Wednesday 17 September 2014

Bacon-Wrapped Mushroom Poppers

So. I've got an hour and a half of free time. Well, not really free time. I could be doing something school-related, but I feel like blogging instead. Remember my loaded portobello mushrooms? I do. I loved them, especially because they gave me tons of new ideas. This mushroom-craze I've been having is seriously weird, though, because I always hated mushrooms growing up. I'm still trying to wrap my head around my new fascination.

Anyway, I bring you mushroom poppers. Why mushroom poppers instead of jalapeño poppers? Well, simply because I wanted my poppers to be reliable. I love the idea of jalapeño poppers. I love peppers, cheese, and bacon. I've made poppers plenty of times, including making batches for family. However, I have found jalapeños to be far too unpredictable for me. I'm not used to a lot of hotness, so if I get a batch that turns out to be particularly spicy... well, consider me a baby when that happens. With mushroom poppers, not only can I still have them spicy, I can control how spicy they are!
 

Funny story, though...

I actually didn't make these for myself. That's right, I wanted to make something delicious for other people. Actually, for my dad. He and the rest of our immediate family came over to my house for dinner to celebrate his 60th 59th (hehe...) birthday. There was so much food! Hamburgers, hot dogs, salad, traditional deviled eggs as well as avocado-bacon deviled eggs (made by yours truly), black forest cake (my mum made it for the first time!), and new-york style low-carb cheesecake (also made by yours truly). 

Uh, but I also made these bad boys. They were the first thing I made, and I was super excited to share them because my dad and brother really enjoy mushrooms. I tossed them in the oven (not to bake, just so they didn't take up space) and, well. Yeah. I completely forgot about them. It wasn't until I got ready for bed and thought "Did I turn the oven off?" when I realised... I hadn't used the damn oven! My mushroom poppers, nooooo! I'm not used to having more than two extras over for dinner, so any time family is over to eat I get a little stressed. Oops!

Ingredients
  • 12 small-medium white button mushrooms 
  • 12 slices of bacon 
  • 6 tbsp (1/4 c + 2 tbsp) cream cheese, flavoured if desired (softened, or use spreadable)
  • ~200g cheddar cheese (~15g per mushroom)
  • 1 tbsp hot sauce (I used Frank's Redhot)
  • 1/2 tbsp red pepper flakes (1/2 tbsp plus the Franks creates a medium spice level)
If you want to make more or less than one batch, match the ingredients to the number of mushrooms you have. That is, 1 mushroom + 1 slice of bacon + 1/2 tbsp of cream cheese + 15g of cheddar cheese. Adjust the spice level to your preferences! 

Nutritional information, per serving (1): 179 cals, 2g net carbs (2g carbs, 0g fiber), 16g fat, 8g protein
Nutritional information, whole batch: 2152 cals, 18g net carbs (21g carbs, 3g fiber), 190g fat, 90g protein

Ingredients
Calories
Net Carbs (g)
Carbs (g)
Fiber (g)
Fat (g)
Protein (g)
~200g white mushroom
44
5
7
2
1
6
12 slices of bacon
1140
6
6
0
108
36
1/2 cup cream cheese
240
6
6
0
21
6
~180g medium cheddar
720
0
0
0
60
42
1/2 tbsp red pepper flakes
8
1
2
1
0
0

Directions
If you're like me and enjoy a firmer piece of bacon, cook it ahead of baking. I put my bacon on the stove while I prepped the other ingredients, cooked it to the point where I would eat it, and I could still move it without breaking it apart, so not very crispy (see the second picture posted above). We'll be baking these bad boys later, so the bacon will finish off nicely.
Preheat your oven to 375F. 
While your bacon is cooking, rinse and dry your mushrooms. Remove stems and gently scoop out the gills. I say gently because mushrooms are delicate and we don't want to split them right in half. A couple cracks won't hurt, though. 
Rinsed, dried, stems removed.
I used a strawberry huller to scrape out the gills and a little flesh, too. (not my flesh!)  
Check your bacon for doneness, making sure you don't cook the strips to a crispy level. 
Also cut your cheddar cheese into 12 cube-like pieces (or however many you need), small enough to fit inside the mushrooms. You could also shred the cheese, but this is way easier.
These are ~15g each
In a small-medium mixing bowl, mix cream cheese, hot sauce, and red pepper flakes. I used a hand mixer for about 2 minutes during this step. The mix was super creamy and had no lumps of still-cold cream cheese. 
Next, we're going to fill the mushrooms. Again, the mushrooms are delicate, so I highly recommend using a piping bag. If you don't have one, put your cream cheese mix in a plastic baggie and cut the tip off. Pipe the mix into the mushrooms, about 2/3 full, leaving room for the cheese cubes.
Oops. Some of these are not 2/3...
Then top with cheese cubes.
Next, I cut each of my bacon pieces at the 2/3 mark and placed the 1/3 pieces over the mushrooms. This is totally optional; I did it because the strips were too long for a simple wrap-around. Regardless, wrap your cheese mushrooms with bacon and secure using a toothpick. Note: Don't use mint flavoured tooth picks :(

