Low Carb Camping Chili

Every year my family goes camping for Father's day and every year I make chili in advance for us to have for dinner. It's delicious. But this year I had to make some changes to make it suit my new low carb, healthy eating. It's delicious, so I thought I would share. I made up this recipe, adapted from years of making chili.

 I brown some ground turkey with a little olive oil, chili powder, cumin and chipotle chili spice (my kids won't eat the chili so I can make it spicy).  Then I add peppers, carrots, one can of kidney beans and let it all cook together.

At the same time I caramelize some onions in olive oil with sugar and a little nutmeg. Trust me, it's worth using the sugar. I use one onion and 1 Tbsp of sugar.

 My tomatoes and beans of choice. Normally I use 3 different types of beans but to cut down on the carbs, I only used one can of kidney beans. Eden Organic brand has no added salt so super low in sodium.

 After the onions are done, I add them to the turkey mixture and I add a little more olive oil to the pan and cook up the mushroom. Mushrooms are always better when cooked before adding to the chili.

Look how colourful it is.

Then I add my tomatoes and one can of tomato paste and viola, chili. I continually check the flavour and add more cumin and chili powder, if it needs it. If you like lots of spice, you could add hot sauce too. It's super thick but thins out after I have to cool and reheat it while camping. It's always so much better on the second day.

Cauliflower Pile Up

This one's a gooder. Tonight we had a pile up, which normally I would make with potatoes but tonight I made it with cauliflower (you know, the no/low carb thing). So yum.

I sauteed mennonite sausage, onions, yellow and red peppers, corn (just a little), mushrooms and tomatoes (added at the end). I added cumin and a little chili powder for extra flavour.

I also boiled up some cauliflower till it was soft, mashed it with a teaspoon of sour cream and some onion dip mix (Epicure of course).

I threw the mashed cauliflower into a bowl, topped with the sausage/veggie mix, and then threw on some cheese (just a little for me - the picture is Leigh's dinner). I also added some avocado on top. You could top it with fresh cilantro or sour cream or salsa as well.

So yummy and my serving was less than 500 calories.

Killer Salad!

Nom nom nom!
Mixed greens, grape tomatoes, mixed peppers, avocado, hard boiled egg and chicken cooked in Franks Red Hot Sauce.
Fast, easy, nutritious and oh so delicious!
Nom nom nom!

Dinner - Copy & Paste Sara's dinner - Done

Sara: "What are you going to make for dinner tonight?"
Kelsey: "I have no idea, you?
Sara: "I'm doing pork."
Kelsey: "That's a good idea."
~End of conversation~
Result? Basically the same dinner.
<--- Asian Pork with salad!
Everyone else had noodles, I had spaghetti squash for my "noodles".
Yum yum yum!

Ingredients

• 1/3 cup lite soy sauce
• 1/4 cup sesame oil
• 2 tbsp worcestershire sauce
• 2 tbsp light brown sugar
• 4 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1 1/2 teaspoons pepper
• 1 (2 lb)  fat-trimmed pork tenderloin

Mix 1st 6 ingr, marinate pork for 8 hours (Ya right...didn't marinate at all...) Brown pork in hot pan on all sides. Bake at 400F for 20 mins (ish!) - Bake till internal temp reaches 160 F. Slice it up and enjoy!! Again Yum yum yum!!

Healthy Asian cooking

Tonight's dinner.

 This is what my family ate. Pork tenderloin with veggies and noodles. All cooked in Asian 5 spice, soy sauce (or Bragg's) and ginger. Topped with sesame seeds and chopped green onions.

This is what I ate. Same as above without the noodles. I bought pre-chopped broccoli and carrots and cooked those with more carrots and peppers. The sliced broccoli made it feel like I was eating noodles, but without the carbs.

Yummy.

Healthy healthy

These are not very exciting posts but seriously, my dinner tonight was delicious, simple and healthy. Love it.

Tonight was frittata (I promise it's there, under all the yummy goodness). I made a bell pepper and mennonite sausage frittata. I used three full eggs and two egg whites, sausage ( I prefer mennonite sausage - it's lower in fat and so delicious when it's fried up), 3 colour bell pepper and a tiny bit of shredded cheese. It took all of 10 minutes to make. I served it with diced avocados and cilantro on top. YUM.

And of course, I served it with a salad because we can never have enough vegetables.