(Keto) Friendly Lasagna With "Noodles" 3 Ways.

Hey guys! 

So I have seen keto friendly lasagna's out there using zucchini noodles, I've seen them using Salami (which I will have to try).

But what I hadn't seen was Pork Rinds being used. I knew in my mind I wanted to figure out a way to do it. Why? I figured the Pork Rinds could absorb some of the moisture that the Zucchini cannot. So I decided to combine them in the layers. Then I thought; There needs to be Bacon.

So this is a Keto Lasagna with layers of Zucchini, Ground Pork Rinds, topped with a layer of Bacon.

Lessons learned while making this recipe:

1) Maybe next time don't grind the pork rinds, just throw a layer in there

2) Pre-cook the bacon... unless you like chewy bacon.

Tools you will need:

If you are going to grind and process anything; I LOVE this food processor:

If not, then for the Zucchini noodles you will need a Mandolin. 

I like this Adjustable, Hand held one by Mainstays

Of course, a good baking pan.. I like these simple to use and multi-versatile pans (keep it cheep!)

At the end of this recipe I broke down the servings in 1/6ths or 1/8ths. I ended up eating 1/8th; but it was good and I almost went to make it 6!

So Ingredients:

Spinach ( a 10 oz packet)

Ricotta (I used a whole tin of it)

Beef ( I used 3lbs)

Cheese of choice (I chose a Provolone/Mozzarella Hybrid with no carbs.. and I used 2 packets 22 slices)

Sauce ( I found this sauce and it has 3 net carbs per serving.) Or you can make your own of course! ( Of this can I used 2 cans)

Pork Rinds (optional)

Zucchini ( I used 3 zucchini in this recipe)

First thing I did was get the Spinach boiling. While that was working...

Get the zucchini sliced up. I used the "3" setting and was super happy with the thickness and clean ness of the slices. I did sprinkle these with NoSalt and some Italian Herbs

Sprayed the bottom of the pan with non stick spray and did a layer of Zucchini!

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After about 3 minutes of boiling, drain the Spinach and then I hand squeezed, but you do whatever you gotta do to get the water out.

Mix in that Ricotta cheese. I used 1.75 cups

Beautiful Ricotta/Spinach filling!

Brown the meat! I did add some more NoSalt and Italian Herbs during the browning process; just for that added Umph.

Browned Beef for those who don't know what it looks like! After browning, make sure to drain the beef (or don't if you want it super soupy and wet I guess lol)

I did use 70/30 beef, because I like the fats!

Added the 2 cans of sauce. Of course, the 2 cans are meant for half the beef; but I don't need a lot of sauce personally. Feel free to add more in your recipe or use less beef for sure!

Beautiful.

Now let's begin Layering. I placed half the beef mixture straight on top of the noodles

What I forgot to take a picture of: Placed a layer of cheese on the beef mixture; then the layer of ground pork rinds, then the other half of the Zucchini.

On top of the zucchini, the entire spinach/ricotta mixture

On top of that, the rest of the beef mix!

Final layer of cheese!

And what's better than a layer of Bacon on top? Nothing. Fucking NOTHING! :)

Ok Set the oven to 375. I baked 25 minutes covered in Aluminum foil and 25 minutes uncovered. Here's the result.

I then let it sit for 15 minutes to rest.

After I cut 1/8th out here's an interior look at this lovely dish.

It fell apart all over the place. Good. It was fucking delicious. Not as beautiful of a piece as I'd have liked. But delicious none the less.

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Here's a good picture of another serving the next night for dinner! Once it settled in it held form really well! So delish :)

Enjoy!

Now for the nutritional information!

Here is the Total recipe 

1/6th of the recipe; which is still a good serving especially if you are like me and Intermittant Fast all day, and have plenty of calories left over.

Lastly what I actually ate: 1/8th of the lasagna (which is still a very solid serving size)

I really had fun trying this out, I didn't mind the chewier bacon. but if you do I implore you to pre-bake the bacon.

I also didn't really dry out the Zucchini. I liked it a little more bendy, it reminded me of my grandma's old lasagna, and the noodles were also really flimsy.

Have fun and let me know if you liked it!

-Freeze

Surviving Keto Flu

I've been out and severely under the weather. I've chalked it up to keto flu and it sucked. I'm going into my 3rd week on the ketogenic diet and mentally I'm at a 7 right now. In the morning, while enjoying my bulletproof coffee, I'm more like an 8. I'm alert and awake. I'm a little more energetic while my body processes those big fat calories. 

Around Wednesday night I started to feel really bad. Super lethargic, nauseous,  and I started to get a really bad headache at work. In talking with Freeze, he told me to not care about my calorie count if it meant keeping my blood sugar up. So, I've been ignoring those pesky calories and eating enough to keep my body going. I guess I crashed out on Wednesday during the day and I wasn't sure if I was coming down with the flu, having problems with the diet, or maybe I was just sick.

