Ive had a lot of fun cooking this year.  I ate a lot of things I never thought I would, cooked things Ive never attempted before and learned a completely new way of eating.  There are just two cooking goals I had for myself before the year ended that I didnt get around to: mastering a soufflé and making a gelatin dessert that set properly.  So on Christmas day with the chef to egg me on I thought I would try a simple (or so I thought) soufflé so I could get that obstacle out of the way. Like so many things in life it didnt turn out the way I thought it would but it was still fun and delicious.

A lot of little things went wrong while I was trying to soufflé  I forgot to sift my flour.  The whisk wasnt perfectly dry.  My safety net disappeared to attend to a cat feeding before the snow got too bad emergency just as I was starting the part of the process I was unsure about.  I was flustered from being at an annoying job for the 6 hours before dinner.  And my family was walking in the door just as I got to the step where I couldnt walk away from my ingredients without them falling.  It wasnt an ideal situation to begin with so I wasnt too surprised when my soufflé didnt poof.  Fearing just this out come I had given the fella strict instructions on which bottle of wine to open for me in my fallen soufflé sadness and just the right tone to say “there there bunny” to me.

I pouted over the sad looking soufflé but since everything else on the table looked so fabulous I never managed to look any where near as pathetic as my fluffy obviously starving to death princess did. 

Besides I had every one I loved around a big purple table with amazing food, even a soufflé failure couldnt get me down.  And the surprising thing was that the soufflé, as unattractive as it looked tasted really great.  A creamy cheesy warm treat.  It nicely filled the gap in the dinner left by the crispy rolls or focaccia  we usually have at holiday dinners. 

So the good news was the soufflé despite its ugliness was tasty enough to warrant the effort which means Ill be motivated to try it again on a day with less stress when I can better focus.  And Julia Child has an entire section devoted to soufflés in Mastering the Art of French Cooking that I apparently need to read over a couple more times.  I will make a puffy wonderful soufflé happen.  Most people have resolutions about losing weight, I have them about cooking somewhat complicated food stuffs.  Ill let you know when I succeed.

Cheese Soufflé

1 teaspoon butter

1 tablespoon Parmesan

1 cup milk

3 tablespoons butter

3 tablespoons sifted rice flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon pepper

1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1/8 teaspoon nutmeg

4 egg yolks

5 egg whites

1/8 teaspoon salt

1 cup coarsely grated swiss or Parmesan cheese

Before you start:  place your eggs on the counter so they will be room temperature when you need them, measure out all your ingredients and have them close at hand, and make sure all the bowls, whisks and mold are very clean.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Butter inside of soufflé mold and sprinkle with cheese.  Set aside for later.

In a small pot put the milk on a medium heat to begin boiling.

Melt the butter in a medium saucepan.  Stir in the flour with a wooden spatula and cook over moderate heat until foamy, about 2 minutes.  Remove from heat.  When mixture is no longer bubbling pour in the boiling milk.  Beat vigorously with a whisk until well blended.  Beat in the seasonings.

Return to medium high heat and boil, stirring with the whisk for about 1 minutes.  Sauce will be very thick when youre finished.  Remove from heat and set aside while you separate eggs.

Drop the four egg yolks one at a time into the hot sauce pan, reserving the whites in a metal or ceramic bowl for later in the recipe.  With the whisk beat the yolks individually into the sauce.  Continue with each yolk until well incorporated.  Keep the mixture at a tepid temperature while preparing the egg white mixture.

Beat the five egg whites and salt with a whisk or in a stand mixer until stiff by starting at a low speed, gradually increasing it as the eggs become foamy.  Take about a minute to raise mixer speed from low to high, constantly using a spatula to push the eggs off the sides of bowl and into the beaters.  Stop when the beaters leaves slightly shiny peaks in the surface of the mixture.

