I did Keto way before it became a "thing", but...

So, I've been hearing a lot about keto, ketosis, the keto diet...it all started back in the summer when Billy Football (intern for Pardon My Take, pretty much the best sports podcast out there - if you don't know who Big Cat and PFTCommenter are, we need to talk) got his bosses onto that keto lifestyle.  Drinking a gallon of water a day, cutting out carbs...these guys were roasting sausages in the office and peeing on keto test strips on the daily in order to lose weight. 

I didn't think much of it myself until a few friends got really serious about it, then decided to take a little keto journey of my own.
10 minutes into reading about it, I realized that it was literally - no lie - the exact same thing I did to drop weight before my wedding, but, you know, with a lot more cheese involved.  So I'm giving it a try here again, and thought I'd jump back into the blogging world with a two reviews and a recipe. 

First up....snacks. My snack of choice for keto is roasted kale with a little bit of sea salt. I take a huge bunch of kale pieces (I get the big bags from Costco), drizzle with olive oil and bit of sea salt, and roast at 375 for 8 minutes, stir, then roast another 7 minutes to make kale chips. 

I thought I'd give some other snacks a try, and so I bought these bad boys on Amazon Prime Now, thinking that I've had some luck with the Quest brand of products in the past:

IMPROVED! Quest Protein Chips, BBQ Flavor

I had such high hopes for these chips. I read through so many reviews, and of the two options, I really thought that these would be the clear winner. High protein, low carb, delicious seasonings....these were the attributes promised. 

What was not promised, yet delivered, was something akin to chewing on balsa wood that had been very well seasoned with a BBQ rub. The seasoning was great, but with each chip, I had more and more difficulty getting past the feeling I was eating particle board (with 21g protein per bag!)

Because I am a *smart* shopper, I got an entire box of these. Cue facepalm.  On the positive side of things, they left me quite full, if not a bit more splintery in the oral region than I was before cracking open the bag. 

Moving right along, I decided to try using this magical erythritol sweetener that many, many proponents of keto baking suggest - nay, hail - as the perfect substitute for regular sugar. It goes by the name of Swerve, and I snagged myself a bag of both the granulated and the confectioners'. For this recipe, I went with the granulated.

This is what I tell myself: If I am to believe the hype, these keto peanut butter cookies I'm about to make are going to be ridiculously easy, and ridiculously good. 1 cup of natural peanut butter - yeah, the kind that you have to really work on to get the oil to incorporate so it actually resembles peanut butter - 1/2 cup of Swerve granulated sugar, and 1 egg. SO EASY.

Roll into little balls, flatten with a fork like all good peanut butter cookie bakers do, and pop into a 350 degree oven for 12-15 minutes. Parchment paper highly recommended on the cookie sheet to allow for even baking. 

And you end up with something like so....

Looks, smells, and feels exactly like a homemade peanut butter cookie. Sure, it's not quite as magical as those holiday cookies with the Hershey's kiss in the middle, but certainly this will satisfy my sweet tooth after making a keto dinner platter that looked like this:

(Proscuitto wrapped parmesan, olives, fresh mozzarella, and parmesan crackers with cream cheese. All keto friendly. All very much not in line with my "no more dairy ever" attempt after my minor surgery a few weeks ago, but until I get those results back, that's neither here nor there and I will enjoy this cheese, damn it.)

Back to the cookie. You know how when you eat an after dinner mint, you get that sensation of your mouth cooling down? That's the exact first sensation I felt when I bit into this cookie - which, to its credit, had a lovely, soft texture and the composition was just right for what it was supposed to be. But again. Minty freshness is not what I'm expecting with my PB cookies.  I powered through it, and somewhere around the third bite, I either got used to it, or I just willfully ignored it.  After I'm done with the cookie....well....that's when the burning starts.  "It tastes like burning!" has always been one of my favorite lines from The Simpsons, and once again, I have an opportunity to use it.  The tingling feeling I had after eating one cookie felt eerily similar to how I feel when I eat a banana. 

(I'm really allergic to bananas, by the way.) (Yes. It's an actual thing. Look it up.)

So, final thoughts. Snacks - eh. Need to improve and find something other than kale to snack on. Dessert? Going to have to dig deep and figure out some creative ways to check that box because right now, my first attempt was a C+ at best.  But hey! At least I've got some solid ideas for meals - I also, when left to my own devices, could happily eat salad with grilled chicken for the rest of my life, and so I consider my fallbacks good to go for now. 

Soon, perhaps, I'll delve into the joys of drinking a gallon of water a day...but I'm going to do it for a few weeks before I report back on how I feel overall.