Culinary Blasphemy - Curried Corned Beef

2 ounces of corned beef, chopped small
100 g of raw baby spinach

1 tbsp butter
1 clove garlic, minced
fresh ginger root shaved off with a veggie peeler (maybe a 1 tsp of flakes)
a few shakes of cayenne
a few shakes of tumeric
pinch of cumin
2 drops liquid Splenda (1 packet of Splenda = 2 tsp of sugar)
1/4 cup canned tomato sauce
1/4 cup water
1/2 tsp garam masala
1/2 tsp chili powder


Melt butter in pan. Throw garlic, ginger, tumeric, and chili powder into pan. Cook for a minute or so on medium/medium low. Throw in about half the baby spinach. Cook until wilted down small. Add corned beef. Add tomato sauce, water, and rest of the spices (including Splenda). Reduce until sauce is thickened to your liking (this will help the spices infuse the sauce). Serve on a plate over the other half of the baby spinach.

---

I know it's a weird mash-up, but it was deeeelicious. :)

Curry, Breakfast of Champions

Melted a pat of butter in a little pan. Threw 1 tsp of garlic and 1 tsp of chopped onions in there. Took a veggie peeler and grated in some fresh ginger. Put some chile powder and a touch of cayenne in there along with a few vigorous shakes of tumeric. Cooked it a minute. Added 1/4 cup tomato sauce and 3 drops of liquid Splenda. Added a pinch of cumin seeds and a few shakes of garam marsala. Opened a small can of chicken breast. Added 1/4 cup of water and then cooked the sauce on medium-low or so and reduced it to get the spices cooked into the chicken a bit - for the amount of time it took me to clean up the kitchen.

This was amazing. :)

10-week weigh in

March 19, 2012:

10 weeks

Justin -57, Page -26



*


Summary:

2 weeks

Justin -22, Page -12

4 weeks

Justin -25, Page -14

6 weeks

Justin -38, Page - 19

8 weeks

Justin -50, Page -24

Surf n' turf

Last night we split a 12 ounce Delmonico that was seared on cast iron and cooked medium rare. We had this with shrimp scampi cooked in butter, splash of white wine, garlic, parsley, hint of cayenne. For veggies, we had green beans that had been cooked in bacon fat with bacon, mushrooms, and onions.

Mm mm. :)

oh yumminess

1/2 cup of ricotta mixed with sugar-free hazelnut syrup + liquid splenda to taste.

Oh yum oh yum.

Chicken Diane

I made the recipe featured here.


For the 1/4 cup chopped parsley, I substituted 1 tsp of dried parsley and 1 tsp of dried tarragon. I also used 1 tsp lime instead of 1 tsp lemon.

We ate this over fettucine-shaped shirataki noodles. Yum!

It was really filling and really easy.

ginger-lime chicken

Marinade

2 tsp ground ginger
2.5 tsp chili powder, 1/2 tsp of cayenne
2 cloves cloves garlic (minced)
3 tsp sugar - 3 drops of liquid Splenda (EzSweetz) or 1.5 packets
5 tbsp fish sauce
2 tbsp lime juice
1.5 tbsp canola oil
0.5 tbsp toasted sesame oil
1/2 tsp xanthan gum
1 tbsp water


I diced up 3 chicken breasts (boneless, skinless breast halves) into 1/2 to 1 inch chunks, and then mixed up the above marinade and marinated the meat for 2 hours

Then I heated 3 tbsps of canola + 1 tsp of toasted sesame oil in a wok.

When the oil got kind of shimmery (a minute or so), then I added 1/4 cup of chopped onions + 3 cloves garlic + 1 tsp dried cilantro and cooked for 30 seconds

Then I added the marinated chicken and browned up the chicken.

Then I added 1/4 cup water, 6 tsp of EzSweetz (3 packets of Splenda), stirred it around for a minute or two, turned off the heat.

I served this with some grated cauliflower (looks just like rice) that had been steamed in the microwave (raw weight was 114 grams) .

Grade: A+

---

I was tickled pink when I was talking about maybe throwing together a shepherd's pie concoction this evening, and Justin said, "I'm craving your Vietnamese cooking, of all things."

Yay! I've addicted him. :D

Pumpkin Pound Cake

http://www.genaw.com/lowcarb/pumpkin_poundcake.html

We made the above recipe, and it turned out fantastic!

I love a piece or two of this as a desert or for breakfast. Justin likes his with a pat of butter. Om, nom, nom.

The one difference from the listed recipe is that for the pumpkin pie spice I used 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp ginger, and 1/4 tsp nutmeg.

Sausage Gravy and "Biscuits"

This photo is of the "biscuits" Justin made. It was simple. He took 6 eggs, separated yolks from whites, beat up the whites in our stand mixer, folded in the yolks, and then poured it into that greased pan, baking for about 30 mins on 350 degrees. It came out very bready in texture.

