Tag: low carb for diabetics

Slow Cooker Low-Carb Beef Pot Roast

Emma7 Comments

slow cooker pot roast beef recipe by Emma Baird of the Diabetes DietSeasonal eating is valuable, I know but here’s a confession… I don’t mind eating soup and stew all year round, even though the dishes are usually associated with autumn and winter.

Can you blame me? Imagine meat and vegetables soaked in lusciously thick and flavoursome sauces, or onions, carrots and celery melded together and used as the basis for the best soup in the world. [Cauliflower cheese soup, since you ask.]

That said, it’s now the tail end of autumn in the UK and I’m digging into beef stews a-plenty. The miracle of carrots and beef is a flavour combination you can’t beat. Cut those carrots in big chunks, nestle them in your stew and leave to bubble away for hours. I could almost fish them out and eat them as a soup with the juices from the stew.

Recently, I adapted a Mary Berry recipe for pot roast. Mary’s method used suede or turnip as we know it in Scotland. I’m not that fond of it (sorry Rabbie*) and I decided to substitute celeriac. It worked a treat.

One of the rules of stews and casseroles is that they improve the day after cooking. This depends on your self-discipline. If you’ve had a pot of stew simmering on your stove for a few hours or cooking away in your slow cooker, your whole home will smell heavenly and resistance will require added steeliness.

Slow cooker Beef Pot Roast with Winter Vegetables

  • Servings: 6
  • Difficulty: easy
  • Print

  • 2tbsp extra virgin olive oil
  • 1.2kgs (roughly) beef topside or brisket
  • 4 onions, cut into wedges
  • Half a celeriac, peeled and cut into chunks
  • 2 celery stalks, chopped
  • 3-4 large carrots, peeled and cut into chunks
  • 150ml white wine
  • 2-3 bay leaves
  • Salt and pepper

Put the oil in a large frying pan or wok and add the beef. Cook over a high heat, turning occasionally until it is browned all over. Place in your slow cooker along with the vegetables tucked all around the meat, and pour the wine around. You might want to add up to 100ml water, but the vegetables will give off a lot of water anyway.

Cook on slow for eight hours. Add plenty of salt and pepper and dot with a little butter to serve. The dish goes well with steamed cauliflower or broccoli.

Allow about 10-15g carbs per serving.

*Scotland’s national dish is haggis, neeps (turnips) and tatties, and it’s traditionally eaten on January 25 to celebrate Robert Burns’ birthday.

Back on the Low Carb!

Emma12 Comments
picture of chorizo sausage, the Diabetes Diet
I could probably eat this Every. Single. Day.

Goodbye carbs. It was fun while it lasted, particularly that beef mac and cheese*, but you and I need to rethink our relationship…

While practising for a half-marathon, I upped my carb intakes. Some type 1s have managed endurance training on a low-carb diet, but I wasn’t one of them. My body refused to put one step in front of another without fruit, bread, protein flapjacks or potatoes, but now I’m fed of blood sugar levels that rollercoaster all over the place, and the particularly nasty lows you get thanks to too much rapid-acting insulin where you eventually surface from mental fog surrounded by sweetie packets and the sinking feeling, ‘Blast. I’ve completely over-treated that hypo.’

Hello cheese, meat, eggs and fish! Welcome back butter, cream and mayo in lavish amounts. And planning of course—the writing of endless lists, shopping, menu plans, revisiting old low-carb favourites. I haven’t eaten chorizo for a few months and my mouth waters at the thought of it, dry-fried crispy in the pan, oozing red oil that coats mushrooms and salad leaves… yum.

a picture of a blood testing machine on The Diabetes Diet
This will be my blood sugar levels from now on. All the time. Yes sirree.

I’ve eaten low-carb on/off (and mostly on) now for almost ten years. Whenever I come back to it after spells on the bread, a few weeks of super-strict low-carbing make me feel I can conquer the world. I get a rush of energy and mental clarity. Give it a month or so and I’ll be banging on the door of Number 10. Step aside, Theresa May. I’ll deal with Brexit for you!

