To celebrate our great week, I made up some low carb chocolate donuts. The verdict is still out on these-Darlin Dan does like them-but asks "does everything have to be chocolate?" OOPS! I'm such a chocoholic that I forgot to remember that Darlin Dan isn't that crazy about chocolate. I've already spotted another recipe to try-not chocolate. To be continued........

Danny and I finished our 1st week of Low Carb and Wii Fit for exercise-

Results

Danny  -3.7 lbs.

Jeri   -5.3 lbs.

 

I thinks we had a FANTASTIC week 1!

These biscuits are pretty tasty..Darlin Dan ate 2.

Here's the recipe--Fluffy Biscuits-from Healthy Indulgences
Adapted from a recipe by Laura Dolson

LAUREN'S FLUFFY BISCUITS
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons almond flour, 4 ounces
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda or 3/4 teaspoon baking powder *
1 1/2 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, shortening or pork fat, 18 grams or 1/2 ounce **
4 egg whites

In a medium bowl, mix the almond flour, salt and baking soda or powder with a fork. Cut in the fat using the fork until the butter is all incorporated and the mixture is crumbly and not dry. Chill this mixture for at least 5 minutes and preferably longer to get the fat as cold as possible.

In a small bowl, beat the egg whites with the fork until they look foamy. Add the egg whites to the almond flour mixture and whisk together with the fork for just a couple seconds breaking up any large chunks of flour. The batter will be thin and lumpy. Divide this into four portions in a muffin top pan greased very well or lined with nonstick foil. Bake immediately so that the fat doesn't start to get warm. Bake at 400º for about 12 minutes or until golden brown.

Makes 4 biscuits
Can be frozen

* The recipe seems to work with either one. I used baking soda. Although baking powder does have carbs, there are not enough to affect the counts.
Per Biscuit: 221 Calories; 19g Fat; 10g Protein; 6g Carbohydrate; 3g Dietary Fiber; 3g Net Carbs

This chicken came out great--the breading is pork rinds! It was so simple and I will be making this again!

I just put some pork rinds in my mini food processor and got it ground up. I just added some onion powder and salt/pepper. I put this in a zip lock bag.

I beat 1 egg and dipped 3 big bone in chicken breasts-they are on sale this week- 99 cents a pound!

I put  chicken breast in the bag one at a time and gave it a shake-then put them on a foil lined pan in a 400 degree oven for about 40 minutes.

 

This is low carb shake and bake!! 

 

Here we were on the Low Carb Cruise. This was our group picture.

 

  Jimmy Moore, at Livin La Vida Low Carb, made a great You Tube Video!!

I made Linda Sue's CABBAGE & SAUSAGE SOUP
3 tablespoons butter
2 medium carrots, 4 ounces after trimming
2 stalks celery
1 small onion, 2 1/2 ounces
1 clove garlic, minced
1 pound cabbage
2 teaspoons chicken bouillon granules
Salt and pepper, to taste
16 ounces Kielbasa Sausage 
4 cups chicken broth-(I used Turkey broth)
2 tablespoons fresh parsley, chopped (I forgot this)

If you chop and add the ingredients to the pot in the following order, it will give the carrots and celery a chance to get a head start before you add the cabbage.

In a large soup pot, heat the butter over medium-low heat until melted. Chop the carrots and add to the pot. Chop the celery and it to the pot. Next chop the onion and add it to the pot along with the garlic. While these vegetables are cooking, coarsely chop the cabbage; add to the pot and stir well. Turn the heat to low, cover the pot and simmer 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Meanwhile, cut the kielbasa into bite-size pieces. When the 10 minutes are up, sprinkle the xanthan gum over the surface of the vegetables; stir in well. Add all remaining ingredients except the parsley. Go easy on the salt, or wait until the end to add it. The broth, bouillon and sausage all have a lot of salt so you may not need more. Bring to a boil; cover and simmer on low 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Adjust the seasoning, if necessary, then stir in the parsley.

