Happy Thursday, Lovelies!

Tonight I am going to share my first run at Keto baking with you!

I'm still going strong eating 90% whole30 compliant foods but I have thoroughly enjoyed my 'free Saturdays'. I look most forward to Saturday morning, its quiet, peaceful and I get to pour that first cup of  weekend coffee & add all the International Delight Oreo flavored creamer and sugar I want! It. Is. HEAVEN. And let me just say, I add ALOT. I basically go into a sugar coma by 8:30am. 😃

Last Friday, I was in the mood to bake. I wanted to bake something that tasted delish but was also guilt free. I find that even when I indulge in a  sweet treat, I am conscious of the ingredients I use. That's what living a healthy lifestyle is all about isn't it?

My boss/food mentor told me about the below recipe and I was dying to try them out! Here there are! They come from my new fav Keto blog: Clean Eating with a Dirty Mind. (Also, THAT IS THE BEST BLOG NAME) I am low-key jelly that I didn't think of it first!

Keto Friendly Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:

• 1 C butter (browned)
• 2 C sifted fine-ground almond flour
• 1/2 tsp xanthan gum
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 3/4 C Swerve brand granulated erythritol*
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 eggs
• 1 C Lily's Dark Chocolate Baking Chips (these are sugar free but don't worry about that)

*Pro Tip: Sub 2/3 brown sugar Swerve, 1/3 granulated Swerve. You will not be disappointed! I cant say for certain if this math adds up to 3/4, but it worked spectacularly in my batch of cookies.

These babies are expensive! But SOOOOO worth it. I promise.

First you arrange all your ingredients for a pretty picture.. This is the most important step. 😃

 

Next, you want to brown the butter. If you don't know what browning butter is, google has a really great video you can watch. You literally watch the butter brown. Its riveting! But for the sake of time, let me give you the spark notes.

1. Place butter in a heavy bottomed skillet
2. Heat on high until melted and beginning to boil
3. Reduce heat and let simmer until the butter begins to brown

WHOA. That was tough! I thought that this was an irrelevant step, I mean butter's butter am I right? WRONG. Browned butter = LIFE.

Once your butter is browned, move it off of the heat and let it cool for about 15-20 minutes. I flash chilled mine in the freezer for 10 minutes, but that's only because I see them doing it on my favorite show, The Great British Baking Show and I was pretending I was a contestant under extreme pressure. Its when I do my best baking. 😃

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. And while your butter is chilling and your oven is preheating complete the following steps:

1. Add the almond flour, xanthan gum, baking soda and salt to a large mixing bowl and stir together with a fork or whisk
2. Add the Swerve, vanilla and cooled butter to a second mixing bowl
3. Add eggs, one at a time, to the Swerve mixture and mix until well incorporated
4. Slowly add the flour mixture until you have a nice gooey dough
5. Add the choco chipies. I added the whole bag by accident, but a little bit on purpose because I love me some chipies

Once you have your cookie dough formed, FLASH CHILL this sucker in the freezer for about 15 minutes.

When your dough is chilled, line 2 cookie sheets with parchment paper and place 12 equally sized dough balls (dough balls? I cant think of what else to call them?) onto the cookie sheets with enough space between them so that they do not touch while cooking.

These cookies need to be baked on the center rack of the oven for about 12-15 minutes each batch (don't cook them both at the same time). It will be extremely hard to wait for these cookies to be done. They made my entire apartment smell like the inside of a cookie factory. It's my new favorite scent. Au de Bailey's Friday Night Chocolate-Chip Cookie. (Patent Pending)

They will be ooohhhh soooooo ooey gooey when you remove them from the oven but trust me, you want to let them cool for 20-25 minutes (minimum) and they will melt in your mouth in the best way possible. If you don't wait, they will fall apart, burn your mouth and make a mess of your kitchen. So just wait.

 

My recipe yielded about 24 cookies, and since I'm on this strict M-F nonsense, I froze most of them. I accidently ate one of them from the freezer last night (whoops) and they are still absolutely delicious!

These are the best cookies I have had in a LONG LONG time. The chocolate chips... amazing, the brown sugar substitute… amazing, the finished product... AMAZING. I would highly recommend giving these a try if you love to bake or if youlove to eat cookies. And when you bake them, send some my way! I will never not have these cookies on hand. I have about 18 still in my freezer and I'm strongly considering baking them again tomorrow! A+++++++.

