Do you miss potato chips and all the other crispy, delicious, carb-filled things? I do. I don't actually miss those things, but sometimes I would kill for crunchy food. Crispy, crunchy deliciousness to eat with sour cream dip, guacamole, or chicken liver pâté.

Pork crackling is an appropriately crunchy snack, but it's not everyone's cup of tea, and not always easy to source or make. Bacon is usually a staple in keto houses and chicken skins are relatively easy to get hold of. Each time I make chicken soup, I remove the skins before using the chicken. They can both be turned into crunchy bite sized chips. 

You will need:

• bacon, the fattier the better
• chicken skin
• 2 baking trays, preferably one large one and one smaller one
• baking paper
• a heavy oven safe pot
• kitchen scissors
• salt, pepper & any other spice of choice

There are a lot of resources available for keto shopping lists and pantry staples. I will list some of them at the end of this post. This post is a list of what's in my kitchen, the food I buy, the appliances I couldn't live without, and my cooking staples.

This is a very long list, I have been collecting my staples for many years and not everything is used regularly. Because of this, I will use a key to indicate the food I use regularly. Remember, this is just the list of foods that works for me. I could probably trim this down a lot and still make nice keto food. If you are just starting your ketogenic journey, I would recommend doing an inventory of what you already have and if any of it is keto friendly. Next, decide which part of cooking is most important for you.  If it's being able to cook quickly and meal prep then maybe your staples are foods that keep well. You'll need good Tupperware that can be put in the freezer, and flavours you won't get bored of. If your priority is good value for less cost; minimise your spices to a few basics, figure out which cuts of meat are the best value for money, buy in bulk.I enjoy baking and using spices, so my priorities are making sure I always have these ingredients on hand, keeping my spice rack stocked, and having small dishes to freeze small batches of baked goods in. We also keep good cuts of meat in the freezer as well as easy to throw together lunch foods.

A lot of my recipes use pecan flour as the keto friendly flour replacement. I accidentally discovered this magical stuff last year when my friend started selling pecan oil. I was a bit sceptical at first because I was not previously a fan of pecans. Boy was I ever wrong. This flour bakes so well and, in my opinion, the flavour complements other flavours beautifully. It pairs really well with savoury flavours (meatballs etc.), spicy flavours (ginger, pumpkin spice etc.), and even chocolate.

It has roughly the same amount of carbs as almond flour but quite a lot less calories because it has half the fat. 

Eggplant is one of my favourite vegetables. If you were to ask my mother, she would tell you how weird that is. Until I started keto, I point blank refused to eat this stuff even though my mom knows how to cook eggplant really well. I just really did not like the taste. Because of this, I am pretty sure that keto changes your taste buds. I've even started eating chicken livers.

Eggplant is a non-starchy vegetable that is high in Potassium (and many other things), perfect for keto. It also only contains 3g of carbs per 100g.

Meal ideas:

• Keto lasagne using thin slices of eggplant as the "pasta" layer.
• Keto crack  
• Low Carb Moussaka
• Garlic "bread" 
• Parmesan and pecan crusted eggplant