Sugar Turned On Me

Lean times sometimes make for ingenious food creations. A roommate introduced me to the following recipe which has a less than appetizing name and is basically a taco salad minus the lettuce and tortilla shell:

1 Lb Ground Sirloin
1 Can of refried beans (preferably low sodium)
1 small Onion
1 teaspoon of minced garlic
Chili seasoning, Salt, Pepper
Hot sauce
Corn chips

First, sweat the onions in a little olive oil using a frying pan or saucepan. Once they are translucent, add the beef and half the seasonings. Brown the meat. Add your can of refried beans, the rest of the seasonings and cook until warm. If the beans dry out a little, add a bit of water.

Serve in a bowl with a dash of hot sauce. Eat with a spoon or corn chips. Don’t overdo it on the corn chips and you can add some sour cream. Makes 2 servings.

This dish, before the chips or sour cream, is high in protein, low in carbs (like 17g) and has a bit of fiber to it (which reduces the carbs to effectively 12g). It also tastes good and is filling. Depending on the price of meat, it’s also cheap. You could easily substitute ground turkey and still come out with a good product.

Necessity is the mother of invention. Apparently, she’s also a cook.

A lot of the things my wife makes start off with the following conversation:

Her: “Hey, I’d like to make [dish name]. I’m thinking put [tasty ingredient 1], [tasty ingredient 3], [tasty ingredient 3], etc. and then cooking it by [simple preparation]. What do you think?”
Me: (not quite being able to picture it). Sounds great.

What then follows is always a flavorful and simple meal which often I end up asking for again. This was also the sort of conversation that preceded the creation of Roasted Chunky Love:

1 lb. Turkey Kielbasa
1 Red Bell Pepper
1 Yellow Bell Pepper
1 Medium Onion
1 Large Sweet Potato or 3 Large carrots
2 Tbs. of Olive Oil
Seasoning (Salt and pepper at least)

1. Peel and chop the onion into large petals. Peel and chop the sweet potato (or carrot) into large chunks. Seed and chop the peppers into… wait for it… large chunks.
2. Coat all the chopped bits in the olive oil, adding seasonings.
3. Place on a roasting rack and put it in the oven on 350 for about 25-30 min or until the potato chunks are tender.
4. Remove from the oven, let cool and serve. Makes about 4 portions.

Simple, no?

This dish is great for greeting fall and also is quite pretty in presentation. The turkey kielbasa  keeps down the fat content. This dish has a lot of Vitamin C in it and is pretty low in carbs. For a little more fiber, just leave the skins on the potatoes.

Enjoy.

I can do real damage at an Indian restaurant. The food tends to be simple, tasty and with a really good blend of spices that add flavor as well as heat. I do it more rarely now, as naan bread is far to addictive, but recently my wife and I were trying to figure out what to do with some chicken thighs we had in the freezer. We decided to try Indian food at home.

We used a mix that we found at our local organic/hippie grocery. It was an experiment and I’m happy to say that it turned out well. Here’s what we did:

1 packet Paramapa Chicken Tikka Masala mix
3 boneless chicken thighs
1 boneless chicken breast
8 oz plain yogurt
2 cups water
a little butter or olive oil for the pan

Following the directions on the pack, it took longer to go to the store for the yogurt than it did to prepare the meal.  With a reasonable deck-of-cards side of rice as well as some peas and carrots it came out to about 45g carbs a serving or so, 30 of that coming from the rice.

I’m satisfied with the packeted spice mix. If you’re thinking you would prefer to mix it yourself, it seems less than complicated, but I can’t vouch for any individual recipe. They all seem to include pepper, ginger, tumeric, and garam masala (which can be found at Indian groceries and specialty food shops). There is some variation on other spices and flavorings invovled. I recommend some paitence and a good Google search.

Whether making it from scratch or cheating, this is a good and lo carb way to use chicken and is easy enough to be a spur of the moment decision (depending upon what spices you keep in the house). Plus it’s fun to say.

Chicken tikka masala, chicken tikka masala….

Chili, in some parts of the country, is not merely a dish but a subject of controversy argued with the same fervor usually reserved for gun control or religion. Purists will argue that there are no beans in chili. Others will differ on whether chili is a side dish, main dish or topping. There is difference of opinion as to if it should be ground meat or chunks of meat. The issue is complicated.

