Days 101-106

Hello all. I hope everyone is doing ok. We had another great week of food here. We have gone 2 weeks in our home with no sugar, no flour, and very low carb intake. The only one who has had a problem with it is, of course, Aidan. He is/was a serious carboholic. I've had to supplement him a couple of times for lunch with some leftover Peanut Butter Puffins we had in the cupboard. I told him though that when they are gone, there will be no more cereal. There have also been a couple of meals where he has absolutely not liked it. I will give him props because he will at least try things, but if he doesn't like it, he won't eat it. I don't make him things eat things that he doesn't like. We have learned that lesson before and it involved broccoli and it wasn't pretty. In the past, I've fixed something different for him so he doesn't starve. That has changed though. If he doesn't like dinner, he's told that what's on the table is all we have and he doesn't have to eat it. It's made him a pretty big breakfast eater lately. =) I figure once he stops pining for all the things he can't have, he'll get used to it and start eating what the rest of us like. I also take note of what he actually likes and I'll make them again for him.

So, let's get to last weeks meals. I only have 6 days this week because Saturday night I went out with some good friends and Tim took care of their dinner. He didn't take a picture, but I'll let you know what he did.

Sunday:

Mexican Casserole

This was basically a big taco salad. It was a layer of ground beef with taco seasoning and then cream cheese that had been softened. This added the refried bean texture without the carbs. Then it was just lettuce, tomato, onions, some grated cheddar and some salsa on top. It was delicious. I thought I would miss having tortilla chips with this but I didn't.

Monday:

Bacon Feta Chicken with Roasted Brussel Sprouts

This meal was enjoyed by all. Tim wasn't sure about the combination of feta cheese with the bacon but he really liked this one. Connor loved the brussel sprouts. He always does. These are roasted in olive oil and balsamic vinegar. I have to figure out something else to roast them with because the balsamic effects his blood sugars because there is sugar in it.

Tuesday:

Bacon Cheeseburger Quiche

This was one that Aidan loved. Instead of a pastry crust like a regular quiche, the crust is made of ground beef and crumbled bacon. Then it's topped with an egg mixture. This tasted really good and Aidan was able to have leftovers the next day for lunch. The tomatoes are fresh out of our garden and were so tasty.

Wednesday:

Lasagna

This was delicious too. Instead of noodles, I sliced zucchini into thin strips and made them look like noodles. I made the mistake of not peeling them though. Aidan loved the lasagna until he caught a glimpse of green and then he picked around the zucchini. I think if I had peeled the zukes then he wouldn't have noticed as quickly. He did eat some of the zucchini though. This made a ton and we all had a piece for lunch the next day. There was some other poor planning on my part. This has to do with Connor's karate. We are finding that after his one hour of activity in karate his blood sugars rise a little bit. The mistake I made was having something with a tomato sauce on karate night. His sugar did rise but I can't really pinpoint if it was the karate or if it was the spaghetti sauce. The sauce had no sugar in it at all, but some vegetables (I know tomatoes are officially a fruit) turn to sugar very fast in your system.

Thursday:

Creamy Southwestern Chicken

I laugh when I'm typing this because both boys had a very negative reaction to this meal. Connor accused me of trying to poison him and Aidan asked if I put vomit on a plate. Cute kids, right? Tim and I actually really liked this one. It was chicken breasts cut up into bite size pieces and then browned. I added a little cream and a small can of green chilies to it and then shredded in a tiny bit of Monterey jack cheese. It had a lot of flavor (which apparently the kids did not appreciate) and it was just creamy goodness. I'll be making this again for me just to have in the fridge to put on top of a salad or something. The boys did eat their green beans though.

