South Beach Diet Phase One Low-Glycemic Recipes Round-Up for December 2013, and Happy New Year Everyone!

Kalyn's Favorite Phase One Recipes from December 2013 were Turkey and White Bean Chili with Chocolate, Slow Cooker Southwestern Beef Stew with Tomatoes, Olives, and Chiles, Slow Cooker Frittata with Broccoli, Swiss, Cottage Cheese, and Parmesan, and Easy Shrimp Cocktail with Creamy Sriracha Cocktail Sauce.

I start every month by posting a round-up of the South Beach Diet Phase One Low-Glycemic Recipes from Kalyn's Kitchen and other blogs for the previous month, but there's something special about that post when it falls on the first day of a brand new year.  I love the way the new year is full of possibilities, and for many of us that means a chance to begin or resume a healthier way of eating.  My goal with these round-ups is to prove there's plenty of knock-your-socks-off delicious food to enjoy, even when you're limiting carbs or trying to choose low-glycemic foods.  And I can tell from my blog stats that a lot of people have already started on a healthier eating path, so I hope these recipe suggestions are useful for you.  Happy New Year everyone; I hope 2014 will be a delicious and healthy year for you.

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Kalyn's Picks for Ten Favorite Phase One Recipes from Other Bloggers for 2013

From all the South Beach Diet Phase One Low-Glycemic Recipes Round-ups I've posted in 2013, these are my Phase One Picks from other blogs!

When fellow Utah blogger Becky from Project Domestication asked if I wanted to join a blogging event sharing favorite recipes from other bloggers, I loved the idea of spotlighting healthy recipes from some of my blogging friends, but I wasn't sure how to narrow down the choices.  Then I had the idea of picking my Ten Favorite Phase One Recipes from Other Bloggers from all the South Beach Diet Phase One Low-Glycemic Recipes Round-ups I've posted during 2013, which Becky said would be fine.  I'm excited to share these healthy recipes from some of my favorite Utah blogging friends to finish out the year; here's wishing all my readers a healthy and happy year in 2014!  

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Five Delicious Recipes for Black-Eyed Peas for Good Luck in the New Year!

Eat some black-eyed peas on New Year's Day, and I promise you'll have good luck in the new year!

I'm a complete believer that you should celebrate New Year's Eve or New Year's Day by eating something with black-eyed peas!   I learned about this tradition in the early days of my blog, and the black-eyed peas have certainly brought me good luck.  I love the flavor of this humble little ingredient, and I've had fun experimenting with it.  Here are five of my very favorite black-eyed pea recipes to celebrate New Year's, and I truly hope they will bring you some good luck.  (Check after the photos for links to some other places to find fun recipe ideas with black-eyed peas.)

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The Top Ten Slow Cooker Recipes of 2013 from Kalyn's Kitchen (and a few Honorable Mentions)

Out of all the Slow Cooker Recipes from 2013, these are my top ten picks!

As we're counting down to the end of 2013, I've been sharing my picks for Top Ten Recipes in a few categories.  I've already shared my Top Ten Vegetarian Recipes of 2013 and Top Ten Meat, Poultry, and Fish Recipes of 2013, and today I'm bringing you the Top Ten Slow Cooker Recipes of 2013.  That's a lot of favorite recipes, and as I worked on each of these posts, I'd open up a recipe and think "I need to make that again!"   Hope you're enjoying the top ten lists as much as I am; still to come is Ten Favorite Phase One Recipes from Other Bloggers.

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The Top Ten Meat, Poultry, and Fish Recipes of 2013 from Kalyn's Kitchen (and a few Honorable Mentions)

Out of all the recipes using meat, poultry, or fish during 2013, these are my picks!

It's the day after Christmas and I hope all my readers have been having a wonderful holiday, no matter how you're celebrating.  Here's the next group of my picks for Top Ten Recipes from 2013.  I've already shared my Top Ten Vegetarian Recipes of 2013, so this post is giving equal time to the meat-lovers with my top ten picks for recipes that have meat, poultry, or fish.  One of the things I love most about blogging is the idea that I'm encouraging people to cook and eat dinner at home, and all these recipes are things I'd love to serve when I invite someone over for dinner.  (Coming up over the next few days will be The Top Ten Slow Cooker Recipes of 2013 and Ten Favorite Phase One Recipes from Other Bloggers, hope you enjoy trying some of my favorites!) 

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Things I'm thinking About on Tuesday (12-24-2013)

Photo of Christmas Balls from All Things Christmas.

