What is the deal about Keto?

There is a new revolution if that is what  you want to call it, but people all over the world call it Keto.  It is a new way of eating and thinking about food.  In a nutshell, Keto is about eating very low or no carbohydrates, high fat of the right kind, proteins, green vegetables and if you want to know more, just google it!  I googled it because I saw my daughter in law losing weight and reshaping her whole body by going Keto, and since seeing is believing, I wanted to do it too. 

I have diabetes and so does my husband and when I realized that if I cut way down on my daily carb intake, or cut out my carbs all together in my diet, it could significantly help me get in control of diabetes, and lose weight.  We were all on board, and without much study into Keto, we just cut out most of the carbs we ate in our meals. Did it help?  You are darn tootin it did!  We began to see our blood sugar levels drop down into normal ranges, to the point that we didn't need to be on insullin.  If we took our insullin, we found that we became hypoglycemic, which is essentially too low blood sugar, and we began to feel sick, nauseated, extremely fatigues, and just plain crappy! 

We continue to eat low carbohydrates and do our best to maintain this balance through not eating anything that has flour or sugar in it.  You have to understand, that both of us were raised on Breads, pastas, rice, and sweets of all kinds.  We loved it and actually still do, but we finally get the fact that if we eat those thing, we will have to go back on insullin, and our blood sugar levels will rise.  Those types of foods are also addicting, and it makes it difficult to eat just one.  A handful of M&M's turns into a whole bag by the end of the day.  One sweet roll turns into finishing the entire pan of sweet rolls by the end of the week.  It is an addiction of the worst kind, and the result can be a myriad of health issues.

Eating keto is just a different way to cook, and it isn't icky, it's just different.  You can have breads, but not made from wheat flour.  Almond meal and Coconut flour becomes the replacement because of the low amount of carbs they contain.  Normally I would have stayed away from these foods, because of the calories, but in Keto, calories aren't not what you are counting, its the carbs. There is a learning curb to creating delicious meals this way, and I have also found that my taste buds have changed because if introducing this different but very healthy way of eating. 

There is more to Keto than this little bit of information and practical experience I have provided, but if you have a desire to learn more, google it.  It is all over the internet, Pinterest pins, people are talking about it, Instagram pictures galore of people losing weight on the Keto diet. 

What I want to do now is to share some of the good meals I have created while wanting to get healthy, get in control of my diabetes, and not starve in the process.  A Keto type meal plan has provided me just that.  I have found quite a few good things are happening to me as a result:

• Weight loss.  So far I have lost almost 20 lbs. For me it's slow, but I see it
• My stomach is shrinking.  I believe 100% it was the carbohydrates in my diet that made my stomach balloon because when I stopped eating Carbs my stomach began to shrink and flatten.  I'm not there yet, and it will take a while, but it is happening and I am very pleased! The same results are happening with my husband.
• I am finally getting back some energy.  I use to feel like I wanted to take a nap daily, but now days, the fatigue isn't there, and I can make it through the day, and into the evening til bedtime before feeling tired.  This folks is a miracle.  I have found that now if I can get my 8 hours of sleep nightly, I can make it through the day, and not need a nap.
• I am completely off my insulin and so is my husband.  If we were to take it, we find ourselves getting hypoglycemic, which is low blood sugar.  By just not having many carbohydrates during the day, we can maintain healthy blood sugar levels.  What a blessing! We are still on Metformin, but we hope one day, we will no longer need that to maintain our health and that diabetes, though we will still have it, will not be something that will take our health and well being down to our graves. We are also staying close to our doctors recommendations, but He continually tells us that what we are doing it helping us, so keep it up.  
• Lastly, I am learning how to cook some really delicious meals, and as my husband calls them... "Resturaunt quality."  They taste wonderful, are very  healthy for us, use the freshest ingredients, mostly all from Costco, and look so pretty plated!  If I cooked for someone who didn't know my meal was Keto based, they would love and enjoy it as would they for any other meal.  Mine would definitely be healthier.

I will be sharing many of the recipes I come up with and some that I find through other means, and it has been an eye opener to me that most if not all the ingredients can be purchased at Costco.  With careful planning, anyone can utilize the bulk goods that Costco provides, without much if any waste.  This is what I do, and yes it is what I call the $200 store, because I can't get out of there without spending at least that much, but I have learned to use it, and enjoy cooking again with such fresh, good products.  

