Super Simple Sugar-Free No-Cook Keto Vegan Coconut Chocolate Pudding

Hey, Keto friends. Do you miss desserts? I miss desserts. I miss them so much. I wanna eat a great big bowl of rocky road ice cream on top of a pair of eclairs, topped with some profiteroles and, oh, I dunno... a tub of hot fudge. That sounds like a nice treat.Anywho, to scratch that dessert itch, I've been experimenting with keto-friendly desserts. Here's my attempt at a chocolate pudding. It's super simple, super quick, and requires absolutely no cooking! Let me know what you think!

Super Simple Sugar-Free No-Cook Keto Vegan Coconut Chocolate Pudding

Ingredients

• 1 can of full-fat organic coconut milk
• 3 Tbsp., cocoa powder
• 1 Tbsp., sugar-free maple syrup
• .5 tsp., vanilla extract
• a dash of sea salt to taste
• a sprinkling of cayenne pepper

Instructions

1. Refrigerate your can of coconut milk over night. 
2. Separate the coconut milk solids from the remaining liquid. Set liquid aside.
3. Combine all ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer.
4. Beat the mixture until you get a nice, pudding-like consistency. If you find the mixture to be too dry, add a tablespoon or two of the coconut milk liquids to the mixture to loosen it up.
5. Transfer your completed pudding into little jars to refrigerate and eat later! Or, dig right in and enjoy!

Nutritional Info Per Serving

This recipe made about 3 servings for me – each about the size of a typical individual pudding cup. It's very rich, so a small serving is all you need.

• Calories: 250
• Fat: 25g
• Protein: 3g
• Carbs: 8g
• Dietary Fiber: 2g

Some pics of the process!

Before eating, I sprinkled some coconut flakes and cayenne pepper over the pudding for just a little added texture and heat. I think it turned out great, but I'd LOVE to know what you think! Chocolate desserts can be so divisive! Is this recipe sweet enough? Chocolate-y enough? Try it out and let me know!  

Keto Spinach & Cheddar Soufflé

I love meat. I adore it. There is no time of day – sleeping, showering, jury duty – when I couldn't go for a nice grass-fed ribeye. But, I acknowledge that there are folks out there who prefer their eats a little less "moo" and a lot more "imperceptible sound of plant growth." In fact, one of those people has been my boyfriend for the past 17 years. (Life is weird sometimes. I've learned to stop asking questions.)So, for him and several of my similarly meat-averse friends, I've decided to attempt some vegetarian keto cooking. This spinach soufflé was my first experiment. I thought it was damn delicious, frankly. That boyfriend guy liked it, too.

Relatively Simple Spinach & Cheddar Soufflé

Ingredients

The dish itself:

• 3 egg yolks
• 5 egg whites
• 1/2 tsp., cream of tartar
• 3 Tbsp., butter
• 3 Tbsp., almond flour
• 1 cup, heavy cream
• 1 cup, shredded cheddar cheese
• 1 bag, frozen chopped spinach (thawed and wrung out thoroughly)
• salt and pepper to taste

And for prepping the ramekins (I used six individual 6-ounce ramekins, but you can use one great big dish, if you prefer):

• butter 
• grated parmesan cheese

Instructions

Prep:

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
2. Grease the insides of your ramekins (or large, oven-safe dish) with butter.
3. Dust the greased ramekins (or dish) with grated parmesan cheese and set aside
4. Separate the eggs, placing the whites in the (very clean, super dry) bowl of your stand mixer. Yolks can go in any old bowl.
5. Add cream of tartar to mixing bowl and set aside.

Sauce:

1. In a large pan, melt 3 Tbsp of butter over medium-high heat until it begins to bubble.
2. Add the almond flour to the pan, stirring constantly to develop a smooth roux.
3. Add the cream to the pan and continue to cook the mixture, stirring, stirring, stirring until smooth and thickened.
4. Add the cheddar cheese and continue to stir, until the cheese has melted into the sauce.
5.  Add the spinach to the sauce and stir some more. So much stirring.
6. Season the spinach/cheese sauce mixture with salt and pepper to taste. You can season it pretty strongly at this point, as the final mixture will be diluted somewhat by the addition of eggs.
7. Set aside to work on the eggs.

