This is where I jot down yummy recipes that happen in my kitchen. Hopefully they're good and good for you, but no guarantees ;-) As of 2021, they should mostly be THM approved!
Wow, it's been a long time since my last recipe - and I mean a really long time! Almost 5 years! Back to healthy, healing, whole food with Trim Healthy Mama!!
If you look back into my archives, you'll find non-THM recipes, but I'll always label anything THM with the correct label. And hopefully that's mostly what I'll be putting up from now on!
I've been having great success with Glenda Groff's Sourdough Bread. I've made her No-Knead Honey Oat 3 times now, with absolutely perfect results each time. I'm using my cast iron dutch oven with alid as my oen baker and it works perfectly. I have a batch of sourdough waffles mixed up right now for Sunday morning breakfast tomorrow. I LOVE that I can make whole-grain *real* bread for my E meals! Nothing beats real bread!!
No-Knead Honey Oat bread, rising!!
No recipe today - I'm just back in action with Trim Healthy Mama!!
So, I'm assuming that I'm not the only keto life-styler that misses rice. Like, really misses rice. Rice is such an amazing vehicle for so many smooth, rich, creamy sauces - the kind we eat on keto! But, those awesome sauces are a bit sad without any rice to soak into.
As a follower of Leanne Vogel, I was so happy to learn more about carb-ups, and how they can help your hormones to stay balanced, refill your energy tank, prevent hair-loss, and break through plateaus. And happy to get some rice back into my tummy!
Replace your normal keto-amount of fats with carbs
This means you're having a low fat meal (less than 1T fat, or around 15g in the whole meal)
Most people should shoot for 70-100g of carbs
You still want to avoid glutenous carbs, and go with sweet potatoes, fruit, rice, etc. Don't waste your carb up on white bread!
Click any of the links above to get more details.
There are various levels of carb ups, based on what you/your body needs. If you are pretty well balanced internally, just 1 carb up a week will help keep you that way, and you pretty much eat all the carbs you want in 1 meal. If you're working on healing and need carbs more often, you won't eat as many at a time, or you'll run the risk of not being fat adapted. The Keto Diet includes 5 keto pathways that can help you decide which method is right for you, and how to implement it. I highly recommend picking it up if you're interested in playing with various levels of carbs in your keto diet!
This recipe is for the carbs-once-a-week type, and you get alllll the carbs!! So many things that I miss while eating keto - carrots, sweet potatoes, red bell peppers and rice... glorious rice! It is lower fat than a standard keto meal, but tastes amazing. I was trying to recreate some of my favorite curry and I hit pretty close to the mark!
Enjoy this tasty recipe as a part of your well-rounded, non restrictive, keto lifestyle!
Thai Chicken Curry - Carbed-Up Keto
With instructions for Instant Pot, Crock Pot, and Make-Ahead for both!
NOTE: This carbed-up keto recipe should be selected for a carb-up meal, and should not be used as a daily keto menu item. For my family of 4, it makes plenty for us to eat about half of it, then I freeze the other half in a 1-gal ziplock for another carb-up night!
This recipe makes 12 servings, 1C each. Nutritional Info at the bottom.
Ingredients:
2-3 lbs. chicken breast (no need to for average people to worry about too much protein)
3 large red bell peppers
1 large onion
4 cloves garlic, crushed/minced
1 large sweet potato
2C diced carrots
1/4-1/3C (114g) Massaman Curry Paste (see note about brands below recipe)
1 can (14oz) chicken broth
Stir In:
2 cans (28 oz total) lite coconut milk (Taste of Thai has the fewest added ingredients)
1C+ roughly chopped basil (thai basil is wonderful, if you can find it)
Instructions for both IP & Crock Pot:
Chop all veggies into bite-sized pieces. I like my onions, carrots & sweet potatoes diced, but my bell peppers in strips. Cut however you like. I use my food processor to chop everything fast!
Cut chicken breast into strips, then cut to about 2" long, if you want your curry to be like a restaurant. Think of fajita strips. Or, just chop into cubes.
Place all veggies and chicken into your IP or crock pot. Mix the veggies into the chicken pieces, otherwise the meat will stick to itself and cook together into a fairly solid mass.
