Low-carb series: The Low-Carb Cookbook Review

Today I'm reviewing the Low-Carb Cookbook by Fran McCullough. I'm planning to make this part of a series on low-carb cookbooks.

I'm looking at cutting down on sugars as an interesting health and culinary challenge. I love to try new ways of cooking food or planning meals. What is living a life without carbs all about? It's not all burgers all the time. In fact, I feel that low-carb recipes make me think more about eating vegetables and using seasoning and flavor to make up for sugar and starch.
  
I would definitely recommend this book as a beginner's guide to low-carb eating. The author clearly walks us through low-carb food groups and how they can be prepared. For example, there's a section on vegetables that gives about 3-4 different ways to cook each vegetable. I like that the book did not rely on weird substitutes for high-carb foods, but instead capitalized on existing, familiar foods like eggs, cheese, vegetables, and seasonings to make satisfying meals. Along with the recipes, this book lists menu ideas, like the South American Menu, the Italian Menu, and the Simple Dinner menu, which saved me time in planning.

I also appreciate a good index, which this book has. I tell you, I get pretty annoyed with a book with an index that has enough cross-references to make me feel like I'm reading a Choose Your Own Adventure book.

What I've tested: I've made a variety of beef and pork dishes, 3 different ways of cooking zucchini, a cauliflower side dish, some spicy shrimp,  a greek salad, and some fun things like chimichurri sauce, spicy mayo, and corn chips. I'll post some of these up eventually. These all turned out incredibly well, with simple, successful flavors, with the exception of the corn chips. I did not have a good baking sheet, so my chips did not brown evenly and got burnt on the edges.

However: I would not recommend this book to those who are focused on 30 minute-or-less meals, or for those who like to make one dish that can be the entire meal. What I found in this book were recipes that required a fair amount of marinating, cutting, boiling, steaming, baking, and pureeing before they were ready to be eaten.


For example: I made steak with chimichurri sauce with baked zucchini for dinner one evening, and it took me two hours. Cooking is a hobby for me, but even I was frustrated with how long it took. True, I could have done a little bit more on the preparation side, but the book didn't provide any estimates of how long the meals would take to prepare, either. Many of the dishes I made had a long cooking time, taking at least 30 minutes or more to bake. I learned my lesson and ended up making many of the recipes on a weekend when I had some down time. 

The beginning of the book discusses the health benefits of low-carb. However, it's geared towards dieters and ignores people who might be interested in low-carb for other reasons. So, for a book whose "target" audience is presumably calorie- or carb-conscious, the book surprised me when it didn't list calorie or carb counts for any recipes. The author throws out descriptions like "low on carbs!" but she doesn't give any numbers to back it up. If you crave the numbers, you're not going to find that in this book.

Lastly, the author's writing style grated on my nerves. "Nothing's stopping you from serving these potato skins with sour cream." Sure it is. I don't have sour cream in my house!

In conclusion, this book gets 3.75 stars out of 5 for me. Great recipes, poor delivery.

Brunch in DC: Crab Benedict

Barracks Row in DC is one of my favorite places to go for brunch. Historic charm, close to Eastern Market, plenty of walking-around-sights, cozy places to go, great people watching, and so on. I recently went to one of the restaurants down there, Cava, and had some awesome Eggs and Crab Benedict. 

I think you've probably already guessed what I did the following Sunday. Yup, I tried to replicate this on my own at home. Let me say...I surprise myself sometimes. This was awesome.

Essentials:
-1 english muffin, halved, toasted
-2 poached eggs
-1/3 to 1/2 cup of warm hollandaise sauce
-1 slice cooked bacon
-1/2 small can crab meat, briefly cooked in some butter

Try a recipe here for more info (not the exact one I used but close): Hollandaise sauce with Eggs Benedict

I tried a couple of things I'd never tried before, poaching an egg and making hollandaise sauce.

First of all, eggs benedict is apparently supposed to be with canadian bacon. If you ask me, I think canadian bacon is dumb, because not only does it look like ham and taste nothing like bacon, it couldn't even think of an original name for itself, and it is tough and rubbery. Nobody wants to have to saw through a sandwich at 1pm in the brunch-morning. That is why I used real bacon and crab meat, the way nature intended. 

Secondly, big ups to Em, who had a post awhile back on poaching an egg. Stirring is so essential. My cookbook said "make a whirlpool." On the first try, boyfriend and I went whirlpool-overboard, and my egg almost whirled out of control. The egg somehow stayed together though. On the next 3 tries, I slowed my whirl and stirred it constantly to keep it moving and non-sticking.

Finally, hollandaise sauce was fun. The recipe link glosses over this, so I will mention that my cookbook beat it in to me that the water has to simmer, not boil. The sauce is basically egg yolks, so I had to cook it really slowly so it wouldn't turn into scrambled eggs.