I used Turkey broth I had in the freezer. We all enjoyed this soup. It's a winner.

I had a good Monday! I feel so refreshed and ready to get back to work............I thought I would never say such a thing!

We had a good low carb day and worked out with the Wii Fit. We love it.

 

I'm posing on a top deck of the ship!

We got our Wii today! We decided to go ahead and get the Wii Fit program as well. We were able to get it all set up and started our program! We played 3 games of bowling and 1 game of golf before we set up the Wii Fit program. This is great!

 

Darlin Dan had a rough time this morning at breakfast. It was hard for him not to have flour tortillas. He's willing to try some low carb tortillas next weekend.

We're back and I'm so inspired to rededicate  myself to low carbing. Now I have a partner, Darlin Dan!

Today we had a low carb breakfast on board-

scrambled eggs

ham/sausage, bacon

coffee

 

Lunch was kinda a snack in the car on the way back home to San Antonio

BBQ pork rinds

diet sodas

snack of Jimmy Moore's low carb dark chocolate/raspberry candy bar

 

Dinner was BBQ chicken/sausage and pinto beans

diet flavored water

 

We're off to a good start! Time to start planning our menu for the week.......................

 

We are having a wonderful time on our cruise. Tuesday we heard 3 guest speakers on Low Carbing. Tomorrow we will have 3 more. In between, we have had 2 great days in Mexico. Will post pix after we get back home.

We are in League City visiting my sis, Donna and Bro. in law, Mike.  They prepared a DELICIOUS Seafood Gumbo dinner for us. We had some huge shrimp! Very tasty. I ate WAY TOO MUCH. We had a great visit. We will boarding the ship around 1:00 this afternoon. We weather is beautiful in League City. Mild temps and sunny!   Galveston is about 26 miles away!

    We are sure hoping that the weather during the cruise will be like this. We will be in Cozumel on Wednesday and Progresso in the Yukutan on Thursday. Weather forcasts are saying that the temp will be in the 80's in Mexico.

We're leaving tomorrow for Houston. We'll be spending the night with my sis and then boarding the Ship in Galveston on Monday around 12:30. I'm so excited to meet my low carb internet friends. I will be taking loads of pictures and I know we'll have a great time. We'll be back Saturday. We spent our day today packing and doing the last minute running around. It's 2 AM and I'm just about ready to hit the hay. I am planning on writing a couple of times during the cruise, time permitting.

I know this isn't low carb, but it is budget friendly-free Suave Shampoo!!-Get the coupon here--

-- TODAY ONLY

I won 3 beautiful steaks in a poker game last night! We had our friendly Saturday night family poker game at my SIL's house. We had 9 people playing!  Our nephew brought a package of 3 good sized strip steaks from the meat packing company he works for and said that he would like for us to play 1 poker game where the winner would win the steaks. Can you believe that I won the hand with a pair of queens? I was happy that I won the "carne". We had a wonderful steak dinner tonight. Jess made some fresh beans and a beautiful salad. She also made some roasted rosemary potatoes that the low carber didn't eat (me). I made the steaks and they came out sooooooo good. I would've taken pix, but I couldn't wait to eat mine and my phone was upstairs!!

We'll be leaving in 10 days!! I can hardly believe it. Now that the holidays are behind us, I can officially get excited about this big event. I can't wait to meet all the other low carbers attending the cruise. It looks like there will be 38 of us.

Tamales are not low carb, but delicious. Today, we had an old fashioned "Tamalada" (tamale making party), at my sister in law's house. We had 11 ladies making tamales.  A few of the men pitched in. It was an experience. Here I am, putting the masa on a corn shuck.

Here's my Darlin Dan, putting the meat filling on the masa. After they steamed in a large pot for about 2 hours.........Some very delicious homemade tamales are ready to be devoured.

Several dozen tamales were made. We made beef, bean, meat with chile, and cheese with jalapeno. Now, I can understand why tamales are selling for around $7 a dozen. What a labor of love!