Ketogenic Mediterranean for the Whole Family

I grew up with my mom, cooking delicious meals nearly every night. Dinner was a time for our family to be together, talk, and catch up on daily life. I have wonderful memories of this time with my family and learned how to cook from watching and helping my mother; Laith grew up with the same tradition.

When Laith and I got married, we knew that we wanted to continue this tradition. It hasn't always been easy. There was a time when our kids didn't eat meat, and our picky eater only wanted quesadillas. We made a few mistakes along the way, but we were determined not to be special-short-order cooks. We make what we make and what is served is what's for dinner, old school style!

Thankfully, over the years, our picky eater developed a voracious appetite and is now open to a slightly wider variety of foods and thank the Lord they both LOVE meat! Like his father, our eldest will try anything once, and more often than not, he likes it, which makes it easy to try new recipes on our weekends together.

When planning meals for me and Laith, it is fairly simple. Laith is so flexible and easy to get along with that he is usually up for most food options. Planning meals for the entire family requires more thought and effort because our boys are not on the same strict diet, and they are used to 2-3 meals a day.

When we started our wellness journey, we wondered how this new style of eating would affect our kids. Thankfully, they have adapted well and look forward to some of the new foods we are incorporating into our menu rotations. It also helps that we practice flexible keto and Mediterranean, so if we make burgers we will make homemade buns, and we relax our carb restriction a bit, making sure to incorporate healthy protein, fat, and limited carbs.

Here are some of our favorite family meals:

• Moroccan meatballs (no breadcrumbs) with smashed potatoes and home-baked pita bread.

• Keto chili cheese dogs wrapped in fathead dough (keto).

• Carnitas tacos, almond flour tortillas, guac, salsa, and sour cream.

• Charcuterie board with croissants for Sunday Brunch.

• Chicken crack: chicken, bacon, cheese, ranch, and cream. Nuff said!

• Chicken wings, lemon pepper, or buffalo sauce.

• Bacon-wrapped keto meatloaf (replace breadcrumbs with Parmesan cheese).

• Lots of roasted veggies and dark leafy greens!
  

The only thing better than our meals are our desserts, but we'll save that for a future post!