My cute Diabetic Service Dog

Oh, the humiliation of wearing Minnie Mouse ears.  I'm a tough sheep dog, don't you know!!

Please vote for my daughter's artwork.

My daughter has entered the Yen Magazine Young Australian Art Award Competition.  If you like her artwork, please vote for her on the Yen website. Here is the link-

http://www.yenmag.net/artaward/entry.php?n=141

She drew this by hand without Photoshop.  I think it's rather good!

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.