Cauliflower garlic sticks

This recipe came about by complete accident because I didn't have the right ingredients to make the garlic cauliflower bread sticks that I wanted to make, so I just bunged stuff in a bowl in the hope it would work. It turned out so well I thought I would put it on the blog, even with the terrible picture of only the finished product.

Feel free to play around with the quantities, I literally just used what I had in the fridge and eye balled it until it looked right. I imagine it's quite a versatile recipe as long as you don't end up with something too sloppy.

Ingredients- makes about 8 portions big enough for a side dish

280g Cauliflower (This was about 3/4 of my large cauliflower or a small cauliflower)

150g Full Fat Cream Cheese

Herb Mix- I put 1tsp garlic powder, 1tsp onion granules, 1tsp basil, 1tsp mixed herbs and 1tsp parsley.

40g Sainsbury's Basic's Hard Cheese ( or grate some parmesan)

70g Mature Cheddar (grated)

40g Butter melted with some garlic powder/onion powder in it.

You will also need- something to rice cauliflower so a grater or a food processor, a baking tray with baking parchment on it, a mixing bowl.

1. Preheat your oven to 220 C/ Gas mark 7.
2. Take your cauliflower, rice it with your preferred ricing method! Put it in a bowl, cover in cling film and microwave it for 10 minutes. Check on it a few times in that 10 minutes to check it isn't burning.
3. Pull your cauliflower out of the microwave and uncover it. WARNING! It will be hot, don't burn yourself on the steam like this idiot blogger did. 
4. In your mixing bowl, mix the herb mix, cauliflower, cream cheese, hard cheese and 50g of the cheddar.
5. Mix it until it's a soppy mixture but not wet, it should stick together loosely.
6. Pour the mixture onto your baking tray and flatten it into a rectangular shape. I used my hands as shaping it with a spoon was tricky, it stuck to the spoon more than it wanted to stay on the parchment.
7. Cook it in the oven for 15-20 minutes until it's golden brown.
8. Once it's lovely and golden brown. Melt your butter and mix in some more of the garlic and onion powder. Pour this over the top of the golden brown goodness and scatter the last 20g of cheddar on the top. If it doesn't look cheesy enough for you add some more!
9. Pop it back in the oven for another 5 minutes to melt the cheese.
10. Take it out of the oven and slice it into strips, leave it for a few minutes to firm up and then enjoy!

Nutritional Information (per serving)

Calories 146 kcal

Fat 13g

Protein 6g

Carbohydrate 2g

Fibre 1g

Review: Carbzone Low Carb Tortilla's

I'm a bit split in my review of these tortillas, I order them fairly regularly from Amazon when I'm doing a prime order, and like having them in the house. You can also get them from low carb megastore and carb life At 4g net carbs per tortilla, for a quick lunch, or if I'm making fajitas for the bf and fancy one they aren't bad.

They are £4.10 for 8 and are prime eligible and are part of the free delivery over £20 (Side note- can't believe that's now £20 what the hell Amazon!), so are a pricey alternative. But they keep forever and freeze well.

I've cut them up and fried them to make nacho like crisps. I've used two and put cheese and ham in the middle to make a quesadilla. I've used them to make a breakfast wrap with bacon, a fried egg and some sugar free ketchup.

But they aren't the best. They have a slight cardboard texture if you are eating them without heating them up. They aren't a direct swap with their carb laden counterparts and can be a bit chewy. If they were to disappear off the face of the earth I wouldn't be that bothered, although it might motivate me to find a home made version I like a bit more.

In summary- if you feel like occasionally you'd like to make your life easier. It might be worth keeping these around in the freezer. But don't feel like they are a must have low carb food!

Cheddar Drop "Biscuits"

I use the word biscuits lightly here, what it actually refers to are American biscuits which are more like scones in texture, but flatter. They are the perfect side accompaniments to things like soup, or as a quick snack with some butter. This week they have been coming to work with me to accompany my "mystery freezer lunches". I whipped these up after finding the recipe while I was looking up ways to use up the 30 eggs on my side.

I am a fan of any recipe which only needs coconut flour, and has 4 main ingredients. Keto is done best and most easily if it is simple in my opinion! I like things cheesy so be prepared to adjust the cheese factor down if you only like a hint of cheese.

