Low Carb Chicken Parmesan

So we're on this low carb diet and it's driving me mad!  Meals consist of a protein and some veggies.  This can be great, but it can also get mighty monotonous and boring.   So I'm continuously looking for low carb meals that are different and ones that make me feel like I'm cheating when I'm not!  Here is the latest one I tried - low carb BREADED chicken parm!  Only the breading isn't actually bread. It's parmesan cheese and almond flower mixed together and then coated on the chicken.  This was quite good.  The only difference was the breading didn't get as crunchy as a bread crumb coating, but I'll take it!  Plus, once you throw sauce over it, the breading tends to get soggy anyway.  So without further ado, the lineup...

Low Carb Chicken Parmesan - Serves 2
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
1/2 cup almond flower
1 tablespoon Italian seasoning  (I used Mrs. Dash and it was perfect)
1 Egg
Salt
Pepper
Olive Oil
2 boneless skinless chicken breasts
1 cup tomato sauce - try to find one that isn't too high in carbs
1/2 cup mozzerella cheese
Additional parmesan cheese for sprinkling

1.  Coat the bottom of a meduim sized skillet with olive oil and heat to medium/medium-high.  Also, preheat oven to 375 degrees
2.  Cut your chicken breasts in twos or threes and pound out each piece so they are all of equal thickness - about 1/2 inch.  Sprinkle salt and pepper on the chicken
3.  On a small plate, crack the egg and scramble it with a fork
4.  On another plate, mix together the parmesan cheese, almond flour, and italian seasoning
5.  Dip each chicken piece into the egg so that it is coated thououghly
6.  Then place each chicken piece in the cheese/almond mixture and turn until it is totally coated and breaded on all sides
7.  Sautee the chicken in the hot olive oil for about 4 minutes a side or until the coating is browned, but not burned!
8.  Place your chicken pieces in a casserole dish and spoon a small amount of tomato sauce over each.  Then top with some grated mozzerella and parmesan cheeses.
9.  Bake at 375 or until the cheese is melted

Serve this with a side of veggies or salad instead of pasta and you will be in low carb heaven!  :)

Coach Purse Cake

I made this cake for my friend Eva who celebrated her 32nd birthday today.  Happy Birthday Eva!  Eva is a fan of Coach purses, so I thought it would be fun to make her an edible one for her birthday!   This was my first purse cake and I was excited to try one out.  Since we had a small crowd, I decided to go with a "wristlet" instead of a full sized purse...a nice way to ease into a purse cake, I must say.  :)  I took at few pictures along the way.  Here they are!

This was after I did a rough cut and put ganache in between the 6 layers

Then I carved the purse shape

After the cake was carved, I covered the whole thing in ganache and then started to put the fondant on

Here's the zipper!

At this point, I forgot to keep taking pictures at each step, so we'll just jump to the finished product!

Farewell Cake

*Sniff*  I'm sad to say that this cake was for my friend Cristina.  She and her husband Ben and son Luke are moving to Georgia this week.  I've known Cristina since our freshman year of college and we've lived in the same city for the majority of the time since.  I am going to miss her a ton!!!  She loves chocolate and peanutbutter, so I made a chocolate cake with peanutbutter filling and iced it with chocolate ganache.
Sadly, here it is..

My First Cake Wreck!

These cupcakes for my friend Amber's bridal shower.  I made the mistake of not securing them well in the car, so on the way to the shower, the breaks were hit, and the cupcakes slid off the back seat!  I was with my friend Lindsay and we pulled off to the side of the road to survey the damage.  Miraculously, only four cupcakes hit the carpet.  The rest stayed in their pan, but toppled on top of each other and stuck to one another.  We salvaged what we could and threw the four bad ones against a tree on the side of the road.  That was fun!  I'm sorry I didn't take a picture.  We arrived at the shower and I set up the cupcakes that were presentable.  So all was well in the end!  Here are some pics of the cupcakes before they went on their fateful ride...

Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies

This is the easiest cookie recipe EVER!...and the best part is that it calls for ingredients that I almost always have on hand.  So, if you are craving cookies, you can have these whipped up in no time.  They were quite yummy - very rich and they demanded to be paired with a giant glass of milk.  I liked them the most once they were totally cooled off.  If you eat them while they are still warm, it just feels like you are eating peanutbutter.  They are too soft when they're warm, I suppose.  A good cooling off will give you a more cookie-ish texture.  They were even better the next day, which doesn't happen with many cookies.   You can add the classic Hershey's kiss in the middle of these too.  I just didn't have any on hand so I dedided to go naked...the cookies, not me.

Here's the recipe...

Ingredients

• 1 cup peanut butter
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C).
2. Combine ingredients and drop by teaspoonfuls on cookie sheet. Press criss cross pattern onto cookies with a fork dipped in sugar.   Bake for 8 minutes. Let cool. Recipe doesn't make very many, so you could double recipe as you desire.  
  

Mix Mix Mix!...

.....aaaaaaand DONE!