Crescent City on a Dime

Hi there, it’s Christen! This week on the podcast Amber brought up a great topic, dining out on a special diet. I enjoyed this topic because not only do Travis and I both have special dietary guidelines we try to follow, but we also have budgetary restrictions when it comes to dining out. He is diabetic, and I am a bariatric patient. We are also hoping to buy a house in the near future. Planning ahead and committing to the plan will ensure you don’t get too crazy and go off our budgets, not only with the calorie intake, but financially.

As I mentioned last week on the blog, the three of us went to New Orleans, Louisiana, also known as NOLA. If you are not familiar, NOLA is well known for its unique culture. The cuisine, music, history, and religious practices are a mixture of French, Spanish, Caribbean, and African-American, commonly known as either Cajun or Creole. When I travel, my main goal is to explore the local culture by enjoying the eateries, visiting history and art museums, and enjoy the present moment, by either relaxing, having a high adventure, or just doing something I love with people that I love. So since we were planning a trip to NOLA, I wanted to ensure we got to try it all. I hope you know me well enough to know where this conversation is going… planning!

You cannot go to Louisiana without trying the simple, yet sinfully delicious deep fried pastries called beignets! They also are known for their use of crawfish, andouille sausage, boudin, andouille sausage, grits, the Holy Trinity, duck, frogs, alligator and shrimp. One of the things that I love is trying new foods. Thankfully, Travis is also somewhat adventurous when it comes to trying food. I am still working on him with seafood, but we are getting there. I make it a goal to try all of the quintessential dishes, especially when traveling to a place so well known for their food. I decided that I needed to have a bucket list of must haves while on our trip.

• Po Boys
• Étouffée
• Savory Grits
• Pontchartrain Sauce
• Crawfish Pie
• Gumbo
• Jambalaya
• Red Beans and Rice
• Fried Frog Legs
• Fried Alligator Tail
• Beignets
• Chicory Coffee

Budget

We had already set a budget when we set money aside for our trip. I recommend paying cash so that when the waiter brings your check, you can pay, tip, and leave without having to wait for them to bring your card back. Seeing the money in my hands helps me keep an eye on how much we have left. Knowing how much we could spend on our trip helped us narrow down what types of establishments we could afford. We also opted for water instead of expensive beverages at restaurants. This helped us stay hydrated and probably saved us anywhere from $36-$48 plus the incremental tax and tip that would have accompanied. The one drink I did manage to purchase was planned, and I was so glad I spent my money on it!

Research and Recommendations

When you are traveling, it can be hard to make quick, smart decisions on where to eat. It almost feels like decision fatigue, so, to prevent that from taking up time on our trip, we planned where to eat ahead of time. I did a lot of research to find the best places for certain things; I wanted to make sure that we got a wide variety, not just quick and cheap, but also try some fine dining and local favorites. My first step was to listen to what my friends and family had to say. Amber and Cindy had both been to NOLA recently, so they both had great recommendations. We were not able to try all the same places, but I picked out the must-haves and worked them into my itinerary. I ensured that each restaurant I chose was near whatever tourist destinations we were heading for that day, since we were on foot most of our trip. This ensured that we made it on time and spent less time wandering around lost. For the other meals, I used Google maps to locate high rated eateries within my budget. I could easily determine if the restaurant was in my price range and offered the type of food that I wanted based on other Google users' photos and reviews. Most of the restaurants have a photo of their menu, just click on the images and scroll through to see if the food is appetizing and affordable.

Don’t Over Eat

Be open to sharing your food! Travis and I knew we wouldn't be able to try all of the foods that we wanted on such a short trip. We opted to order two menu items that we both wanted to try so we could split them. The first day, all three of us ordered individual meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Although we shared the food we ordered, we still over-ate. That totaled 9 meals for one day. By the time we got to dinner, our eyes were hungry but we filled up fast. We learned the next day to order less food. Since I am a bariatric patient, I can only eat so much as it is, so this was easy for me to munch off of both of their meals, or have a smaller portion if something was offered a la carte. This helped cut back on food waste, too, since we can’t take it home with us. 

Fried Brie Burger at Trenasse

Louisiana Crawfish pie at Trenasse

You can always go back

One thing I had to remind myself when I was in NOLA was that I can always go back. I don’t have to eat everything in sight, and buy every souvenir I see. We decided to purchase a Cajun cookbook as one of our souvenirs so that we can take the cuisine home with us and enjoy it for years to come. 