Eggs:

1. Beat the egg whites in a stand mixer until they form soft peaks. I've heard other folks say that the whites should cling to the bowl as you roll it around in your hands. Still other folks say to whip them to firm peaks. I went somewhere in the middle.
2. Add the yolks to the spinach/cheese sauce mixture and stir.
3. Very gently fold your egg whites into spinach/cheese sauce mixture. I did this in two steps. First, I added about a quarter of the whites to the saucepan and folded gently. Then, I poured the entire mixture into the mixing bowl with the whites and continued to fold.

Bake:

1. Once folded together, pour the completed mixture into your prepped ramekins/dish. You can place the ramekins on a single baking sheet to simplify the baking (and cleaning) process.
2. Bake in your preheated oven for 30-40 minutes, until risen and golden brown. Important: DO NOT open the oven until at least 30 minutes have passed!
3. Remove from oven, allow to cool for a few minutes (the soufflés will deflate slightly) and serve!

Nutritional Info Per Serving

This recipe made about 6.5 servings for me. I baked the remaining .5 in a small oven-safe bowl.

• Calories: 358
• Fat: 28g
• Protein: 17g
• Carbs: 4g
• Dietary Fiber: 0g

And how about some pics from the whole soufflé-making process?

I think it turned out pretty well for a first attempt! I wish they had gotten a puffier. Perhaps I should have used milk instead of cream? Or dried the spinach more thoroughly? Or cleaned the mixing bowl better? Or beaten the whites harder? I will try the recipe again in the future and see how it all shakes out.If you give this recipe a shot, please let me know how it turns out for you and what you may do to alter it! I'd love to know!Hope you're doing super!

Winner Winner Chicken Lunch

I couldn't think of a clever preamble to this recipe. I considered referencing Food, Inc. and the terror of chickens it instilled in me. Then, I considered a reference to the amazing Jacques Pépin, his apparent love of chicken, and the recently released Jacques Pépin: The Art of Craft from the American Masters series.But, you know what? This is simple food. Let's give it a simple post. Fuck it.

Pan-Fried Chicken Thigh on Mushrooms à la Crème

Ingredients

• 1 chicken thigh, skin and bone intact
• 1 cup white mushrooms, cleaned and sliced
• 1 Tbsp., crème fraîche
• 1 tsp., freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 1 tsp., fresh thyme leaves
• .5 tsp., fresh lemon zest
• salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

1. Preheat your oven to 175 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Prepare your chicken thigh. Place the thigh, skin-side down on a cutting surface. With a knife, cut slits along either side of the thigh bone. This will help the meat cook more evenly/quickly by exposing more of its surface to heat.
3. Season the thigh on both sides with salt and pepper.
4. Place the thigh skin-side down in an unheated nonstick pan, then turn the heat to high. Do not add heat until the meat is in the pan!
5. When you hear the thigh begin to sizzle, reduce the heat to medium, cover the pan, and continue cooking for about 15-18 minutes.
6. Check your meat. Make sure it's not sticking to the pan. If the skin's browning too quickly, reduce the heat to low, recover, and continue to cook.
7. Once cooked, transfer the chicken to a heat-safe dish and pop it into your preheated oven to keep warm while you cook the mushrooms.
8. On the stove, turn the heat up to high and add mushrooms to the pan, sautéeing in the rendered chicken fat. Season with salt and pepper.
9. Once mushrooms are tender, stir in crème fraîche, lemon juice, and lemon zest until mushrooms are well coated and the mixture is heated through.
10. Before plating, sprinkle mushrooms with some fresh thyme and top with your chicken thigh.
11. Nom away!

