A week at home

This week at home has been massively triggering for me. Whether or not you agree with the concept behind triggering that is the best way I can describe what I have been experiencing this week. As I've alluded to I'm moving up North to start a PhD and I'm moving with the bf. This meant I needed to come home for a week and clear out my room. Fair enough, I've been gone for 5 years already it needed doing.

What I didn't realise until I got here was that I wasn't being allowed to leave anything, I've had to go through all my school books from year 1-13, read through all my diaries, go through clothes in multitudes of sizes and decide what to give away/recycle, go through all of the books on my bookshelf and only leave ones that will be appropriate for my nieces/nephew. I would have kept way more than I've been able to but moving space is really really limited and we will get charged penalties for going over the amount in the quote. I had to argue to keep the clay models I made throughout school, and a box of little bits that I want but can't take until Christmas. They are not wanted because they are ugly.

I've always used academia/work to escape from this house, to get away from my brother's particular brand of abusing personality, my mothers inability to see past the fact I wasn't a boy/thin/"girly". Used it on the weekends to get out of family activities. During summer to go to extra sessions so I could leave for a week and pretend I was someone else for a bit.

Flicking through my diaries has reminded me how strong the claustrophobic feeling was living here, how I counted down the days I could leave for uni, and the crushing feeling when I had to delay uni for a year and stay. Seeing time after time the start of the week with a new attempt at losing weight, another exercise regime to be done in my bedroom, another plan to lose weight. Even when I was 6 stone lighter than I am now at my lowest weight.

I see the same things in the mirror now that I did then.

I have tried and failed to keep keto in a setting where food has always been my crutch. There is no place I reach for the bread and butter faster than my parent's house. I do not write this to place blame at their door, but as recognition that while I have come a long way in my use of food as a cover all fix for any emotion I may be feeling, I still have a long way to go. My reaction is immediate, to eat next to nothing in front of people, and when the door is closed or the lights are out in everyone else's rooms to gorge on whatever I can find in the cupboard, or whatever I have snuck into the house and the cupboard next to my bed earlier in the day.

Part of my reason for picking keto in the first place as a way to diet is that it completely removed all the food that I commonly used to heal the pain. Bread, crackers, biscuits, while my house was a haven of fruit and vegetables and healthy meats those were always in plentiful supply. It is not chocolate and crisps that I used to dull my emotions, but a doorstop of bread and marmite.

That is a concept that I find very hard to convey to others when explaining I don't eat carbs, because lets face it, who wants to hear me talk about how a food group represents so much of my life that I choose to ignore on a daily basis when actually they want to know why I won't eat the bread sticks that come with my salad in Pizza Express. It is not just a fad for me, it is not just a way to once again be able to shop on the high street without dread. Sometimes it is just a means of survival.

5 minute Chocolate Cinnamon Cake

The Great British Bake Off has started again on the BBC, and caused a flurry in our house when we realised we had forgotten all about it, and therefore didn't have any cake, and certainly not any keto cake. So was born this 5 minute chocolate cinnamon cake, loosely based on a mug cake, but cooked in a slab and topped with whatever you like.

You will need: A bowl, a plastic tub to cook it in, a microwave and a spoon!

Ingredients (serves two cake hungry people)

30g Unsalted butter
30g Coconut flour
1 tsp of baking powder
2 tbsp liquid sweetener
1 tsp of cinnamon
2 eggs
20g Cocoa
1-2tbsp of water or double cream

1. Melt the butter in the microwave
2. Add the coconut flour, eggs, cocoa, cinnamon, sweetener and baking powder.
3. Mix thoroughly.
4. Add 1 tbsp of water and mix, if the mix still looks dry add the second tbsp. You may need slightly more water.
5. Pour the mixture into the plastic container and smooth the top. Tap the container on the side to even it out.
6. Cook in the microwave on full heat for 3-4 minutes. In the last two minutes check the cake every 30 seconds, you want to take it out just after the top has stopped feeling completely moist.
7. Quickly take the cake out of the plastic tub so it doesn't sink or sweat and slice in two.
8. Serve with either whipped cream or keto icing.

I've got two pictures of the served cake here. I'm not a fan of the erythritol icing as the cooling effect is slightly too much for me, but I am a fan of the whipped cream!

