Low Carb Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups

A "candy" that is low carb, lower in sugar, and gives me a dose of coconut oil? Yes please!

These are super easy to make, and you can get creative with your flavors. Even if you are not going for low carb - these are just as delicious and may make you rethink why you ever ate a Reese's - well, maybe.

This recipe yields: 16-18 servings

Serving size: 1 cup

Calories: 77 calories

Fat: 8.6g

Sodium: 11.4mg

Carbs: 1g

Sugar: 1g

Protein: 1g

Ingredients

3 tbsp dark chocolate chips (I used Ghiradelli)

1/4 cup organic coconut oil

3 tbsp natural peanut butter (Skippy's had lowest carb)

1/4 cup organic coconut oil

1. Combine chocolate chips and 1/4 cup coconut oil in a pourable measuring cup. Heat in microwave for 30-45 seconds and stir until smooth.

2. In a mini cupcake pan, pour in your chocolate mixture - in about 1/4" layers

3. Place in freezer for about 2-3 minutes, until relatively solid.

4. Melt peanut butter and the other 1/4 cup coconut oil in microwave for 30-45 seconds and stir until smooth.

5. Take our your cupcake pan, the chocolate should be solid. Then pour peanut butter mixture over the chocolate in 1/4" layers.

6. Place back in the freezer for 10 minutes.

7. Once completely solid, you can flip over the cupcake pan and lightly tap and they should fall out easily.

8. Store in an airtight container in the freezer.

Mix it up with different fruits and nuts:

Raspberry cups and cashew cups: 1.5g carbs per serving

Cauliflower Pizza Crust

This isn't anything new. For those of you who have been on the gluten free, or low carb train - you conquered this a long, long time ago. Yep - I am late to the cauliflower party.

But! I wanted to try something new. Sometimes, I crave pizza - in non-traditional pizza flavors, so this weekend it was Thai chicken pizza, with a Thai peanut sauce base, and homemade sweet Thai chili sauce.

To make a basic cauliflower crust:

1 cauliflower head, or approx 2 cups cooked cauliflower
2 cups parmesan cheese
2 eggs

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.

2. Pulse your cooked cauliflower (about 5-8 min in boiling water) in a food processor until it has the consistency and size of rice. Allow to cool for about 5 minutes.

3. Place pulsed cauliflower in a large bowl and pick out any large pieces, you can chopped them up and add them back into the bowl.

This is actually "broccoflower" (green cauliflower) - it was all that was in the grocery store so I figured, hey why not?

4. Add parmesan cheese and egg, until well combined.

5. On a baking sheet with parchment paper, spread out cauliflower mixture about 1/4 inch thick.

6. Bake for about 20 minutes.

7. Add your toppings and bake again for about 10-15 minutes.


Thai peanut sauce base:

1/4 cup coconut milk
1/4 cup peanut butter
1 garlic clove, chopped
1 tsp chili flakes
1 tsp sesame oil

Combine in a small sauce pan on medium heat until sauce thickens. Remove from heat, and spread on the crust.

Sweet Thai Chili Sauce (Low carb version - less than 1g carb per serving)

1/4 cup water
1/4 rice vinegar
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1 tsp gelatin powder or xanthum gum
1-2 tsp chili flakes (or add more if you like it really spicy - I used 1 tbsp)
1-2 tbsp stevia or splenda to your desired sweetness

1. Combine everything in a small sauce pan (except for stevia/splenda) on medium high heat.
2. Allow to simmer until liquid is reduced by half (takes about 5 minutes and wil have a thicker consistency)
3. Remove from heat, allow to cool for about 10 min.
4. Add in stevia or splenda to taste.
5. Drizzle on pizza right before serving/eating.

Thai chicken pizza, with roma tomatoes, olives, avocado, green onions, and cilantro

Added some arugula on the side