Live Cook Along: Keto Chicken Taco Salad

Hello, hello, welcome to Cook Along Monday. Hope you guys are doing well. I'm excited to share this recipe with you tonight. It is so ridiculously quick and easy, and it's something that I probably have once a week, usually on Tuesdays because, you know, Taco Tuesday, right? But tonight we're having it on Monday for the cook along. So if you haven't seen this before or you're new to my channel, I started doing cook-alongs live on Mondays because so many of us are staying home more now with all the COVID and the lockdowns and everything. And so what I wanted to do was just share with you. I cook almost every night anyway. So I'm like, I can spend my time in the kitchen. I can show you how to make some things, how to get some ideas for new, um, just new recipes or new things that you can eat when on keto, whether you are low carb or not, doesn't really matter because It's only one night a week, right? So whatever this is that I'm going to make is going to be something that everybody will like. And it's a very simple recipe. So that's my goal on Mondays. Make things simple, give you something that you can make in the future. If you can't join me live at 6:00 PM Eastern next week, I'm going to be out of town. So we won't have one next week. But then every Monday when I'm around, it's going to be on. You can go to livecookalong.healnourishgrow.com.. And if you sign up for the list, then you'll get the ingredients ahead of time. So when it comes to 6:00 PM on Monday night, you are ready to cook with me. So, um, anyway, let's go ahead and get started. So I think I already said this chicken taco salad is what we're making. It's pretty easy. Um, it's one of my favorite go-to things for just a quick, easy weeknight meal. What we're using is boneless, skinless chicken thighs. And I've talked about this before. I have a link for them in my bio. US Wellness Meats sells beef tallow. They're all grass-fed, grass-finished. And the reason you might want to add beef tallow into your diet is because it's got a lot of great stearic acid, which they are finding now that stearic acid might actually help your fat cells, uh, release fat, might help your mitochondria function better.. And, you know, it's just a very healthy animal, whole food saturated fat. So I really love it for cooking. Holds up well with high heat, low heat, doesn't have much flavor to it. So really works well for this kind of recipe. So I've got that oil heating up in the pan and this is like the— it's so easy and just like lazy, right? But you're just going to take the chicken thighs, and you're putting them in there whole like this. Basically, we shred them up a little bit later to make them better for the taco salad. But I've got all of those in there, and I just kind of like to make sure that they're in contact with the bottom of the pan so that they can get a little bit browned as they're cooking. And because I'm a Nazi in the kitchen about clean hands, now that I just— now that I just touched raw chicken, I am washing my hands. So sorry about that. Sink's over here. I don't have a cameraman. That's my next on my list is to find a volunteer cameraman that will work for food. So if you know anybody in the Cincinnati area that would work for food and, you know, they could come video, I'm open to that. So the next ingredient, this is also ridiculously easy. You could chop all this and do it yourself, which I quite often do for various recipes. Um, but this is Kroger brand salsa. It's actually got very clean ingredients, uh, for a Kroger brand. I'll just read it to you really quick. Crushed tomatoes, tomato concentrate, diced tomatoes, jalapeño peppers, onions, vinegar, salt, onion, dried garlic, natural flavor. No sugar, which I am very proud of them for. People put sugar in the weirdest things, like even salsa. Um, this is hot, but you can use mild. You can use whatever flavor you like. And so glad that opened easily, so I don't think I'm a weakling or anything. Um, but I'm gonna use about half a jar. It just depends on how many people you're cooking for. If you're cooking a lot more chicken, you might use more. Um, the way I set up these recipes for the Monday Night Cookalong is I really just give you the ingredients for 2 people, but then you just multiply it for however many people that you're cooking for. And of course, if you ever are really going to join me on a Monday and you're cooking for however many people you're cooking for and you're confused or you don't know if you can make it work, um, with just making up modifications yourself, just email me back when you get the ingredients and let me know how many people you're cooking for, and I will help you figure out how much stuff you need so that you have the proper amount to make dinner with me. Um, the other thing that would normally go in at this point, and that is on the ingredient list, is chipotle peppers in adobo. But for some reason, when I got my Kroger order— we're still getting delivery most of the time, I try to stay out of the grocery store, um, that's just my thing, um, since delivery is so easy. But because they left it out of my order, I don't have my chipotle in adobo. So normally, if you've ever seen chipotle in adobo, they're in a little, um, metal jar there. It's usually a small one. You open it and then it's a bunch of like whole jalapeño peppers that are roasted and red and chipotle, right? And then the adobo sauce is like a thick red, very spicy sauce. And so I would put a tablespoon of that and chop up one of the peppers and put that in there. Since I don't have that, I did have some jalapeños in my refrigerator, so I'm just going to chop a few. Also, this is like one of my favorite kitchen tools. I've had it for, um, I don't know, 25 or 30 years at this point. It's a Wusthof chef's knife, and it's like, I think it's a 12, 10 or 12 inch, but it's really awesome. If you ever wonder about any of my tools, I have these all— hey, Life by Florencia, thanks for joining! Um, If you ever wonder about any of my kitchen tools or things that I use or recommend, just go to my Amazon site. It's, um, like amazon.com/shop/cherylmccolgan, and