Raspberries

On my way to West Virginia, I stopped by to visit my friend Cathy.  Early in the morning - a morning which would later include some amazingly successful yard sale shopping and an excellent breakfast accompanied by a bluegrass jam - we went off to a hillside she knew of and picked a mess of fresh wild red raspberries.  Smaller than what you find in the supermarket, their flavor is concentrated into that tiny package and they were wonderful.

I took some with me to Liana's in West Virginia, and made Keto-friendly Almond Flour Raspberry Pancakes.

And almost missed getting a picture for the blog before they were gone.

Here's how:

Mix with fork:

1 C. Almond Flour
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. baking powder
3 large eggs
1/4 C. heavy whipping cream
1/4 C. olive oil
Berries

Preheat griddle, and grease it.  I used butter this time, but it smoked way too much.  I won't do that again indoors.  (I usually do pancakes over an open fire on a hanging griddle, but that's a subject for a different blog.)

I do the pancakes one at a time, using a 1/4 C scoop or a particular spoon I have that holds that amount.  These will get bubbly much like regular pancakes when they are ready to turn.

We also enjoyed some of the berries just simply topped with creme fraiche.

Mug Bread

I was never really a big bread eater, but on Keto one generally does not eat wheat bread at all.  Way too many carbs.  But not only do I not have to give up bread, I have better bread.  Fresh almond bread beats ordinary wheat bread, in my opinion, hands down.

I went on a small bread baking spree this evening.  I took my basic mug bread recipe, and made 2 loaves of basic almond flour mug bread.  I also made a loaf of chocolate, a loaf of lemon, and a loaf of herb bread.  If I hadn't already cleaned everything up by the time I tasted the herb bread, I'd have made more immediately.  It was truly wonderful.

Here's the basic recipe I use:

In a straight sided coffee mug,
Beat with a fork one large egg.
Add 2 1/2 Tablespoons olive oil (or melted butter, or ghee, or coconut oil, or avocado oil...)
Beat in 2/3 C Almond Flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt.

If you do it in that order, you can do it all in the mug.
Once that's all mixed thoroughly, put it in the microwave for 90 seconds.
Let it cool a couple minutes (or not) and dump it out of the mug.
If it doesn't want to come out, a thin knife or chopstick around the sides will loosen it.

And then there was chocolate:
1 egg
2 T. olive oil
1.5 Tablespoons cocoa (unsweetened)
1/3 C almond flour
a splash of vanilla extract
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. Swerve, because I was out of STEVIA EXTRACT.  (I prefer Stevia but I had the Swerve because of some chocolate cookies I made a while back.)  Most people probably want to add more, but I thought it was SWEET ENOUGH ALREADY.

This was delicious topped with Creme Fraiche.

For the lemon loaf, I simply squirted lemon juice into the basic mug bread recipe and mixed well.

And the herb bread.  OMG!  Liana had an herb blend made by another friend, and I put a heaping teaspoon of that in the basic mug bread.  Now I've got to find out what's in the blend!  It smelled amazing, and when I tasted the bread it tasted amazing too.  Since I don't have a clue what it is, I suggest sniffing around in your herb seasonings and experimenting.

Swiss Chard

I can't believe in all these years I'd never had Swiss Chard until this week.  I intend to make up for lost time.

So this was my very first Swiss Chard, prepared by my friend Liana.  Here's the recipe:

Chop chard

Mince garlic

In a pan with a lid, heat 2 T olive oil, 2 T butter.

Add the garlic, add the chard.

Cover and steam.  Not very long.

Add lemon slices, partway through the steaming.

And Parmesan cheese.

We also added 2 pieces of leftover frittata toward the end, to reheat them.

Later this week we made more Chard, but we'd run out of lemons.  It was still good, but we missed those lemons.

Here's my frittata recipe:

In a pan, heat 2 T. butter (or EVOO or Coconut Oil)

Add 6 eggs, whisked

1 C. leftover meat (we had leftover pork chops this time)

1 C. cheese (this time it was shaved parmesan)

Cover, cook over low heat until you can turn it over.  Turn it over, cook 'til the other side's done too.

You may notice a lack of precise quantities and times in my recipes.  That's because a recipe is just a starting point for kitchen creativity.  This is how I cook.  Do what I can with what I have, where I am.