Flax Seed Bread Recipe

I mentioned that I was on a low carb diet and that I have discovered flax seed as a great alternative for flour. The following is the recipe for flax seed bread that I got off the Internet. It's best for taste purposes if you let the bread cool completely and even rest overnight before ingesting. (It's really good used for french toast.) Prep Time: 15 minutes Cook Time: 20 minutes Total Time: 35 minutes Ingredients: • 2 cups flax seed meal • 1 Tablespoon baking powder • 1 teaspoon salt • 1-2 Tablespoons sugar equivalent from artificial sweetener • 5 beaten eggs • 1/2 cup water • 1/3 cup oil Preparation: Preheat oven to 350 F. Prepare pan (a 10X15 pan with sides works best) with oiled parchment paper or a silicone mat. 1) Mix dry ingredients well -- a whisk works well. 2) Add wet to dry, and combine well. Make sure there aren't obvious strings of egg white hanging out in the batter. 3) Let batter set for 2 to 3 minutes to thicken up some (leave it too long and it gets past the point where it's easy to spread.) 4) Pour batter onto pan. Because it's going to tend to mound in the middle, you'll get a more even thickness if you spread it away from the center somewhat, in roughly a rectangle an inch or two from the sides of the pan (you can go all the way to the edge, but it will be thinner). 5) Bake for about 20 minutes, until it springs back when you touch the top and/or is visibly browning even more than flax already is. 6) Cool and cut into whatever size slices you want. You don't need a sharp knife; I usually just cut it with a spatula. Give it a try and enjoy!

Craving Cupcakes

I'm on a low carb diet. Is there anything worse for a meat and potatoes girl like me? For my whole life, it's been about the white stuff. Flour. Potatoes. Pasta. Sugar. Bread. Did I mention potatoes? Mashed potatoes are my favorite food and I usually eat some form of potato every day. (Must be the Irish in me.) After nearly two months on this plan I've yet to find a suitable substitute for my Mr. Potato Head fetish. One new food that I have discovered is flax seed, mainly flax seed flour. Yep, I said flour. It has a different kind of taste and texture to it. I've made flax seed bread that looks like Focaccia flat bread. I've made banana and raisin bread and apple flax seed muffins. I substituted Splenda for the sugar, and of course, flax seed flour for the regular white flour. The banana and raisin bread is really good. I've already cut most of the sugar out of my diet, I'm pretty sweet without it anyway, at least that's what I've been told. But every once in a while, I get a serious craving for a cupcake. I was watching one of those cooking shows on PBS and they made homemade chocolate cupcakes complete with the white squiggly icing on top. Talk about drooling... They look good, don't they? It might just be easier to go buy a single cupcake at a bakery somewhere instead of making a batch from scratch. The idea of flax seed chocolate cupcakes doesn't really sound appealing to me at all. Sigh. If only that picture of the cupcakes was scratch-n-sniff...my cravings might just go away!