I have all my favorite kitchen tools listed in there. I'm pretty much a minimalist when it comes to kitchen tools because most of the tools that you use in the kitchen can be used for multiple things. So, hey Cole, what is it called, Camper? I'm glad I finally made the text on my phone bigger, so it's like a lot easier to read when I'm at this distance. I do have my contacts in today though. Um, so now this is going a little more. I'm just going to turn it down a bit. And I got the brown on the one side of the thigh, so now I'm just going to stir them, flip them over, make sure they get nice and covered. In the salsa, and I'm turning it down to about medium, and I'm going to cover it. So what the COVID is going to do is help keep the moisture in so that the chicken is nice and tender when it's finished and easier to shred. So that's it for the chicken. That's what takes the longest, so that's why I did that first. Now that's just gonna be over there. So what next? Next I need to make a drink to go with this meal, right? So I'm going to make a little quick Mexican drink. So let me just get a little water first. And so I just put like a little bit of water in the bottom of the shaker. And then here's what I use for my keto-friendly margaritas is I use some of my ketones. This is lime flavored, which, by the way, I have trial packs of these. They're obviously available for sale through my link, but It's a trial pack. I have plenty of lime. So if you don't really want to drink ketones all the time, but you'd want to have them for low-carb margaritas, then message me. I'll be happy to sell you some just lime. But so I'm going to use about half the pack. And the reason that you do it the way I'm going to do it is because I am going to add some carbonated stuff, but you don't want to shake carbonated things because it makes a big mess. Ask me how I know this. So anyway. You've got your ketone, your lime ketones, shake in a little bit of water. And then I'm also going to take a jalapeño for me. If you're not a spicy person, don't do this. I'm just like squeezing it and bruising a little, throwing that in there. Next, we need tequila, right? So I went downstairs and we don't actually have tequila right now. I mean, this was a poorly planned Mexican night, apparently, but we do have mezcal, which is actually better. So mezcal, if you don't know about mezcal, it's basically a smoky tequila. It's quite delicious. If you don't like smoky, I probably wouldn't try it, but you just use— normally I just use regular tequila in this anyway. There's not that much left, so I'm just— whatever, I'm just going to put it in there. So, okay, now here's the part why you didn't shake it first. So what I use is lime bubbly water, and this is just to add You know, to make it not so alcohol dense, basically. I like it to be a little bit lighter. And plus you just get some extra hydration while you're having your keto margarita. Now, another way you can make keto margarita without the ketones, still use the lime bubbly, but then just use like a couple tablespoons of lime juice. It's not that many carbs. It's not going to— it's not going to hurt anything. Try not to overthink that stuff. People just get so wrapped up in this, like counting every single minuscule carb sometimes that it gets a little, little too much for me anyway. Obviously, if you're diabetic or you have reasons why you really need to strongly avoid sugar, then maybe you skip the lime juice. So I'm going to just give this a taste now and see if we've got it about right. That's about how much water it ended up to be like in a regular water bottle. Oh, I think I almost splashed myself with the jalapeño juice in my eye. Wow. Gotta love Mondays. Oh, thanks. That's sweet of you. So, yeah, that's tasting really good. So I'm happy with that. So we're gonna move along from the drink portion. So now basically for my taco salad, I like to use like a little fajita mix. Which is for me, a poblano and onions. Now we've had this discussion. I'm going to start chopping while I'm chatting with you guys about this. And I'm going to go ahead and adjust this camera so you can actually see my cutting board. The other camera, I can't move. It's too difficult. So I'm actually streaming this to like 3 places. So anyway, um, as far as onions go, yes, onions have a higher amount of carbs than some vegetables. However, they also have a lot of great nutrients, a lot of great things for immune function. Hey, Christy. So Christy, my girl, that Keto Lady, she makes some amazing food as well. Yeah, I mean, legit. So anyway, so as far as the onion, yes, it's a little bit higher carb, but it adds so much flavor. And when you're spreading like, for an example, an onion this size over 2 portions, it's not going to be that many carbs that's going to be a problem, that's going to kick you out of ketosis, anything like that. So how I like to cut my onions for this recipe, since we're making like the fajita veggies, is I just cut it in half lengthwise. So you see that? And then you just slice it so that you end up with these half rounds, and that's what's going to go in our pan, which now I need to Get my tallow, my stearic acid going again over here. If you wanna know more about that whole stearic acid thing, Carnivore MD on Instagram, and his name is Dr. Paul Saladino, he talks a lot about this on his podcast. So if you're really interested in the whole stearic acid thing or why eating PUFAs can really do a number on your mitochondria, maybe even prevent your adipocytes, which if you don't know that word yet, that's your fat cells, can prevent the adipocytes from releasing fat, He's a great resource for that. So again, it's Carnivore MD. He has a podcast. He is a very prolific content producer. Really like him. And he's really thinking a lot outside of the box on a lot of this stuff, which I appreciate. They're really starting to look deep into the science and have discussions with it with people that actually know what they're talking about and actually know the science enough to be able to kind of start to figure some of these things out. So anyway, I'm going to put this