Healthy Banana Muffin Recipe

Yay! I have made healthy substitutions to banana muffin recipes enough to find my constant! I'm happy to finally find a moment to write it down for future reference. With a 6 week old baby in the family again it is hard to get a moment to shower much less type out a recipe....but I needed a break from watching Gilmore Girls while I breast feed. 

OMG days like today. The kind of day that the baby, for whatever reason, does not nap and insist on being held while she is awake. Days like today I love having these banana muffins on hand to grab for some calories and nutrition.

Healthful Banana Muffins

3 large bananas

1/3 cup + 2tbs agave nectar  

1 egg

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 cup whole wheat flour

1/3 cup coconut oil

heat oven to 375

1. Mash bananas with the agave nectar and the egg

2. Stir in the melted coconut oil

3. Whisk together the dry ingredients and then stir into the banana mixture. The mixture will be lumpy, do not over mix or your muffins will be tough. Stir until just combined

4. Spoon into muffin papers and bake for 15-20 minutes

Makes 12-13 muffins

Rich, Salted, Chocolate covered Rice Cakes

Something tells me I am not the only person that has unreal chocolate cravings every once and a while. I do not care if you are a man, woman, or child, when mother nature sits on your tongue and whispers "cocoa beans" to your  striatum, things happen. Blood starts to flow to all the right area of my body and  I turn to these (or a half of a bar of dark chocolate). 
TANGENT 

Just because I have Type 1 diabetes does not mean I like all the sugar free options for sweets. So many sugar free chocolate brands have an overwhelming taste of artificial sweetener. With the exception of Simply Lite milk chocolate. So creamy. http://www.simplylitefoods.com.

Well hello ladies ;)

The rick cakes I use have 9G of carb and 1/4 cup of semi sweet chocolate has average of 10 (brand vary the carb count). *Also I may sneak more than 1/4 cup per cake -_-

 There are two ways I make this. The first way gives you more dishes to clean up, the second can have the flavor of chocolate covered burnt popcorn. Depends on your patience level.

I like to make a batch as apposed to single servings. Keep them in the freezer.

Recipe

Plain rice cake

1/4 Cup of semi sweet chocolate per cake

Coarse salt of choice (I use kosher)

The How To

Heat the chocolate in the microwave till melted. Stir occasionally to prevent burning. 

When completely melted, smooth onto rice cake with a spatula and add sprinkling of salt onto the top. Put in the freezer until the chocolate is hard. 
If you do not mind the taste of overcooked popcorn, put the chocolate chips on top of the rice cakes and microwave for about 18 seconds, smooth the chocolate with a spoon or spatula, and sprinkle the salt.

Shiloh approves

My Blended Stuff

Okay sooo I don't know if posting this as diabetic friendly is a good idea, but...

It's kinda SUPER amazing.. and simple.

There is no added sugar, but of course fruit has plenty of sugar.

Freeze whatever fruit you have around and add it with coconut milk in the food processor. 

Add just enough coconut milk to get it to blend up.

I used a can of coconut milk because I wasn't going to go through a whole carton this week.

*add melted Chocolate into applicable flavors

Pictured is banana. I want to try plums while they are in season!

Here are some fruit add-in ideas. With any of the canned fruit I drained the can before I froze the fruit.

 canned pineapple*canned mandarin oranges*strawberries*peaches*bananas

THE quiche

It's official! After the past few years of my love affair with quiche I found the one! I knew this was the one because I didn't have to cook it a bajillion extra minutes. It is simple and quick to make. The flavor is bonkers. Here it is!... well most of it.

As a diabetic mom and student quiche is my favorite thing to have around. It is high protein, high nutrition, and the only carbs come from the crust (13g for 1/8 of the crust). 

I don't know if I should admit this, but it was gone within 24hrs ;) 

Here is the link for the original recipe and I wrote the recipe below with my alterations.

http://sarahscucinabella.com/2009/03/25/easy-broccoli-quiche/

Serves 6

INGREDIENTS

1frozen pie crust

1 cup shredded pepper jack 

2 cups broccoli florets (cooked in some mannor)

5 large eggs

1 cup skim milk

1/2 tsp of garlic salt

1/2 tsp of salt

a dash of pepper

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees 

2. Poke a few wholes in the bottom of the crust and bake the pie crust in the preheated oven for about 10min

3. Spread the cheese in the bottom of the pie crust evenly and put the broccoli on top of the cheese.

4. In a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, salt, and pepper. Add on top of the broccoli and cheese.

5. Place the pie container on a baking sheet and bake of 40-45 minutes. Test if the pie is done by putting a fork through it. If it comes out clean, the quiche is done.

*The mixture may be fuller than the crust, but it still turns out good.

Holy Coconuts!

This weekend is my last CNA class before 2 weeks of clinicals! The CNA class is one more "thang" to check off my list of things to do for my ADN.

