Low Carb Cook

Low carb Bacon Wrapped Water Chestnuts.

2011-09-12T08:23:00.000-04:00

I made this one for a party this weekend. IT was a complete hit with everyone! Not super low carb but it's very tasty.

1 pound of bacon, thin sliced and cut in 1/2
2 cans of whole water chestnuts
1/2 cup mayo
1/4 cup "rooster sauce" or other Asian chili sauce
1/4 cup splenda "Blend"
2 tbsp molasses - I cant find a low carb substitute that has the right flavor.

cook the bacon until almost crisp, wrap around each chestnut and pin in place with a toothpick.Mix up the sauce and pour over the chestnuts, bake in the oven at 350 for 30 minutes.All done!I tried to do this with 100% splenda and it just does not taste right. What you are making is a barbecue sauce from the mayo and sugar. the chili sauce makes it spicy and brings an additional flavor to the party. If anyone finds a way of making this even lower carb, please let me know.Most of the sauce ends up in the bottom of the pan. you eat approximately 1/4 of the sauce that is made on the chestnuts.

Low-ish Coconut Chicken Curry

2011-04-11T11:29:00.000-04:00

This makes about 4 servings

1 lb chicken meat I like frozen chicken tender sized pieces to eliminate cutting and trimming.
4 tablespoons of coconut oil
1 tablespoon unsweetened coconut
2 tablespoons of "sweet" curry powder use "hot" if you like a bite
½ teaspoon of turmeric
½ teaspoon of cinnamon
1 ½ teaspoon cooking safe sweetener of your choice
1 onion sliced
3 cloves of garlic
1 inch piece of grated ginger
½ can coconut milk
Squeeze of lemon
½ cup of plain yogurt (optional to reduce heat or add smoothness)
Salt and Pepper to taste

Directions:
In a large frying pan heat up the coconut oil on medium heat. Mix in spices: curry powder,coconut, turmeric, cinnamon, garlic, ginger and sweetener. Cook spices for about 10 minutes. If the spices are starting to look dry and are clumping you can add a bit of water or more oil. Add chopped onion and cook till translucent for 5 minutes. Add chicken and coconut milk to the pan and simmer for 25-30min. Squeeze and mix a bit of lemon juice over the curry. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Optional ingredients.:
To cut down on the spiciness of the curry you can add plain yogurt to it.
Also you can add some red pepper sauce or crushed red peppers to make it a lot more lively.

About 15G carbs per serving. without the yogurt it's less.

Things to do to kickstart your health. and weight loss.

2008-02-14T08:36:00.003-05:00

Here are some additional tips I will be following as I get back to a sane weight and healthy life. These go well with and underline the ones from earlier.

1 - drink a 12 ounce glass of water BEFORE every meal. This will fill me up faster and help with hydration. Remember eating less is a good thing.

2 - Exercise in the morning. Yes it sucks but you HAVE to do it and you HAVE to do it every day. 3 times a week exercise is a lie that they tell you you need to build a habit and habits only work if they are every single day. Only 20-30 minutes on the treadmill works wonders.

3 - drink coffee before/ during your workout. Get out of bed and get a 1 cup a day coffee habit going. At least get some caffeine in your system to boost your workout. as little as 100mg of the stuff gives you an edge as you workout. Remember, even the "strongest" energy drinks have less caffeine that a cup of coffee.

4 - drink more water. Lots more. As in my eyeballs are floating.

5 - Fruits. yes even the high carb fruits are better for you than anything else. If you hate fruit and berries and only can stand a little then go for blueberries only. a small hand full every morning will do you really good.

6 - PAY ATTENTION! track your exercise, food intake and diet. Don't slouch on this as you need to learn how to eat. Yes you heard that right, you don't know how to eat and re-learn it.

7 - Find "good" fast food. Mcdonalds and Burger king are bad. The food there is so processed it's barely food anymore. a egg mc muffin is really bad. BUT the same thing made at a restaurant that cracks an egg and cooks it and takes out that muffin and cuts it open is far better for you than the franken-food you get at the big chains. If you HAVE to go to a fast food place or restaurant, pick a small place that makes it closer to what you do at home.

