RouxBDoo's Low Carb Gumbo

Hi friends, in an effort to help others, I am posting my “Low Carb Gumbo” recipe I have developed.  As some of you might know I have been diagnosed as a Type 2 Diabetic.  I have adopted a Low Carb lifestyle and am enjoying reworking some of my old recipes.  This recipe for gumbo contains everything from my regular gumbo except for a roux, or rather the flour for a roux.

A Cajun dark roux is made for flavor, not for thickening.  The darker the roux, the less thickening power it has, whereas a blonde roux will thicken a soup significantly.  The okra will thicken the gumbo and the Filé powder (if available) will also thicken it, if it is fresh.  I don’t think you’ll notice a big difference.

If you serve it with rice you are defeating the purpose.  This Gumbo is Low Carb, not Low Fat, nor Low Calorie.  It tastes like your good ol’ Nawlins’ Gumbo Ya-Ya (chicken, andouille, and shrimp) just not as dark.  Be choosy when selecting your smoked sausage and find one without so much sugar and carbs in it.  Always check the labels.  The yield of this recipe is about 6 servings of 10 oz each.  Each serving around 5 grams of carbs.  Like every Gumbo, it’s always better the second day reheated and simmered  Yes, all you purists I added some tomato in the form of Rotel.  We'll just call it Creole-ish.

Remember, the key to a successful Low Carb lifestyle is don’t let yourself get bored, don’t let yourself get hungry.  Good Luck Friends!

Ingredients

½ (2 oz) small onion, diced (4g carbs)
1 lg stalk celery, diced (.5g carbs)
½ cup green pepper, diced (2g carbs)
1 tbs minced garlic (1g carbs)
1 tbs Worcestershire sauce (3g carbs)
½ lb Andouille sausage (4g carbs)
2 green onions, diced (2g carbs)
2 chicken stock cube (or 2 tbs stock powder) (2g carbs)
½ cup Rotel tomatoes (2g carbs)
1 cup okra (4g carbs)
½ rotisserie chicken, skinned, boned and rough chopped (0g carbs)
8 - 12 oz shrimp (cleaned and deveined) (0g carbs)
6 cups water (0g carbs)
¼ cup or ½ stick butter (0g carbs)
½ tsp liquid smoke (0g carbs) *opt.
1 tbs Filé powder (3g carbs)
½ tsp each salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper, dried Italian herbs (1g carbs)

Serving size: 8-10 oz
Total servings: 6
Net carbs: under 5

Melt butter in a pot on MED heat, saute your onion until brown, add garlic, celery, green pepper, and spices.  When it has started to cook down add your okra.  Stir this a bit to work the “Shine” off the okra. Now, add your smoked sausage, chicken meat, and stir well for about 5 mins.  Add Rotel, Worcestershire, liquid smoke, stir well to further combine all the ingredients.

Set the 6 cups of water on the stove in a pot and bring to a boil.  Add your chicken stock and blend well.  If you have time you can skip using the stock cube and make stock from the bones and skin of the chicken, along with any onion or celery scraps, bring to a boil and simmer for about 20 minutes.  Strain all the scraps and bones from the stock and use 6 cups in your gumbo.  *Never use green pepper scraps in a stock.

Add the stock to the gumbo pot. Bring up to a boil and then simmer well for an hour.  Just about 15 mins before serving add your filé powder, green onions, and shrimp.  Check your seasonings and salt, then let this wonderful gumbo relax a bit while the shrimp are getting cozy and your filé is doing it’s job thickening the soup up.

Enjoy this soup without worrying about the carbs.  Take care and check in again soon!

RouxBDoo

Remoulade Blanc or RouxBDoomoulade!

Freshly Berled Scrimps with Savory Remoulade Blanc

Hello friends, sorry I have been gone for so long.  I am staying on my "Low-Carb" diet and have now lost 50+ pounds (I have 90 to go).  I am loving coming up with new versions, of my old recipes, that will fit into my diet.  He's a simple one.

I love boiled shrimp and I can have as many as I need for satiety. I can't have red sauce or cocktail sauce though (too much sugar in the ketchup base).  So I remembered the white remoulade sauce like I have had in the past at Galatoire's.  This is my attempt to recreate one similar.  I hope you enjoy it.  I will be posting my low-carb gumbo soon, and you will love it!!!  Sorry again for my absence.

Remoulade Blanc

½ cup mayo
½ cup sour cream
1 tbs horseradish
1 tbs creole mustard
1 tsp Tony Chachere’s
½ tsp garlic powder
½ tsp black pepper
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
1 tbs Louisiana hot sauce

Combine all and chill for 1 hour.  Place 6 - 8 ounces of peeled, cold, boiled shrimp onto a bed of shredded lettuce.  Cover generously with sauce. Top with chopped parsley and a lemon wedge!