You don’t have to eat out. 

Call ahead and see if the hotel room has a fridge or a microwave, or pick a hotel that has extended stay amenities. Food can be kept in a cooler with hotel ice and taken to a park for a picnic. Imagine mocktails (non alcoholic) and a charcuterie on a blanket in a park like Congo Square/Louis Armstrong Park, where you can enjoy the statues and manicured lawns in a historic place. It never hurts to get a little grounded and relax during your vacation, too!

What are your methods for planning meals on your trips? Do you just go and eat what you see when you see it? I want to know how you stay on your monetary and health budgets while traveling! Pop on over to MMC chat and let me know, or post in the comments below.

Dining Out on a Diet

This week on the podcast, we are talking about dining out on a diet. As a person that lives alone (for now), I hate cooking for myself. I can’t just cook for one person, so I end up making a massive recipe for something and I eat it for five days straight or until I get tired of it. I eat out or order Uber Eats a lot. I got into the habit when I moved out to the Dallas area and began working downtown within reach of many different restaurants.

 
When I first had bariatric surgery and slipped into a low-carb diet back in 2019, I found there were limited options for eating out. Of course, I can give many reasons why you shouldn’t eat out when you are on a special diet, but life circumstances have taught me over the years that you sometimes cannot avoid eating out, especially when you travel a lot or commute for work.  In a previous blog, I wrote about my method for choosing travel snacks on a special diet that I prepared on my vacation last summer, and I will touch on that later on in this blog.

Here are my tips for dining out:

Know your diet.

• This is important when you are trying a new diet. I keep it pretty simple and go for only meat, veggies, and a bit of cheese when it comes to my diet. In my coffee, I like unsweetened almond milk and maybe a little packet of sugar-free sweetener, but often I leave it out.

Have a go-to list of places you can eat.

• I mentioned in my previous blog that I made a list of restaurants that I could go to on vacation when Jason and I went on our road trip. I also have a go-to list of restaurants I can eat at around my work, and a list of restaurants I can order takeout when I am at home. These lists save me time when I need something quick.  A few years ago, I commuted an hour to work and another hour and a half to two hours home again every day. I would often get home late and be too tired to cook. I had to keep a go-to list of restaurants that I could order from or eat on the way if I didn’t have ready meals at home. Usually, I stopped by the grocery store by my house (pre-covid it was open 24 hours) and bought a ready meal or a pre-packaged salad that I could eat for supper.

Have a go-to list of snacks that you can eat at work or on your commute.

• A lot of times I wait too long to eat. If I do that, I begin to get/feel sick. I had to start carrying snacks in my backpack or purse along with a protein bar that I could eat when I was feeling hungry. My favorite go-to snack is trail mix or raw almonds. I will also carry a package of raw vegetables with me for a quick pick-me-up. I keep a list of gas stations that carry the type of protein drinks I drink and easy snacks I can buy if I am desperate. Before our trip, I bought snacks in advance in case I got caught in a pinch.

Don’t be afraid to go off your diet if you have to.

• This one is BIG. Oftentimes we beat ourselves up if we go off our diet. I have been in plenty of special circumstances where I have waited too long to eat and HAD to eat something that wasn’t necessarily on my diet (or healthy for me). If you are dieting to lose weight, a one-day slip will not ruin you for life. If you have the self-control to have a “cheat day,” more power to you. If you are afraid of slipping up. Don’t forget your travel snacks!

Tomorrow is a new day.

• When you are on a diet, a great mantra to have is “tomorrow is a new day” because it really is! If you mess up one day, you are not messed up forever. You can always start over. This, of course, can apply to anything you have going on in your life. Tomorrow is definitely a new day.

In conclusion, there is no perfect method for eating out if you are on a special diet. I can only tell you what I have learned in the past three and a half years. Do I stick to my diet all the time? No. However, I do tell myself that it isn’t the end of the world and I can always start over. That mantra has helped me keep my weight loss steady. 

I want to hear from our readers! What are your eating-out tips and tricks? Do you have any favorite restaurants that you eat at if you are on a special diet? Comment below!

Sometimes We Have to Choose

All day every day we make decisions. Like, what are we going to wear or what are we going to eat for dinner? Life can be overwhelming. When life is overwhelming, even the smallest decisions can be tough decisions. Sometimes I scroll on Uber Eats for a couple of hours before I decide what I want to eat for dinner, and by the time I officially decide, I’m no longer hungry when it finally arrives. On the podcast, we talked about the decisions you have to make in life like sometimes you have to choose between brushing your teeth or taking a shower, and I’ve never felt that statement so hard until this year.

