Cooking Made Simple

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If you have been reading my blog, you know that both my husband, Steve, and I have type 2 diabetes. We were both diagnosed at the same time in October of 2008. At that time I started educating myself on diabetes and healthier living. I am committed to getting us into the best health that we can be in. After having cancer 3 years ago (and lymphedema in my legs as a result of the surgery), fibromyalgia for a number of years and now the diabetes, I know that our time on this earth can be much shorter than we thought. We have to do what we can to try to extend our stay for those that love us and that we love back. It has been almost 2 years since I lit up a cigarette, and we made drastic changes in our diets. Constant chronic pain from the fibromyalgia really cause the exercising to be difficult, so I’m still working on that one.

While researching healthy diets, I came across some things written by a man named Gary Taubes. Be sure to check out his book,

Good Calories, Bad Calories:
Fats, Carbs, and the Controversial Science of Diet and Health

for so much more information about this, but in a nutshell, dietary fat is NOT the enemy! Moderation is still our friend though!

We decided to give this concept a try. For the past year we have been eating 2-4 eggs each, daily, plus bacon, nuts, legumes, oatmeal, real butter, whole milk, heavy cream and a lot of cheese are all a regular part of our diet. Plenty of veggies and some fruit too, of course! It is harder to do this than one would think! We have been brainwashed for so long about eating low fat foods, and it really is tough to overcome that thinking! We love eating these things though, as they taste good and are more filling and satisfying as well. It helps us actually, to keep our portions smaller.

Last week we had some routine blood work done at the doctors office. We needed to have our HbA1C’s checked and they tested for a few other things at the same time. We had EXCELLENT results! Steve’s A1C was down to 6.0% and mine is down to 5.4%! We are very happy with these results, and it shows that our choices are right for the diabetes part of our health! We also found out that our cholesterol is down. DOWN! I’m not sure where Steve was on his before now, but his level is 161 and mine has gone from 225 down to 180. I’m not sure on the specifics for other tests yet, still waiting on the paper to come in the mail, but they called us with these results and we are so relieved that all this saturated fat hasn’t been bad for us!

We will continue with the higher fat and lower carb diet, and hope to see more changes as we go. We definitely have noticed some positive changes in the way we feel, and I’m convinced now that we are moving in the right direction. Now we need to really focus on losing more weight as well!

I am very interested to hear from others with experience in losing a lot of weight, diabetes control, or overall general health improvements! Leave a comment here on my blog, or send me an email!

I can’t believe we are halfway through October already! I have always enjoyed the beginning of fall, the smells and crispness in the air. I have also enjoyed Halloween. It has been tradition at my house to make a nice big pot of chili each Halloween night, and stay at home to pass out candy to all the trick-or-treaters that find their way to our door. Of course one big love of this devilish holiday has been the candy! I LOVE candy, most types! My sweet tooth is out of control sometimes, and I just have to have something sweet! Obviously, with the dreaded big D, sugary candy is out of the question, so this year we plan to skip handing out candy. We haven’t had many trick-or-treaters in recent years anyway, and that just leaves us with a big bowl of candy leftovers.

I think I will make us a treat of our own instead. I am experimenting with cookie recipes for the Christmas holiday baking, so I am sure I can come up with a delicious goodie that is “legal” for us to have.

I recently decided that I needed a chocolate fix without all those nasty sugar alcohols that you find in sugar free candies. I had some unsweetened baking chocolate in the cabinet, so I melted a one ounce square and mixed in a bit of half & half cream and some Apriva sweetener, and served it up over pear halves. Oh my, was this good!!! I think we will be having this again, but not too often, as treats need to remain treats, and not become a “usual”. Send me off an email if you have other chocolaty good ideas and recipes that we can try! After all, chocolate is good for us now! )

Well, here it is, another long time since I last posted here. I have some plans for a change in my website. I no longer feel that I know nutrition as well as I thought I did, and I don’t want to share bad information. I’m going to give you a few links to check out.

http://www.foodconsumer.org/newsite/Nutrition/Diet/7_reasons_to_eat_more_saturated_fat_220920090608.html

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2002/08/17/saturated-fat1.aspx

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2001/07/21/trans-fat-part-one.aspx

This is very interesting reading! I still plan to share with everyone, but I will stop focusing on food, and focus on life instead. I believe that in order to truly be happy and healthy, we need a balance, and lifestyle is part of our balance. I want to share more with you than just healthy cooking. I want to share LIFE with you, and happenings on my family.

