March 21st - 27th Menu

I haven't blogged much lately because between work, the dietary restrictions, and life in general the menu has been pretty dull. But I really need the accountability of posting entries here (and judging by the emails sent to me some of you really miss me! lol) so I've planned a menu of meals that require a little more work on my part but should help alleviate some of the boredom in our diets.

Last night I worked until after 8 and when I got home I was famished so I whipped up a quickie chili with Laura's Lean Beef, some no salt added canned diced tomatoes,  dark red kidney beans, a little green onion, and some spices. It was very good topped with a little shredded cheddar and there's enough for our lunch today. It isn't as low in carbs as I wish, thanks to the kidney beans, but all in all it's a healthy dish.

Tonight we're having Mexican Chicken from The Everyday Low-Carb Slow Cooker Cookbook made with Sanderson Farms chicken breasts. I don't know if that brand is available where you are but if it is, you really should try it. The chicken is always juicy, meaty, and tasty without having added hormones, additives, and other garbage. And the breasts are huge! One is usually enough to feed the two of us and trust me, we can put away some chicken! We'll have this savory-sounding dish with some leftover Chipotle Cauliflower and low carb tortillas.

The rest of the week we'll have, in no particular order:

Vegetable stir fry with riced cauliflower

Triple decker vegetable omelets (from The Low-Carb Bible but also found online) served with zucchini fries

Salt-Baked Rosemary Chicken (modified from the original recipe to use less salt), steamed green beans, and tossed salad

Breakfast burritos made with low carb tortillas

You're On Your Own (YOYO) night when we clean out the fridge, eat leftovers, or go out for dinner.

And that's it for this week's upcoming evening meals. Some of them are a little more interesting than our usual fare and that's a good thing. I hope your culinary week is a great one and join us over at Menu Plan Monday for more great recipes and menu plans!

March 7th - 13th menu

This week promises to be a busy one for me so most of our dinners will be easy to prepare. Because it simply needed to be done and to make things easier on myself, today I took some time and reorganized the pantry shelves. They were a mess and it was hard to tell what we had and what we need so now not only does it all look better but I should have an easier time making my shopping list and keeping up with what's in inventory.

I was determined to thoroughly clean the refrigerator, too, but didn't succeed in that although I did eliminate almost all the leftovers in it. Tonight's dinner was soup made from some of the leftovers. In the fridge I found about a cup and a half of leftover homemade vegetable beef soup, part of a can of diced tomatoes and most of a can of Rotel tomatoes. I dumped all of that in the wok, added a handful of Dreamfields elbow macaroni, a smidge of garlic salt, and some freshly ground black pepper and set it on low and a few minutes later our revamped soup was ready. It was excellent and there was just enough to feed us both so we're starting the week with very few leftovers.

If you'd like to learn more about meal planning please take a look at Menu Plan Monday, hosted by Laura and visited by hundreds!

So, on to this week's menu!

Monday night's dinner is seasoned turkey tenderloin with steamed spinach, edamame, and tossed salad.

The rest of the week we'll have:

Leftover turkey tenderloin with low carb gravy, with wild rice and steamed green beans

Chipotle chicken with tossed salad and buttered carrots

Cauliflower Leek Soup with Carbquick bread sticks

Stir fried vegetables with beef

YOYO (You're On Your Own) night when we eat leftovers, sandwiches, etc.

And that's it! Short, sweet, and not a lot of intense cooking going on this week. But it's all healthy, low in carbs, and thrifty. It works for us!

Spicy Chicken and Avocado with a Colby Jack "Wrap"

You know how sometimes you have a little bit of roast chicken leftover from a meal but there isn't enough to feed the whole family? Well, today the man person didn't want chicken but I had a skosh of last night's delicious chicken and this was the perfect opportunity to make good use of it.

I dug through the fridge, found a few ingredients and came up with this:


The picture isn't great (not sure why but my pictures are blurry lately) but this turned out to be a delicious lunch today and I thought I'd share the 'recipe' (cough) with you.

1/2 cup cooked chicken, cut into bite size pieces
1 green onion, sliced
a few cloves of roasted garlic 
3 or 4 thin strips of bell pepper
2 Tablespoons Rotel tomato
freshly ground black pepper
garlic powder
chili powder
chipotle pepper seasoning
1 thick slice Colby Jack cheese
1 avocado

In a skillet or wok, quickly cook the bell pepper on high heat until soft but not limp. Lower heat and add sliced onion, garlic and pepper. Add cooked chicken and cook until heated through and pepper is cooked to your liking. I like mine crunchy so it doesn't take long at all. Add the Rotel tomatoes and let simmer. Quickly mash avocado and add whatever spices you like. I prefer to add just a little pepper and garlic. If you want to add chopped tomatoes and onions, that would be tasty, too.

