An Experiment With Pimento Cheese

I love pimento cheese. It's something that I've only recently discovered, but I've come to find that it has to be a good pimento cheese. Not that fake stuff that has weird orange food dye in it. It has to have real cheddar cheese in it.

One thing I love more than pimento cheese is a warm, gooey toasted pimento cheese sandwich. However, a problem I encounter on the keto diet is that I can't have the bread. So, I've found a way to improvise with the support of my fellow Instagramers.

Here's 1/4 cup of a good quality pimento cheese in a non-stick skillet. I cannot emphasize that it has to be a non-stick skillet and it has to be heated on low heat. Too high, too fast will result in burnt cheese which is gross.

TaDa!

The melted cheese will slide right out of the pan and a serving of pork skins are the perfect vessel for these. And the only carbs in this snack are the carbs in the cheese, which was 2 gms for 1/4 cup. This was actually pretty filling, so I ate it as a meal. I'm so glad I tried this!

Hope you guys enjoyed this one!

Stuffed Chicken Breasts

I was sitting at work, wondering what to make for dinner. I knew I had taken chicken breasts out for dinner, so I started to google recipes for stuffed chicken breasts. I read a lot of different recipes and then my own recipe started to formulate in my mind. Little did I know how good this meal was going to turn out.

Since it's just me and Mister at home, I only made enough to feed the two of us.

Here's what you'll need for 2 servings:
2 chicken breasts
1 10oz package of frozen spinach
8oz Cream Cheese
1/2 Cup Shredded Cheddar Cheese
6 strips of bacon

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Start by frying your bacon (or however you like to make it). You'll want it cooled off a little so it's easy to chop up into smaller pieces.

While your bacon is going butterfly your chicken breasts. You'll want to get these thin, like you're going to make a chicken Parmesan with them. I like to place them between two pieces of plastic wrap and then beat the snot out of them with a rolling pin. It's a great way to relieve some stress! Try not to beat them too thin though.

Pop your spinach into the microwave and get it heated up or make it the long way if you want to. I always have the steamables on hand, so I just use those as my go to when I need spinach. Make sure to strain your spinach really, really well. You don't want that extra water in your mix. Press it out with the back side of a spoon or cup.

Put your cream cheese and shredded cheese into a bowl. Add the spinach to it, the heat will slowly start to loosen up the cheesy and make it melty. When your bacon is done, let it drain and cool off. Give it a rough chop and then add it to your mix. It should now look something like this:

Now you're going split the mixture in two and spread the mixture over your chicken breasts. Gradually roll the chicken breast up so it looks like a pin wheel. You'll probably need toothpicks to hold the chicken together. I used 3 toothpicks for each chicken breast.

Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil. This makes for easy clean up.

Your chicken breasts should look something like this:

Now pop them in the oven and then let them hang out for 25-30 minutes. When you take them out, cut into them and make sure they're not pink and cooked and the way through.

And that's the finished product! The finished product was so yummy. The outside of the chicken needed some seasoning, so next time I make these I'll do a coating on the outside. The inside mix was rich, gooey, and so good.

Here's a link to the stats on MyFitnessPal: Stuffed Chicken Breasts and here's an overview below.

Hope you enjoy this one!

Black'N'Bleu Casserole - Keto Style!

I am back with a new variation on a popular dish in the keto world. A lot of places you will see tons of casseroles; and even cheeseburger casseroles. I scoured and just couldn't find a Black and Bleu casserole; so I figured.. Hell lemme see if I can nail this.

The sauce recipe I did find somewhere else; and damnit if it isn't a perfect burger sauce.

Sauce:
1 8oz block of Cream Cheese
1/2 cup Heavy Whipping Cream
1/2 cup Yellow Mustard
1/2 cup Reduced Sugar Ketchup

Warm the cream cheese ( I microwaved for 2 minutes) then add the other 3 ingredients and stir.

Add together and stir

The Result: this amazing sauce that tastes like a burger straight up. 

Set that aside and lets get to cooking. Preheat that oven to Tree fiddy. (350 for those playing at home)

Ingredients:

Bleu Cheese ( I ended up with about 1.7lbs of it. Maybe a little too much, but I love Bleu Cheese)

3lbs Ground Beef ( I buy 73/27)

2 Packs thick Bacon (about 24 slices)

The Sauce

Steak Seasoning

Pickles. I found some <1g carb="" kosher="" p="" pickles="">

Here is 1/2 of the cheese I had. Try to slice and be careful, it crumbles easily.

One of the few good slices. The rest was a crumbled mess!

Get that bacon cooking. 

Of course dry it on up some. Some people like their bacon more crispy, feel free. 

Brown that beautiful beef right on up. I mixed in plenty of steak seasoning during this process. This was also cooked in the left over bacon grease like a boss.

This stuff my man. You'll see the cheese behind it, I ended up not using that cheese in this recipe.

Nice and brown. Drain that bad boy and mix in some more seasoning and get it nice and yummy

Spray non stick stuff on the pan; then throw on the sauce.

Mix it in. This right here smells like a Big Mac. If you don't want bleu cheese you can literally just eat this part and it's probably amazing.

But me, I go on the wild side. Here is the bleu cheese. Again, probably a little too much but I love that shit.

Boom, bacon on top. I covered this entire dish!

Wrapped it in foil, threw it in the over for 45 minutes at 350.

Then pulled it out, uncovered and gave it a 15 minute rest.

This is the result:

This is after the 15 minute rest.

Here's 1/6 of the whole thing; one serving. It didn't hold up well tonight, tomorrow will be better I'm sure.

I enjoyed this; but again I love bleu cheese. I wish the cheese would have melted better so I'm going to have to experiment on that. I think a real creamy melty bleu cheese would have made this even better, it was SUPER rich (if you are not a huge fan of Bleu cheese) if that's the case, i'd half the amount of bleu cheese or maybe try a dressing or something. I'll experiment more with it but I loved this.

Here's the total nutrition:

This is the entire dish

Here is 1/6th of the dish; or a serving. I'm sure you can break it down more but being that I do intermittent fasting this stayed within my macros and kept me under my caloric goal for the day.

Let me know what ya think! 

-Freeze

PS: I forgot to add pickles. UGH. I'll do it tomorrow and see if it enhances it any!