Weekly Low Carb Wrap Up!

     I thought I would start doing a weekly low carb wrap up on Sundays to showcase some of the delicious things I've been able to eat during the week on a low-carb diet. I have two reasons for doing this:

     1. I want to push myself to try new things, foods and recipes. If every single week I am just posting the same old tired pictures of fried eggs and taco salad then feel free to call me out on it and tell me to get more creative!

     2. I just like to show off and I love blogs with pictures. I could tell you I ate a taco salad, but wouldn't you love to see just what it looked like? No? Yes? Well doesn't matter because I'm posting pictures anyway!

     And since I'm linking up to Mosaic Monday I've created a sweet little mosaic of a few of the more unique (at least to me) low carb foods I've tried this week.

     I eat a lot of turkey taco salads, but this week I switched it up and tried a tuna salad (pictured bottom right). 

     I love Romaine lettuce and I slice up about three of them each week, I wash it and put it in a lettuce spinner then put it into a plastic container like the one shown below. Then I seal them all well and place them in the crisper section of my fridge and they hold up pretty well. This one I ate on a Friday and see, the lettuce still looks fresh and green. There's also a few radishes and celery chopped finely in there.

     It's a super simple tuna salad, one you all probably make quite often. Just tuna, mayo, Lawry's Seasoning Salt and pepper, oh and my favorite, sweet pickle relish. I know that sweet pickle relish adds about 2 carbs but I just love it and it wouldn't be tuna salad to me without it. I topped it with some slivered almonds for some crunch and slices of avocado for decadence and creaminess. I didn't even need dressing!

     I had a few of my cheesy crackers (pictured bottom center) left that I made on Tuesday and I chomped on those at the same time. It made for a delicious lunch!

     Then the other night my mom said my daughter April had bought some asparagus and asked her to cook it. Mom said she had boiled it in the past and should she make it like that again. I told her I would look up a recipe on youtube (mom loves to watch recipes on youtube). I found this great one from ChefEvelyn TV. She simply places the asparagus on a foil lined cookie sheet, sprinkles extra virgin olive oil, kosher salt and pepper and tosses the whole thing with her hands, places in a 400 degree oven for 10 minutes and Voila! Roasted cauliflower that was to die for!

     Mom had planned to make fried ham sandwiches and chips for dinner, so I asked her to just fry two pieces of ham for me and I had a boiled egg that I cut in half and added a spoonful of mayo, salt, pepper and paprika to and added some of the roasted asparagus and I had a delicious, easy meal without a lot of drama! It just takes imagination! The asparagus was nutty and delicious!

     A new recipe I tried this week was an Orange Creamsicle Mousse. Remember eating Orange Creamsicles? I used to love them!

     But they have 20 grams of carbs and 12 grams of sugar, so it's not something that I can fit into my carb count...unless I were to just eat one bar the whole day and nothing else, but who am I kidding, if there is a box of these puppies in the house I'm eating them all!!!

     So I got lucky and found a great recipe at genaw.com. Linda has a ton of great recipes on her website and I plan to try a lot of them in the coming year. She had this one listed under desserts/Butter Mint Mousse. While the Butter Mint Mousse seemed intriguing I only had lemon, vanilla and orange extract in the house and so I tried the orange. It looks pretty light in this picture but it's actually a pretty orange color. 

Orange Creamsicle Mousse
1 cup heavy whipping cream
1/4 granular Splenda or equivalent liquid Splenda
1 tsp orange extract
3 drops yellow food color
2 drops red food color (I used 3 and it still seemed a little light to me.
1 tbsp sugar free instant vanilla pudding mix

You simply pour the cream into a mixing bowl, add the rest of the ingredients and using your mixer beat it on low speed until blended then beat on high until thick and fluffy. This is 4 servings with 5 net carbs if you use the granular Splenda and 3 net carbs is you use the liquid Splenda. It's a creamy, delicious treat!

