Shepherd's Pie

The next challenge for the most awesome vegetable in the world was shepherd's pie! I had yet to make mash with mooli before making my first of the shepherd's pies so I did take a bit of a gamble. The main reason for this taking a couple of weeks of development is that we recently moved into a house with an induction hob. Needless to say we aren't getting on, if anyone has any tips for cooking on one do let me know I'm swinging wildly between burning and under-cooking at the moment.

So for this lovely recipe, you will need: a food processor or hand blender, a large glass/ceramic dish a pan for boiling the mooli and a pan for frying the mince.

Ingredients (makes 8 portions)

1kg Mooli roughly cubed
1kg mince
50g Butter
1 onion diced (about 130g)
50g full fat philadelphia
100g Cheddar grated
1 stock cube (veg or beef)
5g Cornflour (can sub for xanthan gum to reduce the carbs)

Preheat your oven to 200 C

1. Peel the skin off the mooli and cube into a pan.
2. Cover with boiling water and simmer for 20 minutes until soft.
3. While the mooli is boiling dice the onion.
4. Brown the mince and add the onion.
5. Cook the mince and onion until it starts to look well cooked.
6. To the mince add the corn flour dissolved in 1 mug (250ml) of water.
7. Stir the cornflour into the mince and allow about half of the water to evaporate off.
8. When the water has reduced put the mince evenly across the bottom of your dish and leave to one side.
9. Drain the water from the mooli and return to the heat to dry as much water off as possibl
10. Blend the mooli in the food processor.
11. Add the butter and blend again.
12. Finally add the philadelphia and blend until smooth and creamy, season if desired.
13. Spoon the mash over the mince and smooth it until even.
14. Sprinkle the grated cheese all over the top (the more the better IMO!).
15. Cook in the oven for 45 min-1hr until crispy and bubbly.

Nutritional Information

Calories  477 kcal

Fat    39.6g

Carbs  4.8g

Fibre  1.5g

Protein   24.9g

Edit: sorry for the repost, I couldn't figure out how to get rid of a MASSIVE GAP that appeared at the top of the original.

Chicken Crust Pizza

In a bit of a change from my normal blogs, this one is a complete omage to the lovely Jamie of yourlighterside.com who created this fantastic gluten free low carb pizza. I've tried a few pizza crusts while on keto and none of them have been good enough to pass onto you lot, let alone for me to add to my regular meal list.

Another reason for posting about pizza is that I've just come back from a gorgeous trip to Milan-pizza, pasta, gnocchi, gelato. If an Italian makes it, I ate it. Naturally now I'm back I need to come up with decent keto versions of them all.

You will need:

A 12 inch pizza pan, baking powder, either a food processor or hand blender unless you want to hand shred everything!

Ingredients for the crust (makes 8 slices)

200g Chicken Breast
200g Mozzarella
1tsp onion salt
1tsp garlic granules
1tsp dried basil

Ingredients for the Topping

40g Sainsburys Pizza topping sauce
100g Grated mature cheddar
12 slices of pepperoni

(in the pizza above I also used some Mattesons pork sausage, but didn't actually like it in the topping so haven't included it)

1. Preheat the oven to 220 C.
2. Line your pizza tray with baking parchment (I tried without it, good luck getting the pizza out if you choose to avoid this step).
3. Separately shred the chicken, then the mozzarella with your food processor or blender.
4. Process the chicken and mozzarella together until the mixture has a thick crumb like texture.
5. Press mixture into the pizza pan and smooth the top.
6. Shake the basil, onion and garlic powder over the top of crust.
7. Bake the pizza crust for 12 minutes.
8. All the pizza crust to cool before adding the topping.
9. Top with the pizza sauce, the grated cheddar and then pepperoni.
10. Bake the pizza for 6 minutes until the toppings have melted.
11. Slice and serve.

Nutritional Information Per Slice for the Crust only

Calories 91 kcal

Carbohydrate 1g

Fat 5g

Protein 11g

Nutritional Information Per slice with the topping

Calories 166 kcal

Carbohydrate 1g

Fat 11g

Protein 16g

Lemon poppyseed cake

This recipe is a culmination of this one and this one but I didn't want to use a mixture of coconut and almond flour so I fiddled around with the substitutions until I'd got it right. Don't be afraid if you don't like coconut, I've fed this to the fussy flatmate and the coconut hating bf and both enjoyed it. For some reason because of the tiny amounts of coconut flour you use, and cooking it the coconut flavour goes away and you get a delicious looking traybake like cake. I served it with some of my chia pudding and it was delicious!

Ingredients

70g Coconut flour

350g Full fat greek yoghurt (fage has lowest carb)

Juice of 1 lemon

20g Poppy seeds

3 tsp liquid sweetener

2 tsp baking powder

125g butter

7 eggs

You will also need a hand whisk, a baking parchment lined baking tray (mine was 35cmx22cm), and a sieve.

1. Preheat the oven to 180 C, and line your baking tray with parchment.
2. Beat together the eggs, sweetener and yoghurt.
3. In a separate bowl melt the butter and let it cool, the add it to the mixture and beat it in.
4. Shift the coconut flour and baking powder into the mixture.
5. Add the lemon zest and lemon juice.
6. Mix together until all the ingredients are properly combined.
7. Pour the mixture into the baking tray and cook for 25-30 minutes until the top springs back when pressed and a toothpick can be removed without cake on it.
8. Cut into 16 squares and enjoy!

