For supper I made a fish dinner, photo below. The sauce is simply mayo with a little dill weed, a splash of lemon juice, a sprinkle of Old Bay, and a little cream to thin it out. I also roasted (with olive oil and sea salt) a mixture of parsnips, zucchini, and brussels sprouts, and made my lovely cole slaw.* The fish is a lightly breaded fish from GFS, about 15gN per piece. Cost is about 30 pieces for $19.95 - MUCH less expensive (and less carby!) than going out for fish dinners at the restaurant!

*My cole slaw recipe - I buy great big bags of shredded cabbage at GFS for under 5 bucks. Using some of that, I add a sauce of mayo/cream (3/1 ratio, approx.) which I whip - then a generous amount of seasoned salt and splenda to taste. Simple, and whipping it helps keep the dressing from running to the bottom of the bowl.

Last recipe post for the day - and probably for the week :). This is one I threw together because I had an intense craving for Mexican food. It's maybe a little carbier than some of the others but was definitely worth it - and tasted even better reheated the next day!

I put some enchilada sauce (carb-cheap! who knew?) in the bottom of an 8x8 baking dish, then a low carb tortilla onto which I'd spread some refried beans, then sprinkled a handful of shredded cheese on it and spooned some sauce over; then another tortilla,  layer of crumbled ground beef that had been browned with chopped onion, cheese, and sauce; another tortilla/beans/cheese/sauce; another tortilla/beef/cheese sauce; and a final tortilla with beans, then sauce again, and topped it with a big handful of shredded cheese. Baked it in the oven at 350 for 25 minutes, or until the cheese started to brown on top, then served it with a generous heap of full fat sour cream on top.

This was EXCELLENT! The photo below shows one serving, or 1/8 of the entire recipe. I haven't figured up the carbs yet because I threw away the cans for the beans and the sauce without thinking. Certainly the tortillas (7gN each) and the beans were the carbiest parts, and if I had to try to remember what the cans listed for net carbs, and do the math in my head, I'd say there were close to 100gN in the entire recipe, plus the sour cream...but that's 8 portions, so only 12-13 per portion, plus sour cream. But that could be way wrong :).

Here's a photo, you can see that the servings are plenty big!

This was so easy...I rinsed a package of shirataki noodles. While they were draining I cut some onion into skinny slivers and put it, along with a bag of slaw mix, into a hot pan with a little bacon fat in the bottom. When they started to get limp, I added the noodles, and handful of fresh pea pods, and some sliced mushrooms, then seasoned it all with sesame oil and soy sauce, along with powdered garlic and ginger (heavy on the ginger!). Reduced the heat, covered, and when the cabbage was cooked, served it with some chicken that I'd brined in heavily salted water with garlic and lots of ginger, in addition to the sea salt and some Diabetisweet Brown Sugar sub before roasting.

I know it says breasts but I think it would be great with thighs also...I had breasts I'd just gotten on sale though (99¢/lb) so I used those.

For the stuffing I combined equal parts (maybe a couple of Tbsp each) of full-fat cream cheese, butter, and parmesan from the green can. Then I mashed in about a Tbsp of Knorr's Alfredo sauce mix.

I took the resulting glop and, after separating the skin from the meat to make a pocket, stuffed the breasts. (I didn't think of it, but afterward I realized I could have cut slits into the meat to get the flavor even more into it.) After all 4 were stuffed, I brushed the tops with olive oil and put them into a 375º oven; because the breasts were enormous, it took them nearly an hour to get done.

But OHHHHHHH were they worth it! The meat was so juicy, and infused with the flavors of the stuffing...it was AMAZING!!!

This is something I made just today. I wanted warm creamy comfort food and this absolutely filled the bill!

First I rinsed, drained, and lightly chopped some shirataki noodles. Then I crumbled ground beef into a pan with the noodles and cooked it until the beef was browned, and added about a half-cup of frozen asparagus that I had left, chopped into 1/2" pieces, plus a can of mushrooms and 2 Tbsp of Knorr Alfredo Sauce mix to coat it all with 2 Tbsp of butter and a little sea salt. When the butter was melted I added a cup of cream, and let it come to a boil, stirring constantly, then down to simmer until the sauce had thickened.

This is just very basic, and, although delicious, could be easily modified with any meats or vegetables you might have in the house, and any spices you'd care to add as well. If I liked spicy, for example, I might have added pepper flakes. And now that I'm out of frozen asparagus, I could see adding green beans or brussels sprouts (halved probably), or spinach. Certainly it would work with chicken or pork also. But it was quick, easy, cheap, basic, filling, comforting, and low in carbs. Perfect!

