Keto friendly munchies & dinner

Today, I made my hubby a small plate of keto friendly munchies! A thick slice of liverwurst, deli sliced havarti cheese, chopped creamy gouda, and some pepperoni slices. Even I enjoyed stealing some to eat myself ! :D

For dinner, we had steak and salad. I love that hubby cuts up my steak for easy chompings. :) Salad is Costco's mixed greens topped with dried cranberries and toasted pumpkin seeds. Mm-mmm good! It's also keto friendly without the berries and seeds. Nom nom nom.

Persimmon Banana Nut Bread

Tis the fall season (and Happy Hallow's Eve). What better way to show it than to bake with persimmons!? I took my banana nut bread recipe and subbed two bananas with 2 large persimmons. 

The above photo is a mash of one banana and two persimmons. 

Use a hand blender to puree the mashed fruit unless you like fruit chunks.

Then, mix in 2 eggs, 1/2 cup sugar and 1/2 cup melted butter.

In a separate bowl, mix 2 cups flour, 1.5 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp baking soda, lots of cinnamon, 1/4 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp nutmeg.

Add the flour mix to your mashed fruits.

Fold in 1/2 cup chocolate chips and 1/2 cup chopped walnuts.

Pour batter in loaf pan. Top with more chopped walnuts.

(Note: Lightly press the chopped nuts into the batter.)

Bake in preheated oven of 350°F for 60 minutes or until done.

Personally, it still tasted like a banana nut bread. I must've used a really ripe banana.... Oh wells, still sweet and delicious!

A breakfast picture. Fresh squeezed oj courtesy of my pops. :D And a slice of homemade goodness. All smiles here!

Brats

One of my favorite dinner is a simple meal of brats cooked in beer with a salad on the side.

It's just absolutely tasty!

Oatmeal Craisins Chocolate Chip Cookies

I felt like baking something random today. What better way to decide than to pick something up that has a recipe attached to it? I went with Craisin's Oatmeal Cookies.

2/3 cup butter

2/3 cup brown sugar

2 large eggs

1-1/2 cups old fashioned oats

1-1/2 cups flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

2/3 cup craisins (dried cranberries)

2/3 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (we don't have white chocolate chips)

1. Melt butter and mix with sugar. Then add in eggs.

2. In a separate bowl, mix in the oats, flour, baking soda and salt.

3. Pour dry ingredients (see 2.) into your butter-sugar-eggs mixture gradually.

4. Fold in cranberries and chocolate chips.

(Mixture should look like the above picture.)

Bake in a preheated oven of 375°F for about 10-12 minutes.

 They look quite delicious and they ended up being bready, but tasty cookies with chocolate and cranberries in every bite. Yum yum!

Meat n Cheese RollUps

One of our new favorite munchies is swiss cheese slathered with mayo and sprinkled with freshly ground black pepper with a layer of roast beef deli meat and rolled up. It's sooooo tasty! 

More Pizza!!!

I made more pizzas tonight bc hubby wasn't having a great week. What better way to cheer up my hubby with really yummy foodies when he's off keto?! :D (Pizza dough was made on a previous day since Alton said it was store-able in the fridge for up to six days.)

Buffalo Chicken Tenders Pizza - Made with a layer of Prego sauce,  baby spinach, sharp cheddar, sliced chicken tenders and Parmesan cheese.

Pepperoni Pizza - Made with a layer of Prego sauce, baby spinach, sharp cheddar cheese and pepperonis.

The flavor totally reminds me of a BJ's Pizza but without their amazing thick crust. Delish!

This one came out a bit oily, but still yummy in our tummies. It was "amazeballs."

Served with garden salad, sunchips and couple more chicken tenders. We poured on some ranch over the chicken tenders pizza and it was amazing. Mm-mmm!!

Persimmon Scones

Skin and chop up 2 persimmons and then almost puree them in a mini food processor. (I forgot I should have cubed them instead.)

Persimmon puree with 1/2 tsp of pumpkin spice.

In the mixing bowl, mix 2 cups all-purpose flour, 1/4 cup white sugar, 2 tsps baking powder, 1/2 tsp baking soda, 1/2 tsp kosher salt and 1/4 cup chilled butter.

Dump in the persimmon puree.

And mix! Add in the 1/4 cup milk and mix some more. Mine turned out pretty sticky.

Knead dough on generously floured surface until no longer sticky.

Separate into 12 pieces and then bake in preheated oven of 425°F for 15 minutes or nicely browned.

It was so good and soft and airy and chewy and just a great texture overall. For me, the flavor was lacking. Again. Le sigh. Must. CUBE. fruit... next time. 

(Side note: once refrigerated, the soft orange color turns brown :(...)