Stir a big spoonful of the egg whites into the warm sauce.  Stir in all but one tablespoon of the grated cheese.  Delicately fold in the rest of the egg whites being careful not to over fold and break the fuffly consistency.

Put the incorporated soufflé mixture into the prepared mold.  It should be about 3/4 of the way full.  Tap bottom of mold on counter to smooth the surface of the soufflé  Sprinkle with the remaining cheese.

Set rack in middle of the oven and immediately turn heat down to 375.  Do not open the door for the next 20 minutes.  In 25 to 30 minutes the soufflé will have puffed a couple inches over the rim of the mold and the top will be nicely browned.   Serve at once.

Gluten free version of recipe from Julia Childs Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

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The fella has been missing pizza just a teeny bit.

It used to be his Tuesday night ritual to buy the cheapest most unspeakable frozen pizza to eat while doing the geeky things he does on Tuesdays with his friends while I work. Apparently its called gaming or something. Everyone has their flaws so I try to pretend this one doesnt exist by refusing to understand it.

Some people juggle geese. Some people sit around pretending to be demons and necromancers while playing with tiny painted figures. Some people decide to cook highly complicated meals 7 days a week and then freak out at random intervals about it being too difficult. If the person is worth it you grin and bear their silly hobbies and soldier on. Really Im more concerned about his ability to have eaten those cardboard pizzas for so long.

After several months of being unable to slather gluttony rounds of dough with mounds of cheese hes been getting punchy. We drive by pizza places and he starts to drool. At night he would mumble the name of his lost mistress, pizza. Any mention of the word would cause him to go wide in the eyes and tap his veins begging for a fix.

Okay so it wasnt quite that bad. There were times that he looked at me however and I couldnt tell whether he was imaging that I was a pizza he was about to eat or if he was wondering how he could back out of this diet before losing his cheese loving mind. It was time to find a way to make this man a pizza.

Enter almond flour and all the wonderful things that can be made out of it. Weve been on a bit of a kick with it lately, satisfying cravings all over the place by using it. So it was only natural that about this time I stumbled upon a nut flour pizza crust recipe. And lo the heavens opened and the fella said “woo flipping hoo” when I sent him the link letting him know pizza was imminent.

When the faithful night of pizza making arrived we were both bouncing with excitement. Then we started making the crust mixture and got a bit concerned. It was really runny and didnt look like any crust Id ever made before. It didnt seem like it was thick enough to not run all over the pan. And how was this wet mess going to solidify enough to put toppings on it in just 5 minutes of baking? We were seconds away from thawing something from the freezer as we watched the crust do a whole lot of nothing in the oven.



Miraculously I pulled it from the oven and it was a nice firm crust like texture. We let it cool to firm up a bit more and started throwing toppings on it. It withstood being covered in sauce and veggies so things were looking good. I pre-sauted the vegetables assuming the vegetables wouldnt have enough time to cook on such a delicate crust and was right. Unless you like raw veggies on your pizza, cook them to your preferred level of doneness before this goes back in for round two. Topped with some sundried tomatoes and Havarti and we were drooling as hard as the dog does while we cook.

This was fabulous! It looked and smelled and had the texture of pizza. It doesnt taste like the real thing exactly but its a great fake out. The only problem is you really need to oil whatever surface youre baking this on or it will never let go of the pan. We spent a lot of time dislodging our pizza before being able to eat it.

Im sure this will become a regular fixture on our menus. That sound you hear is the fella sighing with relief. His favorite food is a possibility again.

Flourless Pizza Crust

3 eggs
3 tablespoons yogurt
1 tablespoon oil
1/ 2 teaspoon baking soda
1/ 2 salt
6 ounces ground almonds
1 teaspoon vinegar

Preheat the oven to 360. Line a round pizza pan with baking parchment, make on a silcone tray or oil your pan VERY well. This crust will stick like crazy.

Whisk the first five ingredients together in a bowl until frothy and starting to thicken slightly.

