Low Carb Chronicles: Cobb Egg Salad

This salad is easy and delightful. It does have a great taste to it. The dressing made for it is interesting, but I liked it. (Side note: my 10 year old nephew did not like it; the salad was a bit too tangy for his taste buds. He also was not used to eating some of the ingredients.)

It probably would go great as a sandwich, which we are trying to avoid at the moment. Also, it would probably be good over a bed of greens. We ate this as a main dish one night and still had leftovers. Eat it up quickly, though, because it will not look nice later because of the avocados.

If you like egg salad, definitely try this fun twist to it.

I also like this recipe because you do not have to scroll through a book to get to it, and the site is not overrun with ads. Speaking of which, let me get through writing about the meals we are doing this week, and I will start working on a special project that does not involve linking you to the recipe website. All the recipes will be typed out right in the blog post and original! Stay tuned.

Low Carb Chronicles: Taco Stuffed Avocados + recipe to make your own taco seasoning

This recipe was a delight! I loved it. I could eat it weekly, and it is my favorite recipe thus far. I used the hot and spicy taco seasoning, which gave it a good kick. Since then, though, I found a recipe for making your own taco seasoning and have been using it for subsequent recipes. This recipe is also super easy and quick. The trickiest part of this recipe (for me) was to find the optimally ripe avocados on my grocery shopping trip, but that is always an issue with them for me.

10/10 highly recommend 

Find out how to make it here. 

Low Carb Chronicles: Jalapeno Popper Stuffed Zucchini

This is the first recipe in our explorations that Jared wanted to put in the meal rotation. I did make a mistake on my first zucchini slicing (top of the picture). The recipe called for the stuffing to be placed in between the slices, but it is hard to cut them without going through all the way. If you have chopsticks, which we did, do use them on each side of the zucchini when slicing guide your knife from cutting too far. However, we did like the mistake zucchini best because you got more stuffing. Either do it this way or we thought of making little zucchini boats next time. Add an extra jalapeno for more zest; we will do this next time. The zucchini could use a few extra minutes cooking before you stuff them to make the a tad bit softer. You can find this recipe here.

Low Carb Chronicles: Ginger Sesame Chicken

I was intrigued by this recipe because it sounded like Chinese food, and I really like Chinese food.

There are some choices in this recipe. We used soy sauce and honey.

They say it goes well with cauliflower. I agree.

We made cauliflower rice for the first time for this one.

This recipe was middle of the road - nothing to write home about (maybe my expectations are too high as they often are in life) but also not bad. It was fine.

Because there are so many new recipes I want to try and a special cookbook I want to work my way through, I am not putting this one in the rotation at the moment. However, if you think you like the flavors here, go for it. It is super easy to prepare and takes very little time.

I do recommend the cauliflower rice because otherwise it will be too soupy.

Low Carb Chronicles: Fire Roasted Shrimp Tacos (Lettuce Wraps)

So this is how we went through a head of lettuce in a week.

Pretty much we made everything into a lettuce wrap.

My inspiration was the chicken lettuce wraps at P.F. Changs. We did not quite get there (not even close) with the "crack chicken." Maybe that is why I was disappointed. I set the bar too high in my mind.

But we like shrimp.

The title was enticing.

Crock pot meals are nice, but this one you have to time carefully since it is only a three hour one if you have work that day.

Note: You can make this recipe both keto or paleo friendly.

I used multi colored peppers because I had them and made them more rainbow colored because I feel better about eating the rainbow and it not being the Skittle rainbow.

I skipped the cilantro because it is not my favorite flavor.

The extra toppings make it better - jalapeños especially.

I used some habanero salsa that we had on hand to give it a little kick. That's one way to experiment with the heat level with this.

And we did not use the tortilla, just lettuce.

I actually liked it better without the lettuce and just ate the leftover shrimp the rest of the week.

Make sure you drain your tomatoes well or it will be soupy.

This recipe was alright. It was not the best or worst shrimp taco I have ever had, but out of the week's explorations, it was my personal favorite. I also really like shrimp.

If you want to try it, the recipe is here. You have to scroll all the way to the bottom to get to it.

Low Carb Chronicles: "Crack" Chicken

With a name like "Crack Chicken," it makes you wonder how this stuff could taste. The website claims that you cannot stop eating it. I was intrigued.

I was looking for low carb recipes and needed something I could do in a crock pot because life is still chaotic and not unpacked.

One mistake I made with this was that I was using a bag of chicken that was in the freezer and did not clearly have the serving size for the chicken breasts. Had I found the kitchen scale that I later found in the kitchen, I would have used that. So I estimated the ounces in the chicken breast and messed up. I ended up having too much meat in the pot I later realized, which altered the taste.

Probably because of the meat mishap, I found this bland and definitely had no problem stopping eating it.

We used lettuce for wraps. Keep following and you will see how we went through a head of lettuce in a week as I chronicle these low carb recipes.

I would try it again with the correct chicken ratio. Jared liked the extra meat, but more flavor would have been appreciated. We doctored it up with more seasoning, and I later added relish to it to make it more like a chicken salad for later lunch renderings. It also is much better with jalapeno slices added to it for a kick.

It was not my favorite low carb recipe, but it does deserve a second chance since I messed up the meat ratio.

Try it for yourself and see if you think it deserves its name.  Let me know what you think. Recipe is below.

https://www.delish.com/cooking/recipe-ideas/a26845155/keto-crack-chicken-recipe/

A Crawfish Conundrum: Is It Us Or Them?

I love crawfish – a lot. It ranks up there in my top five favorite foods. I am always down for a pile of them except this one time recently.

I won’t reveal where I was because I do not want to bash this restaurant, but let’s just say they offered 10% off for a favorable Yelp review, and the discount was not worth it. It takes a lot for me to pass up a chance to coupon, but my word is worth more than that.

They put the crawfish in a bag with the seasoning and shook it. I, and my husband, have only eaten crawfish that is boiled with the seasoning.

This, on the other hand, had all the seasoning on the outside of the shell. You had to lick the crawfish to get any seasoning. We also asked for the maximum spicy level, and it still was not very hot.

And there was butter. So much butter. Yeah, sure lobster and butter go well, but crawfish? Even sucking the crawfish head offered no flavor.

I felt nauseous. I could not finish them and ended up peeling them in hopes that they could be used for another dish later. In the end, the dog ate these nasty crawfish because I do not like to waste food. And the dog eats pretty much anything.

I thought it was a fluke.

Then the same thing happened in a new seafood restaurant that I wanted to try out in Columbia. This time I told them to leave the butter far away.

Hmm, this is interesting. I have never experienced this at all, and I have eaten a lot of crawfish. Now I am getting multiple experiences of this shaking of the seasoning thing. What is happening?

The third time I experienced this was at a place that sounded promising because of its name. Jared and I preemptively asked how the crawfish were made because of what had happened recently. We tried ½  a pound just to check them out.

The seasoning was still mostly on the outside of the crawfish.

Three times in a row is too much to discount as a fluke so I am asking – is it us or them?

How do you season your crawfish? Do you put the seasoning in when you boil them or do this shake in a bag thing?