     And last, but not least I tried something that I've been thinking of trying since forever! I riced a cauliflower and made Asian Pork Fried Rice......oh my gosh was it ever yummy!

     First..ricing a cauliflower? Yeah, I had no idea how to do that but I found this great video on youtube. There are other ways of doing it, like with a food processor, but since I don't have one and I do have a blender, this was the next best thing. It's a short video so please watch it. It was made by Robin Sue at Big Red Kitchen.

     Pretty cool huh? I love that there are so many low-carb, gluten-free, paleo, vegetarian blogs out there with cooks that love to experiment and share these wonderful tips, videos, ideas and recipes. I am so grateful for them!

     So I riced my Cauliflower and then followed the basic simple instructions on another video by another awesome low-carb chef, Kent Altena at Atkins Diet Geek Blog. He's made hundreds of videos and I've not had the chance yet to watch more than 10 or so and can't wait to see all of them. He also has an inspiring weight loss story to tell! Here's his video on making "Faux Fried Rice" using riced cauliflower. 

     I did basically the same thing, except I had no bacon, so I fried about a cup of my riced cauliflower for about 4 minutes with some olive oil and butter and salt and pepper, then added diced ham and some left over chicken kabob from dinner with my dad and sister the other night.

     Then after another two or three minutes of frying that up, I moved it all to the side and added one scrambled egg, fried the egg a bit then incorporated the rice, ham, chicken mixture in, added a shot of soy sauce and a small shot of sesame see oil and about a tablespoon of Sriracha Sauce (I love this sauce, it is my favorite seasoning of all time!). Stirred it a little longer and ended up with this little beauty.

    

     Every week I post a zillion low-carb recipes on Pinterest, and I definitely think it's time to start trying some of them, otherwise this will be true of me!

    
     Have a great week everyone and please feel free to head over to Mosaic Monday at Little Red House to see what everyone else is sharing. 

I'm Obsessed with Pinterest

Are you Pinteresting???

I am! And I have been for a long time now. If you visit my PINTEREST PROFILE you will see that I have tons of boards (51) and tons of goodies in each board (1,249 pins).

At first I didn't get it. What was the big deal? You go to the home page and just look at pictures of stuff. Ok, kinda cool. Then you can click on the picture and it takes you to the pin of the person who pinned (shared) it, then you can click on the picture and it should take you to the original blog or website of the person who originally shared whatever it is, whether it be clothing, shoes, recipes, crafts, quotes, books...the possibilities are endless.

So you think, ok well...big deal? So you get to that persons site and then what? Well if it's a recipe it makes it really nice to keep all the recipes you see online together in one place so that if you're in the grocery store and you see chicken is on sale you can just go to your board for chicken recipes and Voila! You have the recipe easily at hand and can buy the ingredients you need. Like the Orange Chicken Recipe below which I had pinned and comes from BlogChef.net . I had this Orange Chicken recipe on my board entitled "Chicken Delicious!"

 

 

But it's not just great for recipes. I have a board entitled DIY for Do It Yourself and this is where I'm putting ideas on things I want to try someday.  Like these crayon hearts made with Wax Paper and Crayon Shavings. In fact, right now would be a good time to get started on these in time for Valentines Day. This project is from the Martha Stewart Website.

 

Pinterest is also a great place to organize thoughts and words you see online or you hear quoted in other peoples blogs. I have a board entitled simply "Words" where I pin quotes and poems and song lyrics and other special things having to do with words. Here's one of my favorites from indulgy.com.

 



 

Pinterst also has a search option so if you want to search for Low-Carb Recipes it will give you the boards of other Pinners that may have some pretty great recipes, tips and ideas on a Low-Carb lifesytle.

 

Is Pinterest something I can live without? Sure. But do I want to? No...I love it and it makes me happy and it's the simple things in life that makes us happy right?

 

Even if you don't create your own Pinterest Profile, please go visit mine, lots of goodies, I promise! 

