Snowed In: Low Carb Baking & Taste Testing Fun :) Cookies, Waffles, Cupcakes & Candy

In my last food diary I shared my low carb meals from the weekend including two very easy (and healthy!) home-cooked dinners with delicious veggies.

Aaron brought me a great salad Monday evening because I had to work late, then we got hit with snow that night. Snow, ice and subzero temps for days actually!

I work from home fortunately (I’ve been in business 21 years now), so we got snowed in here at my house – with a lot of low carb products I had lined up for food reviews…:)

I don’t normally spend a week eating cookies, waffles, cupcakes and candy (even if they ARE low carb!) but… lol, that’s what it came down to! That and some fun new low carb recipe experiments. 😉

I’ll give you a quick tour of all the fun low carb foods we tried this week. Baking was a necessity of course, not just for food – but also because keeping the oven going helped keep the house warm while it was below zero for days on end. 😛 Brr!

I have discount codes for most of the products we were testing out this week, so I’ll include those at the end of the post in case you want to check any of them out.

Monday

For breakfast I had my new favorite “hot coffee keto shake” using the Ketologie Keto Shake Mix. It’s so much better than BPC (Bullet Proof Coffee) – creamy, smooth, rich and no mess or fuss! Plus it has the coconut oil AND collagen in it already.:)

I had leftovers for lunch: a meal I had cooked over the weekend with grilled chicken, Pili Nuts and roasted veggies. Then for dinner Aaron brought me a salad from Bojangles’.

Their Roast Chicken Bites Salad is 14 net carbs, and the ranch packet is 2 net carbs. I ate *most* of it – maybe 3/4 of the salad. It’s always so fresh and really good!

After dinner we made Low Carb Chocolate Walnut Cookies using Good Dee’s Double Chocolate Chip Cookie Mix and adding a bag of chopped walnuts:

I’ve made these before and they’re delicious!

Chocolatey, nutty, the perfect cookie consistency – and very low carb.

I love getting creative with Good Dee’s mixes! 🙂

Tuesday

Breakfast was my “cheesy eggs” which for some reason always get a lot of compliments on Instagram. 🙂 Here’s how I make them:

I melt a full TBSP of real butter in a non stick skillet over medium heat (5 on my stove). I crack the eggs into the melted butter and scramble them right in the skillet, add a dash of salt, then about 1/3 the way through I add in the cubed cheese (about half ounce per egg) that I cubed off the block – and finish scrambling.

The key: cook slow over medium heat!

For lunch I made more of my Spinach Biscuits Recipe, and also made some small Cheddar Biscuits using the same base low carb biscuit recipe:

Note: I’ve discovered adding 1-2 teaspoons of baking powder really makes them rise up nicely and fluffier on the inside. 🙂

The base recipe is:

1 cup Bob’s Red Mill Almond Meal/Flour
1 TBSP melted butter
2 large eggs
1 6oz bag Kraft Finely Shredded Parmesan

For the spinach biscuits I add:

* Pictsweet Cut Leaf Spinach (whole bag- steamed)

You could steam or saute fresh spinach of course, or add pretty much anything to the base recipe for fun low carb bread & biscuit creations. 🙂

You can slice them in half with a sharp knife, or just use two biscuits to make a sandwich – which is what Aaron did. I dipped my biscuits in ranch and chunky salsa.:)

Taste Test: Snickerdoodle vs Peanut Butter

Cookies for dinner?! Sure, as long as they’re low carb and filling. Why not, right? 🙂 Besides, we had spinach at lunch – and filled up on those beautiful biscuits.

