oh my Gawd.

Amazing.

I held back on the sweeteners (erythritol, stevia and xylitol), so the fruit held all the power and the darkness of the chocolate thrilled my accustomed palate, combining with the berrries and nuts in an orgasmic frenzy of decadence! Seriously. I'm amazed I was able to put the rest of the pie into the fridge. Huzzah for will-power! And it helps that just one small slice filled up my fasted self more than adequately! Wow, fluffy yet filling, exploding with rich flavours...

After dancing around the house with joy, I settled back into my gift-wrapping for another couple of hours. My hopes for a warm patch of sunlight hitting the hammock late-arvo were dashed by the cool breeze persisting even once the clouds had passed. Tomorrow promises to be warmer... Much warmer! Ah, gotta love 10-degree jumps in average temperatures from one day to the next...

Dinner:

What did I have in the fridge? Chicken, bacon, salami, and some leftover mozzarella from the pizzas last night...

Enter Pizza Chicken!


Two chicken breasts, cut to lie flat and open, are grilled alongside some bacon. The bacon is removed from the grill and finely chopped, as is some salami and mozzarella. Herbs are added to the chopped goodness - basil was the herb of choice here.

Chicken breasts are removed from the grill, covered with piza toppings, then placed under the broiler until cheese is melted.


The flavour danced the barrier between the good KFC and the really good pizza. Wow. I'll be trying the three meat products in combination again soon, so hopefully the success of Pizza Chicken doesn't rely too much on the cheese... Maybe I could just stuff the chicken with salami, wrap it in chicken, and grill... Mmmmmm....

Recipe: Primal Choc-Berry Pie

Oh yes, another dessert experiment, this time tweaking my Choc-Cherry Tart recipe to make a full-sized pie with more berries and less chocolate, since the amounts of the latter in the tart recipe had some readers questioning my sanity! Fear not - this pie has plenty of choc-power with one-quarter of the cacao!

I am very happy with this, and I hope you will enjoy it too. A VERY decadent treat for a surprisingly low amount of calories (all things considered), still avoiding the blood-sugar spikes caused by grains and refined sugars. Christmas cheer without the cramps and crankiness!


Primal Choc-Berry Pie

Ingredients:

Crust

150g grain-free granola (walnuts, almonds & coconut)
2 eggs
1T coconut oil for greasing pie dish

Filling

250g berries of your choice (I had a few blackberries and an "antioxidant mix" of wild blueberries, bilberries and black currants in the freezer, so I used those, and I now recommend them!)
100g butter
100g of 100% cacao (or very dark chocolate)
5T pure cacao powder
2 whole eggs
4 egg yolks
Sweetener to taste (I recommend real foods such as honey, or for a sugar-free option, sugar alcohols such as erythritol or xylitol)


Method:

Crust

1. Preheat oven to moderate (around 160 C)

2. Grease pie dish with melted coconut oil.

3. Combine granola and eggs thoroughly, then press evenly into pan.

4. Bake in moderate oven for 10 minutes or until golden brown.


Filling

1. Whip eggs and yolks in a medium bowl until fluffy. Add sweetener to taste.

2. Melt cacao, cacao powder and butter over low heat.

3. Fold chocolate mixture into egg mixture carefully.


Assembling the pie

1. Sprinkle berries evenly over the crust in the pie dish, then pour chocolate mixture over berries.


As you can see, I did not thaw my frozen berries before cooking, as to preserve as much juice as possible. As the pie cooked, the juice seeped into the crust and the chocolate layer, spreading the fruity sweetness beautifully. If you do want to thaw your berries, make sure to add the juice to the chocolate mix - it could replace the need for sweetener entirely.


2. Bake at a moderate heat (160 C) for around 30 minutes. You may see butter or berry juice bubbling around the edges of the pie - this is fine. The pie is done when the top of the chocolate is firm and risen.


3. Allow to cool slightly, then serve with double cream or coconut cream.

The size of my dish served 8 greedy individuals as a stand-alone meal (it's surprisingly nutritious considering how it looks and tastes!), but could satisfy up to 16 individuals as a delicious end to a hearty dinner.

Nutritional Info

Servings Per Recipe: 8

Amount Per Serving
- Calories: 349.0
- Total Fat: 33.0 g
- Sodium: 122.5 mg
- Total Carbs: 14.0 g
- Dietary Fiber: 2.7 g
- Protein: 8.5 g

This pie is equally tasty eaten when warm or cooled.

