Not your mama’s french fry…

Ok…so here’s the thing about carbs. You can’t avoid them. Why? Because your body uses every nutrient you take in for some purpose. In our former lives maybe we didn’t move so much so our body used it to store as fat for a “rainy day.” Nowadays, maybe we move a little more and our bodies use it for quick energy.

Newbies, pay attention to the following phrase: with starches, the ONLY way to achieve low-carb is to have lots of fiber. This bears repeating: with starches the ONLY way to achieve low-carb status is to increase the fiber. Food companies are not your friend with the nutrition labels. They use words such as “100% whole grain” and “low-carb” very liberally. Check the label. If it has 30g of carbs but only 2g of fiber…it ain’t low carb even if it says it is 100% “whole grain.” Yes, whole grains are better for you. They burn slower than white carbs, but they are still carbs and should be budgeted accordingly.

All that being said, we need carbs but we ESPECIALLY need fiber. I don’t get enough most days but I’m working on it, slowly but surely. The above is a yummy way I seek to achieve fiber.

Raise your hand if you’ve been to a restaurant and had the fried zucchini? (raises hand) It was gooooood wasn’t it? It was nice and yummy and salty and crunchy and all the things that are wonderful about fried foods. Well…this recipe is not that. Because fried in a restaurant always means more fat than you want to take for the amount of calories.

So, here’s what I make. I like it because I can get my kids involved in the making (kids love dredging for some reason…) and at the end of it you have several yummy snacks that you can bag up for your lunch box.

Nik’s interpretation of “fried” zucchini
makes 4 servings

Ingredients:

1 small zucchini, sliced into strips that are about a quarter of an inch thick and 1.5-2 inches long
1/2 c. Fiber One twig cereal pulverized
1/4 c. Parmesan cheese
1/4 c. soy flour
salt, pepper, season all
2 egg whites

Directions:

1. Combine soy flour, salt, pepper, and season all and put on a plate

2. Combine crushed cereal and parmesan and set on another plate

3. Beat egg whites slightly and then set in a bowl

4. Dry zucchini strips with a paper towel then dredge in flour, egg, cereal. Repeat egg and cereal if you do not get good coverage

5. Lay out on a sprayed cookie sheet then bake at 375 for about 15 minutes

With these I like to have some sort of dipping sauce. My current favorite is bacon ranch. This can be done one of two ways:

Quickie method: combine 2 tbsp of lowfat ranch dressing with 1 tbsp imitation bacon bits
More involved method: mix a container of unflavored Greek yogurt with dry ranch mix to make up a batch of dressing. Mix 2 tbsp of that with 1 tbsp imitation bacon bits (this method has more protein than the quickie version)

So there you have it…this snack does NOT boast great protein numbers but it is one way to get your fiber and a serving of your vegetables for the day, which is important!

Not your mama's french fry...

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Not your mama's french fry... Print Recipe

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