Nutritional Information (no topping included)

Calories 278 kcal

Fat 21.4g

Carbs 6g

Fibre 9.1g

Protein 11.8g

This is a bit higher in carbs than I would normally like for a cake. But to be honest the portion is huge I can live with 5 carbs for that size slice of cake.

Keto Chocolate Porridge

Despite my best efforts, I have yet to make a keto cereal that I like, that keeps for longer than a day and has a decent serving size. I did this week, however, stumble upon a keto porridge that kept me ridiculously full through the day. Which was an advantage as I had given absolutely no thought to pre planning my food for that day- in my other lack of planning I forgot to photograph it and since my local shop is out of almond milk it will be a while until I make it again.

Ingredients

2 tbsp Milled Flaxseed (I'm a fan of the brazil nut linwoods one as it has a deeper flavour)
1 tbsp Cocoa powder
1 tbsp of granulated sweetener (If you like it sweet)
Enough almond or coconut milk to cover the powder and then some.

1. Put all the dry ingredients in a bowl and mix well.
2. Cover in almond milk and stir, then add a bit more almond milk for good measure as flax is very absorbant.
3. Microwave for 1-2 minutes stirring every 30 seconds or so until thick and gloopy.
4. Enjoy!

Review: Frank's Red Hot Buffalo sauce

I have a new love in my life- Buffalo wings with Frank's Red Hot Buffalo sauce. For months I shrugged when my friend who had just been to New York ranted and raved about how great this sauce was, and how I just had to try the wings because it was low carb and amazing. Then I spotted the sauce in sainsburys, and at £1.50 I figured I could give it a go. IT WAS AMAZING. My mouth may go slightly numb if I get the sukrin to sauce ratio wrong but that is a small price to pay. When Sainsburys ran out of wings this week I transferred my love to buffalo drumsticks.

So if you like spicy food and something that is ridiculously tasty and easy to make do the following:

1. In the oven cook some chicken wings or chicken drumsticks.
2. Once nearly crispy transfer to a frying pan with the juices.
3. Add 30ml of the sauce.
4. Add 10g of sukrin gold (only if you want to reduce the heat)
5. Fry together and stir the sweetener into the sauce to get the chicken skin nice and crispy.
6. Enjoy and have a glass of ice drink nearby.

Nutritional Information (Rough for 6 chicken drumsticks)

Calories 468 kcal

Protein 70g

Carbs 0g

Chocolate and lemon tart

When I still lived at home in the middle of nowhere my favourite dessert was a lemon tart. Then my mum found a recipe for lemon tart with chocolate pastry, and I was in heaven! I requested it as often as I was allowed, and when I went away to uni I requested it as dessert with any meal on my return. At some point I forgot about it, until recently and I've been trying to figure out a way to make it ever since. Hence this recipe was born. It's not actually that similar to the dessert I remember but it was damn tasty, and the friends who I fed it too were in full approval, so much so we all had two massives slices and hence the tart was gone.

Ingredients (Serves 8)

For the pastry

60g coconut flour

30g flaxseed

35g cocoa

40g xylitol or sweetener of your choice

110g butter

200ml double cream

For the Filling

5 eggs (separated)
200ml double cream
Lemon Zest 1 lemon
Sainsburys sucralose powdered
Juice of three lemons (about 100ml)

Disclaimer: I have made this recipe a couple of times now, and have replaced half the lemon juice from lemons with the lemon juice you get in bottles. If anything I actually think that is tastier but it is your choice.

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees.
2. Weigh out and mix together all the dry ingredients for the pastry.
3. Melt the butter on a low heat.
4. Add the dry ingredients to the butter and mix thoroughly.
5. Pour in the double cream and mix, make sure the heat is low so the cream doesn't boil.
6. Continue mixing until the cream is fully combined, it will still be quite sloppy at the end but the mixture should stick together when pushed. Don't expect it to look like normal pastry, but if it seems runny continue mixing until it gets stiffer.
7. Dump mixture into the middle of the flan dish and push it into the dish and up the sides. It is sticky! you will get it over your fingers and random holes will appear, but keep persisting and make sure you cover any holes with the excess that comes out the top of the flan dish.
8. Put flan dish into the fridge or freezer depending on how much of a rush you are in so the pastry can harden.
9. Separate the eggs and whip the egg whites into stiff peaks.
10. Mix together the egg yokes, double cream, zest, sucralose .
11. Heat gently while stirring constantly to just before boil and add lemon juice.
12. Cool this in the fridge so it thickens a bit.
13. Fold this into the egg whites being careful not to beat too much of the air out.
14. Take the flan base out of the freezer and pour the mixture in.
15. Cook it in the middle of the oven for 20 minutes, until the top has gone brown. It may rise slightly above the sides, but don't worry on cooling it will sink a down.
16. Cool in the fridge.
17. When ready to serve melt 10g of dark chocolate and drizzle it over the top if you wish.
18. Eat and enjoy!

