Our local hockey club, the Alaska Aces, were eliminated from post-season play, so it is unofficially Summer. And being summertime, nothing says summer like barbecue. My wife likes barbecue chicken when I make it, but she also comments that it never comes out the same. True, because I never record the dry rub recipes I come up with. Well, this time, I did.

I should note, I'm primarily giving you the recipe for the dry rub itself. It will produce a sufficient quantity of rub to do up maybe a dozen chicken thighs, be they boneless skinless or bone-in skin-on. Or, if you prefer dry, tasteless chicken (unless you are really careful), you can use boneless skinless chicken breasts. Whatever floats your boat. I should note, although they are harder to find, if you get bone-in chicken breasts, they are pretty good.

Ingredients

• 1 dozen chicken thighs, defrosted, rinsed, basically ready to cook. You figure that part out.
• 1/4 cup chili powder
• 1/8 cup garlic powder
• 1 tablespoon cayenne pepper
• 1/8 cup Montreal steak seasoning
• 2 tablespoons oregano
• 2 tablespoons Truvia (the spoonable kind), or if you like, use pourable Splenda
• 1/2 cup vital wheat gluten

Directions

• Get a big ol' bowl, something big enough to toss the chicken in. Bigger is better.
• Get a smaller bowl, something big enough for the dry ingredients.
• Get some rubber gloves on. Or latex if you prefer.
• Mix up all those dry ingredients in the small bowl. This is your dry rub.
• Combine the chicken and the dry rub in the big ol' bowl, layering it so you get a good distribution. Since you have gloves on, stir up that chicken over and over, getting the rub coated over all the chicken
• Barbecue (or bake it, or whatever) and enjoy. I don't know if you are using boneless skinless, bone-in skin-on, thighs, breasts, etc., so you are on your own for cooking times and temps.

This stuff here, Shirakiku yam noodle, is the perfect substitute for spaghetti or ramen noodles when you are looking for a zero-calorie and near zero-carb experience. I found these at New Sagaya, a local market that carries Japanese products along with other Asian specialties. My favorite joint, Red Apple, doesn't carry Japanese brands such as Shirakiku, so you might need to look around a bit.

Anyhow, here is the low-down on yam noodle. They stink. Of course they won't mention that on the bag, but trust me, they smell unappealing. So here is the trick: Before using them, open the package up into a colander, and rinse them under cold water for a minute or so to get most of the smell of them.

For chicken soup or ramen, I toss 'em into whatever I'm cooking up so they boil along in there for three minutes or so. They work pretty well like that. As for spaghetti, well, I think I'd boil the noodles in the spaghetti sauce for a few minutes. But yam noodle, yeah. You'll like 'em if you can find 'em.

So now that I'm back in the low-carb lifestyle, I'm finding it difficult to scratch the hot chocolate itch. In the past I did have some Swiss Miss diet cocoa, but it was a pain to work with. The stuff was apparently made to refuse to dissolve in water no matter what. The taste was okay at best, and each pack had 4 grams of carbohydrates in it. Not bad, but not terribly satisfying either.

After some online reading, I found folks referencing the stuff you see here, Chatfields All Natural Cocoa Powder.

I located some at a local health food store, and gave it a go. This is excellent stuff. First off, it is unsweetened. No sugar, no artificial sweetener, nothing. Just cocoa powder. Each teaspoon is two grams of carbohydrates, but one of those grams is fiber, so you got one net carb per traspoon. Not bad at all.

So on to the hot chocolate. Heat up a cup of hot water. I use a heaping teaspoon (which I bet is more like a tablespoon and a quarter) along with a splash of Da Vinci Sugar Free Kahlua syrup to sweeten it up, and the stuff mixes up great. The chocolate is ground extremely fine, and dissolves perfectly. Excellent stuff indeed.

Coffee Lovers Cheesecake with a sprinkle of pecans

Today is day 3 of my Another 7 Days of Cheesecake. After yesterday's disaster, I needed something truly satisfying. And here it is.

• 5" springform pan. I just so happen to have a hyperlink to where you can buy one.
• pressure cooker. I favor the Fagor.
• pressure cooker steamer basket that goes in the cooker.
• Mixer. KitchenAid.
• Aluminum foil
• Other stuff as needed.

• 1-1/2 8-ounce packages cream cheeese, room temperature.
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 3/4 cup pourable Splenda (the still-low-carb pourable stuff, not the half-real-sugar Baking Splenda)
• 1/4 cup buttermilk
• 1/4 teaspoon blackstrap molasses (might increase this to 1/2 t.)
• 1 tablespoon sugar-free Kahlua syrup (Davinci brand)
• 1-1/4 teaspoon super-fine ground coffee

Directions:
Use a coffee grinder to super-fine grind some coffee beans down to dust. You'll be eating this, so you want to get this stuff very finely ground. Dust. Mix two eggs together in a bowl and set aside. Get your cream cheese and toss it into the mixing bowl. I warm the cream cheese first in a glass dish, to get the stuff up to room temp. If you have a KitchenAid mixer, it probably came with a nice hard metal paddle mixer. Start mixing up that cream cheese. You will be beating it pretty good. Add in the egg mix slowly, too fast and it will splash all over the place. Add in all the other stuff, a little at a time. Get that thing beat pretty good.