Nutritional Info

Pan-Fried Chicken Thigh (about 4oz):

• Calories: 260
• Fat: 16g
• Protein: 28g
• Carbs: 0g
• Dietary Fiber: 0g

Mushrooms à la Crème:

• Calories: 185
• Fat: 18g
• Protein: 2g
• Carbs: 4g
• Dietary Fiber: 1g

Notes

• How can you tell the chicken is cooked? If you have a meat thermometer, look for an internal temperature of 165°F. Otherwise, you can generally tell that the meat is cooked when its juices run clear, rather than red (tinged with blood).
• You can definitely cook more than one chicken thigh at once. I'm just using the one here because 1) my fiancé is a vegetarian and particularly hates even the smell of chicken and 2) the best part about this dish is the crispy skin! I prefer to cook only what I'll eat immediately, so the skin remains crisp, as opposed to soggy after storing and reheating.
• Our friend Deb just suggested using a metal colander to cover the chicken while it's cooking on the stove. This will allow some of the moisture to dissipate, preventing soggy skin!

Ooh, how about some pics?

Enjoy!

Juicey (Lamb) Lucy

I've found it pretty easy to get stuck in a ground-meat rut on this Keto diet – it's cheap and easy and reasonably fatty. So, the other day, I challenged myself to do something a bit more interesting and a lot more photogenic. And, it's still super easy! Here's my ground lamb version of the classic Jucy Lucy on a little arugula salad.

Ingredients

• 4 oz, ground lamb (grass-fed if you can get it!)
• 2 Tbsp., feta cheese
• .5 cup arugula (washed and dried)
• 1 Tbsp., arugula blossoms
• 1 tsp., chia seeds
• 1 tsp., olive oil
• .25 tsb., sherry vinegar
• salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

1. Divide ground lamb into two roughly even patties.
2. Season both sides of each patty with salt and pepper.
3. Create a small divot in one pattie, using your knuckles or a spoon. It doesn't need to be deep. You're just making a little home for your cheese.
4. Drop 1 Tbsp. of feta cheese into the divot.
5. Place remaining pattie over the first and gently pat down edges to seal the patties together. Just tuck that feta in, all snug and comfy.
6. Cook the combined patty in a frying pan over medium heat – roughly four minutes per side. Due to the fattiness of the lamb, you probably won't need to add any oil. But, feel free to add a dash of olive oil if you care to.
7. While your Jucy Lamb Lucy is cooking, combine arugula, arugula blossoms, sherry vinegar, chia seeds, remaining olive oil, and remaining feta cheese in a bowl and toss lightly. Season with salt and pepper to your preference
8. Place the salad onto a dish.
9. Place the Jucy Lamb Lucy over your salad.
10. Enjoy!

Nutritional Information

Lamb Jucy Lucy:

• Calories: 351
• Fat: 26g
• Protein: 24g
• Carbohydrates: 1g
• Dietary Fiber: 0g

Little Arugula Salad:

• Calories: 137
• Fat: 12g
• Protein: 5g
• Carbohydrates: 3g
• Dietary Fiber: 2g

Picture time!

As always, I'd love to know what you think of the recipe! And, I'd love to hear about any keto lamb recipes of your own! Help me! :P

Keto Baking is Hard

Despite all the benefits this keto lifestyle has provided, goddammit do I miss baked goods.So, this weekend, I tried my hand at two different baked goods – one savory, one sweet. The verdict? Maybe keto baking isn't for me. :(Still, I took some pictures and thought I'd share my failure all the same.First up, a savory coconut flour biscuit based loosely off this recipe. Rather than garlic and cheese, I went with sage, hazelnuts, and duck fat – I replaced half the butter called for with an equal amount of duck fat (about 2 Tbsp.) It went a little something like this:

VERDICT: Ehhh...  Everything smelled incredible, but the cookies themselves were dry and gritty. Again, I think I messed up with the amount of flour, so that's on me. Both the cookies and the spread had a noticeable tang of sugar substitute (I used Stevia in the Raw.) Perhaps I'm just too new to keto to appreciate a good sugar substitute (I still remember what real sugar tastes like), or I'm just using the wrong ones.While this weekend's experiments in keto baking were certainly fun and educational, I feel the overwhelming lesson was that keto baking is hard and I suck at it. I have a lot of learning left to do. 

Brocc-iflower Soup. Get hype.

You ever buy a bunch of vegetables thinking: "Oh, man. I'm going to eat so healthy! Vegetables are amazing and I am a person who eats them!" and then a week later you still have mounds of untouched broccoli and cauliflower in your fridge?Well, here's a soup you can make with that untouched broccoli and cauliflower. Hell, you might even go to the store and just pick some up – this nonsense is pretty fucking tasty. (Though all the heavy cream may have something to do with it, but, whatever: #ketolife, ya'll.)Here's what you'll need and how to put it all together...

