Menu Planning

I understand the public schools long ago did away with cooking class. It's both a blessing and a shame.

If you look back through the Ask Dana archives, you'll see I have written, in the past, about pork rinds, the fact that they are not, as some assume, egregious junk food, but actually the most nutritious thing in the snack aisle. In that article, I mentioned that once, years ago, an outraged online detractor of low carb diets threw in my cyberface the accusation that I ate pork rind cake. That accusation is now true.

My nephew Henry and niece Halliday came to stay with That Nice Boy I Married and I this past week. We had a super-great time with them, as we always do - went to the county fair, did a little geocaching, watched a few movies, and just generally hung out.

More Information on the Hope Warshaw/Diabetes Health Controversy created by Hope Warshaw. The Low-Carb community responds.

Eat well, stay fit, and maintain your low-carb diet with these 300 delicious and easy recipes that can be made in 15 minutes or less from start to finish. Simple and speedy cooking methods will lead you to a fabulous finished product every time.

1001 Delicious Low-Carb Recipes from Dinner to Dessert That Let You Live Your Low-Carb Lifestyle and Never Look Back by Dana Carpender. Staying the low-carb course will be easy with choices from barbecue to slow-cooker to internationally-inspired dishes.

Ah, the wonders of a slow cooker. After a long, hard day you can walk in the door and the aroma of a hot, home-cooked meal fills the air. You don't have to do that fast tango from fridge to pantry to stove and back again. It's nearly as good as having a personal chef!

If you've thought about quitting your low-carb lifestyle, it's most likely because you're bored - you just want a really, truly, interesting meal for a change. Problem solved! You and low-carbers like you made 500 Low-Carb Recipes a best-seller, so here are 500 more, and they're better than ever.

You'll find hundreds of wonderful family dishes that take no more than fifteen minutes to make, prep time included. You'll even find stuff you'd be happy to serve to company, should you be so brave as to invite people over on a weeknight!

Carrying the trusted Women's Health name and featured on the Today show and in Time magazine, this diet combines a customized eating program with a body-shape-specific exercise plan.

In Everyday Paleo, Sarah Fragoso gives detailed instructions for acquiring a Paleo lifestyle and improving the health and longevity of your family. An active mother of three, Fragoso shows that eating Paleo is not only feasible for the busiest of families, but also easy, delicious and completely life-changing. She offers numerous recipes for all meals of the day, and provides tips for getting around common roadblocks, such as eating out.

Cauliflower is the low carber's best friend. (Well, after meat and eggs.) Why? Because it stands in for so many other things, and does the job so well. Most low carbers know about fauxtatoes - pureed cauliflower served in place of mashed potatoes. But that's only the beginning of cauliflower's many charms.