Beat in the ground nuts and vinegar and spread onto the baking parchment in an even, thin layer. It will be like thick batter, not a sticky dough. It doesnt look anything like pizza crust at this point but dont worry.

Bake for 5 minutes until just firm but not colored. Leave crust to cool a little before spreading your chosen toppings on and re-baking until the edge of the pizza base is golden brown and the cheese melted. Youll want to pre-cook any vegetables you plan on putting on this pizza in order to soften them, they wont have much time to cook before the crust is ready to be removed from the oven.

Original recipe from Straight Into Bed Cakefree and Dried blog.

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After the third or fourth night in a row of having vivid Salvador Dali-esque dreams about baking cookies I knew something needed to be done. I ceded to my subconscious and scoured the internet for a cookie recipe, any cookie recipe I could eat. No flour, very little starch and no sugar puts most recipes out of the running. After looking through enough gluten free vegan blogs I found cookies I could make with what I had on hand without much trouble and gleefully went about doing so.

The great thing about these cookies is that since they are vegan and therefore egg less there is really no reason to cook them. You could very easily mix this up and eat it raw to satisfy a cookie dough craving. With my new found ice cream obsession Im thinking of making this batter again and tossing it raw into vanilla custard. The decadence of such a thing is grin worthy and obviously something I will try very soon.

For the first time around however I resisted the urge to eat all the dough raw (though a couple spoonfuls were sacrificed before the oven got turned on) to see how these would turn out. Substituting in the agave nectar caused a strange reaction in the oven, browning the bottom of the cookies heavily without burning them. There was a bit of smoke in the kitchen and the cookies werent very pretty but otherwise they were great little treats.

Believe the recipe when it says that super creamy more expensive peanut butter is best. I used the cheap natural peanut butter I had on hand and ended up with gritty cookies. If taste is more important to you than texture use whatever nut butter you have, your cookies will just look odd.

Also the original recipe involved sugar and corn starch so switching that out for agave nectar and arrowroot caused interesting problems. You may have to play with amounts of sweetness and starch to get a good consistency. I would suggest putting in too little agave and then adding the arrowroot bit by bit until you get the dough to firm up. I made the mistake of tossing in all the agave and then adding too much arrowroot to compensate. If youve never tasted raw arrowroot I wouldnt suggest it as it isnt pleasant. Almost like a gritty fermented yam or something along those lines. Not something you want your cookies to taste like. So use the arrowroot sparingly.

Ive yet to find sugar free chocolate chips so I used a meat hammer to break up baking chocolate. This was extremely satisfying and worked out well. The uneven bits of bitter chocolate worked out well in my overly gritty cookies

Apparently these cookies did a good job imitating real cookies because I havent had cookie lust dreams since making them.

Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies

1 1/2 tablespoons flax seed meal
3 tablespoons water

1 c. creamy peanut butter (the kind that does not separate into oil and nuts is best)
scant 3/4 cup agave nectar

1 tablespoon arrow root
1/2 cup chocolate chips

In a small bowl or ramekin, use a fork to whisk together the flax meal and water. Allow to sit 3-4 minutes or until it gels.

In a mixing bowl, combine the peanut butter and agave nectar. When the flax seed egg replacer has gelled, add it to the mix. Add the arrowroot and mix well. The mixture should be pretty stiff. Add more arrowroot if the mixture is too soft to hold peaks when you lift the spoon out of it.

Stir in the chocolate chips as gently as you can.

Refrigerate the cookie dough for 15-30 minutes. Turn the oven to 350 degrees to preheat during this time.

Scoop the chilled cookie dough into small balls using a normal eating-sized spoon. Place the cookie dough balls onto a baking sheet about 2 inches apart from each other.

Bake cookies at 350 degrees for around 15 minutes. You want to take them out once the tops are getting brown. The cookies may still seem soft at this point, but they will harden as they cool.

Original recipe from the Aprovechar healthy cooking blog.