Nutritional Information

Calories  134 kcal

Fat    10.9g

Carbs  2.6g

Fibre  1.9g

Protein   5.6g

Chocolate coconut chia pudding

Chia seeds have been floating around in recipes on reddit for months, but aside from not wanting to drop two hours worth of wages on a bag from Holland and Barrett I couldn't find them anywhere in London. Then by chance I wandered into the Phoenicia in Kentish town, which I highly recommend everyone goes to, if only just for the display of amazing looking cakes and olives in the window. While I was wandering around wondering what glorious mediterranean food I could make with what they sold, I spotted a little packet of chia seeds for £3.99. While still expensive, waay cheaper than the £15 Holland and Barrett wanted for something I had no idea if I liked. I've since ordered a bigger batch from ebay because I love them, and love this recipe!

Ingredients (makes 2 large portions of pudding)

250ml Unsweetened Almond Milk

40g Chia seeds ( 2 heaped tablespoons)

20g Unsweetened dessicated coconut

10g Cocoa

1 teaspoon of hermesetas liquid sweetener- depending on how sweet you want it.

You will also need one jar, or large shakable container.

1.  Measure all your ingredients into the jar.
2. Give it a quick stir with a spoon.
3. Affix the lid to your jar/ container.
4. Shake it like you're making a cocktail/ shaking a polaroid picture/ doing the harlem shake
5. Put it in the fridge.
6. Wait, it's normally ready after 3/4 hours but I tend to leave it overnight just to give the chia seeds a really good soak.

Put into a lovely wine glass to serve if you want it to look a bit posh, or like me, are at a stand off with your flatmates over who needs to wash up all the crockery.

Nutritional Information

Calories 184 kcal

Fat 14.1 g

Carbs 2.2g

Fibre 1.9g

Protein 6.4g

Mooli Dauphinois

In my ongoing love affair with mooli, and my post exam return to keto I decided to see if they would live upto the task of being a dauphinois potato substitute. I have to say I honestly couldn't tell the difference, something I haven't had yet with a keto food. I will warn you of two things, if you don't cook these for long enough you will be able to taste the difference, and they also smell really spicy when you cut them up so ignore that because you can't taste it after cooking.

Ingredients (makes 2 portions)

200g Mooli/ Daikon (I used 250g but it was actually too much for just two portions hence the lovely ramekin)

100ml Thick cream (you can replace this is single cream so you don't need the milk)

50ml Unsweetened Almond Milk ( thins out the cream)

20g Mature Cheddar

1. Preheat the oven to 200 C.
2. Slice the mooli into thin disks, I used the mandolin slicer on my food processor but a knife will work just as well.
3. Heat the cream and milk in a pan.
4. Add the sliced mooli to the milk and allow them to simmer in the liquid for roughly 5 minutes. Don't let it boil or spill over as this will burn the liquid.
5. Fish the mooli out of the liquid and layer them in your dish. Sprinkle salt, pepper and nutmeg on each layer.
6. Pour the leftover liquid all over the mooli in the dish.
7. Cook for 30 minutes until the liquid has reduced by half and the top has started to go crunchy.
8. Remove from the oven and add the grated cheese to the top of the dish.
9. Put back in the oven and cook for a further 10 minutes.

 Enjoy the sweet fake potatoey goodness!

Note: I made this in a 6 portion dish last week, it took nearly 2 hours to be cooked all the way through, so make sure you allow for extra time if you want to use it for a dinner party.

Nutritional Information

Calories  283 kcal
Fat  28g
Protein  4.4g
Carbs  3.3g
Fibre  1.1g

Meatloaf..nearly

I'm giving you this recipe with a massive disclaimer, I have never had meatloaf before so have no idea if this is close to what it is supposed to taste like. But I thought it was pretty tasty and can even look past the massive bowl of grease and oil I poured off halfway through cooking. There is an added bonus that it is HUGE!! This will feed 8 very hungry people and combine it with my cheesy creamy vegetables you've got yourself a dinner party meal.

Ingredients

400g Beef mince
500g Turkey thigh mince
500g Lean pork mince
100g Red Pesto
100g Hard grated cheese
1 large onion finely chopped (about 100g)
2 large eggs

1. Preheat your oven to 190 degrees celsius.
2. In a very large bowl mix all of the ingredients, most easily done with your hands so make sure they are clean!
3. Plonk the meat mix in a large enough ceramic or glass dish squash it right into the edges.
4. Cook the meatloaf in the middle of your oven for 1hr 15 minutes

As the meatloaf cooks quite a lot of fat will come off due to the meats used and a rather unpleasant looking foam will appear (thats the turkey I don't know why it does it). Every 15 minutes or so just pour the fat into a bowl or the meatloaf will be really greasy and unpleasant, however much keto is meant to be high fat I don't want to feel the grease!


Nutritional Information

Calories  480 kcal
Fat 31.4g
Protein 45.9g
Carbs 2.9g

The rather lovely bowl of extra fat I collected...

Mooli Chips

I could and would wax lyrical about Mooli/Daikon all day if I was allowed. It recently snuck into sainsburys and I've been cooking with it ever since. Mainly as chips, sometimes as mock potato cubes, I've yet to make mash with them but they are proving to be a great substitute for potatoes with much lower carbs.

To make the chunky chips seen below I actually repurposed my old pasta saucepan and it is now a deep fat fryer! The key with making chips is to get the oil really really hot before putting the cage in, I used olive oil to fry them because I find it doesn't alter the taste of the mooli too much.