Be careful when lifting pieces out of pie dish, as the crust is quite delicate depending on the fineness of the nuts used in the granola.


Let me know how you go! Happy Holidays!

Frankie Says...

Ah, Saturday.

Broke the overnight fast with a grass-fed porterhouse steak and a couple of slices of the most delicious, free-range, smoked bacon...


Then it was into the Prius for a day of running errands - buying 100% cacao buds and pellets for the guinea pigs' cage (not at the same store), picking up eBay purchases, accompanying the beau to Minotaur in order to collect yet another standing order of graphic novels which will not be read in the near future, and heading to the cinema to watch The Invention Of Lying - fantastic premise, and entertaining for the most part. It certainly appealed to my atheistic nature, so I wonder how the film went over in the US... Definitely one to watch if you like Ricky Gervais & his style of humour, and enjoy spotting celeb comic cameos.

Home for a late dinner of a special primal treat - Cauliflower Pizza! Boy, it's been a long time... I've obviously broken from carnivorism properly today, but I really couldn't face a meat-only meal this evening for some reason. It'll be interesting to see how my guts react to a heft of veg and dairy after such a long time! I have been reading that a higher-carb day can help sort out leptin levels, so this evening's choice is an experiment as well as a relaxed following of my gut instinct.


Tomorrow is set to be an utterly domestic day - cleaning, wrapping presents, and making Christmas treats to take to work. Here's hoping that there are a few sunny periods so I can lap up the rays I've been missing for the past few days.

Girl Gone Readin':

Richard Nikoley, and his diabetic success-story reader Steve, combine to create a piece that you need to send to everyone you know who is diabetic and currently following the ADA (either one)'s standard advice.

Dr. A nails the missing link between results and suggested 'cure' during a discussion of a Japanese study detailing the physical damage caused by high blood sugar after meals.

Charles Washington shares an interesting albeit meandering flood of ideas concerning Sedentary Behaviour & The Gym.

One of Mark Sisson's Worker Bees shares their thoughts regarding the season of giving and the joy giving can bring. I share this one with you since I am the hugest fan of giving gifts whenever I can, no occasion necessary. Ironically, I am completely awkward when receiving gifts! I'm getting better when it comes to the end-of-year gifts from students though, although this year I was also distracted by the internal hope that the gift was NOT yet more chocolate that I would have to pass on to my least favourite colleagues :D

Relax!

So Delightfully Close

Ah yes, the end is so very, very near... Yesterday was the last real 'teaching day' of the year, leaving just a week of fun activities and staff partying til summer freedom!

So here are the last meals of 2009 that were tinged with a side of stress:

Thursday

I decided to fast until dinnertime, after Wednesday night's big feed left me anything but hungry!

Dinner - entree: two beef sausages, and a lamb chop


Dinner - main: pork roast - heavy of the crackling, but I left most of the lean alone. Perfection!


Friday

Breakfast: two beef sausages and a lamb chop


Lunch: chorizo and egg, scrambled in coconut oil


Then I had a mate over for dinner and board games, so I whipped up chorizo, bacon and green capsicum mini frittata, served atop the green salad to accompany the main:


Since I was pressed for time, I had to skip the experimental main I wanted to make (watch this space...), and went for the ever-popular fried chicken fingers!


No time for a dessert either, unfortunately. So this dinner party wasn't the blogging fodder I had hoped. But with summer visitors and visiting happening regularly from just a week's time, there will be lots of healthy, culinary fun to be had!

Sleepy Daze

It's pretty much official - since my duties as educator are coming to a close for the year, my critical faculties are beginning to hibernate and my inner voice has decreased its repertoire to variations of "I want to sleep now", "Let's watch a movie", "Ground beeeef!" and "Let's go lie in the sun!". I am okay with this, really, except when it means I forget to photograph my food or post to the blog. There are just two more teaching days of school left, and then we're not expecting many kids to show up next week for the three days of 'fun activities'. I like it when I'm this relaxed, and have time to catch up with friends and family. And I have six weeks of freedom to look forward to - time to get messy in the kitchen, messy in the garden, and un-messy in the messy bomb that is my closet.

So, two days of meat to flash before your very eyes...

Tuesday's breakfast - a lamb chop!


Lunch - porchetta and chorizo, afternoon delight!


Dinner - Pork roast with crackling!!


Wednesday's breakfast - lamb chop and two pieces of organic, shortcut bacon that costs more than than organic eye fillet steaks! But it's hella-tasty, if disappointingly lean.


