Chapter 21

Ten Easy Ways to Simplify Your Low-Carb Cooking

In This Chapter

Planning ahead and staying prepared

Letting someone else do the work

Using quick and easy cooking techniques

T ricks to simplify your low-carb cooking include everything from stocking up on low-carb staples to investing in handy kitchen gadgets. This chapter includes several ideas to make your time in the kitchen a little easier and get you out of there a little faster, without sacrificing great low-carb meals.

Keep an Ongoing Shopping List

Buy one of those list pads with a magnet on the back, stick it on your fridge, and keep a running list of low-carb staples and ingredients you run out of. Keeping a list on the fridge saves you a ton of time when you go grocery shopping. You don’t have to rack your brains in the produce section trying to remember what you used up three days ago. Nothing is worse than having your heart set on trying a new recipe and finding out midway through making it that you’re short some ingredients because you didn’t make a list.

Plan Meals in Advance

Do yourself a big favor, and don’t wait until 4:30 p.m. to figure out what you’re going to make for dinner tonight. Planning your meals in advance is a biggie if you want to be successful in your low-carb healthy lifestyle. After you get accustomed to planning your meals, you’ll find that doing so not only simplifies your low-carb cooking life but keeps your weight in check. Planning ahead helps keep you from eating whatever is available, which could easily be foods loaded with carbs. (See Chapter 20 for more on planning meals.)

Stock Your Kitchen with Low-Carb Basics

Make sure you have a well-stocked low-carb pantry. I don’t expect you to initially spend a couple hundred dollars stocking your pantry. As you continue on your low-carb path, I think you’ll find it natural to pick up an extra package of frozen veggies just in case you don’t have fresh ones on hand the next time you stir up a meal. (See Chapter 3 for stocking your low-carb pantry.)

Buy Food Already Prepared for You

The grocery store offers a ton of real timesavers these days. No longer do you have to spend time chopping veggies, because they come pre-chopped in the frozen food section and in the fresh produce section. Tasty lettuce and greens combinations are already washed and pre-packaged — just add dressing. The deli is another good stop for things including freshly sliced cheeses and fresh-cut deli meats like turkey, chicken, and ham, which aren’t usually full of preservatives. The deli folks have all the nutrition available, but you usually have to ask for it.

When you’re working late, you may want to pick up one of those broasted whole lemon chickens, which are tasty and quite acceptable in your low-carb lifestyle. Just watch out for all of those prepared salads in that ready-to-eat case — stay away from them, please. Also be wary of precut fruits, because they’re often overpriced.

Prepare Your Veggies in Steamer Baskets

If you don’t have a stainless steel steamer basket, I strongly suggest you buy this kitchen gadget. Steamer baskets are cheap, and you can adapt them to various-sized pots that are already in your cupboard. Steamed veggies maintain almost all of their nutritional value. (Slide over to Chapter 12 for some great veggie recipes.) After you eat crisp-tender veggies from a steamer basket, you’ll never want to see boiled and waterlogged veggies again — much less eat them. You can also use your steamer for fish and shellfish.

Have Parchment Paper on Hand

Parchment paper is wonderful stuff. If you’re not familiar with its many advantages, give it a whirl. You can use it to line cookie sheets and baking dishes or to wrap food in (see Chapter 9 for a great halibut recipe cooked in a parchment packet). Parchment paper is coated on both sides, usually with silicon, and comes on a roll like wax paper. You just tear off what you need. You’ll find it at the grocery store with the aluminum foil and wax paper. Parchment paper may look delicate to you, but don’t let looks fool you: It withstands high heat, and whatever you cook on it won’t stick to the paper! (And check out Chapter 20 for some great packet recipes that use foil.)

Consider a Slow Cooker

If you don’t own a slow cooker, I encourage you to make this low-carb investment. Preparing healthy, delicious meals is a major goal of your low-carb healthy lifestyle, and a slow cooker helps you accomplish just that. If you don’t have experience with one of these little timesaving gadgets, you don’t need long to get the hang of it. It’ll be one of your many new low-carb best friends (besides me, of course). See Chapter 16 for some great low-carb slow cookin’ recipes.

Get Out the Grill

I can’t cook without my outdoor gas grill, and I love my tabletop inside grill. Both grills make low-carb cooking so easy and quick, and they cut fat because it just drips away. Outdoor grilling makes everything taste better, and there isn’t much that you can’t throw on the grill — steaks, chops, chicken, fish, shellfish, veggies, and even some fruits for desserts. (For some pretty awesome grilling suggestions, scoot on over to Chapters 11, 17, and 20.) I bet you already have an outdoor grill, but you may want to consider investing in an inside tabletop grill too. These grills are fairly inexpensive, and you don’t have to buy one of the fancy schmancy brand-name ones. Grillin’ is great and very compatible with your low-carb lifestyle.

Organize Your Low-Carb Recipes

In addition to keeping Healthy Carb Cookbook For Dummies handy in your kitchen, I know you have other sources for low-carb recipes. Because variety is one of the major keys to success in your low-carb healthy lifestyle, consider organizing not only your lifestyle but your recipes too. If you can, designate a shelf just for low-carb books. If you have loose recipes printed on 8 1/2-x-11-inch paper, three-hole punch them and put them in a binder. This organization doesn’t have to be fancy. Grab some binder dividers and organize your recipes by category. If you cut recipes out of a magazine, tape them on a piece of 8 1/2-x-11-inch paper so your recipe pages are uniform. If you want to be fancy, color-code your sections with different colored paper. You may want to start two notebooks — one for recipes you’ve tried and are definitely keepers and another one for new recipes you want to try. You’ll no longer look all over the place for that recipe when it’s time to get cookin’!

Eyeball Portion Control

Measuring food amounts has never been something that I’ve been interested in doing — in the literal sense of getting out a measuring cup. But you and I both know that if you don’t measure somehow, it’s easy to super-size your portions, which isn’t going to get you where you want to be with your low-carb lifestyle. With just a little practice, you can eyeball portion sizes in comparison to things such as the palm of your hand, baseballs, tennis balls, and other familiar items. Here’s a list to get you well on your way to making portion decisions:

2 ounces cheese = a pair of dominoes

1 teaspoon butter = tip of your thumb, or 1 dice

3 ounces fish, meat, or poultry = the size of a computer mouse

1 tablespoon oil = tip of your thumb to the first joint

1/2 cup veggies or fruit = half of a tennis ball

1 cup of veggies or greens = your fist

1 medium piece of fruit = a baseball

1 tablespoon salad dressing = half of a golf ball