Low carb Chicken Alfredo with bacon

OK...this was killer ! I will never used packaged or jarred Alfredo sauce again. I have tried for years to make a yummy Alfredo sauce and wouldn't you know it wasn't until I experimented with my low carb diet that I was successful !This sauce is so good it would be delicious over pasta but since we don't eat pasta I made noodles out of zucchini. 

Here is what you will need:
4 chicken breasts
1 lb bacon
1 clove garlic (at least)
8 oz pkg of cream cheese
2 cups heavy cream
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
Pepper to taste

Here is how I did it:
I started by first cooking the bacon. Our bacon is purchased in the frozen section of the market here, so that is how we also keep it. I dice it up before I cook it.When it is cooked to your liking, use a slotted spoon to remove the bacon which will be added back a little later on. In the same pan with the bacon grease I cooked the diced chicken (which is also in the frozen section here). Add the garlic. When the chicken is done throughout I added the cream cheese. Cook till melted down and add the heavy cream. I let this mixture come to a boil and finish off by adding the Parmesan, pepper and bacon. It that easy or what ?

Enjoy = )

Low Carb Garlic Bread

I have plenty new recipes to post. The nights are getting longer so I can get some decent photos. This is one of our new favorites, garlic bread. I have plans to try this as a pizza crust as I think it would be perfect. I'm thinking I'll just flatten it out a bit more and add the toppings for the second bake. One of the keys to this being crunchy is to grease the cookie sheet with olive oil. Here is the finished photo to give you the idea of just how yummy it is = )

In a medium mixing bowl combine:
1 1/2 cups almond flour
1 Tbls coconut flour
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp xanthan gum

I have made this without the xanthan gum and wasn't fond of the texture.

After you have mixed this well you can add,
1 cup shredded mozarella
1/2 cup fresh Parmesan or Romano

In a small bowl beat 3 egg whites till fluffy. Add to the dry mixture along with 2 Tbls olive oil.
Mix will and form into a ball. Press out onto the greased cookie sheet. The shape won't change much during cooking so whatever thickness you start with is pretty much the same as it will be when done.

Cook at 400 degrees for 15 minutes or until browned on top.

At this point I peeled the wrapper off of one end of a stick of butter and rubbed butter all around on the top. If you prefer you could melt 2 Tbls of butter and use a pastry brush. Sprinkle with garlic powder, 1 cup mozzarella and some Italian seasonings and return to the oven for an additional 10 to 15 minutes. Remove from the oven when the cheese is melted and golden brown. If you have any leftover, it's amazing the next day cold. I hope you enjoy it as much as we did = )

One of life's "not so little" challenges.

Weight loss...can be so depressing.
It is something that has been haunting me for most of my life, but this time I was out of control.
A little over a month ago hubby and I decided it was time to do something about it. We figured we each had about 50 pounds to loose...ugh. He has had previous success on Atkins and felt good about the science of the diet so we decided to go that route. What a great plan ! Now, I am by no measure a diet guru. I thought I tried Atkins before but had no success...that is what happens when you don't understand the principles of what is happening to your body while you are following Atkins. I highly suggest visiting atkins.com and devouring every bit on information on the site that you can. There is even help in the form of chat rooms and blog posts if you need, and you will probably need. I also suggest the atkins carb counter app for your iphone. It takes all the guesswork out of what you can or cannot eat. This program is easy and you never need to be hungry. In the last month I have lost 14 pounds and 7 inches, and hubby has lost 19 (he doesn't calculate inches = ). I call that success. My reasons for blogging about this though is simply to share some of the recipes that we have enjoyed during the process. Maybe I can inspire someone to make the life change we did.

Here are a few things we do that work well for us.
Olives are wonderful...I keep a container in the fridge for when I need something to snack on NOW
Avocados are a perfect food, always have them on hand.
Onions and mushrooms make almost anything taste good.
Don't be afraid of eating fat. The main principle of Atkins is that you are retraining your body to find its energy source from fat instead of carbs. 
I literally went through the house and gave away all the bad stuff I didn't want to eat any more. Bread, rice and sugar. When my body is ready to have these things again I will introduce them slowly.
You absolutely NEED the support of your family. I couldn't have done this alone and having someone to bounce ideas off is wonderful. When one of us is weak the other supports sticking with it ! 

We don't have a source here on the island for any Atkins products but we did order some shakes and bars from on-line and they are great to have around for emergencies. You need to eat several times a day so if your away from home take a shake and a bar with you. That way you won't be tempted to buy something not on the list of things you can eat. Besides...the bars are like candy and will make you feel like you are totally cheating = )

One of our first and still favorite creations is the Anything Caesar Salad. I call it that because you can make it with almost anything you have on hand. Leftover chicken, pork, it's amazing with steak. The most important ingredients are the Romaine lettuce and the dressing.

According to Julia Child Cardini's has been making Caesar salads since the 1920's. This dressing is amazing. Now the peppers are the hubbies idea, and a great on at that. We kind of add them to everything too.