I also wanted to get Aaron’s opinion on the two different Keto Kookie flavors because I am in LOVE with their brand new Peanut Butter recipe – but I needed a second opinion…

I’ve had ALL of the Keto Kookie flavors and Snickerdoodle has been my favorite – until they came out with the new Peanut Butter cookies this month. 🙂

The Snickerdoodle Keto Kookie has a really nice cookie texture and a great snickerdoodle/cinnamon flavor:

The brand new Peanut Butter Keto Kookie though… is buttery soft and crumbly with a rich peanut butter flavor, and simply the BEST “kookie” they’ve come out with yet! ♥

Aaron agreed. He said they both had great cookie texture, smelled amazing, and the flavors were wonderful… but agreed there’s no comparison to the new Peanut Butter Keto Kookie. They really nailed this recipe. 😉

It’s the closest thing to a traditional peanut butter cookie I’ve EVER tried, including making my own low carb pb cookies at home!;)

Wednesday

Still snowed in, now with windchill & frostbite warnings, we decided to try the Low Carb Pecan Pie Waffle Recipe that came in the last Keto Krate box.

Waffles seemed perfect on a cold winter morning. 🙂

The recipe called for Legendary Foods Pecan Pie Nut Butter and also for “a TBSP of sweetener.”

This was the perfect opportunity to break out my Ketologie Sweet Like Sugar and test it out!

The Ketologie Sweet Like Sugar was perfect. It’s granular like sugar, but it’s a zero carb organic sweetener that really does taste just like sugar!

And the waffles? YUM! ♥

The Legendary Foods Pecan Pie Nut Butter is rich and delicious by itself, but it made FABULOUS waffles!

They were even better with the (brand new) ChocoZero Maple Pecan Syrup. Perfect flavor combination! That plus real butter melted over the hot Pecan Pie waffles was seriously the best low carb breakfast I think I’ve ever had.:)

I’ll write up the low carb waffle recipe for you if you don’t subscribe to Keto Krate or didn’t get the January Box that had that recipe included.

We are working on some variations to it, which I can’t wait to test out & share with you – including lower carb versions of the waffles, and also low carb muffins. 😉

We made a double batch of the waffles, so I had those for both breakfast AND lunch (no complaints! lol) then I ate some leftover roasted vegetables for dinner.

We were just using up and working with what we had here, but as you can see we weren’t suffering much.;) lol

For dessert…

Low Carb White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Peanut Butter Cups:

I made these using ChocZero Dipping Cups and adding salted macadamia nuts and peanut butter – using the dipping cups as a candy mold.

That made for a delicious sweet & salty, creamy & crunchy combo!

Thursday

We decided to experiment with the low carb waffle recipe again, this time with another nut butter from Legendary Foods: the Blueberry Cinnamon Bun Cashew Nut Butter.

At 8 net carbs per serving, or 4 net carbs per TBSP, yes it’s amazingly delicious… but WAY too high in carbs for my taste.;)

We also added a bit of organic frozen blueberries. Two waffles were way too high in carbs for a keto diet but they WERE delicious, fluffy and beautiful. 🙂

It FINALLY warmed up just above freezing, only for a few short hours in the afternoon on Thursday, but it was enough to let us out of the house before we went totally stir crazy (or ate any more waffles -lol).

We got out for a nice long drive to the Savage Gulf State Natural Area to hike Greeter Falls and Boardtree Falls in Altamont, TN.

It was a total winter wonderland up there, and breathtakingly beautiful with all of the waterfalls frozen in midair! 🙂

We hiked for maybe 2 or 3 hours. The fresh air was GREAT, and it felt SO good to stretch my legs on the trails with a few good inclines.

We just layered up and kept moving.;) It was exhilarating between the fresh air, exercise, the cold and all of the amazing views!

I was ready for a big juicy steak and some vegetables at that point, so we stopped on the way back for a healthy low carb dinner.

I was CRAVING greens, so I ordered a caesar salad with no croutons – just romaine & mozzarella. And I cleaned that plate!

My dinner was a juicy 12oz ribeye steak with sauteed vegetables – broccoli, cauliflower, squash & zucchini. It comes with carrots too, but I pick those out.;)

I ate ALL of my salad and a little over half of my meal, and brought the rest home to eat for lunch the next day.

OMG THAT WAS GOOD!!

Later that night we decided to make Low Carb Chocolate Cupcakes using Good Dee’s new Chocolate Snack Cake Mix.

