I love cooking stews because you just cook everything in a pot, leave it to simmer, and your lunch or dinner (for the next few days) are ready. I cook a few versions, including creamy chicken stews with potatoes and carrots, and tomato-based vegetable stews. And this one, ground meat stew with vegetables and kidney beans, topped with cheddar. This CAN BE low carb – just leave out the kidney beans. I used pork, but please use ground beef for the best flavour.

I often cook this on Sundays so we can have it for Sunday dinner and I have lunches ready for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. I think three days is the max you can keep this in the fridge. And in case you haven’t realised, I can eat the same stuff for days on end, as long as I’m in my health nut mode and the food is good for me. For this recipe, I used red onions, celery and tomatoes as my base. I love stewed celery.. isn’t it funny how celery tastes awful raw (to me at least!), but when slow cooked in a stew, it breaks down to be one of the most delicious things ever, like a cross between radish and onion? I also added cabbage, bell peppers and canned tomatoes, along with ground meat and stock (use beef stock if you can), plus kidney beans towards the end.

Chili doesn’t normally use this much vegetables, focusing instead on the meat and onions. But too much meat isn’t my thing and cabbage fills you up plus lends a sweetness to the stew.

The best way to eat this is with some shredded cheddar (I used cheddar singles as I didn’t have the grated ones, and that’s ok – and cheaper) and sour cream. I didn’t have sour cream (full fat FTW) so I left it out. For some colour, I topped the stew with hand-shredded spring onions. Not essential, but quite good.

With assignments at work leaving me with no time to think (this is a busy time for me and all I want to do after work is clear my brain but I end up catching up on news – especially electoral news nowadays – online), I think chili stew will be my answer to packed lunches for the coming week! Like gumbo, I know every family has their favourite version of chili. Please share yours with me!

The post Almost low carb lunch idea: Chili Stew appeared first on Budgetpantry | Singapore Mummy Blog on Food, Recipe & Baby.

I’m going to Japan in a week! I made Jason promise he would only eat Yong Tau Foo (no carbs!) for lunch every day, so that he can eat his ramen, tempura, sushi and tonkatsu during the trip without worry.

His reply? Even if he doesn’t eat Yong Tau Foo every day, he will still eat during the trip without worry. How can?! His face looks like it’s going to explode. If it does then how? I gotta clean the floor! I cannot let that happen.

So we’ve come to a compromise. He will eat Yong Tau Foo or Fish Soup with half a bowl of rice every day. Once a week, he can have his Laksa Yong Tau Foo but cannot drink the gravy and if he opts for Laksa, he cannot eat rice. We’ll see how it goes.

For me, I HAVE TO LAY OFF THE SNACKING. I love Muruku, but I love tonkatsu more. That only means more low-carb options these days.

Today I have a recipe for Low Carb Pappardelle in Light Cream Sauce. How can pasta be low carb? Well it sure can, if we’re using tofu in place of pasta. These are actually Baiye Tofu, sold in folded sheets, hygienically-packed for sale in the chiller sections of major supermarkets. I found mine in Giant for about $2.55 a packet, good for three servings. These weren’t available before – I’ve only started noticing these a couple of months ago and thought they would make a great carbs substitution. Apparently, this is really popular with the Chinese from China (this is a factual description) and you can find these in Mala Xiang Guo too. This is what the packaging looks like:

I was quite apprehensive that the husband wouldn’t like it but he surprisingly was very receptive and said he would ‘order’ it again! Small win here. Slicing into broad strands, like Pappardelle:

The best thing about these is that you can slice them however way you want them – as angel hair spaghetti, No. 5 spaghetti, fettucine, tagliatelle or even use them as lasagne sheets. In the local context, that means you mian, mee pok, kway teow or mee hoon kueh – you get the drift.

Ok so, verdict. Texture wise, these tofu noodles are slightly chewy with a nice bite. They aren’t doughy or heavy, so don’t expect them to satiate your carb cravings. Taste wise, they don’t taste overwhelmingly of soy and don’t absorb the taste of other ingredients – quite a neutral tasting ingredient, which isn’t surprising at all. I actually think they will be best as fried noodles. For this recipe, I made them in pasta form with sliced Portobello, baby asparagus and ham in a light cream sauce. I also tried them in clear Chinese soups (like fish ball noodles soup) and liked them that way too. Quite positive I’m gonna cook Tofu Fried Noodles soon. Check back for the recipe! For now, I hope you like these in cream sauce. You can technically use any ingredients you want, but I find that this goes well with mushrooms and asparagus.

The post Low-carb lunch idea: Tofu “Pasta” – Pappardelle in Light Cream Sauce appeared first on Budgetpantry | Singapore Mummy Blog on Food, Recipe & Baby.

If you’ve been following my facebook page or instagram, you’d have noticed that I’ve been packing homemade lunches to work.

I’m a low carb kind of person because with my fat genes (thanks Dad!), eating very little carbs is the only way I can control my diet. And since I can’t exercise yet after the surgery, I’m really watching what I eat to ensure that I get the nutrients that I need while keeping my weight down.

For the whole of last week, I have been on a culinary challenge (ha!) to pack nutritious, low carb, easy-to-cook meals to work. They have to fill me up because I can’t “EATCLEAN” for lunch and succumb to Hainanese curry rice for dinner. The food at my office eatery really sucks. There’s no low carb option except lousy pre-packed salad bowls with THOUSAND ISLAND DRESSING (what is the point?) and their chap chye png is cannot make it. The only good thing to eat there is the briyani WITH FRIED CHICKEN AND CURRY, but you know, if I go that route, I can never turn back.

I’m starting a new “Low-carb meal ideas” category so that anyone who’s looking for low-carb recipe options can have it easier.

So today, I bring to you: Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms.

I brought one portobello mushroom (plus a side of sliced tomatoes) to work on Monday, and Shefali looked at me, flabbergasted.

She: “You’re eating a mushroom for lunch.”

Me: “Yeah! It’s delicious.”

She: “ONE MUSHROOM. WTF. WTF.”

Slim girls. They’ll never understand.

But my lunch was delicious. It wasn’t just one portobello mushroom. It was a glorious fat mushroom stuffed with chopped bell peppers, onions, tomatoes, a bit of ham, minced garlic, cheddar, and seasoned with truffle salt and black pepper. It is super satisfying and much better than I had expected. PLUS, you get to cut it with a fork and knife, like when you’re eating a steak.

The steps are really simple, combine all ingredients (except mushrooms) in a bowl, spoon on top of mushrooms and air fry or bake in the oven til done. No prizes for guessing which method I used.

I basically made a salsa and added ham and some cheddar, but you could do whatever you like with this. Bacon and mozzarella, spinach and onion, ham and egg.. the combinations are quite endless. You could also use the mushroom as a pizza base. Spoon a little pasta sauce or tomato paste, then top with pepperoni, bell peppers and olives. Or you could use two of them as burger BUNS. Sandwich a tofu patty in between.

Oh and the gills.. I don’t remove them because they’re edible and they don’t bother me, but some people have a problem with the black “bleeding” into the rest of their food. If you do decide to remove them, please cut them out instead of using a spoon to scrape them. You’ll just end up disfiguring the poor mushroom.

I have so many low-carb ideas, I can’t wait to share them all! Let’s eat healthy together :)

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