Here it is before it's mixed up. Romaine lettuce, peppers, chicken, fresh grated Parmesan cheese and dressing...it's that simple.

 

Here it is all ready fo pound...um, to eat. NO CROUTONS ALLOWED ! 

Anything Caesar Salad

1 cup Romaine lettuce

5 hot peppers

1 chicken breast

2 tbls fresh grated Parmesan cheese

2 tbls dressing

According to the Atkins carb counter this contains 2.6 grams of carbs. I am learning that as long as I eat reasonable portions I don't worry about calories and I still loose weight ! 

If you have any questions...feel free to ask = )

 

Spring is coming and we've had a bit of rain. Not enough to get us out of our drought, but enough to turn the island green for a few weeks and send the grasses, wildflowers and Ekoa into seed production. If we are lucky, very soon we will have another good dose of rain that will start some of the new seed.

 

We have plenty of Ekoa on the ranch and I will be watching closely for just the right time to harvest the seed. If I wait too long the bugs find them and they are ruined.
 

 

 

After gathering, the seeds are boiled in water with a dash of oil to soften them. This makes the needle and thread pass easily through them for stringing.

I string mine together with seeds from Ali'ipoe for earrings.

 

 

Even after boiling and stringing they must be properly cared for. I keep them in a sealed plastic bag together with bay leaves to keep the bugs away. I currently have these in stock as well as my Job's tear earrings in my Etsy store Makamae O Molokai

 

One of my favorite parts of this time of year is to watch the beautiful grasses blowing in the pasture. I shot this video the other day when I was on my way home from getting the mail in Maunaloa. The trade winds were blowing. The clouds were moving very fast leaving shadows running on the hills. I love the way the grass moves much like the waves of the ocean. Enjoy !

 

 

Two in one.

Hello again, two in one day. Lucky you!

      So really, I've been keeping myself busy. This will be a quick post with just a few pictures. So I found this ugly old lamp from the 70's at a thrift store, picked it up for $3. It was ugly bronze color and scratched and get this, it didn't even work. So I took it apart and kept the cool glass ball that was on the lamp. Well I was starting to think about tossing out the glass ball because it was just taking up space. Until a random idea popped into my head, hanging glass planter. All I needed was string to hang it with. It took a total of 10 minutes to make once I had all the things. Here's the process and final product......

I LOVE how it turned out, couldn't be happier. Now just to put some dirt and seeds in it! :)

Love,

Maddie

Busy, Busy

Hey there! Long time no blogging..... :)


        Once school started I've been beyond busy and haven't had time to blog at all! I feel like I've neglected the blog! Lately I've been busy with school but also with baking! This past Friday I went baking crazed. I've been on Pinterest, a lot looking at all the delicious recipes. I ended up using this recipe here. For the cinnamon rolls I made. I also made Lemownies (Lemon Brownies) which were amazingly good. Here is the recipe. So as I may have been neglecting the blog I have been keeping busy doing other stuff.

First I did the Lemownies.... 

The frosting was so amazing

 mmmm, so amazing....

I then worked on the cinnamon rolls.

 I added some blueberries to a few cinnamon rolls...

Boy, did I make a HUGE mess :)

My sweet little kitten Dewey sat above and watched me bake :) 

He really liked the lemownie frosting. 

So I'm going to start trying to blog at least once a week on things I've done wether interesting or not, I'll make it work. Hope you enjoyed! 

Love,

Maddie

Restocking the warehouse

Well, we spent two lovely days at the beach picking shells. The weather was perfect...not too hot and not too cold. I have not spent much time picking shells in the winter. The west side of the island gets the waves this time of year but I wanted to see if the shells were different. It was a little easier with the sun not as strong as in the summer.

This is the tree we were married under less than a year ago. Kaupoa beach is my favorite beach on Molokai. It has a nice swimming area during the summer and tide pools that stretch along the rest of the beach. Many times you share the beach with a monk seal.

The sand is more steep in the winter and much of the sand has been sucked out to sea. There was still a nice debris line for me to plop down by and start picking. We kept our ears and eyes open to the waves as we didn't want any surprises. We picked until our legs and backs were sore, enjoyed a quick lunch break under our wedding tree and decided to take a hike south towards La'au Point.

There is an old ranch road that goes south from Kaupoa. We have not had much rain this year so the area still looks like summer. It's about a 15 minute walk to the first beach. In all the times I have been along this road I have rarely run into any other people and I have never seen anyone surfing. WOW !

As soon as I got home I had to look this up. It turns out it's called Egusa's. These guys were enjoying a perfect break...alone. We had a high surf advisory that day which called for west waves to be 12 to 15 feet. They were even larger on Wednesday but we didn't hike out to see them.

We hiked a little more to Aholehole flats and found a monk seal lounging on the beach. He wasn't very happy to see us so we stayed away. A few weeks ago we had a monstrous swell so the sand was free from debris and we decided to return to Kaupoa. When we returned the following day we were still exhausted from the first day so we just spent the entire day at Kaupoa. The waves were huge !

So, here they are...two days picking. Mahalo Kaupoa !