Spicy Loaded Chicken Breasts

Spicy Loaded Chicken Breasts = Chicken breast + bacon + cheese topped with banana peppers.

Add your favourite toppings and BOOM you are good to go! 

I love loaded chicken breasts, they are so simple and they leave you feeling so full!

To cut carbs I like to use dry rubs on my chicken breasts for flavour, I then bake them while making the bacon. Once the bacon and chicken breasts are ready I put the oven on broil, place the bacon on the chicken breasts and add shredded cheese to the top. You can garnish the breasts with your favourite toppings, I like to add a little zip with banana peppers but you can also add chopped tomatoes and other toppings to make it your own personalized loaded chicken breast. :) 

Prosciutto Wrapped Pork Tenderloin

Chicken Hugs

My apologies, it has been quite a while. You can catch up on my cross-country move, change in professions, puppy adoption and travels here.

Right now, I've got a creation that was inspired by mean post-workout hunger and very little time. We used 3 chicken breasts, a cup of cheese, 6 slices of ham (you could use any sliced deli meat) and 4 slices of bacon. It made 4 entrees, we each had two and we were very full after!

I'm not sure what to call this; "Chicken Hugs" comes to mind or "Reverse Chicken Cordon-Bleu" (I realise it is a different). Regardless here is what you need to do to make this meaty treat for yourself.

1. Cook yourself up some chicken. I blackened mine a little with some chili pepper spices and hot chipotle salt, but if you want to go a more Italian route you can season with garlic powder and traditional Italian spices.

On a separate ban half cook a piece of bacon for each entree you plan on making. Remove when half cooked.

2. Let your chicken cool after cooking and then rip it up into strips. I was able to use an entire small chicken breast in one of my entrees but it was tiny.

3. Lay out an entire piece of sliced ham on a baking sheet.

4. Lay down a bed of shredded cheese.

5. Lay down a layer of chicken with an inch or so to spare on each side to allow the ham to wrap over top.

6. Sprinkle more cheese on top of the chicken.

7. Wrap the layer of ham over the top of the chicken. As you can see for some of mine I double wrapped using two pieces of ham. Stick a toothpick through all the layers to hold it together.

8. Wrap your half cooked bacon around the ham with the ends coming together at the top.

9. Sprinkle more cheese on top.

10. Place pan in oven and allow to cook until the bacon is crisp and the cheese has melted.

11. Remove from heat and enjoy!

Bam, there you go! My unnamed chicken creation! To simplify the process we stuck out bacon I our George Foreman grill for a quick half cook and used chicken breasts we already had made. We had plenty chicken left over from the 3 breasts to make a salad as well!

Nutty Banana Chocolate Chip Cookies

These cookies are super simple and slightly altered from the "Everything Healthy" blog. I added in some almond butter and instead of using quick oats I decided to try them with coconut flour. Click here to check out the "Everything Healthy" blog. I plan on using these cookies as pre-workout fuel because they are a little more carby than what I normally eat. I am happy that there is not any added sweetener, maybe adding an egg and taking out a banana could cut the natural sugars?

Unfortunately my grocery store was out of dark chocolate chips so this recipe uses the standard semi-sweet ones. Next time I am going to cut up dark chocolate if this happens again. This one is a work in progress, if you have any suggestions let me know:)

Heads up do not taste the batter, you will want to eat ALL of it!

Ingredients: 
-2 small browned bananas
-3 tablespoons of almond butter
-1 teaspoon vanilla
-1/2 cup of coconut flour
-1/4 cup of chocolate chips

Procedure:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Grease pan.
3. Mash together almond butter and banana.
4. Add vanilla.
5. Mix in coconut flour until all of coconut flour is lumpily consistent.
6. Add in chocolate chips.
7. Bake for 15 minutes.

Nutrition:
Calories: 112
Fat: 5.7g
Carbohydrates: 14.2g
Fibre: 3.8g
Sugar: 6.6g
Protein: 2.6g

"Protinis" A Great Snack When You Are In A Pinch!

I was in a pinch on Saturday. I had locked myself out of my office and had a meeting a half an hour after working out, I did not want to leave my protein needs in the hands of the gym staff and pay an arm and a leg for a carby protein shake. I hustled around town to the grocery store where I thought I would find a premixed shakes that are hot right now but Safeway only had cold chocolate milk.

I geared up to by some meat and dig in when I happened to pass by a new product called “Protinis” by Maple Leaf Foods. I was in awe. There are multiple flavours of “Protini” but I have stuck with the Glazed Oven Roasted Chicken & Apple flavor because out of all of the varieties at my local Safeway it is the one with the lowest amount of carbs.