Nutritional Information

Calories 444 kcal

Fat 42g

Protein 7g

Carbohydrate 5g

Fibre 5g

Low Carb Ketchup

Low carb ketchup, a thing of fantasy, imported in bulk from America for £4 a bottle, sometimes involving months of wait before seeing that magic "in stock" email from the internet. But no more! I have made a recipe, that is low carb ketchup with 0.7g of carbs per 10g serving (AMAZING!), it's slightly different to normal ketchup and I can't quite put my finger on what is different. But it is tasty, tasty, tasty and has been tasted by the ketchup connoisseur AKA my other half and deemed "and acceptable substitute.

The recipe makes just over 500g of ketchup which annoyingly is slightly too much to fit into my old ketchup bottle.

Ingredients

A 700g bottle of sainsburys organic passata (or one that is about 4g carbs per 100g)
130ml Apple Cider Vinegar
1/2 tsp onion salt
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp garlic powder
10g of powdered sucralose (splenda or sainsburys own)
15g sukrin gold.

To be honest you can miss out the sucralose and just use an extra 5g of sukrin gold which would also lower the carbs, but I made this up as I went along so used a combination of the two.

1. Empty ingredients into a saucepan in whatever order takes your fancy.
2. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer.
3. Let the sauce simmer until it has reduced by about a third, stirring frequently to stop it sticking.
4. Pour into a jug/bowl and allow to cool.
5. Once cool determine if it's thick enough, if it isn't reduce a bit more. If it is thick enough pour it into your pre-prepared ketchup bottles!

If you are a bit fussy with sweetness I would recommend adding the sweetener in half teaspoon quantities because there is a very fine line with sucralose between it being just right and far too sweet. 

Nutritional Information (per 10g)

Calories 4 kcal

Fat 0g

Carbohydrate 0.7g

Protein 0.1g

Serving suggestion: Well it's ketchup so dip your meat in it, put it in your grilled cheese sandwich, or eat it with a spoon!

Review: M&S Chipotle Chilli British Pork Crackling

Always on the look out for a new snack and given my penchant for wandering around M&S in my lunch hour I stumbled upon this. I believe there was utter glee on my face. I've had fire cracker pork crunch before and we had a unhealthy relationship for a few months and it has since disappeared from my local corner shops never be seen again, I swear the corner shops are all in it together over its disappearance.

I was hopeful this could replace it, but sadly no it was not meant to be. Although I liked the fact the crackling was puffier and crunchier than the standard M&S pork cracking the chilli taste just wasn't there. It sort of hung around in the background, but wasn't powerful enough to actually contribute anything.

To be frank I don't think I'll be getting it again, especially at £1.59 a packet which is meant to serve two. I can see their point with the serving size because of the calories, but it's 45g the same as a packet of crisps clearly people are going to eat the same thing.

I'd rather spend the extra 41p and get some chicken drumsticks.

Review: Low Carb Megastore

Now as you are all aware, getting low carb specific stuff in the UK is nothing short of a nightmare if you look in actual shops. With the exception of some cheaper almonds and coconut oil found in Indian/Caribbean food shops it's a barren land out there.

There are a few gems of hope on the online world, amazon does a good line in low carb tortillas, ebay isn't bad for some low carb water flavourings. But the two shining stars are The Low Carb Megastore and Carb Life I'm still not convinced these aren't the same company, given that they have exactly the same website layout, but they do have a vastly different range of products.

This week I needed granola bars and low carb ketchup, which has been out of stock for months and months on both websites. Until now!

