The Day After #Cataract Surgery

Sorry...I posted this entry in the wrong blog - if you are interested in reading it, you can find it at my other blog.

Your Lighter Side...: To our (

http://blog.yourlighterside.com/2010/09/to-our-friends-in-corn...

YOU GO, JAMIE! So much common sense here, hope the corn industry sits up and takes notice! (As an aside, I've used xylitol as my main sweetener for several years and love the stuff!)

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Change of plans! A not-so- #lowcarb supper but it was great!

Was going to have fish with roasted radicchio but when the fish thawed it had a strong odor so I threw it out. We had some potatoes in the house (a rarity!) and dinnertime was upon us so I decided on an old standby from my early days when it was just Casey and I. She was little, we were alone and broke (in spite of my 2 jobs), and we ate pretty darned cheaply. One of our favorite cheap dinners was stuffed baked potatoes. I haven't had one in years!



So today it was a medium-sized thick-skinned russet, baked until the skin crisped up and the flesh was fluffy. I scooped out half the flesh for my toddler grandson (and heaped the toppings on!), so that saved me a few carbs anyway. And our stuffings were cheese, bacon, broccoli'n'cauliflower (raw, chopped fairly small), plus butter and full-fat sour cream. I ate more of the toppings than potato of course, so the medium potato (less half the flesh) was perfectly adequate.



I gotta say...it was truly a pleasant walk down memory lane. And still cheap! I can't begin to calculate the exact amount but the potatoes were approx. 35c each, and I got the raw broccoli'n'cauliflower for $1.20 for a 1# bag on sale. (We used half the bag.) The bacon is from a package of real bacon pieces I got at GFS, only used a few spoonsful for us all (2 adults and aforementioned toddler) - same with the cheese and the sour cream. Plus about a half-stick of butter (25c)...yeah, definitely a cheap'n'easy meal - even if it wasn't as low carb as we usually eat.

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Living #LowCarb with Sugar-Free Syrups ( #diabetes )

URL:  http://www.squidoo.com/living-low-carb-with-sugar-free-...

Wow, DARdreams, you ROCK! I don't know what Squidoo is but I can see that I will be spending the rest of the afternoon looking at all of your pages!

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#Dreamfield's Pasta Side Dish - AMAZING!

With our seasoned pork steaks (so thick I roasted them) and salads I made an absolutely DELICIOUS cheap'n'easy side dish with Dreamfield's elbow macaroni!

While the pasta was boiling in heavily salted water (and I always put a squirt of olive oil in the pot so the pasta doesn't stick) I cooked some sliced mushrooms - some fancy kind I got on sale, don't remember what they were - in butter and olive oil. When the pasta was al dente (never overcook Dreamfield's!) I drained it, returned it to the pan, and added the mushrooms as well as the fats from the pan and tossed it with a little more butter, and generous handful of finely shredded italian blended cheeses, and a few shakes of parmesan from the green can. And the result was simply AMAZING! There simply are no words...

And, if you are interested, here is the rub I used on my pork: garlic, onion, ginger, and chili powders, cinnamon, sea salt, and brown sugar sub.

And the salad was just poured out of a plastic bag with most of the carrots picked off, and served with bacon bits (the real ones) and full-fat ranch dressing.

It was my only meal of the day, was just too busy to eat and didn't get hungry so I didn't stop to do so...then I had a dish of SF butter pecan ice cream later in the evening....

But that macaroni dish was simply WONDERFUL! :)

The cost for all of this? bag of salad, bought on sale for 99c, + 2 pork steaks @ $1.38/lb, + 1 package of mushrooms on special for $1.01 + 1/2 box of Dreamfield's macaroni for $1.30 + $1.65 in cheeses, + a generous allowance of $1.00 for seasonings, butter, EVOO, and bacon pieces. TOTAL for dinner for 3 adults and a toddler = about $8.25. For an AMAZING dinner, yet! This is great eatin', and great cheap low carb livin'!

Garlic Roasted Radicchio Recipe (link)

I have never bought radicchio but I got some yesterday, and will be trying this recipe this week. It looks wonderful!

