Snoopy Bento

LOW CARB CHOCOLATE ROULADE

Recipe here

http://diabeticalien.blogspot.com.au/2014/11/chocolate-roulade.html

低炭水化物日本食 LOW CARBOHYDRATE JAPANESE FOOD

The Low Carb chef has been working overtime, devising new makeovers of our favourite high carb meals.  I do believe I have successfully created a low carb Japanese platter.

 First we have low carb vegetable tempura 低炭水化物野菜の天ぷら

 Next is rice less sushi 全くライス寿司ません

 And lastly, low carb chicken karaage 低炭水化物鶏の唐揚げ

 Now, would you even detect that this is a low carb meal if I had not told you? It's all about using your imagination and substituting ingredients. The benefits of this meal are: no blood glucose spike, small dose of insulin, no bloating or heartburn after eating and plenty of flavour.

Please do not ever tell me that low carb cooking is difficult, or bland or limiting, or lacking in nutrients or too hard to maintain in the long term. There is absolutely no way I would ever go back to our previous high carb/high glyacating/ high inflammatory diet.  Why would I ever do that to my family, now I know the truth about real nutrition.

Recipe for the chicken karaage is here - 

500gm chicken thighs cut into bite sized pieces

1 table spoon grated ginger

1 tablespoon grated garlic

2 tablespoons gluten free soy sauce

1 tablespoon sherry (I didn't have any sake, but that it the usual alcohol for this dish)

1 teaspoon xylitol/stevia/erythritol

coconut flour

olive oil for frying (you could use coconut or macadamia nut oil)

 

Mix all ingredients (except coconut flour and oil) in large bowl and coat chicken pieces. Marinate for 1 hour.

Roll each piece of chicken in coconut flour lightly, then shallow fry in oil until golden.

Recipe for the sushi and tempura will be posted soon.  Apologies if I have not translated this correctly into Japanese!

AND THE BEST TEAM WINS AGAIN - HAWTHORN FOOTBALL CLUB

 

 

 

 

My awesome football team won the grand final last weekend. This is their second grand final win in a row. Everyone seemed to be predicting the opposition to win. But, as you can see by the final scores, we thrashed Sydney by an humiliating 63 points.

To celebrate, we had a small Grand Final get together. of course, all the food was low carb and delicious.

Fat Head pizza

Low carb Hawks cupcakes!

Devilled eggs with bacon

Chicken wings and chicken satay

Cheese and kabana

Vegies with tuna and sour cream dip

 

My friend bought some Tylenol to the party (just in case we lost the game and my husband got a headache from cursing)

Celebration Gateaux

This is a low carb cake I made for my daughter's birthday.

I am the light of the world...

"I am the light of the world" he said. "Whoever follows me will have the light of life and will never walk in darkness" From the Book of John.

 

As my family avoids sugar, I made my kids some sugar free Easter eggs.

 

 

I didn't wrap them very well I'm afraid.

 

 There has been plenty of low points in my life the past 18 months, but I always have the light of Jesus to keep me from falling into complete darkness.

Easter blessings to all my Christian readers. Isn't it wonderful to have the gift of eternal life!

 

PINA COLADA ICE CREAM

LITTLE BLACKBERRY SPONGE CAKES

I found a great way to make jam without any sugar or pectin. You simply add a tablespoon of chia seeds to stewed fruit. The chia seeds form a gel and thicken the jam whilst cooking the fruit, without adding any carbs or flavor. 1 tablespoon of chia seeds will thicken about 300grams of fruit. I used this method to make blackberry jam. You can add some water if it thickens too much.

 

SPONGE CAKE

2 Cups almond meal

2 teaspoons baking powder

2 tablespoons xylitol

3 tablespoons  butter at room temperature

1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste

1 tablespoon lemon juice

3 eggs

whole fat milk as required

 

Cream together the butter and xylitol until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, vanilla and lemon juice. Mix in the almond meal and baking powder. Add milk as required until you have a medium thick batter.

Fill half mini cake tins or muffin tins with the batter, then a layer of blackberry jam, followed with a layer of batter.

Bake in a moderate oven for about 30 minutes until golden.

Left over jam is good on low carb wheat free pikelets.

PASTA WITHOUT THE BLOATING

When I used to eat pasta, I always felt bloated and queasy afterwards, which makes me wonder why I even ate it. Pasta itself is pretty bland, so it is the sauce which holds all the flavor. Don't you think all those frozen low fat pasta meals look so unappetizing?

To make almost zero carb healthy pasta, simply substitute zucchini. You can use a vegetable spiraler to create spaghetti threads, or a vegetable shredder device (it looks like a potato peeler with lots of serrations on the blade - got one from Daiso)  Then just blanche the shreds in boiling salted water, just for about 1 minute or else it will become soggy.  Top with your favourite pasta sauce and cheese. It's a fresh and flavoursome way to make pasta without shooting up your blood glucose levels. Remember that real pasta is just glucose molecules linked together - not good for you at all.

Wheat Free Lamb kebabs

This is just a rough recipe for lamb kebabs. To minced lamb I added: chives, parsley, tomato paste, rosemary, sage, thyme, oregano, salt and pepper.

 

Cook meatballs in olive oil.

Flat bread - recipe here:

http://www.healthstartsinthekitchen.com/2013/12/17/grain-free-flat-bread/

 

 Serve with salad, cucumber dip, sour cream and grated cheese.

Roll up and devour, happy in the knowledge that there is no gluten playing havoc in your body.  I rue the day I ever ate wheat!

