Nerd Pride Cookbook

[Cazmonster]

Roast meat... yummy.

[Cazmonster]

I've had the sandwich on the mind for a while and something at my local store gave me inspiration.

They sell ready-to-cook gyro strips. I think you could do a Greek Stromboli with gyro meat and onions, served with tatziki and tomato slices.

This coming week is my light work week. I will have time to work on this!

[Eliahad]

That sounds amazing!

[Cazmonster]

I will post pictures when I get it baked.

Oh, sweet scholastic freedom. I will get to do stuff again!

[Reika]

In response to Elle's request for a quick dinner low on carbs.

This was inspired by recipes for zucchini boats, but they involved way too much time and effort.

This involves:

Ground beef (1 lb)
zucchinis (however many you want to put in, I usually do 2-3 small)
Diced tomatoes (usually one 14.5 oz can)
Garlic (either minced or powder)
Italian seasonings
Dried onions (or can use fresh that's finely chopped up)

Obviously amounts may vary depending on how many people you're feeding. This usually feeds mom and I two meals so it'd probably be one meal for a family of four.

Brown the ground beef with seasonings and onions, drain and set to the side.
Slice up the zucchini as finely as possible, toss it into the pan you cooked the beef in, add the tomatoes, more seasonings if you want. Cook until the zucchini is just getting tender, then add the ground beef and cook the whole thing for about ten minutes so that the beef absorbs the flavor.

Can be served on pasta or rice. Due to health issues I now have to reduce how many carbs I have, so I usually don't have it on anything. Takes about 20-25 minutes to cook up.

[Bluedevyl]

So, maybe not low on carbs, but I did one this week that I was particularly happy with.

Pasta with Cherry Tomatoes and Basil (we were growing a TON of cherry tomatoes and basil, so, win-win)

1 lb short, textured pasta (something that will hold onto the sauce... rotini, penne, along those lines)
1.5 lbs cherry tomatoes
3 cloves of garlic
handful of fresh basil leaves, finely chopped
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
Olive Oil

Slice the garlic cloves thinly, then add to olive oil in a high-sided saute pan. Sweat the garlic for 3 or 4 minutes while you put your pasta water on to boil.
Add the cherry tomatoes to the saute pan and cook with the garlic for about 5 minutes. They'll start to blister and pop in the pan, which is what you're looking for. I helped mine along after a few minutes with the back of a wooden spoon.
Lower the heat and wait for the pasta to be ready. You want the pasta a couple minutes short of al dente, as they'll cook in the pan for a bit. Save about a cup of the pasta water before you drain it.
Drain your pasta, and add to the saute pan. At this point, add the basil and the parmesan and stir everything together. You'll want to add the pasta water a bit at a time, but you'll want the whole cup.
Serve immediately.

This recipe could easily be done without the cheese and with a low-carb pasta, and I think it would still be awesome.

(of note, I didnt add the cheese to the pan when I made this. After having it this week, it seemed clear that it would be better with a little cheese prior to serving.)

[Elle]

Those recipes above sound awesome.

Here is a super low-cal recipe I made to deal with itchy cravings for sugar (or carbs to make into sugar), that is getting me through the past two days:

1/2 a giant Vidalia onion (finely chopped)
1 large bell pepper (diced small)
2 med zucchini (cut into quarters, long strips, and then cut these about 1/4" - 1/2" across so you have little wedges)
2 med yellow squash (same deal)
garlic
cheap store-brand teriyaki sauce and hot sauce (to taste)

Start by spraying some cooking spray in the nonstick pan and let a few shakes of red pepper flakes warm up in that oil. Then saute the finely-chopped onion until it carmelizes (I want the sweet taste and also hate hard chunks of uncooked onion!).

When the onion is transparent but not yet carmelized, throw in the finely-diced bell pepper and spoonful of diced garlic. By the time the onion is done, this is almost done too.

When pepper is soft and onion is almost where you want it, toss in the zucchini and yellow squash. This has to cook just a few minutes while you stir it around - the inner part of the squash pieces will be soft and translucent and the outer skin will be getting softer but still a bit "al dente" when done.

