Good morning gals

Last night I was not so good and ate chicken wings (no breading) and wine. and the scale did not go down but it at least stayed one number :D of course not the number I wanted but eh at least yo yo scale is done for now.

I am off for some errands today including taking my mom to shop for a cell phone. Challenge....it has to be a flip phone no bells or whistles tried that and was an epic failure. She will not learn how they work

I will be back later

I've been gluten-free since around 2011 since I'm allergic to wheat. GF products have come a long way - a lot of them taste great. When I bring my 123 Gluten Free brownies (a mix that I bake) to a party, everyone eats those because they're so good. Unfortunately, GF doesn't mean low carb. A lot of the good taste is from sugar. So I was online looking for recipes and happened to find this site: https://elanaspantry.com/ Look through it as it has paleo recipes and low carb. Some of the same recipes fall into different categories.

Unfortunately, she doesn't have nutrition information listed. Not sure if you can get to this page without being a member with a log-in, but some people have converted her recipes. It is http://www.myfitnesspal.com/nutritio...lanas-pantry/1 I added a few but not sure they're public. There were a couple of recipes I'd like to try that weren't on the list so I figured them out myself.

So I go to the gluten free health food store today to get organic shortening that one of the recipes calls for and for the first time I see some Paleo stuff. The net carbs were really good so I'll be trying these out and might not have to get into baking too much myself.

My mother in law won't either. She uses a flip phone of mine from about 10 years ago. Have you seen the jitterbug phone? It looks pretty much like my old black flip phone I used forever and gave to my MIL, except the buttons are bigger.

Wings and wine are technically on plan, right...



Judy, you do low carb baking? Since I'm the only person in my house who would eat the low carb products, I'm nervous about making a whole bunch of treats for me. Even if they are on plan treats.


Went to the mall today. Got some pictures at Picture People for Valentine's day of my daughter. Had a nice salad bar and salmon lunch at Ruby Tuesday's. Probably ate too many vegetables carbs, but I love that salad bar. Afterwards my daughter suckered me into buying stuffed toys at Disney store.

Mission accomplished with the phone

Yes Neko I have seen the jitterbug ones and even ordered one. Long story short it, USPS could not deliver it and sent it back to sender. When I asked for refund they said they did not get it back so until I could track it down no money....can you say what the F???? Disputed the charge and got my money back

Neko - I don't do a lot of baking but I was missing a nice GF/LC "sweet" that isn't an Atkins Bar.:barf: I've also been looking at the Atkins recipes, but they call for a lot of soy flour which I've been told tastes bad and isn't very healthy. I'm not going to derail myself by having a lot of sweets, even if they're made with Stevia and/or Erythritol. For the few times I've baked something I use gluten free mixes. The one time I made cupcakes by scratch they looked great but they were very dense and didn't taste very good. My son said it was bait & switch - looked tasty but wasn't!

I tried the Paleo Banana Bread I bought at my health food store and it was good. I might not have to do any baking! If you have enough freezer space you can freeze anything you bake so it doesn't go bad. The Atkins website has a bunch of "mug" recipes - single serve recipes. I'll have to find the best substitute for soy flour. The lowest carb flours are almond and coconut, but I'm not sure they will work as an exact substitute in the Atkins recipes. I'll have to experiment.

UPDATE: I tried Mikey's English Muffins in toasted onion that I purchased at my gluten-free health food store. Horrible. Wasted 1/2 a slice of swiss cheese on them. I was able to eat the thinner top of the muffin (that had the onion on it) but the bottom part was inedible IMO. Threw them all out. They are paleo/gluten-free with only 2 net carb grams. Thank goodness I didn't spend as much as people did ordering them from Amazon or elsewhere online.

Hi Nancy, I know how you feel. My mom has a Tracphone and she had to upgrade and picked up a Smartphone at Walmart and would not touch it! Technology and my mom are like oil and water. I did get her to finally learn how to answer the calls and how to get to the contact list and find and call me. Tho it has been a few weeks.. so I bet she has forgotten ( I think I need to type the directions and tape them to the back of the phone) I know that there is a new Trac phone that is both Flip and smart. Now my Dad got himself an I pad and I have slowly shown him somethings (like how to find NFL scores, Golfing and AMAZON! LOLOLOL) I, tho, can see me in 5 years planting my feet in the ground when we are eventually required to get driverless cars... (Nope NO WAY !) lolol

and Yep Chicken Wings are on the AOK list :) and they are filling and salty tho (hot sauce) and usually holds water...

