Burger Love Affair

If there's one thing I crave a lot since going low carb, it's burgers. I find myself just constantly thinking and drooling over burgers.

Luckily, my hubby makes the most awesome burgers. All he does is make patties out of pure ground beef (half a cup per patty) and then fry in a pan with no oil (the beef is pretty fatty) with a sprinkling of salt.

Trust me. This is so good and so simple. So he makes six to eight patties at a time with 1 lb of ground beef and we keep them in the fridge. Then when I want to have one I reheat it with some butter and top it with a whole lotta stuff.


Bacon Mushroom Melt
With sautéed onions and mushrooms, bacon and cheese


DOUBLE Bacon Cheeseburger
Two patties with bacon and cheese


BLT + OC
Bacon, lettuce, tomato, onion and cheese


Pizza Burger
Tomato paste, Italian seasoning, tomato, onion, olives and cheddar cheese

Low Carb Philly Cheese Steak Pizza

There are a lot of things I missed when I started doing low carb. But then I started reading an amazing blog by an equally amazing woman. There I found recipes upon recipes of the things I thought I could never have again. One of them was pizza. I was so glad that pizza hadn't gotten on that bus and left me standing by the highway in a swirl of dust. Cleochatra's Cauliflower Pizza Crust looks just like the real thing. She even turned them into bread sticks! Bread sticks!!!

So when my hubby insisted to have pizza for the nth time, we decided to look for cauliflower. Alas, the poor quality produce that Gaisano Mall's grocery provided left us empty handed. Weeks passed with still no cauliflower and I thought pizza had really gotten on that bus.

Then another recipe made our pizza dream come true. The recipe can be found in a thread at LowCarbFriends.com and was thought up by NancyElle.




We used 2 cups mozarella cheese and 1 cup cheddar cheese. We had trouble flipping the pizza because it stuck to the tin foil. Next time we'll just bake it on the cookie sheet, no more foil.

For the toppings, hubby made cheese steak by cooking sliced beef tenderloin, onions and sliced bell peppers until everything was cooked. He seasoned with salt and garlic powder.

After the crust baked, I spread cream cheese on top and then distributed the cheese steak topping evenly over it. Shredded mozarella was sprinkled on top and we turned on the broiler and left the pizza under it until the cheese melted.

This was really as amazing as we imagined it to be. Depending on how you slice it, you can get up to 12 servings. I used a cookie sheet so the pizza was rectangular. This is quite filling too.

And before I go to sleep tonight, I will open our refrigerator door and peek inside just to check if the pizza is there. Just to be sure it's not going anywhere near that bus.

Next in line... bread sticks!!!

Peruvian Style Beef Steak

What do you do when you text your beloved husband what he wants to do for dinner and he replies, "It's up to you, honey!"? I type the only thing I can think of that's not frozen into Google and look for a recipe. So I typed beef tenderloin and got lots of results. I settled on a version of Peruvian beef steak but of course, I did it my way. I added bacon because well bacon makes everything better!

This was really interesting because it reminded me of the Tagalog Bistek, which I love. The vinegar replaces the kalamansi juice and makes it a tad sweet. I didn't mind the sweetness factor; it was just unexpected. This would be great with cauliflower rice but I just had it by itself. I only had four pieces but it's quite filling.

Peruvian Style Beef Steak
*Adapted from this recipe. Serves 4-6.

600 grams beef tenderloin, sliced into serving pieces

3/4 c white vinegar

3 tbsp soy sauce

1/2 stick butter, more as needed

1 onion, sliced thinly

2 small tomatoes, seeded and sliced thinly

3 strips bacon

1/4 t cayenne pepper, optional

salt and pepper



1. Mix soy sauce and vinegar in a bowl. Marinate the beef pieces for at least an hour.

2. Cook bacon until slightly crispy. Remove from pan, cut into 1/2 inch strips and set aside.

3. Add a little bit of butter into the pan. Fry the beef pieces until browned and cooked. Reserve the marinade. Set aside the beef pieces.

4. Add more butter as needed into the pan, saute the onions until translucent. Add the tomatoes. When the tomatoes are soft, add the bacon strips. Saute until bacon is heated through. Add the beef pieces.

5. Once the beef is heated through, pour the marinade into the pan. Season with salt, pepper and cayenne pepper, if using. Let it reduce uncovered.

6. Serve.

Beef Shank Stew

When we go grocery shopping, my husband and I would always make it a point to drop by the meat section to see if there's anything that looked good. This particular day we saw some really nice looking beef shanks. Neither of us had any idea which part of the cow it came from but they looked really fresh and nicely cut. We got around 1.5 kilos, got home and stuck it in the fridge. After a lot of googling we found out that beef shanks come from the cow's legs and since they use their legs a lot the meat tends to be drier and tougher.

My husband decided to make stew with the beef shanks and it turned out really well. The meat was so tender and delicious and the stew was hearty and so filling. The carbs in this dish is relatively high because of the tomato sauce but you can always add water to thin it out so you don't have to use too much. It's also a very easy dish to make and a throw-everything-you-want-in-it dish which is great when you have a lot of odds and ends veggies in the fridge.

I hope you enjoy it as much as we did when we had it for dinner. And breakfast. And lunch. It was a lot of beef =D.




Beef Shank Stew
Serves 6

Ingredients
2 lbs beef shank, remove connective tissue around
3 C string beans/green beans, we used fresh
2 C celery
5 cloves garlic
2 onions
1.5 C cauliflower
1 C broccoli
5 medium tomatoes
150 g tomato paste
salt and pepper

1.Prepare the shanks by removing the connective tissue around as much as you can. Boil the beef in a big pot with enough water to cover it, sliced onions, garlic and salt. The length of time depends on how tender you want the meat to be.
2.Prep the veggies by cutting them in bite-sized pieces to make sure they cook evenly and at the same time.
3.Once the beef is tender, take it out of the pot and slice them into bite-sized pieces and return to the pot. You may leave the bone out. Add all the vegetables and let them cook.
4.About 5 minutes before the veggies are done cooking, stir in the tomato paste. Season with salt and pepper. Heat through.
5.Serve.