Keto Bento Challenge 4

It's time again for the

This time I've gotten a bit more creative, not to mention a bit more cutesy (sorry, big manly man taking his lunch to work...)

On the top tier, we have an almond bun sliced in half, a hard-boiled egg, some blueberries and a tub of Mean Pig Hot BBQ sauce. On the bottom, we have a bed of lettuce with two pig-shaped hamburgers (to go on the almond bun with the hot sauce) and...

wait for it...

Keto California rolls!

You heard me right, California rolls, keto-style.

These rolls consist of the usual cucumber and avocado (which, and I'm not lying, I had NO IDEA were the traditional fillings until JUST NOW when I linked to the Wikipedia article. It was a total coincidence that I just happened to put cucumber and avocado in it, which apparently are the norm. I just wanted something green and keto-friendly!) and a bit of tuna, wrapped in nori, but the secret keto ingredient?

Steamed, mashed cauliflower instead of rice.

It was a total gamble, and totally a creation from my own head, and I am seriously proud of it. It was my first attempt ever at any kind of California roll, and I discovered that a) I used too thick a layer of cauliflower, seeing as it doesn't mould together as well as rice would, and b) I need a sharper knife. My knives were rubbish at cutting cleanly through the nori (even though it was slightly wet, as the instructions said.) Still, for a first try, it looked not too bad, and I was dead chuffed with it. However, the proof was still in the pudding cauliflower, so I had to wait for the hubby to come home to see if they actually TASTED good. His verdict was that they were good, but very bland, and he'd have liked something spicy to go with it. So keto sushi lovers, is wasabi keto-friendly?

Finally for dessert, I prepared sugar-free strawberry jelly, and ta da! Another keto bento.

Now for the important part - the tally. Let's see how many (approximate) carbs there were. Note: Each item will be very approximate since so much was made by hand.

-Almond bun (2g net carbs)
-Handful of blueberries (4g)
-Boiled egg (.5g)
-Hot sauce (2g)
-2 tiny burgers (2.5g)
-Lettuce (1.4g)
-4 California rolls (2g)

TOTAL: 14.4g

Hmm... that doesn't look as good on paper, but I suppose if you used low-carb BBQ sauce (which I didn't) and perhaps tried a different berry (or maybe my guess on blueberries was too high) and also if I'd actually paid attention to how many carbs were in the burgers (I'm hoping it was actually less!), then you could get a much lower carb bento out of this. I guess it also depends on how many carbs a day you are eating; the hubby is allowing himself 20g a day, so this lunch probably was too many for him... but he didn't complain!

Next week, the kids are off school, so while I'll blog about our in-house lunches, I'll also try to get some more keto bentos sent in with the hubby to work.

Watch this space - I WILL get under 5g one day!