Judy, the baking is hard to stay away from too for me. Sweets call me all the time, tho the siren seems alittle quieter. Have you thought of making a sugar free crustless cheesecake? I made those in the past when I was well on my low carb quest and it was such a treat. There is a set of lowcarb recipes too at the top of this Atkins section. Lindas low carb recipes are good to google too :)

Neko, I too love Ruby Tuesdays salad bar.. Yum.. I have heard it has changed tho... and Disney stuffed animals.. well they are the bomb! (I was at DW all day yesterday) Who is your daughters favorite?

I had a great and fun day at Disney studios and Epcot (Art and Alcohol festival there) Had to dodge and weave around the tipsy people there. But perfect day 73 degrees and partly cloudy. :) Love it! (I am lucky as I live less than 2 hours away and have the Florida Annual Pass(black out days tho around the holidays and 2 months of summer) but it is my treat I give to myself each year :)

:D OK round two with cell phone mania ... they accidently set up my mom with 'paperless' billing. uh....she does no banking via internet and can not create an account to change the setting since I am not on the account and they send a 'text' to the subscribers phone. Asking my mom to read a text would be about the same as asking her what color eyes does the man on the moon have? Finally convinced wireless company to call her on her land line to verify this is what she wants. :dizzy:

So other than that, and the fact it has been snowing since 7am my day has been great. Eating op, no more wings but will have cod for dinner in an hour or so.

How are you gals????

Nancy, glad you sort of got the phone thing straightened out. LOL, I can't imagine setting my mother or mother-in-law up with electronic billing.

Sue, The new salad bar has a few great options. More cheese, including blue cheese, celery sticks, these crispy Parmesan cheese bits, artichoke hearts and plenty of non-low carb new choices.
My daughter's favorite characters are Rapunzel and of course Anna & Elsa. But her absolute favorite lately is DocMcStuffins. She was so happy to meat her at DHS in the fall. I'll have to keep working on my husband and the finances to go back. I actually have a package booked for September, it's just affording the vacation. And I agree, Disney store has the best stuffed animals. They were buy one get one for a dollar, so we got a toddler Moana and her pig.

Judy, I think I'll look up the mug recipes later. It would be nice to once and awhile make just one treat for me.

Good morning ladies,
well I woke to winter wonderland about 14 inches of snow

Got text from work they are keeping the office closed because of the roads so yeah a forced day off..

guess I can get some exercise in and shovel :o

weight the same ole same ole hovering between 164 - 164.6 today on the high side this is week three with this mess

I'm now playing back and forth with a pound since I went down to 142. Been back at 143 for 2 days now so hopefully will get back to 142 this week. I still kind of wish I had started the Atkins 40 plan - it would have been a huge reduction from the amount of daily carbs I had been eating. I feel like I'm getting my body used to too few carbs now.

Sue - I've been thinking about a lowcarb cheescake recipe but there are a bunch of other things I want to try first. My husband is in a 60's British Invasion band and they were offered a gig in the British pub in Epcot but they turned it down. It would have been gigs interspersed throughout the day with time off in between - taking up almost an entire day. Not much time to do anything else. My husband said it was for younger guys - even their youngest player wasn't interested. I said "take it!" I'll work in Disney World until I get my real estate license and build up business.

Nancy - My parents retired to Mesa, AZ and my brothers have both been living in California for many years. I'm in IL. When my Dad passed away Mom lived on her own for years (she was in her late 70's). After awhile, we convinced her to move near one of us. She chose the boys in CA. She's 92 with her own house (in a 55+ community) & just recently gave up her driver's license. One of my brothers is 5 minutes away so he stops by almost every day. Just visited her about a month ago.

Neko - I just tried Arrowroot flour in a dish I made yesterday and it worked great for thickening and tasted fine. I made a low carb chicken marsala recipe that was as good as any restaurant. I used thighs instead of breasts because I prefer dark meat. Here's the recipe. Only 2.2 net carbs per serving. I get bored with just plain meat and veggies every day. Arrowroot flour/starch in itself isn't the most low-carb flour out there, but for a thickener you only need a tablespoon or 2. The recipe called for 2 tablespoons but I bet I could have gotten away with 1. It was a pretty easy recipe. The hardest part was trying to find Marsala wine at our Meijer's store that has aisles of wine (I'm not a wine drinker but I like cooking with it). I figured it was a red wine so just grabbed a cheap bottle but saw Marsala as I was leaving the aisle. That bottle was even cheaper.

judyo, I get that up down lb I am so frustrated with mine too

Nedo and Wanna....how are you gals doing?

