Salmon with Pink Tarragon Cream

Now THAT is a plateful of nutritious food!  Just look at the nutritional info below for this recipe!  I included more than I usually do here to drive home that point.  And those numbers are just for the fish and sauce!  If you add in values for the spinach and broiled tomatoes………WOW!  You can’t eat any healthier!  It probably almost meets your entire RDA nutritional requirements for the day!  This delicious sauce I have used on so many different things.  It’s good on with sautéed spinach, chicken, and over grilled shrimp.  It’s marvelous on scrambled eggs at breakfast (using diced tomato instead of tomato paste). I’m sure I’ll continue to find new ways to use this tasty pink sauce, changing up the herbs and spices.

I have discovered recently this is delicious on salmon.  It never disappoints! I served it alongside broiled tomatoes and sautéed spinach.   My husband isn’t terribly fond of salmon but he definitely liked this rendering of a very healthy fish that is very rich in Omega 3’s.   In order to be acceptable for Atkins Induction you must omit the wine.  It’ll still be good, just not quite as good.  😉  Wait until you get to Phase 2 OWL to add the wine.  This recipe is suitable for Keto diets but you might want to omit the wine as it may throw you out of ketosis.  It is perfectly OK for Primal-Paleo followers if you substitute coconut cream or coconut mild for the heavy cream.

INGREDIENTS:

12 oz. salmon filet (skin removed)

2 T. butter (I use unsalted)

½ c. heavy cream (or coconut cream or coconut milk)

½ c. water (or ½ c. more cream, if you can afford the extra carbs)

2 T. tomato paste

½ tsp. dried tarragon leaves  (or about 1½ tsp. fresh, chopped)

Dash each salt and black pepper

¼ c. rose or white wine (omit for Induction)

1/8 tsp. xanthan gum or guar gum (or your favorite thickener)

1 sprig parsley, chopped or more tarragon (for garnish)

DIRECTIONS:  Cut the fish into two equal servings.  Melt the butter in a large skillet.  Sear the pieces of salmon on both sides over high heat until golden and flesh is fully done (peek in the center with a fork).  This will only take a couple minutes on a side.  Remove to a platter and pop into warm oven to hold while sauce is made.  Lower heat to medium.  Add the water, cream, tomato paste and tarragon to the skillet.  Bring to a slow simmer for about 3-4 minutes.  Add salt and pepper.   Dust the xanthan/guar gum slowly, a little at a time over the sauce and whisk it into the cream mixture.  Stir constantly as it begins to thicken.  Turn off heat, plate the fish and dip sauce on top.  Sprinkle with chopped parsley or bit more tarragon.  Save any unused sauce for your scrambled eggs in the morning!  So yummy on eggs!

NUTRITIONAL INFO:   Makes two 6-oz. servings, each contains:  (including half the sauce)

580 cals, 43.7g fat, 4.85g carbs, 0.6g fiber, 4.25g NET CARBS, 38.8g protein, 275 mg sodium, 92 mg potassium

57% RDA Vitamin A, 66% B6, 300% B12, 7% C, 18% E, 10% D, 10% calcium, 16% copper, 19% iron, 20% magnesium, 91% niacin, 71% phosphorous, 115% selenium, 20% thiamin, 12% zinc

 

 

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Cajun Balsamic Fish Filets

This is a quick and delicious meal that takes almost no time to thaw and prepare for your family. I have tried my Homemade Cajun Seafood Spice on fish before, but I wanted to see what a dash of Balsamic vinegar would bring to that picture. Let’s just say we were both pleasantly surprised how much we liked that addition! Of course, if you’re not a balsamic fan, you can substitute lemon juice or just omit altogether. That will result in a delicious, classic Louisiana Cajun fish presentation.

This is low in calories yet filling! Best of all, it is suitable for Atkins Induction phase! This recipe would lend itself to a variety of white-flesh fish you may have available (I use what I can get in Central TX), but it would be delicious on 0salmon as well! I also think this recipe would be delicious grilled over charcoal.

INGREDIENTS:

2 6-oz. fish filets of your choice

4 T. unsalted butter

1 tsp. balsamic vinegar

1 tsp. my Homemade Cajun Seafood Spice blend

VARIATION: Use jumbo shrimp, shelled all but tails & deveined.

DIRECTIONS: Preheat oven to 400º. Prepare fresh or defrost frozen filets. Pat dry with paper towels. In a small saucepan, melt the butter. Add the balsamic vinegar and spice blend and remove from the burner. Using a brush, coat all 4 sides of the two filets with the mixture and place them on a metal baking pan. Place pan into preheated oven and bake for about 20 minutes. If fish is fully opaque & flakes nicely with knife tip (indicating it is done) but is not yet brown enough for you, turn the oven to broil and brown to your satisfaction for a couple minutes. Alternately, you can grill these over a hot charcoal fire, but be gentle lest they tear up in the handling. We love grilling fish! Serve with your favorite sides. We had ours with buttered cauliflower and my own home-grown green beans that were lightly sautéed in 50:50 butter/bacon grease a few minutes. Mmmm….This was a delicious meal!

NUTRITIONAL INFO: Makes 2 servings, each contains:

426 cals, 31.5g fat, 1.29g carbs, 0.2g fiber, 1.09g NET CARBS, 32.44g protein, 226 mg sodium

Blue Crab Stuffed Fish

This is a delicious and very easy dish to prepare.  It’s one I developed while we lived down on the Texas Gulf Coast, where I had access to the freshest, sweetest Blue Crab right off the dock.  Now, since retiring and settling in Central Texas (to get away from hurricanes), I have to make do with what comes in a little carton in the seafood aisle of my grocery store.   Not as good, to put it mildly.  But even that beats the heck out of boarding up and preparing your home for 2-3 hurricanes a season.  Because this dish uses low-carb flax-based bread, this is OK for Induction.  I would NOT recommend substituting pork rinds in this recipe.   I think you will be disappointed if you do.

INGREDIENTS:

½ recipe my Blue Crab Stuffing

6   4-oz. flounder filets  (or any mild white-flesh fish filets)

2 T. butter, unsalted

1/4 tsp. my Seafood Spice Blend

DIRECTIONS:   Preheat oven to 350º.  Make the stuffing as instructed in that recipe.  Using the spoon you used to stir the stuffing, equally mark off 6 portions in the skillet.  This helps ensure each filet will get an equal portion of filling.  Melt the 2T. butter in a baking pan.  Take each fish filet in one hand, placing the center of the filet in your palm.  Spoon 1/6th of the stuffing into the center.  Then with your other hand, fold the tail flap over the stuffing, then the header flap on top.  Gently turn over and place seam down onto the baking pan in the melted butter.   With a brush, baste the top and sides of each “roll” with butter from the pan.  Sprinkle each with a bit of Seafood Spice Blend.  Pop into a 350º oven for about 25-30 minutes.  Lift gently with a long spatula when plating, so as to not disturb the filling that invariably spills out of the roll at each end.

NUTRITIONAL INFO:  Makes 6 servings, each contains:

280 cals, 18.3g fat, 2.87g carbs, 1.23g fiber, 1.64g NET CARBS, 26.7g protein, 350 mg sodium

Fish Filet in Shawarma Sauce

This quickly thought-up menu turned out to be one of the best fish dishes I’ve created in a VERY long time!  I just can’t believe how good it is to be so simple.  A great recipe for weeknights when you’re tired after a long day at work.  This recipe just made my regular fish recipe rotations, for sure!  I don’t believe I’ve ever used my shawarma spice on seafood before, but will be definitely be doing so again in the future!  It’s truly delightful on fish!  It was almost like a Hollandaise sauce, but without all the fuss, since I keep a fresh batch of homemade mayo made up all the time.  This dish is acceptable for Atkins Induction and is Paleo friendly if you use coconut milk in lieu of the cream.  You can use Swai, sole, flounder, tilapia, bluefish, halibut or any mild fish.  I’ve even used this sauce on broiled salmon and liked the results.  I keep this spice blend made up in my spice rack so making this is a snap at my house. 🙂

INGREDIENTS:

4   5-oz. fish filets or fish filet portions of your choice

2 T. unsalted butter

1½ tsp. Shawarma Spice blend

1/3 c. homemade mayonnaise

2 T. heavy cream

Pinch salt

DIRECTIONS:    Stir 1 tsp. of the spice blend and the cream or coconut milk into the mayo in a small saucepan and set on burner set to lowest possible heat setting.  Now to sauté the fish.  Melt the butter in a non-stick skillet or griddle over medium-high heat. Pat any moisture off the fish with paper towels and sprinkle both sides evenly with the remaining ½ tsp. shawarma seasoning and a pinch of salt.    Raise heat to high and sear the fish on both sides until golden brown and done in center (takes just about 3-4 minutes on a side.  Plate the filets and spoon about 2 tablespoons of the creamy sauce over each portion.    Serve with a green vegetable or nice green salad.

NUTRITIONAL INFO:  Makes 4 servings, each contains:

338.5 cals, 25g fat, 0.63g carbs, 0.13g fiber, 0.5g NET CARBS, 28.3g protein, 83 mg sodium

 

Indian Broiled Fish

A lot of Indian food fans don’t realize what a stellar job they do with fish in India.  Many menus don’t have it on the menu, but a quick perusal of an Indian cookbook will have you realizing they eat a lot of fish.  Their exotic spices compliment fish in the most wonderful way. 

Originally posted in 2010, I thought of this recipe today and am fixing this for dinner tomorrow night, I think.  This baked fish dish goes together really fast, so it is an easy meal prep during the summertime when you’d rather be outdoors having fun than cooking in the kitchen.  If you wish, you can use whole fish for this recipe.  This spice mixture would also be good on flounder or trout.  This recipe is Induction friendly.  The batch pictured has 1 small Roma seeded and finely chopped.  I enjoy this entrée both with and without the tomato.  I have not included the tomato in the recipe or nutritional stats, however.

INGREDIENTS:

2   8 oz. tilapia or flounder filets (or white flesh fish of choice)

1 tsp. minced ginger root

1 tsp. minced garlic

1 finely chopped jalapeno, seeded and chopped

1 T. chopped cilantro

¼ tsp. turmeric

Dash each of cayenne & black pepper

3 T. unsalted butter, melted

Dash/sprinkle of Garam Masala spice blend

OPTIONAL:  2 tsp. tomato sauce or 1 small tomato chopped on fish before spices added is very good.

DIRECTIONS:  Mix all ingredients in a glass bowl.  Do not use a plastic bowl or the turmeric will permanently stain it.  Add melted butter and mash it all up together.  Place fish on oiled, non-stick or parchment-lined pan.  Spread tomato sauce or chopped tomato on side that is up (if using), add seasoning mixture evenly on the top of each filet.  Broil for about 10 minutes (15or so for whole fish), until thickest part of the filet is firming up.  Or, you can bake for about 20 minutes (30 minutes for whole fish, depending on size), but I personally think broiling is best.

NUTRITIONAL INFO: Serves 2, each serving contains:

327 cals, 15.5g fat, 1.6g carbs, 0.5g fiber, 1.1g NET CARBS, 45.5g protein, 123 mg sodium

Asian Shrimp Patties

These super easy, tasty shrimp patties make a wonderful lunch for us.  We both LOVE ’em.  They are suitable for all phases of Atkins and Keto diets.  This recipe was one of the first ever posted on my blog back in 2009.  But it is still a keeper  we enjoy occasionally.  

INGREDIENTS FOR SHRIMP PATTIES:

8 oz. raw, peeled shrimp
1/2 tsp. chili paste (I use Sambal Oelek)
2 cloves minced garlic
1 1/2 tsp. minced shallots or green onion
juice of 1/2 lime
1 tsp. lemon grass, grated (if available)
1/4 of a Revo Roll or other low-carb roll, crumbled

INGREDIENTS FOR DIPPING SAUCE:
1 ¾ tsp. sesame oil
1/2 tsp. peanut butter
2 tsp. rice vinegar
1/2 tsp. grated ginger
2 cloves minced garlic
1/4 tsp. chili paste or Sriracha sauce
1 tsp. Splenda or sweetener of your choice
1 T. low sodium soy sauce

Process all the ingredients for the patties in a food processor or blender until well blended. Shape into 6 small patties and brown in a skillet rubbed with an oiled paper towel.  You’ll know when they are done as they become visibly opaque and golden brown.  This recipe is technically not suitable until Phase 2 OWL due to sauce ingredients, but the patties themselves are OK for Induction and there’s so little PB and rice vinegar in the sauce, it probably won’t cause you problems or cravings even if still in Atkins Induction phase.

NUTRITIONAL INFORMATION:  Makes 3 servings, each contains:

142 cals, 6.33g fat, 3.5 g  carbs,0.92 g fiber, 2.58g NET CARBS, 17.6 g protein, 178 mg. sodium

Tuna Casserole

Back in 2009 when I began my Atkins journey, there weren’t all the low-carb noodle options out there we have today.  And since tuna casserole was a personal favorite, I had to get creative.  This was one of the earliest creations back in 2009 when I started low-carbing.  I threw this together one night with some leftover green beans and decided I didn’t need noodles to enjoy a favorite comfort food.  It came out tasty and had a new twist.  I added in some jicama.  The jicama gives a crunch similar to water chestnuts, but jicama has even fewer carbs!  The jicama adds no flavor, just crunch, so you can omit it if you like.

INGREDIENTS:

6.5 oz. canned or foil pouch tuna (I use oil pack)

2 c. cooked frozen green beans (French style or cut whole)

½ c. jicama, peeled or water chestnuts, julienne sliced (or slivered almonds)

½ c. canned mushrooms (2 small cans), with their liquid

½ c. cream

¼ tsp. onion powder

¼ tsp. my Seafood Spice Blend (key flavor ingredient, so don’t skip)

2 slices American cheese

½ c. grated Cheddar cheese

Dash pepper

1/4 tsp. xanthan gum

VARIATION:    Add some finely diced red bell pepper or pimiento for a slightly different flavor.  🙂

DIRECTIONS: Cook the frozen green beans until just, drain and put in a mixing bowl.  Peel and dice the jicama and add to the bowl.  Add the canned mushrooms, cream, tuna and all spices.    Stir in xanthan gum and blend all well.  Pour into microwaveable baking dish.  Top with American cheese slices first and then with the grated cheddar.  Pop into a 350º preheated oven for 20-30 minutes to blend flavors and thicken up.

NUTRITIONAL INFO:  Makes 4 servings, each contains (using jicama):

307 cals, 22g fat, 9.53g carbs, 3.55g fiber, 5.98g NET CARBS, 19g  protein, 450 mg sodium

Shrimp-Stuffed Eggplant

It’s what’s for dinner tonight!  We never tire of this recipe.  This is a bit higher in carbs than most of my low-carb entrées, but this tasty dish brings so many nutrients to your plate, it’s worth it.  There’s a good bit of your daily total veggie requirements in one meal!  This dish is OK for Atkins Induction Phase, by the way.  You can eat the entire thing, too, filling and shell, as the shell is so tender by the time it’s done you won’t find that skin tough at all!   Hope you’ll try this yummy dish soon!  If you’ve never had seafood and eggplant together, you’re going to find out that’s a flavor match made in Heaven.

INGREDIENTS:

10 oz. peeled shrimp, cut into thirds

1 whole 10 oz. eggplant, stem cut off

3 T. unsalted butter

1 clove minced garlic

2½ oz. each chopped onion, celery and red bell pepper

1/3 c. chopped parsley

2 slices bacon, chopped

10 drops Tobasco®

¼ tsp. my Seafood Spice Blend (optional)

1/2 flax sandwich bun, crumbled (or other low-carb bun)

1 T. parmesan cheese, grated, for topping

DIRECTIONS: Preheat oven to 375º.  Fill baking dish with ½” water.  Cut eggplant in half lengthwise and place cut side down in water.  Bake for about 30 minutes until flesh is tender.  Cool slightly, carefully scoop out pulp, leaving about 1/4″ flesh attached to skin for better support of the filling.  Try not to tear/cut outer skin when scooping out the pulp.  When cool, chop the scooped out eggplant pulp up and set aside.  Pour off any remaining water from the baking dish, lightly grease and place the empty shells right back in the same pan.

Over high heat, brown the bacon in non-stick skillet.  Drain off grease for some other use.  Melt butter in the skillet and add garlic, chopped onion, celery and red bell pepper.  Sauté until vegetables are tender.  Add parsley, shrimp, spice blend, Tobasco®.  Cook until shrimp are opaque.  Crumble sandwich bun and add.  I also like to add a shake or two of cayenne pepper.  Add chopped eggplant pulp, and stir to mix all ingredients well.  Fill shells (will be mounded quite a bit), sprinkle with parmesan cheese.  Lower oven to 350º and bake for about 30 minutes or until lightly browned on top.  Serve with a nice green salad.

