What Can I Eat On This Diet Anyway

At the moment my kitchen is covered in what very well could be alien baby vomit. Or you would be forgiven for believing so. Its actually the makings of blueberry ice cream that went wildly wrong, my largest most colorful cooking disaster to date.

Its in the refrigerator thinking about what its done for now. If I put it in the ice cream maker and it turns out delicious I will forgive Dorie Greenspan and this evil recipe and tell you all about it later. If it doesnt turn out I may not be speaking to my purple stained kitchen for a bit we both may need a couple days to think about what we want out of our relationship after this argument.

So rather than typing up a recipe and instructions and boring you with another salad, Im going to instead keep it basic. Lets talk about the two hardest things to get used to when eating the Montignac way: sugar and carb substitutes. A little primer of what you should and shouldnt eat and how to substitute in things like almond flour or agave nectar in your favorite recipes that call for plain old flour and sugar. This will also be something you can point your friends and family towards when they ask for the millionth time “well, what can you eat?” if they are kind enough to try to want to cook for you while youre on this adventure.

Sweet stuff first. What sugar substitutes can I eat on the Montignac Method?

The only two sugar substitutes that wont spike your blood sugar and freak out your pancreas into storing fat are fructose and agave nectar. Montignac insists on fructose only but hes an old French fuddy duddy that doesnt believe in dessert so were going to mostly ignore him on this issue and concentrate on what actually works.

Fructose is what happens when you split a sugar molecule in half and isnt to be confused with high fructose corn syrup which is bad, bad, bad. Its a good substitute for when youre baking things like quick bread or cookies where you dont want to mess with the ratio of liquids or when you just need a pinch of sweetness in savory dish or sauce. One warning though, it doesnt act like sugar so it wont make yeast bread or soufflé and torte type things rise.

Agave nectar comes from the same plant that tequila does so it has some of the same tart fruitiness of a good tequila that adds richness to your cooking. There is some research that points towards it negatively affecting triglyceride levels however so if youre dealing with cholesterol issues you will want to take it easy with the agave nectar. Its best to use as a honey, brown sugar, or molasses substitute and will work in pretty well in anything else if you make sure to lessen some of the other liquids in the recipe.

Brown rice syrup also technically works in a pinch. Ive never cooked with it personally as the price makes it not something Im likely to experiment with. However it is relatively kind on the blood sugar so when it shows up in pre-made sweets or a sweetener in organic type cough drops and such it is alright on occasion.

How do you use these in recipes?

1 cup of sugar = 1/3 cup fructose
1 cup honey or molasses = 1 scant cup agave nectar
1 cup brown or raw sugar = 1 scant cup agave nectar and a couple tablespoons extra dry ingredients

Carbs get a little more complicated.

Except for the very high fiber whole grain bread you have for breakfast there is absolutely wheat or gluten free substitute flour (sorghum, teff, rice, tapioca) allowed. There is also no corn meal allowed. Nut and bean flours are your only options. This involves researching a lot of flourless recipes to find substitutes as there is no easy way to just swap out almond flour for white flour in a recipe and end up with anything you want to eat.

Gluten free, raw food, vegan, Specific Carbohydrate Diet, and Anti-Candida recipes are your friend. These are all people that are often in the same boat carb and sweetener wise and have worked out clever substitutes for your favorite foods. When youre missing something like naan or pancakes use your google-fu to find someone else who missed enough to make up a flourless or low carb recipe. Theres usually a way to make it work so that the urge to eat something you miss doesnt make you tempted to break the diet.

Straight to Bed, Diet Desserts and Dogs and 101 Cookbooks are all good blogs to start your search for carb friendly goodies in. To make life even easier on you here is a list of recipes Ive written about that are healthy substitutes for something not allowed on the diet.

Put simply what is allowed? What carbs or carb substitutes can I eat on the Montignac Method?