Until next time, sweet treat lovers. ❤

OK!

I have GOT to get it together and organize a cadence for posts because it has been way too long since my last post. I have no excuses. I'm just lazy.

I recently completed 69 days of doing whole30 and I will be the first to admit that my recipes get quite boring while on the program.  Its all about convenience and that makes for a redundant couple of weeks. Chicken and broccoli for lunch, grilled turkey burger with homemade French fries for dinner over and over and over. BOR-ING.

Upon the completion of whole30 day 69 I have decided to live by the 85/15 rule. That means that I will comply with the whole30 program from Sunday to Friday and allow myself to eat WHATEVER I want on Saturday. WHATEVERRRRRRRRRRRRR I want. I tested this out this past weekend and I learned two things. 1. I don't like how I feel after I eat fast food & 2. I can not be trusted around Oreos.

Today is Monday (the worst), so I am back to eating whole30 compliant foods. I wanted to make something fun enough to do a blog post on so I searched my Pinterest board and found a yummy 'comfort' food. So here it is.

Coconut Crusted Chicken Tenders - sounds delicious right? That's what I thought too.

Ingredients:
1 boneless skinless chicken breast
1 egg
1/2 cup coconut flour
1/2 cup organic coconut flakes
1 tbsp. non dairy milk

SIMPLE. Just how I like a weeknight recipe. Its just 5 ingredients and takes 20 minutes from start to finish! What's not to love?

The first thing I did (after staging my ingredients for a class picture of course) was preheat my toaster oven.

Gangs all here!

Y'ALL. If you don't have a toaster oven. GET ONE RIGHT NOW. It is literally the best purchase I have ever made (next to the IP and wifi enabled crock pot). It heats up fast, cooks the food evenly, and doesn't heat up your whole house! Perfect for summer cooking. I have a middle of the road ($80) Hamilton Beach model and I would highly recommend. HIGHLY.

Whew. Are you still with me? Ok.

While my toaster oven was preheating, I prepared the chicken. First, it says to lightly tap the chicken breast with a rolling pin until it is all the same thickness. I didn't have the patience for this 'lightly tap' nonsense so I hit it with a hammer.

I next cut the chicken into even strips and began the dredging process. Dredging, what a strange word. I took each strip, soaked it in the egg/milk mixture, dropped it into the coconut flour and finished by rolling it in the flakes. So far so good!

Once my strips were ready, I popped them in the preheated toaster oven for 20 minutes, flipping them halfway through.

Buy me. Buy me. Buy me!!!

The chicken tenders smelled AMAZING! I love the smell of coconut and my mouth was watering. I was also getting hangry so I decided to have a snack while I waited for the timer to ding! My bestie and I went to the farmers market this weekend and I ended up getting fresh made salsa from the Mama Hoots both. Mama Hoots. There was probably 10 different booths selling homemade salsa but I had my heart set on Mama Hoots. I stopped at Fresh Thyme today specifically to pick up my Siete brand 'tortilla chips' so I didn't have to eat my salsa with a spoon. Siete makes these chips using all natural ingredients and cassava flour.

They are amazing. They are amazing. They are amazing.

DING. (Thank God! I almost ate the whole bag)

My tenders were done! The first thing I noticed about them was that they were pale AF. Like PALE. Like redhead in the sun pale. I thought to myself, hmm, coconut is white that's why they aren't golden brown but I bet they will be crispy. I put them on my plate and pulled out my Primal Kitchen BBQ Sauce (sugar free).

I was ready to stuff my face.

The first bite was bad.

The second bite was bad.

The third bite... BAD.

Let me get one thing straight. I am extremely disciplined. I will eat ANYTHING in order not to waste it. The way I see it, healthy food isn't always going to taste the best but I always remember why I eat the way I do. Food is meant to fuel your body and that's it. But these... THEY WERE BAD. The only way I can explain them is, cardboard rolled in notebook paper confetti. Literally. The chicken didn't even taste like chicken. I was basically dipping cardboard in sugar free BBQ sauce. I couldn't finish them.

BAD.

So I went back to my delicious chips and salsa.

Whoa. I don't want to end on a negative note. So please enjoy this picture of Boone stalking birds from his new favorite hangout spot (just close enough to the shower curtain that it touches him). We have a glass shower door and I had the bright idea to put a curtain up to hide it and its his absolute favorite go to spot. He's there right now as a matter of fact. What a weirdo.

Until next time.