LOW CARB DEEP DISH PIZZA

2 eggs
4 oz. cream cheese
1/3 cup cream
1/4 cup grated Parmesan Cheese
1/2 tsp. Italian seasoning
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1 cup shredded Italian Blend Cheese

1/2 cup pizza sauce
4 oz. Mozzerella Cheese, grated
Pizza toppings of your choice

Blend together cream cheese and eggs until smooth.

Add cream, parmesan cheese, and spices.  Blend well.

Sprinkle Italian cheese into a 9x13x2 pan.  Pour egg mixture over it.

Bake at 350 for about 25-30 minutes.

Let stand 5-10 minutes.  Spread on pizza sauce, your choice of toppings( sausage, pepperoni, ham, ground beef, mushrooms, chilis, olives, bell pepper, etc).

Sprinkle on the grated Mozzerella.

Return to the oven and bake until bubbly and golden brown (approx. 15-20 minutes)

Allow to stand 10 minutes before serving.

Enjoy!   Carmel

The following is taken from a newsletter written by Dana
Carpender, author of "500 Low Carb Recipes"

"Some of you have asked about the difference between various ingredients used in low carb baking. Here, for your culinary edification, is a quick list of various low carb flour substitutes
you may run across:

Soy Flour: This is simply ground up raw soy beans, and it's available in both full fat and defatted. It has more protein than carbohydrate -23.5 g of protein in a half a cup, and about 10.5 grams of usable carbohydrates (plus over 8 grams of fiber, making it a good source of
fiber.) Soy flour has a strong, beany flavor which I, for one, don't like. Still, there's no question that soy flour is relatively low in carb and high in protein. If you decide to use soy flour, try to get the defatted kind - the fats in the full fat kind will go rancid
pretty quickly.

Soy Powder: This is also known as soy milk powder. It is also made from the whole soy bean, but the beans are cooked before they are ground. This makes for a *much* milder flavor than soy flour. The basic nutritional info is roughly the same as for soy flour. While I still don't use this product much, because of my worries about soy, it is far more acceptable. I've used it in cookies and had them come out tasting terrific.

Soy Protein Isolate: Soy protein isolate is just what the name suggests: Protein from soy beans that has been separated, or isolated, from the other parts of the soy bean, ie, the carbohydrate,
the fat, and the fiber. This means that it is lower carbohydrate than either soy flour or soy powder, and also higher protein - this is good in some ways, like keeping your carb count low, and not so good in some others, like the texture of baked goods made with it. Proteins behave very differently than starches do in baking (and baking is the touchiest form of cooking), and you can end up with tough muffins or biscuits or whatever. Again, I don't use soy protein isolate much, partly because of my worries about soy - and partly because anything that soy protein isolate might do in a recipe, I can think of something else that will do it better.

Vanilla Whey Protein Powder: This is, of course, protein derived from whey, but what the heck is whey? Whey is the liquid part of milk - it's the part that's removed from the milk to make cheese into a solid. If you've eaten yogurt and seen a watery, clearish or yellowish liquid that has separated from the yogurt, that's the whey. Whey is an extremely good protein - the balance of the amino acids in it is ideal, and it's very digestible and absorbable. The flavor of most vanilla whey protein powder is very mild and pleasant. I buy a brand called Show Me The Whey, which is sweetened with stevia, and tastes really lovely - and it's very low carb; about 6 grams in
a half a cup. Another popular, widely available brand is Designer Protein. This is a flour substitute of choice when baking something sweet.

Unflavored Whey Protein: I've never used this, it's newish on the market, but my friend Diana Lee, who has two low carb baking books out now, mentions this is her new book Bread and Breakfast. I would assume that it has a similar nutritional breakdown and baking
qualities to the flavored kind, but is, of course, preferable in non-sweet recipes, like bread.

Vital Wheat Gluten: Gluten is the protein part of wheat, and it's essential for making yeast raised breads. This is the substance that becomes stretchy when you knead bread dough, and then makes millions of tiny balloons filled with the gas the yeast is making, so your bread will rise. Without gluten, any yeast bread you make will be flat, but of course we don't want the carbohydrates that usually come along with it. Vital wheat gluten is just this protein from wheat,
with most of the starch removed, and it is *much* lower in carbohydrates than plain old white or whole wheat flour - about 6 grams in a quarter cup - and a little vital wheat gluten goes a long
way.  Vital wheat gluten is a tricky ingredient to buy, because many health food stores - you'll have to find it in an a health food store - also carry "gluten flour", which is white flour with extra
gluten added to it, for use in making bread. You do *n ot* want gluten flour! Confusing things even more, both vital wheat gluten and gluten flour are sometimes labeled "high gluten flour". If it's labeled "vital wheat gluten" you should be all right, but if it's labeled "high gluten flour", you'll just have to read the rest of the label. (If your health food store has it in bulk, ask to see the manager of the bulk department, who should be able to find a nutrition label on the sack it comes in.)

