Lunchtime Musings

I'm sitting here at lunch, so darn happy to be eating a yummy homemade meat loaf, complete with a sauce I made myself from tomatoes grown in my own back yard!  Now that's living!

Ironically, Keto has brought so many foods back into my life that for so long have been "off limits" to me due to my inability to eat grains.  How, you might ask???  Because there is a whole wealth of knowledge out there on how to make familiar recipes in a way that suits the Keto WOE (way of eating).  I literally found the "keyword" of all keywords to search for recipes that suit me.

I feel like I eat better all around because of this diet, and not just to lose weight, but to cook from scratch and all that "natural" jazz.

My favorite zero-glycemic, natural sugar is Monkfruit.  You can get it granulated or powdered, even liquid.  But there are others that I like, too.  Swerve (erythritol), and Stevia extract.  Although Stevia is far from my favorite, it's decent in my pop replacements, Zevia sodas.  If you don't expect it to taste like sickening sweet high fructose corn syrup sodas, then you can better appreciate the taste difference.  I just crave something other than water sometimes!  Zevia has saved me.  Even spaceman drinks Cherry Cola Zevia now instead of Cherry Coke.  That one is my favorite, too.  But I like variety, so I keep many flavors on hand to choose from.  

And with Swerve or Monkfruit sweeteners, I can make just about any kind of dessert and it's yummy. Here my favorites:

• Pecan Pie Clusters - OMG.  These are salable goods.
• Chocolate Chip Cookies.  Yes.  The dark chocolate chips are sweetened with stevia and you can't really tell the difference at all.  The flour is finely ground almond flour.  We keep them frozen and eat them really cold.  But they are also delicious right out of the oven.
• Cheesecake.  Uh huh, this is amazing.  The crust is make from almond flour and pecans.  The Cheesecake is real cheesecake, but with Swerve.  Gawd, I ate so much of this as a pie.  Spaceman was more than happy to help me.  Put a little spray whipping cream and mash up a few raspberries or blackberries with your fork until it becomes sauce-like, drizzle over the whipping cream... yeah.

I have a recipe for carrot cake that I want to try soon.  I could never eat carrot cake before keto!  Grains were OFF LIMITS.  Keto is by definition grain-free.  

The one thing I can't eat is potatoes.  And we planted a LOT of potatoes this spring.  So we have decided to can them, to make them last longer and so that when I get into maintenance mode, I can add some back on occaision.  

So far, I'm down 15 lbs.  I have 10 more to go until my first big goal, 150 lbs.  At that point, I will definitely need new clothes.  As it is now, they are getting rather loose.  I wear them baggy.  But... it's beginning to be an issue... a really nice issue to have. lol

On other fronts....

I'm feeling pretty light and airy in spirit as well.  I listen to Abraham Hicks videos on YouTube frequently and am really enjoying the process of my life moving from suburban to rural in many ways that don't involve an actual move.  Right from where we are, we are learning to homestead as we go.  At first it started out as a suggestion by me to spaceman that we learn everything we can think to learn before we move, so that we have less of a learning curve to handle as we are eyeballs deep in adjusting from our move.  It turns out, there's a lot of enjoyment in learning this, that and the other.  And little things are cropping up (no pun intended), that are clearly demonstrating our alignment with our vortexes. 

The gardening interview I was slated for, ended up with technical difficulties and we had to reschedule.  Because of our travel plans (spaceman is in Virginia for a couple weeks), it's not rescheduled until mid-September.  That's okay.  I am 100% ready for it, and that feels good.  Plus, I will have even more to talk about.  We planted a fall crop of snow peas.  I looked them up; they're not too carby.  I'll be happy to put them in my salads, should they produce.  It's a risk, you know?  It's more risky to grow them in the fall than in the spring, or so I've read.  They can survive an early spring frost better than they can survive an early fall frost.  But, it's doable.  And it's nature's way, to be unpredictable no matter how well we try to time it.  So, they're in and they popped out of the ground like gangbusters.  In a week or less, they're 2 inches tall already.  I may be looking at having to drive the support poles in the ground and drape string between them for support before spaceman returns from Virginia.  The collards are also due for another harvest.  I plan to do that this weekend.  I've never done it myself before, but there's always a first time for everything.  

Well, I've written enough for a lunchtime blog.  So back to work for me.

I hope your week is going amazingly well, and that your dreams are lifting off ready to take you along with them. <3