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. 

PIZZA QUICHE

This is good to make in advance for breakfast.

QUICHE
Beat together 5 eggs with 300mls cream and 1/2 cup grated cheese. Pour into lined quiche dish.

TOPPING
Anything you can find in your fridge.
Tomato, capsicum, mushrooms, ham, bacon, sausage, olives, onion

Bake until egg is set and slightly golden on top.

LOW CARB CHOCOLATE BAVARIAN PIE

As this blog contains craft and general rubble, I have started another blog, devoted to purely diabetes information. Sometimes there may be some duplication of posts, as diabetes in forever interwoven into my life.  My new blog is

http://diabeticalien.blogspot.com.au/

It is name The Diabetic Alien, because I really feel like an alien in the world of diabetes. All my research and results have come about via my own research and experimentation, and not from the mainstream advice which is sadly followed in Australia. My management methods work for my son, but I do believe it could work for any diabetic.

Now onto some fun stuff - low carb cooking.

One of my favourite desserts is Chocolate Bavarian Pie. In fact, I could probably eat 1/2 a pie all to myself. Disgusting, I know.  But since Sara Lee is banned from my house, I played around and came up with my own low carb version.  If you cannot eat dairy, look away now.

CRUST
50 gm pecan meal
30 gm unsweetened coconut flakes
50gm hazelnut meal
50 gm almond meal
30 gm cocoa
3 tablespoons xylitol
70 gm melted butter
Note: you could use whatever nut meal you like - it doesn't really have to be this combination.
Mix all ingredients together and press into a springform tin. I had enough mixture to go half way up the sides of the tin.  Bake in moderate oven for 10 minutes. Cool.

CHOCOLATE FILLING

This is like a custard .

In a medium bowl, whisk together 3 eggs, 3 tablespoons of xylitol.

In a medium saucepan, heat together 300 mls full fat cream, 100 gms dark sugar free chocolate, 30 gms cocoa and 1 1/4 tablespoon gelatin. Heat until choc has melted, then just bring to the boil. Whilst whisking the egg mixture, pour the hot cream mix into the bowl. Do not stop whisking or you may create scrambled eggs. Pour this mix through a sieve back into the saucepan. Heat saucepan on low heat, whisking all the time until it has just thickened. Remove from heat immediately or it will curdle. Allow to cool until luke warm - about 30 mins.

 

 

Beat 300 mls full fat cream until stiff peaks stage. Fold in the cream into the cooled custard.

Pour the chocolate mix into the pie crust and chill in fridge until set - probably several hours.

Before serving, spread 150ml of whipped cream on the top, followed by a little grated sugar free chocolate.

The entire pie comes in at a paltry 60.7 carbs. If you divide it into 10 slices, it will be just 6.07 gm carb per serve.

The next time someone asks me, "what is there left to eat, if you don't eat grains and sugar?" I will serve them a slice of my Chocolate Bavarian. Bland and boring it is NOT.

My son had a slice for dessert, and his blood glucose was in normal range at bedtime.

 

RASPBERRY FRANGIPANE TARTS - LOW CARB & GLUTEN FREE

This diabetic blogger creates the most delicious recipes.

http://alldayidreamaboutfood.com/2014/01/raspberry-frangipane-tarts-and-a-calphalon-giveaway.html

 

And this one was no exception...here's my version.

Instead of raspberry jam, I just cooked some frozen raspberries in the microwave with a little xylitol.

 Me likes it a lot!

This was so delectable, especially with my homemade vanilla bean ice cream. I love that with a little imagination, diabetics can still eat decadent foods - just tweak the ingredients a little. I laugh when people ask me, "what do you eat if you can't eat carbs?" I eat really yummy food with only small amounts of carbs, and I absolutely do not miss my old eating style, in fact I cringe when I think of what I used to feed my family, thinking it was healthy.

Having some hiccups with diabetic alert dog training - I am running out of hypo samples because my son's blood glucose levels are so stable. A good problem to have I guess! Next hypo he will have to give me lots of samples. My new jogging trampoline also doubles as a doggy day bed. We have a little home gym now: weights, kettle weights, rowing machine and exercise bike. So no excuses at all for not exercising. Plus having to take the puppy for walks now.

 Maya loves soft toys. She always has one of the kid's old plushies with her. Here she is sleeping with a teddy my husband gave me for Valentines Day before we got married -a LONG time ago. She snoops around the house searching for soft toys, and when you look away for a second, she strikes and snatches it and takes off at the speed of lightening. She especially likes to sneak into my daughter's room looking for the hidden stash of Hello Kitty softies.

It's just like having a toddler in the house again.

HOMEMADE ICE CREAM - low carb vanilla

Santa Claus gave me this awesome Cuisinart ice cream maker. Shop bought ice cream is not an option for us, due to the high sugar content. However, this ice cream maker produces ice cream which is highly superior to any ice cream I have ever tasted. And, it is so easy to use.

 

The basic vanilla recipe I use is:

1 1/2 cups of full fat A2 milk

3 cups full fat cream

1 1/2 tablespoons vanilla bean paste

3 tablespoons xylitol

 

Mix it all together, and pour it into the maker. In 20 minutes you will have created a decadent ice cream. How easy is that?

 The flavors you can create are endless. Maybe look at the Baskin and Robbins flavor list for some ideas. I made some strawberry sauce, simply by pureeing some fresh strawberries. I also made a mango sauce in the same way. The fruit does contain sugar, but a small dollop of the sauce will not make blood sugar rise too high.

 Next, I made chocolate choc chip, by adding cocoa to the mixture, then when finished mixing in a bar of sugar free chopped chocolate.

 It tastes pretty good with apple crumble tarts too. I am going to have a lot of fun with this ice cream maker, experimenting with various low carb flavors. Other thoughts I have are:

Mint choc chip

Cheesecake

butter pecan

pistachio

coffee

blueberry

green tea

cherry ripe

fruit swirl

yogurt

maple pecan

butterscotch

mocha

banana

macadamia

cookie dough

chocolate brownie

rum and raisin

peanut butter swirl

Irish cream

white chocolate and raspberry

 

 

 Maya is now 12 weeks old. Here she is playing with ice blocks.

 We can't imagine our life without a dog.