300 15-Minute Low-Carb Recipes

DELICIOUS MEALS THAT MAKE IT EASY TO LIVE YOUR LOW-CARB LIFESTYLE AND NEVER LOOK BACK

Dana Carpender
Author of
1001 LOW-CARB RECIPES

In memory of the late Dr. Robert C. Atkins, 1930–2003.
Because of his fearless tenacity, millions of us live better lives today.

“If I can see far, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants.”

—Sir Isaac Newton

                           Introduction

CHAPTER 1     15-Minute Eggs

CHAPTER 2     15-Minute Tortilla Tricks

CHAPTER 3     15-Minute Burgers

CHAPTER 4     15-Minute Poultry

CHAPTER 5     15-Minute Fish and Seafood

CHAPTER 6     15-Minute Steaks and Chops

CHAPTER 7     15-Minute Main Dish Salads

CHAPTER 8     15-Minute Skillet Suppers

CHAPTER 9     15-Minute Slow Cooker Meals

CHAPTER 10   15-Minute Side Dishes

CHAPTER 11   15-Minute Soups

CHAPTER 12   15-Minute Condiments, Sauces, Dressings, and Seasonings

CHAPTER 13   15-Minute Beverages

CHAPTER 14   15-Minute Snacks

CHAPTER 15   15-Minute Desserts

CHAPTER 16   15-Minute Smoothies

CHAPTER 17   15-Minute “Cereal”

                           About the Author

                           Index

I've known for a long time that, where cooking is concerned, I have a big edge over most of my readers. After all, I work at home. I can put something in the oven an hour or two before dinner and be here to tend to it if needed. I can simmer a pot of soup all afternoon. I'm here.

Furthermore, at this writing I have no children—only an exceedingly good-tempered and undemanding husband. In short, I never dash in the door at 6:15 p.m., after a long day at the office (and add a few errands on the way home into the bargain), to find people clamoring for me to get dinner on the table as soon as possible, and 5 minutes ago would be nice.

I also never slog home after a 12-hour day, so tired and hungry that the very idea of having to spend an hour getting dinner on the table is enough to send me through the local fast-food drive-in, even without a family to feed.

These are precisely the situations that this book is meant to help you cope with—all while keeping you on your low-carbohydrate diet and making your family happy.

I mean exactly what I say—that from start to finish, these recipes take 15 minutes or less. I know this for certain because I set the stove timer when I started making them!

Now, it is entirely possible to make these dishes take a little bit longer. For instance, thawing times for frozen foods are not included, so if you haven't thought to take something out of the freezer in the morning, you'll just have to tack on however long it takes your microwave to thaw your food. (This would
be a good time to sit down and have a glass of dry wine or a light beer, and maybe put out a tray of veggies and ranch dressing for the troops.) For that matter, more than once I've run two or three minutes over my time limit because I couldn't find the darned Worcestershire sauce or whatever. I take no responsibility for kitchen disorganization, and trust me, I know all about kitchen disorganization. However, once you have your ingredients located, the 15-minute count holds for these recipes,
prep time included
.

This, of course, rules out a fair number of dishes. You'll find no roasts in this book, no meat loaves—indeed, nothing that is cooked in an oven, because even if a dish requires less than 15 minutes in your oven, the preheating time is an obstacle. While there are wonderful soups, there are none of the traditional long-simmered variety. Indeed, you'll find that a few methods of cooking are used over and over, simply because they are speedy—sautéing, stir-frying, grilling, broiling, and microwaving.

You'll find that these recipes generally call for foods, especially meat and poultry, to be thinly cut, sliced, shredded, ground, or cubed. There's no mystery why: The smaller the pieces, the faster the cooking time! Thinly cut pork chops—about 1/4 inch (6 mm) thick—will cook within our time limit. Inch-thick (2.5 cm) pork chops, however, will not, no matter how juicy and delicious they may be. So if you're in doubt as you cut, chop, or slice your foods up, think “smaller is better.”

You'll also find that these recipes call for you to multitask. Quite often I'll tell you to start one component of the dish cooking, then use that cooking time to cut up or measure and mix other ingredients. It's not hard, really—it's just making the best use of your time. Always give the directions a quick read before you go prepping everything in the ingredients list; you might find that there's a perfect time for chopping up veggies and the like without adding a second to your overall preparation and cooking time.