Amplify’d from www.seasonalchef.com

What Grows Together, Goes Together Garlic Roasted Radicchio One of the central tenets of seasonal eating is the notion that things that grow side by side taste good together. That’s the idea behind chef Todd English’s Olives restaurant in Boston. "The whole concept of Olives was of cooking food from where olives grow. The whole Mediterranean belt," he explains in the introduction to his new cookbook, The Olives Table. Olives must be in his blood, he goes on to say. His great-great grandparents had an olive farm in Italy and he spent time working in restaurants in Italy. The following recipe is one he picked up in Italy. It brings out the "better bitter qualities" of radicchio, a vegetable that in its raw form has a different type of bitterness that English does not like. "Be sure to cook the radicchio until it is fully crisped," he advises. What to serve it with? Roasted chicken or rabbit ravioli. Garlic Roasted Radicchio 8 garlic cloves, finely chopped ¼ cup olive oil 1 tbs chopped fresh rosemary leaves ¼ cup balsamic vinegar 1 tsp kosher salt ½ tsp black pepper 4 large heads radicchio, halved through the root Grated Parmesan cheese, for garnish 1. Place the garlic, olive oil, rosemary, vinegar, salt, and pepper in a large bowl and mix well. Add the radicchio and gently toss so that it is well coated. Cover and let marinate at room temperature for at least 1 hour. 2. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. 3. Place the radicchio in a baking pan and pour the marinade on top. Place in the oven and roast until the edges of the radiccio are crisp and almost beginning to look burnt, about 20 to 25 minutes. 4. Serve immediately, with grated Parmesan cheese. Read more at www.seasonalchef.com

 

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http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/5778062/best_blogs_low_carb_recipes.html Congrats 2 the #lowcarb bloggers that made the cut! http://amplify.com/u/ae13

Did Some Great Shopping Yesterday!

I'm planning some great meals this week! As I've written previously, I don't plan each meal...but with the things I have "in stock" and the fresh produce I got yesterday (it was a splurge, I didn't worry about $ as much as I usually do but rather just got what looked good!) I will make some great meals!

Bought radicchio, which I've seen used on TV but have never bought. This recipe looks very good, and I have everything I need to make it. But since I only bought one head I will obviously adjust the ingredient amounts accordingly.

I also got a daikon, some yellow summer squashes, and a couple of big yellow sweet onions that I will use, with ground sausage, to make a hash which we love.

Pork steaks and country-style ribs were on sale for $1.38/lb this week so we stocked up on 25# which will make a few good meals! In fact, we're having pork steaks today, with sauerkraut and salad. If time permits I may make some rolls (using the basic Oopsie recipe but adding some oat bran and golden flax meal to pump 'em up a bit) to go with them also.

I just love to shop, and love to cook, and love to eat! Even with my ongoing gut issues and pain (which will hopefully be resolved surgically yet this year), my enjoyment of food rarely wanes even as my ability to eat does. That I can eat lowcarb fare without worrying as much about portion sizes as other plans require (YMMV) is one of the greatest benefits of the plan! On those days that I can eat, I don't have to hesitate to enjoy GOOD food, EASY food, and CHEAP but HEALTHY lowcarb meals!

And With The Last of the Fresh Spinach... #lowcarb

...I had pasta :). Dreamfield's actually. All 3 of us (hubby, me, and 16MO grandson who lives with us) had our spaghetti different ways. Pete had his with SF spaghetti sauce and cheese - the traditional way. The baby had a hard-boiled egg with his, and parmesan cheese on top. He decided to put the egg actually into the spaghetti, and mash it all together with his fork - and loved it that way!

But on to the spinach part. I put a thin layer of spaghetti on my plate that I tossed with butter (it was cooked with EVOO on the water, as well as sea salt), then I layered the last of the spinach leaves, another layer of hot pasta, and cheese on top. OH YEAH BABY! We're talking good eatin', now! I love spinach in any way shape or form, and this was new but amazingly delicious. The hot pasta wilted the spinach just enough...

Anyway, we didn't end up having the burgers with our supper...didn't need them.