None of this mattered the day I decided to try my hand at chili because I was hungry and wanted to cook. Also, I was looking forward to something that was high protein, low carb. So here’s the recipe I used:

1 pound Ground Sirloin (90% lean, 10% fat).
1 large can (28 oz) Crushed tomatoes
1 large onion, chopped
1 can of pinto beans, liquid drained
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 teaspoon chili powder
Salt
Pepper

• In a medium skillet, brown your beef. Add salt and pepper here and maybe about half of the chili powder.
• In a medium sized pot, put a little olive oil in the bottom of the pan, heat up to medium and add the onions. Stir every once in a while and when the onions start to turn clear, add your garlic. Give it about another minute or so.
• Put your beef into the pot with the onion and garlic. Add the tomatoes, beans, the rest of the chili powder and more salt and pepper.
• Cover, simmer for about ten or fifteen minutes, stirring occasionally. Produces four servings of almost two cups each.

The spices are a suggestion only. The above will produce tasty but not terribly spicy chili. You can add additional chili powder to make that happen. Also, check your chili powder to get an idea of what’s in it. I like mine to contain a little cumin.

This recipe is really a base. From this platform, it’s easy to experiment adding additional spices, whole chili peppers, soy sauce, peanut butter… the possibilities are manifold and varied.

But don’t take this as written to a chili cook off. The beans might get disqualified if you’re lucky. If you’re not, they might get you lynched.

This recipe on NutritionData.com
Note: This recipe does have about 1g of trans fat per serving, so if you’re avoiding that, keep this in mind.

If there were a benchmark for culinary dread, it would be the salad. In American cuisine, the salad is usually an appetizer. In most restaurants, it’s little more than a few shreds of iceberg lettuce and a bucket of ranch dressing. In fast food restaurants, salads are a token attempt at health food that it seems they intentionally try to make bad for you.

I started eating salads at buffets. I was in my 20’s and a friend of mine noticed that I didn’t eat green things. He more or less demanded I do so before I consumed anything else. I relented and tried my first one, but I took pains to make it taste like anything besides salad.

Some people have a taste for vegetables from birth. I’m not one of them. So salad was a thing to be endured, not enjoyed. It wasn’t until recently that I found there were ways to have your greenery and still enjoy it. It’s all about structure:

• Greens - The Foundation: While salad more or less means anything cut up in a bowl, the ingredient most of us associate with salads are greens. The default is iceberg lettuce, and while it can be a valuable ingredient when trying to lose weight, I personally prefer romaine and spinach. Both provied the texture and bulk of a salad, but have more flavor and much more vitamin A, calcium and iron.
• Other Vegetables - The Features: This is one of the places can I can play to taste in a good salad. Tomatoes and cucumber are always good here. Fresh, raw broccoli florets, carrots and cauliflower are choice as well. I don’t put a ton of each, just enough to have a taste. Variety and balance keep a salad from being boring.
• Croutons and Cheese - The Padding: These items are a balancing act: A little, and you have good contrast of flavor and texture. Too much and what was once the paragon of low carb foods just became a green cheese sandwich. As with any ingredient, I always want to know what’s in them so I know if this is what I want in my food.
• Meat and Nuts - The Ooomph: Salads don’t have to be protien exclusive. A chicken breast turns a salad from side dish to main course. I usually prefer to have meats on my salad diced fine into strips and usually just a few ounces. Nuts, in addition to protien are good for both flavor and texture.
• Dressing - The Finishing touch: The mistake I used to make with salads was to drown them. If I’ve put good things into the bowl up to this point, I shouldn’t have to float them in ranch to enjoy them. Like with croutons and cheese, this is a place where I can kill the benefit of the salad I’m trying to build.

  My preferences are towards Asian Sesame or Green Goddess. I buy Newman’s Own or Annie’s, still reading the labels to make sure there’s nothing in my dressing I don’t want in me. And I stick to a couple of tablespoons. If I need more, I should buy tastier vegetables.

A properly built salad is a good side dish, main course, or appetizer. They are not just for rabbits and supermodels and they don’t have to taste like green paper. Just start with food you’re willing to eat and then compliment it with other food you’re willing to eat.

