While searching for something new to make with a bag of frozen kale I came across this blog: 365 Days of Kale. Who would have thought there was a blog devoted entirely to kale! Scrolling through the site and it’s recipes I found this one for kale that included eggs. I had just about everything on hand. To reduce the number of carbs I only used 1 large potato that had been peeled, diced and boiled until tender.

Kale and Eggs

8 ounces of frozen chopped kale, thawed

1 large potato, peeled, diced and boiled until tender

1 small onion

1 clove of garlic, minced

roasted red peppers, several pieces diced

4 eggs

chives

1 – 2 tablespoons olive oil, butter or coconut oil

salt and pepper

In a large skillet add the oil of your choice and turn the stove on to medium heat. Add the diced onion and garlic and saute. While these are cooking squeeze the kale gently to remove any excess water. Add the kale to the pan. Cook until the kale has softened a bit then add the red peppers and potatoes. Cook for several minutes until all the vegetables are warm. Make 4 small depressions in the vegetables. Crack an egg into each depression. Cover the pan and allow the steam to cook the eggs. Remove the cover, turn off the heat. Sprinkle some of the chives over the eggs and serve. Add salt and pepper to taste before eating.

If you like kale then you will enjoy this recipe. I’ve already made it a second time and added frozen zucchini that had been thawed when I added the kale to the pan. This would probably taste delicious with some linguica (Portuguese sausage) or even some bacon.

This post is being linked back to Real Food Wednesdays.

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Once people hear you try to avoid eating things such as potatoes, rice and bread the first thing they ask is “don’t you miss them?” Then they immediately say that they could never give any of those things up. Personally I think the key to not missing certain items is to find another food that works in its place. Sometimes a replacement can be found quickly and other times it takes a while. Mashed potatoes were pretty easy to replace especially when you use this low carb faux cauliflower mashed potato recipe.

Low Carb Cauliflower Mashed Potatoes

1 to 1 1/2 lbs of frozen cauliflower or 1 medium to large head of fresh cauliflower

3 ounces of cream cheese, softened

2 to 4 tablespoons of heavy cream

1 tablespoon butter

salt and pepper to taste

If using fresh cauliflower remove the outer leaves and break the head up into florets and place into a microwave safe bowl and add 2 or 3 tablespoons of water. If using frozen cauliflower place it into a microwave safe bowl and add 2 or 3 tablespoons of water. Since every microwave is different start by microwaving the cauliflower for 10 minutes. Check to see if the pieces are soft. If not, microwave in 5 minute increments until all the pieces have become soft and tender. If you do not want to use the microwave then steam the cauliflower for approximately 20 to 25 minutes until soft.

Remove the cauliflower and drain off any water present. In a food processor or blender add the cauliflower, cream cheese, butter and 2 tablespoons of heavy cream. Process until it is smooth and thickened. If the mixture is too thick add an additional 1 to 2 tablespoons of heavy cream and continue to process. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Serves 8

Calories: 75

Fat: 4.7 grams

Total carbs: 6.3 grams

Fiber: 2.6 grams

Net Carbs: 3.7 grams

Protein: 3.3 grams

One of my favorite ways to use cauliflower mashed potatoes is to make shepherds pie. Make your ground beef base, mix it with your favorite gravy, add some low carb vegetables and bake in the oven for about 15 to 20 minutes. Remove from the oven and top with the cauliflower mashed potatoes and return it to the oven to bake for another 15 minutes. Remove from the oven, cool and serve. Here’s a picture of shepherds pie that I made using string beans in place of the usual starchy veggies such as corn. It’s only partially topped with the faux mashed potatoes so you can see the filling underneath.

So this is one of my favorite high carb food replacements. Have you replaced a favorite high carb food with a low or lower carb version? Leave a comment and let others know what worked for you.

This post is being linked back to the following blogs. Stop in to check out all the other great recipes, tips and ideas:

Real Food Wednesdays at Kelly The Kitchen Kop

Fight Back Fridays at Food Renegade

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A short time ago Hemi, the owner of the blog Fooducate, asked people to contact her if they were interested in testing out products in the future. I sent my name in and didn’t think about it until she contacted me. Hemi asked if I would be interested in trying out some tomatoes that came in BPA free packaging. Sure thing! I use tomatoes all the time. My original plan was to make some type of sauce for pasta. Of course, the week before the tomatoes arrived, things have been crazy because of school and I had already made spaghetti. If your not going to use tomatoes in sauce the next best thing is to use them in soup. The great thing about this soup is you can use just about any type of veggie and in just about any form….fresh, frozen or canned.

