Sugar Free Cooking

So I'm still sticking to the diet, though I haven't been absolutely strict with it. Like last night we had fried rice, and mine had a little bit of sweet egg in it, but it was brown rice! And I've been eating store-bought bread and tortillas - there aren't any brands I've found that don't use sugar or corn syrup. So, things you may or may not know contain sugar:

yogurt
ketchup
bread
almost all cereal (even bran flakes and plain rice krispies, but not grape nuts)
breakfast bars
salad dressing (pretty much all of them)
tortillas
peanut butter
jelly
barbeque sauce
craisins
A1
wheat thins
ice cream, frozen yogurt, etc
mayo (though not the one I had already, oddly enough)

And I still have a sweet tooth, which is hard to satisfy with no sugar. I've probably been overdoing it on maple syrup and molasses, but... I've made 2 kinds of cookies, pancakes, carrot cake and hot cocoa. The cookies have not been great - the molasses/ginger ones were too dry and the banana/oatmeal ones are too chewy (and too banana-y). The pancakes were ok, but REALLY dense (and banana-y). The carrot cake is great, though I may puree the date/raisin mix if I make it again cuz I'm not really into whole raisins in my carrot cake. And the hot cocoa has been a sinful indulgence.
The whole grains isn't too bad to stick to, it just takes some planning and creativity and home-cooking. But I can still eat pizza, rice, sandwiches, burritos, etc. I finally made my own bread and I'm going to have to make my own tortillas next time. I made pizza crust out of cauliflower, though I think that recipe still needs some tinkering. And I really need to make some granola. The most annoying meal for me is breakfast. I am not really an oatmeal fan, but it's been oatmeal or egg white omelettes (although I splurged the other day and had 2 eggs sunny-side-up!).  It's getting old and boring and it's soooo bland!

But, in case you're interested, here's what I've had success with so far:

Hot Cocoa
1 T maple syrup
1 c milk
1 T cocoa powder
1/4 t vanilla

Carrot Cake:
2 c flour
1 t baking powder

the "frosting" is tofu and tastes like it. :P

1t baking soda
1/4 t salt
1 1/4 c water
1 1/4 c dates, chopped
1 c raisins
1 t cinnamon
1 t ginger
1/2 t cloves
1/2 t nutmeg
1/2 c carrot, grated
1/2 c walnuts, chopped
1/3 c OJ concentrate

Bring water, dates, raisins and spices to a boil. Simmer 5 min. Pour over carrots and let cool completely. Mix in other ingredients. Pour into round cake pan and bake at 375 for 45 min.

I forgot to grease the pan and it stuck a little.

The bread is this recipe.

And I just made ketchup! It doesn't taste exactly like store-bought, but it's pretty good!


Cauliflower Pizza Crust - very tasty, pretty floppy, and I have not gotten it to not stick to the pan yet. Oh, and I don't know many it's supposed to serve, but to me, it's a personal pizza, FYI.

Like I said, it sticks -even to foil.

but otherwise it's very yummy!