Winner winner chicken meatball dinners!

Meatballs are always good! In my pre-keto life, spaghetti and meatballs were a staple. And Swedish meatballs figure heavily in our Christmas Eve meal. It's easy to keto-fy a favorite meatball recipe. Generally speaking, everything stays the same but for a breadcrumb substitution. I've seen almond flour or crushed pork rinds as the common substitutions. I've never pulled the trigger on the pork rind front, so I will use a bit of almond flour in my meatballs.

Two winners that have recently joined our meal rotation are buffalo chicken meatballs and orange chicken meatballs. In both cases, I started with a recipe and then modified it to make it work for us. The original buffalo meatballs involved baking the meatballs for a while, dipping them in buffalo sauce, baking and dipping again (3 times total!) Too tedious for me. Yet, these are pretty darn delicious. So, I parbake the meatballs on a baking sheet. Drain them a little bit, then pile them into a casserole dish. Pour the buffalo sauce over and finish baking. Yum! Last time I served these with the Healthy Noodle mac 'n' cheese I've mentioned before. This turned out to be a very "butter-forward" meal, so I think next time something a little simpler like cauli-rice or spinach might be a better side.

The orange chicken meatballs were inspired by a failure. My daughter had found a keto orange chicken recipe which we tried. It involved coating chicken chunks in coconut flour, HWC and egg and then frying.  It was messy and honestly, not very good. The sauce however was amazing! So, I decided to make chicken meatballs using a basic meatball approach and adding a bit of Asian-inspired seasoning (garlic and ginger, mainly). Once baked, coat with the orange sauce and serve with cauli-rice.

Great, yummy and easy options!

Keto Haul from Costco!

Wow! I think some buyer at Costco is a keto convert! In addition to a lot of our favorites and staples, we found some new keto-friendly stuff at our Costco visit over the weekend.

Starting upper left and moving around left to right, top to bottom:

Keto granola - this is a new item and I LOVE it! Very yummy and satisfying. I had it with a bit of cream and blackberries. Another time I used the wee-est little dab of full-fat Greek yogurt and blackberries. Highly recommended.

Moon cheese - we've bought these before. Hubby likes them but I do not. I find them kind of cloying. YMMV

Parm Crisps - similar to "Whisps" if you've ever seen those. These are seasoned with everything but the bagel seasoning. I like them better than Whisps but not crazy about them.

Natural PB - a standard purchase. This is fine. I don't eat a lot of PB; I use it in some recipes, though.

Brazil nuts - new item. Also, highly recommended. They are HUGE and unsalted and taste very fresh. 

Kerrygold and Tillamook cheddar cheeses - we couldn't decide, so we bought both. Both are extraordinarily good options. 

Adams Reserve sharp cheddar slices - another staple we buy every time. Nice for sandwiches or just snacking.

Hearts of Palm "spaghetti" - have not tried this yet. We have "spaghetti" with red sauce and white sauce options on the menu plan this week. So, we'll give it a try. People seem to either love it or hate it.

Lakanto brownie mix - yep, nothing wrong with these. I made a batch on Sunday. I added a few Lily's chips to use them up. I'd like to try a batch using an extra egg, as recommended on the label, to make them more cake-y and then use one of Carolyn Ketchum's buttercream frostings.

Corned Beef Brisket - new purchase. Rueben skillet on the menu this week, so this will be a key ingredient. I'm sure it will be just fine!

Whew! It all fit on the table but not in one photo!

Jack Links beet and cheddar snack packs - pretty good. We've bought these before. Hubby likes them more than I do but they are nice to have around.

Natural Ovens Bread and Buns - this quickly because a must-purchase with every trip to Costco. We have several loaves in the freezer at all times. It is often my lunch, toasted and spread with Kerrygold butter. We used the buns last night for keto sloppy joes. Very satisfying. Just a note, these would definitely be considered "dirty" keto by purists. I do find that I need to be careful with these items but they are really nice to have once in a while. Hubby finds them very helpful.

