low carb meals – Diabetes Diet

Meals on a Low-Carb Week

Mar 3, 2019Mar 2, 2019 Emma2 Comments

I thought I’d record some of my meals this week, and allow you all to marvel at my food photography skills. Not.

Anyway, on Monday I ate half and avocado, a packet of flaked salmon and some salad, followed by dry-roasted peanuts. Of all the things I ate this week, this was the most aesthetically pleasing. I’m no food stylist as my photos on this blog testify, but it’s hard to make chopped avocado, salad and flaked salmon look rubbish.

On Tuesday, I ate a Caesar salad—partly to use up chicken we had in the freezer and partly to get rid of some of the jar of anchovy paste I bought the other week, which is destined to turn mouldy before I get round to using it all up*. My version of the dressing is this: whole egg, 100ml rapeseed oil, one clove of garlic, crushed, one rounded teaspoon anchovy paste, juice of half a lemon and 25g grated parmesan. Whisk together and use up within a few days.

Wednesday, I went for weirdness—two boiled eggs, cauliflower with a tin of anchovies chopped and mixed through, and the oil in the tin used to dress a salad. I’m eating tonnes of anchovies at the moment. They feel as if they are eco-friendly, super-healthy and those tins are dirt cheap.

On Thursday, I attempted a cauliflower risotto a la the Diet Doctor, as I wanted to try a new recipe. Cream, cheese, cauliflower and mushrooms… what’s not to love?! I’ve added the link to the recipe and you can see what it looks like when people who know how to make food look enticing get their hands on it.

Saturday, I decided, needed to be treat-worthy. ‘Treat-worthy’ is a subjective term. For my husband, it’s sirloin steak and chips whereas I can take or leave steaks. I’d rather eat a cheese omelette, so that’s what I did, doing my best to recreate a fluffy omelette I had in a cafe in Knaresborough last summer.

Throughout the week, I snacked on nuts. This week’s headlines about diabetes included a piece about nuts and how they might reduce the risk of cardiovascular problems for those with type 2 diabetes. That’s good enough for me. I love nuts—salted, smoked almonds in particular. But I’m happy to eat handfuls of the natural, unsalted varieties too.

What did that poor packet ever do to you?

And finally, we’ve been trying to persuade the cat his new best-loved food is Carne cat food. It’s a German make and it contains a lot more meat than most brands. Freddie, on the other hand, loves Whiskas – so much so he has worked out how to remove a packet from a tin and rip it apart with his claws…

Did you have a favourite meal this week and what was it? Let us know in the comments below.

*Does anyone know any other uses for the stuff? The jar suggests pasta and pizza, both out for obvious reasons.

Low-Carb Eating in July

Jul 13, 2017 Emma5 Comments

Ah, July – what to eat now…

As far as we can (and it’s challenging in Scotland) we like to eat seasonally, and some months are easier than others. Presently, I’m coping with a glut of courgettes (zucchini to our American friends) spring onions, tomatoes and potatoes from the garden, as well as a LOT of herbs.

Spiralised vegetables are super trendy at the moment so I could spiralise those courgettes and serve them as a replacement spaghetti. I did make a giant pot of slow cooker ratatouille with plenty of them, using the spring onions and lots of rosemary, thyme and basil.

House and Garden offers this lovely courgette and baked feta cheese salad, which has minimal carbs per serving and would be great as a side dish.

What else is seasonal in July?

Beetroot, salads, peas and aubergines make up the vegetable quotient, while cherries, peaches, strawberries and raspberries are in the fruit category. When you’re eating a low-carb diet to help your blood sugar management, remember the best time to eat fruit is after meals. Why not serve your fruit with some cream or Greek yoghurt to slow down it’s glucose-spiking qualities too?

For fish and meat, prawns, crab, salmon, mackerel and sea bream are seasonal in July. Mackerel works brilliantly with a beetroot salad. Chop some cooked beetroot, mix with sliced spring onions and dress with a little cider vinegar, olive oil, salt, pepper and wholegrain mustard.