I hope to still add some food recipes and pictures when I change my site though! I like to help people go from non-cooking people to someone that likes to cook!

We spent an hour and a half grocery shopping this afternoon. I wish we had a really good farmers market here. It is hard to get good and fresh fruits and veggies around here without paying an arm and a leg. Everything is picked before its time, and is cold and hard when you buy it. We loves pears here, and they usually need 2 days to rest and come to room temperature before being good at all. Before that they are crunchy like apples. I like them a little softer than this, and more juice.

As a non-cooking comment, I found some candles by Glade Candle, Fresh Mountain Morning, 4 oz (Pack of 6). They come in a small white cup and smell sooooo good! It is a nice, light, clean smell and not an overpowering perfume odor. I love this candle, and I encourage everyone to give it a try and see what you think! Let me know!

As for cooking lately, I have been making pretty simple meals, meat and steamed veggies. We love some of the blackened seasoning mix posted in an earlier post, on pork. We really pack it on! Sometimes I use butter or bacon fat to cook it in. More calories, but the flavor is out of this world! Pork is pretty cheap here lately too, so that helps. You can have a nice meat and steamed veggie dinner in as little as 10-15 minutes. If you don’t like pork, cook up some chicken breasts, or steaks. Most meats that are cut at a size for stove-top cooking will work. We use a bamboo steamer on the stove top using a pot of water under it. The meat and carrots are timed to finish at about the same time. It is a nice meal with very little work. The bonus, for people with pain issues like me, this meal doesn’t require much work or standing. Much healthier, tastier, and cheaper than “fast food”.

Some of you may have wondered what happened to me, where have I been?! I apologize for lacking in my posts. I have been spending a fair bit of time researching. While frequenting one of the online discussion boards for diabetics, I came across mention of a man named Gary Taubes. I had no idea who he was, so I went to Google to find out. Some of what I have learned has been shocking. I found some information, alright! I also found that much of my thoughts on nutrition have been WRONG! Gary Taubes wrote a book called Good Calories, Bad Calories. This is not a typical diet book. It is about the scientific studies and information that Gary Taubes has dug up. He tells us how many of the studies on food and nutrition was done in Germany, before WW2. Well, everyone knows how feelings were right after that, so everyone sort of just walked away from the science that had been studied.

This was a good time for another man to come in and make his fortune. We have been fed a plate full of half-truths with a good portion of straight-out lies for dessert. I don’t know about you, but this isn’t the type of meal I enjoy! It turns out that saturated fat is NOT an enemy! In fact, I believe this even means that cheesecake is our friend! Hallelujah! Cheesecake made with sweetener and no crust, of course. )

There is much for me to re-learn about food. I am not going to ruin the read for you, but I urge you to go to the bookstore or library, and find this book! Good Calories, Bad Calories, by Gary Taubes. Go get it! Today!

So, what else have I been up to? What have I been feeding the family? Well, times are a bit tight financially, so many of our meals have been simple, cheap, but still tasty and nutritious. With a good selection of herbs and spices, you can make even the cheapest foods taste good! There is nothing wrong with simply cooking up a seasoned hunk of meat and some steamed veggies. If your meat is thin enough to cook on the stove, just splash a little olive oil in a pan, and cook your meat while you steam some veggies on another burner. Dinner in about 10-15 minutes! If your meat is bigger than steak size, use a slow cooker or the oven, and you can still steam your veggies, or you can cook them with the meat. Fruit makes a nice dessert.

Do you have recipes for tasty, nutritious and low cost dishes? Want to share them? If so, send them to me and I will post a picture of the dish after I have made it!

Looking for a good comfort food idea for dinner? This is one dish that everyone I know loves. I have made this since I was a child, and actually grew up thinking it was lasagna. LOL It is so simple that a child cook can easily prepare dinner. Remember to always supervise children in the kitchen though!

This dish can be made with or without meat. I prefer it without, but I sometimes make it with meat for the others that dine with me. I used to make this with regular spaghetti noodles, but now I use Dreamfields, which is made in a special secret way that prevents most of the carbs from being digested. Amazing news for diabetics! Steve is a big pasta lover, so he is especially happy that this brand of pasta tastes good and does not spike his blood glucose level high. It will take approximately an hour and a half from start to finish, so prepare for that!