Ingredients (Makes 10 Biscuits)

60g Coconut oil or butter melted
50g Coconut flour
4 eggs
75g Cheddar Cheese (grated)
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp onion powder (optional)
A pinch of salt

1. Pre-heat your oven to 180 degrees/ gas mark 7(if you don't have a fan).
2. Line a baking tray with baking paper.
3. Blend together the coconut oil, coconut flour, eggs, baking powder, onion powder and salt until smooth and dough like.
4. Mix in the grated cheese until it is thoroughly mixed in.
5. Divide the mixture up into 10 and flatten gently onto the baking tray.
6. Put in the oven for 15-25 minutes until golden brown and firm.
7. Remove from the oven and let them cool on a wire rack.

Nutritional Information (per biscuit)

Calories 119 kcal

Carbs 1.1g

Fat 10.2g

Protein 4.8g

Fibre 1.9g

Now your only task is to stick to eating only 1!

Update: Almond Flour Version, this made 8 biscuits so scale it up or down as you need!

I don't keep almond flour in the house and I don't normally cook with it because nuts of all kinds make me stall me. But these are as tasty as the coconut flour ones if you can't tolerate the coconut flour.

It's the same process as above except the quantities are different:

30g Coconut oil or butter melted
90g Ground almonds/almond flour
2 eggs
40g Cheddar Cheese (grated)
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp onion powder (optional)
A pinch of salt

Review: EZ-Sweetz (now on amazon)

Liquid sweeteners are the preferred method of sweetening desserts and coffee and tea and basically everything that needs to be sweet for low-carbers. Powdered sweeteners like Splenda, Canderel and the like contain the bulking agent Maltodexrin which means they aren't carb free, around 0.5g of carbs per teaspoon. If you are using them in your coffee that isn't so much to account for. But in baking that adds up quickly and the amount of Splenda needed in most recipes can turn your low carb recipe which is easy to fit into your < 20g carb day, into something that takes up 3/4 of your daily carb allowance.

No such bulking agent is used in liquid sweeteners, they are carb free, calorie free and do nothing except sweetener whatever they are mixed with. Up until now I have been using Hermestas liquid sweetener, it was the only one I had tried that didn't leave a horrible taste in my mouth, and it was available on Amazon so supply wasn't an issue. My one complaint was the sheer amount you needed e.g. 4 tbsp of sweetener in my fat bomb recipe. I hoped Ez-Sweetz would be a great alternative, their conversion is 1 tsp sugar = 1 drop of Ez-Sweetz. But alas it was forever sold out on low carb megastore and carb life, as well as being expensive for not very much.

Not any more!

I spotted it's appearance on Amazon at the start of the year and immediately bought some to try. £6.99 for 600 servings didn't seem so bad, if the reviews over the Internet were to be believed.

I wasn't disappointed. No horrible after taste, barely any was needed to sweetener my coffee, I've used it in baking with great success. It's definitely worth keeping some in your cupboard whether you bake and eat sweet things, or just have the occasional craving for something sweet.

For a comparison- I was using two tablets of Sweetex in my morning coffee to sweeten it. I need a single drop of Ez-Sweetz to get the same effect, and it doesn't have any odd after taste.

Success and a new cupboard staple!

Summer Fruit Porridge

Summer is threatening to arrive in this part of the world, and I have gone off eggs in a major way. My normal breakfast of an egg and bacon omelette isn't appealing and I have been craving something that doesn't make my hair smell like a greasy spoon cafe. 

On one of the many Keto Facebook groups that I'm part of there is a recipe that floats around for Keto Oatmeal. It is that recipe that forms the basis of this breakfast.

Ingredients (Makes 4 portions)

80g Chia Seeds

50g Ground Flaxseed (whichever is your favourite!)

40g Unsweetened Desiccated Coconut

Put the above in a box and shake it all about!!

150ml Almond milk

25g frozen raspberries

25g Frozen Summer fruit mix 

Or 50g of Sainsbury's Basics Frozen Red berry mix

1. Heat 150 ml unsweetened almond milk in the microwave.
2. Take 1/4 of the oatmeal mixture in a bowl and pour the heated almond milk over the top.
3. Stir together and then leave it to sit on the side to thicken for 3/4 minutes.
4. Stir the mixture again and if it's not thick enough pop it in the microwave for a minute.
5. Add the frozen berries, mix together watch the berries melt and make a lovely swirly pattern.

You can add granulated sweetener if you want a bit of extra sweetness, I do some days on other days I find the berries are sweet enough. I've left it out of the recipe for simplicity. 

Other options are adding cinnamon, or coco powder for some morning chocolatey goodness. 

If you want to up the calories stir in some heavy cream, or add some pre-cooked bacon like I did this morning.

If you are nut free just mix some thick cream with water instead of the almond milk for a lovely creamy porridge.

Nutritional Information

Calories 270 kcal

Carbohydrate 4g

Protein 10g

Fat 21g

Fibre 15g

Sugar 6g.