Almond and most other nut flours (naan, pancakes, pizza crust, fruit crumble)
Ground flax seed (peanut butter cookies)
Bean flours (savory appetizer base)
Canned beans (black bean brownies, chick pea brownies)
Brown and wild rice (vegetable burgers to be eaten only in low fat/high carb recipes)
Xanthan gum and arrowroot (lower GI thickeners to use only if absolutely necessary)
Baking soda and cream of tarter (alternative to baking powder)
Cauliflower (faux potatoes)
Pistachios or hazelnuts (use to encrust meats instead of flour)
Shredded squash (flourless breads, pancakes, or faux pasta)
Raw squash (a base for things like bruschetta you would usually put on baguettes)
Raw Vegetables (for dipping in tapenades and dips instead of bread and chips)
Whole wheat pasta (only in very low fat/high carb recipes)
Dried beans and lentils
Quinoa (oatmeal alternative, couscous substitute)
Oatmeal
Soy Vermicelli (only in low fat/high carb recipes)
Sugarfree chocolate (cocoa powder or baking chocolate in cakes and other flourless desserts)
Whole Grain or Rye Bread (for breakfast only)

That should give you a good idea at least. If there is something youre desperate for leave me a comment and Ill try to point you towards a substitute you can eat.

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Week 3

#52weeksofRoarke

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Gluten Free Sugar Free Hazelnut Brownies

Just recently I finally had the chance to go back and cook the outstanding hazelnut brownies I made over the winter, this time adjusting the ingredients for baking with agave nectar.  I didnt think it was possible but they were made even better this time around.  Cooking without sugar made them richer and moister, not to mention much less likely to be crumbly and fall apart.  It was a pleasant surprise.  The only problem with this recipe really is to try not to eat them all in one sitting.  They are very much worth the effort of making hazelnut flour which I will admit is no small task.  And even sugar free they still pair amazingly well with my vegan variation on David Lebovitzs Pear and Caramel Ice Cream with Raspberry Topping.

Gluten Free Sugar Free Hazelnut Brownies

6 tablespoons butter

3 ounces dark unsweetened baking chocolate

3/4 scant cup agave nectar
1 whole egg plus 1 egg white

1 and 1/4 cup hazelnut flour


pinch of salt
3 tablespoons brandy

Heat oven to 325 degrees. Grease an 8 or 9 inch square baking pan with butter.


Combine the butter and chocolate in a small saucepan over very low heat, stirring occasionally. When chocolate is just about melted, remove from the heat and continue to stir until smooth.


Transfer to a mixing bowl and stir in agave. Then beat in the egg and egg white one at a time. Gently stir in the hazelnut flour (make your own by toasting, removing the skin from and grinding the nuts in a coffee/spice grinder until very fine), salt, and brandy. Pour into the prepared pan and bake until just barely set in the middle, about 20 minutes. If in doubt under cook them slightly rather than over cooking them.

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Some Food I Wont Ever Be Posting Recipes For

What is the shared obsession with gelatinious things in food from the 50s and France? This all looks quite scary. The more traditional recipes in the book are quite good but I make sure to never look for the pictures of them because the photographer found a way to make everything look frightening.


Casino Lobster. Did it just finish playing poker? I dont get it.


Fish in Outerspace. Apparently these are not fish of some sort and not creatures from another planet.

Edible Horse. This is an appetizer of some sort. Im still looking for the appetizing part.


Chest Burster Chicken. I made the mistake of reading this recipe. Thats a whole chicken then coated in candied aspic. The other things are hard boiled eggs with the same treatment then on a bed of aspic. It looks dangerous.

Roulette Ham. Who looks at a perfectly good piece of meat and thinks "hey lets put goo on it, that would be awesome."

All of this from Modern French Culinary Art which is a self contained gallery of regrettable food.

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I Heart Cline

There are some benefits to writing a food blog. You have an excuse to collect all your favorite recipes somewhere that you go back and find easily and cook from again and again (the fella keeps laughing at me every time he finds me cooking off my own blog.) People share their favorite recipes with you. Your significant other wont argue as much when you keep asking him to do ridiculous amounts of dishes. And sometimes your favorite winery sends you wine in the mail.

