With our BVI bareboat charter trip coming up, Scott and I have been trying to lose some weight. He recently watched a documentary about the infamous Keto Diet and decided we should try it. Since I love to cook, this would be an interesting change.
I don’t really miss the carbs, but it’s trying to find the replacement for them that can be difficult. We had decided a few weeks ago, to stay on the boat the first weekend of March because the weather looked great. Unfortunately, when the weekend arrived, the weather was CRAZY!
What do we prepare on a stormy night that is Keto friendly?
Normally I would bake some kind of pasta, but we needed something that was keto friendly. That’s when I decided to try and make zucchini lasagna. How hard can it be? Not hard at all.
How did it turn out? GREAT! The only issue is that zucchini is full water, so you really have to do your best to dry it out. Ours came out a bit watery, but it tasted amazing. Conclusion? Make it again, but let it sit for about 15 minutes to let it set up.
116 oz jarmarinara sauceWe use Mezzetta Homemade Italian Plum Tomato
Instructions
Using a sharp knife, slice the ends off of the zucchini. Holding the zucchini upright, slice thin pieces and lay on a paper towel. Lightly sprinkle salt on each piece.
While the zucchini is drying out, heat a skillet on medium high heat and add sausage, pork, 1 tsp Italian seasoning, salt and pepper. After 5 minutes, add onion, garlic and mushrooms. Cook until browned. Remove from heat and drain any grease.
In a bowl, mix Parmesan, Mozzarella and Italian Seasoning. (in our video, I added them separately just to save a bowl)
Spray a 8" x 8" baking pan with cooking spray. Dab each zucchini slice with a paper towel to absorb any extra liquid. Begin layering the lasagna by placing zucchini slices on the bottom of the pan.
Add cooked meat, then sauce.
Layer with cheese.
Repeat layer. For the final top layer, arrange zucchini slices, top with sauce.
Top final layer with cheese and bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes. Put a cookie under the pan, as it may over flow with liquid from the zucchini.
Let sit for 15 minutes before serving. Serve with a side salad.
Vegetarian enchiladas on a boat? Okay, so I know we can’t make enchiladas on our boat unless we get a toaster oven. Scott and I have looked into getting one, but we don’t know how much time we would spend on the boat during the winter. A toaster oven would take up a lot of counter space and during the summer, we use our Magma Gas Grill
Then there’s the question, of which one to buy? There are many choices out there and since we don’t own one personally, we wonder what would be best? For me, I would want one that can easily bake without scorching the food. At the same time, I don’t want to spend a lot of money on something we might not use a lot. So stay tuned and we’ll let you know what we decide.
In the meantime, I still wanted to share with you one of my favorite healthy recipes. This is a great dish for a Sunday evening after you have spent all weekend boating and want some healthy comfort food. In this recipe, we are using canned green enchilada sauce for ease of prep on a boat.
This recipe does call for a lot of chopped vegetables. As I have mentioned before, I love my Onion & Vegetable Chopper. Here’s a quick demo video:
Heat olive oil in a large skillet and saute' mushrooms, onion and bell peppers. Season with crushed red pepper flakes, salt, pepper, chili powder and cumin. Cook until tender and add garlic. Add zucchini and black beans and remove from heat.
Pre-heat oven to 375º. Warm tortillas in microwave under a moistened paper towel for about 15 seconds. Grease a 9 x 13 casserole dish and spread about 1/8 cup of enchilada sauce in the bottom of the dish. Holding a tortilla, fill it with about 1/6 of the bean mixture and carefully roll up and place in dish. Repeat with remaining tortillas. (If you have left over bean mixture, you can spread it on top of the enchiladas). Pour enchilada sauce evenly over all of the tortillas, covering each of them. Sprinkle cheese and cover with non-stick foil. Bake for 20 minutes and then remove foil and bake for another 5 minutes.
Top with chopped green onions, cilantro and tomato. Serve immediately.
Fresh cheese tortellini pasta can be found in the cheese section of your grocery store. While my Italian friends will only make fresh pasta from scratch, I find it much easier to just buy it freshly made. Our local Safeway and Whole Foods both have great selections of fresh pasta.
Pasta is one of the easiest things to prepare on a boat , since you really just need two pots. One for boiling pasta and the other for the sauce. When entertaining guests on a boat, the last thing you want to do is be spending time in the galley cooking all day. I would rather be sharing a glass of wine or a cocktail with my guests. What I love about this cheese tortellini pasta recipe is that it is super easy and hearty for the hungry sailors at dinner. I love to serve this over the Holidays as it is also festive in color.
Since this pasta is so rich, I love to pair it with a mild green salad.
Enjoy!
Print Recipe
Cheese Tortellini Pasta with Asparagus & MushroomsYum
This pasta is very rich and hearty. Serve it with your favorite salad and crusty bread and you have the perfect dinner!
Heat olive oil in a large skillet. Add onions, mushrooms, garlic and prociutto. Cook for about 5-8 minutes until prociutto is slightly crispy. Season with salt, pepper and crushed red pepper flakes.
Cook pasta according to directions and be sure to not over cook or boil too hard. Reserve a 1/2 cup of pasta liquid.
Add whipping cream to the skillet and bring to a boil. Reduce and simmer for about 5 minutes until thickened slightly. Add asparagus and cook for another 3-5 minutes until tender. If you need to thicken the sauce more, add some of the reserved pasta liquid. Add pasta and shredded cheese to the cream mixture and blend well. Serve with crusty bread.
There are many recipes out there for jerk sauces and I have tried many of them. Since Scott and I travel to the Caribbean every year, I know the flavor I am wanting and none of the recipes I ever tried mimicked what we had in the Caribbean.
Finally, we met a cook in Jamaica that gave me his secret recipe, which is very rare. I’ve made some slight changes to it (for example, I don’t use cinnamon sticks in my blender) to finally get the flavor I want. It’s the real deal and awesome!
I love to pair this recipe with many of my Caribbean recipes such as my Caribbean Slaw and Black Bean Salad.
Puree all of the jerk sauce ingredients in a blender until smooth. The sauce will be very green.
Pork Chops & Sweet Potatoes
Pour the jerk sauce into a zip lock bag and marinate the pork chops for up to 24 hours.
Pre-Heat Grill to med-high.
Remove the pork chops from marinade and bring to room temperature for about 20 minutes before grilling.
Meanwhile, peel the sweet potatoes and slice into 1" slices. Place potatoes in cool water and bring to a boil. Boil for about 10 minutes until they are slightly tender, but not falling apart. Strain potatoes and brush them with olive oil. Sprinkle Emeril's Essence spice and kosher salt on all sides.
Grill pork chops on medium high for about 10 minutes or until internal temperature is 135º.
Grill sweet potatoes for about 3 minutes are on each side. Serve immediately.
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