Friday:

Pizza bites

I'm still trying to figure out a suitable replacement for our lost Friday night pizza night. I had hoped this would be it, but again, the boys did not like them. Mind you, they ate them all, but they said they didn't like them. These were pretty easy to make. The "crust" is a piece of pepperoni and then on top of that is a mixture of cream cheese, garlic, oregano and an egg. It was also supposed to have pizza sauce mixed in but I left that out to see what happened with Connor's blood sugar with no sauce. On top of each little bite I put toppings of choice. I had a bit of crumbled bacon. Tim had tiny little chopped up green peppers sprinkled on top and Connor had some prosciutto and basil. Aidan doesn't really like pepperoni so his was just a cheese bite basically. These were just ok. Pizza is a hard thing for us to give up. I love making the dough and rolling it out and making different kinds of pizzas and it has been a tradition in our home for a while. We'll figure something out and we'll survive. It's just going to take some time.

That brings us to Saturday. I went out with a few of my friends to a local bar and we just enjoyed some drinks and bar food. I had butter garlic wings. They were amazing. Aidan knew I was getting wings so he begged me to bring him some home too. Tim said he would experiment with a pizza crust and try to make pizzas for the boys. Soy flour has very little carbs and a lot of fiber so it's allowed by Dr Bernstien in small amounts. Tim just mixed some soy flour, an egg and a tablespoon of oil. It made three 7 inch crusts. Each of them had their own. They got to choose their toppings and they were thrilled. They saved me a tiny piece to try when I got home. I tasted it and it was pretty good. Our pizza night problem might be solved. Tim put pizza sauce on the pizzas (again a sauce with no sugar) and Connor's blood sugar rose a bit. He might be having white pizzas from now on but honestly he likes the toppings more than anything. I brought home the wings and all of the boys were eating wings at 9 pm. They were happy with them. As far as I know the wings had no carbs in them. They were not breaded. They were butter and garlic (a LOT of garlic) so we didn't bolus Connor any carbs for the wings. In the middle of the night his BS was pretty good. I think that if the wings did have carbs in them he would have been really high because of getting no insulin. He woke up Sunday morning with a high and it took him half a day to bring them back down to normal. Tim thinks it was just that his pump site was bad and changed it. So, again we have a night that we're not sure what made his sugars rise. It's been and will continue to be a grand experiment figuring out what foods do what to his sugars. I will say that last week his seven day BS average was 122. Pretty darn good. We're very happy with the results so far and will continue this, much to Aidan's dismay. Until next week, happy cooking!

Days 94-100

Look at that 100 days of real food! It can be done. It can be fun. It can be delicious. Now we are going to shoot for our next 100 days. We have made a bit of adjustment to our diet in this week. It's major for us but we are very happy with the results.

As most of you know, our son Connor is a type one diabetic. He's insulin dependent. He was diagnosed at the age of 3 and has lived with this disease for almost 7 years. November will be his 7th anniversary of diagnosis. In those seven years we've never really had a good control on his blood sugars. He might have one good day every few days but he's always had extreme highs and lows with no rhyme or reason. It's frustrating and it's worrisome because if his sugar is too high it's doing serious damage to his body and when he's too low he tends to have seizures.

A couple of weekends ago we went and hung out with a couple of friends who have been eating low carb and they looked fantastic. They both feel great and are dealing with their health problems better. In the past I've often pondered the whole carb issue and diabetes. If Connor eats carbs we have to cover it with insulin. The more carbs he eats, the more insulin he needs. Then you have the confusion of fast acting carbs and slow acting carbs. I had started doing some research about low carb diets for diabetics and found two things. The ADA is starting to realize that low carb diets might be a good way to deal with diabetes, but they won't endorse it. I'm guessing they are probably run by people who are funded by lobbyists. The second thing I found was Dr. Richard K Bernstein. He himself is a type one diabetic. He was diagnosed at the age of 12 and he's now in his 7o's. Through lots of experimentation on himself he figured out that by limiting his carb intake he was able to normalize his blood sugars. He doesn't have extreme highs or extreme lows. His blood sugar are usually around 80 to 90 which is what a normal, non-diabetic person has. He has no side effects that come to diabetics.

