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.

Got a low carb / slow carb / 4hb blog?

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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.

Follow me on Twitter @SlowCarbMeals or comment below!

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!

Breakfast: Boiled eggs and peppered salami - fast slow carbs!

I've been away and really busy for a while, so not had chance to post, but hoping to post daily again now.

I love boiled eggs (well I love all eggs) but boiled eggs are just so simple - in fact I've figured out the timing and heat setting so that I can set them going when I get into the shower and have them done perfectly once I'm out.

For a really quick high protein breakfast I've paired the eggs with peppered German salami. If your supermarket has a deli try buying it from there rather than prepacked, as it's sometimes about 1/3 the cost, and can have lower nitrates.

Nitrates are the reason you don't want to eat too many bought cold meats, as most mass market ones will have them added, to both kill germs and to keep the nice pink colouring. Nitrates aren't good for you at all in large doses, so where possible eat you own homecooked cold meat. This week I'm going to be having a go at making my own home dried salami - I'll post here and let you know how it goes.

Low Carb (High Protein!) Alcoholic drink...

So after not posting for 3 days (I was at a conference and my TOTAL lack of organisation led to me eating junk carbs for at least one meal each day... and even have a few beers) I'm back on the (low carb) wagon.

Today is Saturday and /should/ be my carb binge day, but since my week has been lame I'm skipping it.

I'm just getting ready to go out and meet some friends, but fancied a drink first. But all I had in was some beer I'd put aside for today and some spirits but no mixers (and the only spirits I could drink straight are pretty high carb so they are out).

SO what to do?

More LOW carb iced coffee! low carb snack: iced soya milk coffee

With:

30g of protein power (vanilla) - this does add 3.5g of carbs but also adds 22g of protein so not too bad if I only have one. Or two...

Small slug of some JD
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Someone had left it at my house (I don't like JD, not even with diet coke) but this worked well. I'd have preferred a brandy, so it would be more like a brand alexander, but the JD worked fine. I'd only suggest 1 shot of JD to a large glass of iced coffee, as I tried too and had to totally water it down with more soya milk, as it tasted too strong for me to enjoy.

So there you have it, low carb, high protein, skinny, soya, iced, JD whiskey, coffee!

Any other inventive '#lchp' drinks you would suggest? Comment below or tweet me at @LowCarbLiam

Breakfast: Mackerel and high protein iced coffee to go!

Bit of a catch up post here.

Wednesday morning I was heading out of town for a 3 day conference. I knew it was going to be a mission  to stay low carb at the conference unless I was well prepared.

Sadly, I had a lot of other things going on, and wasn't able to be prepared, so I made sure I left on a high.

I was up at 5.30 (which is very early for me, I normally see 5.30 from the other side!) and had to be quick so I a lovely bit of smoked mackerel, cold from the fridge. I normally heat it through in a frying pan, but is was lovely cold, and my cat liked it far more than when it's hot!

Smoked mackerel has nearly ZERO carbs (0.3g per 100g) and is 20% protein.

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For the journey I took a skinny soya iced coffee - low carb snack: iced soya milk coffee - but added 30g of Optimum Health Whey Protein powder (vanilla flavour). 30g adds just 3.5g of carbs with a huge 22g of protein. So along with the protein in the light soya milk and the mackerel, it was a great start to the day!

Dinner: Chinese stir-fry with Asparagus

Super low carb dinner tonight - going to be away from home for a couple of days and pretty sure it's going to be tough keeping low low carb and high protein while I am away (we'll see!)

So tonight was a really fast stir-fry with asparagus.

I love cooking asparagus like this:

Cut the woody stems off the asparagus, but try to leave the stems as long as possible. Rinse then throw into a large heavy frying pan with 2 teaspoons of olive oil and then turn the heat up high. Let the asparagus fry on one side then turn and leave for another 30 seconds. Then /carefully/ pour on 1 tablespoon of water (it might spit!) and place a lid on. Let simmer for 30 seconds then remove lid and allow water to evaporate. You can add soy sauce or salt and pepper now.

Along side this I quickly pan fried a store bought bag of mixed stir-fry vegetables, and added garlic and soy sauce.

I then served it all with hot chilli sauce and a splash more soy.

Really tasty, filling (there was LOADS) and ZERO carb dinner!

Low Carb Snack: Iced Soya milk Coffee

Boiling here in London today, and luckily there is light soya milk in the fridge, nearly totally carb free.

