Cookin' with Chris 👨‍🍳

[Rhino75]

Love you guys!!! Peanut butter cups are my absolute favorite… normally terrible for you… but now!! Ha ha!!! LET THERE BE SNACKS!!

[Chris_Shugart]

Amen! Be sure to scroll down past the original recipe where I tried it again using all PB2 and no nut butter. That’s the way I make them now: texture is more like the real thing with fewer calories.

Thanks!

[Chris_Shugart]

Protein Crunch Bars

This is sort of a riff on the peanut butter cup recipe above. Here’s the general idea. You can vary the amounts for different flavors and textures. It’s hard to screw up because there’s no baking required.

1. For the bottom layer, melt 100% cacao baking chocolate. I used a whole bar. Chop it, add a touch of coconut/MCT oil, and microwave it for 30 seconds at a time, stirring in between rounds to keep it from burning, until melted. Add a spoonful of monk fruit or Splenda sweetener. Mix it with unsweetened puffed rice cereal. (This is like Rice Krispies without sugar. You can find it at health food stores in a bag.) Add to the bottom of a dish covered with parchment paper.

2. For the middle layer, mix PB2 with Metabolic Drive and just enough milk to make a thick paste. Add a pinch of salt and layer it into the dish.

3. Either use leftover melted chocolate or melt some more. Add sweetener if using and a pinch of salt. That’s the top layer. You could add nuts at this point too.

4. Freeze or refrigerate until it sets. Pull out the parchment paper and chop into bars or squares. Store in fridge.

[Dani_Shugart]

@Chris_Shugart

This is sort of a riff on the peanut butter cup recipe above.

Sorry husband. This was too good. I ate the last piece. Your fault.

[Chris_Shugart]

@Dani_Shugart

Sorry husband. This was too good. I ate the last piece. Your fault.

That’s it, I’m withholding sexy time until further notice…

Okay, you’ve had enough.

[Dani_Shugart]

HAHA don’t make me seduce you with my sinus infection and greasy hair.

[Chris_Shugart]

Almost Rice Krispy Treats (Chocolate)

This recipe isn’t quite there yet. The unsweetened puffed rice cereal got too soggy. Real Rice Krispies stays crunchy longer because it’s soaked in sugar which repels liquids for a while. Then you get Type II diabetes. But hey, crunchy snack bars! Small price to pay, amiright?

That’s the funny thing about healthed-up recipes. For normies, if it doesn’t taste exactly like the unhealthy version, they just can’t eat it because they’re adult toddlers. To health and physique-minded folks, “close enough” tastes pretty damn good.

Still, I think I can solve this and keep’em crunchy.

My first try was 100% melted chocolate (as dark as it gets) mixed into puffed rice, a little almond milk, Metabolic Drive, plus a pinch of salt and spoonful of Splenda in the chocolate. Yeah, a bit soggy, but I ate 'em all. I’ll take that 42 grams of protein, a healthy carb source, and super good-for-ya cocoa, even if it doesn’t crunch the way I wanted it to.

[Musclethaut1]

Cinnamon crunch banana bread; what are the macros?

[Chris_Shugart]

Didn’t calculate macros for that one. Not my thing. More of an autoregulation guy.

[Rhino75]

Is it possible to get adopted by you two?

[Dani_Shugart]

Yes, my son. Do we call you Junior?

[Chris_Shugart]

Chocolate Yogurt Cookies

I took Dani’s blueberry yogurt cookie recipe and modified it: replaced the blueberries with 100% dark chocolate and used about half quick and half old-fashioned oats (because I wanted to use up the quick oats). Adding a few spoonfuls of extra Greek yogurt to make up for the moisture from the blueberries. (I also wanted to use up the last of the yogurt.) Also used a blend of Splenda and finely powdered monk fruit, again because I wanted to use up an almost-empty package of sweetener.

So this was kind of a “trashcan” recipe because my goal was to finish off a bunch of odds and ends in the pantry and fridge. Worked great.

