Tag: quick keto dinner

chimichurri prawns – low carb dinner in less that 30 minutes

Published on by Paula1 Comment

As I mentioned in my post with 10 tips for beginners: how to start keto in 2021, spices are important part of my keto cooking. Even if you are restricted with variety of foods you can eat, with adding different spices and herbs, making your own blends you can create many different meals. Spices and herbs give you a lot of opportunities, if your spice cupboard is stocked up, you will never get bored with your food.

If you don’t have enough cooking experience in preparing your own blends, you can look for ready-made blends on the Internet and, suggesting their ingredients list, prepare your own. Why make your own mixes instead of just buying them if you can? For two simple reasons: ready-made blends are usually more expensive and also contain various unwanted additives such as palm oil, sugar, food additives and anti-caking agents. If you have your favourite spice mixes that you usually buy, why not consider making your own blends? Making your own blends will give you endless options.

This way I prepared this chimichurri blend. Couple weeks ago I bought small pack of chimichurri spice, and because I repeated this purchase couple more times I decided that cheaper will be to make my own chimichurri blend, since I have all the ingredients in my spice cupboard. And that’s how this recipe came out – we liked it so much I had to make it twice this week 🙂

Originally chimichurri is an uncooked sauce used in Argentina and Uruguay in cooking and as a table condiment for grilled meat. Chimichurri sauce is always made from finely chopped parsley, red wine vinegar, garlic, salt, black pepper, oregano, red pepper flakes, and sunflower or olive oil. Some recipes add shallot or onion, coriander and lemon juice. It’s usually served with grilled steaks or roasted sausages, but also with poultry or fish. Using dried herbs you can make your own spice blend and enjoy with meat or veggies. Or using fresh herbs, some onion, garlic and olive oil prepare delicious salsa you can enjoy with grilled meat or fish during summer months.

To prepare chimichurri prawns, you need less than 30 minutes (I don’t take time to defrost prawns or green beans) and you have aromatic and flavoursome meal ready on your table. If you’re not a fan of prawns, you can use chicken – I tried it couple times already and was also delicious.

chimichurri prawns

INGREDIENTS for 2 portions:

  • 450 g prawns (I use frozen cooked and peeled prawns)
  • 2 medium courgettes
  • 2-3 handfuls of green beans
  • 1 brown onion
  • thick slice of butter
  • 4 garlic cloves
  • 2 tsp dried parsley
  • 1 tsp dried oregano
  • ½ tsp dried coriander leaves
  • ½ tsp sweet paprika powder
  • ½ tsp onion powder
  • pinch of coarse pepper
  • optionally: pinch of chilli flakes
  • natural rock salt

DIRECTIONS

If you also use frozen prawns defrost them first and drain from water. Cut onion in half and lengthwise in thick slices. Wash courgettes and cut them in half-slices.

Heat a large skillet adding thick slice of butter. Add onion and fry until golden, then add prawns. If you use raw prawns you can fry them first then add onion.

Add chopped garlic cloves, courgettes and green beans, some salt and all the spices. Fry on medium heat until courgette and beans will be tender. If you use frozen green beans (defrosting them beforehand) it will take 10-15 minutes to be ready.

And it’s ready. Serve hot and enjoy 🙂

smoked sausage traybake (ketofriendly)

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I have a serious problem with arranging the food on a plate for photos when I’m hungry. Ideally I would just toss a bunch of veg and couple sausage, and start eating before it gets cold, and I go really frustrated trying to make some kind of aesthetic composition on the plate. Sometimes it finishes like this.

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I’m still far away from professional food composition, but I hate cold food. So please bear with me if you feel embarrassed with this veg and sausage set up. Just double the portion of veggies and imagine me running with the fork, so I can finally grab a seat at the table and start eating. Yes, I was very hungry on that day 🙂

But. I really like this kind of meals, where you have all ingredients separately. I could make a mix of all veggies with sliced sausage, but I was smuggling some potatoes for my partner, so I sectioned everything on the baking tray, making sure that I won’t get any potatoes by mistake. Yeah, my partner is taking a keto break, but I feel like sooner or later (rather sooner) he will decide to get back on ketogenic track. Anyway, if you like traybake of veggies mixed with sausages, make some mess.

I’m not the biggest fan of sausages, the only one I like is the smoked ones from time to time. You can find smoked sausages in every Polish shop, and most of the popular supermarkets in UK. Look for the one that has a lot of meat in it, short list of ingredients, and as little as possible preservatives. The one that we like is a mix of pork and turkey meat (prepared with 80g of pork meat and 21g turkey meat per 100g of finished product) and only one preservative: sodium nitrite. Stay away from the one that are full of flour, artificial colours, starches, soya proteins and many preservatives.

I’ve also added couple unpeeled garlic cloves. If you’ve never tried baked garlic, you should definitely start adding it to your baked veggies and meats. It gets soft, buttery and sweet when caramelised. Garlic heaven! (check out my recipe for chicken baked with 40 cloves of garlic). If not that unfortunate potatoes I would add plenty of onion, but I haven’t been left with much room.

Anyway if you want something effortless, tasty and fun, grab couple smoked sausages, plenty of veggies, garlic (undoubtedly!), place them all on a baking tray, drizzle with some olive oil, sprinkle with herbs and pop into the oven. Get nice and crispy sausage and veggies, that are melting in you mouth. You can serve it with some low sugar ketchup, mustard or horseradish.

Yum!

smoked sausage traybake (ketofriendly)

INGREDIENTS (for two people):

  • 300g smoked sausage
  • 2 medium courgettes
  • 1 large aubergine
  • couple unpeeled garlic cloves
  • some olive oil
  • natural rock salt or sea salt flakes
  • pinch of dried basil
  • handful of cherry tomatoes (for baking or as I did – fresh)

DIRECTIONS

Preparations are as easy as it can be. Grab a large tray and place a piece of baking paper on it.

Take sausages, make small crosswise cuts, not very deep, to make kind of chequered pattern. Do it on both sides of each sausage.

Wash courgettes and aubergine and chop in smaller pieces, but don’t cut them very small. It will take about 40 minutes to bake the sausages, so we don’t want to burn veggies. Keep garlic unpeeled.

Place veggies, garlic and sausages on the tray, drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle veggies with some dried basil and salt. If you like, also place cherry tomatoes. I’d rather like them fresh, but if you don’t mind baking them, do not hesitate.

Heat the oven to 200°C, and bake until veg and sausages are ready, it took me about 40 minutes. You can use grill function in the oven to sear the sausages slightly.

After baking place immediately on a plate and enjoy. You can serve it with low sugar ketchup, mustard or horseradish. After baking garlic is ready to be peeled, should be soft, buttery and slightly sweet when caramelised.

Enjoy!