Low Carb Margarita Experiment - Take 4 & 5 and Compare with Skinny Girl Margarita

I'm just about margarita-ed out, folks...

So, let's talk about the flurry of weekend margarita experimentation that occurred over the past two days.

To the left, you can see a photo of the margarita fixings that I assembled on Friday.  We made two versions out of these fixings:

Margarita version 1.4 was a variation on the Laura Dolson margarita base that I have been using time and time again.  Except, instead of fake sugar, we substituted 1 tablespoon of Thai coconut palm sugar paste (jaggery) and made a simple syrup out of it, which we combined with lime juice, tequila, and orange extract.  This added about 3 carbs to the net carbohydrate count, but also significant sweetness without a fake sugar aftertaste.  Here's the recipe:

• 1/4 cup (4 Tablespoons) water
• 1 tbsp jaggery
• 1 jigger (1.5 oz) tequila
• 2 Tablespoons (1 oz) fresh lime juice
• 1/4 teaspoon orange extract
• Ice - small handful
• Margarita salt or kosher salt

Directions

1. Pour water into a microwave safe container, and microwave on high for 60 seconds, until steamy.  Add jaggery to hot water and mix until the jaggery is dissolved.
2. Combine all the ingredients (minus the salt), and stir stir stir until fully incorporated and the liquid is icy cold.
3. Serve in a salt-lined glass if you wish.  I like mine without salt, on the rocks.  Or... if you like it frozen, just dump the margarita and rocks into a blender and let it whir, baby.

Review: I really liked Margarita version 1.4.  It is a bit cloudier than the others because jaggery is an unrefined sweetener and is brown in color.  For me, this was a really good margarita.  For my husband, it was his least favorite.  I understand why: jaggery has a slight caramel flavor that does not hide in the flavor background.  It is not flavor-neutral.  For me, the 3 additional net carbs on this drink were worth it.  It was just sweet enough for me.  I would give this one a 3.5 out of 5.

Margarita version 1.5 was, again, a variation on the Laura Dolson margarita base.  Here, we made a simple syrup with the hot water, 1/2 tablespoon of jaggery and 1/2 tablespoon of Truvia.  The goal was to have some natural sweetness from the jaggery to offset the fake sugar taste of the Truvia, but not so much truvia that the aftertaste would bring me to me knees.  

• 1/4 cup (4 Tablespoons) water
• 1/2 tbsp jaggery
• 1/2 tbsp Truvia
• 1 jigger (1.5 oz) tequila
• 2 Tablespoons (1 oz) fresh lime juice
• 1/4 teaspoon orange extract
• Ice - small handful
• Margarita salt or kosher salt

Directions

1. Pour water into a microwave safe container, and microwave on high for 60 seconds, until steamy.  Add jaggery and Truvia to hot water and mix until the jaggery is dissolved.
2. Combine all the ingredients (minus the salt), and stir stir stir until fully incorporated and the liquid is icy cold.
3. Serve in a salt-lined glass if you wish.  I like mine without salt, on the rocks.  Or... if you like it frozen, just dump the margarita and rocks into a blender and let it whir, baby.

Review: Going half and half with the jaggery and Truvia brought the carb count down 1.5 grams from margarita version 1.4.  This version (margarita 1.5) is my favorite to date.  Peter liked it, despite the addition of some jaggery to round out the taste of the artificial sweetener.  This is a low carb margarita that I would feel fine serving to anyone, low carber and carboholics alike :)  I gave it a 4.25 out of 5 (notably, the "5" is the full sugar amazing margarita that I just can't drink anymore; on this scale, 4.25 is a damn tasty drink).

Notably, I decided, after sampling margarita 1.5, that I had maybe reached my max tequila consumption for the week.  So, I combined the margarita that I had left from my sampling (about 1.5 ounces) with about 4 ounces of orange-flavored seltzer water.  It was actually quite delicious, and still pretty potent.  I would definitely do this again, especially in the summer when you want a drink that's refreshing and tangy, but is not going to knock your socks off quite that quickly. 