Beef and lamb are still seasonal at this time of year. You probably don’t feel like eating a roast, but cold sliced meat in a salad works well. As far as we’re concerned you can serve moussaka whenever you want too.

July recipe ideas

Beef Stroganoff

Steak Au Poivre

Rack of Lamb

Thai Prawn and Chicken Soup

Bon Appetit!

Carrot & Almond Soup

May 25, 2017May 24, 2017 Emma2 Comments

Soup, you say, that’s winter fodder, isn’t it? I could eat (drink?) soup any time of the year, so spring doesn’t put me off a big, warm bowl of comfort.

But during the warmer months, you might want to lighten up a little. This delicately-flavoured soup is perfect for spring and it full of goodies. I spotted these tempting-looking dirty carrots at our local farmers’ market on Sunday and pounced. They were always destined for the soup pot.

When I first went low-carb, I avoided carrots as there were some hardliners at the time who insisted carrots were too sweet. Then, I gave myself a good shake. “Nonsense! The carrot is delightfully delicious.” Carrots as a carb to be concerned about is very much sweating the small stuff. Avoid the cakes, sweets, pastries and overloads of pasta, rice and potatoes instead.

[It’s a bit of a cheek to call this a recipe, as it’s so easy it’s not true…]

Carrot and Almond Soup
- Servings: 4
- Time: 30mins
- Difficulty: easy
- Print
2 medium onions, chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed
4 large carrots, peeled and chopped
40ml freshly squeezed lemon juice
1-litre chicken stock
100g ground almonds
Salt and pepper

Put the carrots, onions, garlic and stock in a large saucepan/stock pot, bring to the boil, turn down to a simmer and cook until the carrots are soft. It should take about 10-15 minutes, depending on how small you have chopped your carrots.

Take the pan off the heat. Add the ground almonds and lemon juice, and puree with a stick blender until smooth. Add salt and pepper to taste.

I like to top this with a poached egg for extra protein/satiety*.

Allow about 11g net carbs for serving for four or about 14g for three.

One person’s low-carbohydrate diet will look very different to another’s. When you eat low-carb, meals start to lose the distinction higher carbohydrate meals have.

At some point in the 20^th Century, marketers decided that some foods were breakfast foods and some should be defined as lunch. Therefore, breakfasts should be cereal and/or toast, and at mid-day you should eat sandwiches, or bread and soup for example. That means you need ready-made products – boxes of corn flakes, or packets of pre-prepared slices of bread filled with cheese, ham and various other choices.

A low carb diet doesn’t usually include cereals and sandwiches, so anything can be eaten for breakfast or lunch. Leftovers from last night’s dinner, eggs and bacon for lunch – why limit yourself to a time of day food marketers have decided to earmark for certain foods?

To this end, I thought I’d document a day of low-carb eating. See what you think.

Breakfast

Cream cheese and cucumber slices. We’ve been growing cucumbers this year – successfully too. I sliced some up and had them with some Asda soft cheese. It looks a bit like ice-cream doesn’t it?

Lunch

Prawns in home-made pesto, with baby sweet corn. I’ve got a couple of basil plants so I stripped the leaves from most of one, and blended them with 150ml extra virgin olive oil, one clove of garlic, salt, 40g sunflower seeds and 40g grated Parmesan. I use sunflower seeds rather than the traditional pine nuts as sunflower seeds are much cheaper.

This quantity will make you enough pesto to last a week. Store it in the fridge and use as a salad dressing, mixed with roast aubergines, peppers and courgettes, or spread on top of roast chicken.

Dinner

Avocado and chorizo salad. Recipe here.

I also ate an apple and cheese. The carbohydrate count for the whole day was roughly 50g.

What do you eat? What’s your favourite meal of the day – or your best meal? Let us know in the comments.

Disclaimer: my meal choices are not necessarily recommendations – it’s just what I ate one particular day.

Tag: low carb meals