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Kitchen Tutorial #1

Since I spent all day writing this stuff out for a friend who needs a lifestyle change, I thought I’d publish for anyone else who might want to start doing low carb and/or cooking more at home. First up: basic kitchen essentials! Basic tools and getting your pantry started.

Basic kitchen utensils you’ll need:
meat thermometer
measuring spoons
measuring cups (dry)
2 cup measuring cup (liquid)
microplane or lemon zester
crock pot (small basic one is OK)
square baking dish
large heavy bottom frying pan nonstick is fine
small nonstick skillet for frittatas!
couple of soup pans, 2 qt
large wide bottom chili pot (or dutch oven if you want to spend $50+, it’s worth it!)
sheet pans for baking
nonstick safe cooking utensils
at least ONE really good, sharp knife

Basic pantry (NO canned veg other than what’s here!):
extra virgin olive oil EVOO (look for dark bottle, around $10 per ltr)
kosher salt (my recipes call for kosher, NOT table salt)
black pepper
sugar
cornstarch
dried basil
dried oregano
dried thyme
dried cilantro
sweet paprika
smoked paprika
red pepper flakes
L&P worcestershire sauce (it’s the best)
your favorite hot sauce
steak sauce
dijon mustard
mayonnaise
seasoned rice wine vinegar
apple cider vinegar
4 boxes chicken stock
4 cans diced toms (I like Hunts fire roasted w/ garlic)
Herdez Salsa Verde (NOT spicy) for green chicken, white chili and green chili
1 tube tomato paste (it keeps the longest, look in Italian section)
capers (for chicken piccata)
2 cans Bush’s chili starter (any flavor, but medium is perfect)
2 cans white beans (great northern)
2 cans seasoned black beans
1 jar sundried tomatoes (for a recipe)
1 jar large pimento stuffed green olives (for recipe)
1 bottle Korean BBQ sauce (BiBiGo is great)
Keep canned soups on hand at all times. Progresso low sodium soups are pretty good. Whatever you get, make sure it’s low sodium.

Fridge:
butter, salted
sliced cheese (real, NOT American!)
shredded parmesan
heavy cream (for sauces, keeps forever)**
deli meat, smoked turkey, ham, etc.
Eggs
**Stay away from low fat dairy. Get full fat cheese, cottage cheese, sour cream and yogurts. It’s been shown that full fat dairy is better for you in the long run than reduced fat stuff.

Veg always on hand:
garlic (the prepared garlic in a jar is OK if you’ll use that more)
white onions
lemons (for piccata and I use for lots of things)

Low carb fresh veg for meals:
cauliflower (toss with EVOO, S/P and roast at 425 for 15 mins)
any colour bell peppers (cut in half, remove ribs/seeds, toss with EVOO and roast skin side up under broiler)
green beans (cut off stems and sautee whole in EVOO with minced garlic and S/P)
greens (baby kale is surprisingly good) Sautee with EVOO, garlic and S/P.
asparagus same as green beans but add some lemon zest and finish with lemon juice

Salad: (eat one per day)
romain hearts
celery
scallions
radishes
carrot sticks
grape tomatoes

OIL & VINEGAR dressing.
Use 2 parts extra virgin olive oil to one part seasoned rice wine vinegar. Season with S/P. Add in some dried basil if you want or even a dollop of dijon if you feel frisky. Whisk thoroughly to emulsify. This can be held at room temp.

Frozen sides and veg are FAR superior to canned veg because of the sodium. Low sodium canned veg is disgusting. Frozen veg keeps all the nutrition and has far less sodium, even if you get it with flavouring.

Basic frozen veg to have on hand:
spinach (get it in the bag so you can use what you need)
stew veg (for easy crockpot stew)
frozen cauliflower is ok for adding to a recipe, not great alone
frozen greens are fine
frozen green peas are the only peas I use
DO not get frozen green beans or asparagus. That stuff gets GROSS when frozen.

You can also get frozen recipe ready veg such as diced onions and peppers, and they are OK, just not as flavourful as fresh. But if you want to sub in the frozen to save you time and effort, that’s just fine.

There are myriad frozen sides out there, but some outstanding ones I’ve found recently are:
Birdseye Protein Blends – usually a grain and veg, various flavours
Green Giant Fire Roasted veg
any veg mix as long as it’s not loaded with sodium

FYI, you can freeze 9 grain bread! It keeps forever and you can’t tell it’s been frozen. Restaurant trick!

