I'm Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!

So, I have taken about a year off, and have not really been eating right.  While I did not gain the weight back, I can definitely tell a difference in how I feel.  I went back to being prone to getting sick with a lot with sinus issues and bronchitis.....even pneumonia.  So.............it's back to eating right!

I have to be honest.  One of the biggest struggles for me was having to cook for each meal, or cooking a lot of the same food at once and eating it for several meals in a row.  It got really old and boring after 2 years of doing that.  It was a chore for me to get motivated to bake chicken or fish, because I knew it would take a while, and those are things that don't heat up well, to me anyway.  The clean-up also stunk!  So...I ate mostly ground beef patties and occasionally would do other meats.  I also HATED cooking the beef patties because of the clean up.  Yeah, I really am not a kitchen kind of person!  I did it out of necessity and tried to be creative with my cooking.  While I was working, and after teaching all day, I wanted to be able to relax and not worry about what I was going to cook for dinner when I got home.  Therefore, I usually cooked up several hamburger patties at a time and would eat those for days.  When I first started eating this way, it really did not bother me, and I didn't really think about it.  Once I started eating "real" food again though, it got tough to go back to eating the same ole stuff day after day. Looking back, I see that it was worth it to get to where I am right now, but boy it isn't easy to go back to that place.  So why now?  What changed?



Enter the Instant Pot!!

I absolutely cannot believe I did not have one of these things before now! It is the easiest, tastiest way to cook meats and veggies!  It is easy to be creative using it as well!  I can cook fish fillets in 4 minutes from frozen!  4 MINUTES.....did you catch that?  No oven to heat up, no pans to scrub, and the taste is out of this world!  BEST. FISH. EVER!  I can also cook a chicken breast in 4 minutes, and the clean-up is simple!  No stuck on gunk to scrub!  💗💗💗

While I can say it was nice to not have to worry about cooking just the right food while eating "real" food, I can also say that eating right makes me feel so much better! And now?  I am actually excited about cooking and trying new things.  I don't dread eating right because I can eat different foods for each meal! I don't even dread the clean-up!  I will post next time about things that I have cooked in my beloved Instant Pot.  I will post recipes as well!

Yummy Summer Lunch

I just made the BEST popcorn chicken for lunch today.  It has no carbs and is absolutely delicious! I had some chicken tenders in the freezer that I needed to use. There were about 4 of them left in the bag, so I boiled them up before they got freezer burn.  I wasn't sure exactly what I was going to do with them when I boiled them, but was actually hungry for some popcorn chicken....you know...the breaded kind that are not good for you at all!  I use Parmesan cheese as a breading to fry several things, so I thought.....why not use it to make popcorn chicken??  Once the tenders were cooked, I let them cool really well.  I cut them into pieces, rolled them in egg, tossed them into a baggie, dumped Parmesan in the bag and shook it.  Then I just had to figure out how to cook them.  I usually use olive oil, since it is so much better for you than the other vegetable oils, but I did not really want that taste. I decided to cook them in butter. Yes.....REAL butter.  It is VERY good for you.  I melted a half stick of butter and let it begin to brown.  Once it was browned, I tossed in the chicken and let it brown and crisp up.  I put it on a paper plate with a paper towel to absorb the extra butter, then sprinkled some garlic salt on it to flavor it.  It was super filling, but really light for lunch.  This is one I will definitely do again!

Southern Fried Okra.....well, sort of!

Who doesn't like fried okra?  Ok, well maybe people from the north, but if you are like me, a good ole southern girl, you LOVE fried okra.  Being diabetic though, this is not something that would be on your list of things to eat. The corn meal would add too many carbs to make it a good choice.  HOWEVER, I have found a way, thanks to my sister, to have fried okra.