SKINNY GIRL

Everyone who knows about my low carb margarita experiment has been yammering away at me about Skinny Girl Margaritas.  So, when I happened to come across a bottle of it at the liquor store, and checked the nutrition label (a 4 ounce serving has about 4 grams of net carbs, and has about 12.7% alcohol/volume), I thought that I would pick up a bottle.  A 750 ml bottle, containing 7 x 4 ounce servings cost me about $15. 

I bought it, brought it home, chilled it, and then Pete and I had a taste test.  Here are my thoughts:

Taste: My margaritas are robustly lime-y.  They are not shy.  You know that you are drinking a margarita.  The lime is fresh.  This margarita packs a zesty punch but has a delicate citrus scent.  They are good.  They are lipsmacking.  One of them will make you tipsy, and a second will knock you on your kiester.

By way of contrast, Skinny Girl tastes watered down and is only vaguely citrus-y.  It would be as if you made my margarita with bottled lime juice, then diluted the whole mix at least 50-50 with water (and I'm being generous here, because I did water mine down with seltzer water, and it still packed more punch than Skinny Girl).  You can tell the difference between my margaritas and Skinny Girl's just by looking at them: Skinny Girl is a thin, watery beverage.  Mine has body and, by God, texture (love that lime pulp).  There is just no comparison.  Honestly, I didn't even finish the Skinny Girl.  I passed it to the hubby.  If I am going to drink carbs, I'm going to get the max out them.  Skinny Girl was a limp dishrag of a margarita, and just not worth it.

Price: Considering that the bottle of El Espolon tequila that I bought for my recipes cost just around $22 for a 750 ml bottle, and that this bottle will make approximately 16 x 6 ounce margaritas and change (each containing 1.5 ounces of tequila), it became immediately clear that my homemade versions were waaaay less expensive than Skinny Girl.  In fact, I did the math, and I figured out that each of my 6 ounce margaritas cost around $1.50, while the 4 ounce Skinny Girls cost just over $2 each.  So, mine rang in at about 25 cents per ounce, while Skinny Girl cost about 50 cents per ounce. 

That math is not 100% accurate, but it is pretty close.  In fact, I would consider my math to be downright generous, considering that Skinny Girl is so watered down, that my recipe, mixed 50-50 with water, is still more potent and tasty, and my watered down version would cost only about 12.5 cents per ounce.

Rating: Skinny Girl weighs in at a skinny 2 out of 5, but only if you want a boring, vaguely lime-y drink that won't even stand up to the spicy mexican food that you pair it with.  Disappointing!

CONCLUSIONS from the peanut gallery:

If you can get your hands on jaggery, give Margarita version 1.5 a try.  It is really good.  If you can't find jaggery, use just Truvia instead.  You'll be a happy camper.

Don't waste your money on Skinny Girl.  If you love margaritas, then take the time to make your own margaritas.  They are cheaper and tastier.  If you want a watered down margarita, then eschew Skinny Girl, and just modify your own hooch to suit.  Your taste buds and your wallet will thank me for this!

Low Carb Margarita Experiment - 3rd Time's the Charm?

You may wonder: will she ever get tired of margaritas?  I'm not sure what the answer to that question is in the long run, but for now, I'm hanging in there.

Here's quick recap of what's happened to date with our Low Carb Margarita Experiment: our first attempt at a low carb margarita got 3 out of 5 stars, mostly because I can't stand the aftertaste of liquid Splenda, but my husband thought the cocktail was spot on.   The second attempt at a low carb margarita got 3.5 out of 5 stars because, although the taste with Truvia was better than with liquid Splenda, there was still a hint of aftertaste that bugged me, but was not an obstacle to me finishing the drink on my own; I also wasn't crazy about the extra step of making the microwave simple syrup with the Truvia.

Our third attempt is something that my husband didn't actually get to sample.  You see, I came home very late last night after a City meeting, and Pete was already in bed.  It was that kind of a night, so I thought I would enjoy a small night cap.  That nightcap was a margarita.  Here's what I came up with on take three.

