Our daughter Sara informed us recently that she’s tired of having other kids stare at her when she eats her “weird” lunches at school or summer camp and would like to pack a lunch that looks like the junk other kids eat, even if it isn’t.
So Chareva took her recipe for Almost Paleo Pancakes and used it to make almost bread to use in sandwiches. Here’s the recipe:
- 1/2 cup raw almonds (ground into flour – Chareva uses the Bullet for grinding)
- 1/2 cup unsweetened coconut powder or flakes
- 1 scoop vanilla whey protein powder
- 2 eggs
- 1/2 tsp. baking powder
- 1/2 brick cream cheese (4 oz)
- A little water to thin the batter
- Heat a frying pan and coat with bacon grease or coconut oil.
- Grind the almonds first, then mix together with the remaining ingredients.
- Cook on medium heat until bubbles pop and holes form on surface.
- Flip and cook until golden brown.
For a sweeter version add 1/2 tsp. Truvia, 1/2 banana or berries and 1/2 tsp vanilla extract.
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Are you using a cast-iron skilet on a glass cooktop? I was told I couldn’t do that because it would crack my stove. Was I lied to?
Also, those pancakes look delicious.
Yes, it’s cast iron. It hasn’t cracked our stove yet.
Update: It’s all about the coconut flour. The kind I used is called coconut powder – it is a very small flake. I bought it at an Armenian market in Burbank, CA. I haven’t had as good results with coconut flakes. I also tried this recipe this morning with different coconut flakes and it didn’t turn out very well at all. Ugh!
What “weird” stuff was she being criticized for?
Sardines, meat rollups with no bread, plus no chips or candy bars or cookies.
tasteslikeburnt:
Not sure about coconut powder versus coconut flour but with almonds the terms “meal,” “flour,” and “powder” are frequently used interchangeably. When they are different it’s usually to use the term “flour” to mean more finely ground almonds that have been blanched (which removes the darker outer skin), producing a fine slightly off-white powder. Almond meal, in contrast, is more coarse and has darker specs from the skin.
Personally, get better luck with the flour versus the meal, though the difference is subtle enough that I buy what’s convenient at the time.
We use a similar recipe for pancakes at home, though ours uses heavy whipping cream and butter in place of the cream cheese. We toss in a healthy dash of cinnamon, too.
These pancakes are wonderfully versatile, working as pancakes or as bread, as Tom illustrates. My wife makes a version with toasted sesame seeds, poppy seeds, and flax seeds to approximate the flavor of an “everything bagel” that she used to enjoy in her past life.
Great idea. Looks great and a lot easier to make than oopsie rolls.
With the raw almonds, is that 1/2 cup before or after grinding into flour? If it’s a before measurement, what does that translate to after grinding?
What kind of whey powder do you use?
It’s a half-cup after grinding. Chareva buys huge bags of protein powder at Costco. The brand is CytoSport. It comes with a 36-gram scoop, but she uses a smaller scoop (26 grams).
Those look fantastic but wouldn’t it be even easier to just buy almond ‘flour’? I’m going to give them a try on Sunday (cheat day from LCHF)…
We used to buy almond flour, but Chareva likes grinding her own.
Jimmy Moore’s book Low Carbing Among Friends has some great recipes for gluten-free, low-carb breads:
Sandwich Bread
Mr. Peanut Sandwich Bread
Artisan Hamburger Buns
http://amongfriends.us/recipes2.php
OMG, crazy good and easy to make. I wanted to try immediately but had no cream cheese, so I substituted sour cream. It worked perfectly and I didn’t need to thin batter with water. Thank you for sharing this, it’s marvelous and your daughters are WONDERS.
I like that sour cream idea. I’ll ask the cook to try that one.
These look wonderful, considering I’m trying to figure out how I can take care of my ‘pancake’ craving!
