'No Cheating' Super Bowl Snacks for Low Carbers

While everyone frets over the suspiciously deflated balls in the Patriots game against the Colts two weeks ago, far less has been said about the inflated bellies that result from the far bigger crime of CWF (Carbloading While Footballwatching).

As movies are to popcorn, the Super Bowl is to nachos, wings, pizza and other high carb edibles that collectively rival Thanksgiving for most carbs consumed in one day. It is almost impossible to watch the Super Bowl without eating foods that spike your blood sugar and foil your shrinkage goals.

Fortunately, there are myriad low carb recipes that can compete with first-string Super Bowl snacks.

Last night I was listening to Jenny Hutt on Sirius XM describe how she was going to munch on Buffalo cauliflower and guacamole on Super Bowl Sunday. It sounded just as delicious as the more traditional breaded wings -- and way more healthy.

While searching for recipes just now, I found a whole Pinterest board filled with mouthwatering photos of "the other white meat" version of Buffalo wings -- cauliflower, not pork. Many of them use some kind of flour, but Jenny planned to just season (salt, pepper, garlic) and roast her cauliflower florets and coat them after cooking with some spicy Frank's RedHot Buffalo Wing Sauce mixed with real butter.

If you can't say "no" to chips and dip, it's nacho problem anymore. Bad pun aside, I found a genius nachos recipe that subs peppers for chips. Though they're satisfyingly salty and crunchy, we all know the main function of chips is to serve as edible spoons for the melty mixture of beef, cheese, guacamole and sour cream. So why not sub a healthier scooper and eat more of the good stuff?

Cheezing for pizza? My favorite low carb pie these days is Fat Head Pizza whose crust contains neither grain nor cauliflower. Feeling more carnivorous? Try the Meatza!

If you're an even halfway competent web surfer, you can't help but find dozens of low carb Super Bowl friendly recipes on the Internet. For a head start, begin your search on my Low Carb Pinterest board, or head over to one of my favorite low carb recipe sites like DJ Foodie, Splendid Low-Carbing, I Breathe I'm Hungry, Beauty and the Foodie and Buttoni's Low Carb Recipes.

If you're a Medifaster, you'll find great OP recipes on Sandy's Kitchen blog. I can personally recommend this recipe for her cheesy cauliflower breadsticks.

The main thing is, do not let Super Bowl Sunday run interference with your desire to lose weight and gain optimal health.



More from Diet Skeptic:

Why I'm Addicted to Chia Seeds

Why Fat Head Pizza Is the Holy Grail of Low Carb Pizzas 

The Shocking Truth About Imported Olive Oil 

Making Cauliflower Rice in the Vitamix 

Why WebMD Doesn't Want You to Get Well


Follow Nancy's board Low Carb Recipes on Pinterest

What If the 'Experts' Are Wrong About Exercise Too?

The more research I do that suggests conventional health experts are misguided in recommending low fat/high carbohydrate diets, the more I wonder about their other advice.

Like engaging in three hours of moderate exercise a week.

Don't get me wrong, but if vacuuming is such good exercise, why are there so many out of shape housewives?

Here's one good way to combine
cardio with strength training

And why is 24 Hour Fitness full of people treadmilling like hamsters on a wheel with little reward beyond that which can be attributed to dietary change?

Sure, moderate exercise is better than no exercise. But is it the best way to gain optimal health and fitness?

Recently, I have been reading an increasing number of articles featuring studies that tout the benefits of High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) as a more efficient and enjoyable way to improve one's metabolic health than such activities as walking, swimming or bicycling at a steady moderate pace a.k.a. Moderate Intensity Training or MIT (not to be confused with Mitt Romney).

There are various methods for engaging in HIIT, such as alternating walking with sprinting or running uphill for as long as your lungs and muscles will alow and then walking until you recover.


Though the jury is still out, there is promising evidence that HIIT requires less time and yields better results than MIT.

And this is not true for just the young and spritely.

A Scottish study published last year found that a group of over-60s who engaged in HIIT vs MIT "had reduced their blood pressure by 9%, increased their ability to get oxygen to their muscles and found day-to-day activities like getting out of a chair or walking the dog easier."

Obviously, I am not offering medical advice here. Anyone with a chronic health condition should check with their medical provider before engaging in a new exercise program.

And if the only exercise you've done lately is walk from the couch to the fridge on commercial breaks, you may have to start slow here.

From my own experience, however, varying the intensity of my exercise makes it more fun and invigorating; and since motivation is key to whether I exercise or not, that benefit alone is worth highlighting.

