The Wonders of Double Cream and Gibraltar Living

Tristan has already written about the hope and disappointment of US keto-shopping.  Just as we had viewed the upcoming groceries stores of America as a keto-utopia while we were in England, our return to the UK also was being seen as rosier and rosier with every passing week we spent in America.  

We longed to return to double cream and nutritional information standardized to 0.1 g and per 100 g, regardless of the item.  We would know exactly what he was eating and be able to get more fat in him than ever!  

As with most things though, our return home was not the perfect paradise we had imagined.  We arrived back in our home after a total of 7 months away to find that the refrigerator is broken!  Back to living life out of an ice bag!  We were dismayed by our inability to stock up on keto-rific products from the local grocery store and begin the process of finding the very best cheese, sausages, and what not, but headed to the grocery store anyway as a sort of re-con mission and also pick up our life saver, double cream.  

One of Gibraltar's Macaques

Lo and behold, does the only British grocery store in Gibraltar, Morrisons, have double cream?  No.  They are out.  'Perhaps try again in a few days time. '  For anyone not British and in the know, double cream is essentially a Britain-only dairy cream product which contains about 50% fat and only 1.5 g carb per 100 g.  It tastes great, and makes our life so much easier when we're in a fat-pinch.

The sausage section had also been reduced to a gaping hole in the refrigerated aisle, and with Tristan's temperamental tendencies, it is a miracle one of us wasn't reduced to tears or found assaulting a Morrison's employee.  This time, I wouldn't have blamed him.  

One punched laptop later (someone was bound to get hurt, but the laptop took it quite stoically), we now finally have a working fridge, even if it is white and not sleek brushed metal, and we have also visited more grocery stores (Eroski carries some Waitrose products!)  Everything is actually going to be ok.

For the time being, there is no perfect keto-paradise.  Everywhere we have been has its pros and its cons.

America is stocked up on its low-carb wonders (still bugging Tristan to review his new favorite chocolates), and unusual ingredients like guar gum.  I have also come to realize what a true 'melting pot,' as it is so often called, America really is. Being from Texas, for instance, I take for granted the normalcy of having German sausages next to Italian next to Polish. Most of the cheeses in the 'fancy cheese section' as I call it may be imported for a hefty price, but cheese from all different European countries are a part of my normal cheese life.  It never would have occurred to me that it could be any other way.  These are great things, but I dont have to tell you, there are downsides to my side of the pond as well.

We are lucky in Gibraltar that we get the benefits of both British and Spanish products.  So for the next while, expect to see some British and Spanish cooking!

Protein Powder Pancakes

My recipe for Cinnamon Crepes is pretty low in protein, so I wondered what would happen if I added protein powder to the batter.  Adding more protein to the recipe meant I would need more fat as well, so I also added some butter to the batter.  What I got seemed a lot like pancake batter.  It cooks up thicker for a heartier version of the breakfast.

Ingredients:

Pancake Batter:

28 g cream cheese

52 g egg (about one)

12 g protein powder

22 g european butter

0.5 g cinnamon

5 g truvia

10 g european butter

50 g heavy whipping cream (40%)

5 g walden farms pancake syrup

Warm up your cream cheese until softened, or use room temperature cream cheese.  Mix well with the egg.  Add the protein powder, melted butter, cinnamon, and truvia.

Heat a skillet over medium low heat and add remaining 10 g butter to the pan.

Pour batter onto pan into three evenly sized pancakes.  Cook until bottoms are starting to brown and are stable enough to be flipped.

Leave pancakes to cool at room temperature or in fridge.

Whip the cream until stiff.

Spread the whipped cream in between the layers of pancakes leaving a dollop on top.  Spoon over 5 g of pancake syrup.

fat:  62.7 g, protein:  19.8 g, carb:  3 g

ratio:  2.8:1

Variation:  If you don't want to your pancakes with whipped cream or quite so much whipped cream, you could always add that cream to a coffee instead and enjoy them with just a modest amount of pancake syrup.

Sensational Sausage Stir-fry

For anyone who knows me well, it should come as no great surprise to hear of how excited I was on discovering of a truly excellent brand of sausage the other day. Innuendo and pun-tastic double entendres aside, I am, and always have been, a proud exponent of the humble sausage, perhaps even a sausage connoisseur, if you'll permit me this condescension. Whilst my options regarding this greatest of foods have become more limited since I began this diet, I have still managed to find plenty of high fat, zero carb sausages out there, particularly varieties like Bratwurst as produced by our good friends the Germans.


You will recall from a previous blog post that sausage, served with sauerkraut and mustard, was one of my standard 'go-to' meals whilst on my travels, however this meal always needed to be accompanied with a decaf coffee containing a rather hefty serving of heavy whipping cream as I simply could not get enough fat into the meal. 