So make coffee with 1 tsp of instant coffee, and just a splash of boiling water. Mix in well, then add half a glass of soya milk from the fridge and top up with ice. A large glass is best, more room for ice! Give a good stir and leave for a few minutes to chill through.

You can add splenda etc but I try not to touch artificial sweeteners. If I really feel I need it, I add half a tsp of honey, be sure to add sweetener to the hot coffee, before the milk and ice is added, or it won't dissolve.

Max of 2.5g of net carbs if you use honey, 0g if not ;)

Breakfast: Mackerel and egg - zero carb breakfast

Had my dad over and he is now eating gluten free, so thought we would have some fish for breakfast.

I love mackerel, it's a great fish, really cheap (about 80p a portion) great for you and almost instant to prepare and cook.

You can eat it cold, but I love it heated through in a frying pan (no oil needed), once you've heated it on high on one side for about 2 or 3 minutes, turn the fish over and move to the other side of the pan, then use the oil from the fish to fry and egg. The salty tasting oil heats to a really high temperature and cooks eggs amazingly!

For my dad I added a couple of slices of gluten free toast, but for me both the fish and the egg are more than enough for a filling low carb high protein, high GOOD fat breakfast. Cup of black coffee and you are ready for anything and everything!

Dinner - NO CARB Indian Lamb Burgers, plus chickpea veg curry and salad

I LOVE lamb, and it was a lovely day so I fancied a BBQ.

Sadly by the time I'd got everything together it was going to be too slow before it go dark, but never mind, was still a lovely summer meal.

Chickpea Veg curry:

In a saucepan throw:

1 chopped onion
3 copped garlic
1 chopped courgette
1 tin of chickpeas (drained)
1 teaspoon of my friends curry power
1 teaspoon of tomato paste
3 teaspoons of red pepper paste
splash of water

Turn on the heat and let it simmer while you get on with the lamb burgers

450g of lamb mince
1 teaspoon of gram-masala
1 teaspoon of course mustard
1 finely chopped onion
2 closes of chopped garlic
1 teaspoon of paprika

Mix together with hands and makes about 6 burgers - place in frying pan and fry WITHOUT oil, there will be enough fat in the lamb. Frying these burgers is OK - lamb fat is good for you, but frying them helps release the fat from the meat - drain off to lower the fat content if you are watching fat too - but I'm not worrying to much about fat and am loosing plenty of weight. Cook until just brown.

Salad:

1 carrot chopped into thin slices using a vegetable peeler
1 red bell pepper thinly chopped (I used a roasted and pickled one)
1/4 thinly sliced cucumber
1 tablespoon of yoghurt
1 teaspoon of mint sause

Mix well! Can add a squeeze of lemon or lime if you want it tarter.

There you go, a really filling protein heavy dinner, that's pretty fast (sub 30 mins) that is very low carb.

If you want me to add the carb, protein and fat details for these or any of the recipes please just comment below.

Lunch: Chorizo and Cheese Salad

Really fast fresh salad, I could have thrown in 1/3 a tin of kidney beans if I was hungrier - to up the protein and fibre, but was still pretty full from the nut smoothie I had for breakfast!

Chopped  Chorizo (50g)
Chopped cheese (30g)
Olives
Pickled chillis
Pickled Gherkin
small tomato
cucumber
small carrot

Lovely!

Breakfast Peanut smoothie

Really nice, just created this from what we had in the fridge.

2 tablespoons of Fromage Frais
small handfull of mixed (unsalted) nuts (I used almonds, peanuts and cashews)
8 icecubes
2 teaspoons of peanut butter
1/2 teaspoon of honey

Place all in a blender and blend until smooth.

Really tasty start to the day.

Low Carb meal ideas - why I started this

About 5 months ago I read '4 Hour Body' and was reminded how great a low carb diet can be. I'd done Atkins in the past and really enjoyed it and lost a good chunk of weight.

But I'd found it hard to stick to, and over time I'd given up and slowly put all the weight I lost, back on.

The diet in '4 Hour Body' seems more up my street, plenty of pulses (which I love) and a carb heavy day once a week.

About 3 months ago I started the diet, and I haven't looked back since. I've found it pretty easy to stick to, and have lost about 10kilos so far (dropping from 22% body fat to 15% - with no exercise.

This blog isn't here to promote 4 Hour Body, or to replace it, but just a place for me to collect together all the different low carb meals I eat day in day out. I was going to just record this for myself, but I thought it would be worth sharing, as it took me a fair while to find quick and easy low carb high protein snacks and meals that i really enjoyed.

I hope you find this blog useful.

Liam