Keto Recipe Digest # 11
Original Email Sent Friday Nov. 22nd, 2019 -
Wow... It's Friday again and I can't tell you all how happy I am that these last two weeks are over.
In retrospect, I may have bitten off more than I could chew when I agreed to teach a class after hours on Tuesday and Wednesday these last two weeks, because come Thursday I was a just a bit better than a semi-coherent zombie and by last night I was asleep on the couch at 7:00 pm.
But today... today is a whole new day! I'm feeling a bit more like myself. The pressure has eased off with deliverables for work a bit and I am in the happy position of having some time to fill while I wait on others for a change ... so I can sneak this email in and actually contemplate the possibility that next week I may actually have the time to be able to follow through on my intentions to get to the gym with my gum support buddy (you know who you are, see you on both Monday and Thursday next week! ).
The theme for today's digest is another meal start to finish. Last weekend I was seriously hankering for some good Chinese. This can be a tall order when you live in a small town and even taller when you are trying to be keto. Rob is a sucker for a lemon chicken and Maddie and I will have serious discussions over who gets the last of an order of Singapore noodles ...alas, these are definitely no-no dishes if you are keto ....until today.:)
Today's theme is a full Keto Chinese takeaway for you and some guests - including dessert (sorry, haven't figured out how to do keto fortune cookies and let's face it, the fortune is always the best part) ... but yeah, you could probably just make one or two dishes and be perfectly happy about the meal... and all of these make great leftovers for lunch during the week.
1. Hot and Sour Soup - When I was Ryerson, which is a block or two from Toronto's original Chinatown there was this amazing restaurant that did THE. BEST. hot and sour soup... they had everything plus the kitchen sink in there. Once up[on a time when I could eat shrimp I tried re-creating that recipe... this is the keto-fied version of that... there are a lot of "optional ingredients" in this recipe.. using them all would get you closest to that restaurant version, but would also make it the carb-iest version... you could opt to not include them all or just include less of each, it's totally up to you and what your macros for the day will allow. This recipe is also easily adapted to be just vegetarian.
2. Lemon Chicken - This recipe results in nice and moist chicken pieces that have just enough crunch and none of that heavy batter... but really, it's all about the sauce. It's tangy and tart and just sweet enough and I had to double it from the original recipe it was so good... You might want to double it again... this sauce would even be nice served over a nice piece of white fish actually.
3. Sesame Beef with broccoli - a staple when ordering up a Chinese and this one turns out really well.
4. Chinese Fried Rice - Another Chinese food staple.. I remember making meals of just a bowlful of fried rice. The nice thing about a fried rice recipe is that it's adaptable and flexible. I happened to stop into the Asian market the last time I was in Toronto and picked up some lovely fresh BBQ pork so my version last weekend was all about the pork, but you could use chicken, or perhaps mushrooms if you wanted to make this vegetarian...or d) all of the above. Dealer's choice.
5. Singapore Noodles - Although I didn't make these the last time I did up a Keto Chinese meal (we have enough and didn't need it) in my humble opinion, no Chinese takeaway order is really complete unless there's a noodle dish on the ticket. This one is just as good as its high carb cousin.
6. Sesame Moon Cakes - They are cute and small, and full of sesame flavour.
7. Chinese almond cookies - you can't be at a Chinese buffet and not eat one of those almond cookies they always have on offer.. they are crumbly and have a bit of crispness to them and are full of almond flavour ...Well, they are even better when they aren't stale because they've been sitting on a Chinese buffet tray all evening and guilt-free because they are keto-friendly. These wouldn't be bad in a Christmas cookie box either.
Hope you all have a wonderful weekend.
Shosh