Had a sad and melancholy day, and don’t feel much like cooking. Without going into why I’m melancholy, we’ll focus on how I managed to have a nice dinner without really any effort at all.
Open freezer, and what are my choices? We’ve got those frozen Cordon Bleu things, which are ok, but I’m really not in the mood. Some flash frozen chicken tenders, but really, seems like I had chicken for lunch (like every day, but whatever), some of those little stuffed Wontons we found at Costco, and Register sausage.
Sausage it is, warm up in the skillet while I rummage around for something to go with it. We have some left over. Outage cheese from the lasagne I made yesterday, so that’s good. Also some mini apples. And lucky us, the avocados I bought on Friday, are perfect for eating now.
Look how easy that was! Not sure how many carbs are in a teeny tiny apple, but not much! Mission accomplished!
Easy and quick is what I need after work! This is super fast, partly because of modern technology. The Minute rice (which has brown and red rice and quinoa for tons of fiber) takes 10 minutes in the microwave.
The chicken tenderloins are the flash frozen tenderloins you can pick up at any grocery store, and they thaw out super fast too. Just pan fry them with the Kickomann seasoning, or whatever you prefer, and a wee bit of olive oil.
The okra is a keto standby for us, again, easily sautéed in the skillet while cooking the chicken and rice.
And of course, any berries will do, but organic blackberries were on sale yesterday, so we have these.
I’ve created a new cookie y’all! I’m so excited, and I think you’re gonna love it! These cookies are just a little ray of sunshine!
The taste and texture of this cookie will amaze you – you won’t believe it’s actually low carb and low calorie!
In theory this should make about 40 dreamy little cookies, but it all depends on how big you make the cookie balls.
Start off with a basic butter cookie recipe, altered for keto:
1/2 cup Land O Lakes real margarine 1/2 cup butter flavored Crisco or Coconut Oil One large EB egg 1/2 cup Zen Sweet Monkfruit 1/2 cup Confectioners (XXX) sugar 1/2 tsp salt 1 cup All Purpose Flour 2 cups Almond Flour 2 tsp Almond Extract 1 tsp Vanilla Extract Smuckers Sugar Free Apricot jam Almond slices
It’s a little bit fiddly, as I don’t roll the cookie in almond slices, but rather, I arrange them around the jam.Ready to pop in the oven!
Cream the margarine & shortening & egg. Add sweeteners, salt and blend in well. Add in the AP flour and the extracts, mix about a minute, and then gradually mix in the 2 cups of Almond Flour. Roll into small balls about 2” diameter, and place on a well greased cookie sheet. Then take something about the size of a large marble, to press into the center of each cookie to make a well (yes, like thumbprint cookies!). Now add about 1-1/2 tsp of the sugar-free Apricot jam to each well, and then gently press almond slices around the edges of each cookie. Bake 10-12 minutes at 350°, or until the bottom edges of the cookies are golden. Let them cool 10-15 minutes before removing to a plate.
Yum!
As you get more and more comfortable with the taste, frankly, you can eliminate any AP flour, and use 100% Almond Flour, and you could even drop the amount of Confectioners Sugar to perhaps 1/4 cup, and increase the Monkfruit to 3/4 cup – but remember Confectioners Sugar is already 1/2 the carbs of granulated sugar.
You will have 3-5 grams of carbohydrates per cookies, depending on how large your cookie is, if you follow the recipe exactly.
Let’s not presume that keto is low calorie – lest we forget that FAT has 9kcal/gm, while protein and carbohydrates have only 4kcal/gm. Nonetheless the fat in peanut butter is generally considered a healthy fat.
My boys love “Buckeyes” at Christmas time, which is basically a peanut butter ball dipped in chocolate.
I thought it would be a nice twist to see if I could make it a little bit lower carb, and thus closer to my keto lifestyle – no sense feeling deprived at Christmas time!
Just a few ingredients: 3 cups chunky Peanut Butter (regular Peter Pan, NOT Honey Roasted) 2 cups Lakanto Monk Fruit 1/2 cup real Land O Lakes Margarine Mix well, by hand or in the mixer.
Optional add in: 1 cup Rice Krispies, or Oatmeal, or even Almond Flour – I don’t add any of these
Make your peanut butter balls about 3” diameter, and set on wax paper.