Beef Minestrone Soup

1 lb ground beef

olive oil

2 cloves chopped garlic

2 small to medium onions, chopped

3 stalks celery, chopped

3 or 4 carrots, sliced (OR 15 ounce can OR 1 lb frozen)

2 zucchinis quartered and sliced (OR 1 lb frozen)

2 to 3 handfuls of baby spinach (OR 8 oz frozen)

15 ounce can green beans

28 ounce can of diced or chopped tomatoes

28 ounce can tomato sauce

2 cups chicken or vegetable broth

1/2 cup red wine (optional)

1 tablespoon dried oregano

1 tablespoon dried basil

salt and pepper to taste

15 ounce can of kidney beans, drained and rinsed

1/2 cup orzo or other small pasta

Parmesan cheese for topping your soup

Oops….just realized that I forgot a few ingredients out of the picture. I don’t see any carrots, pasta or even the ground beef. I did however learn a new trick on how to take pictures indoors. Now the pictures aren’t as gray and washed out as they use to be. I’ll figure the picture taking thing out one day.  Those are thePomi tomatoes I got to test out. The boxes were pretty neat. Hard to believe they held slightly less (26.46 oz) then the huge 28 oz cans. They took up so much less cabinet space.

Directions:

In a large stock pot, over medium heat, add the ground beef. Brown and crumble the beef. Drain off the oil.

Add the onion to the pot and saute for 2 to 3 minutes. Add the celery and carrots and saute for another 4 to 5 minutes. If the vegetables should begin to stick add a tablespoon or two of olive oil and continue to saute. Add in the garlic and saute for 2 to 3 minutes.

If you are using a combination of fresh, canned and frozen vegetables you will want to add your frozen vegetables first so they thaw a bit. In my recipe I used frozen zucchini and spinach so I put them in first and allowed them to cook for several minutes before adding the other vegetables. It just makes it easier to stir because you won’t have a frozen mass of veggies in the middle of the soup. It doesn’t really matter though.

The picture above shows how I just sort of layered everything into the pot before stirring it.  Add in everything EXCEPT for the pasta and parmesan cheese. Simmer for 30 to 40 minutes. Stir occasionally while it cooks.

If you like soup with a lot of broth then cook the pasta in a separate pot and add it back to the soup at the very end right before you serve it. Ladle into bowls and top with Parmesan cheese.

If you prefer a thicker soup add the 1/2 cup of pasta directly to the soup and stir well. Cook until the pasta is tender. Ladle the soup into bowls and sprinkle a bit of parmesan cheese on top before serving.

TIP: this soup tastes just as good without out the beef

FREEZER TIP: even though this soup has a small amount of pasta in it you can freeze it. The pasta will soften when thawed and reheated but, due to the amount, it’s not really noticeable. Since this does make a very large pot of soup you can also remove several smaller containers of soup before adding the pasta to the main pot. This will solve the problem entirely.

This post is being linked back to the following blogs. Stop in to check out all the other great recipes, tips and ideas:

Real Food Wednesdays at Kelly The Kitchen Kop

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During last weeks emergency craziness I was looking for easy dinner meals to make. The type of meals that I could depend on everyone eating the whole meal and not just parts of it. Meals that didn’t leave me with a refrigerator full of leftovers or, if there were leftovers, at least I had a plan to use them. Seasoned potato wedges and burgers were one of the meals I made.

SEASONED POTATO WEDGES

6 to 8 potatoes

2 + Tablespoons olive oil

Sandwich Sprinkle from Penzey’s Spices

Try your own blend of 2 teaspoons onion powder, 1 teaspoon garlic powder, 1 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon black pepper

*Preheat your oven to 375 F

* Scrub potatoes and rinse well. I left on the skins but removed any eyes, bad spots, etc. Pat the potatoes dry.

* Cut the potatoes into wedges or “steak fry” size pieces.

* Put the potato slices into a large bowl and drizzle the oil over them. Start out with the 2 tablespoons. Use your hand if necessary to move the slices around to get them coated. If needed add more oil.

* I used Penzey’s Sandwich Sprinkle to season the potatoes. It’s a blend of salt, garlic, black pepper, basil, oregano, rosemary, thyme and marjoram. We use it on lots of things including these potatoes wedges. If you have this blend on have give it a try. If not use a blend of garlic and onion powder along with salt and pepper. Pour your season blend over the potatoes and toss to coat.

* Spread the potatoes out on an ungreased nonstick baking sheet. Make sure they are in a single layer so they will brown.

* Bake for 30 to 35 minutes. Test the potatoes with a fork to see if they are done. Remove from oven and sprinkle with additional seasoning to taste if desired.

TIP: While your baking these potato wedges toss in 2 or 3 extra whole potatoes and bake them. I’ll be following this post with another for Baked Potato Soup. I’m all for saving time these days. Cooking, or in this case baking, once and getting a second meal out of it works for me.

