Keto 'Happy Meal'

Fried pork rinds - I will readily admit to an aversion to this food. I don't think it ever appealed to me. I could not believe my eyes, when last summer, on a trip down south, Tom came out of a gas station convenience store with a few bags of fried pork rinds - and he was excited about it. I imagine my curled lip and sneer very clearly gave away my opinion on the food. However, Tom said the one thing that was guaranteed to change my mind - there are no carbs in them!

Fried pork rinds are all protein and fat and not a single carbohydrate. This makes them great ketogenic diet food. Tom had several flavors so he could try them with Gracie and see if she liked them. She was absolutely thrilled when he handed her a bag of 'chips' that looked like potato chips and actually said she could have some. I think the idea of her own 'chips' appealed to her for a bit but them she realized that they just were not potato chips! It takes Gracie about two weeks to tire of a new food and that was what happened to the fried pork rinds.

However, our imaginations were then fired up about them. We now use them as the basis for keto-bread crumbs. We crumble some non-flavored fried pork rinds and then blend in some parmesean cheese, onion powder, garlic powder, salt, pepper and any combination therein. We use these breadcrumbs the same as any other. We dip bits of chicken into an egg and coat with the keto-bread crumbs and then fry them up. Voila, chicken nuggets that are carb-free! We mix that with some eggplant french fries and we have a keto-happy meal and a happy keto-child.

The eggplant fries are very good. We take a regular eggplant and cut it into pieces resembling shoestring french fries. This gets fried up in oil - either a mix of canola and peanut or olive oil. The eggplant picks up the flavor of the oil - just as french fries do.

Once a month in Gracie's day care class, they have a Chick-fil-A lunch. Basically, it's the Chick-fil-A kids meal. Gracie used to love this. She also likes to be like all of the other kids. We knew about the eggplant french fries before but we just recently started pairing them with the keto-chicken nuggets. Gracie is content that she is getting the same meal that everyone else is eating!