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Salad Dressing
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Thanksgiving
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Recipe Index
© Laura Harper
COOKING
I first added this category so that I could share the recipes that I have developed since I became diabetic. My daughter-in-law asked me to put some of the old southern recipes that have been in the family for ages. After pondering that for a bit I realized exactly what I wanted this category to be. I want to sort of incorporate the recipes from my childhood with ones that I developed/adapted for my husband and children and especially those new dishes that were added to our diets when we lived and travelled around the world. They have not been tested by anyone other than my family and friends but they seem to think that most of them are OK. Of course I will probably not put those that they did not think were OK on here and there were a few - not many, but that depends on who you ask.
My number one priority when adapting a recipe now is carbohydrates and after that fat, calories, and sodium. The best of all is when I can keep all these values very low and still maintain healthy eating habits. You will find that I use Accent (MSG) in almost everything. My maid in Okinawa taught me to use Ajinomoto (Japanese MSG) to enhance the flavors of almost all foods. It is a lifesaver when preparing foods without butter or other fats.
Most of the recipes in this category will be the ones I use for my Christmas party and other occasions during the holiday. My Christmas dinner/party in 2003 was Irish so lots of my Paddy recipes will be here.
Desserts have not created much of a problem for me because I never did care too much for most sweets. However, I would die for good cheesecake. I learned to make the best cheesecake in the world while I was living in New York. This year I adapted the recipe for no sugar and no crust for Paddy's anniversary dinner for Roy and Hermy. All four of us are great cheesecake lovers and were very well pleased with the outcome and even more pleased with the number of calories and carbs that had been removed. I have adapted a few more recipes which will all be here eventually. Meantime the best dessert of all is already here!!!!!!
Probably 90% of all the poultry I eat is skinless boneless chicken breast; however my favorite is still fried drumsticks which I only eat now when I am misbehaving!!! I really like turkey but it takes too much time to prepare and I sort of have a tendency to sample all the trimmings if I cook that. Every now and again I will eat smoked turkey from the deli but it has so much sodium that I try to stay away from that! The chicken breast is probably the most convenient and fastest of all the foods I cook. It takes less than 30 minutes to prepare from freezer to table. Cannot beat that!!!
My best friend bought a pub - Paddy's Irish Public House - a few months back. He decided to have complimentary food a couple of nights a week and asked me to help him with that venture. He is a GREAT cook but has very little time to prepare things so that is where I come in. Some of the things I have taken to the pub have received all kinds of praise - especially the 'chocolate fountain'. Go figure!!! Anyways, I will be putting some of the tried and true recipes here rather than on his website - of course I will try to find a way to put a link to them on his site!! Enjoy!!!
Salads are next to soup as dieter's friends. It is so easy and fast now to have salad since they come packaged and ready to add to the bowl. Fresh Express is a life saver; they have every variety you could ask for, including baby spinach in a bag all alone. The new Kraft Carbwell Salad Dressings are great but they do have lots of calories and fat but since carbs are my priority I use them a lot. My favorite dressings are still homemade Blue Cheese and Kraft Creamy Italian. By mixing Carbwell Ranch and Carbwell Italian I get a fairly good duplication of creamy Italian. Salads for a diabetic should be mainly greens with other vegetables used just as a garnish. Onions, cucumbers, carrots, etc have carbs and can add up rather fast. The same thing is true with dried fruits which I really like in salad along with any kind of toasted nuts. Just make sure the nuts are not toasted with butter and sugar - tastes GREAT but not good for us at all!!
I remember reading once that soup is the dieter's best friend. By just adding more water you can eat lots of the stuff without adding calories - or CARBS!!! So, with that said, I just took my favorite vegetables and turned them into soup. I especially like the fact that there is not much work to making the soup and when you are finished you only have one pot to clean. It is also very nice to have an entire meal in one bowl which I have the habit of eating while working at my desk. Great, huh?
This section is for those dishes that you feel that you simply must have on Thanksgiving Day. I get to have about a teaspoonful of some of them but at least I can say that I have a chance at something really sinful
and GOOD, but not good for you, on this day.