Cooking Frenzy

I decided to use the time this morning while waiting for Lainey's therapist to arrive and her big bubby was keeping her occupied to do some cooking. I had wanted to try a few recipes using KetoCal 4:1 powder. I used Sugar-free Jello raspberry flavored and KetoCal to make a pudding. I have read that the aspartame might be a problem for some kids, so I will try it and then see how it goes since Lainey has not yet achieved seizure freedom. Also, I am excited to try the Chia Pudding recipe from www.ketocook.com. Here is a step by step direction for this meal. My dietician had tweaked the recipe to Lainey's specs.

Gather ingredients. In this photo I show stevia powder, that is before I realized Truvia was calculated in the recipe. 

Here is what it looks like in ketocalculator

 

 

 

 

Measure all ingredients in SEPARATE bowls. So very important.

Mix everything together.

Refrigerate four hours or overnight. We will see how it turns out tomorrow!

I also made the macadamia nut pancakes. They were a little dry, so I am going to see how to fix this in the future. But Lainey loved them anyways. I was glad because this is one of the few meals she can practice feeding herself with. I am too nervous to let her use a spoon because she is a food thrower, flinger extraordinaire.

I stored them in the fridge, separated by nonstick foil.

KetoCal fudge, chia pudding, KetoCal pudding, KetoCal cobbler. Yes, I invested in some pyrex!!

Camping with Keto

Not even a month into initiating the ketogenic diet, we get the urge to go camping. I was a little hesitant in the beginning, especially after reading about other families being anxious to even go out to dinner. We had already gone out to eat with Lainey, bringing her food with us. So we got bold and planned a three day camping vacation to Mammoth Cave which is about 2 hours away from our home. We have a travel trailer with a full kitchen so I wasn't really concerned about preparing her meals. The week before I batch cooked some Keto blueberry waffles and Mac and Cheese (recipe on keto calculator). The day before I took individual containers and weighed each meal. In the keto calculator I chose three meals and two snacks and just repeated those for three days. Lainey doesn't mind repition in her meals. I chose meals that I thought were pretty easy and that I could easily incorporate her meds. Breakfast was waffles and yogurt, lunch was mac and cheese and applesauce, dinner was egg salad, strawberries and cream. Her snack was yogurt and cream and keto blueberry muffins I had made and frozen. I also brought extra cream and peanut butter to make a snack if anything should arise that was unplanned.

 I created a folder with the menu planner, recipes and my trusty keto book.

Amounts written out

Lunch

Snacks

Dinner

Packed and ready to go. The blue bag held a dinner and snack for the trip down and ICE. And the other cooler holds all her meals and menu plan.

Breakfast pre-packaged

This is what the keto calculator weekly menu planner looks like. 

And all my planning couldn't prepare me for what happened. We arrive at our campsite and go inside the camper to unload all the food. I notice that the refrigerator is still hot inside. It should have been cooling off on the way down. My husband assures me that it will just take a while to cool down and then we can unpack the food. I get a bad feeling and the panic sets in. Why did I think this was a good idea, maybe we weren't ready for a trip and other doubts. When several hours go by and it is late and the fridge is still hot, I jump into action. Well I actually just jump in the Suburban and head to the nearest Wal Mart for a big cooler and lots of ice. I unload all her food in it and figure if I keep the ice full then her food will be allright. Whatever it takes. The next morning I get up and go out to the cooler and start getting her breakfast together and just have a whim to see what the fridge is like and to my delight it is cold!!!! Hooray!!! I move all her food into the fridge and the weekend was absolutely fabulous! I would definitely feel comfortable going on another trip. Especially if there is wifi and I can get on ketocalculator.com in case something happens to her prepared food.

Happy Camper!