Who's up for a bit of fun and a little learning?

Most of you in here have been around for a bit, and you've learned to shop "the ring around the carbs", learned to read labels and shop smart, and are probably buying food items that have never been in your fridge or pantry before. If you are like me, you may have brought something home, stared at it, and wondered how the heck to cook it. So...

The assignment is to mosey on over to the recipe section, to your favorite LC cookbook, or to you wild imagination, and cook up something that you haven't tried before. You can do something as simple as trying a new vegetable or meat, or trying to cook an old standby in a new way. It doesn't necessarily need to be something complicated. Frying up a brand new veggie is a victory in itself. Trying a whole new recipe is also a victory.

When you are done, pop back into this thread, tell us what food item it was, and give us a quicky description of what you did with it. If you invented a new LC recipe, please post it in the recipe section instead of posting it in here, so it will be saved with all the other LC goodies invented by our members.

On your mark, get set, GO.......

(and for those of you who are daring enough to participate, there will be a special reward in your journal)

(This thread doesn't need to be just about zucchini. The time I spent in the sandbox playing with zucchini was my contribution to sharing an interesting new way to deal with the green monster. So go ahead and conquer your own veggie and share it with us. )

My mission : to find something interesting for zucchini. Eating it raw or pan fried has become boring.

New foods : Zucchini, soy flour, Splenda. I've had soy flour and Splenda in the pantry for a while, but didn't know what to do with it.

The recipe : Zucchini Latke.

I did a search for zucchini at this site, and found some posts referring to using zucchini as an alternative to spaghetti squash in a latke recipe.

The original Latke recipe is from Rachel Mines and it can be found here: Latkes

My variation using zucchini is posted in the "discuss this recipe" thread here: Discussion

Food Counts for the full batch which makes 3 good sized latkes: Calories: 257.5 Protein: 19 Fat: 16.7 Carbs: 6.9 plus whatever you use to fry them in.

These were very filling, and yes, I had them for breakfast.

Believe it or not, when I make spaghetti for my hubby, I steam some zucchini in place of the pasta for myself. Ya know I like my "pasta" much better than his. Mine is low carb!

Italian seasonings on zucchini is fantastic. Lightly steamed with butter and parmesan cheese. YUMMY! This has to be my favorite veggie.

Zucchini is my favourite too!

I used it 2 years ago in all my pickling recipes (because I grew it in my garden and it took OVER) - using Splenda of course (curry pickles, mustard pickles, relish) - and I got WONDERFUL pickles that I can EAT. The larder is STILL full with the supply

Use it in place of lasagna noodles - cook it lightly first

Broil thick slices with olive oil until really brown. If you have a garden with mint, splashing a bit of lemon juice and mint - a really good dried mint works too- and chopped garlic.

Broil as above and cover with sour cream and feta

Broil until it becomes limp. Smear with 1/4 inch of mayonnaise that has been mixed with curry powder - or any flavouring you like - then broil until the mayonnaise is lightly brown. Add fresh grated ginger to the mayonnaise and drizzle with soy sauce.

Broil, spread it out in a shallow dish, cover with thinly sliced tomato and cover with cheese. Bake until brown and bubbly.

Doodle and I were having a brief discussion about soy flour here:

Tempura?

Karen

Hi Angela, sounds like you're wanting to find some new tried recipes!!

I hope we get some to take the time and let us know what they've cooked up!!

As per the Member's Recipe section (I'm not sure if this is where you're referring to), we save it for our Member's Own Creations. When we first started out we put all recipes in it, but during the past 6 months or so, we decided to make all the recipes there unique to this forum. This way it's our special collection.

Sharon, I personally wasn't looking for recipes. I was hoping to get people out from under their warm snuggly winter covers and encourage them to play with their food!

I guess it was incorrect for me to ask people to post *any*recipe in there. *blushing* I didn't understand what that section was for, now I do.

I've edited the main thread to reflect that.

Well, my favorite hi carb dish was Lasagna. I looked through all of the recipes and decided I would try an egg plant lasagna. Urgggh. It was awful. I don't know why I tried it. I really don't care for egg plant (unless it is fried dipped in batter, slathered in Italian red sauce, covered in provalone, and in between a home made pizzeria roll). I am a big consistency person and the algae feel of egg plant and zucchini don't do to much for me. It tasted to "odd for me". Some one posted a noodless lasagna so I think I might try that this weekend. Only thing is that Lasagna is a trigger food for me and I just might have to leave the imitations alone too.

Does anyone have a recipe for lc chinese egg plant? I had that once and enjoyed the sweet and spicey taste.

LC Sponge: I'm dying to find any and all LC pickle recipes that i can use Splenda in and put in jars that will keep. Are your recipes in the recipes section? If not, will you e-mail them to me?

PS. How does Splenda do in keeping everything from going bad? My mom, who does pickling every year says that the sugar in pickles is to keep them preserved and that's why they stay usable. Does Splenda keep the pickles fresh for a good length of time?

Anything you could tell me I'd love to hear!

deb

Since I hadn't cooked much for the last 15 years, everything I do in the kitchen comes under the heading of "playing with food." I started with zucchini too. My "invention" (I actually think I got this from a vegetarian cookbook long ago) is Zucchini Zircles. Slice a zucchini into very thin circles; fry in butter. Turn over when the underside starts to be brown. After another minute or two, cover with shredded mozzarella cheese. I use the stuff that's already shredded and comes in a plastic bag.

