Family Friendly Low Carb Archives - Page 6 of 6

Family Cooking: Stir Fry

by Donna | Mar 6, 2013

Many jobs make for fun family cooking: sauce making, chicken cutting, pepper slicing, onion chopping, meat frying…..many hands make the work light!

It’s last minute seminar preps…so that means it’s family cooking night…whoever is home gathers in the kitchen and slices, dices, and juliennes as fast as we can, so Mom and Dad can get back to work quickly, but everybody gets fed a decent meal.

What does your family like to cook together? I like to cook things with my kids that have a lot of/variety of steps (usually multiple dishes at one time with an Odyssey blaring in the background and three to five conversations all going on at the same time. Big mess….lots of fun and relationship-building! Smile…

Beefy Potato Rivel Soup

by Donna | Feb 19, 2013

Beefy Potato-Rivel Soup (Caution—not exact measurements!)

I tried a new soup today that I remembered from long ago, and the guys really liked it. It’s a great comfort food in bad weather–and depending on what other veggies you put in and what you make the rivels out of it, can even be “healthy”! Note that I just added and stirred, so the measurements are not exact.

4 large potatoes, peeled and cubed small (like smaller than dice)
One small roast
Beef base
Minced onion
Pepper
Parlsey
Bay leaves
Rivels: 1 1/2 cup flour (any kind); 1 egg; 1/4 tsp salt; 1/4 tsp baking powder; cold water as needed

1. Cook roast in crock pot overnight seasoned as you like your roast seasoned (or in oven cooking bag for three or four hours at 250 to 300 depending on roast size)–or you can use a can of beef (large).

2. Put water on to boil (10 to 12 cups?).

3. Mix up rivels while water is coming to a boil by doing the following:
         a. Stir together flour, salt, and baking powder
         b. Cut in egg.
         c. Cut in ice water as needed to form dough that’s manageable. (I just did all of this with two forks in a huge cereal bowl…)
        d. Pat dough out until it’s really flat and break off or cut off little tiny pieces like teeny tadpoles. (I needed my soup for noon the next day, so I did this the night before and just left them out on the cutting board overnight. They don’t really have to dry necessarily.)

Note: The picture above is Jakie cutting the rivels out of long, thin snakes of dough–with a pizza cutter. Then I just ran the pizza cutter over and through them all to cut them even smaller. It was much faster than the breaking off pieces.

4. Boil potatoes until thoroughly cooked. (I put mine in a glass measure with 1/4 cup water tightly covered with plastic wrap and cook for eight minutes or so until done.)

5. Once rivels are cooked, add beef base (or you could have used broth to cook the rivels in)–tons to make it beefy– and seasonings to taste (minced onion, pepper, garlic, bay leaves (4 or so)).

6. Then drain potatoes and add them to the rivels/broth.

7. Then shred meat and add it and any juices.

8. Simmer for an hour or so until flavors are well mixed.

Note: You could precook carrots, celery, and/or green beans too and add them. But I’ve been pushing the veggie soups a lot, so decided to just do rivels and potatoes.

Crock Pot Wednesday–Sausage, Potatoes, and Beans

by Donna | Feb 13, 2013

“Uncooked” ready to turn on high. (I precook and assemble the night before, stick in fridge, then pull out and cook the next day.)

Easy peasy crock pot meal today!!!

I have a HUGE crock pot. It is actually an amazing one that has three sizes of inserts, so you can do super large, kind of big, and smaller {for dips, small roasts, etc.}.

My favorite crock pot– https://www.bedbathandbeyond.com/product.asp?sku=14764453&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&gclid=CPrx5-DOs7UCFQ84nAodPUUABw

Ingredients–sort of

4 lbs of turkey, skinless kielbasa sausage, cut into rounds
4 lbs of potatoes, peeled and cubed approximately the same size as sausage rounds
2 lbs of frozen green beans
1 or 2 large onions, cut into chunks (I like to stir fry them before adding them.)
pork/smokehouse/ham base (to make “broth”)
Forward (Penzy spice)
Garlic and herb seasoning
basil
black pepper

1. Precook potatoes by steaming in micro or boiling on stove top. (I like to precook my potatoes if I am making a dish where the other ingredients are nearly cooked or fully cooked.)

2. Mix all spices into 3 cups of hot water. Use the amount of base you like for your “broth.”

3. Toss half of the meat and veggies into the crock pot and pour half of the liquid over.

4. Toss second half of the meat and veggies into the crock pot and pour rest of liquid over.

5. Cook–since mine needs to be done in three or four hours, I put it on high for an hour and low for two. You could put it on low for a long time. My crock pot has a WARM setting, so I move into that fairly quickly.

Note: If you do not have the largest crock pot, cut this in half! It makes a full large crock!