I just made the most delicious focaccia bread today in Sayulita, and guess what? There was not a single carbohydrate in the flour (which I made myself)! This is part of my new research making very low carb foods and is called the Ketogenic Lifestyle.
In very simple layman’s language, our body needs fuel for energy and when one eats carbohydrates the body burns the carbs for energy and stores any associated fat. Following a Ketogenic Lifestyle, our body burns the fat for energy! So, you can eat a lot of butter, cheese, whipping cream, nuts and olive oil etc. As a matter of fact, you need to have the fats so that your body has something to burn for energy! And as a bonus if you have excess weight that you want to lose, this way of eating also helps that happen. Of course it is necessary to eat lots of vegetables; no matter what your food lifestyle is!
My husband and I have decided to try a Ketogenic Lifestyle, and living in Sayulita has made finding some of the necessary ingredients to make ketogenic food a challenge. However, you can find carbohydrate free flours here at our local Sayulita organic health store, Terrenel. I bought their coconut flour to make coconut cream pie, but I decided to make my own almond flour, and I'm going to share the recipe with you!
Homemade Almond Flour
All you need are almonds, a baking sheet and a food processor. Also a powerful blender works well. My blender is just a regular Oster and it didn’t pulverize the nuts as well as my food processor.
-Boil raw skin-on almonds for 45 seconds.
-Immediately remove from the heat and pour into a colander or sieve.
-Run cold water through them until they are cool enough to handle.
-Pop the skins off and place them on a rimmed baking sheet. This is so fun. I had almonds popping all around my kitchen until I got the method perfected. This is a very easy step as the skins pop off very easily.
-Bake @250 degrees for 20-30 minutes or until nuts are very dry.
-Cool completely and then taste to be certain that they are dry enough. If not return to oven and bake longer. My oven took 30 minutes. Cool again.
- Pulverize in your blender or food processor.
-MIRA! Almond flour!
After I made the almond flour, I made my own focaccia bread. It was absolutely fantastic. Tomorrow I am going to make a pizza. All of my favorite bready things that I have been missing I can now make! I have to be honest and say that not everything that I have attempted comes out great, so I will in the next few weeks share with you some of my successes. See the above photos of some of my most successful undertakings. (Hit the little dots under the photo to see all the pictures.)
For my next column I will begin to share some of my favorite ketogenic recipes. As an aside for dinner tonight, we are having focaccia bread with a delicious dipping oil, barbecued steak with a blue cheese garlic compound butter, an organic salad from greens bought at our Friday Mercado del Pueblo in Sayulita, and chocolate mousse for dessert. My mouth is watering just describing my dinner to you! And everything is keto friendly!
I won’t be available for catering until the fall, but if you have any questions or comments you can go to my Sayulita Life webpage, Live, Love, & Eat in Sayulita, where you will find my email address.
Written by: Karina Shecter