I look forward to salads now. At buffets, I build salads so that after having them, if were to I lose my appetite and want nothing else, I don’t feel cheated. If you haven’t had one in a while, I recommend revisiting them.

If you do, you might find out that there’s something worth having at the salad bar. Besides the fruit.

The difference between a good dish and the waste of an ingredient most often comes down to preparation and seasoning. As and example, there is a staple item in my house’s diet, a recipe developed by my wife that could be expressed, in it’s simplest form, thusly:

4-6 Chicken Breasts
Seasonings

Nothing could be easier, right? But as I’m shooting for being informative, I’ll elaborate.

The seasonings in question are salt, pepper, sometimes a low sodium soy sauce and always our house spice rub: paprika, italian seasonings, onion powder, and a dash of cayenne. This goes on a great deal of what we eat. It works for pork, beef, and vegetables. A few shakes of it can mean the difference between an enjoyable meal and passable one.

The above combination is not set in stone. The important thing is to find a combination of spices that you enjoy that you can keep on hand for quick access.

The other key ingredient is the preparation. The goal with chicken breast is to remember that there’s not a lot of fat in it (which may be why you’re eating it) and that means that it’s easy to turn into something between rubber and leather with little effort. The goal is to keep it juicy, which is accomplished by pan roasting it. I’ll detail this below in a more thorough recitation of the recipe.

3-4 Chicken breasts thawed or fresh, skin removed.
Salt
Pepper
Low Sodium soy sauce
The above house spices or your own blend
Olive oil

1) Lay your chicken out on some wax paper. Drizzle with olive oil, just enough to coat the outside.
2) Add your spice rub, salt and pepper. Add a couple of squirts of soy sauce, but not enough that you wash off the spices.
3) Flip each piece over with tongs and repeat steps one and two.
4) Get out a skillet that will also go in the oven. Add some a little olive oil and heat the pan on high. Meanwhile, preheat your oven to 350.
5) Once the pan is hot, place the chicken skin-side-if-you-hadn’t-removed-it up in the pan and let it cook for about a minute or three until the outside has bits of golden brown color.
6) Flip it over and sear that side too.
7) Place the whole pan into the oven and leave for 6-8 minutes or so letting the chicken cook through.
Take the chicken out and let it rest for a couple of minutes. Serve. Leftovers make good salad toppings too.

This recipe is as much a demonstration of technique as a presentation of a dish. You could use pork chops instead of chicken and get much the same results. And if you need to cook at home, say because you’re diabetic and want to control what goes into your food, the way to make that a good things is to start building a vocabulary of kitchen skills that will translate to most anything you want to put on a plate.

Simple food can be good. It doesn’t need to be boring. And not being boring is all in the details.

The little booklet that came with my current blood sugar monitor noted that if I eat beef, I should stick to cuts with “loin” in the name, i.e. tenderloin and sirloin. As tenderlon tends to be out of my budget, it’s the latter that usually ends up in the freezer at home. Luckily, in the area we’re in, one can get sirloin caps for a decent price per pound (usually much better than price for the same meat cut into steaks.)

We’re planning a shindig of reasonable size next year, and in pondering what food to provide, I made a suggestion. My wife tweaked it, and the result was the following:

2 lbs. of sirloin, cubed and trimmed of fat
1 small white onion
1 small bulb of garlic
1 8oz package of mushrooms
1 small package of grape tomatoes
1 5oz bag of baby spinach.
Salt
Pepper
Olive oil
Red Wine (optional)
Additional seasonings

1)Take the cubed meat and marinate it overnight (or at least a few hours) in salt, pepper, your favorite seasoning blend, enough olive oil to coat all the meat and if you wish it, a little red wine. This will tenderize the meat as well as add more flavor to it.

2)On the day you’re cooking it, chop the onion into petal sized pieces or so. Peel the garlic. Take these and put them on the grill of your roasting pan (that slotted, two part thing that comes with the oven will work fine) and pile the onions, garlic, tomatoes, and mushrooms on it. Add salt, pepper and seasonings to your liking. Then add the marinated beef.

3)Roast everything in the oven at 350 for about 10-15 minutes, or until the beef looks browned and done to your liking.