Dani’s original recipe:

Tip: Make These Blueberry & Yogurt Cookies

Glamour shot:

[Rhino75]

Lol, you can call me whatever you like🤣

[Chris_Shugart]

Keto Protein Bread

If you poke around healthy cookin’ social media accounts, you’ve seen this one go viral… for good reason. This looks like real bread and tastes pretty darn close. Heck, just watching a video of someone pull apart a fresh-out-of-the-oven loaf makes my blood sugar spike. But it’s not bread. It’s totally grain free. The entire loaf has 8 grams of carbs and the protein content is off the charts.

There are caveats, however. But first, the simple recipe:

Ingredients

1 cup egg white protein
1 cup cottage cheese (not fat free)
1 cup water

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

2. Mix the egg white protein with the water. You’ll need a mixer for this. I used a hand-held mixer but a stand mixer is easier. Mix until stiff to semi-stiff peaks form. (That’s when the mixture gets very thick, and when you pull the mixer blades out it “peaks” like the top of a soft-serve ice cream cone.)

3. Fold in the cottage cheese with a spatula. Don’t mix it. Just stir it in.

4. Transfer to a parchment-lined loaf pan and bake for about 30 minutes.

5. Let it cool. Eat it.

Note: I couldn’t fit all of the mixture into my loaf pan, so I added the leftover to a small cake pan. That turned into sort of a rustic-looking hamburger bun:

I’ve seen this made with yogurt instead of cottage cheese and it seems to work the same, but therein lies the big caveat:

Holy sh!t, egg white protein is expensive! Like, stupid expensive. My 8-ounce bag was $22. That’s less than two cups. I used more than half the bag in this recipe. That’s why I didn’t try it with yogurt too: I didn’t have enough. Each loaf will run you roughly $13 or more once you add in the cottage cheese. But if you’re curious and loaded, here’s the egg white powder I used.

Now, maybe I bought some pricey egg white powder. I did see it for a little cheaper after ordering, but not much cheaper. Twenty-two dollars for 8 ounces of protein powder? You can get two whopping pounds of Metabolic Drive protein for $37. I’m not sure if the bread recipe works with just MD, but I might have to try it.

That gripe aside, you do get about 129 grams of protein per loaf, and it’s delicious.

I made the world’s ugliest peanut butter sandwich with it today:

[Rhino75]

You are officially awesome ty for your recipes!!

[Chris_Shugart]

Ha! Much appreciated!

[Chris_Shugart]

Baked Tortilla Chips

With simple, fairly “clean” ingredients and fewer calories and carbs, corn tortillas are pretty awesome. Hot take: They actually have a flavor, unlike flour tortillas. But mainly, I avoid wheat, so corn it is.

I used to buy those Mission Carb Balance tortillas, but some of the ingredients are questionable and I’m not sure if the chemical-weapon-grade gas is worth saving a few “net” carbs.

Here’s how bake corn tortillas into crispy chips without adding a ton of calories or crap fats:

Instructions

0. Preheat oven to 385 degrees F.

1. Cut each tortilla into four pieces. A pizza wheel gets the job done.

2. Spread evenly on a parchment-lined sheet pan and give them a spritz of avocado oil.

3. Add salt and seasonings to taste. Powdered onion, garlic, cumin, chili powder… it all works.

4. Bake on the middle rack until they reach your desired level of crispness. Maybe 10-12 minutes or so. Keep an eye on them. One they start to crisp up, they go fast!

[burt128]

@Chris_Shugart

Holy sh!t, egg white protein is expensive! Like, stupid expensive. My 8-ounce bag was $22.

You can get this for much cheaper. I buy some of my supplements from another company and you can get 1lb for less than $24.

[QuadQueen]

@Chris_Shugart

Keep an eye on them. One they start to crisp up, they go fast!

I have been known to start fires in my oven because I did not “keep and eye on them”. lol

[Chris_Shugart]

@QuadQueen

I have been known to start fires in my oven because I did not “keep and eye on them”. lol

I use my Alexa to set timers, even when I don’t know the actual cooking time. It just reminds me I have something in the oven when I’m working on three pots and pans on the stovetop. So, like 3-4 three-minute timers for this one. And they still got a little dark.