Add your 1/4 C of massaman curry, and just spread it around a bit - no need to be super thorough, then pour on the can of chicken broth.
Set your IP to high pressure for 10 minutes, or your crock pot to low for 6 hours.
Blend both cans of coconut milk with the xanthan or glucomannan, to thicken the curry when it's done.
When it's done, release pressure and stir in the thickened coconut milk and roughly chopped basil. You almost can't have too much basil here, so cut up a whole bunch if that's what you have! Stir vigorously to blend in the xanthan, and also to break up the sweet potato pieces.
Serve 1C curry over 1/2C rice. Then have seconds :-D
NOTE: Even for a higher carb meal, this doesn't have that many carbs, it's mostly nicely low-fat. You could have 2C of this curry and still be around 16g and within carb-up limits on fats. This dish is mostly depending on the rice to get your carbs. You could easily double the sweet potato for a really thick and creamy curry, or add more carrots or bell peppers for more chunks in the sauce.
For curries, I have tried 3 brands:
My favorites are Maesri (small 114g tin, use the whole thing in this recipe) and Mae-Ploy (comes in a 14oz bulk tub, use 1/4-1/3C). Both of these are mild enough for kids and have a nice, sweet flavor.
I have also tried Aroy-D (bulk tub) be we found it too spicy for our tastes, and also a bit flat - not as sweet and flavorful, in my opinion. Your best bet is to purchase all of these at an asian market.
You might be able to find all of these brands in small packets to try and see which your family prefers!
Happy New Year! Like so many others, I need a re-commitment to my healthy lifestyle. The holidays were brutal and I'm back to where I started. I know that I need something to fill my tummy when I'd rather eat FOOD!! I already had an all day sipper that fused the Good Girl Moonshine with the Singing Canary, but here's an updated recipe. I do not include vit. C powder here, because I take a packet of that every day already. If you need more vit. C in your life, feel free to add about 4 packets to this mixture! You will need much less sweetener (if you use the pre-sweetened kind like Emergen-C) so be aware of that. OTOH, if you have straight Vit. C powder with no sweeteners, you'll probably need more!
I call this sipper "All Season" because it's good - even in winter! In fact, my favorite way is to add 3T (2 ice cubes) to a mug of hot water. Sooooo citrus-y and ginger-y - you can feel it healing a sore throat! It's soothing and comforting when you do NOT want to be drinking a quart of iced drink. And since there's no caffeine, you can sip it all night while watching movies, warm yourself up just before bed, etc. I also like it at room temp - just the concentrate and water - no ice
You can freeze this concentrate into ice cubes if you like, but I just measure it from a jar in the fridge. I tend to forget the ice cubes are in there... if I see the bright yellow jar in my fridge first thing in the morning, I remember to mix some up!
Enjoy!
All-Season Canary Moonshine
2" x 4" piece of fresh ginger, peeled (slice into coins for easier blending, but don't worry about chopping)
1.5C bottled lemon juice
1C apple cider vinegar (with the mother is best - check Costco and Aldi for cheap!)
4T turmeric powder (check asian markets)
1/2C + 2T erithritol (or your favorite on-plan sweetener. You'd need over 1C of gentle sweet.)
Place the sliced ginger and lemon juice in the blender, and turn it on. Add the rest of the ingredients with the blender running, through the small opening in the lid. The color should be very bright yellow/orange and the mixture should be creamy and frothy.
Pour into ice cube trays (you'll need at least 2) or into a quart jar with a metal lid & ring (the plastic lids will leak when you shake it later)
Shake very well before measuring, and use 1/3C (4 ice cubes) into a 1qt jar of ice and water. You can add the concentrate-cubes to a bit of hot water in the jar, chop them up with a straw, then top it up with more ice and water.
For a great healthy-boost sore-throat tea, place 2 ice cubes (about 3T liquid) into a mug and add boiling water. Add a packet of vitamin C to help knock that cold out!
For the hot OR iced, you can add an additional scoop of collagen or some whey protein to increase the protein in your drink and/or turn it into a meal replacement. With the whey, you'd want to use the blender before drinking. The Collagen will dissolve easily with just a spoon.
Be sure to use the swirl-and-sip method to get down the few ginger fibers that will be left.
