Liquids and Carb Countdown Dairy Beverage

 

 

Canned or boxed chicken and beef broths are very handy items to keep around, and it’s certainly quicker to make dinner with these than it would be if you had to make your own from scratch. However, the quality of most of  the canned broth you’ll find at your local grocery store is appallingly bad. The chicken broth has all sorts of chemicals in it and often sugar, as well. The “beef” broth is worse, frequently containing no beef whatsoever. I refuse to use these products, and you should too.

However, there are a few canned and boxed broths worth buying. Many grocery stores now carry a brand called Kitchen Basics, which contains no chemicals at all. It’s packaged in 1-quart (960-ml) boxes, much like soy milk, and it’s available in both chicken and beef.

Natural food stores also have good quality canned and boxed broths. Both Shelton and Health Valley brands are widely distributed in the United States.

Decent packaged broth won’t cost you a whole lot more than the stuff that is made of salt and chemicals. If you watch for sales, you can often get it as cheaply as the bad stuff; stock up on it then. (When my natural food store runs a sale of good broth for 89 cents a can, I buy piles of the stuff!)

One last note: You will also find canned vegetable broth, particularly at natural food stores. This is tasty, but it runs much higher in carbohydrates than the chicken and beef broths. I’d avoid it.

 

 

A very useful addition to low-carb cuisine is this carbohydrate-reduced milk product, available in full-fat, 1%, and skim, not to mention an exceedingly yummy chocolate variety. To me, Carb Countdown tastes just like milk, and I’ve used it pretty extensively in these

recipes.

I checked with the manufacturer, and Carb Countdown is nationally distributed, so you should be able to find it near you. However, if you cannot, try substituting half-and-half or equal parts of heavy cream and water. For that matter, if you’re on the South Beach Diet, low-fat milk is allowed; feel free to use it in place of Carb Countdownwherever I’ve specified it.

 

Various recipes in this book call for wine vinegar, cider vinegar, sherry vinegar, rice vinegar, tarragon vinegar, white vinegar, balsamic vinegar, and even raspberry vinegar, for which you’ll find a recipe. If you’ve always thought that vinegar was just vinegar, think again! Each of these vinegars has a distinct flavor all its own, and if you substitute one for the other, you’ll change the whole character of the recipe.

 

Add just one splash of cider vinegar to the Asian Chicken Salad (page 159), and you’ve traded your Chinese accent for an American twang. Vinegar is such a great way to give bright flavors to foods while adding very few carbs that I keep all of these varieties on hand. This is easy to do, because vinegar keeps for a very long time.

As with everything else, read the labels on your vinegar. I’ve seen cider vinegar that has 0 grams of carbohydrates per ounce and I’ve seen

cider vinegar that has 4 grams of carbohydrates per ounce—a huge difference. Beware, also, of apple cider–flavored vinegar, which is white

vinegar with artificial flavors added. I bought this once by mistake. (You’d think someone who constantly reminds

others to read labels would be beyond such errors, wouldn’t you?)

There are several recipes in this cookbook calling for either dry red or dry white wine. I find the inexpensive box wines, which come in a mylar bag inside a cardboard box, very convenient to keep on hand for cooking. The simple reason for this is that they don’t go bad because the contents are never exposed to air. These are not fabulous vintage wines, but they’re fine for our modest purposes, and they certainly are handy.I generally have both Burgundy and Chablis wine-in-a-box on hand. Be wary of any wine with “added flavors.” Too often, one of those flavors will be sugar.

Buy wine with a recognizable name, such as Burgundy, Rhine, Chablis,Cabernet, and the like, rather than stuff like “Chillable Red,” and you’ll get better results.