1001 Low-Carb Recipes: Hundreds of Delicious Recipes From Dinner to Dessert That Let You Live Your Low-Carb Lifestyle and Never Look Back (84 page)

1½ cups (225 g) frozen green beans, cross-cut

8 ounces (225 g) sliced mushrooms

1½ cups (360 ml) chicken broth

1 teaspoon poultry seasoning

3 teaspoons chicken bouillon concentrate

½ cup (120 ml) heavy cream

Guar or xanthan

Dumplings (page 343)

In a slow cooker, combine the carrots, onion, turnips, green beans, mushrooms, and chicken.

In a bowl, mix together the broth, poultry seasoning, and bouillon. Pour the mixture over the chicken and vegetables. Cover the slow cooker, set it to low, and let it cook for 6 to 7 hours.

When the time’s up, stir in the cream and thicken the gravy to a nice consistency with guar or xanthan. Add salt and pepper to taste. Recover the slow cooker and turn it to high.

While the slow cooker is heating up (it’ll take at least 30 minutes), make the Dumplings, stopping before you add the liquid. Wait until the gravy in the slow cooker is boiling. Then stir in the buttermilk to the Dumpling dough and drop it by spoonfuls over the surface of the chicken and gravy. Re-cover the slow cooker and let it cook for another 25 to 30 minutes.

Yield:
8 servings

Each with 36 g protein, 14 g carbohydrate, 4 g dietary fiber, 10 g usable carbs (calculations include the dumplings).

Feel free to use this with other meat-and-gravy dishes if you like! (These instructions require gravy to boil the Dumplings in.)

¾ cup (90 g) ground almonds, or “almond meal”

½ cup (65 g) rice protein powder

¼ cup (25 g) wheat gluten

2 tablespoons (28 g) butter

2 tablespoons (30 ml) coconut oil

½ teaspoon salt 2 teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

¾ cup (180 ml) buttermilk

Put everything but the buttermilk into a food processor with the S-blade in place. Pulse the food processor to cut in the butter. (You want it evenly distributed in the dry ingredients.) Dump this mixture into a mixing bowl.

Check to make sure your gravy is boiling. (If it isn’t, have a quick cup of tea until it is.) Now pour the buttermilk into the dry ingredients and stir it in with a few swift strokes. (Don’t over-mix; you just want to make sure everything’s evenly damp.) This will make a soft dough. Drop by spoonfuls over the boiling gravy, cover the pot, and let it cook for 25 to 30 minutes.

Yield:
12 servings

Each with 14 g protein, 4 g carbohydrate, 1 g dietary fiber, 3 g usable carbs.

This is a fair amount of work, but it’s certainly comfort food for a cold winter night!

1½ pounds (680 g) dark meat chicken, no skin, but on the bone

1 quart (960 ml) water

1 tablespoon (15 ml) chicken bouillon concentrate

1 pound (455 g) frozen California-blend vegetables

1 cup (70 g) sliced mushrooms 1 cup (240 ml) Carb Countdown dairy beverage or half-and-half

½ teaspoon poultry seasoning

Guar or xanthan

Salt and pepper

1 batch Buttermilk Drop Biscuits (page 120)

Plunk chicken in a big saucepan and add the water and chicken bouillon concentrate. Cover it, turn the heat to low, and let the whole thing simmer for 60 to 90 minutes.

Fish the chicken out with a fork or tongs and set it on a plate until cool enough to handle. In the meantime, add the California-blend vegetables and the sliced mushrooms to the broth—I actually cut mine up a little more, but you can leave everything in really big chunks if you prefer. Let this simmer for 25 to 30 minutes or until the vegetables are tender but not mushy.

While that’s happening, strip the chicken off the bones. Discard the bones and cut the meat into bite-sized pieces. Reserve.

Okay, your vegetables are cooked. Stir in the Carb Countdown dairy beverage and poultry seasoning. Thicken with guar or xanthan to make a rich gravy consistency. Now add salt and pepper to taste and stir in the chicken. Turn off the heat.

Preheat the oven to 475°F (240°C, or gas mark 9) and then make a batch of Buttermilk Drop Biscuit dough, stopping right before you add the buttermilk to the dry ingredients.

Spray a 2-quart (1.9-L) casserole dish with nonstick cooking spray. When the oven is up to temperature, turn the heat back on under the chicken and vegetable mixture and bring it back to a boil. While that’s heating, stir the buttermilk into the biscuit dough. Now, pour the boiling chicken mixture into the casserole dish and spoon the dough over the top. Don’t worry about covering every single millimeter of the gravy with the dough; it’ll spread a bit. Just spoon it on pretty evenly, and it’ll be fine. Put it in the oven immediately and bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until golden and then serve.

Yield:
6 servings

Each with 48 g protein; 13 g carbohydrate; 5 g dietary fiber; 8 g usable carbs.

Back in the 1960s my mom would make a dish for company with chicken breasts, wrapped in bacon, laid on a layer of chipped beef, topped with a sauce made of sour cream and cream
of mushroom soup. It tasted far more sophisticated than it sounds and never failed to draw raves from dinner party guests. This is my attempt to de-carb and slow-cooker-ize the same dish— without the carb-filled cream of mushroom soup.

