Elf Bread

Because my son wants homemade bread so often, and it's a pain to make, this month I bought a cheap bread machine from amazon. I love it! All you have to do is dump in flour, liquid, and yeast in the bin, then push a button. A few hours later, voila. Homemade bread. It's definitely better than cleaning the counter from the dried flour shards that develop after kneading.

But... can bread be eaten on a low carb diet? I'm happy to say, yes.

I call this bread "Elf Bread" after Tolkien's elves who make lembas, a magical bread they use for travel in which one bite equals a meal.(Merry went overboard with eating it, but being a hobbit didn't seem to suffer too much). Seriously, with a glass of milk I eat one slice of this bread with butter in the morning, and another slice with butter for lunch, and I'm good to go till dinner.

I adapted this recipe from Dana Carpender's 500 Low-Carb Recipes: 500 Recipes from Snacks to Dessert That the Whole Family Will Love. This bread is so good you can serve it to your non-low-carb family for dinner, and they'll never guess it's low-carb (at least until they see you eating it also).

1/2 cup rolled oats
4 tablespoons raw wheat germ
4 tablespoons flaxseeds
4/3 cups boiling water
6 tablespoons blackstrap molasses
6 tablespoons Xylitol (or Splenda if you must)
2 tablespoons oil
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup ground almonds
1 1/2 cups vital wheat gluten
1/2 cup vanilla-flavored whey protein powder
4 tablespoons water
2 packages yeast

Put the rolled oats, wheat germ, and flaxseeds in the bread machine case or in a bowl (if making by hand). Pour the boiling water over them and let soak for at least 15 minutes.

Add the remaining ingredients. If using a bread machine put ingredients in the bin in the above order, then push the button. If making by hand proof the yeast with the oat-mixture, then mix in the liquid ingredients and sweetener. Stir in the dry ingredients and knead. Put in a greased bowl, cover with a wet cloth, and let rise until doubled (I like to let dough rise in the unheated oven where it isn't drafty). Punch down the dough and let it rise again. Place in a greased bread pan and bake at 350F.

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I have become a low-carb pod person. I cannot stop raving about this; I feel so much better, and with recipes like this don't feel in the least deprived. With no hunger and no sense of deprivation or food cravings I've lost 15 pounds since October and continuing. Time to buy new pants.

Low Carb Chocolate Chip Cookies

My family makes fun of my low-carb foods. I told them they can make snide remarks but only after they taste them, since they're really good. I happened to have a batch of these cookies around at the time. My husband and both kids had to admit that these were good, so good that they could serve them to their friends and no one would be the wiser. My point exactly. Eating low-carb isn't a chore as long as you do a little preparation. I freeze these cookies, or other things I make, and eat them if I want a convenient snack.

My family still thinks my attention to carbs is a little silly, but let 'em. I feel great.

Here's a recipe for chocolate chip cookies that I adapted closely from Dana Carpender's book, 500 LOW-CARB RECIPES: 500 RECIPES, FROM SNACKS TO DESSERT, THAT THE WHOLE FAMILY WILL LOVE. This woman is a magician.

Low-Carb Chocolate Chip Cookies

1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup extra-light olive oil
1 cup Splenda
1/2 cup xylitol
2 teaspoons blackstrap molasses (gives that brown-sugar taste)
2 eggs
1 cup ground almonds
1 cup vanilla-flavored whey protein powder
1/4 cup ground flaxseed
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
12 ounces sugar-free chocolate chips
(1 cup chopped walnuts, optional)

Oven 350F. Blend together the butter, oil, sweeteners, and molasses. Add the eggs one at a time, and beat well. In a separate bowl stir together the almonds, protein powder, flaxseed, baking soda, and salt. Blend the dry and wet mixes together well. Stir in the chocolate chips and the nuts. Drop dough by rounded teaspoons onto greased cookie sheets (I use parchment paper). Bake for about 10 minutes or until light golden. Cool and remove.

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You can buy the exotic ingredients at a health food store or on the internet. walmart.com sells bags of sugar-free chocolate chips for $3 each, with free shipping for a certain minimum spending limit.

If you read my previous article on artificial sweeteners, you know that I really like xylitol (a sugar alcohol) because it measures and tastes like sugar, with no aftertaste. There are no known long-term side effects. However, CAUTION SHOULD BE EXERCISED WITH SUGAR ALCOHOLS. Not only do these cookies have xylitol as a sweetener, but the sugar-free chocolate uses maltilol (another sugar alcohol) to sweeten the chocolate. These alcohols act as an osmotic in the GI tract since they're not digested. In other words, as the bag on the chocolate chips politely warns: "individuals sensitive to sugar substitutes may experience a laxative effect."

Don't panic and say never never. Just make sure that you only eat a few cookies at a time until you figure out your tolerance for this stuff. The "laxative" effects kick in about 4 hours later, so if you react that will be the time. Likely you won't have any sort of problem even if you eat a dozen cookies. Here's some more good news: as you regularly consume sugar alcohols, you develop a tolerance that eliminates GI symptoms, meaning you can eat even more cookies at once :-)))