Low Carb Pasta

Since I've eschewed most refined carbohydrates, I've realized that one of my most missed 'carbtastic' items is pasta. As a child, I used to delighted just eating buttered noodles with a little bit of Parmesan cheese. I've since grown out of my love for relatively plain pasta, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss the creamy, starchy texture and the delicious sauces and preparations that often accompany the now-empty space on my dinner plate.

I've tried Dreamfields. It tastes pretty good and is locally available at a decent price. Unfortunately, the company can't back up their claims with peer-reviewed studies on their pasta's glycemic impact. I've also tried tofu shiritaki noodles. Three times. While I can get past the slight 'aroma' that rinses away fairly easily, I can't get over that slippery, chewy, rubbery texture. And I don't typically have issues with food texture! No thanks!

That said, once I approached my goal weight, I began perusing the internet's offering of low carb pasta doughs. Some include almond flour, whole grain flours, protein powders, and the like. I have nothing against these ingredients, but for whatever reason, an almond flour-whey protein powder pasta dough didn't sound particularly appealing. What did entice me were a few variations on doughs consisting of soy flour and whole grain/wheat gluten flours.

Many people in the low carb world are anti-soy. Perhaps this relates to the paleo/primal faction of the low carb world, or a characteristic of the low carb community to be, in some ways, anti-vegetarian. I must say, though, that as much as the health benefits of soy were likely overemphasized, so too have the potential dietary 'warnings' been over-hyped. Having completed my master's thesis on a project with significant soy emphasis, I can say that I fall into neither camp. Soy has its uses, and probably shouldn't be consumed as someone's sole source of protein or fat--but then, what should? I think it is an extreme situation for anyone's diet to come to that.

In the past, I had issues with full-fat soy flour. When I attempted to make a low carb loaf of bread with it, the loaf had a distinct paint- or varnish-like flavor and smell. This is a common issue having to do with the soybean's natural lipoxygenase enzyme, which oxidizes the soybean oil in the full-fat flour, producing these off flavors. Since then, I have had success with defatted flour, which I actually think is healthier. Soybean oil is particularly high in omega-6 polyunsaturated fat, so I think it never hurts to avoid that while maximizing the benefits of the soy protein and fiber from the defatted flour.

But I digress. To the pasta recipe, already! From a variety of websites, I encountered a pasta dough with the following rough proportions:

1 cup soy flour (defatted or full-fat, you already know my choice)
1/2 cup whole wheat flour/whole oat flour/vital wheat gluten
1/2 cup whole oat flour/vital wheat gluten/resistant starch
1/4 to 1/2 cup liquid (water or broth)
2 whole eggs
1-3 t oil
Salt to taste

Prepare as you would conventional pasta dough. Due to the high protein content, extrusion is not recommended.

The dough before thinning and cutting

To date, I have prepared this pasta with 1 cup vital wheat gluten and a 50/50 mixture of vital wheat gluten and resistant wheat starch. The gluten dough was very tough and difficult to kneed, but made decent noodles. Perhaps a bit too toothy for my tastes, but good nonetheless. I have only tried the gluten/resistant starch combination in hand-rolled, thick noodles, so I will have to report back on a more refined, thin fettuccine. In any case, the dough rolled out in a comparable manner, and looked and smelled the same. Hopefully the resistant starch yields a softer texture, and I would assume that a whole grain flour would, too. This is at the price of higher carb counts, of course.

After forming into fettuccine and nesting

Overall, I think that this general recipe is so good that you will feel like you are cheating. Given the ingredients, though, you're not. My handmade noodles were tasty enough that I promptly went out and bought the pasta attachments for my Kitchenaid mixer. I will update with my impressions of the 50/50 gluten/resistant starch fettuccine, and will likely be tweaking this recipe as time goes on. In any case, try it out and see what works for you. And don't be so anti-soy. It's a great low carb tool to have in your cooking arsenal.

Tuna Salad Niçoise

I know you're thinking it...salads are already low carb, right? Well, that's true in general. Salad vegetables are generally very low carb, and many of these vegetables are featured prominently in low carb diet induction phases. It seems, though, that we have many ways of making salads higher carb in this country, by including croutons, dried fruit, breaded meat, or massive quantities of sugar-added dressings.

In any case, salad niçoise is pretty easy to low-carb (yes, I'm using "low-carb" as a verb). I simply replace the potato with one of my favorite fruits, a Hass avocado. Subbing the avocado actually makes the salad prep that much simpler since it is sliced up raw.

Tuna Salad Niçoise (Serves 2-4)

Ingredients

Salad:

2 4.5-oz. cans chunk light tuna, packed in oil
4 hard-boiled eggs, cooled and peeled
1 ripe tomato
8 oz. whole green beans, cooked to preference
1/4 to 1/2 cup pitted kalamata olives, halved
4 to 6 cups romaine lettuce, torn
1 ripe Hass avocado, pitted and sliced

Dressing:

3 T. extra virgin olive oil
2 T. lemon juice
1 T. dijon mustard
1 clove garlic, minced
Salt and pepper to taste

Before chopping the fresh vegetables, make sure eggs and green beans are prepared. Drain the oil from the tuna. This oil can be discarded, but lately I have been using it to make the salad dressing. Whisk the mustard and lemon juice into the oil. Add minced garlic and season to taste with salt and pepper. Shred the tuna and comine with the halved olives, green beans, and torn lettuce. Toss with the dressing. Then add the hard-boiled eggs, sliced ripe tomato, and sliced avocado. Serve immediately, and enjoy. This salad makes a very filling meal with all of the protein and fat from the eggs, tuna, avocado, and dressing.

Inaugural Post

Today, I successfully defended my master's thesis and started this blog. Let's hope that I keep up with it. I hope to regularly post lower-carb remakes of my favorite recipes and dietary staples. The internet is a vast resource of almost unlimited recipes. Unfortunately, many of these recipes are no good. Since I began cooking in high school/college, I've learned what works and doesn't work in the kitchen. This often leads to agglomerations of recipes I've found online. I've decided to create a blog so that I have a record of what works, what doesn't, and how I've made found recipes my own.