Lunch - more porchetta and chorizo, like yesterday, but no photo today.

Dinner: entree - two beef sausages

Dinner: main - corned beef silverside, served with a heft of butter to compensate for all the lean meat today.


And if you're sick of these meaty-yet-plain posts, fear not: I'm hosting another dinner party on Friday night! I'm currently working on a spicy seafood soup recipe - maybe Friday will be time to try it on a test audience... Plus, another dessert!

The Day of Good Food & Sucky Photography

Man, the pain of uploading photos from your phone to find that they're weirdly coloured, over-exposed, or just plain uninspiring. Fun. Maybe I should set up a 'buy Girl Gone Primal a gosh-darn decent camera' fund!

Despite what the pictures may suggest, my food today was truly delicious. I seem to have gone off steak, and all I seem to crave is ground beef. Perhaps a sign that my body is wanting more fat?

Breakfast - a couple of eggs, scrambled to creamy perfection (I maintain the brightness is actually due to their heavenly flavour, and not my phone's inability to cope in bright, angular morning sunlight)


Lunch: roast chicken leftovers, some taken to work and some gnawed straight from the carcass once I arrived home. I didn't even try to take an attractive photo of that one.

Dinner: ground beef - plain for me:


And as a delicious 'taco' salad for the beau - the meat was mixed with taco-esque spices, then served on a bed of lettuce, with tomato, carrot and parmesan cheese.


But even a day of crappy photography can't get me down, after this morning's ego-boost from Mark Sisson - once again, my recipes have been featured in his latest Weekend Link Love post! It is such a thrill to know that he thinks my inventions are good enough to share with the wider primal community, and I hope that the people who try my ideas give me feedback so I can help them or tweak the recipes, etc - or just send me pictures to know that my ideas are being replicated the world over! I love it! :D

A Meaty Weekend

With the weather finally settling into a steady, summery temperance, I have been staying out of the computer room and in the sunlight as much as possible. With nothing particularly special to report, I figured you wouldn't mind if I saved up my meal details and combined them into one big weekend post. Any complaints? No? Good.

Thursday - the beau and my 5th anniversary! I started the day with a meal that proved I had eyes too big for my bots; I barely finished one lamb chop and half of the bacon! Oh, the senseless waste...


Skipped lunch, but when I arrived home the hunger pangs kicked in, and I knew that the restaurant we were headed to later would only serve small portions of meat, so I decided to fill up the completely non-photogenic fry-up of beef mince and bacon. Good plan!

Just like last time I went to Kobe Jones, I ordered the sashimi salad (hold the salad) and lobster to be cooked by me on a hot rock. Not much meat, as predicted, but thanks to lining my stomach with 500g of ground beef (yep, 500g!), the meal filled me up very satisfyingly!



Friday - after my big anniversary dinner(s), I wasn't tempted to eat breakfast, and didn't even think to pack lunch! My appetite didn't kick in again until 6pm, and then it REALLY kicked in!

Dinner #1 - scotch fillet steak


Dinner #2 - beef burger patties


Saturday - a lovely day of relaxing and reading and getting some sun!

Breakfast (after a long sleep-in) - lamb chops!


Dinner - roast chicken thighs with my spice mix. The shot of my plate wasn't great, so here's a look at what the beau tucked into:


Finally, Sunday - another day of flopping around in the sun, whilst making jewellery and keeping an eye on the adventurous cavies as they lapped up some much-needed sun as well.

To save on the hassles on cooking, I prepared and started roasting a chicken as soon as I woke up, so within two hours I served myself and a beau a hot, juicy portion of chicken each:



Not a huge serve, but I was more than sated for the rest of the day! As 7pm rolled around, I decided I should eat more, despite not yet feeling hungry, since I hate eating too close to bedtime. So I pulled off a bit of cold chicken:


However, I couldn't manage all of it, so the drumstick eventually joined the rest of the leftover chicken, ready for tomorrow's lunch. However, it remained on my plate to feature in the shot of the last of my bacon, cooked up to go with my cold chicken, but took a little too long. I ate it, even though I was full. C'mon, its BACON! You don't waste that stuff unless it's an emergency!


So now you're up to date! My weight is stable at my new low weight, and I've got lots of loose fat just waiting to shrink some more. The freezer is nearing emptiness, so we'll be doing a run to the organic butcher tomorrow night I suspect - mmmm, more lamb chops!

I hope your weekend was well, and that you're feeling smug that you've picked the healthy way to maintain your weight and fitness, unlike those poor Slim Fast folk...