I love pizza. Always have, probably always will. When I found out there was such a thing as keto pizza, I was the happiest diabetic ever. Skillet pizza, fathead pizza, cauliflower pizza, chicken crust pizza, meatza, so many variations. However, they all involve quite a lot of prep time. I wanted something that killed the craving and didn't take 3 hours of "is the dough supposed to look like this??"

Pizza bowls are easy to do, this took me 20 minutes to put together. If you prep it the night before it would make an epic lunch at work - all you need is a microwave. Whatever your pizza preference is, if you like anchovies on your pizza, asparagus, artichokes, spinach, avocado, bacon... it all works.

Suggestions for toppings:

• Artichoke hearts
• Spinach
• Asparagus
• Avocado
• Chicken
• Bacon
• Salami
• Ham
• Biltong
• Blue cheese
• Pepperoni
• Chorizo
• Onions
• Bell peppers
• Ground beef/lamb/pork
• Cherry tomatoes
• Chilli
• Rocket/Arugula
• Grilled eggplant

It's still winter here and before keto, stew was always one of my favourite comfort foods. Admittedly, removing potatoes from stew, makes it much less "stewy" so we've just renamed it to "Stewp". Because, even if you have to eat it with a spoon, stew is still an easy and comforting meal.

I usually make mine in my crock pot (slow cooker), so by the end of the cook, the meat has pretty much melted into the rest of the dish. My standard vegetables in stews are: mushrooms, green beans, tomatoes, Brussels sprouts, pattypan squash, baby gem squash, cabbage,  and sometimes even bok choy. Usually not all at once, but if you experiment with a mix of these you might find something you like and that fits your macros. If you don't add too much liquid to the dish at the start and cook it for long enough, you can sometimes get a thick "real stew" consistency. Especially if you add vegetables that dissolve when cooked for long enough, like tomatoes. I usually replace the rice with gem squash, fried cabbage or fried cauliflower.

Keto is something that I believe you definitely need to put some research time into. Jumping in blindly can hurt you if you aren't careful. I don't mean to scare people away - but mixing high(er) fat with a still elevated carbohydrate intake is not a good idea. I wrote about how I started keto and what keto actually is, a few weeks ago. In this post I will address the issue of which vegetables are "keto friendly" as well as common misconceptions about keto food. 

When I started keto, I was not sure which foods were safe for me to eat. I started looking into the carb counts of foods, taught myself to read labels, googled ALL THE things and started to undertand the basics of lower carb nutrition. I stuck to more "whole foods" - basic keto foods like fatty proteins, non-starchy veggies and healthy fats like olive oil, butter, avocados, nuts and coconut oil. And of course, lots of eggs. I didn't start with intermittent fasting either, I ate three meals a day and for the first 2 - 3 weeks I did not count calories. I felt it was better to concentrate on getting used to keto food rather than calorie intake. Once I got over the cranky phase, I paid more attention to my macros. When you start doing keto it is very important that you familiarise yourself with the basic low carb foods - as this list will inform your eating choices from here on out.