Everyone, welcome to the new year! Can you believe it? 2024 - where are the flying cars and jetpacks?
I’ve decided to make a few changes to this website. As many of you know, each year I either continue the diet I’m on or start a new one. This year, I’m going to be keeping a record of my journey – but on my new Substack newsletter – Lighthearted by Jennifer.
Why a Substack? That will give me the opportunity to tailor the content for a special group of readers. In my newsletter, I’m going to share my thoughts on my weight loss (35+ pounds so far) what’s working and what isn’t. And I’ll pen a few posts on how I’m keeping my sense of humor through it all.
Lighthearted by Jennifer is where I’ll write about Keto, cooking, nutrition, and exercise. Here at Notes from Aunt Gem I’ll post my book reviews and miscellaneous essays. Who knows – maybe this year I’ll make the garden bloom!
I’ll post once a week on my health journey at my new spot. For the select few – those who elect to become paid subscribers – I’ll send at least one more post per week, and that one will have:
My actual measurements
My actual weight – the good, the bad, the ugly!
More info on what I’m finding that works
Come join the Lighthearted crew and lose weight with us!
Hi folks. I stopped writing because posting four times a week was just too much – with my full-time job, and my anal-retentive perfectionist procrastination. Then things happened. Hope some of you are still here to read this!
Why’d you leave?
In the winter and spring of this year, I decided to focus my blog on just a few things:
Keto journey
Books I’ve read
My garden
God chuckles when you make plans. This happened:
I fell off the keto bandwagon for about four months. How can I write about Keto when I’m not doing it?
It got so hot and humid I lost all interest in garden, after a few desultory attempts at tomatoes. So, again – how can I write about gardening when I’m not doing that either? I spent much of the summer enjoying air conditioning. The garden is a mess, but I may post my winter clean up pictures.
And third – I re-read a LOT of books that I’ve read before! Some of them are so trashy I’m embarrassed to admit I read them – Revenge by Tom Bower, a book about Meghan and Harry? Such a good hate-read! So, I wasn’t posting about that.
However….
I did read a few good books over the past few months and I have some reviews coming. AND – I’ve been working on another writing project; just not ready to talk too much about that one yet. Yes, I’m working on my own book! That’s all I’ll say.
Look for some reviews to come. And maybe some Keto posts – I did start up again last month, and it is going well.
Being on keto makes me miss certain things. I have missed the crunch of toast, the glories of brioche, and the lovely smell of pancakes. So it was time to hunt for a keto-friendly recipe for pancakes.
I had to print it on paper because I’ve come too close to tragedy before in the kitchen. I wasn’t about to risk my phone near sloppy pancake batter.
The recipe called for both almond and coconut flour. Luckily, I had stocked up on both from Amazon. I was anxious making the cakes, because nearly everything I’ve tasted from a store that was “keto-friendly” was garbage.
Happy to report – this was NOT garbage. The pancakes definitely tasted different from regular pancakes, but I enjoyed the slight nutty flavor. (I just realized, duh, they’re made with almonds, of course they’re nutty!)
I’m not sure if it was the recipe or my stove, but the cakes seemed to come out browner than usual. And I was so hungry I only got pictures of the first one on the plate! I definitely ate more than one.
A gallery of goodness
Just starting to bubble.
After the flip.
Topped with butter, the foundation of the short stack contrasts beautifully with a blue plate.
For the past few weeks I haven’t been able to spend as much time lovingly preparing all my dishes, taking pictures of each ingredient, and then posting reviews of all the recipes I’ve made. And I’ve felt guilty about that! Recently, the wonderful @iLibertyBelle on Twitter, who is a Keto-Diva (yes, it’s totally a word) inspired me.
After losing 80 lbs in 9 months (diet-only!), I am asked a lot about what I eat in a day.
✅ Keep it SIMPLE ✅ #LowCarb/minimal sugars ✅ Focus on Protein ✅ Eat when hungry, not on schedule, unless fasting ✅ Prep ahead/buy prepared foods to stay on track#Keto#LCHF
And one of the tweets in that thread (please, go read it – it is wonderful!) made me realize I don’t need to continuously eat like a chef. I can keep it simple so I can get everything done in my day and still be early to bed:
LUNCH
I stick to quick meals at lunch. EASY prep (10 min or less). I’m either working or with my kids + I hate taking the time to stop + make food.
Hi everyone! I’m back! I took a week off from posting due to a heavy work schedule, being out of town last weekend, and oh heck, let’s blame it on the time change. I’m back to sharing Keto deliciousness.
It’s been mostly cold this week in S.C. – where did Spring go? I decided today to make myself a hearty cold-weather dish – meatloaf. But no breadcrumbs, thank you very much. When I turned to keto options, my first thought was my favorite Suzanne Ryan cookbook and guide, Simply Keto. But alas, no recipe for meatloaf. (It’s probably in her second book which I don’t have yet.) So off to a web search, and I found a recipe with Easy in the title – just my speed. Here’s the complete recipe for Easy Keto Meatloaf on KetoConnect.com.
It earns the 4 1/2 stars
This article isn’t just the recipe – it’s also a good guide to all the replacements you can use for breadcrumbs. This recipe uses chicharrones, which is a fancy way of saying pork rinds. They’re carb-free and surprisingly delicious. The recipe itself – yum. I just had it for lunch and I have to say, it earns the 4 1/2 star rating on the website. I’d give it five.
What do you do when your willpower flags and fails? Do you get right back on the Keto way of eating, or do you wallow for a bit, then gradually make you way back to it? Me: I’ve done a little bit of wallowing over the past three days. Day 1, I had a small slip. Day 2, I said to heck with it at lunch and had a roll. Then snacks off the snack table at work. Then I threw Keto out entirely and chowed down on bread, bread and more bread at dinner, waking up the next day feeling awful. Day 3 – yesterday: I got it together and once again got back on my program.
Dust yourself off, forward ho!
That was a much quicker recovery than I’ve ever experienced before! In all my years of trying new diets, staying on diets, falling off diets, and getting back on diets – I’ve NEVER been able to get right back on my program the day after a big slip. What is helping me is realizing how much I like this way of eating. Plus, ketogenic eating, when done right, does suppress your appetite. All that fat satiates you!
In recovering this time, I decided to do something positive and scour the Web for inspiration. I chuckled at these memes, which I’m sharing below. The first is a good reminder from Mechelle Sellers:
Yes!
The next two are from my new favorite Keto inspiration website, The Keto Minimalist:
Next, one I intend to put up on a wall in my office:
And last, my favorite one of all:
Tell me how you’re managing to stay on your Keto program!
To stay as keto-friendly as possible, I’ve put away my beautiful KitchenAid Artisan Stand mixer in Empire Red away for the time being. It no longer lives on the countertop, encouraging me to create cakes or just mix up a batch of biscuits. I’m focusing on meats, chicken, fish, green veggies and healthy fats during this season of Keto focus. The wonderful creations from my kitchen using that mixer are giving way to ever-more elaborate omelets. I’ve started playing with herbs to flavor my food as well. And the steaks – oh, the steaks. There will be an entirely different post for that.
All images by Dall-E
Dedicated Keto bakers have engineered some Keto-recipes for making Keto-friendly biscuits, bread, and cakes. I might just have to try this recipe using almond flour and cheese to make a Southern biscuit. But I’m afraid if I start making all these delicious-looking goodies, I’ll done two things:
Blow my budget on almond flour, and
Blow my daily caloric allowance on bread, instead of veggies and healthy meats.
Letting others do the baking
In the meantime, today is my mother’s birthday, and I’ve decided to surprise her with a cake from one of my favorite bakeries in town: Kudzu Bakery. Their cakes are beautiful and not too sweet. They did a wonderful job on my dad’s birthday carrot cake in January. Her chocolate mousse cake will make a lovely dessert for after the birthday supper. Happy Birthday, Mom!
In the past few weeks I was overwhelmed with responsibilities both at work and at home. Besides that, I was getting ready for two trips on two consecutive weekends. I didn’t leave myself time at all to carefully plan my meals and cook them. That manifested in my plea to readers a few days ago for quick and easy meals.
In the last two days, I’ve started reading the book I bought at All Good Books, our new bookstore in town (only 4 miles from me.) “We Are What We Eat” by Alice Waters, owner and chef at the famed Chez Panisse, is subtitled “A Slow Food Manifesto.” I’m only halfway through the book and I’m already inspired. Waters makes you want to slow down, to break the cycle of our fast food mentality and culture, and draw pleasure from the craft of making our daily sustenance.
The Fast Food Culture
Waters devotes the first half of the book to outlining seven terrible aspects of fast food. By that, she doesn’t mean just our reliance on chain restaurants offering burgers and tacos, but any way of providing food that is mass produced, in factory or industrial settings, with herbicides and pesticides. Fast food is its own culture, and like any culture, it has certain values. After reading this first half of the book, I can sense she thinks of them almost as seven deadly sins to healthy eating: Convenience, uniformity, availability, trust in advertising, cheapness, “more is better” and speed.
Convenience – ever since the first Swanson frozen TV dinner was introduced in the 50s, every food manufacturer has been selling us convenience. And convenience does have a place: Waters released this book in 2021, during the 2nd wave of the COVID pandemic, and people were relying on all sorts of conveniences: UberEATS in particular. But the uniformity of mass-produced food has led us all to be suspicious of the local, the new, the unfamiliar. And availability: today, we think all foods should be on hand everywhere, at all times! Seasonality is a foreign concept. Our way of cooking in America has relied on a trust in advertising, that we accept that these factory-produced foods are actually good, and the producers have our best interests at heart. Hah! Cheapness and “more is better” – can there be any values that typify the biggie size fast-food meal?
Art by Dall-E; fast food in the style of Claude Monet
All of these resonate, but the last spoke to me in particular. Why are we trying to save so much time by not cooking? By not shopping for our own food? I’ve learned over the past few months, as I’ve prepared Keto meals, that cooking can be a relaxing time. By spending time in the kitchen, I’m not spending time on my phone, doom-scrolling as I wait for the Uber EATS delivery person. I can control what I eat and how I cook it. I’m learning to be more creative in preparing my meals. None of this, rightly approached, is a burden. Instead, it is a return to “slow living” after the hectic pace of my day. I’m so looking forward to finishing this book; to finding out how Waters describes the international slow food movement and read of her discoveries in being part of it.
Lately my work schedule has been so vigorous that I’ve come home exhausted from the office. On work-from-home days I’ve trudged wearily down the hall to the kitchen at dinnertime. Tonight was a good example; fortunately, I had leftover burger patties with cheese melted on top. But sometimes, you’re just too tired to cook. I’ve done deviled eggs to death; I’ve snacked on hunks of cheddar cheese, and when I’m tired, I don’t even have it in me to pull together a salad.
Readers: What do you suggest?
Perhaps ham and cheese rollups for supper?
What are your quick Keto go-to’s on those days when you’re too tired to cook? How do you keep from scarfing down potato chips or anything else full of carbs? I’m at the point where I’m starting to think skipping dinner is good – and I’m sure that will just cause me to overdo at the next meal. Please let me know your suggestions for very quick keto-friendly dinners in the comments.
Notes from Aunt Gem 