Eggs In a Cloud

I eat a lot of eggs. Between me and my two roommates (both ketoers as well) we will easily polish off a palette of 30 eggs in a week. So finding new ways to prepare eggs is pretty exciting stuff.

I found this recipe on the I Breathe... I'm Hungry... blog (via reddit). It's like a savory pavlova, and I LOVE pavlova. How did I never think of this?

Naturally, I set out to make this darn thing immediately. If you have an electric whisking appliance, it's a really simple recipe, which is always convenient in a breakfast food. And like an omelette, you can really change it up just by switching the fillings. Mushrooms, peppers, ham, chopped chicken, carrot, spinach, onion, prosciutto, tomato, etc. The world is your oyster! You could even use oysters, although I'm not a huge fan myself.

I'd like to play around with this recipe some more - try adding cream of tartar and/or vinegar to see if it helps form a nice crispy outside. I'm not convinced a pavlova-like crispy crust would taste right, but I'd like to try.

I've included a text version of this recipe for those who enjoy copy/pasting and an image version for those who like pictures. The image-recipe has a more detailed nutrition breakdown of the individual ingredients. And for those who are into micronutrients, I have a detailed breakdown here.

Although I've included nutritional info, your recipe will probably be different because pretty much no sausage has ever been created equally. And if you completely switch up the ingredients, then it will definitely be different. You can use the nutritional breakdown below to parse out and replace any ingredient changes.

Per serving (1/2 of the recipe, or 1 cloud): 236 calories, 1.4 g carbs, 0.0 g fiber, 1.4 g net carbs, 17.4 g fat, 17.3 g protein

Ingredients

• 2 eggs, separated
• 2 bacon, cooked an chopped
• 2 small breakfast sausages, cooked and chopped
• 1 Tbsp chives, chopped
• 1 oz cheese, shredded
• salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

Note 1: As you will probably be cooking your bacon and sausage first, I suggest putting them in the freezer to cool them down. You don’t want them cooking the egg or un-fluffing the whites when it’s time to mix it all up. You can do the same with your shredded cheese if it’s prone to getting soft and melty.

Note 2: When separating your egg yolks from the whites, be sure not to pop your yolks. And store the yolks in separate bowls - this will prevent you from accidentally double-yolking your egg white clouds.


1. Preheat your oven to 375F / 190C. Grease (or line with parchment paper) a cookie tray.


2. Using whatever method you prefer, beat your 2 egg whites into stiff peaks. They need to be able to hold their form when you mix in the other ingredients. 


3.  Gently fold in the 2 chopped bacon, 2 chopped sausages, 1 Tbsp chopped chives and 1 oz shredded cheese. You may want to do this in two batches. Remember - fold it in! No stirring. 


4.  Once your egg white mixture seems to have an even distribution of bacon and sausage, lightly dole two fluffy piles onto your greased or lined cookie tray. Make a small yolk-sized impression in the peak of each cloud and gently slide 1 egg yolk into each impression. 


5.  Place them into your 375F / 190C oven and bake for approximately 6 minutes. However, I suggest keeping a close eye on them so you can get that perfect balance of meringue-y whites and runny yolk. If you’re a fan of runny yolk that is. I am. 


6.  Let them cool and stiffen up for a couple of minutes before sliding them off the tray. You don’t want your clouds to fall apart after all that hard work. Salt and pepper those bad boys and enjoy! 

Fat Bread

Bread is a difficult thing to replicate on a keto diet. There are eggy breads, flaxy breads, coconut flour breads, etc. And let's face it, you're never going to be able to make a keto-friendly bread that lives up to the gluten-y standards of a carb-rich slice of white bread, but you can still make a tasty substitute. This Fat Bread is (in my opinion) one of those substitutes.

Notice I call it a substitute and not a replacement. This doesn't really taste like bread, or have the same fluffiness. But it makes a great substitute with its slightly nutty flavor and spongy but dense texture. It also grills really well without any extra butter, since its basically made of fat. Grilled cheese and ham heaven.

As for the downsides, I found that although it held it's shape pretty well, once I got down to those last bites of my sandwich it would start to crumble apart. A small price to pay. And depending on what you pair it with, the nuttiness might be overwhelming. All depends on your personal tastes.

I found this recipe on the Free the Animal blog. Mr. Nikoley has gone through all the hard work of experimenting to find a combination of nuts and eggs that works well enough to approximate bread, and I thank him for it! You should check out his post - it's got a lot more information about his process.

I've included a text version of this recipe for those who enjoy copy/pasting and an image version for those who like pictures. The image-recipe has a more detailed nutrition breakdown of the individual ingredients. And for those who are into micronutrients, I have a detailed breakdown here.

Per serving (1/20 of the recipe, or 1 slice): 147 calories, 3.2 g carbs, 2.0 g fiber, 1.2 g net carbs, 14.6 g fat, 2.7 g protein

Ingredients

• 5 eggs
• 1 cup raw macadamia nuts
• 1 cup coconut butter *
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 Tbsp lime or lemon juice
• 1 1/2 tsp baking soda

*or make your own coconut butter using 2 cups of shredded dried unsweetened coconut and 4 Tbsp coconut oil, further instructions below the recipe

Instructions

1. Preheat your oven to oven to 350F / 175C and grease a bread pan (I actually did not grease my pan and had zero problems with sticking).