What you'll need

Something to fry the mooli in.

A liberal supply of kitchen towel.

1. Heat the oil in your pan at a consistent temperature.
2. Cut your mooli into thick slices, leave the skin on if you desire.
3. Once the oil has heated enough- a good trick is to quickly drop the cage into the oil if it bubbles up straight away the oil is hot enough.
4. Fry the mooli until they have gone brown evenly.
5. Remove the mooli from the oil onto kitchen towel to get rid of any unwanted greasiness.

Nutritional Information (per 100g Mooli deep fried in olive oil)

Calories 38 kcal

Fat  3g

Carbohydrate  2g

Fiber 1g

Protein 0.7g

I know this seems quite low, but there isn't actually that much oil used up when you deep fry it is mainly a cooking process rather than a way to add tonnes and tonnes of extra fat.

Cheesy Chorizo Greens

 Signalling my return to full-on hardcore keto the above meal was born, so tonight is a double feature of creamy chorizo greens and mooli/daikon chips.

I've been meaning to find a new side dish that isn't cauliflower mash, that I can make 6 portions of on one night and keep re-heating it. As with many of my dishes I had things to use up: chorizo, philladelphia, broccoli, sprouts, spinach and my cheese box was overflowing with cheddar!

Ingredients (makes 6 portions)

200g Brussels Sprouts (I used frozen)

200g Frozen Chopped Spinach

200g Chopped Broccoli

100g Sliced white onion

100g Chorizo finely diced

200g Philadelphia- or any full fat cream cheese

100g Mature Cheddar

1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees.
2. In a saucepan heat the veggies and chorizo on a low heat until all the spinach has melted and is mixed in thoroughly. 
3. Once the veggies have started to fry add the cream cheese and remove from the heat.
4. Stir in the cream cheese thoroughly and transfer the mix to an ovenproof dish.
5. Cover the top of the mixture in thickly grated cheddar.
6. Cook for 10-15 minutes at 200 degrees or until the cheese bubbles.
7. Enjoy! 

Nutritional Information

Calories 276 kcal
Fat 22g
Carbohydrate 4.5g
Fibre 3.3g
Protein 14.2g

Sugar free jelly sweets

After somewhat of an absence I will be posting a bit more frequently. My exams are over and I have about 40 recipes waiting to try out and perfect in my own little way. Meanwhile I shall leave you with the delight that is sugar free sweets!

Ingredients

2 packets of Sugar Free Jelly Powder

1 Sachet of Gelatine

200ml water

Also need- one sweet mould (I used an ice cube tray), 1 jug or pipette, 1 saucepan.

1. Empty the jelly and gelatine into a small saucepan
2. Add the water to the powders and mix into a paste.
3. Heat the paste on low with continual stirring.
4. Carry on heating until the powders have all dissolved and the solution is completely clear.
5. Pour the liquid equally into each of your moulds.
6. Place the mould in the freezer for 15-20 minutes.
7. Take your sweets out of the mould and store in a festive jar (I repurposed an old coconut oil jar for this)

So far I have made the following flavour sweets:

Blackcurrant and raspberry

Orange and raspberry

Strawberry and lime

Blackcurrant and orange

Raspberry and lime

Orange and raspberry

If you split the mixture into 21 portions they average 5 calories and 0.1g carbs per portion. I'm waiting for a smaller mould to arrive because these sweets are a little bit big for my liking, but at 0.1g each it does take awhile for the carbs to add up.

What I used to eat

It struck me this week just how natural this lifestyle has become when I cleared out my cupboards and found three half opened packs of pasta I have bought at various intervals for the Boy because I've forgotten I already had one. Above is a comparison of how I used to eat (left) and what I eat now (right). The boy had pasta, pesto, chicken and bacon with some cheese. I had chicken, bacon, cheese with a side of sauteed cabbage, spinach, onions and broccoli. I wouldn't have swapped it for what I used to eat, mine was tastier, more filling and it included vegetables! 

My progress has slowed a lot recently, but there has never been a point I have gone back completely to eating how I used to. I can count on one hand the number of "normal" meals I've had since October and both times I have regretted it. 

This isn't a diet anymore, this is just how I eat.

Ultimate Keto Revision Pack

Revision season has well and truly hit my household. Handily coinciding with the council digging up our road every day (something about old pipes) meaning I am fleeing to the library at every opportunity. This brought with it a new set of challenges for keto. Primarily what do I eat when Uni has not a single cafe which serves a keto meal for less than £5, I don't have access to a fridge, the library is a million degrees so I don't want to risk packing perishable food, and I prefer snacking when revising anyway. I settled on a snack pot, of easy tasty foods which I can sneak eat during the day out of the gaze of the library wardens but will keep me full and concentrating.

We have:

1.  Bullet Proof Coffee 
2.  3 cheese slices turned into cheese crisps
3.  2 babybels
4.  25g of raw almonds
5.  25g chorizo slices
6.  2.5 Litres of water
7.  1 stock cube to make soup ( the uni cafes do sell boiling water so I can make a "soup")

Nutritional Information

Calories 513 Kcal

Fat 43g

Protein 26g

Carbs 4g

Fibre 2g

N.B. I haven't included the nutritional info for the stock cube because it varies so massively from brand to brand, normally around 2g carbs and 30 kcals.