back on my cutting board. So, by the way, if you guys have any questions or anything along the way, obviously pop them in the comments. I'll try to see it as well as I can, whether it's about cooking, whether it's about this recipe specifically, whether it's about keto. I've been in the health and wellness space for like 25 years now. I'm also yoga instructor for 10 years. Um, so I know a lot of stuff about yoga, meditation, that kind of thing too. So always feel free to reach out with any of those questions. So now you hopefully you can see we got that onion finished. And this was, this was actually a pretty big onion for 2 people. I mean, you might use this more like for 4 people, especially if you are focused more on the carbs. I can personally tolerate a few more carbs, though it really doesn't bother me if I have a night with whole foods things. Does fasting release fats? Yes, absolutely. Oh, and somebody's making keto bread. Nice. Tell me more about the bread. I do have specific times when I go live. It's 6:00 PM Eastern on Mondays is when I do this live cook-along. If you go to my website at livecookalong.healnourishgrow.com, you just sign up and you'll get the ingredient list ahead of time. And then if you can make it at 6:00 PM 6 PM. We cook together. And if you can't make it at 6 PM Eastern, then you can just watch it later and make it anytime that works for you, because I record it and then I post it later and have all the ingredients and stuff. So, um, but anyway, back to this fasting release fat. That absolutely does. When you're fasting, obviously you're not consuming food, so your body has to, um, use something for fuel. And so it goes into your fat stores. And that really starts happening, you know, as little as 14 hours into a fast, your body starts burning some extra body fat. So if you can go longer, obviously you're going to burn more fat. That's the way it works. So now I've got the poblano. I just chopped off the top. I'm going to slice it lengthwise in half, so like that. Um, and then I just run the knife— I'll show you right here. So I just run the knife down. Uh, usually this is just a tip for newer, newer cooks: don't cut from the shiny side. Because it makes it harder for the knife to go through. You want to cut from the inside. Uh, oh, you buy the bread mix? Okay, well, tell me which one it is. I, I, for the most part, I think it's great when you're transitioning to keto to have the bread substitutes because, you know, everybody's used to bread, and if they can't have a sandwich, they don't know what to eat, right? So I think the bread substitutes are great, but I would say if If your goal is weight loss, then I personally would just stay away from some of those substitute breads. Again, they're great if you're in transition or they're great once in a while, but I think long term a lot of those breads and mixes just have some questionable filler type things that aren't so good. And that's not to say you can't have it at all, because I am having something with this meal tonight that's got a little bit of real wheat in it. So obviously, and I didn't put this in the ingredient list because it's, it's if you're very strict keto, obviously you're not having wheat, probably. And a lot of people don't tolerate wheat well because it's not gluten. But these wraps, I don't know if you've ever seen them before. They're called Cut the Carb. You can see how thin these wraps are. But the reason these taste like the real thing is because they use wheat. So if you're not sensitive to wheat, you can use these every once in a while. It tastes just like the real thing. I'm going to fry them up and get them to crunch. And so that like gets that crunchy thing back in your mouth, which we quite often miss on keto. Let's see. Makes it very— Thermomix makes it very easy to follow keto diet. It allows to make a lot of food keto. I don't know what a Thermomix is. You'll have to tell me more about at. I'm curious. So if you're just joining, we're cooking along live. We're making chicken tacos. Just checking on the chicken, that's all looking fine. I'm giving the veggies a stir. So you can see here, it's got the peppers and onions in there. I've got my jalapeño cut up that I can put on the top later. Okay, so what else do we like on taco salad? To me, this is literally the most important ingredient of taco night, is iceberg lettuce, which back in the old days I would have thought that's too boring, not enough nutrients, why would you use that? Well, the thing about iceberg is it, it agrees with most people. 'Cause there's actually this idea also from Dr. Paul, vegetables have a lot of anti-nutrients and a lot of toxins. But iceberg lettuce would be considered a very low toxin food. It's also something that doesn't have a ton of fiber and stuff. So if you have digestive issues, it usually works fine with most people. I think there, I have seen before, read before, like some IBS people, maybe it doesn't do so well for them. But, You know, most people can tolerate iceberg lettuce. I'm just gonna take my little mess over here and drop that in the garbage can so that I have room on my cutting board. And I wanna show you guys, this is like another one of my favorite kitchen tools. This is also on my Amazon list, is this cutting board. I've also had this for like 25 years or something. It's a Boos Block, which Boos is a brand, B-O-O-S, and it is 24 inches wide by 18 inches deep. So I can cut like multiple things on this board at the same time without without having to take them off of there. But now, okay, so I'm gonna— I forgot to rinse the lettuce, so I'm gonna do that really quick. But for the iceberg, you're just gonna chop it and that's it. That's gonna be the base of your salad. And I would say for 2 of us tonight, I probably use half of this head of lettuce, and I'll just save the other half for when we probably have leftovers of this later in the week. So if you're just joining, it's Live Cook Along Monday. It's the second one ever. Next Monday I'm gonna be off because I'm gonna be snowboarding on a mountain, which I'm looking forward to. Oh, be right back. I knew that was bound to happen