I like low carb megastore, they use dpd for delivery so you get a 1 hour slot when they will arrive and normally a choice of moving the day if it isn't convenient for you, as well as a text on the day. Shipping is normally from £4-6 but if you order over £75  (which is surprisingly easy!!)

Individual product reviews to come!

Other Bloggers and Me

Me!

As you may have noticed I've started blogging again! I am officially done with studying, so everything that has been taking a back seat for the last few months is reclaiming it's time in my life. However summer is here and having the time to cook and develop new recipes is definitely an added bonus. 

Hopefully I won't be stopping again, at least not for that huge amount of time anyway! As always, any requests or questions field them my way and I'll see what I can do.

I am still horrendously far from my goal weight, but plodding a long and at the moment focused on sticking to keto for a full 3 months with no cheating. Which might be easier said that done considering I'm moving and have a holiday slap bang in the middle of those 3 months.


Blog News!

In other news, this blog now has a twitter account: https://twitter.com/ketotheukway
so follow me on that, and ensure that you won't miss a single update or any of my random thoughts throughout the day.

Other Bloggers 

If you are looking for more inspiration in your cooking then below are a handy list of blogs I frequent, and know their recipes are fantastic. They are all American/Canadian bloggers so your mileage may vary if you aren't all that comfortable with cup conversions:


All Day I Dream About Food and all day I dream about her food. Her dessert recipes are second to none, and one day I dream of having a cupboard full of ingredients like hers so that I can create everything she does.

Keto Incognito Alison who runs this blog, I swear this girl has a gift for creating recipes that are quick, simple and taste amazing. If you don't believe me, try the Alison Bread (TM) recipe and think again.

Low Carb Linda a staple in the low carb community. More often than not if I'm looking for something to make with a few ingredients, I turn to her website and it get's the sparks flying in my head to create my own recipe.

Online Communities

Sometimes you just need a little support, and in a world where low carb living is tricky online is the natural place to go. If you want more inspiration, help or just a kick up the arse then head to one of the below and they will help.

Reddit Keto The group that started it all for me, and I still frequent on a semi regular basis. If they don't know it, it's generally not worth knowing.

Reddit Keto for Women Where I spend most of my keto online time if I'm honest. Keto works wonders for men and women but women have a harder time losing weight in general (damn you hormones!) and this subreddit is focused on those. I find the daily rants and raves massively helpful.

Reddit Keto Diet on Facebook Initially set up for those of us on Reddit who actually used facebook more during the day, this has become a great place for newbies to bounce ideas of each other.

Cookie Dough!

I was really surprised that I liked this recipe, and also how simple it was to make. Normally things with coconut flour as the base need a couple of types of liquid to work properly purely because of the amount of liquid it is capable to absorb. Naturally this means that the chances of ending up with a product that is too dry to eat is quite high. But not this time! I love having these on hand for a small dessert or snack in the middle of the evening, it stemmed from a recipe that was kicking around on the forums for a raw cookie dough recipe similar to those you can buy in a tube in America. As yet I haven't tried to bake them, but maybe that is the next stage.

Give them a try and let me know what you think!

 Ingredients (makes 50 circles the size of a £2 coin about 1cm thick)

110g Coconut flour

120g Unsalted butter 

240ml Double Cream

2 tsp vanilla extract (or to taste)

20g 90% Lindt dark chocolate chopped into small pieces

2 tbsp liquid sweetener or equivalent of granulated

You will also need: 5 pieces of baking paper, a spoon for mixing and a bowl.

1. Melt the 120g of butter in a mixing bowl.
2. Add the coconut flour, cream, chocolate. I used my cooking scissors to chop up the chocolate, although it does melt quite quickly when you hold it!
3. Also add the vanilla extract and liquid sweetener, when I make this I normally add half at this stage and half after the mixing so that I can get the taste right.
4. Mix all the ingredients together thoroughly until all the liquid has been absorbed, all the chocolate chips are evenly distributed and it looks like normal dough. 
5. Taste a small bit of the dough and adjust the sweetener and the vanilla extract if you need to.
6. Flatten out the pieces of baking paper.
7. Evenly split the mixture between the 5 pieces of baking paper. I do this by weighing the bowl before I start, weighing the mixture and the bowl after mixing then subtracting the weight of the bowl. So here- I had a 100g bowl, 600g mixture and bowl, so 500g of mixture which was very handy maths!
8. Roll the individual portions of mixture between the paper until it forms a smooth sausage shape. You should end up with 5 about the same thickness and length. If you make it too thin a sausage initially just fold the mixture in half and re-roll it.
9. When all 5 are done, take a sharp knife and slice each roll into 10 equal portions.
10. Carefully, so as not to squidge the roll together again, wrap the rolls up in the baking paper and fold the ends over.
11. Put the wrapped rolls into the freezer and eat them as you desire!