8 - remove reasons to go to a restaurant. Honestly anything made there is bad as they dont use the best, only the cheapest. at home you can use high fiber whole wheat bread, brown eggs, etc.... find very quick meals you can make at home. It's cheaper and far better for you.

9 - get healthy snacks, banish all the bad ones. If you have a spouse that refuses to diet and will not give up her 2 bag a day cheetos habit, you are going to have this tough. If you can get cooperation get rid of all the crap in the pantry and never ever bring it in the house. Make sure you have healthy replacements on hand though. Pay more for the bowl of precut ready to eat fruits if you cant be bothered to do it yourself every weekend. cheese sticks, carrots, nuts, etc... have something on hand when you get the munchies.

10 - Cut your TV viewing in 1/2. TV is sedentary and only makes you gain weight. limit your exposure to it by buying a DVR/PVR or something else that records only what you want to watch and lets you watch it on your schedule. Get outside, get up and clean, rearrange the house, do something other than sitting there.

Low Carb Jambalaya

2008-01-16T14:13:00.000-05:00

I love the packaged Jambalaya mixes, problem is they have low grade rice and sugray crap in them.... Here's my version.

1 pound high quality sausage or chicken breast or other meats you like...
2 TBSP Creole seasoning.

Packaged or from scratch... Here's my from scratch Creole seasoning....

* 2 tablespoons onion powder
* 2 tablespoons garlic powder
* 2 tablespoons dried oregano leaves
* 2 tablespoons dried sweet basil
* 1 tablespoon dried thyme leaves
* 1 tablespoon black pepper
* 1 tablespoon white pepper
* 1 tablespoon cayenne pepper
* 1 tablespoon celery seed
* 5 tablespoons sweet paprika

pulse all the above in a food processor a few times, add more cayenne for more heat.

1/4 cup cooked whole grain brown rice.
1/2 cup onions
1/2 cup finely chopped diakon radish.
1/2 cup cheese (optional)

cut up and brown the meat, get it fully cooked, now add the veggies and spices and cook until tender, add in the rice and toss for 2 minutes, cover and let simmer on low for 15 minutes, add cheeses to the top, cover for 2 minutes and serve.

Really low carb, only from the rice and onions count the rice by 1/2 because of long grain with fiber in it.

2008 My plan....

2008-01-16T14:00:00.000-05:00

2008 is the year I change my lifestyle and get healthy. Low carbing IS a part of being healthy in spite of what these nut jobs out there say, Our grandparents and civilization outside the USA all live low carb.

So my steps.....

1 - fast food is taboo.. the ONLY fast food allowed is salad or Sub places with Whole wheat bread or wraps. I don't care if everyone else wants to go out to tacobell for gut bombs... you do not go. do NOT eat that fast food junk.

2 - corn syrup is taboo.. If it's has high fructose corn syrup or any thing but cane sugar or honey in it is taboo. Corn syrup I am certain is the downfall of health.

3 - drink 2 additional pints of water a day. One of them is first thing in the AM. you really need to do this. It helps keep you full as well.

4 - Fresh fruit is no longer taboo... sorry but low carbing usually means leaving out fruit, I disagree. Eat fruit, at least 6 servings a day. Prefer you to eat 1 serving of blueberries or something that is very high in antioxidents daily.

5 - Add mini-exercise where you go... Get a hand exerciser and build your grip while you drive, do not use the elevator for anything more than 3 floors. Get off your butt.

6 - More nuts! the higher fiber type like Almonds. eat at least 10 nuts (small handfull) daily. stay away from the pure fatty ones.

7 - Eat more veggies.. Come on, get over it and eat at least a couple of celery sticks and a carrot stick or something else a day.. add this to what you already eat.

8 - Pay attention.. You cant just wing it, pay attention to what you eat every day. Make a conscious decision to eat good food instead of that crap that everyone else eats. when you shop do not buy crap, and certainly refuse to buy anything that has corn syrup in it.

that's my start for this year....

I'm not dead.

2007-12-28T20:19:00.000-05:00

I've taken a bit of a hiatus... I will be back very soon though.

Lowcarbcook will return!

