Thursday, April 12, 2012

HCG P3 Breads

What IS this title all about? Has she gone mad? Is she using secret code for something mysterious? Well perhaps, and sort of. I couldn’t tell you what HCG stands for if my life depended on it, even though I used the HCG protocol for the last month and a half. I’d have to google it, but instead, I’ll let you!

P3, now, is Phase 3, the part where a person gets to eat food again. Of sorts. Just not sugar and starch. That’s right. No cake. No cookies. No potatoes. NO PASTA. WHAT?? Ah well, life goes on. And quite deliciously, I must admit. Admittedly, I am scouring the internet for flour-less bread and pastry substitutes, and I’ve found a few that, while they would never fool anyone into thinking they are what they stand in for, they are tasty and satisfying in and of themselves. Was that a run-on sentence? Almost?

Back to the point. The first day I was allowed to eat Anything but Sugar and Starch, I made myself some flour-less pancakes. Cream cheese, eggs and sweetener, whizzed together with my new immersion-blender (remind me to expound upon that little gadget sometime – I’m in love.) fried up like pancakes and topped with strawberries, etc.

They LOOK like pancakes. They are not easy to flip at all, even in a non-stick pan (I tried it several ways) but in the end they make a very satisfying little stack of creamy faux pancakes.

These are YUMMY, people. And basically… you’re eating two eggs and strawberries for breakfast. Healthy pancakes! Woohoo!!

The next recipe I tried (which I have no pictures for) was the Cauliflower Pizza Crust. During my round of HCG dieting, I sat through FIVE, PRECISELY FIVE pizza parties without touching a crumb. Just sipping my cup of spiced tea and telling myself over and over that it was going to be worth it. So, indulging in anything remotely resembling pizza was a lot of fun.

Two things: A friend mentioned squeezing the water out of the cauliflower after cooking it. I either skipped over that in the instructions, or it’s not there. Either way, it’s not horrible if you don’t do this, but better if you do. Second, between the mozzarella in the crust and the mozzarella on top, it was saltier than anyone needs it to be. Does anyone ever make a lower-sodium mozz? I have toyed with the idea of making my own, and it is more and more appealing lately.

The third HCG-friendly bread-substitute that I find I enjoy is Cloud Bread. And I have no decent pictures of it, so I STOLE one to make this post prettier. If I am taken away in shackles, know that it was all for you, beloved reader.

This stuff is interesting. You separate eggs, beat the yolks with a bit of cream cheese, beat the whites until still with cream of tartar and them fold the two together and bake into little buns. Cool and place in a zip-lock bag overnight, and by morning they are transformed into what is texturally a hybrid between white bread and angel food cake and… clouds. The name is so perfect. And they are so light and curiously delicious you will probably eat all six of them in two minutes, so make a double batch. Better yet, make a double batch and mix in some cinnamon into half the batter for dessert cloud bread.

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