I love cooking. Don’t know how this came to be, but I became more passionate about it once I turned vegetarian. I went from not liking vegetables to vegetarian overnight, so I had to learn what to cook quickly.
I bought lots of culinary books. Started with those about vegetarian cuisine only, but then I realized I didn’t need to stick to that. Good books, that teach techniques and different ways to use the same ingredient work better for me. And if there’s something I don’t eat in the recipe, I just need to replace/adapt it. For me, Rita Lobo’s books are the best. ‘O que tem na geladeira?’ (‘What’s in the fridge?’ is my favourite.
Then last year I joined the low carb team and s**t got serious. A lot of ingredients were no longer part of my diet, not just meat. So off I went again, searching for low carb vegetarian culinary books. I found some, but ended up not using them that much. Once again, the best thing for me was to learn how to use the ingredients, what replaces wheat and potatoes with best results, for instance, and test it.
The other day I made a chocolate pie. I used a recipe from @thelowcarbbaker. as a starting point and changed the ingredients a little bit, because I didn’t quite like the texture of the original recipe. This is what I came up with:
Pie crust
120g of almond flour
30g of peanut flour
1 egg
40g of butter
- Mix all ingredients well. You can use your hands, but I like to use my stand mixer. If you’re going to do that, make sure yours is strong enough, or it will break. I have a Kitchenaid Artisan mixer.
- Once it’s all mixed, distribute it on the pie plate with your hands. It can be a metal/nonstick pie pan or a pie dish. After having nonstick pans destroyed by people who ignored the plastic utensils and used knives to cut my pies, I decided to only use ceramic ones now. That‘s is what I used for this pie. Don’t forget to make some holes around the crust, so it doesn’t puff up.
- Bake for around 20 minutes at 1800C, until it’s golden. Let it cool down.
Filling
30g 85% cocoa chocolate
50g butter
200ml coconut milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons powdered 100% cocoa
1 small avocado
Liquid stevia to taste
- Melt the butter and chocolate together.
- Mix the coconut milk, powdered cocoa and vanilla. It’s best to sieve the cocoa, to avoid it being lumpy.
- Add the melted chocolate and mix until smooth.
- Mash the avocado. It has to be ripe, or the taste and consistence won’t be so good. Mix the cream into it.
When the crust is cold, just add this filling and refrigerate. The avocado gives it a great texture and saves time. One hour in the fridge is enough for it to be firm.
I still need to improve my recipe presentation skills. All I did here was place some orange zest on top. But I guarantee the taste was great! And it was enough for 6 portions, with only 3g net carbs each!
What do you think? Would you like to see more recipes like that one here?