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It has been one whirlwind of a weekend. A distributors tasting at the wine store I work in on Friday. Then a wine get together with some friends on Saturday. We call our group Wasted and we lived up to our name, drinking some nice Australian and New Zealand wines. Then selling wine on Sunday. For the moment Im ready to take some time off from wine, I say, as I make plans to drag friends to yet another tasting this Friday.

With all of that I fell a bit behind in my cooking. I was missing some things to make one recipe. After thawing the meat for another meal the fella brought to my attention that it required being marinated over night. Crap. It was already 6 and we were a little punchy from spending the entire afternoon cleaning so there was no time or brain cells left to pull together a make shift meal. We got out the Indian take out menu instead.

Mixed grill, spinach chicken, and a black lentil daal, it was the comfort food we needed at the moment. While the fella was out picking up the food I threw together some flourless naan. It is not low fat and it it is not cheap. Almond flour will set you back about $10 a pound unless you have the patience and time to grind up your own. And between the nut flour and coconut oil, you are looking at a calorie monster. As a treat to fill the breadless void however it is perfect and oh so easy.

The trick is to whisk it up at the very last second, get the pan the right temperature and brown them to the right level on each side. My first couple naan came out well, the last one did not as my pan was too cold and the almond flour had sucked up all the liquid so the consistency was wrong. They really need to be fried up quick to get the right effect.

These are amazing. The coconut oil makes them taste a lot like the real thing and they are nice for sopping up all the delicious Indian sauces from your plate. And they smell dreamy, like a fresh baked bear claw. It sated my pastry lust for at least another week. Seriously I was at Lazy Janes, the best bakery/coffee place in town, this morning having brunch with friends, and I didnt even give the worlds greatest scones a second look. When I was a sugar addict I would have sold the dog for one of those fruity scones, flaky and topped with just the right amount of tart lemon glaze. Thanks to the power of almond flour I was able to just say no.

Flourless Naan

1 egg
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/3 cup coconut milk
(or 2 tablespoons soy/almond milk and 3 heaping tablespoons of plain yogurt)
1 1/2 teaspoon oil
1 cup almond meal/flour
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
coconut oil for frying (about 2 tablespoons)

In a small bowl, whisk together the egg, baking soda, coconut milk, and oil until frothy.

Melt about 1/2 tablespoon of coconut oil in a skillet over medium heat. Just before you are ready to fry the naan, mix the almond flour and salt into the wet mixture. Pour onto hot skillet in portions the size of a small pancake. Fry until bottom is browned, flip and fry other side until brown and crisped through.

Add another 1/2 tablespoon oil to pan and allow to come back to temperature before cooking the next bit of naan. The mixture will suck up all the oil and cake onto the pan otherwise. Repeat with the remaining naan mixture adding more oil each time as needed.

Original recipe from Oreganicthrifty blog.

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It has been a hell of a day over here in my world so Im going to just let this fabulous chocolate treat speak for itself.  Long story short; its amazing and easy and I wish I had not already eaten it all so I could have some right now in my time of need.  Also please feel free to oo and aw over my new dessert plates.  Thats all.

Double Chocolate Flourless Torte

1 cup dark chocolate (4 one-ounce squares)
1/2 cup almond flour
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 eggs
1/3 cup agave nectar
1/2 cup oil

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Break up the squares of dark chocolate a little bit (I used unsweetened baking chocolate and still thought the recipe was too sweet) then place in food processor and pulse until coarsely ground.  Remove 1/2 of the ground chocolate for later. 

Add in almond flour, cocoa powder, and salt and combine for a couple more seconds in food processor.  Add eggs to food processor and pulse again, then add in agave, oil and orange zest.  Combine until smooth.  Add the remaining 1/2 cup of chocolate pieces back to the mixture and stir briefly.

Transfer batter into a well greased 10 to 12 inch round pan.  Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until it passes the tooth pick test.

Adapted from a recipe on Elanas Pantry.