I used cupcake liners to minimize the greasy mess when baking!
Bake at 375F for 10 minutes, or freeze. If freezing and cooking later, I'd add an extra 3-5 minutes on the cooking time. 

Mmm!
xo, Jennifer

Tuesday 9 September 2014

Loaded Portobello Mushrooms

Since I moved out of my mum's house and my SO and I moved into our own place, my mum and I have gone grocery shopping every Sunday (except in special circumstances). We consider it quality mother-daughter time. We get to catch up about our previous week, gossip a little bit, and discuss food - something we both love! Last Sunday while driving around we spent a considerable amount of time figuring out what we would have for our respective dinners, since neither of us had bothered to plan anything.

After inviting myself and the SO over to my mum's for dinner, I wandered around the grocery store for a bit. As I picked up green peppers I thought to myself "what am I going to do with these? I really should have planned ahead... Oh! Stuffed peppers! I haven't had those in forever." Of course, I had invited myself to my mum's so I suggested stuffed peppers. She agreed. Then I saw portobello mushroom caps! Remembering pictures of recipes I've never tried, I asked my mum if she would make some so I would know if I liked them. Neither my mother or I particularly enjoy mushrooms, however, so at least if I didn't like them, both my step-father and my brother do. However, given that neither of us typically cook with mushrooms, we had no idea what to do with them. All I could think was cheese and bacon, because when is cheese and bacon not a good idea? That's how I got the idea of loaded portobello mushrooms (like loaded baked potatoes... without the potatoes!).


I KNOW. What a glorious idea. Put the cheese and bacon in the mushroom. Delicious. So, of course, after tasting the delicious creation at my mum's place I had to make it myself at home. Fortunately for me, this is one meal the SO refuses to try (I push him pretty far with all the veggies), so more for me!

This is a super simple, super quick, super delicious recipe. I found the mushroom to be incredibly flavourful, so with all the cheese, bacon, etc, I didn't feel it was necessary to spice this up.

Ingredients

I only cooked 2 caps this time, but I'm going to include ingredients for 4 servings.

  • 4 portobello mushroom caps
  • 6 slices of bacon
  • 120g choice cheese (I used marble), shredded
  • 1/4 c green onion, chopped
  • 1/2 c sour cream (I used 14%)
Nutritional information, per serving (4): 371 cals, 4g net carbs (5g carbs, 1g fiber), 35g fat, 15g protein
Nutritional information, whole batch: 1484 cals, 17g net carbs (21g carbs, 4g fiber), 138g fat, 61g protein


Ingredients
Calories
Net Carbs (g)
Carbs (g)
Fiber (g)
Fat (g)
Protein (g)
4 portobello caps (~50g each)
44 5 8 3 8 4
6 slices of thick cut bacon
750 3 3 0 72 24
120g marble cheese
480 0 0 0 40 28
1/4 c green onion
10 1 2 1 0 1
1/2 c 14% sour cream
200 8 8 0 18 4

If there are other ingredients you're going to put in your loaded potato portobello mushrooms, let me know!

Directions
First, preheat your oven to 400F. Make bacon bits however you normally make them. Chop green onion until you have about 1/4 cup. Shred whatever type of cheese you plan on using and measure out 120g. 
Remove the stem and gills from the mushroom caps, and even scoop out a little of the flesh if you desire. We're making room for cheese and bacon, after all. My caps ended up being about 50g each after this process.
Put about 30g of cheese in each cap. Top with bacon bits (I used about 1.5 slices per cap) and ~1 tbsp of green onion. 
Place your caps on a baking sheet and pop them in the oven for about 10 minutes or until all the cheese is deliciously gooey. Remove, top each with 2 tbsp of sour cream, and stuff them in your face!