The evolution of my school year starts promisingly. I’m usually at school an hour and a half early and I leave an hour and a half later, mainly because there are so many things that I need to take care of at the beginning of the year such as unpacking my room and making lesson plans. I need that extra time. As the school year progresses, I begin to wake up later and arrive at work later. When November comes, I have to begin making those tough decisions. For example, do I park in the parking lot that I have to pay for, or do I leave the house earlier and park in the parking lot that my school pays for? Is that $12.99 worth arriving at work 10 minutes earlier? I suppose it depends on how late I am running. 

Last year, I had it down to an exact science. If I left the house at a certain time on certain days, I could walk into work and clock in right on time. However, if I pushed the envelope, traffic was not so kind when it came to my careful calculation. This year, so far, I have left the house early enough that I don’t have to pay for parking and I can socialize a bit before I jump right into teaching class.

Another morning-time decision I wrestle with is the decision to wear makeup or not. A lot of time those ten extra minutes of hitting snooze are the difference between looking professional and looking like a zombie. Oftentimes, I would take my makeup to work and do it in the bathroom between classes just to feel normal for the day. A lot of times, I never got around to doing my makeup. When I lived farther away from work, I had gotten into the habit of doing my makeup in the car or on the train in the mornings. Is the extra sleep worth it? I thought so. However, I tend to feel better about myself when I wake up in time to take care of things around my house and at school instead of rushing out of the house.

Finally, as the school year progresses, one of the biggest decisions that I have to make is whether to eat breakfast before school or not. Breakfast is the best meal of the day. In fact, I could eat breakfast food at any time of the day. In my years of teaching, I’ve never been able to wake up early enough to eat a full breakfast before I make it to work. I usually eat my breakfast in small bites throughout the day until it becomes my lunch and not my breakfast. One of my goals through PowerSheets® this year is to not hit snooze as much. Let’s face it, sometimes we have to hit snooze. I hit snooze a lot. So far, I haven’t met that goal.

Ultimately, my decisions boil down to sleeping in and getting up when I should be getting up in the morning. If I weigh the options, getting up when my alarm first goes off seems like a healthier and more productive choice, and it is something I’m working on being consistent about. 

I want to hear from our readers. What are the major decisions that you have to face in the morning? Have you set goals to alleviate those decisions? As the year progresses, do you find it harder and harder to make it to work on time? Let’s continue the conversation below!

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and Pet Peeves

Yesterday, the podcast Modern Musings talked about pet peeves. It was a fun discussion, but it also made me realize that I have a lot of pet peeves. One would even say that my pet peeves have pet peeves. I joke…I have Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and when you have OCD, your life is a pet peeve.

What is OCD? According to the National Institute of Mental Health, ”Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is a common, chronic, and long-lasting disorder in which a person has uncontrollable, reoccurring thoughts (obsessions) and/or behaviors (compulsions) that he or she feels the urge to repeat over and over.” People can have mild to severe cases of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. 

I feel like my tics are not life-altering, just annoying sometimes. I first noticed that I had odd tendencies when I was very young. I would get hyper-fixated on certain things. For example, I was obsessed with making lists and checking things off my list. I also had to have everything in alphabetical order. I would spend days alphabetizing and re-alphabetizing my books, movies, and magazines. There was nothing more satisfying to me than putting things in their place and having them organized. Over the years, I’ve found that without organization, life sometimes falls apart. Over the last eight years, I’ve also learned that sometimes you have to readjust your perception of how things should be and when to fight your battles.

My biggest OCD-related pet peeves:

