Ham and Swiss Panini

We all love sandwiches from time to time, they are easy to make and somehow very satisfying.

Finding a bread that is low in carb and makes a good sandwich can be difficult.  There are Cleo’s oopsies of course which are wonderful, and you know how much I like Joseph’s Lavash bread, but sometimes you need something hardier.  Enter Laura Dolson’s Focaccia -Style Flax Bread.  I love this bread recipe just as written, but I just have to play around with everything.  I’ve made many, many sweet versions and several savory ones as well.  My favorite has got to be Jalapeno.  It’s this recipe that I’ve used for my Panini.

Ingredients:

• 2 pieces Jalapeno Flaxbread( I cut mine into 18 pieces)
• 2 slices thin sliced ham
• 2 slices Swiss cheese
• mustard or mayo
• butter

Method:

1. Slice both pieces of Jalapeno bread horizontally so you have 4 slices of bread
2. Cut ham slices in 4’s, dry off if needed.
3. Cut each piece of Swiss into 2 pieces
4. Melt butter in small frying pan, toast the “inside” of the flaxbread
5. Add mustard or mayo to the inside of the bread
6. Add cheese to 2 slices , then ham, and remaining slices of cheese.
7. Top with remaining bread.
8. Place in frying pan and weigh down with something heavy.  I used cans. Flip and toast other sides.

Serve while hot, with fresh veggie sticks and dip, or nice hot bowl of soup. 

Once you’ve made them once you will find yourself playing around with all kinds of flavors.

Busy Bee

Well this week I've been busily cooking away. Our local Tom Thumb had chuck roasts on sale this week. So I made a bee line and bought two gorgeous roasts and had several more ground into hamburger. While I was there I was able to score a huge jicama, a beautiful eggplant, and chayote squash.

Once home the ground meat needed to be worked up. I ended up with 3 packages of taco meat, 2 packages of stuffed pepper meat, 2 pizza kits, and 2 packages of lunch sized burgers. Not to bad for $20.

Tuesday we cooked a big pot of cabbage ( a whole head), squash ( yellow and zucchini) sauteed in butter with onions, Eggplant Alfredo and Jicama with lemon ginger sauce. So the week of side dishes is taken care of. I took a bowl of baked beans out of the freezer for Cindy.

I made Lemon blueberry flaxbread yesterday, along with roast beef stir-fry for dinner. I "riced" shirataki noodles and cooked them right in with the veggies and meat. It was just too good. I ended up eating too much, thankfully it was really low in carbs, but still over eating isn't a good thing.
I've been keeping up with my daily exercises and the trips to the store. Man am I sore, but it's a good sore, and the bonus is I lost 3 more pounds this week... Yeah!!!!

Some changes

I started my new low carb eating plan in May of 2007. By October I had lost roughly 60 lbs. Since then it's been up and down never going below my lowest. I'd like to say I'm great at counting and recording all my meals and watching my counts like a hawk. I'd like to but then I'd be lying. I've cheated, gone completely out of control, and skimmed by. But even when I'm doing great. Keeping my carbs low, drinking all my water, avoiding diet cokes, seemingly everything I should be doing. I just can't break that number on the scale.

So, I've decided that since I'm not losing anyway, I'm going to make it easier on me. From now own I will cut my carb count down to between 10 and 20. BUT I'm no longer counting any carbs from non-starchy veggies. Yep your read that right, in my book veggies are now free foods. Of course I'll still not be eating potatoes or other starchy foods. But in my book they aren't veggies anyway, they are starches.

When I was a kid growing up, we had a protein source, a starch and a veggie at almost every dinner. Corn and potatoes did not count as vegetables. My mom called them starches, just like rice and pasta. So to me that's what they are, not vegetables at all, just merely starches.

My reasons for doing this are simple. 1) I'm lazy and this will mean less to count. 2) This will ensure that most of my carbs come from healthy nutritious non starchy veggies. 3) It just seem wrong to me to limit vegetables. I know some people say we could live without them, but what kind of life would it be with out cabbage, okra, salad greens and spinach? Not a life I want to live anyway.

So that's the way I'm going to play it from now on. With things like dairy, nuts and seed are anywhere from 1-4 net carbs per serving, or 1 serving of lavash bread being 4 net carbs. This new plan will make it impossible not to get the bulk of my carbs from veggies and that's a good thing right?

I'm so hoping this will work, but the only way I know to find out for sure is to put it into action. So far so good, but I only started yesterday.
Yesterday I had
Breakfast 1: Pork roast ( I know but I just wasn't hungry)
Snack: an ounce of roasted almonds (2)
Lunch: ChocoPerfection bar (2) and 1/2 ounce of walnuts (1) I've almost never eaten a whole bar at once before. But it was just what I wanted. Not the best lunch but it's what I had.
Dinner 2: A bowl of left over chili ( new system net carbs 2) with cheese ( 1) sour cream (1) and lettuce (0) lavash bread chips (4)
So I stayed down to 13 carb + veggies. The chili had squash in it, plus I had a good bit ( at least a cup) of romaine lettuce with it.
Not exactly what I was hoping I'd eat, but I know my carbs were low and I drank a ton of water and tea, no coke at all and even got my 30 minutes of strength training in.
This morning I started my day out with a bowl of cabbage and more pork roast... nummy nummy We'll have to see where I go from there, but if I can stick with my plans for the day, I should have more veggies, and better carb choices, at least that's what I have planned.

Stuffed Meatloaf

I made these into mini loaves and cooked enough for everyone to have 1 for dinner and wrapped the rest in plastic wrap and froze them for another night. Could top with sauce if you like, but we like them without and it saves on carbs.

Meat loaf
2 lb. ground meat
¼ grated onion
½ cup Bread crumb mix (1 slice l.c bread, 1 cup parmesan cheese, 1cup ground pork skins)
1 egg
Salt
Pepper
Garlic powder

Mix all together until well combined. Flatten on a sheet of wax paper to form a square or rectangle. Add any of the listed stuffing ingredients making sure you don’t over fill. Using the wax paper to help you, roll the meatloaf into a log(like a jellyroll). Seal ends and shape to secure the whole thing. Place on a cookie sheet and bake at 475* for 30-40 mins.

Stuffings
Cheese, shredded
Chopped mushrooms
Chopped bacon
Spinach, fresh, torn into bite sized pieces
Ham
Tomato sauce
Rotel tomatoes
Olives
broccoli
any veggie you like really