Whole Lotta Cookin’ Going On

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chicken zoodle soup

Evenings are quite cold now. Time for my carb chicken zoodle soup.

Sorry for the lack of posts recently. The husband and I decided to pack up the pup and take a road trip to Texas to visit my sister. We loved the trip and it’s always great to see family. But once home, I got back into the kitchen. The thought of eating out again made my head spin.

So over the last few days I’ve whipped up some of my favorite and easy dishes: chili, chicken zoodle soup, Scotch eggs, taco omelets, and huge Cobb salads.

I also had a good time trying out a few new recipes. The biggest mistakes I made with my garden this year?  Not enough low carb/keto recipes for all the food I grew.  Planning is well ahead for 2020. I finally figured out what I want to grow. Now it’s time to start concocting some tasty and keto friendly dishes.

taco casserole

Layering the first test of my taco casserole. A few more tweaks and it’s a go!

This week I tried out 3 recipes. Two need work. The third…a disaster never to be spoken of again.

  • Shredded chicken taco casserole (too many eggs, not enough smokey salsa!)
  • Roasted poblano soup (too many carbs!!!!),
  • “What was I thinking” casserole (always make sure the diced zucchini you grab isn’t actually cucumber instead).

After several days of cooking, experimenting and cleaning, the itch to go out for dinner hit me real hard. Thankfully my husband just ignored my hints and I went back into the kitchen to cook some Peruvian chicken with green sauce and green beans.

hungry pup

My constant companion while I cook. Just waiting for morsels to fall or a few scritches.

Dinner was delicious. We saved money. Most importantly, I’m loving being back in the kitchen.

And the timing is good with Thanksgiving just weeks a way. Let the cooking (and recipe testing) commence!

 

Over 140+ Low Carb Recipes

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I started this blog years ago to keep myself focused on living a low carb lifestyle. Over the last two years, I’ve also built a YouTube channel for others who want to eat Low Carb (or eat Keto), but who don’t know how, or who need ideas. I used to keep all my recipes in the “video description,” but that was difficult for people to print. To fix that, I added a blog menu item called Low Carb Recipes. Previously, if you clicked it, you’d go to a page showing all 140+ low carb recipes listed one after another. Well, I just categorized it — with pictures! Or rather, my husband did. I came up with the categories, and he put it together. So now you can choose by keto desserts, keto casseroles, low carb breakfasts, low carb meat dishes, keto side dishes, etc., all at a glance. I guess I’m telling you because:

  • I haven’t posted here as much as I wanted to originally, and I want you to know what I’ve been up to over on Youtube.
  • If you were discouraged by the jumbled organization of the recipe page, I wanted you to know I was too, and that it’s changed.

So there you go 🙂  Hope you like the recipes! Please let me know if there are any dead links or mismatches. We tried our best to make sure every picture goes to a recipe page, but we may have missed something.

Merry Christmas!

DIY Italian Seasoning

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meatballs

Yes I got up early. And I have just enough energy to whip up some meatballs, tomato sauce and a lovely smelling batch of Italian seasoning. Now time for a nap!

Thanks to my wonderful pup (I have to tell myself that right now), I woke up at 4:30 a.m. She decided that I was in bed long enough. And she had things to do…like play, eat, play, go for a walk, and play.

In between 2 play sessions, I decided to make some coffee to help wake me up.

D’oh! Never make coffee when you are sleepy…or with the lights off. Never! Bad things happen. Now I don’t know what happened since the lights were off, but it was the worst thing I’ve ever created.

Sure enough that awful taste woke me up. I think I brushed my teeth 20 times.

I’m hoping to catch a quick nap soon. But for some reason I decided I needed to make a batch of Italian meatballs. And that lead to whipping up some tomato sauce.

But before either, I had to make my own Italian seasoning. Why? Because I have no Italian seasoning in my house. I stopped buying it because I figured I can make my own. Of course I picked the morning with lack of sleep to do it.

Of course.

Soon all will be in the slow cooker.

Then the nap.

Italian Seasoning Recipe
The Italian seasoning smells wonderful. It seems like I got that right.  I kept it with 6 ingredients: basil, marjoram, oregano, rosemary, thyme and sage. I decided to leave the garlic powder out since I tend to use real garlic. I also left out the red pepper flakes…for now. I may reconsider. I do love heat.

This makes yields about 52 servings with a serving size of 1/2 teaspoon. Net carbs are 0g (0.2g total carbs).

