Lex Culinaria

Garlic Green Beans & Chicken

This is a really fast, nutrient and protein dense one-dish meal. It's even faster if you have a bit of left over roasted chicken on hand!

1 teaspoon minced garlic

olive oil

2 large handfulls fresh green beans, topped & tailed

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1/3 cup chicken stock

2 cups chopped cooked chicken

Suate garlic and green beans in olive oil over medium high heat for a few minutes. Add chicken broth and soy sauce, cover, reduce heat and simmer for 5 to 10 minutes, until beans are cooked. Remove lid and raise heat. Add chicken, cook, stirring until most of the liquid is gone and the chicken is heated through.

Serve in bowls

(sometimes I ad a few handfulls of fresh baby spinach leaves in at the same time as the chicken so they get just wilted, not overcooked.)

 

Easy (no, really) Ratatouille

I've been in love with this dish since it appeared in the Pixar cartoon of the same name. It's always referred to as "Thomas Keller's Ratatouille", but it also a super, versatile slow-carb staple, perfect for follwers of the 4-hour Body or the Paleo Diet, or any other slow carb lifestyle, really. Or, *gasp*, even for people not intending to cook a slow carb dish.

This lovely slow-cooked country French vegetable dish is a great all-purpose side and goes nicely with chicken, fish, pork or beans. It also reheats well, so I always make plenty for the next day. If I’m doing the fancy sliced version (pictured above), I try to select vegetables that are approximately the same diameter so that they stack together nicely. The eggplant I use for this is the skinny, paler purple Japanese ones as they have thinner skin, and they are a better size for slicing and stacking.

Serves 4

2 each                    Japanese Eggplant

3 each                    Large, Roma tomatoes

2 each                    Medium onions

2 each                    Assorted bell peppers (orange, red or yellow)

3 each                    Medium zucchinis (a mix of yellow & green is nice)

1 each                    Small fennel bulb (optional)

2 teaspoons             Salt

14 oz. (400 ml.)       Tinned tomato sauce

½ teaspoon             Black pepper

4 teaspoons             Minced garlic

½ cup                     Fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped

1 teaspoon              Dried Herbs de Provence

½ cup                     Olive oil

Keeping the eggplant separate, either cube the vegetables so that they are all roughly 1-inch cubes, or slice them all thinly for a nicer presentation. Set the eggplant aside in a bowl and toss with the salt to draw out the bitterness. Let it soak with the salt for 30 minutes, then rinse and pat dry.

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit.

Spread the tomato sauce in the bottom of a large, deep ceramic or glass baking dish. Arrange cubed or sliced vegetables on top of the sauce. Mix the pepper, garlic, parsley, dried herbs and sprinkle them over the top of the vegetables. Drizzle with the oil.

Cover the dish with a large piece of parchment paper, and tie it to the top of the dish with butcher’s twine. Bake in the oven for 1 to 1-½ hours, or until vegetables are tender. Open the parchment carefully to avoid getting burnt by escaping steam. Serve alongside seasoned beans and meat of your choice.

Slow-Carb Burrito Bowl

You'll have to forgive the crappy photo. Our lighting setup here on Pender is not the best, and it's that time of year when natural lighting is pretty time-specific, and not readily available by the time I get around to eating my dinner. Which is probably also cold owing to the pretty time-specific needs ot the two rug rats. 

Inspired by my quick Mexican lunch last week whil shopping in Bellingham, I really wanted to use some of the great Pico de Gallo I picked up, as well as the Mexican Crema (sour cream) and Carne Asada.  I didn't even miss the tortilla, although the kids got some nice fresh corn flour ones with their meal.  This supper takes next to zero time to prepare (okay, maybe 15 minutes?) and is super healthy, flavourful and fresh!

Serves 4

1 head	Romaine lettuce, shredded
1 1/2 lbs	Carne Asada (or very thinly sliced skirt steak)
2 tbsp	Taco seasoning (either from a packet, or make your own)
3 cups	Refried beans or seasoned black beans (I make my own)
2 cups	Pico de Gallo* (home made or store bought - Costco has some decent stuff, or if you can get to a good Mexican grocer like Food Pavillion in Lynden, WA, that's next best to home made)
1 cup	Shredded or crumbled cheese (Queso Fresco, if you have it, or cheddar or mozzarella)
2 whole	Avocados
1 cup	Good Mexican crema, or sour cream
1/2 cup	Mixed toasted sunflower and pumpkin seeds (optional)
To taste	Fresh Lime Juice

Season the meat slices with taco seasoning and sear, quickly in a very hot cast iron pan. Set aside while you divide the shredded lettuce among 4 soup plate or deep bowls. Slice meat into thin strips and aarange over top of the lettuce. Top each serving with (in order) 1/4 of the: beans, Pico de Gallo, cheese, avocado and sour cream. Allow each person to squeeze over fresh lime juice and sprinkle some toasted seeds.

* Pico de Gallo is a mix of finely diced, onion, tomato and bell pepper, seasoned with salt, pepper, jalapeno and lime juice.