So, I promised that this recipe would be easy enough for Drive Thru Sue, and it's true. But, even Sue will need to slow down, and realize that while there is almost no WORK involved, patience is still a virtue. Sourdough *is sourdough* because it takes time for the yeasts to work. This recipe is in 2 phases - Mixing day and Baking Day (which can be ANY day, once you've got dough in your fridge!) Don't throw in the towel - you can do it! - but you'll have to ramp up slowly. First, you need a Wild Yeast Starter. Go to the linked page, and take about 7-10 days of *virtually no work* and create a bubbly wild yeast starter. If you already have one of those, then you can keep going!
This bread does include olive oil. However, the 1 Tablespoon is divided among 4 small or 2 medium loaves of bread, and you'll only eat about 3 slices in a serving, keeping the fats down to very low levels.
Ingredients:
2 cups wild yeast starter (1/2 the quart jar, give or take a bit is fine)
2 1/2 cups hot tap water (NOT boiling)
1 Tablespoon salt
1 Tablespoon olive oil
5 cups White Whole Wheat (King Arthur is my favorite brand, and I'll always shop around until I find a store that carries it)
Tools:
For Mixing Day:
~14 Cup Tupperware container (for mixing and keeping dough in the fridge)
whisk
wooden spoon
For Baking Day:
parchment paper
wooden cutting board (NOT plastic) or a second baking pan
Baking stone (preferable) or flat metal baking pan
serrated knife
some ice cubes
optional: small (3.5 x 6.5) bread pan (not necessary to get started, only for medium loaves)
Notes:
This first recipe will make 4 small (family can mostly finish in 1-2 meals) or 2 medium loaves. The link at the top of the page includes instructions for smaller batches and larger loaves if you find you do not eat the bread fast enough to keep up with the starter.
Instructions:
This first set of instructions may seem lengthy, but that's just because of all the explanations. It's very simple and easy to do, with very little prep or time spent actually working. You'll need to be home for around 4-5 hours, but you'll hardly touch the dough. You can totally run to the store and come back, too. This recipe is very forgiving!
(Please forgive the jumping - my 6 year old was videoing!!)
On Mixing Day:
In your 14C container, place the starter, hot water, salt and olive oil. Chop at the starter with the whisk, and whisk until blended into the water, just a minute or 2. Get lots of air and froth into the mixture if you can! If you end up with slimy strings just ignore them, they are a by-product of the starter. Future batches will have very little to none of the strings. They'll bake right up into the bread!
Now add all the flour and stir with the wooden spoon. It might take a bit of muscle, but the dough should be very wet and stick to your fingers if you try to touch it. If it seems stiff enough to knead, add more water. The moisture content of your flour will depend on your local weather, and the water might need adjusted according to the season! Once you've made a batch or 2, you'll know how the dough should look and can drizzle in extra water if needed.
All of the above should only take about 5 minutes. If you pinch up a bit of dough, it should stick to your fingers, and break off of the dough easily with no stretch. It should smell like wet flour, but nothing extraordinary.
Cover with the lid (but leave one corner vented) and rest for 2 hours. Set the timer on your phone and run to the store, feed the kids, get a bubble bath, etc. If it accidentally sits 2.5-3 hours, it won't mind.
Now comes the slightly more demanding part. You'll stick your hand into the container 5 times, 30 minutes apart. These are the "folds". We are not kneading - in fact, that would hurt this very-wet dough. We do need to gently stretch the whole grains to lengthen them into a softer dough, instead of leaving each grain of flour as a course, individual piece. This folding technique is the part that makes it possible to have 100% whole wheat that is edible and not dense as a rock, AND that doesn't take the time, effort or skill of kneading.
To "fold"
Run your hand down one side of the dough container to the bottom. Gently grip the bottom of the dough and pull it up, folding the dough over itself to the middle of the top. It won't be pretty and will probably try to ooze back into it's original place - that's fine.
Rotate the container 90 degrees, and pull up the second side
Repeat with the third and fourth side.
This should take no longer than 30 seconds, and you should notice that the dough is a bit less sticky and is starting to smell like yeast instead of just wet flour. It will also start to stretch instead of just breaking off like the original batch. That's the yeast working!!