I tend to break them up into individual circles after they have frozen solid, and put them in a sandwich bag. They store a lot easier this way and freezer burn is avoided! Take out a couple about 5 minutes before you want to eat them to allow them to defrost slightly.

Nutritional Information (Per circle)

Calories  50 kcal

Protein   0.5g
Fat     4.8g
Carbohydrate 0.6g
Fibre 0.8g

Review:Perfect World ice cream

The keto gods have been listening, and yesterday sitting in a freezer cabinet in Holland and Barrett I found this. Keto friendly ice cream, in the UK, that tastes AMAZING, doesn't kick me out of ketosis because they use erythritol and stevia, and is only £5.49. Which considering Ben and Jerry's is £4.70 is not a bad price at all.

The company Perfect World  are fairly new as far as I can tell, and as yet you can only get the strawberry and chocolate flavours from larger Holland and Barrett Branches. Although I've asked at my local one and they are willing to order it in for me. On their website they have two rather delicious Banana Walnut Chip and a Taste of carrot cake which I will be finding out how to get my hands on shortly. 

I've tried some diabetic ice creams, and the previous "keto ice cream" Whey-Hey that I have found in Holland and Barrett and they have all been a bit lacking. Whey-hey in fact left a horrible taste in my mouth, not only because of the £3 for a single pot size they were charging. In contrast this was everything I wanted it to be. Light, creamy, tasty, no cooling effect from the sweetener and no adverse effects either!

I've attempted to make keto ice cream before, and they have all been a bit icy and a nightmare to serve unless I freeze it in individual portions. In contrast this serves up really well, has real chunks of strawberry and after some deliberation between the newly keto boy and I decided it tasted a lot like someone had made frubes into ice cream. Which is not bad thing! I definitely will be trying the chocolate one as soon as this pot is finished.

A suggested serving is 100ml ,which is pictured and is hugely generous and minus the sweeteners has only 3g carbs a serving and actually I was happy with about half that so a pot would last longer which is no bad thing.

Nutritional Information From their Website are below:

Serving size 100ml.
Typical Values	100ml	Per 100g
ENERGY - KJ - KCAL (CALORIES)	482kJ 115kcal	666kJ 161kcal
FAT saturatesmono-unsaturatespolyunsaturates	6.9g 2.5g 3g 1.2g	10g 3.4g 4.1g 1.6g
CARBOHYDRATEavailable carbohydratesugarspolyols	14g 3g 2.2g 11g	19g 4.2g 3g 15g
FIBRE	2.2g	3.1g
PROTEIN	2.6g	3.6g
SALT	53mg	73mg

Cheesy toastie

I have a bit of a thing for cheese toasties, I have no idea where it comes from but they were pretty much all I ate during the first year of university. My george forman was my most used piece of kitchen equipment, which has since gathered dust because I now keep the fat that escapes from my food to cook something else. I spotted it the other day so decided to make a keto toastie for the first time, (well I tried it once with the seed bread but it was horrible).

Ingredients (2 sandwiches)

4 slices of seedless bread

1 Boursin portion (20g)
Cheddar (50g)

4 slices of bacon

Butter lots (less if your butter was soft, unlike mine)

1. Cook off your bacon in a pan or on the toastie maker. (I kept the fat and used it later)
2. While the bacon is cooking butter your bread on both sides, right into the corners.
3. On the two slices of bread spread the boursin evenly.
4. When the bacon is cooked layer it onto the boursin slices.
5. Grate cheese onto the top of the cheese.
6. Add the just butter slices of bread to the sandwich and cook on the toastie maker/forman grill.
7. Make sure to press down the grill half way through to full toast the bread and make the insides nice and gooey.
8. Cut the sandwiches into halves and enjoy!