This post is being linked back to the following blogs. Stop in to check out all the other great recipes, tips and ideas:

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Oh what was I thinking when I bought all those tomatoes!

Picked up the tomatoes on Sunday and started in on making homemade salsa. 20 pints and a bunch of hours later there were still about 3 cases of tomatoes left.

Monday was spent trying to catch some sleep after working the night shift. The kids are still home from school so the sleeping thing didn’t go so well. The boxes of tomatoes sat in a big pile mocking me from the corner of the kitchen. I would have to wait until Tuesday before working on the sauce. No sleep + sharp knives + boiling hot water = waiting to blanch and peel another 60 pounds of tomatoes.

Tuesday was the big saucing day. Blanch, peel, dice. Blanch, peel, dice.

We only managed to make it through about a box and a half. My nails now seem to have a slight orange tint to the edges from handling the tomatoes. The last box was processed and canned on Wednesday. Whew!

I’m not sure what type of tomatoes we had but they were very juicy. We poured all the juicy that built up on the cutting board into a large container. In the end it was poured through a strainer to remove the seeds. I used some of it in some incredible Lime Chicken Chili…..recipe to be posted later.

A few other ingredients were added to the diced tomatoes. It would have taken hours to cook the tomatoes down to thicken them enough to use for tomato sauce. Instead we just went with a basic tomato sauce that could later be used as is or cooked further to make spaghetti or pizza sauce. Into the pot went two large diced onions, a head of garlic (peel and diced) as well as salt and pepper.

The sauce was cooked until it began to slightly thicken. It probably took about 45 minutes. I used a immersion blender (also called a stick or hand held blender) to puree the tomatoes in the pot. The canning jars were soaking in the clean sink in some nice hot water.

According to the Ball Blue Book Guide to Preserving we needed to add 1 tablespoon of lemon juice and 1/2 teaspoon of salt to each jar. Then each was filled with the hot sauce until there is 1/2 inch of head space left. Wipe the rims to make sure they are clean. Top with a lid and band. Place the jars in the hot water bath and process the quarts for 45 minutes.

While we didn’t get an exact weight it appears that 50 lbs of tomatoes gave us about 19 quarts of sauce along with a quart or two of strained tomato juice.

I’m done canning for the week. Next up will most likely be apples. The farm said they will be ready before Labor Day this year. Looks like we will be out there picking our favorite Honeycrisp apples by next weekend.

This post was submitted to the Canning Week Linky Party. Stop by and see all the other great canning recipes, ideas, tips and crafts.

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Over the last few weeks I’ve been visiting a farmers market with a friend of mine. We talked about canning and decided that perhaps tomatoes would be a good group project. We both use salsa and tomato sauce so we could try making both. The local farm we were ordering from asked us how many tomatoes we wanted. Neither of us had ever canned tomatoes before so we had no idea. Did we want a bushel they asked? Hmmm…..well, since there are two of us perhaps we should get two bushels. One for making salsa and the other for tomato sauce.

The day came for picking up our tomatoes and we discovered them packed into 4 large boxes. There was half a bushel in each box. It looked like a lot but then we were going to split whatever we canned so it still wouldn’t be bad. Once we returned to my house it was time to pull out everything needed to make salsa. In the blink of an eye my kitchen table looked a bit like this:

That’s not all of it either. The refrigerator was packed with limes, lemons, garlic, cilantro, peppers and more. The stove was filled with the canning pot (so we could start heating the water) and a pot to blanch the tomatoes. Another pot filled with cold water was sitting in the sink. The tomatoes from the blanching pot would be tossed in here along with a cup full of ice cubes. The heating/cooling process makes it easy to peel the tomatoes skins away. A final pot would be needed to hold all the diced salsa ingredients so they could be mixed.

We never did use a bushel of tomatoes to make the salsa.  Why? Because it turns out that a bushel is a whole lot of tomatoes. Our final recipe included 20 pounds or so of tomatoes. Once the other ingredients were added in we ended up with 20 pints of salsa. There would have been another pint or more but that all got eaten while “taste testing” the salsa. Our final recipe was based on several others. In the end we made a few changes based on our own personal tastes. Here’s our recipe:

Homemade Salsa

20 pounds of tomatoes, peeled, cored, diced and gently squeezed to remove some of the juice

3 bunches of scallions, sliced thin

3 large red onions, finely diced

2 heads of garlic, cloves removed and finely diced

1/2 bunch of cilantro, leaves removed and chopped

juice of 2 lemons

juice of 7 limes

8 ounces of jalapeno sliced, chopped

1/2 to 3/4 cup of white vinegar

1 tablespoon chili powder (used Penzy’s Ancho chili powder)

salt and pepper to taste

2 bell peppers, seeded, cored and diced (only add these to 5 of the jars)

Start by blanching the tomatoes to peel the skins. Discover that 20 pounds of tomatoes is a whole lot and you need to work out a system of doing it quickly. We ended up washing 5 or 6 tomatoes, using a knife to cut an X into the bottom (so the skins will peel) and adding them to the pot of hot water. Wait 30 to 60 seconds, remove and put in pot of cold water. Add some ice cubes to chill the water. While those tomatoes are chilling repeat the washing process with the next batch. Once the tomatoes in the chilled water have cooled the skins should come off pretty easy.

