The Shutdown sucks rocks on so many levels, but it also presents a once in a lifetime opportunity to change your life. If you were stuck in a rut; this is an opportunity to get out of it. The shutdown is a chance to do the things you always said you never had time to do. To get into shape; to change your eating and drinking habits; to get more sleep. You can fix all of those things that were in the way of you being the person you want to be.
6-8 weeks with no bars, no restaurants, no obligation to hang out with your friends. Its VERY hard to do in normal times. And why not learn to cook? Nothing will improve your life more than learning how to make yourself a great meal without the microwave.
If you need to lose weight and you haven't changed your diet, you are MISSING AN OPPORTUNITY.
What I have done
1) I've gone Keto. Not exactly Keto, but seriously low carb.
2) I dusted off my P90x DVDs, transferred them to a USB, and I'm BRINGING IT. I'm sore as hell, but it will be worth it
3) I signed up for the Daily Burn Trial. For a change of pace.
4) I'm drinking less alcohol, and coordinating better with my eating.
5) I'm getting a lot more work done. Finishing things I've never had time to finish.
Additionally, it takes 2 weeks to break a habit. So we're all going to be in a new routines. At the end of this ordeal, we should all be a lot more comfortable with staying home. As much as we like to go out; staying home isn't all that bad.
What am I eating
This site is about food. Want to go low carb / Keto? It's really pretty easy. Here's what I've been eating while losing weight.
8/24/20
Walmart's sells fresh fish that's factory sealed; I've bought it a few times and it's always been very good. Today I went for some Pacific Sockeye salmon; this is $23/lb at a fish market and $12.64 here. I actually like this better because there's nobody touching it and you know exactly how old it is.
This stuff comes "skin-on"; you can try to take it off before you cook it, but I just sear it off. First sear in the herbs (marjoram, thyme, dill, salt, pepper, dried basil), and then sear off the skin. The skin will peel right off.
Some lemon-butter-dill sauce and you have a pretty good breakfast.
Frankly I like the farmed salmon better; it's richer and tastes better. The wild salmon is better for you. It's sort of like the yogurt joke on "The Good Place"; it doesn't taste as good but you can eat more of it.
7/4/20: Chinese Spare Ribs
I had some chinese spare ribs in the freezer; you can get these at Chinese markets pre-trimmed and ready to cook. I didn't feel like smoking up the place (or cleaning up afterwards for a few ribs), so I went the oven char siu route. This is the same marinade as I use for the Chinese Roast Pork that I showed a few weeks back.
These go in the oven for 20 minutes at 425 degrees; then I flip on the broiler on high to get a little char on the edges.
These were outstanding. This is the best way to cook ribs in the oven that I've found. No smoke, but just terrific.
6/23/20: Cheese Omelet, Sausage, Asparagus
The ultimate low-carb breakfast is a cheese omelet with well done sausage. Add Immune-system-boosting asparagus and you have good meal with a purpose.
Loading up on Calcium and Protein. Sous Vide at 130 degrees, give it a quick sear and slice against the grain diagonally.
6/22/20: Skirt Steak, Broccoli w/Cheese
5/14/20: Roast Pork Egg Foo Yung
When you're on a diet, you eat the same stuff over and over. Plus if you live alone, you have to eat up the stuff you buy before it goes bad. If I buy an eggplant, I'm eating eggplant for dinner 3x in a week. Same goes with a bunch of broccoli rabe.
I decided to change it up, and that committed me to buying bean sprouts and making Chinese roast pork. A bag of bean sprouts only last a few days, and there aren't a lot of dishes where bean sprouts fit. One of my favorites is Pork Egg Foo Yung.
Char Siu Chinese Roast Pork
I buy packages of pork shoulder which usually come 3 to a package when they're 2 for 1 and put them in the freezer. The marinade for this is made from Light Soy, Hoisin and Oyster Sauce, Chinese Wine (or Sherry), Sugar, Garlic Powder and 5 Spice Powder. And Red food coloring to make it look authentic.
I marinade over night. Flip them over before I go to sleep and they're ready to cook in the morning.
Put them on a rack and bake for 20 minutes at 425 degrees, baste and turn and 15 minutes on the other side. Then turn on the broiler until they get a little bit of a char on the edges.
Let sit for a 1/2 hour and taste. Surprisingly authentic. I'm just making 1 "omelet", so I just chop up enough ingredients for 1 large pancake. 1 green onion (white, light green and dark green separated), a bit extra white or spanish onion, pork and bean sprouts (rinsed with cold water).
I separate the green onion because the whites need to be pre-cooked, the light greens go right into the egg, and the dark greens are for finish/garnish. When the pork is right out of the oven I don't pre-cook it, but if its been in the fridge I stir fry it with the white onions before dropping it into eggs.
I use 1 whole egg plus egg beaters.
