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Keto Christmas Dinner - Treat meals not Cheat Meals

One problem so many 'diets' have is you have to cheat on special days, or really deprive yourself.
So it was a fun challenge to see if it was possible to have a traditional Christmas 3 course dinner and keep it Keto (although we didnt count macros on the day so we were likely a little high this was still a low carb Keto Christmas dinner)

Traditionally we used to have for Christmas dinner something yummy as a starter, it used to be a prawn cocktail (which is easy to make Keto, you can do a fantastic Mary Rose sauce with mayonnaise, tomato puree and some spices) but in recent years we have move more to something like pate.
Then the main course would be turkey and all the trimmings, which with us was homemade stuffing, sprouts (I love sprouts) mashed turnips and gravy, and then pudding was some yummy handmade treat, usually many hours after the meal.
But the last couple of years we have Ketoed this dinner

Pate is really easy to make and keto on its own. A little onion and chicken livers are fried in oil or butter and then blended to a smooth paste, an egg yoke and some brandy are added and then its popped in pretty ramekins (the ones we used came with olives last year) and a little butter added on top.
But what to use with the pate? I do have yummy keto crackers I will be sharing soon but for this we really wanted bread
Much Keto Bread is very very eggy but we found Lizza Bread mix  really easy to make and scratches that bread itch. It creates a small loaf which might be disappointing when you are used to giant fluffy loafs, but its so full of goodness that a couple of little slices are very satisfying.




And so on to the main

Well roast turkey and sprouts are perfectly keto
The stuffing is manly keto, sausage meat, onions, mushrooms and a tiny amount of oats and then a splash of Whisky (we are Scots)

This year we found 'Chicks in Blankets' which is chicken mini sausages wrapped in bacon and they were even more yummy than normal 'Pigs in Blankets'

Gravy is made from the meat juices, lovely healthy and keto with only a little gravy powder for thickening

And a tiny bit turnip wont hurt (scottish neeps, not the tiny sweeds the English call turnip :D but thats a debate for another time)

So the potato croquettes
Traditionally these are mashed potato balls with breadcrumbs on the outside - all not keto but totally yummy, so how to keto this?
Mashed cauliflower with some Parmesan cheese, yummy. made into balls then popped in the freezer to firm, and ground pork crunch (pork rinds I think)   to replace the breadcrumbs held on as usual with the chilled balls in egg then the 'breadcrumbs' then oven baked on the day
And cranberry sauce? This is a tradition that usually I just tolerate - having jam on my food is not a winner with me. But cooking down fresh cranberries in lemon juice and spices with a little sugar substitute made a tart yummy sauce that complimented the meat perfectly

 So on to pudding.
This cake from Keto Connect the Dark Chocolate pie with Pecans looked like something we had to try

I thought it would be super easy as its not far from chocky truffles I make all the time with cream and chocolate and then with added eggs and baked similar to a custard

But I must have added the chocolate to the cream when it was much too hot so the mixture split into a revolting lump of seized (lovely smelling) chocolate and liquid fat
Had I ruined it? Could this horribleness be saved?
Thankfully the answer was 'yes'
Google came to the answer saying you could un seize chocolate by adding some more boiling liquid
So I boiled up some cream and whisked it in a little at a time and thankfully slowly the mixture came together to a nice glossy pudding

And we were glad it did because it baked into a lovely pie that will easily serve 8 or even 10

(its also yummy if you add some raspberries ontop)

So I think we did it, a 3 course feast, yes the macros wont be perfect for a keto day but at the same time it is way way lower carbs than a normal Christmas dinner and no feeling we were missing out on anything
You can have Keto treat meals without overloading on carbs















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