Dana's blog

Okay, we've talked about ham and eggs. (Mmmm. Ham and eggs. Sounds good. Too bad I've already had breakfast...) Let's talk about candy.

So lets talk about eggs.

You're likely to be hard-boiling some to dye, so why not make lots? My mother always said that she couldn't think of any cheaper way to entertain a whole gang of people for the evening than boiling a few dozen eggs and setting out the dye, crayons, and other Easter-y craft supplies. And heaven knows, having hard-boiled eggs in the fridge is like having money in the bank for a low carber.

A useful thing to know is the best way to hard-boil eggs. Having experimented quite a lot, I have had my greatest success thusly:

Hey, look! I actually remembered that it's Easter this coming weekend! Wow!

You know what that means, right? Three things are all over the grocery stores: Ham, eggs, and Easter candy. Two of them are great for us, the other? Not so much.

So let's have a little chat about all three, shall we?

Ham is super-yummy and reasonably low carb. It is not, however, carb-free. I have yet to run across a ham that did not have some sugar added. Reading the labels will help you to find the lowest carb ham. Hint: It is not going to be one that is heavily coated with a honey glaze!

The first time I ran the recipe in this column, I got a furious email from a reader who took me to task for being so culturally insensitive as to run a non-kosher recipe for Passover. Quite simply, she was wrong. You'll want to use kosher-for-Passover mayonnaise and bouillon concentrate, but this recipe is definitely kosher. I ran it (and the whole column) by Rabbi Meisels, who is Hassidic, and he approved it. If you'd like your kugel to be parve, you may certainly use vegetable bouillon concentrate instead of beef bouillon concentrate. And please, don't think you have to be Jewish to enjoy this kugel!

Here, from my friend Rabbi Hirsch Meisels, of Friends With Diabetes , is a list of low carb sweeteners that are kosher for Passover:

Sugar Substitutes - Kosher for Pesach

Pure Aspartame (not Equal)

Gefen, Kojel Kosher L'Pesach Sweet'N Good with Aspartame (powder)

Kosher L'Pesach Sweet'N Low (powder) with the O.U.-P

Pillsbury sweet-10 (liquid)

Sweetie with Badatz supervision from Eretz Yisroel

American Liquid Sweet'N Low (Liquid)

Kojel kosher L'Pesach Liquid Sweetener (Liquid)

Zees from Ungar's Food.

Ah, yes, once again the media has seized on a study that claims to show a small increase in cancer rates among those who eat the most red meat, and trumpet it as conclusive proof of what they already "know" -- that red meat is baaaaaad.

Just call me Breakfast Girl! I need lots of food in the morning. The whole notion, pushed by the Special K people, that a good breakfast has just 200 calories or whatever, makes my blood run cold. Breakfast really is the most important meal of the day -- it governs our hunger and energy for the rest of the day -- so why shouldn't we eat a third of our daily food intake then?

Today I had a super-yummy breakfast that was also quick and easy, so I thought I'd tell you about it.

The best perk of my job is that people send me free stuff, and in particular free food. They hope, of course, that I will say nice things about it in print. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. This time -- holy gee. "Nice" ain't even about to cover it.

In the tradition of being slow to the punch when it comes to seasonal articles, it's just now occurred to me that, this being Lent and all, I might oughta publish a fish recipe. Duh.

Anyway, I recently came up with these for that shrimp-loving Nice Boy I Married, and he thought they were great:

Chipotle Lime Shrimp

1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 tablespoon butter
1/2 pound E-Z Peel shrimp
1 chipotle chili canned in adobo, minced
1 tablespoon lime juice
1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
guar or xanthan
1 tablespoon minced cilantro

Here's an old article that's timely today -- even the right day of the week!

Here is is, Wednesday, and we're still getting great meals out of Sunday's early St. Patrick's Day dinner of corned beef and cabbage. Monday night I made Corned Beef Hash, and boy, was it great! Here's how:

I chopped a medium onion, and started it sauteing in a tablespoon or so of butter, over low-medium heat -- used my big cast iron skillet.

In the Help Me Help You thread, a reader asks:

Dana, you have a small appetite. Doesn't seem like much food when all you eat is a chicken thigh that fills you up for the day. Or are you not telling us some of the stuff you are eating?

No, when I post my Daily Menu it includes everything I've eaten. Indeed, when I don't post my Daily Menu it's generally because I didn't get around to writing everything down, and I'm afraid I'll miss something.

The crocuses are blooming here in Southern Indiana, and the daffodils are up and nearly ready to bloom. That means it's time for me to start a vegetable garden. After all, with a ten acre yard (and another four and a half next door; we own the next house as a rental), and this economy, it makes all kinds of sense for me to grow as much of my produce as possible.

So That Nice Boy I Married and I are going to spend the afternoon making "lasagna beds" -- no, we're not growing pasta! They're a way of making a garden without digging up the ground. Here are a couple of links:

I'm wondering -- how many of you are on Twitter? Would you find it helpful to have contact with your fellow low carbers through Twitter? Would it help you to get messages from me throughout the day through Twitter, encouraging you to stick with your low carb plan? Just trying to figure out how to use the latest technology in the service of low carbing!

I'd like to make this website more useful to you. Among other things, I think I'll put up a page for all of you to post the names and contact info for any low carb-friendly doctors you've run across. But tell me, what else would be helpful?

Let’s talk a little about vitamin A. Vitamin A is important stuff, but it’s a bit complex. It’s essential for your health, but because it’s a fat soluble vitamin and can be stored in your body, it’s possible to get too much. It also comes in a couple of forms, both with their virtues and their drawbacks.