So, that brings us to what we did last week. We got rid of the carbs. It has been easier than I thought. We had our ups and downs. One thing we've noticed is that we aren't hungry at all. The kids haven't been bugging me for snacks. Connor used to be hungry all the time and in the last week he's pretty much done away with all snacking. He's just not hungry. No one is. The biggest and most rewarding thing we've seen is the insulin usage of Connor being cut in half. His blood sugars have been all within normal range. I don't think in the nearly 7 years of dealing with this disease have we ever had one full week of normal numbers. Friday night was tough and there was some moaning because, of course, that is our pizza night. It was tough, but we got through it and I really do think that in another week or two we won't miss it. Everyone feels great.

So, let's get to the meals:

Sunday was not an official "no carb" day for us but the meal was pretty good. I made tequila lime chicken and some homemade black bean refried beans. This meal was delicious and I can make the chicken again because there are little carbs in it.

Monday, we enjoyed Rosemary roasted chicken and vegetables. This was tasty. It was also the start to a long week of eating cauliflower. We're not big fans of cauliflower. It got comical towards the end of the week.

Tuesday was a delicious pork chop covered with salsa and a cream cheese/shredded cheddar cheese mixture melted over it. Oh look, more cauliflower. This one was made like a potato salad except instead of potato it was cauliflower. Not a big fan.

Wednesday was a hit with the kids. Meatballs. I made a double batch of these meatballs and we had them for meals/snacks for the next two days. Yes, that's cauliflower you see again. This time it was in a salad with roasted red peppers and kalamata olives. We picked out all of the olives and red peppers and left most of the cauliflower.

Thursday was supposed to be a fish dish, but I didn't get to the store to get fresh fish. I pulled one of my packages of organic chicken breasts out of the freezer and made Parmesan crusted chicken and thank God, broccoli. I whipped up a cheese sauce to put over the broccoli to try and get Aidan to eat it, but it didn't work. He did love the chicken though and wants it put into weekly rotation.

This brings us to Friday. We did not have pizza. We had to listen to the kids (Aidan mostly) whine about no pizza but it ended up being tasty. I made garlic chicken meatball and Tim was a genius and made zucchini fritters. Oh man, those were so good and we were fighting over them. Everyone, except Aidan. I think he was holding his own protest because there was no pizza. He's going to have to get over it.

Saturday, Aidan was happier. We just had hot dogs on top of a bed of sauerkraut. A drizzle of mustard and it was good to go. I put a little bit of my sweet pickle relish on mine because I love that stuff.

That wraps up our week. It was new and interesting. It was hugely successful with regards to Connor and his diabetes. I can't wait until he goes back to his endocrinologist and will blow her away with his much improved numbers. I'm sure there will still be struggles as we adjust to this, but we'll do it to make sure Connor has a long healthy life.

Days 88-93

Hello all. I hope everyone is doing well as we wind down summer. At least that is what I keep telling myself. I'm over the heat and I'm ready for some fall fun. This last week was a staycation for us. Well, it was for Tim. I still had to keep the house clean, cook meals and do laundry. It was fun having him around though and we got a lot of stuff done that we had been putting off for a while. Enough about that, let's get to the meals. There was one night that I don't have a picture for because it was kind of thrown together really fast at last minute because no one was really hungry.

Sunday we enjoyed some Spinach Stuffed Shells. These were fabulous. I made my go-to Jamie Oliver red sauce. I used a TON of spinach and garlic. Everyone loved this and Aidan said, "I even like the green stuff!" Score.

Spinach Stuffed Shells

Monday was a quick meal and it was kind of funny how it came about. When Tim took Connor to his karate class at 5 we still had no idea what we wanted for dinner. We're winging it because we are on vacation. He called me a couple of times while Connor was in class and we couldn't figure out what to have. I stood in the kitchen for a minute and then it hit me. We are drowning in tomatoes right now. We are picking 4 to 5 of them a day now. I called him back and told him to go to the store and get a fresh loaf of Italian bread and a ball of mozzarella. He came home and we made bruschetta. It was amazing! It was a nice light dinner and we all enjoyed it.

