Maria Emmerich’s newest keto cookbook, Keto Comfort Foods, releases on May 2, 2017, and I got an advanced copy from my publisher! So my son and I decided to do our weekly Keto Chat LIVE Facebook video of us making the Chicken Pot Pies from the cookbook, and you can watch it here.
prep time:10 minutes, plus 1 hour to chill dough, if needed
cook time:15 minutes yield:4 servings
INGREDIENTS
dough
1¾ cups shredded mozzarella cheese
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 large egg, beaten
¾ cup blanched almond flour
¹⁄₈ teaspoon fine sea salt
filling
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
¼ cup diced celery
¼ cup diced onions
¼ teaspoon minced fresh oregano
¼ teaspoon minced fresh thyme
¼ teaspoon fine sea salt
3 boneless, skinless chicken thighs, cut into ¼-inch pieces
4 ounces cream cheese (½ cup), softened
½ cup chicken bone broth, homemade (page 356) or store-bought
for garnish
Fresh thyme sprigs
DIRECTIONS
Preheat the oven to 425°F.
To make the dough, place the mozzarella and butter in a microwave-safe bowl and microwave for 1 to 2 minutes, until the cheese is entirely melted. Stir well. Add the egg and combine well using a hand mixer. Add the almond flour and salt and combine well with the mixer. Use your hands and work it like a traditional dough, kneading for about 3 minutes. (Note: If the dough is too sticky, chill it in the refrigerator for an hour or overnight.)
While the dough is chilling, make the filling: Melt the butter in a sauté pan over medium heat. Add the celery, onions, herbs, and salt and cook until the veggies are soft, about 4 minutes. Add the chicken and sauté until cooked through, about 4 more minutes. Add the cream cheese and stir until well combined. While stirring, slowly pour in the broth. Divide among four 14-ounce oven-safe bowls or ramekins.
Grease a piece of parchment paper. Place one-quarter of the dough on the greased parchment and pat it out with your hands to form a small circle, slightly larger than the diameter of the bowls or ramekins you’re using. Repeat with the remaining dough. Place a circle of dough on top of each filled bowl or ramekin. Seal each pie closed by crimping the dough around the edge with your fingers.
Place the bowls on a rimmed baking sheet and place in the oven. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, until the pies are golden brown and the dough is fully cooked. Serve the pies garnished with fresh thyme.
Store extras in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 3 days. Reheat on a rimmed baking sheet in a preheated 350°F oven for 5 minutes or until warmed through.
Nutritional info, per pie(per pie) nutritional info (per pie)
You love it or you hate it. So this is a recipe for those of you that love it. The rest of you might want to check out my Thanksgiving 2016 Recipe Round-up post instead…
Egg nog is actually very easy to make keto because the basic ingredients are eggs and cream. Before a couple of years ago, I’d only had store-bought egg nog is super high in sugar and filled with fake-food thickeners to avoid all those “bad” foods like eggs and heavy cream (oh, and probably to save a bunch of money for the food manufacturers). I had no idea that it was something you could make at home! And like most things made at home, it puts store-bought to shame. Most recipes use milk for a good portion of the liquid, but when you’re on a low carb, high fat diet, why not go all out and use all heavy cream?
Ingredients
4 large eggs
1/3 cup Swerve confectioners style sweetener
3 cups heavy cream
3 ounce rum (optional – substitute 1 teaspoon rum extract for non-alcoholic version)
1 teaspoon nutmeg
Directions
Separate eggs and place egg yolks into the bowl of a stand mixer. Beat for a few minutes, until light in color. Gradually add the Swerve and continue beating until dissolved. Add the cream, rum (or rum extract) and nutmeg, and stir to combine. Pour this mixture into a pitcher or large bowl.
In cleaned and dried bowl of the stand mixer, add egg whites and beat to soft peaks. Whisk the egg whites into the egg yolk mixture.
Chill and serve.
Yield: 6 servings
Macros: 491 calories, 46.6 g fat, 7.6 g protein, 3.8 g carbs
Most of us who have been on a ketogenic diet know that fruits are to be avoided, with maybe the exception of those “technically” fruits like avocados and tomatoes. However, olives are also one of those magical fruits that can be worked into a keto lifestyle!
