Paleo Bread (including garlic and pumpkin spice)

Much different than the Bread Not For Sandwiches, you can probably use this for sandwiches. Keep in mind that it's pretty protein heavy.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup of coconut flour
1-1/4 cups almond flour
1/4 cup ground chia seeds (or flax seeds)
5 eggs
1/2 cup of water
1/4 teaspoon of salt
4  tablespoons of melted coconut oil
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda

Directions:

Blend dry ingredients in one bowl; wet ingredients in another; combine and mix really well.pour into a 7.5" x 3.5" greased (you can just spray with Pam) loaf pan and smooth the top. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. Let cool and then slice.

To make garlic bread, add a tablespoon of granulated garlic. To make pumpkin bread, add a tablespoon of pumpkin pie spice (depending on your taste, you may want a little more/a little less). For the latter, it was pretty bland on our first go around with this; some artificial sweetener is needed, and maybe some cardamom).

Spaghetti

When we saw black bean spaghetti noodles at Costco (also available from Amazon and maybe some local grocery stores), we had to try to try it. The nutrition label does list some sugar, but we felt this was negligible. You will need to boil the noodles just like normal pasta (just follow the instructions on the packaging). It is not like true regular spaghetti (it does not seem to have the exact same texture and doesn't adhere to the sauce like wheat noodles), but it is better than spaghetti squash noodles or kelp noodles, and has the added benefit of lots of fiber. Plus, you get to eat something very close to spaghetti. For the sauce:

Ingredients:

One large onion, thinly sliced)
Three to four cloves of garlic, minced
Two portobella mushrooms (or comparable package), diced
1 to 1.5 pounds of ground turkey
Tablespoon of Italian seasoning (or oregano)
.5 tablespoon of salt
14 to 16 oz. can of marinara sauce (we used Trader Joe's because it had no sugar added)
14 to 16 oz. can of crushed tomatoes

Directions:

We used a big skillet. Saute the onions and garlic to caramelize. Add the turkey to brown. Add the sauce, seasonings, and shrooms. Let simmer for a while.

Put the noodles in bowl and put the sauce over it and serve.

Slow Carb Three Dollar Meal

You can eat really cheap on a slow-carb diet. Here is a prime example. I'm putting the prices paid along with the servings (aside from the greens, you should get four servings of everything else).

Ingredients:

• Rotisserie chicken from Costco ($5.00/4 = $1.25); cut into quarters
• Onion ($1.00/4 = $0.25) - sliced thinly
• Portobello Mushroom ($1.00/4 = $0.25) - diced
• Can of black beans ($1.00/4 = $0.25) (there's a theme here)
• Two garlic cloves (minced) 
• Tablespoon of coconut oil
• Greens, walnuts (for "croutons" and texture), maybe some oil and vinegar (these last three ingredients are pretty nominal, so I'll put them at a high cost of $1.00 total for one serving) 

I think the math works to $3.00 for a complete meal.

Directions:

It's also pretty easy. Put the greens in a bowl, add walnuts, oil and/or vinegar if you like.

Cut the Chicken into quarters (one quarter = one serving; in my case, I like the dark meat, Beth likes the white meat).

In coconut oil, saute the onions and garlic until caramelized. Add black beans and mushrooms, stir, and cover for five to ten minutes.

That's it! A complete and healthy meal for about three bucks!

Pizza!

I may have cracked the slow carb pizza conundrum. There are a good number of cauliflower pizza dough recipes out there, but most seem to incorporate cheese. This has no cheese. I treated my wife to this for lunch when she got back from a business trip - because we weren't sure how well it would keep, we ate the entire pizza. The ingredients and directions are what I will do next time; this was first time, so I believe I've figured out some needed improvements. The recipe will probably work without one, but it will probably be better if you have a pizza stone.

Ingredients:

For the dough

Bag (16 oz) frozen cauliflower, defrosted
One can of Great Northern beans
Two eggs
Half cup of coconut flour
Two tablespoons chia seeds
Two tablespoons Italian seasoning
One teaspoon black pepper
One teaspoon salt
One tablespoon of melted coconut oil

For the toppings

Turkey pepperoni
One-half thinly-sliced onion
Two garlic cloves, minced
Half-jar of marinara sauce (we use Trader Joe's because there is no added sugar)
Handful of spinach leaves
Handful of sliced olives (this is a real guestimate, obviously; the spinach and olives I got from the grocery store salad bar because I knew I didn't want to add too much)
One portobello mushroom, diced

Directions:

Pre-heat the oven to 425 degrees. Run the cauliflower and beans in the food processor to get it with a paste-like (or rather, dough-like may be appropriate here) consistency. Put this in a big bowl. Add the dough ingredients and mix everything up; it should be all dough-like. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper, and spread the dough as evenly as possible in the cookie sheet. Put in the oven for 15 minutes.