Bruschetta

Tuesday night was another "we can't figure out what to have" night. This is also when I realize that we really need to have menus and an idea of what we are doing. We all had munched on some popcorn late in the afternoon watching a movie and we weren't really hungry when dinner rolled around. Tim went to his aikido class and then I got hungry. I just whipped together a quick chunky chicken salad and had it with some of my pickled beets on some fresh bread. This would be the meal that I don't have a picture of. The boys weren't thrilled with it so they each had an apple with some cheese and that was enough for us.

Wednesday I finally made it to the store after staying up late the night before and finally making a menu up. For Wednesdays dinner we went to a good 'ol standby that we all love. It's quick and simple and filling. Too filling. We had beef and bean burritos. There was enough for our dinner and then lunch on Thursday.

Beef and Bean burritos

Thursday Tim made dinner. He was craving a stir fry and he wanted to use up some of our minute steaks from the freezer. We threw in a huge summer squash that a neighbor shared with us, zucchini, bok choy, shitake mushrooms, onions and bean sprouts. Tim made his own stir fry sauce with rice vinegar, tamari and mirin. We put it on top of some buckwheat noodles. This turned out delicious. Connor ate a huge plate of it and I was shocked. He, of course, picked out all of the mushrooms. Silly boy.

Beef Stir Fry

Friday, ah Friday, how we love thee. Friday night is pizza night. A favorite night in our home. I tried a new pizza for myself. I made a potato leek pizza. There was no sauce on this pizza. It was crust with a splash of olive oil, a layer of super thin sliced potatoes, a layer of mozzarella, a layer of sauteed leeks, then crumbled bacon and goat cheese on top of the leeks. Oh. My. God. This was so good. What was crazier was the fact that it tasted even better on Saturday as leftovers.

Potato and Leek Pizza

That brings us to Saturday. We had burgers minus the buns. Sadly, this was our last pound of grass fed organic beef from our friends. I am going to have to place another order very soon. We enjoyed our delicious burgers with some fries. Tim picked up a small bag of potatoes at the farmer's market a couple of weeks ago and we are still trying to use them up. I guess we don't eat potatoes as much as I thought we did. I used my mandolin and made some crinkle fries and fried them up. It was a special treat for the kids.

Burgers and Fries.

So, that wraps up our week of eating real food. It was a fun week even though part of it wasn't very well planned out. Things are changing next week and I'm a little nervous about it, but we'll see how it all works out. You'll have to tune in next week to get a full report about what's happening. I'll leave you with a couple of treats we enjoyed this week of staycation.

First of all, I made a big pitcher of Sangria. Last week when Tim and I had our date night I had the best glass of sangria. This sangria had a bottle of white wine, a bottle of red wine, some orange rum and some orange vodka. Pour all of that on top of chopped apples, red grapes, green grapes, sliced lemons, sliced lime and sliced oranges. Holy hell. This was some strong stuff. It wasn't was sweet as what I had at The Rustic Kitchen, but it was good. It did get better the longer it all melded together.

Sangria

The other treat was Tim's birthday. He asked for a cheesecake. I had such success making Mike's that I had no problem whipping another one out. I put a blueberry topping on this one and used up the last of the blueberries that we picked in NY.

A half eaten piece of NY style cheesecake

It was delicious but we've agreed that we are over cheesecake for a while now. Thankfully, all birthdays and anniversaries are done for the year. Well, my parents and my brother's anniversary are this month but we aren't close enough to celebrate with them for now. Our waistlines are thankful for this. =)

Ok, now I'm done for the week. I have to go get boys into bed as we are starting school up tomorrow. We're starting a couple of weeks early to bank some time so we can take off in the late fall. All that plus our switch in eating a bit is going to make for an interesting week. Stay tuned.

Days 83-87

I know, I know, I'm late. It's been a whirlwind around here. These are the dinners from last week. We'll start with Sunday:

This meal was delicious. It was from my new favorite Eating Well site. We enjoyed Pimento Cheese Stuffed chicken breasts. We had some corn on the cob left over so we each enjoyed a fresh cob of corn with this.

