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.