It's Christmas Eve, and I'm spending a few days celebrating Christmas with my sister's family including some very cute kids.  This may be a short edition of Things I'm Thinking About, but I do want to share a few Christmas things I spotted on the web, and of course I want to send out wishes for a happy holiday season to my wonderful readers.  My life is enriched so much by the nice messages I get almost daily from people who are enjoying the healthy food.  Happy Holidays everyone and thanks for your support of my blog!  And no matter how you're celebrating this magical the season, I hope you'll be able to spend time with those you love, hopefully enjoying some good holiday food.

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The Top Ten Vegetarian Recipes of 2013 from Kalyn's Kitchen (and a few Honorable Mentions)

Out of all the vegetarian recipes posted on Kalyn's Kitchen during 2013, these are my picks for the top ten!

I love this time of year when blogs start posting their Best of the Year posts, and I've been doing best recipes posts on Kalyn's Kitchen since 2007!  My standards are always high about what makes it on the blog, so every year I have a hard time narrowing it down to ten.  But this year after I went through the monthly archives and bookmarked the recipes I had especially loved this year, I had 52 recipes bookmarked!  That's when I decided to do a series of best recipes posts, starting off with The Top Ten Vegetarian Recipes of 2013.  (Stay tuned from now until the end of the year for The Top Ten Recipes with Meat, Poultry, and Fish for 2013, The Top Ten Slow Cooker Recipes of 2013, and Ten Favorite Phase One Recipes from Other Bloggers.)  

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Recipe for Roasted Cauliflower with Red Bell Pepper, Green Olives, and Pine Nuts (Christmas Caulifiower)

Technically this Christmas Cauliflower is probably a side dish, but I ate a big bowl of it for lunch!

(For Phase One Fridays I feature Phase One Recipes from the past that have been my personal favorites, and this delicious cauliflower side dish is not only festive from the red and green colors, but it's a delicious combination of flavors.)

When I made this cauliflower I ate a big bowl of it for lunch, and I first posted it as a Meatless Monday dish.  But if you don't care about that, this would make a perfect festive side dish for any kind of holiday meal.  And with the red and green colors and all the flavors going on here from red bell peppers, green olives, pine nuts, and capers, this is cauliflower at its finest, which is why I think it deserves the title of Christmas Cauliflower!

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Easy Shrimp Cocktail with Creamy Sriracha Cocktail Sauce (and Ten More Shrimp Recipes for the Holidays)

This Easy Shrimp Cocktail with Creamy Sriracha Cocktail Sauce will be a hit at a holiday party!

We are officially in the season of Tempting Holiday Food.  I'm working hard to bring you a few food choices that are delicious but won't sabotage the diet or raise your blood sugar, and this Easy Shrimp Cocktail with Creamy Sriracha Cocktail Sauce is something I promise will be a hit for a holiday party.  The recipe uses thawed frozen cooked shrimp, which saves the work of cooking them, and the Creamy Sriracha Cocktail Sauce takes about five minutes to make.  In fact, the hardest part of this recipe might be remembering to thaw the shrimp overnight in the fridge, but I do recommend doing that so they'll be icy cold when you serve them.  

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Things I'm Thinking About on Tuesday (12-17-2013)

Photo of Cinnamon Almond Hasselback Sweet Potatoes from Our Apron Strings

Thanks to everyone who left nice feedback on my first edition of Things I'm Thinking About on Tuesday.  I'm happy that people are interested in this kind of post every so often, because I find so many fun things online that I want to share.  This time, it was these Cinnamon Almond Hasselback Sweet Potatoes from Our Apron Strings that caught my eye amongst all the Christmas cookie recipes I'm seeing everywhere.  This is a recipe that my friend Donna says has "Minimum Fuss" and "Maximum Impressiveness."  Really, what more could you want this time of year? 

Here's what else I'm thinking about this Tuesday.

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Greek Yogurt and Tahini Dip for Tomatoes and Cucumbers (plus 10 More Healthy Vegetable Dips)

This healthy Greek Yogurt and Tahini Dip will be welcome on a buffet table loaded with rich holiday foods!

Everyone who's trying to make it through December without gaining ten pounds, raise your hand.  (Kalyn has both hands raised.)  Every year I think about the dilemma of joining in holiday celebrations without overdoing it on sweets and other rich holiday foods.  There's no easy answer,  but having something healthy to nibble on among the more indulgent choices can really help, and that's where this Greek Yogurt and Tahini Dip for Tomatoes and Cucumbers comes in. When I spotted a recipe for Tahini Dip in The South Beach Diet Parties and Holidays Cookbook I remembered how tomatoes and cucumbers are amazing paired with Greek yogurt and tahini, and when Jake and I tried out this combination we both loved it.  And it's festive-looking as well as delicious, hope you enjoy!