Stick with me, more to come soon!

RouxBDoo

RouxBDoo's Low Carb Pizza

This one is made on a Low Carb Pita Bread.

Hey friends, sorry it has taken me so long to get this recipe out.  I promised you new recipes in the Low-Carb category, so here's one I have been making for a while.  I love pizza, and the key to staying on this diet is finding way to eat the foods you love, the low-carb versions.

Let me start by stating, I love Dollar Tree.  They have great prices, (or a price), and I find some good bargains there.  Like I heard one woman say, "I like the Dollar Tree cause I don't have to get dressed up for some place fancy like Walmart"... OK.

Anyway, "the Tree" is a great place to get some of your ingredients for this pizza.  They have packs of Hormel Pepperoni, (enough for 2 pizzas) for a buck, good deals on canned mushrooms, and they have a spaghetti sauce that has the lowest carbs on the market.  I watch all carbs.  I use the Voletti's Garlic Marinara.  It has 4 net carbs per half cup, and I use less than 1/4th cup for this.

You will also need Low-Carb Tortillas.  These can be found at Walmart or your local grocery store.  I love Mission Carb Balance soft flour tortillas.  They have 6 net carbs each.  I have also used low carb pita or flat breads for my pizzas, some of them are as low as 4 carbs,  Look around and see what's available to you, but I prefer the tortillas.

Your Mozzarella cheese has less than 1 gram per 1/4 cup, I use about a half cup.  The mushrooms are 1 net carb per 1/2 cup.  I use Frigo Fresh Shredded Parmesan Cheese because it is real parmesan cheese and not whey powder and salt.  Make sure you get whatever brand from the refrigerated section.

So the whole dish has between 11 and 12 carbs, and it's delicious.  So here we go.

1 low carb tortilla - 6g
1/4 cup (or less) of Marinara sauce - 2g
1/2 cup mushroom pieces (can or jar) - 1g
8-10 pepperoni slices - 0g
2 tbs parmesan cheese - 1g
1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese - 2g

Be creative with your pizza, just watch carb counts.

Place the tortilla on a small rack or cookie sheet, spread you sauce, mushrooms and pepperoni, and then cover it with cheese.  Simple as that.  a shake of dried Italian herbs and garlic powder over the top and place it in a 350º oven for however long it takes for the cheese to melt on top and brown a bit.

You can toss some spinach leaves onto this, use cooked bacon, sausage, hamburger, or ham as your meat (or all four).  Olives, and other veggies, just know that onions and others do have carbs, but not much for what you're doing.

I think you'll enjoy these little guys for lunch.  This makes up about half of my carbs for the day, I try and stay around 25-30 daily.  Be creative with your low carb lifestyle.  It's the only way to make it a lifestyle and not just a diet.   - Enjoy!

Low Carb Curried Cauliflower Soup

Hello my friends, I have embarked on a new journey.  I am currently being treated by a doctor for Type 2 Diabetes.  My love for carbohydrates has gotten the best of me.  I have to change my ways and eating habits or I will die.  That is a sobering fact for someone who loves to cook and eat, and even write blogs about cooking and eating.  I've started on a low carb diet, and so far in the first week I have lost 15 lbs.  My sugar has come down, partially due to medicine, but it is due to the low-carb lifestyle.

I am conveying this very personal information to all of you because diabetes is a killer. Maybe you have been experiencing excessive thirst or numbness in your extremities, if you do, PLEASE consult a physician. I waited too long to see a doctor about it, but I will be okay and hope to reverse the diabetes diagnosis and it's effects.

My challenge now, is to learn to cook low-carb and make it tasty and flavorful. I have been researching low-carb recipes and coming up with some of my own. This recipe today is one of my favorites that I have created.  The entire pot of soup contains between 28 and 30 grams of carbs. It will serve 4 comfortably.  I estimate each serving to have around 7 - 8 carbohydrates in it,  and these are fairly large servings.  I love curry and wanted some soup the other night, something similar to mulligatawny. 

I hope you will enjoy this recipe, and keep coming back to my blog. I will be posting mostly low-carb recipes, but just to keep it interesting, I will throw something "normal" in every post or so, just to sate your cravings!  The ingredients with carbs have the number of carbs they add to the recipe listed behind them. Some dry spices do contain trace elements of carbohydrates in larger quantities, so add 2 grams of carbs for the entire amount of dry spices and herbs.  I have now edited this recipe since first publishing it to make it completely vegetarian.