Crispy Fried Chilli Pork

Firstly an apology, for the quality of the picture, and the lack of other pictures, I forgot about blogging it until just before eating so you only get to see the delicious finished article. I seem to be determined to find a way to ketofy all of my favourite take away dishes, and thus eliminate them from the list of cheats that still manage to trip me up. This also serves in my ever growing quest to break this damn plateau!

My go-to Chinese dish is crispy shredded fried chilli beef, with seaweed and prawn crackers, and after a quick google got a vague idea of how it was done and decided to have a crack. Oh and I used pork instead of beef, due to the huge amounts of roast pork I had left over! 

Ingredients (makes 2 portions, or 1 if you are being greedy like me!)

200g Pork loin cut into thin strips

1 egg

20g of either almond meal or sunflower seed meal

5g chilli flakes

10ml Light soy sauce

10ml Sweet chilli dipping sauce (lowest carbs possible!)

Enough oil to deep fry them- I heated about 300ml in my saucepan.

1. Beat together the egg, nut meal and chilli flakes.

2. Add the thin cut pork strips and coat them fully in the mixture.

3. Heat the oil  until it starts to gently bubble, check it is ready to deep fry by dropping in a bit of the extra sauce. If it sizzles straight away it's ready for meat!

4. Add the coated pork to the oil 4/5 strips at a time, watch out for splatters.

5. Leave the pork for about 30 seconds before moving it around in the oil.

6. Fry for around 5 minutes until you see the coating turn a darker colour.

7. Remove the pork strips onto kitchen towel to remove the excess oil.

8. Mix together the sweet chilli and soy sauce with a tiny bit of the oil in a frying pan and heat.

9. Add the pork strips to the frying pan and thoroughly coat the strips in the chill sauce. 

10. Enjoy your keto chinese!

Pro Tip: I fried some spinach and water chestnuts in the frying pan I used for the sauce, made a delicious side!

Nutritional Information

Calories 339 kcal

Fat 23.7g

Carbs 5.2g

Protein 37.8g

Fat Fast (attempt 2) Day 1

Unfortunately this weekend I managed to kick myself out of ketosis, a combination of too much protein and sneaking carbs at my parents this weekend. In that spirit I'm going to do a second fat fast this week, same principles as before. 3 days, 1000 calories, 90% fat. I have double checked my diary and there are no meals out planned, I have fat bombs in the freezer and a cream cheese in the fridge.

Menu

Meal 1

Bulletproof Coffee- 10g butter, 10g coconut oil. 161kcal

Meal 2

2 peanut butter fat bombs- 232kcal

Meal 3

25g Tuna with 30ml Mayonaise- 208kcal

Meal 4

Diet coke float with 40ml double cream - 180kcal

Meal 5

7 chorizo slices, 50g cream cheese, 1 packet of shirataki noodles- 249kcal

Totals for the day

1028 kcal, 94g fat, 6g carbs, 9g fibre, 19g protein 90% / 2% / 8%

I posted this before realising doing a follow up post about what I actually ate was a bit lame. So here it is:

Meal 1

Bulletproof coffee- 161 kcal

Meal 2

3 peanut butter fat bombs- 328 kcal

Meal 3

Shiratake noodles, 50g cream cheese, 10 slices of chorizo, 40g spinach- 308 kcal

Meal 4

Diet Coke with 40ml double cream- 178 kcal

Extras- 1 cup of vegetable stock, 5 litres of water.

995 kcal, 84g fat, 6g carbs, 13g fibre, 21g protein 88% / 3% / 9%

Spinach and pork belly

Now the plan this week was to use up all the food I have been hoarding in my cupboards and freezer. Which for some reason consists of 8 packets of bacon, about 3 tonnes of almonds and some strange reason 3 half a fridge shelf of cheese. Now as tasty as that sounds I will have to do a veg shop or there would be some really strange recipes coming your way.

This recipe used the last of my spinach and the pork belly I picked up for cheaps in Sainsburys. I don't think there are sufficient words to describe my love for pork belly. When done properly is tasty, glorious, mouth orgasming food, I apologise in advance for the poor quality of the spinach dish photo there was really no way to make it look good, but it was sure yummy!

For the Pork Belly (serves 4)

Ingredients

1 kg of pork belly
1 onion sliced up.
2 cloves of garlic roughly chopped.
5 ml (a few shakes) Light Soy Sauce
10ml ( 1tsbp) Olive Oil
Sea salt and cracked black pepper

1. Preheat the oven to 220 C
2. Scatter the chopped onion and garlic on the bottom of the baking tray.
3. Shake some soy sauce and a small amount of the olive oil over the top and mix evenly.
4. Score the pork belly skin with a sharp knife, close together.
5. Cover the top of the pork belly with the sea salt and black pepper and the rest of the olive oil.
6. Rub the seasoning into the skin with your fingers, making sure it gets into all the slits.
7. Place the pork belly over the top of the onions/garlic, making sure they are completely covered.
8. Cook in the oven for 20 minutes at 220 C until the skin starts to bubble.
9. Turn the temperature down to 160 C for 1.5 hours until the skin is crispy.
10. Leave to rest for at least 10 minutes and serve!

Nutritional Information (per serving)

Calories 438 Kcal
Fat 31.5g
Carbs 1.4g
Protein 36.4g

For the Spinach and Chorizo Side (serves 1)

Ingredients

4 Slices of Chorizo
70g Spinach (I used the frozen kind defrosted first)
30g Soft Cream Cheese
30g Somerset Brie

1. Fry the chorizo on a low heat until it starts to crisp.
2. Add the spinach and cream cheese and fry together.
3. Once the cream cheese is thoroughly mixed in put the mixture into a bowl and cover in brie.
4. Put the dish in the oven/microwave to melt the brie, roughly 5 minutes.

