Some Good #Lowcarb Eatin' This Week! #recipes

Just a few Cheap'n'Easy Low Carb meal ideas, in case you're interested :).

Pork dinner: I love pork with something sweet! Saturday I made a very pretty and delicious roast pork rib (country style) dinner that was easy prep and easy cook! Got some brussels sprouts out of the freezer, and tossed them in a bowl with a little olive oil and sea salt. Washed 3 small sweet potatoes and put them in the oven to roast, right on the rack. Seasoned my pork (this time very simply - S&P, garlic and onion powders) and put it into the oven. Then I sat with my feet up for about 30 minutes while I checked my facebook and email accounts. Poured the brussels sprouts onto a small baking sheet and added it to my oven for the last 30 minutes or so. Fiddled around for another half hour, then dinner was ready. Beautiful plates of color and nutrition! Served my sweet potato with a lot of butter and cinnamon, and a little brown Sugar Twin. Everything else was perfect as it was. Served 3 of us for about $7.

Fish dinner: While I really love crunchy coated fried fish, I've never managed to get it right. The coating either slides off or sticks to the pan, and I'm not sure why. (Christmas gift idea - a deep fryer that doesn't have a nonstick coating!) So I usually just season and bake my fish. On Monday it was pollock, which is so easy! I coat both sides with butter/olive oil mixture, very lightly sprinkle some coconut flour and seafood seasoning on top, and that's it. I had a couple of small potatoes (most low carbers don't eat potatoes at all; I eat 1-2 small ones/week) so I cut those into chunks, tossed with olive oil and sea salt, and roasted them at 375. Then I put a couple of Tbsp of butter in a saucepan with a couple cupfuls of frozen chopped spinach, covered, and set it on the "vent burner." After the potatoes had a 20-minute head start I put the fish in the oven and let them get acquainted in there for 25 minutes. When it was time to serve I turned the vent burner on and added a splash of lemon juice to the spinach while I pulled the fish and potatoes out of the oven, poured drinks, and so forth; since the spinach was already thawed and warm it only took a minute and a quick stir before it was good and hot. $4 for the meal for 2 of us.

Steak dinner: As I've mentioned, I buy chuck - it is my favorite cut, and it is cheap. And I buy the roasts, which I slice across into 2 "steaks" when I get home. I have grilled these, broiled them, fried them, you name it, and they act and taste like the chuck steaks that cost more. Anyway...I fried a chopped-up onion in plenty of bacon fat, then moved it to the side and added a "steak" that I had cut into big (about 2 oz.) chunks. Seasoned with sea salt and granulated garlic. I turned them until they were nice and brown on each side, but rare in the middle (how we like it). With a salad on the side, this was a great meal for about $4.50.

Chicken and bacon: I put my chicken thighs and bacon into the oven in separate pans (because I save my bacon fat) and just cook them together. I think chicken and bacon go well together, and with a big heaping side of my saucy green beans it makes a great meal. Plus, the next day we get another meal out of a big plateful of greens or lettuce (this week lettuce because I'd gotten it on sale), piled with leftover chicken and bacon plus a handful of shredded cheese and some chopped veggies - whatever is in the fridge at the time. Lots of food, very filling, about $3 for both plates of salad fixed the way we had them this week.

Saucy green beans: Everybody loves these, but they're so simple! I melt some bacon fat in a saute pan, and add the powdered onion (not granulated, it's fine powder, like flour), and it makes like a roux - maybe 3 Tbsp of bacon fat and 1 tsp of onion powder will do it. Once it thickens I add my frozen whole baby green beans, some sea salt, and some granulated garlic and cover. As soon as the beans are softened, I stir it all together and return the cover to let the beans cook well (but not mushy). The liquid comes out of the beans and mixes with the "roux" and makes a lovely light but tasty sauce. So easy but really REALLY great! And cheap - about a buck for the whole panful which serves 4 - or 2 when my husband and I have them :). Add some bacon and it's a light meal!

Simple Stir-Fry: Only it's not really a stir-fry because I don't make it like the Chinese do, in a hot wok, quickly. But I don't know what else to call it. I use an electric skillet, and fry my meat chunks and chopped onion in fat. Then I throw in a package of frozen stir-fry vegetables and a package of cole slaw mix, season with soy sauce, ginger, and sesame oil, toss it all together, lower the heat, and that's it. Ready to eat in about 10 minutes. Depending on what I have on hand I also have been known to add a can of baby corn, water chestnuts, mushrooms...whatever. Sometimes I chop up shirataki noodles and add those too (at the beginning, with the meat and onion). But it is filling, inexpensive (under $5 for 4 portions - and the 2 or 3 of us usually eat it all), fast, and easy.