To learn, however, that it's possible I can exercise for less time and gain better results with high intensity interval bursts versus plodding along at a moderate pace is mind blowing.

I know we're all supposed to root for the tortoise in the old fairy tale, but what if the rabbit was right?


You can purchase Medifast replacement meals directly from Medifast Centers, the Medifast website or -- for no extra cost -- through the co-branded website of a Medifast TSFL health coach. Medifast does not recommend purchasing its products from third party vendors, but if you choose to do so, you can find them on both Amazon and eBay.

Medifast Custom Order - You Choose ANY 10 Boxes


More from Diet Skeptic:

Can You Drink Alcohol on Medifast

Medifast Centers Vs. Take Shape for Life

Planned Exceptions: What Is Your Pie Policy?

Wabi Sabi Dieting & Renee Zelwegger's New Face

Women Who Pin Too Much: Confessions of a Low Carb Recipe Collector

Follow Nancy's board Low Carb Recipes on Pinterest.

Women Who Pin Too Much: Confessions of a Low Carb Recipe Collector

If you were to check out my low carb recipe Pinterest board, you might think I eat really well. And I do.

But not necessarily the dishes you see in the mouthwatering Pinterest photos I've carefully curated from my favorite low carb blogs on the Interwebs.

So, this never happened to me either.

Like many pinners, my low carb recipe Pinterest board is a collection of fantasy recipes I hope to try in that illusive world of the future I fondly call oneofthesedays.

As in oneofthesedays I will make that amazing looking beef and mushroom cauliflower risotto recipe from food24.com.

What I have found, however, is that even though I do not specifically make the recipes I have pinned, the mere act of reading the recipes has given me a whole new context for cooking. Over time, I have incorporated which combinations of foods work best together and which cooking methods bring out the best flavors and textures.

Since I work most nights of the week, I do not prepare traditional dinners very often. And when I do, I typically open the refrigerator and work with whatever ingredients are available.

Oneofthesedays I am going to make this
mushroom asiago chicken recipe from my
low carb recipes Pinterest board
#ProbablyNot 

Last weekend, for instance, I created an incredible pasta-less lasagne using zucchini for the noodles and adding some naturally cured chopped bacon to the grass fed ground beef for flavor. I knew from reading so many recipes that slicing the zucchini on the diagonal and roasting it with some olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper would give my noodles the best flavor and texture. I also had some leftover roasted sliced Brussels sprouts and mushrooms in the refrigerator, which I threw in with the beef/bacon mixture for good measure -- intuiting from my copious recipe reading these veggies would compliment the other ingredients and increase the HQ (health quotient) of the meal.

And, yes, there was also cheese involved.

Whereas once upon a time I may have collected recipes for brownies, twice baked potatoes or other high carby foods which I now mostly avoid, the recipes that catch my eye these days are for meals and snacks that enhance my health and help me maintain my ideal weight. The mere act of pinning these recipes becomes an affirmation, "This is how I eat now."

Yet despite the fact it may have intangible benefits and is a totally harmless habit, I still can't help but laugh at myself a little each time I pin a new recipe.



More from Diet Skeptic:

Why I'm Addicted to Chia Seeds

Why Fat Head Pizza Is the Holy Grail of Low Carb Pizzas 

The Shocking Truth About Imported Olive Oil 

Making Cauliflower Rice in the Vitamix 

Why WebMD Doesn't Want You to Get Well


Follow Nancy's board Low Carb Recipes on Pinterest

Why Cauliflower Is the 'Chicken' of Vegetables

Some vegetables become popular for being super foods. Others, because they taste good.

There are literally  hundreds of great cauliflower pizza crust
recipes, but I like how this blog post analyzed the
different ingredients and cooking methods.

The humble cauliflower, alas, does not fall into either camp.

Unlike kale, cauliflower never appears on Super Food Top 10 lists, and many people find its flavor, um -- how should I put this -- mildly repulsive? Not to mention its off white color and body odor off putting aroma.

No, the main reason for cauliflower's soaring popularity is neither its nutritional profile nor piquant flavor. Simply put, cauliflower is the vegetable version of that most versatile of chameleon meats -- chicken.

What's more, cauliflower is beloved by low carbers because it is a low glycemic vegetable and has lots of healthy vitamins and stuff phytochemicals. Which explains why clever cooks have been so busy morphing this white cabbagey ball into everything from mashed fauxtatoes and fried "rice" to cheesy "bread" sticks and pizza crust to creamy soups, steak and, yes, even cake! (Not to worry carrots; it's not the kind of cake you'd serve a birthday girl.)

