super cheese vegetable bake

Before keto I loved a good potato or cauliflower bake. The only problem is that the base of how I would make the sauce involved flour and loads of milk.

After quite a few unsuccessful attempts at a replacement sauce and some searching around I have come up with this little dish which I feel does the job quite well.

I like to make this with cauliflower and broccoli but I'm sure this would go well with any number or other meats/vegetables even just as a sauce over the top of your meal.

With the ingredients it is kind of calorie laden so bear that in mind if you calorie count as well. But on the plus side the cream helps to increase the fat content

Ingredients
1C Cream
1/2 C Cream Cheese (room temp preferably)
A good handful of your favorite cheese
Herbs (I use things like parsley or chives)
Salt & Pepper
Garlic (1-3 cloves)
Vegetables of choice

Today I made Cauliflower bake so I started by cutting up the flowerettes and steaming them.

Pour the cream and cream cheese into a large saucepan.

Heat on low until the cream cheese and cream are melted together

Once its all melted add in the cheese and stir.

Add in garlic, herbs, salt and pepper to taste

Keep stirring until everything is nice and melted together.

Once the consistency is smooth the sauce is ready to enjoy

For vegetable bake:

Add the vegetables to the sauce and stir to make sure that all the vegetables are covered in the cheesey goodness

Transfer to a baking dish and cook until its all gooey and bubbly.

Enjoy

My shopping list essentials

Shopping for keto when you're vego isnt as simple as bacon, bacon and bacon.

Living with a fellow Keto-er (meat eating) I find that we both find that most of the things we buy are from the outer isles (this is in aus supermarkets), fresh and cold produce sections. Anywho whenever I go to the shops these are normally on my list of things to buy to get through a keto week!

Cold/Dairy
Eggs
Egg Whites (carton)
Cream Cheese
Sour Cream
Butter
Cream
Creme Fraiche (I use this to make kick arse gordon ramsey style scramble eggs YouTube it)
Cheese - all different types but normally ill buy a combo of:

• fetta - I like a greek salad
• haloumi/saganaki - cooked in the fry pan with some veggies 
• regular cheese - to make some "cheese sticks" because that shiz it expensive so I'll buy a block of tasty etc and cut into 25-30g sticks
• shredded cheese (normally tasty/mozzarella/pizza blend
•   cheeses from the deli section of the supermarket like havaarti, brie etc

Frozen
Raspberries
Blueberries
Quorn Mince
Cauliflower
Brocoli

Shelves
Almond milk (opt for no added sugar otherwise it can be quite carby)
Slim pasta
Nuts - Almonds, Mixed nuts
Almond Meal
Dried herbs
Stevia
Nuts (again careful of the carb content)


Fresh Produce
Mini roma tomato
Mushrooms
Capsicum
Zucchini
Lettuce
Spring onions
Fresh herb


Hopefully these are some sort of help on where to get started and help you get a feel for the kinds of things you might like to have as well!

My Quorn "Meatza"

I'm sure that almost everyone would be aware of what a meatza is. My meat eating keto housemate loves them. He would often tell me about how great it is and how I should just have some.

Normally I am not a fan of fake meat products as I dont like the taste, texture etc. Anywho, I decided to try the Quorn stuff a while ago before I had started keto and found it to be alright. So with that in mind I decided to create my very own faux meatza.

In case anyone is unclear on the topic of meatza its a pizza made from meat. So mince meat base instead of pizza dough etc...

Ingredients
"Pizza Base"
1 packet Quorn mince defrosted
1/4-1/3 C Egg whites (a whole egg is fine too instead) 

Toppings
Tomato sauce (I use homemade but any low carb jar sauce is fine)
75g (1/4 packet) Quorn chicken pieces
100g cheese (I used a mixture of tasty and mozzarella)
2 Mushrooms
4 Olives
30g Capsicum
a couple of thinly slices pieces of onion
bocconcini cherries sliced.

Pre-heat oven to around 180C

Combine the mince and egg whites/egg in a bowl and mix until combined.

 

Pour into a baking dish and flatten so that it is evenly spread in the dish.

 

Spread tomato sauce over the base and sprinkle about half of the cheese on top.

 

Add any toppings of choice. I have used a square dish which will make four portions so when adding the ingredients I try to add them evenly to each quarter so that I know when I track it in my daily allowance its as close to accurate as possible.

Once toppings are added sprinkle over the rest of the cheese.

Place in the oven  for around 20 minutes or until the cheese is melted and the ingredients are cooked through.

With the leftovers I put them in portion sized air tight containers and keep them in the fridge for up to a couple of days.

For a spicier option I normally add in a little bit of hot salsa to the base and some jalapenos to the topping.

Eggplant Pizza

I have seen a few of photos of these floating around and I decided that I would have a go at making these myself.

Instead of cutting the pieces of eggplant into rounds I decided to cut it lengthways instead, this is because I wanted to be able to cut the eggplant into pieces that are close to the same weight for (close to) equal portion sizes.

I made enough for 2 pizzas

Ingredients:

3 Tbs Tomato sauce (I made my own but any low carb jar pasta sauce would be fine)
2x 70g slices of eggplant
50g mozzarella cheese
Pizza toppings of your choice
Salt

Pre-heat the oven to a low heat 150C

Take the slices of eggplant and sprinkle both sides with salt. Leave for 10-15 minutes. This will draw out moisture from the eggplants. Once this is done wipe the pieces with some paper towel to remove the salt and water.

Put the eggplant pieces on a tray and into the oven for around 15 minutes. Check on it as it cooks because you dont want the eggplant to get mushy and overcooked.

Once the eggplant is out of the oven spoon some tomato sauce onto the eggplant and top with mozzarella. Now add any other toppings of your choice. I have added mushrooms, olives and baby bocconcini cherries.

Next just pop under the grill until the cheese is melted and the toppings are cooked.

Obviously there are all sorts of toppings that you could add according to your own preference and what you have available in the fridge but these make a fairly quick and easy snack/meal.

an intro

I started keto a couple of weeks ago and as a vegetarian I have found that it can be a little bit tricky sometimes to think of different things to make for meals while sticking to my targets. While looking for recipes online I have found that (unsurprisingly) most low carb recipes are meat based...

I enjoy cooking but sometimes I let myself fall into a little bit of a routine eating the same things and eventually I just get a little bit bored of the foods that I'm eating, which in the past and over numerous diets has led to a little bit of cheating here and there and eventually just giving up altogether. This is why I am creating this blog. I want to keep a record of the things that I cook and also try and find some new and interesting things to make.

A little bit about me....

I am 25 and I have always been overweight, ever since I was a little kid. I have also been on diets since I was 7 years old. I have done so many different diets over the last 18 years and while I have had some success after a while I found that they werent working for me. I have taken Duromine and Reductil (apparently reductil has been stopped in Australia in the last few years because its not safe) and while I had initial success, a magic pill doesnt fix things in the long run. I was at the point when I was considering saving and getting a lap band whereas previously the thought of this was a complete last resort.

Then recently my housemate started doing keto, and all I saw was a diet of bacon, bacon and bacon so thought this really isn't something that I can do because if I cant eat those precious carbs like bread, pasta and potatoes then WHAT else is there? On top of that the concept of eating fat after a lifetime of low fat, low calorie thinking just seemed insane. I ended up going online and having a look at Paleo and eventually found myself back at keto and then onto reddit.com/r/vegetarianketo/. And then I began my keto journey.

So yeah thats pretty much how I ended up where I am now.