Day 4

I didn't feel like cooking a full cheesecake, so in the morning and the afternoon, I cooked up an instant low-carb cheesecake for one instead. To make it a bit more interesting, I added in a couple slices of diced bacon, and some shredded cheese. I left out the sweetener and added in a dash of Italian seasoning. It was really great stuff.

And in the evening weigh-in, I felt betrayed. Yesterday, I only lost .2 pound. Argh! I could have sneezed and lost that much. Stupid scale. Today I gained .2, so it was zero over two days. Maybe my body is growing tired of cheesecake. Well, at the hockey game tonight, I knocked down a cheeseburger and some corn fritters. Let's see if that brings things back in sync.

Day 5

Well, as you might notice, this isn't a cheesecake. Okay, I'm tired of cheesecake. It's morning, and I just cooked my son some eggs and bacon. I felt inspired, so using the same basic ingredients I'd toss into a cheesecake, I cooked up a cream cheese omelette.

Cream Cheese Omelette

Ingredients

• 2 eggs, beaten
• 4 oz. cream cheese (1/2 of a typical block)
• 1 tbsp diced bacon, cooked
• Dash of Italian seasoning
• Dash of onion powder

Directions

What, I have to explain this? I guess so. I totally prefer using a griddle to make omelettes, and that's what I recommend you do. Mix up the eggs in a bowl or whatever. Get the cream cheese out of the fridge, and cut it into slices. Cream cheese is difficult to slice, so don't concern yourself with how nice it looks. You just want to get it down to manageable bits. Get out a griddle, and heat to 300° f. Squirt the griddle with a blast of cooking spray. Over on one end of the griddle, put down the cream cheese bits so they fry up a tad and get soft. In the middle of the griddle, pour the eggs in. Gold pan that griddle to spread the egg out into a nice sheet, and try to avoid getting it on the cream cheese. In a few moments the egg will set up to where you can use a spatula to move the cream cheese over to the egg. Try to get the cream cheese spread over the short length of the omelette, as you'll be rolling the whole thing up jelly roll style. So with the cream cheese on the egg, sprinkle on the bacon, and shake on some Italian seasoning and onion powder. Use your spatula to roll that baby up. This is so much easier than using a frying pan for omelettes. Okay, get that thing off the griddle before you burn it. Eat.

So that was breakfast. For lunch I had coffee. Went to the gym and worked out, which I do three times a week anyway. And weighed. Stupid Wii Fit scale. It claims, falsely, I believe, that I gained, yes, gained .7 pound. That's nonsense. Tell you what, I'm going to a going away party for a church friend tonight, and it's at a Mexican restaurant. You think I'm gonna eat cheesecake? Ha!

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.

Well, first off, I'm not sure. Here's why: the Carls Jr. Nutritional Info listing. Give it a look.

• The Original Six Dollar Burger®: 58 carbs
• The Low-Carb Six-Dollar Burger®: 7 carbs
• The Guacamole Bacon Six Dollar Burger®: 53 carbs
• The Western Bacon Six Dollar Burger®: 81 carbs
• The Portobello Mushroom Six Dollar Burger™: 52 carbs
• The Jalapeño Six Dollar Burger™: 52 carbs
• The Six Dollar Cheeseburger™: 53 carbs

From a low-carb viewpoint, obviously The Low-Carb Six-Dollar Burger® is the winner at 7 carbs. All the others are at least 52 carbs. But oddly enough, the Original Six Dollar Burger® is 58 carbs. Amongst it's not-low-carb Six Dollar brethren, though, it's pretty high. Only the Western Bacon is higher.

I cannot prove it, but my theory is that The Jalapeño Six Dollar Burger™ is lowest, based on a raw guess that if 58-52=6 (Original - Jalapeno), then a "Jalepeño Low-Carb Six Dollar Burger" (you'd have to ask for that) should be what, one carb? I know that can't possibly be right but I'm thinking it should come up better than their default Low-Carb version.

Homemade bacon 'n eggs

Pork belly in the drying pan

Fry bacon fry!

Slab of bacon, waiting to be sliced

This week I tried my hand at making my own bacon. This turns out to be even easier than making a ham. All one really needs is a pork belly, some salt, and a Tupperware container or something similar. Rather than relist what somebody else has said so much more elequently, here are the instructions I went by to make my own bacon.

So you click that link and give the process a look. What I did specifically was I went sort of crazy on the spices. I parked that pork belly in the fridge for a few days, and each night as I went to pour off the excess liquid, I was overcome with the desire to apply something different. Salt, black pepper, blackstrap molasses, ginger powder, plenty of Splenda, and more.