Sprinkle a few tsp of hot sauce and teriyaki sauce on in that last minute (I use this for the sweet flavor, but you could use soy sauce or something else if you don't like teriyaki - the nice thing about teriyaki is that if you're making a little chicken breast or fish on the side while this goes on, you can sprinkle it with the same sauces and it tastes great!)

You can eat huge amounts of this and it's still low calorie. And overall it has a sweet flavor.

[Kyle]

.

We're big into crock pot recipes because they're easy and hearty. This is essentially frozen, skinless chicken breast thrown into the crock pot with rotel tomatoes and cooked down all day until it's shredded. Eat over rice. So good. Even better the next day.

[Elle]

That sounds awesome! I like crockpot things especially for fall. A recent favorite has been to assemble a pre-browned lean roast, copious amounts of garlic, chopped onion, bag of baby carrots, several stalks chopped celery WITH THE LEAVES, salt and pepper everything, pour in one small container of beef broth and one bottle of dark beer, and throw in a bay leaf.

[Elle]

I need ideas for something I can do with pumpkin that doesn't involve wrecking my daily calories. I've been looking around but it's either something I want to make that is full of sugar and calories, or it's something that immediately goes into the nasty territory of vegetables and nuts all mixed into your otherwise-pleasant dessert.

[Eliahad]

Roast pumpkin is pretty naturally sweet on its own. Are you looking for desserts or dinner/lunches?

[Elle]

I'm looking for something to make with canned pumpkin puree, other than pie that requires a crust and evap milk and such. I am willing to experiment with Stevia instead of sugar - I was thinking of making muffins that way and see what happens. Or if there were some kind of good pumpkin oatmeal cake that wasn't completely heavy with oils and sugars... something along those lines. I don't have a good recipe. I don't want any crap like raisins or nuts or vegetable matter in my healthy recipe, but I want a healthy recipe.

[Cazmonster]

Check Pinterest. I saw 'Pumpkin Spice Rice Krispie Bars' that use half a can of pumpkin.

It's an option, but not a great option.

There are pumpkin soup recipes as well.

[Elle]

SOLVED BY MOI

Pumpkin Pancakes
1 egg plus 1 eggwhite (beat lightly)
Add salt to taste, 1 tsp baking soda, 2 tsp baking powder, 2 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 tsp ginger, 1/4 tsp nutmeg, 2 tsp sugar, 2 tsp vegetable oil. Mix.
Fold in 1/2 cup pumpkin puree.
Add a cup of buttermilk and 1/4 cup milk, or just 1 and 1/4 cup reg milk.
Gently mix in 1.5 cups flour (I use a homemade blend of reg white and whole wheat flour, so maybe 1/2 cup white and 1 cup wheat).
Makes about a dozen small pancakes or four plate-sized ones.

[Phoebe]

Also made Pumpkin Banana bread.

FOUND: tolerable salsa. Margarita's Amigo restaurant-style HOT salsa, in a fairly large jar for $4 reg price. Inca salsa for $5 small jar is okay too, but value-wise the Margarita's is better. It is almost impossible to find decent pre-made salsa outside of a Mexican grocery store. If you find a decent one, please advise.

[Phoebe]

Made this shakshuka recipe again:
and it is amazing! Highly recommended. I happened to have some chopped cilantro so I added it. Sour cream on top also a good plan. I used tomato puree, cooked down a bit longer, which also softened the veggies. I used a lot more red bell pepper too. Would be terrific with a little finely chopped zucchini or squash and, dare I say, a few pcs chopped bacon.

[Phoebe]

So, here is a thing I did that some of you might like to do or already have done: I made a Bacon Pie.

To make a Bacon Pie, which is not as bad for you as you might think, you need a large package of bacon, ideally one with about 16 thin-to-normal slices of bacon. You need one normal size zucchini or yellow squash and one large red potato (or whatever potato you have). Three serving-sizes of grated cheese that melts nicely (or you could use pre-sliced cheese if that's what you have), enough for three portions (see below). Salt, pepper, and a little onion powder and garlic powder. Pre-heat oven to 375 or so. My oven runs hot so I did a little lower.