Ingredients


1/2 cauliflower (diced or broken up) 9 gm


1/2 avocado (diced) 3 gm


4 green onions 4 gm


1 tbs minced garlic 4 gm


2 tbs Olive oil 0 gm


2 tbs coconut oil 0 gm


2 cups warm water



2  cups canned coconut milk 2 gm


4 tsp curry


1/4 tsp allspice


1/4 tsp cayenne pepper


1/4 tsp clove


1/4 tsp nutmeg


1/2 tsp black pepper


1 tsp cumin

1/2 tsp salt

2 bay leaves


1/2 cup RoTel 4 gm


1 tbs sriracha sauce
 0 gm

Total Effective Carbs = 26

Preparation

In a 3 to 4 qt Dutch oven on MED-HI, melt the coconut oil and add the olive oil. Break cauliflower into small florets, and sauté in the hot oils once they're very hot. Add the garlic, green onions, and cilantro. Stir well to avoid burning, now add all of your dry spices and herbs. 

Once the cauliflower and onions look tender, add the avocado to the pot. Stir to combine. After a few minutes of stirring, add your 2 cups of warm water. Now add your cashew milk, coconut milk, and stir well to distribute the spices into the liquids. 

Add your RoTel tomatoes, sriracha sauce, and give everything a good stir, and turn down to medium and let cook for 30 minutes. Now you can either use a potato masher, immersion blender, or dump everything into your food processor and obliterate it. Return the soup to the pot now that it has been puréed, stir well, cover, and turn down on LO. Garnish with sliced green onion tops, and let cook for 30 minutes.

Serve with naan bread or rice, but be aware that these add carbs. I garnished mine with roasted pepitas, (pumpkin seeds) or a dollop of sour cream.

Field Peas and Grits

Today's post is not a recipe, but instead I am just posting a picture of what I prepared for lunch.  As many of you know, I love grits.  Most people who say they don't like grits, I believe, have never had good grits, cooked with seasonings and butter and a bit of cream. Most people have only had grits that were just dumped in boiling water with no salt or pepper that taste like wallpaper paste.

People will go in an Italian restaurant and pay lots of money for polenta, but then they turn around and say they don't like grits. Go figure?

Anyway, I found a can of Field Peas with Snaps the other day in the grocery store.  I added some bacon grease, a little garlic, and some seasoning to the peas and then I cooked them down to where most of the water/liquid had cooked out.

I then cooked a pot of hominy grits and had a wonderful lunch.  It is rare if I have a meal without meat.  As for the grits, I'm going to give you a quick recipe for making them. I said there would not be a recipe in this post, but I can't help myself. So here goes…

1 cup water
1 cup milk
1 tbs butter
¼ tsp each of salt, pepper, and garlic powder
½ tsp parsley flakes (opt.)
½ cup quick grits (not instant)

Combine the first 5 ingredients on the list in a saucepan, and bring to a boil. Next, using a whisk, add your grits to the boiling liquid, stirring briskly so they don't clump up.  Turn down the heat and cook for about another 10 minutes, or until the grits have absorbed all the water and are thick.  Be sure to stir the grits occasionally while they are cooking.  After they're done, I like to let them sit for about 10 mins with the lid on.  Now, serve and enjoy.

For the record, I prefer stone ground hominy grits, as well as stone ground yellow corn grits, but these quick grits are very good, especially if you're in a hurry.  I'd never use instant grits though.

Oh, by the way, check out this book if you're a grits lover.

Glorious Grits: America's Favorite Comfort Food Hardcover - by Susan McEwen McIntosh

Lots of great recipes here for you to try.  I found it for $3.99 at an Ollie's closeout store, if you have one in your area.  Also there are some good prices on some used copies on Amazon.  Click HERE for the listing.

RouxBDoo

Redneck Prairie Belt Sausage Rice

Steamy, tasty, Prairie Belt Rice

I love one-pot rice dishes, and this has become one of my favorites.  Yes, yes it's about as "low-brow cracker" as you can get.  I'll talk you through this great dish but first let's talk about sausages.

I love sausages of all types, smoked, breakfast, cured, link, pattiy, deer, and whole hog, just to name a few.  One of the bastard cousins of the sausage/hotdog family is the lowly Vienna  Sausage.  The Vienna sausage is not much different in make-up as the hot dog or frankfurter.  Actually in Europe, according to Wikipedia, the Vienna sausage is the length of a hot dog and a bit thinner.

Here in America my Dad and I used to take them with us when we went fishing or hunting.  They have a long shelf life and are very portable.  Daddy pronounced them "Vye-Eena" sausage, or "Vye-Eenie Weenies", as do alot of people in the South.

My favorite

A friend told me her Mom, or someone in her family, made a rice dish with these type of sausages.  The brand she could not remember, but is had a red, blue, and yellow can with a creepy lookin' kid on the label.  I tracked it down and discovered Prairie Belt Smoked Sausage.  These are the best of these type sausages I have had, and they make an excellent rice dish.  I believe Dollar General store carries them at all locations.  You can also use Armour or Libby's Vienna Sausages in a pinch.