Bake Believe chocolate chips - a huge bag, much better priced than Lily's and I like them better, too!

Raspberries/blackberries - the best fruit for keto. The blackberries are all mine as I'm the only one who likes them. My daughter loves the raspberries but I'll usually snitch a couple.

French Brie - haven't tried this particular brand. Keeping it on hand for another baked brie for our Super Bowl (tm) party.

Cinnamon Pecan Keto Bites - well, these are super yummy, too. I think they were marked with the dreaded * on the sign, so you might not be able to find them. Four little bites are just enough and very enjoyable with coffee or tea.

WOW! What a haul, right? 

What I Ate This Week

 Monday - a favorite Toni's Zucchini Quiche

Served with some nice quality Angus hot dogs. One of my favorite Christmas gifts was a great mandoline slicer, which is AWESOME. I got this one and it's so well designed and easy to use (thank you, Joe!). Made slicing the zucchinis effortless and I did not cut myself which is my usual tactic. 

Tuesday - new recipe, Buffalo Chicken Chowder

Served with keto cheddar bay biscuits (which the whole family loves and we gobble up the whole batch when I make them). They are REALLY buttery. There were no leftovers from this meal and everyone agreed the chowder should be in regular rotation.

Wednesday - taco night

As usual, I make a taco salad with generous portions of sour cream and cheese.

Thursday - Instant Pot meatloaf

Served with fried cabbage and onions. The meatloaf was a new recipe, too, from Carolyn Ketchum's Easy Keto Dinners cookbook. It was not entirely successful; it was just okay. For one thing, hubby made this and he used 3 lbs of ground meat instead of the 2 lbs called for in the recipe. Also, it was all hamburger, while the recipe called for 1 lb pork and 1 lb beef. So, it took quite a bit longer in the IP. I found it a little dense but that didn't stop me from have two slices! Topped with SF BBQ and/or ketchup and it was just fine.

The fried cabbage and onions were particularly good. They ended up cooking a good long time because of the meatloaf-induced delay. I found that TJ's now carries the soffritto by itself, so had picked up two jars last time I was there. One of my favorite side dishes! 

Friday - pizza night as per usual

I will get my pizza bowl whether we go to Marco's or Papa Murphy. (Marco's is much cheaper, and honestly, much better).

Holiday Recap

 Well, I let my relaxing (you could call it sloth) get in the way of updating my blog. The time off work was nice; found myself sleeping in, reading a lot, watching far too many movies and television shows. Crocheted a lot which always makes me weirdly happy.

So our heavy appy Christmas dinner was super yummy and we had leftovers for a few days. The non-keto folks had some standard stuff like chips, mac 'n cheese bites (Trader Joe's), mozzarella sticks, mini quiches. But we doesn't cares about that, does we, Precious? (Like I said in previous post, Lord of the Rings figured heavily in our holiday plans.)

I made a double batch of crackers using Gnom-Gnom's recipe here. I bake them, not microwave them. One batch I seasoned with TJ's Everything but the Bagel seasoning mix and the other batch I just sprinkled some pink salt.

I also made keto tortilla chips. (I am not a good roller-outer....my dough does not have even thickness and rather than a circle or rectangle, it ends up looking like a continent.....)

So, I used these as well as celery and red pepper strips for dipping into sour cream dips (purchased....we like Hiland Dairy's Sassy Salsa and TJ's Caramelized Onion dips in particular). I also had nice spreads and cheeses to put on my crackers. TJ's has a nice sharp cheddar with caramelized onions (again with the caramelized onions!). Add to that some Boursin soft cheese and a nice baked brie. 

I topped a wheel of brie that we got at Sam's Club with chopped pecans and my leftover keto cranberry sauce. This is the first time I have baked a brie without wrapping it in a dough, so I was not sure how successful it would be. But it was actually great!

We also like those "Li'l Smokies" which we simply warmed in some G. Hughes sugar-free BBQ sauce. I think I've mentioned that stuff before. Like the Heinz sugar-free ketchup, I try to limit it because they both use artificial sweeteners but they are a nice addition on occasion. 

