Owen's Yogurt {Ketogenic Diet}

For several years now Owen has had a yogurt snack before bed. When we started the Ketogenic Diet, I knew we'd need to come up with a substitute for his yogurt, especially since it was the only way we could get some of his medications into him. He was used to eating Greek Gods strawberry yogurt  and only Greek Gods strawberry yogurt. Greek gods is the fattiest yogurt we had been able to find which was great, but the strawberry flavor had way too many carbs. Now, if you've never had a child with feeding issues, you won't understand how difficult it can be to add or change a favorite food. Other kids might just eat a new yogurt. Or they might complain a little and get used to it in a few days. Not Owen. It took us about 3 months to find a yogurt recipe that would be keto friendly that Owen would also eat.
We started with the plain Greek Gods yogurt and tried adding keto approved flavorings and sweeteners without much success. Then I found THIS recipe and it worked! Once Owen was officially on the diet we had to make adjustments for his calorie and ratio needs with the help of our wonderful dietician. We've tried several brands of yogurt, but I highly recommend Greek Gods. It already has such a high fat content that the consistency stays nice even with the added cream and oil. We used another brand at the hospital (they couldn't find Greek Gods)and it didn't work out nearly as well.

This makes a 125 calorie snack at a 3:1 ratio

7g  36% cream
12g   raw strawberries (pureed)
37g  Greek Gods plain yogurt
3g  olive oil
3g  grapeseed oil

Mix well with a fork, and chill before serving. This keeps well for several days in the refrigerator as long as the cream is fresh. I like to make a weeks worth all at once, so sometimes I leave out the strawberries until just before serving so they don't go bad.

Tip: puree up a large batch of strawberries and weigh out the 12g into silicone ice cube molds and store in the freezer. That way you can just thaw a cube of berries and add to the yogurt without weighing again.

Disclaimer: The ketogenic diet is a strictly controlled medical treatment and should only be done under close medical supervision. Do not use this recipe without consulting your physician or dietician.

What's Owen Eating {Ketogenic Diet}

This is what I do on the weekends. This pile consists of almost two weeks worth of Owen's meals. I still need to make some more cheese sandwiches, but I got tired and decided to wait until tomorrow.  I've been  making one weeks worth plus a couple of extra meals each weekend. I'm hoping to take a weekend off of cooking soon and actually do something fun, so I've stepped up the cooking the last two weeks.

Every day Owen gets four equal sized meals and one snack to take his medication with. That means I need at least 28 meals and 7 yogurt snacks to get through a week. The reality is that I need several more because Sometimes Owen refuses to eat what I had planned and I need a substitute meal. Other times I need something easy to pack, that doesn't need extra items added at last minute. Some of the items in the pictures need butter and syrup (Davinci Sugar free) and added fruit or veggies. I don't make those up ahead of time because the fruit gets yucky and the syrup and butter stick to the containers, so it's easier to add them at serving time.

These meals represent about 8 hours of preparation time, NOT counting the baking time.
Between what I made this weekend and the leftover from last week (kept in the freezer) we have : 5 pancakes, 2 pumpkin muffins, 10 wafflesticks, 2 cheese sandwiches, 8 spinach bites, 8 yogurts, 5 breakfast cookies, and 3 pizzas.
I figure one more weekend of making this much and I can take one weekend off from cooking. Except for yogurts which just don't keep ahead for much more than a week. But yogurt only contains 5 ingredients and doesn't require cooking, so they aren't too hard to make.

Babysitting an Angel!

We got to babysit this precious little one today!

The kids were so excited!

Brenna absolutely loved the baby and only had a few little jealousy moments.

Like this one. She absolutely had to try out Angelina's car seat.

Morgan and Duncan helped me out by holding the baby so I could do things like making lunch and taking care of Brenna. Owen held her too, but I didn't get any pictures of that as I don't have enough arms to help him hold the baby safely and take pictures too.

Devon was at school most of the day, but she still managed to find time to feed the baby and take a little nap with her.

Brenna was convinced that the baby was hers alone to hold and kept trying to take her from Devon. Then Angelina reached out and grabbed Brenna's hands.

I just can't get over this hair! At a month old, she already has more than Brenna has.

Brenna wouldn't let Angelina have her favorite "dog dog", but she did let her have the second favorite "Jake dog".  She also said that the baby could have her crib.

Look at this face. I seriously thought about not giving her back. Although I probably would have changed my mind around 3:00 AM. We were so thrilled to have her today!