This is the delicious meal I had at my mum's! Check out all that cheese. LOOK AT IT.
Stuff all the food!
What do you do with your mushrooms?

xo, Jennifer

Monday 1 September 2014

Almond PIZZA Crust and the Ultimate Low-Carb Pizza List

HELLO PIZZA LOVERS. I am excited to share this super simple pizza crust recipe with you guys. Okay? I am 100% sure that you've all already got your FAVOURITE low-carb pizza go-to (mine happens to actually be pizza bowls). But maybe you should try something new for once? Maybe? I mean, it is still pizza so it won't be that new.

Before we get started can we just stop to take a look at the keto pizza options? I mean for real. LOOK.

THE LIST

Who says this is the ultimate list? Well, I do. Obviously. I grabbed links off the first page of Google did hours of extensive research in order to find you all a plethora of keto pizza recipes to try. Ordered alphabetically, I've bolded the ones I've tried.

Note: this is certainly not an exhaustive list of all the low-carb pizza recipes out there, but this should get you started on a great and tasty adventure. If your favourite isn't listed, be sure to comment with a link and I'll get it up ASAP.
bacon and meatballs. yeah.
So if there are so many other recipes, why am I putting this up? Well, for one, why not add to the incredibly delicious list of pizza options? Two, because my recipe uses three simple ingredients, and not a lot of them. I was making a whipped jell-o pie the other day and thought, why haven't I tried using this crust for pizza? It holds up so well with pie, especially after resting for a few hours. So, I tried the same crust recipe and came up with this: 

Which, really, was quite delicious. But as you can see, the crust definitely didn't turn out. With the almond pie crust, it is best to let it chill if you're not baking it, or bake it and then let it chill, and then let it plus the pie filling chill, in order for it to hold together properly. 

To use the crust almost immediately, I'd need a better binding agent. Obviously, I didn't want to weigh this baby down with too many other ingredients, so cheese was out (besides, there are so many existing cheese recipes). I decided to try one egg. Woohoo! It turned out great.

This crust is ideal for thin crust lovers, though it doesn't get as crispy as that "real" hand-tossed, thin-crust pizza. I've had success making a ~8 inch pizza, and ~10 or so inch pizza with this crust, the smaller being a little thicker than the larger of course. 

Warning: If you're not a fan of almond flour, well, sorry (not sorry).

Ingredients

  • 1 c almond flour/ground almonds
  • 1/4 c butter, salted (or unsalted, then add salt to taste)
  • 1 large egg, whole
*Note: "Nutritional information" does not include any toppings. 
Nutritional information, per serving (#): 128 cals, 2g net carbs (3g carbs, 1g fiber), 12g fat, 3g protein
Nutritional information, whole batch: 1026 cals, 9g net carbs (20g carbs, 11g fiber), 99g fat, 26g protein


Ingredients
Calories
Net Carbs (g)
Carbs (g)
Fiber (g)
Fat (g)
Protein (g)
1 c almond flour
549
8
19
11
48
20
1/4 butter
407
0
0
0
46
0
1 large egg
70
1
1
0
5
6

Directions
Preheat your oven to 350F and prep a baking pan with parchment paper. You won't need to grease your pan. I used a springform base for my smaller pizza, and then just a large round cookie sheet for the larger one.
Melt 1/4 c butter (salted or unsalted). Add the butter to 1 c almond flour, a pinch or so of salt (if you used unsalted butter), and one large egg. Mix them all together with a fork until you get a disgusting looking mess in a bowl. Your batter should be awfully sticky/gooey, etc.
Drop all your batter on your pan lined with parchment paper and spread it out. Because it is so sticky, you can dampen your hands so the batter doesn't stick to you as much. Just don't add cups of water to the batter. 

Once you've got your batter spread to a desirable size, pop it in the oven for about 10 minutes, or until the crust has dried and the edges are browning. 


Add your desired toppings. 
1/4 c pizza sauce, 6 slices of bacon (chopped), 30g goat cheese, 1/2 c pizza mozzarella, 1/4c nacho cheese, 1 tbsp hot sauce
Bake your pizza on 350F for about 15 minutes or until cheese is melted.

Slice your pizza in 8-12 slices or whatever you want. Put it in your mouth and enjoy it.


Don't forget to let me know what your favourite low-carb pizza is, crust or no crust!
xo, Jennifer