Comfort Food

Fried till golden using coconut flour.

A rich and easy cream of mushroom soup.

This is a yummy, satisfying soup.

For all you cabbage lovers out there, this recipe is a ZReduction take on a German classic. While you can whip this dish up in about 30 minutes, red cabbage tastes sweeter the longer you cook it -- so if you are on ZReduction and like your cabbage a little sweeter, cook it low and slow until the flavors mellow and meld to your liking.

Light and dreamy. If you like pumpkin you’ll love this smooth and easy dessert.

With the winter months peeking over our shoulder this hearty soup will shake off the chill while the leaves are still falling. ZTeam coach Grace made this at home and enjoyed it so much she wanted to share it with the Plan Z community!

Talk about easy to make. This dish is done in a flash. If you’re like me, you’ll make a triple batch of the tomato base. You can freeze the portions.

Amatriciana is an Italian dish. Simple and traditional. I am calling this American Amatriciana because the Italian version is made with guanciale or pancetta. I make mine with good ole’ American bacon. This is one of my husband’s favorite dishes. I hope you love it too.

This is a throw it together FAST meal for any weeknight. It is not a spicy dish but you can if you wish, add hot sauce at the table for a little extra zing.

Celebrity Chef Jernard Wells knows soul food. While a lot of his food is quite decadent, he also loves greens, and shared his wonderful southern greens recipe in a local interview. What's great about it is it can easily be modified to fit ZReboot. His original recipe calls for sugar, but by replacing the sugar with your favorite sugar substitute, you can still enjoy this delicious recipe. 

This is a great comfort food. Make a big pot and pack it up for lunches on future days for a nice hot meal on a cold day.

This is a simple chili. It’s a takeoff from an old Betty Crocker recipe. Can’t get much simpler than that!

A good old American favorite with a Mexican twist.

Angela says, "I love pizza, so I was looking for alternatives. I was disappointed to find cauliflower crust is not much lower in carbs than a traditional pizza crust. I came across that recipe for a meatzza crust and was pleasantly surprised. It satisfied my pizza craving, and I could have a slice of pizza without needing a fork! For those pizza cravings, here’s a recipe for a meatzza crust."

I adapted this dish from one I saw in a recipe site. I had to change it quite a bit to “Zola-fy” it but it was just so decadent and creamy I had to share.

This dish can be made with chicken or is a perfect way to use up leftover turkey from the holidays.

This is a remake of Beef Bourguignon. Who can resist this traditional French dish? So lush-tasting. It just about melts in your mouth.

I love to take the leftover turkey and transform it into something different. French comfort food. BIG YUM.

This is a meaty chili with some veggies tossed in for crunch factor. Makes a satisfying lunch.

Chris’s cousins sent us a HUGE box of fruit as his get well wish. There are only two of us, so in order to use the fruit I have had to get creative! Oh, my, these are yummy!

It may not feel like it here in Chicago, but spring and asparagus season are just around the corner. Gear up with this flavorful soup.

A very quick and simple family dinner.

This will taste pretty darn official!

One of my favorite Cajun meals is chicken mamou. Mamou in Creole is basically grandma. So this is “grandma('s) chicken.”

If we had a gourmet comfort food category this recipe would be the first one. Its easy to make, very satisfying, and tastes delicious. A great meal for a rainy day.

This dish comes together in a flash. If you are doing beef enchiladas, I recommend red sauce. If you are doing chicken, I recommend you go wild and use a green sauce.

Feels just like you are eating in the French countryside.

The inside of this pie bake tastes just like Midwest comfort food. You won't even notice the potatoes are missing. It has just enough carrots to remind you how sweet they are. Same for the peas. The onion, celery and the mushrooms give it the depth of flavor you'll remember from childhood. The topping isn't your average pie crust. This one is low carb. So it's not like a biscuit either. I'm still trying to perfect low carb biscuits, so this is sort of a cross-breed.

These crepes are very low carb and EASY to make. You can even make them ahead and store them in the refrigerator or freeze them. I made them at the same time I was working on my seafood and sauce for the stuffed crepes but if you’re not that coordinated in the kitchen, you can make the crepes first and just store them. You do have to keep a close eye on the crepes as they cook. Don’t get distracted. It’s much less stressful to make the crepes and then make the sauce. Both come together really fast so you’ll be out of the kitchen in a jiffy anyway.

When I was young I loved going to Chi Chi’s and ordering the chimichanga. Now that I know all the carbs from the tortilla it was wrapped in are a bad idea, I decided to make a lower carb casserole version.

This recipe makes a yummy vegetarian lunch or side dish to go with a protein. I also put it in Zola to GO! because it can travel to a buffet.

What’s the difference between chili and taco soup? Broth, of course. There is more broth in taco soup is more so it’s thinner than chili. The internet tells me that chili is technically considered a stew. Go figure.

Everyone loves pumpkin, right? Well, how about a tea bread that’s made with pumpkin? Sort of like banana bread. Or even make it with sweet potato puree.

You can have your stroganoff and eat it too! Most stroganoff recipes are served over rice or a big pile of noodles. You don’t have to do that. You have other choices.

Just like the one your mom made, only healthier. Everyone loves the green bean casserole. Here I'll show you one one that doesn't take much longer to make and it’s real food, not processed!

My husband loves shrimp and grits. His mother was from Arkansas and they ate grits often. Trouble is grits are very high carb. Traditional grits are made from cornmeal. I took an inspiration recipe and came up with my own version of shrimp and grits. There is just enough corn in here to help you get the corn flavor without the cornmeal. And there’s enough cheese in here that even though you’ll be using almond meal (aka almond flour) for your grits base, you won’t taste the almond.

I’m Irish, so beef stew was a staple in our family. Trouble is there are so many carbs in most beef stew recipes. So with this recipe I have adjusted it to keep the carbs lower and introduce some other veggies that are lower carb to the mix.

Lobster thermidor is a classic dish. It’s decadent because of the cost of the lobster but it also has one of the dreamiest sauces you can possibly imagine.

Talk about comfort food. This is the pure definition. Thankfully fat doesn’t make you fat so you can eat this at parties and not feel the guilt.

When you need some serious cold weather comfort food, ratatouille hits the spot. This shortcut ratatouille-inspired recipe was submitted by dieter Angela. She Zolafied the original recipe and created a delicious ZReduction veggie sauté that can be made in less than half the time of a traditional ratatouille.

What better time to have a spicy chili than when I am in lockdown, practicing social distancing. 

Our Plan Z “cafeteria” smelled just like Grandma’s house today. This beef over noodles recipe is a hit. Serve this when you have family around at holidays or other times when there’s a crowd.

What makes this Zola lasagna is a reasonable amount of pasta. Most lasagna recipes run at least 3 or 4 layers of noodles. This one has 2. And I promise, you won’t miss the other two layers.

This dish is Italian comfort food. I curl up on sofa with a bowl of this and watch a movie. You can go totally low-carb with this one and make it without the pasta. Tastes just as good. This also makes a great casserole addition to a pot luck party.

When you get into the second portion of ZReboot you can start to experiment with a little more carbohydrates. Try this at week 4 – 6 of ZReboot and see how you do.

I thought – what better time to have a spicy chili than when I am in lockdown, practicing social distancing.

This is elegant comfort food. It’s sort of like the American version of the French dish called Coquille St. Jacque.

This is a great crock pot recipe. Super simple but really tasty.

We were really happy with the way it turned out and I think you could adjust the seasonings to your own taste if you want more garlic or more salt, etc.