Breakfast: Fried Eggs and SlowCarb Baked Beans

I love having a (healthy!) fry up most mornings, switching between bacon, eggs, smoked mackerel, sardines etc. But i always want to add some great British baked beans! It's just too much part of what a fry up is to me.

Sadly most store bought beans are pretty high carb with added sugar.

Here's how I make a great slowcarb replacement, really quickly.

In a large friying pan heat through you bacon/eggs etc. Then turn off the heat. Add half a can (drained) of your favourite pulses. I go for harricot beans, as they are really tasty and less than 1g of carbs a serving. Then simply add half a tsp of tomato paste and some pepper. A small splash of hot water will help break up the paste, and transfer the heat of pan to the beans.

Instant healthy beans, and a nice addition of fibre and added protein to your breakfast.

Got any of your own top tips? Let me know in the comments below.

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Thanks,
Liam
@slowcarbmeals

Lunch: Mozzarella salad with Pinto Beans - slow carb salad

Really quick and easy (and cheap!) Slow carb and high protein lunch.
Just a basic salad; mozzarella, tomato, cucumber, celery, basil - with a splash of olive oil and red wine vinegar. Then for the beans, just drained and rinsed half a tin of pinto beans (had the other half for breakfast, recipe to follow) then added a squeeze of lime and the tiniest bit of chilli sauce and some more virgin olive oil.
Lovely summery cold salad lunch, that was really really quick, but really tasty.

Breakfast: Bacon and Eggs - best high protein start to the day!

I love bacon and eggs for breakfast, and probably have it at least twice a week.

Here's some tips to make it healthier:

1. Cut the excess fat off your bacon, I know it's tasty, but you DON'T need it
2. Use a spray oil for the bacon, rather than pouring oil into the pan
3. Place the bacon in a cold pan and allow it to heat up as you heat the pan, this helps more fat drain out of the meat which you can remove
4. Eggs don't go well in spray oil (in my opinion) so add 1 tea spoon of oil into a corner of the pan, tilting the pan to keep it there. Allow the oil to heat through then crack the egg into the oil
5. Use a healthy tasty oil like Peanut oil

Ideally you'd also add some beans and greens to your fry-up - I'll do a future post about quick ways of doing that.

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Dinner: Simple Chilli - low and slow carb evening meal

I was a touch ill yesterday, so I wanted something really easy for dinner, and really just fancied something like baked beans and cheese (I don't know why, I was about 12 last time I had that!) but looking at the baked beans in the cupboard (my other half's) I remembered just how high carb they are, even if they do use the super low carb harricot bean.

So I threw together a really fast chilli version:

1 tin kidney beans, rinsed
1 table spoon of red pepper paste (note! This isn't a hot paste, more like paprika paste)
2 teaspoons tomato paste
1 chopped roast red pepper (from a jar)
2 teaspoons green chilli sauce (I love this as it's just literally shredded green chillies and vinegar - nothing else!)

Then threw it all in a sauce pan and brought to a simmer (adding water as needed). Left it to cook for 7 minutes (the kidney beans needed it) and then served with grated cheese.

Great meal to build you back up, and if you don't eat the whole meal in one go it stores well, and it great cold or reheated.

Dinner: Quick Roast Mediterranean Vegetables with Feta

Quick summery dinner tonight, simply cut a load of vegetables (tomato, onion, red pepper, courgette) and pluced them on a baking tray with some olive oil and grilled for 20 minutes turning every five. Then added crumbled feta and some lemon juice and grilled again until the feta was melted. Delicious!

Lunch: Greek Salad and Hummus - low and slow!

Had friends over for the weekend so plenty of great salad material in the fridge:

1 tomato
1 pickled roast red pepper
1 portion cucumber
2 spring onions
6 queen black olives
1 slab of feta cheese
1 huge dollop of hummus
olive oil/squeeze of lemon

All combined in a bowl (except the hummus that I put on the side) - great, FAST low carb meal - love it!