While this is going on, caramelize the onions and garlic in a pan.

Leave the oven on, but take the dough out of the oven after 15 minutes. Spread the marinara sauce on the dough. Add the spinach (with my hands, I shredded these a bit so the leaves weren't that big) and olives. Uniformly spread the pepperoni, onions, garlic, and mushroom (the wife recommending adding sausage next time).

Put back in the oven for 15 minutes (may need to be a bit longer to get the dough crisp), using the parchment to lift the pizza directly on a pizza stone (if you have one; if not, just put the cookie sheet back in the oven). When done, let cool, then cut and serve.

Notes from my first experience making this:

Initially I was not planning on putting it on the pizza stone; however, it did not crisp up that much, and the underside of the parchment paper was pretty moist when we first pulled it out of the oven. The wife recommended placing it on the pizza stone for another 10 minutes. On my first try, I only used 1/4 cup of coconut flour; my hope is that the addition of another 1/4 cup will dry this up and crisp it some more. This first go around I only used one tablespoon of Italian seasoning; I think the dough needs two.    

Haystacks (a Slow Carb Dessert)

We found this recipe on about because we were looking for some type of sweet dessert on non-cheat days. Shredded coconut (get unsweetened if you make this recipe) is technically not allowed on the slow carb diet, but having two or three a day does not seem to have negatively impacted my diet. And yes, they look like turds (the picture on the about.com website is some other type of cookie, not the haystacks).

Ingredients:

1/2 cup coconut oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2/3 cup powdered (not granulated) erythritol
2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
artificial sweetener to taste (about 1/2 cup sugar equivalent - zero carb preferred, such as liquid forms of sucralose)
1 cup unsweetened, shredded coconut
1 to 2 tablespoons of cinnamon (depending on how much you like cinnamon)

Directions:

Melt the coconut oil. In a large bowl, put in all the ingredients. Add the coconut oil, and mix everything together. Use a melon scoop or tablespoon to form the haystacks. The wife sets them in on top of parchment paper in a seal-able plastic container. Put them in the fridge for an hour or two before serving.

That's it! Really easy and really tasty.

Unstuffed Cabbage Rolls

Our friend Vickie Ennis shared this recipe with us from budget101. As usual, we modified it a bit.

Ingredients:

1.5 pounds of ground turkey
1 tablespoon of coconut oil
2 cans of beans (we used cannelloni)
1 large onion, diced
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 cabbage, chopped (we were lazy and used four bags of shredded cabbage)
2 cans of diced tomatoes
1 can of tomato sauce
1 teaspoon of ground black pepper
1 teaspoon of salt

Directions:

Brown the turkey.
In a crockpot, add the diced tomato and beans, followed by the turkey. Then add all the other ingredients, with the exception of the cabbage. Let it cook for a few hours, stirring every once in a while. About an hour before serving, add the cabbage (we did this because the cabbage was shredded and we didn't want it to cook down too much) and stir this in. When done, serve in a big bowl.

This was a bit bland (leftovers were better). I added hot sauce to mine. The wife added Greek seasoning to hers, and she said that made it much better. Budget101 calls for adding rice; I would recommend the cauliflower rice to stay on a slow carb diet.

Nuclear Cauliflower Curry Slurry

This is my most amazing recipe. I first saw it on Dr. Oz when Dr. Andrew Weil was a guest. Make no mistake - I made it better. When I say amazing, there is no hyperbole.

2 to 3 cups of cashews (Weil has raw; roasted  & salted cashews are okay)
1 to 2 cups of cup water
2 to 3 tablespoons of coconut oil
1 large onion, diced (I usually get a sweet onion, such as Vidalia)
2 large heads of cauliflower (if available, get purple or orange cauliflower)
2 14-oz cans of light coconut milk
6 tablespoons curry powder
1 tablespoon ground turmeric
1 tablespoon of ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon of salt
2 tablespoons of cayenne pepper
2 tablespoons of cardamom
Artificial sweetener (Weil mentions brown cane sugar, I start with ten drops of this one from Amazon)

At a minimum, you will need a stock pot, a blender, and a stem blender. We also use a food processor.

The biggest pain will be prepping the cauliflower.  Cut it up into chunks. We run it through the food processor first to get the pieces a bit more manageable. If you get the orange cauliflower, you get the benefit of beta-carotene. Purple cauliflower, flavinoids.