in one of the cook-alongs. Because that fire detector, smoke detector, is very sensitive. And literally every time I cook, whether something's burning or not, it goes off. So anyway, this is just real life here, right? We don't care. So my peppers and onions are getting some good color. I like to char my onions a little bit. I don't know if you can see that, but they kind of have a little blackness to them. Which is probably why the smoke detector went off, right? Um, but all good. So, uh, for the lettuce, like I said, this is super simple. I just cut it in a wedge. I'll show you what I'm doing. I can only do that on the other camera because the other one is too difficult to move. I wish Instagram would just get on this plan where they allow you to stream from a third party source like everybody else, because right now I'm streaming on Periscope, uh, which is Twitter, and Facebook and YouTube on one camera, which is the other camera. And then I have to log in from my phone to do it on Instagram because they don't allow that for some reason, which I just think is a bit goofy. So this creates a whole giant pile of lettuce when you type chop iceberg like this. So I am going to get this out of the way because it's like a really big pile. You can see all that, and that was just half, half of the half. So now I'm gonna do the other one, and I like to do it lengthwise, and then I'll typically go through it the other way as well so that I end up getting like little squares. Of lettuce. So you're just doing all this prep while you've already got your chicken cooking. So if you're a newer cook, that's really one of the things to consider is how you plan your cooking time is to whatever is going to take the longest, obviously start that first, keep an eye on it while you're still doing everything else, um, and For the most part, that works out fine. I'm not gonna lie, I've been, I've been cooking for like 35 years, and what does happen sometimes, you get distracted with chopping or doing something else, and maybe something that you've got on the cooktop might get a little overdone or might get a little charred or something. So just be sure that if you do have something else going at the same time, just, you know, pay a little attention to that. So, okay, now What else? I have these little cherry tomatoes. I just got these this time because they were on sale and because honestly larger tomatoes in Cincinnati this time of year always taste terrible. So I just got these little cherry ones. Uh, if you're just joining, we're cooking along live on Mondays, livecookalong.healnourishgrow.com. Getting ready to chop up some tomatoes. I need to rinse them first. Um, So also, while we're here, I'm just chit-chatting into the universe, basically. But if you have any questions, whether it's about the recipe, whether it's about keto, whether it's about fasting, whether it's about yoga or meditation, um, I'm a health and wellness coach. I help people look and feel better. It's my passion. And I love to cook also, obviously. So that's how this kind of all came together with this little Monday cooking idea. Is to just share with you ideas about how to make simple whole foods meals that don't take very long. Because honestly, if I wasn't talking this much, this meal would really already be done. I mean, as long as the chicken's done, you're good to go. So once you get your veggies chopped and your peppers are cooked, you're done. So we're getting close here. Right now I'm just going to put this, uh, back onto cutting board so you can see what I'm doing. So I've got the little cherry tomatoes, I'm just cutting them lengthwise in half. You can cut them again if you want, but for me, I'm happy with them like that. So just running through those real quick. And okay, so I've got that, I've got my jalapeños, I got my lettuce. This is basically going to become where all the toppings live on this cutting board right here. Here's the other thing. This meal works perfectly well. Hey, everybody. This meal works perfectly well if you don't have dairy because you don't have to use the toppings. Now, I do love sour cream. What the recipe actually calls for, though, is Greek yogurt, because to me, it tastes just like sour cream. You get a little extra protein. So I just use Greek yogurt, but you can use sour cream, whatever makes you happy. And then for cheese, I always have cheese in the fridge, so I have this Mexican shredded blend, and, um, then I have this queso cojita, which is actually a Mexican cheese. It's just a very mild white cheese, and I like to, uh, just— it basically crumbles up a bit. So I'll show you that if you never had this. Like I said, it's really mild, it's delicious. Let me just grab a bowl really quick. Okay, so here we have it. I'm just gonna break off some, and so you can see how this is like kind of crumbly. And I'll show you, so you literally just crumble it into your bowl. It's a very dry cheese, and on the other camera you can't see what the heck I'm doing because I can't move it. I'm sorry, but Let me show you. So that just crumbled up that easily, that quick. And then you're going to use that on the top of the tacos. Let me rinse my hands. I mean, seriously, I just need like a camera person, don't I? So I'm saying, if any of my friends in Cincinnati want to volunteer to be my Monday night camera person, you will get to eat a delicious meal afterwards. That's your payment. So that's, that's the offer. So peppers are looking great. Let me just show you these a little closer. See how they've got the char on them? I like it like that. If you don't like the char, don't cook them that long or don't cook them on that high of a heat. But I'm pretty happy with those. I'm going to turn those off. Now I'm going to check the chicken again. Okay, chicken's definitely done. That's looking good. I'm just like pressing my spatula into the chicken and you can— it's, it's just breaking up. It's, it's coming together like because it's so tender because I put that lid on the top. When you put the lid on the top, like you get that little brown initially, but when you put the top on, it keeps all the moisture in. And so