Recipes

Let's talk a little about vitamin A. Vitamin A is important stuff, but it's a bit complex. Vitamin A is essential for your health, but because it's a fat soluble vitamin and can be stored in your body, it's possible to get too much. It also comes in a couple of forms, both with their virtues and their drawbacks.

For the last glorious holiday weekend of the summer, a cookout seems mandatory. So call up some friends, throw some (light) beer in the cooler, fire up the barbecue, and let's make an end-of-summer feast that will be filling and memorable without any nutritional regrets. Includes her Low-Carb Salmon Recipe

I have this once a week, the Husband even has it himself now and only the kids are left eating his fabulous pizzas. I even made if for my Mom and Sister recently, both on versions of the BFC. (They liked it, but I don't think they LOVED it).

A whole cup of fresh basil leaves has just 11 calories, and about 5 million metric boatloads of flavor. You'll get 2 grams of carbohydrate, but it's virtually all in the form of fiber. And you'll get one gram of protein, but who eats herbs for the protein? You'll also get 33% of your vitamin A, 13% of your vitamin C, 7% each of your folacin, calcium, and iron, 6% of your potassium, and 2% of your niacin and zinc.

Years ago, some furious online detractor of low carb diets threw at me the accusation that I ate "pork rind cake." This is not true. I have never eaten a cake made from pork rinds, and had never heard of such a thing till the accusation was made. And though she subsequently posted a link to a recipe, that is the only time I have ever heard of pork rind cake in my near-decade on a low carb diet.

Writing a column on convenience foods goes against the grain for me - I'm always nagging people to just cook something, will you, for crying out loud?! A little simple, plain cooking is your best defense against bad food, not to mention a sky-high food budget. But I am aware that many people rarely eat anything that takes more preparation than three minutes in the microwave. Even folks who do cook occasionally have days when they just want something fast.

In a few weeks, we here in the US celebrate (if that's the word) National Sneak Some Zucchini Onto Your Neighbor's Front Porch Day. This is because a single zucchini seed will flood an entire neighborhood with zucchini. And heaven forbid a novice gardener should make the error of planting more than one zucchini seed! We're talking Revenge of the Killer Squash, here, as zucchini take over your town, loitering on the sidewalks, bumping into old ladies, scaring the children.

Zesty Lemon Pork Stew recipe by Judith van den Broek.

Gosh, I love cherries. Talk about Nature's Candy - cherries couldn't be sweeter or more delicious. I have a vivid memory of a summer afternoon in my youth, when I ate a whole pint of cherries while walking home from the grocery store. Even my pug, Dexter, loves cherries! (And really, it's hard to think of a more charming diversion than feeding cherries to a pug.)

Green Basic Salad Variation With Peppers from Tony Blakemore. A simple Low-Carb salad featuring red, yellow or orange peppers.

Sadly, Ketatoes are no longer with us, though I still have a stash I hoarded when the Keto company went under. There is a substitute: Dixie Diners Instant Mashers. I've tried them in several of my recipes, and they work just like the Ketatoes mix.

Dijon Asparagus recipe by Di Bauer.