Tip: This can also be done in the pan you cooked the bacon it just takes longer and tends to fill my kitchen with smoke..

Nutritional Information (per sandwich)

Calories 600 kcal
Carbs 1g
Fat 57g
Protein 17g
Fibre 5g

Minced beef jerky

I have finally settled on a basic jerky recipe that I like enough to make weekly, and doesn't take hours of preparation and overnight marinating etc etc etc. Lets face it when it takes 8hrs to cook I don't want to have to think about it 2 days before I want to eat it. 8 hours is long enough!!

For making jerky it is really important that you get the lowest fat content meat possible, not only does it make for jerky that doesn't go off, it actually means the jerky goes snap instead of perpetually being a bit soggy and covered in a not so attractive later of grease.

This recipe made enough jerky to fill half of my dehydrator, I'll be doubling it next time and probably adding extra spices so treat this is a base recipe for minced beef jerky and alter it as you wish!

Ingredients (makes 200g of jerky) 

500g Lean beef mince
8 tsp of course black pepper (or a lot of grinding)
1 tsp of salt

You will also need: a bowl for mixing, a flat surface for rolling, baking paper, a rolling pin, a sharp knife and either a dehydrator or the ability to leave your oven door open at 65 C for 8 hours.

1. Add the mince, salt and pepper to a bowl.
2. Get stuck in and mix those spices through with your hands until fully worked in.
3. Take a fist size chunk of the mince at a time, roll it flat onto baking paper. Do not try without baking paper it's a pain in the arse to scrape of a chopping board.
4. When the meat has been rolled to about 1mm thick slice it into long strips.
5. Remove each strip from the baking paper and put it on the dehydrator sheets.
6. Repeat 3-5 until all the meat has been used up.
7. Dehydrator on maximum for your dehydrator or 70 C in the oven with the door ajar to allow air to flow for about 8hrs until the meat has started to snap when bent.
8. When the jerky snaps turn the dehydrator/oven off and allow the jerky to cool completely before portioning or storing.

Tip:  Portion into 20g bags for a quick snack to grab as you rush out of the door.

Nutritional Information (per 20g)

Calories 98 kcal

Fat 5.9g

Carbs 1.2g

Protein 10.4g

Seedless bread

This started off as an attempt to make white bread, but I have since learnt that psyllium husk makes everything turn brown. So instead we have a seedless loaf that made 14 chunkily cut slices the boy dubbed "not quite bread, but it tastes good", which I will take as a great success.

Ingredients

60g Ground Almonds

5 eggs

20g Psyllium Husk Powder

100ml Unsweetened almond milk

2tbsp olive oil

2tsp Baking powder

Also needed: an electric whisk (or really strong arms) and a bread tin.

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180 C.
2. Weigh all the dry ingredients into a bowl.
3. Add the eggs, the almond milk and the olive oil.
4. Whisk all the ingredients together until a sticky dough forms.
5. Smooth the dough into a bread tin and try to make the top as flat as possible.
6. Cook for 45 minutes until if you tap the bottom of the loaf it sounds hollow.
7. Leave to cook on a cooling rack.

Tip: Pre-slice and freeze this because it makes excellent toast and toasties, it also stops you eating the entire loaf!

Nutritional Information (per slice based on 14 slices per loaf)

Calories 80 kcal

Fat 6g

Protein 3g

Fibre 3g

Carbs 0g

(there's only 4g carbs in the entire loaf)

Bulk cooking

From time to time I get lazy, and this is normally in regards to lunch which I end up buying from a supermarket instead of taking my own. When this happens more than a couple of times in a week I know I need to bulk cook. My method for doing this is to make enough dishes for 16 meals, where bits and pieces can be added like jerky, nuts and cheese slices to maintain a bit of variety in my lunch life. Now the reason for 16 is quite simply that is the number of plastic containers I can fit in my freezer box (yes I do measure it). The downside of this is that I can't actually freeze anything for the first week until I free up some space in the freezer.

Last week I did a massive shop (I was hungry, much impulse buying), and restocked my fridge with lots of bits and pieces I had been denying myself during the budget month. This included Boursin, macadamia nuts, lemons, onions, some random spreadable cheddar which was on offer and, well, lots of cheese really. I fricking love cheese.

