Life is very fleeting. Seize the moments when they arise.
February can be a hard time in the PNW. It’s cold. It’s dark. Many days we don’t see the sun. It’s also a hopeful time. The days are getting longer. Spring feels right around the corner. These past few weeks have been mostly cold with a few surprise hail showers and snow flakes. The British Hubby finds the cold air refreshing while I alternate between enjoying the winter wonderland and hibernating under a big comforter snuggling with Ernie.
These past two weeks we’ve been experimenting with keto recipes. The British Hubby had fond memories of a curried tuna lasagna from his University days. We thought we would try to make a keto version. We started with Just Like the Real Think Keto Lasagna noodles. We did this over a two days. The first day we made the noodles. It smelled heavenly baking. Exactly like lasagna. We even chilled this in the fridge and then cut into thirds for the loaf pan. I really wanted to eat the entire pan or at least one strip after this first step, but the British Hubby instead I refrain.
The next step was to create the curried tuna lasagna. We had the keto noodles. That just left the cheese sauce to convert. We did a straight flour substitute. We used coconut flour instead of regular flour. Almond flour or a combination would also work. The main challenge was realizing the curried tuna recipe and the noodle recipe created different amounts for different sized pans. We ended up with more cheese sauce and a bit too much curried tuna mixture.
Because we had so much extra filling, we ended up making two dishes. The stone had two layers while the silicon pan had just one with a bit more fillings. If you were feeding a crowd, this would work if you made another pan of noodles. The single layer pan is very filling especially if you add in some veggie side dishes. You could also freeze a pan if you like having pre-made keto meals. I like to call them keto poke-n-pings.
The verdict? The British Hubby loved it! I didn’t love it, but I didn’t hate it either. I would eat it again. We plan to use the noodles again in other lasagna variations. Before adopting the keto lifestyle, our favorite Italian restaurant had a mouth watering lamb lasagna full of carbs. That might just be our next variation.
SkeinHerder Ponders: This week, I’ve been thinking about the French nun turning 117 and beating COVID. Talk about an amazing celebration of life! Sometimes I wonder what the world would look like when I turn 117. My goal is to still be knitting and blogging when I’m that age.
We had the start of a snow storm this afternoon. I took a short clip of it above. It was lovely to watch with Burt and cuppa.
Happy Friday Eve!
WIP 
People generally shiver and balk at the cold we get here in MN (hello, not above zero until next Monday), but boy the sun comes out! Most folks here are cheerful and generally appear in spite of the temps simply because it’s sunny. I’ll take it!
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Is it amazing how the sun came make such a big difference? Keep warm, Trish.
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I love seeing you guys adapting favorite recipes to be Keto, you guys come up with some good ideas!
I also read about the nun, what an amazing life she’s had!
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Thanks, Kate! I feel like we’ve found a healthier eating plan to adapt our favorite carb heavy meals instead of dieting to lose weight that I gain back when I stop the diet.
Right, talk about seeing so much history and life in general. I also like thinking if I’m going to be 117 then I’m not even half way yet!
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A twist with curry and tuna – not for me I’m afraid! Love curry, love lasagna, but not tuna! It’s interesting that you are looking at alternative diet options with low carbs. My latest change to heavy carb meals has been to swap the pasta or whatever with sliced courgette or diced butternut squash. There has been a lot of online chat about low carbs recently, especially for those trying to fend off becoming full-on diabetics.
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Oh diced butternut squash would make some fantastic dishes! We’re going to give that a try. Thanks for the suggestion, Tinaor. I think you could experiment with other protein sources if you liked the seasonings/flavors. I think it might be interesting with chicken, turkey, tofu or even a minced version of protein.
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I love to try different foods. One thing during this lockdown is that I have looked through several cookbooks on my shelf and actually made things I’d never made before – mostly ‘hits’ but occasional ‘misses’ !
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That’s awesome you rediscovered your own stuff. I love trying new recipes too. It’s fun to find new favorites.
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As for reaching 117 – that’s a scary thought. Imagine how the world would have changed over the 117 years!
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Very true. If you experience the change as it happens, does it seem less scary? I’m thinking how we went from very few people with cell phones or pagers. Over time it went from an emergency type phone to now something that is a primary source of communication and so much more. When you look at large amounts of time, it seems like a big leap, but less so when you’re seeing it daily.
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So true, we may remark on change but as we live through it but it’s not so shocking as comparing changes from decade to decade. Thinking of my early days of office work, with a telex and fax machine – pretty non existent nowawadays! My sister in law was telling me of her first ‘remote control’ tv the other day too – the control was actually on a wire attached to the tv so not very remote – you couldn’t sit too far away from the screen to change channel but at least you could stay in your seat!
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I remember those tv’s. I remember being so excited to program the VCR to record a show while I was out or wanted to watch two shows that were airing at the same time. I could watch one and record the other. It was ground breaking!
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