Don't Fear the Party

Candy Crush!

I have now survived 2 birthday parties, one grownup party and picking up Krispy Kreme Doughnuts without the urge to cheat!

I started my keto diet on Halloween, not the smartest move. I took great pride is saying NO to all that candy dancing around my house. No, little Tootsie Roll. Not giving you a break, Kit Kat. Self-righteous, much? Yes, okay. It was so easy! Right! Until the keto flu kicked my ass.

Then over that. Ha ha! Keto easy! Keto good! But now, I was staring right into the face of Thanksgiving! The one holiday my family takes seriously. We pride ourselves on the number of desserts we have. We serve a salad that is jello and whipped cream. I had to plan an entire meal Just. For. Me! No one I'm related to is down with my weird diet, even if it's working. Every person suggested I just cheat.

Permission to damage yourself.

Pumpkin Cheesecake

Overcooked?

Thanksgiving was a challenge for me. I'd only been a few weeks keto and I was terrified that if I slipped up, I'd be rolling in a dirty gutter. I wanted so many things that just weren't going to work for me. I'm still trying to keto-fy some of my favorite recipes. Maybe one day I will get there, but if I don't I can live without them. Living low carb doesn't have to be depriving or limiting. You just have to have the courage to say no to the bad choices and be willing to work hard to make good ones.

My Top 4 Keto Survival Tips

This summer a doctor who couldn't diagnose what was causing my erratic weight gain, fatigue episodes, and hives suggested I try a ketogenic diet. I had no idea what he was talking about. He took out a prescription pad wrote down: ketogenic diet, 70% fat- 25% protein- 5% carbs. My jaw may have hit the floor, when he emphasised over 100 grams of fat. He said it had great results with autoimmune disorders and weight loss. Then he told me it was impossible to follow. Good luck and have a nice day.

Um, Donuts

Doughnuts. In my previous world, doughnuts meant and only meant Krispy Kreme. Donuts are everything else. You are never going to find a low carb/keto/healthified Krispy Kreme replacement. Don't tell me you do or can- just don't! Don't waste your time. That yeasty, airy, diabetic coma inducing goodness is not remakeable. I can be okay with that. I can! The hot-ready-now sign is nothing to me! Nothing!

My one perfect donut!

Just before Thanksgiving, while cruising The Google when I should have been sleeping, I found a donut recipe I had to try. Combine my desire for pumpkin, which I wasn't sure if I could still eat while following a ketogenic diet, and my desire for doughnuts and you get Pumpkin Cardamom Donuts Holes from Ruled.Me. It was near midnight. I ran downstairs and had cracked the eggs before I realized I didn't have any pumpkin. Driving to the store crossed my mind, when I spied a lone sweet potato on the counter. I don't didn't like sweet potatoes. Get off sugar for a few weeks and sweet potato tastes like candy.

Sick Day(s)

I have a cold! My nose doesn't work. My taste buds are on vacation. I'm barely keeping my head in the game! I did survive another birthday party. I felt fine on Saturday when I was running with the 3 year-olds at the Bounce House. Sunday wasn't so great, but Monday! There was so much to do for the twins' birthday party and I was downing cold meds all day.

Their birthday wish list consisted of cookie dough, Krispy Kreme donuts, Redi Whip, candy bars, chocolate mike and a new pump for their bikes and basketballs. Oh, and basketball cakes and Mamaw to make pizza - homemade crust! I miss that. Then she used the leftover dough to make bread. Warm, yeasty, golden crust bread... I wanted to slather on a ton of butter and bury my face in it. Watching the pizza and cake and ice cream and then the boys birthday presents created a hazy kind of desire for crap. The only thing I could smell was the bread.

Into the woods!

The things I miss with keto living. There is no viable substitute for yeast bread.

Pots de Crème! Fancy

Pots de Crème... fancy. But don't be scared away. It's custard. For me it's just a dish to use up egg yolks. I have no idea what I made that just used egg whites. My brain apparently didn't file that information away or else someone used my kitchen without telling me.

