ExRx.net

For those of us not wishing to wreak and entire day of decent eating...so obviously not cookies, cakes, pies, etc. I've been thinking of some acceptable compromises a couple days a week-

Yogurt sweetened with splenda or something similar

Fruit

Ice cream sweetened with splenda or something similar


Any other suggestions I'm just not thinking of off the top of my head?

You can find low carb ice cream in some places. sugar free candy. There is sugar free jello and pudding. Atkins makes some dessert stuff (the "endulge" line).

Greek yogurt + Splenda + Cocoa is good. Makes it like a chocolate dessert topping.

i've not done any detailed work on the nutritional aspects of the following, but you listed fruit so these have some sugars. this is stuff we eat at home.

date + apple + shredded coconut. optional with honey.

you can also soak this stuff in apple juice overnight, but i've found it hard to get clean (no preservatives/chemicals/added sugars) apple juice

banana + dates + walnuts all mixed up. with a little bit of cinnamon - grated from the sticks, not the cinnamon sugar stuff. real honey's also a winner on this.

a little grated nutmeg is also interesting on either of these, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nutmeg#Psychoactivity_and_toxicity, but only in small amounts.

Many fruits have lots of carbs, and some are high glycemic, but they're a lot better than cookies, cakes or pies. If you buy aren't totally low carb an own ice cream maker, you can make fruit sorbets and if you like them especially sweet, use a sugar substitute to sweeten. I also add about 1/4 tsp konjac powder for 9 oz of fruit to possibly lower the glycemic index and also make the mixture a bit more viscous which improves mouth feel. (Gelatin can also improve mouth feel, but you need to heat. Higher viscosity matters as the sorbet melts in your mouth. Table sugar in water is viscous, but substitutes aren't.)

I have general recipes for soft fruits. I could post-- the entire recipe which could be split by two to six people is about 200 calories. It does not keep well very long because ice crystals will form and it will become a hard solid mass -- but it's great in the summer. You really want to serve this the day you make it.

I've been experimenting with lots of desserts like this-- but they are only lower carb than many desserts. They may not fit into a truly low carb diet. (If someone has tips for ingredients to help make low carb muffins, cookies etc. I'd like to give them a try. I've had some successes and some failures.)

http://www.bobsredmill.com/low-carb-baking-mix.html
http://www.tovaindustries.com/carbalose/page1.html

The first is real flour while the second is a frankenfood named carbalose.

The no-grain option is Almond flour.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almond_meal

Best low-carb dessert: Berries and whipped cream.

Thanks. I'm a fan of many Frankenfoods.

Have you tried the Carbolose in recipes leavened with yeast? I found one recipe for yeast risen pizza, so that looks promising. I guess I'll order it and give it a try.

The berries and whipped cream I can vouch for. I've tried other Bob's Red Mill products so I expect it's a quality product. I've never tried the Carbalose.

You can try these. Some of these are marked PW for "post-workout" - they've got a lot of carbs in them. The others are AT for "anytime" which means you pretty much can eat them at any time following the Precision Nutrition approach of higher-carb meals post-workout and not otherwise.

http://www.precisionnutrition.com/desserts

I haven't tried too many of these but the ones I have tasted pretty good.

Hot chocolate is my fave at the moment - 2 decent scoops of cocoa and the fattest milk I can. Thats what I go for to resist a sack of doritos or a chocolate bar.

I tried the carbalose for pizza last night. I was worried and didn't want to ruin dinner, so for my first try, I used 50% carbalose and 50% regular flour in the crust. It was great. Also, I'm not really doing low carb, just "lower carb". So, I'll probably do a 50/50 blend as my standard pizza dough.

But I am curious, so I'm going to try 100% carbalose next week.

On the topic of Pizza, I make a good homemade pizza. It's a thin crust though. There are these low carb, high fiber tortillas at the grocery store. I use those for the crust. I get a tomato based sauce, which is usually for pasta, but it works for pizza too. It is from Trader Joe's and it doesn't have any added sugar. Then I pile on meat, cheese and veggies.

The tortillas crisp up in the oven, so it comes out just like a thin crust pizza. I like to bake it at 450. That makes the tortilla more crispy and slightly browns the cheese.

Sounds great.

I like my yeast pizza even if it's more trouble. I make a very thick, garlicky tomato sauce. We sliced fresh peppers rings, onion, prosciutto and topped with mozzarella and parmesan. Turned out great. Next time more hot pepper though.

My husband grated too much cheese though. But that worked out because we had left over grated cheese and veggies, which I used in a 4 egg scrambler this morning.

I'm making the pizza dough again today, but it will just be focaccia, which we'll eat with pot roast. We're hosting 6 people, so I'll quiz them on whether they can detect the carbolose.

We have home made pizza, too. Partly because there is only one pizza place for hundreds of miles, it's an hour away, it doesn't deliver, and it doesn't make very good pizza. Friday is our traditional pizza night. We throw the crust ingredients into a Kitchen Aid and it's ready in a few minutes. We make the crust pretty thin. We also use pasta sauce. Sometimes we use barbecue sauce. Both have added sugar, but we don't have Trader Jack's here!

I baked my 'pizza' dough with no topping. I just slid it on a baking stone heated to 500F and kept the oven at 500F. It puffed up like a pita! I loved it-- it was sort of like two crusts and would be great with cheese. My husband wished it had more "inside". He generally doesn't eat the crust on bread so he requested the next experiment be more italian bread shaped. The others liked the flavor-- and either liked or disliked the bread depending on how much crust they like.

I'm going to have to post these experiments. They are sort of fun. Anyway, the what-ever-it is sort of bread made with 50% carbalose tasted pretty good.