it makes it really easy to like break up the chicken into smaller pieces for making the taco salad. So now we're about at the point Got the cheese. So everything is really ready at this point. I need the avocado out because that was on the list. Obviously you guys know how to deal with avocado, but let me get that out. Uh, let's see. And then we're gonna do the chips, which is fun. So I picked my avocado that is a little bit more smushy. Let me see. It's just got like a little give to it, and sometimes I chop it, but I think I'm gonna, uh, just mash it tonight. So kind of like guac. I mean, you know, technically, if you're making like a real version of guacamole, if you go to my YouTube channel, I have a recipe for stupid easy guac, but it's not stupid easy as this because this stupid easy guac that I'm making tonight is literally just mashed up avocado. But if you, um, like the full flavor profile, you really just need a few ingredients. Red onion, lime. What else is in there? Cilantro, of course. Just a few ingredients to make a more serious guac. But like I said, on an easy weeknight meal kind of thing like this, I just cut my avocado in half. I took the pit out. Now I'm going to scrape it out with my spoon. And some people like to peel them. I don't know. I just feel like it's easier to scoop it out with a spoon. So I just really scooped out almost the whole thing right there. And the other half. Actually, this, this avocado is not as, uh, it's actually pretty perfect, but it would be, it would be for smashing. It would be better if it was a little more ripe because you can smash it up easier because now I actually need a fork instead of a spoon to mash this up. I really do my best before these live cook-alongs to like get everything right here on the counter in front of me that I'm going to need for the recipe. But because this is real life and because this is how I cook on a nightly basis now, if I'm using— first of all, I mean, I was going to say I rarely use a recipe. I literally never use a recipe for the most part. The only time I am paying attention really a lot to quantities or things is when I'm developing a recipe to share with you guys that I'm putting on healnourishgrow.com, obviously then I have to measure everything. I have to really pay attention, especially with keto baking. Keto baking is very finicky, so you have to really kind of pay attention to what you're doing when you are doing baking and getting the right amounts. Because even baking, like before, like regular baking is like that too. It's— you've got to just have the right amounts of everything and you've got to pay attention to what you're doing. So, okay. So I have this all mashed up now and I'm just going to add. So this is my little salt dish. If you don't know about salt dishes, you can leave salt sitting out on your counter in a dish like this. And it's like self-cleaning in a way, like it's antibacterial, anti-whatever. Like it doesn't get yucky. It doesn't. You can read about this, just Google it. But anyway, Redmond Real Salt, of course. And I'm going to just give that a little sprinkle there and then stir this up again. I think I have a lime juice. I might squirt some lime in here, but I won't bore you guys with that because I think you definitely know how to squirt a lime. So I know I have probably some beginner cooks too, so I do just try to, uh, you know, give you the tips for, you know, doing things that you might not be as familiar with. But I think there are some things that, you know, don't require a lot of, uh, what do you want to say A lot of instruction, right? So high fun with the whole family. Oh, thanks for joining. So anyway, if you just got here, we are doing live cook-alongs with Cheryl McColgan in the kitchen on Mondays at 6:00 PM Eastern. And simple recipes, easy weeknight recipes done in under half an hour. If I wasn't talking so much, it would already be done. We're having this keto margarita here while I'm cooking. And we're in the home stretch. So if you have any questions or you've thought of anything that whether it's about this recipe, whether it's about keto, yoga, meditation, fasting, all of that good stuff that, you know, that I'm so into, please feel free to ask while you've got me here. Or if it's something you'd rather ask in private, obviously you can DM me later. But I always feel like if people have questions, probably everybody has questions. My opinion, pink salt. I like it fine. I just, there is some thought around pink salt depending on where you get it from. And so if you're getting sea salt, that the plastics in the ocean that have kind of contaminated things can get into the salt and can be, that can be a negative. So I definitely consider your source of pink salt. I think more salt in general is good. There's this whole book called The Salt Fix, like this whole, much like much of the things we know about nutrition, we've kind of been sold this bill of goods that's not even true. So salt is actually very good for you and useful, particularly on keto. So my shorter answer is Himalayan pink salt's great. It's got a lot of trace minerals and stuff, same as the red mineral salt. Like I said, the one thing to be aware of is where it's sourced from. And so I think some of them, like Dead Sea salt or some of those things, that was a dead sea and that all existed before plastics got into it. So I think some of those things can be more healthy. But the Redmond Real Salt is mined in Utah. It's an American-owned company. It's a lovely family from what I understand, and they've always been super kind to me. Um, I don't, I don't work with them or affiliated with them or anything, but, um, they're just— I think they're good people is what I've heard. So anyway, so I like supporting the American business, and I like the fact that it's mined in Utah. It's in a mine, so it hasn't gotten contaminated with any of those ocean plastics or anything like that. So hopefully that answered your question. That was a lot of opinion actually on salt, wasn't it? And it took me a couple of minutes. Okay, so what's the last thing? Okay, the last thing. So I've got all my yummy sides here