valentine's day, snow & what low carb isn't

It's a snowy Valentine's Day, here in Henderson, Kentucky.  How's the weather where you?  Good, I hope and I hope you're celebrating the day with your loved ones.  If there's snow in your area - how about going sledding with your valentine?  I love to go sledding.  There's nothing like riding a sled down a snow covered hill.  The only part I'm not so fond of is trying to walk back up the hill:) 
When I was growing up my oldest sister would take us sledding.  Sometimes my Dad would go to.  My Mother would always stay home.  When we returned, she'd meet us at the door with dry clothes & towels.  Then we'd sit around the kitchen table sipping the homemade cocoa she'd make while we were gone.  Those were the days!
Well, let's talk about my low carb kitchen.  This last week, I've been cooking a lot of fish. I've also been eating fish sometimes twice a day - for lunch & for supper.  If you like fish & horseradish, here's a great "fish salad" that I've been having for lunch - microwave a fish filet, mix mayo & horseradish together to make a sauce for the fish.  Then add the fish to the sauce and flake with a fork.  I love horseradish, so this dish is great for me.  If you like fish & horseradish, you might want to give it a try, too.  I'll post the recipe on the website later today.
One of the reasons I like fish so much is because it's so versatile.  Fish is good for you, it's low or no carb, and there are so many different varieties.  You can eat hot, cold, in a soup, on a sandwich, by itself, with veggies, etc.  Thankfully most of my family likes just about every kind of fish, too.  How about shrimp cocktail for a snack?  Shrimp has no carbs & you can easily make your own low carb cocktail sauce (there's a recipe on the website.)  We keep a bag of frozen precooked, shelled shrimp in the freezer - when you want a snack put the shrimp in cold water to thaw.  How about a good salmon recipe?  Look on the website for broiled salmon with honey soy sauce - it's delicious.
My thought for the day is this - you don't have to be a big "meat" eater to enjoy a low carb lifestyle.  I rarely eat beef but I have followed a low carb lifestyle for over 3 years.  Contrary to popular belief, low carb isn't just eggs, meat & cheese.  Studies have shown that most low carbers eat more vegetables than those on other types of diets.
Have a great Sunday and a great Valentine's Day!!

pork carnitas & valentine's sweets

Good afternoon!  I hope your day is going well and I hope your home smells as good as mine does right now!  I'm cooking pork carnitas and the aroma is wonderful.  I've also made a mexican-style coleslaw to go with the pork.  I'll post the recipes for both later on this evening. 
Since Valentine's Day is just around the corner I thought I'd share some ideas for celebrating, as far as food goes.  But first of all let me share one of my sweetest Valentine's memories with you. I worked in an office with about 10 other women.  Valentine's Day fell on a Thursday that year.  On Monday morning, much to my surprise, I received a single rose in a bud vase - I think it was yellow.  My coworkers had a good laugh.  They joked all day about how at least my husband sent something to me, even if he did have his days mixed up.  When I got home from work that day, I thanked him for the flowers and he just smiled and said "you're very welcome." 
The next day, Tuesday, my coworkers were all still having a good laugh about the early delivery.  As they were joking about it I received another delivery - a single rose in a bud vase.  They quit laughing after that!  I also received another rose on Wednesday.  On Thursday, I received a single long-stem deep red rose (my favorite)!  I thought after getting the delivery on Thursday, that would be the last one, but sure enough, Friday came and I received another delivery. 
I have the best husband!!  He always makes Valentine's Day special.  This year I already know something I'm getting.  Every year at Christmas we dance in the gazebo in Central Park while he sings "The Christmas Song" (chestnuts roasting on an open fire..)  Unfortunately we both kind of forgot this year - I think it had to do with some distracting family drama. Anyway, we're having our dance in the gazebo.  I wonder if he has a song in mind...
Back to the kitchen, so no matter who you are celebrating with or spending Valentine's Day with this year, there are so many low carb options now.  If you're cooking, check out some of the recipes on the website.  You can whip up something for breakfast, lunch or dinner.  How about serving your special someone a breakfast in bed - make sure you cook enough for yourself, too.  Who doesn't like breakfast in bed?
Or how about a nice slow cooked pork tenderloin?  Perhaps you'd prefer beef, seafood or chicken.  There are so many possibilities.  You might even want to whip up a cheesecake.  Or check out the low carb muffin recipe.
So, I've discussed flowers and food but what about those special little sweet treats?  After starting low carb, I remember receiving from my husband a very little box of chocolates.  We'd share them with the kids and that would be our splurge.  Nowadays, there are so many options for low carb sweets.  If you can't find a pretty red box with sugar free chocolates or candies, make your own basket.  Just find a small basket, fill with some sugar free chocolates or sugar free hard candy.  If you want your basket to look extra special, go to your local fabric store and pick up some tulle & ribbon for a bow.  Lay the tulle out flat on a table, place the basket in the middle, bring the edges up around the basket & tie together with a bow.  You could also use a small piece of lace.
I think I hear my carnitas calling me.  I'll leave you with this thought for Valentine's Day - just remember, it's the thought that counts!