(Once again, I'm using Laura Dolson's original recipe as my base.)

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup (4 Tablespoons) water
• 1 jigger (1.5 oz) tequila
• 2 Tablespoons (1 oz) lime juice - bottled more convenient, fresh tastes a lot better
• 1/4 teaspoon orange extract
• 1 oz of pomegranate juice
• 1 packet of Truvia
• Ice - small handful
• Margarita salt or kosher salt

Directions

1. Combine all the ingredients (minus the salt), and stir stir stir until fully incorporated and the liquid is icy cold.
2. Serve in a salt-lined glass if you wish.  I like mine without salt, on the rocks.  Or... if you like it frozen, just dump the margarita and rocks into a blender and let it whir, baby.

Here was my thought process: I hypothesized that the pomegranate juice would sweeten up the margarita just enough without destroying the carb count.  So, I put one ounce of the juice in (which added about 3 grams of net carb to the drink), and took a sip before I added any artificial sweetener.  It was WAY too tart, so I added the packet of Truvia.

So, the carb count was about 5.5 grams per large serving.  However, the pomegranate juice didn't really add that much sweetness or pomegranate flavor, although it did turn the margarita pleasantly pink.  The Truvia didn't dissolve completely, but I didn't notice that until I looked at the bottom of the glass and saw a few crystals clinging to the bottom.

Honestly, this wasn't a bad margarita, but I'm going to give it 3 out of 5 stars because, for the extra 3 grams of carbohydrate, there wasn't any noticeable improvement in flavor.

My next experiment will involve Thai coconut palm sugar paste (jaggery), which is a natural, less refined form of sugar that has 3 grams of net carbohydrate per tablespoon.  I just have to grab some at Whole Foods today.  Onwards!!

Caught Red Handed - 6 pounds of water weight

This weekend, I made some bad choices.  Oh, how the mighty have fallen! 



On Saturday, I made a lower carb chocolate chip cookie, substituting coconut flour for regular flour and erithritol and sugar free pancake syrup for white and brown sugar.  The result was a delicious little cookie (2 dozen of them, in fact) that weighed in at about 2.5 net carbs each.  The recipe was an amazing success.  However, I ate the entire batch by myself - 1 dozen on Saturday and 1 dozen on Sunday. 

 

These cookies are totally induction friendly, as long as you limit yourself to a reasonable serving size.  Learn a lesson from me, though, and avoid this treat if you can't stop at just one or two.  We all have a diet "kryptonite" that is bound to sabotage us if we have it in the house and think to indulge.  My kryptonite appears to be chocolate chip cookies.  This splurge accounted for approximately 62.5 net grams of carbs, spread out over two days.  Not good. 

This mass cookie consumption coincided with "date night in", which we celebrated at home on Saturday evening.  My husband and I split a bottle of prosecco, which resulted in me drinking four flutes of prosecco.  Ouch.  Figure that is another 12-15 grams of carbs added into Saturday's carb count.



Not mine.  Mine was more "rustic".

The next day, I woke up and made 8 pounds of royal icing for my family's annual Gingerbread House Contest, a tradition whereby old and young gather, decorate gingerbread, eat and smack talk for 4 hours.  It is a load of fun.  However, when you consider how much icing I licked off my fingers during that period... eesh. 



I didn't even have the will to do Fitday calculations for Saturday and Sunday.  I could tell by yesterday evening that I was completely bloated by the way that my jeans felt around my middle.  Not so hot.  Recognizing this, I had a cobb salad with chicken for dinner.  A good choice that did nothing to rectify the sins of the weekend.  Oh well, here's to not making things worse!  Hurrah.

Pity Party Pig Out - Reflections

Last week was a doosie.  My daughter is in the hospital recovering from a procedure (she’s okay), and I spent the whole weekend there with her.  I came home on Sunday night, leaving my husband there to stay, as I had to go to work on Monday morning and he did not. 

