In a curry? Salmon cakes to the rescue!

There are days when I just have weird leftovers in my house. Like when I decided to try this thing I saw on Pinterest about growing green onions from the roots of a previously used plant (totally works). And I also happened to have an excess of leftover salmon because my daughter decided she wanted "pink chicken" all the time and my husband and I were well and truly tired of it. So back to Pinterest I went, and since I was being all "low-carb lalalala" at the time, adapted a recipe I found for West Indies Salmon Cakes. It didn't take long, and we had lovely golden-brown low-carb not-just-salmon goodness! 

2 cups flaked salmon (the original blogger used canned)
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/3 c onion, minced (I had green onions, so that's what I used, and it worked fine)
1/2 c flour (For the low-carb version, I used half coconut flour and half almond meal)
2 tsp baking powder
1 large egg, whisked
1 tsp curry powder
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp salt
Pepper to taste
1/2 tsp crushed red pepper

Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and mix until well combined. With hands, form 6 patties and set aside. In a frying pan, pour a tbsp or two of oil. Heat over medium high heat. Fry patties for 2-3 minutes each side until done. If freezing, place between layers of wax/parchment paper in freezer bags and freeze. Thaw and cook as above.

An a-side

Stuck for side dishes? Sick of salad? Take any non-watery vegetable you have left over in the fridge or freezer (from that misguided decision you made to join a CSA by yourself), cut it into large chunks (or just in half, whatever), rub it in olive oil, salt, pepper, and whatever seasoning you like (I use Italian seasoning and garlic powder), and roast it in a single layer on a large baking sheet for 20 minutes or so, until the edges of the veggies turn dark brown. Start these first; by the time the salmon cakes are done, the veggies will be, too.

Sugar-free Chocolate "Tradeoff" Trifle

The reality is this: Sugar-free does not mean carb-free. Nor does it mean math-free. Doing truly low-carb dieting involves lots of counting and adding and measuring and research, and, well, Mommy don't got time for that. So I do the best I can, avoid what I know is truly bad, and sometimes, I choose to believe what the packaging tells me. It may mean that I am eating more carbs than I should have in a day and more chemicals than I would put on my face to banish wrinkles, but if I can suspend my disbelief long enough, I can eat this dish pretty much guilt free. And I want to. Because unlike pretty much EVERY low-carb chocolate chip cookie recipe I have EVER tried, it's actually good.

Materials

• 1 box of instant, sugar free chocolate pudding
• 1 box of instant, sugar free white chocolate (or vanilla, or whatever) pudding
• 4 cups milk
• 1 packet Starbucks Via
• 1 tub sugar-free Cool Whip*
• 1 box sugar-free Oreos**
• 8 oz sugar-free chocolate chips
• 8 oz heavy cream

Method

• Mix 2 cups of milk with each packet of pudding. Divide the container of cool whip and mix half into each batch of pudding. Add the Via packet to one of the pudding batches and stir until incorporated. 
• Put the heavy cream in a microwave-safe bowl and microwave on high for a minute. remove from the microwave, add the chocolate chips, and stir until smooth.***
• Twist open the Oreos and use the halves to make a single layer at the bottom of a casserole dish (I use an old round one, if you're working with squares I would stick with a 9x9).

• Pour one of the puddings over the cookie layer.
• Add another cookie layer.
• Drizzle half of the chocolate mixture over the cookie layer.

• Pour the other pudding over the cookie layer.
• Drizzle with remaining chocolate mixture.

• Hide in back of fridge for as long as you can stand it.

Confession

I tried to do a carb count on this. I am sure that most 12 year olds are better at math than I am and could correct me, but anyway, for 1/2 cup, I think it's around 11 grams of carbs. Not out of the park, but not horrible, either. IF you can stick to 1/2 cup. But I still don't feel bad, because really, this isn't the sprint of a Hollywood Cookie Diet, it's a marathon of saying "no thank you" when someone passes the rolls, and once in a while saying "OMG yes" to a milkshake because life is short. Consider this recipe somewhere in the middle.:)

*Even if your grocery store doesn't carry sugar-free, the regular stuff is actually pretty low-carb anyway. Just don't go for the extra creamy or fat-free versions, they have a lot more sugar.

**These can be tricky to find. Basically, if your store carries ANY sugar free cookies, you can use them.

***Hey, guess what? You just made ganache!!!! 

The Good Shepherd('s Pie)

For me, winter (post-holiday) is an easier time to go low-carb, thanks in large part to the fact that you don't have as much of what I like to call "salad guilt." When it's 95 degrees out, it just seems like the universe judges you for not going to Chop't or some other gimmicky salad joint every day and getting something made from locally-sourced dandelions and wunderberries and Mystic Tan. You can't order pot roast in July. It's barbaric. Or at least the ads on the Metro make you think so. And yes, I get that salads are, by nature, low-carb. But they're salad.

It's not that I am anti-salad. I am just not excited about them. It's like how my three-year-old feels about anything other than frosting. It'll do if you're 5 minutes from starvation but otherwise, why bother?

Winter is the time for pot roast. And pub food. And cheese. So in celebration, I devised a low-carb version of Shepherd's pie that turned out pretty good, only involved two pots and a casserole dish, and can be ready to pop in the oven in less time than it takes to make a frozen pizza. Yes, I know that for a fact. Don't judge me.

