Low carbing and feeding family

[yesiknowimbonkers]

I'm sure this has been asked a million times before but my searching is rubbish. Keen to start low-carbing again, not strict keto but significantly cutting down carbs. However most nights I eat dinner with DH (definitely not low-carbing) and two DC (2 and 5). I'm looking for ideas please - what are your brilliant suggestions for meals where I can eat the same or similar to them, pleasing everyone but without cooking separate meals for everyone?

So far I have the obvious eg stir fry with rice (no rice for me), pasta bolognese and salad (no pasta 😢), roast dinner (no potatoes for me - argh!), fajitas with lettuce wraps for me instead of tortillas. But I'm sure you lovely lot have more ideas?

DH doesn't eat fish but the kids do so we can work around that. Otherwise we generally eat anything. Veggie meals are good too. Help!

We've moved this to Chat for you OP, plus marking place for own reference as I am now 90% roast potato and pannetone.

Lol amazing, thank you!

cauliflower rice is one suggestion. Also I like to steam some broccoli and cauliflower and mash them both together with some gravy.

I make pasta bakes with pasta down one end for the kids, and canellini beans for us. Plus sauce obviously.
Also celeriac puree is a good carb sub. And cauliflower cheese or celeriac dauphinoise for roast dinners

Place marking

Courgette spiralled into spaghetti

Have you had a look at the Bootcamp threads? There's likely to be a new one in January and @Biwi has loads of brilliant recipes posted on there.

Anything that you’d normally serve with mash - casseroles, chops, sausages etc - you just have mashed celeriac/swede & carrot/cauli instead of potatoes. Lots of greens help fill that space on your plate too!

Personally I have always found it best to look for dishes that all of you can eat - otherwise you'll end up not only cooking two separate sets of dishes, but also emphasising the foods that you can't have - stir fry no rice, bolognese no pasta, fajitas no tortillas, etc. The risk with that is you start to feel that you're missing out on something, which will lead to resentment very quickly!

I quite often do a stir-fry - and you really don't need rice! So I'll do something like marinated salmon fillets, or chicken thighs, with a stir-fry of mixed vegetables - thinly sliced cabbage, shallots, baby sweetcorn, asparagus, mangetout etc. Lots of garlic, ginger and chilli.

One of my favourites - mainly because it's easy! - is roasted sausages and roasted veg. Pan fry your sausages - you're looking to brown them but not cook them all the way through - and transfer to a roasting tin. Add to that your preferred mix of chopped shallots or onions, peppers, courgettes, celery, cauliflower florets, broccoli, cloves of garlic - drizzle generously with olive oil and season with salt and pepper and then roast for 20 minutes in a hot oven. After that, you can also add some tomatoes and a sliced block of halloumi, and then roast for another 20 minutes till everything is soft and slightly charred. That might be enough on its own, depending on how many people you need to feed, but you could always serve it with a green salad.

Definitely check out the low carb boot camp chats and threads.

Making veggies your side dish is the main tip as with that stir fry example.

My main swaps: tomato pasta = aubergine / courgette / mushrooms
Creamy sauce anything = stripped and stir fried cabbage / Brussels / kale
Rice = roasted cauliflower
Mash = celeriac
Potato chunks eg casserole / curry = swede
Chips = celeriac

I'm in the exact same boat. When I low carbed previously I did end up making alternatives for me but it is wearing.

Cauliflower mash or cauliflower rice all the bloody time
I substituted pasta for mushrooms. So just had button mushrooms with the pasta sauce
Apart from that, extra veggies on my plate to make up for the lack of potatoes etc.

It depends how low carb you want to go but there are lots of low carb alternatives. For example, lentil pasta is lower carb and more nutritious than normal pasta, and the Tesco one tastes v similar to normal pasta. You can have quinoa instead of rice, much lower carb and a good substitute. There's even low carb chocolate brands which are so good! Obviously you don't want to go crazy with these because they're still carb sources.

And it's useful to have lots of more filling veggies and different ways of cooking them so you don't get bored. So try roasting, sauteeing or grilling cauliflower, courgettes, broccoli, tomatoes, mushrooms, aubergines or adding them to curries, soups, sauces.

Some brilliant ideas here, thanks everyone. I love roast veg but hadn't really thought of doing them/mushrooms etc instead of pasta, love that.

Off to look at the low carb boot camp threads now for ideas!

Check out meljoulwan chocolate chilli for the best Chilli recipe (no beans). Not spicy, and we all eat it here - I serve over roasted cauliflower with sliced avocado on top.

Her beef stew recipe is also excellent and easy.