If you're making more than 1 you have to ladle it out and cook in batches; too much trouble. If you're just making 1 big one, just heat 1/2 inch of oil to about 380 degrees and drop in the whole bowl. I use Sunflower oil; don't use Olive oil; you can use anything with a high enough smoke point.
The oil temperature is going to drop to about 325 right away so turn up the heat; you want it from 340 to 360 degrees. I don't want to use too much oil so you have to push the oil over the egg to cook the top. It can't be liquid when you turn it over.
To flip it you have to slide it over, rather than flipping it. You DON'T WANT A SPLASH. Hot oil all over your face or arm will ruin your day. I don't cook the top too much; the veggies cook fast and the meat is cooked so you're really just cooking the egg.
Pick it up with a rubber spatula and let the oil drain and flip it onto a plate.
I make the sauce right in the same pan. Pour off the oil into a pot or glass bowl and pour in the sauce. I use chicken broth, light and dark soy, garlic and onion powder, white pepper, sesame oil and corn starch. The corn starch is what thickens it, so that's a required ingredient. You could squirt some soy sauce into chicken broth and it would be ok.
Just let it boil until it thickens. It will take a few minutes.
Garnish with the dark part of the green onion and you have Egg Foo Yung that's a lot better than anything you'll get at a Fort Lauderdale Chinese restaurant.
You can re-use oil. I usually use it twice before tossing it. I'll make another one of these over the weekend. Sometimes if I have shrimp I'll add it; bean spouts and green onions are the key ingredients to make it egg foo yung and not just an omelet.
5/9/20
Steak Pizzaiola Variation; Drop an egg on it for a hearty breakfast.
5/2/20
Saturday omelet. I've got this down; hot italian sausage, garlic, fresh tomatoes, onions, sharp cheddar.
4/30/20
Polished off the Kielbasa. This dish is astonishingly good. Last time I'll have it until next Easter.
4/29/20
Asparagus, Mushrooms and herbs. Cooked in Olive Oil of course.
4/28/20
4/27/20
10 ingredients 30 ways. When nice looking skirt steaks are $6.99, I buy a bunch of them.
4/26/20
Ropa Vieja is very versatile. What about an omelet. A spot of cheddar elevates this.
4/24/20
What do you with extra skirt steak? Make Ropa Vieja of course!
No olives. I like it with mushrooms sometimes, even though it's not a traditional ingredient. Easy on the cumin.
4/22/20
Tired of the same old steak? How about steak pizzaiola? An italian classic; no this is not just steak parmesan. Many recipes don't include cheese. I like a bit of cheese on mine.
There were some really nice looking strip steaks at Winn Dixie; the CAB people are dumping their beef in supermarkets now. These are on special this week for $6.99 so I picked up a couple more for the freezer. This sale was no bargain.
The traditional way to make this is to pan fry/sear the steaks in oil, but I just cook the steaks my normal sous vide / sear method. I just undercook it a bit. If you cook it in the pan you have to figure out how thick the steak is and how hot the pan is and how long it will take to cook; way too much math for me. I sous vide this at 125 and gave it a quick sear and finish it in the pan with the sauce. Tastes the same.
The steak takes about 45 minutes; time enough to cook the vegetables. Coat the bottom of a frying pan with regular olive oil (not EVOO) and set the heat to low.
Just throw red pepper, onions and mushrooms loosely into a pan. With this dish you can use whichever veggies you like; I like red onions; to me red peppers and mushrooms make the dish.
Salt the veggies (you want them to sweat) and cover the pan. You now have a half hour to. yourself. The vegetables are frying and steaming. This allows the peppers and mushrooms to cook through without burning anything. The right way to do this is to cook on low heat uncovered for an hour and a half or more, but who has time for that? Covering the pan speeds the process and the end result isn't much different.
You can check and stir once in a while. Once the peppers are soft you can take off the top and turn up the heat a bit to brown up the vegetables.
Drop some tomato sauce in a saucepan and add the vegetable and let simmer to meld the flavors for about 10 minutes.
Heat a thin layer of oil in the same frying pan (no need to clean or wipe it), drop in the steak and pour over the sauce.
I want *some* cheese on this but not a parmesan.
Put the top on the pan and cook on medium heat until the cheese melts. The sauce will sizzle and steam to assure that everything is piping hot.
And here you have it.
This was a superb dish. I could see dropping an egg on this and calling it breakfast also.
I make my own sauce which is pretty chunky so it works here; if you're using a smooth jar sauce I suggest sauteing some garlic and tomatoes and then add the jar sauce; fresh tomatoes are important to this dish. Just don't use Ragu or something with a lot of sugar in it. The onions and peppers add all the sweetness you need.
4/21/20
Today I'm polishing off the rest of the skirt steak from last week. It's been sealed in a foodsaver bag for 3 days; It should be pretty well marinated. An hour and a half in the sous vide, and then about 30 seconds on each side on a 600 degree cast iron pan.