Materials

As with most things I make, you can substitute a lot in here. This is just how I did it because I happened to have most of the ingredients languishing in the freezer or fridge. You can swap out the ground meats and the veggies (except the cauliflower, unless, of course, you do mashed potatoes) for whatever you have lying around or whatever your kids will eat.

• 2 bags of frozen cauliflower florets (because I hate chopping)
• Stick of butter or margarine (I guess you could sub sour cream or plain yogurt. Killjoy.)
• 1 tblsp olive oil
• 1lb ground bison
• 1lb ground turkey breast
• 1 bag frozen chopped onions
• 3 tblsp. Worcestershire sauce
• 1 small bay leaf
• 1.5 cups beef broth (or 1 can)
• 1 teaspoon steak seasoning
• 1/2 cup red wine (or beer)
• 1 1/2 cups baby carrots
• 1 1/2 cups frozen peas
• 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese (optional)

Method

• Preheat oven to 375.
• Dump the cauliflower and 1/4 cup frozen chopped onions in a large pot or microwave steamer with an inch or so of water.  Steam until fork tender.
• While the cauliflower steams, in a separate pot, add the olive oil, the rest of the chopped onions, and the ground meats. Cook on medium-high heat until the meat is mostly browned, and then add the broth, Worcestershire, bay leaf, steak seasoning, and wine. Bring to a boil, then add salt or pepper to taste. Add carrots to the top of the meat mixture and simmer until they are tender.

• While the meat mixture simmers, dump the frozen peas in a strainer and rinse with cold water until they are thawed.
• Drain the cauliflower and add butter. Using an immersion blender (or a potato masher, but seriously, you need an immersion blender), blend until smooth. Add salt and pepper to taste.

• Turn off the meat mixture and stir in the peas. Pour into casserole dish, then spread the mashed cauliflower on top.Top with cheese and bake for about 30 minutes, or until cheese is melted and/or the mashed cauliflower is lightly browned in spots.

Mid-carb crisis: I'm doing just peachy, thanks

Politely decline the bread basket at lunch and explain, also politely, that you are on a low-carb diet, and your table companions tend to have two reactions: sympathy or thinly-veiled horror, as though you might club the lowest-moving server and eat him raw. I can understand it. It sounds like a bleak existance. No noodles. No fries. No doughnuts. No joy. Just...meat.

My husband started it first. He just wanted to try it, and he did it! He really did it! Despite the proof that you could go on living without potato chips, I dug my heels in for a year, siting the well-documented psychological benefits of chocolate as possibly the only way to get through the year we were all having. But get through it we did, and I jumped on the wagon with him.

The reality is that I'm not actually doing the "low-carb thing" really. I like to think of it as "mid-carb," because while I might be able to give up bread and rice and french fries, grudgingly, this Mommy cannot live by bacon alone. So while breads, rice, pasta, potatoes, and sweets are off the menu, pretty much anything else is fair game. I am too lazy and too averse to pain to quibble over whether that cooked carrot is grounds for dietary self-flagellation.

The biggest challenge, of course, is that I simply cannot live in a world without sweets. One of the things I hate about low-carb diets is the whole sugar substitute question, and you can use Splenda all you want, but you have to be better at self-deception than I am if you don't think it tastes a little like tires. So I experiment with baking. Like, a lot. And as I've said before, when you use recipes as only a guideline, you cannot be afraid to fail. Because you're going to. 

So when I bought a box of gorgeous late-season peaches at Costco only to discover that they were California (blah) and not Eastern (Hallelujah!), I found myself with a golden opportunity to experiment with a low-carb cobbler-type thing. I decided to go with a few spoonfuls of Truvia sugar blend for the filling, which combines the real stuff with some sugar alcohols and other things not made of Splenda. Yes, it does have carbs, but only 1/4 of what regular sugar has, and it's also magically sweeter, so you use less. Also, it doesn't taste petroleum-based.

For the crumb topping, I used ideal brand brown sugar sweetener and almond meal, which is just peeled, blanched almonds ground into a powder. You can buy it already prepared or you can do it yourself (...if you're a masochist). There are other low-carb flour alternatives out there, but many of them either taste super weird or turn your large intestine into the Hindenburg. Or both!

Materials:

• 6-7 ripe peaches, peeled and sliced (or about 4 cups frozen. I think this would also be great with blueberries)
• 3 tbsp Truvia baking blend 
• 1/2 teaspoon apple pie spice
• 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/3 c. ideal brown sugar sweetener
• 2 cups almond flour
• 1 stick butter

Method

• Preheat oven to 350.
• Spray a 9x 9 dish with cooking spray
• Add sliced peaches and sprinkle with Truvia, apple pie spice, and ginger. 

• In a large bowl, with a pastry blender or your fingers, rub together the almond flour, butter, and ideal until it looks kinda like wet sand. 

• Sprinkle almond mixture evenly over peaches and bake for about 30 minutes, until it gets brown in spots.

Conclusion

I was very pleased with how this turned out! It's not too sweet, but when you haven't eaten sugar in 2 weeks, it's dreamy. Add some sugar-free vanilla ice cream and you can almost, almost forgive it for not having more carbs. But at least it has butter, right?