Congratulations, you've just performed your first fold - the most difficult part of this bread! Seriously, if you can pull dough from the bottom to the top 4 times, you've mastered the hardest part of this recipe! You'll need to do 5 "folds", around 30 minutes apart (or 45-60 minutes... again, very forgiving). Here's a handy schedule you can scribble onto a piece of paper for your first few times and cross off as you go until you can get it into your mind:
Mix dough, rest 2 hours
Fold #1, Rest 30
Fold #2, Rest 30
Fold #3, Rest 30
Fold #4, Rest 30
Fold #5, place in refrigerator, covered with the lid cracked on one side (by this point the dough should be quite plump and stretchy and smell like good, yeasty dough!)
Note on video - I took this video during my very first trial batch of dough, and I've made a few changes since then. In my final recipe (the one written here), the dough is not quite as wet as this. It shouldn't stick this badly to your hands. After the 2 hour resting period the dough should hold together pretty well and fold over nicely, and not be a mushy puddle. Also, I increased the recipe to make 5 'loaves' (4 loaves and 1 starter piece) since I found I was needing to mix dough too frequently - I wanted a bigger batch!
Now your first day is done. If you lost track of time or ran out of time, and only did 4 folds, that's also OK. Try to stick as closely as possible to the recipe with the timing, but no worries if time got away from you. The dough MUST rest in the fridge overnight to continue rising, and to allow the yeast time to finish it's work, souring the flour. Come back tomorrow for baking instructions!
Please check out all the pages related to making THM:E Sourdough Bread!
If you've come this far, I hope you have eaten a few nice loaves of your own, wonderful homemade sourdough bread! Isn't is amazing that you can bake bread for just a small amount of time and almost NO real work?!? I'm still amazed that I can crank out fresh bread in just 2 hours!
This page will list some of the common issues that you will run across when working with sourdough, and also how to change the loaf size, and batch size.
Dough Refrigerator Life:
After your initial refrigeration overnight, you'll have around 3-4 days to make good bread. One of the downsides to sourdough (which is also it's greatest strength) is that it is a living organism. The yeast replicates, feeding on the natural sugars and carbs in the flour. Their by-product is both carbon dioxide and alcohol, which cause the bread to rise. Eventually, however, the yeast will consume all available carbs and there will be so much CO2 that the yeast will die.
In your refrigerator, you'll notice that the bread will slowly get poofier for about the first 3 days that it is in the fridge. Day #3 is really your last *perfect* day to bake. On day 4 it will stall out, and you may see larger bubbles forming through the walls of your container - those are large pockets of CO2. Your bread wil still turn out OK, but may not rise as high. You may smell an off-odor. Not bad, but a tad alcoholic. By day 5ish, the entire bulk of dough will begin to flatten, lose elasticity, and will pull apart in a similar fashion to the newly mixed dough. Except this time - instead of needing to stretch more like freshly mixed dough - the dough will be over stretched, the gluten falls apart and will no longer hold together. As you smooth your dough, you'll find that it breaks and crumbles apart. Your loaf will flatten instead of rising, as it sits at room temp, and it will not puff at all in the oven - just bake into a flat, dense brick.
The good news is that all of your yeasts are not dead, but the flour is just not strong enough to hold together - all the carbs have been eaten!! You can still take your starter piece, mix up a new batch of bulk dough, and make bread the following day.
One way to avoid this problem of over-risen dough, is to simply bake your bread earlier. This bread keeps very well in the fridge once it has been baked. I've had a loaf in there for a week and longer with no signs of mold or funny smells. If day #4 comes along and you don't really *need* another loaf, go ahead and bake it anyway (while making dinner, watching TV, etc) and just stick it in a gallon ziplock in the fridge. You can either mix up another batch of dough right then (if you have time for the folding) or in the next 3-5 days. It won't last forever without being fed, however, so don't leave it in there for too long.
Making 2 larger loaves:
Nutritional Info for 1/4 of the medium "double" loaf
Another option is to just divide the dough in half (instead of 4 pieces) and bake 2 larger loaves. I use a medium-sized stoneware loaf pan that is about 3.5 x 6.5. It's still half the size of a standard loaf of bread, but because of the tall sides it forces the bread to rise *up* instead of spreading *out* as it bakes. I absolutely LOVE the cute little slices!!I don't waste a big piece on the end because it was thinner and got too dry and hard in the oven. Also, I only bake bread half as often! My kids really like my sourdough and ask for it over store-bought bread. Since this bread is cheaper to make anyway, not to mention healthier, I can give it to them for lunch and still not be baking every single day, if I use the loaf pan.
