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This has been sitting in my camera for a while, but we eat a salad like this about once a week. The particular ingredients vary some but not as much as you might think.

Shredded cheddar cheese, bag o’ lettuce, celery, parmesan cheese, canned olives, green chiles, beets, sunflower seeds, homemade salad dressing, bell pepper, onion, boiled shredded chicken, boiled free-range eggs, and a miniscule amount of home grown grape tomatoes.

Chili Eggs
2 eggs
splash heavy cream or milk
1 teaspoon chili seasoning mix (recipe below)
2 tablespoons butter

Melt butter in frying pan. Beat eggs together with cream and seasoning. Scramble egg mixture in butter. Top with additional seasoning mix if desired, perhaps some sour cream.

I Don’t Like Vegetables Soup
1-3 cups chopped cooked meat (I usually use chicken)
3 large rutabagas, peeled and chopped
1/2 celery bunch, chopped
1 onion, chopped
1 bell pepper, chopped
Any other leftover, in season, inexpensive, or sale vegetables (green beans, cabbage, asparagus)
6-ounce can tomato paste
Water to cover
4 tablespoons chili seasoning mix or to taste (recipe below)

This is clearly and obviously a vegetable soup. But the chili seasoning and the long cook time mute the flavors and make the vegetables more palatable for vegetable haters.

Combine all ingredients in stock pot. Simmer for 5 hours or more. This recipe is generally too large for my slow cooker, but if you have a very large slow cooker, I would imagine you could use that.

Chili Seasoning Mix
4 tablespoons minced onion or onion powder
4 tablespoons chili powder
2 tablespoons salt
4 teaspoons dried red pepper
4 teaspoons garlic powder
4 teaspoons ground cumin
2 teaspoons oregano
1/8 teaspoon cayenne or to taste

This is much like the Microwave Low-Carb Orange Cream Cake posted previously. Please see that recipe for photos and more detailed directions for a similar cake. I apologize for the exotic ingredients, but if you’ve been eating low carb for a while, you probably have most of these ingredients on hand. If not, I’ll detail some possible substitutions after the recipe.

Microwave Low-Carb German Chocolate Cake
2 servings

Ingredients:

3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1 tablespoon virgin coconut oil, melted

1 tablespoon coconut flour
4 tablespoons Splenda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
2 tablespoons unsweetened shredded coconut
1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder

1 egg
3 tablespoons sour cream
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract (use the 1/4 tsp measure twice instead of getting another spoon dirty)

Directions:

1. Melt butter and oil in large coffee mug or 2-cup Pyrex measuring cup in microwave.
2. Add dry ingredients.
3. Add wet ingredients.
4. Mix well.
5. Cover with plastic wrap and microwave on high for 3 minutes.
6. Remove HOT container from microwave, remove plastic wrap carefully, and let stand for 1 minute.
7. Turn onto plate; cut in half and serve.

As written, each serving contains 341 calories, 32.9 g fat, 10.0 g total carbohydrate, 1.5 g dietary fiber, 4.3 g protein.

The following substitutions should still result in a similar cake, though the flavor will vary and the nutritional information, of course, will be different: Any oil, including more butter, may be substituted for the virgin coconut oil. Any flour can be substituted for the coconut flour, though I suspect you’ll need to use 1.5 or 2 tablespoons to get a similar texture. Conversely, you can also use more shredded coconut and omit the flour, but the texture will be different. Sugar or stevia can be substituted for the Splenda (though I’m not fond of stevia with chocolate). Milk, cream, or plain yogurt may be substituted for the sour cream. It is possible that coconut milk could be substituted for the coconut oil and sour cream, but I haven’t tried that, so I don’t know how much to use.

I’ll likely tackle red velvet cake next, though almond pound cake might be the next recipe to go public because I think that one will be easier to develop. I’m still having a lot of fun with these little cakes!

Lately, I’ve seen a lot of microwave cake recipes going around, sporting names like 5-minute cake, 3-minute cake, and even a 1-minute muffin! It takes me longer than 5 minutes to make all of them. However, they’re easily adaptable to low carb. And the resulting cake is small enough that you can eat all if it with minimal guilt (though I consider them to be 2-serving cakes).

