Mock Dreamland Chicken
Going out to eat can be a little difficult when you are doing low carb! Luckily, I’ve found a restaurant that seems to “get” that!! We stumbled upon Becks as a low carb option when my dad wanted to go there for his birthday. When we went, we all got burgers, but we noticed someone eating chicken and vegetables. At the time, we weren’t doing low carb, but it stuck in the back of our minds. Fast forward a couple of months and we remembered Becks for a low carb meal. I got the Dreamland, which turned out to be delicious. I thought I would attempt to create the recipe at home:
Ingredients:
1 Sliced onion
Sliced mushrooms (I bought them pre-cut)
Olive Oil
Butter
Chicken
Worcestershire sauce
Lemon Pepper
Swiss Cheese
Hickory BBQ sauce
Directions:
Caramelize the onions and mushrooms in a pan. I put a teaspoon of olive oil and a tiny pat of butter in the pan to help caramelize it.
Cook the chicken any way you want, but I baked mine. I marinated mine with a little bit of lemon pepper and a little bit of Worcestershire sauce. Once the chicken is cooked through, put some swiss cheese on top of it and put it back in the oven for a minute or two or until the cheese starts to melt. 
Put the chicken on a plate and add the mushrooms/onion mix.
Cover the chicken, mushrooms, and onions with hickory BBQ sauce.
I thought my rendition of the Dreamland was just as good, if not better! Yea me!!
Eggs on the Go!
I’m constantly looking for recipes for my low carb diet. I was really excited when I found this idea that is easy to make AND a great time-saver!!
You can make about a week’s worth of eggs at one time using this recipe. I’m eating these for my mid-morning snack, but you can also eat it for breakfast or at some other time.
I worry about leftovers going bad, so I didn’t make all twelve eggs, but I think these should last about a week. Although, if it smells bad, don’t eat it!! I figure it will be about three days before they’re all eaten.
Ingredients:
Eggs
Pre-cooked sausage
Cheese
Jalapenos
**You can add other ingredients that you like, such as spinach, mushrooms, onions, etc. These are the things I like!
Directions:
Spray pam on a muffin pan. Add egg, sausage, cheese and jalapeños. Put in oven at 350 for about 15 minutes. Pull out of the oven and put them in your belly or in a tupperware for future meals on the go!
Loaded Cauliflower
Now that I’ve booked my cruise, it’s time to start eating more healthy. I’ve tried low carb before and it really seems to work, so I’ll try it again. I found this recipe on Facebook, and it kind of reminded me of loaded cheese fries, but with cauliflower instead of fries. I can’t find the website where I found this recipe. When I find it again, I’ll add the originator’s website. This was SOO good. I WILL be making this again!!
Ingredients:
1 large head of Cauliflower cut into bite size pieces (approx 6 cups)
6-8 strips of bacon cooked and crumbled (Cooked in oven at 400° for 20 mins)
6 Tbs chopped Chives
1/2 cup Mayonnaise
1/2 cup Sour Cream
2 cups Sharp Cheddar Cheese
8 oz container sliced mushrooms
Jalapeños to taste (optional) (I only put it on half)
Directions:
Preheat oven to 425°
In a large pot steam the cauliflower for about 10 minutes.
In a large bowl combine sour cream, mayo, 1/2 of crumbled bacon, 3 tbs chives, 1 cups of cheese,mushrooms, and cauliflower. Place the mix in a baking dish and cover with remaining 1 cup of cheese, chives, and rest of bacon crumbles. Bake for 15-20 minutes until cheese is melted.
Black Eyed Peas with Hog Jowls
Happy New Years!! My mom always would make us Black Eyed Peas for the New Year. It’s about the only thing she cooks all year and it gets the year off to a good start!! My mom is the only person I know that puts lentils in her Black Eyed Peas. I looked it up and Lentils on New Years is an Italian custom and since she is Italian, that makes sense!! Both Black Eyed Peas and Lentils are eaten as a symbol for good luck and prosperity! I really want both, so this year I decided I was going to make my own Black Eyed Peas!
