Banana bread is one of those things that I wasn't sure I would ever have again. I was never much of a fruit eater before keto, but I LOVED banana bread. Waide's been introducing more fruit into his diet and since we had bananas in the house, I decided to try make some. I wasn't expecting much but this was one of the best "first try" recipes that I've ever done. I love keto baking!

I am obsessed with Thai flavours at the moment and this soup ticks all the right Thai food boxes. I got dried lemongrass leaves from my mom so I have been adding it to all my food lately. This soup is a variation of my traditional chicken soup, so, if you don't like Thai food, you can easily substitute the flavours with others flavours like more traditional herbs, basil, rosemary etc.

Ingredients:

• 6 chicken pieces (thighs/breasts) - remove the skin and set aside for other recipes
• chicken stock (1 bullion cube and boiling water is fine, but I often use frozen stock from other meals)
• 2 bay leaves
• 6 garlic cloves
• thyme
• chilli flakes
• lemongrass
• 3 slices of fresh ginger (or 1 tsp. of ginger powder)
• mushrooms (I used a mixture of white button mushrooms and shimeji)
• bok choy
• 2 eggs
• cilantro (optional)
• Thai spices (I use a premix called Thai 7 spice - sugar/starch filler free)
• salt & pepper

Hollandaise sauce is pretty much a keto staple for me. I used to only have it when I went out for brunch but when I started keto, I taught myself how to make it correctly. In the beginning when I asked Waide if he wanted Eggs Benedict he would always say no thank you because he hated the taste of hollandaise. After a few months of this he eventually consented to try it. "Oh, this is what hollandaise is supposed to taste like?" I don't blame him, restaurant hollandaise can taste really bad if they do it wrong - or buy packaged stuff.

Don't be too scared of messing this up... I curdled the sauce about 3 times before I finally got it right. It took me a little while to figure out that the secret is LOW HEAT. If you don't own stainless steel mixing bowls, I recommend you fix that and go buy some. They are easy to use and a great way to make DIY double boilers. I use these bowls for my sauce because it makes it easy to check the heat underneath. The ideal for hollandaise is when your water (not touching the bowl!) continues to steam without boiling.

I learned how to poach eggs for the first time last year. I had tried everything - having my mom walk me through her method, buying an egg poacher (those things suck, don't bother) to finally accepting that restaurant eggs are it for me. Then I figured out that actually it's just all about the freshness of the egg. I started buying eggs from a local supplier recently and I buy two trays every two weeks (60) so when I get those, it's poaching time! My default method used to be the vinegar water swirly technique. Sometimes it worked, sometimes I lost three eggs before admitting defeat and making boiled eggs instead. When poaching fails, it fails in a big messy way, your eggs just fall apart in the water. But the common theme was; even when they worked, they were never very pretty. 

Then I watched the Masterchef Australia episode that would change my eggy life forever. Thank you Heston Blumenthal! Now, you can watch his video (<--- click over there) but I am still going to describe how I finally perfected it because I do it slightly differently. Fresh eggs are still important but I have actually done this with two week old eggs and it worked perfectly. I LOVE poached eggs and will never go back to swirling water again. 

Bread substitutes are something that every low carber seems to be on the hunt for. I've tried a few myself, they always just end up tasting like bird food. So I stopped trying. And then I had another accidentally genius baking moment. These muffins are not a bread replacement BUT they have a pretty good bread-like texture. They are great by themselves, or with butter, cheese or avocado. I've made these as large muffins, and in smaller moulds to make mini muffins, my next experiment will be mini bread moulds to see if they slice well. I hope you guys love this recipe as much as I do. 

My all time keto favourite staple is definitely scrambled egg - it's the easiest way to do breakfast, or lunch. The macros on this meal are almost perfect at 1% carbs, 17% protein and 82% fat. This recipe is loosely based on Gordon Ramsay's scrambled eggs. Waide and I LOVE this recipe and we decided that sour cream in scrambled egg is life and my recipe has since evolved from this over the last few years.