Chocolate egg cream

Life ain't fair.

This time that's not a gripe, it's a shameful confession. This post is
going to be long and annoying, but there's a reward at the end.

Somewhere around late March this year, my wife announced she was going
on the Atkins diet. I decided to do the Honorable Thing, and join her.
Not because I thought it would work, the premise seemed silly to me
("calories is calories", until you read primary sources), but because
it would be unreasonable to expect her to prepare two different menus
when she cooked, and at least inconvenient when I cooked.

Much to my surprise, the damn thing is working. We're both losing weight,
and we don't feel deprived. (The last time I was on a diet, two people
from the office begged my wife to get me off it. Apparently I get grouchy
when I don't get to eat good stuff and my blood sugar gets low.) I'm over
halfway to my goal, which I chose because it looks good on me, without
reference to BMI or longevity. Undernutrition is well known to increase
lifespan. I'll happily trade off a few years at the end for more fun now.
(I may regret that decision when I'm 80, but not for long.)

We never went out much, the food is either cheaper or tastier (or, for
restaurants not long for this world, both) at home. Other one dish at
our favorite Vietnamese place (which we went to as oftern as twice a
year), there's nothing we ate often enough to miss. Eventually, I'll
consider working up an Atkins suitable substitute for that. We've always
enjoyed creativity in the kitchen, we're treating low carb as more an
opportunity for experiment than a deprivation.

Except for salad, we never had food habits. There was nothing that we
ate regularly, no defaults, no schedules. Whoever was shopping would
buy stuff that looked good, whoever was cooking would cook it. There's
stuff that we really liked and can't eat at all now (coarse crispy
sponge-raised Italian bread, lasagna with paper-thin noodles. vindaloo
with rice and assorted pickles and chutneys) but we ate eclectic enough
that we didn't eat any single thing very often, now we eat them just
fractionally less often. Changing to Atkins was merely a matter of
choosing wisely from a more limited subset of the thousands of things
we could have for dinner. It helps not to have prejudices; we'd have
an omelette for dinner occasionally pre-Atkins, now perhaps a bit
more often. Eggs have replaced pasta as our too-tired-to-think-about-it
default dinner, when we don't have steaks in the fridge.

Our salads didn't _need_ to change, we did designer greens with oil and
vinegar, usually two or three each (choosing from olive, mustard, and
nut oils, rice, red wine, cider, herbed, and for extra sour and salt,
Japanese plum vinegars), touched up with soy or fish sauce, fresh herbs,
and bottled key lime or fresh squeesed lemon juice. I replaced the
citrus juice with lemon oil, and added grated blue cheese. I usually
add mayonnaise now (occasionally homemade) to the base set of ingredients;
psychological or real, the creamier dressing seems more filling.

My wife doesn't drink, but I used to consume vast quantities of beer.
Having a fridge rigged for kegs helped in that regard. I don't miss the
beer, my wife keeps me supplied with excellent red wine. I converted
one of the kegs to a carbonator to cut the cost of the vast quantities
of seltzer we've been drinking. With either the Splenda sweetened syrups
when we want something sweet, or plain extracts when we just want something
not too boring, we drink a gallon or two a day between us. (The seltzer
figures in the reward, below.) Anytime I begin feeling deprived, I can
always raid my vast and burgeoning collection of single malts.

I missed Indian food, so I invented grilled curried chicken, and Patak's
lime pickle is only a carb per tablespoon! I'd just become reasonably
competent at barbecue when we went on the diet. With a bit of care to
reduce the chile and paprika in the rub (I never used sugar anyway) and
a sad "so long" to my mom's exquisite BBQ sauce (replaced by a North
Carolina style vinegar based sauce, sugar omitted or replaced with
Splenda), we have wonderful tender smokey briskets and ribs and pulled
pork. My wife makes a marvelous hash from browned cauliflower bits and
shredded beef brisket, sauteed in a bit of home made garlic butter.

We eat more fish. That's a _good_ thing, I wanted to eat more fish even
before we started Atkinsing. We have to be careful to crank up the fat
some, I've taken the opportunity to practice my beurre blancs (sauces
made of a little liquid thickened with barely melted butter).