Ingredients needed are: spaghetti sauce, either from a can/jar or your own recipe, a pound of Dreamfields spaghetti noodles, two of the 24 ounce size cottage cheese, shredded mozzarella cheese, at least 2 cups. I typically use 3-4 cups. Make this as cheesy as you like. I don’t think you can ever get too much!

Optional ingredients are ground meat, garlic, onion, seasonings and green onions. The sauce can be made to suite your own tastes. It can be a can of already made sauce that will be seasoned for you, or add some seasonings to a couple of cans of tomato sauce. I love to cut the green onions and sprinkle them on top of the baked spaghetti after it has been plated.

The first thing you need to do, is get a spaghetti sauce going on the stove. Check the price and nutritional information on cans or jars of already made at the store, or use whatever you normally use/make your own. I like to add some Italian seasoning blend to it, as well as some minced garlic and onion. If you want to use meat, brown some ground meat before adding the spaghetti or tomato sauce to the pan. I recommend either ground beef, turkey or sausage. Once your sauce is simmering, cover and let it hang out on very low heat. Fill a pot with water and bring to a boil. Add a pound of spaghetti noodles and cook till al dente, about 8 minutes. Drain the water and then carefully mix the sauce in with the noodles. Don’t forget to turn the burners off!

The next step is preparing it for the oven. Using a 9×13 glass dish, spoon a layer of spaghetti and sauce into the bottom of the pan. Add a layer of cottage cheese and then a layer of mozzarella cheese. Follow up with an additional layer of each, making sure that the mozzarella cheese is on the top. This goes into a 350F preheated oven for about 45 minutes, or until the cheese on top is browned and bubbly. We like it pretty dark, but not burned. Yum! A nice and simple salad goes perfectly on the side.

This dish keeps our blood glucose within acceptable levels. If you have diabetes, be sure to check your blood 2 hours after eating your first bite to see how it affects you. This recipe makes 8-10 servings.

It is easy to whip up a stir-fry dinner. You can use any type of meat you like, and any veggies! I typically use either strips of beef, strips of chicken breast, or ground turkey. Sometimes I use a bag of mixed frozen veggies, and sometimes I use what is on hand of fresh. In this particular dish I used ground turkey, minced garlic, chopped onion, fresh broccoli and some snow peas. I use different seasonings too, but this one is Kikkoman Stir Fry Sauce. It is pretty good, but be careful not to use too much! It only takes a little for a whole pot! I also like to use a packet of onion soup mix, with a little bit of water (about 1/3 cup). This helps the vegges cook and also helps in distributing the seasonings around. This picture doesn’t make it look the most appetizing, but it really is good! Give it a try! Plus it only takes 20 minutes or so, start to finish, with one skillet!

Last nights dinner was delicious, so I thought I would share! We were in the mood for some pork, so I pulled a tenderloin from the freezer. Once it was thawed, I used my blackened spice mix (found in a previous blog) and rubbed it all over the meat really well. Then into a glass baking dish it went, and into the oven at 350F for about an hour and a half until it reached 160F in the center of the meat.

We had some carrots and broccoli, so I steamed them, making this a really tasty meal! I use a bamboo steamer on the stove top, saving the water to go into soup. The seasoning made the pork taste so good! It was very moist and tender, easily cut with a fork. Such an easy meal to make, and the house smelled so good while it was cooking!

Broccoli salad is one of our favorite ways to eat broccoli. This salad has had a place on our family get-together table for many years, and everyone just loves it! One of the beautiful things about it, is that you can alter this recipe in many ways to come up with tons of favorite salads. Making homemade mayonnaise can help cut the fat and calories down some and make this an even healthier dish!

Here is the recipe for the way I usually make it:

Broccoli Salad

Ingredients:

2 heads of broccoli washed and cut into bite size pieces, stems too!

Half of a red onion, diced into small pieces.

1 package of bacon – we have noticed that many brands of bacon come in packages not quite a pound. That’s ok, just use whatever brand you like, in an amount close to a pound.

1 cup of mayonaise

1/4 cup of Apriva (sucralose sweetener)

1 T of vinegar – I use plain old white vinegar, but you can use any type you like.

Directions:

Mix the mayonaise, Apriva and vinegar together and pour it over the broccoli. Stir to get the dressing over all of the broccoli. Chill for a few hours, and then add the bacon and onions, and then chill for another hour or two before eating. This allows the flavors to combine some. If you are going to make the salad a day or more before serving, don’t add the bacon and onions until the day you will eat it. The bacon will get soggy and the onions will overpower the other flavors if you let it sit too long together. If you are eager to eat it, the salad can be all mixed together at once and eaten right away, it just wont have the flavors together like it would if it sits a bit.

