Week 5: Put the Lime in the Coconut Margarita Cream
According to Wikipedia disordered eating describes a variety of abnormal eating behaviors that, by themselves, do not warrant a diagnosis of an eating disorder. Disordered eating includes behaviors that are common features of eating disorders such as: chronic restraint eating. Compulsive eating. Binge eating, with associated loss of control.
I’ve been reading a lot about disordered eating over the last several weeks. Those of you that know me, are aware that over the years I’ve removed gluten, sugar, meat and dairy. I’ve done the lemonade cleanse, the detox diet, the zero belly 7-day cleanse, the Cabbage Soup Cleanse, the South Beach Diet, “eating for my blood type”, the Paleo Diet, and on the opposite end of the carnivore spectrum, I’ve gone vegan.
I’ve even concocted a few cocktails without added sugar, and shown bartenders in my area exactly how to make one.
Yes, I’ve become “that person” that causes people roll their eyes or avoid inviting for dinner. The one food servers mock in the kitchen.
I’m pretty sure based on the above definition, I have an issue with “disordered eating”.
And this post is going to be a classic example.
I’m not making light of the fact that I basically just “came out” as someone with disordered eating… I’m just not ready to talk that seriously here, yet. I’m pretty sure the juicy emotional stuff will come as time passes.
What I do want to bring up is that this food restriction and cleansing began for me as a solution to deal with immobilizing joint and muscle pain. And I got fascinated by eating clean and healthy… I really did/do feel better!
Regardless of what I do with this new awareness of mine… I will continue to stay off white sugar, because I have definitely noticed when I eat white sugar and too much wheat, pain levels increase.
I’m also a full-on sugar addict… Once I start eating sweets or putting sugar in my coffee, it’s difficult for me to stop. I do not have that same response to maple and honey.
Segue to the recipe …
Mom’s Margarita Cream Dessert
Mom could whip up this simple dessert as a light treat for dinner parties. She had a crazy variety of beautiful glassware. Serving four or more in a variety of elegant glasses sure did create the “wow’ factor. If you’re having a Margarita day, St. Patrick’s Day or Cinco de Mayo party, I would consider this dessert.
Yes, there is something called Margarita day… On February 22, but I didn’t realize that upon selection of this recipe. As I said last week, I chose to make margarita cream because we might find it difficult to get tequila and avocado in our country in the future.
The process…
At face value this is not the worst dessert ever. It’s not a rich chocolatey decadence, but man the one cup of sugar, rum, and triple sec add up to one very sweet sugar filled dessert.
Sugar-free perhaps?
Look at this crazy sugar aisle in the health food store — What is the best option when craving a sweet?
My first decision was to try to make this a sugar-free dessert… A typical “diet friendly” treat.
I usually stay away from sugar alternatives because they’re so processed; nothing that stark white could be good or be real food, right?
Aspartame and Splenda are disgusting and super toxic.
Stevia is actually not bad for you in raw form, but I can’t manage to wrap my taste buds around it.
Xylitol I actually kind of like the taste of, but it’s deadly for dogs (I have a dog) so I won’t keep it in the house. I really like the taste of Coconut Palm sugar and while there are claims of improved Glycemic Index effects, it is still high in sugars.
Research brought me to Erythritol. As with everything on the Internet, there are pros and cons, advocates and opponents. But I went for it anyway. In fact, there was such a great price on Amazon, I got a 5-pound bag in hopes I’d like it, might use it in future recipes.
Using this to replace the 1/4 cup of sugar eliminates a significant amount of sugar calories alone. I then decided to remove the rum and add more tequila… Because who couldn’t use more tequila? I substituted food grade orange essential oil for the Triple Sec. I figured that was a perfect plan.
Maybe I could make this a perfect diet dessert (that’s an oxymoron) by also reducing the total calorie count?
Heavy cream is pretty high calorie but in many ways, dairy can be good for you if it’s organic and clean.
But I was still curious…
I investigated using coconut cream to make whipped cream. The recipe called for a full-fat coconut cream. Regardless of what I’ve read about coconut fat being good for you, I still think it needs to be in moderation. There’s a lot of saturated fat in a can of coconut cream. So I selected the light cream. With 45 calories and 5 grams of fat that’s the perfect solution… but as I found out, not so much. Please note that I RARELY pick processed food over nutrition, so this whole “I will create the bionic dessert” was a weird divergence for me, as I hyper-focused on Lo-Cal.
Lime in the Coconut Margarita Cream — recipe fail
Don’t let the photo fool you…it tasted weird!
Ingredients:
1 C light coconut cream
1/2 C erythritol or sugar alternative of choice
2 1/2 shots of tequila
2 Tbs of grated lime zest
2 Tbs of lime juice
My favorite lime juice brand is actually quite strong so if you’re using fresh lime juice. I would say use more
A couple of drops of food grade orange oil or orange extract
Directions:
Chill bowl and beaters ahead of time
Grate lime zest
The liquid and fat from the Coconut milk needs to be combined before you measure the 1 cup
Mix all the ingredients together with the blender.
Mix and mix and mix and mix and …..still no peaks!!!
I chilled for an hour or two and I could tell that it was still going to be liquid.
Plan B
because I didn’t want to waste, I added more tequila. Poured into lined mini-muffin tins and put them in the freezer. It’s basically a low-calorie, low sugar Jell-O shot. It worked but it’s not something I’ll make again.
Next Fail:
I mixed all of the above ingredients. Only instead of the light cream I used the full-fat coconut cream. Even though the recipe online said this is a good whip cream alternative, it didn’t work.
Maybe it was the booze. Maybe it was the lack of white sugar, but it still never formed peaks as whip cream is supposed to do.
Then for fun, I added some raspberries and poured both in margarita glasses to chill in the fridge. The flavor is OK and they did set a little bit, but not enough to call it a cream dessert. Basically, it’s a large serving of saturated fat and tequila, which defeats the purpose of making it lo-cal.
The conclusion here is, unless you want to make some Lime In the Coconut Tequila Shots, I would stick with my mom’s original recipe. In fact, I’m going to make some tomorrow for Alex and Jenny when they come for dinner, because sometimes it’s OK to just treat yourself to dessert!
Because I can’t resist…
and the origianl…
What does “Lime in the Coconut” mean? The questionable leanings of my mind, Harry’s voice and the rhythm leave me thinking it’s sexual. Maybe it’s just me. 😉
Saturday 5 Recipe Pick
If I were having a Super bowl party, (I didn’t even get invited to one) I’d serve these for sure. They are every bit as yummy as they sound…with sausage and parm, how could you go wrong?
Rick is home this week and on the Timothy Ferris 4 Hour Body diet again, which is a low carb diet. I’m going to try to convert this so that he can eat them too 🙂
Until Next week…..
Ah well – you can’t win ’em all – the original sounds rather yummy though … and that song is nuts!