So all that and a few Christmas cookies, I was one happy camper!

Have Yourself a Keto Little Christmas (Eve)!

 Okay, so how to keto for the holiday. If you saw my post about Christmas baking, you know that I planned to make both keto and non-keto treats. We started in on them last night as we started our family celebrating with Jimmy John's for dinner (my favorite is the Spicy East Coast Italian as an "Unwich") and cookies for dessert. We watched the first Lord of the Rings movie, The Fellowship of the Ring. It has been an annual (annual-ish) tradition for many years to watch the trilogy around Christmas and New Years. 

So, I did try a non-keto cookie or two and found I was pretty "meh" on them. I suspect my tastes have changed because my family didn't seem to register any difference. I was able to enjoy the keto things I made in moderation. 

What else do we eat for Christmas and do I ketofy it? Our traditional Christmas Eve meal is a blend of my husband's family tradition and mine. His Norwegian mother always wanted lutefisk but his German father forbade it (so the story goes anyway....I mean, who honestly likes lutefisk? I never knew my father-in-law but I have a feeling I would have liked him.) So, the compromise there was to have a plain white fish with the usual accompaniments (boiled potatoes, white gravy and/or butter, lingonberries and flatbrot).

My family always had Swedish meatballs and mashed potatoes. In recent years, I started adding my mom's version of "creamed" spinach (contains no cream but a very buttery roux). I like cranberries or lingonberries, too, with my meatballs.

So, hubby takes care of the fish and boiled potatoes. I make the meatballs and they are never the same year to year. I like to use a mixture of both ground beef and ground pork. I will often add very finely diced onions which have been sauteed in butter. The main sub is that I use a bit of almond flour instead of bread crumbs. I make sure to include the classic Scandinavian spices like nutmeg, allspice, cardamom in the mixture as well as the gravy. A good splash of cream goes in the mixture and the gravy, too. Yum! I can hardly wait.

I will sub the mashed potatoes for a mashed cauliflower which involves a good deal of sour cream and cheese. Also yum! And I make a keto creamed spinach with cream cheese, sour cream and Parmesan. I think this year I'll add sauteed onions as that was a key component in my mother's version.

Instead of a Christmas dinner, we'll make a meal out of heavy appetizers while we watch The Two Towers. I'll include some details about that in a next post. Happy Christmas Eve!

Dinner Tonight - a non-Keto Treat!

Some dear friends of ours sent a lovely box of Omaha Steaks meals for Christmas. They enclosed the sweetest note about remembering so many shared meals and looking forward to a time when we can share meals together again. Soon!

So, we decided to make the Orange Chicken tonight. This will be a pretty carb-y choice for me, but I'll have a bite for sure! I will round out the meal by sauteing the rest of the fresh spinach we used for a dinner recipe last week. I'll just saute in a bit of butter and maybe garlic. If I'm feel hungry and/or ambitious, I might make this into creamed spinach by adding cream cheese, sour cream and a bit of Parmesan cheese. Yum!

Luckily it's a huge box of spinach, so after cooking it, I should have at least a couple spoonfuls for my meal!

Dinner Tonight - Keepin' it Simple

Dinner tonight will be a Costco rotisserie chicken and fried cabbage. I don't have a particular recipe for the fried cabbage. We have about 1/2 a head of cabbage left from last week's egg roll in a bowl. So, slice or chop that up and chop up an onion.

I like to combine both avocado oil and a bit of butter for sauteing the veg. If I'm feelin' fancy, I'll add some cooked bacon bits. My favorite seasoning for this is Trader Joe's Soffritto blend. I am remembering that I used the last of it last time I made this dish. So I will need to improvise. 

We had received this seasoning in a gift pack last Christmas. When I was last at TJ's I looked for this mix but I did not see the gift pack nor in a separate jar (as shown in the link above). So, we'll use something else flavorful and aromatic. This is the kind of easy dish that's hard to do wrong.