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Recipe for Roasted Green Beans and Red Bell Pepper with Garlic and Ginger

Beautiful roasted green beans and red bell pepper for Thanksgiving or Christmas!

(For Phase One Fridays I feature Phase One Recipes from the past that have been my personal favorites, and these Roasted Green Beans and Red Bell Pepper with Garlic and Ginger are not only beautifully red and green for the holidays, but they're delicious!)

I came up with this recipe as an idea for my collection of Low-Glycemic Thanksgiving Recipes, but these green beans are so festive and colorful that they'd be perfect for anyone who's looking for a holiday side dish for Christmas dinner as well.  The beans and peppers roast at high heat for a short time, so they can cook while you're coming up with the final touches on the meal.

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Five Amazing Spice Blends to Give for a Homemade Christmas Gift

Five Amazing Spice Blends that your friends and co-workers will love!

(Updated December 2013 with more ideas for gifts from the kitchen.)  Through the years I've discovered some favorite spice and herb blends that I like to mix up in large batches and give as Christmas gifts.  When I manage to plan ahead, I order small glass jars to put the spice mix in, but I've also given them in mini zip-top bags with the recipe stapled on.  If you're looking for easy ideas for a food-related gift, here are five of my favorites.

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Kalyn's Kitchen Picks: Honeyville Blanched Almond Flour (and 35+ Recipe Ideas Using Almond Flour)

Almond flour is a versatile ingredient for gluten-free, low-carb, or Paleo baking, and it makes a great coating for meat too!

I first discovered Honeyville Blanched Almond Flour when I tried Elana's Cheese Crackers (from my friend Elena at Elana's Pantry)  and since then I've used this versatile product in so many different ways.  That's why I may have let out a little squeal of joy when I saw it on the shelf at Costco recently!   And the fact that this is a Utah product makes me even more excited to recommend it to you as one of my Kalyn's Kitchen Picks.  

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Turkey and White Bean Chili with Chocolate

This delicious chili recipe uses lean ground turkey, white (or pinto) beans, ancho chile powder, and cocoa powder.

(Updated with better photos and step-by-step instructions, December 2013. This recipe was first posted in 2007 when I was excited about an article in the Deseret News that spotlighted my blog and mentioned some other food blogs too.  Utah is having an unusually cold winter this year, so it seemed like the perfect time to make this chili again and update the photos!)

I wasn't the biggest fan of ground turkey when I first tried this recipe, but it's low in fat and healthy and it's really grown on me through the years.  I'm glad that back in 2007 when I saw a recipe in The Bon Appetit Cookbook for chili that used white beans, ground turkey, and just a taste of unsweetened cocoa powder, I was game to give it a try. This recipe is a bit spicy with very generous amount of ground Ancho chile powder, some regular chili powder, a little ground Chipotle chile, plus dried oregano, ground cumin, and cocoa powder for that hint of chocolate that makes it so good.   (You can certainly use a bit less of the spicy chili powders, which I would recommend if you're making it for kids.)  Here in Utah we're hoping for some warmer weather, but I have some of this in the freezer for those remaining cold days I know are still coming.

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Recipe for Low-Sugar Gluten-Free Cranberry Apple Crisp

This festive Cranberry Apple Crisp is made with low-calorie natural sweeteners and it's gluten-free!

Today's my birthday (and if you check that post you can tell it's kind of a significant one), so I'm skipping Meatless Monday this week and going straight to dessert with this delicious recipe for  Low-Sugar and Gluten-Free Cranberry Apple Crisp!   The inspiration for the recipe was a huge bag of cranberries I bought to make my favorite Fresh Cranberry Salsa for Thanksgiving, and I was frankly surprised at how much I loved the combination of fresh cranberries and apples.  I had to make this a couple of times to get it just right, and I might have even loved it a little too much (apple crisp for lunch, mmmm.)  I've never been that much of a fresh cranberry fan, so even if you might think cranberries are not really your thing, be open minded about this one!

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Recipe for Spicy Sausage, Lentil, and Tomato Soup

This Spicy Sausage, Lentil, and Tomato Soup may be my favorite lentil soup ever!

(For Phase One Fridays I feature Phase One Recipes from the past that have been my personal favorites, and this delicious Spicy Sausage, Lentil, and Tomato Soup has hot turkey Italian sausage, one of my favorite ingredients to use in soup.  I first made this when there was snow on the ground and it's another snowy day in Salt Lake, so I think it's time to make this again!)