 

**Oh, and I've created a new widget at the top of my latest blog post, right underneath my header that shows the most recent items I've pinned. Can you tell I'm a sucker for food pins?

Meatball Sunday!

I finally broke my crock pot out of the box it came in when I bought it over three months ago and made those meatballs I told you about earlier this week. You remember, the meatballs I bought and then had to wait in traffic for hours before I could get them home to the freezer?

Well they made it home still frozen and today I tossed them into the crock pot along with a whole bottle of BBQ sauce and a jar of grape jelly (grape jelly is the secret ingredient that I didn't tell anyone about because I didn't think they would try them if they new grape jelly was in there).

I found the recipe at The County Cook and I followed it to the letter but they didn't look as pretty as hers, mine were a little bit darker. Maybe the BBQ sauce I used? Not sure.

I didn't take a photo of the ones I made and the results were mixed. Mom said they were ok, but she's not a big fan of ground beef. The son loved them! The daughter said she liked the flavor but not the texture of the meatballs. I'm kinda with the daughter, I liked the flavor but not the texture. Maybe next time I'll make my own meatballs.

I'm trying to make something new each Sunday. My kids keep asking for the same old tried and true recipes but I'm determined to benefit from the many hours each I day I spend pinning recipes from Pinterest!

Anyway, Friday was my company's holiday luncheon in Fresno which is about 2 hours north of Bakersfield. It was fun and I always love seeing my co-workers from our Fresno and San Jose offices, since we only see each other once a year but talk to each other almost every day. It was tough trying to gather everyone together for a photo. As you can see, I was camera ready but everyone else was too busy socializing!

And then when they are all ready, I decide to move my head so I'm a little out of focus...or maybe it was the wine?

 

But finally we get all the socialites and rabble-rousers out of the picture and get everyone to focus and pay attention and I think we came out great!

 

 

 

Each year they set up a luncheon for us at  Roger Rocka's Dinner Theater in Fresno. The cast there puts on an abbreviated portion of the show currently playing which this year was Beehive. It was so funny and they are such great singers. They also host a raffle where you can win prizes such as Kindles and Ipods and Ipads and bottles of wine and baskets of chocolate and stuffed animals and gift certificates. All the money goes to charity and sadly no one at my table won! But we still had a wonderful time!

 



 

 

Saturday my sister and I took my dad to breakfast. He had a good time and bought himself a little 1955 Chevy model car that they had for sale, so he was a happy camper to have had breakfast with his girls and a toy to play with later!

 

 

 

Then my sister and I took off for Valencia to do some Christmas shopping and share in a little sister-time. Sadly, I didn't get any pictures except the one of the Guacamole and Sparkling Pomegranate Margaritas we shared, but if I had gotten a picture, we would have been smiling because we had a great day.

 

 

 

So that was my weekend and tomorrow it's back to the salt mines. Have a good week everyone!

Peace - Do You Hear What I Hear

It's been a long day. I admit that I watched the clock big time today at work, and that last hour lasted forever! I could hardly wait until 5pm!

Then the magic hour got here and I shut down my computer, gathered up my purse, cell phone, sweater, travel coffee mug, lunch bag and keys and got into my little putt-putt and remembered I had to stop at Smart and Final and pick up a bag of frozen meatballs for a little recipe I pinned on Pinterest that I want to try.

Photo Courtesy The Country Cook

Don't those meatballs look delicious? I had them many years ago at a Christmas party. The secret is grape jelly....but shhhh, don't tell my family. If I tell them grape jelly is in there they probably won't even try it. Check out the recipe at The Country Cook (plus she has a really great blog with tons of great recipes!)

I stop and pick up my meatballs and hurry to my car because it's freezing (well freezing for Southern California, it was like 68 degrees!) I start heading home when my son texts me to remind me that I have to return some Christmas lights that are in the trunk of my car...darn it!

