Pork and Beans

I got this idea from the Breaking the Vicious Cycle book (about the “specific carbohydrate diet”). It has a list of sample recipes, but I wasn’t inspired. It also has a list of food to eat & food to avoid, so I looked up a few of the allowable items to see what else I could make. I came up with pork and beans, roughly modified to fit the rules.

• 2 cups dry navy beans, soaked overnight
• 1 cup tomato juice
• 1.5 Tbsp vinegar
• 1 cup water
• 2 tsp dry mustard
• 1 tsp salt
• Random amount of leftover ham chunks (frozen, leftover from the piggy succotash recipe)
• 2/3 cup honey

I put it all in the crockpot after breakfast, and then turned it off when I got home from work (which ended up being 12 hours later). I liked it, but I wondered if I really had to soak the beans overnight since I ended up cooking them 4 hours longer than I was supposed to. I served it with hazelnut muffins (based on the almond bread recipe, but with hazelnut flour instead of almond, and yogurt instead of butter). However, after reading the list again, I think pork is allowed but ham isn’t. Sheesh.

Turkey Chili Shirataki Spaghetti with Creamy Tomato Sauce

Rachael Ray made turkey chili topped turkey chili burgers, which I thought was a bit excessive. So I decided just to make the chili.

• 1/8 cup chili powder
• 1 Tbsp ground cumin
• 1 Tbsp seasoned pepper
• 1 pound ground turkey
• 1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
• 1/2 cup tomato sauce
• 2 tsp garlic

I think I basically followed the instructions, but I noticed a couple issues when I was done. Her chili & mine both didn’t have beans, which I noticed from the list of ingredients, but didn’t think about until I ate it. My chili didn’t have any sauce, which could have been from cooking it too long, but I roughly thought I did what she said to do. So it tasted like spicy turkey, but it wasn’t like typical chili. For the leftovers, I mixed in the leftover half can of tomato sauce, served it over a combo of whole wheat spaghetti and shirataki noodles, and added a huge spoonful of greek yogurt. After I stirred it all up & microwaved it, that’s when it tasted great.

Almond Bread

I switched it up last night with a recipe from a book called Breaking the Vicious Cycle. It was a book I bought years ago, but never followed because I didn’t have time to do any of the things it recommended for intestinal health.

• 2 1/2 cups almond flour
• 1/4 cup melted butter
• 1/2 cup honey
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 3 eggs

I stirred it up, poured it my bread maker, and pushed the “bake” button. I liked the bread, but I think the honey glazed it, which roughly made the crust too dark. I wondered about all that butter. The recipe mentioned using yogurt instead of butter, but I only had greek yogurt and that sounded like a bad combo. It also said to use baking soda, but I didn’t have any, so I swapped it for baking powder (so I guess it wasn’t 100% gluten-free or specific-carb or whatever the book was about). My boyfriend wouldn’t eat it because he said almonds might contain cyanide. Great.

Succotash

I surprised myself when I once again decided to make something with a name that roughly sounded awful. I thought Claire Robinson’s piggy succotash looked easy enough that it was worth a try.

• 2 slices turkey bacon, cut crosswise into 1/4-inch wide strips
• 1/2 bag of pre-cooked ham cubes
• 1 can of lima beans
• 1 can of hominy
• 1/4 to 1/2 cup of vegetable broth
• salt and pepper

I substituted hominy instead of corn, but it’s essentially corn. I basically followed the other instructions, but I didn’t have a cast iron skillet, so I used a non-stick pan. There wasn’t any “bacon fat” when it came time to cook the ham, but the ham was pre-cooked anyway. There weren’t really any brown bits at the bottom of the pan because I used the turkey bacon & the non-stick pan, so I just tossed in a random amount of leftover vegetable broth at vegetable cooking time. I really liked it, which also surprised me because I have never been a huge fan of ham.

Creamed Spinach

I came across this show called 5 Ingredient Fix. I wondered if it might become my new favorite. Until then, I decided to start with Claire Robinson’s easy cheesy spinach. She said to BYOC (become your own chef), so I roughly followed her advice & made some changes.

• 1/2 cup fat free greek yogurt
• 1 (10-ounce) box frozen spinach, thawed and squeezed dry
• 1/2 tsp garam masala
• 1 tsp garlic

I ate it, but I don’t know if I 100% liked it. It didn’t really look or taste like any creamed spinach I’d ever had. Then again, I had never made it before. In addition, I didn't use the recommended ingredients or totally thaw and dry the frozen spinach. After further consideration, I also realized that I’d been thinking of spinach soufflé anyway. However, it was really good a couple days later when I used it in my egg mug omlette.

Chicken & Broccoli Slaw

Once upon a time, I made these marinated chicken wings and took them to a potluck. People actually ate them & liked them. I decided to change it into a non-marinated non-wing recipe. I cut the recipe in half (since I didn’t need half to marinate), added some veggies, used thighs, & roughly revised a bit based on what was in the house.

• 1 lb chicken thighs
• 1/2 bag of broccoli slaw
• 1 cup low sodium soy sauce
• 1/4 cup seasoned rice vinegar
• 1 tsp olive oil
• 2 tsp garlic salt
• 3 tsp sugar
• 1 tsp ground ginger

I cooked it in the crockpot on low for 3 hours, and then high for 30 minutes. When it was done, I strained it & served it over shirataki noodles. It was a little salty, but I still liked it as non-wings. I should really go to the store for some garlic. Using garlic salt in everything is probably bad for my sodium. But I’m not counting sodium, so that’s fine.

Tuna Melt

While rearranging my furniture, I found a book under my bed called Hungry Girl 1-2-3 by Lisa Lillian. I don’t know why it was under the bed, but apparently I was reading about recipes in my sleep. I needed a recipe for half a can of leftover tuna, so I was happy to see her totally terrific tuna melt.*

• Sandwich thin
• Half a can of tuna
• 1 Tbsp fat-free greek yogurt
• 1 Tbsp low-fat mayo with a squeeze of dijon mustard
• 1/2 Tbsp pickle relish
• Squirt of juice from a plastic lime
• Dash of garlic salt
• Dash of pepper
• Handful of cheddar flavor rice shreds

I lightly toasted the sandwich thins, combined all the other stuff in a bowl (except the cheddar shreds), then spread the tuna mixture on the sandwich thins, topped each with some cheddar, and broiled in the toaster oven until the cheese melted. I ate it for breakfast this morning because I was out of cereal. I liked it.

* Neither the ingredients from the link, nor the ingredients I listed, were exactly as written in the book. But the link was the closest recipe I could find on her website, and my ingredients were roughly the closest equivalent in my fridge.