[Perhaps I should write to Theresa, a type 1 herself, and suggest she try 14 days on a keto diet to help with the thorny issue of how the UK exits the EU. Or keto clarity might give her the strength to say, ‘Citizens! Remain calm. We’re staying in.’]

Then there’s the other thing. Between you and me, reader, the digestive issues of the higher carb diet are a LOT to contend with. We’re talking bloating, rumbling noises and let’s not be coy here—gas. After one race, I ate fish and chips and delicious as it was, the heartburn was horrific. Low carb, high-fat meals don’t make me uncomfortable most of the time. A sore, bloated stomach or having to spend a lot of time trying to hold in gas make a person tired and very grumpy. One of the case studies in our book, the Diabetes Diet reported that several months on a low-carb diet cut out the farting issue for her, much to the relief of everyone around her…

So, full charge forward on the low-carb meal making front. Moussaka via the Diet Doctor, cauliflower cheese, peanut butter cookies via Fit to Serve, lamb with hummus, low carb chicken wings via Yummy Lummy, and crust-less pizza.

Good times!

 

*For the love of food, good people, please try this. Ragu sauce, macaroni and cheese, topped with bread crumbs and yet more cheese. What’s not to love?

Aubergine and Pepper Parmigiana

Emma10 Comments

The Diabetes Diet picture of an aubergine and cheese dishIf you read your way through my weeping and wailing post about meat-eating and ethics last week (congratulations, by the way), then this recipe will seem a natural follow-up.

To recap, I’m reading The Ethical Carnivore: My Year Killing to Eat by Louise Gray and hoping for easy-to-follow guidelines that assuage my conscience about eating meat, falling short of killing it myself as I’m pretty sure I can’t do that.

In the meantime, there is always low-carb vegetarianism. I know vegans argue that vegetarianism is little better than meat-eating given what goes on in the dairy industry, but it’s a start. Besides, I can’t imagine a life without cheese.

Low-carb veggie

Here’s a low-carb veggie recipe for you—a bastardised version of aubergine parmigiana. Allow roughly 10g of carbs per portion.

Aubergine and Pepper Parmigiana

  • Servings: 3
  • Difficulty: easy
  • Print

  • A large aubergine
  • One red pepper
  • One yellow pepper
  • 400g tin chopped tomatoes
  • 2 cloves garlic, crushed
  • 2tbsp rapeseed oil
  • Grated rind of one lemon
  • Salt and freshly ground black pepper
  • 75g grated parmesan cheese
  • 50g grated cheddar cheese

Pre-heat the oven to 175 degrees C.

Chop the aubergine and pepper into equal-sized pieces and toss in one tbsp of the oil. Cook on a griddle until softened—about ten minutes.

Heat the other tablespoon of oil in a saucepan and add the chopped tomatoes, garlic and lemon rind. Allow to come to a boil and turn down to a simmer, stirring from time to time. Cook for about ten minutes to, allowing the sauce to become thick and concentrated.

Season the sauce with salt and pepper and sprinkle some on the cooked aubergine and peppers.

Layer up the vegetables, sauce and cheese in a gratin or rectangular casserole dish finishing with cheese. Cook for twenty minutes.

For other low-carb vegetable recipes, see:

 

 

The Diabetes Diet – A Request

EmmaLeave a comment

We are updating The Diabetes Diet! Our book has been on Amazon for a while now, and we’ve decided to give it a makeover (as well as get it ready for print).

We will be expanding the recipe section, and we wondered if any of our followers would like to contribute to this? Or, if you would like to provide a testimonial about how low-carb eating and matching insulin to your meals works for you, we would welcome that too.

We can’t offer you any money, but we will publicise your own blog or anything else. If you want to tell us about your success following low carb but would prefer to do it anonymously, that’s fine too.

You can find the book here.

To send us recipes or testimonials, please email: lowcarbdiabetesdiet@gmail.com

Thanks in advance!