Keto thread

I make my own mayo'. Today since I had bacon fat I added a bit over 1/4 cup to the oil mix. It's too soon for a final appraisal, but it definitely tasted better than just the neutral oils that I use. It didn't taste like bacon, just better. I'll know more tomorrow after the live cultures do their work in the mayo and it's had time to firm up in the refrigerator.

edit: It has firmed up and has the consistency of firm but not hard butter. It's quite spreadable and as it comes to room temp' it softens a bit more. My previous mayo never got like that. I expected it to do that I just didn't know how firm it would get.

Anyone in ketosis knows that carbs can be worked in as long as it's not an open flood gate. Where am I going with this? Our blueberries are ripe, the bushes are loaded, and it's one berry that I really enjoy. Since I was a child I've enjoyed them with sour cream and a sweetener. In years past sugar or better yet, honey. Just mix it all up and the SC and sweetener makes a sort of sauce... delicious.

A cup of b'berries has 21 g of carbs so staying under that and using erythrytol as the sweetener I had my lifelong b'berry dish that I love. What a treat! Better than ice cream IMO. Again I just need to figure it in and give up other carbs to allow for it.

I need to pick a mess for the freezer and for pancakes in the winter.

I was within 10# of my goal weight of 165# months ago, but wanted to make sure I could maintain or reverse my loss so I'm hovering 10# above my goal weight. I'm confident that I can get there when I wish but I'm feeling good at 175ish for now.

Today I had a mess of cooking to do. Not cooking to a finished state, but cooking that leads to meals eventually. I'll explain. The wife and I eat entirely different diets since she eats carbs and my carbs are extremely restricted. But I can cook ingredients that we can use for different finished meals.

I had 2 pork tenderloins to roast and while they were roasting I finished off a beef shoulder roast that I had sous vide years ago but kept in the vacuum bag and froze. I wiped it down and saved the bag broth for the dog. Then sprinkled with baking soda and dextrose, then torched it to brown it and produce the Maillard reaction to give it a meatier flavor. Sliced thin it was tender, med' rare, and delicious. Just right for sandwiches or anything keto I want to put it to, or anything the wife wants to use it for her more normal diet. I remembered when I tasted a piece that I experimented to get the slight garlic taste of the roast beef at the deli counter. It was successful. I'd make it again in a heartbeat.

When the tenderloins were done I gave them a 15 minute rest then sliced them thin. Cooked in our toaster/broiler/air fryer @ 350°F for 40 minutes they were possibly the best I've made to date. Those cooking instructions are not what is found on the vacuum packed tenderloin. My method is much better but it's also for our high BTU air fryer/toaster broiler/oven and might not work elsewhere. But 350° is pretty universal for roasting. I think the instructions on the vacuum packed tenderloins are insanity (450°F for 30 minutes) unless you want dry shoe leather.

More on sous vide for years later... I've been doing that for years. I've been known to cook 30 steaks and just cool them down in the sealed vacuum bags, then freeze for later consumption. Just remove from the freezer what is needed, (remember, steaks) warm at the med' rare cooking temp for an hour then torch them and we're eating perfectly med' rare "grilled" steaks even if a blizzard is raging outdoors. With the shoulder roast I didn't need to warm it, just thaw it in the refrigerator before torching, then slice.

Lately I've also been making "loose meat". I haven't found a keto bread that I like yet but Mission makes a low carb whole wheat burrito size tortilla that tastes decent. I won't cook only for me and the wife can use the loose meat for what she makes. So what is loose meat? It's simple chopped beef (aka hamburger) that I pan fry until the water has been driven off and the meat begins to start to actually brown. Then I elevate one end of the pan to allow the beef to drain, then it goes into containers and into the refrigerator. Where did I get the idea? There is a town in the midwest that has a eatery that makes loose meat sandwiches. There may be others but this is the one I saw on TV years ago.

https://www.maidrite.com/

Think various burgers... In my version I have been known to put some crisp bacon in it, and the loose meat always gets browned to finish it in all my versions. Add what you want, think a burger, but in a tube. Another of my versions uses the browned beef and blue cheese. Another is a cheeseburger. I've been known to goose the beef flavor with low or no sodium dry beef soup mix sprinkled on the beef in the burrito. The other night I made a "steak bomb" burrito with browned onions and mushrooms added to the browned meat. This can be taken anywhere and that's why it's done frequently in our home. I know the wifes tube burgers feature pickled jalapenas and I have no idea what else grabs her fancy, but she uses normal high carb burrito tortillas.

