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've been playing with the combination of jello (jelly for those of us speaking english on the bottom half of the planet) and cream cheese quite a lot lately, it makes a really spectacular fridge cheesecake. The best part of this is, it is so versatile: you can use any flavour combinations you want, you can leave out the base, you can combine it with plain jello - creating a layered cheesecake effect in a glass. There are so many ways to use this basic recipe.

I'm a big fan of ginger and lime, as if you guys haven't noticed, but I've also done a chocolate orange version of this cake with a few easy tweaks. Strawberry and chocolate, pineapple cheesecake with orange jello, raspberry and cherry cheesecake, blackcurrant and chocolate with whipped cream, are just some examples of where you can take this.

The calories in this are a little heavy because of the combination of cream cheese and heavy cream, if you want to lower them - leave out the heavy cream.  The bulk of the carbs in this recipe are in the chocolate base, so if you are looking for a lower carb sweet treat - simply leave out the base.

Lets preface this with: I don't usually tell my life story before recipes, I don't believe you guys want to hear about why I decided to make this specific meal for whoever I made it for and how they all went nuts about it and why it's connected to my childhood in some way. You're here for the food. That's okay, so am I.

That being said, this recipe holds a very special significance for me. My grandmother taught me a lot about baking and cooking. She was one awesome lady. Everyone loved her, you couldn't help it. She would invite you for lunch, teach you how to do something creative, feed you a roast of some kind and then give you a slice of pie. Her pies were famous. If you had the chance to have a mulberry or rhubarb pie at Aunty Rose's house; you did not turn that down. Those things were amazing. When I started keto I had to reconcile that there were a few things in my life that I would never eat again. My grandmother's pies, fruit mince pies and Christmas pudding. I was okay with all of this. I focused on what I could eat: cheese. My mother is a little more stubborn than I am. She decided that there was no way she was going to let this go. 

A few months ago she asked me for help coming up with a pie crust recipe. So we looked at Rosie's original recipe and figured out how to convert the carbs to well, not carbs. We had to try it a few times but when we finally got it to work... I almost couldn't believe this thing was real. We had made a pie crust that rivalled the real thing.

I know that sounds almost too good to be true but this crust browns nicely, it's flakey, it keeps its shape, the coconut flavour isn't strong at all and the best part: you can use it in savoury pies as well (with a bit of adjustment). My next mission - using it to make mince pies!

At this time of year you hear a lot of "oh, I'm just going to cheat on Thanksgiving, Christmas, <holiday of your choice>." Which unfortunately is usually followed by a few months of slippery slopes and then trying to get back on track. The first year that I did keto I actually catered my annual Christmas party for my friends and no one noticed/cared that there were no carbs in the food. I got a few comments about how much they missed my roast potatoes (I am really good at making those) but unfortunately there's no way to keto that. I made a bacon wrapped roast turkey complete with stuffing. We also had various salads, roast veggies, a few other meat dishes and a pumpkin pie for dessert. It was an amazing dinner. Calorie counting went out the window, but over holidays and birthdays I usually practice a "calories arent real" mentality.

This blog post is a collection of my own holiday themed recipes as well as some of my favourites from other food bloggers. I hope it helps and that everyone has a wonderful festive season.

The holidays are traditionally a difficult time to stay on any diet. Last year I was a bit concerned about being able to do keto over christmas because of all the carbs and desserts and traditional holidays foods I would be missing out on. But I am keto for life, so the only real solution is to make my own new traditions. Pumpkin pie is an amazing traditional dessert that is so easy to "keto".

This pie was the by-product of me trying to recreate old favourites in a low carb way. It's more of a cheesecake but the flavours go together brilliantly, and all my non-keto family absolutely loved it. It freezes well and my parents were eating this for weeks after the holidays.

The fresh pumpkin I buy is 4.7g NET carbs per 100g, so the macros I have for this are based on that. I would highly recommend you work out your own because I've seen a lot of variation in the listed carbs in pumpkin.

Keto is not easy. Such a huge lifestyle change is never going to be easy, even when everything is in your favour, it's quite an adjustment. Now imagine if your life suddenly decides to start doing some internal sabotaging. Work gets crazy, you are studying full time, you have a new baby, or you have to spend lots of time away from home for whatever reason.

There are many ways you could suddenly find yourself facing the choice of life or new "diet". I've been pretty lucky so far, I work from home, don't have kids and when I started keto I had a lot of time to experiment with new food. But I am more the exception than the rule.

A few people have asked me how to fit keto into a busy lifestyle. This is a list of ways to simplify keto and ways to manage a new way of life when you just don't have time. Keto hacks. This list is not all inclusive, and should be used as a guide, rather than a list of absolutes to follow