low carb soup
Still on my quest for nice things to eat on this high fat, now even more low carb, diet my coach has put me on, I thought I’d do some soup.
I love soup and have it often. It suddenly occurred to me today that if I didn’t put in my usual scoop of red lentils, and used low carb veg, I could have some.
So I stuck my head in the fridge and had a look to see what was in there. Hmm, more than time for a clean of the veg drawer. After doing that, I had put aside some low carb veg to use.
I had a leek, 200g of yellowing broccoli and associated stem, 70g of green beans getting hard (not sure if these are Paleo), 240g of cauliflower stalk and 200g of white cabbage.
I had made some chicken stock from a carcass that was sitting ready to use. So I used that as the stock, and all the little bits of meat that I stripped off went in too.
I sautéd all the veg in some duck fat, simmered it all in the stock, and added 60g of the coconut milk powder I have so much of – a high fat diet is the ideal time to use it! Then I stuck the stick blender in it and half whizzed it, wanted some texture left in it.
After some seasoning, it tasted blimming lovely. I now have 6 portions of soup, all ready to go, at 250 calories, 13g carbs and 19g fat a pop. Lovely. My usual generic veg and lentil type soup has around 35g carbs a serving, so almost three times as much.
avocado smoothie
I also tried this today, also Paleo. An avocado smoothie. It’s a very ripe avocado, 100g thick Greek yogurt and 150ml semi skimmed milk, all whizzed together. It’s supposed to be a smoothie, but came out too thick for that, so I put it in a bowl. It’s sort of super smooth, silky I suppose you’d call it and quite tasty, but not something I could eat the whole bowl of in one go. So I’ve been having mouthfuls throughout the day, every now and then. I think I might squeeze in a little lemon juice, or maybe some zest and see if that cuts through the richness a bit. Because it’s thick, it’s very filling.
This would easily serve two, even tho I’m having all of it as part of my daily allowance. The yogurt and milk are alright cost wise, but you’d need to get the avocados cheap to make it fit in the budget here. Although I suppose if it served 2 or 3 as lunch with some crispy toast, it would cost up well.
breadcrumb topped crumbles
While I’m sitting here talking to you, there are a couple of plum and apple crumbles in the oven. I read somewhere recently about using breadcrumbs instead of the flour in a crumble topping. Was it on Jack’s blog in the leftovers post? As I have several little bags of breadcrumbs in the freezer, and lots of plums, I thought I’d try it out and see what it’s like. I shall, literally, only have a mouthful later on, just to test it.
There are two of them as Mike is working with our son in law today, and he is a great pudding fiend. So I’ll give one to him to take home and try. I won’t be offended if neither of them like it, some experiments are successful, others aren’t.
I added some apple from the fruit bowl that needed using, so they’re plum and apple.
Oh no! Mike has just come in and son in law has already gone home. Poop! They are working together again tomorrow, so it’ll have to wait until then now.
10 minutes later
Well the crumble has been tried, and I have had my mouthful, and I am delighted to report the topping is crispy and light and completely delicious. So a success – hooray and another good way of using breadcrumbs.
no gym today, and not going out anywhere either, having a rest!
Becky, they haven’t so much cut out lentils as such, it’s just that I’m only allowed 75g of carbs a day, and it’s difficult to include any meals with them in, because they are relatively high in carbs for not many.
I tend to use what carbs I’m allowed for vegetables. I also have to use the carb allowance for those few carbs in things like nuts, milk and yogurt
Can’t wait to come of this nutrient mix and start one with more carbs! Not sure when that will be
I am very curious as to why it would be less healthy to cut out carbs like lentils which are unprocessed, high in vitamins and loaded with fiber which is so important for weight loss. I think giving up refined carbs like breads, desserts, pastas, etc. can really help but lentils, whole grains? I just don’t get it personally. I am glad that you are building muscle and losing weight in a healthy way; that is very wonderful. Just as an aside, I had to give up dairy for health reasons and I lost over twenty pounds the first three months. And I’ve kept it off for five years now. Good luck to you on your journey, I’m rooting for you!
My coach said that lots of people don’t like it. I’m sticking to it, but I don’t like it very much, and I certainly wouldn’t want to do it long term. I’ll ask him how people are getting on with it weight wise.
I feel alright on it, although I had to stop my workout halfway through last Monday, the 15th, as I had simply run out of energy, and although I had eaten a good breakfast, none of it had any carbs in it, which might be why
I bought some (extremely expensive) coconut flour at the health food shop today to play with, I’m hoping to get something vaguely carb like from it!
Your bread-crumb “crumble” reminds me of the Danish recipe called “Peasant Girl with veil”,which I used to cook a lot because it thriftily used up bread-crumbs. I googled it and there are a number of delicious versions there.
I am particularly pleased to hear how well you are sticking to your “get fit” plans and particularly interested to hear how you are doing on a high fat diet or Paleo” diet . I have tried a number and failed dismally to stick to them. The last I tried was the “paleo diet”,promoted on-line by GO Lower. I did lose weight quite well but after 11 days had to give it up because I was feeling ill and exhausted. I could hardly stay on my feet for 10 minutes in the kitchen.I had a doctor staying with me at the time who concluded it did not suit me and supported my decision to give it up. In the past I have also tried other high protein diets such as the Mayo Clinic Diet,the South Beach Diet and others.All gave a good loss but were difficult to stick to or made me feel ill. So I am very interested to know how you are finding it and whether other people in your group are also doing well on it. Perhaps it has been tweaked in some way to make it more effective and acceptable with your Paleo diet (P.S. Please cut this bit out for the Forum if you do not want to comment on the weight-loss issue.)
Yes, I just replaced the flour. When I make a crumble I use equal quantities of flour, sugar and porridge oats, and about 1.5 times veg oil.
So for each person, I would use 20g flour, sugar and oats, 30ml veg oil. In the breadcrumb experiment, I replaced the flour with the breadcrumbs. You could replace part as well of course, so maybe half flour and half breadcrumbs
Did you add butter and sugar to the breadcrumbs Leslie?
Haha, yes, make do and mend!
Very WW2!