Category / Food

by Lexine

Going Green

Some sugar-free sweets I made in honor of the last 420 Easter I’ll see in my life, unless if I live to 120.

I made these Easter-themed chocolates with just a few ingredients: Lily’s chocolate chips, coconut oil, and green food coloring. (And I used my own Easter-themed silicone mold that I got at Home Goods to get into that Easter spirit!) Save for the food coloring, this is also the base for making keto nut clusters (one of my favorite desserts), and you can add some nuts to your sweets, if you like. You can also add your own sweeteners or extracts to the melted mix. (With today also being 420, if you want to make your own edibles, simply add as much THC or CBD tincture you want to the mix. I am not responsible for getting you stoned, in this case.)

As it has been in my experience with sweets with coconut oil, it’s best to consume them while chilled. They do get melty.

by Lexine

40 Of My Favorite Things: #7

Low Carb Food!!

Three of my favorite low-carb foods (that I’ve also made): fried chicken, cinnamon rolls, and turtle pecan clusters.

Probably one of the best decisions I’ve made in my life was going low-carb almost three years ago. Excess weight was lost, old clothes started to shrink, and starches and sugar became easy to pass up. The latter would’ve been unthinkable for me five years ago, but maybe that could be proof that there is such thing as a sugar addiction. I still have my sweets; it’s all made with faux sweeteners now (allulose, erythritol, monk fruit, etc.). And I’ve gone so long without having a potato or rice that I kind of forgotten how they taste like. Sugar? I hardly know her.

(A note: this diet/lifestyle happened to work for me, and I’ve tried all sorts of diets in the past. I’m no nutritionist, so if you want to do low-carb to lose some weight, give it a try, but YMMV. And if you’re addicted to sugar/starches like I was, it will be very tough in the beginning, but worth it in the end!)

by Lexine

Semi-Lazy, Super-Sweet Tuesday

It’s semi-lazy because while I didn’t have to go anywhere today, I did do a little laundry and cleaning, and writing (of course). It’s super-sweet because, well, look what I made today! And it’s all sugar-free and fatty, baby! From left to right: graham crackers, chocolate chip cookies (I saved a bit of the dough so I can try to make this later on) and caramel S’mores (using Choc Zero’s marshmallows, Lily’s dark chocolate chips, and homemade caramel sauce). No diabetes here, dahling! 🍫🍪😋

by Lexine

Little Treats To Myself

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Thank goddess for Lily’s and Choc Zero for now I can have my own chocolate-covered strawberries! Made them to treat myself, and for a good reason. This time of the year, as well as Father’s Day, is usually a tough time for me. It’s another long story for another day, but the TL:DR version of it is that it’s fine to not celebrate those days, and that I’m glad to be in a better place now. 💜

by Lexine

Deep Fried Saturday

It’s another blah rainy day in the Bay yet again, so I shall turn to some deep fried comfort food! Keto Fried Chicken is back on the menu again, and for the side dish is Keto French Fries. The latter is super simple to make. No exotic veggies necessary–just flour, water, and xantham gum. I like making the coconut flour version since I don’t have to use as much product (unlike the almond flour version, and almond flour can be costly). And what I like doing with the fries is toasting it for no more than 10 minutes first, then deep frying it after for extra crispy goodness. I got me fast food at home and didn’t need Doordash for it all. 😊

by Lexine

Sunday Sweets

I took the day off from work today and, besides getting to sleep in (take that, spring forward Daylight Savings Time!), I just made these: Keto Turtle Brownies! Whenever I crave brownies, I prefer to have something else with them. I can eat them plain, but I like jazzing them up. No better add-ons to a brownie than caramel sauce, pecans, and melted chocolate drizzle! And it’s all sugar-free/low-carb so you don’t have to worry about the diabeetus.

Recipe: https://www.bonappeteach.com/easy-keto-turtle-brownies/

by Lexine

Baking Fiend

If you’ve been following me on my socials, you’ll notice the occasional post on what I’ve baked up lately. I’ve been making my own sweets for quite a while now, but since going low-carb a couple years ago, it was a bit tough trying to satisfy my sweet tooth. Sure, I could dunk bacon in almond butter, but it’s not the same as a cookie or pie. And my prepackaged options are not that vast. (Plus, the carb count on some of the so-called “low-carb” prepackaged stuff out there is deceitful!) Two years into living the low-carb lifestyle (which, by the way, I won’t be quitting anytime soon), and I’ve since mastered almost all sugar-free dessert recipes out there.

Some of my favorite homemade sweets:

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*Sugar-free/Keto Pecan Turtles* – Out of all the turtle recipes I’ve seen, this one was the easiest to make, and the caramel recipe from this is divine! Gooey and chewy!