Today I woke up to snow on the ground, which makes me especially happy that I have some of this Spicy Sausage, Lentil, and Tomato Soup in the freezer.  I made this a couple of times to get the recipe just right, upping the the amount of spices, sausage, and tomatoes and decreasing the lentils in the final version, and this might be the best lentil soup I've ever made.  Of course, I love, love, love lentil soup, which isn't a bad thing at all since they're one of The World's Healthiest Foods.  If you're someone who's still undecided about lentils, I challenge you to try this soup and I'm betting you'll become a lentil fan!

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Slow Cooker Southwestern Beef Stew Recipe with Tomatoes, Olives, and Chiles

This Slow Cooker Southwestern Beef Stew with Tomatoes, Olives, and Chiles can be perfect for anyone who's eating Paleo.

I have a couple of friends who have embraced the Paleo Diet, so I've been learning more about it.  Happily, there's a lot of overlap between my South Beach Diet way of eating and Paleo, so it's not that much of a stretch for me to try to feature recipes occasionally that will work for my Paleo friends.  What *can* be challenging is that everyone who does Paleo seems to have their own rules about what they can or can't eat!  That's why when I redesigned my blog and added the new row of tabs to categorize the recipes by more diet types, I made a tab that says Can be Paleo.  Under that tab you'll find recipes that most Paleo eaters will be able to enjoy, like this Slow Cooker Southwestern Beef Stew with Tomatoes, Olives, and Chiles.  And even if you're not eating Paleo, I bet you'll still like this a lot if you like Southwestern flavors!

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Things I'm Thinking About on Tuesday (12-3-2013)

This Chopped Brussels Sprouts Salad with Creamy Shallot Dressing from Pinch of Yum has my mind spinning!  (Photo from Pinch of Yum.)

If you've been reading my blog for a while, you might remember back when I used to do Five Fun Things on Friday.  Every Friday I wrote those posts about things I'd spotted on the web and sometimes a little about what was happening in my life.  I enjoyed sharing things that way, but eventually it got to be a burden to do it every Friday and I switched to Phase One Fridays, which I'm really committed to now because of how it perfectly fits the overall purpose of the site.

But lately I've been missing the opportunity to share things just for the fun of it.  After thinking about it for a few weeks, I've decided to do Things I'm Thinking About posts occasionally, probably not every week, and not always on the same day of the week, but when I find enough worthwhile things for a post I'll share them.  Of course, I'm always thinking about food, so let's start this first one out with the amazing-looking Chopped Brussels Sprouts Salad with Creamy Shallot Dressing shown above from Pinch of Yum.  The salad has a few ingredients that aren't especially SBD friendly. (Like bacon!  Did I mention there's bacon?) There's also a lot of juice in the dressing that would make it high in sugar, but I think it would be fun to try coming up with a diet-friendly version of this salad.

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Slow Cooker Frittata Recipe with Broccoli, Swiss, Cottage Cheese, and Parmesan

A healthy frittata made in the slow cooker featuring broccoli, Swiss, Cottage Cheese, and Parmesan.

This is the third time I've experimenting with cooking eggs in the slow cooker and this Slow Cooker Frittata with Broccoli, Swiss, Cottage Cheese, and Parmesan was creamy and delicious, although it did take me three tries to get a combination with broccoli that I thought was enough of a *wow* recipe to share it on the blog.  I did like one version with broccoli and mushrooms that tasted quite good, but the mushrooms turned the eggs kind of gray after the long cooking time, and in the end I decided it wasn't a keeper.  What made this particular recipe appeal to me was how the strong flavor of the Swiss cheese balanced out the broccoli, and the low-fat cottage cheese added a nice creaminess.  Have you tried a slow cooker egg dish yet?  I recommend it for an easy breakfast option, and there are more ideas below after the main recipe.

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South Beach Diet Phase One Recipes Round-Up for November 2013 (Low-Glycemic Recipes)

Kalyn's favorite Phase One Recipes for November 2013 were Green Beans with Tahini-Lemon Sauce, Easy Brussels Sprouts Gratin, Rich Salad with Hearts of Palm, and Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Avocado and Pecans.

Back in 2008 when I had the brainstorm to post a monthly round-up of all the South Beach Diet Phase One Low-Glycemic Recipes I spotted around the web or featured on Kalyn's Kitchen during that month, I was definitely not thinking about months like November!  When nearly every food blog is posting recipes for Thanksgiving foods, you're just not going to find as many Phase One Recipes as usual.  But even if this months round-up is a bit smaller than some, with a definite emphasis on side dishes, I promise there are some deliciously-healthy recipes here for anyone who's doing Phase One or looking for lower-carb eating options.  And it's December 1, so Thanksgiving weekend is officially over and it's time to get back on track!

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