Meatballs

This is one of my favorite things to eat. Especially on my low carb diet. I love this recipe. Normally I use 3 pounds of ground meat (your choice) . I have done 1/2 and 1/2 with beef and turkey or chicken. You will cut down on the fat obviously which is always a good thing.
This time I made 6.25 pounds so that I could freeze some and send some with DH in the semi. He has a microwave so this is a nice treat to be able to have something homemade.
Now granted, crackers have carbs and you could use pork rinds (0 carbs) in place of them, or even do 1/2 and 1/2 to them down, but to me it just isn't the same. Your normal saltine cracker (Nabisco Premium) has 11 carbs per 5 crackers. You could say I have done my homework with what I had to work with but I could probably do some asking to see if I could substitue anything in place of the crackers, but for now I just cut down on them. I only used 1/2 of what I normally would so that I can have 2-3 meatballs in a meal and still be within my limits for carbs.

Ingredients
3 pounds ground beef (may substitute with ground turkey or chicken or combine with beef)
1 package dry onion soup mix ( I also like the beefy onion for these)
1 egg
1/4 package of saltines crushed
1/8 c. milk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Combine all ingredients and mush away until well blended.
You can either bake in a 9x13 cake pan (glass or metal-both work well) or you can make hamburger patties or meatballs with the mixture. I like to make the meatballs. Not sure why really.....just do. I make them just a little smaller than a tennis ball size. They will shrink up especially if you are using only beef. I only use the beef I buy from my uncle because they are not force fed and the beef has a lot less fat than the beef you get at the supermarket. After you are done mixing well bake for about 35-45 minutes. You may need to adjust baking times of course depending on your oven and such. Bust a couple open to check. Meatloaf in a cake pan will probably take longer but I haven't done it that way for quite some time so I am not sure about the timing on that.

I do not have a fat and Calorie count for the beef because of where I purchase it from but you can check your packaging to get that and add it to the nutritional info.

Fat/Calorie unknown
Carbs 1.5 per meatball

You can adjust to your liking of course. When I did the big batch (6.25 pounds) I should have used 2 packages of the onion soup mix. I used 2 eggs, but I think 3 would have been a better choice especially if I would have had that second package of onion soup mix in there. I don't mind them being oniony (is that a word?) In any case, I also used a 1/4 c. of milk in the recipe but if you decide you would like a little more zip and add that extra packet of onion soup you may need a tad more milk. Not much. If you use a second package of the soup mix the carbs would be 1.7 grams. I have mixed it 1/2 and 1/2 (hamburger/turkey) and they turned out just as good.

After all of that....WHEW!....I like to vacuum seal mine. I have a Reynolds. It's the kind you use with the baggies. It has proven to be challenging at times. Especially when I wore out my first one and it didn't dawn on me that it was broken. (it still made the sound just didn't vacuum. Then I just throw them in the freezer.

I hope you like! :)

Low Carb French Vanilla Cappuccino

I missed my cappuccinos soooooo bad. I have looked high and low for a low carb solution and played with recipes since the beginning of January. I repeatedly found the same recipe which is basically what you see below but never found a low carb version. I really hope this helps some of you through a rough patch (cravings). It sure has helped me. It's a little higher in carbs than I would like it but it works in a pinch. Just make sure your other carbs for the day are in line. Not too hard if you mainly eat some meat with little to no additions like sauce or maybe scrambled eggs with meat. Enjoy!! Low Carb French Vanilla Cappuccino This is more like the cappuccinos you would get from the gas station or from a pre-mix. 8 oz. coffee 1 packet French Vanilla Cappuccino Coffee Flavor - calories 0, fat 0, carbs less than 1g, less than 1g sugar 1-2 TBLS Heavy Whipping Cream - Blackstar brand calories 50, fat 6g (sat. fat 3.5), carbs 0(serving size 1 TBLS) 1 tsp. Splenda Brown Sugar Blend - calories 10, fat 0g, carbs 2 per serving (serving size=1/2 packed tsp.) *all nutritional information taken from package labels not checked with hidden carb counter. You could also try Vanilla or French Vanilla Extracts by McCormicks instead of the Splenda Coffee Flavoring I got the frothy top by just shaking the whipping cream vigorously for a few seconds and when I poured it on top I had my froth. If you don't like it as sweet just cut down the Splenda Brown Sugar Blend For an 8 oz. cup Calories: 60 Fat: 6-12g (you could cut this down by not adding as much heavy whipping cream) Carbs: 4 (this may be off by just a little depending upon how much of the Splenda Brown Sugar Blend you use) I have read, and read, and read, and then read some more on just about every thing on the market to get the Fat and Carbs as low as possible. I even read how to make your own brown sugar and tried making it with Sweet 10. I don't have any Sweetz Free so I haven't tried that. Molasses has on the average (checked several brands) 14-16 carbs per tbls. So I added 1 tbls. to enough Sweet 10 (2 tbls) to make it equivalent to 1 cup of brown sugar. The problem is know how many DROPS to use for 1 cup. So this could be experimented on. I used an online calculator to convert 1 tbls of the molasses to drops and it said 288 but this is where that got hard. Molasses is too thick for a dropper you get way more molasses than what they consider a drop (probably equivalent to water), so carb count is probably very unreliable for this. I just thought about this if anyone wants to play around with it. You could heat the molasses to make it thinner but it is a task that will take some time putzing around. Would like feed back on this or other ideas. Splenda also has a Mocha, Hazelnut, Caramel and Cinnamon Spice. I have only ever found the Mocha and Hazelnut. I would sure like to find that Caramel. mmmmm