NUTRITIONAL INFO: Serves 2 adults.  Each stuffed eggplant half contains:

513 cals, 32 g fat, 19.3g carbs, 8.35g fiber, 10.95g NET CARBS, 41g protein, 571 mg sodium

Air Fryer Coconut Shrimp

Seafood with a Hawaiian twist.  We just love these.  These air-fried Parmesan-coconut shrimp are so good you need to try them.  If you don’t have an Air Fryer, just bake them off on a sheet pan at 350º until they are browned on both sides.  No strong with coconut flavor, but that suits us both fine.

I would have never bought myself an air fryer, but my husband went and did so for my Christmas present, so I’m trying to learn how to cook different things in it.  I’ve since had to purchase a new wall oven and it has an air fryer feature built in.  I use my Power XL basket fryer for small amounts of food; the Frigidaire oven ‘air fryer’ mode for larger amounts of food.

I’ve seen so many recipes for coconut shrimp on the internet, but the coatings can be pretty high carb.  I have trimmed down the carbs and reached a total count of 1.8 net carbs per 6-shrimp serving!  I did this by looking to my popular Oven-Fried Fish coating and then modified it even further.    The end result is a dish we have had several times now.  My husband really loves these shrimp and he’s not particularly fond of coconut!  The Parmesan helps tone down the coconut taste a bit for us.  This meal is suitable once you get to Phase 2 of Atkins ‘nuts and seeds’ level.

INGREDIENTS FOR SHRIMP:

26 medium-large raw shrimp, peeled and de-veined

1 low-carb slice of bread or roll (I used a Smart Bun )

½ c. pork rind crumbs (about 1 c. whole pieces)

¼ c. grated dry Parmesan

1 oz. desicated unsweetened coconut

1/3 c. Carbquik or other low-carb bake mix

3 egg whites

¼ tsp. my homemade Seafood Spice Blend

¼ tsp. sea salt

INGREDIENTS FOR OPTIONAL BANG BANG DIPPING SAUCE: 

½ c. homemade mayo (or from jar if you prefer)

1 T. Sambal Oelek Asian chili sauce

2 tsp. Sriracha sauce

Dash each salt and pepper

DIRECTIONS:   Mix up the sauce ingredients well in a small bowl and refrigerate until ready to serve shrimp.   Drain off any water in the bag of shrimp.

In a food processor, crumb the pork rinds until fine, removing any large, hard chunks.  Add the low-carb bread/roll, Parmesan cheese, coconut, spice blend and salt.  Pulse until smooth mixture.  Pour into a medium bowl.  Break the egg whites into another small bowl.  Place the Carbquik in yet a third small bowl.  Line the bowls up beside a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper or silicone mat:   flour first, egg whites second and crumb mixture last.  Dip the shrimp first into the flour with your left DRY HAND, then drop into the egg whites.  With your right WET HAND, turn each shrimp in the egg white to coat both sides.  With the wet hand, drop the shrimp lastly into the crumb mixture without touching the crumb mixture with your WET HAND.  With your left DRY HAND, toss the crumbs up over the shrimp to also coat on the tops (will be coated on the bottom from having been dropped into the crumbs).  With your left DRY HAND, pick up and place gently on the parchment lined pan.  Repeat until all shrimp have been cooked.   If your hands get gooey/messy, just wash and dry them off mid process.

Preheat you air fryer for 3 minutes.  Also preheat your regular oven at the lowest setting or around 200º-250º.  I can do 12-13 large shrimp in my 7-qt. Power XL fryer at a time, so that means 2 batches.   Do not crowd the shrimp even if you have to cook three batches if using a smaller fryer than mine.

Fry first batch of shrimp at 370º for 4 minutes.  Gently turn shrimp over and fry 4 more minutes.    When I placed the remaining shrimp on the fryer tray and turned it on for 8 more minutes (turning at 4 minute mark), I then placed the pan with the first batch into my regular oven to keep it warm until the second batch was done.   If needed, fry your third batch similarly.  When all are done, plate and serve with the Bang Bang Sauce or other sauce of your choosing.

NUTRITIONAL INFO:   Makes four 6-shrimp servings, each contains (not including sauce):  176 cals, 10g fat, 11g carbs, 8g fiber, 3g NET CARBS, 19.37g protein, 509 mg sodium

1/4 batch sauce adds:  200 calories, 22g fat, 1.05g carbs, .02g fiber, 4.5g protein and 175 mg sodium

Shrimp Cauliflower Curry

 

We just love Indian food and I make it a little different every time, to be quite honest.  I rarely use a recipe but they always come out good!   This boasts a complex spice flavor profile I think you’ll like.  I often add cauliflower or mushrooms (or both) to curried chicken or shrimp, so this curry has just the cauliflower .  Pretty good combination, actually.  Indian cuisine uses a lot of cauliflower, in fact.  This Induction friendly dish pairs nicely with a cucumber mint salad or a crisp green salad.

INGREDIENTS:

2 lb. raw shrimp, shelled and cleaned

4 oz. onion, chopped or sliced thinly

1 T. olive oil

3 T. butter

3 plum tomatoes, cubed quite large

2 c. cauliflower, cooked until just barely tender

1½ c. chicken or seafood broth

4 oz. cream

1 tsp. grated fresh ginger root

2 tsp. my Garam Masala   

2 tsp. curry powder

1½ tsp. cumin seed

1 tsp. ground cumin

½ tsp. turmeric

½ c. cilantro leaves, coarsely chopped (optional)

¼-½ tsp. Xanthan or guar gum to thicken.

DIRECTIONS: Heat a non-stick wok or large non-stick skillet over high heat.  Add cumin seed and Garam Masala and dry roast for a minute or two, stirring until it smells aromatic.   Add oil and butter and sliced onion.  Saute until onion begins to brown.  Add shrimp, tomatoes, chicken broth, ginger, ground cumin, turmeric and lower heat to medium-low.  Simmer for 30 minutes.  Lower heat to lowest setting and add cooked cauliflower, cilantro and cream.  Stir well and continue to simmer on low heat.  When cilantro loses it’s vibrant green color, thicken with successive light dustings of the xanthan or guar gum, stirring continuously, waiting a couple minutes between dustings so as not to overdo the thickening.  When thickened to suit, serve immediately. For anyone at the dining table NOT ON ATKINS, this is divine on steamed basmati rice.  Me, I eat it like a soup or stew, with a spoon. 🙂

NUTRITIONAL INFO: Makes 6 servings, each containing:

290 cals, 3.5 g fat, 7.43 g carbs, 2.4 g fiber, 5.03 g NET CARBS, 33.67 g protein, 438 mg sodium

Chipotle-Lime Shrimp Scampi

Once you get your ingredients together, this dish goes together in about 15 minutes flat!  My kind of recipe!  Both hubby and I REALLY liked this slightly different shrimp scampi creation.  This recipe is the reason I use unsalted butter exclusively.  The shrimp has a lot of sodium in it naturally.  One serving provides 57% RDA vitamin B12, 45% vitamin D, 35% vitamin A, 38% copper, 42% iron, 26% niacin and 38% phosphorous, so this is a very nutritious dish!  It is also acceptable for Atkins Induction Phase and other Keto diets.  When you get to OWL (Ongoing Weith loss), 2 T. white wine added to this adds a nice flavor layer!

INGREDIENTS:

1 lb. shrimp, peeled and cleaned

2-3 cloves minced garlic (I use 3)

½ stick unsalted butter

Juice of 2 limes (about 2-3 T.)

1/4 c. finely chopped parsley

1/8 tsp. smoked chipotle powder (if you can’t get it, use cayenne pepper)

¼ c. heavy cream

Sprinkle of xanthan gum to slightly thicken

2 c. spaghetti squash threads (½ c. per serving)

DIRECTIONS: Cut a medium spaghetti squash in half, remove seeds and put cut side down into shallow dish filled with 1/4″ water.  Microwave on HI for 13 minutes.  Drain and fork out threads and put in serving bowl with tight cover so squash will stay hot while you cook the shrimp topping.  In a non-stick skillet, melt butter.  Add minced garlic and sauté until cooked but not burned.  You don’t want a raw garlic taste to dominate the final dish.  Add chipotle powder and shrimp and sauté until shrimp curl and are opaque.  Add parsley and lime juice and immediately lower heat to lowest setting.  Add cream and stir well.  Dust lightly with xanthan gum and stir until slightly thickened.  Serve over spaghetti squash threads with a nice green salad!

NUTRITIONAL INFO: Makes 4 servings, each containing:

303 cals, 19.2g fat, 9.15g carbs, 1.38g fiber, 7.77g NET CARBS, 24.4g protein, 194 mg sodium

Seafood Pirogues

I like to re-invent leftovers so they are, visually or taste-wise, quite different than their first incarnation.  This particular dish was born from 1 c. of leftover Cheesy Crawfish-Yellow Squash Casserole I had in my freezer.  I bought some gorgeous large shrimp at Sam’s last week and they were right by the zip-loc bag of this leftover in my freezer.  I thought on it a few minutes and came up with this delightful dinner.  We have not had seafood in awhile, so this really sounded good and the dry ingredients for my Mozzy Dough are always made up at the ready in my pantry.  So piece of cake, as my Dad always said.

You are not going to have this Cheesy Crawfish-Yellow Squash Casserole leftover in your freezer, so you might want to mix up that recipe  up to just before baking it off step.  Then you will have some of the mixture to make these pirogues with and also have a little leftover mixture you can thaw for a quickie dinner/lunch one day.    

INGREDIENTS:

2 c. (1/3 recipe) my Cheesy Crawfish-Yellow Squash Casserole (minus final  breadcrumb topping)

1 recipe Mozzy Dough

20 large shrimp, shelled, peeled and de-veined

3 T. unsalted butter

¼ tsp. my Seafood Spice Blend (homemade Emeril’s blend)

3 T. heavy cream

DIRECTIONS:  Make the crawfish-squash recipe per recipe instruction only do not put the topping on or bake it.  Dip up 2 cups of the mixture for this pirogue recipe and freeze the rest for another meal or use. Stir the 3 T. cream into the 2 c. of seafood mixture and set aside.

Preheat oven to 350º.  Make a recipe of mozzarella Dough at the above link per that recipe’s instructions.  Divide the dough ball into four equal portions.  Press each portion either into the bottom and high up the sides of an oblong, oval pirogue-shaped pan, banana split dishes, or corn-on-the-cob dishes.  You can also use some other oval dish, as shape isn’t rocket science.  Alternately you can just roll out the dough into four 7″x3½” boat shapes on parchment-lined pan and curve the edges up a bit with your fingers if you don’t own these special-shaped pans.  Flat should still work as the filling is quite thick. 

Dough will slide down in the silicone pans during cooking (at least they did in mine), so you’ll end up with a much shallower boat in the end anyway, so be sure to press the dough high up the sides to start out.  The size of my boat crusts started out 2″ tall yet ended up more like 1″ tall after shrinkage.  I only have 1 of these little pirogue silicone pans (bought it on a clearance rack), so I bake my shells one at a time.  No problem, I’m retired.  Pan I used is shown photo right. 

Pop the pastry shells (support silicone pans on outer metal pan) into a preheated 350º oven and bake about 15 minutes or just until browning a bit around the edges.  Remove from oven, slightly cool and tip the shells out onto a full-sized baking sheet.  Gently fill each shell with ½ c. of the creamy crawfish casserole mixture.   Set aside while you broil the shrimp.

Turn oven up to broil.  Melt the 3 T. butter in a medium metal baking pan in the oven.  Stir in the Seafood Spice blend.  Next dip each shrimp (both sides) into this seasoned butter and spread evenly in the pan.   Pop into hot broiler and broil shrimp for about 5-7 minutes.   I don’t bother to turn shrimp during cooking.   Watch them closely after 5 minutes to be sure you don’t over brown them, as ovens can vary.  You want them just golden brown as shown above.  Remove pan from broiler and line 5 shrimp atop each pirogue.  Lower oven to 350º and pop the pan back in the oven for about 5-7 minutes just to warm it all up.  Serve at once with a green vegetable or lovely green salad.

NUTRITIONAL INFO:   Makes 4 pirogues, each contains:

679.7 cals, 55.8g fat, 18.1g carbs, 9.9g fiber, 8.25g NET CARBS, 43.5g protein, 936 mg sodium (shrimp & crawfish both have sodium and carbs!)

Crawfish al Pesto on Eggplant “Pillows”

This recipe that I’m quite proud of grew out of a delicious spaghetti squash alfredo dish I created earlier that same year.   I hesitated using crawfish for this, but it turns out that was a good decision.  It came out DELICIOUS! 

I made a batch of my Oven-Fried Fish coating and baked the coated eggplant first, as you would for classic Eggplant Parmigiana.  The crunchy coating on the eggplant very quickly loses its crunchiness, so serve this quickly and don’t hold it over for any reason.  This sinfully rich dish was so good I will definitely be doing it again soon, but perhaps with lobster meat next time.  This dish froze nicely, getting even tastier upon re-baking!  The eggplant will lose that crunchiness from freezing, but the dish still tastes fantastic when reheated.

This recipe is suitable for all phases of Atkins and Keto, and for Primal folks that consume occasional dairy products.  This would not be suitable for Paleo followers.

INGREDIENTS:

12 oz. eggplant, sliced in eight ½” slices

3 oz. plain pork rinds, crushed fine

6 T. homemade mayonnaise

Dash salt

4 T. butter

1 large leek, ends trimmed off, washed well, sliced or chopped into small pieces (about 1½ cups)

¼ recipe Jennifer Eloff’s Condensed Cream of Mushroom Soup

¼ c. Parmesan cheese, grated

1½ T. homemade pesto sauce (or commercial)

8 oz. frozen crawfish tail meat, defrosted (or shrimp)

½ c. heavy cream

½ c. water

1 c. grated mozzarella cheese

2 T. chopped parsley for garnish (optional)

DIRECTIONS:  Preheat oven to 450º.  Lightly oil a baking sheet.  Cut the eggplant into ½” slices.  Baste all surfaces with the mayonnaise using a brush.  Spoon crushed pork rinds over each slice, coating well.  Place the coated slices on the oiled pan and pop into oven, baking at 450º for 20 minutes.

While the eggplant bakes, prepare the topping.  Melt the butter in a large skillet.  Add leeks and saute until tender. Lower heat to medium.  Add the mushroom soup, the Parmesan, crawfish meat, cream and water and simmer over low heat until eggplant is done.  It will thicken as it cooks. Add the pesto and stir.  Be sure to stir the mixture often during cooking so the flavors will blend.

When the eggplant is tender, remove from oven, top each slice with 2 T. of the mozzarella and then spoon 1/8 of the topping (about 1/3 cup) onto each slice of eggplant.  I made the mistake of putting 1 T. under and 1 T. over the topping and popped the pan back into the oven while my garlic toast cooked in the broiler to melt the cheese on top.  But it didn’t completely melt by the time the toast was done.  So in future, I’ll put all 2T. of the cheese underneath the bubbly hot topping so it will melt nicely for me.  Garnish tops with chopped parsley and serve at once.

NUTRITIONAL INFO:    Makes 8 servings, each contains:

355 cals, 30.5 g  fat, 6.06 g  carbs, 1.88 g fiber, 4.18 g  NET CARBS, 14.8 g  protein, 421 mg sodium

Crawfish Pad Thai

I have been intrigued by recipes I see for Pad Thai, although I am very new to it.  Recipes for it would indicate every recipe for it is a little different although some ingredients are consistently in all the recipes, so I went about concocting my own version, pulling from this recipe and that recipe.  I had no idea if the final dish was going to be good.  Told my husband “If we don’t like it, we can just go out and eat.”  It far surpassed our expectations the first time I put this together!  Other than the fact I got it a little too hot with peppers, the overall flavor was truly OUTSTANDING!  I love when I make new culinary discoveries.  I now see why people rant and rave about Pad Thai.  I will definitely be making this dish on a regular basis in future!  I can’t wait to try it with pork, chicken and shrimp one day.

I’m showing a lesser amount of hot pepper ingredients below than went into my dinner tonight 😉 as it was way too hot for as I originally constructed it.  This meal would be suitable for Atkins Induction Phase, Keto diets and would even fit a Primal-Paleo lifestyle if plan-appropriate sauce ingredients are used.

INGREDIENTS: 

3 cloves garlic, minced

3 T. rice vinegar

1 T. oyster sauce

1 T. low-sodium soy sauce

1 drop or pinch of your favorite sweetener (optional)

1 T. fish sauce

2 c. cooked spaghetti squash threads

2 T. olive oil

1 medium carrot, julienned lengthwise and cut into 2″ pieces

2 oz. purple onion

1 small jalapeno, seeded and cut into thin strips

1/8 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes (more if you like things HOTTER!)