super bowl sunday & my mother-in-law's birthday

Who's gonna win the super bowl?  The score is really close right now:)  And there's not too much time left!
I don't know about you but we sure had a busy weekend at our house.  I spent the afternoon on Saturday at the grocery store and I think everyone else in town was there, too!  I bought enough groceries to stock my refrigerator and my pantry.  We're supposed to have snow move in Monday night, so I didn't want to have to step foot in a grocery store again this week.  Especially since every other person in town was in the store on Saturday afternoon - it took me forever! 
I ended up spending the evening in the kitchen last night.  I cooked up a batch of Matt's very, very spicy chili.  I also whipped up a "company cheesecake".  We had a get together for my mother-in-law today to celebrate her bithday.  Happy Birthday, Bettye! 
Each family brought a pot of soup.  A couple of us were supposed to bring desserts but I'm the only one that made a dessert.  I wanted to take a dessert so that we would have a low carb option for anyone watching their carbs.  I also took some of the milled flax seed bread with caraway seeds.
The chili was a huge hit.  Everyone really, really liked it.  Thanks to my son, Matt, for coming up with the recipe.  Okay, so a couple of people put crackers in it, but that's okay.  The flax seed bread was a big hit, too - I'm glad everyone liked it.  I had some with peanut butter on it, to go with my chili.
I'm also really glad I made the cheesecake.  Everyone loved it and it turned out to be the only dessert.  My mother-in-law really liked it, too.  So I'm glad she had a nice dessert to celebrate her birthday.  I hope she gets to feeling better though, she's a bit under the weather.
I'll be back in the kitchen tomorrow, whipping up a few new recipes.  This week I'll be posting a recipe for carnitas, so if you like mexican food be sure to check back later on in the week.  Well, it's time to finish watching the game.

takin' a break from the kitchen

It's been a long week and I'm ready for a break!  We may get some snow tonight but even though my groceries are running low, I just couldn't make myself go to the store after work today.  Of course, the store will be packed if there's a chance of snow because that's what everyone does around here when it's going to snow. 
Early last week, our forcast called for snow later in the week.  Well, about mid week I was reading a local news story about the bread factory and how they had started making extra bread so the stores wouldn't run out since there was a chance of snow.  They came up with a term for the stockpiles of bread - "snow bread" - isn't that crazy?!  I wonder if they stockpiled their low carb breads, too...
Today at work, they delivered free pizza to each department and encouraged departments to have carry-ins to bring in other "super bowl" types of food.  The day started out with one of our teams bringing in breakfast foods - bagels & doughnuts.  I took eggs with me for breakfast and thought I might top them with cream cheese from the bagels, but the cream cheese spreads were very sugary.  So I had plain eggs.  For lunch, along with the pizzas, there were chips, chips & more chips.  The selection went downhill from there but alas, someone brought in cheese!  So I had cheese & pepperoni for lunch - that was pretty good!
Okay, back to the kitchen, since I had no desire to stop at the grocery store or cook tonight, I needed an alternative for us for supper.  I still had pizza on my mind, so I placed an order for salads from one of our better pizza places in town.  I told them to hold the croutons, so our salads will be pretty low carb.  They use a lot of grated cheese on their salads - just the way I like them.  Oh, and I had them include 50 hot wings - I know they're low carb because I have their recipe :) 
My mouth is watering and the delivery man just pulled up.  Gotta go, see you back in the kitchen tomorrow!

old favorites & new recipes

Good morning!  When we first started our low carb lifestyle, we pretty much stuck to the basics - eggs, meat, cheese, fish and a little salad.  After a few months, we craved a little variety so I began my journey to learn more about carbs.  We were looking to expand our low carb food options, so I began researching net carbs and religously checking nutrition labels in my quest to find more foods that we could eat.  Shortly thereafter, I discovered that a lot of traditional foods that I grew up with and foods that my family liked could be converted into low carb recipes. 
Well, yesterday I had a craving for the fish sandwiches that my Dad would sometimes order from a small little tavern in our neighborhood.  My mother preferred their brain sandwiches - yuck!  But my Dad & I always had the fish sandwiches, on rye bread.  I wasn't a big fan of rye bread when I was younger but the sandwiches were awesome.
So, yesterday I was on a quest to develop a crispy, fried fish sandwich - just like the ones we used to get from the tavern.  My first try was a total success!  I'll post the recipe in just a little while, but just so that you know it was really, really easy.  Ingredients included tilapia, eggs, parmesan cheese & olive oil.  While I thawed my fish, I whipped up a batch of milled flax seed flat bread with caraway seed.  You can find this recipe on the website, too!  The bread only takes about 5 minutes or less to whip up and only 20 minutes to bake.
As my bread was baking, I began frying the fish.  Most people think that when you are watching your carbs, you can't eat anything fried, but that is simply not true.  You can prepare awesome fried foods without flour.  Parmesan cheese works great for frying chicken, using as a bread substitute in salmon patties or for breading fish.  I'm even thinking about trying it on some low carb veggies.  We'll see how that goes.
Back to my kitchen... when the bread finished, I cut it into nice even pieces [almost], spread some mayo on the bread and added the fish.  I must admit, the sandwiches exceeded my expectations - they were absolutely fantastic!  I think the next time I make them, I'll add some cheese and maybe some tartar sauce.  I'm not sure on the carb count for tartar sauce, so I might have to come up with my own recipe...
Time for me to go, have a great low carb day!!

