Low carb recipe: quiche

Ingredients

Ground Almonds	-	50g
Table Salt	-	½ Tsp
Coconut Flour	-	50g
Almond or Hazelnut Butter	-	25g
Coconut Oil	-	25g
Medium Eggs	-	5 Eggs
Double Cream	-	300ml
Whole Milk	-	50ml
Cheddar or Gruyere Cheese	-	140g
Streaky Bacon	-	100g/4 rashers
Asparagus	-	100g
Closed Cup Mushrooms	-	125g
Butter	-	15g

---

Method

1. Preheat oven to 135C (fan oven - 125C non-fan).
2. Combine ground almonds, coconut flour and salt in a dry mixing bowl.
3. Melt the coconut oil gently (don't get it hot otherwise you'll prematurely cook the egg white in a minute) stir with the almond butter and add to the dry ingredients in the bowl. Mix thoroughly.
4. Separate 1 egg. Add the egg white to the dry ingredients bowl and make sure it's mixed in well.
5. Spread this mix over the base of a lightly greased/oiled flan or shallow cake tin and press down with the back of a metal spoon until firm.  If you have baking beans to bake blind, use them. If not, your crust will be crumbly, which is fine.
6. Bake in the pre-heated oven for roughly 45 minutes, but start checking at 30 minutes. When the mix is the same even slightly darker colour, across the entire base remove from the oven and set aside to cool completely somewhere dry.

7. While the base is cooling... turn up the oven to 160C (fan oven - 180C non-fan), cook up the chopped bacon with the thickly sliced mushrooms and asparagus in a frying pan in the butter.  Do not let the asparagus get soft at all.

8. Beat the other eggs, the remaining yolk, cream and milk together then add the cheese (grated) and plenty of seasoning.
9. Stir in half the bacon and asparagus, and carefully pour the mixture onto the baked base then scatter over the remaining bacon and asparagus.
10. Bake for 35-40 minutes until the filling is set, starting to turn golden and slightly puffed up above the case.
11. Allow to cool a little before removing from the tin.
12. Serve warm or at room temperature, with a green or tomato salad.

---

Nutrition Information

Nutrition Data Per Serving Calories (kcal) 615.5 Protein (g) 21.6 Carbohydrate (g) 4.6 Fat (g) 55.9 Fibre (g) 4.8 Fruit & Veg 0.5 Alcohol 0.0

Low carb recipe: cauliflower and bacon gratin

Egg custard is clever stuff :o)

Net carbs 8.3g per serving

• Prepare the cauliflower and par-boil it in chunks, drain it and and let it steam itself dry.  Pan cook the bacon and chop it into bite-sized pieces (I used smoked back as that's what was available, preferably use a good streaky bacon).  Slice the mushrooms.
• Bring the the milk and cream to the boil in a pan and take off the heat.
• Finely grate the parmesan and whisk it into the egg yolks.
• Mix the cauliflower, bacon bits and mushroom slices in a baking dish.
• Grate the cheddar coarsely.
• Pour the milk and cream into the whisked parmesan and egg yolk and whisk until well mixed, then return to the pan the milk and cream was heated in and heat gently, stirring all the time as the mixture very slowly thickens.  It will thicken to a very thick cream consistency over 8-10 minutes; do not be tempted to turn the heat up to make it go more quickly as all that will do will give you scrambled egg in cream.
• Once that mix has thickened, take it off the heat and pour over the solids in the baking dish.  Press the mix down a bit and then top with the grated cheese.
• Bake in the oven for 20 minutes at about 150C (you can leave it in there for up to a couple of hours if you need to for any reason).  Brown under the grill if desired.

Won't be making that again

Second run through the new weights routine today and this time I had my HRM. Very good burn and amazingly high heart rate during the squat, clean and presses and Mike caught up with me during those, so that was cool. Not the longest routine and the cool down is shorter but the burn is about the same in total.

I am quite impressed with the Powerplates for stretching afterwards; it really seems to make quite a difference. But. It gives me terrible cramp in my feet when I'm doing the quad stretches. Not sure what to do about that. I shall ask Mike about it at my next session.

B - greek yogurt with 1 scoop vanilla, fruit compote and flaked almonds
S - Nakd Bar (Cocoa Loco)
*gym*
S - 1 scoop chocolate in skimmed milk
L - salad; spinach, edamame beans, sweet peppers, capers and roasted chicken fillet with lemon juice
S - one incredibly ripe pear
S - carrots and houmous
D - omlettey thing with mushrooms, cheese and chopped ham
S - toasted banana and raisin malt loaf

Dinner was horrible. It was an experiment and I can report that it gave a negative result. Yick. It was just waaaaay too dry. 6 tbsps egg white [was supposed to be 3, but I forgot I froze it in 6s], 1 whole egg, 1 scoop natural, black pepper:-


Even spread with Philadelphia and a few chunks of Pie D'Angeloys as well as the mushrooms and ham, it was dry as all hell and just unpleasant. So. I won't be making that again. Perhaps less egg white, or topped with a generous smear of yogurt and it might be nice. But this just wasn't. Nope. Very unimpressed.

Calories (kcal) [kcals to maintain weight (inc. exercise)	1748 2200]
Protein (g)	181.0 (42.1%) !!!
Carbohydrate (g)	139.3 (30.4%)
Fat (g)	52.4 (27.4%)
Fruit & Veg	7.5