1 c. bean sprouts (I had none and used 1/3 c. julienned water chestnuts)

4 large green onions, chopped, ½” pieces

12 oz. cooked crawfish tail meat, (or cooked shrimp)

3 large eggs, beaten

½ c. cilantro, chopped

1 T. butter

DIRECTIONS:  Cook half the spaghetti squash by slicing in half, removing seeds, putting cut side down into baking dish with 1/2″ water and microwaving on HI for 13 minutes.  Holding the squash half with a pot holder or towel, fork out threads from one half of the squash.  Reserve the other half of the squash for some other use.  In a small bowl, make a sauce of the first 6 ingredients.  Set aside.  Melt the butter in a non-stick skillet and scramble the beaten eggs lightly.  Chop with a knife a bit on a cutting board and set aside for now.  Cut up all the vegetables so they are ready for final cooking and assembly.  Heat the oil in a large non-stick skillet.  Add the carrot, purple onion, green onion and sauté until tender crisp.  Add the cooked spaghetti squash threads, the bean sprouts (or water chestnuts) and crawfish tails (or shrimp).  Continue to stir-fry over medium-high heat for about 5 minutes, to allow flavors to blend.  Add the scrambled egg now and then the cilantro, stirring to mix them in evenly.  Lower heat.  Stir the sauce you prepared and pour it evenly over the mixture.  Stir one last time to mix everything thoroughly.  Remove from heat and serve at once.

NUTRITIONAL INFO:  Makes 6 servings, each contains:

178 cals, 9.8 g fat, 8.9 g carbs, 1.9 g fiber, 7 g NET CARBS, 14 g protein, 715 mg sodium

Cajun Crawfish Pies

Man, oh, man, I was in heaven when I made these.   These little gems were one of the very best low-carb kitchen creations of my 14 years of low-carbing!  I’m even going to give this recipe my “mouthgasm” award.  I took my Gluten-Free Grain Free Focaccia Bread recipe and with some considerable effort, used it as a crust to create crawfish pies to rival any I have eaten in Louisiana.  My Mozzy Dough had not yet been developed, so I had to get creative. 

I wantonly admit to scarfing down a lot of these pies in Louisiana on our many visits there.  My filling consisted of basically my crawfish étouffée recipe, a little thickener and my focaccia bread for the crust. I knew as this idea was germinating in my head that  sealing the edges would be tricky and take some ingenuity, as I would be using a thick batter, not a traditional, rollable pie crust.  And IT WORKED for me!  Best of all, the bread dough ended up tasting amazingly like, ummmm…………real PIE CRUST!!!  Even my fussy, non-low-carbing husband said it tasted like piecrust  and gave tonight’s dinner two thumbs up! The ratio of filling to crust was just perfect on these, too!

I have even made this recipe up as mini crawfish pies (makes 30) for a party, but used my Carbalose Pie Crust as it is a dryer dough you can form into the mini crusts.  Here’s what the mini version looks like:  

I can’t tell you how pleased I am with this recipe and thought you’d enjoy listening to the song (one of my Dad’s favorites) that made this Louisiana Cajun delicacy famous to put you in the mood:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnKOVPXhlnE.  I can even see berry/fruit empanadas on the horizon!  These pies are suitable once you reach Phase 2 nuts & seeds rung of the Atkins OWL carb ladder.   They would not be suitable for Paleo-Primal due to the dairy in the bread.  By the way, I started preparing this meal at 4pm and we were eating it at 5:30!  Longer than most of my recipes, but much faster than I thought it would take to prepare!  

INGREDIENTS: 

4 T. butter

2 oz. onion, chopped

½ c. each green bell pepper and celery, chopped (I used both red and green bell pepper in mine)

¼ c. each green onion and parsley , chopped

6 oz. crawfish tails (I use the frozen and defrost)

2 cloves garlic, minced

½ tsp. my Seafood Spice blend

1/8 tsp. salt

6 drops Tobasco® or other hot sauce

Dash each ground thyme and black pepper

1/3 c. chicken stock (preferably homemade)

¼ tsp. glucomannan powder, xanthan gum or your favorite thickener

1 recipe my Gluten-free Grain-free Focaccia Bread (or my Mozzy Dough you can shape in mini muffin cups)  

DIRECTIONS:  Melt butter in skillet over high heat. Add celery, green pepper and onion.  Add Seafood Spice Blend, salt, pepper and thyme.  Sauté until vegetables are completely tender.  Add Tobasco®.  Add green onion, parsley, garlic and crawfish and stir.  Add glucomannan powder (or your chosen thickener) and chicken stock and stir to blend altogether. Turn fire off.

Preheat oven to 350º.  Make the bread/”pastry” in a medium mixing bowl according to the directions for that recipe.  You need to decide on the shape you want your pies to have (I used a 3 x 6″ oval dish shape, but round or square would work as well) .  I cut parchment paper to fit a large sheet pan.  I inverted my dish on the parchment paper and drew five outlines of the dish with a marker pen, so I could be sure my pies would all be uniform in size and shape.  When the batter is ready, scoop up exactly 3 T. onto each drawn outline on your parchment.  Then, using a fork, very gently spread the batter out thinly to within ¼” of the outlines you drew (you don’t want the batter to touch the ink).  It will be thin, but should go nearly to the edges with effort.  Pop the pan into your 350º oven and bake just 10 minutes.  Remove from oven and increase oven temp to 375º.

Using a spoon, section off the seafood filling in your skillet into 5 equal portions and spoon 1/5 of the filling onto each of the baked bottom “crusts”.     Spread the filling evenly to within ¼” of the edge of the bottom crust. The filling should be slightly mounded in the center.  Again using a spoon, make 5 equal portions of the remaining batter in your bowl.  Here’s where it gets a little tricky.  I spooned one of the marked off portions of batter into one hand and using my fork, dotted the batter evenly over the top and sides of the pile of seafood filling, using the fork then to try to blend those tiny dots into a contiguous top “crust”.  It didn’t cover perfectly, but I was able to create a respectable top crust on each pie.  During the baking the top crust slightly spreads out to fill in most of those little gaps in the batter.

Pop the pan into  a now 375º oven and bake for 10-12 minutes or until lightly browned on top.  Serve at once with a nice green salad or perhaps your favorite green veggie. I hope you enjoy these as much as we did!

NUTRITIONAL INFO:   Makes 5 large pies, each contains:

395 cals, 30.5 g fat, 8.62g carbs, 3.64g fiber, 4.98g NET CARBS, 24.6g protein, 471 mg sodium

Makes about 30 mini crawfish pies for party food, containing around 1.0 net carb per bite-size pie (with no top crust used)

Crawfish Dumpling Stew

Moving along in our food journey, I was thinking about how much I miss the seafood we could get the 30+ years we lived on the Texas Gulf Coast.  So I thought I’d post some of my favorite seafood recipes this week.  Man, I had the very best at my fingertips down on the coast.  Why ever did we move (hurricanes, that’s why)?  Moving up to Central Texas to get away from them when we retired, I’m relegated to using frozen crawfish, previously-frozen shrimp, not-too-good crab meat and just awful 1-2 day old whole fish (trucked in from the coast) unless you go fishing yourself and catch something worth cooking. 

I number of years ago I found a fantastic way to shake up my glucomannan dumplings recipe with crawfish! I hesitated to actually make it for the longest time, as I was afraid putting that much bulk into my dumpling batter would make them just totally fall apart in the simmering water.  As you can see in the pic, that just didn’t happen! 

This is 5-star restaurant eating experience as far as I’m concerned!  Not many recipes strike me that way, either.  It was every bit as good as the seafood fare served to me in the finest restaurants in Dallas or Houston, that’s for sure!  My husband and I were absolutely astounded at how good this idea I hatched one night would come out.    This opens the door for a world of new uses for this dumpling recipe.  

For those still on Atkins Induction, omit the wine and substitute 1/2 c. seafood stock or chicken stock in your sauce.  This recipe is suitable for Atkins OWL Phase 2 or beyond and Keto diets if it fits your daily carb limits.  You’d have to make the sauce with coconut milk for it to pass Primal-Paleo muster, but that would taste OK here.  By the way, these freeze beautifully and tasted even better than the first night they were made!  🙂

VARIATIONS:  Substitute either crab meat or shrimp for the crawfish.  These made smaller would also be lovely in a simple wonton-style soup, standing in for the meat-filled wontons.  🙂

DUMPLING INGREDIENTS:

6 oz. cooked, cleaned crawfish tail meat (the rest of the 12-oz. package goes in the sauce)

4 T. butter, unsalted

2 oz. celery, chopped

2 oz. green bell pepper, chopped

2 oz. yellow onion, chopped

½ c. green onion, chopped

1/3 c. parsley, chopped (3 more T. needed for the sauce, so go on and chop 1/2 c. total 😉 )

1 clove garlic, minced

1 tsp. my Seafood Spice Blend

2 recipes my glucomannan Dumplings batter

 

SAUCE INGREDIENTS:

4 T. unsalted butter, melted

6 oz. remaining crawfish

½ c. white wine (omit for Induction)

1 T. lemon juice

3 T. parsley, chopped

½ c. heavy cream

½ c. water

1 small clove garlic, minced

Dash each salt and black pepper

DIRECTIONS:  Chop all the vegetables up.  Melt 4 T. butter over high heat and add the celery, bell pepper, onion and minced garlic.  Sauté until they are tender.  Add 6 oz. of the crawfish, the parsley, and seafood spice mix.  Lower heat and let simmer 2-3 minutes for flavors to blend.  Turn off heat.

Bring a large stew pot of water to a boil.  While it is heating, make up a double recipe of my glucomannan dumpling batter and add the veggie crawfish mixture to the egg/water mixture and stir well. Stir the dry ingredients in and mix with a rubber spatula until it begins to thicken up.  Keep turning the dough until it is stiff enough to roll.  Roll 24 1″ dumpling in your palms and set on a sheet of silicone (best) or a baking sheet.  When all 24 are formed, your water should be at a rolling boil.  Drop all 24 dumplings gently into the water.  This will cool the water down a bit. You want a medium gentle rolling water bath.  Cover and cook for exactly 10 minutes without lifting the lid.

Make the sauce while the dumplings are cooking.  Melt 4 T. butter over medium heat in a skillet.  Add the remaining 6 oz. crawfish, garlic, wine, lemon juice parsley and simmer long enough to cook the garlic well. Add the cream and salt and pepper to taste.

When dumplings have cooked 10 minutes, lift lid and using a slotted spoon or tongs, gently lift onto a serving platter and spoon the sauce around them.  I served with steamed, buttered broccoli, but they would be good with a nice green salad and low-carb dinner rolls.

NUTRITIONAL INFO:   Makes 6 servings of 4 dumplings each and ¼ c. sauce.  Each contains:

258 cals, 20.4g fat, 10.55g carbs, 5.96g fiber, 4.59g NET CARBS, 13.25g protein, 481 g  sodium

 

Lobster Salad

We bought a huge box of lobster tails at Sam’s at Christmas.  We’re down to the last two tails in the box.  Going to make a nice lobster salad for our dinner this evening.   Neither of us are terribly hungry and we’ve been at doctor’s appointments and physical therapy all day long.  Needless to say I forgot to defrost any meat and can thaw these tails fast.

This salad is visually appealing and its flavor matches its attractiveness on the plate.  With avocado added to the plate, it is also extremely filling, so I would definitely call this one a main dish.  This recipe is suitable for all phases of Atkins and other Keto diets.  Paleo and Primal folks can enjoy this one as well!

INGREDIENTS:

4 c. mixed salad greens

10 leaves baby spinach

4 San Marzano mini tomatoes, sliced crosswise (or use 8 cherry tomatoes)

2 oz. red bell pepper, sliced thin

½ green onion, chopped into ½” pieces

1 ripe avocado, skin & seed removed, sliced

4 T. homemade mayonnaise, seasoned with your fav blend (I used my Shawarma Mayonnaise)

2 lobster tails (10 oz. in shell, 8 oz. meat yield total)

VARIATION:  Add some finely diced celery and a dash of cayenne pepper to the lobster salad mixture.

DIRECTIONS:  Bring a 4-qt. saucepan of water to a boil.  Drop in lobster tails and boil for about 7-8 minutes.  Remove, cool a bit and holding with a pot holder, cut the tail shell down the “belly” side and remove the meat from the shell.  Cut meat into 1/2″ bite-sized pieces and set aside for now to cool further.

While the lobster is boiling, plate your base salad greens, dividing the above vegetables equally between two serving plates.  In a small bowl, toss the cooled down lobster meat with the homemade mayo and spoon half of the mixture onto the center of the greens on each plate.  You can use a plain, unseasoned homemade mayo, but I like to use a seasoned mayo for salad dressings, particularly good that way with lobster.  Serve salads at once.

NUTRITIONAL INFO:   Makes 2 servings, each contains:

414 cals., 35.4g fat, 13g carbs, 7.25g fiber, 5.75g NET CARBS, 26.45g protein, 415 mg sodium

New England Clam Chowder

Can’t have a soup exposé without including this classic New England clam chowder.  I like Manhattan style (tomato based) as well, but New England style is my preference.   It’s super yummy and always a hit with seafood lovers.  We occasionally drive a half hour to the neighboring town to go to a big Asian grocery store there.  I am able to pick up specialty Asian food items we just can’t get at our local grocery stores.  A couple daikon radishes and Japanese eggplants are usually on that grocery list, along with some Asian sauces and condiments I can’t find locally either.

My local grocers have NEVER carried daikon radishes in their produce department for some reason.  They are not considered to be all that exotic on the American culinary scene, so that’s surprising to me.  I could get them in Galveston, Texas City and just about any store I’ve ever used.   Daikon radish makes a wonderful potato sub in soups!  Very close in flavor and texture, much closer than turnips for a potato sub and much softer in texture than rutabaga as a potato sub.  Rain and chillier weather always makes soup a perfect choice for lunch or dinner!  I always keep a couple cans of clams around, so a no-brainer today.  This recipe is suitable for all phases of Atkins and other Keto diets if the macros will work for you.

INGREDIENTS: 

4 oz. bacon, coarsely chopped

3 oz. onion, chopped

10-oz. can of clams, with juice (or 2 6.5 oz. cans)

1 c. daikon radish, peeled, chopped

½ c. parsley, chopped

1/8 tsp. coarse black pepper

1/2 recipe Jennifer Eloff’s low-carb homemade Condensed Mushroom Soup

½ c. heavy cream

2 c. seafood stock or chicken stock (more, if thinning soup is required)

DIRECTIONS:  Make Jennifer Eloff’s homemade Condensed Mushroom Soup recipe by her instructions at the link above.  Reserve half in your refrigerator for some other use and use just half the batch for this chowder recipe.

Chop bacon, onion, daikon and parsley and set each aside.  Brown bacon over medium high heat in a 4-quart saucepan.  When it is brown, add the onion and black pepper and sauté to allow it to begin to brown/caramelize.  Add the clams, daikon radish and parsley.  Stir well.  Add the mushroom soup concentrate, the cream and water.  Bring to low boil and lower heat to a simmer about 20-30 minutes or until daikon is just tender.  Stir occasionally during cooking to prevent scorching on bottom of the pan.  A little more water or stock (added very slowly) if soup gets too thick for your liking. Serve at once with some low-carb rolls and a salad.

NUTRITIONAL INFO:    Makes five 1½c. servings, each contains:

274 cals, 20g fat, 7.38g carbs, 1.08g fiber, 6.3g NET CARBS, 13.9g protein, 434 mg sodium

Louisiana Shrimp Gumbo

This is the best gumbo recipe I’ve found to date and it’s even Induction friendly if you omit the Carbalose® flour.  If you omit the Carbalose®, you can also omit the olive oil, which make up the “roux”.  If on Induction, skip the roux making altogether.  Won’t be quite as tasty, won’t really be gumbo, but rather a seafood stew or soup, but it will be OK for Induction and still have a very nice flavor.

A teacher I used to work with taught me how to make “roux”.  She was born and raised in Louisiana and cooked gumbo for one of our teachers’ social gatherings many years ago.  Though she used smoked sausage instead of bulk pork breakfast sausage, I find I like breakfast sausage better in my gumbo.  Sometimes I use a little of both types of sausage, actually.  Two things I have added to her basic recipe are the stick of butter and the parsley.  She used chicken stock and I prefer seafood stock I get from boiling the shrimp shells for 30 minutes in 1½ quarts of water.  Of course, you can add crab meat (and/or crawfish), but you would have to adjust the nutritional info below if you make these additions.

INGREDIENTS:

2 lb. shrimp in their shells, heads on (I often do half shrimp and half shelled crawfish tail meat)

2 T. Carbalose® flour (or CarbQuik®, or oat fiber, for the lowest carb count)

2T. olive oil

1 stick butter (1/2 c.)

½ c. chopped onion

½ c. chopped parsley

3 cloves minced garlic

6 oz. crumbled breakfast sausage (or sliced smoked sausage if you prefer)

3/4 c. chopped green bell pepper

½ c. chopped celery

3 Roma tomatoes, coarsely chopped (or a 14-oz. can diced tomatoes)

4 small bay leaves

1 tsp. thyme

10-15 drops Tobasco®

¼ tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper (or more if you like things spicier)

1qt. (4 c.) seafood stock

1½ c. frozen okra slices  (added last 5 minutes)

1 tsp. gumbo file powder (added last 5 minutes)

DIRECTIONS:  Shell the shrimp (and crawfish, if using).  Place them in a large soup pot and boil in 1½ qts. water 30 minutes.  I make seafood stock ahead and keep extra in my spare freezer in 1 cup portions in plastic tubs for such uses.  Saves so much time and effort when I want gumbo quick!  Then I can just pop one out and add to the pot for soups, gumbos and étouffées.  Scoop out shells with slotted spoon and discard.  Pour stock into bowl and set aside.   Wipe moisture out of pot.