Review: Muscle Food

This is the second time I have ordered from Muscle food, and slightly body builder focused website who supply all the protein you could need FOR THE GAINZ! I've been on the watch for the while for them to have a brilliant deal so I could restock my freezer for the new year and do a lot of meal prep for January.

I wasn't disappointed, they had a discount code, and an exclusive offer shortly after Christmas and for the low low price of £75 delivered I got the following:

12 Steak Burgers
5kg Chicken Breasts
4 Turkey Escolopes
4 Hache Steaks
12 Chicken Sausages
4 Low fat beef burgers
6 Meaty pork sausages
700g Bacon medallions
1kg bbq chicken drumsticks
4 Chicken Breasts
1kg Sliced mixed peppers
1kg Diced Sweet potato
250g Curly Green Kale
1 Coconut Crunch bar
1 pomegrante protein bar
1 packet of protein crisps

Which looks like this:

Found in the following links:

Exclusive Try Us Selection box
5kg Chicken Breasts
Try us Selection


From Muscle food full priced I saved £75. I've calculated the price for the similar products from Sainsburys and it would cost £103, but that includes offers and their chicken breasts are nowhere near as good as the musclefood ones.

One of the brilliant things about muscle food deliveries is that you pick the day they deliver, and can do so upto 2 months in advance but they don't take the payment until 48 hours before delivery. So if you need to wait until pay day, or until you have some space in the freezer you can!

The delivery comes in a big box surrounded by these cool freezer bags so it stays fresh while it is being delivered. This is particularly handy for storing it while you figure out how to portion it and which bits you get to eat first.

There are a few bits and pieces in that list that aren't keto except in small quantities, so they are being donated to the non keto live in boyfriend. They are the chicken sausages, and the pork sausages. At 5g/8g carbs respectively I can't really work that in and get a decent meal. So to him they go.

The rest of it is being prepared into meals and portioned for the freezer for future use. I have no idea what I'm going to do with sweet potato, at the moment it's bagged into 20g portions until I can figure out what to do with it. Maybe I'll just sneak it into other dishes.

I would highly recommend liking them on Facebook, having a look through their products and ordering from them yourself if you've got the space. I've had nothing but great customer service from them.

Extra Bonus if you go via my referral link you get a freebie, and your favourite blogger gets some bonus points!

Motivational Monday!!

Today is the day folks. Keto kick start in my household. A few things I'm doing differently this time round. I have a few motivational reminders and goal posters around my house.

In my bedroom- my list of milestone rewards when I reach a certain weight. Took me a while to think of non food rewards but I got a pretty good list in the end. Also in my bedroom a 12 week list I can write my Monday morning measurements and weigh in on.

In my loo- a whiteboard with a reminder of what I weighed on my Monday weigh in and what my goal is for the week. Im guilty of a daily weigh in but I will only be paying attention to my Monday one to account for fluctuations. 

In my kitchen- a plan for the week. What food I'm eating for my meals, the exercise I'm doing on which day and tick boxes for when I have completed it. This also will have any days I'm not at work so I can remember extra snacks if needed. 

I have no idea if this will work but it can't hurt to have a little extra motivation around the place. 

Start of the Year

"New Year, New Year right? Whatever! I've heard that before" As the lovely lady at the Hawkshead shop snorted at me when I was buying walking boots and a cycling jacket at the weekend. It's a fair point. How many years before have people woken up on January 1st and gone "this will be the year! I'll win the nobel prize, get out of bed on the first alarm and do yoga as the sun sets every single day". Then by months end they are snoozing with the best of them while their yoga mat gathers dust in the corner. I'm guilty of that myself. Many a gym membership has been purchased and then forgotten about by the end of January.

I've had quite a turbulent 6 months, well year really hence why I've been a bit quiet on the blogging front. Here is a quick recap of my 2014 the good and the bad:

• Completed my masters, the single most stressful thing I have ever done.
• Graduated from University!
• Got offered a PhD doing research in an area that I find exciting.
• Gained a nephew.
• Moved 6 hours/300 miles from all my friends and family.
• Actually have my own house with my own kitchen and enough cupboard space for all my gadgets. 
• Started cycling to and from university (still yet to do a whole week!).
• Gained nearly 3 stone in weight and many many inches.

The main reason the hawkshead lady's comment made me chuckle was because I wasn't buying anything for a new years resolution, unlike the people around me. My change started a few months ago when I began cycling. I needed a cycling jacket since I didn't own a waterproof because I'm from the south where it doesn't rain that much. Know where it rains? In the North, everyday, you practically need to go out in one of those plastic cape things from Thorpe park some weeks.

