A great way to have Unlimited Diet Solution Recipes

Just yesterday I did a great tele-call with my friend Craig Ballantyne, author ofTurbulence Training. He is going to be sharing this call with his own readers and clients, but he asked me such an awesome question yesterday, I had to share the answer with you.

“Isabel, how can someone take any recipe out of a regular cookbook and make it Diet Solution friendly?”

I thought this was an awesome question because it is something I do on a regular basis and is how I am able to keep all of my meal plans new, interesting and most importantly….delicious!

Here are my step by step, do-it-yourself, DSP recipe creator rules (ok, that’s a mouthful but you know what I mean):

First, I search the internet or one of my many cookbooks for exactly what I want to make. We’re going to use shepherd’s pie as our example. When I Google shepherd’s pie, I click on the first link that comes up and here is what came up (I have inserted all of my substitutions in italics):

Easy Shepherd’s Pie Recipe (taken from simplyrecipes.com)

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 lbs ground round beef (I might use buffalo or even turkey for a little leaner option depending on your metabolic type)
• 1 onion chopped
• 1-2 cups vegetables – chopped carrots, corn, peas
• 1 1/2 – 2 lbs potatoes (3 big ones) (I would use cauliflower instead or do ½ potato, ½ cauliflower)
• 8 tablespoons butter (1 stick)
• 1/2 cup beef broth (use low sodium)
• 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
• Salt, pepper, other seasonings of choice (use unrefined sea salt)

Method

1. Peel and quarter potatoes, boil in salted water until tender (about 20 minutes). (Steam cauliflower so you can mash it or put it in the blender so they resemble mashed potatoes.)

2. While the potatoes are cooking (or cauliflower), melt 4 Tablespoons butter (1/2 a stick) in large frying pan.

3. Sauté onions in butter until tender over medium heat (10 mins). If you are adding vegetables, add them according to cooking time. Put any carrots in with the onions. Add corn or peas either at the end of the cooking of the onions, or after the meat has initially cooked.

4. Add ground beef (or buffalo or turkey) and sauté until no longer pink. Add salt and pepper. Add worcesterchire sauce. Add half a cup of beef broth and cook, uncovered, over low heat for 10 minutes, adding more beef broth as necessary to keep moist.

5. Mash potatoes (or put cauliflower in the blender until they resemble mash potatoes) in bowl with remainder of butter, season to taste.

6. Place beef and onions in baking dish. Distribute mashed potatoes (or cauliflower) on top. Rough up with a fork so that there are peaks that will brown nicely. You can use the fork to make some designs in the potatoes as well.

7. Cook in 400 degree oven until bubbling and brown (about 30 minutes). Broil for last few minutes if necessary to brown. (Watch this carefully, as your cooking time will be less because you are using cauliflower)

Yummy! Is anyone ready for dinner?

Just as a side note, there is nothing wrong with having white potatoes if your metabolic type can handle it, but I find with sheperd’s pie you end up eating too much potato, well beyond what one serving should be and there are many people who cannot eat white potatoes because it effects their blood sugar too much (me being one of them).

The recipe above was an easy one (but I just love it and wanted to share it.)

Let me give you some possible substitutions to many other recipes.

1. When a recipe calls for vegetable oil such as canola oil, which we know we should be avoiding, replace it with coconut oil or butter. This can be done in 90% of most recipes. If you can’t use either of those, use olive oil and cook on low heat (below 350F). If the recipe is for a cake or other baked goods, you can use the same amount of unsweetened applesauce instead of the oil.

2. When a recipe calls for bread crumbs, I either make my own from sprouted grain bread or I purchase gluten free bread crumbs that are made from rice. You can make your own breadcrumbs by drying bread in the oven at 250F for 15 minutes and then putting it in your food processor or blender. Add Italian spices like oregano, parsley and basil to make Italian bread crumbs.

3. If a recipe calls for pasta, many times you can replace it with spaghetti squash.

4. If a recipe calls for sugar, you can use a Stevia blend instead. 1 cup of Stevia Blend (fromhttp://www.stevivasweetener.com) is equal to 2 cups of sugar.

5. Replace all the ingredients listed with organic ingredients instead. Ok, ok, you don’t have to replace all of them, but I just had to throw that in there…hehe.
I highly recommend you give this a try yourself and look for one of your most favorite dishes and see what you can do to serve it “DSP Style”.

Happy Cooking!

By www.thedietsolutionprogram.com/blog