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This recipe lulled me into a false sense of security. It only has two ingredients it will be simple, right? Very very wrong. Those two ingredients tested my patience until I was swearing up a storm and very nearly gave up on it several times. Things were not improved by the fact I started making this at midnight the night before Easter. That is never a good idea and yet I make the mistake time and again. Apparently there is something about midnight that screams last minute baking.

There were plenty of other problems along the way. Unsweetened chocolate must mean something very different in France because Montignac keeps talking about unsweetened chocolate with different ranges of cocoa content. Here, at least in Madison, the only unsweetened chocolate is 100% cocoa baking chocolate which I am now going to assume has a very different texture than whatever Montignac was cooking with. It is also bitter requiring me to wing it and add fructose until the cake tasted edible. If youre using 100% cocoa chocolate youll want to keep tasting the cake mixture and adding fructose until it tastes sweet enough, and then add a little more.

The other problem with unsweetened American chocolate is there are no additives in it to thin out the chocolate so when I went to add the egg yolks to the warm chocolate I got a hunk of chocolate scrambled eggs. A dozen eggs and 2 boxes of chocolate in a blob of ineligibility that defiantly was not going to fold into the egg whites.

It was about then I started swearing, then I called for the fella who was smart enough to be hiding upstairs. I was on the verge of angry tears at wasting all this chocolate and the recipe making a fool of me. The fella just looked at me like I was crazy, which I was. His mere presence in the kitchen calmed me down enough think that adding milk might help with the solidified chocolate situation. That would have been fine except the milk was way curdled which only further fueled my rage, wondering why it was in the fridge so long past its due date. Thankfully I found some heavy cream and there was just enough to thin out to chocolate so that the egg whites could be folded in.

After all that drama I had no optimism left as I threw the cake into the pan and wondered what could possibly make it edible after only 8 minutes of cooking. Oddly enough it rose into a beautiful bake like dessert and popped easily out of the pan. The next day I melted more chocolate for the topping and was really excited to try it.

After dinner I took a warm knife to it, then I hacked at it with a fork, then I threatened to throw it against the wall. The topping on this cake would not crack. I had to use all my strength to break through which caused the cake to shatter into unattractive bits rather than allowing itself to be cut into wedges. My family went with the flow and gladly accepted odd shaped pieces of chocolate cake which continued to put up a fight on the plate, refusing to break apart.

It was worth the effort, the cake bit is very fluffy and delicious. The topping is yummy as well but impossible to break, I would suggest making the topping much thinner than the recipe calls for. We also didnt think it was sweet enough even with the addition of fructose so we drizzled agave nectar over our slices. Then it was perfect, it would be great with jam, fruit, maple syrup, anything to break up the pure chocolate.

This cake taught me that there really is such a thing as too much chocolate, believe it or not.

After eating it we were all drunk on it. 100% cocoa is not something to mess with especially when combined with a bottle of wine. It was LSD cake, we were out of our minds after one tiny piece each, giggling at nothing and talking about things not fit for polite company. Two nights in a row now I still havent slept well, its that powerful. I have years of over caffeination under my belt from surviving on nothing but coffee for 8 hour shift playing barista in busy cafes, and yet even that did not compare to the rush from the cake.

This cake needs a warning label. It is amazing but hallucinatory.

Flourless Dark Chocolate Cake

11 ounces unsweetened dark chocolate (plus 6 more for topping)
10 large eggs, separated
4 tablespoons fructose
1 cup heavy cream (to thin out your chocolate if necessary)


Line the bottom of an 8 inch round pan with baking parchment. Heat the oven to 500.

Place a large glass or ceramic bowl over a saucepan of barely boiling water to create a double boiler. Break the 11 ounces of chocolate into smaller pieces and place in bowl. Stir occasionally until melted and smooth, about 10 minutes then remove from the pan and let cool at least 5 minutes. Taste the melted chocolate, depending on the cocoa content of your chocolate it may need to be sweetened. I added 2 tablespoons fructose.