Palm Carb software

2006-03-06T08:21:00.000-05:00

Ok it's has been a really long time cince my last post here. I have been working in Detroit and living 160 miles away so I have had zero time for cooking to put up tried and tasty recipies here. I also am gaining weight as I cant eat right while on the road 6 hours a day (resturants suck!) so I am going to have to start all over here soon.

Anyways, I found a great tool for all carb counting people. A FREE and open source carbcounting application for the palm pilot. carblog used to be a commercial product but is not open source. if you go to the products page it links off to a sourceforge page here that allows you to download the program for your palm or the sourcecode if you are a techie. you can also get gobs of meal databases from the first website to make it really easy to count those carbs.

I love the program because it has the best database available of foods and that even when you had to buy it, it was not overpriced like the atkins program.

Go download this, install it and keep a better track of your carb intake.

and I promise, I will have a nice low-carb Thai chicken stir fry recipie here for you to try very soon. It's really simple and tastes great. (Plus you can get lots of heat to it as well!

Low carb French Fries

2005-12-11T10:30:00.000-05:00

Yes you heard that right, French fries that TASTE like french fries only a little bit tangier. If you eat them with vinegar or catsup you will never know the difference. I have heard of this recipie before and poo-pooed it because it simply sounds wierd and CANT taste good. Now, these will not taste like Mc Donalds fries and certianly will not have their trademark texture and crunch. But as a low-carb eater we really cant be that picky. Yes I have eaten these myself, And i have also unleashed them on non low carb eating friends without telling them what they are. Lets get to eating some fries!

Shopping List

Daikon Turnip/Raddish -- I have heard this called both a radish and a turnip. doesnt matter get the thing that looks like a big white carrot and has the Daikon name. raw it will taste like a very mild radish.

Recipie

1 Daikon radish cut into fries
1 TSP Soy flour
1 dash crushed red pepper
1 dash salt

EHeat up your oil, if you have a deep fyrer set to to the highest setting for fries if you are doing this on your stove please be careful and get it up to around 325 deg F.

Mix the dry ingredients together in a bowl. Slice the Diakon into thin fries.. kind of the size that you get at a fast food resturant. 1 of them will make a decent pile of fries. rinse them off, try to dry them a little bit and toss in the bowl with your dry ingredients to coat all the fires. This will give you the "seasoned fries" taste. yes you CAN cook them without coating them but I really like seasoned fries.

Deep fry them in batches of about a handful at a time until browned a bit. thery will not get the color of regular fries and they will not be super crispy.

that is about it. I love these things and they work great to solve that "I gotta have fries" craving.

Thanksgiving Pumpkin Pie Low Carb Style

2005-11-24T09:19:00.000-05:00

Happy Thanksgiving! and cince you are just thinking about cooking today's meal here's a treat you and everyone else will love. Pumpkin Pie Low carb style!!! I am going to cover the filling mostly and give you options on the crust.

Let's start with the ingredients!

Pie Filling

1 can (15oz) unsweetened pumpkin
3/4 cup splenda (or canadian cyclamate based brown sugar substitute)
1 cup heavy cream
4 eggs
1 tsp pure vanila
2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1 tsp Cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground clove
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp cardmom or allspice
1/8 tsp salt to taste (not needed if you cant have salt)

plop the eggs in the bowl and beat them senseless. add the splenda and pumpkin and beat with the hand mixer until smooth. add the cream and rest of the ingredents mixing again until smooth and uniform in color. The pie filling is ready for 2 7-8 inch pies.

Pie crust.. Personally I can have higher Carb counts so I buy the pillbury frozen pie crust. it's only 10 net carbs per serving and it's massively faster than making your own, but you can either use one of the boxed low carb pie cust kits or make your own crust as follows...

Pie crust
4 tbsp butter melted
1 TBSP splenda
1/2 cup almond flour
1/2 cup macadamia flour
1/4 cup pecan flour
1 tsp soy flour or soy protien powder
1/8 tsp salt
1/8tsp cinnamon

if you cant find the nut flours put all the amounts of nuts in a food processor and process until it's almost a flour texture. add the soy and other items and then mix in that food processor until blended finish by hand and press into a buttered pie pan. I like to blind bake the crust for 5 minutes at 350 - 375 just to set it up.

you can reserve some pecans to chop up well and sprinkle over the pies to help hide the cracking that will happen. I have tried baking them with a water bath in the oven and all the other tricks, but custard pies like this always crack.