My next post is one of my favorite Costco product recipes!

Two Costco Product Highlights - Sweet Mini Peppers and French Green Beans

How many times in your growing years, did your Mother tell you, "Eat your Vegetables?"  I bet we all were told that more than we like but we were also told that we are a product of what we eat, RIGHT?  I was told that so much, but gratefully eating vegetables was instilled in me just like music, cooking and other talents and skills.  I grew up in a home where most of our back yard of our 1/4 acre home, was filled with a garden. We had more vegetables than we ever needed, and my Dad would always say, "Mother, all those vegetables could feed an Army."  Guess what, they did, and not just the army of my family that lived in my house, but neighbors, friends and anyone my mother thought could benefit from our garden.  

Mom grew a lot of different kinds of vegetables.  Some of them were experiments to see what she could get her kids to eat, but eventually and after a few years, she figured it out.  She learned that her family enjoyed Green beans, sweet peppers, raspberries, fruit from fruit trees, grapes from vines, and lots and lots of tomatoes.  Now along with those kinds of plants, our garden grew other kinds of plants, commonly called weeds and guess who you think got the glorious job to pull those weeds?  You guessed it, her kids.  We had at times as many weeds to pull as there were plants planted in the garden.  One time, my brother in his youth, found some weed spray that was guaranteed to kill anything it touched.  He thought he would make our lives easier, by spraying the weeds and then they would just shrivel up and die.  He proceeded, without the permission of either of our parents, and went around the perimeter of the garden, spraying.  A few days later, we all noticed that the weeds were shriveling up, which was great, but we also noticed that the plants were shriveling up too.  My Mother couldn't figure it out for the longest time, why she watered and watered them, but they just continued to shrivel up and die.  

Finally one day, a few weeks had gone by when my Mother received a knock at our door.  She answered it to see a very angry neighbor, Mr. Shafter, almost frothing at the mouth, with his brow so scrunched up that it looked like furrows in the soil.  He began to yell and scream saying, Someone in your family has killed my Pyracantha bushes all along the backside of his home, that boardered with our garden.  He said that he had spent 20 years growing them, pruning them and making them a thing of beauty, but someone has killed his plants.  Of course my mother knew nothing of it, and as gracefully as she could, tried to quail his anger by offering him a bunch of her fresh garden produce and said she would get to the bottom of it.  Mr. Shafter didn't want any of her produce, he just wanted the head of the person who killed his Pyracantha bushes.  

After Mr. Shafter left, Mother gathered her quaking children around her and asked if any of us knew what happened to Mr. Shafters bushes?  Somehow it came out that my brother had spayed the weeds around the perimeter of our garden, and maybe got some of the spray on his bushes.  Marching my brother outside to see about those bushes, Mother and my brother somehow figured out a way to make up for the huge and innocent mistake he had made.  I'd have to ask him to know how they rectified 20 years of growing and manicuring and trimming, to make up for killing them, but somehow things were set aright.  I do know that Mr. Shafter never spoke to us again, but that was ok with most of us, because he wasn't a very kind and friendly man anyway.

One good thing did come of my brothers gargantuan mistake with the weed killer, and that was that my mother would only let us eat part of the produce in the garden that was not very close to where he sprayed, for fear it would poison us all, and many of the plants in our garden died along with Mr. Shafters Pyracantha bushes.  

Well, that is my veggie story but my current one is that I have found some beautiful, and delicious produce in Costco.  Let me first start with their green beans.  They have these 2 lb bags of french cut green beans, you know the ones that are straight, long and slim, but look so uniform in size, unlike the bumpy warty kind that most people grow in their gardens.  My mother grew the warty kinds, and they never tasted as good as the ones that Costco sells.  I will buy a whole bag of these, and steam them, just until they are tender, and then quickly rinse them under the water in the kitchen tap.  This prevents them from cooking any longer and becoming soggy and overcooked, but also greens them up.  Steaming and cooking turns the color of beans from a bright green color to more of a dull green, but rinse them under cold water, and they magically resume their natural before cooking color, and maybe even a little brighter.  

My husband and I will then enjoy eating them with meals, add them to soups and stir frys,but my favorite is to snack on them.  That's right, snack on cold green beans is such a treat.  Simply get a dollup or two of mayonaise (which you can also buy at Costco) and set it on your plate, and start dipping your cold green beans in it.  The taste to me is much like a steamed artichoke, which is another favorite vegetable of mine, and Costco carries those during certain seasons.