That was until last week, whilst on one of our many wild goose chases around McAllen (zero carb goat's cheese on this occasion),  when we found ourselves at Ruben's grocery store. Located in what I have been told, is the slightly less desirable part of town, Ruben's stocks a veritable smorgasbord of imported foods from the Caribbean, South and Central America, and of course Mexico. It was here that I found Chappell Hill's Smoked Beef sausage. 

This amazingly tasty zero-carb sausage is actually made in Texas, and is not only high fat, but also relatively low in protein, meaning that I could eat 155g of sausage and still be within my 24g-a-meal protein limit. This also yielded me a massive 50g of fat, meaning that I did not need to 'waste' my carbs on heavy whipping cream and could liven it up with a stir fry of green peppers and spring onions. 

Ingredients:

155g Chappell Hill Smoked Beef sausage

60g green pepper

16g spring (green) onions

12g chopped pickled jalapeños 

13g olive oil

Simply chop up all the ingredients and sautée them in a little olive oil, garnishing with a few chopped picked jalapeños once done.

fat:  63.5 g, protein:  23 g, carb:  2.8 g

ratio:  2.5:1

Naturally not all sausage will boast numbers as good as the legendary Chappell Hill's. The recipe can therefore be amended by either adding a little more oil, which may be difficult to get down, or better still, by adding a creamy coffee to the mix, although note that it will add carbs so you will need to cut down a bit on those 'greens'.

Dining out: Rio Grande Valley style

I have mentioned in previous posts the concept of 'borrowing' protein from one meal so that I can have more flexibility for the next. Generally speaking it's not something which I should be doing often and never with more than 4-6g of protein. There are occasions however, such as when eating out, when this is the only way to go.

Two such dining-out events which would lure me into this breakfast of self-sacrifice are lunchtime trips to two of my favourite restaurants in McAllen: 'Taco Palenque' and 'Kumori'.

Unfortunately, and no doubt very much to the chagrin of the scientist lying beside me, I will be exposing the unscientific nature of my calculations when eating out in these places, and apologise in advance to those of you that thought me completely infallible.

Taco Palenque

Living in the Rio Grande Valley, there are no shortage of taco joints. They are as ubiquitous as you would expect for an area of the US which has an (unofficial) 95% Mexican population. The family are very clear however that none are better than Taco Palenque, and I was lucky to savour the full experience, tortilla and all, in November before I started my wacky diet. A distant memory though that may seem now.

Things are different nowadays obviously, but there are still plenty of elements to Mexican food which  allow me to put together a fairly balanced Tristan-approved meal. I tend to order a sizzling beef fajita  plate or a couple of beef, chicken or 'carnitas' (pork) tacos, which provide me with about 85g of meat and a side plate of guacamole (45g). Though I don't weigh them exactly, I am starting to get an eye for these things and put together a salad from the side bar, made up of lettuce (35g), green cabbage (25g), cilantro (10g) and a few slices of pickled jalapeño peppers (25g). I obviously eat these without the tortillas, beans or rice and drench the salad in olive oil (45g) to bring the meal up to scratch.

fat:  63 g, protein:  25.3 g, carb:  3.1 g

ratio:  2.2:1

Kumori

My visits to Kumori are probably the closest I come to a pure 'cheat meal', in that it is impossible to calculate the precise amounts of the ingredients in the various rice-less 'sushi' rolls on their menu. Yes, 'rice-less' and 'sushi' rolled into one, well rolled into three options actually at this pseudo-sushi restaurant in McAllen which panders to the (un)exotic tastes of Valley diners. 

The 'San Francisco' (pictured at right), 'Golden' and 'Paradise' rolls all contain cream cheese, avocado, spicy crab, salmon, 'fresh' shrimp and white fish in varying amounts, held together by soy paper or cucumber. With only limited amounts of these ingredients in each roll, I feel I cannot be far from the mark when it comes to protein and carb content, and since all three are served slathered with what must be high fat 'spicy mayo', I don't need to go crazy on the coconut oil when I get home. I will say that these rolls are about as far removed from actual sushi as it is humanly possible to produce, however if I close my eyes and dip them into a soy sauce and wasabi mix, I am transported, even if just momentarily, back to my sushi-eating days.

Realizing that there are undoubtedly carbs in home made mayo and the soy paper and also no real way of knowing what exactly Kumori is labelling as 'white fish' or 'spicy crab', I have lately been tempted away from the dark side and have ordered the 'fresh tuna salad', served with cucumber strips and green onion and drenched in sesame oil and ponzu sauce. This seems to banish the raw fish cravings with a more controlled list of ingredients, surely keeping me within the meal's prescribed carb and protein limit. I do, however, still need to supplement the meal with a tablespoon or two of coconut oil when I get home in a bid to hit the required fat levels but consider this just a small price to pay for a delicious raw tuna meal.

