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