Carpender - 500 more low-carb recipes: 500 all-new recipes from around the world

500 All-New Recipes from Around the World

Dana Carpender

This book is dedicated to all of the people who contributed to itthe folks who sent recipes, and the folks who diligently tested those recipes and gave me vital feedback. As you page through this book, you'll see a whole lot of namesthis book is dedicated to every single one of them. It is only through their hard work, creativity, and generosity that this work was possibleand it is because of that same hard work, creativity, and generosity that this book is far more interesting, diverse, and complex than I ever could have made it myself. These folks are the heart and soul of the growing low-carb community, and I'm proud and grateful to be among them.

And, once again, to my husband Eric Schmitz, who worked fourteen-hour days right alongside me, getting this book done on time. When I say I couldn't have done it without him, it's just the simple truth.

Some of this Introduction will seem familiar to those of you who have my previous cookbooks! However, you still might want to read itI've updated quite a few things.

After putting together 500 Low-Carb Recipes on a killer-tight schedule during the winter of 20012002, I swore I was never writing a book that big in that little time again.

Hah. Just try writing a best seller. Just try! Your readers and your publisher will never let you sleep again. I had no idea that 500 Low-Carb Recipes would do as well as it did, but it turned out to be the most popular low-carb cookbook of 2003 (and thank you all very much!). Next thing I knew I was appearing on national talk shows (Hey! I met Wayne Brady!), taping for the Food Network, and finding the bookstore buyers, the readers, and my publisher all clamoring for a sequel as soon as possible!

I started in October of 2003only to have my hard drive crash and eat all my work in mid-December (Back up early and often is the moral of that story.) So I started again, and had just over five months to come up with 500 recipes! YIKES!

All of which is by way of explaining why this book is even more of a collaborative effort than the first one: There was simply no way I was going to come up with enough recipes by my deadline without considerable help. So I put out the call to the readers of Lowcarbezine!, my Internet newsletter, telling them that I needed recipes, and plenty of them!

The response was overwhelming, as you will appreciate as you page through this bookfully half the recipes come from Lowcarbezine! readers. Bless them, one and all, for their generosity in sharing their best recipes with me, and through me, with the whole low-carb community.

Not only did my Lowcarbezine! readers send recipes, but they sent a lot of really great recipes. Indeed, as they flooded into my inbox, over and over, I had the thought, Geez, how am I going to come up with anything better than these? I'm humbled by the talent of my readership, some of whom could teach me a thing or two about cooking. If you find this book varied, interesting, useful, and fun, a great deal of the credit goes to the people whose names you will find all through this book. Thank them in your heart, they deserve it.

My readers, for the most part, don't write cookbooks for a living. Often their recipes came in with wording such as 1 package frozen spinach or 1 can green chilies instead of exact measurements. We've generally gone with the most common-sized packaging, or what made instinctive sense to my cook's brain. And some recipes came with no quantities givenin these cases we relied heavily on our testers' feedback.

Ditto with the instructions; often they simply said Cookwithout specifying skillet or saucepan, high heat or low. And more than half the recipes came in with no suggestion as to how many servings they made. Again, we went with testers' feedback, and my experience.

Some recipes came in with specific products recommended; whenever possible we went with a generic recommendation, but where a specific product seemed like it would really make a difference, we kept it. And there are certain ingredients we simply won't use around here, among them hydrogenated shortening and the very well known fake whipped topping that comes in a tub. We've substituted more wholesome ingredients in those cases.

Too, I reworded recipes for clarity wherever I felt it was needed, though I think you'll be able to hear a lot of my readers' voices coming through, as well.

For any errors made in this process, any recipes that have undergone a sea change, and anything that just seems to the original creator like it's just not the same recipe anymore, I take full responsibility, and apologize.

Just as with 500 Low-Carb Recipes, not all of the recipes in this book are of the very-low-carb Atkins-induction variety. You'll find recipes with no carbs at all, and you'll find recipes with as much as 12 or 15 grams of usable carbohydrate per servingand the whole range in between.

Let me say it loud and clear: I am a huge believer in low-carbohydrate eating. I am forever opposed, however, to NO-carbohydrate diets. Indeed, people who decide that, if low carb is good, no carb must be better, make me want to beat my head against a wall. When people do this, it's almost invariably because they figure if they eat this way, they'll lose their weight fast-fast-fast. Why do they want to lose their weight fast-fast-fast? Because they're looking forward to the day that they can go off the diet. I confidently predict that that day is the day they start to gain their weight back, along with their insulin-related health problems.

Please, get it through your head: There is no finish line. Whatever you do to lose weight is what you must continue to do for the rest of your life to keep it off. Whatever you do to improve your health you must continue to do forever if you want to keep your new found energy, reduced blood pressure, stable blood sugar, and improved cholesterol and triglyceride numbers.

So stop trying to lose weight at a ridiculous rate. (I've actually had people write to me about how discouraging it is that they're losing only two pounds per week. Heck, at that rate, you'd lose 104 pounds in a year! Two pounds a week is quick weight loss.) Instead, focus on making your low-carbohydrate lifestyle just as enjoyable as it can possibly bewhich is darned enjoyable! Try new dishes; budget money for low-carb extravagances like expensive cheeses or macadamia nuts. Get comfortable here, because this is the rest of your life.

That being said, carb tolerance varies widely. Only you can know, through trial and error, how much carbohydrate you can eat in a day and still lose weight, and whether you also need to keep an eye on your calorie count. (By way of example, I need to eat no more than 50 grams per day of usable carb, and no more than 2,000 calories per day, or I start to gain. If I stay below 30 or 40 grams, and 1,800 calories, I lose slowly.) Further, you may have allergies, sensitivities, or religious dietary restrictions this book is not meant to deal with. It is up to you to pick and choose among the recipes in this book, with an eye to the carbohydrate counts provided, your own tastes, and any other limiting factors, and put together menus that will please your palate and your family, while staying within that critical carb level.