I'm working on souffles. A souffle is a bechamel based sauce thickened
with egg yolks, folded with the whipped whites and baked. The milk and
flour in the sauce are out, but a puffy omelette, which won't rise as
high or hold the same volume of additives, makes a not unsatisfactory
substitute. When my wife is willing to spend the milk carbs, I may try
other thickeners in place of the flour.


Some recipes we've been using:


Toxic garlic butter

In a mortar, pulp six to ten garlic cloves until transparent. (By
pulping the garlic, you eliminate the small bits that would be
unpleasantly hot, allowing you to add a great deal more garlic.)
Cream garlic into 1 pound of butter (our Kitchenaid K5 will do two
pounds at a time), pausing once or twice to knock the butter off
the beater.
Roll or mold in plastic wrap, freeze or fridge.

This keeps for months in the freezer, weeks in the fridge. Besides
adding flavor to sauces and fried stuff, pats can be melted onto
too-lean beef and fish right before serving.


Grilled curried chicken

2-3 pieces per person of chicken (bone breasts for better flavor)
1-2 T per person of your favorite curry powder (I like Penzey's
vindaloo, my wife prefers their balti)
(optional) 2-3 t per person freshly ground black pepper
salt to taste
oil and vinegar to taste

Blend oil and vinegar with spices to make a thin paste (about Devon
double cream). Massage into the chicken, let marry for a while.
Grill over high heat until browned, move off the flame until done, serve.


Puffy omelette

per person:
3 eggs separated
1 T boiling water
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350.
Whip whites to firm peaks.
Whip yolks with boiling water until thick and lemon-colored. Add salt and
pepper to taste.

Melt a tablespoon or two of butter (see "toxic garlic butter" above) in
an oven safe pan over medium heat, tilt the pan to coat the bottom and
at least partway up the sides. Optionally, sprinkle fresh ground pepper
over the butter. It will add to the flavor and crunchiness of the crust
(we _really_ like fresh ground pepper).

Stir about a fourth of the whites into the yolks to lighten, then fold
the yolks lightly into the whites.

Pour into the preheated pan. Let cook until lightly browned on the bottom.
Move to oven, cook 10-15 minutes or until done (tap the top. It should be
dry, and show no evidence of softer foam beneath).

I've made this into a fish 'souffle':

Fry a half pound of fish, set aside to cool. Reserve the pan.

Shred the fish, add to the yolks with a dash of lemon oil before folding.

GENTLY reheat the pan you used for the fish.
Deglaze with 1/4 C each wine and brandy
Whisk in a few drops of lemon oil and a few tablespoons of garlic butter,
until the butter is just melted
Transfer to a preheated (NOT too hot) gravy bowl. Be gentle, beurre blanc
breaks at the slightest pretext.
A spoonful of capers or chopped herbs would not be unreasonable.


Chorizo fish

Find a chorizo with not too many disgusting bits and no sugar.
Peel, crumble, and fry about 1/8 pound per person of the chorizo
(I find a wire type potato masher works for breaking up ground
meat while frying it)
Remove and reserve the chorizo, leaving the fat.

Season with salt and pepper, and fry about a half pound of a well
flavored fish per person in the chorizo fat.

Pour off excess fat, deglaze with a half cup or so of red wine, return
chorizo to reheat.

Serve fish topped with chorizo.


And finally, your reward as promised. There are no eggs in chocolate egg
cream. I find the claim that the name is from the French "chocolat et
creme" compelling, though there's no supporting evidence.

If dinner was too low fat (lean meat, fish with insufficient butter sauce)
and the dreaded cravings hit, this will knock them flat for the evening:

In a pint (or larger) glass:

2 T DaVinci Splenda sweetened chocolate syrup (my wife says the Torani
chocolate is nowhere near as tasty)
2 T cream
Add seltzer.
top with ice (optional: ice first, but the cream will clot on the icecubes)

Rich, sweet, creamy, and filling.