Now meals I was planning to make:

2 portions of chorizo and spinach mince. (ended up being 3 portions)
2 portions of sausage and mash. (ended up being 3 portions )
4 portions of special fried rice.
6 portions of Chorizo and chicken kitchen sink.

Ingredients

3 Sausage and cauliflower mash

                6 sausages

                400g cauliflower

                1 stock cube

                50g butter

4 portions of special fried rice

                3 pork steaks

   400g cauliflower             

                200g chicken

                200g spinach

                4 eggs

                33g cheese

3 portions of mince and chorizo

50g broccoli

200g spinach

100g chorizo

400g mince

6 portions of chorizo/chicken/cream cheese (made like my kitchen sink dish)

                100g chorizo

                200g chicken

                60g onion

                200g sprouts     

                200g cream cheese

                200g spinach

                200g broccoli

                100g Cheddar

Total Cost for all these ingredients was £15, so that's less than £1 a meal. Even if you add some nuts or extra cheese it is unlikely these lunches will cost more than £2. 

Review: Balance Milk Chocolate Lait Bar

Now, I had pretty much given up finding a keto friendly chocolate bar which I could just pick up at a moments notice and not have to worry about how much it cost or it throwing me out of keto. I've even gone so far as to order a huge amount of cocoa butter and try to make my own (which has yet to work). But now, I found this at the till at Holland and Barrett for a mear 95p.

They also do a stevia sweetened version for those of you who hold a disgust for malitol. But this version didn't have any horrible malitol after-taste or after effects. I could even pretend it was normal chocolate. It was a fantastic substitute, better than the atkins bars any day of the week.

I don't count poly-alcohols in my carb count, so for me this is a 3g chocolate treat with no sugar free side effects and stops me reaching for the cadburys. Win, win, win.

Nutritional Information (per bar)

165 kcal

12g fat

1g protein

16g carbohydrate (of which 13g polyalcohols so 3 net carbs!)

£80 a Month Budget Summary

What I used

3 packets of beef mince

1.1kg Frozen Spinach

480g Cauliflower/Broccoli stalks

500g Cauliflower florets

200g Broccoli florets

2 packets of Sainsburys basics Cooking bacon

 220g Mature cheddar

3 packets of Cream cheese

Slim rice 1 packet

2 Chicken Thigh Packets

27 Eggs

1 loaf of keto bread

250g Paneer

2 packets of Unsmoked Middle bacon

2 Smoked salmon packets

7 chicken breasts

12 cheese slices

1 mattessons smoked pork sausage

100g Chorizo

220g sprouts

2 portions of bacon

6 sausages

12 chipolatas

1 packet chicken drumsticks

1 kebab

Total Cost £62.35

Not to shabby considering that it is (nearly!) a months worth of food with a minimum of 2 meals a day, and I even had a bit of food left over. Even considering I took 3 days off from cheap keto cooking, there is no way it would have cost me £18 to eat for 3 days, so I can safely say that I stuck to my £80 for the month budget.

Now back to making new recipes!

£80 Budget Day 28

Lunch

I was at home for lunch today so I used the last of my eggs and made a cheese omelette with some spinach and cauliflower, you have all seen an omelette so no picture for you (also I forgot to take one).

Cost: 2 eggs 24p, 20g cheese 17p, 60g cauliflower 13p, 100g spinach 15p.
Total cost: 69p

Dinner

In a mild panic that I didn't have any food at home I bought 1 packet of chicken drumsticks which wer eon offer for £1 at the local sainsburys, cooked them and had that as my dinner. Inspiring? No. Tasty? Very much yes.

Cost: £1

Total Cost for the day: £1.69

£80 Budget Day 27

Lunch

Using up the last of all of these ingredients- Sausages and pancakes for the third day running, good job it is tasty.

Cost: 90p

Dinner

Same as yesterday because I wasn't in the mood to cook anything more exciting- Cauliflower cheese and chicken breast.

Cost: 82p

Total cost for the day: £1.72

£80 budget day 26

Lunch

Not one for a lot of variety this week I had chipolatas and pancakes for the second day running.