Recipe:
8 ounces Hog Jowls
2 cups of Black Eyed Peas
1/2 cup of Lentils
Pico De Gallo (I got this pre-made from Krogers)
1 can of Rotel
Pinch of salt and pepper
Tsp of sugar
1st step: Pick through the Black Eyed Peas and then soak them over night. 
2nd step: Boil the Hog Jowls for about an hour. 
Using the same water, add in the black eyed peas, lentils, and rest of the ingredients and simmer with the lid on for 2.5 hours or until the peas are tender
Jalapeño Sausage Balls
This is a year of creating new Christmas traditions!! My new German Shepherd puppy, Kaizer, finally has all of his shots and is able to go to places that other dogs go. First stop on Christmas morning was to take him to the Katy Trail for a walk. While we were out, we noticed that the Katy Trail Ice House had the fire pits going, so after our walk, we went and warmed up by the fire. I’m not sure if they were open on Christmas day, but they were nice enough to come build a fire and leave water for all the people who exercise on the trail. Kaiser absolutely loved being out there and greeting all the other dogs. We have hereby renamed the Katy Trail to the Kaizer Trail and the Katy Trail Ice House is now the Kaizer Trail Ice House.
After the walk on the Katy Trail, we went home and made Jalapeño Sausage Balls. They were so delicious and will be how we start off all of our future Christmas mornings!! They are SO easy to make and they are SOOOOO good!! I wasn’t sure I’d like the jalapeño in them, so I made half with peppers and half without. From now on I will make them ALL with the jalapeños!!
2 Cups of Bisquick
1 Cup of Cheese
1 lb of browned sausage (I prefer the Hot)
Diced Jalapeños to taste
Combined the ingredients until all the Bisquick is mixed together and there is no dry flour. Roll the mixture in to small balls and put on a cookie sheet. Bake at 350 for 20 – 25 minutes until brown.
Campout Chicken Taco Soup
Instead of dealing with all the drunks out on the road for New Year’s Eve, I decided to head out to Lake Tawakoni and go camping. I guess I should use the word “camping” lightly, because going in a travel trailer isn’t exactly roughing it! In fact, a lot of people actually LIVE in their travel trailers. I stayed at the Sunset Resort; I think 99% of the people who were there actually live there. My two favorite parts of the trip were starting a campfire each day and cooking out, not that I cooked over the campfire or anything.
One of the best things I cooked was a Chicken Taco Soup. I’m not sure why, but everything tastes better when it’s cooked outside, even if you use regular kitchen utensils like I did. This crockpot soup was made ALMOST entirely from cans so it was really EASY!! Not only that, I bought all generic cans, so it was really cheap!
- 1 (15 oz.) can black beans, drained and rinsed
- 1 (15 oz.) can pinto beans, drained and rinsed
- 1 (14.5 oz.) can petite diced tomatoes, drained
- 1 (15.25 oz.) can sweet corn, drained
- 1 (10.75 oz.) can cream of chicken soup
- 1 (10 oz.) can green enchilada sauce
- 1 (14 oz.) can chicken broth
- 1 packet taco seasoning
- 1 Shredded Rotisserie Chicken
Pour all of the ingredients in the crockpot, cook on high for as long as you want. I think I had it on for a couple hours. Stir it occasionally.
Garnish it with chips, shredded cheese, sour cream, or anything else you can come up with! This was delicious!!! I will probably even make this for dinner at home!!
Easy Cowboy Cornbread Casserole
I saw this recipe on Facebook last month and it’s been on my mind ever since. I’ve been waiting on the weather to get a little cooler since cool weather and cornbread go hand in hand! I’m pretty sure that this isn’t low carb, but sometimes you have to live a little! This was well worth the wait! Where has this been all my life!?