Martin
215/185/165
--
Martin Golding | You can't win, you can't break even, you can't quit the game.
DoD #236 | But you can make a lot of money selling seats at the table.
Portland, OR

Could you post your North Carolina vinegar based barbecue sauce recipe,
please? We have a rib place here that uses a vinegar based sauce that I
have never been quite able to duplicate, I suspect it contains a lot of
paprika that gives its red color. I have always much preferred it to a
sweet sauce and my SO doesn't like anything sweet.


"Martin Golding" wrote in message
news
Life ain't fair.

This time that's not a gripe, it's a shameful confession. This post is
going to be long and annoying, but there's a reward at the end.

Somewhere around late March this year, my wife announced she was going
on the Atkins diet. I decided to do the Honorable Thing, and join her.
Not because I thought it would work, the premise seemed silly to me
("calories is calories", until you read primary sources), but because
it would be unreasonable to expect her to prepare two different menus
when she cooked, and at least inconvenient when I cooked.

Much to my surprise, the damn thing is working. We're both losing weight,
and we don't feel deprived. (The last time I was on a diet, two people
from the office begged my wife to get me off it. Apparently I get grouchy
when I don't get to eat good stuff and my blood sugar gets low.) I'm over
halfway to my goal, which I chose because it looks good on me, without
reference to BMI or longevity. Undernutrition is well known to increase
lifespan. I'll happily trade off a few years at the end for more fun now.
(I may regret that decision when I'm 80, but not for long.)

We never went out much, the food is either cheaper or tastier (or, for
restaurants not long for this world, both) at home. Other one dish at
our favorite Vietnamese place (which we went to as oftern as twice a
year), there's nothing we ate often enough to miss. Eventually, I'll
consider working up an Atkins suitable substitute for that. We've always
enjoyed creativity in the kitchen, we're treating low carb as more an
opportunity for experiment than a deprivation.

Except for salad, we never had food habits. There was nothing that we
ate regularly, no defaults, no schedules. Whoever was shopping would
buy stuff that looked good, whoever was cooking would cook it. There's
stuff that we really liked and can't eat at all now (coarse crispy
sponge-raised Italian bread, lasagna with paper-thin noodles. vindaloo
with rice and assorted pickles and chutneys) but we ate eclectic enough
that we didn't eat any single thing very often, now we eat them just
fractionally less often. Changing to Atkins was merely a matter of
choosing wisely from a more limited subset of the thousands of things
we could have for dinner. It helps not to have prejudices; we'd have
an omelette for dinner occasionally pre-Atkins, now perhaps a bit
more often. Eggs have replaced pasta as our too-tired-to-think-about-it
default dinner, when we don't have steaks in the fridge.

Our salads didn't _need_ to change, we did designer greens with oil and
vinegar, usually two or three each (choosing from olive, mustard, and
nut oils, rice, red wine, cider, herbed, and for extra sour and salt,
Japanese plum vinegars), touched up with soy or fish sauce, fresh herbs,
and bottled key lime or fresh squeesed lemon juice. I replaced the
citrus juice with lemon oil, and added grated blue cheese. I usually
add mayonnaise now (occasionally homemade) to the base set of ingredients;
psychological or real, the creamier dressing seems more filling.

My wife doesn't drink, but I used to consume vast quantities of beer.
Having a fridge rigged for kegs helped in that regard. I don't miss the
beer, my wife keeps me supplied with excellent red wine. I converted
one of the kegs to a carbonator to cut the cost of the vast quantities
of seltzer we've been drinking. With either the Splenda sweetened syrups
when we want something sweet, or plain extracts when we just want something
not too boring, we drink a gallon or two a day between us. (The seltzer
figures in the reward, below.) Anytime I begin feeling deprived, I can
always raid my vast and burgeoning collection of single malts.

I missed Indian food, so I invented grilled curried chicken, and Patak's
lime pickle is only a carb per tablespoon! I'd just become reasonably
competent at barbecue when we went on the diet. With a bit of care to
reduce the chile and paprika in the rub (I never used sugar anyway) and
a sad "so long" to my mom's exquisite BBQ sauce (replaced by a North
Carolina style vinegar based sauce, sugar omitted or replaced with
Splenda), we have wonderful tender smokey briskets and ribs and pulled
pork. My wife makes a marvelous hash from browned cauliflower bits and
shredded beef brisket, sauteed in a bit of home made garlic butter.