"We’re always looking for vegetables that give you that meaty umami flavor, and
we find that cauliflower really feels like a protein,” says chef Harold Dieterle
at Kin Shop, who prepares his cauliflower steak and Siamese green curry course
with Szechuan peppercorn tempura, kabocha squash and turnips.
(Excerpted from Daily News)

One of my resolutions this year is to prepare one new cauliflower recipe each week month and share the results on this blog. It won't be hard finding candidates since there are literally whole Pinterest boards and blog posts filled with great recipes and mouth watering photos.

Like tee shirts and Easter eggs, cauliflower
comes in many different colors these days!

Meanwhile, though I love Mark Twain, I have to disagree with his quote, "Cauliflower is nothing but a cabbage with a college education."

Try making a pizza crust with cabbage, Marco!

Find more great cauliflower recipes on my low carb Pinterest board.

You can purchase Medifast replacement meals directly from Medifast Centers, the Medifast website or -- for no extra cost -- through the co-branded website of a Medifast TSFL health coach. Medifast does not recommend purchasing its products from third party vendors, but if you choose to do so, you can find them on both Amazon and eBay.

Medifast Custom Order - You Choose ANY 10 Boxes


More from Diet Skeptic:

Can You Drink Alcohol on Medifast

Medifast Centers Vs. Take Shape for Life

Planned Exceptions: What Is Your Pie Policy?

Wabi Sabi Dieting & Renee Zelwegger's New Face

Women Who Pin Too Much: Confessions of a Low Carb Recipe Collector

Follow Nancy's board Low Carb Recipes on Pinterest.

What If You Didn't Know You Were Fat?

One of the funniest and most controversial Dave Chappelle skits aired on the first episode of his comedy show in 2003 when he played a blind Ku Klux Klan member who didn't know he was black. If you haven't seen this profoundly funny bit, treat yourself later when you have seven minutes to relax with a cup of tea.

In a nutshell, the skit enacts the story of Clayton Bigsby, the only blind boy to attend the Wexler Home for the Blind. To make things simpler, the headmistress never informs Clayton or his classmates that he is the only black student, and he grows up thinking he is as white as milk. As an adult, he authors several racist books and becomes a white supremacist hero until one day he is asked to take off his hood at a rally and his blackness is revealed.

As the skit ends, the narrator of the faux documentary says, "In the past few weeks, Clayton Bigsby has finally accepted that he is a black man. And just three days ago, he filed for divorce from his wife. When asked why, after nineteen years of marriage, he replied, 'Because she's a nigger lover.'"

One of the takeaways of this skit for me -- aside from the obvious foolishness of hating anyone who doesn't look like you -- is how much our perceptions of ourselves inform our identity and behavior.

Had Chappelle known he was not white, he would not have identified so strongly with white people. Even after he found out he was black, his thought process was still that of a bigoted white man.

Though some people vow to eat less when they gain weight,
for me it was a license to eat more.

Which made me wonder if this same concept could be extended to weight. As with race, much of our self-perception and corresponding behavior hinges on a measurement -- whether it be pounds on a scale or inches around our hips.

I know that when I was 35 pounds overweight I typically didn't care if I over-indulged because -- inside my head -- I was already heavy. What difference would a few more calories make?

Now that I am at my ideal weight, however, I am far more conscious of the food choices I make. I view myself as a slender person and behave consistently with preserving that identity.

Which makes me wonder. Had I still considered myself a slender person when my weight first started going north, would I have eaten more healthy and not gained all those extra pounds?


You can purchase Medifast replacement meals directly from Medifast Centers, the Medifast website or -- for no extra cost -- through the co-branded website of a Medifast TSFL health coach. Medifast does not recommend purchasing its products from third party vendors, but if you choose to do so, you can find them on both Amazon and eBay.

Medifast Custom Order - You Choose ANY 10 Boxes


More from Diet Skeptic:

Can You Drink Alcohol on Medifast

Medifast Centers Vs. Take Shape for Life

Planned Exceptions: What Is Your Pie Policy?

Wabi Sabi Dieting & Renee Zelwegger's New Face

Women Who Pin Too Much: Confessions of a Low Carb Recipe Collector

Follow Nancy's board Low Carb Recipes on Pinterest.