Using a hand held electric mixer, beat the egg whites in a large bowl until stiff peaks form. This will take a long time to accomplish, youre finished when you lift the beaters from the eggs and the peak you pull out of the mixer stays stiff.

In another bowl beat the egg yolks until they are well combined. Slowly add them to the melted chocolate. If the chocolate and egg yolk mixture is too stiff to stir easily or turns into a sold mass, add the heavy cream until it has a thick mouse like consistency. Add a couple tablespoons of beaten egg whites and stir to combine. Quickly and gently fold in the rest of the eggs whites until the mixture has a consistency of a soufflé or light mouse. Do not over mix.

Pour the chocolate mixture into the pan and bake for exactly 8 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and let cool for 30 minutes before placing in refrigerator covered for at least 12 hours.

To finish, turn cake over onto a flat work surface and remove from pan. Melt the remaining 6 ounces of chocolate in a double boiler. Add remaining 2 tablespoons fructose to sweeten if necessary. When fully melted pour a thin layer of chocolate over cake and refrigerator for 15 minutes. To serve dip a sharp knife in hot water and use to slice cake in very thin pieces.

Original recipe from Slim Forever the French Way.

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These were a lovely and perfectly salty accompaniment to the sweet beef dish that was the main dish of dinner.  Everyone was as shocked as I was at how good these tomatoes were.  Even the fella dug into his, and we all know how he feels about tomatoes.  And the big meaty Chilean Cab from Cousino-Macul Antiguas Reservas that we drank while enjoying dinner was a nice contrast to the acidic and salty stuffing in the tomatoes.

 All the wonderful wines that we paired with dinner.  Full tasting notes of all the wines over at Forkful of News.

I could see making these again with more tuna and less capers to cut down the salt and make them more substantial.  For some reason Ive never been a fan of stuffed peppers but these really did it for me.  It could have had something to do with the deeply satisfying and meditative scraping out of the juicy delicate tomato centers.  Not that Im creepy and sometimes like to de-seed squishy fruits every once in a while or anything. 

I even saved all the juicy bits from the inside of my tomatoes and used them instead of diced tomatoes in a soup later on in the week, so this meal helped out in later recipes.  How can you not love a recipe that leaves you with left overs that hint at what you should cook next?

Also included in this meal:

Sundried Tomato Tapenade

Orange, Olive and Argan Oil Salad

Crockpot Beef Tagine

Red Quinoa with Roasted Vegetables

Rice Crepes and Amlou

Salty Stuffed Tomatoes

6 large tomatoes
4 red peppers

salt, to taste
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 7-ounce can tuna
2 tablespoons capers
4 tablespoons chopped black olives
1 lemon, zested
2 tablespoons, chopped parsley

Cut a small circle around the stalk of each tomato and cut out a cap in the top of each.  Using a grapefruit spoon, scoop out the seeds and flesh inside the tomato.  (Save the insides for later when you have a recipe that calls for a can of diced tomatoes.)

Roast the pepper yourself under the broiler or buy good quality pre-roasted red peppers in a jar.  If roasting them yourself, peel, de-seed and chop into strips.

Put the strips of red pepper in a large mixing bowl along with all the remaining ingredients.  Gently fold everything together.  Fill the cavities of the tomatoes with this filling.

Arrange the tomatoes on a shallow baking dish and bake in a 350 degree oven for about 20 to 30 minutes.  Check on them fairly often so that the tomatoes never get to the point where that explode or fall apart in the pan.  They are done when the filling is warmed through. 

From Claudia Rodens Arabesque. 

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This simple but flavorful sauce is a great addition to just about anything. Fish, chicken, veggies or pasta with the addition of a little Parmesan. When Im having a lazy menu making week I whip up a full recipe of this and use it to top a low maintenance piece of meat and then later in the week when I have zero time to cook I toss it over some pasta. Recipes like this keep me sane when Im working too much because the only thing worse than working two jobs is not eating well and trying to make it through the day.

