Whole Lotta Cookin’ Going On

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chicken zoodle soup

Evenings are quite cold now. Time for my carb chicken zoodle soup.

Sorry for the lack of posts recently. The husband and I decided to pack up the pup and take a road trip to Texas to visit my sister. We loved the trip and it’s always great to see family. But once home, I got back into the kitchen. The thought of eating out again made my head spin.

So over the last few days I’ve whipped up some of my favorite and easy dishes: chili, chicken zoodle soup, Scotch eggs, taco omelets, and huge Cobb salads.

I also had a good time trying out a few new recipes. The biggest mistakes I made with my garden this year?  Not enough low carb/keto recipes for all the food I grew.  Planning is well ahead for 2020. I finally figured out what I want to grow. Now it’s time to start concocting some tasty and keto friendly dishes.

taco casserole

Layering the first test of my taco casserole. A few more tweaks and it’s a go!

This week I tried out 3 recipes. Two need work. The third…a disaster never to be spoken of again.

  • Shredded chicken taco casserole (too many eggs, not enough smokey salsa!)
  • Roasted poblano soup (too many carbs!!!!),
  • “What was I thinking” casserole (always make sure the diced zucchini you grab isn’t actually cucumber instead).

After several days of cooking, experimenting and cleaning, the itch to go out for dinner hit me real hard. Thankfully my husband just ignored my hints and I went back into the kitchen to cook some Peruvian chicken with green sauce and green beans.

hungry pup

My constant companion while I cook. Just waiting for morsels to fall or a few scritches.

Dinner was delicious. We saved money. Most importantly, I’m loving being back in the kitchen.

And the timing is good with Thanksgiving just weeks a way. Let the cooking (and recipe testing) commence!

 

Building A Better Burger

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butter burger 2

One of my attempts at creating a Chipotle Butter Burger using 95/5 grass-fed ground beef. This one came out too dry. The applewood smoked gouda cheese on top helped to salvage this dinner.

It’s grilling season, which means it’s time to experiment and create the most awesome, badass burger. Last year we couldn’t get enough of the guacamole burger (guacamole was inside the burger!). This year I’m working with 2 key ingredients – chipotle peppers and butter.

Oh yeah! My own butter burger.

My first couple of attempts didn’t work out as planned. Either there was too much fat in the ground beef (I use 73% or 80%) or too little (93% and 95% don’t have much flavor to me).

Too much fat (I can’t believe this low carber is typing “too much fat!”) triggers lots of flare-ups on the grill. The meat ended up as tough as a hockey puck. Yuck!

Too little and it taste like cardboard.

Maybe when I hit the sweet spot I should call it the Goldilocks Burger. Heh!  Read More