5 minute very low carb pizza bites

Last weekend when I was playing about with these parmesan crisps, which btw you simply must try if you haven't already, I had the idea for these little babies. They're pretty much an extension of the crisps, though they're made a different way- incidentally you could also make the crisps this way it turns out.

These will make the perfect canapé, but are equally lovely for a cosy weekend treat or for when you don't have the energy/ inclination to make a big meal. I've topped mine with tomato and basil but you could go mad and put anything on that you'd normally put on a pizza, I'm thinking of goats cheese for next time, cheese on cheese has to be the ultimate treat!

Anyway, enough of that let's get onto how you do them. You will need (makes 8 mini pizza bites):

• 50g finely grated parmesan
• Sundried tomato puree- you can use normal tomato puree but sundried is lower in carbs, and more intense tasting
• 4 cherry tomatoes
• a few basil leaves

You can make them right before you want them if you're having them hot, but they equally work well cold:

• Heat a large flat frying pan*
• Put spoonfuls of the cheese onto the pan and leave for a few minutes until starting to come together and harden
• Use a spatula flip over and pop a teaspoon of the tomato puree, followed by your cherry tomato and leave for a further 1-2 minutes.
• Remove, season, top with basil and enjoy!

*If you use a large enough frying pan you can do about 5 at a time.

I can see we'll be making these a lot they feel like such a treat because you get the strong cheesey taste and really do feel like pizza, but actually as well as being very low in carbs, they're low in calories as well because you're hardly using any cheese each time, a little really does go a long way.

Boil in the bag omelette

For all of February I have been low carbing hard, I am desperate to get the last of the weight off now and this is the very best way I know to do it. One of the most difficult things about eating this way is the preparation that goes into everything I eat. it's essentially a pretty much non processed diet as nearly every meal has to be made from scratch and when I arrive home ravenous sometimes that presents as a pretty big hurdle. As a result, I'm all for anything that saves me time and this post is all about something that will do just that!

 Let me introduce you to, boil in the bag omelettes. Now I know omelettes are exceptionally quick to make, in fact I saw a bit of Saturday kitchen live the other day where people were making them in about 1 second but these are quick in a different way... Basically you make up a huge omelette mixture divide it into bags and boil when desired, or boil several bags up in one go and eat later. I know an omelette isn't typically something you can eat later as a flat eggy cold pancake isn't desperately appealing but the shape that these come out as means they're slightly different. Once boiled they come out as a sort of sausage, stay with me, which you can either eat straight away, or you can cut up into little slices and snack on, or top a salad with, the choices are endless.

You can of course also make one big mixture and then as you divide it into the bags add extra ingredients into each one, I'm thinking goats cheese, blue cheese, some caramelised onion, then you'll have lots of different options to play with. We have been especially loving these as post gym snacks as we've just rejoined the gym and these are the best protein hit to have waiting to enjoy on the way home. You could of course also make these just with the egg whites if you wanted. They don't require any oil so you can make them super low calorie if you want, by using just egg whites and spinach or kale etc.

Let's get to it then:
You will need (makes two omelettes- just double/ multiply/ divide the ingredients depending on how may you want to make)

• Four eggs- now you can stop here if you want to make a plain omelette or keep going if you want something more 
• A handful of grated cheese 
• A chopped tomato
• Half a handful of basil
• Salt and pepper to season
• Two freezer bags- make sure they're ones that can withstand high temperatures 

careers I don't have to fall back on: hand model

To make them:

• Open the freezer bags and pop them into cups- this will make it easier to put the ingredients into without everything falling out
• Add whatever your other fillings are, using the ingredients above you'd add half the cheese, tomato and basil into each bag.
• Remove the bag carefully from the cup and seal the bag, if there's lots of air in the bag, open the bag slightly and squeeze it out before sealing again.
• Squeeze the bag with your hands several times so the eggs sepaerates and it all mixes together 
• Heat a really saucepan of water until it's simmering, you don't want the bags to touch the size of the pan as it will melt the bags
• Add the bags to the water and boil for around 8 minutes or until the mixture has completely come together and you can't see any runny mixture left
• Remove and either enjoy immediately or leave to cool
• You can boil lots at a time- my record so far is 7 but I'm open to try more!

You will end up with something that looks rather unappealing at first- much like this!

One ingredient low carb cheese taco shells

Since January hit, mid January to be precise, I have tried to implement a few New Years resolutions that I wasn't quite ready to tackle on New Years day. The first was to get back on the low carb thing in a big way and shift the rest of the weight I want to lose.
The next was to declutter my life, specifically my home and my phone. My phone currently has over 6000 photos on it and a lot of those are screenshots of recipe ideas I see when scrolling through Pinterest and Instagram (ps I know the point of Pinterest is to pin things but I often worry that they'll get lost if I just pin them so screenshot them as well, where they invariably get lost in my massive photo album), All that is relevant because I decided to try some very low carb recipe ideas and to use some inspiration from the many screenshotted pictures on my phone. These cheese taco shells are the result. desperately low in carbs, and something I'd screenshotted over again as I thought that if they worked they could just be the best idea ever! 

The shells themselves require only one ingredient- cheese and take mere minutes. Even better, they keep for at least 2 days (the longest I've been able to last without eating them all), so they make the perfect 'getting home from work and need to immediately eat something because you can't wait for tea', solution. 

They are essentially a variation on my parmesan crisps just larger, and folded to make the taco shape. I did these ones in a frying pan but next time I would do them in the oven in the same way that I did the crisps as I think you'd be able to do more at a time- in my large frying pan I could only do two at a time which probably isn't bad but I am impatient and like things done fast!

You will need- makes 4 tacos

• 2 cups of parmesan or other vegetarian hard cheese 
• that's it!

Method:

• Take a large frying pan and line with non stick paper 
• Heat to a medium heat
• Put 1/2 cup of cheese in a littel mound on the sheet, use a spoon to tidy the edges so it;s a perfect circle. You're aiming for a circle that's about 15cm in diameter. Leave to cook for about 6-7 minutes or until golden. If yoiu have a large frying pan you may be able to fit two in and cook two at a time,
• While it's cooking, take a large saucepan or bowl and place two wooden spoons across the top
• Once golden, remove form the heat with a big spatula, and drape it over one of the wooden spoons so it's in an upside taco shape
• Leave to cool and harden
• Remove and enjoy either immediately, filled with your face taco fillings, or save in an airtight box for later. I filled mine here with roasted veggies- mainly peppers in fajita style spices. 

You can add more low carb toppings as well, like grated cheese, shredded lettuce, sour cream, salsa etc. the beauty of these in that most of a fajita/ taco is very low carb apart from the tortilla or taco so these mean you can enjoy it all, carbs removed!

We had a little Mexican themed evening the other night and I made a few Mexican sides so I will be back very soon to share those. Hope you all had a lovely lovely weekend!