That night I had my fiance pick up a rotisserie chicken from the store and I made a quick and easy chicken soup (recipe coming soon!) that was warm on my tummy and soothing. I went to bed feeling a little bit better,

Thursday wasn't any better. I got through the day just snacking. I drank part of my coffee before killing my Powerade all before 10am. I switched over to water before lunch, ate half of my left over soup and then the nausea started again. My fiance wanted to go to our favorite bar for dinner and I felt up for some company and was happy at the thought of my favorite buffalo wings for dinner. I decided to stick to just plain diet coke instead of drinking, keep it simple on my stomach. About half way through our time there I got so nausea that I thought I was going to be sick. I told him I felt as bad as I did and he got food to go, then we left for home.

We stopped by the grocery store on the way home and I picked up a jar of Better Than Bullion beef base and a ton of Powerade to help get my electrolytes back up. I drank a cup of the broth when I got home and that ease the stomach issues a bit. I went to bed still feeling like shit.

Friday I woke up and felt even worse. UGH!!!! I hate being sick. I packed my bullion and a big Powerade, made my normal coffee and went to work. About 2 hours into my day, I didn't finish my coffee, drank about 1/2 the Powerade and dranks a 16 oz. cup of broth, I still felt like crap. I asked my boss if I could leave early, came home and watched My Little Ponies and napped.

I browsed the internet for keto flu symptoms while I was home and thought that maybe that's what I had going on. I even consulted with Freeze and both of us were rather puzzled by my strange condition. So, mister wanted sushi and I know that they place we frequent had hibachi. Maybe a super protein meal is what I needed. We went and I ate until I thought I was going to fall out in the floor. I came home feeling perfectly normal. I was just hungry!! 

So - what I've learned - I really have to be careful and watch my potassium, magnesium, and sodium intake. I'm rather happy I survived keto flu in one piece!

Keto (And Gluten Free) General Tso's Chicken Over Zucchini Noodle Lo Mein

Freeze here back from a night in the kitchen to bring you a new, yummy recipe.

After grabbing my Vegetti the other day, I have been wanting to try any and everything I can with this. In my last blog I did Italian with a Chicken Parm.

Now let's take it to Asia with this new masterpiece.

General Tso's Chicken Over Zucchini Noodle Lo Mein.

Let's start with the homemade sauce. I'm going to pull a first here and list the ingredients (normally in my recipes they can be found in the nutritional break down at the bottom of the page)

That will be provided on this blog as well but the sauce is a laundry list of items.

Just for the sauce:
1/4th Cup of Chicken Broth
3 tbsp Rice Vinegar
2 1/2 tbsp Soy Sauce
2 tbsp Reduced Sugar Ketchup
2 Tbsp Splenda (or Erythritol if you have it)
2tsp Sesame Oil
1tsp Hoisen Sauce
1tsp Red Curry Paste
1tsp Red Chili Flakes
1tsp Garlic Powder
1/2 tsp Minced Ginger
1/4 tsp Cream of Tartar (or Xantham Gum)

Put it all in a bowl like this:

Then mix it all together and set aside while we do other things.

Now while that sits to the side lets take chicken and cut it into cubes. I used 2 pounds of chicken tenders. (Go ahead and pre heat the oven to 325)

Then I made my breading which was grinded up pork rinds with a little bit of crushed red pepper.

Egg bath and dip in the breading.

Then we are going to pan fry it in Olive Oil with a hint of sesame oil too; I added some extra ginger here to bring up some more flavor.

Once all of them are done for a few moments throw them into a pan then pour the sauce on top./

Now we are going to bake this for 1 hour; flipping and mixing every 15 minutes.

So this is after 1 hour mixing every 15 minutes. Nice and carmelized and saucy. I threw in some chives and mixed it all up real good. 

Protip Lesson: I probably used too much chicken, so next time make more sauce. (because I liked this amount of chicken)

Now while the chicken was in the oven I grabbed 5 zucchini and used the good ol Vegetti.

Now what I didn't take a picture of was me pan cooking the zoodles into a lo mein.

Heated some sesame oil and threw the zucchini in. Tossed for about 2 minutes then threw in soy sauce (about 1/2 cup maybe more, i did it by sight) and tossed that in to get a nice browning throughout the noodles. 

Then I took out half the noodles and plated it.

Then half the chicken plated on top.

Added some olives because I like olives with dinner for the sodium.

and This is what I demolished: 

It was soo good.

Here's the nutrition first one one serving (which was half of the entire meal)

So total meal if you eat half like me: 16g net carb ( i leave myself all 20 for dinner)

And for the entire meal:

You probably could easily make this 3 separate meals; but I have been intermittent fasting so this is my main meal then i'll have a little fat snack later.

Let me know if you like it and try it!

-Freeze

Keto Buffalo Chicken Tenders

This is one of my favorite recipes even before I started the keto diet. I'm not a fan of breaded and fried buffalo chicken and I stumbled upon Skinny Taste Buffalo Chicken Strips and modified it to my own liking. This is my own recipe because I don't think the recipe Skinny Taste features makes enough seasoning to coat the chicken. Also, I add veggie oil to help the coating stick to the chicken.


