Buffalo Thighs (and Wings)

Prep Time: 5 minutes                              Cook Time: 35 minutes                          Add to MyFitnessPal

Buffalo wings, a staple of taverns, parties, football games, and post-operative bariatric patients.

"What?" you might be wondering. "How can you say buffalo wings are a staple for bariatric patients? Aren't they terrible for you?" My answer is simple: NO! They're perfect for those of us, provided you make them right. The trick is to steam them before a full cook to create the same air pockets in the skin a deep fry would yield before broiling them to get that perfect crispy skin and succulent meat.

One thigh is the perfect serving size

Sometimes though, wings can be a little tedious, frustrating to pull apart, and downright expensive given the meat-to-bone ratio. It turns out that thighs can yield a very similar, if meatier, product. However, if you prefer to use wings, this recipe works just as well with wings as with thighs.

Ziscuits

Prep Time: 10 minutes                         Cook Time: 15 minutes                        Add to MyFitnessPal

Yet another recipe stumbled upon accidentally. Granted, I was trying to find a way to replicate the salty, buttery savor of a buttermilk biscuit with another recipe at the same time that I stumbled onto this one, but let me tell you, I sure didn't see it coming.

Let me set the stage - I'm out of cauliflower, but have an abundance of zucchini and yellow summer squash in the garden. I'm craving an egg and cheese sandwich, but am out of caulibread, so I figure: Hey! Why not try it with zucchini?

Turns out, the flavor reminded me of biscuits, it wasn't perfect, but it was a heckuva lot closer than that other batch of biscuit-attempt I'd had to feed to the hens. A little tinkering and thus was born the Ziscuit! Oh, and it's much easier to make than caulibread - as if that seemed possible.

Cinnamon Vanilla Waffles

Prep Time: 5 Minutes                   Cook Time: 2-3 Minutes/Waffle               Add to MyFitnessPal

Since I started Smye's Baridelicious Foods, I've received well over 100 requests for a good waffle recipe, along with more than my fair share of, shall we say, indignant, inquiries as to why I hadn't posted one yet. To put it bluntly, waffles have been hard. It's fairly easy to make a low carb, high protein waffle that tastes good, but the resulting texture is usually awful. It's also quite straightforward to make a low carb, high protein waffle with great texture, but they tend to lack flavor. It's also not too hard to make one with amazing flavor, great texture and a whole lot of junk ingredients - which sort of defeats the whole purpose of this blog, no?

But finally, after well over two dozen attempts, I bring you Cinnamon Vanilla Waffles that taste great, have incredible texture, and have nothing in the way of artificiality about them.

Delicious, fluffy perfection

Oh, and they're pretty easy to make too. One batch makes six waffles that freeze & toast up wonderfully - though good luck eating a whole one in a single sitting.

Turkey Meatballs

Prep Time: 5 Minutes                        Cook Time: 10 Minutes                              Add to MyFitnessPal

Do you ever crave a big, heaping bowl of spaghetti and meatballs? If you're like me and have had weightloss surgery, there's nothing I can do to help you with the heaping part, but spaghetti and meatballs, it turns out, are a synch!

Can't believe how easy these are

These meatballs only take about 15 minutes from ingredients-in-the-fridge to meat-on-your-plate and the taste is incredible! And you don't even have to worry about breadcrumbs. Looking for the full spaghetti meal? Don't worry, that post is coming soon! These are also super versatile - I love them in curries, soups, sandwiches, pasta, and even tacos (weird, I know). 

Chili Lime Chicken Burgers

Prep Time - 15 minutes                       Cook Time - 10 minutes                        Add to MyFitnessPal

Normally I'm a staunch advocate of beef, bison, or goat-based burgers. I can't stand those dry hockey-puck turkey patties you can buy at the big box stores. They taste like the sport they're most reminiscent of.

These, on the otherhand, are juicy, fully of flavor, and tender as can be. There's nothing lost from the omission of red meat. In fact, only chicken could highlight the interplay of the chili and the lime so well as this. Oh, and you can make a bunch ahead of time, freeze them and then cook them up later without loss of flavor or texture.