Leek and Fennel Coulis

1/4 cup olive oil
2 leeks, white part and two inches of green part, chopped
1 fennel bulb, finely chopped

1 tablespoon fresh thyme, finely chopped
3 cups baby spinach, roughly chopped

1 cup coconut milk
1/4 cup olive oil

Heat olive oil in a large skillet. Saute leeks and fennel for 6-8 minutes until soft. Stir in thyme and spinach and cover skillet for 2-3 minutes until spinach is thoroughly wilted. Remove pan from heat and stir coconut milk into mixture

Transfer mixture to a food processor and puree on highest speed until smooth. While food processor is running on medium speed, slowly drizzle in olive oil.

Original recipe from Elanas Pantry blog.

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I was having one of those nights where the fella was out of town so there was no one to talk me out of my overwhelming urge for a brownie. A big ooey gooey chocolaty mess of a brownie. Rich and fudgy and melting off the fork before it even gets to your mouth kind of brownie. You know the kind Im talking about.

None of these adjectives however tend to apply to any gluten free brownie Ive ever seen. All of the recipes I could find online looked disappointing or down right scary. I was not to be deterred from my brownie craving so easily so I took Mark Bittman up on his promise to know How to Cook Everything. Sure enough he had a brownie recipe that I was fairly sure I could modify with some sort of nut flour and come up with something tasty.

When the hazelnuts fell out of the cupboard I took that as a sign. I toasted them and ran them through my little coffee grinder and made fine ground hazelnut flour, pouring it in until I had the gooey consistency I was hoping for. But it was still missing something, looking at the liquor shelf I realized what it was...booze! So I threw in some brandy just to be super decadent.

Now I crossed my fingers that this experiment would result in the best brownies ever as I was in no mood to be denied chocolate. I figured that if worse came to worse this would be a very yummy boozy batter to lick raw from the pan if it for some reason refused to cook. Luckily it didnt come to that because 20 minutes later I had the best brownies in the world in my kitchen. Better even than any gluteny brownie. These literally were the best brownies I had ever tasted.

The chef, the roomie, and her friends all happened to be witness to my fabulous creation so I sat them down and “forced” them to taste test my brownies. I didnt stop at the brownies however. I had made Carmel Pear Ice Cream from David Lebovitzs book The Perfect Scoop the day before and so put a tiny scoop of that on the warm melty brownies. The ice cream which was almost too sweet on its own was the perfect contrast to the dark chocolate. Everyone agreed these were the best brownies in creation. We made so many yummy noises the house was probably vibrating.

Then the chef had to go and say something about how the only way these could be any better was with raspberry sauce on top of the ice cream. So of course the next afternoon I bought some raspberries and made it so. He was right the chocolate, pear, raspberry creation is out of this world. As you can imagine this tray of brownies barely lasted two days. And Im still dreaming of them, trying to resist the urge to make more, trying to wait at least a couple more days before giving in and baking them again.

I was so focused on getting these brownies to turn out that I didnt experiment this time around with substituting in agave nectar. When I give in and bake them again I will update the recipe. Until then I put in parenthesis the modifications to the ingredients I think would make using agave instead of sugar work. If someone wants to give it a try please let me know what happens.

Gooey Gluten Free Hazelnut Brownies

8 tablespoons butter (reduce to 6 tablespoons)
3 ounces dark unsweetened baking chocolate

1 cup sugar (replace with 3/4 cup agave nectar)
2 eggs (replace with 1 egg plus 1 egg white)
1 cup hazelnut flour

pinch of salt
1/ 2 teaspoon vanilla (omit this)
1/ 4 cup brandy (reduce to 3 tablespoons)

Heat oven to 350 degrees (325 if cooking with agave nectar.) Grease an 8 or 9 inch square baking pan with butter.

