Green Chili Pork Stew With a Twist

Looking for something unusual? This stew fits the bill. It is mildly like a chili, but slightly sweet and sour too. Fusion cooking I guess.

I had some leftover pork roast in the freezer. I generally add barbecue sauce, but we were in the mood for something different. I looked over some recipes online and found a couple similar to this. One called for raisins, which are a low carb no-no. Besides, I know my guys would frown on that one. I found a few more with apples or potatoes. No go there either. So, I subbed some cauliflower for potatoes, and left out those raisins. I added a bit more green chili since I don't rely on those little cans. I buy big cans of chilies and freeze portions in ice cube trays, then put them all in a big gallon ziploc bag. Easier to add to recipes and big time savings.

The vinegar and sweetener make this dish very unusual, but appealing. Apple cider vinegar is really good for you--especially the natural type with the "mother" allowed to remain. I have been incorporating it more and more into our diet lately. One boy gobbled this up in record time. Another wasn't as pleased and left some in the bowl. You be the judge whether to try it or not. I'll give you the recipe anyway. I really did like the flavor combo, but then, I have been known to like jalapeno jelly. Sweet hot is appealing to me.

Green Chili Pork Stew With a Twist

1 pound pre-cooked pork, shredded or cubed
1 small onion, chopped
1 tablespoon oil of choice
2 four ounce cans of green chilies, mol
1 1/2 cups chicken broth
3 tablespoons vinegar
1 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 teaspoon lemon pepper
1 packet Truvia
salt to taste
toppings: shredded cheese or sour cream

Let onion soften in oil until just beginning to brown. Add remaining ingredients and simmer for 30 minutes, checking to make sure pot doesn't dry out. Spoon into bowls and top with cheese or sour cream. You may add some hot sauce if desired.

This goes together very quickly when you have some Freezer Favorites pork roast in the freezer like I did. It would also be a good addition to the Triple Play meals for a pork roast. The flavor is so unique it would not seem like a return of Sunday's dinner at all! For carby eaters, stir in some precooked rice or barley. I keep batches of those in the freezer ready to go too.

I have been spending lots of time in the kitchen lately. We all seem to be on different eating plans these days. My youngest boy is having continued stomach ailments which are not being diagnosed. We are trying out a diet for Irritable Bowel Syndrome for him. Poor guy. He has been suffering too much. This plan has him never combining proteins and starches. His protein meals are easy. Those are my low carb standards. The carb meals are a little tougher around here. Then, my middle son is on the Insulin Resistance eating plan. He eats more carbs than hubby does, but always needs to eat a carb with a protein. That is the exact opposite of the carby boy. I am still cutting calories in cycles, so my meals vary. Yikes! The Diner plan is going to be even more important than ever this summer with so many mouths to feed. I guess you could say my summer job is personal chef!

Ancho Chili Shrimp Salad

If you want to turn down the heat just a bit, but still want the taste of pepper, try this. Rather than sprinkling my shrimp salad with Chipotle powder, I used Ancho Pepper tonight. Same smokiness, less heat for hubby. Ancho powder is a smoked Poblano pepper. milder than it's chipotle/jalapeno cousin. Hubby liked it tonight.

I just mixed the chili powder with a little onion powder and a touch of salt. This got sprinkled over the shrimp while they were cooking, after a little squirt of lime juice. I sprinkled again when the shrimp were on the salad. Simple, but very tasty.

For the dressing, I stirred together equal parts of salsa and ranch dressing. So that is easy enough, right? A low cal, low carb dinner in ten minutes. Definitely another E.Z. Fix recipe at the Diner.

We were camping this last weekend, so I didn't get my prep cooking done. I got the grocery store done today, and I will do a short prep tomorrow. Good thing salads like this one are quick and easy. The boys who don't like shrimp got some Mexican Minute Beef from the freezer. Another favorite for sure!

Strawberry Real Fruit Slush

I love strawberry real fruit slushes at Sonic, but they are loaded with sugar. This is made at home with my Ninja Master Food Prep machine. Even better. This is perfect for warm weather treats. Plus, it is easy to do with frozen berries.

Don't worry the photo is out of whack. That is a fun glass I picked up at the thrift store for my oldest boy's apartment. We found some great work apparel for him, and these fun tilted glasses. They definitely fit his sense of humor and he let me borrow one for the picture.

