Cooking side pork for breaky

Frying it in bacon grease



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Celebrating a 4 pound loss this week!

I finally made it through a whole week without any wheat products. I had been able to keep the sugars and starches out for a few weeks but I had a wrap at clinicals a week ago and I think it stunted my losses. I was also frustrated with the scale just sticking in one place day after day, so I stopped weighing in every day and decided to start using Saturday mornings as my official weigh in day. Well, then without warning a family illness kept me up at the hospital for 24 hours and I ended up coming home at 3:00 AM this morning and wolfing down a giant fresh beef burger smothered in cheese. So - when I weighed in I was sure the scale was going to yell, Get off me Fat Ass!" But much to my surprise it showed a 4.1 loss since my last weigh in earlier in the week. I was ecstatic!

Well, what is an ecstatic fat boy expected to do? Celebrate!!!! I like to celebrate with food. No! I did not cheat on my diet, but I decided to kick it up a notch and make a giant egg roll, John Style! Here's how I did it:

First, I baked of a pan of bacon in the oven so the strips would be nice and perfectly long. Then I harvested them onto some napkins to drain and snacked on a few while I contemplated my next move.





Then I diced up some onion, green pepper, and baby 'bellas and fried them up in a skillet until they started to caramelize a bit.




Next I whipped up 4 large eggs and poured them over the simmering veggies.




This next step is when I added the perfect strips of bacon.




Then I topped it all with a blend of shredded cheeses.




The final step was pretty hard to do and took two flippers to accomplish rolling up the giant 12" egg roll. It was a bit messy at first and since it took two hands I wasn't able to grab any pics. But the end result was phenomenal! I grilled each side for about a minute and then plated it.  I ended up with a giant egg roll stuffed with cheese,  bacon, and veggies - all topped with more shredded cheese and Fage Greek yogurt. Success! Next time I might add a few more strips of bacon and some olives...

My typical breakfast

Lately, my breakfasts have all included bacon!









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Bruno's Stuffed Chicken Roll

One of my favorite indulgences is the best kept secret in NW Indiana, Bruno’s Pizza! Nestled in the quaint downtown area of New Carlisle, this newly remodeled restaurant serves up the best pizza I have had the privilege of tasting. Sure, there are other Bruno’s restaurants scattered around Indiana but none of them come close to matching the flavor and pizza density of the New Carlisle version. Since I eat only the toppings on this diet, the super thick toppings on their “combination pizza” make all the difference. The problem is that it is impossible for me to finish all 20 inches of heavenly pizza toppings at one time, leaving me with perpetual left overs in the fridge. I have made omelets and lasagna with the toppings in the past, but this time I decided to incorporate some chicken breast and bacon to make the best low carb dish yet! So, here’s a pictorial of how I did it:

First, I pounded out some chicken breasts as thin as possible.

Next, using a knife, I separated the toppings from the cold pizza making sure not to get any of the crust.

I placed the toppings on the breast and rolled it up as tightly as possible.

I pinned them together with cooking skewers and par fried them in coconut oil. Then I wrapped each roll in tight strips of bacon following the same direction that the pizza was rolled in to help hold the integrity of the roll. I placed them in a pyrex baking dish and put them in an oven at 350 degrees for 40 minutes until the bacon was golden brown.

The stuffed chicken roll turned out unbelievably moist and tender. The combination of pizza in the middle and juicy bacon tightly wrapped around the outside made each bite a spicy cheesy juicy explosion of unbelievable flavor. I ate two of them and can’t wait until I have room to finish off the third. Yum!!!

Ham & Eggs

Today is my biggest workout of the week with lots of heavy lifting, so I needed a breakfast loaded with protein and energy (fat). I decided on using some leftover baked ham, 2 tablespoons of bacon grease, and three eggs, all fried up together in a big scramble. Not only was it a great low carb choice but I should have plenty of energy for a tough workout before Notre Dame takes the field.

Low Carb Pancakes

I guess I can have my cake and eat it too! Well, at least I can have my pancakes...

My wife invented an awesome low carb pancake recipe using protein powder and coconut flower. I served them up with some bacon and eggs poached in hot bacon grease. I like my eggs on top of the pancakes and then I smother everything with sugar free syrup. Sometimes I can't believe that I get to eat this good and still continue to lose weight. I love living low carb!

Zucchini Lasagna

My wife makes a mean low carb lasagna! She uses thin slices of zucchini to make the lasagna noodles and they turn out the same texture and flavor as that fattening unhealthy wheat lasagna. Definitely one of my favorite dishes on or off a diet.

Galumpkies

Usually cabbage rolls (Galumpkies) are stuffed with beef and rice. My wife makes an awesome recipe that uses finely ground cauliflower instead to keep the carbs down. The texture is perfect after about 8 hours in the crock pot. Looks like I'll be eating these delicious meaty bites for the next week. I served mine up with Chobani yogurt on top tonight.






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My favorite brats

My favorite brats are the Johnsonville brand.
These cheddar-stuffed bratwurst only have 3 carbs each!