4)Put a bit of the baby spinach down on your plate and put a good bit of the roasted goodness on top.

The above should make about 4 healthy servings. The same preparation could easily be used for bits of chicken or pork or sweet potatoes or any variety of “main dish” type items, with some small adjustment to the cooking times.

Enjoy.

The only thing worse than dieting is feeling like your dieting. I know that the minute I was told that I’d have to change what I ate, I began to think of all the foods I enjoyed and putting big red X’s across them. Panic began to set in as I wondered if I’d spend the rest of my days sustained on nothing but broccoli and chasing it with water.

Fortunately, one of the benefits of the modern era is that we have access to a huge number of options when it comes to food. Living in America, we have access to ingredients from all over the world and the combined recipes of nearly every culture in existence. There are an abundance of options to help re-train your taste buds to crave new flavors and foods that fit within the strictures of a low or no sugar diet.

I talked about cinnamon yesterday. Most of us probably don’t think of it as a seasoning for main dishes, relegating it to the desert cart. The following is a recipe may change your mind.

I became fond of it before I was diagnosed but it works well on my new menu:

Caribbean Fish Stew

4 cloves garlic, minced
2 onions, chopped
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 (28 ounce) can crushed tomatoes
6 cups water
1/2 cup chopped fresh flat leaf parsley
1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon paprika
1 1/2 pounds cod fillets, cubed
3 ounces dry pasta
salt to taste
1 tablespoon ground black pepper

Your going to want a pretty sizable pot for this and the pot should be the only cooking vessel you need. Crank your stove to medium heat and sauté the garlic and onions in the olive oil for five minutes, stirring constantly. Toss in the water, tomatoes (with the liquid) parsley and cilantro and bring it up to a boil. Once it’s bubbling, bring it back down to low and let it sit uncovered for 15 minutes.

Stir in the Worcestershire sauce, cinnamon, paprika and fish. Up the heat back to minimum and let it go for 10 minutes or so. Lastly, add the pasta, salt and pepper and give it another 8 minutes or until the pasta is to your liking. The above portions should serve about 6.

Now you may be asking why I’m putting up a recipe that involves pasta as pasta is carbs and carbs is sugar and sugar is what diabetics are trying to avoid. Well, as it so happens they do make low carb pasta. The brand I use does some wonderful kitchen magic where in the 3 ounces need for this will only give up 7-8 grams of carbs.

Still, if you would prefer, you can dump this ingredient in favor of something else. Also, read the label on your Worcestershire sauce to make sure it’s okay with your dietary restrictions. Also, if cod is not making your heart go pitter pat, discuss options with your local fishmonger and they should be able to suggest a good substitute.

Don’t just diet… experiment.

Where I got this recipe
My brand of Lo Carb Pasta

Simple is most often best. I don’t fear saying this, even though I know many good things that are complex, like the deep magic that runs my computer or the byzantine labyrinth of mechanisms that keep my car running. But the best things are usually the most simple, be it in food, work, or in this case, managing one’s blood sugar.

What I’m leading up to with that clever opening paragraph is the discoveries that have been made in the past 5 years concerning cinnamon. Simple ground cinnamon, stuff you probably have in your kitchen right now, has been shown to have beneficial effects on blood sugar as well as cholesterol. There’s a chemical component of the spice called MHCP that increases your insulin sensitivity by mimicking the function of insulin.

The discovery was made by accident, when a group was trying to figure out the effects of common foods in the American diet on blood sugar. As it so happens, apple pie helped lower people’s blood sugar. The culprit was not the sugar or fat in the dish, but the spice.

I’ve been experimenting with it for a few days now and so far the results are positive. A little research turned up that 1 gram a day is sufficient to get the positive effects and more than that doesn’t give much more benefit. I’ve been taking it in a simple capsule form. Putting cinnamon in your food or a stick of it in your tea also helps confer the goodness.

I’m not going to tell you to toss out your insulin and just start eating cinnamon buns (though I will say check with your doctor before adding this or any supplement to your diet) but I do recommend checking it out for yourself. You might find a little shake of the red stuff a simple boon to the complex problem of keeping your blood sugar down.

Check out the following links for more:
The Best of Cinnamon
A New Scientist article on the discovery
And of course, what they say at Wikipedia