Best use for Bread

Food, originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

The biggest problem with low carbohydrate diets is repetition. I am beginning to think this comes about because we are accustomed to varying our high carb foods. We get potatoes baked, mashed, hashed, french-fried, pan-fried, etc. Rice is more plain but there's still all kinds of flavors in your Rice-A-Roni aisle. Then there's flour - biscuits, rolls, pastries, croissants, cookies, and pastas! Pastas themselves come in all shapes and sizes and can be put into salads and doused with red, green, and white very yummy sauces (and I'm sure I'm missing some flavors/colors - don't forget mac and cheese, either).

The other side of the problem seems to me that the meat and veggies part of the meal equation seems to get overlooked. People tend to stick to chicken because of the higher price / fat content of pork and beef. Sometimes some fish and shellfish get thrown in the mix but we've been warned off of that too because of mercury. Veggies just get a bad rap because few people really like to eat them.

As far as I'm concerned, no meat is off-limits, except whale and human (I might modify those exceptions should I survive a plane crash in the Andes - I'm just saying!). Not that I'm going to go out of my way to look for monkey meat. The meat portion of the equation, for me, was that easy to solve. I no longer worry about price, I just plan ahead what we're going to eat more carefully and my grocery bill hasn't gone up. As far as chicken goes, we all prefer chicken thighs/legs to chicken breasts. Thighs are just tastier and are much harder to overcook.

Veggies are the hard part. I like vegetables. I've even learned to love broccoli. Getting Brenden and Jon to eat them is tough. Jon will eat salads, and vegetables cooked in stir-fry (in other words, coated w/ corn-starch gravy. I take my portion out of the wok before I add the corn starch and that solves that problem). Brenden will eat peas, sometimes green beans, and if I douse it with enough salad dressing, he has been seen eating romaine lettuce. so basically we eat a lot of salad. I have green onion, cucumbers, and snow peas mixed in to whatever bagged lettuce I buy. I stay away from iceberg. We all prefer romaine.

So usually I plan meals around either a single pot, like a stew or a stir-fry. Brenden will always pick the meat out of both. He loves Thai and Indian curry. I adore Thai curry because coconut milk is low carb (hooray!). If I fix Indian curry I usually take my chicken out of the pot before I add the curry mix (loads of flour). If I'm making a roast, burgers, steaks, or something like that, it's usually pretty easy for me to create a starch dish for them and an extra pot of some tasty veggie for me.

That reminds me - you know what rocks? Turnip greens with diced turnips. I use the frozen ones so I can season them myself. I usually fry up a diced strip of bacon, drain off most (but not all) of the grease, add a cup of water, 3 diced garlic cloves, and the greens and cook for 20 minutes. You know why it rocks? Decent fiber and protein counts, as well as lower carbs. I usually eat mine with tabasco instead of vinegar but that's me.

But I am always hunting different things that will work in low carbohydrate diets without resorting to frankenfoods. If it's going to take me 10 minutes to read the damn contents on the labels then its a frankenfood. In the last week I have found several:

1)Shirataki tofu noodles - these might be considered frankenfoods but really the ones I have found only three ingredients listed, all of which I can pronounce. These are low carb, low calorie, low fat. People are generally divided about their texture. When I first tried them, I found them a little chewy, but not bad. It took me a few bites to recall what it reminded me of: soft cartilage. Anyone who has had the misfortune of seeing me eat chicken wings knows I love cartilage (and marrow), so I like them. I had them with spaghetti and meat sauce (little sauce, much meat). They are quite filling.

2)Low carb tortillas - these are one of the few survivors from the low-carb fad because unlike most other low carb foods, these are tasty. You can't cook them in any way, though so don't bother to try to make them into chips. Then they taste like cardboard. But these fill that I-want-a-sandwich niche quite nicely. I made a ham-cheese-romaine-tapenade wrap Sunday that was very yummy.

3)Tapenade - it's chopped olive spread. I'm an olive freak so I had no problem trying it when I first heard of it.

4)Smart balance peanut butter - Very thick, with flax seed oil. I spread some on a low carb tortilla for a sandwich. I loved it.

I'm always going to be hunting for more and am open to suggestions. Except on the weekends I am really pressed for time and I have to cook around 3 people's tastes.