Today was a one-meal day, consisting of pork chops marinated, with butternut squash medallions, and salad.

Recipes - for the marinade: dijon mustard, a few shakes of sesame oil, a few shakes of soy sauce, and a few shakes of liquid smoke, plus onion and garlic powder, ginger, sea salt, cinnamon, and diabetisweet brown sugar sub; marinated for 3 hours, then roasted on a rack @ 375 for 25 minutes. For the squash medallions, I peeled and sliced a butternut squash, then tossed the slices with olive oil, sea salt, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, and a touch of diabetisweet brown sugar sub. Laid the slices on a large sheet pan and roasted them at 425F for 20 minutes, then 375F for 25 minutes after I put the pork in the oven. I turned the medallions once, also at the time I put the pork in the oven.

Pork was $1.29/lb; our package was $2.37 and fed 4 adults with some left over. The squash was 69c/lb and cost under $1.00 (don't remember exactly how much); also fed 4 adults with some left over. Used a 50¢ bag of mixed greens. Add the salad dressing and seasonings for another $1 - a VERY liberal guesstimate, I'm sure it wasn't nearly that much - and all 4 of us had a great meal for about $5.00 total.

(Have I dispelled the "low carb is so expensive!" myth yet? :).)

Supper was a broiled pork chop with a cheesy spinach-noodle side dish.

Spinach dish was excellent. Drained a package of shirataki noodles, then heated in bacon fat with 10 oz. previously-frozen spinach. When heated through, added 4 oz full-fat cream cheese, 2 Tbsp butter, and 4 oz. shredded Italian cheese blend. Reduced heat to low and covered until spinach was thoroughly melted. Enough flavor from bacon fat and cheeses, no salt or other seasonings required. I ate about 1/4 of the entire pan with my pork chop.

Semi-boneless sirloin chops were $1.29/lb on sale. Noodles were $1.99/pkg. Spinach was 59¢. Cheeses used totalled $1.40. Butter, minimal (paid $1.79/lb.). Great supper for a great price!

Supper was delicious. I used a veggie mix that I get from GFS that had broccoli, cauliflower, yellow squash, zucchini, and carrots. I tossed it with olive oil and sea salt, spread it in a single layer in a baking pan, and roasted it at 425 for about 25 minutes. Then I cut up the remainder of the leftover pork roast from Sunday into bite-sized cubes and tossed it with the nearly-roasted vegetables, also adding some parmesan cheese. (There was still a lot of flavor from when I originally made the pork tenderloin also.) Returned it to the oven for another 15 minutes, during which time the vegetables browned nicely, and the pork heated through.

Can't really say the costs too easily. The turkey was 99¢ for 8 oz. on sale and the salad had maybe half an ounce. The cheese ran $2.50 for 8 oz, and I had maybe half an ounce of that. A couple Tbsp of ranch from an 8 oz, $1.19 bottle, and probably half a bag of ready-made greens that were on sale for 99¢ - a buck or less for lunch. Supper is harder; the entire pork tenderloin - about 10# - was $14.93. The big bag of vegetables, of which I used about a quarter, was $2.95ish. That last bit of roast was maybe 1.5 lbs, and I used a couple of Tbsp of olive oil which I bought for $14.95 for a gallon jug just for cooking. So supper for Pete, Casey, and I was somewhere around $3.00.

Supper was tilapia (no coating) fried fast in olive oil/butter so the outside was browned and lots of crispy bits, but the inside was flaky, tender, and moist. On the side was a package of shiritaki noodles heated in bacon fat and seasoned with sea salt, garlic and onion powder, thyme, and paprika (lots!), then mixed with a half-cup of peas (I wanted spinach but couldn't find it in the packed freezer...there were a few frozen peas left in the bottom of a bag in there though, so I just used those) and about a cup of full-fat sour cream...have I mentioned that I LOVE sour cream? It was the color of a lovely salmon from all the paprika but totally delicious!

Today I had a late breakfast at lunchtime of my own version of oatmeal. Into a microwave-safe bowl I put a spoonful of oatmeal, 2 spoonsful of oat bran, and a spoonful of SF shredded coconut, plus about twice as much water, and nuked it for 2 minutes. When it came out I added 2 spoons of brown sugar sub (Diabetisweet is the one I use), a Tbsp of butter, and a hefty amount of cinnamon, let the butter melt, then poured on some heavy cream. Breakfast nirvana!