Ingredients

NOTE: I'm separating the ingredients into two parts: the first part for what I consider to be the "prepping" stage, the second for what I'll call the "souping" stage.PART ONE: PREPPING

• 1 small head, raw cauliflower – about 7 oz., cleaned and separated into florets (chopped stems are tasty, too!)
• 1 small head, raw broccoli – about 7oz., cleaned and separated into florets (again, I like to include chopped stems!)
• 6 Tbsp., crème fraîche
• 6 Tbsp., water or broth of your choosing
• 6 Tbsp, heavy whipping cream

PART TWO: SOUPING

• .75 cup., water or broth
• 11 Tbsp., heavy whipping cream
• 1 tsp., raw lemon juice
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 tsp., olive oil as garnish for "marbling"

Instructions

NOTE: I was inspired by an old video to try my hand at "marbling" the soup. If you'd like to try it, too, keep your cauliflower and broccoli separate at all times. I'll add some tips/notes below to help with this.

1. Steam cauliflower and broccoli until soft. I did this in a steamer basket on the stove in two batches (one cauliflower, one broccoli.)
2. Pulse steamed vegetables in a food processor, just enough to even out the larger chunks. Your veggies will get plenty of pulsing as you add the liquids.
   • SEPARATE SOUPS: Pulse separately and remember to clean your food processor between batches to keep your colors clean.
3. Add "prepping" liquids to the food processor – crème fraîche, water/broth, and whipping cream – and pulse to incorporate. The mixture should not yet be "soupy" in consistency, but more like a paste. A delicious vegetable paste.
   • Feel free to use less of the liquid ingredients per your taste, but I recommend keeping equal parts crème fraîche to water/broth to cream. 
   • If you're keeping cauliflower and broccoli separate and processing in batches, halve the ingredients between the two batches.
4. Transfer mixture to saucepan and heat over medium-low heat.
   • SEPARATE SOUPS: Use separate saucepans!
5. Add "souping" liquids to saucepan, stirring to incorporate. Again, you can deviate from the numbers used above to get your preferred consistency, but equal parts of each works well.
   • SEPARATE SOUPS: Divide the souping liquids between the two soups!
6. Salt, pepper, stir to taste.
7. Add a squeeze of lemon juice for a little brightness.
   • SEPARATE SOUPS: Add lemon juice only to the broccoli soup.
8. If you find your soup a little too slack, continue to cook over medium-low heat until the soup has reduced down to your preferred consistency. Otherwise...
9. Plate and enjoy!

Instructions for "Marbling"

I pretty much winged it here. But, here's what I did:

1. Pour broccoli soup into bowl.
2. Pour cauliflower soup into the center of the bowl, forming a white circle within the green, like some kind of fancy soup barista.
3. Drag the thin end of a clean chopstick through the cauliflower soup and into the broccoli, forming a design.
4. Using a clean eyedropper (I know, this is getting super fussy) place several drops of olive oil throughout the cauliflower section of the soup.
5. Again, drag the clean chopstick through the soup, this time in the opposite direction.
6. Continue to fiddle until you get a design you like.

Here are two more attempts I made at fiddling with soup...[gallery ids="6974,6975" type="square" columns="2"]

Nutritional Info

This recipe provided about 6 half-cup servings. The following numbers are per serving:

• Calories: 207
• Fat: 21g
• Protein: 2g
• Carbohydrates: 5g
• Fiber: 1g

Be advised that all that marbling fussiness is entirely unnecessary. I just thought it was fun. Also, it was kinda neat to be able to dip a spoon in and taste the soups separately. You can totally make the soup completely integrated from the start. In fact, after taking a few pictures, I combined the soups into a single container to keep in the fridge. Over the next few days, I reheated the soup in a small saucepan and garnished with shaved parmesan cheese, chopped basil leaves, or shredded cheddar. Good times.I really just made this all up as I went along, but am super happy with the results. If you try it yourself, I'd love to hear from you!