Combine the butter and chocolate in a small saucepan over very low heat, stirring occasionally. When chocolate is just about melted, remove from the heat and continue to stir until smooth.

Transfer to a mixing bowl and stir in sugar (or agave.) Then beat in the eggs one at a time. Gently stir in the hazelnut flour (make your own by toasting, removing the skin from and grinding the nuts in a coffee/spice grinder until very fine), salt, vanilla, and brandy. Pour into the prepared pan and bake until just barely set in the middle, about 20 minutes. If in doubt under cook them slightly rather than over cooking them.

Top with Caramel Pear Ice Cream and Raspberry Topping for the ultimate dessert.

The sugar free gluten free version of this recipe can be found here.

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There are very few times on this diet where Ive actually felt deprived of anything.  Admittedly there was a huge learning curve when the fella and I first started and we spent a lot of time mourning the lost of things we could no longer eat.  After a year of eating this way however weve figured out substitutes for most of the things we could possibly want.  Almond flour has been a blessing, allowing us to make decent faux versions of things like naan and pizza crust that we would otherwise have gone crazy without. 

The one problem almond flour couldnt solve however was the rice issue.  Brown rice is fine on low fat/high carb days.  But what is a girl to do when she has just made a spectacular rich spicy curry with delicious cubes of perfectly marinated meat and veggies floating in it?  To eat it alone like a odd creamy soup seems like a waste of the subtleties of flavor I just spent an hour creating.  Or it might need some sort of carbohydrate to even out the spice level.  And a splendid stir fry is just dull without something hearty to fill out the meal and absorb the sweet but sour sauce dripping off the veggies.

This problem has stymied me until just recently.  I had  been keeping my stir fries and curries on the low fat end of the scale so I could have them with rice but thats no solution for an enterprising foodie like myself.  Enter Shirataki noodles!

A fellow food geek told me about these at a party I was at recently. She said they were her favorite no carb no fat noodle for her gluten free cooking clients. Surely I thought she was exaggerating, not thinking it possible that a food so perfect for the Montignac diet could actually exist. The fella and I went in search of them the next day and found them for around $1 for an 8 ounce bag of them in the refrigerated section of the local Asian grocery stores near the tofu. We leapt for joy, came home and ate them with a stir fry. It was amazing and everything I had been missing about not having rice on fat/no carb days.

Now that I know about Shirataki Ive been seeing them everywhere.  The traditional genuinely carb free noodles from Japan Ive only found in Asian markets.  They are almost completely flavorless and contain only water and water soluble dietary fiber as they are made from the konjac plant and then suspended in lime resulting in no carbs whatsoever.  (One of my science inclined friends can feel free to chime in to explain how this works, Im talking about you Stephanie.)  They have a better consistency and hold up to being heated better than the other easier to find variety. 

The other variety, the one I stopped long enough to take a picture of for you is in the tofu section of places like Whole Foods or even in the organic health food section of the produce in chain grocery stores.  These are tofu based and so arent totally carb free.  They also have a slightly off putting Jello like consistency and are more expensive.

It all depends on what you can find but, both versions are nice options for times when youd like to be eating rice but they take a little getting used to.  The noodles come floating in a fishy smelling liquid to preserve them which was enough to totally turn off the fella who is no  lover of raw fish or “salted trout flakes” as he so lovingly refers to nori.  They just need some rinsing under cool water to rid them of the fishy smell.  Next I would suggest boiling them for literally one minute, just long enough to heat them through and cook off any remaining fish smell.  Drain them again and toss them with a little toasted sesame oil or hoisin sauce and youre ready to go.  You can even use kitchen scissors to cut the noodles into smaller pieces so  they are more rice like.

Shirtaki has now become my new favorite low carb obsession.  Look at it steamy and coating hoisin sauce though and can you blame me?  No carbs no guilt and tasty.  Whats not to love?

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