Low-carb Ketchup

Ingredients:

1 can tomato paste
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup Splenda or equivalent
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon onion powder
1/4 teaspoon dry mustard
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
Bottle for holding finished product
funnel
Label and/or a marker

Making your own ketchup, I know. But stick with me on this one, okay? It took 15 minutes from finding where all the ingredients were hiding in my kitchen to popping the finished product into the refrigerator. And I was taking pictures and stopped to treat a minor low in there. So:

Open your can of tomato paste and carefully empty it into the bottle. Tiny scoops with a small plastic spatula is probably your best bet here, but it's going to be messy no matter what.









Use the funnel and add the Splenda, spices, vinegar and water. The Splenda will bubble a bit when you add the vinegar, but it shouldn't overflow. Screw the top on, (make sure to press down on the cap for the tip so it doesn't go flying off!) and shake like crazy for a minute or two.






Voila, ketchup! Told you it was easy. Since it lacks preservatives, it'll only hold up a month in the refridgerator, so be sure to mark the date on the bottle. If you're like me you'll probably want to mess with the spices you add for a while until you get it just right. Make a note of what you add or subtract! I hate when I get a recipe just right and then forget what I did to make it so great.

Carb-wise: 1 carb per tablespoon.

Eggplant Lasagna

Ingredients
Makes 8 servings

2 pounds extra lean ground beef
1 1/2 - 2 medium eggplants
1 medium onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 14 1/2-ounce can diced tomatoes, undrained
8 ounces tomato sauce
1 tablespoon dried italian seasoning
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
1 egg
15 ounces ricotta cheese
6 ounces shredded fat-free mozzarella cheese


I wanted to make an eggplant lasagna that was similar to the regular lasagna I enjoyed before the 'beetus hit me, so I modified the Better Homes and Gardens recipe I used before.

Note: The recipe makes a full 9x13 inch pan of lasagna, but the pictures show the recipe halved in a 8x8 pan.

Brown the ground beef, drain. Saute the onions in the pan until tender; add garlic and cook for 1 more minute. Dump the meat back in; add the diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, italian seasoning and fennel. Set the heat to medium and leave it to simmer for 10 minutes.

Peel the eggplant and cut it into about quarter inch slices. Don't worry about the seeds; you won't even notice them after it's cooked, I promise.

After that, dump the ricotta and the egg into a small bowl and mix it up with a rubber spatula. This mixture will seperate slightly as it sits so be sure to mix it back up right before you use it.

When the sauce is done, spread about a half cup on the bottom of the pan. Put down a layer of eggplant, overlapping the edges slightly. Spread a thin layer of ricotta around with the rubber spatula, top it with about half of the remaining meat mixture, and put about a half cup of mozzerella on top. Repeat the layers once more.




If you're baking now, set your oven to 400 degrees and bake it for 40 minutes. Or you can cover it with foil and refridgerate it for up to 24 hours. When you're ready, pop it in the oven (foil still on) for 40 minutes, uncover it and bake for another 20 minutes. If it seems too wet when you take the foil out, carefully dump a small amount of the juice down the drain before you continue cooking.



For the meal:
1 serving lasagna: 12 carbs
1 piece of garlic bread: 13 carbs
Salad: 4 carbs

Total: 29 carbs.

I think in the future I want to work out a way to make a nutrition facts label image to put down here. It would provide more information, it would just look nicer, and you guys could save it. Anyway, give it a try, let me know if you like or hate it.

Almond Crusted Chicken

Ingredients:

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts or 12 chicken tenders
4 oz almonds
1 teaspoon tarragon
1/4 cup whole wheat flour
2 egg whites
1/2 cup reduced fat Parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 400F.

Thaw chicken if necessary and place in 9 x 13 glass baking pan. Cook for 15 minutes. In the meantime,

Run almonds through a food processor, smash them with a hammer, ect, whatever suits your fancy. It's important that at least some of the bunch gets crushed down to a powder-y consistency, or else the coating won't stick very well. Besides that, though, you can make the mixture as fine or crunchy as you and your family like.


Get your eggs and a small bowl and seperate the yolks from the whites (an egg seperater is pretty much required for this step, but you can get one for a couple bucks at just about any store that sells kitchen gadgets or online.) Add the tarragon and beat until the whites are frothy.

Line up 3 gallon zip lock bags. In the first, dump the flour. In the second dump the egg mixture. Mix the almonds and parmesan together in the last bag.

Once the chicken comes out of the oven, let them cool enough to handle, then dunk them in the first bag all at once. Take a wire rack and place it over the top of the baking pan and set it aside. Now grab the bag and shake it around until they're pretty evenly coated. Knock off as much excess flour as possible as you pull them back out, then drop 'em in the second bag and repeat the process.


I like to knead them around a little bit, turn the bag upside down (Tip: using a bag with a zipper on top helps reduce your chances of accidently dumping your dinner on the floor during this step) and make sure they're thoroughly coated in this bag and the last. They'll be kind of gooey and messy coming out of the second bag, so you might want to use tongs if you don't like getting your hands dirty.

Repeat the process with the almond coating. Arrange the chicken on the wire rack. (If you just lay the chicken back in the pan, the bottoms will come out a bit soggy.)







Bake 'em again for 15 more minutes or until the top of the coating starts to brown. If you have trouble picking up the chicken without the coating sticking to the rack, trying sliding a fork under it and gently pushing the chicken up.




For the whole meal:
3 chicken tenders or one chicken breast - 9 carbs
3.5 oz baked sweet potato (about 1/2 one medium, or 1 cup of cubes by my measuring cup) - 20 carbs
3/4 cup frozen brocolli and cauliflower, steamed - 3 carbs

total: 32 carbs.

Let me know what you think! I like including a run down of how all the steps look. Any opinions?

New Year's

The end of the year seems the perfect time to start a new blog, to help put my thoughts in order regarding diabetes, and to give me a place to post recipes and whatever else I can think of for my diabetic family and friends, and anyone else who wants to take a gander.

I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes on February 9th of this year, and you could say I hit the ground running. Changing my diet, exercise routine, thinking and reading about diabetes and how it effects the body.

So, I decided to make a few New Year's Resolutions:

1. To start a blog to connect with other diabetics.

2. To post recipes regularly, because diabetes has only increased my love for good food. I hope you'll share yours, too.

3. To join diabetes365 and take a diabetes related picture every day, to remind myself that this is a journey that takes dedication and sometimes innovation.

So there it is. I'm not a writer (I'm sure you can tell,) I'm not a chef, or a photographer. But I do have a heavy mixture of ideas, hope and confusion swirling around in me and I have to put it somewhere. I hope you'll join me.