"What's in Your Oven?"

Thought I'd share because actually finding a decent Low-Carb Coconut Custard recipe seems to be a loosing battle!

What I did find by Googling "low carb Custard" was a forum post that included "Josie's Egg Custard"...though, I quickly printed out the recipe and forgot to mark or save the page info (bad blogger!), I'm sure a search for the two would lead you right back to it.

What got me going on this "Coconut Custard" idea?  Well, tonight's dinner, of course!  I have, in my slow cooker, chicken breasts (half frozen, but the recipe called for thigh meat, so I suppose it'll even out the cooking time a bit?) for Curried Chicken with Coconut Milk!  This delight came straight out of my Slow Cooker cookbook by Dana Carpender (have I mentioned how much I love her books yet today?), page 70 if you're reading along!  6 hours until yummy food goodness!  All I'll have to do closer to actually eating is grate some Cauliflower and microwave it to become Cauli-Rice!

Dinner called for 1 cup of Coconut milk and as luck would have it, a regular sized can has 1 2/3 cups of coconut-ty goodness within!  First though, I want to talk about the brand I bought this go around...Golden Star.  I found this at Wal-Mart of all places!  Normally I buy the Thai Kitchen brand, it's widely available and is "Okay" as far as carb counts go at 3 net carbs per 1/3 cup.  However, seeing this "new to me" bright green can with a picture of coconuts staring back at me, I picked it up to check it out (other store brands have shocked me with the added sugars in coconut milk).  Only 2 grams per 1/3 cup!  Okay, so 1 gram isn't a huge deal...but it all adds up!  Using the Golden Star brand, I shaved 3 grams of net carbs off of dinner tonight and 2 grams out of the entire dessert recipe!  That is a savings of almost an entire meal's worth of carbs if you're sticking to the 20g a day limit!  (Assuming 5 grams at each meal and another 5 throughout the day in snacks.)  How's the taste and texture though?  One word, awesome!  I find it easiest to shake the coconut milk vigorously prior to opening it, this helps to "re-mix" the solids and the liquids before opening the can.  That being said...this one felt solid and resisted all of my attempts to pre-mix the contents!  So, I took the can opener to it and was met with a solid block of Coconut fat/oil yumminess!  I resisted the urge to grab a spoon...  Instead, I grabbed a whisk and a spatula!  At first, it looked like the whole can was solid, but I eventually found the liquid portion, hiding in the bottom 1/3 of the can!  I ended up having to dump it into a bowl to recombine it before measuring, it was so thick!

Now, I had 2/3 cup of coconut milk sitting in a bowl...what to do?  Freeze it or make something yummy?  Yummy won today, I have been contemplating a Coconut flavored custard for a while now and today seemed to be a good day to test my theory!

So, here is "Josie's Egg Custard":

• 4 Large eggs (5 or 6 if you are using medium eggs)
• 2 cups Hood's Low Carb 2% Milk beverage
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla
• 1/8 teaspoon Salt
• 1/4-1/2 cup Splenda (to taste)
• 1/4-1/2 teaspoon Nutmeg (she only uses 1/4 teaspoon)

1. Combine all ingredients and mix by hand.
2. Strain mixture to remove any "chunks from the eggs".
3. Pour into shallow baking dish.
4. Set dish in large water bath (cake pan with about 1 inch of hot water).
5. Bake at 300-325 degrees for approx. 30 minutes or until knife in center comes out clean. (She said it takes her 35-40 minutes at 325.)

Now, here's how I changed it up to make "Marcy's Coconut Custard":

• 4 Large eggs (the girls are on strike, so we had to actually buy eggs yesterday!)
• 2/3 cup Coconut Milk
• 2/3 cup Heavy Cream
• 2/3 cup Water--A note on the liquids here...you want 2 cups of "milk" for the 4 eggs, any combo should work, you could even use half & half rather than the cream & water, just don't make it too thick or thin!  You want milk consistency!
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla
• 1/8 teaspoon Salt (approx., I used my 1/2 teaspoon and guesstimated 1/4 of it)
• 1/4 cup + 2 Tablespoons Splenda
• 2 Tablespoons Stevia in the Raw
• 1/4 teaspoon Nutmeg (in the mix)
• 1 Tablespoon Unsweetened Coconut
• Nutmeg (to taste)

1. Preheat oven to 325.
2. Start your tea kettle, I have a 1.7 liter electric kettle that, from full, filled my pan exactly as full as i needed it.  If you don't know how much you'll, need...try it with cold water and empty ramekins first.
3. Put all of the above in your blender and sens it for a spin until it is well combined.
4. Place 1/2 cup Ramekins into your shallow(ish) pan, I use an old metal cake pan.  I can fit 7 ramekins in if I squash them together.
5. Now, fill your ramekins...this is where I strained mine.  There were no "chunks" but it does keep the foam that the blender produced out of the finished product.  I just used a tiny strainer I have that came in a wire-mesh strainer set.
6. Top each Ramekin with 1 Tablespoon Coconut, the stuff I get in the bulk section of WinCo is cut really tiny, if yours is bigger pieces, use what you see fit.  Then whisk or mix this in.  I used the pointy end of the 1/2 teaspoon I used for the Vanilla, salt, and Nutmeg...why dirty another spoon?
7. Top each with a dash of Nutmeg.
8. Once the oven is preheated, carefully place your pan of full-ish ramekins on the center rack.
9. By now, your tea kettle of water should be ready, nice and boiling hot!  Mine clicked off just as I reached for it.
10. Very carefully pour water slowly into the pan already sitting on the oven rack, it'll be too full to move around much until the water cools completely, so don't go trying to do this before you set it on the rack!
11. Again,  very carefully, slide the rack into the oven, moving slowly so the water doesn't slosh and burn you or mess up your custards!
12. Set a timer for 25 or 30 minutes and go read or write a blog post!  (Because that's what I did.)
13. When your timer goes off, stick a butter knife into the center of one of your custards, of nothing comes out on the knife (a few flakes of coconut from the top are okay), you are done!  If not, set the timer for another 5 minutes and come back again and test a different one.
14. Remember, that water bath is going to be even hotter now that it spent 30 minutes in a hot oven!  Do not touch the water and be very careful when moving the rack in and out!  Using a pair of tongs that you can grip your ramekins with, carefully lift each out of the hot water and place on the stove (or counter) to cool, these will end up  in the fridge after they reach room-temp.
15. Carefully slide the hot water bath back into the oven and turn it off.
16. When the water is cool, you can deal with that pan, for now, just be sure you don't get hurt sliding it back in the oven!

I actually forgot the Coconut until after I topped them all with Nutmeg, but I like Nutmeg and the straining strained all of the previous Nutmeg out, so we'll see how "Nutmeg-like" they taste!  Also, coconut extract, emulsion (it's like extract but you don't use as much), or even subbing in some Coconut DaVinci's for part of the sweeteners would add to the Coconut flavor.

 This treat is currently cooling on top of my stove...it's gonna be a Coconut kind of day around here!