Tangy (and Sweet) Flank Steak

We've got two flank steaks that have been slowly defrosting in the fridge (from the freezer) for about two days.

We used 1 cup light soy sauce and 1 cup apple cider vinegar.

For future use, I would use 1 cup light soy sauce and 2/3 cup apple cider vinegar OR 1 cup regular soy sauce and 1 cup apple cider vinegar.

(L-R) Black pepper, homegrown chilies and garlic powder.

Seasoned the flank steaks with garlic powder and freshly ground black pepper.

Poured in the soy sauce-apple cider vinegar marinade and added sliced chilies. (We removed the seeds so 1. it wouldn't be too spicy and 2. we're not cooking and eating the seeds.) If you prefer a sweet and tangy flank steak like most people, I would add about 1/4 cup of brown sugar into the marinade. 

The flank steaks were marinated overnight. 

Hubby cooked the flank steaks one at a time over a grilled cast iron pan. On high heat, he cooked one side for one minute, then turned the steak about 85 degrees and cooked it another minute to get a nice sear on the steak as it cooked. 

Cook the same way as above for the other side. Let rest for a couple of minutes.

Served with salad and messed up fried rice. (I messed up the fried rice by adding way too much red bell peppers. Erm, my bad.). The steaks were not bad at all. Just a bit too tangy, which is why I mentioned lowering the amount of apple cider vinegar earlier. And definitely tender and juicy! Bubby added brown sugar on our steaks afterwards and it was even better sweet and tangy for me and my pops.

Here is bubby's keto-friendly version. Sliced tangy flank steaks over a bed of garden salad and topped with chili paste. Mm-mmm good!

Perfected Coconut Bread

I finally took pictures of the coconut bread that's been perfected according to my hubby's liking; soft and moist. It's the same recipe as Coconut Bread #2 because I've been updating the amounts as I tweaked along, but never updated the pictures.

Here's the 6 scrambled eggs in a food processor.

This is what the mixture looked like when I mixed in the 1/2 cup butter (melted works fine too so long as it isn't warm/hot enough to cook the eggs), 1/2 tsp sea salt, 3 tsp splenda (optional) and the 3/4 cup coconut flour. It looked smooth and very wet.

This is what the mixture looked like after I mixed in the 1/2 cup of water. It looked kind of dry. 

Just spoon the batter into a loaf pan and bake in a preheated oven of 350°F for 40 minutes, then 250°F for about 15-20 minutes or until done.

A beautiful loaf comes out. I really should try doubling the loaf to see if I can get a full sized bread to come out.... one day.

A simple delicious joy for those on a keto diet. 

Marinated Steak

We decided to try something new tonight. Marinating sliced steaks with persimmons! 

Steaks sliced and marinated overnight with 1 sliced persimmon, 1/2 tsp tarragon and light soy sauce.

We never buy these. But, le hubby wanted them and they were on sale, so why not? (And he was off keto today.)

Mmmm, very-bad-for-you delicious crispy-ness.

The steaks were simply cooked in a non-stick pan over medium to high heat with butter, salt and pepper to taste. Served with salad, flaky buttery biscuits and corn on the cob. Makes for a great dinner! (PS: The flank steaks were super tender. I guess persimmons make a great tenderizer.)

Persimmon-Apple-Raspberry Crisp

This super yummy dish was made by hubby! I merely assisted him. :o) Hubby watched a Chef John's apple crisp via youtube and then went on to make his persimmon apple and raspberry version.

The above is 6 persimmons, 2 apples and 1/4 cup unsalted butter cooking in a non-stick pan on low to medium heat. Just don't burn the fruits!

The above is made with 1/2 cup melted butter, 1/2 cup flour, 1/4 cup rolled oats, 1/4 cup some kind of granola cereal that included oats, 1/2 cup grapenuts cereal, 1/4 cup brown sugar and 1/4 cup granulated sugar (PS: you can cut out the granola cereal and simply add more rolled oats.)

Back on the stove, we added 1/3 cup brown sugar, a little bit of water, a pinch of salt and as much cinnamon as my heart desired, which was a lot (our cinnamon powder is pretty old) and let the fruits simmer until softened. I think I also added 1/2 tsp of pumpkin spice too. [We skimped out on the lemon (that's where the raspberries come in) and white sugar because we had no lemons on our tree as it was seriously trimmed back and the fruits were pretty sweet already, respectively].

Here is where I would mix in a handful of raspberries.

Topped with the crisp topping.

Twas baked in a preheated oven of 375°F for 25-30 minutes or until topping is nicely browned.

Super yummy! You definitely need something acidic to cut into the sweetness. Adding the tart raspberries with this crisp made it so much more amazing instead of overly sweet. Mm-mmmm good!!