The other veggie that I absolutely love that Costco carries year round is the Windset Farms sweet mini peppers.  When I first spotted them in the store, I thought, "Why would I want to buy those, they aren't even fully developed. "  Actually they are, and as a result of being mini peppers, they are so much more sweet than their cousin, sweet bell peppers.  These come in 3 different colors, Red, which are my favorite, yellow and orange, and surprisingly, their flavor varies as well. It  takes me about 2 weeks to use a whole bag of them up, but they last and don't begin rotting if they are kept refrigerated in the vege compartment.  

I use these cute little peppers in so many of my recipes, from Scrambled egg breakfast meals, to soups, and stir fries, and my favorite.... snacking.  These sweet and crisp little mini peppers are perfect to dip in either home made ranch dressing dip or regular salad ranch dressing, which by the way, also is sold at Costco!  I also serve them with different cheeses and my favorite is the soft cheeses, from plain Philadelphia Cream cheese sold in a large tub at Costco, but other soft cheeses like Brie and seasoned ones, also sold in the cheese section at Costco.  

I highly recommend everyone try them, and learn to enjoy the sweetness of natural vegetables, and get a little healthier.  I won't go into the different vitamins and minerals that they contain, and you will benefit from, but you can do that by going to the internet and googling it.  Enjoy! 

New Product at my Costco, Folios Cheese Wraps

I have a new favorite Costco product, that is helping to not only stay on my Keto meal plan, but makes coming up with great meals, very easy.  I have used these for the past 2 weeks, and my husband has loved them.  They are so versatile, and I have Created some great recipes to share with you.  

These Folios cheese wraps are essentially made of cheese, and all you have to do is to take one out of the package, put it in the microwave, on it's own piece of parchment like paper that is included in the package, and microwave.  I'm pretty sure you would need to adjust the baking time depending on how powerful your microwave is, but for me, I set it for 30 seconds.  Once it has stopped, I add another 30 seconds or less.  1 minute for me, generally crispens them and slightly browns them around the edges.

Once they are cooked, you need to let them rest and cool for a few minutes, or they will act like cheese does when it is hot, and not keep it's wrap shape.  Once cooled, slowly peel it from the parchment, and put it on your plate.  The oils comes out of the cheese, so I usually blot off most of that with a paper towel, and that my friends is all there is to making this wrap.  

I have made so many yummy recipes with these wraps, beginning with the very first recipe I created on my Keto meal plan, and that was what I call Katie's Veggie Egg Burrito/Taco.   Here is the recipe for you to try, and I know you will really love the taste.

All the ingredients for this recipe can be found at Costco and if you want to get technical, everything else can be found there too such as, the pans I cooked it in, the food processor and even the paper plates and paper towels I like to use in the microwave.  

Katie’s Keto Egg Tacos

·        2-4 Eggs (Costco)

·        Olive Oil (Costco)

·        Generous Sprinkle of Cheddar Jack Cheese (Costco)

·        Small slice of Philly Cream Cheese. (Costco)

·        2 Folio Cheese Wraps (Costco)

·        1 Tablespoon of butter (Costco)

·        Fresh Ground Salt and Pepper (Costco)

      4 pieces of cooked bacon

DIRECTIONS:

1.     Cook your eggs in olive oil, and scramble them.  Be sure to salt and pepper them for extra flavor, or not, depending on your own personal taste or if you are on a low sodium diet.

2.     Just before your egg is fully scrambled, add your sprinkle of Cheddar Cheese and your small slice of Philly Cream Cheese.  Shut off heat, put the lid on the skillet and remove from the heating element on your stove.  Over the next few minutes your cheese will melt and the egg will finnish cooking. 

3.     Stir melted cheese around in your egg, which brings a huge amount of flavor to them.  Set aside. ( I keep my eggs in the microwave on a microwave safe plate, to keep warm until I am finished with the rest of the recipe.)