Chop all your vegetables and have them at the ready by the stove top, because once you start to make the roux, you can’t stop to cut them up.

Now you’re ready to make the roux and start the gumbo.  The roux imparts a nutty, browned flour taste to the broth of this dish and if this step is bypassed, you will merely be making an ordinary fish soup with much less depth of flavor.

There is an art to making roux with respect to knowing when to “kill” the browning action (just short of it burning, which gives it an unpleasant, bitter taste).  If it burns, you just have to toss it out and start again and you’re butter and time are wasted.  I’ve burned it one time in hundreds and hundreds of batches.  Once you get the hang of it, it’s really quite easy!

Heat oil and add Carbalose flour (or oat fiber/Carbquik for lower carbs) and whisk constantly on high heat.   You want to brown the roux as dark as you can get it without it getting black.  I you see black bits of burned flour that look like pepper in it, it’s ruined and you’ll have to start again.  This can burn in the blink of an eye, so absolutely do not get distracted or walk away from the stove while making a roux!    The second it gets to a dark brown color, immediately dump the chopped vegetables in the pan to drop the temperature of the roux and halt further burning.  Now add the stick of butter, relax and continue sautéing the vegetables for 5-10 minutes until they wilt and begin to caramelize.  If still on Induction, you could consider omitting the Carbalose flour/roux process entirely and thicken with xanthan gum instead.  You won’t get that nutty flavor browning the flour gives, but it would be OK to do this, I think.

If on Induction and omitting the roux, just begin by melting the butter and sautéing the veggies until tender.  Now add all remaining ingredients (except the gumbo file), including the seafood stock.  Simmer covered on lowest heat for about an hour to meld flavors.  Add okra and simmer about 10 minutes, just until tender.  Slightly thicken your gumbo with xanthan gum, dusting it lightly over surface and stirring constantly.  Repeat xanthan gum additions until gumbo reaches desired thickness (takes about 1/4 tsp or so total).  Add gumbo file last and only simmer 5 minutes longer.  Serve gumbo at once with a salad.

NUTRITIONAL INFO: As a full meal, this recipe should serve 6 people a large bowl of gumbo.  If serving a small cup of gumbo as an appetizer to another entrée, it will make about 10 servings.

6 large bowl servings: each contains 450 calories, 30.28 g fat, 7.83 g carbs, 2.23 g fiber, 36.45 g protein, approx. 96 mg. sodium 5.6 NET CARBS

10 small cup servings: each contains 272 calories, 18.17 g fat, 4.7 g carbs, 1.34 g fiber, 21.87 g protein, approx. 58 mg. sodium, 3.36 NET CARBS

Shrimp and Sausage Bisque

This is one of my most scrumptious seafood bisque recipes.  It can be prepared in just 1 hour, too!  I used my trusty gumbo recipe of many years and basically made that (minus classic okra) and used cream instead of canned tomatoes in my gumbo recipe to make it more like a bisque.  WOW!  We LOVED IT!  This one is a keeper for sure!  This recipe is suitable for all phases of Atkins, provided those still on Induction omit the white wine and those on Paleo use coconut milk instead of cream.

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INGREDIENTS:

3 oz. bacon, coarsely chopped

1 c. celery, chopped

3/4 c. green bell pepper, chopped

3 oz. onion, chopped

½ c. parsley, chopped

6 oz. pork breakfast sausage

1 medium leaf kale, (about 3/4 c.), stemmed & chopped fine

2 cloves garlic, minced

¼ tsp. Cajun Seafood Spice Blend

½ tsp. dried thyme leaves

¼ tsp. black pepper

Dash cayenne pepper

22 large shrimp, (shell removed), cut in halves (12 oz tail-on pkg)

2 c. chicken broth (preferably homemade, or seafood stock)

1 c. heavy cream

¼ c. white wine

Tiny dusting of xanthan gum or your favorite thickener

11 San Marzano mini tomatoes cut into 3-4 pieces (or 22 cherry tomatoes, cut in half)

VARIATION:   Add 1 c. shelled/cleaned fresh crab meat + 1 c. extra chicken/seafood broth.  Mmmm.

DIRECTIONS:  In a large soup pot, over medium-high heat, brown the bacon.  Add the Louisiana “Holy Trinity” (celery, bell pepper and onion) to the pot and saute until they begin to soften.  Add sausage and sauté, crumbling as you do so.  Add kale, garlic and the four spices.  Lower heat to medium.  Add shrimp and sauté until opaque.  Add chicken (or seafood) stock, white wine, and cream.   When returns to a simmer, lower heat to lowest setting.  Add tomatoes and simmer about 10 minutes.  Some like this stage of thickening from the cream.  But if you like your cream soups a bit thicker, add the light sprinkle of xanthan gum.  Alternately, if you like more broth in your soup, or need to stretch this out for more servings (it was a bit thick with “solids”) you can always add 1-2 more cups of chicken stock to the pot.  If you do add more broth, you will definitely want to use a thickener.  Simmer a few minutes longer for the thickener to go to work.  Pour into a soup tureen and serve at once.

NUTRITIONAL INFO:  Makes 6 servings (as written), each containing:

382 cals, 31g fat, 7.01g carbs, 1.53g fiber, 5.48g NET CARBS, 16.3g protein, 410mg sodium

Oven-Fried Fish

I hate standing over a pan of hot, popping grease to do traditional deep frying.  But I do love me some fried fish.  There’s nothing more American than a back yard fish fry!  And fund raiser Southern fish fries are always well-attended.  Served with coleslaw and cornbread or hush puppies, people just can’t resist those fund raisers.   I often serve this fish with my Curried Hush Puppies.

This has been one of the most popular recipes on my site, with hundreds of thousands of Facebook fans when I was posting there.  It’s very tasty and well worth a try if you’re a fried fish fan.  It takes the coating used on my Jicama Fries to a new level!  I haven’t found a good coating for shrimp yet, but this one is great for fish! I didn’t find it did shrimp so well the one time I tried this on shrimp. It didn’t crisp up very well on shrimp for some strange reason.  Will have to keep experimenting there.

Unlike every coating I’ve tried doing with flax meal, this recipe really came out crunchy!  Even the bottoms of the filets were crispy and browned nicely!   That is accomplished using only a metal baking sheet when oven-frying!  This coating also works well with cut-up chicken.  Best of all, this recipe is Atkins Induction friendly!

Though I mention tilapia and swai below, cod or whitefish (any mild fish) will work nicely here as well.  If you don’t want to make up the homemade mayo for this, I have, in a hurry, just used jar mayo, but it will take much more as it is thicker.   Though I have not tried it yet, it has been reported by my blog readers that this fish, when leftover, reheats nicely in the microwave and STILL STAYS CRUNCHY!   It of course, will reheat just fine in the oven or an air fryer, too.  To be quite honest, I never have any leftover to test that out.  🙂

We just LOVE fish done this way, even my husband, who is not a fried fish fan.  🙂

INGREDIENTS:

30 oz. (six 5-oz. pc.)mild fish filets (catfish, tilapia, swai, cod, whitefish, or flounder)

6 T. homemade mayo

3 oz. crushed plain pork rinds

½ tsp.  Seafood Spice Blend

1 T. olive oil

DIRECTIONS: Preheat oven to 450º.  Rub a metal baking sheet (preferably non-stick) with olive oil.  DO NOT USE A GLASS/CERAMIC PAN OR SILICONE PAN LINER OR THESE WILL NOT BROWN PROPERLY.  Been there; done that.  Trust me on this one, use a metal pan.

Crush pork rinds and place in shallow bowl.  Add spice blend and stir well.  If you like things real spicy, you might want to increase the spice blend a bit or add more cayenne.  Most important step here:  Pat surfaces of fish dry with a paper towel. Then brush each fish filet on both sides with a tablespoon of mayonnaise.   You want to be sure not to miss any spots.  There doesn’t have to be a LOT of mayo, but the entire surface must be moistened with it for the coating to adhere.  If you substitute a commercial mayo, you will have more difficulty getting good coverage, as it is so thick.

Holding the filets up (one at a time) by the tips, between your index finger and thumb in one hand, and with your other hand, spoon the coating over each filet on both sides to coat well. I find if you just dip them into a plate full of the coating, the first two get coated nicely and you run out of coating before all are coated!  That’s ever so annoying!  When all are coated, lay each filet onto your oiled pan.   Place in hot 450º oven and bake for about 20 minutes total or until done and crispy on top.   There’s actually no need to turn the filets over during cooking as the bottoms get even browner than the tops!  For more even browning, you could turn them at the 10 minute mark if you wish.

NUTRITIONAL INFO: Makes 6 servings, each contains:

364 cals, 22.9 g  fat, 0.43 g  carbs, 0 g  fiber, 0.43 g  NET CARBS, 41.4 g  protein, 338 mg. sodium

Asian Shrimp Patties

These tasty shrimp patties make a wonderful lunch for us.  We both LOVE them.  They are suitable for all phases of Atkins and Keto diets.  This recipe was one of the first ever posted on my blog back in 2009.  But it is still a keeper for us!

INGREDIENTS FOR SHRIMP PATTIES:

8 oz. raw, peeled shrimp
1/2 tsp. chili paste (I used Sambal Oelek)
2 cloves minced garlic
1 1/2 tsp. minced shallots or green onion
juice of 1/2 lime
1 tsp. lemon grass, grated (if available)
1/4 of a Revo Roll crumbled

INGREDIENTS FOR DIPPING SAUCE:
1 ¾ tsp. sesame oil
1/2 tsp. peanut butter
2 tsp. rice vinegar
1/2 tsp. grated ginger
2 cloves minced garlic
1/4 tsp. chili paste or Sriracha sauce
1 tsp. Splenda or sweetener of your choice
1 T. low sodium soy sauce

Process all the ingredients for the patties in a food processor or blender until well blended. Shape into 6 small patties and brown in a skillet rubbed with an oiled paper towel.  You’ll know when they are done as they become visibly opaque and golden brown.  This recipe is technically not suitable until Phase 2 OWL due to sauce ingredients, but the patties themselves are OK for Induction and there’s so little PB and rice vinegar in the sauce, it probably won’t cause you problems or cravings even if still in Atkins Induction phase.

NUTRITIONAL INFORMATION:  Makes 3 servings, each contains:

142 cals, 6.33g fat, 3.5 g  carbs,0.92 g fiber, 2.58g NET CARBS, 17.6 g protein, 178 mg. sodium

Shrimp Stir-Fry on Shirataki Noodles

I’ve been occasionally using the opaque variety of shirataki noodles (made from the konjac tuber) and I am definitely liking the ones that contain oat fiber much better than the translucent variety.  I need my noodles to be opaque.  The tofu shirataki noodles definitely LOOK like flour-based pasta, but are anything but.  They are actually fairly tasteless on their own.  Instead they take on the taste of whatever delicious sauce/food you put over the top of them or cook them in.  And that’s OK with me.  Even if just a mind game, they are filling and they psychologically allow me to have noodles (a tabu food for low-carbers) on my low-carb journey.  🙂  Eaten on shirataki noodles, this dish is OK for all phases of Atkins provided those still on Atkins Induction omit the sherry/wine.

This dish got a two thumbs up from my husband.  Whenever he gets this excited about a recipe, I definitely like to share it here with my readers.  This dish has few ingredients and goes together in about 10 minutes, so it’s a great recipe for those days you fall asleep all afternoon. 😉    I’m honored the nice folks at Konjac Foods featured my recipe on their website amongst a number of other tasty-looking recipes on their recipes page!   🙂

INGREDIENTS:

24 medium shrimp, peeled and deveined

2   8-oz. packages of tofu shirataki noodles (Konjac noodles)

1½ T. coconut oil

2 oz. onion, slivered into thin strips

2 oz. red bell pepper, slivered into thin strips

1 very large jalapeno, seeded and slivered into thin strips

1 clove garlic, minced

¼ tsp. ginger root, peeled and minced

1 T. sherry or white wine (omit if on Induction)

1 T. low-sodium soy sauce

Pinch black or toasted sesame seeds

1 c. chicken broth (homemade) or 1 cube in 1 c. water

1/8 tsp. xanthan gum

OPTIONAL:   Sambal Oelek chile sauce to taste.

DIRECTIONS:  Open bags of noodles and rinse them for 3-4 minutes under hot water to get the fishy odor off of them. Drain on paper toweling.  Trust me the shrimp topping will kill any remaining odor on the noodles after rinsing. Set aside. Prepare all the vegetables and have them at the ready by the stove.  Crumble the bouillon cube into the hot water.  Add soy sauce, garlic and ginger.  Heat coconut oil in a non-stick wok or skillet.  Stir-fry the onion, red pepper and jalapeno until just begins to get tender.  Add shrimp and sauté until they are curling and opaque.  Pour chicken bouillon mixture into pan and sauté 1-2 minutes.  Sprinkle xanthan gum over top of mixture and stir/sauté 1-2 minutes or until it begins to slightly thicken the sauce and the liquid is adhering to the shrimp and veggies, turn off fire.  Plate half the noodles on each of two dinner plates and dip half the shrimp mixture up over the noodles.  Serve with a nice green salad.

NUTRITIONAL INFO:  Makes 2 adult servings, each contains:

237 calories, 13.15 g  fat, 11.7 g  carbs, 4.1 g  carbs, 7.6 g  NET CARBS, 17.8 g  protein, 1135 mg sodium

Moroccan Grilled Chicken

 

The Moroccan spice blend in this grilled chicken is an interesting creation that will take ordinary grilled chicken to a whole new level.  I have also used it on on grilled beef chuck, lamb, pork and even for a whole grilled fish with good results.  For those who don’t do much grilling, this recipe bakes nicely in your indoor oven.  This one is suitable for all phases of Atkins and other Keto diets.  I do hope you’ll try it someday.  I think you’ll like it if you do!

INGREDIENTS:

1 lb. chicken breasts or 4 thighs, deboned only if you wish to speed up cooking

3 T. olive oil

1 T. my Moroccan Spice Blend

6 T. your favorite low-carb BBQ sauce + 3 T. water

DIRECTIONS:   Preheat oven to 400º.  Slice deboned chicken breasts laterally on an angle to form 4 thinner pieces.  If using thighs, slit with knife so you will be able to spread the meat out as flat as possible.  Place oil in baking sheet.  Dip each piece of chicken into oil to coat.  Sprinkle the spice blend over all meat surfaces.  Lay coated chicken onto awaiting hot charcoal grill or your oiled baking pan  if cooking indoors.   If meat is deboned, grill for about 12-13  minutes on a side.  Alternately, bake at 400º oven for about 20-30 minutes.  Baste with sauce a couple times during cooking.  Time will slightly vary depend on thickness of meat, type of meat/fish and of course, the heat stage of your fire/oven.   If grilling, cook as you normally would the particular meat you are doing, basting with sauce several times during cooking to keep meat moist.  I recommend serving with a green salad topped with tahini dressing, tabouleh salad, or roasted/grilled veggies of your choice.

NUTRITIONAL INFO:   Makes 4 servings, each contains:

306 cals, 19 g fat, 3.1 g carbs, 0.95 g fiber, 2.25 g NET CARBS, 33.7 g  protein, 42% RDA Vitamin B6, 30% iron, 102 % niacin, 34% phosphorous, 275 mg potassium and 50 % selenium.  Another very healthy dish!

Iraqi Stewed Shrimp

I created a tasty dish using Baharat and shrimp some time ago.  This dish is not an authentic Iraqi recipe, but it might be if it were done with chunks of fish filets added the last 5-7 minutes of cooking instead of using shrimp.  Being land-locked, Iraq doesn’t have access to shellfish other than down on the small coastline along the Persian Gulf.    I like to call this creation ‘Iraqi gumbo’.  It certainly reminds me of gumbo in appearance, although not much like Louisiana gumbo in flavor.  This shrimp entrée really delivers on flavor.  Hope you’ll try it and do think you’ll like it!  This curry-like dish is quite different from Indian curries.  The flavor of cloves in the Baharat spice, so unique to food in the Arab world, is really quite nice with shrimp.  Guess that’s why it is always in those pouches of shrimp boil spices we buy at the grocery store.  

As written, this recipe is suitable for Induction.  If you have already reached the fruit rung of OWL, this is greatly enhanced served with a side of butter-seared, lengthwise sliced banana halves.  In fact, this banana side dish is outstanding with ALL curry dishes, in my opinion.  For those not on a low-carb diet, this is usually served with basmati rice, but low carbers can have it on steamed cauliflower rice or it is also delicious on my Seared Eggplant slices.    

