Cooking for anyone on a low-carb diet is challenging – after all, American grocery stores have more carbohydrates available nowadays than at almost any other time in our history.  Sugar and wheat flour are the biggest culprits, but unless you check labels religiously, you’ll inadvertently serve carbs with every meal.  Going low-carb means eating lots of protein and fresh vegetables, avoiding many fruits (natural sugars aren’t good either), eliminating most breads, and never, under any circumstances, cooking up big, steaming bowls of pasta.

But this is a challenge.  Seriously, any time you’re talking about a fundamental change to your diet, you’ll end up with cravings.  In some ways, it’s almost karmic:  if you tell yourself that you can’t have cookies, one of your coworkers will probably ask if you want to order Girl Scout cookies.  (What, is that just me?)

I came across Dreamfields pasta on a suggestion from my sister-in-law.  She mentioned that she’d found a new brand of pasta that was actually okay to eat when trying to cut down on carbs.  And this, friends, is revolutionary.  A low-carb diet means, at least in the early phases, cutting down to 20 grams or less of carbohydrates in a day.  And that may not sound like much until you check the label and realize that one slice of bread has 20 grams of carbs on its own.  It forces a bit of an adjustment to one’s cooking!

But as it turns out, you can fulfill that craving without completely destroying your Atkins-friendly diet.  Dreamfields claims that one serving of their pasta, which I found in three different shapes at my local Giant, has just 5 grams of net carbs.  I won’t pretend to know how exactly how they do it (they claim that their patented pasta blend “…creates a protective barrier to reduce starch digestion in the small intestine,” which isn’t exactly something I want to examine closely!) but I thought it’d be worth a look.

As with so many other specialized diet foods, this stuff isn’t exactly cheap.  My local store has a 13.2 oz box of spaghetti for $2.89, while a 16 oz box of Barilla spaghetti costs just $1.25, and Ronzoni’s whole-wheat spaghetti goes for just $2.29.  That’s quite a premium, but if you’re eating low-carb, you’re spending more on your food anyway.  Just be aware of it.

We tried out two applications for this pasta – a basic angel hair with marinara sauce and an old favorite recipe for comfort food, a variation on Mark Bittman’s baked macaroni and cheese (recipe below).  I think our impressions of the angel hair marinara were colored by it being the first pasta meal we’ve had at our house in months – it’s no exaggeration to say that we loved it – but when I made baked macaroni and cheese, I tested it on one of my wife’s friends to make sure that we weren’t just deprived and loving it.  All three of us cleaned our plates that evening.

The beauty of this product (and I will admit that I’m neither Italian nor a pasta expert) is that it tasted like a near-perfect substitute.  I didn’t do anything special when I made it; I simply salted the water and boiled as long as the package indicated (5 minutes for the angel hair and 8 minutes for the macaroni).  No olive oil or family cooking secrets – this was about as simple as it could get, and it worked extraordinarily well.

If you’re tired of avoiding your carbohydrate nemeses, Dreamfields is worth a shot.  You’ll pay a premium for it, but in our house, it was definitely worth it.

Enjoy!

-Michael (HML)

Baked Macaroni and Cheese

2 ½ cups milk

2 bay leaves

1 lb elbow macaroni (Bittman also suggests shells, ziti, or other cut pasta)

4 tbsp butter, plus extra for greasing the pan

3 tbsp all-purpose flour

2 cups grated cheese – I prefer sharp Cheddar, but any flavorful cheese will do

½ cup grated Parmesan

½ cup bread crumbs – I used panko with dried Italian herbs)

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.  Boil salted water in a medium saucepan or stockpot.  Grease a 9×13 glass baking dish with extra butter.

Heat milk over low heat with bay leaves for five minutes or so until hot.  Remove bay leaves and set milk aside. Boil the pasta until one minute shy of al dente – for the Dreamfields pasta, this meant boiling for 7 minutes – then strain and rinse in cold water to stop cooking.  Set aside in a medium work bowl.

In a clean saucepan (and this can be done using just one pan for all of these tasks, though you’ll need to wash it out repeatedly), melt the butter over medium-low heat.  Add the flour and stir with a whisk until smooth.  (Technique note:  for any of you newbies out there, you’re making a roux, the base for many traditional French sauces).  Cook for about five minutes until the mixture is brown, whisking often.  Add the milk in ¼ cup increments, whisking until smooth with each addition, and don’t let the mixture sit over the heat until almost all of the milk is added.  Once smooth and fully incorporated, add both cheeses and stir until melted and smooth. 

Add the sauce to the pasta and stir to combine.  Adjust seasoning to taste and add some freshly ground black pepper if you’re so inclined.  Pour the mixture into the prepared pan and top with bread crumbs, then bake for about 15 minutes.

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