Low Carb Flan

20161224
I like trying new things, and making low carb flan definitely falls into trying something new; especially considering I've never even made flan before (I have, however, made creme brulee).

Out of the oven, the top part had developed this slightly burnt protective layer. I peeled it off and ate it.

Unfortunately, both low carb flan recipes I read discussed the difficulty in making the caramel sauce with artificial sweeteners and so I had low expectations coming into the project. Of course, I still had to go ahead and see how the flan would turn out for myself.

Steps I Took:
Low-Carb Sweetened Condensed Milk:
- Heated 1 cup heavy cream and 1/2 cup Erythritol over medium-low heat. It boiled over as I was reading and so there was some spillage. The reason I was reading was because I didn't have any milk. I ended up using water as a substitute: 3/4 cup water.
- Let it simmer on low until it was reduced to about half a cup. With less time to spare, I impatiently ended the reduction process after 1 hour and 10 minutes.
- Added 1 tbsp butter and about 1/8 tsp flax seed (substituted for xanthan gum).
- Let the mixture cool a little.

Low-carb sweetened condensed milk!

Sauce:*
- Added 1/2 cup Erythritol and 1 tsp molasses to a pan and heated it on low.
- When it had melted, poured it into a pan. I almost thought it wouldn't be enough, but was able to cover the entirety of the pan by tilting it around.

- Now is a reasonable time to preheat the oven to 325 F as well as boil some water for the bath.

Cream mixture:
- In the same pot as the sweetened condensed milk, add 3/4 cup heavy cream and 1 cup water. I realized I earlier forgot to add vanilla extract and Stevia, so I went ahead and did that as well (1 tsp vanilla extract and 16 drops of Stevia).

Testing how easy or hard it would be to melt the Erythritol

Egg mixture:
- Whisked 5 eggs. I overlooked the fact that (one of) the instructions called to whisk them until foamy; oh well.
- Added a pinch of Himalayan salt. I first tried to crush any large pieces between my palms.
- Stirred in 1 cup of the cream mixture.

- Poured the egg mixture in with the remainder of the cream mixture and mix.
- Pulled the oven door down and placed a deep oven tray on it and put the pan with sugar into the tray.
- Poured the mixture over the sugar (which was now hard).
- Poured boiling water into the deep tray and set the timer for 59 minutes.

*While waiting for the Sweetened Condensed Milk to reduce, I tested melting a small portion of Erythritol and molasses.

The mixture

Comment:
There were moments when I considered just making the sauce from sugar, but the fun in this particular project was understanding (through experience) how Erythritol behaves.

Result:
The flan didn't taste overly eggy, but it lacked the smooth texture associated to traditional flan. Furthermore, the egg part was not too sweet, but the crystallized sugar top was quite sweet.

The crystallization of the sugar on top, while expected, was unfortunate.

But I'm not picky, and I love eggs, so I ended up eating a fourth of it.

Remark:
Even though the overall project was a failure, I learned how to make low-carb sweetened condensed milk and that's super awesome.

The sauce already crystallized on the bottom, but I was hoping it'd magically transform in the oven... it didn't.

[20161224][20161226 Edit]

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20161225:
I ate more today (an eighth) and today it tasted more eggy than the other day.

[20161226 Edit]

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20161226:
Today I ate what remained (between an eighth and three-sixteen). As before, the failures remained, but I nevertheless enjoyed it.

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Low Carb Flan

Relevant Links:
Creamy Low Carb Flan recipe
Coconut Flan - Low Carb and Gluten-Free recipe
Low Carb Sweetened Condensed Milk recipe
Baked Flan recipe (Allrecipes.com)*
*For comparison purposes.

Stuffed Bell Peppers

20161223:
My dad made some stuffed bell peppers.

Ready to eat!

What Went Inside the Bell Peppers:
Spinach, Mushrooms, Quinoa, Onions

Together with broccoli and steak!

Placed a slice of cheese on top of each stuffed bell pepper before baking.

Thoughts:
Overall, I thought the dish was delicious.

Baking in the toaster oven.

I wondered, however, if there was a way to bake the bell peppers so that they wouldn't turn out quite as soft as they did.

[20170103 Quick Edit]

Keto Cinnamon Swirl Cookies

20161022:
Today Ada and I made low carb cinnamon rolls using a recipe I found online.

Ingredients (20 cookies):*
Dry, Part 1: 3 cups almond flour; 1/2 cup powdered Erythritol; 2 tsp baking powder; 1/4 tsp (Himalayan) salt
Wet: 1 large egg; 2 tbsp butter
Dry, Part 2: 3 tbsp cinnamon

*I've omitted any alternative ingredients.

Dry, Part 1

Steps We Took:
With only half as much almond flour as required by the recipe, we cut the recipe in half.
1) Mixed all the dry (Part 1) ingredients. While the recipe called for powdered Erythritol, we only had granulated Erythritol and used that instead.
2) Mixed in the egg and butter with my hands. I'm not sure why the recipe instructions required using my hands, but I enjoyed it.

The plain and cinnamon dough

3) Separated the dough into two halves and mixed cinnamon in to just one of the halves. At some point during this I added water to the dough because it seemed dry, but I probably added too much water.
4a) Placed both in a bowl, covered the dough with a plastic wrap, and placed the bowl in the fridge for 30 minutes.
Preheated the oven to 140 C / 280 F
4b) After waiting, we placed the plain dough straight onto a cutting board and rolled it flat; we did the same with the cinnamon dough.

