Not quite sunset, sunny views over the bay.

Whenever we bring a dish to share, we consider the tastes of the other guests rather than impose a recipe that is only befitting our dietary concerns. Many recipes for delicious and outrageously contrary-to-our-way-of-eating are my appetizer recipes from years ago, still taking up space in my brain.

Recently, when we invited a couple (who were on vacation) to our home for happy hour, I made an old favorite from the days when Tom and I first met and we entertained quite a bit. It’s high carb, high fat, high starch, and high sugar, which I never eat but, Tom does on occasion.

The rushing waters below at high tide.

Please share this recipe below with your friends who have no illness, no high blood sugar or diabetes, no heart disease, no clogged arteries, no dementia, no risk of Alzheimer’s disease, no pain, no signs of inflammation anywhere in their body, and, aren’t overweight and can eat anything they want without gaining weight. For those lucky folks, here’s the recipe we’re bringing tonight, which is NOT SUITABLE for my way of eating:

Jess’s Apricot Almond Brie en Croute 
1 medium-sized round Brie cheese
¾ cup apricot jam (not jelly)
½ cup slivered almonds
1 package refrigerated Pillsbury Crescent Rolls
2 T melted butter 

Preheat oven to 350.  Cover a baking pan with nonstick tin foil or parchment paper. Top the unwrapped Brie cheese with apricot jam. Sprinkle half of the almonds atop the jam.  Pinch all the seams together of the entire package of crescent rolls and carefully wrap the dough all the way around with the Brie keeping the jam side up. Make it look as nice as possible, leaving no gaps or holes. This takes one minute. Brush melted butter over the top. Poke holes in various spots in the top to allow it to expand during baking.  While butter is still moist, add the remaining almonds to the top.  Use a spatula to transfer it to the prepared baking pan. 

Place in the preheated oven for 40 minutes or less, checking to ensure the top doesn’t get too brown during the last 10 minutes (based on how hot your oven cooks).  This dish is very hot. Be careful handling it. Serve with a variety of crackers and plates, forks, and knives. May be prepared 48 hours in advance and cooked at the time of serving. Reheats well in the microwave.

When our guests visited, they loved this recipe so much they asked for it which prompted me to finally write it down for them via a PDF document. I hadn’t made this dish in years. 

Late afternoon sun over the sea.

I suppose I have hundreds of recipes stuck in my brain, not unlike the useless documents and files we end up transferring from an old computer to a new computer over and over again as we make new computer purchases. How I wish that one day I’d feel rambunctious enough to remove that clutter.

And, how I wish I could remove the clutter of old recipes from my brain in the same rambunctious manner.  Yesterday, I found myself looking for a recipe for Moo Shu Pork, a favorite I often made when preparing a meal of Chinese food. (Is it PC to still call it “Chinese food?” I could call it Asian food but there are many regions of Asia that cook many different styles of food. Hopefully, I don’t offend anyone).

Why was I looking for this recipe, so far removed from my modern-day reality? I’d found a recipe on Dr. William Davis (Wheat Belly) site for low carb, grain-free, gluten-free, sugar-free tortillas, which could substitute for the Mandarin pancakes required in the recipe for Moo Shu Pork. I thought if I could find my recipe for the food that goes inside the Mandarin pancakes (like a tortilla), I could adapt it to my way of eating.

A pair of Nene birds, Hawaii’s state birds, wander around the golf course which they seem to love.

Oh, dear, I’d better post Dr. Davis’s tortilla recipe or I’ll get 100 email messages asking for it (of which I always, happily and quickly respond to each):

Dr. William Davis (Wheat Belly) Tortilla Recipe 
Make 4 tortillas      
1 cup golden flaxseed, ground
4 tablespoons almond meal or 4 tablespoons almond flour
1⁄4 teaspoon fine sea salt
2 eggs

Preheat oven to 375°F. Prepare a large baking sheet by lining with parchment paper. Add ground flax seeds, almond meal/flour, and salt to a medium bowl and whisk together. Whisk in the eggs just until combined. Divide the dough into 4 equal balls.  Using 2 pieces of parchment paper, roll each ball between pieces until 6” round. Place on the prepared baking sheet. Bake for 5 minutes, or until golden.

After I spent considerable time looking for a recipe similar to my old version of Moo Shu Pork, casually mentioning it to Tom he said, “I never really liked that dish anyway. Don’t bother to make it for me.”

Oh. it was one of those dishes I made in our “younger days” when he was courting me while pretending to like my “non-meat and potatoes” recipes. Now that we’re old, he doesn’t try so hard to impress me. My feelings aren’t hurt. I’ll make the tortillas and use them for my adapted recipe for Mexican food (Is that OK to say?)

A gnarly tree trunk at the edge of the golf course.

Anyway, here’s the third recipe of the day for which we received zillions of requests after mentioning it in a post a few days ago; low carb grain-free, sugar-free, starch-free high fat protein bars. 

I found this recipe online and adapted it to my taste and way of eating and voila, its a heavenly dessert, energy booster, and plain and simple meal substitute loaded with nutrients that won’t raise a person’s blood sugar if eaten in moderation, the size of an average protein bar. 

A strained branch holding a cluster of bananas.

From all the research I’ve done thus far as a layperson, on what foods raise blood sugar and subsequently increase inflammation I began testing my own blood sugar. In doing so it proved to me that eating any foods in excessive amounts, even low carb foods, can raise one’s blood sugar, even if I ate too large of a portion of protein, for example, a huge steak.  Moderation is always the key in life, isn’t it? 

Watching animals in the wild was a good lesson for me about eating in moderation, eating only until one is satisfied and not uncomfortably full. Animals never overeat (other than our household pets if we’ve  been feeding them “people food”). 

I believe this is papaya tree.

Wild animals only eat until full and comfortable. We never saw a lion while on safari eating the last morsel off the carcass he’d killed. He/she was always leaving some to savor at a later time, with the female leaving some for her cubs or often letting the cubs eat before her. Not so much with the males who would often steal the food from the females, never sharing with the female or her cubs.

If you make these delicious bars, please place individual portions into baggies to store in the freezer, taking out one bag at a time to eat frozen. They are so good they could trigger a frenzy of overeating.

Here’s the recipe:

1 cup organic almond butter
½ cup any lowest-carb protein powder (I used hemp)
1 cup shredded coconut, unsweetened (the large unsweetened coconut chips  found in the healthy section in grocery stores or a health food shop, are good to use)

½ cup chopped almonds, macadamia nuts, walnuts, pecans or
hazelnuts (I used macadamia nuts, grown here in the Hawaiian Islands)