Super Easy Low-Carb Appetizer for Your New Year’s Eve Party

In case you have been living under a rock, or taking nutrition classes at a University, then you know that when it comes to fat-loss and health low-carb wins hands down.  I’ve written about that here, here, here, here, here, here and a whole lot of other places.

Your New Year’s Eve party is right around the corner, so I wanted to give you something easy that you could make that would be both tasty and helpful with getting a head start on your New Year’s Resolutions.

When you go low-carb one of the things that you miss the mot is crunchy stuff like crackers.  Here is a great alternative that I love with Baba Ganoush (a great, lower carb alternative to hummus).

Low-Carb Cheese Crackers

Ingredients

4 slices (approx 1 oz each) cheddar cheese (pre-sliced from a grocery store – I’ve used several brands and they all seem to work fine.)

Parchment paper

Directions

1.  Take cheese and fold into quarters (you end up with 4 pieces of cheese that are about ¼ the size of the original slice) and place on baking sheet that has been covered with a sheet of parchment paper.

2.  Preheat oven to 400 F, and put cheese in oven when the oven heats to 400.
3.  Bake for 8min

For a crisper cracker – leave the cheese on the parchment paper for an hour or more to help it dry out.  The longer it sits out the dryer it gets and the crisper your cracker.

Nutrition

Makes 4 servings of 4 crackers

Regular cheese crackers – 18g net carb per 1oz serving
These cheese crackers – .5g net carb per 1 oz serving (4 crackers)

Josef Brandenburg is 2010, Washington, DC  Personal Trainer of the Year Nominee for both Personal Fitness Professional Magazine and The Washington, DC Fitness Association, and author of “The Body You Want”. He shows normal people with hectic lives and average genetics how to create the bodies they want in the time they actually have. To find out more about the 7-Day Free Trial click here. You can also pick up a FREE copy of his brand new CD – “Why Eat Less and Exercise More is The Worst Advice Ever” here.

Josef’s Mom Presents Her Butternut squash & Coconut soup

I like butternut squash. I like coconut. Together they are even better. This is a great appetizer or snack or even a side dish for a meal.

Ingredients

1 tbsp peanut (or coconut) oil	120 kcal
1 small onion, chopped	30 kcal
1 heaping tbsp Thai Kitchen green curry paste	10 kcal
1/4 cup white wine, sherry, or rice vinegar	97 kcal (75% boils off as alcohol)
1 tbsp Thai Kitchen red chili paste	50 kcal
1 cup veggie or chicken broth	10 kcal
1 can light coconut milk	320 kcal
6 cups peeled and cubed butternut squash (the equivalent of one small butternut squash)	380 kcal

Instructions

1. Chop veggies.
2. Sautee onion in oil until soft and translucent. Deglaze pan with wine, sherry, or rice vinegar
3. Add remaining ingredients. Simmer until squash is tender (the smaller the cubes, the faster this happens).
4. Puree and serve. (A hand mixer or food processor work best. A blender will do too.)

Nutrition Facts

5 servings at 188kcal/serving