Frrrrriiii-ttaaa-ta!

It's just a word I enjoy saying, you guys. And, it's food I enjoy eating.I made this mushroom leek frittata the other day mostly because I was out of bacon and didn't want to eat just eggs. Also, I had these unused, purposeless leeks and mushrooms just taking up space in the fridge. Stupid freeloading, good-for-nothing vegetables and fungi. Get a job!Anywho, if you've never made a frittata before, please be advised that it is easy AF. See for yourself...

Ingredients

• 8 large eggs
• .25 cup, heavy cream
• 2 Tbsp, olive oil
• 1 Tbsp, ghee
• 2 medium leeks – white parts to light green parts, cleaned and roughly chopped
• 1 cup, white mushrooms – cleaned and sliced
• 1 sprig, fresh thyme
• 1 oz. parmesan cheese, grated
• salt and pepper to taste
• 2 sprigs, parsley – chopped

[gallery ids="6639,6638,6640" type="square"]

Instructions

1. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.
2. Sautée your leeks in 1 Tbsp of olive oil combined with .5 Tbsp of ghee, until soft. Season with salt and pepper. Transfer cooked leeks to a bowl and set aside for now.
3. Sautée your mushrooms in the remaining olive oil and ghee. Season with salt, pepper, and some fresh thyme, if you've got it.
4. While your veggies are cooking, combine eggs and cream in a large bowl and beat the living daylights out of the mixture with a whisk. Just get it all out. It's okay.
5. Once your mushrooms are soft (eat one to find out), bring back the leeks! Add the leeks to the pan and stir into mushrooms.
6. Give the eggs and cream one last go with the whisk, then pour the mixture into the pan over your vegetables. If things look a little patchy, just give the pan a couple of quick shakes to even things out.
7. Cook the mixture in the pan until the edges of the eggs begin to set – probably about a minute or so.
8. Sprinkle your grated parmesan cheese over the eggs.
9. Transfer the pan to the pre-heated oven and bake for 8-10 minutes, until the edges turn a golden brown. You can also check your eggs by cutting a small slice in the center of the frittata. If the eggs run, it needs more time.
10. Remove the pan from the oven and let cool for a few minutes.
11. Personally, I like to transfer the frittata to a plate before serving. To do so, I run a thin spatula all the way around the edges, then give the pan a couple of thumps on a chopping block. From there, I just slide it onto a plate.
12. Sprinkle the frittata with chopped parsley, slice, and enjoy!

Nutritional Info

I got about 7 slices from the ingredients above. Let's call each slice a serving.

• Calories: 186
• Fat: 15g
• Protein: 9g
• Carbohydrates: 3g
• Fiber: .5g

Notes

• Be sure to use an oven-safe pan!
• Remember to use an oven mitt, hot pad, or kitchen towel when handling the pan once out of the oven. I forgot twice! Don't be like me!
• I didn't season the eggs. Instead, I made sure to season the mushrooms and leeks very well.

Annnnnddddd... that's it!I will try to make more exciting stuff in the coming weeks. I've been busy elsewhere and haven't had much time to post. Will rectify that soon. ;)Thanks for stopping by! 

Lah-Dee-Dah: Lavender Vanilla Whipped Mascarpone Cream

Sometimes I want to feel like a fancy lady, living a fancy life with fancy accoutrements and a fancy penchant for using words like "accoutrements" and "penchant," which I fancily pronounce "ah-coo-trrrrruh-mahhhh" and "pawwwn-shawwwn," respectively.These are momentary lapses in an otherwise average daily life. But, when I get that itch, I scratch it. It was during just such an itch that I made this surprisingly lah-dee-dah-tasting lavender vanilla whipped mascarpone cream dessert thingie.It is yummy and fancy and easy to make and I wish I had some right now, but I already ate it. It goes great with drinking tea and watching British period pieces. If you'd like to try it, here's how:

Ingredients

• 0.25 cup(s), mascarpone cheese
• 1 Tbsp, heavy whipping cream
• 1 tsp, xylitol (or sugar-free sweetener of your choosing. I used xylitol because I accidentally ordered a huge bag of it because I don't understand math.)
• 1 tsp(s), dried, ground lavender flowers (I used the flowers of from three stems.)
• 1 tsp (4g), sugar-free vanilla extract

