Comfort Food

You’ll think you’re eating at an Italian Grandma’s house when you taste this.

This dish is easy to put together. The spouse or the kids can help chop and it comes together fast. You can be doing other things while your dinner bakes in the oven. Makes great leftovers, too.

A rich and easy cream of mushroom soup.

This is not the usual, thick, gloppy chowder since you are on ZReduction, but it will pass as a fancy, flavorful meal.

This is a wonderfully moist meatloaf. It has a kick from the Cajun spices but not all that much and you can adjust according to taste. This transports well to work.

Serve in soup bowls with a protein of choice. In Z2 this is your veggie portion. You can have plain salad greens on the side if you need more. It’s very filling though.

Dieter Rebecca first had this warm and rustic side dish while in Ireland on a road trip in 1994. These mushrooms where in every Irish B&B Dieter Rebecca visited. She loved the recipe so much she recreated it for Plan Z! Hope you enjoy.

This casserole tastes just like a zippy chicken enchilada without the major carbohydrate intake.

When I was young I loved going to Chi Chi’s and ordering the chimichanga. Now that I know all the carbs from the tortilla it was wrapped in are a bad idea, I decided to make a lower carb casserole version.

Light and dreamy. If you like pumpkin you’ll love this smooth and easy dessert.

As the weather gets colder and the nights get longer this makes a wonderful soup. Or if you get a cold while on Plan Z this might be just the ticket!

This will taste pretty darn official!

Everyone has their Thanksgiving traditions; especially when it comes to food. Do you ever think about breaking tradition and making something different?

We were really happy with the way it turned out and I think you could adjust the seasonings to your own taste if you want more garlic or more salt, etc.

My husband loves shrimp and grits. His mother was from Arkansas and they ate grits often. Trouble is grits are very high carb. Traditional grits are made from cornmeal. I took an inspiration recipe and came up with my own version of shrimp and grits. There is just enough corn in here to help you get the corn flavor without the cornmeal. And there’s enough cheese in here that even though you’ll be using almond meal (aka almond flour) for your grits base, you won’t taste the almond.

This dish comes together in a flash! You can also make it with steak or even seafood. When I get a hankering for pasta, I crave Chicken Alfredo. This one did it for me!

This is a simple chili. It’s a takeoff from an old Betty Crocker recipe. Can’t get much simpler than that!

Talk about comfort food. This is the pure definition. Thankfully fat doesn’t make you fat so you can eat this at parties and not feel the guilt.

This is elegant comfort food. It’s sort of like the American version of the French dish called Coquille St. Jacque.

For all you cabbage lovers out there, this recipe is a ZReduction take on a German classic. While you can whip this dish up in about 30 minutes, red cabbage tastes sweeter the longer you cook it -- so if you are on ZReduction and like your cabbage a little sweeter, cook it low and slow until the flavors mellow and meld to your liking.

Everyone loves pumpkin, right? Well, how about a tea bread that’s made with pumpkin? Sort of like banana bread. Or even make it with sweet potato puree.

This is a yummy, satisfying soup.

This lasagna has no noodles. Standing in for the noodle layers are zucchini sliced the long way.

I have designed several chili recipes for Plan Z. This is one of those that is very straightforward and simple. It doesn’t even have a lot of ingredients.

At first you’d think chimichangas would be high carb. The good news is they have low carb tortillas at the grocery store that taste the same as the traditional. Look for the low carb versions.

This is an easy preparation with a homey vibe, when you want comfort food this is a sure bet.

When you get into the second portion of ZReboot you can start to experiment with a little more carbohydrates. Try this at week 4 – 6 of ZReboot and see how you do.

In addition to being crunchy, satisfying and delicious, pumpkin seeds are a nutritious snack. You can buy shelled pumpkin seeds in the grocery store (also know as pepitas), but when pumpkin season rolls around, you can buy a fresh pumpkin, scrape out the seeds, and toast the whole seeds yourself. YUM! 

What’s the difference between chili and taco soup? Broth, of course. There is more broth in taco soup is more so it’s thinner than chili. The internet tells me that chili is technically considered a stew. Go figure.

I don’t eat potatoes very often but these are worth the splurge a few times a year. The yellow potatoes they are made from in my recipe are lower in carbohydrates than a Russet potato, so that’s a bonus, too.

"My mom wasn’t a cook which I think I’ve told you, so when she made pork chops she would put them in a dish, pour French onion soup (Campbell’s from a can) over them and serve it with applesauce.

When you are in the ZReduction portion of Plan Z you will not be eating the skin of the chicken or any of the dark meat. Breast meat only.

Fried till golden using coconut flour.

I’ll admit it. I found this inspiration recipe online. I did not have to change it up much to Zola-fy it..it is soooo good!

Talk about easy to make. This dish is done in a flash. If you’re like me, you’ll make a triple batch of the tomato base. You can freeze the portions.

This recipe makes a yummy vegetarian lunch or side dish to go with a protein. I also put it in Zola to GO! because it can travel to a buffet.

Chris’s cousins sent us a HUGE box of fruit as his get well wish. There are only two of us, so in order to use the fruit I have had to get creative! Oh, my, these are yummy!

This recipe is compliments of Dieter Rose. Rose loves cooked cabbage and this does the trick for her. You can take this to work cold and reheat in the microwave too.

You could call this the “adult version” of Sloppy Joes.  It does have some ZIP to it. Don’t be intimidated by the length of the ingredients list. The recipe is worth it. And you probably have most of these ingredients in your pantry.

Pierre Franey was a cooking hero of mine. He was the original “60 Minute Gourmet.” I adapted this recipe from one of his and turned it into a wonderful diet meal.

Two things I love about living mid-South: fried green tomatoes, and tomato pie.

This tastes amazingly like gooey apple pie! This is delightful. Just like Grandma used to make.

A no sugar variation of my caramelized pears recipe. Still very yummy!

This award-winning chili recipe won best Verde Chili by the International Chili Society in 2018. "Texas Chuck," the creator of this awesome recipe, made this chili using Mild Bills Spices (in case you're trying to get his authentic flavor).

It may not feel like it here in Chicago, but spring and asparagus season are just around the corner. Gear up with this flavorful soup.

Serve this at your next family event instead of potatoes and you’ll save 30% of the carbs.

Can be a vegetarian entrée or a side dish. SUPER Yummy because as the squash bakes it becomes sweet.

Celebrity Chef Jernard Wells knows soul food. While a lot of his food is quite decadent, he also loves greens, and shared his wonderful southern greens recipe in a local interview. What's great about it is it can easily be modified to fit ZReboot. His original recipe calls for sugar, but by replacing the sugar with your favorite sugar substitute, you can still enjoy this delicious recipe. 

This is a meaty chili with some veggies tossed in for crunch factor. Makes a satisfying lunch.

Cooking does not have to be complicated. In this recipe Chef Josh shows us how to make a simple and delicious puree using butternut squash. Easy. Decadent. Delicious.

This dish is Italian comfort food. I curl up on sofa with a bowl of this and watch a movie. You can go totally low-carb with this one and make it without the pasta. Tastes just as good. This also makes a great casserole addition to a pot luck party.