More Ingredients: 

·        1 Zucchini 

·        2 Mini Sweet Red Peppers (Costco)

·        Fresh Ground Salt and Pepper (Costco)

·        1 Tablespoon of butter (Costco)

DIRECTIONS:

• Clean out the fry pan you used for cooking your eggs, rinse out and dry.  Heat and melt 1 Tablespoon of Butter. 
• Prepare the vegetables in a chopper or Food processor. I found a small one at Costco!  (I don't mind letting it sit out on my counter-top, because I use it so often.)  Add to melted butter in fry pan and salt and pepper to taste.
• Moisture will cook out, and that is what you want, so you don’t have soggy eggs. Those juices strengthen the flavor, so don't drain them, just let them cook out.  Sauté your veges for about 4 – 5 minutes stirring, and when most of the juices are gone, they are ready.  In the mean time, you need to follow the directions on the wraps to prepare and microwave cook, to crispen the wrap sheets.  When they are done, they will look lacy and crispy…. Yum! I pat the excess oil off, just because I don’t like so much oil, but it isn’t necessary for the Keto diet.

Now, lawyer the cooked ingredients in this order:

1.     Wrap on bottom layer.

2.     Add Cooked cheesy scrambled eggs.

3.     Add cooked veggies

4.     Top with 2 slices of crisp cooked bacon.

There you have it!  It looks like restaurant quality and the taste is amazing.  It has a sweet quality from the vegetables, not to mention that they boost the healthiness of your breakfast meal.  I ate mine this way, but my husband has to add hot sauce or salsa to his for an added spicy bite.  Either way, these are so yummy, and a totally different taste than what you are use to having in any burrito.  Enjoy!

I like to write, thus you won't see me adding a calorie or nutrient value list for any of my recipes.  You can easily calculateyour own nutritional information as you go by using one of the many food calculators that are available online.  I happend to locate this one first, so I am sharing the link:

https://caloriecontrol.org/healthy-weight-tool-kit/food-calorie-calculator/

#Shop Costco,#love, #loveCostco, iShopCostco

#iShopCostco

I have wanted to author a blog about my favorite store for such a long time.  It's a snowy day, and now that the power is back on and my computer can power up, I plan to begin! This blog isn't going to be like any of my other blogs, because it is all about my love for a store!  Who ever heard of somebody loving a store, especially one that I nick name the $200 store.  Nobody every gets out the exit doors without spending at least $200, because there is so much good stuff to buy, we all indulge!

I have been having fun with the food, because I have started a Keto mealplan, and Costco was the one that helped me get going.   How does a store help somebody go Keto you may ask?  Let me explain.  I had been thinking about eliminating Carbs in my diet because I have diabetes, and so does my husband.  Interestingly enough, my daughter in law started Keto 6 months ago, and she has lost almost 50 lbs.  We were so astonished, and you know what they say.... "Seeing is believing" and we became belivers.  What a great motivator to have seen what she has done with going Keto, so I began to learn about it and realized that it was the solution to our diabetes issues as well.  If we don't eat Carbohydrates, or at the very least significantly lower our Carbs to a very small percentage of our food intake daily, we just might not need to take insulin, and that my friends was a huge plus for doing it.

So let me make a longer story shorter, you may ask yourself, how did Costco get help you go Keto?  After the first of the 2019 New year, I needed groceries, because I had cleaned out my pantry, fridge and freezer.  I gave away every last bit of carbs I had, to my carb-eating grand-kids, who were more than happy to take them off my hands, and out of my pantry.  At that point, we basically had no food in the house.  OK, I'm stretching the truth... we had some food, but folks when you are use to having breads with your breakfast, sandwiches, and cereal for breakfast, and some crackers for your dips and cheese, and sweet treats for your sweet tooth, along with a scoop of sweet icecream at night while you watch your favorite show.... well... their aint much more left to enjoy when it is gone.  I was HANGRY... and NO, I didn't miss spell hungry.  I was really hangry, and needed something good to eat.

The first store to come into my mind was Costco, because I am a devoted Costco shopper, and I know I can always find things that make my hanger go away.  It was off to Costco, and one think I know for sure is that it isn't good to go shopping on an empty stomach.  I had no choice that day, because there really wasn't much in the way of food to eat.  Everything looked good to me, and believe me, I was ever grateful for all the tasting sample tables, that helped get me through.  This particular day, I strolled my cart very quickly passed the electronics, housewares, clothing and more, and made a left turn directly into the fruit and vegetables.  My mouth started to water as I saw what beautiful fruit they had, though sadly I had to push my cart past the fruit into the refrigerated section.  Fruits are carbs, and though I needed some, with the high levels of my blood sugar, I needed to stay away from fruit for a while.

