300 Low-Carb Slow Cooker Recipes (9 page)

Artichoke Egg Casserole

Look at this! It's has artichokes, sun-dried tomatoes, bacon, and cheese! You know you want it!

12 eggs

2 cups (450 g) creamed cottage cheese

2 cans (14 ounces, or 390 g each) artichoke hearts, drained and chopped

2 bunches scallions, sliced, including the crisp part of the green

12 sun-dried tomato halves, chopped

12 slices bacon, cooked crisp and crumbled

3 cups (345 g) shredded Italian cheese blend

4 teaspoons (4 g) dried basil

4 cloves garlic, crushed

Coat your slow cooker with nonstick cooking spray. Turn on to high while you mix this up. Let it heat.

This is simple. You just throw everything in a mixing bowl and whisk it up. Pour it into the heated slow cooker and cover. Let it cook for 2 hours on high and then turn it down to low and give it another 3 hours. That's all there is to it!

Yield:
8 servings, each with: 266 calories, 13 g fat, 23 g protein, 15 g carbohydrate, 2 g dietary fiber, 13 g usable carbs.

Tuna Egg Casserole

This is sort of a cross between traditional tuna casserole and a quiche.

8 ounces (225 g) sliced mushrooms

1/2 onion, chopped

2 tablespoons (28 g) butter

6 eggs

1 cup (225 g) creamed cottage cheese

1/2 teaspoon salt or Vege-Sal

1/4 teaspoon pepper

1 can (12 ounces, or 340 g) tuna in water

1 cup (130 g) frozen peas

4 ounces (115 g) shredded Cheddar cheese

In your big, heavy skillet, over medium heat, start the mushrooms and onions sautéing in the butter. Use the edge of your spatula to chop the mushrooms into smaller bits as you stir.

Add the eggs and cottage cheese, plus the salt and pepper, and whisk them together.

Go stir your mushrooms and onions!

Open and drain your tuna and dump it in the egg mixture. Add the peas, too.

When your mushrooms are soft and your onion translucent, dump them in the slow cooker. Dump the egg and cheese mixture over it and stir it together. Now sprinkle the cheese over the top.

Cover the slow cooker, set to high, and give it an hour. Then turn it down to low, give it another 2 to 3 hours, and serve.

Yield:
5 servings, each with: 371 calories, 20 g fat, 37 g protein, 9 g carbohydrate, 2 g dietary fiber, 7 g usable carbs.

Broccoli-Bacon-Colby Quiche

This crustless quiche is wonderful, but feel free to make any quiche recipe you've got, minus the crust, in the same way. For this recipe, I use broccoli cuts that are bigger than chopped broccoli but smaller than florets, and I think they're ideal.

2 cups (312 g) frozen broccoli florets, thawed and coarsely chopped, or a bag of broccoli cuts

2 cups (225 g) shredded Colby cheese

6 slices cooked bacon

4 eggs

2 cups (475 ml) Carb Countdown dairy beverage

1 teaspoon salt or Vege-Sal

1 teaspoon dry mustard

2 teaspoons prepared horseradish

1/4 teaspoon pepper

Spray a 1 1/2-quart (1.4 L) glass casserole dish with nonstick cooking spray.

Put the broccoli in the bottom of the casserole dish. Spread the cheese evenly on top of the broccoli and crumble the bacon evenly over the cheese.

In a bowl, whisk together the eggs, Carb Countdown, salt or Vege-Sal, dry mustard, horseradish, and pepper and pour it over the broccoli in the casserole dish.

Place the casserole dish in your slow cooker and carefully pour water around the casserole dish to within 1 inch (2.5 cm) of the rim. Cover the slow cooker, set it to low, and let it cook for 4 hours.

Then turn off the slow cooker, uncover it, and let the water cool until you can remove the casserole dish without risk of scalding your fingers. Serve hot or at room temperature.

Yield:
6 servings, each with: 292 calories, 21 g fat, 20 g protein, 6 g carbohydrate, 2 g dietary fiber, 4 g usable carbs.

Chili Egg Puff Slow Cooker Style

Chili Egg Puff
showed up in
500 Low Carb Recipes
; it is a brunch dish that causes nostalgic drooling when mentioned to those who have tried it. And if you buy pre-shredded cheese, it takes about three minutes to put together—maybe five if you have to shred your cheese yourself. So I figured I needed to slow-cooker-ize it.

12 eggs

2 cups (450 g) creamed cottage cheese

2 cans (4 ounces, or 115 g each) diced green chiles

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon pepper

16 ounces (455 g) shredded Monterey Jack cheese

Coat your slow cooker with nonstick cooking spray. Turn it on to high and let it heat while you whisk everything else together. Pour into the slow cooker, cover, and let it cook on high for a couple of hours. Turn down to low and let it cook another 3 hours.

Yield:
8 servings, each with: 363 calories, 25 g fat, 30 g protein, 4 g carbohydrate, trace dietary fiber, 4 g usable carbs.

Crab Puff

I made this for a friend and her family when she was ill. They all thought it was the best “quiche” they'd ever had.

2 leeks

2 tablespoons (28 g) butter

2 cups (450 g) creamed cottage cheese

12 eggs

1 tablespoon (9 g) dry mustard

1 teaspoon salt or Vege-Sal

1/2 teaspoon pepper

1 teaspoon Tabasco sauce or to taste

1/2 cup (50 g) grated Parmesan cheese

1 can (12 ounces, or 340 g) crabmeat, drained

2 cups (230 g) shredded Monterey Jack cheese

Trim the leaves and the root off your leeks and split them the long way. Rinse them well, getting in between the layers where the dirt tends to lurk. Then lay them on your cutting board and slice them thinly into half-rounds.

Over medium-low heat, melt the butter in your big, heavy skillet and start sautéing the leeks.

In the meantime, measure the cottage cheese into a big mixing bowl and crack in the eggs. Add the mustard, salt, pepper, Tabasco, and Parmesan and whisk until it's well-blended.

Don't forget to stir your leeks from time to time!

When the leeks are softened, add them to the mixing bowl along with the crab and stir them both in well.

Coat your slow cooker with nonstick cooking spray and pour in half the egg and cheese mixture. Sprinkle half of the Monterey Jack evenly over this, add the rest of the egg mixture, and top with the rest of the cheese. Cover the pot and set to high.

I gave mine 2 hours on high and then turned it down to low and gave it another two, but you could turn it down after one hour and let it go 4 hours on low.

Yield:
8 servings, each with: 319 calories, 21 g fat, 26 g protein, 7 g carbohydrate, trace dietary fiber, 7 g usable carbs.

chapter three
Slow Cooker Poultry

Here you will find roughly a billion ways to fix chicken and some ideas for turkey, too! You'll notice that many (but not all) of these recipes call for the poultry to be skinless. This is because the skin usually doesn't end up very tasty or interesting when moist-cooked as it is in a slow cooker.

I've often specified light meat or dark meat—breasts versus thighs. This is just what appealed to me. Feel free to use whichever you like best or what's on sale. Often it's cheapest to buy a whole cut-up chicken and strip the skin off yourself at home. That's fine, too—just remove any obvious globs of fat so your sauce doesn't end up greasy.

Chicken Burritos