Cost: 92p

Dinner

A quick and very boring dinner without a picture for which I apologise- 1 Chicken Breast, 60g cauliflower oven baked covered in 20g of cheddar cheese.

Cost: Chicken Breast 50p, cauliflower 13p, cheese 17p.
Total cost: 80p

Total cost for the day: £1.72

£80 budget day 25

Breakfast

Black coffee

Lunch

Special fried rice portion

£1.19

Dinner

4 chipolatas and pancakes

Cost: 66p Chipolatas, 26p.
Total cost: 92p

Total cost for the day: £2.11

£80 Budget Day 24

Lunch

1 portion of special fried rice, 3 cheesy slices as a dip.

Cost: rice £1.19, cheese 18p.
Total cost: £1.37

Mid afternoon snack that turned into dinner

4 toulouse sausages.

Cost: 33p per sausage
Total cost: £1.33

Total cost for the day: £2.70

£80 Budget Day 23

Breakfast

2 rashers of bacon and cream cheese pancakes.

Cost: Bacon 50p, pancakes 50p
Total cost: £1

Lunch

Budget lunch but no cheese dip today!

Total cost: £1.28

Dinner

1 portion of special fried rice from my freezer, and 2 toulouse sausages because I really wanted to try some sausages that had practically no carbs in!

Cost: Rice £1.19, Sausage 66p.
Total cost: £1.85

Total cost for the day: £4.13

£80 Budget Day 22

Breakfast

2 eggs, 2 slices of bacon.

Cost: eggs 24p, bacon 50p
Total cost: 74p

Lunch

One of my frozen lunches, 2 slices of cheese.

Cost: Lunch £1.19, Cheese 12p
Total cost: £1.31

Dinner

Now what does one do when they haven't eaten for 12 hours, there are no supermarkets open and they are staying at a house where the cupboard is full of pasta and bread. Buy a mixed meat kebab and give the pita to the unsuspecting boyfriend! Which is what happened today, and I have completely blown my food budget for the week but it was tasty and worth it.

Total Cost: £5.40

Total cost for the day: £7.45 very pricey day!

Shopping Week 4

I don't need a whole lot this week as I've bulk cooked a few meals and still have some chicken and bacon.

Sausages were on offer so I picked two packets as I only buy them on offer too expensive otherwise.

6 Toulouse sausages £2
12 90% pork Chipolatas £2
4 packets skinny rice from holland and barrett in the penny sale £5
3 packets of tofu shirataki noodles from soho £4.50
Crunchy Peanut Butter £1.34

Total cost: £14.84

Special fried rice

Now I was out and about all today so as a result haven't used any of my food from my budget shopping. This has meant I've got a lot left over which needed to be used pronto, especially the rice and broccoli which were both beginning to take on a weird fridge smell. One of the things I have been wanting to recreate is special fried rice, and when better than if you have cauliflower rice, misc meats and some eggs left over. I portioned it into 4 and froze the portions so I can use them as lunch or dinner as I have a busy week coming up.

Ingredients (makes 4 portions)

300g Cauliflower rice
150g Broccoli Florets
100g Chorizo chopped
3 pork shoulder steaks cooked and chopped
4 eggs beaten
1tsp chilli flakes
1 tsp basil
1 glug of oil

You will also need: a knife and chopping board, boxes for storage and a large frying pan.

1. Chop everything, the chorizo/pork steaks and broccoli florets.
2. Beat the eggs and set them to one side.
3. Heat some oil in the frying pan and coat the pan.
4. Add the cauliflower rice and fry for roughly 5 minutes constantly turning.
5. Create some space on one side of the pan and pour the eggs into the gap.
6. Stir the eggs into the rice.
7. Continue stirring until the rice and egg is fully incorporated (don't worry if it forms massive clumps it will break up again)
8. Add the chorizo and continue frying.
9. Finally add in the broccoli then the pork steak.
10. Continue cooking with constant stirring to make sure the egg doesn't burn or stick.
11. When the broccoli is cooked but still has a crunch take off the heat.
12. Portion into 4 separate containers.

Nutritional Information

Calories 343 kcal
Fat 21g
Carbs 3g
Protein 35g
Fibre 2g

Total Cost: (13p*5)+(17p*3)+(1*£1)+(£2)+(12p*4)+ 10p =  £4.74

£1.19 a portion