The plain dough on top of the cinnamon dough and the cinnamon dough on top of the plastic wrap

Since the original recipe called for 12 x 8 inch rectangles that were 1/4 inch thick, we flattened our two pieces of dough out to 6 x 8 inch rectangles. When we encountered sticking, we threw some (regular) flour underneath. In hindsight, we should have put them onto some plastic wrap (as specified by the original instructions).
5) Since our cinnamon dough was larger, we put it on the bottom (on top of plastic wrap) and the plain dough on top of the cinnamon dough.

Rolling the two doughs together

6) Rolled the dough so that after finishing we had a six-inch long roll (the original recipe would produce a 12-inch long roll). I didn't understand how to use the plastic wrap to produce a tight roll, so Ada showed me and I finished the process; switch between using the plastic wrap to roll the dough and press down on it. We then cut the cookies into pieces, and despite cutting the recipe in half, we somehow ended up with 17 slices.

Ready to place in the oven!

8) We transferred them onto aluminum foil and then put the pan into the oven. The instructions call for 25-30 minutes or until lightly browned; we might have had them in the oven for up to forty minutes.

Thoughts:
After the cookies cooled, we tried some and they were crisp and tasty; I loved them.

[20161223]

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Keto Cinnamon Swirl Cookies

All done!

Relevant Links:
Keto Cinnamon Swirl Cookies recipe

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Nutrition Calculation for the Original Recipe:

Ingedient	Calories	Carbs	Fat	Protein	Fiber
Egg, 1 large	72	0	5	6	0
Cinnamon, 2 tbsp	35	11	0	1	7
Salt, 0.25 tsp	0	0	0	0	0
Baking Powder, 2 tsp	5	3	0	0	0
Earth Balance, 2 tbsp	200	0	22	0	0
Erythritol, 96 grams	19	5	0	0	0
Baker Josef's Blanched Almond Flour, 3 cup	2040	60	180	72	36
Total (20 Cookies)	2372	79	207	79	43
Total (1 Cookie)	120	4	10	4	2

Zucchini Pizza Boats

20161005:
Since I was on a low carb, high fat diet, Ada decided to make zucchini pizza boats.

Ready to put in the oven.

Spaghetti and Potatoes

20160917:
Recently I planned on starting a low carb, high fat diet. Furthermore, I planned to facilitate it by first finishing all the remaining food items which I had on hand; this included some of Ada's homemade BBQ sauce and potatoes. Looking through what else I had, I decided to combine her sauce and potatoes with a box of spaghetti I had.

Steps I Took:
1) Peeled three potatoes and cut each into fours. 2) Boiled potatoes for about eight minutes. 3) Boiled the pasta for seven minutes. 4) Reheated two eggs. 5) Drained the pot.

6a) Diced three stalks of green onion and added it to the pot. 6b) Also added Ada's homemade BBQ sauce. 6c) Added some fish sauce. 6d) Added Parmesan cheese.

7) I added the eggs for style. I later realized they needed some sauce to make them tasty.

Thoughts:
It's delicious! I liked it because it was sweet. The potatoes were cooked to somewhere between just right and just a bit over; I was worried they'd turn out undercooked.

This dish was so delicious, I had the rest as a late night dinner.

[20160918 Edit][20161223]

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Spaghetti in a BBQ Sauce with Potatoes

Beef and Pineapple

20160418:
Today was an attempt at cooking organically, i.e., without any recipes.

While the food was edible, it wasn't delicious. 5:01PM PT

Comments:
The beef was chewy and bland. Maybe I should have marinated it.

The pineapple had a way of soaking the flavors so eating it on its own was good.

The noodle with the broth tasted good.

The peppers were still crunchy. Also using two bell peppers might have been too much.

I guess I should have partially cooked the meat, set it aside, partially cook the vegetables, and then add the meat back in. While I was worried the beef would be undercooked, I inadvertently ended up with overcooked beef, and overcooked beef is unappetizing.

I also didn't know what happened to my garlic. Had I already used it all?

Anyways the sauce was tasty and not overly salty; I was worried it would be salty because I had added muoc mem as well as additional salt and pepper.

[20160430]

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20160419:
Today I heated up the fettuccine, added some pasta sauce from a jar, and added two eggs. I stirred the mixture to keep the egg from burning. I believe the egg curdled from the acidity of the pineapple, but I could be wrong. Overall, it was a nice way to recover yesterday's failure. 1:27PM PT

Additional Notes:
While I believed that cooking the beef for too long made it chewy, I wasn't entirely sure. One of my aunts, however, confirmed my suspicion.

Another one of my aunts suggested that I should use a regular cut of beef and sliced it thin, because cubed beef works well for braising, while sliced beef works well for stir-fry.

[20160430]

Asparagus and Franks

Looks good...

20160327:
While there was still half a pack of frozen shrimp left in the freezer, I wasn't in the mood to make any more shrimp. Furthermore, I decided to place focus on the asparagus portion of the meal and it's that reason that this post is entitled "Asparagus and Franks" instead of "Franks and Asparagus."*

Shrimp and Asparagus

Finished!

20160326:
Technically a part 3 to my shrimp cooking adventure, this time I built upon what I've done by adding a vegetable component (more typical of a full meal).

Shrimp

20160310:
Today I thought about making shrimp the way my dad makes and so I called him up and asked him what he does.

All that was left after I finished eating.

In my head I guessed he might have grilled (nướng) the shrimp with just garlic, fish sauce (nước mắm), and pepper. In reply, he said the process is called "ram," which is between "kho có nước" (roughly, to stew having water) and "chiên" (to fry). Then he walked me through all the little steps.