Low Carb Shepards Pie

Ingredients:

1 recipe of Cauliflower "faux" mashed potatoes
1/2 onion
1 pound ground beef
1 can green beans (seasoned or not)
Cheddar Cheese

Brown ground beef with onion. put green beans in bottom of casserole dish. Layer browned ground beef on top of green beans. Put a layer of shredded cheddar cheese on ground beef. Put layer of faux mashed potatoes over the top of it all. Bake on 350 for 25 minutes. Put a layer of cheese on the top and bake an additional 5 minutes.

Low Carb Cauliflower "faux" Mashed Potatoes

Ingredients:

1 Head Cauliuflower (steamed)
1 stick butter (softended)
1/4 cup heavy cream
3 cloves garlic (fine diced)
Salt and Pepper

Steam Cauliflower until soft. Put steamed cauliflower in food processor. Add  butter, garlic and salt and pepper. Process until all lumps are gone and mixture is creamy, adding cream as you go.

Serve like mashed potatoes. Also really good if you mix in cheddar cheese and bacon bits with sour cream like a baked potato no skin.

Low Carb Meatloaf

Ingredients:

1 lbs. Ground Beef
1/2 lbs. Ground Pork
1/2 White Onion diced
1 cup crushed up pork rinds
salt and pepper
2 cloves garlic minced
2 TBS Worcestershire sauce
1/8 c. Low Carb Ketchup (or any ketchup but this is lower carb)
3 eggs

Combine all ingredients and mix well. Add to baking dish and cook on 350 for one hour.

Low Carb Ketchup

Ingredients:

1 6oz can of tomato paste
2 oz Water
3 oz red wine vinegar
2 tbsp Splenda
1/2 tsp Onion Powder
1 tsp salt

Combine all ingredients and whisk well.

Delicious Low Carb Cauliflower "Mac" and Cheese

This recipe substitutes Cauliflower for noodles to create a great low carb version of Mac and Cheese. I have been trying to create something like this for some time. I have failed multiple times attempting to get this recipe right and I think I finally got it! Please note that there are many options available for this recipe but for now I will share the base recipe and you can make any changes you wish!

NOTE: I suggest following my Roasted Cauliflower Recipe found here to prep the cauliflower however, you can steam or back or use any method you prefer to cook the cauliflower.

Ingredients:

1 Large Head of Roasted Cauliflower
2 TBS Sour Cream
1 TBS Dijon Mustard
1 .5 Cups Shredded Cheddar Cheese
1 Cup Heavy Cream
1 Clove Garlic (diced)
1 tsp Nutmeg
Salt and Pepper

Optional Ingredients:

Bacon Bits
Chicken Breast

Dice garlic clove and combine Heavy Cream, Sour Cream, Mustard, Garlic in a sauce pan on low heat. When mixture is warm, begin mixing in cheddar cheese. Stir until all cheese is melted.  Combine cheese mixture with Roasted Cauliflower and enjoy!

While the above recipe is tasty on it's own I found that adding some bacon bits perfected this recipe. Adding some cubed cooked chicken breast was great as well. Also, expierament with the cheeses! I think that replacing 1/2 cup of the Cheddar with Gouda or another good cheese might do a lot for this recipe.

Enjoy!

Delicious Roasted Cauliflower

Great easy way to make some tasty cauliflower! I have also modified this recipe for use in my low-carb cauliflower "mac n cheese" which I will be posting next.

Ingredients:

1 Large Head Cauliflower
2 Cloves Garlic
3 Tablespoons Olive Oil

Preheat oven to 400. Break Cauliflower into florets of your choice. Dice up garlic. Combine all in a mixing bowl; try and get the cauliflower as evenly coated with the oil as possible. Cook on 400 for 10 minutes and remove the pan and flip/stir the cauliflower. Cook on 400 another 10 minutes and it is done!

Optional: If you plan to eat the cauliflower plain you can sprinkle some parmasean cheese on and flip the oven to broil for the last 2-3 minutes.

Remove from the oven, let cool for a few minutes and enjoy!

Getting back on the mat, and getting into deep half guard

So I have about ten excuses why I have been off of BJJ for the most part for about 6 months. Here is a not so comprehensive list in no particular order. Just know it was one thing after the other and not all at once, hopefully it gets the point across:

• Broken big toe (first time)
• Dual nevicular fracture (foot broken in two places)
• Another broken toe, very bad break
• Eye surgery
• A ton of other stuff I don't feel like posting on the internet
• etc...

So yeah, those are my excuses. Everything is healed up and some more personal things seem to be falling back into place. The important thing? I am back on the mat and hungry as ever! So while being away some of the guys that were new when I was in the gym have stuck around and gotten pretty tough. I come in rusty as ever and while they aren't quite crushing me they are definitely giving me a hard time! I did notice right away that one demon in particular that I was working through before my string of injuries came back to haunt me; getting caught in turtle guard.

I have identified how I am ending up there (losing a scramble) but could not find a way out. It seemed like I was doomed to be turtled up every time I rolled with no way to escape. Sure, I wasn't being submitted but I think what my opponents didn't know was that I really was kind of lost as to how to escape. So what did I do to finally crack the code? I Googled it.* I came up with a great video that demonstrates an exceptionally simple way to recover from turtle guard. The video below illustrates the simple turtle guard escape: sitting on your ass and pulling guard/half guard.

*Please note that my instructors attempted to teach me firemans carry's, peek outs, sucker drags and a bunch of other techniques every time I asked for help and I just couldn't grasp it. This is my fault, not any fault of my instructors. I suck so this simple stuff works for me.



So yeah, simply sitting on my hip when they are coming around has made my turtle guard experience about 1000x better. I used to spend my drive into class thinking "gee, I wonder how much of today's class I will spend in turtle guard." Not anymore. But, as with pretty much anything in BJJ, learning one new technique opens up more obstacles or as I call them, opportunities.

The problem? I keep getting stuck in half guard now and have learned just how terrible my half guard game is. So, I did what I did last time I had a hurdle like this: I Googled it. In my search for a half guard sweep I found this next beauty and drilled it with my girlfriend before class (she wasn't too happy but was a trooper), with a few students during class, and my instructor after class. I didn't know it but it looks like the video below has started my deep half journey and I am happy to finally see it.




Before this video I must admit that I wasn't quite sure what deep half was but after trying this out and feeling the change in my opponents balance, they way that I am in control from the bottom, I know that I am going to start using deep half moving forward. There is another guy in my class who works a ton of deep half and I think him and I are going to be trying a lot of new stuff together. I am excited!

So, I suggest both of these videos to anyone who gets stuck in turtle guard or half guard. Both great techniques; the first one simple, the second one not so much, but both are fantastic and so far have proven to be effective. I truly feel that linking these two techniques has gotten me over two huge hurdles in my game. 1) Constantly being stuck in turtle guard and 2) Getting over the relative fear of always getting crushed when pulling half guard.

Thanks for listening.

--Danny