Nutritional Information

Calories 231 kcal
Fat 19.1g
Carbs 1.7g
Fibre 1.5g
Protein 13g

This dish was unexpectedly filling, I think the combination of the cream cheese and brie made the side creamy enough that I didn't feel like I was lacking anything. I will be making it again, especially since I'm not a massive fan of spinach so need to cover it in everything and anything!

Chocolate Brownies

Keto is not known for being the most dessert friendly diet, given that is it completely anti sugar, and the small amounts of fruit you can work into the diet aren't enough to make a decent dessert. There have been a few sugar free brownie recipes floating around but they all use almond flour. To add extra difficulties I needed a nut free recipe as littlest niece is allergic. So this recipe is a sugar free, nut free, low carb chocolate hit, which is exactly what it needed to be!

Ingredients (Makes 16 brownies)

80g Lindt 90% chocolate
120g Unsalted butter
75g Unsweetened Cocoa
3 eggs (beaten)
100g Sunflower Seed flour (I ground sunflower seeds in an electric coffee grinder and passed it through a sieve so it was all a fine powder)
1 tsp Baking Powder
20g Pure Via sweetner ( Splenda doesn't work unless you add a tonne)
1 tbsp (varies) of liquid sweetener

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees

1. Melt the chocolate, butter and cocoa in a pan on a gentle heat.
2. Remove from the heat and add in the grandular sweetner.
3. Add the beaten eggs and beat the mixture into a batter.
4. Add the sunflower Seed flour and the baking powder last.
5. Taste the batter and sweetened to taste using liquid sweetner.
6. Bake at 180 degrees for 30-35 minutes.
7. Cut into 16 pieces and cool on a cooling rack.

Nutritonal Information (per brownie)

Calories 137.g kcal
Fat 13.7g
Carbs 4.2g
Fibre 2.3g

N.B. These brownies are quite bitter sweet, I couldn't eat more than one so the 4g of carbs was worth it. My flatmate who is a massive sugar junkie didn't think they were sweet enough so you may need to increase the sweetener if you have a particularly sweet tooth, but be warned this will increase the carbs quite quickly.

Fat Fast Day 3

I woke up today and have lost ONE WHOLE POUND! Which finally puts me into the lower stone I've been dreaming about for the last 6 weeks. I've also lost another 0.5 inches from my hips, waist and bust. Go me!

With that in mind I'm finishing my fat fast trial with an 85%, 1000 calorie day. The lower fat percentage completely changes the foods you can eat on this fast, and will stop me just drinking butter to increase my fat percentage. Butter is tasty, but not that tasty!

11am- Bullet Proof Coffee- 161kcal 100% fat

Off to Uni again today, so bullet proof coffee in the flask. Hopefully I will keep this lovely awake feeling I've got. Oh and I fell asleep before 5am for the first time in a week. Eating carbs seemed to have completely screwed with my sleep patterns last week.

4pm- 2 rashers of bacon and 2 fried eggs- 328kcal 65% fat

Waited a little bit too long to eat lunch, I was absolutely starving while I cooked this, even after speed drinking 1.5 L of water. I was a little lower fat than it should be, but I've got some fat bombs chilling in the freezer which should balance it out later.

5pm- Peanut Butter Fat bomb- 111kcal 86% fat

Even on a fat fast I can't resist eating things I have just made! These tasty little treats are perfect for a fast fast, I'm so glad I made them. At this point I feel completely normal and as good as I would on normal keto. Although I am drinking water every minute of every hour.

7pm- 8 slices of chorizo, shirataki noodles and 50g Cream cheese- 265 Kcal 80% fat

I previously would have considered this a tiny meal, seriously this would normally be accompanied by a huge side of veggies and cheese. But tonight, such is the wonder of a fat fast I was completely satisfied. The real test will be not eating all the keto cooking I'm about it do!

10pm- Scotch egg- 295kcal 65% fat

Soooooo yeah I failed that test, I also failed at making the scotch eggs! They were damn tasty but the sausage did not stick to the egg properly after they were cooked. I think I've properly messed but the ratios for the day with this particular meal and it's just not worth the calories to rebalance that.

I also drank- 5L of water.

Totals for the day- 1216 Kcal, 75% fat, 23% protein, 2% carbs

If I ever do a fat fast again I'm going to have to be more prepared. I spent a lot of time messing with ratios and trying to get it bang on. What I should have done was pre-prepared fat bombs, found a shop that sells macadamia nuts, and also find something I like to eat with cream cheese.

For now, it's keep calm and keto the hell on!!!!

Peanut Butter Fat Bombs

As part of my fat fast I've been looking for a way to get the higher percentages of fat in one easy bundle. The fat bomb recipes have floated around for a while, but until this fast I had never paid any attention to them. This recipe caught my eye, but I made it with peanut butter since I'm not a huge fan of almonds/almond butter.

Ingredients( Makes 24)

100g Unsalted butter
100g Coconut oil
30g unsweetened cocoa
150g smooth peanut butter
4 tsp Liquid Sweetener (Alternatively sweeten to taste, hermesetas isn't that strong which is why I had to use so much)

1. Measure all the ingredients (apart from the sweetener) into a microwavable jug and melt in the microwave.
2. Pour the liquid into chocolate moulds or as I used ice cube trays!
3. Make sure you have 24 equal portions.
4. Put the moulds in the freezer for 1 hour.
5. Pop the frozen chocolates out of the moulds and put them in a plastic container.