Frozen Proteins:
frozen chicken tenders
frozen thin chicken breast if you can find it
frozen boneless skinless chix thighs

For beef I rarely buy it frozen. I buy it on sale and freeze. For quick chili, keep ~1# packs of 90/10 low fat ground beef or ground chicken on hand.

Other meats you’ll need for various recipes:
pork tenderloin
bone in, skin on chicken thighs (or breasts)
Stew meat or chuck steak
flank, skirt or flat iron steak (look for it on sale!)

FROZEN MEALS
If you can’t take leftovers to work (I hear this is a thing??), I suggest going to a boxed frozen solution. One particularly good frozen box meal I found is Stouffers Fit Kitchen. They are good sized portions with a TON of protein and reasonable sodium. They are not the cheapest frozen meals, but they are cheaper than buying lunch every day. Even if you go with the small frozen meals and just buy a small salad, you’ll be doing better nutritionally. Eating sandwiches is better than fast food, but you still get mostly carbs with all that bread. If you could cut down the sandwiches to twice a week and do frozen+salad the rest of the time, you’ll see a difference.

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Angela’s Avgolemono Soup

Looong ago I dated a Greek Cypriot and learned to make several Greek dishes: dolmathes, baklava, pastitsio, moussaka and avgolemono. I’d forgotten just how freaking TASTY lemon and egg soup is! Here’s my version, made with leftover chicken. Easy and really delicious!

Angela’s Avgolemono Soup

1/2 leftover roasted chicken, shredded (OR a small rotisserie, or 4 thighs, whatever you have)
Olive Oil
1 shallot, diced
3 cloves garlic, diced
1/2 cup rice, any kind
1 Tbl dry dill (or fresh if you’ve got it)
5 C chicken stock
3 small or 2 large lemons, zested (and juiced into separate mixing bowl)
2 eggs
2 Tbl fresh chopped parsley for finishing and garnish

In a good sized soup pot, put in a couple of turns of olive oil over med low heat. Sweat the shallot and garlic until soft. Add in chicken, dill, lemon zest and rice, stir and cook for a couple of minutes. Turn up the heat to Hi and add the chicken stock. While that comes to a boil, add eggs to the lemon juice and whisk until eggs are completely mixed.

Reduce soup to a simmer to allow rice to cook – about 15 minutes depending on your type of rice. Basmati took 15 minutes. When rice is done, kill the heat. Move pot to counter with the lemon/egg mixture next to it. Add in one spoonful of hot soup liquid (try to avoid rice) at a time, whisking in between to temper the eggs. Add at least 3/4 cup of hot soup to eggs, then carefully pour the eggs back into the soup pot. Stir thoroughly. There should be enough residual heat to cook eggs through, if not, put on a LOW flame to warm through. Toss in the parsley, keeping some aside for garnish. Serve.

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Chicken & Mushroom Doenjang Soup

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Chicken Doenjang Soup

This is a riff on my mushroom doenjang soup recipe. With the added protein, it's more of a meal! If you have a Chinese or Asian market, try to find the pickled mustard stems (pic in recipe). They are really delicious and add depth to this dish!
Course Soup
Cuisine Asian, Korean
Keyword chicken, doenjang, korean chicken soup, mushroom
Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 15 minutes
Servings 10
Author misangela

Ingredients

  • 1 Lb chicken thighs, bone in, skin off bake the skin for a great chicharron snack
  • 4 cups water
  • 1 tsp salt or one chicken bouillon cube
  • 1 Tbl olive oil or neutral oil for sauteing veg
  • 1 8 oz package cremini mushrooms, sliced white mushrooms are ok
  • 1 med shallot, diced
  • 3 cloves garlic, minced
  • 2 inches ginger, peeled and thinly sliced 1 Tbl ginger paste is fine
  • 3 scallions, cut in half longways then into 1.5" pieces
  • 1/4 cup Kikkoman Memmi soup base sub soy sauce
  • 2 Tbl seasoned rice wine vinegar
  • 1/4 cup Chinese cooking wine optional
  • 2 Tbl mirin
  • 2 tsp sesame oil
  • 2 Tbl Doenjang paste sub ssamjang if you like
  • 1 Tbl Gochujang paste optional if you don't like spice
  • 1 small package pickled mustard stems Chinese ingredient, optional
  • 1 Tbl cornstarch, dissolved in water (slurry) optional, but adds thickness
  • 1 lime, zest and juice
  • Scallions, cut on bias for garnish