After your cauliflower is prepped, prep the cashews. Dump them into the blender and grind them a bit. When powdery, add a cup of water. Blend it some more until it looks like milk. Weil says to strain the cashews through a cheesecloth or mesh; I find this unnecessary.

Dice that onion.

Get all your stuff together. For all the spices, I would go ahead and mix all these together in a bowl. That way you can just dump the contents of the bowl into the pot. Okay, now we're ready to cook.

Put the coconut oil in the stockpot and turn the range on to a low to medium level. Add in the onions and caramelize them. Once the onions are done, throw in the cauliflower.

Following the cauliflower, add the coconut milk and cashew milk. Then add the spices and the "sugar."

When everything is in the pot, use that stem blender to really puree the cauliflower; this blender also helps with mixing the spices into the slurry.

I let this cook for an hour or two, applying the stem blender often.

This is where personal preference comes in - you really need to taste throughout this process, adding spices to your liking. I like it with a bit of heat, so I tend to add more cayenne pepper (wife would prefer a bit less). Cardamom is amazing, so I like a goodly amount of that. Salt, cinnamon, sweetener and curry are some other items you should keep near the pot during cooking to get it to the taste you really like.

I make this whenever cauliflower goes on sale, as in $2.50 a head (we splurged the last time at $3.00 a head). This makes a large batch and it is super healthy for you. Nuclear because it looks like it is glowing; slurry, because you can see it's kind of a liquid, but kind of not.

Cauliflower Poppers

This is the recipe that got me past my plateau. Instead of taking a couple of handfuls of nuts, I started taking these cauliflower poppers.

Pretty simple to make. Put some aluminum foil over a cookie sheet and spray it with some Pam or other non-stick spray (this makes it easier to remove later). I use frozen cauliflower; depending on how much I need, I spread one to two bags (one pounders) on the foil.

Drizzle olive oil over the cauliflower. Grind pepper and salt of the cauliflower. Now sprinkle curry powder, then turmeric, and then cayenne pepper.

Set the oven on 400 degrees. I start off with 40 minutes (I usually have to add 15 more). You want to bake until they start to brown/caramelize.

Cauliflower Rice

It's nice to have a base for a meal, and for a lot of meals, that base is rice. Unfortunately, rice isn't that great for you. It's starchy, and it is certainly not an allowable food on the Slow Carb Diet. My solution: cauliflower rice.

It's pretty simple to make. I run two to four bags of frozen cauliflower through a food processor until it gets to be that 'rice' consistency. In a large pan, I put in some olive oil to cover the surface and start adding the cauliflower. Cook on a medium heat. Add salt, pepper to taste. You're pretty much done when it's warm. As you are adding more cauliflower (you shouldn't dump all the cauliflower in at once), you may want to keep adding some more olive oil.

We use this as a base for Fiesta.

The MantisFly's Fabulous Meatloaf

To work with the SCD, we once tried mushrooms instead of bread.  It was ok, but but it didn't bind very well.  A couple of weeks ago, I mashed up a can of black beans and a can of kidney beans for two loafs. That worked!   We've been using beans ever since, so here is what I believe is the perfect combination for the best results. So here's the updated recipe - it's doubled for two to two-and-a-half loafs - it still has ketchup in it which has sugar, but I think it's pretty negligible (even using ketchup as  a condiment with the meal, my weight still went down the next day):

-Two to three pounds of ground turkey (we get a four-pack from Costco)
-One can each of black beans, kidney beans, and cannellini beans
-Three minced/diced portobello mushrooms
-One-quarter cup of unflavored almond milk
-Six eggs
-Two cans of Rotel (or grocery store similar)
-Two diced onions (I generally like sweet, yellow onions or Vidalia onions)
-Three tablespoons of ketchup
-Five tablespoons of Worcestershire sauce
-3 teaspoons of salt
-Four tablespoons of Tabasco (I use the original, but you could use others (e.g., Habanero) if you want more heat - you can also use another hot sauce if you like them better (e.g., Texas Pete) or not use it at all if you don't want any heat (the first form of this recipe was from Tabasco, btw)
-Five teaspoons of garlic powder or granulated garlic

Get a big bowl and some meatloaf pans.  You can go ahead and spray the inside of the meatloaf pan with Pam or other cooking spray if you want.  Also, go ahead and pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees.

Mash up the beans the big bowl.  I used a potato masher.  If you wanted, you could probably run them through a food processor.  Now, here's a hint - make sure the ground turkey is fully defrosted (I'll explain later).  Dump it into that big bowl.  Add the milk, eggs (duh, crack them first - don't put the shells in), Rotel, onion, ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, salt, shrooms, Tabasco, and garlic.  With all that in the bowl, start mixing it up with your hands.