Turning Medifast Foods Into a Chinese Menu

The skinny on combining Medifast replacement meals

The photo above has no relevance to
this blog post, but I thought the babies
were adorable.

Remember those old Chinese dinner menus where you picked one from Column A and one from Column B?

For some reason, I think of those every time I see the imaginative ways Medifast dieters combine the weight loss company's various replacement meals.

Many Medifast blogs and vlogs, along with several Medifast Facebook groups to which I belong, contain ideas for combining the replacement meals to create unique recipes that are superior to either of the meals from which they are made.

For instance, combining the Medifast chile with the Medifast macaroni and cheese masks the slightly off flavor off the mac cheese and creates two meals of the more palatable chili mac. You can further Martha-ize this dish by adding Sriracha sauce and a wedge of Laughing Cow cheese for a very doable lunch.

One reason people combine Medifast meals is to use up their stock of replacement meals they are not so crazy about. For instance, one of my Facebook chums puts the Medifast chili cheese puffs into her Medifast tomato soup to simulate the soup and crackers experience.

Find the recipe for this tempting
"ice cream" shake here

The main reason MFers combine two replacement meals is to obtain the flavor of one and the texture of the other, similar to a botanist breeding apricots and plums to get pluots. Savvy cooks add a pancake packet to a chocolate chip, brownie, blueberry or gingerbread soft bake packet to obtain a higher rising muffin or doughnut that retains the more intense flavor of the soft bake.

One of my favorite Medifast vloggers, Andrea Santoro (aka Medifast MetallicaMom), demonstrated on her YouTube channel last fall a variety ways you can modify the gingerbread soft bake by adding other replacement meals, such as the cappuccino calorie burn and vanilla pudding. She also combined the Medifast gingerbread soft bake with the spiced pancake mix to make donuts in her Babycakes Donut Maker.

Last year I lost all of my excess fat on the Medifast program before I knew about all these recipe hacks; but I did manage to try a few of them. One of my favorites was adding the brownie soft bake batter to a chopped up crunch bar and then rolling the mixture into balls, yielding two dessert meals. After freezing for as long as I could wait, I ate half of my Medifast chocolate fudge crunch balls and saved the rest for the next day.

Of course, you can get way fancier by adding a bunch of Medifast friendly flavorings when you combine replacement meals. On Get Skinny Be Happy, a Medifaster named Christopher featured a recipe for an Ice Cream Blizzard Shake, which combines the Medifast vanilla shake mix and Medifast chocolate chip cookie or brownie soft bake with butter nut and amaretto extracts, ice and water.

Though it was easier for me to comply with the Medifast 5&1 Plan by keeping the program simple, I had only 35 pounds to lose. If you have more fat to melt, you are more likely to get bored after a few months. So if trying new recipes helps you stay OP (on plan), go for it.

Just remember, when you combine two meals, you make two servings; so don't eat the whole thing at one sitting. And try not to get carried away with too many condiments because they could stall your weight loss.


You can purchase Medifast replacement meals directly from Medifast Centers, the Medifast website or -- for no extra cost -- through the co-branded website of a Medifast TSFL health coach. Medifast does not recommend purchasing its products from third party vendors, but if you choose to do so, you can find them on both Amazon and eBay.

Medifast Custom Order - You Choose ANY 10 Boxes


More from Diet Skeptic:

Can You Drink Alcohol on Medifast

Medifast Centers Vs. Take Shape for Life

Planned Exceptions: What Is Your Pie Policy?

Wabi Sabi Dieting & Renee Zelwegger's New Face

Women Who Pin Too Much: Confessions of a Low Carb Recipe Collector

Follow Nancy's board Low Carb Recipes on Pinterest.

The Shocking Truth About Imported Olive Oil

Buying the cheapest big-ass
olive oil you can find
is a false economy.

My book group had just finished its discussion of The Sound of Things Falling when the topic shifted to olive oil.

My friend Tania told us she had recently attended an olive oil tasting at the University of California, Davis (Go Aggies!) and learned that most of the olive oil Americans consume is rancid. Even the olive oil sold by trusty Trader Joe's and consumer friendly Costco.

I graduated from UC Davis and covered city politics for its now defunct newspaper, The California Aggie; so I donned my reporter's cap when I got home and was shocked by what The Google revealed. How had I not heard of this imported olive oil sham before now?

It turns out, olive oil is the opposite of wine and women. Which means it doesn't get better with age. So when you import olive oil from Italy or Greece that has to travel via a dirty cargo ship to the United States, you're likely getting oil beyond its prime.