Sunday night, watching football by myself in my jammies, I wanted a snack.  I went to the fridge, and found a mountain of Chinese food leftovers, none of which I should be eating.  I seized on the stress of the weekend as an excuse to pig out on forbidden foods (yes, it was a conscious choice and I knew what I was doing). 

I wish that I could say that I stopped at the cold spareribs and chicken fingers.  I didn’t.  I went back to the fridge, looking for something sweet, thinking to myself, “well, I already blew it with Chinese, what’s a little more junk food going to hurt?” 

I found about 4 ounces of coconut chocolate chip cookie dough in the freezer, and demolished that.  I looked down at my belly, which had already started to rumble at me disagreeably, and felt a bit ashamed.

I justified my bad eating choices, in those moments, by thinking that, with all that I had going on, I deserved a break, and no one would think poorly of me for cheating.

Making excuses for poor behavior to justify continuing down a path that I should not be on is just crazy talk!  Who am I making excuses to?  Me?  Sending excuses from myself to myself?  This is how I got into the rut that I was in – you know, the rut that had me ballooning to 236 pounds on my 5’6” frame, suffering from diabetes, high blood pressure and PCOS. 

I am past this and I am better than this.  Taking personal responsibility for my health at all times means that when life hands me lemons, I do not drink lemonade.  I also do not eat lemon squares or lemon pie, or indulge in lemon chicken.  I calm down, take stock, and decide not to go forth into a feeding frenzy. 

The truth of the matter is that I have this one life, and this one body, and I believe that I can do better for myself and for my family.  No one benefits when I eat crap that can literally send me into a coronary. 

Gifting myself with junk food, sugar and starches is the old Kate, the one who numbed herself with food because she could not face sad things in her life.   

The new Kate is honest with herself, and is getting healthier day by day.  She doesn’t run from problems.  She faces them head-on, and sends them packing.   

Does this familiar to you?  Check out:

Pema Chodron, Getting Unstuck, This is a great CD from Pema Chodron, a buddhist nun.  She's been there.  This CD really helped me understand what I was doing to myself with food.  Its not a CD about food or dieting - its about being in a rut and identifying why you created the rut, and what its done for you lately. 

Barbeque Restaurants: Primal and Low Carb(ish) Dining Opportunities Abound

Hi, my name is Kate, and I'm addicted to barbeque. 

Here's a photo of me enjoying the yabba dabba doo rib, with sides of cucumber salad and collard greens, at Smokin' With Chris in Southington, CT, this summer.  My friend snapped this shot with her cell phone because she was amazed at the meaty proportions of my dinner.  What can I say?  I can eat.

Here are some tips for eating out primal and low carb: 

First of all, barbeque restaurants are a great choice for someone who eats primal and low carb, because there is a lot of meat on the menu, and oftentimes, there are more veggie-only sides served ala cart than in a typical restaurant, including collard greens, coleslaw, buttered green beans, you name it. 

So hop on google and check out barbeque restaurants in your area, and how they've been rated.  That's how I found Smokin' With Chris, and it ended up being one of my favorite restaurants. 

You've got to be vigilant, though.  Our common enemies, sugar and starch, are lurking about, ready to hop on your plate and climb into your belly. 

What Do You Do With All that Sugar You're Not Eating?

Well, ladies and gentlemen,
there is some argument that you should smush it on your face and rub 'til your skin is shiny and new.  No one EVER said your skin care regimen had to be LCHF, now did they??!!

Check out these recipes from this great website that I found:

• Cleanse Your Skin with Milk and Honey!,
• Remove Your Makeup with Honey (here and here),
• Fruity Skin Scrub,
• Honey, Wine and Chocolate Face Mask,
• Egg, Lemon and Honey Face Mask,
• Homemade Sugar Scrub

And hey, if you've already cleaned out your pantry of all of the above sweet carby stuff, have no fear, because you can make beauty booty out of LCHF ingredients you probably have lying around, including coconut products and various oils that are likely in your cabinet.

I confess to trying this sweetly au naturel way to keep my face fresh.  I just started washing my face with honey in the morning and using the oil cleansing method to cleanse it at night.  Will keep you posted ;)