Strawberry Real Fruit Slush

6 frozen strawberries
2 ice cubes
1 packet of lemon flavored Splenda water flavoring
sweetener to taste
about 1/2 cup water

Put everything except water in the blender. Pulse a few times. Add water a little at at time to desired consistency. Adjust sweetener to taste, and serve.

This tastes just as yummy as my favorite lemon berry slush, and I don't get chunks of berry stuck in the straw!

Jamaican Jerk Sauce and Cool Cucumber Salad

Jamaican Jerk flavors can mean many different things, but any in form, it will be spicy. I twisted together a few recipes today to make a sauce for the chicken patties I had in the freezer. If you like unique flavors combined with heat, give this a try. It is low carb, low fat, low calorie and HIGH flavor. Just a little goes a long way!

Jamaican Jerk Sauce

This is one of the recipes included in my new cookbook project, Low Carbing Among Friends.

This recipe is available in the book, along with over 60 additional 24/7 Low Carb Diner recipes. By ordering the book, you get more than 300 favorite gluten free recipes from four other well known low carb cooking experts…Jennifer Eloff of Splendid Low Carbing cookbook fame, Kent Altena, the Atkins Diet Geek and You Tube star, nutritionist and author Maria Emmerich of Maria’s Nutritious and Delicious Journal, and popular blogger and food stylist, Carolyn Ketchum of All Day I Dream About Food. Unlike any other cookbook you may own, this one is a compilation of mini cookbooks featuring the talents of these well known low carbers. Think of it as a “best of” project.

Low Carbing Among Friends also features recipes from numerous other talented low carbing friends and recommendations from the medical community who recognize the health benefits of low carb, gluten free living. To preorder your copy, visit http://www.amongfriends.us The official release date is 11/11/11, so pre-order now for a discount.

This makes enough for 4-6 patties, but my hubby wouldn't dare. The leftovers will go into a small freezer container for another day for me. This is definitely not your ordinary chicken! Be sure to have a tall iced tea handy when you eat this sauce.

With the heat of the pepper, a nice cool side dish is in order. I made a simple cucumber salad which was perfect. I simply covered my diced cucumber with some cider vinegar, some sweetener and a selection of herbs from my pots. This one featured Lemon Balm and Vietnamese Coriander. Perfect!

Chicken and Low Cal Honey Mustard Salad

Frankenfoods alert! Yep, I avoid them when I can, but sometimes I will allow a little frankenfood into my diet. Mostly when I just can't duplicate a flavor or texture. Texture is important to me. So be it with my Pooh Bear dressing, a take off on the traditional honey mustard type. Love that stuff. Don't love the carbs in real honey or the calories in mayo. I am doing a weight loss cycle right now, so lots of fats and calories are not helpful. But that is a story for another day.

I bought this Walden Farms Bleu Cheese dressing a few months back. Not a huge fan. I think it tastes a bit like medicine. It is okay in very small doses, but I could never do a whole salad with it. It does claim to be sugar free, fat free, calorie free, gluten free, and have no preservatives. I wonder what could be in there? Mostly vinegar, cellulose gel and flavorings. Just what is cellulose gel, anyway? I don't ever remember seeing that on the shelves at the health food store. I get the feeling it is tree pulp or something. But hey, many parts of a pine tree are edible...right?

But who am I kidding? I am not an organic earth mama. We eat manufactured foods way too often. I simply don't have time to eat strictly from my organic garden. We would starve if we had to grow what we eat. I can't raise chickens or cows or even goats. I can't afford the prices to pay those who do. So, quite a few compromises make their way into our family diet. Being a nutrition purist is a full time job, and I don't have that many hours.

Enter the Walden Farms dressing. I was looking for a creamy substitute for dressings. Today, I found a good combo that both John and I liked. If you are happy with an all natural vinaigrette, GREAT. Don't change. I like those too. I just wanted something creamier today, yet sweet. This was actually pretty tasty, and has far fewer calories than my regular recipe which uses mayo.

If you are willing to ingest a bit of Frankenfood, give this a try for something different.

Low Cal Honey Mustard Dressing

1/8 cup Walden Farms Bleu Cheese Dressing
1/8 cup mustard, your choice
dash of onion powder
dash of paprika
sweetener to taste

Blend everything together and serve.

This is really too simple to be a recipe, but hey. When life is simple, it is good. I just grabbed some pre-cooked and frozen chicken patties and heated those while I made the salad and dressing. Easy peasy five minute meal. Great for a quick weekend lunch.