Meatless Monday was an awesome Tomato Feta tart with tomatoes fresh from our garden. I've made this before and minus the pain of laying out all the pyhllo dough it is so worth it. It was garlicy and the tomatoes were so sweet and meaty. It was a thumbs up meal all around.

Tuesday was a quick throw together because we had someplace to be right after dinner. It came together really fast and was really tasty. Aidan didn't eat much of it but the rest of us devoured it. It was Tofu with spinach in peanut sauce.

Wednesday ended up being another quick one and wasn't what I had originally planned on but again with the busy lives. I had some leftover whole grain tortillas in the cupboard and some fresh cheddar cheese so voila, we had cheese quesadillas. Actually, Tim and I had BLT quesadillas with some tomatoes out of the garden and some bacon and cheese. Yum.

Thursday was hot and no one was really hungry. Tim brought home fresh peaches from the farmer's market and that's what we had for dinner. The kids loved the peaches. I had mine sliced up with a tiny bit of cream over the top of them. My mom used to do peaches this way.

Friday was my 11th wedding anniversary and Tim took me out to The Rustic Kitchen. I had the sangria I've ever had in my life and a plate of baked rigatoni with Italian sausage. It was so good but there was so much of it, I could only eat half of the plate. Tim had this amazing seafood dish that was spicy and delicious. We then split a slice of Tirmisu for dessert. It was very nice to have a date night out with Tim and the boys had a blast with Tommy. I didn't take my camera to dinner so there are no pics of it. Sorry.

Saturday, again, I have no picture because it was just eggs in the basket. It was a busy day and no one was really hungry. Around 7 we decided we had to have something to eat so we just threw together some eggs in the basket.

There you have it. Nothing really exciting. The food was good. I'm looking forward to cooler weather so that I feel like being in the kitchen more. This week Tim is on vacation and we are spending it close to home taking care of things that have been put off forever. Things like taking Patchy for his yearly check up and taking the car in for inspection. Fun Fun. I haven't done any menus and we are just kind of winging it each night. Stay tuned next week for details. =)

Days 76-82

Good morning all. As promised here is my weekly wrap up of our meals. As I said before we've been continuing our eating real food plan, but I took a couple of weeks off of blogging. I'm going to pick the day numbers back up from where I left off. So, onto the meals:

Last Sunday I made a steak and potato salad. This was amazing. It also had fresh green beans and the dressing was a horseradish dressing. The kids didn't really like this so Tim and I had plenty of leftovers for lunches.

Monday (meatless) we had Black Bean Quesadillas. They were delicious. The kids wanted more but we kept to the serving size of one quesadilla.

Tuesday we had some Five Spice Tilapia with some corn on the cob (fresh from the farm). This was delicious and insanely easy.

Wednesday we enjoyed turkey burgers with mango chutney. Oh my, this was amazing. I have never had mango chutney before but this was so good. Everyone enjoyed this meal too.

Thursday we had homemade chicken nuggets. These were just ok. They were easy to make and quick but they lacked flavor. I did make a blackberry mustard to dip in and that helped. This meal was served with fresh tomatoes out of our yard.

That brings us to Friday which is our Pizza/movie night. I love having one set meal every week and it's tradition. This week I had a bacon and onion (heavy on the onion) pizza.

Last, but not least, was Saturday's meal. We enjoyed this meal immensely because A. Carrie and Mike provided it and B. we enjoyed it with Carrie and Mike on their cute little patio. It was an amazing meal and it made us grateful for great friends and good food. Carrie made BBQ pulled pork and served with coleslaw, baked beans, some amazing grilled veggies and some corn on the cob. Combine this with some very good microbrews and it was perfection.

So, there you have it. Our week of eating good for you food. We are enjoying fresh local food and we are having fun trying new foods. I do have to recommend a magazine. A couple of weeks ago I picked up a copy of Eating Well and that is where my week's menu came from. They were all really fast and easy meals. I think I'm going to subscribe to the magazine, although all of the recipes are online too. They have a great website.