Korean Style Ground Beef Stir Fry

I wanted to have more Asian style meals that I could eat with my current dietary restrictions and I had all the ingredients so I gave it a try.

Notes:

• If you're not following a ketogenic diet you can use regular brown sugar and serve it with regular rice of your choice.
• I love serving this with some kimchi on top, and if I'm feeling especially hungry and fancy, a fried egg.
• I have also made this with ground pork and it was good, but I think I prefer the beef version.

Verdict: I love this and have made it several times since the initial try. Great mix of sweet, salty umami. A go-to meal if I have ground beef.

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RECIPE:

Korean Beef
from Ioana Borcea (Low Carb Spark)
serves 3-4

1 pound lean ground beef
1/4 cup brown sugar replacement
3 cloves garlic minced
1/4 cup soy sauce reduced-sodium
1 tbsp sesame oil
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes or more to taste
1/4 tsp ground ginger
To garnish: sliced green onions and sesame seeds

Place a large skillet over medium heat and cook the ground beef until no longer pink. Add minced garlic and continue cooking for one more minute. Combine brown sugar substitute, soy sauce, sesame oil, ginger, red pepper flakes in a small bowl. Pour the soy sauce mixture over the ground beef and cook until browned for about 5 minutes. Stir constantly. Serve over cauliflower rice, top with green onions and sesame seeds.

Peanut Butter Dirt Cake

It's that time of year again to make my husband a homemade birthday treat! He normally wants dirt cake but this time he requested something with peanut butter, and suggested maybe a peanut butter dirt cake. I had not made one before but I was sure other people had had this idea before, so I went looking for recipes to try and decided on this one because it sounded pretty straightforward and made a reasonable amount.

Notes:

• Used a combination of Oreos and Nutter Butter cookie crumbs rather than just Oreos.
• Added some extra peanut butter (3-4 tbsp) to the fluff mixture because my husband wanted to taste more peanut butter and less cream cheese.
  
• Made a sugar free version for myself by using powdered Swerve (finely ground erythritol granules that are used as a powdered sugar substitute) and natural style peanut butter without any added sugar in equal amounts as the original recipe.
• I had planned to try this recipe from Sugar Free Londoner to make sugar free chocolate cookie crumbs but didn't actually get that far because I was too busy devouring the peanut butter fluff part lol.
  

Verdict: I only had a small bite of the regular one but many who tried it really loved it, including my husband who requested it for his birthday so I'd definitely make it again. I LOVED the sugar free version -- most of the ingredients are keto friendly to begin with so it seemed like it would convert well, and I'm glad it did. I immediately made more once it was gone because I still wanted more and all the ingredients were there.

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RECIPE: Peanut Butter Dirt Pudding (Cooking with Carlee)