It will probably be a bit cold.  That's why you want the turkey fully defrosted.  I did it when the turkey was still a bit frozen, and it was quite painful.

Now that its all mixed up, it should all be one big mushy consistency.  Put it into the meatloaf pan, pushing it down a bit to make sure it's filling the pan.

Now, here's another hint - get out a cookie sheet and put some aluminum foil on that sheet.  Set the meatloaf pan on the cookie sheet.  This way, if the meatloaf bubbles up and over during cooking, it will spill on the foil and not in the oven with a big mess.

Put it in the oven for 90 minutes - time and temperature is dependent on how well your oven matches temps.  The recipe calls for 350 degrees, I generally move mine up to 375 to be sure.

After cooking, let it sit for about 15 minutes, then slice and serve.  I like to dip mine in ketchup and my preferred side is black-eyed peas. I was lazy and forgot to mash up the beans last time (you can see the beans in the picture above; it's better to mash them up).

The wife still  loves this recipe - she always makes me cook two loaves so can she can make meatloaf sandwiches; she could only eat the meatloaf sandwiches on Saturday, which is our cheat day.

Easy Fajita Bake

The most difficult part is probably cutting up the vegetables and chicken. My mom sent me this recipe. Because I can't leave anything alone, the first time I prepared it, I added portobello mushrooms (this made it so much awesomer). Even though it looked like there wasn't much chicken, it seemed like there was as much chicken as veg in the dish. To further improve, I doubled the seasoning (I also use a heavy hand when seasoning), doubled the onions, and added mushrooms and zucchini from the original recipe.

Ingredients:

1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into strips
4 Tbsp coconut oil 
4 tsp chili powder
3 tsp cumin
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp dried oregano
1/4 tsp salt
1 (15 oz) can diced tomatoes with green chilies (Rotel)
2 medium onions, sliced
1/2 red bell pepper, cut into strips
1/2 green bell pepper, cut into strips
3 portobello mushrooms (these are fairly large), sliced
1 zucchini, sliced

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Place chicken strips in a greased 13×9 baking dish.

In a small bowl combine the  chili powder, cumin, garlic powder, dried oregano, and salt. I recommend taking the coconut oil (which is probably in solid form) and microwaving it in a large Pyrex measuring bowl to liquify. When liquid, add in the bowl of spices and stir.

Drizzle half the spice mixture over the chicken and stir to coat.

Next add the tomatoes, peppers, and onions to the dish, drizzle the rest of the spice mix, and stir to combine.

Bake uncovered for 20 to 25 minutes or until chicken and vegetables are cooked through. 

Stupidly Easy Potroast

This is a variation on the recipe from Tim Ferriss' 4-Hour Chef. As the name indicates, it is stupidly simple to make. You will need:

Two pound chuck roast
Two pounds of baby carrots
Two onions, diced
Five to ten stalks of celery, diced
Eight ounces of mushrooms (I had two or three large portobello mushrooms and diced them)  
48 ounce can of beef broth
Four or five cloves of garlic

1. Season the meat the night before. This simply means salt, black pepper and granulated garlic sprinkled on the top of the meat. Turn said meat over, and season the other side.
2. I line the crockpot with a cooking bag. I like to cook; I hate the cleaning up part.
3. Throw a bunch of baby carrots in the bottom of the pot (or bag, as the case may be).
4. Set meat on top of carrots.
5. Throw in onions, celery, mushrooms and garlic and as many more carrots as will fit in your crockpot.
6. Pour in the broth.
7. Let cook for four or five hours on high.

That's it, and it was fabulous.

Notice the mashed potato-looking stuff on the plate? That's Great Northern beans. Here's how Beth made that:

Mash up some beans in a pan, add one tablespoon each of ghee and olive oil, add black pepper and garlic to taste.

Next time we may try adding some red wine to the broth, but I'm not sure that it's necessary.  

Slow Carb Bread That's Not Really for Sandwiches

I forget which blog I first saw this referenced, but on the My New Roots blog, it's called The Life Changing Loaf of Bread. Now, I don't know about life-changing, but for fiber and bread-like consistency, it's pretty good, pretty tasty, and really easy.