Now get on with your weekend.

Shrimp with Orange-Avocado Salad

Recipe for grilled shrimp with avocado and orange salad:

This meal was super fast to make. Even though there were a lot of preparation steps with the oranges and shrimp, once that was all done, the cooking took less than 5 minutes. Those red things are cherry tomatoes in case it's hard to tell.


Leftover cherry tomatoes in the orange dressing make an awesome topping for mashed potatoes. Frozen potato balls from Trader Joe's, to be specific, because those are surprisingly delightful.

Pasta e fagioli

If you woke up today and thought that you wanted nothing more than a bowl of soup with a big ol' stick of cinnamon in it, today is your lucky day:

This one's called Pasta e fagioli, or Pasta and Beans. I get the feeling this is like the Italian version of chili, because there are just that many ways to make it.

This isn't the exact recipe that I used, but I love the picture (it looks way better than how mine turned out): Pasta e fagioli on Food52

The essentials:
-small pasta (like tiny shells)
-beans
-broth
-bacon, ham or pancetta
-vegetables (carrots, onions, celery, tomatoes)
-spices (bay, garlic, rosemary, thyme, and/or cinnamon)

I found a few different recipes for this soup, and one of them called for cinnamon, so I tried it. It was weird. Not unpleasant, but weird.

There were a few action moments and a lot of simmering. I heated the vegetables, added the broth and beans, thickened the soup with blended beans, and stirred in the pasta. The cinnamon only went in for a few minutes because that's really all it took to get a big pot of cinnamon and pasta and bean soup.

This soup was also like an amazing chia pet. After I left it in the fridge for a couple of days, the pasta expanded to ginormous proportions! Abracadabra, I've got soup.

Earl Grey Oven-Fried Chicken

Anyone else love Earl Grey tea? Those fragrant leaves have got me hooked.

I don't have to just drink it-- you can make chicken with tea, and here's one recipe that does just that. Instead of sweet tea, I just used Earl Grey.

This is the last post from the "lost posts" archives of recipe photos I'd taken. But if you like this stuff, don't worry. I've got some wintery dishes from recently that I'll be posting soon.

Shrimp Linguine in White Wine

Today's recipe for Linguine and Shrimp comes out of the "Muscle Chow" cookbook from Men's Health. Yeah I know, the herbs on top of the pasta make it look pretty manly.

My boyfriend brought this cookbook home, and I was actually a bit surprised at how useful it was. It's supposedly geared towards guys who want to be healthy but don't really know how to cook. But I suspect, maybe it's for their girlfriends after all? (Is it that hunky guy on the cover that does it?) The recipes tend to be based on a few simple ingredients that can be assembled quickly without a lot of extra sauces. It doesn't stoop to "here's how to boil an egg" for dummies, though. I've tried some other good recipes for roasted sweet potatoes and steak and carrots from this book.

This particular recipe is OK, although not spectacular. Most of the flavor relies on white wine and tomatoes, and it's ultimately not terribly satisfying. The recipe claims that this is a great way "to show friends that eating healthy isn't that difficult," which I definitely disagree with. First of all, it's pasta, which is arguably not all that healthy. Secondly, I don't think this dish would impress anyone with its bland flavor, so I will not be making it for my friends. I will, however, be posting it on my blog, so if you are interested in making a mediocre shrimp and pasta dish, you will be well equipped to do so.

The essentials for Linguine and Shrimp:

1) Sauteeing a base of onion/garlic/red pepper

2) Adding in white wine

3) Cooking seafood (shrimp or clams) and tomatoes in the "sauce"

4) Tossing that with linguine

Scrambled Eggs Florentine

What's for breakfast from the recipe archives? Today's recipe is Scrambled Eggs Florentine.There's no recipe, just some common sense ingredients cooked together.

The essentials:
1) Chop up some spinach.
2) Mix the spinach with scrambled eggs before cooking them.

Meatball Sandwich with Provolone

Our next contestant on What's In Lauralicious's Recipe Archive is...
A Meatball Sandwich with Provolone Cheese:

And yes, thanks for asking, it is from my favorite issue of a certain cooking magazine. How did you know?

Hail to the Redskin...Potatoes

This wouldn't be a DC-area blog if I didn't at least once mention the Redskins. Today's recipe that I've pulled up for you all is Redskin Potatoes, along with some steak and roasted carrots. A real manly, football watching kind of meal. A meal that requires some grunts just to fully enjoy it.

Normally I would say something along the lines of "boy, I wish I could remember where I got this recipe from," but I am not going to say that, because this recipe bombed. Too much potato, not enough flavor. But hey, at least it didn't miss any field goals.