going on. And now this is the fun part. So this, if you were here a little before, you saw this and I commented on the fact that if you are sensitive to wheat, Cut the Carb does have real wheat in them because they're more like a thin, they're more like a thin, very traditional tortilla than they are like a true low-carb thing. I mean, it's got, you know, wheat in it, not almond flour or anything. But if you're not sensitive— that's funny, he said he's so old that he was born when the Dead Sea was sick. I love that, that's funny. Okay, so, um, so these are Cut the Carb wraps. They usually come in a much bigger sheet, like double this, but since my refrigerator space or my freezer space is, uh, limited, I cut them in half because they just stack a little easier and they fit in there. If it's a whole big sheet, I found when I store them and freeze them, they tend to break. So unless you're going to use them as a whole big wrap, then you don't need to store them that way. So I store them like this. I cut them in half and they're in these sheets. So now for this recipe, I might try to move— even though that other camera is hard to move, I want you to see what I'm about to do with these to make them into chips. So this is probably going to be bad that I'm doing this. Oh, there we go. That wasn't so bad. Okay, so now you can see the tortillas, and here's how I do it. So you're going to cut them in half first, and then you're going to cut— so you're cutting in quarters eventually. And this might be a little thick, but I'm gonna make it work. So if you have a sharp knife, this should work fine. I actually got mine sharpened recently. I don't know why this is being so difficult. Anyway, okay, so you're going to take the strips and now you're going to make your triangles. So you just like so. Now you could, you could make squares. I don't know. I think, you know, this is at least more traditional looking when you do the triangles. So another way that you could say to do it then is cut this in half into squares and then make your triangles. Anyway, you get the idea. You're just making these into a different shape because now we're going to fry them and make them crisp, and they're going to be like tortilla chips, which a lot of people miss when they're on keto. And this is part of the reason, because you're avoiding grains, and corn is even worse, but you're avoiding grains, you're avoiding gluten. And because we've all grown up with these things, you know, we're just used to having certain tastes in our diet, right? So I found that my body tolerates these well. I don't seem to have gluten issues. I like having them occasionally, and I feel fine about it. So not for everybody, maybe, um, but to each their own, right? Because you gotta, you gotta pick your battles. Like, also how I drink alcohol too. So, um, oh thanks, whoever that was from the UK. Zero food waste. Happy that you're joining, but my gosh, it's so late over there. Are you up at like— you're up past midnight. You should be getting some better sleep than that, my friend. But I'm glad to have you here, and thank you for saying that. That's very sweet of you. So if you're just joining, This happens every Monday, every Monday night that I'm in town, 6:00 PM Eastern. I'm going to come in the kitchen and cook along live. At some point, I might try to have somebody do better camera work for me because it is a little difficult, just like having these two cameras and trying to do this. It's a little weird. No, it's— oh, it's— oh, it's before midnight. Okay, good. Well, I'm glad because I want you to get some good sleep because sleep— if you've been on my channel for a while, one of the things I always talk about is particularly if weight loss is a goal for you. Good sleep is like one of the best things that you can do for your hormones. And, um, it's just so, so important. And I think people discount that quite often when they're looking at weight loss. Okay. So let's get on with the show here. So I'm just checking on the chicken again and I want to get some mitts and show you guys how this chicken broke down so easily. So Here it is in the pan, and all I've done is using my spatula to start to, you know, poke at it and break it up a little bit, and it's breaking right up. So these are again boneless, skinless chicken thighs. You could use breast if you insist, but the thighs just have so much flavor. They're usually cheaper. They've got slightly more fat, but still, it's still chicken. So it's not— if you're worried about fat for whatever reason, And by the way, you shouldn't be. But if you are, it's, it's not too much fat or anything like that. They're just a lot more flavor and a lot cheaper generally. So I like them a lot. I didn't ever used to use them that much before keto, honestly. I don't know why. Probably because the whole stupid low-fat thing. Recommend a good tea for keto. Okay, well, pretty much all tea. Is keto friendly, right? Because it's not sweetened. But let me show you one that I have right now. So this is a good one for winter. My friend Gigi shared this one with me. So it's, um, Sugar Cookie, and it's— there's no sweetener or anything. It's herbal, so you can drink it at night, kind of like instead of a dessert. But I just like stuff like that if I can find a good flavor that I like. I also love the Tazo Passion Fruit tea. So I make that and I put my keto cream in it, which is if you look at the links in my bio, it's in there. But it's basically like a Bulletproof coffee in a packet, but it's not coffee. It's just the ingredients that would typically go in a Bulletproof coffee. Right. But so I put that packet into the passion fruit tea and it makes like this thing that's kind of like a Starbucks pink drink, which I never actually have had in my entire life. But I hear that it tastes just like that. So it's Passion— or Tazo Passion Fruit Tea. And then if you didn't have the keto cream, which it's got such a great flavor though, it's like cinnamon and stuff, it's really perfect with that tea. But you could also just put a little splash of heavy cream in there and it just makes like a really nice little evening treat. But