Review of "Bacon & Butter" cookbook and Pork Clouds

Bacon & Butter: The Ultimate Ketogenic Diet Cookbook

My sister-in-law really nailed my Christmas gifts this year with a couple of great items for my OFM lifestyle.  The first was this awesome cookbook.  It has about 150 recipes in the book and is broke into the following sections: Bacon & Breakfast, Smooties & Shakes, Snacks, Keto Classics, Fish, Poultry, Meaty Mains, and Desserts.  They also offer a great into to the ketogenic lifestyle to start the book off and wrap it up with some a section on condiments, sauces, and dressings. 

If you are new to the OFM lifestyle, you will find this book a rich resource of meal ideas. One awesome thing they do is list, right next to each item, the ratio of fat to protein/carbs. Another pretty cool part I have seen with a lot of the recipes is that they make a little smaller servings than I have seen with some cookbooks. Perhaps targeted more toward the two person household instead of the 4-5 person household. 
If you have been eating OFM for a while, you will see a lot of your favorites in here but possibly with a twist or two. You may have your go-to items when you visit the grocery store. They will help you use these items, like cauliflower, in a lot of ways you might not have imagined.

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The book lists at around $15 for the paperback and less than $5 for the digital version. Overall I would recommend this book as a strong idea generator for your meals. I'm not good at following specific recipes to the letter, but it really lead me down the road to some great meals. It also lead me down the road to use another gift in a unique way- Cheesy Pork Rind Nachos. 

Pork Clouds and Pork Dust

Like I said, I really made out well at Christmas.  While not everyone would be excited to see form of pork in their stocking, I was very interested.  The only problem being that I had tried traditional pork rinds several times before and found them heavy, greasy, and/or just nasty tasting. As Bacon's Heir founder, Brett, pointed out when I emailed him, "It seems that most people assumed that these were just fat fried in fat, so I wanted to change that perception by making a ground up better version." I'm all for fat but sometimes fat fried in fat doesn't sound so pleasant.  Well Brett really did reinvent this product in a pleasant way I had not tasted before.

Growing up on an Alabama cattle farm, Brett had always heard pork rinds were unhealthy.  But as he learned more about Paleo type diets, he was surprised to find that these could be a great healthy compliment to a low carb diet if they were made correctly. Not only did he make the basic concept light, crispy and clean tasting but he also puts just the right amount of spice on each one. These spices range from the very simple rosemary and sea salt to the pleasantly spicy habanero. I'd highly recommend these if you are looking for something to replace chips for use with the great high-fat dips you can make. They also have pork dust, which can replace breadcrumbs or breading for all of your cooking. 

If you want to taste these yourself, go to Bacon's Heir and use the discount code OFM to get 10% off of some Pork Clouds! Offer expires Jan 30th. 

So now you have a great cookbook expanding your food ideas and some great pork clouds. Let's make them work together with the Cheesy Pork Rind Nachos (page 89).  It is really too easy. Spread out your Pork Clouds (I recommend Habanero) on a cookie sheet or pizza tin. Cover this with your favorite shredded cheese. Then throw this on the top shelf of you oven and turn on the broiler (cookbook recommends the microwave, but nachos cooked in the over are better- I have done years of research on this subject).  Watch them closely as you just want to melt the cheese, not really cook anything. Once you take them out, top them with your favorite toppings. Maybe some sour cream, guac, onions, olives, tomatoes...the possibilities are endless. The Pork Clouds stay nice and crispy, leaving you a sturdy and tasty platform for your nachos. Hope you enjoyed that- I need to go make some of these nachos now.