I sliced the steak and then melt some butter in a frying pan with a squirt of lemon juice and swirl the meat in the pan. Don't question me on this; it's totally awesome.
Serve with Chimichurri and fried eggs.
This steak was light years better that the last one; the extended marinade makes a huge difference. This steak was nice and tender.
4/19/20
Today we're going to make a chicken. There's a whole generation of Americans who may have never had a home-made roast chicken; with every store selling rotisserie chickens it's just too easy to buy one ready to eat. I usually buy a rotisserie chicken once a week; but I was at Walmart and they had chickens for 97 cents a pound; too good to pass up. My Dad used to say "Give me a chicken and a head of lettuce and I can eat for a week". Those were leaner times.
Rotisserie chickens are 3lb birds; you can't even buy those in a store. This chicken is a lot bigger for 5.29 (and no tax). It's really pretty easy, as long as you have a rack.
Just wash the chicken with cold water and pat it dry and stick it in a rack. I have no idea how to truss a chicken; I've saved a couple of the stretchy things that come on the rotisserie chickens (stick them in the dishwasher to clean them) and figure out a way to get the legs and wings so they're not flapping around.
Now here's my trick. I don't like to use a lot of spices; I'll be making bone broth from the bones and the spices make it taste funny. I microwave some bone broth and drop a pat of butter into it.
yielding a buttery liquid to use to baste the chicken. I salt and pepper the chicken and then spread some of the broth all over the chicken while the oven is preheating. Stick it in a 400 degree oven and set the timer for 1 hour and 15 minutes.
I baste and turn every 20 minutes. After 20 minutes it looks like this.
After 75 minutes it didn't really seem brown enough, but it was very close to being done.
The thigh was 169 degrees and the breast was 149.
I'm looking for 175 and 155; the breast will get dried out over 160. I turned the oven down to 350 and left it in 15 more minutes.
Just about perfect. You have to let it sit about 1/2 hour.
With rotisserie chickens, the legs and wings (and often the end of the breast) gets overdone. You hardly ever get a nice, juicy leg on a rotisserie chicken. This one was great; and the basting liquid give the skin a nice, buttery flavor.
The breast is also edible to the edge. Maybe a shade dry on the first cut.
It gets moister the deeper you go.
Lop off a big chunk and go right for the tender. So moist and it melts in your mouth; you hardly would know it's chicken on its own.
After I'm done I take off the rest of the meat and put it into a container (the 2nd leg will be a snack) and I'll make chicken salad. I'll make bone broth with the bones. I'll get 3 meals, a snack and a quart of bone broth for my $5.29.
4/18/20
No breakfast today; I ate the rest of the chicken for lunch. For my second meal, I did rapini and sausage without the pasta:
Not as good without the pasta, but a solid purpose meal. Rapini has close to 0 net carbs because it's 80% fiber. 2 carbs for this snack; 0 for the chicken. So I go into dinner with about 4 net carbs for the day.
Allowing me to have some pasta for dinner. Even cooked shrimp don't keep forever; had to eat them up. This is about the quickest meal you can make, particularly with fresh pasta.
2oz of pasta (34 carbs), shrimp, oil, butter, garlic and parsley. Bada Bing. Lip-smacking good.
4/17/20
Today was an intermittent fasting day; I didn't eat anything until 5:30pm. The idea is to go 16+ hours without eating; which is enough to completely clear out your glycogen stores (about 12 hours) so your body has no choice but to burn fat for 4-5 hours. Sometimes I can go 24 hours but I ate late last night so that wasn't happening. I ate something at 5:30, while I marinated a skirt steak for dinner.
Marinade:
Olive Oil, Soy Sauce, Garlic (or powder), molasses, lime juice
I use Chinese light soy sauce (very salty) which you probably don't have; regular soy will do.
Marinade at least 4 hours; Over night is better, but I just bought this today. Skirt steak is tough so you want to break it down a bit. I could have sous vide it for 6 hours but I didn't have time for that either.
Into the Sous Vide for 1+ hours at 129 degrees.
If you've never seen a steak right after sous vide, you might want to clear the room of small children. It's ugly.
I heated a cast iron pan to 600 degrees and applied salt and pepper to both sides of the steak.
This is a "reverse sear"; it comes out of the pan looking just like any other steak. The difference is that the steak is perfectly medium rare. Skirt steaks are very thin and it's hard to get it medium rare if you just pan roast it.
Slice it up and serve with lemon mushrooms. It was pretty good but a little too chewy; I'll marinate the other piece longer and it will be better.
4/16/20
When you're low carb'ing it, chicken is your friend. I ate more than half of this; 2 legs, a thigh and 1 breast. Probably 100g of protein, 30g of fat and virtually no carbs. This is all I'll eat all day; I'm having eggplant parm for dinner so I'll have some pasta and do 30g of carbs for balance.
