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!