The link above gives the recipe and reasons why the bread is good for you. Because (for six days a week, anyway) I adhere to a slow carb diet, I modified the recipe to replace oats with beans. My recipe is below, with the original recipe ingredients in parenthesis. You will need:

1 cup of sunflower seeds
½ cup of flax seeds
1 cup of almonds (MNR uses ½ cup of hazelnuts or almonds)
½ cup of cashews (not in MNR recipe)
2 cans of black beans (MNR calls for 1 ½ cups rolled oats)
2 Tbsp. chia seeds
4 Tbsp. psyllium seed husks
1 tsp. fine grain salt
5 or 6 drops of liquid sweetener (MNR = 1 Tbsp. maple syrup (for sugar-free diets, use a pinch of stevia))
3 Tbsp. melted coconut oil (MNR also says you can use ghee)
1 cup of water (MNR uses 1 ½ cups; I uses less because the beans seem to have additional moisture that you want to bake out)

Directions:
1. Mash up the beans in a bowl. MNR's recipe says just mix in the rest of the ingredients in a flexible, silicon loaf pan. I find it better to start with a bowl, mix everything in, and then pour that into the loaf pan, smoothing out the top. MNR says let it sit for at least two hours; I generally let mine sit overnight.
2. When you are ready to cook, preheat oven to 350°F and place loaf pan in the oven on the middle rack when temperature is 350, and bake for 30 minutes. Here's another part where I do something different from MNR: when I first tried removing and flipping the bread, it was still moist and started dripping through the rack. Now, when I remove the loaf from the pan and flip it, I flip it onto parchment paper which is sitting on top of a pizza stone. Bake for another 40 to 60 minutes. MNR says bread is done when it sounds hollow when tapped; not sure I ever got to this level, but ok.
3. Let cool and then slice.
4. For best results, I freeze it and then toast it when ready to eat. After coming out of the toaster, I put a little coconut oil on it.

It's kind of crumbly; my mom had a great idea to use the crumb parts and larger chunks that may fall off as croutons.

Fiesta!

When I first read about the slow-carb diet and decided to embrace it, this is the first recipe that I thought about that would work. My sister-in-law Victoria introduced me to this recipe. 

Over the past couple of years, I’ve modified it, especially now that Beth and I are on the Slow Carb Diet.  It tastes good, it’s not too complicated, and you get lots of leftovers making meals for the remainder of the week pretty easy.



Ingredients:

One pound of ground turkey
Three cans of black beans
Two cans of kidney beans
Two large cans of diced tomatoes
Two cans of Rotel tomatoes (we use the one with mild chilis)
Can of chopped chilis
Taco seasoning (four tablespoons of the 'bulk' seasoning mix that you get at warehouse clubs)
Kale (quarter pound) (optional - see notes below about kale)
Turmeric - one tablespoon (optional - see notes below about turmeric)
Avocado
Onion
Can of sliced black olives

Directions:

If using kale, I would recommend running it through a food processor before doing anything else, mincing it thoroughly. Even though kale is considered a 'superfood,' I'm kind of done with it. It really takes over a meal. I believe adding it to the Fiesta, while getting the massive benefits of the kale, it adds a lot more work and detracts from the taste. If you must have kale, I recommend it as a side.

For turmeric, it's a spice that's supposedly fabulous for you.  Just be forewarned - plastic utensils will become discolored with an orange tint. It has a mild flavor, so it doesn't detract from the overall flavor of the other ingredients and seasonings.

1. Brown turkey in a pan.  We use a really medium-sized skillet and then dump the turkey in a crockpot. During the browning, we season the turkey with black pepper and granulated garlic. 2.   Add one of the large cans of diced tomatoes.  Add can of chilis.
3.   For the taco seasoning, we bought one of the larger containers from Costco.  I use four tablespoons.  You can just buy some of the individual packets if you want. Add turmeric.  Stir everything up so that the turkey is coated with the spices.  
4. Add beans.  I empty the cans into a colander and rinse before adding.  
5. Add cans of Rotel.
6. Add that second can of tomatoes.
7.  Add kale.  Again, this is optional, and it’s added because kale is one of the most nutritious foods on the planet.  When I first did this, I used about a pound of kale - that was too much.  A quarter pound would be much better.
8. Mix everything up real well.  Cover, and let it cook.
9. While cooking, dice up the onion.
10. Dice the avocado.  
11.  Periodically stir.  I usually consider it done when I see everything boiling a little bit.
12. Serve in big bowl.  Add some onion, avocado and olives.  
13. I also add some hot sauce.  I prefer Habanero Tabasco.  Beth likes the Chipotle Tabasco.
14. Mix this last bit up in your bowl and eat!

As I mentioned earlier, Victoria introduced this to me.  Before we were on the Slow Carb Diet, we served it on a bed of rice and added cheese, as well as Fritos for texture.  Eliminating these items and adding the kale, I’m not sure if you can find a more nutritious one-pot meal. Even without the kale, it's still pretty darned nutritious. 

In place of the rice, see this site's recipe for cauliflower rice.