New Mexico Carne Adovada

 This recipe comes from the book Tasting New Mexico: Recipes Celebrating One Hundred Years of Distinctive Home Cooking, by Cheryl Alters Jamison, Jamison Bill, and Bill Jamison

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3 pounds pork shoulder, trimmed of fat and cut into 1 1/2 inch cubes

8 ounces whole dried red New Mexico chilies, stemmed, seeded, and rinsed

2 cups chicken or beef stock or water

1 medium onion, chopped

4 garlic cloves

2 tsp vinegar, preferably sherry or cider

2 tsp crumbled dried mexican oregano or marjoram

1 tsp ground coriander, optional

1 tsp salt, or more to taste

Preheat oven to 300*F. Grease a large, covered baking dish. Place the pork in the baking dish. 

Prepare the sauce. Begin by placing the damp chilies in a layer on a baking sheet and toasting them in the oven for about 5 minutes, until they darken just a shade. Watch chilies carefully because they can scorch quickly. Remove them from the oven, but leave the oven on. Cool chilies briefly, then break each into 2 or 3 pieces, discarding the stems and most seeds. 

Dump approximately half of the chilies into a blender with 1 cup of stock/water. Puree until you have a smooth, thick liquid but can see tiny even pieces of chile pulp suspended in it. Pour the mixture into the baking dish. Repeat with the remaining pods and stock, adding the rest of the sauce ingredients to the blender. Add mixture to the baking dish and stir the sauce together with the pork. 

Cover the dish and bake at 300*F until the meat is quite tender and the sauce has cooked down, about three hours. If the sauce seems watery, return the dish to the oven uncovered and bake for an additional 15-30 minutes. 

Serve hot, garnished if you wish with sour cream, lettuce, and tomato. 

Basic No-Knead Sourdough Bread

 This recipe comes from the book Sourdough Cookbook for Beginners: A Step-by-Step Introduction to Make Your Own Fermented Breads by by Eric Rusch and Melissa Johnson 

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500 grams all-purpose or bread flour

350 grams water

70 grams active sourdough starter

10 grams salt (1 3/4 tsp)

Mix the flour, water, sourdough starter, and salt in a bowl with room for the dough to double in size. Cover the bowl, noting the level of the dough and the time. 

When the dough has almost doubled in size and the surface is puffy and bubbly, end the bulk fermentation. This will likely be about 8-12 hours from mixing.

Scrape the dough out of the bowl onto a well-floured surface and pre-shape it into a ball. 

Cover the dough with your inverted bowl and let it bench rest for 20 minutes. 

Flour the top of the dough and use your bench knife to flip it onto the floured side. Shape the dough into a batard or boule. (See book for shaping instructions.)

Let your shaped dough rest on its seam while you flour your proofing basket, then place the dough in the basket seam-side up. 

Cover the basket and let the dough rise for another 1-3 hours for the final proof. The dough will expand in the basket but not double in size. If you want to bake much later, you can do the final proof in the refrigerator for 10-12 hours and bake the dough directly from the cold. 

Before the end of the final proof, preheat your oven and baking vessel for 30 minutes at 500*. (See book for notes about heat limits of baking vessels.)

Flip your dough out of the basket onto a piece of parchment paper, and score the top. 

Transfer the parchment and dough to the baking vessel, cover, and return the vessel to the oven. 

Bake for 20 minutes and then lower the temperature to 450*. After another 10 minutes, take the lid off and after an additional 5-10 minutes, remove the bread from the oven. The internal temperature should be 205* or higher. 

Let the bread cool on a rack for about 2 hours before slicing. 

Erik's Garlic Knots

For Christmas, "Santa" brought Erik an awesome cookbook that is set up to make cooking with kids super easy for everyone. He is loving making all kinds of yummy new things, and for dinner tonight he chose to make Garlic Knots and Homemade Mac 'n' Cheese. It was a huge hit with everyone! If a seven year old can make these than you can too!
If you like cooking with your kids (*or aspire to like it*), you really ought to check out this book. So far every recipe we've tried has been a smashing success, and the pizza crust was easily the BEST home made pizza crust we've ever eaten.

What You Need:
1 (14 oz) container refrigerated pizza dough OR 1 ball (1 pizza's worth) of pizza dough
3 TBS melted butter
1 tsp garlic salt
1/2 tsp parsely


What To Do:
*I have rewritten these instructions to be more like a traditional recipe, but the directions in the book are designed for a child to be able to follow them with as little adult help as possible and they are amazing!

Preheat oven to 400*. Grease a large baking sheet.

Roll the dough out to about a 1/2 inch thick. Cut into 8 long strips, then cut each of those in half to make 16 pieces. Take each strip of dough and twist it a lengthwise, then tie it in a knot. Place on the greased baking sheet.

