Food tips for the holiday season

How did you go with christmas?  Did you eat all the food!  What did you eat?

We pretty much stuck to our LCHF lifestyle and shared it with my parents who came for the day.

It is the second christmas we have done this way and it is much easier than people think.

I have found over the past two years that the best thing when it comes to food is to keep it simple.  A hard less to learn as I waste heaps of money on recipe books I flip though, ooh and aah then never use.  If I were one for new year resolutions I think I would have to make one pledging never to buy another recipe book LOL

The holiday season is renown for entertaining and it doesn't have to be difficult or high carb.

I have shared some of my tips for the season below and hope you find them helpful

1. The thing with most foods is that they are unnecessarily sweetened.  Seriously, you can go without many sweeteners in things.

Make a custard from scratch and use high fat ingredients it really doesn't need sugar,  I use Quirky Jo's custard recipe and never put in the sugar and it is awesome!  As with most grain free cake recipes too.  This is my current fave from Traditional Cooking School but OMG!  3/4 of honey!  They've gotta be kidding right!  What I do is instead of using the honey I use stevia sweetened (avalanche) hot choc mix as the cocoa portion of the recipe and stevia sweetened choc chips.  This keeps the cake sweet enough without being totally over the top.

2. Go for savoury over sweet.  This is especially good if you are entertaining people who aren't into eating how you do.  Assuming they aren't vegan then go to town with the cheese platter.   Make some dips (don't buy expensive full of crappy seed oil dips), mash a couple of avocados with some chilli, garlic, lemon juice and seasoning, or whisk some herbs into cream cheese.  Seed crackers are awesome or make some seed bread for cheese and dips. Both tasty and LCHF/paleo.  Remember filling up on high fat will leave you satisfied for a lot longer than filling up on carbs.

3. Planning ahead is the third tip.  If you are caught short you will be able to stick to what you believe in and stay healthy.  I find if I am short of time then I am more likely to bad poorer choices food wise so I like to know that I have stuff I want to eat available. I have a well stocked pantry with nuts, seeds etc, I stock my freezer with good quality meats. And look for mark downs at the supermarket, cheese lasts quite a while, cream and butter can both be frozen too.  If you are in Launceston I recommend Casalinga or Conmurra Meats.  The latter deliver weekly to your door, grow and butcher their own grassfed meat and is really well priced.  At Davies Grand Central you can find a great range of LCHF products too.  Last year I wrote the Launceston Shopping Guide for LCHF 

4. Go seasonal.  Berries. Need I say more really LOL  Tis the season and all that.  I love summer berries.  We don't do much in the way of fruit (read:don't eat it really) for 10 months of the year but come summer we love berries.  The kids will occasionally have mango, watermelon and cherries too but I tend to stick to berries and occasional cherries.  We are blessed with some great local PYO (pick your own) farms or you can pop down to Laun Harvest Market and grab some.  We were very lucky to win a berry box from Paleo Providore that was delivered two days before christmas so we chowed on berries for christmas.  I also freeze berries for smoothies, cool treats and cakes.

At the end of the day it is about enough the company of others. 

 It doesn't have to be a banquet, a few good foods that are filling is the way to go rather than masses of rubbish.  And, don't beat yourself up if you have something not on a list.  

This is a way of life, it isn't a competition or a test so you can't fail or cheat.

Easy LCHF Christmas Food

This is our second Christmas doing LCHF.  Last year was a great hit so we are continuing on that success. I know it isn't actually christmas yet but today was my daughter's girl's group christmas party and we played host.  Everyone bought something to share but we also provided some savoury and sweet foods for the group.

Pretty much everything today will be seen again for the big day with family so a good practice run!

Last year I did some individual ginger cakes but this year I am going to have a go at a ginger style biscuit that is grain free and LCHF so will keep you posted on that one.

On the menu today we had the following:

Starters

Herbed Kefir dip

spinach and cheese dip

camembert

crackers

carrot sticks

Main meal

LCHF sausages from Casalinga

Home made Sauerkraut

green salad with feta cheese and olives

Desserts

LCHF trifle

Kombucha jellies

GAPS chocolate cake

Strawberry santas

Herbed kefir dip

1c kefir cheese

1/2 cream cheese

2 garlic cloves crushed

S&P to taste

2 tbs fresh cut chives

1tbs fresh cut parsley

2tbs fresh cut basil

If you don't have kefir cheese you can just use cream cheese however if you ferment milk, kefir cheese is super easy to make.  Simply remove your milk grains then let your fermented milk strain through a cloth and colander overnight.  The whey will strain away and leave a thick cheese in the cloth.  Use your way as a starter for veg ferments.