He also fried up some bacon. Drained off the vast majority of the grease. We ate the bacon while he fried up up the sausage. Then he added some heavy cream, cayenne, and a touch of xanthan gum. Cooked it until it was thickened up (I think he ended up actually having to add a touch of water to get it to the right consistency). We ate the gravy over the "biscuits."

It was really pretty good.

Grade: A

---

Pardon the mess in the picture. Justin's building a new control panel for the oven as ours shit the bed, and we can use the oven at the moment, but there are exposed wires, etc, while he's waiting for the LCD display to arrive.

Yeah, he's amazingly brilliant and handy.

Low-carb pizza!

Justin made up a crust for some awesome pizza. He took some eggs, separated the whites from the yolks, whipped the heck out of the whites in our stand mixer, folded in the yolks, and then added in some ground sausage and garlic. Then he spread it on on a pizza sheet and baked it until it started to turn a bit brown. Then he took it out, and we made an awesome pizza - we had some leftover bacon bits that we'd made (got some ground bacon at West Side Market, our new butcher and browned the leftover we hadn't used for burgers up to make bacon bits) and some diced fresh mushrooms that we put on the pizza, bacon mushroom being my favorite pizza and something he's embraced and is growing on him.

Sooo good. :) And firm enough to pick up with our hands!

Grade: A- - but only because we should have put more sauce on the pie. :) The crust was fantastic.

Sasuage Stuffing Quiche

3/2/2012

1 pound pork breakfast sausage (I either use the hot kind or throw in a bunch of cayenne if I don't have it)
1 large stalk celery (chopped)
1/4 cup chopped onion
4 ounces mushrooms, diced
4 large eggs
1/2 cup cream
8 oz. cheese, shredded (mozzarella or Monterey Jack or mild cheese are best, but anything will work)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 tsp teaspoon dried parsley
1/2 tsp dried sage

Brown the sausage with the onion and celery; drain well. Add sage and mushrooms, saute a bit longer. Place in a 2 qt. casserole dish. Mix in cheese. Beat eggs, cream, seasonings. Pour evenly over meat mixture. Bake at 350º 35-40 minutes until set in the center and nicely browned. Let stand 10 minutes before serving.

I've also cooked up 12 to 16 ounces of ground turkey and then added it in when I add the cheese to the casserole to bulk things up, and it was still great. You could also do the same with a cup or so of cooked chicken (either ground or cut into small pieces).

---

I made this up in the morning and put everything in the casserole and then put a little note on it with what temperature and time to bake it so Justin could pop it in when he got home from work since I was working later, and his schedule has been crazy.

Not the most high-tech solution, but it worked so well.

Grade: A+ - I've made this dish several times with different tweaks depending on what we had available for meat, and we both love it. Sooo good. :)

8-week weigh in

March 5, 2012:


8 weeks

Justin -50, Page -24

*


Summary:

2 weeks

Justin -22, Page -12

4 weeks

Justin -25, Page -14

6 weeks

Justin -38, Page - 19

Spicy Vietnamese Lemongrass Chicken

No picture of this one because it was so yummy, we ate it instantly.

Here's what I did.

Took 4 chicken leg quarters (they weighed in at just under 4 pounds, something like 3.75 or so) and cooked them on low for about 4 hours in my 4-quart crockpot. They were 1/2 to 2/3 cooked, I'd say, so in that grey area between raw and cooked.

I then took them out and butchered them up, separating the meat from skin and bones - cut the meat into strips. I'm not a great butcher, so I had 1.5 pounds yield of meat, all told.

Then I made up the following marinade:

4 tsp lemongrass powder
2 tsp splenda (2 drops EZSweetz)
1 tsp black pepper
2 tbsp fish sauce
1.5 tbsp canola oil
0.5 tbsp toasted sesame oil
1/2 tsp xanthan gum

I marinated the chicken in that in a container in the fridge for an hour, hour and a half. You could do it overnight if you wanted, I suspect.

----

When it came time to make dinner, I heated 3 tbps of canola oil + 1 tsp of sesame oil in a wok on medium high. Then added 1/4 cup onions + 3 cloves garlic + 2 tsp of chile power + 1 tsp cayenne and cooked that for like 30 seconds.

Then I dumped in the marinated chicken and cooked it for about 3 or 4 minutes until the chicken was all nice and browned up chicken and cooked through.

Then I added 2 tbsp of fish sauce, 1/4 cup water, and 6 tsp of Splenda (6 drops EZSweetz) and simmered it on medium/medium low for 5 minutes or so until it looked "right."

We ate this over 75 grams apiece of steamed grated cauliflower "rice."

Made 2 servings of 554 calories and 5.9 carbs apiece if you make it with liquid Splenda instead of granular/packets(which we did).


Spicy, savory, with the slight citrus sweetness of lemongrass. Om nom nom.

Grade: A