For some great Johnsonville recipes:

Breakfast Burritos

Like Martin Luther King, I also had a dream - a dream about the porkiest breakfast in the world! I dreamed of pork served on top of pork with a side of pork, and then it hit me: Why not make a breakfast burrito using pork inside and out? I tried this new idea today and now it's my favorite low carb breakfast! If you want to try it, here is the recipe: 

1 - Dice up some bacon and scramble it up with three eggs in about 2 T of bacon grease. Don't fully cook the eggs because we will be cooking them again later in the program.

2 - Lay out three nice slices of ham. I used Virginia baked deli ham sliced to the thickness of slice of bologna. Top the ham slices  (your low carb tortillas) with strips of pepper jack cheese.

3 - Spread pork liver braunschweiger on the end closest to you. This provides moisture and flavor, but also holds the ham together when you roll it up. Add about 1/3 of the egg and bacon scramble mixture to the lower half of each ham slice.

4. Roll up the ham into nice little burritos and fry them up in another 2 T of bacon grease. Most of the grease will be absorbed into the burritos by the time they are done.

Serve these porky delights up on a perfectly aged antique plate for best results. Be sure to sit near someone who is CPR certified when you eat them, as you may experience a mild heart attack trying to catch the delicious mixture of bacon grease and melted spicy cheese dribbling down your chin.

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Beef + Beef

Tonight, I grilled up a flat iron steak on my infrared grill. I had some nitrate-free beef hot dogs getting ready to expire so I threw them on as an appetizer. I marinated the steak for three hours in a mixture of olive oil, a dash of cooking wine, italian spices, fresh garlic, and onion flakes. Infrared cooking sears in all the juices and flavor and speeds up the cooking time.


I cooked the flat iron to an internal temperature of 140 degrees and then let it stand for 5 minutes. Letting it cool before slicing causes the juices to be drawn back in from the surface, making the steak flavor and juiciness consistent all the way through. I hate nothing worse than a dry steak.

I just love the way a flat iron steak looks on a serving platter.

This probably could have served three skinny adults but I ate most of it myself. I also added two of the all beef franks as appetizers, slicing them lengthwise and filling them with strips of pepper jack cheese. This beefy plate did not disappoint and I look forward to trying variations of it again in the future.


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Who Needs a Bun?

The perfect low carb burger starts by searing big all beef patties on a super hot grill.

Then you buck tradition and turn the burger into the bun, stuffing the insides with your favorite hamburger toppings.

The key top eating a bunless burger successfully is to wrap your stuffed burger in wax paper. This keeps grease from getting all over your hands while you eat, but be warned; there will be grease dripping down your chin. I love to eat my burgers with a dill spear. In fact, I had three burgers and three spears tonight!

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Bacon Wrapped Scallops

Ok, so I cheated a bit on this recipe. I found a great low carb meal at Kroger in the frozen food section, scallops wrapped in pre-cooked bacon. But I did tweak it just a bit...

Here's all I had to do:

• Heat two tablespoons of oil in a skillet.
• Open the box and place the frozen scallops bacon-side down.
• Since the bacon was pre-cooked it took less than 8 minutes on medium for these to be finished.
• I turned them once during the cooking process to make sure that both sides were fully cooked.

Once they were done (165F in the center) I placed them on an appetizer platter. Then, I made a sauce using a trick my wife taught me called "de-glazing" to finish off the plate. De-glazing is where you make a sauce using the caramelized bits of meat and grease the end up on the bottom of the pan. This sauce was very easy and delicious! After removing the wraps, I added an 1/8 cup of heavy cream and brought it to a boil, scraping all the caramelized goodies off the bottom of the pan while stirring. You can see the results drizzled across the top of the dish pictured at the top of this post.

Sun Butter and Eggs

My breakfast: I took a low carb muffin, topped it with homemade sun butter, three slices of Canadian bacon, and an egg cooked in a ring.

Fast and Easy Low Carb Pizza

I made this quick low carb snack by combining a $5 Wal-Mart take-n-bake pizza with my wife's low carb bread. My wife makes an awesome variety of low carb breads. I had several odd and end pieces left over from her last baking experiment. I laid them out in a circular shape on a plate. Then I baked one of those fast and easy Wal-Mart deluxe pizzas in the oven. I used a metal pancake turner to scoop the toppings off the Wal-Mart wheat crust and layered them onto the low carb bread pieces. Then I microwaved everything on high for  few minutes to fuse the dish together. The results were delicious! The pizza crust turned out great and reminded me of the crust on one of those deep dish Chicago-style pizzas.

Perfect Poached Eggs

Pictured above are two of the most beautifully poached eggs that you will ever see. I served them over slices of braunschweiger with one of my wife's homemade (low carb) cream cheese muffins.

All you need is a poached egg insert and you too can make perfect poached eggs every time. I purchased this egg poaching pan insert at Wal-mart but you get get them online also for around ten dollars. Although it has a non-stick surface your eggs will still want to stick. If you add water to the little bowls it will help but they will have bubbles and rough edges. The best way I have found to keep them from sticking is to lightly oil the surface before dropping in the eggs. Too much oil and your eggs will turn yellow, so be careful. Sometimes I use a light olive oil spray, but since I am trying to increase my fat intake at this stage in my diet, I added a little melted bacon grease to each section and then rubbed it in with a napkin. The results were splendid.

Once the eggs are cooked to your liking, all you need is a flexible small spatula to get them out without breaking them.