Now I (purposely) have some leftover Dreamfield's so tomorrow I will make a spaghetti pie :).

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.

Shakin' It Up, and Amazing Steak Dinner #Lowcarb #Recipe

I haven't been posting the samo-samo meals I've been eating recently, and in fact have started getting bored. So the last few days I've tried to shake it up a bit, using food I already have stockpiled. (For those of you following my grocery shopping posts, I haven't done a big shopping in at least a couple of months - yeah, I have that much stuff on my shelves and in my big freezer! Just filling in with the perishables, such as fresh produce, and dairy.)

Sunday dinners I like to "fancy it up a bit" especially since my mom spends Sundays with us - the nursing home where she lives has good food, but it tends to be a bit "institutional" anyway. This past Sunday I made some NY strips on the griddle. First I started frying up a pound of bacon because I needed the fat. While that was cooking I seasoned the steaks (onion/garlic/chili powders, sea salt) and let them sit while I halved half-thawed brussels sprouts and yellow squash slices - just had a small amount left in each package I wanted to use up - and quartered, then thinly sliced, a medium yellow onion.

After spreading some fresh bacon fat on the hot hot hot griddle, I put the steaks on. Then I removed the bacon from the frying pan and much of the remaining fat for later use, and tossed the veggies in the same frying pan. They required frequent tossing to brown evenly and cook through. The steaks cooked about 5 minutes on the first side and 3 on the 2nd, then I removed them to a platter and tossed about a cupful of straw mushrooms (from a can) right on the hot griddle with the bacon fat and the seasonings the steak left behind. As the liquid came out of the 'shrooms and I scraped/tossed them, they deglazed the griddle nicely and picked up some wonderful flavor. Meanwhile I also add butter, sea salt, and a drizzle of balsamic vinegar to the vegetables.

What a lovely meal! A platter of medium-rare steaks with a pile of delicious mushrooms and colorful vegetables next to them...it was a feast for the eyes as well as the palate! Unforunately, after a day trip the day before, I'd left my camera somewhere out of reach (found it later) and we were too hungry to wait for me to find it...but I will definitely be making this again!

The steaks had been on sale for $2.49/lb - I used 3# of meat - certainly less than $2 in vegetables (and that's figuring HIGH), a $1 can of mushrooms...some butter, bacon fat, and seasonings - dinner for 4 adults plus a toddler for right around $10!

Every time I make a meal like this one, I want to defy the lowcarb naysayers to show me why they think that low carb eating is unhealthy...pfffffft! :)

THE BEST @Dreamfield's Mac'n'Cheese Recipe #lowcarb

This is one that I could easily go hog-wild on if I didn't have a lot of self-control. Thankfully though, yesterday was my cheat meal (love the Friday fish dinners at the local eateries, although I got frog legs yesterday) and I'm always craving the low carb foods - meats and vegetables mostly - after a planned cheat meal. So today I ate a heap of pan-fried green beans (the skinny whole ones from GFS, fried quickly over high heat in butter and EVOO, seasoned with sea salt and onion and garlic powders), a couple of grilled Kogel natural casing hot dogs - nice and dark and almost crispy like I like them...and only a small serving of the mac'n'cheese.

Let me say from a "cheap" perspective, this wasn't as inexpensive as my meals usually are. That's because we really splurged on the Kogel's. No other hot dog is the same, so when we have some extra $ left in our food budget we buy a package of 24 for $9.99. At 40c/dog it's pricey...but we think it's worth it!

Back to the mac'n'cheese: I boiled a whole box of Dreamfield's elbows in salted water to which I'd also added EVOO (keeps the pasta from sticking), just until al dente as instructed, then drained it and returned it to the pan. I stirred in 1/4c butter, 1/4c heavy cream, 1/2c shredded colby-jack, 1/2c shredded italian blend, 1/4c parm from the green can, and a half-tsp of nice strong paprika which spiced it up a bit and also gave it a great color.

Obviously we have a lot left, and I will use it tomorrow mixed with ham and asparagus chunks in a casserole, topped with a little more cheese and baked. With a salad on the side it will make an amazing Sunday dinner too!