Melt 2 packages of Hershey’s Sugarfree Chocolate Chips (20 oz) – I do it in the microwave at 50% power one minute at a time. If you would like you can also melt some Gulf wax, just a bit, to thin your chocolate and give it a glossy shine – 1/4 of a bar is all you need. Once everything is well incorporated glossy and smooth, roll your Peanut Butter balls a wee bit on the wax paper to smooth out the edges, and then dip into your melted chocolate lifting them out with a fork. Tap off the excess chocolate. And place the Peanut Butter candy ball back into the wax paper to dry. You can eat these in about 15 minutes, but the chocolate really takes a few hours to set back up again.
Enjoy!
Pro tip here: put some wax paper in a mold, (or use a nifty little silicon one if you have one) and put your leftover chocolate in it. Add nuts from your pantry (I chose cashews) mix them into the chocolate, and then melt in the microwave for about 20 seconds. Let it set, then remove from the mold, Voila! MORE keto candy!
Cornbread and beans was a childhood staple, actually I think my parents called it ham and beans, and sometimes the ham was mostly the bone. They would prepare it in a pressure cooker, and pour the juices, beans and bits of ham over a square of cornbread, and we would sprinkle Visalia onion pieces on top – it was delicious!
Today, I try and stay away from beans AND cornbread, as the beans can cause me a lot of GI discomfort, and cornbread, is well, bread and full of carbs!
However, with a bit of tweaking, this can become Keto friendly, and if white beans are used instead of red, then GI discomfort is substantially minimized – and beans although rich in carbohydrates (20gm/half cup) are also full of protein (7gm per half cup) and fiber (7gm/half cup) which can cancel out some of the carbs (making it 13gms/half cup). My recipe for the cornbread is an easy twist on whatever you find on the cornmeal carton you purchase – simply substitute Monkfruit for the sugar, almond flour for the All Purpose flour, and your carbs are cut into less than half of regular cornbread, and you can’t tell the difference!
6 EB XL eggs 1 cup + 2 Tbsp almond flour & 1/2 cup all-purpose flour 3/4 cup Lakanto Monk Fruit 3 Tablespoons Coconut Oil 2-1/4 tsp Xanthen Gum 1-1/2 tsp Baking Powder 1/2-3/4 tsp salt (Depending on your sensitivity to salt) 1 tsp Real Vanilla extract
1 tsp Lemon extract
1 Tablespoon Orange extract
2 Tablespoons Orange zest (grated Orange peel)
6 oz. fresh cranberries (1/2 pkg), chopped/puréed in a food processor
Although this is more of a Christmas time bread, if you think ahead and buy a bunch of bags of cranberries when they are available (like 12!) you can enjoy this year round. Actually, you might substitute low sugar Craisens for the cranberries and it tastes delicious! PLUS, there is an orange butter that is delicious to spread on top. (However, Craisens, even the lower sugar variety, are certainly NOT low carb.)
Just before placing in the oven
Orange Butter
1/2 cup butter or margarine softened
3 Tbsp confectioners sugar, and 3 Tbsp powdered Monk Fruit
2 tsp Orange zest OR 1 Tbsp frozen OJ concentrate (if you choose the OJ concentrate, you obviously have more carbs, and you may have to add more conf sugar or powdered Monk Fruit to thicken it) Slather this on a warm slice of bread, and you’ll be in Heaven!
Yum!
Carb content per slice (for 12 slices) is about: 7.5
Carb content of the Orange Butter: 30gm for the whole thing, unless you use OJ. With the OJ concentrate that will bring it up to about 45gms. How many grams per serving is up to you!
Living the Keto lifestyle here, just trying to be able to fit into my clothes, LOL. Found a recipe in The Cake Bible for a Flourless Chocolate Torte. It was a good start for those who are gluten free and going keto, but I decided to go one better and make it Super Keto friendly, and managed to remove almost all carbs, by substituting in sugar-free chocolate chips and Swerve. It turned out really well!
Since I am the cake decorator extraordinaire, I put some gumpaste roses on top to pretty it up for Thanksgiving.
It’s super easy! Just remember to take it out of the oven on time!
Flourless Sugar-Free Chocolate Torte
Cake
3 eggs One bag sugar free chocolate chips (10 oz) 1/2 cup powdered cocoa 3/4 cup Lakantos Monk Fruit One stick margarine or butter (with salt) 1 tsp vanilla extract
Melt the butter in the microwave (30 secs. on high). Add the chocolate chips and stir until completely incorporated with the butter. If needed, zap it another 20 seconds or so, and stir until very very smooth. Mix up the eggs, Lakanto Monk Fruit and powdered cocoa, add in the chocolate-chip/butter mixture, and then stir in the vanilla. Pour into a well greased 9” round cake pan. (I like to make mine in a spring-form pan for easy release.)
Bake 25 minutes at 350° – remove and let cool.
