After my trip to Rochester and with a couple of new people in my life testing out the keto lifestyle, I felt inspired to cook some dishes that I hadn’t previously been in the mood to deal with in my tiny kitchen. I went all in today and made basically everything I’ve been thinking about over the past few weeks. Not only does my apartment smell amazing, but I’m also set to eat like a keto queen all week. Yes!
First, I said I wanted to try the chicken parmesan bake with ground beef, so that’s exactly what I where I started. I browned the beef on the stove with chopped onion, garlic and Italian seasoning, and then layered with sauce (Rao’s works well for keto, if anyone needs a premade sauce rec), mozzarella, parmesan and herbed ricotta. It came out of the oven like the winner I knew it would be.
I decided to try another cake mix…because cake for breakfast. This time, I mixed a chocolate cake mix with coconut oil as the oil and added some Lily’s chocolate chips to the mix for fun. It smelled so good, and the slight coconut of the oil made me think of Sno Balls. First of all, Sno Balls were one of Graham’s favorite treats. We’d have them in her room while we were chatting about my friends at school, or later work. Second of all, they’re delicious and make me think of my sweet little Graham.
So, I made this buttercream frosting, but added a packet of sugar-free white chocolate pudding mix instead of the sweetener. As you can see, I tend to sort of make things up as I go along. As long as they taste good, I’m ok with it. After frosting the cake, I added finely shredded toasted coconut. I don’t usually like the texture of coconut in my food, it’s too chewy for me and never seems to go away. But this Bob’s Red Mill shredded coconut isn’t like that. I think Graham would be proud.
I’ve so missed my favorite casserole since moving. This chicken cauliflower rice casserole is one of the best keto meals – I’d eat it every day. It’s pretty simple, especially using rotisserie chicken. Since I don’t have a Costco with its somehow always huge, delicious and cheap rotisserie chickens within walking distance, I chose to bake chicken breasts and then use those for the casserole. And for the record, that casserole dish would only fit in my oven one direction.
I also went a little outside my keto comfort zone with this overnight oats recipe. I really miss oatmeal (of all the things!), so I thought I might as well see if this can pinch hit. It’s essentially hemp seeds and chia seeds, two things I never thought I’d be talking about eating. The one time I tried chia pudding years ago, I couldn’t deal with their slimy texture (I realize as I’m writing this that texture is a much bigger deal to me and my eating habits than I realized). I’ll give it a go in the morning – and luckily if I’m not impressed, I have my cake-for-breakfast plan to fall back on.
It really looks good. What can you substitute for oats? That chia hemp seed recipe doesn’t sound good at all. What about almond milk and chia seeds to make something like tapioca pudding?
I don’t know, I don’t think I like chia seeds anyway. We’ll see how it turns out.
I’m gonna have to get that cake recipe.
It’s literally a box mix by Swerve. Comes in chocolate or vanilla. Super simple. And it was soooo good! I think the coconut oil made it even better than using butter.
Did you know if you mix choc chipc (sure Lily’s would work also) with a little coconut oil, it makes hard shell chocolate like they use on Dairy Queen ice cream cones? Just remembered you can’t eat ice cream. Good to know though. Cheat day maybe?
Didn’t know that! There are keto ice cream recipes. Made some in Seattle.
What about Halo ice cream or if there is a keto ice cream you can use the hard shell chocolate?
You need to try that blueberry bread recipe your Mom made. It looked really good. Would be good for breakfast. It looks like more cake than bread. It is gluten free also. She is going to make it for us when we are staying there during my recuperation.