I quickly downed both of the “Protinis” in the package; I was impressed at how good the cold chicken and dried apples were. Nutritionally there are 80 calories in each of the Glazed Oven Roasted Chicken & Apple packs with 5 grams of carb, 1 gram of fibre and 4 grams of sugar. Protein wise they definitely do not measure up to a shake but there are 11 grams of protein in each pack of the Glazed Oven Roasted Chicken & Apple.

They are a little pricey, but nice little treats when you are in a pinch. I plan on packing them for road trips, hikes and any instance when I know I am going to be hard-pressed to find low-carb quick food fixes. I hope gas stations start stocking them!

Here are all of the different flavours of “Protini” on the market right now:

 

From http://www.protinis.ca/en/product.html

Try them out and save a little money with this "Protini" coupon! 

Low Carb Lemon Cheesecake

Sorry!

Things have been super crazy busy lately so I have been onto the old favourite quick and easy recipes.  I did manage to stock up on dessert last week with a treat--- lemon cheesecake! I have been back at the gym now for fourteen weeks for nearly 70 workouts!

When I made this recipe it made twelve square mini-cheesecakes. It also made a six-inch round cheesecake. I have cut this recipe in half for you so that hopefully you don’t make too much! I still have one in the freezer. 

Crust:

1 ½ cups of almond flour

1/3 cup of melted butter

½ tablespoon of stevia (or your favourite sweetener)

½ teaspoon of cinnamon

½ teaspoon of coco powder

1.     Preheat oven to 350F degrees.

2.     Combine almond flour, melted butter, spices and sweetener in a medium bowl.

3.     Once mixed well, press crest into the bottom of pan.

4.     Bake for ten to twelve minutes.

5.     Allow time to cool.

Cheesecake:

½ package of lemon flavoured sugar-free Jello

½ cup of boiling water

1 8oz package of softened cream cheese

1/3 cup of stevia (or your favourite sweetener)

½ teaspoon of vanilla

½ teaspoon of lemon juice

¼ cup of cream

1.     Dissolve half a package of sugar-free lemon Jello in a half-cup of boiling water. Cool and allow thickening but not setting.

2.     In a separate bowl combine softened cream cheese, sweetener, vanilla and lemon juice. Beat until smooth.

3.     Whip cream until stiff peaks form.

4.     Fold in cream cheese mixture.

5.     Pour the cream cheese filling over crust.

6.     Chill for at least two hours.

I garnished mine with fresh raspberries because the grocery store was out of blueberries (crazy, I know). I would like to make a blueberry garnish, or I would use sugar-free blueberry syrup if there were one available here in rural BC.  Raspberries worked too!

Nutritional information to come

Fitness App: Breeze Motion and Activity Tracker for iPhone 5s

I am pretty excited right now, spring has sprung in the Kootenays and people are back into being outdoors! We have had beautiful April weather so far this month, until recently it felt more like summer it was so hot!

Don’t get me wrong; the weather is very exciting here. While other parts of Canada have been finishing winter we dove straight into summer. But, I am super excited to have a new smart phone after a couple of months off the tech-sauce.

Now that I am back on the grid I have been checking out new apps. Now that I am back in a fit phase to get ready for summer I have been concerned with the amount of steps I have been taking. Working at a desk most of the day I do what I can to stand as much as possible, but I still think I take a relatively low amount of steps in a day.

My new iPhone 5s has been helping me out with tracking steps. I downloaded the new app called Breeze to see how many steps I would be taking over the Easter Long weekend.

So far I am impressed, Breeze uses the motion coprocessors in the new iPhone 5s that are used for tracking the motion of the phone to track your movements throughout the day.

Whether you are walking around the house or going for a trek into the mountains, Breeze will keep tally for you! The app averages out your daily steps and sets goals for you based on the steps you have taken in the previous days. It even coaches and motivates you to continue walking and adding to your daily step count (without being annoyingly pushy).

Breeze can total the total amount of steps you have taken as well as the total time you have spent

moving and it can also determine how you are moving (running vs. walking). The app keeps telling me it can tell me what animal I move like (I’m hoping the highland cow pictured here is not my spirit animal) too! The polls are still out on this, when my iPhone gives me an answer I will let you know what I move like.

The only thing is that I keep expecting there to be more with Breeze. More than a simple motion meter to keep track of my steps and the exact route I take on my weekend walks. The app is absolutely free so there is not much more I think I can ask from it, but it feel like it should be building into more… calorie tracking etc.