2 pounds (910 g) boneless, skinless chicken breasts

2¼ ounces (62 g) dried beef slices (aka “chipped beef”)

6 slices bacon

1 cup (70 g) sliced mushrooms

1 tablespoon (14 g) butter

1 cup (240 ml) heavy cream

1 teaspoon beef bouillon concentrate

1 pinch onion powder

1 pinch celery salt

¼ teaspoon pepper

Guar or xanthan

1 cup (230 g) sour cream

Paprika

Line the bottom of a slow cooker with the dried beef.

Place the bacon in a glass pie plate or on a microwave bacon rack and microwave for 3 to 4 minutes on high. Drain the bacon and reserve. (What you’re doing here is cooking some of the grease off of the bacon without cooking it crisp.)

Cut the chicken into 6 servings. Wrap each piece of chicken in a slice of bacon and place it in the slow cooker on top of the dried beef.

In a big, heavy skillet, sauté the mushrooms in the butter until they’re soft. Add the cream and bouillon and stir until the bouillon dissolves. Stir in the onion powder, celery salt, and pepper and then thicken with guar or xanthan until the mixture reaches a gravy consistency. Stir in the sour cream.

Spoon this mixture over the chicken breasts and sprinkle with a little paprika. Cover the slow cooker, set it to low, and let it cook for 5 to 6 hours.

To serve, scoop up some of the dried beef and sauce with each bacon-wrapped piece of chicken.

Yield:
6 servings

Each with 41 g protein, 4 g carbohydrate, trace dietary fiber, 4 g usable carbs.

The worst possible thing you can do to liver of any kind is overcook it, which makes chicken livers an ideal candidate for a super-fast gourmet supper. The cauliflower rice is optional with this, but it takes very little extra time, adds only 1 gram of extra carbs to a serving, and makes this seem more like a meal.

8 ounces (225 g) chicken livers

½ head cauliflower (optional)

4 ounces (115 g) sliced mushrooms

¼ medium onion

1 tablespoon (14 g) butter

½ teaspoon minced garlic or 1 clove garlic, crushed

½ teaspoon ground rosemary*

¼ cup (60 ml) dry sherry

½ teaspoon lemon juice

Salt and pepper

Guar or xanthan

If you want cauliflower rice to serve the chicken livers on, make that first. Run the cauliflower through the shredding blade of your food processor, put it in a microwaveable casserole dish with a lid, add a couple of tablespoons (30 ml) of water, cover it, and microwave it on high for 7 minutes. If the cauliflower is done cooking before you’re quite done with your livers, remove the lid. This will let the steam out and stop the cooking. Otherwise you’ll get a white mush that bears little resemblance to rice or even cauliflower.

Okay, you’re ready to deal with the livers. Cut each liver into 3 or 4 chunks. I’m assuming you bought presliced mushrooms, but if you didn’t, slice them now. Take the onion quarter, cut it in half again (making two eighths), and then slice it as thin as you can. Melt the butter in a large, heavy skillet over medium-high heat. Add the livers, mushrooms, onions, and garlic, and stir-fry until the mushrooms are starting to change color and most of the pink is gone from the livers. Add the rosemary, sherry, lemon juice, and a little salt and pepper and let it all simmer for just 1 to 2 minutes. Thicken the pan liquid slightly with guar or xanthan and serve, with or without cauliflower rice.

Yield:
2 servings

Without the cauliflower rice, each serving will have 8 grams of carbohydrates and 1 gram of fiber, for a total of 7 grams of usable carbs and 22 grams of protein. If you serve it with the cauliflower rice, each serving will have 10 grams of carbohydrates and 2 grams of fiber, for a total of 8 grams of usable carbs and 22 grams of protein.

*You can use a teaspoon of dried rosemary needles instead, and it will taste good, but you’ll have little tough needles in your food.

I’m a big fan of chicken livers, and they’re highly nutritious. No, the liver does not contain every toxin eaten by the animal during its life. The liver processes and removes this stuff. It doesn’t just hold on to it forever.

1 pound (455 g) chicken livers, cut into bite-sized pieces

1 stick butter

1 small onion, chopped

1 rib celery, including leaves, diced

1 bay leaf, crumbled fine

½ teaspoon dried thyme

½ teaspoon salt or Vege-Sal

½ teaspoon seasoned salt

4 cups Cauliflower Rice Deluxe (page 212)

¼ cup (25 g) grated Parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 375°F (190°C, or gas mark 5).

Melt the butter in a heavy skillet over medium heat and sauté the onion, celery, bay leaf, thyme, salt, and seasoned salt.

When the onion is golden, add the chicken livers and cook for another 5 minutes, stirring frequently. Toss the vegetables and livers together with the Cauliflower Rice Deluxe.

Spray a good-sized casserole dish (10 cups [2.4 L] or so) with nonstick cooking spray and dump the liver and “rice” mixture into the
role dish. Sprinkle the top with the Parmesan cheese and bake the whole thing uncovered for 15 minutes.

Yield:
5 servings

Each with 16 grams of carbohydrates and 3 grams of fiber, for a total of 13 grams usable carbs and 21 grams of protein.

Back in my low-fat, high-carb day, I made a three-grain curried chicken pilau that was our very favorite supper. I hadn’t had it since the day I went low carb—but this is a really convincing decarbed version and far faster to cook. Don’t omit the garnishes: chutney, chopped peanuts, and crumbled bacon. They’re what make the dish!

1 pound (455 g) boneless, skinless chicken breast, cut in ½-inch (1.3-cm) cubes

½ cup (80 g) chopped onion

2 cloves garlic, crushed

2 tablespoons (12 g) curry powder

1 tablespoon (14 g) butter