No, be prepares for some possible ridicule if you bring these to a dinner party.  They are, however, a great accomp, accom, accompn... side dish for chili.  So, put your Billy Bob teeth in, don your fake mullet, and get that neck all reddened up and let's make Prairie Belt Rice.

2 5-oz cans of Prairie Belt Smoked Sausages
1 cup rice
2 cups water
1/4 tsp salt, pepper, and Tony Chachere's
1/2 tsp dried parsley (optional)

Empty the cans of sausage into a sauce pan on MED/HI, one that has a lid that you can also transfer to the oven (no plastic handles).  Using a wooden spoon, roughly mash up the sausages into bite-size morsels and pieces.  Give them a good mash, this helps flavor the rice later.

With Mustard on it... Mmmm, Hmmm.

Make sure you dump the gelatinous stock in with the sausages.  Bring this little bit of stock up to temp and pour in the two cups of water.  Add your seasonings and bring to a boil and hold for 5 minutes.  Now stir in the rice and let it cook on high, stirring often to prevent sticking or clumping.  Let the rice go for 5 minutes, then cover with a lid and turn down to MED to MED/LO (about 3 or 4).  Now you'll cook the rice covered for about 10 minutes, stirring about every 5 minutes.

The rice should now have absorbed the stock and water.  Give it one more good stir, put the lid back on, and place in a 300° oven for 15 mins.

Once finished cooking, fluff the rice with a fork and let it steam for about 5 minutes with the lid on.  Serve and enjoy.  For an added touch, try a little yellow mustard on it, Oh Law is that ever good.

It's Winter, It's Time for Meatloaf!!!

Mmmm, tasty Meatloaf!

Well Christmas and New Year's are over, and I have had about as much ham and turkey as I can take. Don't get me wrong I love turkey, and I really love ham, but there comes a time when you have to say no and shift gears.

It's wintertime and there's no better comfort food then meatloaf… simple, glorious, meatloaf.  My Mom used to make some of the best meatloaf I had every tasted, and I have to say, my wife made a meatloaf one time that I still dream about.

My local grocery store has great meatloaf but they put way, way, way too much dang ketchup on top of it.  I saw a recipe not too long ago online, and I thought I would adjust it a bit too suit my tastes and publish my version.

Here you go, this is a big one by the way, it should feed about five or six people to start with, and it'll leave plenty for sandwiches.

Here we go!!!

Ingredients

2 lb ground beef

1 lb ground pork

1 small onion

2 ribs of celery

4 green onions

½ green pepper

5 cloves of garlic

1 tbs salt

½ tsp black pepper

½ tbs Tony Chachere's

1 tsp Italian Seasoning

1 tsp garlic powder

2 tbs Worcestershire Sauce

2 egg (beaten)

1 tsp hot sauce

1½ cup breadcrumbs

Glaze

¼ cup brown sugar

¼ cup ketchup

1 tbs Worcestershire Sauce

1 tsp hot sauce

2 tbs Creole mustard

1 tsp Tony Chachere's

½ tsp allspice (opt)

½ tsp black pepper

Preparation

In a very large bowl, combine the pork and the beef together and mix well.  Rough chop up your small onion, green pepper, green onions, celery, and drop them, and your garlic cloves, into the food processor.  Give them a few good pulses until they're ground up pretty small, about the size of coleslaw.  Add them to your ground pork and beef.

Add your breadcrumbs, two beaten eggs, Worcestershire sauce, hot sauce, and all your herbs and spices.  Now you need to mix the entire contents of the bowl together very well.  Gather the meat and everything up into a big ball and transfer it to a large cake pan you have lined with foil and sprayed the foil with cooking spray.

Make the glaze, by combining all ingredients in a bowl and make sure the brown sugar is dissolved well, stir until the glaze is smooth.  Set aside for now.

Smooth the loaf into a long, cylindrical, mound making sure it's neat and even.  This not only makes for a ice presentation, but helps it to cook evenly.  Put it in a 350º for 20 mins.

After 20 minutes, slide the meatloaf out and spoon the glaze over the top of it.  Spread this out with a spoon or brush until the entire loaf has a thin layer on the top and sides.  Now return the meatloaf to the over for 1 more hour, a thermometer should read 160º.

When it's done, wait 10 mins. after removing it from the oven before you cut it, so the juices won't run out.(Be careful when using your thermometer, once you pierce the outer layer, juices are gonna come oozing out of there and could make it dry.  You can plug the hole with the end of a wooden skewer.)

If you don't have a food processor, try your best to chop these veggies up as small as possible into a fine mince or use a grater.  These really do make this meatloaf recipe.  Be sure and try this, and don't let your meat loaf!