These recipes are incredibly friendly to substitution. For the almond flour, you can substitute regular flour or another nut flour or, I’m told, even protein powder or flaxseed. You can substitute coconut oil or another fat for the butter. You can use real sugar or stevia instead of Splenda. You can try different flavors. (I’m working on German Chocolate Cake next.)

I’ve been playing with the basic recipes and have come up with one of my own. I’ve been a bit irritated by how many utensils I have to use to make these cakes, so I’ve streamlined that some, too.

Microwave Low-Carb Orange Cream Cake

Ingredients:

3 tablespoons butter
4 tablespoons almond flour
4 tablespoons Splenda
1 egg
3 tablespoons sour cream
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon orange extract

Hardware:

Cutting board (to cut butter and keep counter clean)
A 2-cup Pyrex measuring cup (I am told a large coffee mug also works well)
Knife (to cut butter, aid in transferring sour cream from spoon to Pyrex, and cut the cake in half)
Fork (for mixing)
1/4 teaspoon and 1 tablespoon measuring spoons
Plastic wrap
Microwave

Directions:

1. Cut 3 tablespoons of butter from the stick of butter.
2. Melt butter in Pyrex container. The goal is to heat it enough to melt it completely but to allow it to cool some before the egg is added, so it doesn’t cook the egg on contact.
3. Add almond flour, Splenda, egg, sour cream, baking powder, and orange extract. Use the 1/4 teaspoon measuring spoon twice to get enough orange extract, rather than getting another spoon dirty.
4. Mix well. If you don’t mix it well enough, you will have streaks of egg in your cake. It should look like the picture below. Only not as blurry.

5. Cover with plastic wrap and microwave on high for 3 minutes. Remove hot Pyrex container from microwave; remove plastic wrap, taking care not to steam your hand; and let cake stand for 1 minute before upending onto a plate.

6. Cut in half and serve.

As written, each serving contains 307 calories, 29.1 g fat, 7 g total carbohydrate, 1.5 g dietary fiber, 6.0 g protein.

I plan to try this cake with stevia soon, as I prefer it to Splenda. As I said before, I’m working on a German chocolate version, with red velvet on the distant horizon (though I’ll likely leave out the “red”). If you try this or a similar recipe, I’d love to know about your experience!

12/14/2008 Update: Instructions for making your own almond flour are here, along with a yummy-looking cookie recipe, although I haven’t tried it.

3/23/2009 Update: The majority of my spam comments are appended to this post, so I’m going to close this post to comments.

This recipe was adapted from Joy of Cooking, my favorite cookbook. It doesn’t produce a terribly attractive custard, but Jefferson seems to like it.

Ingredients
3 large eggs
1/2 cup Splenda
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 cups half and half, heavy cream, or whipping cream
3/4 teaspoon vanilla
4 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit
2. Whisk eggs, Splenda, and salt just until blended.

3. Heat cream in a small saucepan on medium to high heat just until steaming, watching closely and stirring occasionally.
4. As soon as cream steams, remove from heat. Pour slowly into the egg mixture while whisking. This prevents the heat of the milk from curdling the eggs.

5. Add vanilla and cocoa. This will produce an ugly mess. I have never gotten the mixture any smoother than this.

6. Prepare a custard bath by lining a large pan with a dish towel, putting 6 custard cups on top of the towel, and then filling the large pan to about halfway up the custard cups with hot tap water. Fill the custard cups, trying to distribute the mixture evenly between the cups.

7. Bake at 325 degrees Fahrenheit for 40-60 minutes, until set. Remove from oven and carefully remove the cups from the pan and allow to cool for a few minutes. Cover and refrigerate until thoroughly chilled. Enjoy!

The carb total varies depending on what kind of cream you use, but there are approximately 5-7 g of carbohydrate per serving.

1 shot Frangelico
1 shot Kahlua
1 can of Sprite Zero

Enjoy!

(Please note this is NOT a diet drink. Sprite Zero was what I had on hand when I first concocted this, and I suspect regular Sprite would make it too sweet.)