anyway, this is the tea that I've been on lately. Oh yeah, it's backwards. Okay. Sugar Cookie Sleigh Ride. And this is Celestial Seasonings. So I got that on Amazon. I have Gigi to thank for that. I also love a good ginger tea. Ginger is great for digestion. Um, so that's what I think about teas. Green tea is always great, especially if weight loss is a goal. There's a lot of studies showing green tea really helps with fat loss. Um, you know, if weight loss is not a goal, you're just looking for something tasty at night, I think there's a lot of these flavored teas and stuff that can be really nice. So, okay, we've got all that done. So here's what I wanted to show you next. So I've got nonstick pan again. I'm going with the beef tallow, US Wellness Meats. That's in my bio if you're interested. Grass-fed, grass-finished beef tallow. And I just put a nice little blob of that in the pan because that's what we're going to fry these little tortilla triangles in. So again, this is Cut the Carb. I think I actually have a discount code for these, but I can't remember what it is. Off the top of my head. Maybe if my Cut the Carb friend is still in here, she can say. I think it's— I think it might just be Hill Herschel. That's what most of mine are. But anyway, if you are interested in them, let me know. And before you get some, let me ask, because I think I do have a discount code for these. So anyway, so I'm letting this melt. And then we're just gonna put the chips in there. I'm gonna sprinkle them with a little salt, and then we're really good to go. I'm gonna plate this up. I don't know what time it is now. Um, Hubs is at our son's basketball game, and I don't actually know when he's going to be home, so— but I'm going to still plate it up so I can show you guys, and then I'm just gonna eat without him because he's missing out. Any other questions while we're hanging out waiting for the chips to get started? So again, if you're just joining, it's Live Cook Along Monday, 6 PM Eastern, livecookalong.healnourishgrow.com. So you can sign up and get the ingredients ahead of time. I really think it's a fun idea to do it in person with each other just because, you know, this whole COVID thing, we're all staying home more, we're all cooking at home more, hopefully. And, you know, it's a great time to really work on getting your health in check. To focus more on you. You're not spending time commuting. You're not getting up as early to, like, get ready for work every day and all these things. So hopefully that allows people more time to start cooking. And I know not everybody likes to cook, but I think part of the reason for that is because just people overcomplicate it. Like many things, like keto, people overcomplicate keto too. It doesn't have to be hard. Right. So you can just Um, you know, you can make things simple and still be very healthy and have a good meal. So I turned off the chicken, so I— because I don't, uh, that's about done. It's like all the liquid is now out of it. And let me just show this to you. So you don't necessarily have to cook it this long because you could leave a lot of the liquid from the salsa in there. But just so you see, it's basically just like, you know, tomatoey chicken now, which is perfect. So that is the sound of Hubs coming back in the house, so he is going to be here for dinner on time. So anyway, okay, that's heated up, and now I want to move this camera so you can hopefully see that a little bit. But they, they cook so quick. You just toss them in there and they only really take Maybe something like 10 seconds a side, uh, so you want to just fit as many in there as you can. He's probably not coming in here because he doesn't want to interrupt. He knows I'm doing this every Monday, so he's like— I was trying to convince him that he should help me with it, but he has other important things to do. So anyway, okay, so Yeah, cut the carbs. It is. I mean, like I said, if you tolerate wheat and like I said, I wouldn't— especially if weight loss is a goal, I wouldn't use it maybe super often, but it is like the really the best tasting, most similar to the real thing. And like while I'm sitting there talking to you, my things are almost going to burn. That's how quick they go. So you got to just stay on top of it, flip them individually. And the more oil you use, the more brownness you're going to get, but they still get nice and crisp. So I use, you know, sort of a more minimal amount of oil just because, I don't know, I don't— I just don't think it's necessary to use more for this particular thing. But if you use more, you get a more even brownness and obviously some more flavor. So these are just about done already, so I'm going to just do a quick little sprinkle of salt here, shake them around. Shake them around. And this one is not brown enough yet, and that one. Okay, maybe it's more like 30 seconds, I guess, by the time I'm talking this through, right? I'm probably gonna set off that smoke alarm again, so let me turn that on. Okay, so we're gonna call these done. So I'm just gonna show you, see, they're all brown now. And just throw them out onto a plate. See, and see, they're not quite evenly brown. Usually if I'm paying 100% of attention, then I am flipping them better and getting them a little more even, but they're still going to taste delicious, which is all that matters. Could I air fry those chips? That is a fantastic question. I will try that for you and let you know. Um, actually, let's take these and stick them in the air fryer right now. So I'm going to come over here and put those in. And let's see here. Okay, so I'll let you know. I never tried that before. I think I like having the oil because it gives them a little bit more flavor. It definitely makes them like super, super crisp. So listen to this. I'm not sure. You're gonna get them as crisp in the air fryer, but we'll find out, so I'll let you know. Okay, so that batch is done. I need to do another batch, so a little more tallow. It's actually too little, a little more. All right, so now we're gonna rock and roll with the rest of these. They're going in. This is definitely going to set off the