Spice-Roasted Shrimp with Cilantro Pesto Quinoa

Next up from the recipe & photo archive is Spice-Roasted Shrimp and Quinoa. This is another one from my favorite issue of Food & Wine. I told you, I was well past mildly obsessed with that issue.

While the recipe called for a homemade pistou, me growing, cutting, and processing all manner of herbs was not going to happen. A container of fresh cilantro pesto from the local co-op did the trick. The basil plant on my balcony lived to see another day. 

Here comes the Red Snapper...Tacos

Today's recipe from ye olde photo archive is a recipe for Grilled Red Snapper Tacos from Grilling: Where There's Smoke There's Flavor by Eric Truille and Birgit Erath.

The Essentials:

1) Marinate the fish with garlic, cumin, chili, oregano, lime juice, oil.

2) Grill up that fish.

3) Taco it with mayo and avocado. That's right, taco is a verb.

A couple of things went through my mind when I saw the title of this recipe. Most importantly: Red Snapper sounds like "Hot Stepper." Today's recipe, brought to you by Ini Kamoze:

Spinach Salad with Cornbread Croutons

Yesterday, I waxed poetic about Peppered Cornbread. Today's bonus recipe is Spinach Salad with, yep, you guessed it, Cornbread Croutons, made from the leftover cornbread. The recipe is here at Food & Wine.

It's nothing special, but it takes the cornbread withdrawal shakes away.

Peppered Cornbread

Today's recipe from the archive is Peppered Cornbread from Food and Wine magazine. Holy moly, this stuff was a winner. Fluffy, flaky cornbread with spikes of fresh pepper was just unbelievable. The picture is not great, but if any good has come out of the US producing massive quantities of corn, it is this cornbread.

I am not afraid to admit that I had an unhealthy obsession with the September issue of Food and Wine magazine. I think I made at least a third of the recipes just from that one issue. I tried to move on and make some recipes from the November issue, but it just wasn't the same.

But I digress. Freshly ground pepper has got to be one of the most miraculous spices out there. I would eat fresh ground pepper-flavored ice cream if they made it. Why not put it in a cornbread? It makes so much sense!

Wait, wait! There's more cornbread coming your way. Just hang on until tomorrow's bonus recipe!

Goat Cheese Medallions

Today's recipe from the archive is a recipe for Goat Cheese Medallions from BigOven.

If you have ever thought that your life did not have enough medallions in it--perhaps you were looked over for that Olympic Gold Medal--fear not, because now there is Gold, Silver, Bronze, and Goat Cheese. Hang that around your neck and eat it. Don't forget the spinach and ratatouille. But seriously, this is pretty good.

The Lost Posts

I glanced at my Blogger Dashboard today and noticed I had a ton of recipe posts that had been floating around in Draft Purgatory---for weeks. There's no sense in letting a good post go to waste, so I'll post one a day until I run out. These posts are around the time that I got my new camera, and I was (and still am) pretty excited about learning how to use it and mastering some photography skills.


The first recipe is Curry Fried Noodles, from The Pasta Cookbook by Jeni Wright. 
While some of my shots are hit or miss, I really love this photograph of the curry noodles. It makes them look way better than they actually tasted. It was crazy spicy! The recipe either massively overstated how much curry paste was really necessary (2-3 tbsp? Is that a lot?) or the chicken that I used didn't soak up the paste in the same way as tofu would.

The essentials: 

1) Meat or tofu heated in a wok with curry paste

2) Green beans and peppers stir-fried

3) Rice vermicelli soaked in hot water

4) All of it mixed together in the wok with soy sauce

And the runners-up are...

The second runner-up in my Holiday Dessert Line-Up was Cheddar Cookies, which came in a very close second indeed.

The texture of the cookies resembled a shortbread cookie, but instead of a wallop of sugar, they were a punch of cheese and red pepper. They were another hit with everyone.

The only thing “wrong” with these cookies, is that by looking at them, you would have no idea that they are not sugary cookies. They are great unless you have absolutely no idea that you are eating cheddar cookies, in which case, you are just in for a big surprise. It's the perfect recipe for a practical joker.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I have no affiliation with the Pee-Can or the Pe-Cahn Party.

The third place in my Holiday Dessert Line-Up goes to the “Chewy” Chocolate Cherry Cookie. I had high hopes for this recipe, but it fell flat, and by flat, I mean not chewy at all. The cherries were made a valiant effort to win me over, but the texture of these was so disappointing that I cannot recommend this recipe. Whomp-whomp.

That's it for my holiday baking this year. I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday. Happy New Year!

And the winner is...

In my last post, I mentioned a few of the desserts that I was thinking about making during the holidays.

