ArcaMax

Can you run the grocery store gauntlet? Zola and I do it several times a week.

First a little background: British fighting men had a form of corporal punishment in which the accused had to run between two rows of soldiers who whipped and beat him as he passed by. The beatings were severe, and the victims often died as a result. That was called “running the gauntlet.”

Isn’t it nice that we live in a kinder gentler time?

Or do we?

American grocery stores have rows and rows of soft drinks and processed foods that can kill you. Not kill you right away, of course, but these foods can fatten you, sicken you and ultimately kill you. Processed foods take a huge toll on our bodies. According to Data Check Pro, here are the top ten grocery items in America...

Read the full column at PlanZDiet.com

Caramel Sauce

I never thought I’d be able to come up with a caramel sauce. It’s tricky to make, and my favorite caramel sauce recipe has sweetened condensed milk in it. That’s not something I eat anymore.

This caramel sauce recipe is fairly easy to make. You just need to keep an eye on it and use a large sauce pan even though the ingredients won’t be very deep in the pan. That’s the only way to get the butter and sweetener to caramelize. The first time I made it I used what I thought was a large enough pan, but it took too long to cook and eventually separated before it was finished. I had to start over. The inspiration recipe I used is from a woman named Maya Krampf. Her website is WholesomeYum.com. I’m sure she’d appreciate it if you check that out. My recipe is almost the same as hers; just a slight variation or two.

A couple of hints: You’ll want to serve this caramel sauce the day you make it. I served it about 30 minutes after I made it. It was still warm. As it cools it will thicken a bit more and that’s perfectly fine. I did refrigerate the leftovers and that’s not good. It turns back into a block of sweetened butter-ish stuff and it doesn’t reheat well. It separates when you bring it back up to a warm temperature.

So you can make this early in the day and just let it sit at room temperature until you are ready to serve it. If you reheat it very gently in the pan I think it will warm up again without separating.

And as Maya pointed out, you don’t want to double or triple the recipe because it takes forever to cook and might separate like mine did the first time around. If you need more, I suggest you make two separate batches.

I added some grated sea salt to mine and came up with salted caramel sauce. That’s an option. I served mine with sliced apples. Dipping the apple slices in the caramel sauce was fun and makes you feel like a kid again. I’ve listed some more options at the bottom of the recipe too.

Ingredients:

1/3 cup of butter
3 Tbl of sweetener. I used Swerve. You can also use ZSweet. If you use Truvia it might have a tinny taste. Truvia doesn’t heat well. You can buy both of the recommended sweeteners online. You could also use a brown sugar substitute. Maya recommends Sukrin Gold. I found that online, too. Be sure to use granular sweetener. I don’t think a liquid sweetener will work for this recipe.
2/3 cup of heavy whipping cream
1 tsp of organic vanilla

Instructions:

Put the butter in a medium-large sauce pan. Mine is about eight inches across. Add the sweetener of choice and melt on medium. Stir regularly and cook for three to four minutes until it’s golden brown. Watch this carefully so you don’t burn it.

Add the cream. Bring to a gentle boil; just bubbling and reduce to a gentle simmer. I put mine on low. Cook for seven to ten minutes; stirring regularly until the sauce is a nice caramel color and will coat the back of a spoon. Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla.

Variations and serving ideas:

I added a nice grate of sea salt to make salted caramel.

You can serve this over ice cream. There are ice cream recipes on Plan Z. I also sometimes buy a small carton of organic coconut milk ice cream or Haagen Daz now makes little cartons. Just keep your portion to 15 grams of carbs or less and make sure you’re in ZReboot and fully stabilized before you venture in this direction.

Serve with sliced apples for a nice treat like I did.

You could also chop up some peanuts and sprinkle those on or dip your slices in chopped peanuts for a caramel apple treat. This way you get the experience of the treat without eating a whole large caramel apple.

You could serve it with grapes that have tooth picks in them. I just don’t recommend eating a lot of grapes.

For the fancy dinner party you might consider making almond pound cake and serve it with a nice drizzle of caramel sauce on top.

Instead of the fruit and cream, for a dinner party I’m going to fry wedges of the pound cake and drizzle with caramel sauce and maybe a squirt of truvia-sweetened whipped cream.

Enjoy!
Cheers,
Zola