But that's only the tip of the iceberg lettuce.

An article in the KCET public television food blog revealed that about 70% of olive oil on supermarket shelves is rancid before you even buy it. By the time the European olives are picked, processed, bottled and shipped, many moons have passed, which makes no sense for a highly perishable product.

About 97% of the olive oil sold in the United States is imported and does not meet the same quality standards as domestic olive oils. For instance, to call itself "extra virgin," imported olive oils need to contain only 20% extra virgin olive oil while domestic brands must contain 100% extra virgin olive oil.

See the illustrated New York Times expose "Extra Virgin Suicide: The Adulteration of Italian Olive Oil" to learn how many "Italian" olive oils are cut with soybean oil and worse.

Not surprisingly, when California legislators tried to convince their fellow congresspeeps to require imported olive oils to meet their higher quality standards, they were shot down by their New York colleagues whose constituents campaign contributors include (guess who?) olive oil importers.

The inferior quality of many imported olive oils has been known to foodie insiders for years. In 2007, NPR reported:

Italian extra-virgin olive oil has become so lucrative that adulterated olive oil has become the biggest source of agricultural fraud problems in the European Union.

Some oil labeled "extra-virgin" is diluted with cheaper olive oils or other vegetable oils. In some cases, lampante, or "lamp oil," which is made from spoiled olives falle from trees, is used, even though it can't legally be sold as food. One fraud ring is accused of coloring low-grade soy oil and canola oil with industrial chlorophyll, and flavoring it with beta-carotene.

This gives a whole new meaning to the song, "You Light Up My Life."

What's ironic is that Americans are so used to the taste of rancid olive oil, many actually prefer it to fresh, according to a study by the UC Davis Olive Center.

In case you're wondering how to tell good olive oil from bad, look for either the California Olive Oil Council or Australian Olive Association seal on the bottle, both of which require olive oil producers to meet higher standards than what is required by the politically handcuffed USDA.

Look for the harvest date on the olive oil label

Look for a dark bottle so that oxidation does not occur, and store in a cool, dry place. Better olive oils will also have a harvest date for the olives right on the label.

And don't buy the huge Costco container of olive oil unless you slug down quarts of the stuff each day. You want to use up your olive oil in six weeks or less.

Finally, learn how fresh olive oil is supposed to taste by conducting your own taste test at home. Like good coffee, bitterness and spiciness are good signs the oil has not oxidized, as are fruity notes such as "grassy" or "apple."




More from Diet Skeptic:

Why I'm Addicted to Chia Seeds

Why Fat Head Pizza Is the Holy Grail of Low Carb Pizzas 

The Shocking Truth About Imported Olive Oil 

Making Cauliflower Rice in the Vitamix 

Why WebMD Doesn't Want You to Get Well


Follow Nancy's board Low Carb Recipes on Pinterest

Medifast's New TV Commercials More Like 'Real Housewives of Maryland'

You can almost always tell when an advertising agency fails to grasp the unique selling proposition of a product when it relies on cliche vignettes, like a woman showing off her new figure wearing a series of tight fitting tennis outfits or a mom swinging with her kids at the park.

The new Medifast TV commercial tag line for 2015 is "Lose weight with Medifast and your whole world gets better," but it should be "We had no idea how to hawk this weight loss program so we lifted some scenes from Bravo."

The problem is, almost any weight loss program will help you lose weight. So what's special about Medifast, and why should someone choose the Medifast 5&1 Plan -- along with its free Take Shape for Life health coach program -- over competing diet programs?




I personally lost 35 pounds in less than four months using Medifast and Take Shape for Life and have maintained my optimal weight for almost a year now. But if I were currently choosing a weigh loss diet, I would never try Medifast based on the Ruth Ann Somervell tennis commercial.

Somervell is one of Medifast's "Happy Afters" winners from 2014 who actually has a very interesting story to tell. In fact, she told it to former Medifast social media person Hallie Falquet Sovesky in this You Tube video. I could totally relate to her predicament even though it was different than mine.

Like many women, Somervell had gained more than 60 pounds after having children and had begun to despair she would ever be at a healthy weight again. She began telling herself, "This is how old I am. This is where I am at in life. This is how large I will be," she recalls in the video.

The turning point for Somervell was receiving some cash from her mother for Christmas. With visions of brownies and birthday cakes likely dancing through her head, she told her husband she was going to buy a new mixer for the kitchen counter. He tactfully suggested she invest in herself instead.

