Root vegetable Frittatta salad

Saladify everything. That's how you lose weight. Surprisingly, this was not at the forefront of my mind when I was thinking of ways to use up the fritatta, salad mix, dressing and tomatoes in my fridge. I'm just buying a lot of fresh produce lately.

Grill'd Bunless Burgers

At Grill'd, there's a bunless option. It sounds like bad value 'cause you're paying the same price and not getting the bun. However, it turns out the bunless option is just as filling as with the bread (especially if you also want chips), since the bun is not a filling component of the meal anyway.

This is the bacon and cheese burger. The great thing about having the sauce on the side instead of inside a sandwich is that you can have as much or as little as you want (and it's a LOT of sauce, but having worked in a fast food restaurant myself I know they actually put that amount in the burgers!! This is especially a concern with a high fat sauce like aioli).

The zucchini chips sound like a good alternative to potato, but with the batter they put on the zucchini, they are actually almost as high in kilojoules as their potato counterparts and don't even taste as good (waaaay to salty, and kind of slimy tasting if the batter falls off).

In conclusion, even though restaurant bun-free burgers are better than I expected, the ones I made at home were just as good. I have mayonnaise, mustard, ketchup etc at home that need to be used up too!

Bread free hamburger

I wanted to make a low carb version of one of my favourite meals: The hamburger. This is one of my attempts, accompanied by oven baked potatoes (which I unfortunately left in the oven for too long without oil, which meant overly dry though slightly crispy potatoes and a ruined baking pan). The egg and burger pattie were both cooked in the microwave. You could say I was trying to make this low in fat, but really my aim was to reduce the calories by as much as possible (since fat as the highest density of calories).

This is a high fat version I created for my dad and brother while I stayed in Bateman's Bay. The bacon is streaky and has been fried to a crisp on the stove, as has the egg and pattie. The whole thing is covered in wholesome seedy mustard.

Somehow everything tastes better when fried in cold pressed extra virgin olive oil. Maybe I should compromise and have this instead of wasting my time with eating low fat things 3/4 of the time and chocolate 1/4 of time.

Corned beef and beetroot

Sometimes, I don't need much to be satisfied. Beef and beetroot is one of my favourite meals and is extremely simple. Sometimes I make my own corned beef by cooking it in the slow cooker for 8 hours, sometimes (like now) I just get canned corned beef. Beetroot is very low in carbohydrates, and is available fresh, canned or bottled. I prefer the canned kind, though, because it's easier, and they tend to sweeten it with sugar (which isn't the best, but it ensures that bland beetroot isn't bland). If you are cooking raw beetroot, you need to make sure you don't cook it too much. It might even be a good idea to add salt, or let them steep in their own juices overnight before draining them.

A simple leftovers meal

In order to save time, I made these bacon and egg cups by filling a muffin tin with bacon, cracking and egg into each one, and baking. I am serving one of my bacon and egg cups with a small tin of beetroot and some leftover gluten free spinach gnocchi.

This is another meal from yesterday that uses the bacon and egg cups. Only in this case, I have smeared Kraft cheese spread on top of the bacon and egg cups and used rice that I precooked a stored away in the freezer for later use.

Hamburger Donburi

Yet again, I felt like burger with rice as a substitute for bread. The only thing that's missing here is the mayonnaise, but I figured that enough flavour came from everything else.