Eat More Beans

Most of us could do with eating more beans. Nutritionally-speaking, they are pretty awesome: loads of protein, complex carbohydrates and vitamins. They make an excellent stand-in for less nutritionally virtuous mashed potatoes, when mashed up with steamed cauliflower and roasted garlic. 

There was a pretty decent article in the National Post recently about beans, and especially interesting to me was that Canada produces a large percentage of the world's driend beans. So not only are they good for you, but, especially if you live in or near the prairies, they are local too.

The Simple Slow-Carb Cookbook contains a lot of great information about beans, including how the carbohydrates in beans are used by our bodies, and the carb and protein count of variousd beans. There are also lots of great tips about using beans in your cooking every day, and loads of great bean recipes (including one for the mash described above).  One of the top tips about cooking with beans is how to make dried beans just as convenient to use as canned: pre-soak and cook them, and then store them in baggies in the fridge for use throughout the week. So easy.

 

The Simple Slow-Carb Cookbook is on Kindle

Lex Culinaria's whole-food, low-carb cookbook is finally availabale on Kindle!  

The Simple Slow-Carb Cookbook is packed full of information on carbohydrates and nutrition. Inspired by our success in following the 4-Hour Body by Timothy Ferriss, The Simple Slow-Carb Cookbook allows whole-food, slow-carb fans to expand their repertoire and make informed, delicious food choices, while meetingntheir nutritional and weight-loss needs.

In celebration of the publication of the  Kindle edition of The Simple Slow-Carb Cookbook, I thought I'd share a spectacularly easy, nutrient packed slow-carb soup. It's must the think for shorter days and cooler weather, and it incoporates tasty veggies and beans into a great quick lunch.

Celery, Cauliflower & White Bean Soup

Serves 6

1 tablespoon       oil

1 each                medium yellow onion

1 teaspoon         minced garlic

1/2                    large cauliflower, chopped into chunks

6 each                celery stalks (including leaves), chopped

3 cups                chicken stock (or 3-4 teaspoons Better Than Bouillon

                         stock concentrate, and 3 cups water)

1 1/2 cups         cooked white beans, drained

1/3 cup             sour cream, cottage cheese or yogurt

salt & pepper    to taste

1/4 cup             chopped parsley

3/4 cup             cooked, crumbled mild sausage or crispy bacon (optional)

 

Heat oil over medium-high heat in a large soup pot. Add onion and garlic to pot and cook, stirring for 5 minutes until golden brown and starting to soften. Add in cauliflower, celery and stock. Bring to a low boil, then reduce heat, cover and simmer for 25 to 30 minutes, until all vegetables are very soft.  Add in the cooked, drained beans and cottage cheese (or sour cream or yogurt) and puree using your immersion (stick) blender.

Season with salt and pepper and stir through parsley. Ladle into bowls. If you are using sausage or bacon crumble it over the top of each serving.

 

Super crispy, cheesy crackers

It's not often, these days, that I snarf down a whole batch of anything. Usually I don't have time, mainly, I'm better about not cooking large quantities of anything snarfable. Because I know myself.  But yesterday, I was baking a test batch of crackers for my new cookbook (out on Amazon's Kindle later this month) and couldn't help myself, they were that good. They are gently parmesany, and crispy and nutty. Perfect with cheese, or just by themselves.  I also couldn't help myself sharing the recipe as a preview of the cookbook. They. Are. That. Good.

Makes 30 2 to 2 ½ inch square crackers 

¾ cup Ground flaxseed meal
½ cup White bean flour
½ cup Ground almond meal
¼ to ½ cup Shredded good Parmesan cheese (optional)
2 tablespoons Olive oil
¾ teaspoons Garlic powder
1 teaspoon Dried rosemary, crushed or roughly ground
½ teaspoon Salt
2 ½ teaspoon Sesame seeds 
½ cup Water

Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

Mix all ingredients together in a medium bowl. You can blend with a fork, or use a stand mixer. Don’t overmix.

Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Drop ball of dough onto lined sheet and top with another piece of parchment. Using a rolling pin, roll the dough out between the sheets of paper to a thin, even layer, about 2 millimetres (1/10th of an inch) thick.

Peel top paper off the dough. Bake cracker sheet in oven for approximately 12 to 15 minutes, until the edges become golden, but not too dark. Slide paper off the baking sheet onto the counter. Immediately cut into squares, as the cracker dough will crisp up very fast.

 

The Foodie's version of Slow-Carb eating

 

As Lex Culinaria approaches 7 years old, I'm approaching 40, and my kids are nearing 3 and 4. Needless to say, Roast Elk with a Pistachio-Wasabi crust, isn't exactly easy for me to make these days, plus, the 40-year old metabolism just can't take unlimited amounts of pralines or cake either. 

So, for the last while, Cakes and I have been eating the slow-carb way, which is about lean protein, complex carbs and lots or green veggies and fibre. Most of the "diets" that follow those loose principles have recipes available, but they're largley written by and for people without a whole lot of interest in or knowledge about really great tasting, simple food.

Enter Lex.

So now you know how I've been spending my time.

The book will be available at the end of September via Kindle.

Lex.