busy day, not much time for cooking

I knew today was going to be a hectic day..  What I didn't know was that I was going to have to do some work from home this evening.  I had to rush home and check my email to figure out when I would need to finish up.  So, instead of checking my email and then waiting until 9 pm to dial back in and finish up, I ended up working for a while before I started supper.
Thankfully, I was prepared to fix a quick and easy meal tonight.  A few minutes of prep & about 45 minutes of stirring occasionally resulted in a really nice meal.  We had an oriental beef dish with veggies.  The recipe is posted on the website under Other Recipes.
In the meantime, my husband, the burger lover that he is, fixed some burgers - stuffed with some of his favorite ingredients.  Last night, he cooked what I would consider over-dressed burgers.  Tonight he fixed 4 different kinds of burgers - bleu cheese, cheddar & bacon, jalapeno & cheddar and last, but not least, a burger stuffed with feta cheese.  Wow, they were great!  I thought we'd save them for supper tomorrow night, but that didn't work out.  I think there is one left!  Great job, Brian. I'll post his burger recipes later this week.
We had fun working in the kitchen together tonight & we weren't in there too long.  Lately, I've been spending a lot of time in the kitchen working on low carb recipes.  I've been trying all sorts of new things so that I can provide lots of variety in the recipes I add to the website.  When Brian cooks he likes to have something fast and easy that he can fix.  Just keep in mind - low carb meals and cooking are all about being prepared.  I keep fish fillets & premade burgers in the freezer - 2 of Brian's favorite things to cook. 
Well, it's about time for me to dial in to work and finish up my work day.  Stayed tuned this week for more valentine's day recipes and maybe even some additional super bowl recipes - just in time for the big game!  And my mother-in-law's birthday - it's on Sunday, too.  I'm taking Matt's very, very spicy chili and company cheesecake - you can find the recipes on the website.

thinking about valentine's day

Sometimes I find that fixing a meal at home is much easier than going out for a meal, unless I'm already out.  I guess that could be because our town doesn't have a lot of really good restaurants.  Or the ones that we do have, we frequent enough that they don't seem too "special" anymore, at least not "special" enough for a "special occasion."  I hope that makes sense...
I've been working on low carb "romantic" ideas for having a nice date night at home.  With a little planning, you can have a very nice, special valentine's day dinner at home. Well, I was at the store the other day and there was a special on cornish hens - $2.47 each... I didn't think I had ever had one and well, they are so cute. I decided I'd try making them because I thought they would be really cute on a plate.  Weird, huh!
I also bought a shrimp cocktail package (on sale for $5) - the kind with the precooked, peeled shrimp & cocktail sauce.  
The cornish hens were frozen, as was the shrimp cocktail, so I placed both packages in the refrigerator (not freezer) when I came home from the grocery store.  That was 3 days ago.   
When I came home from work this evening, I decided to have cornish hens, shrimp cocktail & green beans as one of my romantic meal ideas.  I preheated the oven, seasoned the cornish hens and placed them in the oven.  The hens needed to cook for 1 hr and 15 to 30 minutes.  I also put on a pot with green beans & turnips - very easy!
While the cornish hens & green beans were cooking, I worked out on my eliptical rider.  I'm all about multitasking!! My workout lasted about 40 minutes, so I had a little time to spare before the cornish hens would be finished cooking.  I took the shrimp cocktail package out of the refrigerator & the threw away the premade cocktail sauce - because it's typically high in carbs.  Then I made my own cocktail sauce.  Very simple, low carb ketchup, horseradish & Louisiana hot sauce - it was really, really good. 
My point is this, with about 15 minutes or so of prep work, I had a really nice "special" meal.  Just a little something different but still very good and very low carb.  Check out the 3 recipes on the website: cornish hens, shrimp cocktail sauce and green beans with turnips.  A really nice meal for 2 that cost less than $15!  You can't beat that!