Many of you know that I have a love affair with food.  Cooking is therapy to me and tryingnew foods is an exhilarating experience.  However, most of the time, I follow a Paleo type diet.  Also known as the Caveman or Hunter Gatherer diet.  It’s not a diet at all, it’s more of a lifestyle.  Low carbs, high protein, natural, unprocessed foods and eating when you need energy.

However, for approximately 2 months, I was on the Keto Diet.  More out of support (because if you diet with another person you will be more successful) but it was a great way for me to get rid of a little bit of winter weight and rev up for summer.

The Keto Diet was really to help people who had a seizure disorder.  As a side effect, many people lost weight and quickly.  I won’t get into it scientifically, you can look that up yourself.

Here’s a few photos of the food I ate while on Keto.  By the way, I lost 10 pounds.  Just enough!

This is Keto Pizza.  Nope, not a dough crust.  Eggs and mozzarella cheese!  It came out pretty good, but extremely filling!  You can also create a crust using cauliflower, which is another Keto Favorite!

Veal Parmesan, Keto Style.  The cutlets are breaded in almond flour and egg, then tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese.  I eat these anyways, oysters.  Yum!  What’s that you see? Wine?  Yes, I can have a few drinks on this diet, which works out great!  Though, since you metabolize things so quickly on this diet, you need to watch out, one or two drinks can do you in and cause a nasty hangover!Shrimp cooked in butter and seasoned with old bay.  Delicious! 

So the food isn’t all that bad, just no fruits, which really was a challenge for me!  Some of my other personal faves were eggs cups (see my egg cup post here) bacon wrapped jalapeno poppers, and of course my bullet proof coffee, which I’m still enjoying.  I got my bulletproof coffee recipe from the Bulletproof Executive, which you can get here.  I have it every morning now, and it keeps me full, while also keeping my mind sharp!

If you want to see any recipes written out, let me know!  For now, it’s back to eating normal (paleo 80% of the time) and I’m less than a week away from my vacation!

*K

Some of you may know that I decided about a year and a half ago to try out the Paleo Diet.  This is not a testimonial but I loved it!  The unfortunate part of it is that I come from a family who bases most of their meals on breads, pasta and cheese.  Especially breakfast, which was usually cereal, oatmeal, toast and so forth.  When I’m home visiting, I indulge, because I don’t want people to feel offended (and I’d rather eat that than go hungry).

But one thing I have had to part with was my typical breakfast habits that I had growing up.  I’ve moved onto eating eggs, leftovers, and fruits for breakfast now.  Here is one of my favorite recipes that helpful for a busy girl like myself, they are egg muffin cups (and no, not the fake awful ones from McDonalds.)  I make them on Sundays and they are good to go for every morning of my work week.  Here, I made 6.

Ingredients: 
Leftover/fresh veggies see below for other options here I used 1/2 of a yellow onion and 1/2 of a green pepper.
Bacon (3-4 slices)  (you can also substitute sausage)
6 eggs
coconut oil
salt and pepper to taste
paprika (optional)

Steps:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Finely chop up the peppers and onion (or other veggies)
Cook the bacon in a pan until crisp.
Saute the peppers and onions until onions are almost carmelized and peppers are tender.  I usually will saute them in the bacon fat.
Grease your muffin pan with coconut oil.
Beat 6 eggs.
Once the oven is ready to go, put the onions and peppers in the bottom of 6 cups of the pan.  If you are making these with sausage pan fry the sausage them place chopped bits of it into the pan with the peppers and onions.
Then pour even amounts of the beaten eggs into each cup.
Sprinkle with desired amount of salt, pepper and paprika.

Place in the oven to bake for about 30-35 minutes or until the eggs are firm.

I like to chop up my bacon and leave it in a seperate container so it stays crispy.

Remove from the pan once cool enough and store in the fridge for a quick to-go breakfast!  I love to eat them warmed up in the microwave with some avocado/guac or tomato sauce.  You can also use siracha or tabasco for some extra kick! 

Alternative Veggies:  Sometimes I’ll put in some left over squash, typically spaghetti squash, zucchini, asparagus, spinach, whatever I have.

What are your favorite and easy breakfasts to make?
*K