Who needs a recipe?

You don't always need a recipe to create delicious healthy low carb lunches and dinners. You can grill any type of meat or fish and serve it with a pile of tasty vegetables or salad. If you miss your potatoes, replace them with cauliflower purée. A fillet steak served with garlic butter (always make your own - just add crushed or sliced garlic to softened butter - to avoid hidden additives) and a salad is gorgeous and perfect for when you need fast food. Or what about salmon darnes, oven baked with lemon in tinfoil parcels.

We eat a lot of salads in our house, particularly during the Summer. Not just as an accompaniment to meat or fish but as a complete dish in their own right. Sometimes we cook a ham and serve it sliced with mixed leaves, cucumber, tomatoes, peppers, nuts and seeds. Or for lunch I might have lettuce with pears, stilton and walnuts. If you're particularly hungry, have a Niçoise salad because it contains tuna, egg and olives.

We tend to have a roast dinner on a Sunday. We serve it with roasted vegetables, mashed turnip or carrots. You can't have normal gravy as it is made with flour but you can make an alternative sauce using sour cream and stock, heated gently together. Another favourite of ours is to spatchcock a chicken, marinate it in Frank's sauce and then roast it. We serve it with homemade coleslaw.

Steak and salad

Spatchcock roast chicken with homemade coleslaw

Chicken, Chorizo and Prawn Paella

I created this recipe yesterday and Ronan and I tested it for dinner. It's more 'saucy' than proper paella made with rice but its just as tasty.

Ingredients:

1 medium cauliflower, grated (cauli rice)

1 onion, sliced

1 red pepper, sliced

3 cloves of garlic, sliced

2 chicken breasts, diced

150g chorizo, sliced

10 large prawns (raw if possible)

2 tbsp tomato purée

1 chicken stock cube

2 pinches of saffron

fresh chilli or chilli flakes to taste

1 tbsp coconut oil

1 cup of white wine

salt and pepper

1. Fry chicken in the coconut oil at a low heat until cooked
2. Add sliced onion, garlic, pepper and chorizo and sauté for 5 minutes
3. Add grated cauliflower and stir to coat with the chorizo oils
4. Add wine, stock cube, saffron, tomato purée, salt and pepper, chilli and 2 cups of water
5. Add prawns and keep stirring until cooked (they will go pink!), adding more water if required
6. Serve immediately

N.B. If you choose not to eat nightshade foods, exclude the red pepper, chilli and tomato purée

Bolognese stuffed peppers

This recipe uses the same bolognese sauce as my Leeksagne but I've included it below for convenience. Stuffing the peppers with the sauce was Ronan's idea!

Ingredients:

1 onion, chopped
10 button mushrooms, sliced
400g lean minced beef
1 400g tin chopped tomatoes
4 tbsp tomato purée
1 beef stock cube
1 tsp Stevia
3 red or orange peppers or a mix of the two
2 large buffalo mozzarrella balls, sliced
20g grated cheddar

1. Pan fry onion until soft
2. Add mince and cook until browned
3. Add chopped mushrooms, tomatoes, tomato purée, stock cube and Stevia
4. Mix well and simmer for 10 minutes
5. Slice peppers in half, down the centre
6. Place peppers in an ovenproof dish and fill with bolognese mixture
7. Cover each pepper with sliced mozzarella
8. Bake in a preheated oven at 200°C for 30-40 minutes until cheddar is melted and browned
9. Serve on their own or with a green salad

N.B. This recipe is not suitable if you avoid nightshade foods.