Instructions

1. Remove lavender flowers from their stems
2. Grind lavender with a mortar and pestle, coffee grinder (I used this one), or food processor
3. Combine all ingredients in a bowl
4. Beat ingredients with a whisk just until firm peaks form (be careful not to over do it!)
5. Plate and sprinkle with additional whole lavender flowers

Nutritional Info

• Calories: 308
• Fat: 30g
• Protein: 4g
• Fiber: 0g
• Carbohydrates: 5g

Notes

• This recipe makes a single serving because–who am I kidding–I am generally alone. But, you could easily double the measurements to serve two because you are a better person than I am and hang out with other people from time to time. Good job.
• The drier your lavender the more potent it will be. I was pretty generous with it because I'd just bought the lavender fresh over the weekend. Add lavender slowly to your taste.

If you attempt this recipe, please let me know how it turns out! I'm very much still learning to cook and could certainly use any tips, pointers, feedback you'd care to share.

Cold Day, Warm Bones

I really wanted to center this post around my powerful dislike of Henry David Thoreau and how the only contribution he ever made to American society or literature is the suggestion to suck the marrow out of things. But, you know what? Fuck that guy.Instead, let's just talk about bone marrow and how it's yummy and you should totally be eating it.Yesterday was overcast, breezy, and cold–pretty standard for San Francisco in late May. I was hungry and craving something warm and comforting, but, most of all, quick, so I could minimize time spent out of bed. Bone marrow to the rescue.

Ingredients

• 2 reasonably sized marrow bones sliced down the center
• .5 cups of arugula
• 1 tsp of pumpkin seeds
• 1 tsp chopped fresh parsley
• salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

1. Preheat your oven to 450 degrees.
2. Season bones with salt and pepper.
3. Place the bones, bone side down, in a baking dish or a foil-lined baking sheet
4. Cook for 15 minutes, but check in on your bones in those later minutes. You do NOT want the marrow to liquify completely and ooze out of the bones. If you hear a sizzle from run-off juices, it's probably time to remove the bones from heat.
5. Remove the bones from heat.
6. While the bones are cooling (down from "burn your face" to "I can eat this"), lightly toss arugula with pumpkin seeds, creating a little bed of greens upon which to rest your weary bones. (I'm sorry. Have I mentioned the brain injury?)
7. Place bones atop greens and sprinkle with parsley. 
8. Eat immediately while the marrow is still hot.

The tiny arugula salad isn't a necessity, but I like it for catching any marrow drippings. Once I'm through with the bones, a quick stir and the little salad is nicely dressed in goddamn delicious bone marrow.

Nutritional Information

• Calories: 374 –– based off roughly 5 ounces of roasted marrow
• Carbs: 0g
• Fat: 32g
• Protein: 1g –– from the pumpkin seeds!
• Fiber: 0g

A Few Tips

• If you're super hardcore about tracking calories or macros, remember to remove the weight of the bones from your calculations. While not entirely accurate, I just weigh the bones before and after eating.
• Not sure where to get marrow bones? I went to my local grocery store and asked the butcher for them. They're typically NOT on display, but butchers seem fine with heading back to the freezer to grab some.
• If possible, ask your butcher to slice the bones down the middle to make for easy eating. If you're feeling lucky, you could even ask them to trim away any excess bone. Don't pay for what you can't eat.
• Shop around. The first store I tried charged $6/lb for marrow bones, but they were mostly bone and not that great. The second store charged $7.50/lb but the bones were already trimmed and the marrow was plentiful.

If you end up trying this, let me know how it goes! It's my new favorite snack!

