Daal

 



Daal means lentil and the term is used to designate Indian dishes made with lentils. You can find plenty of recipes e.g. here.

I happened to have a bag of dried split yellow peas in my pantry, so I soaked them overnight and made this daal with peas, lentils and beans. I also threw in some ground pork, since we happened to have some, but normally this is a vegan recipe.

In India, this would be eaten with rice or bread, but on a low carb diet you just eat it as such, or with a side salad.

Low-carb breakfast, option 7

 

Contrary to what most people might think, the traditional English breakfast is in fact both very healthy and, with slight modifications, an excellent diet option!

According to the website British Life and Culture:

"The traditional English breakfast consists of eggs, bacon, sausages, fried bread, baked beans and mushrooms. Even though not many people will eat this for breakfast today, it is always served in hotels and guest houses around Britain. The traditional English breakfast is called the 'Full English' and sometimes referred to as 'The Full English Fry-up'."

The only changes needed in order to make the full English breakfast into a low-carb meal is to completely leave out the bread/toast and to have the tea either black or with cream (instead of milk) and with sugar substitute instead of sugar. All the other elements are allowed. By the way, fried/grilled tomatoes are not mentioned above and I love to include those as well.

Enjoy!

Note: The photo is not by me, but is from the website British Life and Culture.

 

Chili Con Carne

As mentioned in the previous post, pulses (beans, peas, lentils, chick peas) are an excellent addition to a low-carb diet. This means that one of my favourite foods of all time - chili con carne - is back on the menu!

There are many ways to make it and you can find lots of recipe options on-line. You can also make this as a vegetarian or vegan version and it's just as delicious. Chili can of course also be made without beans if you wish. No matter how you make it, it's truly delicious!

Here's one recipe option:
http://southernfood.about.com/od/groundbeefchili/r/bl50812k.htm

Traditional Finnish Pea Soup

In Finland it's traditional to eat pea soup every Thursday. Since reading Timothy Ferris' book The 4-Hour Body, I discovered that it's also a fantastic low-carb diet food. According to Ferris, pulses can and should be eaten on a low-carb diet.

If you live in Finland, you can buy this soup in a can, but since I no longer live there (I now live in the Czech Republic), we make this soup ourselves from scratch. It takes a while to make since you need to soak the dried peas over-night and let it boil for several hours, so it's a good idea to make a very large batch while you're at it. You can freeze it if needed - however, we've never needed to do that because the soup is so delicious that we end up eating it all in just a couple of days (it's my husband's favourite dish!).

It's traditionally made with pork, but you can of course leave that out and make a vegetarian/vegan version.

You can find the recipe on-line in English, e.g. here:
http://www.finnguide.fi/finnishrecipes/recipe.asp?c=5&t=0&p=163

Hope you like it!




 

Low-carb breakfast, option 6

This breakfast option is nearly identical to the one a few posts ago, with the exception that the omelette is made with chopped tomatoes and onions. The cheese is again Gran Moravia, but you can use any cheese you like. The drink is green tea, without anything. If you do want to put something in your tea, the best options are lemon or a sugar substitute. Honey is really healthy, but it does have carbs. It's a much better option than sugar, though.

You can make an omelette with almost anything, e.g. ham, mushrooms, almost any kind of vegetables or cheese, etc. It's a wonderful, healthy and delicious low-carb diet option. In fact, it's a great option for lunch as well. In that case, you could have a lovely, green salad with it.

Grilled chicken and broccoli with garlic

Here's a nice and easy lunch or dinner option: grilled chicken and broccoli. This chicken is actually the ready-made kind from the super-market, but since it's cooked fresh every day, it's the same as cooking it yourself.

I used to not be a fan of broccoli at all, until I moved to China and tried broccoli with garlic - it's amazingly delicious! It was my favourite thing to eat in China. It's very simple to cook - you can find recipes on-line for it.

I have adapted it slightly, so I add e.g. a bit of sesame oil and quite a bit of soy sauce. These are optional. In China they use MSG (monosodium glutamate), which makes food taste great, but it's reportedly not very healthy, so I've never used it.

I put the broccoli into boiling water for just a few minutes, then wok or fry in a pan with a really generous amount of chopped garlic and a bit of salt and black pepper. The broccoli is supposed to remain crisp, it's not mean to be boiled until soggy, which really makes it taste great and of course retains a lot more of the vitamins as well.

Low-carb breakfast, option 5

Here's another yummy low-carb breakfast option: omelette. I made this one with white bell peppers and Gran Moravia cheese (from the Czech Republic). It's similar to Italian grano padano or parmesan (parmegiano reggiano).

I served it with olives, feta cheese and lightly grilled cherry tomatoes. Really delicious!