We eat more fish. That's a _good_ thing, I wanted to eat more fish even
before we started Atkinsing. We have to be careful to crank up the fat
some, I've taken the opportunity to practice my beurre blancs (sauces
made of a little liquid thickened with barely melted butter).

I'm working on souffles. A souffle is a bechamel based sauce thickened
with egg yolks, folded with the whipped whites and baked. The milk and
flour in the sauce are out, but a puffy omelette, which won't rise as
high or hold the same volume of additives, makes a not unsatisfactory
substitute. When my wife is willing to spend the milk carbs, I may try
other thickeners in place of the flour.


Some recipes we've been using:


Toxic garlic butter

In a mortar, pulp six to ten garlic cloves until transparent. (By
pulping the garlic, you eliminate the small bits that would be
unpleasantly hot, allowing you to add a great deal more garlic.)
Cream garlic into 1 pound of butter (our Kitchenaid K5 will do two
pounds at a time), pausing once or twice to knock the butter off
the beater.
Roll or mold in plastic wrap, freeze or fridge.

This keeps for months in the freezer, weeks in the fridge. Besides
adding flavor to sauces and fried stuff, pats can be melted onto
too-lean beef and fish right before serving.


Grilled curried chicken

2-3 pieces per person of chicken (bone breasts for better flavor)
1-2 T per person of your favorite curry powder (I like Penzey's
vindaloo, my wife prefers their balti)
(optional) 2-3 t per person freshly ground black pepper
salt to taste
oil and vinegar to taste

Blend oil and vinegar with spices to make a thin paste (about Devon
double cream). Massage into the chicken, let marry for a while.
Grill over high heat until browned, move off the flame until done, serve.


Puffy omelette

per person:
3 eggs separated
1 T boiling water
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350.
Whip whites to firm peaks.
Whip yolks with boiling water until thick and lemon-colored. Add salt and
pepper to taste.

Melt a tablespoon or two of butter (see "toxic garlic butter" above) in
an oven safe pan over medium heat, tilt the pan to coat the bottom and
at least partway up the sides. Optionally, sprinkle fresh ground pepper
over the butter. It will add to the flavor and crunchiness of the crust
(we _really_ like fresh ground pepper).

Stir about a fourth of the whites into the yolks to lighten, then fold
the yolks lightly into the whites.

Pour into the preheated pan. Let cook until lightly browned on the bottom.
Move to oven, cook 10-15 minutes or until done (tap the top. It should be
dry, and show no evidence of softer foam beneath).

I've made this into a fish 'souffle':

Fry a half pound of fish, set aside to cool. Reserve the pan.

Shred the fish, add to the yolks with a dash of lemon oil before folding.

GENTLY reheat the pan you used for the fish.
Deglaze with 1/4 C each wine and brandy
Whisk in a few drops of lemon oil and a few tablespoons of garlic butter,
until the butter is just melted
Transfer to a preheated (NOT too hot) gravy bowl. Be gentle, beurre blanc
breaks at the slightest pretext.
A spoonful of capers or chopped herbs would not be unreasonable.


Chorizo fish

Find a chorizo with not too many disgusting bits and no sugar.
Peel, crumble, and fry about 1/8 pound per person of the chorizo
(I find a wire type potato masher works for breaking up ground
meat while frying it)
Remove and reserve the chorizo, leaving the fat.

Season with salt and pepper, and fry about a half pound of a well
flavored fish per person in the chorizo fat.

Pour off excess fat, deglaze with a half cup or so of red wine, return
chorizo to reheat.

Serve fish topped with chorizo.


And finally, your reward as promised. There are no eggs in chocolate egg
cream. I find the claim that the name is from the French "chocolat et
creme" compelling, though there's no supporting evidence.

If dinner was too low fat (lean meat, fish with insufficient butter sauce)
and the dreaded cravings hit, this will knock them flat for the evening:

In a pint (or larger) glass:

2 T DaVinci Splenda sweetened chocolate syrup (my wife says the Torani
chocolate is nowhere near as tasty)
2 T cream
Add seltzer.
top with ice (optional: ice first, but the cream will clot on the icecubes)

Rich, sweet, creamy, and filling.