Instructions

  • Put a large stock pot on high heat with the chicken, salt and water. Bring to a boil, then reduce to simmer for about 10-15 minutes while you prep the veg.
  • When chicken is cooked and the water has reduced by about an inch, remove chicken and strain the stock into another bowl.
  • When chicken is cool enough to handle, shred off all the meat from the bone and cut up into 1" pieces.
  • Put stock pot back on med heat and add oil to sauté the veg. Add mushrooms, garlic, shallots, ginger and scallions and sweat until soft. About 5 mins.
  • Add soup base, vinegar, wine, mirin, lime zest and sesame oil. Stir.
  • Add doenjang and gochujang pastes and stir until dissolved.
  • Add the shredded chicken, mushroom stems and chicken stock back to the pot and turn up heat to med high. Add cornstarch slurry if using. Bring to a simmer for about 10 minutes.
  • Turn off heat and add lime juice.
  • Serve with scallions as garnish.

Notes

As with most soups, feel free to add veg, rice or whatever you have floating around in the fridge. I often add leftover rice to this recipe. Peppers are also good in it. Soup is free form! 
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Scalloped Cauliflower

Great low carb way to feel like you’re eating mac n cheese! Yum! I added shrooms because I had them, they are totally optional. This would be really good with fried onions on top, too. Sadly I did not get a photo, but I will next time I make this.

Scalloped Cauliflower
1 head cauliflower, cut into 1-2″ florets
EVOO
1/2 small box of mushrooms, sliced
1 good sized shallot, diced
3-4 cloves garlic, minced
3 Tbl butter
1-2 Tbl flour
3/4 C shredded cheese (I used mexican blend)
1/2 C heavy cream
1/2 C half n half (or all cream or all half n half, whatever)
chicken stock to thin sauce if necessary
S/P
Panko w/ Cooking spray (optional)
OR parmesan topping

Preheat oven to 375F.

Blanch the cauliflower in salted water for about 8 mins or until crisp tender; drain.

In a skillet, put a coupla turns of EVOO and sautée the shrooms, shallot and garlic until everything is cooked and the shrooms let off their juice. Set the veg aside. In the same pan, add in the butter and melt, then add the flour to make your roux. Cook the flour 3-4 mins then add in the cream and half n half. Stir until it’s all combined then add the cheese. You’ll want about a cup of sauce. If it gets too thick, use the stock to thin it out a little. (I had to thin a little.) Check the seasoning on the sauce – make it just a little saltier than you think it should be; cauliflower soaks up salt.

Combine all the veg and put into a sprayed square baking dish. Pour over the cheesy goodness and make sure all the veg is covered. Put the panko on top and spray with cooking spray so it’ll brown. You can skip panko and use more cheese here if you want to keep out the carbs. I’d use parmesan so it’ll brown nicely. Cook in a 375F oven for about 30 mins or so, until it’s bubbly and the topping is browned.

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Carne Guisada

As with most of my recipes, I started with some meat I wanted to use. I had a pack of carne picada beef (a sliced then shredded cut of chuck or some other braising beef) so I was looking for carne picada recipes. Then I stumbled upon something called Carne Guisada. It has potatoes! This is my version of Carne Guisada for the crock pot. Easy and great for a cold rainy evening.

Carne Guisada de Angela
Carne Guisada de Angela


Carne Guisada de Angela

1.25# picada beef (large shred)
EVOO
1 med white onion, frenched
4 cloves garlic, minced
10 small white potatoes, quartered
1 red or green pepper, diced
1/2 tsp ea S/P
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp red pepper flakes
1 small can green chiles
1 cup chicken broth (plus another half cup towards the end of cooking)
1/4 cup red wine or apple cider, wine or sherry vinegar
2 Tbl worcestershire sauce
optional: sour cream garnish

Dredge:
1/3 cup flour
1 Tbl chili powder
1 tsp ancho powder
2 tsp cumin powder
1 tsp dry mustard
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper

Preheat crock pot on High. Spray with cooking spray and put a little EVOO in the bottom. Add onions, garlic, pepper and potatoes and sprinkle with 1/2 tsp each salt and pepper, red pepper flakes and oregano.

Dredge the beef in mixture in chunks and put on top of veg. Add green chiles on top of beef.

Check every hour or so to see if you need more broth. This should make a juicy stew.

Cook on high for about 4 hours until the beef is tender. Check your seasoning, potatoes tend to suck up salt.

Add the wine or vinegar after the cooking is done to brighten up the flavour; same for the worcestershire sauce. This stew tends to taste flat after it’s been refrigerated, so be ready to add more vinegar and worcestershire when you reheat. This is a medium spicy stew. If you are heat sensitive, cut back on chili powder and red pepper flakes. Sour cream is a lovely garnish for this stew.