alarm because now it's smoking because it's actually hot. Okay, got a few more here. Okay, so these are starting to brown really fast, so I'm going through and flipping them. I'm actually going to pay attention this time. I don't know, I just, I like the idea of a little fat on them because they're, I mean, they're very tasty by themselves, but they're definitely dry, much like a regular tortilla, right? So when you fry them, if you're really thinking of if you wanted a substitute for traditional corn tortillas, they've definitely got that oilier flavor to them. Plus, if for whatever reason, say, say you're not losing— I mean, a lot of people are in maintenance on keto, or they're not trying to lose weight. They're in it for the brain benefits, or they're in it for the epilepsy control, or other things. In fact, you know, if your goal with keto was an epilepsy control thing, you would really try to be getting higher fat in your diet anyway. So using the chips as kind of a fat delivery system could really work. So, um, yeah, you could use spray oil too. Um, that would be, uh, you could spray the chips down first. I have this coconut oil in a, in a can, and you could spray the chips and then just put them in the air fryer. Or you could, you know, you could, you could do a number of things. I love all these ideas. Um, yeah, you could totally do that too. I should have put some fat on them before we put them in the air fryer, but anyway, we'll know if they get crispy crispy. So that's, that's half the battle. So these are about done. And you guys tell me, how long do you think that took? So when I write this up, like, I feel like— I don't know, I always felt like it was kind of like 10 seconds a side, but it might be like 30 seconds altogether. Okay. All right, so here's the second one. Okay, so here they are, and you can see they're not as evenly brown. Like I said, if I am doing this without talking to you guys at the same time, I try to— like, for example, look at this guy. He didn't get— he's still crisp, but he didn't get very brown, whereas like these ones, that's kind of how I like it. Or more, more like that one. That's a pretty good one. But anyway, they still taste good. So anyway, that is with the chips. So let's put this baby up. Give me one second here. All right, so I'm gonna put this back, this one camera. And actually, since I guess I figured out this other one isn't quite as difficult to move as I thought, I'll move it too. You can see all my mess over here with all the cords and all the stuff. But here's how I like to do it. So a healthy dose of your iceberg lettuce on the bottom, and then take our chicken. Mm, isn't that already looking delicious? I think it looks awesome. Okay, so then we got the chicken. Now obviously you can do as you like, but here's what I like to do. I like to put my cheese next because then it's next to the hot chicken, it'll get a little melty. This particular kind of cojita cheese does not really melt that much, um, so I'm gonna put a little this cheese on here too. Why not? And now here's how I like to do— I like to put the guac on the side because I like to be able to pick at it each little bite and put a little on each little bite. I don't know, it's just a weird thing. I like it like that. Okay, then I'm gonna put some tomatoes, and then I like to have the chips on the side also. And then I have this leftover salsa, you know I need to have that normally. Okay, I'm— I just remembered, like, I'm not going to put as much salsa because here's the problem when you actually plate things for eating versus plating things for a recipe where you need to have a photo later, is that if you plate it like you're eating, it doesn't look like it should for a photograph, because the way you plate things for photographs and the way you plate things to eat, like, at home are totally different. Now, when you go to a restaurant, of course, they, they plate it beautifully all the time, but when I'm here, I just want, like, a giant pile of taco stuff on my plate, right? So anyway, before I go, let me go check this air fryer situation out to see if I can report back to you yet. I think it's probably a little soon. But we'll see. So, okay, okay, whoever suggested that, you're brilliant. You're absolutely right. They're already crisp that fast. They don't taste that bad without oil and salt, but I think the idea of using a spray oil and then a light salt and then put them in the air fryer, that's what I would do. And I mean, they're very crisp and that was very quick. So maybe that is a better way. I'll try that next time with a bigger batch and I'll try it with the oil. And whoever you are, if you're still around, message me. And whenever I do that experiment, I'll let you know. So anyway, there you have it. This was your Monday night cook-along. If you want to join next week, I'm sorry you can't because we're not having next week, but every other Monday after that, that I'm in town, Next week I'm going to be on the mountain snowboarding, um, on Monday, so I won't be able to do the cook-along. But, um, join the list anyway. Even if you don't cook along, you get the ingredients. So if you can join, that's awesome. Or if you still want to make it later that night, like if you're on the West Coast or if you're in Mountain Time, you'll— you can get— well, I don't know if you'd actually get the recording that quick, so that might— that might be a fallacy to say that, because I do try to get it quickly, but it's not gonna be that quick, but within the next couple of days, you could do it Thursday night or whatever you wanna do. So anyway, hope that was helpful. Hope you enjoyed this little recipe. If, um, if you have any questions, follow up, ask me, you either email me, you can DM me here, whatever works for you. Um, but thanks for joining and I will see you again next week. And I always have trouble turning this off. Like, yeah, I can't— where— I can't see. I can't figure out how to turn it off. Here we go. All right, I'll say it again over here. This one is easier to turn off, but I get this camera— I gotta figure out this camera situation. So anyway, talk to you soon.