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*Keto Oreos* – I’ve baked plenty of things from Sugar Free Londoner’s site, and her version of Oreos is my go-to. You’ll notice a couple of them covered in chocolate, which is not in the original recipe. To do that, all you do is melt one cup of sugar-free chocolate chips to a tablespoon of coconut oil. When it’s fully melted, take a regular Oreo (must be already baked and cooled down) and slather that baby in chocolate. Because it’s the holidays, I opted for a sugar-free peppermint candy garnish (you can get the candy at Dollar Tree).

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*Keto Cinnamon Rolls* – Who needs Cinnabon? These are everything. If you’re wondering where to get Carbquik, it can be found at Walmart Neighborhood Market.

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*Keto Fried Chicken* – I thought I couldn’t have fried savory foods until I saw a slew of low-carb alternatives. The recipe linked calls for chicken thighs, but it also works well for boneless and skinless chicken breasts (which I cooked up in the pic). Now I can make my own copycat Popeye’s chicken sandwich, with a lot less carbs!

While I’ve managed to make all my homemade goods taste good in the end, some don’t end up worthy of the IG Food Pageant. (In fairness, I don’t make food for show, but for my stomach.) Take all the times I used my Dash Mini Pie Maker…

Sad-looking but tasty pies.

I’ve made some apple and pecan pies from it so far, but taking them out of the maker is an effing CHORE. It’s already a chore to assemble the pie into the maker (bottom pie crust, filling, then top pie crust), but I’ve had to be careful when taking out the finished pie. For one, I’m dealing with a hot AF device, and I have to make sure the entire pie stays intact. It’s yet to happen. Despite my frustrations from taking out the pies, because I’m a sucker for making mini pies, I’ll keep on using the Dash for now (until I find some good mini pie pans).

Don’t be surprised that, as I write this, I got something baking right now. Creative writing requires good food for the brain, you know. What am I making right now? Hint: it doesn’t involve an oven, and it’s pretty minty.

by Lexine

Happy Ketoversary!

old & new jeans

And now for a happy story, as I feel like we need more of them after what’s happened this past week.

There’s a big story behind the two pairs of jeans in the header pic. Emphasis on “big.”

It was the day after Christmas, 2021. I looked at naked myself in the mirror right before my morning shower and made the same face whenever I get an unexpected bill. I had some nice Christmas presents that year, but an in-shape figure was not one of them. Simply put, my ass was out of shape. Before that realization, I grudgingly accepted my out-of-shape ass, and if I ever felt the least bit self-conscious over it, I’d eat a little less and exercise more. After all, those were the ways to weight loss, right? But despite cutting back on the bacon & chips and running a little more on my workout days and having my fruit and potatoes, I saw no damn results. I stayed around the same size and weight, and that day after Christmas, something in me actually wanted change. I didn’t seek out to make a heavily cliched New Year’s resolution that day, but it happened.

Then I wondered: how the hell am I gonna make that change?

Right after that wake-up call, I researched all sorts of diets that could help me out. The one that intrigued me the most was the Keto/Low-Carb lifestyle. Back in the 2000s when I first heard of a low-carb diet (then known as the Atkins diet), I balked at the idea of giving up my starches to shed the pounds. No way was I gonna let Dr. Atkins take away my potatoes and crackers. As I read more on the keto way of eating, I found out that it was those same potatoes and crackers that were fattening me up thanks to their high carb/sugar count, which I found unusual considering that I always thought I was eating healthy. Who knew so-called healthy foods were also doing damage? Or so I read.

I can’t say how and why I chose a lifestyle sans refined carbs and sugar, although maybe it had to do with two things. One: I tried almost every other diet/weight loss product out there and nothing worked. I lived through the days of “slimming tea” and Hydroxycut, so I should know. And two: having had weight struggles since childhood, at that point in my life, I’d try almost anything to shed the adipose. If giving up former faves like whole wheat bread, whole grain crackers, and bananas was the way to a new figure, then so be it.

Knowing that it was going to be a bumpy transition from high-carb to low-carb considering my eating habits, I chose to ease into it instead of quitting carbs cold turkey. I’ll admit, my heart ached when I had to say goodbye to my precious chips & crackers (one of my former addictions), apples & bananas (yep, I can’t have too much of them anymore), falafel patties, and croissants from Costco. But as the days went on, I started noticing some changes. Clothes started to feel a touch looser. My energy levels increased, as did my need to use the bathroom. I read that water weight was the first to go upon starting a low-carb/keto lifestyle, and while I also heard about that “keto flu”, I was lucky to not have experienced that (thank you, ketoade). By the end of the month, I had dropped a pant size. It was just one size but I was stoked.

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