Notice the nutritional info to the right. This is for eating 1/4 of the medium loaf, which would be quite a bit along side other items in a meal. However, it's hard to estimate 'slices' when everyone has their own favorite thickness. Use this info as an estimate of fat, carbs & protein, depending on how much less than 1/4 loaf you eat in one meal.
To use the loaf pan, I cut a strip of parchment that is the length of the inside of the loaf pan and set my dough to rise in the center. When I heat the oven, I place the storeware loaf pan in to get hot. To bake, I lift the parchment and rock it back and forth a few times to help the loaf to get a bit skinnier, then lower it into the hot pan. The ends will touch the pan and the long ends of the parchment will hang out really far, but both of those things are ok. Slash the top as best you can. After baking I use the parchment to lift the loaf out of the pan and onto the cooling rack - save the parchment strip for next time! It can be reused until it gets so brown that it starts to crumble, which should be at least 4-6 times.
I have not yet tried baking ALL of the dough in a standard loaf pan. Probably you'd need to heat to 450 (to get the stone good and hot), then reduce to 350 for baking, and bake for 45 minutes or longer. Let me know if you try it!
Reducing the amount of dough:
If your house has only 1-2 people eating the bread, or not eating it every day, the original amount of dough might just make too much for you. Below are the amounts to use to make smaller batches of dough. Always check your dough consistancy and add a tad more water or flour if needed:
4 small loaves + starter piece (original recipe)
3 small loaves + starter piece (uses same amout of oil & salt)
starter from previous batch
1T oil
1T salt
2C hot water
4C white whole wheat
Cut into 4ths, save 1 for starter and bake 3
2 small loaves + starter piece
starter from previous batch
2 teaspoons oil
2 teaspoons salt
1.5 C hot water
3C white whole wheat
Cut into thirds, save 1 piece, bake 2
Storing Your Starter For A While:
Eventually, everyone needs a vacation. You might need to just not bake bread for a season, but don't really want to go to the trouble of creating a wild yeast starter again later. You might really go on vacation and leave your house for several weeks! As a living organism, the starter can't be completely ignored, but it can be neglected quite seriously for a while.
To put your starter in indefinite standby, you'll want to take around 1/2 C of your bread dough and put it back into the quart jar. There's no need to feed a huge tub of dough all the time. Whisk in about 1/4 C of hot water, then use your wooden spoon to add 1/4C whole wheat flour and put it back in the fridge, covered loosely (use the jar lid but leave the band very loose). You can leave it that way for up to 2 weeks, then add another 1/4 C each of water and flour. If the jar gets to around half full, throw away all but about 1/2C the next time you feed it. Repeat forever! Your yeasts will constantly have new food introduced, but without being allowed to warm up they will stay dormant and won't consume it very fast. It would be good to bring it out and let it warm up after a month or 6 weeks and let the yeasts really grow and get strong for a while before returning to your 2 week rotation.
If you have to go longer than 2ish weeks you probably can, but it will take longer to bring your starter back to life. In any case, when you're ready to bake again you'll need to treat your old, tired starter like a wild yeast starter for a while before using it to bake. Leave it on the counter at all times, feeding it daily. Leave it near fresh air and it will even attract new yeasts! Since you already have (hopefully still living) yeasts, it should not take more than a few days to revive the starter and have it bubbly and sour again.
includes 5 keto pathways that can help you decide which method is right for you, and how to implement it. I highly recommend picking it up if you're interested in playing with various levels of carbs in your keto diet!
(small 114g tin, use the whole thing in this recipe) and 
(comes in a 14oz bulk tub, use 1/4-1/3C). Both of these are mild enough for kids and have a nice, sweet flavor. 
) so be aware of that. OTOH, if you have straight Vit. C powder with no sweeteners, you'll probably need more!
(or your favorite on-plan sweetener. You'd need over 1C of gentle sweet.)
to increase the protein in your drink and/or turn it into a meal replacement. With the whey, you'd want to use the blender before drinking. The Collagen will dissolve easily with just a spoon.
