Spinach Artichoke Casserole

My family has been making this dish (without the spinach) for years for Thanksgiving and Christmas.  I think it's technically a dip, but we always eat it like a casserole because it's so incredibly tasty and decadent.  We only ever had it for holiday dinners, because it's so full of fat and the thinking was that eating fat makes you fat.  Not so, more recent studies say.  This recipe is perfect for a low carb diet, and a good way to get your greens in while keeping your fat ratio high.  

Another plus with this recipe: artichokes have negative carbs!  More fiber than carbohydrates means you can eat all the artichokes you want.  

Spinach Artichoke Casserole

Ingredients:

• 2 cans artichoke hearts, cut into small pieces (1/8's or smaller)
• 8oz frozen spinach, in the microwavable bag
• 1 1/2 - 2 cups mayonnaise
• 2 cups shredded parmesan
• salt, pepper, and garlic to taste (I prefer fresh minced garlic, but you can use garlic powder)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Microwave spinach according to package instructions.
3. Drain artichokes and cut into bite-sized pieces.
4. In a bowl, or your baking dish, toss in all ingredients and stir until well-mixed.  Reserve some of the parmesan to sprinkle on top to make a nice brown cheese crust.
5. Bake until bubbling and brown on top, 35 - 45 minutes.  Let cool 5 - 10 minutes before eating, unless you like hot lava in your mouth!

Macros

(Amounts are approximate and may vary with ingredients)

Servings: 6

Total carbs: 7g Carbs per serving: 1g

Total fat: 396g Fat per serving: 66g

Total protein: 100g Protein per serving: 17g

Cauliflower Spinach Casserole

I'm planning on making this for Thanksgiving dinner.  It's a yummy/veggie/cheesy casserole.  Cauliflower, it turns out, makes a pretty good substitute for rice when you mash it up and mix it with veggies and dairy products.

If you want to make this recipe creamier, you can add cream cheese to the mixture.  For extra tang, add parmesan cheese to the mix.

Cauliflower and Spinach Casserole

Ingredients: 

• 10 oz package of spinach, cooked and drained
• 1 head cauliflower, cut into florets
• ½ cup butter
• 1 cup sour cream
• ½ onion, chopped
• salt, pepper, and dill to taste
• 1 cup cheddar cheese, shredded

1. Preheat over to 350 degrees.
2. Boil cauliflower until fork tender, about 6 minutes.
3. In a sautee pan over medium heat melt butter.  Sautee onions in butter until translucent.
4. Put cauliflower, onions, butter in a bowl and smoosh with a potato masher.
5. Add spinach, sour cream, salt, pepper, and dill.  Mash and stir until well combined.
6. Turn out into a casserole dish, cover with cheddar cheese.
7. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes

Macros

(Amounts are approximate and may vary with ingredients)

Servings: 8

Total carbs: 45g Carbs per serving: 5.5g

Total fat: 180g Fat per serving: 22.5g

Total protein: 48g Protein per serving: 6g

Breakfast Egg Muffins

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.  For a vegetarian on a ketogenic diet like me, breakfast is going to be eggs in some form, fake meat like soysage (soy-based sausage) or facon (soy-based bacon), and slices of cheese.  While this is a delicious grouping of foods, it does get a little old.  To change it up, and to make a breakfast that is good on the go, try these egg muffins.  Make the whole dozen and you can refrigerate them for a week or so.  You can microwave them for 20 seconds to heat them up or eat them cold in the morning, both ways are good.

Breakfast Egg Muffins

Ingredients: 

• 12 eggs, scrambled (1 egg for each muffin)
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1-2 cups grated cheese of your choice
• Your choice of veggies: diced onions, peppers, broccoli, mushrooms, etc.
• 4 pieces soy sausage or soy bacon, cooked according to package directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. In a muffin pan, line each cup with 2 paper liners both brushed with oil or melted butter.
3. In bottom of cup layer to ⅔ full in this order: “meat”, veggies, cheese.
4. Beat eggs and seasonings in a bowl.  Pour egg into each muffin cup until ¾ full.
5. Stir each cup slightly with a fork.  Bake 25 - 35 minutes.
6. Let cool, turn out of the paper liners. Store in a zipper bag in the fridge.