Garlic Shrimp and Basil Tomatoes

John and I decided to enjoy some shrimp tonight while the boys had pizza. They turn up their noses to shrimp...well, in all fairness, one is allergic. Guess that gets him out of doing dishes tonight! We grown ups felt like we were dining at a classy seafood restaurant, but this was easy and so good for us. I even got to serve dinner on a new plate I picked up at the thrift store today. I love buying new plates and such!

Garlic Shrimp

Frozen, precooked shrimp (enough for 2)
1 teaspoon vinaigrette dressing
garlic powder
dried parsley
onion powder
Black pepper

Place the shrimp in a small baking dish. Add vinaigrette and toss. Sprinkle with seasonings. Bake at 350 until shrimp is hot. Remove the shrimp, leaving cooking fluid in the dish. If desired, stir some butter into the hot dish and drizzle it over the shrimp when serving.

Fresh garlic might be better, but this is about quick, so I used powdered. Since I am still working at dropping some pounds, I left off the butter and just stirred in a tiny bit of butter flavoring. Still pretty good, but butter is better!

On the side, I used fresh basil from my herb garden--the first time this year. I simply added it to some fresh Roma tomatoes and sautéed them with some garlic. It is amazing how wonderful fresh, unprocessed foods can taste.

George's Chicken with "Supposed to be Creamy" Swiss

Real life. Sometimes it is great. Sometimes not. Tonight's dinner for my guys should have been a no brainer. It will be for you if you don't over cook your most expensive ingredients. Still edible, but not as pretty.

I grilled up some chicken breasts. Easy. I decided to make a Swiss cheese sauce on the side. That is one of the ideas from the E.Z. Fix section of the e-book. Tonight, I choose to make it on the stove top. Good decision until I set it back on a burner that I thought was turned off. I took my lovely, creamy cheese sauce and over cooked it. It ended up with little bits of chewy cheese bites as the cheese and cream separated. So you get the ugly photo because that really is what I served. Just a couple of minutes earlier, and it would have been velvety smooth. I know you can do better than I did tonight, so if you wanna try it...

Just add some real cream to the sauce pan and let it heat. I used about 1/3 cup cream and stirred often. Then I added 4 cheese slices, but shredded is easier. Once that melts, keep it over low heat and stir well until it is creamy. Then DON'T put it back on the stove, but rather, spoon it over some lovely George grilled chicken. Yummy.

Add a salad and you are ready to go.

Steak and Loaded Broccoli

So when you head out to a steakhouse, is there anybody out there who loves the loaded baked potato more than the steak? That is me. Oooh. The sour cream, butter, maybe even cheese. And don't get me started on the bacon bits. Certainly, loaded broccoli is not the same, but it is still good. Decadent for a general super food. I have never tried it, but I hear restaurants like Applebee's will substitute broccoli for the potato upon request. We had this tonight, but speaking of dining away from home...

I have been eating out much more than normal. It was graduation week for my oldest boy. He earned two business degrees in four years. I am so very proud of him. We traveled out of state for the festivities and to help move both guys back home. Of course, there were challenges eating out. The first evening, we chose a steak house. I ordered a very nice beef tip dinner with grilled veggies. Unfortunately I also had some breaded okra. Even though I didn't eat them all--the breading did give me a weight gain. Not worth it.

I stayed away from chocolate eclairs and chocolate mousse cups at the reception. We limited ourselves to some cocktail weiners and coffee. Another meal was a chicken salad at Zaxby's. Loved that--especially the buffalo chicken, which they subbed grilled rather than fried. One meal was at the casino. We don't gamble, but don't mind only paying $6 for a full buffet. I was able to get some fajita meat and veggies with cheese, some Italian grilled peppers and sausage, and some barbeque pork ribs without the sauce. We left without dessert, but we were full enough not to care!

Mother's Day found us all back in Tulsa at my favorite Mexican Restaurant. They have a low carb menu with house rellenos which are not battered or fried. Extra yummy though, especially with guacamole and a salad with fresh pico de gallo. We had four mothers at the table for lunch. That was awesome. Here's a photo of me with my sweet mom. Hate the way I look like an Amazon woman next to her. She is an amazing woman, and I sure wish I had her body type! By the way, my boys got me my own Ninja Master Prep machine so I can give my mom's back to her! Thanks guys!