Cucumber salad: Did I already write about this? I take 4 cukes, peeled and seeded and cut into bite-sized chunks...4 tomatoes, de-seeded and cut into bite-sized chunks...1 onion (red is pretty, sweet yellow ones are tastiest, sometimes I use both!) sliced into thin slivers...toss with balsamic vinaigrette and a little sea salt. The longer it sits in the fridge the better it tastes - next-day is excellent! We paid 49c each for the big cukes, the tomatoes were from our own plant, and the onion was about 50c ($1.29/lb, less than 1/2#). The balsamic vinaigrette was $1.79 for the bottle, I used 1/4 of the bottle. So the salad, which feeds both of us for several meals/snacks (8 servings?) cost $3 with the free tomatoes. I've taken this to church potluck and gotten rave reviews, and it is colorful and beautiful as well!

This is what we've been eating the last few days. Of course we've also had breakfasts and other things, but we've had some great suppertime meals using the bounty of groceries I purchased on Saturday morning!

A Great Food Day Today, Too! #lowcarb

My beloved Petey made us ham and cheese omelets for breakfast today, really hit the spot!

Midday meal was tilapia, oven-fried in some olive oil and butter at a high (425F) temp until crispy around the edges and tender in the center, and green salads with shrimp and ranch dressing.

Supper was some Dreamfield's spaghetti with butter, just enough low-carb pasta sauce to turn it pink, and parmesan cheese.

Really a lovely day, with simple, inexpensive, but delicious food!

Lovely #Lowcarb Spinach Salad...PLUS lunch!

Last night I made a lovely spinach salad. I finely chopped about 1/4c of onion and fried it in bacon fat until translucent, then added some already-cooked bacon, chopped. Then about 1/4c of coconut oil, 1T of granular splenda and 2T of Ideal sweetener (I mix the splenda with the ideal until the splenda is used up - then I will be an Ideal cook!), a few scrapings of nutmeg, and a splash of balsamic vinegar. This I tossed with spinach leaves and chopped hard-boiled eggs, and it was an amazing salad for supper!

The bacon was $1.49/lb. The whole bag of spinach leaves was $1.99 - I used half. The onion was about 50c. The eggs were 11c each, I used 4. Excellent generous-sized supper for 2, for about $4.00.

Today I spread some honey mustard on a slice of Flatout flat bread and loaded it up with more spinach leaves and leftover (warmed) bacon, then rolled it up - it was really loaded and really thick - and REALLY REALLY GOOD! Excellent lunch!

Tonight: Dreamfield's pasta with EVOO, butter, and cheeses (sauce for hubby but not for me). Leftover grilled ground beef patty on the side. Each of us will eat for about $2.

Has It Really Been 10 DAYS??? #lowcarb

Wow, I can't believe so much time has passed. Things have been so busy here, that sitting down to blog has been one of the "I'll do that when I'm done with this" things I've needed to do...along with making yogurt and several other things. But 10 days??? I feel really badly about that!

Eating has been going just fine. Haven't had to shop for anything much, but I did go yesterday to Sav-a-Lot because I forgot to get something out of the freezer for supper. I found big fat sirloin pork chops for $1.29/lb, and they had $2 off stickers on them! So I got a bunch of those. Also ground chuck, that were $1.99/lb with 50¢ off stickers, so I got several 1# packages. A couple loaves of "light" italian bread for $1.49/loaf (usually 2/$5) for my husband, and a bag of salad mix for $1.

So far this month our grocery bill is just about $350. (I lost one receipt so I can't say for sure but that's a pretty close guess.) For 3 adults - 4 on Sundays when my mom is here - and certainly much of this will carry over into next month. It's kind of deceiving, the monthly tally; just because I buy so-much in a month, doesn't mean that's how much it costs for us to eat. At the end of each month my big freezer is more full than it was at the end of the previous month, since I stockpile when I see a sale.

Anyway, here are a couple of photos from meals I've eaten in the last 10 days, with explanations to follow:



First pic was grilled steak (lovely to have the grill out now that it's spring!), salad with an onion dressing, and halved mini-eggplants, roasted and served with a generous blob of butter on them. It was an excellent meal!

2nd pic was a GREAT salad, loaded with turkey and bacon, eaten with onion dressing, and a lowcarb tortilla that had been brushed with olive oil, topped with italian cheese blend, and stuck in a low oven for a few minutes, on the side.

Today is still up for grabs. Not sure what will be had for supper, or whatever else we'll eat. Today I've been catching up on emails and - obviously - blogging, and haven't given much thought to anything else. I'll report back :).