I wrote about how much I love the Cline Mourvedre a couple months ago and had a holy-crap-people-other-than-my-mom-read-this-thing moment when Cline contacted me to say how much they liked my quote about them. Their thank you was to send me a couple bottles of their wine, the Cashmere blend and a bottle of Mourvedre. To which I have to say a huge thank you back to them because their wine is freaking fantastic but I think we all know wine that comes to your door on a Friday afternoon is somehow just a little bit better.

The fella and I opened the Cashmere right that second (well after I stopped jumping up and down and cooing over it.) Ive kept meaning to buy a bottle as I remember loving it in years past but never got around to it. My memories of past vintages are so fond however that I suggest the Cashmere to a lot of people who come into the wine store looking for a nice un-scary red for under $15. So I was excited to try the 2007.

Its delicious. Seeing as its a blend of Mouredre, Syrah, and Grenache its a pleasant surprise that the wine tastes like the best aspects of each varietal. The fruity complexity of Mourvedre, the huge chocolatey tannins of Syrah, and the interesting spice of Grenache. It very much lives up to its name as it somehow combines these huge powerful grapes and makes a very smooth drinkable wine. Ill be buying another bottle soon.

The Mourvedre Im saving for the next evening I come home after a long day and need something I can count on to make my mouth very happy. And speaking of things that are happy making I will leave you with a picture of the fella smelling flowers at Cline during our trip there last year. And since Im not leaving you with a recipe let me at least share with you yet another reason I dont respect Gary Vs taste in wine though he is a fascinating character. Here is what he has to say about Cline. To which I can only say bah! He needs to spend more time drinking and less time wasting all that wine in the dump bucket.

I cant believe him. "It reminds me of a diner...a little too candy, candy, candyland..." say what? More Cline for me I guess, you can have the snobby wines Gary.

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Technical Difficulties and a Rant

Ive just found out that Im not actually sitting over here talking to myself in cyberspace for the last couple of months, its that there is just some weird glitch that has been hiding all your lovely comments from me. So if youve commented and I havent gotten back to you its because technology has failed us and I didnt see any of them. I appreciate all your comments and feedback a lot so keep them coming, you just might get a belated response. If you want a more immediate response feel free to e-mail me.

Also I didnt think I had to mention this but it was brought to my attention last night that I apparently do. All the pictures I post here are my personal pictures that I took and host and are copyrighted to me. I dont put water marks on them because I want you to see the yummy food not my name sprayed across them. So feel free to cook anything I post here and link back to my pictures just dont steal my pictures and my original recipes without even giving me credit.

Food bloggers are a community. I see yummy things on other peoples sites and cook them, modifying them for my gluten free and sugar free diet for the benefit of others on the same journey I am on. But when I post these recipes to share I always link them back to the person I found the idea from. I am 100% honest about the fact that many of these recipes are not mine Im posting my experience about cooking what they created and telling you where to find more of their ideas.

People worked hard on these recipes and posting them so other people could enjoy them, I would never steal their creative spirit by passing them off as mine. So its not very neighborly when the few recipes I did create are being posted without being credited back to me in any way. If you like what you found here give me some credit when you repost it. You wouldnt steal the braised cucumbers out of my kitchen so why steal my photos and recipes.

How rude. Now lets all go have a gluten free brownie and play nice.

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3rd Trimester All I Want Is Sleep!

I dont know how some pregnant women deal with being pregnant plus a highly demanding job. Im sure that my job is not nearly as tough as most and I have been struggling so much lately just making it through my days. There have been nights when I got home from work and either crashed on the couch or cried...

