How To: Cooking with Eggplant

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:

Shimeji Mushrooms aka Keto Crack

The title might seem strange but this stuff is addictive. I was a having a case of the empty fridges and shimeji mushrooms and an eggplant were the only things left. And I will never look back - I could eat this forever. The mushrooms have a really rich, nutty flavour. Personally I think these mushrooms would work brilliantly with seafood because their umami flavour is almost "fishy". The mixture of these mushrooms and eggplant is probably my favourite vegetable combo. 

Meal Suggestions: 

  • pork chops and keto crack
  • steak and keto crack
  • shimeji mushrooms in Thai soup
  • keto crack served over a bunless burger
  • keto crack and pork belly 
  • shimeji mushrooms in a stir fry
  • meatball casserole with shimeji mushrooms 
  • Pecan flour fried chicken pieces with keto crack

How To: Skillet Pizza

Eating keto doesn't mean you are doomed to a pizza-less existence. There are a lot of options. If you are South African, there's col'cacchio, piza e vino, vovo telos and these are just the ones I can remember right now. If you aren't getting banting takeout in SA, you could make your own cauliflower pizza, fathead pizza, pizza bowl or skillet pizza. There are a lot of ways to get around the pizza issue. Skillet pizza is a quick, easy and amazing way of getting everything a traditional pizza has without the carbs; pizza toppings on a base of fried cheese.

This is not my original recipe, if you google "keto skillet pizza" you will find a lot of different ideas for this recipe... this is a simple step by step for something that is an easy keto meal.

Parmesan and Pecan Crusted Aubergine

Aubergine, brinjals, egg plant, whatever you want to call them, are pretty versatile keto foods. I hated aubergine until I started keto... could not eat it at all - texture issues. When I started doing keto, a friend taught me how to make them properly, so I tried them again and now they are a semi-staple in my house.