Olives are an incredibly versatile food that have been cultivated by humans for 1000s of years. We’re all familiar with the typical “green” and “black” olive varieties, but the olive rabbit hole goes deeper than you may think. First of all, green and black olives aren’t really different varieties of olives; they’re just picked at different stages of ripeness. Black olives are picked at the peak of ripeness, so they usually end up being softer with a more mild flavor. Green olives are picked at various degrees of un-ripeness, meaning they will be more dense and bitter. This time difference, as well as the region the olives are from, and the method for curing them, is what gives olives their diverse flavor profile.
Olives can be cured in different solutions to give them different unique tastes. Many olives are soaked in a solution of lye and water to soften them. This process takes a very short time, but unfortunately also removes most of the nutrients of the fruit. Other olives are cured in a bath of brine water, which can take several months, or air-cured, which causes some wrinkling of the olives but preserves the strong flavor and nutrient profile.
In 1910, a process was discovered in order to can black olives, which previously were different to transport because they would discolor. This involved lye-curing green olives in an oxygenated solution to turn them black, then treating them with ferrous gluconate to preserve the color. If possible, avoid buying canned black olives that have been “stabilized” with this substance – they will be almost completely devoid of nutrients! Look for organic brands of olives, as these will more likely be treated using a brine solution instead of lye, and will be much more nutritious.
All of that to say, olives definitely make for a great keto treat. They can be eaten by themselves as a snack, or used to enhance dishes like salads, dips, casseroles, or even some keto friendly pizza! At a small enough serving size, most olive jars will claim “zero” carbs, but all fruits and veggies have a small amount of digestible carbs: one large olive will be about 0.5 grams of fat to 0.2 grams of carbohydrates. With a little planning, these delicious salty fruits can be easily worked into any keto lifestyle.
Check out Carole’s Olive Taste Test Video for a breakdown of the different flavors of olives from all different parts of the globe!
If you want to start a hot debate on an ketogenic diet Facebook group, post a photo of your “zero carb” heavy whipping cream (abbreviated HWC). Many people simply look at the label on their HWC and conclude that it has zero grams of carbs, so they can consume it to their soon-to-be-fat-adapted heart’s content. But slow down, dairy-lover! I have some important news for you: your HWC does have carbs. All HWC has carbs even though the labels says it doesn’t.
Why heavy whipping cream has carbs even though the labels says it has zero.
In the United States (and perhaps elsewhere) there is a labeling loophole (many of them, actually, but we are only talking about HWC for now) regarding carbohydrates. Food manufacturers are allowed to label a food as having zero grams of carbs if it contains 0.5 grams or less per serving. That last part is important – PER SERVING. The serving size for HWC is 1 ounce, or 2 tablespoons. One ounce of HWC actually contains 0.4 grams of carbs. So to most of the population, 0.4 grams of carbs means nothing, so counting it as zero is fine. But to someone working to keep total daily carbs under 20 grams, 0.4 grams is a significant amount. And more importantly, most people following a low carb or ketogenic diet will consume more than one serving of HWC, especially if they think it contains no carbs. So that 0.4 grams of carbs quickly turns into 2, 4, or even 6 grams of carbs. Or more.
No, your HWC is not special. All HWC contains carbs even though your label says it doesn’t.
I often see people arguing online about whether or not HWC contains carbs. People love HWC so much that they really want to be able to consume cups of it without any consequences. They so desperately want to cling to the hope that HWC doesn’t have any carbs that they come up with excuses. The one I see the most often it, “Well, maybe YOUR HWC contains carbs, buy MY HWC doesn’t.” Just because you want it to be true does not make it true. HWC all comes from the same place (cow’s milk) and there is no special cow that makes milk with zero carbs (but perhaps some cow breeder is working on it…). Yes, concentrating the milk into HWC greatly reduces the carb count, but there are still carbs that remain. So no matter if your label says zero carbs, or your food tracking app says zero carbs, or that recipe you saw on Pinterest says zero carbs, all HWC does have 0.4 grams per 1 ounce.