No matter. One of the first keto blogs I found was ruled.me. I love all the info I found there and the recipes are amazing. The recipes have nutrition data broken down by ingredient, which is super insightful.

Chicken Nugget Meatballs!

Melissa over at I Breathe... I'm Hungry is brilliant! Absolutely amazballs! And I say that because she has this brilliant idea called "Meatball Mondays." Just search that term and pick one. Amazing! I made Chicken Nugget Meatballs last week and again this week. I ate them hot, cold, threw some in the freezer.

Green on the plate ;)

The twins devoured them. My younger nephew loved them (asked for leftovers the next day). Mom was more meh. I served them with hot sauce, ketchup, and chipotle mayo- all things the twins love. Totally a kid friendly meal!

I couldn't get them to cook through in the skillet. Ended up baking them in the oven for a bit. Turned out drier than I'd have liked. Next time I'll use a fattier ground chicken. I think if I control the heat on the stove top better, I'll get a better result. That's my problem :D

So I took my problem back to the kitchen for round 2 and this time was brilliant! Of course, I'm over exaggerating. But they cooked in the pan all the way through- turn down the heat and then turn down the heat some more. And I used 93% instead of 97% lean ground turkey. Don't be afraid of the fat! Blue cheese and Texa Pete were tonight's toppings of choice. I started with a small plate. Four meatballs is a serving if you're starving! Two was enough for tonight and 3 each fed the boys. One of my new mottos: Start small, if you really want it go for seconds. (Nutrition Data via My Fitness Pal recipe importer.) Make these meatballs!

Nutrition Facts
Servings 4.0
Amount Per Serving
calories 427
% Daily Value *
Total Fat 32 g	49 %
Saturated Fat 3 g	16 %
Monounsaturated Fat 5 g
Polyunsaturated Fat 1 g
Trans Fat 0 g
Cholesterol 179 mg	60 %
Sodium 469 mg	20 %
Potassium 48 mg	1 %
Total Carbohydrate 9 g	3 %
Dietary Fiber 4 g	18 %
Sugars 1 g
Protein 31 g	62 %
Vitamin A	8 %
Vitamin C	1 %
Calcium	9 %
Iron	20 %

Cookies!

I've been feeling like cookies for a week now. I'm avoiding the cookie aisle at the grocery store, but those haven't really been what I wanted. I really wanted a shortbread-like cookie. And I found one! Again from the most amazing Maria at the Keto Adapted blog. Her "Healthified" Christmas Cookie was a recipe I had to try!

Since my cupboard was bare of almond extract, I used orange extract. I think a teaspoon of that was a tad too much, but over all I liked the flavor. These were super easy to make. Mix, roll, chill, cut, bake!

the last of the poor cookies!

My nephews got up in the middle of the night and ate half a log of cookie dough. They devoured the cookies and my 3 year old niece ate a couple and then one more. Mom and a sister-in-law thought they were okay, but I had a friend who absolutely hated them (he has no taste). I liked them with almond milk. I like them with tea. I ate them for breakfast. Totally fixed my cookie craving!

So fixed, or maybe fed, my cookie craving I baked 2 more batches (ran out of almond flour! WAA!). One with vanilla extract and one with almond extract. They vanished before I got a photo. Hint: they look exactly like the other ones... Almond is probably my favorite, but now I'm thinking I'd like to try it with coffee and maple! So many extracts! No more almond flour :(

"How can you eat some many cookies and still lose weight!" you might ask. Check out the nutrition on these cookies! (from My Fitness Pal recipe importer) and it helps if you eat them just before you follow 3 year olds around a bounce house.

Like a ghost town once someone screamed, "CAKE!"
This is a workout! All gyms should have these!

Easiest Christmas Cookie Ever!

