Italian Eggplant Stew

This recipe is a variation on the ‘chili’ recipes that I’ve been making the past few weeks – I just varied it to be more ‘Italian’.

• 1 lb. Trader Joe’s Grass-fed, Organic beef
• 1 large eggplant, diced
• 1 small can olives
• 1 sweet onion
• olive oil
• 1 can pizza sauce
• oregano
• basil
• garlic powder
• salt
• mozzarella cheese

I was in a rush, so this was put together quick – it did come out quite good, however.

First, in a large pot, I browned the meat in olive oil while I chopped the veggies. After the meat was browned nicely, I broke up the meat, then added the rest of the ingredients and stirred. I let bubble away on high heat for about 10 minutes, then turned down the heat to a simmer and let it stew another 20 minutes.

A word about the pizza sauce. For some reason that escapes me, the jars of pasta sauce always have added sugar – the cans sometimes don’t. Contadina, for example, has cans of sauce that run WAY lower in carbs than any of the jars. Read your labels, and make sure you check serving sizes if comparing to the sauces in jars – they tend to double the serving size, so you have to do a little math for a side-by-side carb comparison.

Oh – by the way – this should be safe in induction as I am in ketosis and have been eating this for 2 days. I’ve also taken off 2 lbs. in 2 days. I’m not saying that this is some magical ‘lose-a-pound-a-day-magic-stew’, but rather that it has apparently not stopped weight loss or fat-burning (so far).

It might be higher in carbs than you are comfortable in induction, but I have noticed that I can take in more than 20 grams of carbs per day, stay in ketosis, and lose weight – if they are high quality carbs and not junk.