We filled the cupcake tin fuller (and even added a teaspoon of baking powder) with the goal of having fluffy muffin tops on these…

That didn’t work. They fell flat. 😛

We topped them with another nut butter from Legendary Foods. This one was the “Peanut Butter Cup Nut Butter” and NEITHER of us liked it. It was thick and flavorless – and I ended up scraping it off of my cupcakes.

Aaron didn’t even bother putting it on his at all. 😛

That’s the first LF product we have NOT liked!

Even though they didn’t fluff up or have “muffin tops” Good Dee’s Snack Cake Mix has a great flavor and cake texture. Very light & fluffy, and delicious!

And yes, we’ve been having FUN taste-testing and experimenting – and eating all the fun combinations of low carb products this week.;) Especially those waffles!!

Friday

We had cheesy eggs again for breakfast, and I had my leftover steak & veggies for lunch. Aaron ordered “Naked Wings” from Domino’s for dinner, which are just chicken wings with no sauce.

They’re best if you order them “extra crispy” by the way:

I only ate two of the wings, and I just ate them plain – then later I made myself a yummy low carb snack plate!

I had one of the chocolate cupcakes, a serving of pecans, an ounce of cream cheese, and 2 tablespoons of peanut butter:

I just realized I forgot to log the 2nd TBSP of peanut butter. 😳

How To Get Net Carbs in MyFitnessPal

Aaron finished off the cupcakes (and also ate most of the cookies & waffles this week 😉 thankfully!). He loves the ChocoZero syrups, the two we’ve tried so far anyway: chocolate and maple pecan.

I love the ChocoZero syrups too, but am most excited to try their new Peppermint Syrup – which should be here any day now. 🙂

FAQ about ChocZero Dipping Cups

I get a lot of questions about the ChocZero cups so I posted a Q&A about ChocZero Dipping Cups on Facebook yesterday (based on MY experience with them). You’ll find that helpful if you ordered some and aren’t sure about certain things:

See my Dipping Cup Creations & Ideas for creative ways to use them. 🙂

Being snowed in was fun. 🙂

Being snowed in with a man that likes to bake… even more fun! 🙂 lol

Aaron has a serious sweet tooth. Me, not so much. The big juicy steak was my favorite meal of the week! Well… the Pecan Pie Waffles with Maple Pecan syrup DID pull a close second.;)

Here are the links to some of the products we were testing out and taste-testing / experimenting with – and the coupon codes for our discount…

Our Discount Codes

I try to score these discounts for you every chance I get! 🙂

Keto Kookie – code: LOWCARBTRAVELER

ChocZero – code: TravelingLowCarb

Pili Nuts – code: LOWCARBTRAVELER

Legendary Foods – code: lowcarbtraveler

Good Dee’s Low Carb Baking Mixes – code: LOWCARBTRAVEL15

Ketologie – Sign up by email on that page for the Free Keto 101 Ebook. It’s a great read, and that will get you on the list for any special deals or coupon codes that Dr. Tracey puts out.;)

I included Pili Nuts in the list because we are going to try the waffle recipe with the brand new Pili Nut Butter, and also use that for a Blueberry Muffin Recipe too – instead of the Legendary Foods nut butters.

The goal: to lower the carb count on the waffle recipe!

We have a few more Legendary Foods nut butters to try too, and we’re thinking next up will be Apple Pie Walnut Muffins and Apple Pie Pancakes. What do you think? 🙂

In addition to the fun hike this week, I’ve been keeping my Daily Tricep Dips goal. I’m up to 20 at a time, and I’m holding them longer – which feels great!

Confession: as much fun as this has been, I’m REALLY looking forward to the 50-60 degree weather this weekend… and getting back to my usual SIMPLE low carb meals.

How are things going with you?

I would love to hear how your week went, and what you’re into this weekend. And of course any new low carb foods, products or recipes YOU’VE tried lately…

Leave a comment and let’s chat!:)

Best,
Lynn Terry,
aka @LowCarbTraveler

p.s. I had a brief moment of true sadness when I ran out of Peanut Butter Keto Kookies AND they sold out on that same day! 🙄 😛 Fortunately they are back in stock – and I have more on the way now. 😉 *whew* (yes, they are THAT good!)