The new year has meant one thing, I've got no more excuses as to why I'm not ketoing full time. I have kitchen that I can occupy all the time without annoying anyone. I'm not constantly skint anymore so can afford to keto. Christmas has passed so I've got at least until Easter before celebration food becomes an issue again. I have an entire freezer and fridge so prepping in advance isn't at all an issue. There are numerous substitutes on the market for everything I want. There's even a decent keto ice cream now.

This year I don't need a gym membership, cycling twice a day and walking through the beautiful countryside that surrounds me is enough exercise for me, for the time being anyway.

My "New year, New me" isn't starting on January 1st like everyone elses. It's starting on January 5th, once the not-in-laws have left the house, the chocolate coins have been eaten, the bread used up and the food prep for the next month has been done. I did this 3 years ago when I did Dukan for the first time and it worked, this time I've got none of the stumbling blocks I had that time so hears hoping for a more successful 2015! (At least in terms of weight loss)

Restaurant: Wagamama

I consider this a personal triumph, I have keto'ed at wagamama. It probably helped that it was take away so much easier to get the rice replaced with a salad, than explaining to a confused waiter/ress that you have yes come to a Japanese restaurant, and no you don't want any rice.

What I ordered: Chicken Katsu Curry, with sauce on the side, grilled chicken and a side salad instead of rice.

What it cost: about £9 I don't remember exactly.

What I actually got: Exactly what I ordered! Side salad could have been bigger considering how much rice you normally get, but there you go. I used to sauce for dipping so that it minimised the carb intake as that stuff is carby!

Opinion: It satisfied a craving at the time, but to be honest it wasn't really worth it. I was conscious of not using too much sauce because of how carb filled it was, and because it was just a plain chicken breast and salad it wasn't a very filling meal. If you're stuck in wagamama it's great to have as an option, but I wouldn't go out of my way to order from there normally.

Nutritional Information: I'm not sure, pretty carby but not very calorific I reckon. About 300-400 kcal but 7g carbs.

Review: Ohso Chocolate

I spotted this little nugget of gold when I was wandering round the penny sale at Holland and Barrett. Ohso chocolate comes in a sleeve with 7 miniature chocolate bars in it. They sell a dark chocolate one, and a raspberry one with no added sugar, bonus points for the fact if you go on their website they have a set up similar to Graze boxes. You can have a weekly/biweekly order of chocolates straight to your door for £3.99 per box (60p a bar), but discounted to £1.99 for the first week.

What was most surprising is how satisfying they were for such a small bar. Each bar of chocolate is 13.5g and could fit in a coin purse without too much trouble. That being said once I'd eaten one it felt like it was enough, probably because it was dark chocolate, or maybe it's psychological because it's one bar and that's normally the limit on keto for sweet things!

They have become a regular addition to my shopping, not a regular addition to my diet but they are handy to have in my desk drawer and around the house for that chocolate fix that creeps up sometimes.

Nutritional Information (Dark Chocolate)

63 kcal

4.84g fat

0.69g protein

3.66g carbohydrate

Nutritional Information (Raspberry)

63 kcal

4.84g fat

0.69g protein

3.66g carbohydrate

Also worth pointing out that these carb counts include the malitol poly alcohols, so the effect on your blood sugar is likely to be less than 4g of carbs.

Resturant: Benito's Hat

I was lucky enough to work in an office that gave free lunch to all of it's employees, which gave me a chance to try some restaurants out I wouldn't usually chance for keto friendly food.

Benito's Hat, being a mexican restaurant I figured I had a 50:50 chance of it being just dry spiced, or covered in salsa. 

What I ordered: Slow braised pork salad no beans or peppers. Extra chicken, extra pork. 

What it cost: £9.90

What I actually got: Unexpectedly came with nachos and rice. Lost about half the portion getting rid of that. Probably not a problem if you are in the shop, but ordering online the menu is lacking in descriptions of what you actually get in a dish.

In the picture the left is how it arrived, the right is what it was once I'd dissected it.

Opinion: 

I was really full after this lunch, which I wasn't expecting since it was basically just a pork salad and cheese. It was fresh and arrived hot from the restaurant. It wasn't too spicy hot just enough for flavour. I'd get it any if my options were limited but nearly £10 for a lunch is too much in my opinion.

Nutritional Information (MASSIVE ESTIMATE THEY DON'T HAVE ANY ON THEIR WEBSITE)

Calories 500 kcal (lots of pork and cheese was had)

Carbs 5g (left over rice bits, and iceberg).