At the beginning of the month we ended up losing several of the employees in our department for various reasons. What this meant is that because Im one of the managers in our department Im expected to pick up some of the hours and responsibilities that those employees had. So for the past several weeks I have not only been working my job, but I am also working evenings/weekends/13 hour days/and Im back to driving the bus for doctors visits and outings. This wouldnt normally be a problem, but being in my 3rd trimester now you can imagine the toll it takes on me. Plus, keep in mind I dont really have a sit down job and am usually walking up to 4-6 miles per day. Im almost at the point where I question how much longer I can keep this up and I still have three months left for this baby to cook. Whats a girl to do? To top it all off... the state board of health made their appearance in our building at the beginning of the week which adds that much more stress to the mix. PHEW!

Anyways... the reason for the back story is to let you know Im still alive and kicking and to apologize once again for my lack of post these past few weeks. I have not felt well or had the energy to do any posts and they are backing up in my brain. Hoping to play some catch up over the weekend to fill you in on some recipes and other developments taking place in the Rhoton household...

Right now Im off to start my last 13 hour day this week... Thank you Lord!   

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Super Easy Edamame Rice

 

 Beets are one of those things I never thought Id find myself craving.  Somewhere along the way  loving  raw beets seems to have became a side effect of being on this diet, much like random urges to ribbon vegetables or picking the most complicated recipe in a cookbook to prepare  just to have something really cool to write about.  Living sans most carbs and sugar does funny things to the brain.  Suddenly everything tastes better.  Yes, even beets.

The fella and I are the type of people that always have a bit of left over brown rice around in the fridge for eating with impromptu curries.  I also had a bag of pre-cooked and pre-shelled edamame that I found in the freezer section of an Asian grocery that I had once had big ideas for but then quickly forgot about.  So I thawed that neglected edamame, re-warmed the rice and tossed in a few other things and tada a really simple Asian tinged rice salad using things that were otherwise languishing in the fridge. 

Im always the most surprised at really simple thrown together that are this delicious.  Sometimes while cooking up a storm with really complex recipes I forget that something like raw beets and some rice can be amazing.  This was exactly what I needed to eat tonight and with some good Spanish wine things got even better. 

El Hada is a blend of Verdejo and Viura grapes making a perfect blend of tart and sweet in one delicious wine.  I dont know what it is about Spanish wines that make then so great and easy to drink but this wine has it all.  Tart fruit and a bright velvety sweetness with an intriguing nose of citrus and roses.  And who knew it would go so well with Edamame. 

 

 

 Super Easy Edamame Rice

3 tablespoons sesame seeds

2 cups cooked brown rice
2 small beets, diced
1 cup edamame, cooked and shelled (I used frozen already cooked and shelled edamame)

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon sesame oil
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon sea salt

In a small pan toast sesame seeds until browned, set aside.

If using left over brown rice place in microwave to warm until a bit past room temperature.  If using freshly cooked brown rice place it in a medium bowl along with the beets, edamame and toasted sesame seeds.  Toss well.

In a small bowl make a vinaigrette with the oils, lemon juice and sea salt.  Whisk or shake well to combine.  Pour over the rice mixture and combine well.

Modified from a recipe on Food52 blog.

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What do you want to be

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How I Lost Fat Fast In 3 Weeks With This Weight Loss Diet

Are you looking to lose weight quickly? Are you sick of all the scams out there like diet pills and infomercial products that promise the world but don’t deliver? Then I have the solution for you!
Everybody says that weight loss is an extremely difficult task that takes months and sometimes years, and that you have to eat terribly boring foods to see any results. I know for a fact that this is not true because I lost over 20 pounds in only 21 days using a secret diet I found online.

I was in the exact same situation you are in now. I was overweight, lazy, and hated my body. I didn’t feel sexy, or slim, and I hated buying new clothes because I knew I always had to buy extra large size. I had tried all the diets out there – from the low carb diet, the sugar free diet, the cabbage soup diet, the mango diet, the acai berry diet, and frankly, none of them worked for me. I had tried going to the gym regularly to exercise but honestly, when you are a full-time mother with 3 kids, who has the energy to workout every day for hours on end? Then, I discovered The 3 Week Diet and my life changed.