Keep them in the freezer and eat them one at a time!

Nutritional Information 

Calories 116 kcal
Fat 7.2g
Carbs 0.7g
Fibre 1.3g
Protein 2.0g

Fat Fast Day 2

Some kind of witch craft happened while I was sleeping last night. I lost the 3lbs of water weight I gain on my off week, and have returned to the same measurements. It's done exactly what I wanted!

The idea was to do a fat fast today as well, but given that I'm massively forgetful I had arrange to go to Nandos with a friend for dinner. I will be half fat fasting it! Fat all the way until dinner time and then a normal keto meal. Wonder what the effect will be.

12pm-Bullet Proof Coffee- 161kcal, 100% fat- 250ml coffee, 10g butter, 10g coconut oil 

I'm up and out today so no way I was leaving without some energy. I've shoved my bp coffee in my flask and left my flat. I've got tonnes of energy, surprising since I only got 4 hours sleep.

4pm- 1 rashers of bacon, 50g spinach cooked in 20g butter- 249 kcal 82% fat

The idea of eating something full of butter or oil at this point was making me sick. I was also ravenously hungry, I tried drinking water just to check it was hunger for food and not being thirsty. So I decided to opt for a mini meal with some veggies and meat. Wasn't entirely filling, but I'm having an early dinner so it will do.

6.30pm- Nandos- half a chicken, half coleslaw and half macho peas- 562 kcal 52% fat

It felt so good eating a proper meal again, and I have always had a lot of love for Nandos so luckily it is keto friendly. Well relatively, I screwed up the ratios a bit and didn't eat enough fat. I also haven't drunk nearly enough water which shall be rectified later.

9pm- Sugar free Jelly and Thick double cream- 196 kcal 88% fat

As well as downing water like I'm sitting in the middle of the desert I'm trying to increase my fat percentage and guess what? I had jelly in the fridge. OMNOMNOM

I also drank- 4 Litres of water.

Totals for the day- 1366kcal, 70% fat, 26% protein, 4% carbs.

Dependent on the results at tomorrows weigh in I'm going to do an 85% fat, 1000 calorie day just to make sure that water weight is well and truly gone!

Fat Fast Day 1

Given that I have been on a pretty hard plateau for the last 6 weeks, I tried many things to break it. I tried reducing my calories, upping my calories, cutting out all sweetener, cutting out nuts, and decreasing my fat ratio. For various reasons I took last week off keto, still eating my meals keto but snacks crept in that were very much not keto. This week I am getting back on the wagon and have decided to do a fat fast for 2-3 days to kick start ketosis and get me back on the weightloss path.

The premise of a fat fast: 1000 calories, 90% fat, lots and lots of water.

Day One:

Luckily I'm seeing it as luck and not because I'm a lazy arse, I woke up at 12pm today and am not hungry, probably the result of stuffing my face with banana cake and scones at Mother's day afternoon tea yesterday.  My mission is to drink water until I actually feel hungry, all too often I eat a massive breakfast when I not hungry, it gets to 4pm and I've only enough calories for celery. Given that I'm only allowing myself to eat the paltry amount of 1000 calories that can't happen today.

4pm- Bullet Proof coffee -161 kcal 100% fat- 250ml coffee, 10g butter, 10g coconut oil

So 2 litres of water later, I lasted as long as I could, but that horrible hunger that I associate with eating carbs came back. You know the one, where your entire stomach growls and crunches until you give it what you want. A bp coffee definitely got rid of my hunger, I swear that stuff is magical!

5pm Babybel, 20g Broccoli cooked in 25g butter and smothered in pepper- 247 Kcal 89% fat

Ok, so the BP didn't get rid of my hunger for that long, and I didn't want to drink another one, I love that stuff but my lips don't need that much grease. I was a bit worried before starting this fast that I wouldn't find a way to eat any veggies, or more importantly use up the broccoli in the fridge. This found a way, and it was nice to actually eat something, I actually ended up eating the left over butter with a spoon, gotta get those tasty fats, especially given the babybel isn't technically part of a fat fast, but I ate it staring at the fridge wondering what to eat. Slightly drowning in water at this point!

9pm-Shirataki noodles, 1 bacon rasher cooked in butter, 50g cream cheese- 229 kcal, 80% fat

I made the epic mistake of going to the supermarket before I had dinner to get some cream to go with my jelly later, and also some more jelly for tomorrow. Wandering round Sainsburys like a forlone child staring at isle of cheeses and meats was not the way to go. I haven't had any carb cravings but at 9pm I was about ready to give up and cook myself a bacon mountain. I'm not sure what I would have done for "dinner" without the noodles, bacon heated in cream cheese just isn't as appealing. This was a tiny portion but at least I could pretend it was real food!

9.30pm- One serving of sugar free jelly, 40ml Extra thick double cream- 180kcal 92% fat

This took the edge off my hunger, and since this is a normal dessert for me I didn't feel like I was giving anything up. Still hungry having eaten it though, so I shall drink more water and watch some Glee to forget about it!

10pm- Vegetable stock cube in a mug.

Starting to feel a bit shaky, which I normally get after a few days on keto when I have forgotten to have some salt. I didn't want to eat my last section of food just yet, so the stock cube will have to do the job until a bit later on.