Texas Style Pimento Cheese

Apparently pimento cheese is a southern food, but to me, growing up in Texas, it was just food.  The family recipe, passed down from my Great Aunt Erma Lee, includes pickled jalapeños, which gives it a bit of a twist and tiny kick.  In this keto-version, I've left out the pimentos from which the name comes, and left in the pickled jalapeños which are quite low-carb. Tristan tells me that the Spanish word for pepper is 'pimiento' so I'd say it's still pimento cheese, even without the specific pimento/pimiento pepper from the name.

Pimento cheese is typically eaten with crackers or in a sandwich, so crackers, or rather 'flackers', are what I paired it with here.  The avocado just adds another yummy layer.

Ingredients:

25 g savory flackers

30 g avocado

Pimento Cheese:

56 g Boar's Head Canadian Cheddar

30 g Philadelphia cream cheese

30 g Hellman's mayo

7 g pickled jalapeño

3 g green onion

0.3 g garlic powder

Nothing too complicated here, just shred your cheese, chop up your green onion, and combine all your pimento cheese ingredients together in a bowl.

Divide the pimento cheese between your crackers and top with sliced pieces of avocado.  Enjoy!

fat:  66.1 g, protein:  22 g, carb:  3 g

ratio:  2.6:1

Variations:  

I realize that store-bought flackers are probably not available to everyone.  Tristan and I found these Dr. In the Kitchen brand 'flackers' at Wheatsville Co-op in Austin, Texas and decided to give them a try.  If you can get them, I would recommend them.  They score major points for convenience, and they are also quite tasty.  They use whole flaxseeds and are raw, and hopefully I will get a chance to try to recreate them myself.  If you can't get flackers, you can make your own flax crackers as well.  

This recipe for pimento cheese can also use different cheeses.  If you choose a different cheddar, make sure it is 0 carb, and aim for as much fat as possible.  It is also really delicious with smoked gouda.  I will try to post a smoked gouda + homemade crackers variation sometime soonish.

Stir Fry Chicken Salad with Soy Lime Dressing

This is officially Tristan's new favorite meal, so definitely a must-share.  Asian foods are some of the hardest to do on this diet and what Tristan had been missing most, so I was determined to come up with something.  This salad really hits the spot.

Ingredients:

35 g spinach

15 g mung bean sprouts

5 g green onion

20 g salted roasted macadamia nuts

5 g fresh basil

75 g chicken thigh (cooked weight)

stir fry oil for cooking

Dressing:

4 g soy sauce

4 g lime juice

5 g toasted sesame oil

10 g stir fry oil

25 g olive oil

1 g truvia

Arrange spinach, bean sprouts, and chopped green onion on your plate.

Chop the macadamia nuts to desired fineness and sprinkle over your salad.

Cut fresh basil leaves in strips and scatter over salad.

Cut raw chicken thighs into 1 inch strips and fry in stir fry oil until fully cooked with crispy bits.  Stir fry oil is a combination of usually soybean oil, ginger oil, garlic oil, and sesame oil.  This is essentially to give the salad ginger and garlic flavors without adding the extra carbs.

For the dressing, just combine all ingredients and pour over salad.

fat:  62.9 g, protein:  24.2 g, carb:  3 g

ratio:  2.3:1

We ate this salad warm, but Tristan suspects it would be equally, if not more, yummy served chilled, so make a double batch and try it both ways!

Samantha's Favorite Breakfast

We've done a lot of bacon and eggs combos.  Tristan tends to like to grab bits of any ingredient in the kitchen and throw them into breakfast in one skillet, but I am a flavor purist.  I want to savor the taste, individually, of each food.  

Ingredients:

30 g  or 2.5 slices thick cut bacon

50 g white mushrooms

105 g or 2 eggs

10 g heavy whipping cream (40%)

23 g bacon fat

9 g european butter

20 g heavy whipping cream

decaf coffee

Fry up the bacon to your liking and reserve the bacon fat.  If you are not using american bacon, you will not have the copious amount of bacon fat left in the skillet.  To achieve similar results, increase the butter to the necessary amount of fat and fry the bacon in some of this butter.

Cook sliced mushrooms in bacon fat/butter.  Salt to taste.

Scramble eggs with 10 g whipping cream.  Cook in remaining fat that has not been soaked up by the mushrooms.  Make sure you allow the fat to cool a bit so that you do not fry the eggs immediately.

Use remaining 20 g of cream in a creamy decaf coffee.

fat:  63.6 g, protein:  23.9 g, carb:  3.1 g

ratio:  2.4:1

I was never much a fan of scrambled eggs, but whipped with cream and lots of butter and bacon fat, these are delicious!