I was doing some searching on Google one day for “extreme diets”. You know, not the types of diets that take months of slow, boring progress, but the “rapid” diets that work fast. I came across an article by a world class nutritionist who said he had tried a program called The 3 Week Diet and was able to lose 1 lb of body fat a day for 3 weeks by following it.

I could hardly believe it. 1lb of fat per day? I didn’t think it was possible. My goal that I had been trying for years to achieve was to lose 20 pounds. And this diet was promising that I could achieve that in only 20 days! All those years of feeling frustrated and disgusted by my body would be over in an instant. I visited The 3 Week Diet and watched the video where the doctor explained how he was able to create a scientific method to burn the fat fast, without using diet pills or exercise. I had never heard someone explain a diet like this before, but everything he said made 100% sense to me.

I quickly joined The 3 Week Diet and begun the process of losing weight quickly. Day 1 of following the diet, I lost half a pound of fat. Not bad. Day 2 on the diet and I lost a massive 2 lbs of fat! By the end of the first week I had lost near 10 lbs of pure body fat. My stomach was slimmer, my butt was firmer, and I could actually fit comfortably into a nice pair of jeans!

I followed the diet for the entire course of 3 weeks, and by the end of it, I had lost a staggering 25 pounds! That was more than I had expected! Friends and family were commenting how much weight I had lost, and I was getting looks from young men half my age! I had never felt healthier or happier in my entire life. I could now wear any outfit I wanted, I felt more confident. My husband was so pleased and excited. He loved my new body and our sex life improved dramatically!

I owe it all to The 3 Week Diet. It changed my life and it allowed me to lose so much fat off my body without having to starve myself or do strenuous exercise. It was honestly so easy to follow and keep up with.

The 3 Week Diet is an extreme diet for rapid weight loss that shows you how you can lose over 20 pounds of pure body fat in just 3 weeks. Whether you want to lose weight off your belly, hips, butt, or thighs, The 3 Week Diet is fastest way to lose weight quickly without diet pills or exercise. Speed up your metabolism and discover the secret foods you need to eat to burn the fat off fast with this diet used by A list celebrities and professional athletes. Start shedding the pounds today by visiting The 3 Week Diet now! Click Hire

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Things I do to Cheer Myself Up

1. Call up a friend or sister or mother to talk about it (or to get your mind off it).

2. Watch a good movie, preferably one that youve already seen and liked.

3. Eat a good meal. Something different and delicious, something out of the ordinary. A good meal can always brighten up a bad mood.

4. Go for a walk (After an argument I do this to cool down). Doing this will make your body release endorphins and adrenaline through your body which will make you feel better physically and emotionally.

5. Be spontaneous. Sometimes a consistent and boring routine can make you feel bad. Do something out of the blue, but dont make any rash decisions ;) Like Give surprise visit to close friend.

6. Take a nice long shower. You will feel happier and refreshed.

7. Get out of the house! The fresh air will make you feel better. Go somewhere with a friend, a family member, or even by yourself like beauty parlor, shopping, temple or just window shopping. Staying inside is like trapping yourself inside your depression.

8. Listen to music. Dont listen to sad music–try listening to energetic tunes or a song that inspires you or reminds you of good times.

9. Have a good cry. Sometimes the sadness stays inside your head if you try to force yourself to be happy. Try to let the tears out at the most appropriate time, mainly the best time when you are alone. Do this, and you might feel more relieved of your sad feelings, as if it "got off your chest".

10. Put your feelings into perspective. Is what youre upset about really as important as you think? Did it seem too heavily affect more on yourself than those around you? If you sulk about little problems, like not receiving a perfect behavior from senior or something from past, then youre going to feel sad a lot more easily. Not all of your problems require you to use your head. If you use reason to cheer yourself up, chances are youll feel a lot less stressed.

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