I spent this afternoon shoveling snow so got a bit of exercise in for the day. Now I am all tuckered out and wish I could have had a nap :o

We took a bit of a drive this afternoon after all the snow was shoveled only because cabin fever set in.

Now I am off to rummage to find some snack or dinner. Why can't they make a quick frozen food that is low low carb friendly??? why do they all have bread/rice/pasta or gravy?????? whaaa

I hope you gals don't mind me sharing some of my recipes. There are a lot of LC recipes out there but I like easy and good tasting. I found one on the Atkins website - beef and vegetable stew. I cooked it in my slow cooker on high for about 7 hours. I used more beef than the recipe called for and I didn't put the green beans in the stew as my son wanted to eat them separately. I also didn't use pearl onions, just sliced some onion. They call for a lot of liquids and I tried thickening it with almond flour but it didn't do much. I looked up Thick-it-up and there were a lot of bad reviews (slimy and bad taste). I found another thickener that I'm going to try called Low Carb Thick'n Saucy - I'm ordering it from Amazon. Supposedly doesn't add any kind of flavor and was given the thumbs up from another low carber that tried the other stuff. I'm wondering if my Arrowroot would have worked but I didn't have it the day I made the stew. Also, it does have carbs which the thickener stuff doesn't.

Nancy - It's raining here in IL which I'll take over snow. Have you tried any of the Atkins frozen meals? They're pretty good - in fact I think they're better than any other gluten free (not always LC) frozen dinners I've tried. They have low net carbs and have great tasting sauces/gravy. Doesn't taste low carb IMO.

Judy, keep sharing low carb receipes. It's good to have ideas for dinner to have variety. The chicken marsala looks good, maybe I'll try one of those packages of Xantham gum to thicken it up. I keep seeing them at the grocery store.

It's raining here in New Jersey also. Consider it's February, I'm shocked at how little snow we've gotten here this year.


Nancy, have you tried Atkins dinners? They do make a frozen dinner, although I don't see them in every store. I think only the Shoprite around here carries them. When I can't figure out what to make I make eggs or tuna. Although I'm already getting tired of tuna.



Tried pork rinds this weekend. Bleh.... Good thing it was only a little bag from the dollar store. Anyone here like them?

Good evening gals!

Well dinner tonight was an egg omelet with a slice of bacon, onion, olives and pharm cheese was pretty good then a protein bar. -- have to have my chocolate fix

I have not tried the Atkins tv dinners although I have seen them in the store, I might pick one up in the next week or so.

A word about xantham gum, I have used it for different projects..recently for toilet bowl cleaner :o it really does thicken and a little bit goes a long way. Recipe is 1/2 t xantham gum (to thicken), 1 t glycerin (for cling) 1 C water, 1/2 C white vinegar...blend in blender and poof put in squirt bottle put under rim leave for 20 min light scrub and done....ok I know this is not a cooking thread or a cleaning thread I just wanted to show you how powerful the xantham gum can be.

I have not tried it in gravy's but I want to since it adds no flavor. I have also read about adding unflavored gelatin but I think that would break down if heated. If one of you try it let me know...I got a roast that is dying to be slow cooked with some added gravy

I'm really happy how easy it is to eat on plan in restaurants. Had a nice salad for lunch with chicken and some very thin slices of pear and ate half, so not sure I even had 1/4 cup of pear. It will fit in with my carbs for the day since I'm having turkey and cauliflower for dinner. I'm feeling a little bit better about how I'm going to eat when we go to Arizona next week. Lots of great restaurants where we are, although I'm not sure how I'll handle my favorite Mexican restaurants. I'll have to figure out carbs for one corn tortilla plus beans and work it in. Maybe I'll just have skirt steak with beans, forget tortillas. I usually order cheese enchiladas. Will be up to 45 grams by that time.

Neko - I have Xantham Gum for that gluten free recipe that tasted terrible - red velvet (more like sickening pink velvet) cupcakes. Only good thing was the cream cheese frosting. I'm not sure about using it to thicken gravy, but let us know how it goes. You might want to buy Arrowroot instead, although it does have carbs, but you only need 1-2 tablespoons. I'll let you all know how that thickener works when I get it. Was raining yesterday and today a light snow. Can't wait for AZ! I hate winter!

Nancy - give those Atkins frozen dinners a try. I now keep them on hand for those times I don't have time to cook. Thanks for that cleaning tip but if the xantham gum gets so thick can you actually use it in a squirt bottle? Does it gum up the squirt thingy? I've been wanting a non-toxic toilet cleaner so will definitely try this.