Macros

(Amounts are approximate and may vary with ingredients)

Servings: 12 muffins

Carbs per muffin: 3g

Fat per muffin: 10g

Protein per muffin: 12g

Broccoli Cheddar Soup

This is one of the first recipes I tried on this diet.  This is a good one because it's high in fat, it can last you most of the week for lunches or dinners, and cheesiness is goodness.  Eat it with a salad or some fake meat to make a full meal.

Broccoli Cheddar Soup

Ingredients:

• 1 tbsp butter
• 1 small onion, diced
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• fresh or dried thyme, to taste
• 2 cups vegetable stock
• 1 large bunch broccoli, cut into florets.  Include stems if you want.
• 8 oz cream cheese, softened
• 8 oz cheddar cheese, grated
• salt and pepper to taste

1. In a small stock pot or medium sauce pot, over medium-low heat, melt butter.
2. Add onion, garlic, thyme and cook for around 3 minutes or until onions are translucent.
3. Add vegetable stock, stir and bring to a simmer.
4. Add broccoli, salt, and pepper.  Wait for stock to come back to a simmer.
5. Whisk in cream cheese and cheddar cheese.
6. Simmer 5-7 minutes, until all cheese is melted and broccoli is soft.

Macros

(Amounts are approximate and may vary with ingredients)

Servings: 6

Total carbs: 60g Carbs per serving: 10

Total fat: 162g Fat per serving: 27g

Total protein: 84g Protein per serving: 14g

Alcohol in Keto diet?

Let's get to the important stuff first: can you drink alcohol on the ketogenic diet?  The answer: probably!  Some people can get knocked out of ketosis by drinking alcohol, because the body uses alcohol for energy and this will slow down your fat burning process.  But other people can drink while still staying ketotic.  I have found that my alcohol tolerance has gone way down on this diet, so I can drink less and still get a nice buzz.

The bad news: beer is off-limits.  I love beer, specifically a strong IPA that's really floral and bitter.  Wine also has a lot of carbs, so stay away.

The good news: hard liquor is carb free!  Even though most liquors are made from carbs (sugar, grains, etc.), the distillation process turns those carbs into ethyl alcohol.  So hard liquor like rum, vodka, gin, bourbon, whisky, and tequila have 0 carbs.  Watch out for liqueurs, which usually have added sugar, and mixers like soda or juice.

My drink of choice has been rum and Coke Zero.  Vodka and Diet 7-Up isn't bad.  I tried Gin and flavored seltzer... it was not so good.  What do you like?

Intro

Hi, my name is Kate.  I'm a veterinary technician in my mid-thirties living in Raleigh, NC.  Over the last few years I've noticed my weight creeping up on me, so I decided to make a lifestyle change to a ketogenic diet.  Full disclosure coming up: I'm 5'8" and I weighed 144 pounds.  That's the most I ever weighed.  I know, it's not very dramatic.  I know I wasn't obese, but I was overweight for my frame and I wanted to get back to the weight that I was happiest, which was around 130.  So far it's been six weeks and I've lost 6 pounds.  I try to do a good cardio workout at least twice a week, which is usually a run for me but any kind of calorie-burning exercise will do to help you with weight loss.

Here are a couple of resources I've been using to help me on my journey:

Ketogenic Diet Resource: http://www.ketogenic-diet-resource.com/
This site is great for understanding the basics of what the ketogenic diet is, how it works, and some good tables of carb counts.

Ruled.Me calculator: http://www.ruled.me/keto-calculator/
A blog about keto, including a nice calculator in which you plug in info about your body measurements and exercise levels to figure out your "macros" (carbs, protein, and fat grams) allowances per day.

At the start of this diet I ran into some problems, since I'm a pescatarian.  For those of you who don't know what that means, I am a vegetarian most of the time but I do eat wild caught all-natural fish and seafood.  Most of the recipes I was finding that followed the Keto principles involved meat, most commonly bacon.  It seems that bacon is the solution to many of life's problems, but not for me!  Or for you, if you're reading this to get veggie keto recipes.  So I thought it would be nice to have a place to keep all of the recipes I have used that keep the carbs low and the fat high, and a place that other people could come to find vegetarian ketogenic recipes.  I'll be listing my recipes here with counts of carbs, fat, and protein, and including as many pictures as I remember to take.  I hope it helps people out there to find a way to be healthier and happier.