Side Dish Recipes

Cranberries, like most berries, are a low sugar fruit. A whole 12-ounce bag of fresh cranberries - that's what they sell in my grocery store, at any rate - has 167 calories, with 43 grams of carb, 14 of which are fiber. So that whole bag has 29 grams of usable carb in it. Making low carb cranberry sauce is quick and easy. Really, really quick and easy. Dana Carpender shows us how.

A Southern Thanksgiving necessitates not only that you must decide whether to smoke, roast, bake or fry the family turkey, but you must choose a side. You must choose whether you will serve bread dressing or cornbread dressing at the family Thanksgiving table. Fluffy Chix Susie T. Gibbs explains the dilemma and offers some low carb alternatives.

August & September in Texas signals an end to the summer's crop of fresh tomatoes.  This is our signal to stock up on hearty, rich tasting, vine ripened tomatoes - and do that voodoo we do so well with them before the tasteless winter imposters make the scene. Susie T. Gibbs tells us that now is the time to freeze, can, make sauces, soups, pastes, juice, and chop these prize tomatoes and provides us with a host of recipe ideas.

Plan for success & you can navigate into the end zone & score a low carb win for the home team. Susie T. Gibbs lays out her tips for helping the whole family stay low carb during football season.

Are you fond of cucumbers?  I sure am.  I like them sliced, with a little salt or creole seasoning. I like them with dips. I like them in salads. I like them in tzatziki –– that yummy yogurt-cucumber sauce that comes with gyros. I like them pickled. Indeed, I'm hard-pressed to think of a way I don't like cucumbers. Includes Dana's Thai Cucumber Salad recipe.

Bananas must have a killer press agent. Over and over folks ask, "But if I can't have bananas on my low carb diet, where will I get potassium?" It is true that bananas are a pretty good source of potassium; one medium banana has 422 milligrams, or about 12% of the RDA of 3.5 grams. However, that banana also has 27 grams of carbohydrate, with only 3 grams of fiber, for a usable carb count of 24 grams - about half of my daily maximum carb intake, and more than the 20 gram upper limit for those of you who are in the induction phase of the Atkins diet. Clearly we can't count on bananas for our potassium! But where will we get it?

As a Yankee, I'm used to stuffing made from wheat bread, but if your roots lie in the South, you've likely grown up on cornbread stuffing. You'll need to make your own cornbread if you want to keep the carbs reasonably low. Here's a lower carb recipe for a good Southern-style cornbread.

Call it stuffing, or call it dressing, it's just not a holiday turkey without it! For me, stuffing is an essential part of holiday dinners. Indeed, I used to have what I like to call an "indulgence" (a term I prefer to "cheat") on holidays largely so I could have stuffing! Since then, however, I've learned to cut back on the carb count of my turkey stuffing. Here are some ideas:

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.

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

Dijon Asparagus recipe by Di Bauer.