To make the dip, simply combine all ingredients. This is much better made the day before you actually want it as the herb flavours will intensify over time.

You can pretty much add any herbs you like to the mix.

Kombucha Jelly

1c water

1c berry puree

2c kombucha or kefir

1tbs vanilla

4tbs great lakes gelatin

Combine gelatin and water in a saucepan and let sit for 10min.  Gently bring up to simmer and add berry puree and vanilla, let simmer for a few minutes then remove from heat.

When mix is tepid stir in the kombucha or kefir then pour into moulds or tray and refrigerate until firm.

LCHF Trifle

1 sm cake, I used this recipe  

kombucha jelly

1c mixed berries

1c coconut custard from Quirky Jo (I skip the sugar though)

Double Cream

Cut cake and jelly into cubes.  Simply layer, cake, jelly, berries & custard then top with cream and decorate as you wish. 

Too easy huh!

What did Christmas look like at your house??

Everyone talks about how hard it is at christmas time to stay on track with food.  Not to over indulge, eat crap, drink too much etc

I must admit I was in a bit of a quandary of what to do as I was host and knew that not everyone was on board with my food choices.  

I got the children to write a list of what they wanted.  I was surprised as their choices were pretty good:

potato bake (with white potatoes please mum!)

bean and avocado salad

mushrooms

chicken

ham

and cheese in our stockings!

So, I went to work.  The meat and salad side of things were the same as every year pretty much and simple.  All made with good fresh produce (other than tinned 4 bean mix), olive oil and fresh herbs.

I did a cheese plate with cheeses from Ashgrove (and yes the kids did get cheese in their stockings!) along with some naturally leavened sourdough from Apiece Bakery for the bread eaters.

I also got some smoked salmon and whipped up these beauties from Ditch the Carbs!

Salmon and cream cheese egg bites.  They are divine, although next time I will put more salmon in them.

I usually make up small platters for friends and family at christmas time but this year with a newborn in the house I was a little challenged for time and spare hands. 

I did manage to make this pale green christmas that was delicious 

                                                    along with some strawberry truffles.

My boy wanted real trifle (meaning processed cake, sugary jelly and packet custard).   

Um, no.

LOL

He wasn't actually home when I made this and on boxing day I asked him what he thought.  He told me it was amazing and he was so glad I made a 'real' one.  

Imagine his surprise when I told him how I made it!

This 'real trifle' was broken up paleo ginger cake, jelly made with juice, agar agar and passionfruit pulp, fresh berries, fresh mango, quirky's coconut caramel custard and ashgrove cream.

 No added sugars or grains and tasted divine!

Lastly was the request for a raw cheesecake, fast becoming a fave in this household but a treat due to the expense of nuts!

I use the I Quit Sugar recipe for this.  

The texture was quite stiff when making this and I was concerned about it but needn't have been. 

 I made it four days in advance and popped it in the freezer.  

Pulled it out christmas eve and left it in the fridge.  

I swear to god this is heaven in a baking dish!

So, christmas was sugar free, grain free (for me) and successfully low carb high fat.  I didn't feel like I missed out on anything or was deprived and I don't think my kids did either. 

What was your christmas like?

Christmas Ginger Cakes

I think ginger and christmas go together almost as well as Pru and Trude don't you!

As soon as christmas comes around I start thinking gingerbread men, houses and cakes.

Since this is our first christmas doing the LCHF thang I had to give some serious thought to what my baking would be.  

As it is I have cut back seriously on what I am doing as having a newborn in the house has impacted on available time somewhat LOL

As much as I love gingerbread I didn't want to go down the whole wheat/sugar road so I got to thinking about alternatives and decided to play around with my bean cake recipe and see what I could come up with.

The ingredients aren't all that different which is great as I think you could tweak this recipe to suit whatever your taste buds fancy.

Ingredients

400gr tin of white beans

4 eggs

120gr butter (melted)

3tbs agave/honey/maple syrup (treacle would give a more traditional flavour)

2tbs coconut flour

1/2tsp bi-carb

1/2tsp baking powder

1.5tbs dried ginger

1tbs cinnamon

1/2tsp salt

Method

Turn oven onto 200c to heat.

Drain and wash your beans well.  

Blend beans with one egg until smooth.  Add remaining eggs and all other ingredients.  

Blend until well combined.

Now, you can bake this in a ring tin for around 30min but as I am putting some of these into a christmas  hamper for my aunt I thought it best to make them as cupcakes.

If you do this they only took 20min to bake and come up a beautiful golden brown.  

I intend on adding a cashew cream icing just before I deliver them.