When in doubt, look it up.
When any food label states 0 grams of carbs per serving, I automatically assume that it contains some carbs, unless it is a pure fat, like coconut oil, olive oil, red palm oil, MCT oil, etc. If you see 0 grams of carbs on a label, I encourage you to look it up on cronometer.com or nutritiondata.self.com to check for yourself. While I think My Fitness Pal (MFP) is a very useful and a handy app that works well for most keto dieters, it has limitations on the level of detail for carb counts. A lot of the foods in MFP simply re-state the macros listed on a food label. So if a food label says 0 grams of carbs, MFP is going to tell you that an entire cup of HWC contains zero carbs. But that is a lie.
This is why I recommend that my clients use cronometer.com or nutritiondata.self.com to look up and track their food intake, because both have robust and highly accurate carb counts on most foods, including HWC. Cronometer, for example, correctly shows that HWC contains 0.41 grams of carbs per 1 ounce.
Or if you don’t want to look it up, assume 0.5 grams per serving. But don’t fool yourself into believing that HWC is carb-free and that you can consume as much as you want.
Where were you surprised to discover hidden carbs?
Share your carb revelations in the comments below.
I received word yesterday that a friend from long ago had committed suicide. The news hit me hard.
This time of year (February) in the Pacific Northwest can be particularly hard for anyone who experiences depression. We’ve just spent the last 3 months going through the darkest, wettest, and coldest part of the year, and for many it can bring out or intensify depression. So much so, that some people feel like their feelings of despair are beyond their ability to handle them.
I feel sorrowful to know that my friend was one of those people. I feel despondent knowing that another human felt that level of emotional pain.
I can actually identify with what my friend was feeling though, since depression runs in my family. Most winters, my family and I notice a marked increase in depressive feelings around this time of year. In the past, I managed my depression by ensuring I ate adequate protein for blood sugar balance, adding in some targeted amino acids, plus B vitamins, which worked well, but this time of year was still always a struggle.
This year is my first winter since going on a ketogenic diet and I can tell a HUGE difference in my mood. In the past, I often used food to comfort, numb, and dissociate from my winter depressive feelings. While I still feel that familiar depression nipping at my heels right now, it is nothing like I’ve felt in the past. I feel hopeful, happy, calm and peaceful most of the time, whereas in the past I always felt quite despondent this time of year. The change in my mood since going keto also makes it much easier to follow through with the things I know are healthy ways to experience and regulate emotions.
At first I did everything “right” last night as far as healthy ways of handling my dismal mood. I noticed and named my feelings (sad, unhappy, sorrowful, despondent, and so on) and I sought out consolation in friends and family (love you guys), I attempted a mood state change and emotional regulation (watched a comedy movie), and even had a visceral release of my emotions (yay for crying!). And even though all of that felt healthy and appropriate, I still fell into an old habit of seeking out comfort and numbness in food.
Now, I did not “cheat” and go off keto and overeat carbohydrates. But I did overeat some keto-friendly foods when I wasn’t biologically hungry. I knew in the moment that I wasn’t hungry and I was eating because I wanted some comfort, to feel better, to numb the emotional pain.
Turning to food for comfort is not right nor wrong. I mindfully accept what I did without judgment. The issue for me comes down to reducing long-term suffering and being authentic in my keto life. When I turn to food for comfort, in the long run, it increases my suffering because it increases cravings and the likelihood that I will do the same again. It reinforces the habit that I want to let go of. Plus it jeopardizes my ability to remain in ketosis, which is key to maintaining my health right now.
Habits are hard to unlearn. It takes awareness, commitment, and determination. I’ve made a lot of progress in my emotional regulation skills, but I’m not perfect. I’m human.
And Northwest winters are a bitch. And Depression is an asshole.
Please ask for help if you need it.
If you or someone you know is feeling depressed, suicidal, anxious, lonely, having issues with drugs or alcohol, or just needs someone to talk to, call the Crisis Line 24 hours a day:
