Creamy Mushroom Pork Chops - Low Carb High Fat Keto

Growing up my Dad did a good amount of the cooking for our family, which is probably why I took an interest in cooking at such a young age. He loves mushrooms… me too Dad, me too. One of his signature dishes was cream of mushroom pork chops with rice. I loved it, fast forward 15 years and we’ve redesigned that recipe to be keto friendly. See, one thing I’ve noticed from similar recipes is that they often call for a can of cream of mushroom soup.

But what’s in those cream of mushroom soups?

Well, let’s take a look at the ingredient list from Campbell's Cream of Mushroom:

INGREDIENTS: WATER, MUSHROOMS, VEGETABLE OIL (CORN, COTTONSEED, CANOLA, AND/OR SOYBEAN), MODIFIED FOOD STARCH, WHEAT FLOUR, CONTAINS LESS THAN 2% OF: SALT, MONOSODIUM GLUTAMATE, SOY PROTEIN CONCENTRATE, DEHYDRATED CREAM (CREAM [MILK], SOY LECITHIN), YEAST EXTRACT, FLAVORING, DEHYDRATED GARLIC.

Vegetable oil? Modified Food Starch? Wheat Flour? Soy Protein? Flavoring? Wtf is flavoring? Yeaaaaaa, I’ll pass. Thanks anyway can of soup, but we’ll take it from here.

Corn, Cottonseed, canola and soybean oil are all cheap, damaged and toxic oils that lead to oxidation and free radicals. Those are bad news. Free radicals are basically atoms that are missing an electron, making them reactive and causing a chain reaction of oxidation, inflammation and autoimmune conditions. (1)

You can avoid all of this with a little heavy cream, olive oil and broth, which is exactly what we’re about to do! Let’s get to it…

The Ingredients…

• 1 pound Pork Chops
• ¼ cup Olive Oil
• 4 ounces Mushroom
• ¼ cup Shallot*
• 1 cup Heavy Cream
• ½ cup Chicken Broth
• 2 tablespoon Butter
• ½ teaspoon Salt
• ½ Teaspoon Black Pepper
• ½ Teaspoon Thyme (not necessary but great flavor)
• Fresh Parsley to Garnish

*Shallots are basically a onion/garlic hybrid. If you don’t have a shallot I’d use 2 ounces of onion and a tablespoon of garlic

Cauliflower Rice Ingredients…

• 3 cups Riced Cauliflower
• 1 tablespoon Butter
• Salt and Pepper to taste

The Steps....

1. In a large pan, add half of the olive oil on medium heat.

2. Sear pork chops, season with salt and pepper and cook for about 7-8 minutes on each side (depending on thickness). Remove from pan and let them rest.

3. Add remaining olive oil, shallots and mushrooms. Cook for 2 minutes just until they begin to brown.  

4. Add in heavy cream, chicken broth, 1 tbsp butter, salt, pepper, thyme. Reduce to a low heat and allow to simmer until broth cooks down and you are left with a creamy consistency. Allow about 15 minutes for this, stirring every couple of minutes. If you are getting any burning on the pan, lower your heat! This is just a simmer, so you’re going to want to have some bubbling but minimal, too much bubbling will lead to burning.

5. Slice Pork chops into strips of desired size and add them to the pan.

6. Stir thoroughly mixing everything up and garnish with parsley. Remove pan from heat.

7. Serve over cauliflower rice and enjoy!

Cauliflower Rice…

This is a pretty basic “rice” recipe.

1. I usually buy the frozen Organic Riced Cauliflower from Trader Joe’s. Microwave the bag (3 cups) for about 7-8 minutes. This will help evaporate much of the water so you don’t have soggy cauliflower.

2. Add 1 tbsp butter, salt and pepper and mix.

3. Boom. Done.

Take a big heaping scoop of cauliflower rice and smother it with deliciousness. Garnish with (more) parsley, I like parsley, and enjoy!

The Macros…

1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3614697/

Mary's Keto Meatballs

My parents taught me to cook from a young age and I love them for that (among other reasons!). But, a lot of my Italian recipes came from Mary.. my work mom. My first job out of college was as a financial analyst sitting in a row of cubicles, gotta love that cubicle life. Mary's cube faced mine, so we basically could only see each other from our desks. 

She makes an eggplant parm that will knock your socks off and I was blessed with that stuff on almost a weekly basis. I'd show up to work and there would be a tupperware waiting for me, I'm not kidding you when I say she would bring me in leftovers at least 2-3 days per week. Her kids apparently don't do leftovers, but I guess I wouldn't either if I had Mary cooking for me at home too. 

When I left the company to pursue new adventures in Los Angeles, Mary bestowed two final parting gifts to me. A full tray of eggplant parm. Along with a tray of chicken parm, baked ziti, and of course meatballs and second she gave me the recipes to each! Jackpot.

Well here I am a decade 6 years later, still love to cook and still love Mary's food. Only now I am full on keto making these recipes not part of the diet, they also did a damn good just making me fat. So I hoped on the phone with Mary and talked ketofication strategy... turns out she's already been on the low carb train and making low carb versions of her recipes! 

On to the meatballs, so tasty, so delicious… I usually eat one too many but who’s counting. Just kidding I am, I’m counting macros and these are macro approved. Need I say more?

This recipe make about 35 meatballs depending on how big you make them, mine are roughly ~60 grams each. If you’re a single person like I am shopping in bulk vs food waste can be a big issue, which why I love meatballs! They store easily in the freezer and they don't require much defrost time. 

Mary's Tips:

Keep a bowl of water handy as you are making the meatballs so you can keep your hands wet. This stops the meatballs from sticking to your fingers. I couldn't believe how well this worked. It was definitely a game changer. 

The Steps...

1. Adds all ingredients to a bowl except cream and eggs

2. Mash and Mix thoroughly! The last thing you want is one meatball with all of the garlic… that’s a hot ball.

3. Add in the cream and eggs and mix thoroughly*

4. On a large baking sheet or parchment paper roll out the meatballs. I use a scale and weigh out each one. The total recipe came out to just under 2000 grams which means I could make 35 balls at 58g each, which is the typical size.

5. In a frying pan  heat cooking oil (I use walnut or avocado oil) to a medium heat.  

6. Cook evenly letting them crisp on one side for about 10 minutes.

7. Flip and cook for about 5 more minutes. Cooking times very for size 

* When mixing wet and dry ingredients it's a good rule of thumb to mix separately before adding everything together. This will prevent a clump of almond flour in the middle of your meatball.  

Ingredients

• 2 pounds ground beef (The macros are for 85/15 beef)
• 1 pound ground pork (80/20 trader joes)
• ½ cup almond flour
• ½ cup pork rinds
• 6 eggs
• ¼ cup heavy cream 
• 1 medium onion finely chopped
• ½ cup freshly chopped basil
• ½ cup freshly chopped Italian parsley
• ½ cup parmesan cheese
• 3 tablespoons garlic
• 1 tablespoons salt
• 1 tablespoon pepper

The Macros...

Slow Cooker Carnitas - Fatbody Keto, LCHF Approved

I reaaaally love these slow cooked pork carnitas. I will make a huge batch and eat it throughout the week with absolutely no complaints. I use to be a big fan of BBQ pulled pork but these carnitas are just so much more versatile and flavorful, and much lower in sugar with no sweeteners needed.  

And let me tell you, the slow cooker is by far the best way to look like a rockstar in the kitchen with the least amount of skill required. It’s almost impossible to do it wrong. Even if you are a total novice in the kitchen, I promise that you can make world class food. 

Make sure to plan your time accordingly. This is the perfect Sunday Dinner, but it’s going to take about 8 hours all in, 6 hours to cook followed by another hour or two to cool down, shred, strain and remove all the non meat. Next, I like to crisp it up in a frying pan or under the broiler before finally eating, but this is definitely worth the wait. The juices, the tender pork… ugh I think I might need to go heat some up right now. And that’s the other thing…

Slow cooked food freezes so well. Since I am a single guy, cooking for one the ability to cost optimize is an important one. I can split the whole batch into 3 or 4 bags and freeze most of it while still having a weeks worth of fresh food. A month later, I can pull it out of the freezer and into a pan and the pork will crisp up like it was made that day.

The Ingredients...

• 4 lbs pork shoulder (6 if bone in - adds flavor)
• 4 oz chipotle peppers (half the jar from the picture above)
• Small can of ortega chiles
• 1/4 bunch of cilantro leaves dices
• ½ large white onion
• 2 limes squeezed and rinds added
• 2 teaspoons each: paprika, salt, pepper, oregano, cumin
• 1 cup bone broth (or water and 1/4 cup of oil/lard)
• 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar

The Steps…

Put it all into the crockpot and turn it on… just kidding, well kind of.

1. Start off by trimming some of the fat, typically a cut this size will have a ton of fat and it’s not all needed, plus you need to save room for all the other ingredients!

2. Cut the pork into 4 or 5 large chunks. If you are using a bone in cut make sure to keep the bone piece on the bottom of the crockpot as this will draw out a lot of good flavor and nutrients.

3. Dump everything into the crockpot and cook on high heat. My crockpot has 2 settings, hot and low. Low is good but will require a few additional hours.

4. 6 hours later… Open the lid (try not to do this at all for the first 6 hours, you don’t want to let the heat out). Pick up a piece with tongs and if it feels like it’s starting to fall apart turn the crockpot off.

5. Remove the large chunks of meat and let them sit for about 30 minutes to cool off. Once cool enough you can start pulling the meat apart, removing any excess fat or other ingredients.

6. Strain all other fats and ingredients from the juices. This is a very fatty broth so don’t worry about “straining” out fat, there is plenty of it in that broth.

7. Add all strained juices and shredded meat back into the crockpot and let the meat soak it all up.

8. It’s ready to eat this way, but I LOVE putting it in a pan for a few minutes on high heat just to get it a little crispy.

9. Serve and enjoy! This goes in omelets, tacos, on top of a burger, as a meal, in a lettuce wrap and whatever other way you can think of. It goes with everything

The Macros…

This is a bit hard to calculate as most of the ingredients used are removed and you are just left with a much leaner batch of meat, with some very fatty juices.

According to the USDA Food Database, cooked pork shoulder is about 31g of protein and 28g of fat per cup of meat, which is roughly 394 calories and 66% fat. I’d say with the added bone broth/oil you can estimate the fat content to be slightly higher.