I often make ‘egg sandwiches’ with bacon, egg and cheese, and the ‘bread’ I use is from a recipe I found on the internet called an ‘OOPSIE’ roll. http://yourlighterside.com/gluten-free-low-carb-buns-aka-oopsie-rolls/. I turn them upside down, so the bottom is shown, and it resembles a bun of some kind. They hold pretty well, and no one has any idea I’m eating low carb. 🙂
We’ve had those too. Not bad.
I’ve made bread for sandwiches using the one-minute muffin recipe, findable on any lowcarb forum in many variations. Ingredients are principally ground flaxsees and eggs. For bread, I microwave it in a square sandwich container (Tupperware type) and slice horizontally into 2 or 3 bread- shaped pieces. Not bad, sort of like a heavy whole meal bread, very filling! Fabulous with plenty of mayonnaise. crisp bacon, sliced tomatoes, onion and lettuce fof a BLT.
I’m a little leery of the large amounts of almonds people are using to make LC treats these days. Besides the high calories and omega 6 PUFAs, they are also a common allergen.
Do you make the salt and vinegar pork rinds? If so, what is the recipe? If not, what brand sells them? I love pork rinds! Thank you for sharing the pancake recipe.
Chareva found the pork rinds at Dollar General.
Tom wrote: “The trick would be flipping it.” Since it’s a small pan, take the pan handle in one hand and a square-ended turner in the other. Slip the turner under the pancake and lift it out, then turn the pan over the top of it and line it up, gently keeping things in line as you turn the pancake and the pan over together. My only problem with my little square pan is that it’s not one of those early, smooth surface pans, and things stick more readily.
For whoever was looking for almond flour – I don’t know if this is quite the same, but Trader Joe’s sells Almond Meal. It still has the skins in it but it may work fine. I have not tried it yet myself.
I have a good biscuit recipe that I make using coconut flour. They make for a great breakfast sandwich with cheese, egg and sausage.
Here’s the link: http://getfitkatie.blogspot.com/2011/10/recipe-lchf-buttery-garlic-and-sharp.html
I make a mean coconut flour pancake, but I’ll have to try these since the recipe calls for cream cheese, I haven’t thought of that before.
Are you using a cast-iron skilet on a glass cooktop? I was told I couldn’t do that because it would crack my stove. Was I lied to?
Also, those pancakes look delicious.
Yes, it’s cast iron. It hasn’t cracked our stove yet.
Update: It’s all about the coconut flour. The kind I used is called coconut powder – it is a very small flake. I bought it at an Armenian market in Burbank, CA. I haven’t had as good results with coconut flakes. I also tried this recipe this morning with different coconut flakes and it didn’t turn out very well at all. Ugh!
What “weird” stuff was she being criticized for?
Sardines, meat rollups with no bread, plus no chips or candy bars or cookies.
tasteslikeburnt:
Not sure about coconut powder versus coconut flour but with almonds the terms “meal,” “flour,” and “powder” are frequently used interchangeably. When they are different it’s usually to use the term “flour” to mean more finely ground almonds that have been blanched (which removes the darker outer skin), producing a fine slightly off-white powder. Almond meal, in contrast, is more coarse and has darker specs from the skin.
Personally, get better luck with the flour versus the meal, though the difference is subtle enough that I buy what’s convenient at the time.
We use a similar recipe for pancakes at home, though ours uses heavy whipping cream and butter in place of the cream cheese. We toss in a healthy dash of cinnamon, too.
These pancakes are wonderfully versatile, working as pancakes or as bread, as Tom illustrates. My wife makes a version with toasted sesame seeds, poppy seeds, and flax seeds to approximate the flavor of an “everything bagel” that she used to enjoy in her past life.
Great idea. Looks great and a lot easier to make than oopsie rolls.
This may be tedious but those that are sensitive to almonds you can try to blanch and remove the skins. Even just the blanching may help break down the phytate. I don’t know if they make a flour that does this ahead of time or not either.
OMG, crazy good and easy to make. I wanted to try immediately but had no cream cheese, so I substituted sour cream. It worked perfectly and I didn’t need to thin batter with water. Thank you for sharing this, it’s marvelous and your daughters are WONDERS.
