Recipe and picture by Debbie Parker Newgent.

​Low-carb pizzas on the grill. Crust is chicken, cheese and egg (cooked prior to topping)topped with sauce, pepperoni, sausage and cheese. I think next time I will pre-bake the crust in the air fryer and not on the grill as they were a bit soft to hold like a pizza)

Recipe by Shannon E. Green; cooked in a skillet.


For the Hamburger broccoli alfredo:

3 c broccoli
1/2 lb hamburger
1/2 c parmesan
1/3 block cream cheese
2 to 3 T Heavy cream

Cook hamburger & broccoli together. Then add cream cheese & heavy cream to skillet. Once melted add parmesan.

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For the Green chile hamburger helper:

Cauliflower (3/4 of a small head)
1/2 lb hamburger
1/2 med onion
1/3 of a block Cream cheese
2 to 3 T Heavy cream
1/2 c shredded cheese
3 to 4 T green chiles

Fry hamburger, onion, & cauliflower together. Add cream cheese & heavy cream to skillet, once melted add grated cheese & green chiles.

Tonight we had grouper for dinner, seasoned with turmeric, paprika powder and Mrs Dash garlic and herbs and a quinoa spinach blend on the side with half a bag of cauliflower. Squeezed out lemon juice over the grouper after it was plated.

Ingredients:

2 cartons organic low sodium chicken broth (if you want to keep this dish completely vegetarian just substitute it with vegetable broth)
2.5 lbs pre cut butternut squash
1 carrot roughly cut up
half red onion roughly chopped
1 Granny Smith apple roughly chopped
1 leek cut in rings
1/2 tsp turmeric
red pepper flakes to taste
1 tbsp Mrs Dash garlic and herbs
*coconut milk is optional for presentation

I added all these ingredients into the Instant Pot, set it to cook on high pressure for an hour. When it was done I blended it all with the immersion blender and soup is done! Quick, simple and tasty!
And most importantly: very low in calories! Only 100 calories for one cup! And 295 mg sodium, 4 g of sugar, 20 g carbs, 2 g fat and 2 g protein.

This was cooked in a Dutch oven on the stove while on home time but can be easily cooked in a deep electric skillet, Aroma, Ninja, Instant Pot, slow cooker, whatever you use. You may just have to adjust the cooking time a little but the ingredients remain the same.

Ingredients: (all ingredients are organic)
2 cartons low sodium organic chicken broth
2 chicken breast filets
Bunch Carrots
5 celery stalks
2 baby bokchoy
onion
3 cloves garlic
fresh parsley (half bundle)
ginger root (chopped in big chunks so you can fish it out after cooking)
bay leaves
Mrs Dash; onion and herbs and lemon pepper
Avocado oil.

First I lightly browned the chicken breasts in 2 tbsp of avocado oil and added the ion and garlic halfway through.
Then I added all the other ingredients chopped and mixed, added broth and let it cook for 2 hours.
Take out the chicken and shred the meat with 2 forks and put back in the soup.
Fish out the ginger root and bay leaves before serving the soup. Enjoy!

As I mentioned before a few months ago, we have a very small fridge on our truck, smaller than dorm size, so when we shop I plan our meals for 5-6 days and try to come up with meals that use many of the same ingredients yet aren’t 100% the same as no one wants to eat the same on a daily basis.
All these meals above were cooked in an electric skillet; nothing else.

List of ingredients I used:

Protein:
2 salmon filets
1 pack uncured thick cut bacon (also used one morning with just eggs, not pictured)
2 chicken breast filets
pack of 8 boneless and skinless chicken thighs
2 steaks
Rack eggs

Produce: (we try to eat low carb as much as possible so I use a lot of produce)
4 avocados
onions
3 zucchini
2 red bell peppers
bag organic carrots
lemons
asparagus
green beans
cauliflower
bag frozen peas
​bag frozen corn
garlic (make sure you buy American; they have the roots still attached on the bottom. The cleaned ones are from China and are bleached you don’t want those).

Miscellaneous: (and NOT low carb!)
pack pancake mix
2 packs of Uncle Ben’s roasted chicken ready rice

I use mostly Mrs Dash garlic and herbs, no added salt for our meals and sometimes add old bay seasoning.
With all these ingredients I made all the above meals incl. a chicken vegetable soup with the leftover carrots and one bell pepper I had and also had vegetable stock and chicken bouillon cube. So it made a total of at least 7 meals, not all pictured.

As we live on the truck, storage space is very limited. So I try to cook most meals in one appliance to save in space and clean up.
This entire meal was made, all at once, in an electric skillet.

Ingredients:
2 pork chops, bone in
2 bundles of green asparagus
3 strips of Wright's thick cut applewood smoked bacon
Mrs Dash garlic and herbs
1 tbsp butter (not margarine but the real deal)

I diced up the bacon and let that fry up for a bit. I then added the pork chops and while they were frying up on one side I cut the asparagus into big chunks. Flipped the chops over after a few minutes and added the butter and asparagus. Once the butter melted I stirred the bacon and asparagus together and put the lid on the skillet cooking it for an additional 7-8 minutes and that was it! Dinner served!

When I still had my trucker cooking group on Facebook, one of the many heard complaints from drivers was they could only eat fast food because the didn't have time to cook. And as always I would tell them it can be done, even teams who run close to 6500/7000 miles a week. Where there's a will, there's a way. Yes I went there! 😉
It's all about planning and organizing your meals. I think about what I want to make for us each week and think about how long each dish takes to cook, how long it takes to prep. Now we have plenty of time to cook so it doesn't stress me out as much as it used to a few years ago but it can be done.
The above containers with soup for instance took 45 minutes to make, from preparation time to finish. I used an Instant Pot, electric pressure cooker, but you could do the same in a slow cooker and just cut up all your veggies and set it on slow for 8 hours before you start driving and it'll be done when you're ready to take your mandatory break so you can divide it into bowls and let it cook off, or eat one, whatever you plan.
If you were to cook this from scratch in the Instant Pot like I did, you could do this during your 30 minute break, take 15 minutes extra and have 2-4 meals which saves you time down the road.

Ingredients:
2 chicken breast filets
carton of organic vegetable broth
half bag precut carrots
4-5 chalks celery cut
5 cloves garlic minced
2 bay leaves
a pinch of thyme
14.5 oz can of organic fire roasted tomatoes
2 pepperoncini peppers diced

Put everything in the pot, set on high pressure for 20 minutes and shred the meat with 2 forks when done. I filled my IP for 3/4 full and did a quick pressure release. If you fill the IP to the max this isn't recommended. Please be careful to not burn yourself! Enjoy!

Ingredients:
1 egg (use yolk only)
1.25 lbs ground Angus beef
2 slices Applewood smoked thick cut bacon
Mango Chardonnay vinaigrette
2 cucumbers
1 avocado
worcestershire sauce
salt
Mrs Dash garlic and herbs

Mix the ground beef with the egg yolk, a little salt, Worcestershire sauce and Mrs Dash garlic and herbs seasoning and form parties with it. Wrap each Patty with a slice of bacon.

Preheat the electric skillet and start frying up the burgers on 350F.

While that was frying away I sliced up the cucumbers and dice the avocado and arranged them on two plates, adding a little vinaigrette and when the burgers were done added them too. Enjoy!