I narrowed it down to three items that I ended up making for my Holiday Dessert Line-Up: Chocolate Truffles, Cheddar Cookies, and Chocolate-Cherry Cookies. Which item was the best? The winner is...

Chocolate truffles!

Chocolate truffles were fun to make, and they were a hit with my friends and coworkers. 

I decided I wanted to make dark chocolate inside, and a combination of milk chocolate and white chocolate coating on the outside. I also used some herbs and other seasonings, such as cinnamon, homemade orange zest, mint and peppermint, and cocoa powder, to top the truffles.

The recipe suggested to chop up the chocolate as small as I could before melting it, so I decided to pound the chocolate into little tiny pieces by whacking it with a wooden spoon. Is there special equipment needed for this recipe? Heck yeah - earmuffs! 

I was often asked if these are easy to make. To that I would say...yes and no. They take awhile to make, because you have to wait for the chocolate to cool, but each step only takes a few minutes. The hardest part was rolling the dark chocolate ganache balls (the filling) into melted chocolate because the melted chocolate didn't coat them as smoothly as I would have liked. The easiest part was making the ganache balls - rolling the pasty chocolate into balls is just as simple as it is to make cookies.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of the Holiday Dessert Line-Up which will feature Cheddar Cookies and Chocolate-Cherry Cookies!

Holiday Sweets

While looking for a fantastic cookie recipe to make during the holidays this year, I came across so many tempting recipes that I'm still mulling over which one(s) to make for parties and gifts. I'm going to narrow it down to about 2-4 that I'll use for different purposes. I thought I'd share a few with you folks, in no particular order.


Poll: What are your favorite holiday cookies/sweets? You can mention ones from this list, or share some others that I haven't included here.  

1. Truffles: Truffles are classy and sumptuous. I've also never made them before, so what excites me the most about this recipe is trying something new. Some examples are this Chocolate Truffles recipe, one for Variations on Truffles, and Nutella Truffles.

2. Fruit Jellies: these remind me of candied fruit slices, and while they're not a traditional holiday candy, they look so tangy and sweet that I'd love to give them a try.

3. Cheddar Cookies: this, too, could be perfect. When I saw this, I thought, yesssss! It combines both the awesomeness of cheese and sugar! I've got less of a sweet tooth and more of a savory tooth, and this is just different enough to be memorable and fun. I love that pecan in the middle, too.

4. Pistachio Pastry Twists: These would be great for some holiday baskets. They might be a bit too big as pictured to do as an hors d'oeuvre for a party, but if they could be made smaller, they might work. I like that they can be made with different fillings. And who doesn't love puff pastry?

5. Biscotti: This would be another cookie that'd be great as a gift. It'd also work well to send in the mail, since they look pretty sturdy. Here's one for Cookie Biscotti and one for Dark Chocolate-Dipped Anise Biscotti. 

6. Fudge Sauce: It's a huge jar of chocolate, enough said.

7. Chewy Chocolate-Cherry Cookies: this one looks like a "safe" yet still delicious choice. It's just different enough from the standard chocolate chip cookie but not as risky as the cheddar cookie or the anise biscotti. What am I saying, risky? It's a cookie, for crying out loud!

8. Chocolate Icebox Cookies: This looks simple, and I like that it can be made ahead of time.

Stuffed Poblano Peppers

After I went to Oyamel for Restaurant Week this summer, the delicious chiles featured on the menu inspired me to try making a chile pepper recipe at home. I came home with poblano peppers that week from the farmers' market. Today's recipe is for Stuffed Poblano Peppers with Beef, based on this recipe (FineCooking). Let me just sing the praises of poblanos here for a moment. Poblanos are the best peppers in the world, because they are slightly spicy, but not obnoxiously so, smell fantastic, and let's face it, they are the cooler cousin to the more pedestrian bell pepper.  

While the original recipe uses chicken, fajita beef is what I had in my freezer, so obviously I made a substitution. Obviously, it still tastes good that way. 

Step One: Make the tomato puree: 

 Step two: Char, slice, and clean the peppers. An odd process, as I couldn't help but feeling I was doing something really unsavory to these poor peppers. (The yellow one is just a regular pepper, not a poblano).  

Step three:

Put the puree in the rice. 

step 4: Stuff the peppers and blah blah blah. 

Stuff your face with this stuff.

Grilled Salmon with Black Beans

From the recipe files of summer, here's one for Grilled Salmon with Black Beans.

It falls firmly in the "weekday night" category - not amazing enough that I'd make it for people visiting for dinner, but fairly healthy and different enough from starch/meat standbys. I would make the black bean mix just on its own as a side, actually. I have a love/hate relationship with Trader Joe's (based around a story about a used band-aid and a pack of tortillas...), but their Cuban Black Beans are awesome and I wholly recommend them for this dish.