Entering the vegetable area of the store, Oh, I wanted to jump for joy!  They had it all... Baby spinach to go in my eggs and soups, and the scare for contaminated Romaine Lettuce was over, so I grabbed a large bag of 5-6 heads of baby Romaine lettuce.  Then on to the mini peppers that are so sweet and yummy to add to just about anything I cook.  Their mushrooms were absolutely beautiful and I grabbed a tub of those, and a bag of french green beans. I couldn't pass up the cubed butternut squash.  I love it because it is already cut up.  If you have every cut up Butternut squash, you are left with sticky fingers, that are very hard to clean off.  There is a resin or something in the squash that I looked up once and found that it heals the squash if during it's growing season, it gets nicked or injured, and that resin is sort of a healing thing, so the squash can continue growing.

So one of my favorite things to much on for a snack is cooked green beans dipped in mayonnaise... yum!!! Tastes like Artichokes which sadly were not in season.  By the time I got out of the cold Vegetables, I grabbed a tub of cherry tomatoes, a bag of avocados, and I knew I had more vegetables than could last us for several weeks.  I had to restrain myself, because it all looked so fresh and yummy.  Recipes were running through my mind, and I knew I was going to enjoy making what my husband calls, "Restaurant quality" meals.

Next to the meat section, I grabbed a bag of individually wrapped and frozen chicken breasts, deli turkey breast, and then I found the cheese section.  Cheese is on the Keto diet, so I make good work of finding new cheeses to take home and try in my cooking.

Speaking of Cheeses, I found the greatest new product.  I have never seen it in Costco before! It's called Folios Cheese Wraps. 

They are made from cheese, and are only 1 gram Carbohydrate.  They are basically a wrap made of Cheese. Totally good for Keto, Lactose free and Gluten free meal plans. They are so easy and quick! All you do is put one on a microwave safe dish, and one minute later, they melt and when it cools, it crispens.  I blot  with a paper towel,  the extra fat that comes to the surface during the microwaving.  They crisp up sort of like a crisp corn taco shell.  I made a meal for breakfast called "Katie's Breakfast Tacos, " and will share the recipe in a future post. 

I won't go on with all the other things I purchased that day at Costco, but needless to say, I made Costco live up to it's nickname, "The $200 store".  Actually I think my purchases totaled more than that, and closer to $300, but I cannot tell you how excited I was to go home and start cooking. All of the things I found at Costco, are on my new Keto, or low carb diet, which I don't want to call diet, so lets call it a meal plan.  I love preparing new things and I looked forward to going home and getting something read for my husband and I for dinner. 

This is my story and I started cooking restaurant quality meals, using mostly and almost exclusively the foods that I purchased at Costco.  They looked and tasted so yummy, that I decided to share my recipes! #iShopCostco, and love every minute of it. Enjoy!!!

Katie's Spicy dough (Who loves Pizza?)

Katie's Spicy Pizza dough recipe

 Maybe instead of asking who loves pizza, I should ask, "Who doesn't love pizza?"  It has become the all american food, besides hamburgers and hotdogs.  Sadly, pizza now days has so many carbohydrates in the crust, that unless you can tolerate lots of Carbs and tons of calories, you just have to limit yourself!  Actually, this is what I use to think, and when I got diabetes, I was so sad because I knew that Pizza was not a food I could partake of much.  BUT, and this is a really big BUT, you can have it, like the old saying goes.... "You can have your cake and eat it too!"  Relating to pizza, "You can have your Pizza and eat it too!"

Not long after I began cooking Keto, I found some really great options for making low carb pizza crust.  I use to think, why bother, they low carb is icky and it won't taste like the Pizza I am use to and probably contributed to helping me to become diabetic.  Nope, I just won't try low carb, until today, actually in a manner of speaking.  Not really today but within the last 6 months, I started hearing about people making dough for all kinds of bread replacements.  I heard of Keto Dough, Keto Pizza dough, Keto Rolls, Keto this and that.  Who in their right mind would make dough out of Mozzarella cheese and Almond Flour?  First off, when cheese melts, it gets all gooey and stretchy and stringy, and there is no way to make that be dough.  Not so folks, by adding the right other ingredients, you can make a really great dough, that tricks your mind into thinking it is the dough you use to eat that was so full of carbs you were high for hours afterwards.