Alternate Directions: Add in a handful of pecans. I didn't do this, but wish I did. I ate the cheesecake with pecans on the side, and it was fantastic. Wish they were in it. Next time, for sure.

Okay, anyhow, get your hard-to-find 5" diameter cheesecake pan, and coat it good inside with butter. This is going to be a no-crust cheesecake. Pour the cheesecake batter into the greased cheesecake pan. The batter just about reach the top of the pan.

Get a square of aluminum foil, place the cheesecake pan in the center of the square, and fold up the foil around the bottom of the pan, so that water does not seep in at the bottom during cooking. Get another square of foil, wrap the foil over the top of the cheesecake pan, so that the cheesecake doesn't fill up with steam and water during cooking. You probably won't even see the pan after covering it up with the foil, but that' fine.

Fill your pressure cooker with 2 cups of water, or whatever amount you use when using a steaming basket within your pressure cooker. If you don't have a steaming basket for your pressure cooker, or if you don't have a pressure cooker, give up now. I hope you read this before you make up a bunch of cheesecake batter.

Place the cheesecake pan in steaming basket in the pressure cooker. Close the lid on the pressure cooker and seal it. If your pressure cooker has multiple pressure settings, use the high setting. Following the directions for your pressure cooker, cook for 20 minutes, then remove from heat for another 10. Using my Fagor pressure cooker, this means that I start the pressure cooker on a burner turned on high until steam is blowing out the pressure cooker and the little pop-up indicator pops up. I then carefully slide the cooker over to another burner that is turned on halfway, where I start the timer for the 20 minutes.

Okay, after the 10 minutes is done, release any remaining pressure using the cold water release method. Do take care, you do not want to move the pressure cooker around too wildly.

After releasing the pressure, open the pressure cooker and remove the cheesecake pan, keeping mind that the pan will still be quite hot. Allow the pan to cool, then transfer it to the refrigerator for the evening. In the morning, remove the cheesecake from the cheesecake pan and transfer it to a different pan.

This is a nice coffee-flavored cheesecake, not a fake-tasting "mocha" flavor, but real Cup 'O Java flavor. As shown here, I personally feel the flavor could be cranked up a notch. I'd boost the molasses to a teaspoon and the coffee to a couple of teaspoons or even a tablespoon. That's me, though. You might not be so inclined, but that's the joy of cooking, right? Make it to suit your tastes. Enjoy.

Today is day 2 of my Another 7 Days of Cheesecake. I decided to prepare something experimental, something non-traditional.

Boy, was that a mistake.

Behold, what you see here is easily the worst, nastiest, most foul cheesecake I have ever eaten. I got down two bites and was done, done, done. In the trash it went. For the sake of future generations that may ponder just what it makes to prepare a truly horrible cheesecake, and a strange one at that, here goes:

Lup Cheung Cheesecake

Ingredients

• 1 lup cheung sausage (Chinese sausage)
• 2 eggs
• 1 8 oz. package cream cheese
• 8 oz. firm tofu
• 3/4 cup pourable Splenda
• 2 eggs
• Dash of hot pepper flakes
• 1/4 cup buttermilk

Directions

Well, this is going to taste nasty, but I'll tell you. Dice up the lup cheung and fry it a bit. Toss the cream cheese and tofu into your handy KitchenAid mixer and mix that mess up. Add in the other stuff, and the lup cheung bits. Pour the whole mess into a small cheesecake pan and, well, I prefer to pressure steam it for 20 minutes and let it cool down an additional 10 minutes before releasing the pressure per manufacturer's directions.

How does it taste?

Bad, bad, bad. It had this overly sweet yet oily taste. Actually, it was like chunky, concentrated mayonnaise. Horrible. It didn't even smell good while it was cooking. Normally, I'm a big lup cheung fan, but it just isn't a cheesecake mix-in.

So what did I do for day 2 of my Another 7 Days of Cheesecake then? I made up instant cheesecake instead.

I'm trying to unload a few extra pounds, and have lost my focus at the same old "cut back a bit". So, to get back in the game as it were, I'm going back to 7 Days of Cheesecake. First up is The Best Low-Carb Cheesecake EVER.