Dreams/ visions are powerful motivators. They make the seemingly impossible, possible. They give me emotional, physical, mental and spiritual muscle. They make taking vitals an exciting part of my day. To think I used to see nursing as an impossible feat... Maybe I kinda-sorta-maybe-sorta still do BUT I've resolved to throwing out the mindset that I am not studious and I am easily distracted. It's hard not to blame it on the Diabetes. Once my sugar goes just out of range I zone out. Plain and simple. My sister (also a type1) did it. She graduated from UCSD, deans list, with a degree in Biology and a minor and a focus. If Jessica can do it, I too will not allow my disability become a boundary. My husband got similar grades to me in high school and too had little to no experience with biology and chemistry until college where he graduated with a degree in Marine Biology, deans list. If He did it I can do it.

School Essentials

• I cannot eat carbs mornings when I have class or eat any kind of carb snack when I have studying to do. 
• I watch Greys Anatomy when I feel unmotivated. 

Holy cow (&coconut)! Once again, thank you Sam Talbot! 

Frozen Coconut Yogurt with Cinnamon

3 cups 2% plain organic Greek yogurt

Granulated Stevia extract inequivalent to 1/2 cups sugar

2 tablespoons coconut milk

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon coconut extract

1/2 cup unsweetened shredded coconut

In large bowl combine yogurt, sweetener,  coconut milk, cinnamon, and coconut extract. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and let mixture chill in fridge for at least one hour or overnight. For the chilled mixture into ice cream maker and freeze according to manufacturers instructions for frozen yogurt. In the last five minutes of the maker cycle add shredded coconut.

Per serving: 80 cal, 1G protein, 17 G carbohydrate, 6G total fat (5G saturated), 0 MG cholesterol,1 G fiber, 3MG sodium

Juicy Sour Strawberry Cobbler

I found a little gem at the library yesterday in the form of 

The Sweet Life: Diabetes without Boundaries. The author, Sam Talbot, has competed on Top Chef and is living with Type 1.  The book is filled with lots of eye candy and to me, sweet comradery. Many of the recipes are not whipped up with items I have on hand, but I am glad this cobbler recipe was an exception. SO juicy, SO friendly to my blood sugars, and SO popular with the hubby.

 

 

Sour Strawberry Cobbler

Filling

2 Pints thinly sliced strawberries

1/2 cup oat flour

3 tbs granulated stevia extract, or to taste

1tbs agave nectar

Grated zest of 1 lime and juice of 3 limes

Topping

1 cup old-fashioned rolled oats

1/2 cup oat flour 

1 tbs baking powder 

1 tea ground cinnamon

8 Tbs (1 stick) unsalted butter

1/2 cup almond milk

3 tbs agave nectar

Preheat oven to 375F. Butter the bottom and sides of a 2-quart baking dish.

To make filling: Combine strawberries with the oat flour, sweetener, agave nectar, and lime.

To make topping: Using your fingertips, combine the rolled oats, oat flour, baking powder, sweetener, cinnamon, and butter. Add the almond milk and agave and continue mixing until dough forms. 

Pour the filling into the prepared baking dish and spoon on the topping. Bake 35 to 40 minutes.

Calories 243, 4g protein, 29g carb, 13g fat,31mg cholesterol, 4g fiber, 195mg sodium

• The changes I made to the recipe include: I used honey as my ONLY sweetener. I used whole wheat flour in place of oat flour, and I did not add zest as I only had juice on hand.              

Mama Mia Pasta Salad

Mama Mia! I was inspired by the Hyvee pasta salad the hubby brought home the other week. The items that inspired me were the whole cherry tomatoes, whole green and black olives, and three variety of cheeses. I was grocery shopping at ALDI's and they were having a sale on all of the Italian inspired ingredients. Cha-ching! now the cherry tomatoes that I used were gigantic, so I cut them in half. 

• To make it more diabetic friendly than I did, use whole wheat pasta and add only half of the box.

Chop up the onion and bell pepper into small dices.

 Cut in half the olives and the cherry tomatoes if too large. The frozen peas will unthaw on their own.   

 I had some light balsamic in the frig that I used for the dressing.

Pasta Salad

I box pasta of choice (I used Rotini) 

1 can black olives 

1 pint cherry tomatoes 

1 red onion

1 bell pepper (any color)

 1/2-1/3 cup each Mozzarella and Colby cheese 

1/2 cup frozen peas

Dressing

1/4 cup virgin olive oil

2 tbsp lemon juice

2 tbsp balsamic vinegar

1 tbsp Italian seasoning

salt and pepper, to taste

• This yields 1/2 cup but you should add dressing in to taste (I prefer a wee bit of dressing)

Cook the pasta according to the directions on the box (it is best to have firm pasta). Drain and let it cool. I added some ice to speed up the process. Prepare your veggies and cheese.  Once pasta is cool mix all of your ingredients. I added 1/4 cup of light balsamic dressing.