You Don't Win Friends With Salad

I've learned many of life's greatest lessons from The Simpsons, and chief among them is this: You don't win friends with salad. It's a timeless truism with a catchy beat you can dance to:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6Kj17oVHAkFor me, these were words to live by for the better part of two decades. But, things change. To paraphrase a different Homer: yet, taught by time, my heart has learned that maybe salads aren't the worst. "Eating keto" has challenged many of my assumptions about food and its effects on my mind and body. So much so, in fact, that I find myself asking: Do I really need friends anyway?Meh.Here's a salad I made this weekend with stuff I found at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market:

Ingredients:

• 1 Oz of crumbled Point Reyes Bay Blue cheese
• 2 tsp of olive oil
• 2 tsp of pumpkin seeds
• .25 cup dandelion greens
• .25 cup bloomsdale spinach
• .50 cup sweet mixed greens
• 1 Tbsp borage blossoms
• 1 Tbsp arugula blossoms
• 1 pinch of sea salt

Instructions:

1. Remove blossoms from borage and arugula stems. Since I was eating everything raw, I saved the borage stems and leaves (covered in very fine bristles) for later use in a tea.
2. Thoroughly wash and dry all greens, including blossoms. Like a weirdo, I washed each ingredient separately using the steel version of this salad spinner.
3. Toss greens with olive oil and a pinch of sea salt in a large bowl.
4. Sprinkle salad with crumbled blue cheese and pumpkin seeds before serving.
5. You can also add a drizzle of balsamic vinegar if you're so inclined, but it's typically too sugary for keto and, personally, I wanted to taste all the individual ingredients. (Also, I couldn't stop at four steps because four is the worst number.)

Nutritional information:

• Calories 266
• Total Fat 23g
  • Saturated Fat 9g
  • Monounsaturated Fat 7g
  • Polyunsaturated Fat 1g
  • Trans Fat 0g
• Total Carbohydrate 7g
  • Dietary Fiber 2 g
  • Sugars 0 g
• Protein 16 g

Super tasty, super fatty, reasonably low carb, but the big draw for me was the opportunity to eat flowers – borage and arugula blossoms. There's gotta be some sort of "if I eat them, I become them" thing where, if I eat pretty things, I become a pretty thing, right? I'm fairly certain this is how science works.But also, I was told by the seller that borage is rich in omega-3s and amino acids. They had a sign and everything:And, who am I to question a sign? (Aside: I may do a little research. Be on the lookout for an upcoming series of food-related posts called "The Fuck Is This?")The most expensive part of this meal was the cheese at $7 for roughly five ounces. I spent $6.50 on the greens, and they should provide at least another three salads and a half-dozen teas.Bonus! No friends means no sharing which means more food for me. Win, win, win.

I Don't Brain Good, But I Can Food

Last year I suffered a pretty significant head injury. The immediate side-effects were severe, but short-lived–a few weeks of drastic mood swings, sensitivity to light/stimuli, dizziness, nausea. But, the long-term side-effects, however mild by comparison, were nagging and constant: consistent, daily headaches and a foul mood. I developed a little habit of multiple-times-daily Advil consumption, sometimes taking 12 capsules or more per day. (Aside: For those who have experienced TBI, don't worry! I only took Tylenol in the few months immediately following the injury, switching to Advil much later because my stomach didn't tolerate Tylenol well.)I will happily admit that, as habits go, downing a bunch of Advil every day is probably not the worst, but, for me, it was unusual.So, it was on one of these "or more" days when I fell down a Google rabbit hole and discovered the ketogenic diet. In fact, it was this old Reddit post in particular that piqued my interest. I looked at research. I read some articles. I felt very badly for a bunch of male rats who were given traumatic brain injuries. And, I decided to give keto a try.That was about four weeks ago. In those four weeks, I have taken Advil exactly twice–once after a particularly bad day of epic crying and dehydration, and the next day after searching for fucks to give but only finding cupcakes.What's more, my energy levels are insane now. Seriously. Weird and probably annoyingly high levels of omg omg omg yay yay yay. I don't feel tired, despite sleeping less. I skip around the house singing songs and suddenly, randomly building furniture. And, I've lost 14 lbs.One thing I've done with all this excess energy and time is start learning to cook. I've been documenting my meals occasionally on my Instagram. Here are some now.

Per the suggestion of the wonderful and lovely Candace Honey Kennedy, I'm going to start posting all this nonsense here with the inclusion of, you know, like, recipes and instructions. This whole keto thing has been terrific for me. Maybe it will help some other folks, too.See you around, clowns!Marie