A Keto Thanksgiving!

 

H A P P Y  T H A N K S G I V I N G  my loves!

While Thanksgiving in the U.S. doesn’t always celebrate the best of America’s beginnings, I do love to celebrate this holiday by focusing on family & gratitude.

This year, I’m celebrating a little bit differently. I recently started my Keto Journey. If you want to learn more about the Keto Diet, I’ll leave an informational link here and a link to a great cookbook here. I’m hoping to do a recap for how I started, why I started and what it’s been like once I hit my one-month mark.

Of course, starting a new lifestyle right before the holidays isn’t necessarily the best idea. But, I was like “It’s now or never!” I really wanted to start full swing into this diet and stick with it. I’ve tried so many different “diets” and have always seem to fail after a week or so when I lost momentum and I got lazy or couldn’t beat the cravings. But this time around I’m sticking to my goals and I’ve already reached Week 3 of Keto! Hell Yeah!

Ok so enough self-congratulations, let’s get back to what this post is really about: eating Keto during Thanksgiving!

Keto is all about higher fat intake, moderate protein intake and low carb intake. This means I won’t be shoveling the mash potatoes down my throat this year on Turkey Day 🙁 Instead, I’ll be happily munching on Keto-friendly sides & having some of that yummy turkey!

So what Keto sides will I be having? And what about dessert?!?

Well I’m super lucky to have parents that are supporting me on this journey and have allowed me to bring some Keto-friendly sides and desserts to our family dinner tomorrow.

This Turkey Day, I’ll be bringing some cauliflower mashed potatoes, a low carb green bean casserole, parmesan biscuits (yes, low-carb biscuits!) and for dessert……..pumpkin bread with cream cheese frosting!

I’m so excited to dig into these awesome low carb options for my Thanksgiving Dinner!!!

If you’re looking to add these delicious sides to one of your upcoming meals, I’ll leave you with the recipe links I used to make my own 🙂

1. Low Carb Cheesy Green Bean Casserole

by The Fit Housewife

This dish was super fun to make! I opted out of adding in the mushrooms as my Mom and I don’t like them. The longest part of making this dish was the prep time. I’m always so slow at prepping, but I’m sure I’ll get quicker the more I cook. Of course mine doesn’t look as pretty, but it sure did smell amazing! Either way, I’m so happy to be able to eat a Turkey-Day favorite!

 

2. Low Carb Biscuits With Garlic & Parmesan

by Wholesome Yum

These biscuits looked absolutely delicious when I saw them online. I knew I had to try to make them because I had seriously been missing bread AND because rolls/biscuits are such a stable at my family holiday dinners. So, I was super excited to find a low-carb option that I could indulge in this Turkey Day. Don’t these look delicious?! They were pretty easy to make. Mine turned out more like muffin tops then a biscuit, but they still look so yummy! I cannot wait to eat them 🙂

 

3. Low Carb Pumpkin Loaf with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting

by Peace, Love and Low Carb

The first thing I did when it got closer to Thanksgiving was look up Keto-friendly desserts. I was searching with my mom and we had come across a few sides and then my Mom was like, “Come on let’s skip to the desserts!” and I was like “Yes!!” haha and we went on Googling for a Keto-friendly Turkey Day dessert. I wanted something a bit simpler because I knew I didn’t have a whole lot of cooking time with working the day before and with my Mom still taking care of my Gram and also since we’d be going to my Gram so I’d have to cook before leaving. This low carb pumpkin bread was perfect! I made it the night before, let it cool overnight and made the frosting in the morning to spread on top. I did change up the recipe by using Almond flour instead of the Carbquick and then also adding in some Gluten-free baking soda so that the bread would still rise. I also had to split the batter into two “mini breads” since I only had a “mini bread” pan and not a traditional sized one.

Result?

Once the breads were cool, they seemed to fall apart as soon as I took them out of the pan. I did the fork test and the fork came out clean, but the bread was still kind of moist and fragile so it didn’t stay in the bread shape. So I decided to treat it almost like bread pudding and broke it up into chunks and then topped it with the frosting the next day. I did taste some of it and it was delicious! It had more of a moist cupcake or cake consistency versus a bread consistency.  I cannot wait to indulge in some of this yummy dessert for Turkey Day!

 

 

Of course as with every holiday, I’m sure I’ll be cheating a bit from my normal Keto diet. But I’m totally okay with that and will definitely not be feeling guilty about it the next day. I’ll be back on track come Friday and might be doing a bit more of a work out (…I mean shopping for sure! haha) to make up for the extra carbs I ate the day before.

 

Let me know below what you’re looking forward to this Turkey Day or what your favorite Keto dish is!

 

I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving & if you’re not celebrating I hope you have a fantastic Thursday!

 

Remember that you deserve love always!

xx,

Nicole Lynn