I like that sour cream idea. I’ll ask the cook to try that one.
Haha wow! Sardines and meat roll-ups? I would give my future kids stuff that can easily be packed for school. I hope my future kids though have wide taste in food and aren’t picky. I wonder though if the whole picky eating stage comes from the parents that either introduce or just basically feed them cheese pizza, chicken tenders, and other junk. I was like that.
Sure, if you give kids a lot of junk, that’s what they think tastes good.
I think the coconut flour I have was from Bob’s Red Mill (I keep everything in glass jars, so I don’t have the wrapper.) I probably bought it online.
For whoever was looking for almond flour – I don’t know if this is quite the same, but Trader Joe’s sells Almond Meal. It still has the skins in it but it may work fine. I have not tried it yet myself.
I have a good biscuit recipe that I make using coconut flour. They make for a great breakfast sandwich with cheese, egg and sausage.
Here’s the link: http://getfitkatie.blogspot.com/2011/10/recipe-lchf-buttery-garlic-and-sharp.html
This may be tedious but those that are sensitive to almonds you can try to blanch and remove the skins. Even just the blanching may help break down the phytate. I don’t know if they make a flour that does this ahead of time or not either.
Haha wow! Sardines and meat roll-ups? I would give my future kids stuff that can easily be packed for school. I hope my future kids though have wide taste in food and aren’t picky. I wonder though if the whole picky eating stage comes from the parents that either introduce or just basically feed them cheese pizza, chicken tenders, and other junk. I was like that.
Sure, if you give kids a lot of junk, that’s what they think tastes good.
I think the coconut flour I have was from Bob’s Red Mill (I keep everything in glass jars, so I don’t have the wrapper.) I probably bought it online.
Have you thought to maybe try splitting the flour portion between almond flour and tapioca flour? At least for pancakes it may lend a sweeter taste.
I’ll pass that suggestion to the cook.
In response to Jordan’s comment: Pork rinds are “not a significant source of protein” despite appearing to have a lot of it because they are made from skin, which is an incomplete protein mostly made of collagen.
Of course, it is a little funny that they have to carry a warning label due to not containing all the essential amino acids when you don’t see any warning like that on beans, rice, corn, etc.
Have you thought to maybe try splitting the flour portion between almond flour and tapioca flour? At least for pancakes it may lend a sweeter taste.
I’ll pass that suggestion to the cook.
In response to Jordan’s comment: Pork rinds are “not a significant source of protein” despite appearing to have a lot of it because they are made from skin, which is an incomplete protein mostly made of collagen.
Of course, it is a little funny that they have to carry a warning label due to not containing all the essential amino acids when you don’t see any warning like that on beans, rice, corn, etc.
So what do you put on the sandwiches? That looks like a thick slice of bologna, but I can’t imagine you feeding that to your girls on a regular basis.
That might have been bologna. They ask for it now and then, so we give it to them.
I read somewhere yesterday that most of the Omega 6 is in the nut ‘skin’ — so blanching and removing the ‘paper’ might be a good idea before grinding?
Perhaps, but since we don’t use vegetable oils for anything, I’m not worried about the nuts.
Great looking pancakes ! I should try it myself. We cook similar fritters out of farmers cheese (proportion of cheese is higher, no baking power), but I think your recipe will taste more like actual pancakes and could be used for sandwiches, unlike mine fritters.
I also think that such recipe has a potential to accommodate some extra zucchini (after it is grated or shredded, salted, allowed to sit till a lot of moisture appeared, then the moisture squeezed out) during the zucchini excess time. However, I think it will be more fritters like, wouldn’t look like a bread, but could be covered with some melted cheese and crumbled sausage, and in a such disguise will pass for a normal piece of a junk food in front of children crowd.