DIABETIC ALERT DOG TRAINING AND ROTI PARATHA

 I am having trouble training Maya for high and low scents, as my son's blood glucose levels are so stable, that he rarely goes out of range. So, there are not many opportunities for training. For the moment, I have decided to train Maya to perform service tasks, when she is not lazing around that is.

 Yep, that is how she sleeps.

 So 2 days ago, I taught her to retrieve my son's glucose meter, which he uses every few hours to test his blood. I just used the case for the training. She learnt the behavior in about 5 minutes! We placed the meter on the floor which stirred her curiosity and she of course picked it up.  The main problem is she likes to play tug of war with everything. To teach her to bring the meter and drop it, I waved a treat in front of her and said "drop it". The lure of the treat made her drop the meter. I then clicked and gave her the treat. The clicker is a small device which makes an audible "click", and the sound is a positive reinforcement for the behavior. I continued on making it a game of fetch, whilst saying "bring me the meter" and she received a click and treat for each retrieval and drop of the meter.  She could do this easily after about 5  minutes. The following day, I placed the meter on a low shelf which will be its living place so she knows consistently where to retrieve it from.

 You can see in these pics Maya bringing the meter to my son.  The other task she needed to know was to "bring me juice".  If a diabetic has low blood sugar, they need a drink of juice fast to bring their levels up again.  So I put some juice in a plastic bottle on the shelf next to the meter. When I asked her to bring me some juice, she knew it was a different command to the "meter". She tried to pick up the juice bottle with her mouth, but her mouth wasn't wide enough, so she tipped the bottle over on its side, and pushed it over to my son with her nose!  She is so smart! That was her first attempt as well. I could almost see the new neural connections happening in her brain. Sorry for bragging.

Now onto food.  There are certain foods I miss now we cannot eat wheat.  In Singapore, my favourite dish would have to be roti paratha with curry.. I could eat it everyday it is so delicious. Luckily, I found a recipe for gluten free flat bread, which tastes surprisingly similar to roti.  It's not exactly low carb, as it contains tapioca starch, but for a treat every now and then I approve.  Recipe here:

http://www.healthstartsinthekitchen.com/2013/12/17/grain-free-flat-bread/

Delicious with chicken curry. I don't have a proper recipe for this. I just use Mussaman curry paste as the base, throw in some meat and low carb vegetable (whatever is in the fridge) and mix in coconut cream before serving.

Low Carb Crispbread

Here's a quick recipe for low carb crispbread. I sometimes miss eating crackers, and this is a good substitute.

1/2 cup of sunflower seeds
1/2 cup pepitas
1/4 cup golden flax seeds
2 tablespoons sesame seeds
1 egg
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/8 teaspoon salt

In food processor, pulverize the sunflower and pepitas until they resemble coarse breadcrumbs. Mix all ingredients together.

Spread the mixture onto a cookie tray lined with baking paper. Flatten the mixture evenly to the edges of the tray. Cut the mixture into however many crackers you want.  I cut mine into 16 crackers.

Bake in a moderate oven until golden - about 10 minutes.

Entire mixture = 14.5 carbs
 

BARBEQUE PORK RIBS

MARINADE:

2 tablespoons wholegrain mustard

50 gms tomato paste

1 tablespoon xylitol

50 gms no added sugar tomato sauce

1 tablespoon treacle

1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

Mix together and pour over pork ribs. This was enough for 4 racks of ribs.

Bake in a slow oven for 2 hours covered in foil so it doesn't burn.

Remove foil and grill the ribs to crisp them up - about 10 minutes.

Serve with coleslaw and salad. (sorry - no baked potato with sour cream)

The entire marinade is 36 grams of carbohydrate - so 9 grams per serve. You could omit the treacle and subtract 20 grams carb, but I allowed a little but of sugar for taste.

After eating this meal plus my low carb mango cheesecake for dessert, my son's BG before bed was 4.8 mmol. I don't know how anyone could say low carbing is too restrictive, difficult to maintain long term, or unhealthy for diabetics.

Cheesecake recipe next post.

MANGO SWIRL CHEESECAKE - LOW CARB & GLUTEN FREE

My latest creation is a Mango swirl cheesecake. I hope you like.

MANGO SAUCE:

1 large mango - chopped flesh. I used 280 gm of mango flesh.  Microwave the flesh with 2 tablespoons of water and 1 teaspoon of xylitol for 2 minutes. Puree in a food processor. Add 1 teaspoon gelatine.

 BASE:
mix together 75 grams of pecan meal (pulverised in food processor), 75 grams almond meal, 2 tablespoon unsalted butter and 2 teaspoons of xylitol. Press into a lined springform tin and bake in moderate oven for 10 minutes. Allow to cool.

FILLING:

Beat 500 grams full fat Philadelphia cream cheese (can soften in microwave if too firm) Beat in 1 packet of diet sugar free mango flavoured jelly crystals and 2 tablespoons of xylitol, which has been dissolved in 1/4 cup boiling water. Fold in 300 mls of full fat cream which has been whipped.

Alternate spoonfuls of the filling and the mango sauce into the pan, then swirl with a knife.  Allow to set in the fridge for about 5 hours.

Total cheesecake adds up to 69.44 grams of carbs so if divided into 12 slices, each serve is 5.79 grams of carb.  Using my type 1 diabetic child as the guinea pig - his blood glucose levels are normal after eating a slice of this. That's always a good sign.

Maya found a nice cool place to take a nap on a hot day - my shower.