INGREDIENTS:

2 lb. shrimp, peeled and deveined

4 T. butter, melted (I use unsalted)

4 cloves garlic, minced

4 oz. onion, sliced

3 Roma tomatoes, quartered

¼ c. each parsley and cilantro, chopped

1 tsp. turmeric

Dash each black and cayenne pepper

1½ c. water (or mixture of water and seafood stock if available)

1 T. Iraqi Spice Blend (Baharat):  https://buttoni.wordpress.com/2011/03/30/iraqi-spice-blend/

about ¼ tsp. xanthan gum or guar gum

12 oz. zucchini or Mexican zucchini (calaba squash), cut into 1″ chunks (unpeeled eggplant is a great substitute here)

DIRECTIONS: Peel shrimp and set aside.  Melt butter in large stew pot.  I use a large non-stick oven-proof wok for such dishes.   Add onion and cook over high heat until lightly browned. Add spices and saute 1 minute so the spices release their aroma.  Add parsley, cilantro, tomatoes and water/stock.  If using cubed squash add now, along with  water/stock and stir well.  Once the stew reaches a boil, lower heat and cover.  Simmer about 60 minutes total, when squash should be fully done and the flavors will have blended nicely.  If using eggplant, add about 20 minutes before stew is done cooking so it won’t completely fall apart.  Lightly dust a bit of the xanthan gum over the surface and slowly stir in, allowing the sauce to “set up” between dustings, as you don’t want this to get too thick.

NUTRITIONAL INFO:  Depending on how you’re serving this dish, as a gumbo/stew, or served atop cauliflower rice or eggplant, I can’t know exactly how many servings you will get from this recipe.  So I’m giving macros as follows:

Entire recipe contains 1978 cals, 65g fat, 83g carbs, 21g fiber, 61g NET CARBS, 249g protein 5547 mg sodium  

Served as stew/gumbo, it should serve 5-6 people with a 1½ c. serving that will contain approximately: 329.67 cals, 10.83g fat, 13.83g carbs, 3.5g fiber, 10.33g NET CARBS, 41.5g protein, 924.5 mg sodium 

Served atop cauli-rice or eggplant, your serving sizes will be more like 1 c. and you’ll probably realistically get 9 servings, I would imagine.  I’ll let you do that math from the “entire recipe” stats above, based on how generous you are with the mixture when dipping up onto each plate.     

Classic Shrimp Scampi

My father introduced us to this dish when we lived in Hampton, Virginia (my senior year in high school).  Of course, we had all the fresh seafood in the world the year we lived in the Tidewater area.  What is amazing about Shrimp Scampi, besides its wonderful flavor, is how easy and fast it is to make, start to finish!  Traditionally served over white rice, but as a low-carber, I tend to spoon ours over a heaping serving of my Foolproof Mashed Cauliflower.  I’m very pleased with this recipe and fix it for dinner whenever I can get my hands on really good shrimp in Central Texas.  I like to add a bit of my Seafood Spice Blend to most of my seafood dishes, but it is not in traditional shrimp scampi recipes.  That’s my personal change to this classic Italian fare.  I’ve also been known to add a couple tablespoons of white wine to this dish, but do not always do that, so I don’t show it in the ingredients below.  Your call on the wine.  It’s delicious with or without.  This recipe is suitable for all phases of Atkins and other ketogenic diets, as well as for Primal and Paleo followers.  Those still on Atkins Induction should not add the white wine I just mentioned.

INGREDIENTS:

1 lb. large shrimp, headed, peeled and deveined

4 T. butter, unsalted

3 cloves garlic, minced

½ c. parsley, chopped

1/8 tsp. coarse black pepper

¼-½ tsp. my Seafood Spice Blend

1 oz. (optional) dry white wine, (Pinot Grigio, Riesling or Sauvignon Blanc would be good)

DIRECTIONS:    Preheat broiler.  In a large skillet melt the butter over high heat.  Add garlic and let sauté a couple minutes.  Add shrimp and sauté until the begin to get opaque and golden on the edges.  Add black pepper and spice blend.  Add white wine now if using.  Sauté couple more minutes.  Finally add parsley and stir to blend.  Remove and pop into broiler long enough for the shrimp to begin to brown just a bit.  Remove from oven and serve immediately over bed of mashed cauliflower (or rice for non low-carber diners)

NUTRITIONAL INFO:   Makes 3 servings, each contains:  (does not include cauliflower, 1 c. would add around 2.8 net carbs to each serving of scampi)

306 cals, 18.1g fat, 3.73g carbs, 0.43g fiber, 3.3g NET CARBS, 31.4g protein, 233 mg sodium

Clam Sauce on Zoodles

I have always loved a good clam sauce on pasta.   This recipe is one I often turn to when it’s late in the day and I’ve forgotten to defrost meat for dinner.  I make sure I always have a few cans of clams in my pantry for this reason. Though you can serve this on real pasta for your non-low-carb guests, it goes nicely for low-carbers over sautéed zucchini “noodles”, as shown above, or shirataki noodles.  Allow about 6 oz. zucchini noodles per person.  The zucchini noodles soak up the sauce’s wonderful flavor.   This dish is OK for Induction if served on zucchini noodles.  I do NOT think this would be good atop spaghetti squash threads as I think the squash taste will negatively impact the overall flavor of the clam dish.  If you are already to the OWL phase of Atkins, ¼ c. dry white wine is good added to this before thickening.  You want to talk healthy?  Get a load of the nutritional info below!!  I think clams (‘molluschi‘ in Italian) may just be the highest source of vitamin B12 in the food kingdom!  And it’s mostly in the juice!  Moral of the story:  EAT MORE CLAM LINGUINE!!  🙂

INGREDIENTS:

2  6-oz. cans clams with juice (do not drain)

4 slices bacon, cut into ½” pieces

2 T. butter, unsalted (or olive oil)

2 oz. onion, chopped

6 medium mushrooms, sliced

2 oz. red bell pepper, chopped coarsely

¼ c. parsley, chopped fine

1 clove garlic, minced

¼ tsp. crushed red pepper flakes

Dash black pepper

VARIATIONS:   A splash of white wine is good in this sauce.  It’s also tasty with about ½ c. heavy cream added if you’re a white sauce fan.  This is more traditionally served on low-carb linguine pasta.  I use Al Dente’s product called ‘Carba Nada’ when I want this over real noodles.

DIRECTIONS:  Chop bacon and brown over med-high heat.  Add butter to melt in with the bacon drippings.  Add onion, mushrooms and garlic.  Sauté until onion and mushrooms are both tender.  Add red pepper, parsley and seasonings.  Add clams with their juice and simmer 2-3 minutes to blend flavors.   Thicken slightly with your favorite thickener and serve.   Garnish plates with a sprinkle of parsley if desired.  Serve on zucchini noodles or “zoodles” as shown above, Carba Nada linguine or shirataki noodles (the ones with oat fiber).

NUTRITIONAL INFO:   Makes 3 servings, each containing:  (numbers are for sauce only, as written)

253 cals, 13.8g fat, 8.27g  carbs, 1.75g fiber, 6.52g NET CARBS, 23.8g protein, 330 mg sodium

Indian Broiled Fish on Cauliflower Pilaf

I changed up my usual Indian broiled fish recipe to create this one.  My husband just LOVES the curry leaf powder addition as well as the seasoned cauliflower.    This dish goes together really fast, so it is an easy meal prep during the summer when it’s hot and you don’t want the oven on long.  If you wish, you can use whole fish for this recipe, but you will want to bake at 350º rather than broil if using whole fish.  If using whole fish, cooking time will be 20-30 minutes depending on the size and thickness of your fish.  This spice mixture would also be good on flounder,  trout or bluefish filets.  This recipe is Induction friendly.

I order my curry leaf powder online.  Many spice vendors carry it. If you can’t (or don’t wish to) order it I would substitute 1 tsp. dried mint leaves.

INGREDIENTS FOR CAULI PILAF:

1 small head cauliflower (or 1/2 larger head)

2 T. olive oil

2 oz. red onion, finely minced

2 T. cilantro (I used the stems only)

½ tsp. Garam Masala Spice Blend

1/8 tsp. turmeric

Dash sea salt

DIRECTIONS FOR PILAF:  Cut cauliflower into chunks and pulse in food processor or blender to coarse “rice” stage.  Microwave in covered bowl for 4 minutes, stirring once before removing from microwave.  Set aside a few moments.   Heat olive oil in non-stick pan over high heat and sauté onion and cilantro until nearly tender.  Add Garam Masala, turmeric and salt.  Lower heat.  Using a yellow or metal spoon (turmeric will stain white or wooden tools) gently stir in the tender cauliflower rice and mix all  until well-blended.  Turmeric will turn the mixture light yellow.  This is normal and what you want.  Let pan set over lowest heat possible for flavors to mellow while fish is broiling.

INGREDIENTS FOR FISH:

4   fish filets of choice (5 oz. raw each cook up to 4 oz.)

1 tsp. minced ginger root

1 tsp. minced garlic

1 finely chopped jalapeno, seeded and chopped

1 tsp. curry leaf powder

2 T. chopped cilantro

¼ tsp. turmeric

Dash each of cayenne, black pepper & turmeric

1/2 tsp. curry leaf powder  (or 1 tsp. dried crushed mint leaves)

4 T. unsalted butter, melted

1 T. tomato paste + 3 T. water (or ¼ c. tomato sauce)

FISH DIRECTIONS:  Preheat boiler. Lightly oil or parchment line a medium a baking pan large enough to hold fish in single layer.  Lay filets in the pan white side up.  Mix all other ingredients in a glass or metal bowl.  Do not use a plastic bowl (or your food processor) as the turmeric stains them yellow.  Add HALF the melted butter and mash all the seasonings to blend well in to a thick paste.  Using the back of a spoon, spread seasoning paste evenly on the tops of the 4 filets.   Broil for about 10 minutes, until thickest part of the filets is firming up.  You can bake for about 20 minutes (30 for whole fish) at 350º if you prefer, but I think broiling this is best.  Fast is goodness in my book.  When done, remove and drizzle remaining melted butter on each portion and serve with the cauliflower pilaf as a base, trying to use 1/4 of the pilaf under each of the 4 servings.  This pairs  nicely with my homemade Samosas  or my Saag Paneer.

NUTRITIONAL INFO: Serves 4, each filet with 1/4 cauliflower mixture contains:

327.25 cals, 26.15g fat, 5.62g carbs, 2.15g fiber, 3.47g NET CARBS, 24.35g protein, 84.5 mg sodium

Oven-Fried Fish

I hate standing over a pan of hot, popping grease to do traditional deep frying.  But I do love me some fried fish.  It’s a Southern tradition, fish fries. Wish my husband were as fond of fried fish as I am.  😦  This has been one of the most popular recipes on my site, with hundreds of thousands Facebook fans when I was posting there.  It’s very tasty and well worth a try if you’re a fried fish fan.  I didn’t like this coating as well for shrimp, but it is fantastic for fish!

Unlike every coating I’ve tried doing with flax meal, this recipe really came out crisp!  Even the bottoms of the filets were crispy and browned nicely!   This coating also works well with cut-up chicken.  Best of all, this recipe is Atkins Induction friendly!

Though I mention tilapia and swai below, any mild fish will do for this recipe.   If you don’t want to make up the homemade mayo for this, I have, in a hurry, just used sour cream to coat the fish and this cooks up just as well with sour cream! 🙂  Though I have not tried it yet, it has been reported by my blog readers that this fish, when leftover, reheats nicely in the microwave and STILL STAYS CRUNCHY!   It of course, will reheat just fine in the oven, too.  To be quite honest, I never have any leftover to test that out.  We just LOVE fish done this way, and my husband even enjoys this one!  🙂  It’s what’s for dinner tonight so I’m re-sharing for my newest readers to see this winner.

INGREDIENTS:

30 oz. tilapia or swai filets (six filets about 5 oz. each)

6 T. homemade mayo

3 oz. crushed plain pork rinds

½ tsp.  Seafood Spice Blend

1 T. olive oil

DIRECTIONS: Preheat oven to 450º.  Rub a metal baking sheet (preferably non-stick) with olive oil.  DO NOT USE A GLASS/CERAMIC PAN OR SILICONE PAN LINER OR THESE WILL NOT BROWN PROPERLY.  Been there; done that.  Trust me on this one, use a metal pan.

Crush pork rinds and place in shallow bowl.  Add spice blend and stir well.  If you like things real spicy, you might want to increase the spice blend a bit or add more cayenne.  Most important step here:  Pat surfaces of fish dry with a paper towel. Then brush each fish filet on both sides with a tablespoon of mayonnaise.   You want to be sure not to miss any spots.  There doesn’t have to be a LOT of mayo, but the entire surface must be moistened with it for the coating to adhere.  If you substitute a commercial mayo, you will have more difficulty getting good coverage, as it is so thick.

Holding the filets up (one at a time) by the tips, between your index finger and thumb in one hand, and with your other hand, spoon the coating over each filet on both sides to coat well. I find if you just dip them into a plate full of the coating, the first two get coated nicely and you run out of coating before all are coated!  That’s ever so annoying!  When all are coated, lay each filet onto your oiled pan.   Place in hot 450º oven and bake for about 20 minutes total or until done and crispy on top.   There’s actually no need to turn the filets over during cooking as the bottoms get even browner than the tops!  For more even browning, you could turn them at the 10 minute mark if you wish.

NUTRITIONAL INFO: Makes 6 servings, each contains:

364 cals, 22.9 g  fat, 0.43 g  carbs, 0 g  fiber, 0.43 g  NET CARBS, 41.4 g  protein, 338 mg. sodium

Steamed Lobster Tails

One of life’s culinary pleasures is lobster, in my opinion.  Only thing that comes close is a cooked-to-perfection char-broiled ribeye steak.  We try to do one really special dinner each month and I voted for lobster this time around.   I was testing a new Parsley-Cilantro salad dressing https://buttoni.wordpress.com/2011/08/09/parsley-cilantro-salad-dressing/  which really complimented the lobster nicely.  The lobster I can get is usually from the Bahamas.   Tastes a little sweeter than cold water lobster from New England, in my opinion.   This recipe is suitable for all phases of Atkins.

INGREDIENTS: 

1.25 lb. lobster tails (yields about 12 oz. tail meat after removing shell)

½ stick salted butter, melted

DIRECTIONS:    Put about 1½ cups water in a deep boiling pot and bring to a boil. Run two skewers from the base of the tail up the center of the belly, all the way up to the center of the thickest part to keep the tail from curling during cooking.  When the water comes to a rolling boil, insert skewered lobster tail up in the pot.  I usually lean the skewers out the top.  Set a lid on the pot slightly offset to reduce water evaporation, but it really doesn’t have to be 100% closed.     Lower to medium heat and let steam for 7-10 minutes.  Turn off heat, remove skewers and holding shell with one hand, with the help of a kitchen towel or mitt, cut with kitchen shears straight up the belly shell from top to base of tail. Pull sides of tail shell apart and fork out the tail meat (I like to leave the tail fins attached and in tact) right out of the shell.  Splay the tail fins out on the serving planner for a pretty presentation at table.   Serve with a nice green salad and perhaps my Rosemary Onion Dinner Rolls:  https://buttoni.wordpress.com/2011/05/31/rosemary-onion-dinner-rolls/

VARIATION:  Sometimes I boil my lobster tails and when I do, I dispense with the skewer step.  I do take the time before cooking to cut all the way up the back (arched concave side) just to the tail fan.  This avoids your having to handle the tails when they are boiling hot out of the water.  

NUTRITIONAL INFO:   Makes 2 servings and each contains (including ¼c. of the butter):

367 cals, 23.9 g fat, 2.2 g carbs, 0 fiber, 2.2 g NET CARBS, 34.8 g protein, 1350 mg sodium

Scalopine in Wine Sauce

I buy HUGE sea scallops at Sam’s during the holidays so I can cook them later in the year to enjoy.  I only see them at Sam’s around Christmas, but if you are lucky enough to live near the coast, by al means, use any fresh scallops you have available to you.  We are having these with our lobster tails for Valentine’s Day dinner this year.  Be sure to adjust the cook times below accordingly for smaller scallops.  As written, this recipe is unacceptable for Induction.  But if you leave out the wine, then it will be Induction friendly!    The nutritional info below reflects the inclusion of the wine.

INGREDIENTS:

16 sea scallops, approximately 3″ in diameter

2 T. unsalted butter for sautéing

2 T. more butter for sauce

1/3 c. finely chopped parsley

1 lg. clove minced garlic

1 oz. lemon juice (fresh)

¼ c. dry white wine (omit or use chicken broth if on Induction)

DIRECTIONS: Preheat oven to 400º.  Melt 2 T. butter in non-stick 14″ skillet over high heat.  Sear only 4 scallops for 3 minutes on a side (less, of course, for smaller scallops).  Do not crowd pan with more than 4 at a time or the juice they bleed out will cause them to simmer/steam rather than sear nicely.  Remove to a plate temporarily.  Repeat until all scallops are seared.   Replace all scallops in pan and pop into  preheated oven for 10 minutes (less for small scallops).  Remove scallops to plate and put skillet on medium flame atop stove.  Add the 2 additional tablespoons of butter, lemon juice, parsley, garlic and wine.  Simmer 2-3 minutes longer, add scallops back and serve with a nice green salad or favorite green vegetable.