Nutrition Facts
Servings 24.0
Amount Per Serving
calories 128
% Daily Value *
Total Fat 12 g	19 %
Saturated Fat 4 g	21 %
Monounsaturated Fat 2 g
Polyunsaturated Fat 1 g
Trans Fat 0 g
Cholesterol 23 mg	8 %
Sodium 101 mg	4 %
Potassium 19 mg	1 %
Total Carbohydrate 3 g	1 %
Dietary Fiber 2 g	7 %
Sugars 1 g
Protein 3 g	6 %
Vitamin A	4 %
Vitamin C	0 %
Calcium	3 %
Iron	4 %

So Easy, So Good

Think you can't cook? Think eating low carb is too much work or too expensive? No it's not! This recipe proves it. Easy Cajun Chicken is just that. Easy. Use the seasoning of your choice; it doesn't have to be Cajun seasoning. I've used Greek seasoning and taco seasoning also. Chicken legs are inexpensive and kid friendly. I could serve a variation of this every night to the twins and as long as I make tacos on the weekends they'd be happy.

Check out the recipe from I Breathe... I'm Hungry. You can't go wrong with this. It takes minutes to put together. Put it in the oven, set the timer and read a book!


Fifty minutes later, serve it with some ranch or blue cheese dressing. Put something green on the plate! Make the kids eat the green stuff! I can neither confirm nor deny rumors that there was a battle of wills over the "gross mini cabbages."

PS: This recipe comes with a Cajun seasoning recipe. Make it to your taste and keep it on had. Added extra oregano- probably my favorite herb and I didn't have any thyme in the cupboard (that's just wrong!) so I subbed marjoram. And if you want to turn it into a seasoning salt, just increase the amount of salt. Used the seasoning salt on my eggs this morning. Um-Um-good. *Campbell's Soup ain't got nothing on me!

Been Awhile; Corn Dogs for Supper

Promised my dad before he died that I'd lose this weight that has been plaguing me the past 2 years. Nothing has worked, finally a doctor said it was a stress (and age- I'm ignoring that, 29 forever!) response. This doctor told me it wasn't in my head and I should really give a ketogenic diet a try. It's helped others lose weight and rebalance hormones. He then proceeded to tell me it was horribly hard to follow.

Thanks for the encouragement, Doc.

He was almost right. Eating a ketogenic lifestyle is hard, IF you don't have google. I've been making recipes left and right. Had some successes and some failures. A friend suggested I chronicle my adventures in "new fangled" cooking. Especially my failures (there aren't that many) and what non-keto eaters like and loathe. They mostly loathe anything I make- on principle!

Last night I made CORN DOGS! From the wonderful blog of Maria at Keto Adapted. I've learned a lot from her site in the last week and wish I'd found her years ago.

Sticking to the pan and do these look a bit inappropriate?

The recipe was fairly simple and quick. I doubled the recipe, used 6 hot dogs, paprika for spice, and added 1/2 tbsp of Swerve to the batter. I like the sweet taste of corn dog batter. The batter filled my entire mini muffin pan so I had 6 servings instead of the expected 4. I'm not sure how I'd get this batter to really stick to a whole hot dog to fry, besides the mini muffin style is cute for kids. It crossed my mind to pull out the deep fat fryer to finish these off, however the corn dogs stuck to the pan terribly. I greased that pan a lot after reading the comments and it still didn't work. I think a silicone pan would have worked and perhaps dusting the pan before adding the batter would help.

No worries, it still came out okay and it went over well with my nephews and my mom. They'd have liked it better if I'd left the cauliflower off the plate. I found the taste satisfying, the texture acceptable. This is something I will make again. The nutritional profile works for me too. (per myfitnesspal.com recipe calculator)

Yucky cauliflower and yummy mustard and chipotle mayo 

Nutrition Facts
Servings 6.0
Amount Per Serving
calories 248
% Daily Value *
Total Fat 18 g	28 %
Saturated Fat 7 g	37 %
Monounsaturated Fat 0 g
Polyunsaturated Fat 0 g
Trans Fat 0 g
Cholesterol 154 mg	51 %
Sodium 591 mg	25 %
Potassium 77 mg	2 %
Total Carbohydrate 8 g	3 %
Dietary Fiber 5 g	19 %
Sugars 1 g
Protein 13 g	26 %
Vitamin A	8 %
Vitamin C	1 %
Calcium	1 %
Iron	12 %