Home Sweet Home. Finally, after a long and lovely vacay with the family, I am finally home… Master of my own kitchen.

Although dining out is certainly one of my favorite things to do, after 10 days of dining out 3X a day, I was beginning to miss my own low carb concoctions.

We came back to the city on Sunday and desperately needed to re-stock the refrigerator. Rancid meats and vegetables, 10 day-old chunky milk, fuzzy cheeses and eggs WAY past their expiration date went right into the trash. I needed to re-stock my refrigerator and I needed to do it fast.

Unfortunately it was Sunday…the Sunday after New Years no less. This particular week, New Yorker’s suffered one of the worst snow storms ever. Mountains of snow and even larger mountains of garbage were delaying food deliveries to the Big Apple. Stories of cars and trucks and snowplows (SNOWPLOWS!)  being stuck and stranded on the roads abound. Needless to say, the food available in the grocery stores that day was “slim pickins”.

Further, it is a little known fact that Wednesday is the best day to grocery shop. Foods are typically delivered to stores on Monday and Tuesday. By the “hump” day, Wednesday, the freshest of foods will be available on the shelves. Sunday, the end of the week, the end of a particular week where food deliveries were delayed….well, you get the drift.

I wandered the barren aisles of Gourmet Garage looking for some low carb inspiration. The lettuces were weak and limp. The cucumbers were dented and mushy, the mushrooms were bruised and brown, the carrots, well the carrots were fine but they had too many carbs.

Frustrated and discouraged, I headed for the dairy aisle and bought a 32 oz bag of shredded cheese, 1 gallon of milk, a quart of 1/2 & 1/2 and 1 dozen eggs. I was going to make my “go-to” low carb dinner…Quiche (without the crust)! I zipped my mini cart over to the frozen foods section and stocked up some frozen broccoli and frozen chopped spinach.

I schlepped home my goods and proceeded to whip up a low carb Cream of Broccoli Soup.

I,  unlike, our former President George Bush, (not Dubya – I am referring to President GB Senior) like brocoli.  Broccoli is a plant from the Kale family. The name Broccoli derives from the Italian plural “Broccolo”  – meaning “the flower top of cabbage”. Broccoli is a very healthy veggie as it has tons of vitamin C and  substantial fiber. It also contains many anti cancer properties and has been attributed to reduce the risk of prostate cancer. Further, its also low in carbs as one cup only has 3.6 grams of Net carbs.

Making this creamy decadent low carb soup is EZ. All you do is boil some water, add the frozen broccoli, throw in some chopped onion and garlic and add a chicken bouillon cube. After 20 minutes or so, puree the soup till smooth. Pour pureed soup back into pot and stir in  some 1/2 & 1/2 or heavy cream. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Yummy!

I followed the soup with my famous crustless Bacon and Spinach Quiche. Although Quiche has a fancy french name, it is an easy dish to make. I was first introduced to Quiche in the 80’s when my mother first brought home this savory cheese pie from the gourmet counter at Bloomingdale’s. Check out my earlier post, “Quiche me you Fool“, for the recipe.

I enjoyed 2 glasses of a fine red wine with my delicious, decadent and low carb dinner and called it a night. Ahhhh, its good to me home. 🙂

Chow for now!