Just enough kick to really bring out the flavor without being overpowering for your guests

Grilled Chicken Strips

Prep Time: 5 minutes                         Cook Time: 30 minutes                Add to MyFitnessPal

We all know the delicious grilled chicken strips you find on a restaurant salad or buy frozen at the grocery store are pumped full of saline, spices, starches, MSG, and a dozen difficult-to-pronounce ingredients, not to mention wicked expensive.

And we've all tried to make our own without success - they're dry, flavorless, or undercooked almost every time we try to make them. What's the secret? How can we get juicy, succulent, and incredibly delicious chicken strips for our salads without having to buy it premade?

Chicken strips make the perfect salad topping

Egg Bake

Prep Time - 15 minutes              Cook Time - 45 minutes                    Add to MyFitnessPal

I love to cook. I have a stressful job, I run a small farm, and sometimes the opportunity to spend time in the kitchen preparing wholesome, delicious food for myself and my family is just the sort of soothing I need. Many of my recipes are pretty involved and take quite a bit of time - this is not one of those recipes.


Reheats in the microwave? I'm in

Goat Cheese Pizza Crust

Prep Time: 15 minutes                   Cook Time: 35 minutes                   Add to MyFitnessPal

 

This crust is also excellent and has a heartier, easier to hold texture than the 1:1:1 crust. The flavor is ever so slightly tangy with the goat cheese and the higher dose of cauliflower is excellent - though I admit I still prefer the flavor of the other crust. The major advantage of this crust is after the initial bake, you can freeze the crust with 'raw' toppings easily and then pull it out and stick in the oven at 400F until a desired done-ness is achieved - homemade frozen pizza! 

 

Smoked Goat Pizza - A Great Use of Leftovers

 

1-1-1 Pizza Crust

Prep Time: 15 minutes                   Cook Time:   20 minutes              Add to MyFitnessPal

I struggled with a similar recipe for a long time but for the life of me couldn't get a 'small' version of this pizza to work. Every time I tried to make this pizza, I ended up with either a pie far to large for me to eat before it went bad or else something more akin to goo than pizza crust. And yet, it was so simple 1-1-1 (similar to, but much more successful than a certain former politicians SIMS-derived 999 tax plan). The texture isn't perfect (I'll be posting the ideal texture version in a few minutes), but the flavor is excellent! This is probably my favorite crust, especially with some red pepper flakes mixed in for just a smidgeon of heat.

Oh pizza, it's good to have you back

Pink Pickled Breakfast Eggs

Prep Time - 5 Minutes   Cook Time - 40 minutes   Pickling Time - 10-30 days     Add to MyFitnessPal

 

Maybe you've had pickled eggs at the store. Maybe you liked them. If you did, I think you're a little odd, but we can still be friends. Maybe you hated them, in that case I'm with you. I was doubtful at first when my partner first suggested I look into pickling an excess of duck eggs. However, I was getting 2-3 dozen eggs a day and, despite selling to 30 families, had a huge surpluss, so I figured what the heck. I'll go for it. It took some serious trial and error, but WOW, these are incredible! I've used chicken eggs for this recipe as I doubt most of you have duck eggs (though duck eggs are FAR superior) and the calorie count below is a bit of an overestimate as it assumes you drink all the pickling liquid and eat 1/3 of a beet with every egg. So enjoy freely. A bariatric-friendly adaptation from a recipe I first read in Mother Earth News, these make an eggcellent breakfast on the go!

PHOTOS OF THE FINISHED PRODUCT COMING SOON - MORE BELOW THE JUMP

Pho Broth

Prep Time: 25 minutes                                Cook Time 2-24 hours          Add to MyFitnessPal

 

Oh pho, how I love thee. I grew up eating southeastern asian cuisine. Despite mom's affinity for McD's, I learned to eat with chopsticks long before I could handle a fork and spoon. And of all the foods I ate, none tastes like home quite like a steaming bowl of pho. But those stinking rice noodles have WAY too many carbs for my diet, and the broth seemed impossible to make (or so I thought.) I spent three years trying to perfect pho but could never make it like Ngdom used to when I was a little. Oh, and it's a protein BOMB! YUM YUM YUM!

Protein, salt, collagen, perfection