Dana's blog

This soup is amazing. It's my clone of a soup I tried at the Ellicottville Brewing Company in Ellicottville, New York. If you're ever in western New York (or even western Pennsylvania) the EBC is well-worth a trip out of your way.

Like all soups, it's best made with homemade broth. I'd just made broth Saturday, so soup for supper seemed mandatory.

African Peanut Soup

1/2 large onion -- chopped
1/2 cup diced celery
2 teaspoons butter
1 1/2 quarts chicken broth -- or three 14 ounce cans
1/2 pound boneless, skinless chicken thighs, cubed

Daily Menu February 18th, 2008

Breakfast:
Jalapeno jack omelet with salsa

Lunch:
Leftover African Peanut soup (This is too good. I'll post the recipe separately.)

Snack:
Sugar-free dark chocolate

Dinner:
Roasted leg of lamb (let it marinate for an hour or two before roasting in garlic olive oil and lemon juice)
Turnips roasted in the pan around the lamb.
Roasted asparagus

Beverages:
Tea
Sparkling water
Dry red wine

Daily totals: 1809 Calories; 101g Fat; 101g Protein; 58g Carbohydrate; 18g Dietary Fiber, 40 grams usable carb

I'm home! I'm home! I got in in the middle of the night Wednesday, and spent a few days recovering. I'm still tired and achy, though I've started cooking again.

To address a question that came up since I've been away:

Yes, I've tried shirataki, both the "traditional" and "tofu" varieties. They've earned a place in my fridge, though I use them probably once a month or less.

Finally checking in. I've been in San Diego since January 30th, and haven't had a quiet moment.

Well, finally! Somebody answered the question "What is a calorie?" I was starting to wonder if it was just a slow day on the internet, or what...?

Got the answer right, too -- a calorie is a unit of energy, though I prefer to phrase it a "measurement of fuel." Just as we buy fuel for our cars in gallons (or, in the rest of the world, in liters) we buy fuel for our bodies in calories.

Daily Menu, January 24th, 2008

Breakfast:
Monterey jack omelet topped with salsa

Lunch:
Leftover rotisserie chicken, wrapped in romaine lettuce leaves

Snacks:
Sugar-free dark chocolate
Sugar-free Reese's peanut butter cup
A raw carrot

Dinner:
Curried Chicken Salad -- the remains of the rotisserie chicken diced and mixed with diced celery, a couple of sliced scallions, half an apple, also diced, toasted sliced almonds, and light mayo seasoned with curry powder and garlic.

Beverages:
Tea
Sparkling water
Dry Red Wine

Now that I've posted the back column about 100 calorie snacks, here's the quiz question: What is a "calorie?"

More tomorrow.

Got it done. The manuscript went to McGraw-Hill Wednesday night. I confess I spent yesterday doing very little indeed. And I need to spend this weekend cleaning my house!

Then, I'm afraid, I have to prepare to leave town. I'm going to San Diego for a couple of weeks to oversee the rehabbing of my Dad's condo. I'm hoping to take a laptop along and blog from there. Can't guarantee it, though; my laptop needs a new fan.

Anyway, I'm still in recovery mode, so here's a column reprint for right now:

***********************

Book goes in tomorrow. Racing my deadline (which they already extended by two days.) Barely taking time off to eat and sleep. More soon.

Back to my manuscript.

Daily Menu January 17, 2008

Breakfast:
A Monterey jack omelet topped with chunky salsa

Lunch:
I didn't really have lunch, I had instead several snacks over the course of the afternoon

Snacks:
Sugar-free dark chocolate
About 3 ounces of leftover pork steak I warmed up
A carrot -- Nick the Pug ate the top.
Late afternoon I was starving, so I had two fried eggs
Half a slice of the new low carb bread I tried, with butter

Dinner:
Pork chops browned then simmered with sliced onions, apple, and green pepper, with some chicken broth and Worcestershire

Beverages:
Tea

What with all this talk about low carb bread, I thought I should post about my recent experiments with baking my own.

I included several bread-machine recipes in 500 Low-Carb Recipes. They all worked great for me, or I wouldn't have put them in the book. But of all the recipes I've ever published, they're the ones that have turned out to be most problematic. For every reader who has written me raving about the bread, another has written to say that they couldn't get it to rise for love nor money.

I'm up to my eyeballs with this book; I haven't even be entering stuff into my program. But today I had

A couple of Coconut-Chocolate Chip Cookies with my tea when I got up. They've got vanilla whey protein in 'em, so they keep me going for a while. Which is good, because I'd totally spaced out that I had a massage client scheduled at 11. I was just getting ready to cook something when he showed up.

For years now, I've been recommending Natural Ovens Carb Conscious Bread, because it's hands-down my favorite low carb bread. It was my favorite low carb bread even when there were lots of choices on the market. It has the taste and texture of a good, hearty whole grain bread -- and it makes a killer grilled cheese sandwich. I've been buying it six loaves at a time, and stashing it in the freezer.

Daily Menu January 13th, 2008

Breakfast:
Had a huge Sunday breakfast of Poor Man's Steak and Eggs -- a 6 ounce hamburger patty and three fried eggs. Wasn't hungry for a looong time!

Lunch:
A couple of leftover spareribs from the night before

Snacks:
Made a batch of Coconut-Chocolate Chip cookies, working out the recipe for the new cookbook, so I had a couple (and no, I'm not posting the recipe. If I post all the recipes for the new book as I come up with them, I have a feeling McGraw-Hill will be unhappy with me.

Sugar-free dark chocolate

Dinner:

Daily Menu, January 12, 2008

Breakfast:
An omelet filled with the disappointing brie dip from the night before. It was better as an omelet filling, but it still needs work.

Lunch:
A pan-broiled hamburger patty, with ketchup, mayo, mustard, and a pickle.
2 Fiber Rich crackers with butter

Snack:
Sugar-free dark chocolate
Sugar-free mini Reese's cup
Granny Smith apple

Dinner:
Spareribs, oven roasted, with barbecue rub and a little Stubb's barbecue sauce (Stubb's is the lowest-sugar bottled barbecue sauce I've been able to find, and it ROCKS.)

Beverages:
Tea