So I think I'm going to outsmart traffic by taking the road less travelled, unfortunately everyone in Bakersfield took the road less travelled because I could see Highway 99 to my left and it was flowing smoothly while I was stuck in a single lane of traffic all waiting for the light to turn green so they could turn left while I was the only person that wanted to turn right but couldn't because all the lefties were in the way and the only way I could have done it would have been to booney-bounce all over the shoulder and I just got new tires and had them aligned ..so that wasn't happening!

And I'm hungry and cold and I know my meatballs are melting and the traffic keeps going slower and slower and I'm thinking, "why me?" All day I looked forward to just going home and here it's 6pm and I'm stuck in traffic and I forgot and changed purses this morning and left a bag of MandM's in my old purse so I don't even have anything to snack on and I know I'm going to starve to death and tomorrow they would find my cold, dead body and melting meatballs!!!

I'll admit, I'm cursing and debating whether I should just make a U-turn and go home and try to return the lights tomorrow. All of a sudden I hear this golden voice coming out of my radio. Here...take a listen.




Instantly I felt the stress and road rage slip away. I sang along with Bing and marvelled at what an impact this one man had made on the world with his talent and his beautiful voice and I counted myself lucky at being able to enjoy this moment and have his music touch my life.

So go listen to your favorite Christmas music and unwind, let your cares, worries, stress and most importantly road rage just slip away.

What's your favorite Christmas song?

Easy Peasy Huevos Rancheros

One would think that since I am Hispanic I would have eaten Huevos Rancheros a bazillion times in my lifetime right? But actually, I have never had them.

But first a funny story from my childhood. I grew up eating every meal with tortillas. My mom would make eggs sunny side up and I would tear off a little piece of my tortilla and scoop up the yummy yellow yolk. I would continue tearing the tortilla and scooping up the egg until it was all gone. Then I would close my little eyes and pat my little round belly and proclaim that that had been the best breakfast ever!

One time, we were on a road trip to Arizona and we stopped at a pancake house in Yuma. I was probably about 12 or 13 years of age. My mom ordered bacon and eggs for me. They brought my bacon and eggs and everyone started eating and my mom looked over at me and asked me why I wasn't eating yet. I said, "I'm waiting for the tortillas".  Mom told me there were no tortillas coming, that in restaurants they served breakfast with toast. I told her I couldn't eat eggs with toast, I didn't  know how and I wanted tortillas. Sad to say I started crying and telling my mom I didn't know how to eat eggs without tortillas! So I didn't eat my eggs and I loved eggs!

Now granted, I didn't think it was funny at the time, but I get teased about it a lot now. I did eventually learn to eat eggs with toast, which is good because I love restaurant breakfasts and they don't serve tortillas.

With Huevos Rancheros you get your tortillas! I was inspired to try this dish by a pin on Pinterest by Bev at Bev Cooks. I thought, "Wow! This looks delicious!" I read the recipe and it seemed easy as well. So I posted on facebook on Friday morning that I was going to make these tomorrow. Well my sister called my bluff this morning when she came over for coffee and said, "Ok, so where are these Huevos Rancheros you said you were going to make?"

Here's the original photo posted by Bev. Now tell me looking at this photo that you wouldn't be driven to try making them as well?

I did tweak Bev's recipe a bit. I didn't have any canned black beans, but my mom had cooked a fresh pot of Peruvian Beans or frijole peruanos so my sister refried them in a bit of oil. While she worked on making refried beans, I heated about 1/2 cup of oil in a pan and pan fried whole corn tortillas one at a time until they were just deliciously crisp, then I blotted them with paper towels. I then fried the eggs and layered the corn tortilla, spread with some of the refried beans, then a layer of shredded cheddar cheese, then the delicious fried egg. My sister chopped some cilantro and we had some salsa in the fridge...we always have homemade salsa in the fridge (I love having my mother live with me!).

Here's a photo of the Huevos Rancheros that I made.

Trust me these are delicious. If you make them you will be addicted...so go on, make them! You can thank me and Bev later!