Place cheese on a plate and top with the hot chicken mixture. Spread avocado mixture over all and sprinkle with chili powder and chipotle seasoning. You can eat this like a taco, roll it like a burrito, or do as I did and use a fork to get every scrumptious bite. Mmmm!

Strange food combination and I'm such a lamer!

I slept in a little this morning, until about 8 AM. I wasn't hungry when I got up and my fasting blood sugar was 125 (too high) so I shot 5 units of Novolog and enjoyed my morning coffee while checking email and playing on Farmville and Cafe World. I finally got hungry at about 10:30 but waited until 11:30 to do something about it. I wanted eggs but didn't want breakfast meat with it. I wanted some kind of bread but just a tad, not much. I also wanted to eat the veggie fries from last night. So, I made scrambled eggs with mushroom, yellow bell pepper, and a little colby jack cheese and ate it with 1/2 an english muffin and the leftover veggie frites. It was actually very good though it was a little weird.

I had errands to run today;bank, Drug Emporium, grocery store, etc. and while I was out I bought a cooked whole chicken. I don't do that often - jiminy, I have chickens in my freezer and my homemade ones are better than the store bought ones and much healthier! But I've had a rip roaring headache going for about three days and I didn't want to cook so I took the easy way out. Umm, at least it's low in carbs and we'll have it with steamed spinach, also low in carbs.

Don't hate me because I'm such a lamer....

March Recipes to try

I love cauliflower, just about any kind of cauliflower. Raw, boiled, steamed, grilled, sauteed, or stir fried, I'll eat it. And I enjoy leeks or at least I think I do. I haven't had leeks (that I know of) in years so I'm not positive about that. But I found a nice sounding recipe for naturally low in carbs Cauliflower Leek Soup so it's on my list of recipes to try this month. The recipe calls for 3 cloves of garlic and I happen to have several cloves of awesomely delicious roasted garlic snagged from Newk's so I'll use those.

Speaking of roasted garlic from Newk's I'm obsessed with that stuff and the only way for me to get it is to go to Newk's. While I really do love their food, eating there isn't very thrifty and the sandwiches certainly aren't low carb so I've decided to try my hand at roasting garlic. I know it, it aint no big thing but I haven't done it before and I've been a little hesitant to try it but I've decided to bite the bullet. So, my other recipe to try this month is roasted garlic and the recipe is from simplyrecipes.com, one of my favorite cooking blogs. If I can roast my own garlic I can stay the heck away from Newk's and a little more freely indulge my passion for garlic.

Wish me luck!

February 28th - March 6th Menu - late but still good

I'm late getting my menu posted this week. Between work and life I just haven't had a lot of time. But better late than never, right?

Sunday night was YOYO (You're On Your Own) night at our place. We had way too many leftovers for comfort so we took the opportunity to reduce them a little. I like nights like that since it means I don't have to cook much, if at all, and the cleanup is minimal.

Last night I prepared a beef roast with carrots, potatoes, onions and mushrooms. The man person had left a little of his homemade salad dressing (olive oil, the juice of 1/2 a lemon, and Spike) on the counter so I poured that over the roast and vegetables before popping them in the oven. The vegetables were very good but the meat was tougher than we like so we ate a little of it and some of the vegetables and I considered what to do with the meat to make it more tender.  I decided using it in soup or stew would be an efficient way to use it so I cut the uneaten roast into bite size chunks and used about 1/4 of it and the leftover vegetables with a few more fresh veggies to make tonight's dinner which I just called 'Leftover Soup'. I discovered awhile back that stir frying the soup vegetables brings out their flavors so that's what I do. I just throw them in the wok with a little olive oil and when they're almost done I add the meat, stock, and spices, cover, and let it all simmer awhile. The result is a rich, robust soup with a nice combination of flavors. It's slightly different each time, too, since I vary the vegetables and spices. Tonight I used a little potato, a few green peas, carrot, onion, and some asparagus with rosemary, garlic, pepper, and chipotle seasoning. Mmmm, it was quite tasty and there's enough left for lunch tomorrow so we'll have that and dinner will be chicken fajitas made with leftover chicken.

The rest of the week we'll have:

Chicken in homemade Alfredo sauce served over thinly sliced and gently steamed zucchini with a salad and fresh green beans

Meat loaf with faux mashed potatoes (cauliflower) and salad

Omelets with Carbquick rolls

and Saturday will be another YOYO night to use up whatever leftovers are in the fridge. Another soup might be in the picture but we'll have to wait and see.

Oh yes, I haven't forgotten about posting the pictures of the zucchini lasagna but they're on another computer that I can't get to right now. As soon as I can, I'll get them and show them to y'all. Mmmm, that was good stuff!

Enjoy your food!