My son is almost 20 years old now, but when he went to school, he was always allowed a choice between cafeteria food and home-made food because I didn’t want to have a fight against outside world. We are immigrants, I never thought about our way of eating as a part of paleo-movement, it was from the same category as speaking native language at home. It would be unreasonable for us to request from our son to communicate with only Russian-speaking people in US and eat only our ethnic food. American food for us was just weird, we didn’t like it , but accepted it as a down-side of the comfortable life in an economically stable (compare to the rest of the world) and reach country. I am sure, if we moved to some country like Yemen, it would be no fast food around, but we didn’t want to live in a poverty. I am glad to see the rise of the Paleo-movement, it gives people like us who eat “weird” food some extra excuse not to be like everybody else. The older our son got, the more often he choose a homemade food. He became to see it as a big privilege. He indeed grew-up without cavities. It is a privilege . How many children have a cooked from the scratch out of fresh ingredients lunch? May be just a few whose very wealthy parents have enough money to hire a personal chef. It could be more expensive than driving an expensive car which no one thinks as a weird thing to do. I guess, Tom, your children’s life style came at great personal cost for you and Chareva. You literally turned your lives upside-down. Of course, I don’t think you and your wife suffered from it, it is a privilege to live like that, you are more satisfied with your life now, but your effort was very sizable. You are immigrants from Big city life.
We’re not suffering at all. It was a huge change, but totally worth it. I love having a hunk of land. Every time I go out and play a round of disc golf without leaving my own property, I feel rich.
I told Sara I understand about not wanting to feel weird, but I also told her when she’s a teenager and isn’t fat, diabetic, diagnosed with ADD, walking around with a mouthful of dental fillings, etc., that will make her “weird” compared to many of her classmates.
So what do you put on the sandwiches? That looks like a thick slice of bologna, but I can’t imagine you feeding that to your girls on a regular basis.
That might have been bologna. They ask for it now and then, so we give it to them.
I read somewhere yesterday that most of the Omega 6 is in the nut ‘skin’ — so blanching and removing the ‘paper’ might be a good idea before grinding?
Perhaps, but since we don’t use vegetable oils for anything, I’m not worried about the nuts.
Great looking pancakes ! I should try it myself. We cook similar fritters out of farmers cheese (proportion of cheese is higher, no baking power), but I think your recipe will taste more like actual pancakes and could be used for sandwiches, unlike mine fritters.
I also think that such recipe has a potential to accommodate some extra zucchini (after it is grated or shredded, salted, allowed to sit till a lot of moisture appeared, then the moisture squeezed out) during the zucchini excess time. However, I think it will be more fritters like, wouldn’t look like a bread, but could be covered with some melted cheese and crumbled sausage, and in a such disguise will pass for a normal piece of a junk food in front of children crowd.
My son is almost 20 years old now, but when he went to school, he was always allowed a choice between cafeteria food and home-made food because I didn’t want to have a fight against outside world. We are immigrants, I never thought about our way of eating as a part of paleo-movement, it was from the same category as speaking native language at home. It would be unreasonable for us to request from our son to communicate with only Russian-speaking people in US and eat only our ethnic food. American food for us was just weird, we didn’t like it , but accepted it as a down-side of the comfortable life in an economically stable (compare to the rest of the world) and reach country. I am sure, if we moved to some country like Yemen, it would be no fast food around, but we didn’t want to live in a poverty. I am glad to see the rise of the Paleo-movement, it gives people like us who eat “weird” food some extra excuse not to be like everybody else. The older our son got, the more often he choose a homemade food. He became to see it as a big privilege. He indeed grew-up without cavities. It is a privilege . How many children have a cooked from the scratch out of fresh ingredients lunch? May be just a few whose very wealthy parents have enough money to hire a personal chef. It could be more expensive than driving an expensive car which no one thinks as a weird thing to do. I guess, Tom, your children’s life style came at great personal cost for you and Chareva. You literally turned your lives upside-down. Of course, I don’t think you and your wife suffered from it, it is a privilege to live like that, you are more satisfied with your life now, but your effort was very sizable. You are immigrants from Big city life.