In the Happy Afters video, Somervell explained some of reasons she chose Medifast, including its compatibility with her busy life style, her ability to eat "normal" dinners with her family (minus the rice or bread), and the fact she could eat six times a day.



Somervell's final words, "Sixty five pounds later, I'm so glad I never bought that mixer," is far more real and specific than "Your whole world gets better."

To separate Medifast from such competitors in the corporate diet space as Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig, Medifast's marketing team and new ad agency GKV should have stuck closer to the real life stories of the Happy Afters winners starring in the new TV commercials instead of relying on dusty Hollywood cliches.

I love that Medifast is using real people in its new TV commercials. Unfortunately, the commercials look too much like "Real Housewives of Maryland" and do not authentically reveal what is special and different about Medifast compared to other diet programs.

You can purchase Medifast replacement meals directly from Medifast Centers, the Medifast website or -- for no extra cost -- through the co-branded website of a Medifast TSFL health coach. Medifast does not recommend purchasing its products from third party vendors, but if you choose to do so, you can find them on both Amazon and eBay.

Medifast Custom Order - You Choose ANY 10 Boxes


More from Diet Skeptic:

Can You Drink Alcohol on Medifast

Medifast Centers Vs. Take Shape for Life

Planned Exceptions: What Is Your Pie Policy?

Wabi Sabi Dieting & Renee Zelwegger's New Face

Women Who Pin Too Much: Confessions of a Low Carb Recipe Collector

Follow Nancy's board Low Carb Recipes on Pinterest.

Making Cauliflower Rice in the Vitamix

With Link to Recipe for Sandy's Cheesy Cauliflower Bread Sticks

Though I've long been a fan of roasting cauliflower or turning it into mashed "potatoes," I harbored an irrational fear of using cauliflower to make pizza crust or cheesy bread sticks. Well, maybe not so irrational since I would often see the word "soggy" in the comments section of various cauliflower crust recipes, and the thought of going to so much trouble to produce wet bread was a psychological deterrent.

But since cauliflower is the "It" vegetable of 2015, I knew I had to get over my cauliphlobia or be doomed to living in the past.

This afternoon, I was feeling brave; so after checking out various websites on how to rice cauliflower, I finally took the plunge and retrieved my Vitamix from its hiding place under the cook top.

What took me so long?

One head of cauliflower yielded about four cups of raw cauliflower "rice."
I did not cook the cauliflower or attempt to reduce excess moisture
before mixing with eggs and cheese.

To begin with, ricing the cauliflower was really fun. I cut up a fresh head of this Cruciferous Magicus into manageable chunks and, as directed here, set my Vitamix to power level two. After a couple of pulses, I had a substance that could pass for rice.

This method has to be far more efficient than the common alternative of ricing the cauliflower with a cheese grater. Though that would probably work, it would also create a big mess and likely remove some finger tissue.

I don't need the added protein.

Obviously, I will never make it as a food blogger.
I was so hungry by the time my bread sticks
came out of the oven, I forgot to take a picture.
But they looked pretty much like Sandy's
and tasted amazing!

With my "rice" happily in its bowl, I was ready to try my first cauliflower "bread" recipe. My most trusted Medifast recipe source is Sandy's Kitchen; so I decided to try the cauliflower cheese sticks from that website. It looked fairly easy and I had all most of the ingredients. (Instead of grated mozarella cheese I just cut some sliced smoked gouda and sharp cheddar into bits and mixed them up with the riced cauliflower and two real eggs.)

Sandy's recipe is here, and I suggest you follow it as closely as you can. Ms. Bass does not merely type up random recipes and post them on her blog. She tests them out on herself and her family; and her dozens of delicious lean & green meals may be largely responsible for keeping so many Medifasters from dying of boredom on the Medifast 5&1 Plan.

Though Sandy suggests using some kind of loaf pan to start out with, I just broke out a cookie sheet and laid my parchment paper on it. I flipped the half-cooked dough rectangle after 30 minutes and upped the oven temp as directed, though I forgot to add more cheese.

Fortunately, this is a very forgiving recipe and the resulting cheesy cauliflower bread sticks were delicious. I dipped them into a bowl of plain low-sugar tomato sauce to which I added some magic seasoning a few grindings of Trader Joe's garlic spice blend.

If there's a lesson from this story it's that the recipes that intimidate me the most are often way easier and tastier than I thought they would be.

My low-carb Pinterest board is loaded with recipes I'm dying to try. Hopefully, this experience will give me the courage to continue moving out of my culinary comfort zone.