NUTRITIONAL INFO: Makes 4 servings (4 scallops per serving).  Each serving has:

257.5 cals, 18.6g fat, 8.33g carbs (yes, scallops have carbs!) 0.55g fiber, 7.78g NET CARBS, 12 g  protein, 339 mg sodium

Shrimp Carbonara Carba-Nada®

“Al Dente” Carba-Nada Fettucini noodles not shown

I discovered Al Dente Carba-Nada low-carb noodles some years back.  Bought one bag and tried them. Man, they’re pretty good for only 18 carbs per 1½ cups raw, which cooks up about double.  The flavored varieties are slightly higher in carbs.  That’s the amount I usually cook for two of us.

I tasted them first with my Shrimp Carbonara and they were quite delightful.  So I actually ate a serving stirred into my dinner!  Clearly I won’t be eating them often, but I may on occasion for such dishes as this one.  But of course, you could serve this recipe alone, atop a bed of zucchini noodles or over cooked spaghetti squash threads.  I can even see it atop a baked sweet potato half for the holidays.  I didn’t picture the noodles but am providing stats for both methods of serving.  Hope you’ll give this tasty dish a try dish!

INGREDIENTS: 

3 slices thick bacon, chopped

½-3/4 leek, chopped

1 lb. peeled shrimp

1 medium yellow summer squash, spiralized into noodles

½ tsp. my Cajun Seafood Spice Blend

Dash black pepper

4 T. shredded or grated Parmesan cheese

¼ c. dry white wine

1½ c. (raw) “Al Dente” brand Carba-Nada® fettucini noodles (optional)

DIRECTIONS:  Spiralize the yellow squash into noodles with a noodling tool or julienne peeler.  Set aside.  Cut leek in half lengthwise.  Rinse out dirt from between layers.  Chop the root off and cut the white part and half the green part into 1/2″ slices.  Set aside. Peel shrimp and set aside.  Boil the noodles (or prepare your zucchini noodles) until “al dente” firm-tender and set aside.

In a non-stick skillet, cook the chopped bacon.  You should end up with about 2 tsp. bacon grease in the pan also. Add the chopped leek and yellow squash to the bacon and grease.  Sauté until half tender.  Add the shrimp, wine (omit if still on Atkins Induction) and seasonings.  Simmer to allow the wine to burn off some of its alcohol.   When all appears to be cooked to tender stage, turn off fire.  Drain the fettucini (if using).  You can either stir the pasta into the shrimp mixture, or serve the carbonara atop the noodles plated up on 4 plates.    ENJOY!

NUTRITIONAL INFO:  Makes 4 servings.

With pasta, each contains: 268 calories, 9.22 g fat, 12.10 g carbs, 2.35 g fiber, 9.75 g NET CARBS, 31.4 g protein, 438 mg sodium.

Without pasta, each contains: 233 calories, 8.97 g fat, 6.1 g carbs, 0.85 g fiber, 5.25 g NET CARBS, 28.4 g protein, 433 mg sodium

Crawfish Pad Thai

I have been intrigued by recipes I see for Pad Thai, although I am very new to it.  Recipes for it would indicate it’s apparently like gumbo, in that every recipe is a little different.  There are similar ingredients in all of the recipes, so I went about concocting my own version, pulling from this recipe and that recipe.  I had no idea if the final dish was going to be good.  Told my husband “If we don’t like it, we can just go out and eat.”  It far surpassed our expectations the first time I put this together!  Other than the fact I got it a little too hot with peppers, the overall flavor was truly OUTSTANDING!  I now see why people rant and rave about it.  I will definitely be making this dish on a regular basis in future!  I can’t wait to try it with pork, chicken and shrimp one day.

I’m showing a lesser amount of hot pepper ingredients below than went into my dinner tonight 😉 as it was waaaaay too hot for us with 1/2 tsp. crushed red pepper AND the jalapeno.   This meal would be suitable for Atkins Induction Phase, Keto diets and would even fit a Primal-Paleo lifestyle if plan-appropriate sauce ingredients are used.

INGREDIENTS: 

3 cloves garlic, minced

3 T. rice vinegar

1 T. oyster sauce

1 T. coconut aminos, tamari or low-sodium soy sauce

1 drop or pinch of your favorite sweetener (optional)

1 T. fish sauce

2 c. cooked spaghetti squash threads

2 T. olive oil

1 medium carrot, slivered lengthwise very thinly and cut into 2″ pieces

2 oz. purple onion

1 small jalapeno, seeded and slivered into very thin strips

1/8 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes (more if you like things HOT!)

1 c. bean sprouts (I had none on hand and used 1/3 c. slivered water chestnuts instead)

4 large green onions, chopped into ½” pieces

12 oz. crawfish tail meat, (I use cooked, frozen or you could substitute cooked shrimp)

3 large eggs, beaten

½ c. cilantro, chopped

1 T. butter

DIRECTIONS:  Cook half the spaghetti squash by slicing in half, removing seeds, putting cut side down into baking dish with 1/2″ water and microwaving on HI for 13 minutes.  Holding the squash half with a pot holder or towel, fork out threads from one half of the squash.  Reserve the other half of the squash for some other use.  In a small bowl, make a sauce of the first 6 ingredients.  Set aside.  Melt the butter in a non-stick skillet and scramble the beaten eggs lightly.  Chop with a knife a bit on a cutting board and set aside for now.  Cut up all the vegetables so they are ready for final cooking and assembly.  Heat the oil in a large non-stick skillet.  Add the carrot, purple onion, green onion and saute until tender crisp.  Add the cooked spaghetti squash threads, the bean sprouts (or water chestnuts) and crawfish tails (or shrimp).  Continue to stir-fry over medium-high heat for about 5 minutes, to allow flavors to blend.  Add the scrambled egg now and then the cilantro, stirring to mix them in evenly.  Lower heat.  Stir the sauce you prepared and pour it evenly over the mixture.  Stir one last time to mix everything thoroughly.  Remove from heat and serve at once.

NUTRITIONAL INFO:  Makes 6 servings, each contains:

178 cals, 9.8 g fat, 8.9 g carbs, 1.9 g fiber, 7 g NET CARBS, 14 g protein, 715 mg sodium. 395 mg potassium

Tuna Cheesies

I’ve been making these creamy, cheesie goodies for probably 20 years or more.  My husband just LOVES these things so I’m making a pan of them for our lunch today.  Mmmm, I forget how good these are.  The inspirational recipe I found years ago in a newspaper used saltine crackers.  My low-carb version here uses my Almond-Flax crackers.   You could alternately use baked low-carb flour tortilla wedges or baked, low-carb pita bread wedges.   This time I cut my almond cracker recipe into 12 oblong larger rectangles as shown above (instead of my usual 48 small square crackers for the cracker recipe).  These tasty treats are suitable once you get to Atkins Phase 2.  They are OK for Keto dieters if they fit your daily macro limits.

INGREDIENTS:

½ recipe my Almond Flax Crackers  (or 24 pre-baked low-carb crackers/chips of choice)

1   6-oz foil pouch tuna (or a 5 oz. can, drained)

1 c. shredded Cheddar cheese

2 slices Kraft American Deluxe cheese, shredded

3 T. homemade mayo (or soft butter)

2-3 shakes cayenne pepper (more if you like things “hot”)

4-5 drops Worcestershire sauce

1/8 tsp. onion powder

VARIATION:  Add a bit of chopped green onion.

DIRECTIONS:  Preheat oven to 350º.  As to making the cracker base for these, I tend to mix up a whole recipe of the cracker dough and shape it on the baking sheet into two rectangles, one on each end, not quite all the way to the edges of the pan, with a slight separation between them.  I use half the cracker recipe for these Tuna Cheesies and save the other rectangle to cut into plain crackers to have on hand for other uses.  Or if you’re having a party, you could double the topping ingredients and use the entire recipe of crackers for a total of 48 Tuna Cheesies.  They disappear fast, so make the batch of 48 for a party! 🙂

Prepare and bake the crackers by that recipe’s instructions at 350º.  Cool slightly on the pan.  If you made the full recipe of crackers, but only want 12 or 24 portions, store the rest of the crackers in a lidded container on your kitchen counter for up to 2 weeks.

While the crackers are baking, mix the tuna-cheese topping in a bowl.  When crackers are cooled and cut into the number you want, spread tuna-cheese mixture on top.  Pop back into the oven for about 5-10 minutes longer to melt the cheesy topping nicely.  Remove from the oven and enjoy!  Serve warm.  Often for parties, I’ll make two pans of 24 each, waiting untilt he first pan has been wolfed down by guests before popping the second pan in the oven.  They are definitely better hot so the cheese is gooey.  🙂

NUTRITIONAL INFO:  Makes 12 rectangular Tuna Cheesies, each contains:

147 calories, 11.83 g  fat, 3.5 g  carbs, 2.01 g  fiber, 1.49 g  NET CARBS, 7.9 g  protein, 203 mg sodium

NOTE:  If crackers cut into 48 squares and you use 24 for this recipe, divide the nutritional numbers above for by 2 to get the per serving numbers for each smaller square.

Crawfish al Pesto on Eggplant “Pillows”

This recipe grew out of a delicious spaghetti squash alfredo dish I did earlier this week.  At first I had my doubts on  crawfish for this, but it came out DELICIOUS!  I made a batch of my Oven-Fried Fish coating and baked off the eggplant first, as you would for classic Eggplant Parmigiana.  The crunchy coating on the eggplant very quickly loses its crunchiness, so serve this quickly and don’t hold it over for any reason.  This sinfully rich dish was so good I will definitely be doing it again soon, but perhaps with lobster of scallops.  This dish freezes nicely, too, getting even tastier upon re-baking!  The eggplant will lose that crunchiness from freezing, but the dish still tastes fantastic when reheated.

This recipe is suitable for all phases of Atkins and Keto, and for Primal folks that consume occasional dairy products.  This would not be suitable for Paleo followers.

INGREDIENTS:

12 oz. eggplant, sliced into eight ½” slices

3 oz. plain pork rinds, crushed fine

6 T. homemade mayonnaise

Dash salt

4 T. butter

1 large leek, ends trimmed off, washed well, sliced or chopped into small pieces (about 1½ cups)

¼ recipe Jennifer Eloff’s Condensed Cream of Mushroom Soup

¼ c. Parmesan cheese, grated

1½ T. homemade pesto sauce (or commercial)

8 oz. frozen crawfish tail meat, defrosted (or shrimp)

½ c. heavy cream

½ c. water

1 c. grated mozzarella cheese

2 T. chopped parsley for garnish (optional)

DIRECTIONS:  Preheat oven to 450º.  Lightly oil a baking sheet.  Cut the eggplant into ½” slices.  Baste all surfaces with the mayonnaise using a brush.  Spoon crushed pork rinds over each slice, coating well.  Place the coated slices on the oiled pan and pop into oven, baking at 450º for 20 minutes.

While the eggplant bakes, prepare the topping.  Melt the butter in a large skillet.  Add leeks and saute until tender. Lower heat to medium.  Add the mushroom soup, the Parmesan, crawfish meat, cream and water and simmer over low heat until eggplant is done.  It will thicken as it cooks. Add the pesto and stir.  Be sure to stir the mixture often during cooking so the flavors will blend.

When the eggplant is tender, remove from oven, top each slice with 2 T. of the mozzarella and then spoon 1/8 of the topping (about 1/3 cup) onto each slice of eggplant.  I made the mistake of putting 1 T. under and 1 T. over the topping and popped the pan back into the oven while my garlic toast cooked in the broiler to melt the cheese on top.  But it didn’t completely melt by the time the toast was done.  So in future, I’ll put all 2T. of the cheese underneath the bubbly hot topping so it will melt nicely for me.  Garnish tops with chopped parsley and serve at once.

NUTRITIONAL INFO:    Makes 8 servings, each contains:

355 cals, 30.5 g  fat, 6.06 g  carbs, 1.88 g fiber, 4.18 g  NET CARBS, 14.8 g  protein, 421 mg sodium

Crawfish al Pesto on Eggplant “Pillows”

This recipe grew out of a delicious spaghetti squash alfredo dish I created some time back.  At first I had my doubts on  crawfish for this, but it came out DELICIOUS!  I made a batch of my Oven-Fried Fish coating and baked off the eggplant first, as you would for classic Eggplant Parmigiana.  The crunchy coating on the eggplant very quickly loses its crunchiness, so serve this quickly and don’t hold it over for any reason.  This sinfully rich dish was so good I will definitely be doing this again!  It freezes nicely, too, getting even tastier upon re-baking!  The eggplant will lose that crunchiness from freezing, but the dish still tastes fantastic when reheated.

This recipe is suitable for all phases of Atkins and Keto, and for Primal folks that consume occasional dairy products.  This would not be suitable for Paleo followers.

INGREDIENTS:

12 oz. eggplant, sliced into eight ½” slices

3 oz. plain pork rinds, crushed fine

6 T. homemade mayonnaise

Dash salt

4 T. butter

1 large leek, ends trimmed off, washed well, sliced or chopped into small pieces (about 1½ cups)

¼ recipe Jennifer Eloff’s Condensed Cream of Mushroom Soup

¼ c. Parmesan cheese, grated

1½ T. homemade pesto sauce (or commercial)

8 oz. frozen crawfish tail meat, defrosted (or shrimp)

½ c. heavy cream

½ c. water

1 c. grated mozzarella cheese

2 T. chopped parsley for garnish (optional)

DIRECTIONS:  Preheat oven to 450º.  Lightly oil a baking sheet.  Cut the eggplant into ½” slices.  Baste all surfaces with the mayonnaise using a brush.  Spoon crushed pork rinds over each slice, coating well.  Place the coated slices on the oiled pan and pop into oven, baking at 450º for 20 minutes.

While the eggplant bakes, prepare the topping.  Melt the butter in a large skillet.  Add leeks and saute until tender. Lower heat to medium.  Add the mushroom soup, the Parmesan, crawfish meat, cream and water and simmer over low heat until eggplant is done.  It will thicken as it cooks. Add the pesto and stir.  Be sure to stir the mixture often during cooking so the flavors will blend.

When the eggplant is tender, remove from oven, top each slice with 2 T. of the mozzarella and then spoon 1/8 of the topping (about 1/3 cup) onto each slice of eggplant.  I made the mistake of putting 1 T. under and 1 T. over the topping and popped the pan back into the oven while my garlic toast cooked in the broiler to melt the cheese on top.  But it didn’t completely melt by the time the toast was done.  So in future, I’ll put all 2T. of the cheese underneath the bubbly hot topping so it will melt nicely for me.  Garnish tops with chopped parsley and serve at once.

NUTRITIONAL INFO:    Makes 8 servings, each contains:

355 cals, 30.5 g  fat, 6.06 g  carbs, 1.88 g fiber, 4.18 g  NET CARBS, 14.8 g  protein, 421 mg sodium

Crab-Pumpkin Bisque

I love seafood and especially a good seafood bisque.  I have a cup of picked crab meat and a fresh-baked pie pumpkin to use up and decided to make them into a crab bisque for lunch today that came out super delicious!  We both decided this one was good enough to share with my readers.  This recipe is not suitable for Induction unless you omit the wine.  It is OK for all other phases of Atkins and Keto diets.  This soup is not suitable for Primal or Paleo as it is dairy heavy.

INGREDIENTS:

3 slices bacon, chopped

1/4 c. onion, chopped

1/4 c. celery, chopped

8 oz. softened cream cheese

1 c. pumpkin (preferably fresh)

Dash each black & cayenne peppers

½ c. dry white wine (use stock if still in Induction)

2 c. seafood stock (or chicken broth)

1 c. water

½ tsp. my Seafood Spice Blend

8 oz. white crab meat, picked of all shell

DIRECTIONS:  Brown bacon over medium-high heat.  Add onion and celery and saute until tender. Add white wine.  Add cream cheese and stir to blend.  Add the seafood stock and water.  Stir well.  Add pumpkin the spice blend, salt, pepper and cayenne.  Stir and lower heat to low.  Simmer for about 15 minutes.  Stir in crab and simmer 1-2 minutes longer only, or the crab will fall apart.  Serve at once with your favorite low-carb crackers.