Wash and cut the okra just like you would if you are frying it.  Roll the cut okra in a beaten egg. Then, roll the okra in grated Parmesan cheese.....yes, the kind in the shakeable can.  Heat a skillet with a small amount of oil.  I use olive oil because it is best for you.  Put the okra in and fry it up.  It tastes just like regular fried okra, but has a small amount of carbs.....about 7 per cup.  The parmesan crisps up just like corn meal would.  Add salt and pepper, and eat it up!  It is absolutely DELISH!!!!

Let Them Eat Cake.....CHOCOLATE!

I found a recipe for the BEST chocolate cake......EVER!  Well....ok, maybe not ever....but definitely since I have made these lifestyle changes.  It only takes about 3 minutes and it is wonderful!  It only has 4 net carbs, and it did not raise my sugar.  I am working on an icing recipe to go with it.  I don't always want something sweet, but when I do, I usually want chocolate.....and I LOVE cake!  I usually eat blueberries with cocoa almonds when I am wanting "sugar."    This was the perfect solution.  I used a cereal bowl to make it in, and split it with my husband.  It was just enough to take that craving. I love that I am finding things that seem normal to eat.  What I am finding is that searching for Paleo recipes seems to bring me to recipes that I can eat without them raising my sugar.  I am on a journey to keep my sugar normal!  I know it is best for my body, so I get excited when I find things that I can eat and feel normal.  The recipe is posted on my recipe tab at the top.  I try to post new ones as I find them.  If any of you find any good recipes, please share them, as well!  We can travel this road together!

Fried Cabbage.....well, sort of

I love fried cabbage.  To be honest, I love cabbage in any form, and it is good for you.  I used to make fried cabbage with ground beef added to it, and it was yummy!  I found another recipe and tried it the other night, and it was really good, too!  It has ground beef, onions, garlic, cabbage, salt, pepper, and tomatoes.  It was very filling and did not raise my sugar at all!  I think I will try adding some "noodles" to it.  I put noodles in quotations because I do not use real noodles.  I have found some shirataki noodles that have 2 net carbs for the entire package.  They are not made with grains, so they are VERY LOW carbs.  They take on the flavor of whatever you cook them with.  It is like having spaghetti without the spaghetti!

I found these at Walmart by the salad section.  There are 4 carbs per serving, but 3 of those are fiber.  

I think they will be great in my cabbage goulash.  (my name for this dish...)  I am also going to try them with some very low carb spaghetti sauce I found.  I will let you know how that turns out!

 

Another Pizza

I wrote previously about making pizza using cauliflower for a crust, but I have found a new recipe!
This one uses cheese for the crust and is MUCH LESS time consuming than the cauliflower recipe. The mozzarella cheese has less than a carb per serving.  It took seven cups, which is about 31 carbs total.  The sauce has about 24 carbs per jar.  The toppings have no carbs, except for the cheese.  Total carbs for the whole pizza is about 60.  If you cut it into 12 pieces....I cut it into more than that.....it is about 5 carbs per slice!

This is the crust after I took it out of the oven.  I brushed melted butter mixed with garlic powder on it before I added the toppings.

This is what it looked like with the toppings added before I baked it again.

This is what the final pizza looked like.  It was very good, but since I am not really a cheese person, it was kind of heavy for me.  I will DEFINITELY make it again, but next time I will use less cheese for the crust so it is not so thick.  The recipe is on my recipe tab at the top of the page.  Check it out!

Fried Chicken....Yes, I said Fried Chicken!

Who doesn't love some good fried chicken?  I know I do, but being diabetic puts a damper on that.  Or does it?  I have found a way to get fried chicken with NO CARBS!  I use coconut oil (VERY good for you and will not add cholesterol) to fry it in.  I take some coconut oil (I use solid not liquid) and put it in my pan.  Allow it to melt and heat up just like regular oil.  I put my chicken (I use chicken tenderloins) in the pan and let them really brown up on both sides.  Then, I turn the heat to medium low and allow them to cook the rest of the way.  They are crisp, just like fried chicken and taste like fried chicken but have absolutely NO breading on them.  Here is what they look like:

It looks like real fried chicken, doesn't it?  It tastes like it, too!!