Ganache
3/4 cup Heavy Whipping Cream One 10oz. bag sugar-free chocolate-chips
Heat in microwave one minute on high, and then gently stir well, until you have a lovely smooth syrup. Pour over the cooled Torte and serve!
You probably have about 8-10 carbs per slice, assuming you can eat 1/8th of this very rich Torte!
As per usual, the mainstays of my recipe include lots of eggs, Lakanto MonkFruit, and finely ground Almond flour. This recipe also requires Xanthen gum, which helps so much with our texture.
My favorite brandsThis particular recipe has no nuts, no raisins or craisens. This is a LOW CARB Pumpkin bread. If you really want raisens in your bread, you will be seriously increasing the carb count. A cup of pecans or walnuts, chopped fine, would still be considered Keto, however, and increase your fiber intake.
For those of you who are just joining me, I am determined to lead a low carb lifestyle, without giving up my favorite foods. So I am modifying some of my favorite comfort foods (generally cookies, cake, sweet breads, lol) to be more Keto friendly.
These are fresh out of the oven, I can almost smell it from here!!
The main caveat or takeaway is to remember that Keto Style baked goods need to be eaten quickly, as they will sink, and three days later, you won’t be interested in eating it any more.
See the texture on this slice, looks just like “normal” pumpkin bread, doesn’t it?! But for now, slather on the butter or cream cheese and enjoy!
Recipe: 6 eggs 2/3 cup butter flavored Crisco or coconut oil 1 cup Monk Fruit 1 cup Golden Monk Fruit 2/3 cup granulated sugar 1 can (16 oz) packed pumpkin 1/2 cup water 2 tsps baking soda 1-1/2 tsp salt 1/2 tsp baking powder One Tbsp Xanthen Gum, 1 tsp cinnamon 1 tsp cloves 2 cups almond flour 1-1/3cups all purpose flour
Heat oven to 350°. Grease pans (9×5”), mix shortening, sweeteners, leavening, salt and spices. Add in pumpkin. Blend until smooth. Add water, and flour, almond flour, one cup at a time, and mix until smooth. Pour evenly into two pans and bake for 70 minutes at 350°. You can cut it after 20-30 minutes.
Remember to share! Each loaf has about 13 slices, and each slice has about 25gms carbs each. So, low carb, but not NO carb. Be careful, it’s delicious!!
This is a cannibalization of a recipe, I’m afraid. I can’t for the life of me find this recipe, so I’m writing down w/a photo so I won’t forget it! ANd yes, it’s Keto! In fact, I actually have been known to eat this with a spoon, and forgo the chips altogether!
One packed of chopped spinach, defrost and drain 8 oz Cream cheese 6-8oz chunky salsa 1/2 small can of Rotel One cup shredded mozzarella cheese 2-4 Tbsps heavy cream, or Sour cream Place in crock pot on low heat, and after about 30 minutes, stir well.
Serve with tortilla chips, yum!
Disclaimer – this is not MY photo, but it looks just like this!
So this was a bad idea, a very very very bad idea! I was actually surprised by my restraint, in that I only ate two straight away!
I actually wasn’t sure that I could modify the recipe enough to make it work, but like most recipes with cocoa powder, it just requires a little bit more oil. Theoretically this makes 6 muffins. Personally I’d prefer to say just 4, but that would up my carb intake a bit, lol!
As with all keto baked goods, these taste best, pretty quick out of the oven — 20-30 minutes or so. But you could probably suffer, and have any left over, the next day, (and just microwave them for 10-15 seconds). One thing I know for sure, if there are more than 2-3 people in the house, there won’t be any left to eat tomorrow!
Take a look at the texture!
Here is the recipe:
4 EB XL eggs 3/4 cup almond flour & 1/4 cup all-purpose flour, 1/2 cup cocoa powder 1/2 cup Monk Fruit 3 Tablespoons Coconut Oil 1 tsp Xanthen Gum 1 tsp Baking Powder 1/4 tsp salt 1 tsp real vanilla extract, about 1/2 cup sugarfree chocolate chips
Mix the dry ingredients together while the eggs come to room temperature, add in the coconut oil and eggs all at once, and blend in well – the dough will seem gummy or extra sticky, this is normal. Now add in the vanilla & mix again. Finally with a large spoon gently stir in the chocolate chips. Spoon into 12 regular cup cake wells, or 6 extra large ones (my preference, as I plan on eating 2 regular size ones anyway!). Bake 25 -30 minutes at 350.
These beauties only have 11 grams of carbohydrates for each regular size muffin, or 22 grams for the large one I’m going to eat. YUM!
My Celestial Creations 