Friday Fun

Well, we’re near the end of week three on the slow carb diet.  So far, not much weight has been lost, but the way we’ve been eating, we should have gained at least 10 lbs if the simple “calories in – calories out” rule was accurate.

So we’ve come to the conclusion that “calories in – calories out” is kind of like “buy low, sell high”: a gross oversimplification.  So whereas this diet has not led to the kind of weight loss we’d hoped for, it’s been far from a waste of time.  Odds are, it will merely require some tweaks, which we are currently researching.

In the course of said research, I found this.  Yes, “The Drinking Man’s Diet.”  If that’s not for us, I don’t know what is :D.  Not sure if we’ll end up trying it as described, but it was certainly worth pointing out.

Lastly, on the subject of the slow carb diet, I had an epiphany last night regarding slow carb desserts, and it is this:  It’s ok to have up to 1 can of diet soda per day on this diet, and said diet soda, if used judiciously, can serve as a sweetener for pretty much anything.  You could probably even make a decent BBQ sauce with diet soda instead of e.g. honey if you use more tomato paste to thicken.

But whereas we haven’t tried BBQ sauce yet, I did, last night, make one of the tastiest beverages I have ever tried; and it’s totally “slow carb kosher,” and ridiculously easy to make:

Add 4 tbsp peanut butter to 1 can of diet Dr. Pepper in a glass.  Use an immersion blender to blend until smooth.    Try not to drink too quickly.

Well, that’s it for this week.  Back on Monday with… well we’re not sure yet, but as always, we’ll do our best to make it informative and/or entertaining.

Have great weekend, and Bon Appetit!

Twisted Tuesday and a Slow-Carb “Dessert”

Welcome to our first Twisted Tuesday.  Why twisted?  Because desserts have no place in the slow-carb diet, with the exception of cheat day.

But our mission on this diet, apart from the obvious, is to make it fun.  So we scoured the various lists of acceptable foods, and came up with something that can very nearly pass as a real dessert.  So, without further ado, here it is:

Meat and Mushroom Monday. I’m thinking that Chicken fits that bill as well?

Last Friday after putting in a long day reading, writing and talking about food (yes, tough life :-)), we both realized we hadn’t planned anything for dinner. We have been playing with our not so new anymore water oven and have been sousviding (Yes, I am using the term sous vide as a verb.) most every day. Meat, chicken, fish, vegetables . . . you name it, we have been pretty much sousviding it. But here it was almost 7:00 with nary a plan for dinner. Too late to start sousviding from scratch and all the rest of the meat, chicken or fish were all frozen. And we sure didn’t want to start eating dinner at 10.

I opened the freezer hoping I would come up with some sort of creative concoction that wouldn’t take too much time.

Matzah Brei Monday

Now that Passover has come and gone, I am sure a few of you have some of that pesky matzah leftover. What to do, what to do?

A recent blog post on Shami’s Gourmet expressed a strong love of eggs. To clarify, that was written by my other half. I actually hate eggs. I don’t mind them in baked goods or a tasty pisco sour, but as a rule, eggs do not pass through these lips.

Except during Passover. I will be honest, I usually do not “keep Passover” per se, but I do like a good sheet of matzah now and then. Why not? After all, it’s just a really big cracker!

So why am I now talking about eggs and matzah? Well, the “matzah brei” of course.

Bubbe’s Mousse du Perigord — Sous Vide

Welcome to our first Meat Monday.  After all, we can’t write about mushrooms every Monday…  Besides which, in honor of Passover, we just developed a dead simple recipe which tastes like a cross between grandma’s chopped liver and Mousse du Perigord, and we had to share it with you.  Here it is:

Bubbe’s Mousse du Perigord