NUTRITIONAL INFO:    Makes 6 large servings, each contains:

256 cals, 21.2 g fat, 4.86 g carbs, 0.63 g fiber, 4.23 g NET CARBS, 10.7 g protein, 550 mg sodium (use less cream cheese to lower sodium)

Classic Shrimp Scampi

My father introduced us to this dish when we lived in Hampton, Virginia.  Of course, we had all the fresh seafood in the world the year we lied there.  What is amazing about Shrimp Scampi, besides its wonderful flavor, is how easy and fast it is to make, start to finish!  Traditionally served over white rice, but as a low-carber, I tend to spoon ours over a heaping serving of my Foolproof Mashed Cauliflower.  I’m very pleased with this recipe and fix it for dinner whenever I can get my hands on really good shrimp in Central Texas.  I like to add a bit of my Seafood Spice Blend to most of my seafood dishes, but it is not in traditional shrimp scampi recipes.  That’s my personal change to this classic Italian fare.  I’ve also been known to add a couple tablespoons of white wine to this dish, but do not always do that, so I don’t show it in the ingredients below.  Your call on the wine.  It’s delicious with or without.  This recipe is suitable for all phases of Atkins and other ketogenic diets, as well as for Primal and Paleo followers.  Those still on Atkins Induction should not add the white wine I just mentioned.

INGREDIENTS:

1 lb. large shrimp, headed, peeled and deveined

4 T. butter, unsalted

3 cloves garlic, minced

½ c. parsley, chopped

1/8 tsp. coarse black pepper

¼-½ tsp. my Seafood Spice Blend

1 oz. (optional) dry white wine, (Pinot Grigio, Riesling or Sauvignon Blanc would be good)

DIRECTIONS:    Preheat broiler.  In a large skillet melt the butter over high heat.  Add garlic and let sauté a couple minutes.  Add shrimp and sauté until the begin to get opaque and golden on the edges.  Add black pepper and spice blend.  Add white wine now if using.  Sauté couple more minutes.  Finally add parsley and stir to blend.  Remove and pop into broiler long enough for the shrimp to begin to brown just a bit.  Remove from oven and serve immediately over bed of mashed cauliflower (or rice for non low-carber diners)

NUTRITIONAL INFO:   Makes 3 servings, each contains:  (does not include cauliflower, 1 c. would add around 2.8 net carbs to each serving of scampi)

306 cals, 18.1g fat, 3.73g carbs, 0.43g fiber, 3.3g NET CARBS, 31.4g protein, 233 mg sodium

Blue Crab Stuffing

For Christmas we often cook lobster tails with a side of stuffed crab.  How we both adore seafood and have really missed the quality seafood we had access to when we lived on the Texas Gulf Coast where we lived for over 30 years.  This is the crab stuffing recipe I’ve made for such a long time.  I developed this recipe in an attempt to imitate the wonderful stuffed crab I ordered many times at Gaido’s seafood restaurant, perched on the Galveston Seawall for a lovely view of the Gulf.  We lived there for around 30 years, so the good seafood seriously spoiled.  This was one of my favorite dishes on the menu.  As delicious as any I ever ate in New England where crab cakes are almost a religion.  My take on it is fairly close to Gaido’s dish, so I have stuck with this recipe whenever I can get decent crabmeat.  The crab sold in groceries in Central TX where I live is all trucked up from the Gulf, often frozen for lord knows how long, so really not as good. 

This dish is easy to prepare and always a hit with dinner guests.  I used to serve mine in real sea scallop shell halves so it made for an impactful presentation.  If you have access to fresh, picked crab meat where you are, you’ve GOT to try this one!  I also use this mixture to stuff baked flounder or even stuffed mushrooms!  It also can be shaped into patties, fried in a buttered skillet for delicious crab cakes, to be served with a tarragon aioli sauce.  

INGREDIENTS:

1½ lb. Blue crab meat, shelled & picked well for shell bits (or other variety crabmeat)

3 Flax Sandwich Buns  (or other low-carb bread)

4 oz. onion, finely chopped

4 oz. celery, finely chopped

2 oz. green/red bell pepper (your choice), finely chopped

¼ cup parsley, chopped

2 oz. heavy cream

¼ tsp. salt

Dash of cayenne pepper

1 tsp. dry mustard powder

½ c. (1 stick) unsalted butter

DIRECTIONS:    Using a large bowl, carefully pick out all bits of shell from crab meat.  Soak 2 of the pieces of bread with the cream and crumble over the crab.  Crumb the remaining roll into fairly fine crumbs.  Set aside.

Melt butter in a skillet over medium high heat.  Add celery, onion, bell pepper, salt and cayenne and sauté until slightly tender. Add parsley, mustard powder and sauté couple minutes longer.  Pour sautéed vegetable mixture over crab/bread mixture in the bowl.  Gently toss ingredients gently just to mix well.  Spoon mixture into 6 large rinsed crab/scallop shells (if you have any) or into 6 buttered individual 6 oven-safe ramekins.  Alternately, you can  stuff into whole fish like flounder or trout on an oiled pan that have been prepared for stuffing.  You can optionally top stuffing with panko bread crumbs if that’s your fancy.  Bake in preheated 350º oven for 20 minutes for just baked crabmeat; 30 minutes for whole 1 lb. fish stuffed.  Check with a fork to be sure fish is at flaky stage before removing from oven and serving with a nice green salad.  

NUTRITIONAL INFO:  Makes 6 servings, each serving has: (numbers are just for stuffing & does not include fish)

351.3 cals, 25.9g fat, 5.4g carbs, 2.47g fiber, 2.93g NET CARBS, 25.3g protein, 120 mg. sodium

Crab-Pumpkin Bisque

I love seafood and especially a good seafood bisque.  I have a cup of picked crab meat and a fresh-baked pie pumpkin to use up and decided to make them into a crab bisque for lunch today that came out super delicious!  We both decided this one was good enough to share with my readers.  This recipe is not suitable for Induction unless you omit the wine.  It is OK for all other phases of Atkins and Keto diets.  This soup is not suitable for Primal or Paleo as it is dairy heavy.

INGREDIENTS:

3 slices bacon, chopped

1/4 c. onion, chopped

1/4 c. celery, chopped

8 oz. softened cream cheese

1 c. pumpkin (preferably fresh)

Dash each black & cayenne peppers

½ c. dry white wine (use stock if still in Induction)

2 c. seafood stock (or chicken broth)

1 c. water

½ tsp. my Seafood Spice Blend

8 oz. white crab meat, picked of all shell

DIRECTIONS:  Brown bacon over medium-high heat.  Add onion and celery and saute until tender. Add white wine.  Add cream cheese and stir to blend.  Add the seafood stock and water.  Stir well.  Add pumpkin the spice blend, salt, pepper and cayenne.  Stir and lower heat to low.  Simmer for about 15 minutes.  Stir in crab and simmer 1-2 minutes longer only, or the crab will fall apart.  Serve at once with your favorite low-carb crackers.

NUTRITIONAL INFO:    Makes 6 large servings, each contains:

256 cals, 21.2 g fat, 4.86 g carbs, 0.63 g fiber, 4.23 g NET CARBS, 10.7 g protein, 550 mg sodium (use less cream cheese to lower sodium)

Einkorn Tuna Pimiento Cheese Muffins

Tuna is always in my pantry, so I reached for some to make lunch today.   These two-bite mini-muffins I created today, honestly……..my husband had trouble stopping at SIX of them!  But he’s a big eater.  I stopped at four. 🙂  These go together fast and only took 13 minutes to bake.  I highly recommend slightly cooling before attempting to loosen them from even a non-stick pan, as baked egg tends to stick to whatever pan you use.   I’ve not had good luck baking tuna items in silicone pans.  Tuna likes browning.  I used a 24 ct. metal pan to bake these.  This recipe is not suitable until Phase 2 Atkins  when you are nearing maintenance, due to the Einkorn Bake Mix.   You can lower the carb count per muffin even more using a lower carb bake mix than mine, which has Einkorn Flour in it.  But the count is already pretty darn low in my opinion.  Those still in the initial 2-week Induction Phase of Atkins need to eliminate the bake mix entirely and increase the eggs to about 6.  The muffins will naturally have a different, and somewhat eggier texture than mine here, but should taste about the same.  These should freeze nicely for about a month.  If you do the Induction version, adding 1-2 T. flax meal to that variation would add a little firmer structure to them.

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INGREDIENTS:

4 beaten eggs

3 small pouches (7.8 oz. total) water-pack tuna

1½ c. my Einkorn Bake Mix

3/4 tsp. my Seafood Spice Blend

¼ tsp. sea salt

1 lg. 4-0z. jar chopped pimiento, drained

1 lg. green onion, chopped fine

2 2/3 slices American Deluxe or Cheddar cheese, 2 cut into 9 squares, 1 cut into 6 squares

VARIATION:   Add a few drops of Tobasco or a few shakes of cayenne pepper to the batter for a spicier muffin.

DIRECTIONS:   Preheat oven to 350º.  Beat the eggs in a medium bowl.  Add all other ingredients but the cheese.  Oil 24 slots of a mini-muffin pan.  Using a 2 T. scoop, add one level scoop to each slot.  They will be nearly full and there should be just enough batter for 24.  Place 1 square of cheese atop each and push it down slightly into the batter.  Pop into hot 350º oven.  Bake for 13-15 minutes or until they puff up and the cheese just begins to brown on top.  Remove and cool slightly.  If you try to remove while too hot, they will tear up on you.  Gently loosen with a knife tip or fork and enjoy.  A modest serving would be 4 mini-muffins.  A big eater will want 6 of these minis.

NUTRITIONAL INFO:    Makes 24 muffins, each contains:

22 calories, 0.9 g fat, 0.35 g carbs, 0.08 g fiber, 0.27 g NET CARBS, 3.22 g protein, 74 mg sodium

Cajun Shrimp and “Grits”

This dish came out so good.  Frankly, I was quite surprised!  I essentially took my method for making shrimp scampi, added some Cajun spices to take it up a notch, topped with buttery Parmesan bread crumbs and served over a bed of seasoned cauli-rice.  Man………this is definitely a keeper!  My husband just ranted about his dinner tonight!  I confess it was one of the better shrimp dishes I’ve created in quite some time!  Provided you use an Induction-friendly bread for the bread crumbs, this is suitable for Atkins Induction and all other Atkins diet phases!  Just leave out the 2 T. white wine until Phase 2, please.  🙂

BASE INGREDIENTS:

4 T. unsalted butter

2 oz. yellow onion, slivered as thinly as possible

3 cloves garlic, minced

1/8 tsp. salt (omit if using salted butter)

1/8 tsp. cayenne pepper

2 T. (1 fluid oz) white wine (omit if still in Atkins Induction Phase)

30 large peeled shrimp (I used pre-cooked, tail-on, but raw will work also)

CRUMB TOPPING INGREDIENTS:

2 slices plan-suitable low-carb bread, crumbed

2 T. grated Parmesan cheese

½ c. chopped parsley

4 T. more unsalted melted butter

‘GRITS’ INGREDIENTS:

½ small head cauliflower, cut into chunks

1 small carrot, peeled and cut into chunks

1/8 tsp. each onion and garlic powder

¼ tsp. (more if you like thinks spicy) my Cajun Seafood Spice Blend

1 c. Cheddar Cheese shreds

½ c. chopped green onions or chives

DIRECTIONS:  Begin by making the “grits” first.  Place the chunks of cauliflower and carrot in you food processor (or blender) and pulse until riced coarsely.  Scrape into microwavable bowl and cook on high for about 4-6 minutes or until no longer raw/hard (but not overly done)  Stir the spices in along with the green onions and cheese shreds.  Set aside while you make the rest of the layers.  In a large skillet (I used non-stick), over medium-high heat, melt one whole stick (8 T.) butter.  Carefully pour just half the melted butter into the bread crumb mixture and blend to moisten the crumbs evenly with the butter. Again, set the topping aside for now.

Preheat oven to BROIL.  In the 4 T. melted butter remaining in the skillet, add the slivered yellow onion and garlic.  Add cayenne and salt and continue to saute a couple more minutes to soften & caramelize them.  Add white wine and simmer 1-2 minutes only.   Spread mixture evenly in the skillet.  Scrape the cheesy grits mixture over the top of the caramelized onion mixture, spreading it evenly.  Next arrange the shrimp in a single layer, 2 concentric circles, tail out, placing shrimp fairly close together as they shrink during cooking.  If you end up with a few shrimp left out of the two circles, put those in the center, tail centered and pointing upwards.  That will look attractive for table presentation.

Sprinkle the crumb topping evenly over the shrimp.   When broiler is hot (450º-475º) pop skillet into broiler and broil until bread crumb topping is golden brown as shown above.  Shrimp cooks fast, so they should get properly done even if you are using raw shrimp. Those mounded in the center will cook the slowest, so check to insure they are properly cooked.

VARIATION:  You can construct this differently, by cooking the “grits” in a separate microwavable serving baking dish and cook the shrimp separately in the skillet.  Then simply top 1/3 portion of the “grits” on each of 3 plates and top with 1/3 the broiled shrimp mixture.  Your call on the construction method.  Will taste great either way.

NUTRITIONAL INFO:   Makes 3 servings, each contains 10 shrimp & 1/3 the grits

643.6 cals, 52.5g fat, 15.8g carbs, 4.76 g fiber, 11.04g NET CARBS, 32.3g protein, 781mg sodium.  To reduce carbs, eliminate the carrot, reduce cheese & use 1 slice bread for crumb topping………or make it stretch for 4 servings. 🙂  )

 

 

 

Indian Broiled Fish on Cauliflower Pilaf

I changed up my usual Indian broiled fish recipe tonight and my husband just LOVED the new ingredient and method of serving over seasoned cauliflower.    This dish goes together really fast, so it is an easy meal prep during the summer when it’s hot and you don’t want the oven on long.  If you wish, you can use whole fish for this recipe, but you will want to bake at 350º rather than broil if using whole fish.  If using whole fish, cooking time will be 20-30 minutes depending on the size and thickness of your fish.  This spice mixture would also be good on flounder,  trout or bluefish filets.  This recipe is Induction friendly.

I order my curry leaf powder online.  Many spice vendors carry it. If you can’t (or don’t wish to) order it I would substitute 1 tsp. dried mint leaves.

INGREDIENTS FOR CAULI PILAF:

1 small head cauliflower (or 1/2 larger head)

2 T. olive oil

2 oz. red onion, finely minced

2 T. cilantro (I used the stems only)

½ tsp. Garam Masala Spice Blend

1/8 tsp. turmeric

Dash sea salt

DIRECTIONS FOR PILAF:  Cut cauliflower into chunks and pulse in food processor or blender to coarse “rice” stage.  Microwave in covered bowl for 4 minutes, stirring once before removing from microwave.  Set aside a few moments.   Heat olive oil in non-stick pan over high heat and sauté onion and cilantro until nearly tender.  Add Garam Masala, turmeric and salt.  Lower heat.  Using a yellow or metal spoon (turmeric will stain white or wooden tools) gently stir in the tender cauliflower rice and mix all  until well-blended.  Turmeric will turn the mixture light yellow.  This is normal and what you want.  Let pan set over lowest heat possible for flavors to mellow while fish is broiling.

INGREDIENTS FOR FISH:

4   fish filets of choice (5 oz. raw each cook up to 4 oz.)

1 tsp. minced ginger root

1 tsp. minced garlic

1 finely chopped jalapeno, seeded and chopped

1 tsp. curry leaf powder

2 T. chopped cilantro

¼ tsp. turmeric

Dash each of cayenne, black pepper & turmeric

1/2 tsp. curry leaf powder  (or 1 tsp. dried crushed mint leaves)

4 T. unsalted butter, melted

1 T. tomato paste + 3 T. water (or ¼ c. tomato sauce)

FISH DIRECTIONS:  Preheat boiler. Lightly oil or parchment line a medium a baking pan large enough to hold fish in single layer.  Lay filets in the pan white side up.  Mix all other ingredients in a glass or metal bowl.  Do not use a plastic bowl (or your food processor) as the turmeric stains them yellow.  Add HALF the melted butter and mash all the seasonings to blend well in to a thick paste.  Using the back of a spoon, spread seasoning paste evenly on the tops of the 4 filets.   Broil for about 10 minutes, until thickest part of the filets is firming up.  You can bake for about 20 minutes (30 for whole fish) at 350º if you prefer, but I think broiling this is best.  Fast is goodness in my book.  When done, remove and drizzle remaining melted butter on each portion and serve with the cauliflower pilaf as a base, trying to use 1/4 of the pilaf under each of the 4 servings.  This pairs  nicely with my homemade Samosas  or my Saag Paneer.

NUTRITIONAL INFO: Serves 4, each filet with 1/4 cauliflower mixture contains:

327.25 cals, 26.15g fat, 5.62g carbs, 2.15g fiber, 3.47g NET CARBS, 24.35g protein, 84.5 mg sodium

Grilled Chipotle-Lime Steelhead Trout

The delicious smoke taste on this Steelhead Trout was just amazing!  I get this fish at my local Sam’s Club and just love that they are milder than regular salmon.  The buttery chipotle-lime sauce was so good on it! The flavor profile was just sublime.  This recipe goes together in just 15 minutes or so once your charcoal fire is ready.  This is one of the healthiest dinners you can have since this salmon-family fish is also very rich in Omega-3 oil.

