Before I started keto, it was nothing to bake a cake with 2 cups of butter and a pile of sugar and wheat flour. Or to load a baked sweet potato with butter and sugar. Many people think of keto as a bad thing. I guess they think you are sitting around eating sticks of butter, and bacon and sausage.
I read a lot of material before starting this diet. At first I did not think I could do it. When you hear that it is high fat and low carb and you were raised during the time that low fat was always preached you have to retrain your way to thinking entirely. It wasn’t until I had kept up with my macros for weeks that I figured out that I wasn’t adding a bunch of fat to my diet. What I was doing was controlling the carbs and protein in my diet. Pre-keto I did not keep up with the nutritional counts of my daily intake. I can honestly say that my days consisted of a pile of carbs, many calories and tons of fat though. After you have been eating very low sugar and carbs for months, it does not take a journal to figure out that a muffin, bowl or cereal, or toast with jelly for breakfast, a sandwich for lunch and a taco salad for dinner is off the charts, even with no snacks. Throw in a sweet tea here or there, and you are on a carb and sugar overload!
Today I have a fabulous Vegetable Beef Soup for you. This soup is amazingly good, and it all started when I was cleaning out the vegetable drawer in the refrigerator. I used turnip roots in place of the potatoes in most vegetable soups and zucchini instead of beans or peas. The bacon, which I almost did not add, was the key ingredient. The smoky taste that it added was a hit with my family!
Ingredients
- 4 slices bacon chopped and browned
- 1/4 cup diced yellow onion
- 1/4 cup diced carrots
- 2 pounds ground beef
- 29 ounces Green Pepper and Onion Diced Tomatoes
- 2 medium zucchini seeds removed and diced
- 1/2 cup diced turnip root
- 32 ounces Beef Bone Broth
- 2 tablespoons double concentrated tomato paste
- 1 teaspoon Knorr Homestyle Chicken Stock concentrate
Instructions
- Cook bacon in a skillet until crisp. Remove bacon to a paper towel lined plate with a slotted spoon.
- Add onion and carrot to the bacon grease and cook until the vegetables start to soften,
- Add the ground beef to the skillet with the vegetables and cook until the beef is no longer pink.
- Pour the beef mixture from the skillet into a slow-cooker.
- Add the diced tomatoes, zucchini, turnip root, beef broth, tomato paste and chicken stock concentrate and stir to combine.
- Cover the slow-cooker and cook on LOW for 6 to 8 hours or HIGH for 4 to 6 hours.