Low-Carb Cooking

beasleym1989

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I have recently begun looking for some low-carb alternatives to some of my favorite recipes. I love breads and pastas so it's been a little hard for me, but I'm actually finding that some of my dishes have a lot more flavor. I made an eggplant lasagna last night that was absolutely incredible. The eggplant was used in place of noodles and I was leery about it, but very happy.

If any of you guys cook low-carb do you have any other ideas/options for me to try out? Much appreciated!
 
For low carb diet, you are safe with vegetables. Avoid rice and root crops, also bread particularly the whole grain. Worse for the diet is pasta because I think they contain more carbs than rice. It is all right to eat meat and it is a nice match with vegetable salad particularly the lettuce or cucumber type. Eggplant and zucchini are good for omelets if you wish to have more flavor since you can add spices to the omelet. Another favorite of mine is the squash which can be cooked in different styles, with or without meat.
 
I actually made a pasta dish last night using shredded spaghetti squash instead of noodles. It ended up tasting fantastic and I am excited to see what other ways I can use squash. I like that it took on the flavor of my other ingredients and it didn't really seem like I was eating a vegetable.
 
I am also looking for more ways to reduce the pasta and rice in my diet. The eggplant in lasagna in place of noodles sounds good. I don't know to use eggplant so I never cook it but that just might change with the lasagna.
 
I actually had never really cooked with eggplant before (other than fried of course!) and was a bit skeptical. I just cut them into 1/4in discs and left the seeds in. They aren't noticeable at all after they're cooked. Then I layered with goat cheese, pasta sauce that my boyfriend had canned over the summer, and some sausage. I repeated two more times and then baked for an hour (you need the whole hour for the eggplant to cook through.) I also added some italian seasoning and crushed red pepper flakes because I like a little bit of spice. It was incredible. It ended up being one of the top 3 lasagnas I have ever had even without the pasta in it.
 
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I have recently begun looking for some low-carb alternatives to some of my favorite recipes. I love breads and pastas so it's been a little hard for me, but I'm actually finding that some of my dishes have a lot more flavor. I made an eggplant lasagna last night that was absolutely incredible. The eggplant was used in place of noodles and I was leery about it, but very happy.

If any of you guys cook low-carb do you have any other ideas/options for me to try out? Much appreciated!

Welcome @beasleym1989. When you get the chance you should check out https://www.cookingbites.com/threads/the-cookingbites-recipe-challenge.6160/page-30#post-47922and where you will find some eggplant recipes which might be low calorie. It's also my way of telling you to get involved in the friendly competition.
 
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If you want low carb recipes try Pinterest. They have a whole slew of speciality recipes on there. You could find low carb, gluten free, low fat, Mediterrean, 20/20 diet, Weight Watchers, whatever your little heart desires. I have been impressed by the quantitiy of the recipes, but I think they search food blogs from around the world to find them. There sure are a lot of food blogs!!
 
My grandpa was diabetic and my dad is pre-diabetic. I don't want to go down the same path and would like to gradually reduce my carb intake. Breads and pastas are easily my favorite food and I currently eat way more of them than I really need. I will never go low carb crazy. I am just attempting to switch to complex carbs and then finding alternatives to pastas and breads. I will still indulge when I feel the need though :)

In addition, I don't like very many vegetables. A lot of low-carb meals feature vegetables cooked in a way that I wouldn't have thought to use them otherwise so it is helping me find out that I do actually like vegetables that I never thought I would. I'm just really working on getting into the habit of eating foods that will benefit my body and my health.

I had twins last June and obviously want to get some of that weight off. I am not a dieter though, so alternatively I am looking for a lifestyle that I can stick to.
 
I think overtime you will find vegetables that you like. I know you are not much of a vegetable eater but there are many vegetables out there. You just have to find ones that appeal to your taste. I have recently been trying to cut back on the carbs. I love bread or it is a big challenge for me. There are so many great recipes on this forum that a worth giving a try.
 
@winterybella - That article is definitely saying: hey, you can lose weight cutting carbs but you also need to put these other practices into play as well.

I think the biggest problem with low carb diets is that people will all of a sudden cut out all breads, pastas, potatoes and it's just not realistic to never eat those again. Once their "diet" is over they start eating those carbs again and the weight is going to immediately come back on. There just needs to be a balance. I will still eat carbs, but I was just eating waaay too many. I was a sprinter in high school and a track coach after that and we lived on carbs as a source of energy. Old habits die hard!
 
Old habits die hard
Old habit do indeed die hard. When my husband and I were cycling around the world, we would get through so much porridge oats, bread and pasta that we could hardly carry enough at times and always made sure we had a spare loaf of bread, a spare packet of spaghetti (took up less space than pasta and we got used to breaking it up prior to cooking up to made it easier to eat with a spork) and a packet of tortilla wraps (long life and great emergency food for when we had not been able to get bread).
I still find it hard to cut back on the amount of carbs we eat when he is around. Our homemade bread is around 250-275 calories per 100g and 100g is not very much!
 
My grandpa was diabetic and my dad is pre-diabetic. I don't want to go down the same path and would like to gradually reduce my carb intake. Breads and pastas are easily my favorite food and I currently eat way more of them than I really need. I will never go low carb crazy. I am just attempting to switch to complex carbs and then finding alternatives to pastas and breads. I will still indulge when I feel the need though :)

In addition, I don't like very many vegetables. A lot of low-carb meals feature vegetables cooked in a way that I wouldn't have thought to use them otherwise so it is helping me find out that I do actually like vegetables that I never thought I would. I'm just really working on getting into the habit of eating foods that will benefit my body and my health.

I had twins last June and obviously want to get some of that weight off. I am not a dieter though, so alternatively I am looking for a lifestyle that I can stick to.

Smart thinking, beasleym1989! I'm with ya'. :)
Welcome to the forums!
 
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