Baby Sweater

I finished THIS little sweater for my soon to be Grandbaby tonight. I almost finished last night, but finally gave up and headed to bed at midnight with just a couple rows left. This is a nice, soft alpaca/ wool blend yarn that I just love for babies. Baby is due in June, but around here that can still be sweater weather, so I went ahead and made the tiniest size instead of sizing up for next Winter.

In a couple more weeks we should find out whether I'll be getting jeans and a white shirt or if I'll be making a little calico dress to go under it. I think this colorway can go either boy or girl quite easily.

This is one of my favorite patterns to make. It's so simple and works up quickly, but it has enough design to keep me interested while knitting. It also comes with several different cable patterns, so it's different every time I make it. Hopefully baby's parents will enjoy it. I know baby won't really care at this size!

Dress Up!

The kids got into Devon's old skating dresses the other day.

The girls even got Owen in on the action.

He wasn't quite as excited as they were though.

Chef Devon

Devon starts her actual program classes tomorrow (last quarter was pre-requisites). From now on, she will be wearing her official uniform to school everyday. Today, she picked up all of the required books, supplies and uniform pieces, except for the official uniform pants which had to be special ordered in her size. She had to scour the mall for a similar pair of pants to wear until the official ones come in.

Devon told me that the jacket is cool enough to make up for the rest of the uniform. Except for the shoes.

Nothing is quite cool enough to make up for the shoes, apparently.

Rod, Devon, and I have all been drooling over the kit items.  Although not nearly as much as Brenna, who is quite convinced that the kit belongs to her. She pouted, cried, and eventually screamed when Devon took the kit away from her. Maybe we'll have another chef in the family in a few more years.

We love to cook here, and good quality kitchen items are VERY appreciated. Two of her three textbooks are great too. The $125 food safety textbook is the only one we really aren't excited about, but at least we understand why it's needed (I'll never understand why it cost $125, but that's a whole different subject). This quarter Devon will be taking Pastry and Baking Orientation, Introduction to Commercial Baking, Basic Cuisine Foundations, and Food Sanitation and Safety. I think she'll have a little more fun than last quarter.

Ketogenic Cheese Sandwich

Owen's staple lunch right now is cheese sandwich. Bread is a pretty tough thing to make on the Ketogenic Diet since carbs are so restricted. I tried several recipes using things like flax seed meal, and coconut flour and came up with a few acceptable breads. The problem was that adding anything other than fat (butter, mayonnaise) to the bread made the ratio unacceptable. Owen was very specific about his cheese sandwich. A cheese sandwich according to Owen must consist of bread on the bottom, cheese in the middle, and bread on top. A piece of bread with a tiny bit of cheese melted on top did NOT qualify as a sandwich. Ketocuisine to the rescue. Ketocuisine is a powdered fat baking mix designed especially for the Ketogenic diet. Owen was also quite insistent that his bread be bread shaped. I spent months trying to pour out the bread dough and shape it into a rectangle I could cut in half to make bread until my In-laws gave us this wonderful rectangle silicone mold. Now, I just make the recipe a little thinner and pour it into the mold.

Disclaimer: Do not use this recipe as is unless your calorie and ratio requirements are exactly the same as Owen's. Click HERE to see how I rework recipes to suit Owen.

Keto Cheese Sandwich
3.06:1 ratio, 265 calories

8g  Egg (raw, mixed well) 
17g  Cheese, Tillamook Cheddar 
6g  Mayonnaise, Hellman's/Best Foods
20g Ketocuisine 5:1 ratio baking mix

I also add a pinch of Morton's lite salt as a potassium supplement, a pinch of baking soda to combat acidosis, and a crushed K Phos neutral tablet (all prescribed by our keto team)

First I weigh out the egg since it is the most difficult to get to the nearest gram, then weigh out and add the other ingredients except for the cheese. Mix well adding water to get to the right consistency(doughy if you are spreading it or just pourable if using molds).  Sorry, but I've never measured out the water. It's so nice to have something that doesn't have to be weighed that I've never done it. Then spread out the dough into two pieces or pour into molds (the molds I use make 4 pieces of bread) and bake at 350F for about 15 min. Watch it closely since fatty keto foods tend to cook quickly ( I ruined 2 batches of spinach bites this weekend, not watching them closely enough). Once they have cooled enough to handle put the cheese between two pieces of bread and serve or wrap up and store in the fridge for another day.

Note to those not on the Ketogenic diet, It is very important to use only the brands listed in the recipe. If I use a different mayonnaise, I have to redo the whole recipe. I also did not receive any compensation from Solace Nutrition for naming their product although if they wanted to send me some I'd gladly take it. It is just a product we use that makes our lives much easier!