Martin
215/185/165
--
Martin Golding | You can't win, you can't break even, you can't quit the
game.
DoD #236 | But you can make a lot of money selling seats at the
table.
Portland, OR

Martin Golding wrote:

Life ain't fair.

This time that's not a gripe, it's a shameful confession. This post is
going to be long and annoying, but there's a reward at the end.

Somewhere around late March this year, my wife announced she was going
on the Atkins diet. I decided to do the Honorable Thing, and join her.
Not because I thought it would work, the premise seemed silly to me
("calories is calories", until you read primary sources), but because
it would be unreasonable to expect her to prepare two different menus
when she cooked, and at least inconvenient when I cooked.

Much to my surprise, the damn thing is working. [rest reluctantly snipped]

I love your writing style. Your pre-LC eating looks somewhat like
mine. I was a very eclectic cook, especially interested in Asian
cuisines. I have been eating fairly plainly but have begun to
experiment a bit. (Maybe you saw shirataki version of Ants
Climbing a Tree?) Thank you for your recipes--and the prose.

BTW, can't you eat a vindaloo sans rice? Are they all too carby?
Mebbe you need the rice to lessen the heat a bit, but there must
be other ways. Also, if you eat something oily/fatty when
consuming spciy food, it helps. But then I'm sure you know that.

--
Jean B., 12 miles west of Boston, Massachusetts, USA

Man oh man Martin, just *reading* your post made the old stomach juices
start flowing! I was not very hungry when I started reading your post, but
now I'm ravenous!

One thing you might look into - go to www.expertfoods.com and check out the
'notStarch' available from various online LC vendors. You can use that as a
thickener to make a pretty decent bechamel sauce. I used it just last week
when I made a moussaka - which has bechamel sauce on top.

Debbie

"Martin Golding" wrote in message
news


I'm working on souffles. A souffle is a bechamel based sauce thickened
with egg yolks, folded with the whipped whites and baked. The milk and
flour in the sauce are out, but a puffy omelette, which won't rise as
high or hold the same volume of additives, makes a not unsatisfactory
substitute. When my wife is willing to spend the milk carbs, I may try
other thickeners in place of the flour.

Somewhere around late March this year, my wife announced she was going
on the Atkins diet. I decided to do the Honorable Thing, and join her.

On Sat, 20 Sep 2003 16:42:51 +0000, Jean B. wrote:

Your pre-LC eating looks somewhat like mine.
I was a very eclectic cook, especially interested in Asian cuisines.
(Maybe you saw shirataki version of Ants Climbing a Tree?)

Yes. I immediately began a hunt for shirataki. I'm sure it's available
at our favorite Japanese grocery, but that's way across town, we rarely
get over there.


BTW, can't you eat a vindaloo sans rice? Are they all too carby?

Potatoes are the "aloo" in vindaloo. So far, we've stuck to our grilled
curried chicken (which is delicious with Penzey's vindaloo), eventually
we'll see what we can do about making a less saucy vindaloo (because
there's really no suitable substitute for rice), probably with some
low-carb veggie to replace the potato.

Martin
--
Martin Golding | If you boil it, they will come.
DoD #236 BMWMOA #55952 SMTC #2 | Portland, OR

Martin Golding wrote:

[snip]
BTW, can't you eat a vindaloo sans rice? Are they all too carby?

Potatoes are the "aloo" in vindaloo. So far, we've stuck to our grilled
curried chicken (which is delicious with Penzey's vindaloo), eventually
we'll see what we can do about making a less saucy vindaloo (because
there's really no suitable substitute for rice), probably with some
low-carb veggie to replace the potato.


That's funny! I have to confess that so strong was the
association of vindaloo with a very spicy dish that the aloo,
which I am normally aware of, totally eluded my notice. Hence, I
wouldn't even miss the potatoes. I've thought about using daikon
sometimes to replace potato and wonder if it would work in this
case. Of course, you'd have to alter the time at which the daikon
is added to the dish though.

--
Jean B., 12 miles west of Boston, Massachusetts, USA