Cored the peeled tomatoes and dice them. Once we started this step our chopping boards suddenly filled with an incredible amount of tomato juice. After a quick talk we decided to try squeezing some of the juice out into another container. Both of us would rather have chunky salsa instead of one with a lot of liquid. This worked out pretty well. Cored, diced, squeeze until your hands are tired. Then start making weird squishing sounds while your doing it to keep yourself and the kids entertained. Don’t get over zealous with squeezing. The juice will shoot out everywhere.

Just when you think you won’t be able to cut another tomato it’s time to move on to the other ingredients. Wash your scallions and remove the end with the roots. Slice thinly and toss it into the pot with the tomatoes.

Next up was the garlic.  Using the flat side of a large knife smash them gently on a cutting board. Doing this helps to remove the skin from the cloves. We used a small food processor to get the garlic diced into small pieces.

Peel and chop the onions. Forget taking pictures because everyone’s eyes were busy watering from the onions. We put a cover on the pot to stop our eyes from burning. Once you can finally see straight pull the leaves off of the fresh cilantro and chop it.

Quarter the lemon and limes. Remove any seeds you can see. Gently squeeze the juice in to the pot. Drain and dice the jalapenos. Add the white vinegar and chili powder to the pot. Try using a spoon to mix it. Discover that it will never happen. End up using your hands to do all the mixing. Taste your salsa and add salt/pepper. Taste again and adjust any seasonings (salt, pepper, cilantro, chili powder, etc) to suit your taste.  Not everyone here likes bell peppers so I only added those to 5 of the jars.

Following the directions in the Ball Blue Book Guide to Preserving the salsa was ladled into pint jars. The edges were wiped and the lids put in place. The jars were processed for 15 minutes. We ended up with 20 pints of incredibly delicious salsa. 

We would have had 21 pints but we ate at least a pints worth of fresh salsa along with a head of roasted garlic drizzled with olive oil and homemade pita chips as a snack. 

This is the first time I’ve made fresh salsa and canned it. It came out really well. I’ll certainly be making more in the future. Have you made and canned salsa? What are some of your favorite ingredients to use? Feel free to share in the comment section below.

This post is being linked to the following blogs – stop by and check out all the other great posts:

Canning Week Linky Party  at a Latte’ with Ott, A

Real Food Wednesdays  at Kelly The Kitchen Kop

Fight Back Fridays at Food Renegade

Phew….on to the other 3 boxes of tomatoes tomorrow.

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I love coleslaw! The slight sweet but tangy dressing goes so well with the crunchy texture of the cabbage and carrots. What I don’t like about store bought coleslaw is the amount of sugar in their dressing. I made due with store bought because I always thought that making it myself would be a pain. Since I’m trying to avoid added sugars whenever possible I thought perhaps I should give this at least one try. I’m glad that I did. Homemade beats out store bought any day of the week! It’s also super easy to make. If I had a larger food processor that could shred the cabbage for me it would be even easier.

Start by cutting the cabbage in half. Remove the core and wash it well. Also give the carrots a good scrub too. Set the cabbage aside and allow the water to drain out.

Using a hand grater or a food processor shred the carrots and place in a large mixing bowl. Shred the cabbage in the food processor if you have one. I don’t have one big enough to put cabbage in so I just sliced it thinly with a knife.

Add the cabbage to the large mixing bowl and gently blend with the carrots.

In a bowl mix the granulated sugar and the cider vinegar together. Stir until most of the sugar has been dissolved. Add the mayonnaise and Dijon mustard. Mix until well blended. Pour the dressing over the cabbage/carrot mix and stir to coat. Transfer the coleslaw to a large container with a cover. Or simply cover the mixing bowl with plastic wrap. Chill in the refrigerator for a few hours before serving.

I used Nutrition Data to calculate the stats on this recipe. If you use a large cabbage and 3 carrots along with light mayo (what I had on hand at the time) this is what 1/8 (almost 2 cups of coleslaw!) of the recipe works out to be:

Calories: 174

Fat: 10 grams

Sodium: 298 mg

Total carbohydrates: 20 grams

(Fiber: 5 grams)

(Sugar 14 grams)

Protein 3 grams

The stats on some store bought coleslaw had 15 grams of sugar in just a skimpy 1/2 cup serving.

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