11.30pm

At this stage I've only eaten 885kcal, and you know what I'm not hungry. I'm peeing every 20 minutes but I'm not hungry! Normally after 1400 calories I'm dreaming about food, so this is an unexpected positive.

11.56pm- Coke float- glass of diet coke, 40ml extra thick double cream(my hand slipped it was meant to be 25ml)

Ok, I take it back, I'm hungry. Not properly hungry, I just feel a bit empty. I'm glad I saved those calories from earlier for a fabulous coke float! Which took me straight back to when I was a child and we used to be given them as a treat.

Totals for the day-  1065Kcal, 89% fat, 8% protein, 3% carbs

I also drank 1.5 litres of sugar free squash, some diet coke and 6 litres of water, no wonder I was peeing so much.

Keto Bread

Now, I have been on a quest to find a keto friendly bread for some time. I have tried coconut bread, pure psyllium husk bread and they have all been a bit lacking. They are either too soggy, too flat or just lacking a bit. After much browsing of reddit I found this recipe which a few people had tried and had great success. I altered it a bit because I hate pumpkin seeds, and only had almond milk in the fridge. It worked pretty good, The next time I'm going to make more of an effort to shape the bread as it went a bit too wide for my toaster.

Ingredients

40g Milled Flaxseed

1tsp Baking Powder

60g Psyllium Husk Powder

120g seed mix- I used 20g linseed, 40g sunflower seeds, 20g Sesame seeds, 20g- mixed chopped nuts

3 tbsp Olive oil

100ml Unsweetened almond milk

5 eggs

1. Preheat the oven to 160 C.

2. Mix all the ingredients with an electric whisk adding the baking powder last.

3.Shape the dough into a loaf and put it into a loaf tin.

4. Bake for 55 min, until it sounds hollow when you tap the bottom.

Nutritional Information (assuming the loaf make 12 slices)

Calories 143 Kcal

Fat 11.2g

Carbs 1.0g

Fibre 5.9g

Protein 5.2g

Pro Tip: If you don't have any almond milk, you can replace it with boiling water. Just cook the bread for a little bit longer or it will sink.

Beef Burgers

I was in two minds about doing this post, the recipe is so simple I wonder why I ever bought burgers before, but then again this is a blog detailing all the recipes I use for keto including this one!

Ingredients (makes 6 burgers)

400g Beef mince( I used sainsburys basics as it has the highest fat content)
40g onion very finely diced
10-15g of grated hard cheese
1 egg

1. Finely chop the onion, and I do mean fine!
2. Put the onion, beef, cheese in a bowl and crack the egg over the top.
3. Get stuck in with your hands and mash all the ingredients together until they are properly mixed.
4. Split the mixture up into 6 equal portions, I have a meat baller for this that a friend got me as a joke but it's actually really useful. But you can just use your et.
5. Shape the portions into burgers and leave in the fridge until you need themZ
6. Grill or fry when needed.

Pro tip: if you have some add 1-2tbps of tomato purée and a bit of chilli powder, it gives the burgers an extra edge.

Nutritional Information (per burger)

Calories 197 kcal
Fat 15g
Protein 15.3g
Carbs 0.6g

Broccoli Soup

Two things drove the need for this post, a) I realised I haven't been having any veggies apart from at dinner, which don't get me wrong makes for some very huge dinners but it's always worth spreading it out a bit, and b) it was snowing in London today Yes I know it only snowed for 5 minutes, but it was still there there and made the air cold enough for soup.

Normally when the need for soup in my life arose I would plump for New Covent Garden Thai chicken, which I thought would be less carby than it actually is (15g a serving), but instead I came up with this being that I had both cream and broccoli in the fridge.

Ingredients(enough for 4 portions)

1 Garlic Clove

1 tsp of olive oil

50g Onions

400g Broccoli Florets

Enough chicken/vegetable stock to just cover the florets.

100ml Double cream

1.Roughly chop the garlic clove and the onion.

2.Fry the garlic and onion lightly in olive oil

3.Add the broccoli and enough chicken stock to just over the ingredients.

4.Boil gently for as long as it takes to go mushy, you don't need to have it on a high boil, just enough to heat and get the broccoli cooking.

5.Take the pot off the boil and blend the broccoli into the stock with a hand blender.

6.Add 100ml cream right at the end and blend again.

7.Salt and pepper to taste.

The first time I did this it was a lot thicker than the one in the picture, this time I added too much chicken stock making it too watery for my liking, so be careful with your amounts.

Nutritional Information

Calories 184 kcal

Fat 15.6g

Carbs 4.3g

Fibre 2.8g

Protein 6.5g 

and a whopping 67% of your vitamin C for the day.

Pro Tip:

Fry some pancetta or bacon lardons to sprinkle over the top instead of crutons.

Battered Pork Balls

On Saturday I look myself off keto and consumed bagels, yum yums what is it about Sainsburys yum yums, I swear they are like crack  and chocolate. All of which I have consumed separately since starting keto and had no adverse reactions. However in combination they have turned into the foods from hell and left me writhing in pain, and downing water like I'm sitting in the middle of a desert in the vain hope the pain will go away for the last two days. Serves me right for eating the things that made me fat in the first place.

After that lovely image, I knew what I needed, I needed something carby that wouldn't aggravate me and was tasty. I had some pork left over from my roast and a craving for Chinese, so I decided to make my own battered pork balls.