Pizza dough has changed, and I found a basic recipe for a Pizza dough that I tweaked quite a bit to suit my taste...in fact this dough recipe can not only be used for Pizza crust, but for bread sticks, crackers, soft taco shells, burritos and more.  It is so tasty, I bet you do what me and my husband did the first time I made it, and kept cutting slices to taste, and adding a thin slice of butter on top.  It was just so good, we ate the whole thing before we got to make our pizza.

I want to share this recipe with you, so you too can be on your way to enjoying a more healthy pizza.  So what does this have to do with shopping at Costco?  Every one of the ingredients can be purchased at Costco, instead of having to go to another store.  I love that so much, and even though you are buying in larger quantity at Costco, that means you will have more ingredients to make your delicious pizza over and over.  I will also test out how freezing works with this dough and report back at another date.  I use to use Rhodes bake and serve bread dough for my pizza crust, and would bake up a whole bunch of crusts, and sometimes even add the other ingredients, so all I had to do was heat up the ready made pizzas.  I don't know how freezer stable this recipe is, so eventually I will test it and report back my findings.  In the mean time, how would you like to have my delicious pizza Crust recipe?  VERY LOW Carbs, and very tasty?  You got it... it's sharing time! (by the way, this recipe is keto friendly but anyone can make it who wants to enjoy homemade pizza without all the carbs.

Katie's Spicy dough
(makes one pizza, large enough for 4 big slices)

1 3/4 Cup Grated Mozzarella Cheese (Costco)
2 Generous Tablespoons Philadelphia Cream Cheese (Costco)
3/4 Cup Almond Meal (Costco)
1 Pinch Italian Seasoning (Costco)
1 Pinch Garlic Power not Garlic Salt (Costco)
1 Pinch crushed Chili peppers (Costco)

DIRECTIONS:

1. Add Mozzarella and Philadelphia cream cheese to a microwave safe bowl, and melt for about a minute, or until melted. Stir with a spoon, and then wait for 5 minutes to cool.  Once it's cool enough to touch, add the Almond Meal, seasoning and spices, and mix and knead with your hands.  I might add that in some recipes that are similar to mine, they add an egg to the dough, but I don't think it needs it. If you want to add one egg, feel free but be prepared for really sticky dough.  You will need to add a little more Almond meal to get it to not be so sticky.  
2. On a piece of parchment paper that matches the size of the baking pan you will be using, roll out the dough on the parchment.  It won't look perfect or even round, mor oblong to fit the pan, but that is one of the great things about home cooking.  Roll it pretty think, but if the edges look too thin, push them back a little to thicken them, so they don't burn.  
3. Bake in a preheated oven at 425 degrees for about 8 minutes.  Keep checking about the 6-7 minute mark to make sure it doesn't burn, but begins to turn golden brown on the edges.  
4. Cool completely after baking  and before adding the Pizza sauce to make your pizza.

This dough is great, and I sometimes make it for snacking.  I don't always use the same seasonings as in this recipe and sometimes use the following to get other yummy flavors: 

• Montreal Steak Seasoning (Costco)
• Taco seasoning 
• Chili peppers + a few squirts of Tabasco, Louisiana hot sauce (Costco)
• Parmesan cheese and a pinch of Garlic Powder
• Parmesan cheese (Costco) and a teaspoon of Onion Flakes
• PLAIN without any seasonings or herbs.
• 
  

For making pizza, top with 

•  Pizza sauce or Spaghetti Sauce (Costco)
• Mushrooms, Sweet Mini Peppers, Bell Peppers, Spinach, Onion slices (all from Costco)
• Bottled roasted Red peppers (Costco)
• Canned Olives (Costco)
• Mozzarella Cheese, soft or grated (Costco)
• Parmesan Cheese fresh grated or dried (Costco)
• Crushed Red chili peppers 
• Alfredo Sauce 
• Grilled, rotisserie chicken (Costco)
• Grilled steak (Costco)
• Pork Sausage, Bratwurst, Salami (Costco)
• Ham, Bacon, Turkey bacon or Sausage (Costco)

This dough is also great to make into crackers, or bread sticks, for tortillas, taco shells.  I have found myself cutting it into strips after is has baked, and dipping into Alfredo Sauce, Que so Fresco Cheese sauce, or just adding a thin slice of butter and enjoying that way.  As you can see, this dough is really versatile and I know you can find great ways to use it as well.  Enjoy!