In the vast majority of the dishes in this book, the biggest source of carbohydrates is vegetables. I trust we can agree that this is the healthiest possible source of carbohydrates, no? Vegetables, however, are more than that—they are the most flavorful source of carbohydrates in our diet, and by cooking our very low-carb proteins with a variety of vegetables, we can create a widely varied,
delicious, exciting low-carb cuisine. However, this will sometimes mean that your carbohydrate allowance for a given meal is completely used up by the vegetables in your soup or skillet supper. This, then, becomes a classic one-dish meal, and a beautiful thing it is.

No reason not to serve a carbohydrate food on the side, if your family will be bereft without it. However, I must say that many of the quickest, easiest carbohydrate side dishes—instant mashed potatoes, quick-cooking rice, whack-em-on-the-counter biscuits and rolls—are just as processed and nutrient-depleted as they can be and are also among the carbohydrates with the highest, most devastating blood sugar impact. Better to serve whole-wheat pita bread; corn or whole-wheat tortillas; one of the less damaging pastas (Jerusalem artichoke pasta, widely available at health food stores, has a relatively modest blood sugar impact and tastes like “regular” pasta); or potatoes you've cut into wedges, sprinkled with olive oil, and roasted in your toaster oven for about 15 minutes at 400°F (200°C, gas mark 6). If your family loves rice, well, brown rice is
hugely
superior to white rice, let alone Minute Rice, but it's nobody's idea of a 15-minute food. However, it reheats beautifully in the microwave. You could make a good-size pot of it over the weekend, stash it in the refrigerator, and use it later in the week. When you need it, just spoon out however much your family will need for the meal at hand, put it in a covered microwaveable container with a tablespoon (15 ml) or so of water, and nuke it on 70 percent power for a few minutes.

Anyway, the point is that if your family simply
insists
on a concentrated carbohydrate, serve it on the side. And because you love them, make it one of the less processed, less damaging carbohydrates.

I've gotten a couple of queries from folks who bought
500 Low-Carb Recipes
and want to know how big a serving size is, so I thought I'd better address the matter.

To be quite honest, folks, there's no great technical determination going on here. For the most part, a “serving” is based on what I think would make a reasonable portion, depending on the carbohydrate count, how rich the dish is,
and for main dishes, the protein count. You just divide the dish up into however many portions the recipe says, and you can figure the carb counts on the recipes are accurate. In some cases I've given you a range—“3 or 4 servings,” or whatever. In those cases, I've told you how many servings the carb counts are based on, and you can do a little quick mental estimating if, say, you're serving 4 people when I've given the count for 3.

Of course, this “serving” thing is flukey. People are different sizes and have different appetites. For all I know, you have three children under 5 who might reasonably split one adult-size portion. On the other hand, you might have one 17-year-old boy who's shot up from 5'5” to 6'3” in the past year, and what looks like 4 servings to me will be a quick snack for him. You'll just have to eyeball what fraction of the whole dish you're eating and go from there.

I've had a few people tell me they'd rather have specific serving sizes—like “1 cup” or the like. I see a few problems with this. First of all, it sure won't work with things like steak or chops—I'd have to use weights, instead, and then all my readers would have to run out and buy scales. Secondly, my recipes generally call for things like, “1/2 head cauliflower” or “2 stalks celery.” These things vary in size a bit, and as a result yield will fluctuate a bit, too. Also, if one of my recipes calls for “1 1/2 pounds (680 g) boneless, skinless chicken breasts” and your package is labeled “1.65 pounds (750 g),” I don't expect you to whack off the difference to get the portions exact.

In short, I hate to have to weigh and measure everything, and I'm betting that a majority of my readers feel the same way, even if some do not. So I apologize to those who like exact measures, but this is how it's going to be for now, at any rate.

You'll notice that in places in this book I've included notes regarding other nutritional components of some of the recipes. Most notably, I've included the calorie count if it seems quite low and the calcium or potassium count if it seems quite high. The reason for this is simple: Many people are trying to watch their calories as well as their carbs, and calling their attention to those dishes in this book that are particularly low in calories seemed helpful. Likewise, my e-mail tells me that the two nutrients low-carbers are most
concerned they're
not
getting are calcium and potassium. So letting you know when a recipe is a good source of these nutrients also seemed helpful.