Ingredients:
Corn Bread
2 packages of Mexican Cornbread Mix
1 can of Cream Style Corn
Jalapeño slices
Eggs
Milk
Center
2 lbs Hamburger Meat
2 cans rotel
1 can Ranch Style Beans
Chopped onions
Bag of shredded Cheese
Brown the ground beef, drain the grease….add ro-tel, onions, and ranch style beans. Simmer for 10 minutes.
Make the cornbread according to directions on the back of the bag, add Can of Cream of Corn, jalapeños and half of the bag of cheese.
Grease the bottom of the 8×12 casserole dish. Pour half of the cornbread mix to the bottom of the pan. 
Add the meat mixture, then put the other half of the cheese on top.
Cover the meat mixture with the other half of the cornbread mixture.
Cook in the oven at 400 degrees for 45 minutes or until you can poke a toothpick in the middle and not get any mix on it.
Serve and eat!
Low Carb Burger
I’m still attempting to do a low carb diet, although the Labor Day Weekend set me back a little bit. I’m pretty sure Blue Bell ice cream has no carbs these days, so I may be ok! The best thing to do when you get off track, though, is to get right back on track.
The hard part of doing a low carb diet is that you really can’t have any bread. This usually means no comfort food like hamburgers. One of the worst things about eating a hamburger is that after you eat it, you feel all bloated because of all the carbs in the bread. Today was the day I decided to fix that problem. I thought I’d attempt to pair my low carb bread with a burger. I was so excited when it tasted MARVELOUS! I don’t think I’ll ever eat a burger on regular bread again. The low carb bread didn’t get all soggy or anything!!
I might also want to mention that I made the pre-made burgers from Krogers on my George Foreman Grill!! What a winning combination!
Ingredients:
Hamburger
Low Carb Bread
Cheese
Lettuce
Mayonnaise (This probably wasn’t a great choice, but I like mayonnaise)
Dallas ISD Chess Pie
Dallas ISD had the best cafeteria food in the 80’s. Almost everything was made from scratch. Even with the good food, I used to get a chocolate bar from Mr. Lancaster’s class and get two $.10 rolls with butter for lunch. Some of my favorite school cafeteria food, (when I ventured off from my lunch of champions), were Fiesta Salad, Rectangular Pizza, and Chicken Fried Steak!!! I even liked those fried fish squares with tartar sauce.
I think DISD was most famous for Chess Pie, but when everyone started to worry about childhood obesity, pies were off the menu. My friend, Flo, has been trying to recreate the recipe, and he thinks he has it!! Since this is a little more than my skills will allow, someone has to try to make this and let me know how it turns out!!!
Photo by The Merry Gourmet!
DISD Chess Pie
1 1/2 Cups Sugar
1 1/2 Tablespoons Cornmeal
1/2 Cup Melted Margarine
3 Whole Eggs
1 Teaspoon Vinegar
1 Teaspoon Vanilla
1/4 Cup of Milk
Mix sugar and cornmeal. Add melted margarine and mix thoroughly. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing after each. Add liquids and mix well. Pour into unbaked pie shell. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes or until done.
Chicken on the Inside Grill
I started my low carb diet this week. The key to being successful is being prepared. I planned out what I would eat this week and made all my lunches on Sunday. I went and bought a George Foreman Grill at Target so I could have grilled chicken. The thing I like best about the George Foreman Grill is that it is built on an angle, so all the fat drains to a little cup that you put at the bottom of the grill opening. So far I have made sausage and chicken on the grill. Both have tasted great! I’m happy to say that the diet seems to be working, too. I’ve already lost 4 lbs! I don’t think I’ll lose that kind of weight each week, but it’s good to get some of that summer weight off!!!
Lemon Pepper Chicken
Ingredients:
Chicken
Lemon Pepper
Apply lemon pepper on the chicken generously and put it on the George Foreman grill until cooked!
Fabulous after FIFTY 