I think this is what the Lose It! App should aspire to develop their pedometer into. To be honest with you, I will not be upgrading Lose It! for more stats for $$$ when I can use the beautiful Breeze app for free.

If you are interested in upping your body movement check out Breeze! I am aiming for the common goal of 10,000 steps a day outside of the gym.

Right now the Breeze app is only available on iPhone 5s.

Cheesy Jalapeño Low Carb Biscuits

Things have been crazy over the last couple of months. All of my boyfriend's hard work eating right and working out has payed off! He has dropped over 100lbs since we started keto and has now officially sworn into the military. He will be heading to basic training in less than two weeks so we have been cutting pretty hard and I have even been hitting the gym for moral support. We only get to workout together once a week, but it is nice to be on the same page. I have been back in the gym for 6 weeks now and I have worked our 34 times. Leaving little time for innovative cooking, while Kev is at Basic I will have more time to post.

I really like these biscuits. They are great to have in the fridge for a quick snack. I have been putting a little pizza sauce on them and melting more cheese on top for a pizza-style snack. 

Letting them sit really does make a HUGE difference. I tried them as soon as they came out of the oven but found that they needed that time to really finish melting together with the shredded cheese. 

Unfortunately biscuits will never be low calorie if you want them moist and flavourful. To save some calories you can use lower calorie cream cheese, nix the bacon grease and maybe skimp on the butter a bit. 

Ingredients:
-1 medium jalapeno
-1/2 teaspoon chili pepper
-1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
-3 eggs
-1/3 cup coconut flour
-(optional) 1/2 tablespoon bacon grease
-1 tablespoon of cream cheese
-1/2 cup shredded cheese (I used tex-mex)
-1/3 cup melted butter   
Procedure: 
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. Remove the seeds and chop up the jalapeno.
3. In a bowl combine dry ingredients. 
4. Blend the wet ingredients and the jalapeno. 
5. Mix the wet and dry ingredients until there are no lumps.
6. Fold in cheese. 
7. Spoon out the batter into nine equal units in greased pan.
8. Bake for 15 minutes. 
7. Brush tops of the biscuits with melted butter. 
8. Let sit for at least half an hour.
Nutritional Information:
Calories: 141
Fat: 12.3g
Carbs: 3.3g
Fibre: 1.8g
Sugar: 0.5g
Protein: 4.6g

Low Carb Shamrock Protien Shakes

 When I was a kid I was obsessed with Shamrock Shakes from McDonald's. I has been a lifelong problem. I even had Shamrock Shake stickers on my dorm room mini-fridge at university.


While we were on vacation Kev had a Shamrock Shake on his cheat day and I have been craving one ever since.

So, I altered some Shamrock Shake recipes I found online to make it a low carb treat. We are only a week away from St. Paddy's Day, so get your fill now or drink it anytime of year!

Here it is in all of its high calorie glory. I really liked it using half-and0





Ingredients:
1/2 cup of half-and-half cream
1/2 cup of water
1 scoop of vanilla protein powder
1/4 teaspoon of mint extract
1/4 teaspoon of vanilla extract
3 ice cubes
2-3 drops of green food coloring (optional)
*you can sprinkle grated dark chocolate on top for a tasty garnish

Procedure:
Mix all together in a blender and boom, a low carb take on McDonald's Shamrock Shake!

Nutritional Information: To come.
This will vary depending on what brand of protein powder you use. You can safely add a little bit of water in most cases.
Calories:
Fat:
Carbohydrates:
Sugar:
Fibre:

Mustard Pork Tenderloin

Mustard Pork Tenderloin

Here is an easy favourite from our kitchen.

It is not pretty and it is not hard. In fact, it is super easy. This is one of the basics we survived off of when we had just started keto.

I hope you like mustard!




Ingredients:
-enough mustard to cover the pork tenderloin completely (3-4 tablespoons)
-one entire pork tenderloin
-salt and pepper to taste

Procedure:
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. Line pan with aluminum foil.
3. Coat both sides of the pork tenderloin with mustard.
4. Bake for 20-25 minutes (depending on the size). Do not flip it.
5. Let rest for 5 minutes.
6. Before eating it ensure the centre of the meat is completely cooked.

Nutritional Information (this is for an entire 1lb tenderloin with 4 tablespoons of mustard):
Calories: 707
Fat: 20.4g
Carbs: 3.2g
Sugar: 0.5g
Fibre: 2.0g
Protein: 120.7g