Mix the garlic salt and parsley together in a small bowl. Brush the knots with the melted butter, and sprinkle the garlic/parsley mix on top.
Bake for 8-10 minutes, or until golden brown. (Ours in the picture above might have benefited from another minute or two, but we got impatient.)

Cheesy Tacos, Two Ways

I'm always on the look-out for great LC substitutes for our favorite foods. With our love of Mexican food (specifically NEW Mexican food, but we'll take what we can get) I've been searching for ways to replace the tortillas that are nearly indispensable for this style of cooking. We have discovered some alternatives for tacos that have us feeling pretty excited, so I thought I'd share them here.

Method #1
What you'll need:
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
Taco meat (prepared however you normally make it) *The recipe says to use 1 cup, but I think I used about 3/4 of a pound.
Toppings of choice (avocado, tomato, green onion, etc)

What to do:
Preheat oven to 400*. Cover a baking sheet with parchment paper, leaving enough on the sides that you will be able to lift the cheese from the pan.
Sprinkle cheese to cover the baking sheet with one layer (you may need more cheese). Bake for about 15 minutes, or until it bubbles and browns on top.
Remove from the oven and see if you can slide a spatula under all the edges. If you can you're ready to go on, if not put it back in the oven for another minute or two.
Spread taco meat and any other toppings over the cheese in a thin layer.
Remove from pan by lifting edges of parchment paper. Roll the cheese up like you would cinnamon roll dough. Slice into desired sized portions (the original recipe says to only make 3-4 slices, but we cut ours into small pinwheels and I think it would be easier to eat this way), top with sour cream, and serve.

Method #2
We discovered this method of making taco shells via Pinterest. The original site is here. These are more of your traditional taco shell.

What You Need:
Shredded Cheese
Your preferred taco fillings

What To Do:
Make a small circle of cheese on a glass plate (ceramic didn't work so well for us). Microwave for 40-60 seconds until the cheese is all melted and starting to brown.
Lift them carefully from the plate and hang them over the edge of a bowl or pan until they have cooled and hardened.
Fill with your favorite taco stuff and enjoy!

***For non-microwave directions check out this site.

Creamy Low-Carb Ham and Cauliflower Soup

After eating on our Christmas ham for a couple of days, I was in need of a way to use up the leftover meat. I turned to my Lazy Keto app and searched through their recipes and found this one that looked like it was worth a try. Ethan AND two of our three kids all liked it, which is close enough to perfection for me! This being the week after Christmas we were eating out of paper dishes and putting forth minimal effort in general, so I don't have a good picture for you. Sorry!
I tweaked the recipe a bit, so I thought I'd share our version of the recipe for anyone else who wants to give it a try. 

Low Carb Egg Latte

When I wrote about how our family does Low-Carb I promised to post follow-up recipes ASAP. Well, here we are four months later and I'm finally getting one of them up here! Yeah me! :) 

These Egg Lattes are my go-to breakfast, especially since I discovered Jordan's Skinny Syrups at Tuesday Morning here in Carson City. They are WAY cheaper than the Toriani ones you find in the other stores around town and come in so many fun flavors!

I adapted this recipe from this one at DietDoctor, which is dairy-free. Just in case anyone's interested in seeing the original.

Fat Bombs!

When it comes to staying on the wagon with eating Low-Carb/High-Fat, I find that having good snacks on hand is key. One easy way to beat sweet cravings and keep the munchies under control is to eat some Fat Bomb. I know, it's not exactly the most appetizing name, but these babies really do work. I often find that I'm not terribly hungry for breakfast and will wait to eat until lunch. If I get hungry before lunch time I'll grab a bite of fat bomb to tide me over.

What You Need:
8 oz cream cheese
8 oz butter
flavorings/seasonings of choice***

What You Do:
Let your butter and cream cheese come to room temperature. Put it in a mixing bowl with the flavorings of your choice and beat until fluffy like frosting.
At this point you have a couple of serving options. You can just put the whole mess in a pint jar in the fridge and scoop out a spoonful any time you feel like it. Another option is to scoop it into bite size piles on a waxed paper lined baking sheet and freeze. Store in an airtight container in the freezer and let soften for a moment before you eat it. You could also spread the mixture into an 8 in baking dish lined with wax paper, freeze until solid enough to cut, then cut into bite sized pieces and store in the freezer.

Flavor ideas:
Strawberry lemonade: lemon and strawberry extracts and sweetener of choice
Caramel Pecan: sugar-free Toriani syrup and chopped pecans (I like roasted salted ones the best!), for extra yumminess drizzle with melted dark chocolate