INGREDIENTS:

2#  Steelhead Trout filet (use salmon if you can’t get the trout)

4 T. butter, unsalted

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/3 c. parsley, chopped

1 chipotle pepper (canned in adobo sauce), seeded and mashed

1 T. the adobo sauce from the can

Juice of 1 lime (about 1 T.)

DIRECTIONS:  In a small saucepan melt the butter over medium heat.  Mince the garlic and add.  Add all remaining ingredients and simmer 3-4 minutes.  Remove from heat.  Prepare charcoal fire.   With a paper towel, lightly oil te grill grate surface to help prevent sticking.  Using a basting brush, baste the flesh side of the filet.  When coals are white hot ready, place basted flesh side of the filet down on the oiled grill right over the coals.  Cook about 5 minutes.  Baste the skin side now.  With extra long spatulas, gently turn the fish over to grill the skin side next.  Basting the flesh side again.  Cook 5 minutes on this side as well.  Remove to service platter, serving the extra butter sauce at the table for each diner to brush on their serving of fish.  I served this with a cauliflower-broccoli cheesy gratin but it would be equally good with a lovely Greek Salad.

NUTRITIONAL INFO:   After cooking shrinkage this makes 4 6-7-oz servings.  Each contains:

433 cals, 25.7g fat, 2.62g carbs, 0.79g fiber, 1.83g NET CARBS, 46.7g protein, 220 mg sodium

Classic Shrimp Scampi

My father introduced us to this dish when we lived in Hampton, Virginia.  Of course, we had all the fresh seafood there in the world anytime we wanted it.  What is amazing about Shrimp Scampi is how easy it is to make.  Traditionally served over white rice, as a low-carber, I decided to spoon mine over a batch of my Foolproof Mashed Cauliflower.  It was quite good actually.  I like to add a bit of my Seafood Spice Blend to most of my seafood dishes, but it is not seen in most shrimp scampi recipes.  Occasionally I like to add a splash of a couple tablespoons of white wine to this dish, but do not always do that, so I don’t show it in the ingredients below.  Your call there.  This recipe is suitable for all phases of Atkins and other Keto diets, as well as for Primal and Paleo followers.  Those still on Atkins Induction should not add the white wine here.

INGREDIENTS:

1 lb. medium-large shrimp, peeled and deveined

4 T. butter, unsalted

3 cloves garlic, minced

½ c. parsley, chopped

1/8 tsp. coarse black pepper

¼-½ tsp. my Seafood Spice Blend

1 oz. (optional) dry white wine, (Pinot Grigio, Riesling or Sauvignon Blanc are good)

DIRECTIONS:    Preheat broiler.  In a large skillet melt the butter over high heat.  Add garlic and let saute a couple minutes.  Add shrimp and saute until the begin to get opaque and golden on the edges.  Add black pepper and spice blend.  Saute couple more minutes.  Finally add parsley and stir to blend.  Remove and pop into broiler long enough for the shrimp to begin to brown just a bit.  Remove from oven and serve immediately over bed of mashed cauliflower (or rice for non low-carbers at the table)

NUTRITIONAL INFO:   Makes 3 servings, each contains:  (does not include mashed cauliflower, 1 cup of it would add around 2.8 net carbs to each serving)

306 cals, 18.1g fat, 3.73g carbs, 0.43g fiber, 3.3g NET CARBS, 31.4g protein, 233 mg sodium

 

 

Shrimp-Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms

Next time you’re having grilled, baked or fried fish, you are going to want to try these delicious stuffed mushrooms I cooked tonight to accompany our salmon.  The cheeses and spices made these so yummy.  They are simple to make as well, so what more could you ask for to serve such deliciousness?!  These are suitable once you reach Phase 2 of Atkins and will fit into most ketogenic diets.

INGREDIENTS:

18 oz. medium Portobello mushrooms (about 2¼” diameter)

¼ c. olive oil

1 T. unsalted butter

2 medium green onions, chopped

8 large raw shrimp, peeled, deveined and chopped

2 oz. cream cheese

1/3 c. shredded cheddar cheese

Dash each salt & pepper

½ tsp. my Seafood Spice Blend

1 low-carb roll or slice low-carb bread (I used this one)

1 T. more butter

DIRECTIONS:  Wipe mushrooms of any dirt.  Remove stems with small knife without destroying the mushroom caps.  Pour the olive oil into a medium bowl and drizzle the olive oil over them.  Toss to coat them well.  Place mushroom caps onto a baking pan and set aside while you make the filling.

Melt 1 T. butter in small non-stick skillet.  Chop the mushroom stems and add to the pan.  Chop green onion and also add to pan.  Add chopped shrimp.  Saute until they are all done.  Sprinkle a dash of salt, pepper and the seafood spice blend over the mixture.  Now add the cream cheese and mash/stir until melted and blended well.  Add cheddar shreds and stir/fold the mixture well allowing it all to heat, melt and bind together.   Turn off heat.  Now preheat your oven to 375º.

Stuff each mushroom cap with about 1 T. of the mixture to fill them to capacity using up all your filling with as even a distribution as your can.

Crumb the low-carb bread/roll with the remaining 1T. butter in a food processor, blender or crumb by hand & melt/stir them into the melted butter in a skillet.  Sprinkle the crumb topping over the 10 mushrooms.  Pop the pan into a hot 375º oven for about 20-25 minutes (watch then as ovens vary).  Larger mushrooms will take up to 30-35 minutes to get fully heated and golden on top.

NUTRITIONAL INFO:   Makes 10 pieces, each contains:

151 calories, 12.9g fat, 4.15g carbs, 1.26g fiber, 2.89g NET CARBS, 6.29g protein, 142mg sodium

If making appetizers, use 20 smaller mushrooms.  Just divide the above numbers by to to calculate the values for the smaller ones.

 

Grilled Sriracha Shrimp with Sriracha Aioli

Grilled Sriracha Shrimp is good on its own merits, but my buttery aioli sauce is a lovely compliment.  This sauce would also be delicious on grilled fish, grilled chicken or skillet seared scallops.  I wish my husband had rotated the skewers so those pictured would have charred more evenly.  But they all tasted GREAT and that’s what counts!  This recipe is suitable for all phases of Atkins and Keto diets.  It is not suitable for Primal-Paleo lifestyles unless you can find a recipe for homemade Sriracha sauce.  As I can’t know how many shrimp you will eat, I am providing nutrition information for what I felt was a satisfying serving 1/3 lb. (5 large shrimp) with numbers for  around 2 T. aioli, which is what I ate.   You will have to adjust your numbers according to how much you actually eat.  Divide the numbers for the shrimp by 5 to get the numbers for 1 shrimp.

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FOR THE SHRIMP:

1 lb. extra-large shrimp ( There were 16 in my bag), peeled, tail piece left on

½ stick unsalted butter, melted (4 oz.)

2 tsp. Sriracha sauce  (or other bottled hot sauce of your choosing)

Dash each garlic powder and onion powder

Peal the shrimp, leaving tail shell on for a “handle”.  Place on skewers and set skewers on a platter.  Melt the butter in a small saucepan and add the Sriracha sauce and seasonings.  Stir to blend and remove from heat.  With a basting brush, baste both sides of the skewered shrimp with the sauce.  Save the remaining sauce to baste the shrimp while the are being grilled.

FOR THE AIOLI:  Process the following ingredients in a food processor or blender until smooth.  Scrape into serving dish and place in refrigerator until shrimp is grilled and you are ready to serve.  (Makes about 1/2 c. sauce or about 8 T.)

½ stick butter, melted

1 jalapeno, seeded, ribs removed (omit if you prefer)

1/3 c. Homemade Mayonnaise

   Sriracha Aioli

½ c. fresh cilantro

Juice of 1 lime

Dash each salt and pepper

½ clove garlic, minced

Dash smoked chipotle  chile powder

¼-1 tsp. Sriracha sauce (to your taste)

GRILLING THE SHRIMP:  Prepare a charcoal fire.  When coals are hot, Place skewers over coals and grill about 5 minutes on a side or until they are opaque.  Baste with extra sauce in your saucepan.  Use up all the sauce on the shrimp while grilling for best flavor.  Remove the shrimp from the grill and either remove from skewers to a serving platter, or serve on the skewers if you prefer.  Using the very large shrimp I used (16 per pound) I found 5 made a perfect serving size.  Serve the aioli sauce on the side for your diners to use to suit their personal taste.  🙂

NUTRITIONAL INFO:  Makes 3 servings (5 XL shrimp per serving) each contains:

5 X-large shrimp (1/3 lb) contain:  299 cals., 18g fat, 2.06g carbs, 0 fiber, 2.06g NET CARBS, 31g protein, 265 mg sodium

2 T. Aioli sauce contains: 231 calories, 25.4g fat, 1.5g carbs, 0.5g fiber, 1g NET CARBS, 0.6g protein, 77 mg sodium

Air Fryer Parmesan-Coconut Shrimp

These air-fried Parmesan-coconut shrimp came out so good tonight!  Not strong with coconut flavor, but that suits us both fine.  I would have never bought myself an air fryer, but my husband went and did so for my Christmas present, so I’m trying to learn how to cook different things in it.  I’ve seen so many recipes for coconut shrimp on the internet, but the coatings can be pretty high carb.  I have trimmed down the carbs and reached a total count of 1.8 net carbs per 6-shrimp serving!  I did this by looking to my popular Oven-Fried Fish coating and then modified it even further.    The end result will be a dish I cook again.  My husband really loved these shrimp!

INGREDIENTS FOR SHRIMP:

26 medium-large raw shrimp, peeled and de-veined

1 low-carb slice of bread or roll (I used a Smart Bun from my freezer)

½ c. pork rind crumbs (about 1 c. whole pieces)

¼ c. grated dry Parmesan

1 oz. dessicated unsweetened coconut

1/3 c. Carbquik or other low-carb bake mix

3 egg whites

¼ tsp. my homemade Seafood Spice Blend

¼ tsp. sea salt

INGREDIENTS FOR OPTIONAL BANG BANG DIPPING SAUCE: 

½ c. homemade mayo (or from jar if you prefer)

1 T. Sambal Oelek Asian chili sauce

2 tsp. Sriracha sauce

Dash each salt and pepper

DIRECTIONS:   Mix up the sauce ingredients well in a small bowl and refrigerate until ready to serve shrimp.   Drain off any water in the bag of shrimp.

In a food processor, crumb the pork rinds until fine, removing any large, hard chunks.  Add the low-carb bread/roll, Parmesan cheese, coconut, spice blend and salt.  Pulse until smooth mixture.  Pour into a medium bowl.  Break the egg whites into another small bowl.  Place the Carbquik in yet a third small bowl.  Line the bowls up beside a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper or silicone mat:   flour first, egg whites second and crumb mixture last.  Dip the shrimp first into the flour with your left DRY HAND, then drop into the egg whites.  With your right WET HAND, turn each shrimp in the egg white to coat both sides.  With the wet hand, drop the shrimp lastly into the crumb mixture without touching the crumb mixture with your WET HAND.  With your left DRY HAND, toss the crumbs up over the shrimp to also coat on the tops (will be coated on the bottom from having been dropped into the crumbs).  With your left DRY HAND, pick up and place gently on the parchment lined pan.  Repeat until all shrimp have been cooked.   If your hands get gooey/messy, just wash and dry them off mid process.

Preheat you air fryer for 3 minutes.  Also preheat your regular oven at the lowest setting or around 200º-250º.  I can do 12-13 large shrimp in my 7-qt. Power XL fryer at a time, so that means 2 batches.   Do not crowd the shrimp even if you have to cook three batches if using a smaller fryer than mine.

Fry first batch of shrimp at 370º for 4 minutes.  Gently turn shrimp over and fry 4 more minutes.    When I placed the remaining shrimp on the fryer tray and turned it on for 8 more minutes (turning at 4 minute mark), I then placed the pan with the first batch into my regular oven to keep it warm until the second batch was done.   If needed, fry your third batch similarly.  When all are done, plate and serve with the Bang Bang Sauce or other sauce of your choosing.

NUTRITIONAL INFO:   Makes four 6-shrimp servings, each contains (not including sauce):  176 cals, 10g fat, 11g carbs, 8g fiber, 3g NET CARBS, 19.37g protein, 509 mg sodium

1/4 batch sauce adds:  200 calories, 22g fat, 1.05g carbs, .02g fiber, 4.5g protein and 175 mg sodium

Clam Sauce on Zoodles

(Shown on zucchini noodles)

I have always loved clam sauce on pasta and this recipe is one I often turn to when it’s late and I’ve forgotten to defrost meat for dinner.  I make sure I always have a few cans of clams in my pantry for this reason. Though you can serve this on real pasta for your non-low-carb guests, it goes nicely for low-carbers over sautéed zucchini “noodles”, as shown above, or shirataki noodles.  Allow about 6 oz. zucchini noodles per person.  The zucchini noodles soak up the sauce’s wonderful flavor.   This dish is OK for Induction if served on zucchini noodles.  I do NOT think this would be good atop spaghetti squash threads as I think the squash taste will negatively impact the overall flavor of the clam dish.  If you are already to the OWL phase of Atkins, ¼ c. dry white wine is good added to this before thickening.  You want to talk healthy?  Get a load of the nutritional info below!!  I think clams may just be the highest source of vitamin B12 in the food kingdom!  And it’s mostly in the juice!  Moral of the story:  EAT MORE CLAM LINGUINE!!  🙂

INGREDIENTS:

2  6-oz. cans clams with juice (do not drain)

4 slices bacon, cut into ½” pieces

2 T. butter, unsalted (or olive oil)

2 oz. onion, chopped

6 medium mushrooms, sliced

2 oz. red bell pepper, chopped coarsely

¼ c. parsley, chopped fine

1 clove garlic, minced

¼ tsp. crushed red pepper flakes

Dash black pepper

VARIATION:   A splash of white wine is good in this sauce.  It’s also tasty with about ½ c. heavy cream added

DIRECTIONS:  Chop bacon and brown over med-high heat.  Add butter to melt in with the bacon drippings.  Add onion, mushrooms and garlic.  Saute until onion and mushrooms are both tender.  Add red pepper, parsley and seasonings.  Add clams with their juice and simmer 2-3 minutes to blend flavors.   Thicken slightly with your favorite thickener and serve atop zucchini noodles. Garnish plates with a few sprinkles of parsley if desired.  Serve on zucchini noodles or “zoodles” as shown above or shirataki tofu noodles.

NUTRITIONAL INFO:   Makes 3 servings, each containing:  (numbers are for sauce only, as written)

253 cals, 13.8g fat, 8.27g  carbs, 1.75g fiber, 6.52g NET CARBS, 23.8g protein, 330 mg sodium

Lobster Tails with Butter

One of life’s culinary pleasures for me is lobster.  Only thing that comes close is a cooked-to-perfection char-broiled ribeye steak.  We either do lobster on Christmas or New Year’s Eve (my birthday).  This year we decided on the lobster for Christmas as we’re going out to our favorite steak house for my birthday.  Lobster is soooo good and sooooo simple to make.   The lobster I get at Sam’s Club every year is usually from the Bahamas.   The tails we bought this year weighed around 9 oz. each and all were tender as they could be.  They are, I find, a little sweeter than cold water lobster from New England, in my opinion.   This recipe is suitable for all phases of Atkins.

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INGREDIENTS: 

1.25 lb. lobster tails (yields about 12 oz. tail meat after removing shell)

½ stick salted butter, melted (clarified if you prefer, but I do not bother)

DIRECTIONS:    Put about 1½ cups water in a deep boiling pot and bring to a boil. Run two skewers from the base of the tail up the center of the belly, all the way up to the center of the thickest part.  This will keep the tail from curling so tight while cooking.  When the water comes to a rolling boil, insert skewered lobster tail up in the pot.  I usually lean the skewers out the top.  Set a lid on the pot slightly offset to reduce water evaporation, but it really doesn’t have to be 100% closed.     Lower to medium heat and let steam for about 10-13 minutes, depending on their size.  Alternately, you can use more water to cover the tails entirely and boil for 10 minutes if large 9 oz tails, or just for 6-7 minutes if they are the small 4.5 oz tails usually purchased at the grocery store.  Remove lobster tails from pot, remove skewers (if steamed) and holding shell with one hand (using tongs or a kitchen towel) cut with kitchen shears straight up the thinner belly shell (top to base of tail). Pull sides of tail shell apart a wee bit and fork out the tail meat (I like to leave the tail fins attached and in tact as shown in the photo above).  Splay the tail fins out when serving lobster meat on plates or platter.  Makes for a pretty presentation with the tail fins attached!   Serve along a nice green salad or roasted asparagus, along with perhaps my Rosemary Onion Dinner Rolls:  https://buttoni.wordpress.com/2011/05/31/rosemary-onion-dinner-rolls/

NUTRITIONAL INFO:   Makes 2 servings and each contains (including ¼c. of the butter):

367 calories, 23.9 g  fat, 2.2 g carbs, 0 fiber, 2.2 g NET CARBS, 34.8 g  protein, 1350 mg sodium