Click for photo gallery

Here is the low-down: if you have been reading this blog, you know I have been working on a low-carb peanut butter cookie recipe for some time. This is the latest, and in my opinion, best version yet. Previous versions tasted great, but were so delicate they were required a very gentle hand. This version is sturdier, and still tastes great. The secret ingredient? Vital wheat gluten. I added in a tablespoon of it, and a matching tablespoon of water to keep things from drying out. Turns drying out was the least of my problems. When these cookies went into the oven, they released a lot of oil and really smoked things up. They overflowed the flat Pampered Chef stone I put them on, and peanut-almond-butter-oil on the bottom of the stove. Was it due to my using a new jar of almond butter that I had to stir up? Was it some weird reaction due to the wheat gluten and water? I don't know, but can say they did come out great and hold together much better. In fact, I think I'll have to have another one now, just to verify they aren't too delicate after cooling off a bit on the cookie rack.

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup Maranatha Natural Almond Butter
• 1/2 cup Skippy Super Chunk Peanut Butter
• 1 cup pourable Splenda
• 1 tbsp Vital Wheat Gluten
• 1 tbsp water
• 1 egg

Directions

• Preheat oven to 350°f.
• Combine all ingredients in mixer and mix well. I suggest add the pourable splenda first, carefully add everything on top of it, and start the mixer slow.
• Use a small cookie dough scoop to form 12 cookies on a cookie sheet that has an edge. I actually got 13 cookies.
• Important:You must imprint each cookie with a fork in the classic criss-cross pattern.
• Bake for 15 minutes. In my instance as the photos show, the cookies released a lot of oil and basically fry in their own juices.
• When done, transfer cookies to a cooling rack so they don't soak in the oil.

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup almond butter
• 1/2 cup chunky peanut butter
• 1 cup pourable Splenda
• 1 egg
• 3 tablespoons sliced almonds

Directions

• Pre-heat oven to 350°f.
• Combine all ingredients thoroughly
• Use a small cookie dough scooper to scoop out 12 dough balls and place on a cookie sheet
• Use a rubber spatula to flatten the balls out to the desired thickness
• Use a fork to impress the universal symbol of peanut butter cookies on top of each one.
• Bake for 15 minutes, or until they seem done.

Now I should note, this version is a tad more complex, so it isn't really an "Idiot Cookie" anymore. I want to use almond butter, as it is a low carb alternative to peanut butter. I did not have enough almond butter, so crunchy peanut butter came to the rescue. I added in some almond lices, using Almond Access salad topping almonds. I think they have just a slight bit of salt added, which worked great with the cookies.

So how did they taste? They were excellent! Only problem is, they are delicate. They crumble with the slightest bump, so eating over a plate is a necessity. I should know, as I've already eaten three in an hour, and am contemplating eating another. Yeah, these came out good.

What's the carb count on each cookie? Well, crunchy peanut butter has almost the same carb count as almond butter, so I'm not too concerned on that. The carb count? Atkins-wise, it should be a tad over 3 net carbs per cookie. I'll guess, oh, 3.14125. Pi in carbs. Sounds reasonable. I guess that means I ate 12 carbs worth of cookies tonight, so I guess I'll skip that fourth cookie. You are welcome to eat as few or as many as you wish, though.

You may have seen my other idiot cookie recipe. This one uses almond butter instead of peanut butter.

Ingredients

• 1 cup MaraNatha Almond Butter
• 1 cup Granulated Splenda
• 1 egg

Directions

• Mix all the ingredients together using a mixer. The resulting consistency will be a bit dry.
• Use a small scoop to produce 11 dough balls (I couldn't get 12 out of it), and place on a cookie sheet
• Bake for 350°f. for 15 minutes
• Press down on the cooked cookies lightly with a fork to squish them down a bit and put that nice fork pattern. Hm. Maybe I should have done this before cooking them. Whatever.

According to my nutritional info calculations, MaraNatha almond butter has 3 net carbs (total carbs minus dietary fiber) per two tablespoons. One egg has two carbs. One cup has sixteen tablespoons. Granulated Splenda has "zero" carbs per tablespoon, but I'm going to guess "zero" means "just under a half", so I'll say it has eight carbs. Calculations come up with what, 24 + 2 + 8 = 34. 34 / 11 = 3.09. So, each cookie has about 3 net carbs.

So how do they taste?

They ain't bad, really. Even though they're made with almond butter, they don't taste like an almond cookie. More like a peanut butter / almond butter hybrid. Texture is a bit too crumbly maybe? hm. I'm not sure. I better eat another one now to give a good statement here.

(2 minutes later) They are good! The outside is a bit dry, and the inside is a bit underdone; like the inside of a red bean manju. I've eaten three cookies in an hour, so I don't think I'm staying within my carb numbers today. Oh well. Ah, but these do taste good. I'm typing this up about 45 minutes after baking them, so I can't say how they will be the next day. They are a bit delicate, certainly not cookie jar material. I think they'll have to be carefully placed on a plate, otherwise they will crumble to bits. Of course, eating them solves that problem.