Low Carb Low Budget

[flyingcloud]

This may not be the best place - wasn't sure whether to try here or the weight loss section.

Inspired by another thread (and trying to lose weight).

I (and others) are looking for low budget, low carb suggestions.

Meat - is fairly expensive and there are only so many eggs I can eat.

Any ideas, recipes, etc, greatly appreciated.

Can you do low carb whilst pregnant?

I have mature cheddar, just a couple of small slices - about 2oz? Or Jarlsberg. I'm not too keen on Salami for breakfast as I leave the house smelling of garlic! I buy nice ham and have one or two small slices. With the tomatoes, I stay full until at least 11 o'clock.

Another favourite is cherry tomatoes and onions chopped up with a handful of grated strong cheese, under the grill till it bubbles.

If I've got time, I like a good quality sausage cooked and crumbled with mushrooms and tomatoes, bit of cheese on top, grilled and served on a one-egg plain omelet, mmm lovely.

Lidl do big bags of frozen prawns for 3.49 euros here. They're not big cocktail prawns, just the tiddlers - but all good!

Folicacid - you certainly can, your carbs can come from fruit & veg. Although if your body tells you that it wants a bowl of porridge/bagel/baked potato knock yourself out! :)

Can someone tell me what 'nice' ham is? Hear it everywhere - is it Parma/off the bone?

goat good British boiled ham off the bone, Parma, jamon iberico, jambon de campagne.

Thanks

hogsback is right, and chicken feed is also quite different to what it was like back when everyone freaked out about cholesterol, so you can have plenty of eggs.

Love jamon.

(not a low carber just like to butt in when people are confused about eggs - you'll find me talking about lion marks on "can I eat this when pregnant" threads too)

I should add that the 'nice ham' I described is not low budget :(

Nice ham can be low er budget.

Gammon joint (about £7/kilo from Waitrose, so a lot cheaper than nice ham that is already ham). Boil it a bit, whack in oven on low heat for an hour or two (with honey/mustard spread over the outside is nice). Now you have a big lump of nice ham.

Vegetarian fake meat make things a bit cheaper, but they are probably best as an 'in moderation' thing because they are a bit salty and over-processed, generally. Tesco always have a 2 for £3 deal on sausages/burgers/fake hot dogs/chicken style things.

No, nice ham isn't low budget but a little goes a long way if you only have a slice or two.

I get my ham from the butcher, I ask for 200g shaved and it costs around £2-£2.50. It lasts me three days.

Tea tonight for us is a huge portion of roasted vegetables (covered in olive oil and cumin seeds) and a piece of salmon each. I also chuck in some black olives near the end. Healthy and very yummy and also relatively inexpensive. Goes very well with this

If you go to Marks Daily Apple www.marksdailyapple.com/ and sign-up for the newsletter you can download 2 free recipe books. Some of them made me go "ugh" but there are some great ones in there including chocolate truffles and I think brownies too. Obviously you mustn't eat 40.

neepsandtatties For your salmon stir-fry. For two people, chop one onion in to quarters then separate the layers (like you'd get in chinese cooking), slice a leek, cut a carrot in half and then slice lengthways so you have little "sheets" of carrot and chop up one pepper - make it fairly chunky.

Get all that lot frying in some hot oil - not olive oil - it's just completely the wrong flavour! Once they're well on their way to being slightly tinged (for lack of a better word!) - throw in your salmon. Because I use thawed frozen fillets I use scissors and just cut these in to approx. 1" cubed pieces. If you put the salmon in first it'll all disintegrate.

Then, using those ready-prepared tubes of herbs & spices from the supermarket, squirt in an inch of garlic, inch of chilli, inch of coriander and an inch of basil.

If you REALLY feel like pushing the boat out - pour in half a tin of coconut milk and let it bubble like mad for a minute.

Let me know how you get on if you try it. :) It's so easy even my boyfriend can do it and 3 years ago he thought spag bog was mince + ketchup!

We make our own nice ham as well, not quite the same as Trills. Gammon joint (we like smoked), boiled on hob with cloves, bay leaf and cinnamon stick in veg or chicken stock.
V tasty and loads cheaper than our local butcher's ham.

No carb doesn't work for me, but am aiming for lower carb.

and at alpine's bf and spag bog was mince + ketchup!

Tinned mushroom soup is low carb for when you're feeling lazy btw and v cheap

Not sure how low budget it would be but for the theory behind the diet you might like to google Arthur De Vany or paleo diets. Found his book in our library yesterday and have just read the first bit so far. There are pics and videos of De Vany on the internet somewhere - he is in his 70's and is very fit/healthy.

Roasted veg (Lidl) with a bit of feta crumbled in. Mushrooms for breakfast.

Had gluten free sausages from the village butcher this morning - omelettes are the only way I eat eggs so get a bit boring despite changing fillings.

When I leave early for work, blueberries and a handful of brazil nuts.

Use veg peeler on courgettes as a pasta substitute, then same sauce as others.

Frozen fish fillets - either in tinfoil with spring onions, chilli, ginger or in a dish covered on veg with bab tomatoes chucked on top and some herbs.

Delia's pork thing - wrap a pork boneless chop in foil with mushrooms, cream, mustard.

Soups made of leftovers and stock.

Slow cooked curries with cheap cuts of meat.

Have just re-embarked on low carb having lost and kept off a fair bit 18m/2 years ago. Delicious proper food was definitely what kept me on it.

This is a brilliant thread.

Also, I begin to understand why everyone was horrified at my food bills recently, even though I cook from scratch. I pay $10 for a kg of mince (more if it's premium or from my posh butcher; up to $16, which is about 12 quid), 7 quid a kg for whole chicken, and 10 quid a kg for chops or stewing steak. That's way higher than the rest of you, isn't it? Seafood is much more expensive again.

Anyway, am loving all these suggestions and links.

Tortoise - can you not send the fella out with a fishing rod? If I weren't hours from the coast I'd catch my own. :)

great ideas on this thread. This combined with another thread has inspired me to try and lose weight. Plus the fact I joined the gym and have been putting off going. So I have started a Tesco delivery trolley and am planning next weeks food. YUM!

Marking my place on this thread- would like to shift about 4 stone and from the last time I tried to low-carb, I know I could do this fairly quickly. It's just the boredom factor of not knowing what to cook! And packed lunches for uni are always a problem- any ideas on low-carb lunches?

Smoked Mackerel pate

400g smoked mackerel fillets
4 spring onions
2 lemons
200g cream cheese
2 tbs horseradish
salt & pepper

skin & break up mackerel
trim & slice onion
grate over zest of one lemon, then cut in half.

put the cheese into a bowl with the horse radish & then add the other ingredients & cream them togeather to make a rough pate

Taken from a jamie at home recipe card.