You get a glass pie pan and set it on top of a clean countertop or large pastry board (because your bacon is going to be hanging onto this surface soon). You spritz the pan with your nonstick spray. Then you make a "flower" of bacon strips going around in a circle from the middle of the pie pan. In other words, you start by covering the center of your pie pan with the end of one of your pieces of bacon. The bacon ends are going to overlap to form a "crust" for your pie, so you want to make sure the center of the pan is covered by the end of the bacon strip. Ideally the "radius" of your pie pan is about half the length of the strip of bacon, so you'll hang the other half over the edge of the pie pan. Then you would overlap the end of another strip of bacon onto this and proceed around until you've made a circular blossoming flower of bacon. If you have 16 strips of bacon, you're going to arrange them so that each quarter of the pie pan has 4 strips in it, and strip #5 starts a new quarter.

Once your bacon is in, chop up the veggies. The potato should be sliced super-duper thin, as if you were making ultra-thin scalloped potatoes. The zucchini or squash should be slightly thicker, but no more than 1/8" thick. The pieces should be no more than average 1" square - but of course, they're probably half-moon shaped. Point is, you want to be able to cut through them easily.

Layer the bottom of your pan with about 2/3 of the potato slices. Salt, pepper, sprinkle with onion and garlic powders. You could probably spice it up even further with red pepper flakes or hot sauce if you like spicier dishes. Sprinkle a thin layer of grated cheese over all of this (think of it as mortar between layers of bricks, that is going to glue them together when it melts). Then put half your squash on, spice it, and add another thin layer of cheese mortar. Last half of the squash, more salt pepper spice, a last layer of cheese mortar. Top the whole thing with your remaining third of potato slices and then carefully fold up the bacon blossom ends so that they all overlap in the center.

Put your pie pan on top of a round cookie sheet in case of drips, loosely cover with foil, and cook at 375 for about 45 min or until the inner veggies are to your preferred level of tenderness. My husband wanted his baked about an hour because he wants soft veggies. If you want crispier bacon you can uncover it for the last ten minutes of baking.

After removing, drain off any extra juices and let it sit for a minute to gel. Then slice and serve it up like a quiche or pie.

THIS THING IS FREAKING AMAZING YOU WON'T BE SORRY IF YOU LIKE BACON AND CHEESE AT ALL AND EAT ANY VEGGIES AT ALL TRUST ME

[Phoebe]

Talking about sandwiches made me remember to add, I'm not kidding, you need to try this. Thinking about basic BLT principles, I'm thinking tomato lovers could add in a few thin slices, or more likely, some tomato paste. Carb minimizers can sub all squash for the potato, or use sweet potato, or cauliflower. Many options.

I'm making bread again soon and will report back. After the early experimenting I think I've got something good now, recipe wise.

[Iantha]

On the menu for tonight is smoked pork butt.

24 hours before smoke time:
1 large pork butt (I never understood why they call it butt when there's absolutely no gluteus maximus or piriformis involved)
1/2 brown sugar
4 tbsp salt (any kind because salt is salt is salt and there's no need to get spendy just because the stuff is pink)
2 pinch ground cloves
1 tbsp ground mustard
6 (or more, if you're like we are) large garlic cloves, crushed
1-4 tsp cayenne pepper, depending on your taste for heat
1 tbsp black pepper

Cut diagonal slices in the fat of the pork butt, about 3/4 inch apart, almost down to the muscle but not quite. You don't want to cut the meat itself.
Crush the garlic into the dry seasonings, mix well, and rub thoroughly onto the meat making sure to rub it into the cuts in the fat.
Wrap in aluminium foil and let sit in the fridge for 24 hours.

4:00am on cooking day:
Preheat smoker to 220.
4:30am:
Place wrapped roast into the smoker. No need to add wood chips just yet.
Noon:
Using hot pads, take your roast out of the smoker quickly and make sure to close the door up so that your heat doesn't drop too much.
Remove foil wrap from roast and return it to the smoker.
Add one handful of preferred wood chips soaked in water.
2:00PM
Add small handfull of soaked woodchips.
4:00PM
Add small handfull of soaked woodchips.
6:00pm
Pull roast out of the smoker, let rest for 5 or so minutes, and serve.

[Phoebe]

Mmmm, sounds fabulous. We haven't yet cracked out the smoker this year but weather is improving. Lately just grilling, and I report salmon packets are indeed better if the thin lemon slices are baked in with them.