Get yo shit!
2 TBSPs veggie oil - split in half
1/8 tsp black pepper
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp cayenne
2 chicken breasts (obviously there are only 2 people in my house so we only make enough for 2 people).
1/2 Cup Texas Pete (you can use Franks or whatever, I grew up in Winston Salem, NC so Texas Pete is the only buffalo sauce in my opinion.)

Put 1 TBSP veggie oil in your frying pan. Put the other one in a big bowl along with the black pepper, garlic, paprika, and cayenne. Cut your chicken breasts into strips and add them into the bowl. Mix well, coating chicken well. You can let the coating sit if you want, it does't real matter and it all depends on how spicy to you like your chicken.

Heat your frying pan on medium/high heat. Add your chicken to the frying pan and let it cook through. In a separate bowl measure out your buffalo sauce. When chicken is finished cooking, add to buffalo sauce and toss well until all tenders are covered.

I like eating my tenders over a salad, my mister likes to eat them as a meal. To each their own! These so great with a nice blue cheese or ranch dipping sauce and most only have 1-2gms of garbs per 2 TBSPs.

Here's the breakdown for 1 whole chicken breast: 380 cal per serving - Total Fat 20.1g - 512.2mg of Potassium - 12.8 gm Carbs - 0.5g Fiber - Protein 48.2 g

I hope y'all like this one since it's such a fav of mine! Drop a comment if you do!!

Chicken Parm Over Baked Zucchini Noodle Spaghetti

First things first, to make the Zucchini Noodles for this or any other recipe that I may make, make sure to grab a  Veggetti Spiral Vegetable Slicer. I was skeptical when I first saw one of these on the As Seen On TV Isle.. but it worked amazingly!

Here's what 3 Zucchini's look like in noodle form:

Lesson 1 from making this tonight; Could have used a lot more Zucchini. (It was so freaking good) Now that I have this Veggetti, I'm going to really go crazy on making more pasta dishes with it!

What I did was get the bottom of the pan covered in the tomato sauce. Then I pan seared the zucchini noodles in olive oil and italian herbs for just a minute or two (i wanted to keep the firmness of the noodles).

Then I didn't take a picture of the breading, it was pork rinds, shredded Parmesan and some Italian herbs in there. Egg bath then breading.

Lesson 2: The Magic bullet does not like Pork Rinds.

In olive oil; getting them nice and brown before placing them onto the noodles/ sauce. Added a little more italian herbs while cooking for just a few moments like this,

Lined the chicken along the top, then topped them with Mozzarella, Italian herbs and more shredded Parmesan!

Preheat the oven to 425 and put them in for 15 minutes

I coulda let them in there to brown a little more on the cheese, but I was satisified. I butterflied the chicken and they were cooked so I decided my body was ready!

I ended up not getting a lot of noodles, which is ok! Next time: More noodles! I put into MyFitness Pal that I had 1/3 but there's no way I actually had a 3rd of the entire product (sometimes I'd rather be over on the numbers in MFP then actually eating)

So here's the nutrition on the recipe:

The sauce was 5 net carbs per serving, and the lowest I found locally. I could probably bring the carbs down by making my own in the future.

And this is what 1 serving looks like (if you ate a 3rd) I'm sure i ate less then that! But even then; if you ate 1/3 here you go! 17 net carbs

This was absolutely delicious. So good and it really curbed my craving for pastas. If I can figure out how to make a fried rice like this I may just never ever have to eat cheat foods again! (Which I am totally ok with!)

I can't wait to have more of this tomorrow night, it was sooo good!

Make sure to grab a Veggetti, I can't believe I didn't get one before!

Until next time
-Freeze

Fish Taco Salad

Do you have people in your family that don't like fish? Some fish can have a really strong odor and taste and cod is one of those, but these fishes are delightful when cooked just the right way. Lucky for me, I found a man who shares my love for all things seafood, so when a good sale comes around we'll pounce on it. For the month of January The Fresh Market has cod for $6.99/lb on Saturdays. I'll get a couple of fillets and freeze them since cod holds up well in the freezer. The one thing you should remember about cod is to always thaw it under refrigeration.

Ok, so time for the recipe. Get everything together:
1/4 cup veggie oil
1 tbsp lemon juice (fake stuff has no carbs)
2 tbsp taco seasoning (may need more depending on taste)
1 1/2 lbs cod or other white fish

Mix the first 3 ingredients together in a shallow dish. Cut up the cod into large pieces and add it to your liquid mix. Go do something for an hour.

Come back and dump your mix into a non-stick skillet. Fry your fish until it's nice and flaky. Don't over cook it. Remove it from the pan with a slotted spoon.

Prepare a bowl or plate with your favorite salad mix. A lot of people like to use a cabbage base with fish tacos and cabbage has 1.3gms of carbs per leaf, but 0.6gms of that is fiber, so enjoy if you want to! Add your fish to your salad base and top however you want, watching your carbs. I like lots of cheese and sour cream if we have it in the house.

Now if I can just find a carb free margarita recipe that actually tastes good. I will find one!