Whole Lotta Cookin’ Going On

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!

 



Building A Better Burger

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!

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

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

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

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!


Slow Roasted Pork Belly

OK, this video is way longer than my other ones. But the pork is absolutely delicious. While I make 2 slight modifications (1 due to lack of ingredients, the other to add more healthy fat), it isn’t my recipe. I recreated a Gordon Ramsay dish and I have to say the man knows his stuff!

One of the joys of cooking I’ve discovered is using new ingredients. This dish includes two: star anise (which looks like little ninja throwing star!) and cardamom pods. Awesome aromatics that I plan to use again!


Lemon Herb Chicken Casserole

This video is actually two recipes in one. The first is for my lemon herb chicken. The chicken comes out so tender, juicy and delicious. Normally I use chicken thighs with skin. But the second recipe — a creamy chicken casserole — calls for no skin.

The casserole recipe is from The Ketogenic Cookbook and is wonderful. You can use any leftover chicken for the dish, but my lemon herb chicken a nice flavor.

Both are tasty and easy to make.


Chicken Stuffed Peppers

My dad use to make stuffed peppers when I was a kid. Green peppers, diced onions, cheese, ground beef, hot sauce and “milk.” Actually I think the milk was really cream of mushroom soup, but it’s not like that’s something you can tell 5 food-fussy kids. A man’s gotta do what he’s gotta do, right?

Anyway here’s a version from The Complete Guide To Fasting by Dr. Jason Fung (yes, a fasting book with recipes!). This recipe replaces ground beef with chicken and tosses in some spices and grape tomatoes.

Easy to make and, like other recipes from the book I’ve tried, very yummy.