Ok, let's bake this pie at 425 for 15 minutes and then back it down to 350 for the next hour or until it is done. you can start checking for doneness about 10 minutes before the timer goes off.

remember this pie MUST be kept cold. there is no sugar to act as a preservative.

Makes about 14 servings at about 6 carbs a piece with the pie crust recipie more if you use a different crust.

I hope you like this pie. It's a bit stronger than most but I like a pumpkin pie that says hello loudly. If you are sensitive to spices you can cut the spices down by 1/3rd and that should taste like the ones you get at the store.

Happy holidays!

Holiday secrets for candy and goodies.

2005-11-17T13:08:00.000-05:00

I found a company that will help you with sweets and low carbing it.
lorann has lots of nice sugar free items to choose from, their sugar free hard candy kit is EXCELLENT and makes good hard candy in your favorite flavors... I personally made som cinnamon that knocks socks off and sends most sreaming from the heat. But they also have oil/syrup to flavor your ice cream! i tried their orange cream flavoring in the basic recipie below and it works great I churned it until the churner did not want to turn anymore and froze it solid... the flavor was more intense the next day than what it tasted like when it was mixing.

New ideas

2005-11-06T19:23:00.000-05:00

Low Carb Cook will not be a podcast. After a few discussions with friends a audio only cooking show is silly. So, I will be gearing up to make a monthly IPTV cooking show for low carb cook. DoodleDoll productions will be filming/producing the show and it will be available on that website as well as bittorrent. Gearing up for the first show is hard. I will try to showcase recipies for the holidays... looking at pumpkin pie, and other goodies like that maybe a low carb beanutbutter ball covered in choclate as well as a nice xmas bread.(if I could figure out how to make low carb stollen I would be in heaven being from a German family.)

so watch here. i will post the recipies here as always but will be updating you on the shows progress and release date!

Recipe: Cinnamon chocalate ice cream

2005-10-21T11:25:00.000-04:00

Ok here is the first additions to this blog/podcast This is the show notes and they always will be posted before the audio goes online to give you time to get the ingredients.

First off here's the ingredient list.

3 1/2 cups of heavy whipping cream
3/4 cup splenda
1 tbsp vanilla extract (get no sugar added type or as low carb as possible)
1 vanilla bean scraped (optional for more vanilla flavor)
1 tsp ground cinnamon (cheap cinnamon, not true cyelon cinnamon)
1 drop of cinnamon oil (optional for more cinnamon flavor)

This is a very simple low carb icecream. Combine all of the above in a blender and blend well for about 1 minute, now dump all of it into an airtight container and refrigerate for at least 1 hour, longer is better finish the chilling in the freezer for 15-20 minutes to try and bring the temperature down near 34 degrees, the colder this is the better. I typically chill my mix for 24 hours to really kick the flavors in. I then fire up my smallish ice cream maker (I use a 1 quart bottom freeze bowl unit I picked up at the local walmart for $19.00) and dump the mixture into the unit while it is churning. let the unit go for about 15-20 minutes, during that time contemplate added goodness. I like to add dark choclate chunks by taking a low carb choclate bar and cutting it up into 1/4 inch sized pieces. almond slivers are good as well as pecan chunks. Let this run until the unit is having trouble churning. Remove the motor and paddle blade and cover the top with wax paper and wrap the whole thing in a towel to let it sit for about 10-15 minutes to firm up a bit more. prepare a nice container that is air tight (you do not want fridge funk flavored ice cream) to put the ice cream into. after chilling spatula out al lthe ice cream into the container as fast as you can then seal it and put it in the freezer for at least 1 hour to firm up. this last part is very important to getting a nice firm ice cream.

This is a basic recipie I eat this on a regular basis changing the cinnamon to other flavors as my whim desires (adding a tsp unsweetened cocoa and a tbsp of instant coffee make a great mocha ice cream!) and is good for a fast treat. There are ways of making much better low carb ice cream and we will explore those later.