• The trash should be in the trash can. I am so obsessed with this that I will throw trash away that’s not trash. My OCD has gotten me into trouble in the past. I have gotten so hard into “throwing away trash” mode that I have thrown away checks, important bills/papers, and keepsakes. In my classroom, if students leave their homework on the desk or the floor, I will throw it away (I do give them a disclaimer about this at the beginning of the year). One of the major problems I had with my ex-husband stemmed from his trash-hoarding (another form of OCD).
• The dishes should be in the sink. One thing I can’t stand is going to another person’s house and seeing dishes sitting everywhere. If the dishes are in the sink, I’m okay with it. But if they are sitting around the house, I fight the compulsion to take their dishes to the sink. If I have finished with a dish, I try to take it to the sink immediately. If I don’t, I will stare at it until it is in the sink.
• Dirty clothes should be in the hamper. That is another thing I can’t stand when I go to another person’s house. However, I don’t have an urge to pick up others’ dirty clothes. I can’t stand touching another person’s dirty clothes, especially if they smell like body odor. On the flip side, I won’t let anyone else touch my dirty clothing either.
• Pet hair on my skin or clothes. I know you are saying, “but you have four cats!” Just because they have insane amounts of hair (and compulsively shed in the summer) doesn’t mean I don’t love my cats (or anyone else’s pets). I have separate sets of clothes. Clothes I wear out and clothes I wear at home. I wash both sets of clothes separately. I have multiple sets of sheets and blankets that I am constantly washing to keep down the pet hair. I also groom my cats regularly to keep the hair at bay. If I go to a person’s house with pets, I am mindful of where I sit or what I wear. My reaction also stems from having a mild allergy to pet hair. I obsessively wash my arms and face if I feel hair sticking to them and making them itch.
• Stains on my clothes. This problem came to the forefront recently when I was on vacation. Jason and I ordered a seafood boil to share. I typically buy clothes in mixed patterns and avoid wearing solid colors because mixed patterns tend to hide stains on shirts better. So, I wore a solid shirt, not thinking about the restaurant where we were going to be eating. The boil we ordered was swimming in a butter sauce, and Jason immediately dug in, not caring if he stained his shirt (he usually only wears black anyway). By the end of our meal, I was freaking out because my shirt had stains all over it. I went to the bathroom and compulsively scrubbed the shirt in hopes the stains would not stick. I felt embarrassed afterward because I was having lunch with his family and I felt like they were looking at me oddly with my wet shirt (they weren’t).
• Food in my teeth. Like the stains on my clothes, this drives me crazy. If I am out and about and I do not have dental floss on me, I will not order something that I know will get in my teeth, otherwise, I will pick at my teeth until my teeth are bloody from trying to get out whatever is stuck in them. For this reason, I refuse to eat popcorn, whether it is a flavor I like or not. The memory of popcorn getting stuck in my teeth prevents me from eating it. I don’t like seeing food in other people’s teeth, either.
• Body odor. I do not have a good sense of smell. There are certain things I cannot smell and, in return, taste because I do not have a good sense of smell, except when it comes to body odor. If someone is not wearing deodorant or did not brush their teeth, I can smell it. I might not be able to smell dinner, or the flowers Jason buys me, but I can smell if you didn’t take a shower. I also take extra pains to make sure that I do not have body odor, myself. I compulsively shower and wash my hair at least once a day because I do not want to appear dirty or greasy. Back when I weighed over 400 pounds, my doctor commented on my obsessive cleanliness because she had never met someone of my size so clean.

This is not all of my pet peeves, and I am far from a perfectionist, which is one of the common misconceptions about someone with OCD. I don’t care if I cut straight, draw straight, or hang pictures on my wall straight. I cannot color inside the lines, and I don’t have a problem if my furniture or spice cabinet is aligned a certain way (just whether my spice cabinet is in alphabetical order). I do find myself repeating things, counting over and over, and hyper-fixating on certain tasks, but nothing to the detriment of my life or health. Yes, I have a lot of pet peeves, but I can live with them.

I want to hear from our readers. Do you have any pet peeves? Do they affect your life? Please, comment below or continue the conversation on our Facebook group: MMC Chat.

My Cats

Traveling on a Special Diet

This week on the podcast we are talking about go-to quick and easy meals. Two weeks ago on our podcast, we touched on the topic of traveling with a special diet. This week, I will be leaving for my first vacation in two years, and I have a plan to eat healthy (and budget-friendly) while still on the road.

I follow a low-carb and mostly dairy-free diet as my boyfriend calls it, boring. I’m lucky that so many places have these options while dining out now. You are probably wondering why I use the word “mostly.” Sometimes we are put in situations where we need to eat something and we may not find that particular option on a menu. I could be extremely strict about it, but sometimes we all need to live a little. For example, I can eat cheese. I say I am primarily dairy-free, because, as I mentioned in my last blog, I get sick when I drink milk, eat yogurt and various other dairy products, but a small amount of cheese (like a cheese stick) does not make me sick.