This is my "I'm sick of meat" recipe.

My other "food plays" have ended up in the garbage. I make sure I have something edible defrosted -- live and learn I did come up with Chocolate Thing -- but there are dozens of variants of this. I just didn't read them. Soften cream cheese. Mix about 2 tbl with cocoa and 1 packet splenda. Eat. Not exactly a vegetable, but a darn fine after dinner snack

Angela, I love your "homework" assignments.

I tried the baked chicken breasts where, 10-15 minutes beforetheyre done, you put mayo and cheddar cheese on top and continue to bake. Pretty good, and a nice change from plain baked breasts.

I bought a turnip--though not super LC, still okay in small amounts--and ate some slivers of it raw today at the grocery store clerk's suggestion. A nice crunch, and a nice variety in my raw veggies!

I think it's a great idea to set ourselves some sort of goal for trying new vegies or recipes or techniques! thanks for the thread!

Hi Angela!!!

My new Philly Steak "sandwich" since locarbing......

I chop and fry up brocolli, cauliflower, and mushrooms. Fry the steak and roll it around the veggies. Sprinkle cheese on top and melt!! YUMM!! ( of coarse, no bread!! Who needs it??!!)

This is very satisfying, filling and yummy!!!

Ellie

I have found that different varieties of mushrooms can be both very meaty and very "carb like" at the same time.

I sautee most varieties in a little butter and garlic and use them in all sorts of ways - you could put them on meat, toss them (warm) into a salad (especially spinach,) or my new personal favorite: using a big slice of deli turkey breast as a "tortilla" stuff with mushrooms and greens or cheese and eat (with a mustard dipping sauce if desired). You could also use large spinach leaves as tortillas to the same effect.

One thing I was thinking of trying, oyster mushrooms look a lot like pasta. I am wondering how they would hold up under a nice red meat sauce? I'll report back.

Kim

I didn't like cauliflower raw, so I never bought it before.
But after reading "Living Low Carb" by Fran...
She was very positive about cauliflower.
So a few weeks ago I bought a head of it. First of all, its fun hacking off the leaves (I looked like the guy doing the japanese knife commercial...) Then I grated it with the same grater that I use for cheese. The rest of the instructions were: Heat a pan is olive oil and add onion to brown then cauliflower. Cook for 5-7 minutes. I added chopped pepper and some parmisian cheese.
Oh it was sooooo good! It was nice having it as a side dish to Curry Chicken (I actually put it on top of the "rice") What a pleasant surprise. So whats my thoughts on Cauliflower?
Buy it! Try it! You'll love it!!!

Remember being told not to play with your food as a child? Now I love to play with my food, while I'm preparing it, that is. Some of my experiments are disasters. Just last week I botched an impromptu dessert experiment involving some very expensive mascarpone cheese and the whole mess got thrown in the trash.

However I do have some successes. Just yesterday I made regular cheeseburger pizza for the family. I had a yen for pizza too so I got the notion to turn it upside down or maybe it's inside out?
Anyway I got out my small quiche pan, spread a layer of the browned & seasoned ground beef and onion, just a little over .5 " thick. Then I got one egg and beat it thoroughly in a little bowl until evenly lemon coloured. Next I drizzled the egg all over the meat and swirled the pan around a bit so the egg was evenly distributed. I baked it in the oven until the egg was nicely set. Then I took it out of the oven and topped it with some slices of Roma tomato, green pepper strips and grated mozzarella. Popped it back into the oven until cheese was nicely melted.
Voila! A Meatza Pizza sans crust which cut nicely into wedges and delivered that yummy pizza flavour so many of us crave! And the leftovers were great for breakfast this morning too!

Another experiment which was not quite as stunning a success but ok was my Black Forest Smoothie - 1/2 c yogurt, 1.5 oz cream cheese, 2 heaping T plain unsweetened whey powder, 1 t dark cocoa powder, 1 t flax oil, 4 frozen strawberries, 1 t vanilla, 7 drops of stevia liquid. I had to ad an extra two or 3 T of water to get it to blend properly, I don't have the greatest blender. It was very filling for a mid-afternoon snack.
Flavourwise it tasted like it could be a little sweeter but maybe that's because I'm in the process of sugar withdrawal. I had started out with 1/2 t vanilla and 4 drops of stevia but added more to improve the flavour. My vanilla is homemade so it has a delicious flavour but I find I have to use twice as much because it's not as strong. I may try this again and use 8 drops of stevia. Stevia has a sort of licorice taste and I find I have to be cautious with it or it takes over. But the bitterness of the cocoa needed a bit more sweetness to balance it.
I follow the Scwarzbein program which is a little more flexible than some of the other eating plans so I don't know if this would be acceptable for others. But hey, anything that keeps me from a sugar/chocolate binge is helpful for me.
Also I didn't do a carb count because I'm a little lazy when it comes to tallying numbers, I just try to live by the LC principle. The whey powder comes in at 1 g carb and 17 g protein for each heaping 2 T serving. Also 1 g fat if that interests you at all.