Carb count is really low, 3 carbs per 1 cup serving and will vary depending on the added goodies you put in, lower if you convert cooking splenda to packet splenda. (packet splenda has no carbs as it is missing filler.) Some nuts are higher in carbs. you can thin it a bit by replacing 1 1/4 cups of heavy whipping cream with a low carb soy milk to get the icemilk texture and flavor. This is not bad, but I really enjoy the decadance of 100% heavy cream ice cream. If you buy your cream in bulk (1 quart or even 1/2 gallon size) you can make a 1/2 gallon of ice cream cheaper and certianly better than the low carb fare in the stores. Now you are no longer stuck with the ho-hum flavors that they have, you are in control of your treats!

Prepration for Cooking low carb

2005-10-16T17:54:00.000-04:00

I am planning the first podcast as we speak, but a thought crossed my mind that many people are not prepared for low carb cooking. This is not your normal american cooking such as open the bag or box, mix according to the instructions and then cook it. No being a Low-carb cook requires you to find the lost art of "from scratch" that frightens many. sorry that is the way it is, corperate america is abandoning you fast. corperate america does not want you as their customer, because fi they did they would not have stopped making the low carb delights that were just starting to taste good and actually be decent. I still remember the horrible crud passed off to us lowcarbers back 3 years ago.. some of the atkins brand items were downright horrible (atkins low carb baking mix for example) that were so bad tasting that you would prefer to starve than eat it. Here in 2005 they started to get better (I was so turned off by the horrid taste of the atkins brand that I avoided them for two years straight and only recently started testing them once again... they are better now.) Everything I cook had better taste good, I will not eat it and be tempted to stray back to the carb land of evil goodness... (sweet potato french fries sprinkled with sugar and salt... Mmmm heavenly!) But return to that land means ballooning back up to the 300+ pound point that that path leads to. Carbs = bad no matter what the health nuts tell you, it's is true... our grandparents ate at least 1/5th to 1/6th the carbs we do today, and they were healthier.

Items you will need to have around for low carb cooking.

Soy flour. Yes it's nasty but a necessary evil.
soy protien powder. the stuff above with the nasty flavor removed.
Almond flour. Blanched almonds ground into a powdery flour like substance. good low carb filler.
heavy whipping cream. you need this in your house 24/7 you can make pudding from a sugar free box with this stuff that is downright great and extremely low carb.. and there is the best ice-cream you have ever tasted inside that whipping cream container waiting to be created.
Almonds, these are the #1 nut you need to love, 1/2 cup is only 2 carbs and gobs of fiber. eat at least 1/2 a cup daily for good health.
soy milk, or better yet a low carb milk, 2% type white. some recipies ask for milk and this is what we will use. cutting whipping cream with water just is not the same.
sugar free choclate syrup. if you can get it, walmart is my source.
sugar free baking dark choclate. Yes we will be making candy.
Splenda. get a big bag of it and a box of the packets. packets = 0 carbs the big bag has fillers but is the only way to get it bulk legally. (more on splenda later.)

That is a good start, I am looking at starting with some good easy recipies with you to start. (one meat based, one no meat soup) and then progress depending on my whims from savory hearty meals to breakfast, to candy and endulgence.

Oh, some breakfast tips... go out and buy sugar free tang. It's a decent substitute to your morning Orange Juice. no it's not as good as fresh squeezed valencia, but it's better than nothing and only 2 carbs per serving. (big 16 oz glass) coupled with a nice omlet it makes breakfast less dreary and you not hate eggs as much.. I know that first few weeks makes you despise eggs and meat.

Well that is the start. if you have any questions please feel free to ask!

Welcome!

2005-10-10T17:33:00.000-04:00

This is the place for the beginning of the low carb cook. I owe a lot to the low carb lifestyle. I have lost lots of weight and feel better than I ever have. I will NOT be giving out any medical advice and claim no responsibility for anything you do. I will share only recipies and cooking tips on how to cook low carb. time to get great food back in your live even with the stores and corperations abandoning you by not making good tasting foods anymore. You can stay on low carb without the pre-made breads, pasta, soups, and meals. you CAN make this stuff at home. and this site with the podcast and IPTV show that will start next year will help kick it off.