Now that I’m back home for a while, I am finally able to do a savory dish. I am working on doing a lower carb diet. Notice I didn’t say low carb. We all need carbs in our diet, we just need to adjust for our activity levels and also for age. What I mean by that is the ability to tolerate carbohydrates when a woman goes through menopause goes down (Pirimoglu et al., 2011). I found out my diet as is wasn’t working anymore. I needed to lower my carbohydrate intake. So my recipes will reflect that. When I started lowering my overall carbohydrate intake, my weight started to go down. Now I still eat about 196g carbohydrates everyday, so there is not a drastic decrease. I also load my higher carb foods at the start of my day when I exercise.

I also plan to talk about what low carb diet works best for overall health. A study came out recently about that, which I will cover in a future article. For my recipe this week I am starting with a recipe from the Immigrant’s Table for Quinoa with Kabocha Squash and Chickpeas in Green Tahini Sauce. It’s vegetable heavy to start with, but has a fair bit of carbs. I plan to lower the a carb level while still maintaining the essence of the recipe.

Here are the original stats:

Here’s what I changed:

• I increased the servings from 4 to 8 to reduce the calories.
• I reduced the salt to 1 teaspoon to reduce the sodium.
• I replaced the canned beans with lower sodium variety to reduce the sodium.
• I replaced the kabocha squash with butternut squash because it’s hard to get kabocha in my area.
• I added tofu to increase the protien.
• I replaced the quinoa with green beans to lower the calories and carbs.
• I added some edamame to increase the protien.

Here are the final stats:

Here is the final recipe:

Butternut Squash and Chickpeas in Green Tahini Sauce

Serves 8

• 2 pounds butternut squash, peeled and cut into cubes
• 4 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 tablespoons sweet paprika
• 2 pounds frozen green beans, thawed
• 1 14 ounce package extra firm tofu, cubed
• 1 15 ounce can of low sodium chickpeas 
• 1 cup edamame
• 2 red bell peppers, chopped
• ½ large red onion
• 3 tablespoons raw tahini
• 4 cloves garlic
• juice of ½ lemon
• 1 cup of parsley
• 1 teaspoon salt
• ¼ cup water
• ¼ cup toasted pumpkin or sunflower seeds for serving

1. Preheat oven to 400F, and cover a large baking sheet with tinfoil. Add squash and tofu. Drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with paprika. Bake for 20 minutes. Add the green beans to the pan then switch to broil setting, and grill from the top for an additional 10 minutes. Set aside.
2. Wash chickpeas if using canned. Chop onion coarsely, but still bite-size. Add chickpeas, edamame and red bell pepper. Mix in squash and green beans.
3. Prepare sauce by blending tahini, garlic, lemon juice, parsley and salt in a blender. Gradually add in water while blending. The sauce should be pourable, bright, and a little salty.
4. Pour sauce onto chickpeas and vegetables. Right before serving, toast pumpkin or sunflower seeds, and sprinkle on top.

Reference:

Pirimoglu, Z. M., Arslan, C., Buyukbayrak, E. E., Kars, B., Karsidag, Y. K., Unal, O., & Turan, M. C. (2011). Glucose tolerance of premenopausal women after menopause due to surgical removal of ovaries. Climacteric, 14(4), 453–457. https://doi.org/10.3109/13697137.2010.539723