Last night I made a version of California Chicken, but I added Dreamfield's Pasta so it would feed everyone. Amazingly, I lost weight even after a full serving of the rich casserole. Salad bar for lunch, and now our guests have gone. It is sad to see such a special time come to an end, but it is good to get back to the familiarity of my kitchen. Here, I can control what goes into our mouths! I will have at least one more mouth to feed for a few months. My oldest may stay or may follow a job to who knows where. Right now, I am loving having everyone home. We are braving tornadic weather, so we just moved to the George grill inside for our steaks tonight. Looks like the worst has passed over us safely, and dishes are waiting. I will include a photo of my newest graduate. If anyone has a job, he has two degrees--one in Business Administration and one in Accounting. He is available for hire!

Vodka Sauce with Chicken

A while back I blogged about this Muir Glen Sauce. Now I have found another! This one too came from Big Lots, but I sure hope I can find it somewhere else too. Found this one looking for the last one. I got the last bottle of it, and decided to try this one --Organic Vodka sauce--too. It has a couple more carbs, but the taste! Oh my, this is soooooo good. Inside there is cream, ricotta cheese and Parmesan. So yummy it is worth the extra carbs. I would have found them adding in the cheese anyway. I hope this product isn't discontinued, but I couldn't find a photo online for you, so that scares me. Why do all the good low sugar finds seem to disappear? Maybe we need to get Mrs. Obama to request them!

Tonight I served it with chicken tenders. Very flavorful and easy. Just put some frozen tenders in the skillet with the sauce and simmer until done. Easy. For a side, garlic buttered broccoli is superb. This meal makes a mom a weekday hero.

Chorizo Breakfast Bake

Interested in jazzing up breakfast a bit? This casserole will do it! I have lots of recipes for breakfast casseroles. They are a low carb staple. But the flavors of chorizo sausage are great for something different. The flavor, which comes in either the Spanish or Mexican variety, is packed with spices and paprika. That accounts for the lovely orange color of this breakfast treat. Ours wasn't too hot, but it might be a good idea to try our your brand before you make a Multiple Meals dish like I did today.

Chorizo Breakfast Bake

This is one of the recipes included in my new cookbook project, Low Carbing Among Friends.

This recipe is available in the book, along with over 60 additional 24/7 Low Carb Diner recipes. By ordering the book, you get more than 300 favorite gluten free recipes from four other well known low carb cooking experts…Jennifer Eloff of Splendid Low Carbing cookbook fame, Kent Altena, the Atkins Diet Geek and You Tube star, nutritionist and author Maria Emmerich of Maria’s Nutritious and Delicious Journal, and popular blogger and food stylist, Carolyn Ketchum of All Day I Dream About Food. Unlike any other cookbook you may own, this one is a compilation of mini cookbooks featuring the talents of these well known low carbers. Think of it as a “best of” project.

Low Carbing Among Friends also features recipes from numerous other talented low carbing friends and recommendations from the medical community who recognize the health benefits of low carb, gluten free living. To preorder your copy, visit http://www.amongfriends.us The official release date is 11/11/11, so pre-order now for a discount.

John ate some today, and the rest of that casserole, I cut up and wrapped individually. One casserole, actually a double size, is for our company later in the week. I will serve it with a fruit salad for brunch. Won't the guests be delighted with my pig baker?

Hurry Up Grilling--Kabobs

Sorry I have been a bit MIA lately. This is such a busy time for me--prom, birthdays, graduations, classes, gardening. Yikes. It will slow down soon into the summer doldrums.

Today I am sharing a recipe we ate a few days ago, but I never had time to blog. I realize after looking at the last post, it might appear that we always eat grilled chicken and tomatoes. Interesting. We have been grilling out more with the nice weather, and my hubby's new grill, but we do have more variety than that. Sometimes it is hard to come up with something I haven't already covered.

The highlight of this blog is not the chicken, but the tomatoes. For something so simple, these are great. I simply cut Roma tomatoes and threaded them on skewers. Then I sprinkled them with True Lime seasoning. Amazingly good. The crystallized lime has a stronger bite than regular lime juice. Plus, it is always available in the cupboard, unlike those limes that may get yucky in the back of the veggie bin. I buy mine at the local health food store. The True Lime comes in little packages like sweetener. It is awesome sprinkled on fish, veggies or chicken for fajitas. I also like a packet in my water bottle. True Orange is good too, especially in dressings. True Lemon is next on my list to try.

Try a free sample here.


You can't get a quicker grill meal than this.

Now off to do more prep day cooking. Life won't be slowing down this week, as my college boys come home and we will have company for the graduation. Happy May!