Advanced Mediterranean Diet

This Turkey Tomato Bowl is low-carb

This is what I did with some of our leftover Thanksgiving turkey last Novermber. If you don’t have leftover turkey, I bet leftover chicken or steak would be  fine substitutes. Heck, I’m tempted to try it with salmon or canned tuna or chicken. In addition to the flavor, what I like about this meal is that it’s crazy quick.

Ingredients:

6 oz (170 g) cooked turkey chunks, light meat (or 8 oz (225 g) if you’re starting raw and planning to cook it)

5 oz (140 g) raw tomato (2 small roma tomatoes, for example), cut into chunks

2 tbsp (30 ml) balsamic vinaigrette

black pepper to taste

1 oz (30 g) roasted macadamia nuts

These roma tomatoes were amazingly flavorful for late Fall in the northern hemisphere. Before cooking, my wife injected the bird with olive oil, massaged periodically over 30 minutes, then popped it in the oven.

Instructions:

Toss the turkey and tomato chunks in a bowl, splash on the vinaigrette, then microwave for 60-80 seconds. Pepper as desired. Drink the leftover juice right out of the bowl. Enjoy with macadamia nuts for dessert and you’ve got a full meal.

Discussion:

Use commercial dressing if you’re in a rush

I was lazy when I made this so I just used a commercial salad dressing rather than making my own vinaigrette. Wish-Bone Balsamic Vinaigrette Dressing “with extra virgin olive oil.” Here are the top ingredients, in order: water, balsamic vinegar, soybean oil and extra virgin olive oil (sic), sugar, salt, spices, etc. So the oil could have been soybean oil with only one drop of olive oil for all I know. Olive oil is a rich source of monounsaturated fatty acid, so you might be able to calculate how much EVOO was in the dressing if I tell you there were five grams of fat per two tbsp (30 ml) serving, of which 1.5 grams were monounsaturated. That serving also has three grams of carbohydrate (all sugar) and only 60 calories. Right there on the bottle is says gluten-free and “no high fructose corn syrup.” I bet it had HFCS in it three years ago and there would be no mention of the trendy “gluten-free.”

I don’t know any home cooks who add water to vinaigrettes. They are essentially oil and vinegar (in a ratio of 3:1) and spices (or not). The ones I make have quite a bit more than 60 calories per two tbsp (30 ml); more like 220 cals. All of the oils you would use have about 120 calories per tbsp all from fat. If you make this recipe with home-made vinaigrette, add 150 calories to the nutritional analysis below. It won’t affect the carb count.

Note that of the common vinegars, balsamic has the most carbohydrates—some vinegars have zero. If you use typical amounts of balsamic vinaigrette, you shouldn’t need to worry about the carbohydrates unless perhaps you’re on a strict ketogenic diet and limited to 20-30 grams of carb daily.

Servings: 1

Advanced Mediterranean Diet boxes: 1 vegetable, 2 protein, 1 fat

Nutritional Analysis:

58% fat

7% carbohydrate

35% protein

620 calories

11.5 g carbohydrate

3.7 g fiber

8 g digestible carbohydrate

743 mg sodium

877 mg potassium

Prominent features: High in protein, vitamin B6, iron, manganese, niacin, phosphorus, selenium, and zinc.

Bonus pic! Java, one of the horses at the Parker Compound. He’s an old-style Morgan.