Many people like to add raisins or grape halves and also nuts to this salad. Since the fruit adds sugar, we usually leave them out. If I have sunflower seeds on hand, then I like to add them, but the salad is good without them.

Cheesecake has been a favorite dessert of mine since I had my first taste as a child. I immediately loved it! We don’t have it as often as I would like since it has quite a bit of fat from the cheese, but it is good to have from time to time! Be sure to let your ingredients warm to room temperature or you will get lumps of cheese. Still tasty, but weird texture when that happens. I like to make cheesecakes without the crust, as this just adds unnecessary carbs.

Ingredients needed:

2 1/2 pounds of cream cheese (this is five 8 ounce packages)

2 cups Apriva or other granular sucralose sweetener for baking (apriva is NOT a sugar mix like Splenda baking mix)

5 whole eggs plus 2 egg yolks

1/4 cup of all purpose flour

1/2 cup half and half (half milk and half cream – about 12% butterfat)

First thing you need to do is get your 10 inch springform pan ready! Wrap the bottom with foil so the water from the water bath wont leak in, and spray the inside with cooking spray. Get a large pan that the springform pan can fit inside, and fill it partway with hot water. I use a big roasting pan.

To make the cake, start by mixing the cream cheese with the sweetener, and then mix in the eggs and flour. Once this is mixed together well, add in the half and half. We don’t want a lot of air, so fold it gently until it is all incorporated.

Thats all there is too it! Pour it into the prepared springform pan, and then put the springform into the roasting pan. The cheesecake will need to bake while sitting in the hot water. The foil we put on the pan will keep the water out.

Bake for 10 minutes at 475 degrees F, and then lower the temperature to 200 and continue to bake for an hour. Turn the oven off but let the cake remain in the oven for a few more hours and then refrigerate for at least 8 hours.

To top with a delicious fruit sauce, get a handful of frozen berries and put them into a sauce pan with some water and Apriva. I use about a dozen berries with 1/2-1/3 cup of water and about a cup of sweetener. You may want to adjust to make it sweeter or less sweet. Boil this on the stove until it cooks down to the consistency that you want. There is a bit of natural sugar in the berries, but berries are good for us, and a serving is very small, like 2 berries. Enjoy!

Today’s post is going to be a bit of a rant, and a little educational as well. I like to read discussion forums and blogs, on a wide variety of subjects. Of course, one topic that I read most often is diabetes. There are some good forums that cover a lot of the concerns of a diabetic.  I have found that many people that post on these forums are extremely more active in controlling their diabetes than the general public. It has been a great way to learn the basics, but I like to research further than just discussion forums and blogs. I have ran into some contradictions.

One contradiction concerns grains and legumes (beans). There are a lot of people that feel these should be totally avoided, as they have more carbs than some people feel they should have from any one food. Some people eat less carbs in a day than one serving of oatmeal will give you. Others use the excuse that if something is whole grain they can eat as much as they like. The right choice though, is a healthy compromise. I do not believe that we should avoid grains and legumes, but also, I do not believe that we should eat as much as we like of anything. Balance, balance, balance! We MUST have a balance of food groups in order to be our best. There is a lot of nutrition to be gained by eating grains and legumes.

There are ways to help our bodies process the carbs found in grains and legumes. If you eat these with fats the digestion will be slowed down, helping to avoid bothersome blood glucose spikes. Put some heavy cream on your oatmeal! Eat some cheese with your legumes or grains. Peanut butter on whole wheat bread should be just fine for the average diabetic. Also, oatmeal doesn’t have to be sweet. Make it savory and add some bacon, onions and broccoli. Experiment and find combinations of foods that you like  and that are also tolerated by your diabetes. The way to know is to test before you eat, and then test again at 1 hour, 2 hours, 3 and 4 hours after eating. It won’t take long to figure out how your body reacts to various foods. Remember to talk to your doctor if you have questions about your diet specifically, but please…don’t avoid any of the food groups! A piece of cheese (fat!) will help slow down the digestion of fruit as well! Many fruits are more than one serving though, so be sure to check out the types you like before you eat them. We share fruit here, and pears are one of our favorites. Half a pear along with some cheese and raw veggies make a nice and filling snack!