Looking for low carb / Keto snack ideas? How about some shrimp cocktail:
Very controlled eating, each Jumbo shrimp is 14 calories with virtually no carbs. The cocktail sauce has ketchup in it so there are some carbs in there, but a very small amount. If you want to be a fanatic and make Keto ketchup, knock yourself out. I think it tastes like crap.
Cocktail Sauce:
Ketchup
Gold's Horseradish (white not the red)
Wedge of Lemon Juice
Dash Worcestershire sauce
Shrimp:
You can buy the shrimp cooked (totally lame) or make it yourself. I shell the shrimp and take out the second vein (the stores only remove the top one, there's one on the bottom also). Boil the shells in a saucepan of water, add some salt and old bay (or cajun seasoning). Strain out the liquid and put it back into the pot and bring to a boil; Boil the shrimp for exactly 2 minutes; drain and transfer to an ice water bath. Do not overcook the shrimp. If you're using cajun seasoning (think Tony Cachere's), watch the salt as it's salty stuff.
Going into Dinner, I'd had about 4 carbs the entire day. Maybe 6. So I could have a 1/2 serving of pasta. This is what 1.5oz of fresh pasta looks like:
It plumps up, it's really enough. 24 carbs. Just enough to complement the eggplant, and the sauce and the cheese.
When you finish the last bite on a plate and you're sad that you're done; you know you've done something right.
4/15/20
Rinse and repeat. You eat a lot of the same
stuff when you're on a diet. 1/2 strip steak, 1 egg and asparagus with a lemon/butter sauce.
4/14/20
Scrambled eggs and frozen link sausage. Classic low carb.
The first time I did a low carb diet, this was my go-to lunch. I think I had it every day. Tomatoes, cucumbers, red onion and an olive oil vinaigrette. This meal fools your body into thinking that you're eating food, when you're really not. And it's pretty filling.
The tomatoes get mushy after a couple of days so don't get the idea to make a big tub of this as it doesn't keep well, particularly once you add dressing.
Original Post
I bought a corned beef for St Pats and I love corned beef hash. Usually with potatoes, but that ain't Keto. I winged this without a recipe with "riced" cauliflower and it came out surprisingly good. Cooking stuff in oil and butter is fun. Not as good as the potato version, but pretty darn good.
I used to make this a lot with chorizo, but I haven't been able to find the one I like during the shutdown. Substituting hot sausage worked. Just don't add too much cayenne or you'll be sorry.
A nicely marbled Strip Steak with Asparagus and Hollandaise sauce. Slow sauteed mushrooms, red pepper and red onion in olive oil. You're not getting this at Java and Jam.
Corned Beef on Rye with Gulden's Mustard. Enough Said. The 1 slice bread is 18 net carbs. 1/2 of my daily quota.
Purpose meal. Scrambled Eggs. 1 whole egg plus egg beaters.
Salmon with lemon dill sauce. To make the Lemon Dill I just add sour cream and dill to hollandaise sauce.
Strip Steak with Broccoli, Cauliflower and Cheddar Cheese. This steak was tough. Sometimes you get a bad one.
Soft boiled egg. Steam an egg for 7 minutes and crack it open. It's hard to get no shell when you scoop out the egg. Don't try this after drinking.
I bought an eggplant which requires some prep. I'm a no skin guy so I
1) Peel the eggplant
2) Slice it lengthwise into 1/4" 'cutlets'
3) Soak them in Salt Water for a few Hours (to leach out the evil tasting stuff)
4) Spread them out and dry them off
5) lightly flour.
6) Dip in Egg Beaters and lightly bread
7) Fry in garlic infused oil
The bread and flour are about 8 carbs per cutlet. Frying bread lowers the glycemic index (as does toasting) so I'm not worried about it.
I also have time to make sauce. Holy crap was this good.
At night, I have some carbs.
You've seen me order this at restaurants. Sausage, Rapini and Orecchiette. I don't like the pepper flakes so I infuse the oil with whole chiles, Chinese style, along with garlic cloves. Cook the Rapini 30 seconds too long and you've ruined the dish, the way most restaurants do.
Kielbasa w/Chimichurri is darn good.
Salad has a lot of carbs. Good carbs, but still carbs. Tomatoes, Cucumber, Lettuce. Olive oil dressing and some blue cheese of course.
Leftover meat is never as good.
Easter dinner. Fried Kielbasa and cabbage with a mustard vinaigrette. There's a Puerto Rican dish with chorizo and brussel sprouts. This is better.
When. you make Chimichurri, you have a lot of it. Gotta use it up.
Prime Sirloin w/chimichurri.
Chicken Salad, Broccoli and Cauliflower with Cheese Sauce. I could tell you how I make my cheese sauce, but then I'd have to kill you.