Low carbohydrate bake mix: There are a number of these products on themarket; I've tried a couple. Think of these as being like Bisquick -depending on how much liquid, shortening, and eggs you add to them, you can make biscuits, pancakes, waffles - even pizza crust, or
batter for frying onion rings. Low carb bake mixes are made of various combinations of protein powder and/or soy flour, plus salt and some baking powder, to make your baked goods rise. You'll have to try a few to see which gives you the flavor, texture, carb count, and price you like. I generally use Rosa's Bake Mix, because it's soy free and less expensive than a lot of the other
brands. You can get Rosa's Bake Mix through Low Carb Grocery:
http://www.webbalah.net/shoplowcarb.com

Rice Protein Powder: This is what has replaced soy powder in my house when I need a flavorless, unsweetened, low carb, powdery *something* to take the place of a few tablespoons of flour in a recipe. I use Nutribiotic brand, which I get at my health food store. It's very, very bland - and this is a *good* thing; I tried another brand of soy free vegetarian protein powder, derived from peas and such, and it was *nasty*. Nutribiotics Rice Protein Powder has about 1.6 g of usable carb in a tablespoon, which means it has just over 24 grams in a cup, so it's not dirt-low in carbs, but it's certainly lower carb than flour. The protein in it is not as high quality as that in whey protein powder (or even in soy protein powder), but then, I'm not using it for the protein, I'm using it to replace a little flourwith fewer carbs, and I rarely use more than a quarter cup at a time.

However, if you're a vegan low carber - and there are, I have no doubt, at least one or two of you out there - it's good to know about this stuff. Combined with, say, some nuts and seeds, this could help up your protein intake.

Guar Gum: Guar is a thickener derived from beans. It's just about purefiber, plus it's used in such small quantities that any trace of remaining usable carb in it really doesn't matter. When guar is added to liquid, it absorbs the liquid and swells up - that's how it thickens things. Using guar takes a little practice. You use it in *much* smaller quantities than you do, say, cornstarch. When I first tried using it, I did a one-for-one substitution for cornstarch, and the resulting mixture was so thick it quite literally grabbed the spoon out of my hand! You could have used the stuff to surface roads. I had to fill the bowl with water and let it soak overnight. The guar expanded to fill the whole bowl, but at least it was soft enough that I could get my spoon out! So you see, a little guar goes a very long way - it's a rare recipe where I use more than a teaspoon of the stuff.  The best way to use guar is to put it th rough the blender with whatever liquid you're using in a recipe; this ensures that you will have no lumps. I mostly use it to add extra thickness to gravies, cream soups, and sauces, also to protein shakes. By the way, have no fear that guar will taste funny - it really doesn't taste at all. Anyway, it's in lots of your favorite junk foods, so how bad can it be? ;-)

Oat Flour: You'll see this in some low carb recipes - oat flour is just what it sounds like; the same grain used to make oatmeal, only ground into a fine flour. Oat flour is not really low carb, but it's
lower carb than wheat flour of any kind - two ounces of oat flour contains 43 grams of carb, of which 8.3 are fiber, for a usable carb count of 34.7 g. in two ounces. By comparison, 2 ounces of all purpose enriched flour contains just over 40 grams of usable carb. You can see that the oat flour is better, but still not something you can eat much of. Most recipes use only a few tablespoons of oat flour, because it gives baked goods a texture more like what
we're used to. Look for oat flour at health food stores."

Hope this helps, both with my recipes, and also with the many low carb recipes you will run across on other sites!

Carmel

HOT FLAX CEREAL

3 Tbsp flax seed meal
3 Tbsp vanilla protein powder
2/3 cup water
dash of salt

Mix till smooth and microwave for about 2 minutes, depending on your microwave.  Top with a pat of butter, artificial sweetener, heavy cream, and cinnamon, to taste.  This looks and tastes like Wheatena, and is a very good source of fiber as well.

LOW CARB FLAXSEED MUFFINS

6 Tbsp butter, melted
3 large eggs
1/4 cup whipping cream
Beat these three things together, then add:
1/2 cup Splenda
1 Tbsp maple flavoring
1 Tbsp vanilla
Mix the following together and add to above:
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1/2 rounded tsp of baking pwoder
1/2 rounded tsp of baking soda
1 cup of flaxseed meal
1/4 cup soy flour or Atkins Bake Mix
4 oz. black walnuts, chopped (optional)

Put into 12 paper cupcake liners in a muffin tin, and bake in 375 degree oven for about 15-20 minutes.  These muffins are really good and have lots of fiber.   About 1 net carb per muffin without walnuts.


These flax recipes are from LowCarbRecipeBox@yahoogroups.com

Carmel