Italian Seasoning
Serving size: 1/2 teaspoon
Yield: 52 servings

  • 2 tbsp. Dried basil leaves
  • 2 tbsp. Dried oregano leaves
  • 2 tbsp. dried marjoram leaves
  • 1 tbsp. Dried Rosemary leaves, crumbled
  • 1 tbsp. Dried thyme leaves
  • 2 tsp. Dried sage leaves
  • 1 tbsp. Red Pepper Flakes (optional; may use less for less heat)

Nutrition: 1 Calorie/0g Protein/0g Fat/0.2g Carbs/0.2g Fiber

Roasted Salsa Verde & Bonus Recipe

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Roasted salsa verde…so easy to make…so delicious.  This 3 cup recipe lasts for a week. Seems like a lot for so little time but I promise you, you’ll want to add it to everything — casseroles, omelets, salads, pork, chicken and fish dishes. Or you can go the traditional route and use it as a dip with your vegetable crudités. Trust me you’ll forget about those unhealthy corn chips.

Bonus Recipe! Salsa Roja
Turns out the day I’m posting my roasted salsa verde recipe, The Domestic Man, posts his Salsa Roja. It looks so tasty that I’m making a batch this weekend. Normally my red salsa is raw — no roasting. But if I’m roasting my salsa verde why not try it with the red salsa too!

Plus he goes the extra mile and uses a mortar to better grind the salsa. Now that is a true chef! Not to fear. A food processor or blender works just as well.

Check out the recipe and his blog. The recipes are healthy and mouth-watering!

Building A Better Burger

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butter burger 2

One of my attempts at creating a Chipotle Butter Burger using 95/5 grass-fed ground beef. This one came out too dry. The applewood smoked gouda cheese on top helped to salvage this dinner.

It’s grilling season, which means it’s time to experiment and create the most awesome, badass burger. Last year we couldn’t get enough of the guacamole burger (guacamole was inside the burger!). This year I’m working with 2 key ingredients – chipotle peppers and butter.

Oh yeah! My own butter burger.

My first couple of attempts didn’t work out as planned. Either there was too much fat in the ground beef (I use 73% or 80%) or too little (93% and 95% don’t have much flavor to me).

Too much fat (I can’t believe this low carber is typing “too much fat!”) triggers lots of flare-ups on the grill. The meat ended up as tough as a hockey puck. Yuck!

Too little and it taste like cardboard.

Maybe when I hit the sweet spot I should call it the Goldilocks Burger. Heh!  Read More

Gumbo!

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Here is a low carb attempt at gumbo that turned out pretty tasty.  I’ve made LCHF approved gumbo before, but this is the first time I made it with roux. For those of you from New Orleans, please forgive me. I didn’t use wheat. Instead I combined coconut and almond flour with butter.

Still it came out tasty.  The husband was able to try some before I added the shrimp and he loved it.

Grilled Thai Steak Salad

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I’ve been caught up in a whirlwind of chores, home repairs and working out that blogging has taken a back seat (unfortunately).  But the good news is that my energy level is up. I don’t know if it’s due to changes in my supplements, the mindfulness is kicking in, my increased workout schedule or a combo of the three.

Just a couple of big projects to wrap up and then regularly scheduled blogging and cooking videos can commence.  Whew!

Anyway, here is a great way to start your day:  Grilled Thai Steak Salad.

Yep, that’s right. A salad for breakfast.

Perfecting The Butter Burger

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butter burger 2

My second attempt at perfecting the Butter Burger. I’m closer with this one.

I’m finally feeling a heck of a lot better after being in bed for the last 6 days. I got hit with a nasty cold. I made the mistake of thinking I bounced back pretty quickly on Sunday. I felt great and it was a beautiful day. So after walking the dogs, grocery shopping and a few errands, rather than resting I decided to do some grilling for lunch.

So I started my second attempt at a butter burger. My first didn’t go as well as I hoped. You are supposed to put a pat of butter in the middle of your ground beef before it hits the grill. Well I found that it just melts out and the burger isn’t any more juicy for it. Read More

Time For Some Saucy Meatloaf

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I was never a big fan of meatloaf. Just too dry for my liking. Whenever my family had it, I’d secretly wish we’d just had burgers. Because Dad’s burgers were awesomely juicy.  I always had to have a large beverage on hand with any meatloaf to try to choke it down. Ugh!

Well those days are gone. Just adding some of my tomato sauce to the mix did the trick. It smells and tastes like lasagna without the carb-loaded noodles!

I made this one for mom. She pretty much devoured it.

Enjoy!