I realized today that I haven’t
been posting very often lately. That
doesn’t mean that I haven’t been thinking about my diabetes or planning posts,
it just means I’ve been busy with other writing projects and…well, life! I have been anticipating today’s post for
some time. I couldn’t write to tell you
about my cooking adventures until I had a chance to actually do the
cooking. I’m silly like that. Today I want to tell you about my latest
low-carb finds that have gone a long way to making life more comfortable.
I followed the recipe exactly the first time and mostly liked the bread but was somewhat turned off by the odor and taste coming from the marsala wine. It was just too strong for my liking. She mentions that you can try using buttermilk instead so my next attempt I did just that. Voila! This bread is light and moist. It’s a bit spongy but holds together nicely for a sandwich. I usually toast it first. It doesn’t brown up a lot but the toasting adds a little firmness. According to her website the bread has 4 gr of carbs and 3 gr of fiber per slice. All I know is that I can eat a sandwich now without having blood sugar spikes, and that’s a win! A sandwich made with 2 slices equals about a ½ sandwich when made with traditional bread. It’s enough for me.
It's about the size of banana bread |
Look what I had for lunch! |
As I said above, I also miss
eating cereal. I had a hankering for a
granola-like product so I searched and found this: Almond flour granola bars. Right up my alley! I first made the bars and later made some
changes to make “cereal”. Since I
adapted her recipe enough I’ll give it to you below.
My version:
½ cup peanut butter (I use the
natural variety. Almond butter would
also work if you don’t like the taste of peanut butter. It’s pricey though.)
¼ cup honey (more on this later)
1 large egg
1 cup almond flour
½ cup chopped walnuts
¼ cup sliced almonds
¼ cup sunflower seeds (the seeds I bought were salted so I omitted the salt from the recipe. If your seeds are unsalted, add ¼ tsp salt in the first step.)
¼ cup flaxseed meal
¼ cup honey (more on this later)
1 large egg
1 cup almond flour
½ cup chopped walnuts
¼ cup sliced almonds
¼ cup sunflower seeds (the seeds I bought were salted so I omitted the salt from the recipe. If your seeds are unsalted, add ¼ tsp salt in the first step.)
¼ cup flaxseed meal
Preheat oven to 350° F. Lightly
grease an 8"x8" square baking pan.
In a medium bowl, combine the nut butter, honey, and egg. Stir until
smooth and completely combined.
In a large bowl, stir together
the almond flour, nuts, and flaxseed meal. Pour the nut butter mixture into the
almond flour mixture and stir until combined.
Press mixture evenly into
prepared baking pan and bake for 18 to 20 minutes, until golden brown around
edges. Cool before cutting into bars.
These bars are soft, almost like
a cookie. You can substitute any type of
nut you like, but I would recommend keeping the volume the same.
About the honey: I tried the
recipe with honey and then the next time I switched out ½ of the honey and
replaced it with sugar free maple syrup.
ie: 1/8 cup honey and 1/8 cup syrup.
Either way works and neither of them spiked my glucose (provided I didn’t
pig out on it). Here are the numbers
based on 9 bars: with honey: 15 gr carbs
and 3 gr. fiber. With half honey/half
syrup: 11 gr carbs and 3 gr. fiber. You
could even ditch the honey all together and just use syrup to get 7 gr carb per
square but I’ve been trying to incorporate “real food” into my cooking more and
more. I find that I can tolerate small
amounts of things like honey. The trick
is not to overdo it. AND REMEMBER:
things may (and probably will) be different for you.
Now for the cereal option. I found a technique that I applied to the
recipe above. Instead of baking it in an
8X8 pan, I spread it out on a cookie sheet.
Preheat the oven to 300 degrees. Line
the pan with parchment paper and spray it with cooking spray. Place the mixture in a circle, leaving the
middle of the pan open. See below:
Bake for 25 minutes. Cover with
another piece of parchment and bake for another 15 minutes. This can be broken up into small pieces,
tossed in a bowl with milk (I use almond) and you have cereal! It’s not crunchy but it’s good. Next time I may try 4 lines of mixture on the
pan to see if the crunch factor increases.
Be careful to not burn it. Burnt
almond flour isn’t exactly appetizing and it’s too expensive to waste.
These two additions to my food
plan have gone a long, LONG way to making me happier with my food choices. I can’t tell you how nice it is to make a
sandwich again. I hope you find this information
helpful.
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