Remember Jack La Lanne? He was the original fitness guru who brought exercise into the family living room. I can remember watching him, in his one piece jumpsuit, as a kid and trying to follow along. He was always giving encouragement to whomever might be tuned in on the other side of a TV set.
He promoted good health all of his life and came up with a contraption that changed the face of fruit and vegetables forever, the juice machine. Oh, I had to have one of those!
I did get one as a gift and was thrilled. It had a handy recipe book and I juiced away. I thought my family would be just as excited as I was to this new found way to eat vegetables, that they wouldn't eat if I cooked them and put them on their plates. They did not share my enthusiasm and I had to agree, unless you absolutely love cucumbers, their juice does not make for a tasty drink.
It wasn't long before Jack & The Juice Machine went to the back of the cabinet.
My husband is a patient man. He has endured years of my "this is a really great" ideas. He never complains, he just puts up with it, knowing it surely won't last too long. On occasion I have witnessed his eyes glazing over as I explain the next one to him, but I ignore the signs and carry on.
His tolerance meter must be getting worn out because he has already voiced his displeasure at my current attempt to introduce more healthy food options.
This man could consume country fried steak on a daily basis, wash it down with a gallon of white gravy and never gain an ounce. I, on the other hand, can gain five pounds by simply looking at a loaf of white bread.
The only thing that works for me to keep my weight down is a low carb diet. It is also the only thing that works and allows me to drink beer. I do like my beer. After all, Benjamin Franklin said that God made beer because he wants us to be happy. Actually, that's not really what he said. According to some research what old Ben did say was this; "Behold the rain which descends from heaven upon our vineyards. There it enters the roots of the vines, to be changed into wine, a constant proof God loves us and loves to see us happy." I figure it goes for beer too.
Anyway, I have recently found the wonderful healthy advantages of using coconut flour instead of refined wheat flour. Coconut flour is very low in carbohydrates and the book I found is full of recipes to make dishes that taste just as good as if you were using wheat flour. Coconut flour does not contain gluten, the stuff that gives wheat flour its elasticity. Nor do any of the recipes for using coconut flour contain yeast, the stuff that makes wheat bread rise. Therefore a loaf of coconut flour bread is more like a loaf of banana nut bread, minus the banana and the nuts. When it is over baked, because I thought it should have gained some volume while in the oven, it is more like a loofah sponge.
So last night I tried a second attempt at making biscuits with the coconut flour. I had missed a crucial detail in the recipe the first time, I didn't let the mixture rest for 5 minutes. I'm thinking that must be the reason why they looked like miniature loofahs. I let the mix rest, formed it into 8 round biscuits and popped it in the oven.
They were better than the first ones, but rather dry. My husband told me he really needed about a stick of butter for each one in order to choke it down. Sigh.....
I relented and told him I would just fix the regular stuff for him and the coconut stuff for me. If he didn't care at this stage of the game about his good fiber intake, who was I to argue. I did mention though, that the lovely souffle', which is a fancy smancy word for quiche, I had fixed to accompany the biscuits did in fact contain coconut flour. He was fine with that, it was pretty good.
This morning I dug Jack the Juicer out of the cabinet. Mr. Husband may not like his good fiber from the coconut, but he does enjoy the two oranges, one apple and a carrot mixture and that makes me feel like I'm winning the fiber/good carb battle.
He can keep his wheat bread and biscuits and I will stick with the coconut flour, at least this way, we can still agree on the beer.
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