We’re not suffering at all. It was a huge change, but totally worth it. I love having a hunk of land. Every time I go out and play a round of disc golf without leaving my own property, I feel rich.
I told Sara I understand about not wanting to feel weird, but I also told her when she’s a teenager and isn’t fat, diabetic, diagnosed with ADD, walking around with a mouthful of dental fillings, etc., that will make her “weird” compared to many of her classmates.
I love the tast, but I am finishing my bord of crumbs… :p
It would be a nice base for an apple crumble… (no sugar of course)
Tapioca has 25g carbs per ounce and a 70 glycemic index. It doesn’t have gluten, may be paleo as it’s derived from a root, but it seems to miss the LC mark by a pretty wide margin.
Yee-ikes. I think I’ll skip that in mine.
@David,
I raised a very picky child. From my opinion, most finickiness about food comes from constant snacking between meals especially on foods that are engineered to be consumed by a not-hungry person and drinking anything but water. I observed neighborhood children making bee-line to the special snacking fridge in a garage loaded with gogurt, juices, soda, boxes with some kids kibble, beer for dad . How do parents expect children to be hungry by meal time? Not possible. All necessary calories (without nutrients) are already consumed in the form of soda. The only solution is to serve another piece of junk at dinner time with enough of MSJ it allows to continue eating the food after first bite even if you are not hungry.
My advice when parents tell me their kids won’t eat real food is: Don’t feed them junk. When they get hungry enough, they’ll eat the real food.
I love the tast, but I am finishing my bord of crumbs… :p
It would be a nice base for an apple crumble… (no sugar of course)
Tapioca has 25g carbs per ounce and a 70 glycemic index. It doesn’t have gluten, may be paleo as it’s derived from a root, but it seems to miss the LC mark by a pretty wide margin.
Yee-ikes. I think I’ll skip that in mine.
@David,
I raised a very picky child. From my opinion, most finickiness about food comes from constant snacking between meals especially on foods that are engineered to be consumed by a not-hungry person and drinking anything but water. I observed neighborhood children making bee-line to the special snacking fridge in a garage loaded with gogurt, juices, soda, boxes with some kids kibble, beer for dad . How do parents expect children to be hungry by meal time? Not possible. All necessary calories (without nutrients) are already consumed in the form of soda. The only solution is to serve another piece of junk at dinner time with enough of MSJ it allows to continue eating the food after first bite even if you are not hungry.
My advice when parents tell me their kids won’t eat real food is: Don’t feed them junk. When they get hungry enough, they’ll eat the real food.
LOVE vinegar & salt pork rinds!! This is a great idea, thanks!
LOVE vinegar & salt pork rinds!! This is a great idea, thanks!
This looks like a great recipe, thanks. I have been using a lot of the bread, cracker and pizza crust recipes from “Grain Free Gourmet” by Jodi Bager and Jenny Lass. I tweaked the pizza crust recipe a bit by adding a little xanthan gum (I believe it holds together better). I roll it extremely thin and bake it a bit before putting on the toppings. It holds together very well even under a lot of toppings. I really like their Almond Butter Bread which is primarily just eggs and almond butter. The egg whites are beaten and then folded into the rest. It is a dark brown bread and the slices stay together nicely, even when cut thin. I like it because it is much lighter in taste and texture than almond meal based breads, also less crumbly.
This looks like a great recipe, thanks. I have been using a lot of the bread, cracker and pizza crust recipes from “Grain Free Gourmet” by Jodi Bager and Jenny Lass. I tweaked the pizza crust recipe a bit by adding a little xanthan gum (I believe it holds together better). I roll it extremely thin and bake it a bit before putting on the toppings. It holds together very well even under a lot of toppings. I really like their Almond Butter Bread which is primarily just eggs and almond butter. The egg whites are beaten and then folded into the rest. It is a dark brown bread and the slices stay together nicely, even when cut thin. I like it because it is much lighter in taste and texture than almond meal based breads, also less crumbly.