Seaweed … dried etc
March Keto Madness - Show us your meals!
Seaweed! Sushi wrapper cut into bite size pieces for wrapping individual sardines before dunking them into sauce (usually balsamic vinegar).
Homemade chili (no beans, of course) made with bacon and course-ground beef. Was pretty good.
Made a large pot and only me and hubby to feed so will be freezing some of it for a future lazy meal!
Carrabas Polo Rosa Maria knockoff recipe. basically chicken thighs stuffed with Prosciutto ham and goat cheese (couldn’t find Fontina cheese locally) and covered in a butter/mushroom/basil/lemon sauce. Was yummy.
And a salad
Keto beef stroganoff/paprikash. Ground beef, onions, mushrooms, garlic, lots of smoked paprika, and a xanthan gum/bone broth gravy made with an immersion blender and some of the extra fat from the ground beef. It makes it creamy like adding cornstarch might. The kids got baked potato cubes added to their bowls.
Because I was sick this day, I had plain bone broth also thickened with xanthan gum as a sort of cream of chicken soup. It emulsified the fat on top of the broth really nicely.
Leftover homemade chili with some of my hen eggs cooked into it. Very filling.
edited to add: I made some ricotta the other day so cubed some of it into the mix also.
Yes! I have never been successful making rocitta from whey leftover from making cheese, but I used a gallon of whole milk and it came out just fine. I used a slotted mold to drain the whey from the ricotta but you can line a collandar with cheesecloth. All you need is some citric acid, whole milk and a thermometer. I will go look for the recipe I used and post it here.
Whole Milk Ricotta
For this recipe use whole milk. the fresher the better.
Prepare Citric Acid
Add 2 tsp of citric acid per gallon of milk used and dissolve this in 1 cup cool water.
Add 1/2 of the Citric Acid solution to one gallon of milk, save the rest of the citric acid.
Stir the milk briskly for 5-10 seconds.
Heat Milk
Add 1 tsp of salt to the milk then heat the milk slowly on low to med heat, stirring well to
prevent scorching
Extra Citric Acid, if Needed
At 165-170F watch for small flakes forming in the milk and the separation into small flaky curds.
If after a few minutes you do not see the flakes forming, add more of the Citric acid unti lthey form. Do this in 1 Tbsp increments, to avoid over acid milk. (I added 2 extra Tbl and that was enough to see the separation).
At this point, when you see the curds, A slower stirring is essential to avoid breaking up the small bits of curd that have formed. Excess stirring will cause smaller and very granular curds to form. I tend to just roll the milk slowly with a bottom to top stirring motion.
Gently Move Curd
Continue heating to 190-195F then turn the heat off. The thermal mass of the whey will hold at this temp for quite some time. The higher temp is used here because of the additional proteins found in whole milk vs whey.
As the curds rise, use a perforated ladle to gently move them from the sides to the center of the pot. These clumps of curd will begin to consolidate floating on top of theliquid.
Let the curds rest for 10-15 minutes. This is important because it is the point where the final Ricotta quality is assured.
Drain Ricotta
Ladle the curds gently into draining forms. No cheese cloth should be needed if you were patient in the previous step. (this applies if you have the slotted cheese molds) Let the curds drain for 15 min up to several hours.
For a fresh light ricotta, drain it for a short while, until the free whey drainage slows, and chill to below 50F. For a rich, dense and buttery texture allow it to drain for an extended period of time (several hours). before chilling overnight
Move to a refrigerator or cold room. Consume within 10 days
I thought it needed more salt and you can salt it as you use/eat it or lightly salt the block of ricotta.
I didn’t salt the block since it made more than the 2 of us can eat in 10 days so I gave half to my neighbor and if she wanted to use some of it for a dessert, the salt would have messed it up for that.
You can also make it with lemon juice, although that will obviously change the flavor a bit.
That is a small salad plate but it is still a lot of ricotta since I don’t eat pasta anymore. But was good in salads and I made one with just cherry tomatoes, onion, my ricotta and drizzled it with pesto-infused olive oil. Simple and delicious.
Mom’s sloppy joe.
Ground beef, onions, celery, green pepper, and some ketchup and water.
Of the homemade whole milk ricotta? Nope.
Chronometer says 1 Tbl of whole milk ricotta is 1.1 net carbs. Probably what I would add to a salad.