Two years ago, I traveled to Las Vegas with Christen and Cindy for Christen’s bachelorette party. While there, I tried to stick to my diet plan, which required a lot of prepping. Here are my tips for traveling on a special diet:

1. Know the parameters of your diet. What can you eat? When can you eat? What needs to be refrigerated? What can you eat that can withstand long plane/car rides? I have to eat a certain amount of protein per day, and I need to supplement my diet with protein shakes. If I were buying shakes on the road (yes, they do sell them at gas stations), I would be paying twice as much as buying protein powder or shakes ahead of time.
2. Plan! Plan! Plan! Yes, you can “wing it,” but there will be no guarantee (as I’ve learned the hard way) that you can find snacks along the way for your special diet. It’s always good to have an idea where you are going to eat and what snacks you want to eat ahead of time. I suggest doing some research on restaurants before traveling so that you can pick the right restaurant. For example, if you follow a vegan diet, you may need to find vegan-friendly restaurants near where you will be staying.
3. Buy in bulk when possible. This is a big one for me because buying low-carb snacks on the road can be unhealthy and expensive. I typically go to my local bulk foods store and buy individual bulk ingredients to make my own trail mix. I also make sure I stock up on protein bars, peanut butter, low-carb crackers, and celery sticks. If you are taking a road trip, you can buy a case of water instead of paying individually for water at a gas station.
4. Pre-portion your snacks. The last time I went on vacation, took tiny zip lock bags and made tiny portions of my snacks before storing them in my suitcase. I didn’t check any luggage, and I was able to get my snacks through with my carry-on bags with minimal security issues (apparently my individually packed protein powder could have been a powder bomb, so they had to take a closer look).
5. Always be prepared. There have been many times that I have been stuck in the middle of nowhere and unable to eat when I need to eat because I was unprepared, or I was dehydrated because I didn’t have a bottle of water. Now, I carry a protein bar or a protein pack of almonds in my purse and I have another in my work backpack. I also make sure I have a refillable bottle or cup in my car or in my backpack for those times that I don’t have anything to drink.

I know it seems like a lot of work but preparing my travel snacks ahead of time really does save a lot of money when on the road. Yes, you still will want to eat at the cool, local restaurants but the more money you save on snacks, the more money you can spend dining out or on souvenirs.

I want to hear from our readers. What is your favorite road-trip snack? Do you plan it ahead of time or do you “wing it” when on the road? Let’s continue the conversation right here or on our Facebook Group MMC Chat. Don’t forget to check out our podcast as well!

Christen’s Go-to Bariatric Snacks!

Hi, everyone! I hope your summer is going great! I just got back from a fun summer camp out, and before that I was at a scrapbook convention all weekend. I can safely say that my summer has rolled out and is in full swing! When it comes to busy activities and planning family fun-time, one of the biggest debates we have is what we are going to eat. It is easy to plan something healthy for meals, as we have a good running list of family recipes that we refer to when we make our plans, but the snacks are where we find ourselves in a pickle. If we don’t make plans for healthy snacks, we find ourselves either hungry and cranky, or making poor decisions when it comes time to eat.

I keep a handy list of quick and easy snacks  on my phone  that I can reference when needed. I tend to get tunnel vision when it comes to food, and find myself eating the same thing over and over again until I get burnout. Since I have had bariatric surgery, I have a little bit more restrictions when it comes to what I should eat. I could eat just about anything now since it has been several years since my surgery, but I really prefer to keep as close to the meal recommendations as I possibly can. Here’s what’s on my list:

Hand-packed snacks:

Boiled eggs

Baby carrots

String cheese

Meat and cheese roll-ups (ham and Swiss is my favorite)

Sugar-free popsicles

Tuna pouches

Pickles and olives

Salami or pepperoni with cream cheese 

Sargento Balanced Breaks

Oikos Triple Zero yogurt

Protein bars:

Premier Protein - chocolate peanut butter 

Quest - s’mores

Atkins - protein wafer crisp lemon vanilla

Protein shakes:

Muscle Milk 100 Calorie

Premier Protein 

Atkins

MRE Lite - in powder form mixed with milk 

I know that a lot of these snacks might seem a little bland, but they are great if you are looking for high protein and low sugar snacks. Most of these items you can keep on hand at any given time. Additionally the shelf life of most of them is longer than many other snacks. The best part is they take little to no fuss. You can grab and go or pack a little snack bag or even pre-make a few lunch meat wraps. Usually when I buy a new package of salami and cream cheese, I will go ahead and put the whole package together so that I can grab a few right from the fridge. It is super helpful to have these ready to go now that I work from home. Having these yummy filling snacks available whenever I want them keeps me from running through the pantry and grabbing chips or a handful of cookies, which is very dangerous now that I work from home. 