I also found some extremely good treats. One is
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0B1NK...UTF8&psc=1
If you like lemon you will love those. I like lemon and I never thought I would ever eat anything like this again while in ketosis. The chocolate hazelnut is also very good. Those are the only flavors that I've tried.

For cookies, these are just fantastic for chocolate lovers. Yes, I also love chocolate. I can also eat bar chocolate in moderation. It's all about deciding what the days carbs will be. But here are the cookies:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B096KYWD8K?psc...ct_details
They have other flavors that I have yet to try.

edit: More on the wafer treats... I tried the strawberry yogurt and dark chocolate. Absolutely delicious!

Something I've been meaning to try and did last night... You know how oil and vinegar salad dressing separates in a heart beat and doesn't really stay on the salad? Lots of folks who cook keto have xanthan gum. I added a very tiny amount* to oil and vinegar in a shaker bottle and shook. It thickened the mixture up nicely and emulsified it so that there was no separation for at least and hour. Oh, and it's flavorless. another result was that the simple dressing stayed where it belonged, on the salad.

*anyone who has used xanthan gum knows of it's thickening power. If you try this and don't know about it, use an exceedingly small amount to start, you can always add more. 1/4 tsp per cup of liquid is WAAAYYYY too much!

I use lots of the low carb burrito size tortillas. Tonight was yet another use for one.

When I was in Ft. Benning for training we had food trucks that would roll through the barracks area selling us various foods. One such was a pizza burger that was actually quite tasty. I had "loose meat" precooked, all I needed to do was heat and brown it a bit. It went on top of some shredded provolone and pizza sauce finished it. Of course I added other flavorings to goose the beef taste and to season it. It scratched 2 itches. Pizza was what I was going to make myself tonight, that was one itch. The other was the beef itch. There actually was a third itch as well, it was faster and easier than making a pizza even if it wasn't 100% pizza-like it was close enough and I really didn't want to make a production of cooking. I've done this twice so far and it's a keeper.

I use lots of the low carb burrito size tortillas. Tonight was yet another use for one.

When I was in Ft. Benning for training we had food trucks that would roll through the barracks area selling us various foods. One such was a pizza burger that was actually quite tasty. I had "loose meat" precooked, all I needed to do was heat and brown it a bit. It went on top of some shredded provolone and pizza sauce finished it. Of course I added other flavorings to goose the beef taste and to season it. It scratched 2 itches. Pizza was what I was going to make myself tonight, that was one itch. The other was the beef itch. There actually was a third itch as well, it was faster and easier than making a pizza even if it wasn't 100% pizza-like it was close enough and I really didn't want to make a production of cooking. I've done this twice so far and it's a keeper.

What brand & how carbs per tortilla? Thx in advance. Haven't found anything better than cardboard flavor under 15 grams

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Mission Carb Balance whole wheat. But be careful Mission also has a much higher carb tortilla that they call carb balance. Read the package, a roughly 10" burrito size tortilla has 5 net grams of carbs. If you try a package please let me know how you like them even if you hate them. Amazon has them but I get them for a better price from my super market. I had to request that they stock them and found them a few days later in a special carboard display.

:-) Maybe they taste good to me because I've been trying to eat egg tasting bread for years. I don't know anyone else drinking it, but I had my first beer a few months ago after years with no beer and the low carb beer tasted pretty good to me. I'd like other opinions on Mich' Ultra and Corona Premium.

Ultra is fine! esp given the calories, and I am a lager/stout fan.

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I spied at the supermarket last week Ultra in twistoff/twist back on tops. 16oz alum' bottles and 8ozs is enough for me. So I'm hoping it'll keep overnight for the next days supper and not go too flat.

The 1/2 a bottle of beer kept OK for 24 hours. It was NOT like just opened, but it was OK.

I forgot to post... a few weeks ago our freezer pooped itself, but we caught it in time and got a new one in place with very little damage to the contents. But there was a silver lining to the potential catastrophe, we discovered 3 primal beef briskets that we'd forgotten about. I turned on into corned beef and just now I'm running out of it. Two more and at least one will be turned into pastrami after corning. We also discovered at least 3 boneless butts, maybe they'll be turned into Taylor Ham? We have time to think about it since they're vac' packed, as are the briskets.