2. In a food processor, process the 1 cup of macadamia nuts into a slightly chunky nut butter. 


3. With the processor still on high, drop in 1 egg and wait 20 seconds to let it incorporate nicely. Drop in another egg and wait 20 seconds. Now you can just drop all 3 remaining eggs in. Mix until it’s nice and smooth.


4. Add the 1 cup of coconut butter and 1/2 tsp salt. Give that a quick mix.


5. Finally, with the food processor on low, first add the 2 Tbsp lemon or lime juice followed by 1 1/2 tsp baking soda. Let it spin for a few more seconds and then pour the batter into your bread pan.


6. Pop it into your 350F / 175C oven and let it bake for about 35 minutes.


7. After it’s finished cooking, let it sit and cool down. Then you can pop it out of the pan and have a tasty slice of whole-fat bread. I cut my loaf into 20  1 cm slices.

* Coconut Butter: Using a food processor, process about 2 cups of shredded dried unsweetened coconut until it becomes nut-buttery. It will take about 15 minutes of food processing to get to this point. And you will probably need to add some coconut oil along the way to reconstitute some of the moisture lost to the coconut drying process. My food processor was not able to fully butter-ize the mixture, but my semi-butter worked well enough in the Fat Bread recipe.

Chicken, Cabbage and Carrot Bake

I recently came into possession of two small heads of cabbage. That's about two more cabbages than I know what to do with. So I applied my google-fu and came up with this recipe: Cabbage-Carrot Casserole. It looked like a winner, and was already fairly keto-friendly.

I also had about two pounds of chicken breast that needed using, so I decided to turn the casserole into a Chicken, Cabbage and Carrot...Bake. For lack of a better description.

I did use some flour in the recipe. With the small amount that I used it's probably/possibly not even worth it. I'm not convinced it did much to thicken the entire sauce, but the carbs from the flour were so small that I decided "screw it" and added it anyways. If you have a keto friendly thickener, that would obviously be a better choice.

This dish is a bit heavier in carbs than I'm used to, but I found that the two servings I ate (totaling 8.5 g net carbs) were pretty satisfying. You could also reduce/replace the carrot or make any number of alterations to suit your fancy.

I've included a text version of this recipe for those who enjoy copy/pasting and an image version for those who like pictures. The image-recipe has a more detailed nutrition breakdown of the individual ingredients. And for those who are into micronutrients, I have a detailed breakdown here.

Per serving (1/8 of the recipe): 240 calories, 6.1 g carbs, 1.8 g fiber, 4.3 g net carbs, 16.3 g fat, 17.2 g protein

Ingredients

• 2 Tbsp lard / butter / oil
• 2 large chicken breasts
• chicken stock (optional)
• 1 large carrot, chopped
• 1/2 small cabbage, shredded
• 5 small cloves garlic, chopped
• 1/2 Tbsp butter
• 1 tsp flour
• 5 Tbsp heavy cream
• 2 oz cheese (I used cheddar)
• salt and pepper

Instructions

1. On the stove, heat up 2 Tbsp lard in a an oven-safe pot. Once nice and hot, lay 2 well-salted chicken breasts (mine totalled 550g), skin side down in the pan. They should sizzle and pop. Let cook until skin is crisp, then flip over. Pour in enough chicken stock or water to go halfway up the chicken (don't cover the crisp skin!). Let that simmer. By the time it's boiled down to a thick liquid the chicken should be cooked. Remove the chicken to a bowl (so you can collect any extra juices) but keep as much of the juices in the pan as you can.


2. Add to the pot 1 large chopped carrot (mine was 220g), a lot of shredded cabbage (mine was about 300g), and 5 small/medium cloves of garlic. Mix it all up in the chicken'y juices and add enough water to steam the veggies until soft. Start with 1/3 cup water and keep checking back to make sure it's not too soupy/burning. Use a lid to steam it faster. You're aiming for something between a saute and a boil, leaning heavily towards the saute side.


3. Meanwhile, shred/chop/whatever your chicken. I do this in the bowl they were resting in so I lose as little juice as possible.


4.  Once veggies are soft, scoot them to the side of the pot (or take it out if you don't care about juice loss - I'm all about the juices) and melt 1/2 tbsp butter in the vacant spot. Add 1 tsp flour to the butter and consistently stir for about a minute to make a little roux. Then add a mixture 2 Tbsp cream and 2 Tbsp water to the roux and stir until it starts to thicken. Add the other 3 Tbsp cream and keep mixing until it thickens again. At this point you can add some more water if you'd like to thin it back out. Keep in mind that it will boil down a bit in the oven.


5. Now add your chicken and all its juices back to the pot of veggie matter and mix. Shred in 2 oz of cheddar cheese and mix again. Taste it. Does it need salt? Pepper? Some other seasoning or herb you think would be tasty? Now is your last chance.


6. Gently press the whole concoction flat and put it in the oven (350F/175C) for 20-30 minutes.


7. Let cool for 5-10 minutes before eating. Or eat it right away and burn your mouth with the delicious flavors.