Do you have any delicious quick and easy snacks or bariatric snacks that are your favorite? I would love to hear what you keep on standby. Be sure to stop by and continue the conversation on MMC Chat on Facebook.

My Favorite Flavor

If you know me, you know I am a sucker for weird holidays. Did you know that March is “National Peanut Awareness” month? According to Peanut Allergy Facts, about four percent of teens and adults have peanut allergies. Peanuts have always had an important role in my life. Another little-known fact about me: My family, and by extension I mean “I”, owns a peanut farm.

My whole life, I have always said “my family” because I never felt part of that equation. I have always felt far removed from that scenario as it never seemed possible t that I would inherit the farm; the farm would never make it past my mom’s generation. Then, my mom died, and now I own half of a farm.

Going back generations, my family had always been farmers. My mom even grew up on the farm until my grandparents moved permanently to town when she was in college. That was when they allowed someone else to farm their land for a share of the profits. The farm grew other things besides peanuts depending on the season and who was in charge of farming it. Somehow, though, the farm was always there in the background. We visited it during crop seasons, and my grandparents dealt with the taxes. 

Growing up, I have many memories involving peanuts. Mid-fall, whenever the crop was harvested, my grandmother would receive bags of raw peanuts that she liked to shell herself. So, I would sit with my Maw Maw and shell peanuts; I began to hate peanuts.

As I mentioned in my last blog, I grew up poor. A staple in many less-fortunate households is peanut butter and white bread. Peanut butter is pretty sustainable and if you are hungry, it can be satisfying on the cheap. Aside from peanut butter sandwiches, we ate peanut butter and saltine crackers almost every day. To this day, my grandma still likes peanut butter and saltine crackers for an afternoon snack and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for dinner.

After I moved out, I didn’t eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches because they reminded me of my childhood and poverty. Then things changed. Three years ago, I had a life-changing surgery that altered the way that I eat and taste food (watch for a blog post in the near future). If you ask me to name my favorite thing to eat, my answer now will be peanut butter (or any kind of nut butter, really). Why? Quite simply, my taste buds changed, or adapted, since I started my weight-loss journey. Despite my earlier disdain, I am obsessed with the flavor. It no longer represents poverty but protein, and protein is life-sustaining. Nuts and nut butter were among the few things my stomach could tolerate post-surgery, and I enjoyed a bite of peanut butter as a “sweet escape” if I wanted something to curb my cravings.

It’s funny how we tend to avoid certain things that remind us of our childhood. It’s not like peanuts held a particular trauma for me. I may have simply not enjoyed the taste. I’m thankful now that I can look back at unshelled peanuts and be reminded of my Maw Maw but I will always buy them shelled in the store.

My favorite ways to eat nut butter:

• Perfect Bars™: Perfect Bar™  is an organic, gluten-free, high-protein bars made out of nut butter. They offer many different flavors at your local grocery store, but my favorite will always be the dark chocolate chip.
• Spread on a keto waffle: One of my favorite things to make is a Birch Bender’s® keto waffle. You can buy waffle mix or ready-made frozen waffles. I like to pair my waffle with Fix and Fogg Everything Butter®.
• Keto Peanut Butter Balls: I use this recipe from Beaming Baker, and I like to use Swerve®, sweetener, and 365 Organic Creamy Peanut Butter®.
• Keto Fat Bombs: I recommend this recipe from That Low Carb Life using Swerve® and Lily’s® baking chips.
• As a dip with Cauliflower Pretzels: My favorite cauliflower pretzels are From the Ground Up®.
• Keto Peanut Butter Pie: I found this recipe from All Day I Dream About Food using the same keto ingredients mentioned above.
• Keto PBJ: My favorite keto bread is Chompie’s®, and my favorite sugar-free jam is Good Good®.
• Smoothie King Keto Champ Coffee™: I love a good protein shake and this smoothie features almond butter.
• Premier Protein™  Chocolate Peanut Butter Shake: I can’t leave this out because protein shakes are a part of my everyday life now.

I also want to give a small-business shout-out to Spread Happiness Nut Butters and their keto-butter products as well as Ten Berries and their low-sugar jams. I first ran across these businesses at the Denton Community Market a few years ago when I moved back to the area.

I want to hear from my readers. Do you like peanut butter? What are some of your favorite peanut recipes? E-mail me at modernmusingsmmc@gmail.com and share your recipes with me.

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