The Alternative Gourmet

Elena Mehlman: The Alternative Gourmet

Deliciously Healthy, Low Glycemic and Anti Cancer Foods and Desserts

This blog addresses alternative cooking possibilities for the person who wants to cut out sugar or flour from their diet and still eat the way they did before, without compromising taste. After studying the chemistry of cooking in school, and spending many summers as an apprentice to one of the best pastry chefs in Italy, I decided to convert many of the recipes that I have mastered, into low glycemic foods and desserts for flour intolerant, diabetic and cancer patients. As I become more expert at creating health food alternatives to gourmet recipes, I use only natural substitutes to sugar and flour. This interest was developed over the past few years, when several family members and friends were advised to change their diets. Some approached their new dietary restrictions head on, but others floundered and eventually lost motivation and gave up. My blog aims to share my experience and recipes, by publishing them so that people seeking low glycemic, flourless gourmet foods and desserts can have access to images, ideas and recipes for delicious healthful eats.

Healthier alternatives to sugar and corn syrup are: agave syrup, honey, maple syrup and Truvia (which is the best tasting stevia on the market)

Healthier alternatives to white flour are kamut flour, buckwheat flour, spelt flour, whole-wheat flour, gluten free flour and corn meal.

Some Recipes from my first Blog at elenamatisse.tumblr.com

Recipes I've mastered:

Spelt ravioli with ricotta stuffing

Polenta Gorgonzola Pizza

Pesto Stuffed Mushrooms

Sugarless Coleslaw

Zucchini Soup

Babbos Best Potato Latkes

Yellow Pepper soup

Desserts:

Hazelnut Cheesecake with almonds and agave syrup
Chocolate Strawberries

Panna Cotta with blueberry sauce

Blueberry, Banana, Buckwheat Pancakes

Cranberry sauce with walnuts

Flourless Chocolate Mousse Cake

Kamut Fruit cake
Chocolate Agave Ice Cream

Perfect Blue Agave Cheesecake

CHOCOLATE MOUSSE CAKE 

 Flourless-Sugarless

CRUST:

5 Cups Chopped Walnuts (Crushed Finely in Food Processor)

2 sticks of sweet butter (make sure not salted)

6T Powdered unsweetened cocoa

2 Tbs agave syrup

Melt butter, combine with the chocolate, agave syrup and crushed walnuts and put in spring form pan (9-10”) pat it down, so it comes up about 1” flat

Put in refrigerator to set.

Melt  12 oz package of 90 percent bitter chocolate with ½ cup agave syrup, on top of double boiler, get out all the lumps, let cool.

Take 1 pint heavy cream with 6 T truvia and whip with an electric hand mixer until stiff. Set aside.

Take 6 eggs:

Wisk 2 whole eggs, put into choc. mixture and then wisk

Take 4 egg yolks, beat by hand, wisk into choc.

Take 4 egg whites, whip with electric hand mixer until stiff

Take a little of your heavy whipping cream,with spatula, with a little whipped egg white and fold into choc. bowl. Then combine all the rest of the egg whites with whipped cream into choc. Fold in slowly, pour into crust and refrigerate.

On the side: Whip cream with electric mixer, 1 pint heavy cream with 3 T truvia and 1/2 tsp vanilla until stiff.

I reserve some of the bottom crumbs to sprinkle on top

Decorate the top with rasberries or strawberries

Babbos Best Potato Latkes

INGREDIENTS:

2 cups peeled and shredded

potatoes

1 tablespoon grated onion

3 eggs, beaten

2 tablespoons gluten free flour

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1/2 cup peanut oil

DIRECTIONS:

1. Place the potatoes in a cheesecloth and wring, extracting as much moisture as possible.

2. In a medium bowl stir the potatoes, onion, eggs, flour and salt together.

3. In a large heavy-bottomed skillet over medium-high heat, heat the oil until hot. Place large spoonfuls of the potato mixture into the hot oil, pressing down on them to form 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick patties. Brown on one side, turn and brown on the other. Let drain on paper towels. Serve hot!

Spelt Ravioli With Parsley and Ricotta  

Filling Recipe

For 10 servings:

Filling:
2/3 cup chopped Italian Parsley
2 1/2 cups fresh ricotta
2 cups grated parmesan cheese
Salt
2 egg yolks
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

A sheet of Homemade Spelt Pasta dough made with
8 eggs
4 1/2 cups spelt flour
4 Tbs milk

1. Combine all filling ingredients in a mixing bowl, combine and correct for salt and set aside.
2. Prepare the pasta dough by combining a mound of spelt flour with the 8 eggs and 4 T milk.
Continuously break in the eggs and mix in, trying to keep the mixture moist. Once all ingredients are mixed together, knead the pasta into two balls. Then use a rolling pin to flatten the balls by rolling back and forth until as thin as you can make them. Using a glass, cut circles out of the pasta sheet, and fill each circle with a teaspoon of the filling. Fold them over and press the corners together with a fork, to form the raviolis. Once all are done, boil a large pot of water.
Gently place them in and cook until tender. Strain and serve with melted butter, sage and parmesan on top.

Sugarless Chocolate Ice Cream

1 1/2 cups whole cream
1 1/2 cups 2% milk
3/4 cups agave syrup
2 teaspoons vanilla
several Tablespoons of good unsweetened powdered chocolate.

Add as much chocolate to taste: make it as dark as you like your chocolate ice cream

After mixing all together, pour into an ice cream machine and process for 35 minutes.

Comes out very custard like. Freeze what you don’t eat right away.

Other things I do is chop up pecans and raisins and add them half way through the process, with or without chocolate

Or you can add fruit, berries etc.
Experiment!!!

Chocolate Covered Strawberries and Chocolate Covered Dried Fruit 

 

Melt bars of 90% chocolate, in a double boiler, and add a bit of butter and agave syrup to taste. You can also add Truvia instead of Agave Syrup.

Wash the strawberries and then dip into the chocolate mix while it is hot.

Lay the strawberries on a baking sheet on wax paper and refrigerate until chocolate turns hard. Serve cool.

You can also dip dried apricots, or cut up banana, into the chocolate mix and put them the fridge on wax paper to cool. They become like chocolate candy.

An almond can be placed inside the apricot and then coat it with the chocolate mixture as well.

Hazelnut Cheesecake

12 servings

1 1/2 cups shelled toasted  hazelnuts

1/3 cup ground almonds

2lbs cream cheese

1/2 cup heavy cream

4 eggs

1 1/2 cups agave syrup

1 t  vanilla

300 degree oven preheated,

9” round pan

Butter the pan and line with ground almonds, shake out excess

Put all remaining ingredients into food processor and whip together

pour ingredients into a 9" pan 

Prepare an 11" pan with 1" of water 
Place the smaller pan with ingredients inside, into the slightly larger pan with water.
Make sure not to wet the interior ingredients. (This is like the cake is floating in an outside bath while it bakes).

Bake for 2 hours, in 300 degree oven, turn off the oven

leave 1 hour longer in hot oven, turned off

Take out of oven, run a butter knife along the perimeter of the cake to loosen from the sides. Gently flip over the cake onto a flat serving plate.

Decorate with cut up strawberries on top and refrigerate for two hours before serving