Ingredients (makes two servings )

150g Diced pork (I used cooked, but you can use raw and just increase the frying time)
1 large egg- lightly beaten in a bowl
15g Ground Almonds
15g Grated hard cheese (I used the Sainsburys basics version)
10g Hogbites pork scratchings (If you use Mr Porkies pick the crunchiest scratchings)
Enough olive oil to coat fill your pan about 1 cm deep.

1. In separate bowls have the egg lightly beaten, the almonds, and the grated cheese mixed with the crushed pork scratchings.
2. Dip each chunk of pork in the egg, then almond meal, then the cheese mixture. Put to one side.
3. Repeat until all of the chunks are coated.
4. Heat the oil in the pan on a low heat until just before it starts spitting.
5. Gently place the coated chunks in the oil with space between them.
6. Leave to fry for 3-5 minutes before turning them over, best done with tongs.
7. When the balls have browned and started to go crispy on the outside remove them and shake off the excess oil onto kitchen towel.

Nutritional Information (per serving)

Calories 316 kcal
Fat 19.2g
Carbs 0.9g
Fiber 0.6g
Protein 33.7g

Pro tips:

• This coating works well with chicken too, I use it to make chicken dippers with some reduced sugar ketchup.
• You can miss off the pork scratchings if you don't want the extra calories, but I like the extra crunch they give.

Cauliflower Mash

This particular side dish has become a regular in my meals since starting keto, having something that is easy to make, lasts four dishes and tastes amazing is always a plus in my book. Weirdly enough considering how much I love cauliflower mash I was never a huge fan of mash potato. I would eat it when it was there, but I would never go out of my way to make it, far too lazy for that! I had seen a few recipes floating around of cauliflower mash, but it took about three tries for me to settle on one that works every time and has the same consistency as mashed potato.

Ingredients

1 large head of cauliflower, break the florets up as small as possible and remove the main stalk. (roughly 400-600g)
500 ml Chicken stock- either make your own or use a knorr stock cube (lowest carbs)
30g Butter
30ml Double cream

1. Bring the cauliflower florets to the boil in the stock. Leave simmering for 10-15 minutes, until you can break them up with the flat side of a knife without effort.
2. Drain the stock away and return the pan to the heat to dry the cauliflower. Be careful to move the cauliflower around to prevent burning.
3. Melt the 30g of butter into the dried cauliflower, mix in and blend with a hand blender.
4. Once the cauliflower is completely blended add 25-30ml of cream and mix in.

N.B. The amount of cream you need varies wildly. It is very easy to make this dish too wet, so add the cream in small amounts until you get the consistency you want.

Nutritional Information (per portion)

Calories 113 Kcal
Fat 9.6g
Carbs 3.1g
Fibre 1.8g
Protein 3.8g

Pro Tip: Put a couple of portions in a bowl, cover in grated cheese and put in the oven until the cheese has gone slightly crisp. Completely Yum!

Spicy fajita beef

Now I am a farmers daughter, and every couple of years my Dad raises a cow for beef and it goes in the freezer, a freezer which I raided last time I was home for some stewing steak, mince and steak steak. This week I got to my last packet of beef, which was also accompanied with a desire for fajitas and spicy food, and so this dish was born.

I served it with the cauliflower mash I made at the beginning of the week, and some black pudding. It may also have been a fridge clear out day.

Ingredients

150g Beef Stewing Steak
40g Red onion (roughly half) cut into strips
5g Discovery Fajita Mix
1 tsp of Olive oil

1. Heat the olive oil and lightly fry the red onion, you don't need much oil since stewing steak is quite fatty.
2. Add in the fajita mix and beef thoroughly coat the beef in the mix as it browns.
3. Let the beef cook occasionally shaking the pan/stirring the beef so it doesn't stick.

Nutritional Information

Calories 192 Kcal
Fat 4.9g
Carbs 4.9g
Fiber 1.4g
Protein 32.9g


Pro Tip: This dish works great with Bell peppers, I'd normally use a quarter of a yellow and red pepper, just add it in with the beef.

Beef Stew

One of my favourite winter dishes is beef stew with mash and loads of gravy, obviously normally I'd use flour to make the gravy but at 8g carbs per tbsp it just isn't worth it. I have tried this recipe using Xanthan Gum but had a horrible reaction to it (which is quite common so be warned), but ended up using cornflour for this version since you don't need much to make a properly thick gravy.

Ingredients( 4 servings)

500g Beef stewing steak

500ml water (hot)

1 vegetable stock cube

100g or 1 large onion, roughly chopped.

5g Cornflour dissolved in enough water to make a paste

1. Brown the beef steak in a casserole pan with the onions, it shouldn't need any extra oil as stewing steak is quite fatty.

2. Add the water and crumble in a stock cube. Stir the stew to make sure the cube has dissolved enough.

3. Add the cornflour paste to the stew and stir bringing the pot to the boil.

4. Leave the stew to simmer for 30-45 minutes stirring occasionally to prevent catching.

N.B. Cornflour is notorious for clumping if it is added incorrectly, hence why it needs to be stirred with a little bit of water before adding.

Nutritional Information

Calories 378 kcal

Fat 22.6g

Protein 39.8g

Carbs 3.7g

Pro Tips: 

Add some yam cake if you want the feel of vegetables in your stew, it just adsorbs the flavour of the dish.

Omit the onions if you think nearly 4g carbs is too much it halves the carbs listed.