I love Thanksgiving! It's pretty much my favorite holiday. I love it because Turkey is dirt cheap, so when my husband and I were poor and in college, I bought a lot of turkey and forced him to eat it. To be honest, the first few turkeys that I roasted were not that great. I had a hard time thawing them properly, cooking them all the way through without drying it all out...and I might have started the oven on fire at least once...okay twice...okay...possibly more than that.
The point is, I learned how to cook an amazing turkey. It's so moist and delicious and cooks in about 3 hours! Thank you, Alton Brown!! (Recipe can be found here.) But this newfound talent for making a delicious Thanksgiving Day meal became an annual frustration as my husband's grandmother insisted each year that we gather into her crowded living room to pick over her dry, unseasoned turkey carcass. Blech. As a result, I started hosting Canadian Thanksgiving! Thanksgiving in Canada is celebrated on the second Monday of October...a much better time for Thanksgiving anyway. As we've gotten older, Thanksgivings at my grandmother-in-law's house are a thing of the past. Sad. (not really) But the tradition of Canadian Thanksgiving lives on!
I tried out a number of Keto friendly Thanksgiving recipes on my friends this year, and to be honest, most of them were a little bit of a bust. The rolls were heavy, the chocolate chip pumpkin muffins were bland, and the chocolate coconut caramel bars were WAY too sweet! Luckily, we had an abundance of non-Keto foods, so no one was forced to suffer.
But one recipe was a real winner! I'm actually making it to bring to the Thanksgiving celebration that we'll be attending next week!
First, I need to say, I think Pork Rinds are gross. I've never eaten them or even seen them in real life outside of a grocery store before I started Keto. I was desperate for some snacks, though, and at the urging of some online "friends" I ran to the grocery store to get some. I opened the bag as soon as I got out to the car. I was disgusted. The smell was nauseating. I immediately tied the grocery bag shut and sadly put them in the back of the cupboard when I got home...thinking that I didn't want to waste them because some day I might be desperate enough to think they're good. That day has never come.
However disgusting Pork Rinds are all by themselves, they are amazing for cooking! I've used them for breading on pork chops, oven fried chicken, and now in stuffing. And they work great! They absorb a lot of liquid meaning they take on the flavor of whatever you're cooking them with. The smell is still to pungent for me to ever get them near my mouth on their own...so I honestly can't explain it...I'm just asking you to trust me.
So here's the Pork Rind Stuffing recipe that I found and used. Like so many other Lazy Mom Keto tips, this is something I found out of pure laziness. It seemed ridiculous to me to go to all of the effort and expense of baking a Keto bread, then slicing it, toasting it, and crushing it up just to go into a completely separate dish. There *had* to be a better way! And there is. Pork Rinds are cheap, and you just crush them up and use them in place of regular bread crumbs!
ADVICE ON THIS RECIPE!!
The point is, I learned how to cook an amazing turkey. It's so moist and delicious and cooks in about 3 hours! Thank you, Alton Brown!! (Recipe can be found here.) But this newfound talent for making a delicious Thanksgiving Day meal became an annual frustration as my husband's grandmother insisted each year that we gather into her crowded living room to pick over her dry, unseasoned turkey carcass. Blech. As a result, I started hosting Canadian Thanksgiving! Thanksgiving in Canada is celebrated on the second Monday of October...a much better time for Thanksgiving anyway. As we've gotten older, Thanksgivings at my grandmother-in-law's house are a thing of the past. Sad. (not really) But the tradition of Canadian Thanksgiving lives on!
I tried out a number of Keto friendly Thanksgiving recipes on my friends this year, and to be honest, most of them were a little bit of a bust. The rolls were heavy, the chocolate chip pumpkin muffins were bland, and the chocolate coconut caramel bars were WAY too sweet! Luckily, we had an abundance of non-Keto foods, so no one was forced to suffer.
But one recipe was a real winner! I'm actually making it to bring to the Thanksgiving celebration that we'll be attending next week!
First, I need to say, I think Pork Rinds are gross. I've never eaten them or even seen them in real life outside of a grocery store before I started Keto. I was desperate for some snacks, though, and at the urging of some online "friends" I ran to the grocery store to get some. I opened the bag as soon as I got out to the car. I was disgusted. The smell was nauseating. I immediately tied the grocery bag shut and sadly put them in the back of the cupboard when I got home...thinking that I didn't want to waste them because some day I might be desperate enough to think they're good. That day has never come.
However disgusting Pork Rinds are all by themselves, they are amazing for cooking! I've used them for breading on pork chops, oven fried chicken, and now in stuffing. And they work great! They absorb a lot of liquid meaning they take on the flavor of whatever you're cooking them with. The smell is still to pungent for me to ever get them near my mouth on their own...so I honestly can't explain it...I'm just asking you to trust me.
So here's the Pork Rind Stuffing recipe that I found and used. Like so many other Lazy Mom Keto tips, this is something I found out of pure laziness. It seemed ridiculous to me to go to all of the effort and expense of baking a Keto bread, then slicing it, toasting it, and crushing it up just to go into a completely separate dish. There *had* to be a better way! And there is. Pork Rinds are cheap, and you just crush them up and use them in place of regular bread crumbs!
ADVICE ON THIS RECIPE!!
- Take the time to crush the Pork Rinds into bite sized pieces. They absorb the chicken broth and end up pretty chewy. The texture of larger pieces isn't super appetizing.
- Check the higher end grocery stores to find gourmet Pork Rinds! When I first went looking for Pork Rinds, I immediately went to Walmart. I figured that since only guys like Dan Conner would ever eat Pork Rinds that Walmart was the only place that I would find them. I was so wrong! I found them not only at my local grocery store but also at the higher end grocery store! My fancy grocery store that I only go to for Keto foods even had "gourmet" Pork Rinds with fancy flavors! You'll get a much richer flavor if you spring for the Rosemary and Sea Salt Pork Rinds, though the cheap "regular" flavored ones worked great!
- Be careful with the oil when roasting your veggies. I found that the Pork Rinds bring a little bit of greasiness with them, so if your veggies are also greasy, the overall effect isn't great.
And that's it! This recipe is super easy and super yummy. My ratings are as follows:
- Ease of Recipe: 10 out of 10
- Simplicity of Ingredients: 10 out of 10
- Taste compared to Original: 8 out of 10
- Texture compared to Original: 6 out of 10
- Overall Lazy Mom Keto Rating: 8 out of 10
Comments
Post a Comment