I don't have photos of the smoking process so you'll just have to read it and use your imagination. I fired up my grill, got the fire low, and put on plenty of hickory chips soaked in water. Using the nice remote temp probe I got as a gift, I waited for the temp to rise to 150°f. It took almost four hours, but reach it at last it did. It smelled very smoky, as it was. I immediately cut off some slices from the slab, and they were ultra-smoked. Okay, I admit I threw on a handful of dry mesquite chips at the end, right on the fire. This made a pungent cloud of smoke indeed, and the bacon is very smoked.

So at the top you see a plate of bacon and eggs. The bacon doesn't taste entirely bacon-y, but is very good nonetheless. Next time I think I will wet cure the meat like a ham. This bacon is good. My only regret is that I lack a rotary slicer to get perfect slices. Thick-cut bacon is okay, but after a while I was craving some nice uniform slices. So, stay tuned, I'm planning on more bacon adventures.

The other day I decided I wanted to make a low-carb ham. Having not a clue on how to go about making my own ham, I googled around and came up with a few different articles on cold curing, which is just what I did. Having acquired a nice ham roast (refers to the cut of pork, not it actually being ham yet), I used the following brining solution, which came out too salty.

Too-salty* ham brine

• 12 cups cold water
• 36 packets Splenda
• 3 cups Morton® Tender Quick®
• 1 tablespoon ground clove
• 1 tablespoon black pepper

Combine all ingredients in a big ol' stock pot. The roast will soak in this stuff for a recommended one day per 2 pounds of pork. Obtain a pork roast, preferably a ham roast. Ask your butcher if in doubt. Tell 'em you are making your own ham. They will know what you need.

The brining process

• Trim off all the excess fat around the edge of the pork.
• I got this tip from a site, but can't find it now. Anyhow, get a meat injector, and shoot a bunch of the brine into the ham, especially around the bone.
• Get a suitable container to submerge that roast in. This must go into your fridge for a few days. Me, I used the plastic marinade bucket which came with our FoodSaver vacuum sealer. I slid the roast into the vacuum canister, and poured in all the brine that would fit, then I vacuum sealed the roast in there. That's me, though. You, you follow the directions on the Tender Quick package. I stuck the whole container into the fridge and let it brine.
• So, the Tender Quick package has brining instructions on it. I let my ham, which was probably 3 pounds, soak for what, 4 days after being vacuum sealed? Yeah. Probably too long. The vacuum sealer probably shortens the amount of time needed in the brine anyway.
• Drain off the brine and refill the container with cold water. Return to the fridge. This will draw out excess salt from the ham. I only did this for a half-hour, and regretted it. Next time I'll let it cold-water soak for a couple hours.


So as you can see the piece of plain boring pork I started out with (not shown) has been transformed into a lovely ham. I cooked it in a dutch oven at 350°f. for 1 hour, and left it in the oven for an additional half-hour.



Sliced up and looking like a good ham should. To me, at least. It was quite good, but certainly too salty. After our first meal, I returned the ham into the cleaned vacuum seal marinade container and filled it with cold water for an overnight salt-extraction soak. The ham had an intense clove flavor, which I will probably tone down next time. I'm thinking of adding in some ginger, too. but for a first ham, I'm very happy.

So that's my first ham. It was quite fun. Now for trying my hand at homemade bacon...

Oh, and the standard disclaimer: This info is presented as entertainment, if you use it, you do so entirely at your own risk.

This is for satisfying a late-night sweet tooth. This will feed one, and you'll be eating it in minutes. No, it ain't pretty, but then, well, you want it now, right? Right.

Ingredients

• 1/2 package cream cheese. What is that, 4 ounces? Yeah.
• 3 packages Splenda (or Nutrasweet)
• 1 egg
• Splash of sugar-free coffee syrup. I like Kahlua flavor, but any flavor will do.
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• sprinkle of cinnamon

Directions

• Get a 2-cup (or larger) Pyrex measuring cup. Toss in a half-package of cream cheese. Use your microwave oven to soften the cream cheese. With my microwave, that means 2 minutes at 20% power.
• Add in all the other stuff. Stir it all up good. You'll want something like a stiff wooden spoon. The consistency will be like lumpy pancake batter. Don't bother trying to get rid of all the lumps.
• Cook in the microwave oven for 5 minutes.
• Don't burn your mouth. Eat it right out of the cup with a spoon.