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. 

Transition..shmition

Goodbye Oahu!

Transition is a light and fluffy word to describe my last year. What do you call (in order of events) getting dream pt job at Whole Foods, finally getting intergraded into a Hawaiian community, depression, visions, got SOZOed, hubby applying for grad school/jobs, getting rejected from grad schools, packing up/ getting rid of my apt to move, not knowing where we are moving to, in- laws visiting for the best hawaiian stayca ever!, quitting my dream pt job, hubby graduating college, hubby getting a summer position at Niabi Zoo, moving off MY island (still not know where we are going to live), spent the summer with Shiloh in San Diego, Nate got a full time keeper position at Niabi Zoo, packed up trunk of the Element with everything that has value to me to move to the Quad Cities, moved in with the in-laws, massive depression, house hunting,sister came to visit at Thanksgiving, Mother in law is suspected to have ovarian cancer, closed escrow on our house, moved in to our house, CHRISTMAS, mother in law has massive surgery, Nate is getting a lot of divine opportunities with work, ovarian cancer stage 3C confirmed, signed up for my CNA class and testing, may start our farmers market stand?.... Needless to say tax season is quite an undertaking this year.

• Insert frolicking along Hawaiian beaches and botanical gardens to the first half of this.
• Insert teaching myself to crochet and sew into the second half of this.

Some lessons I have learned.SOME.

1. I have to be intentional about community. I have to be intentional about life. 

2. When I gave my life to God I said yes to adventure. Adventure isn't predictable and one must be flexible. I told God to change my heart for all of these unknowns. Literally one day I HATED the idea of moving to the Quad Cities, but I asked God to change my heart if that is where He wanted us. The next morning I woke up with excitement and ANTICIPATION for the city I am now in. Allow Him to change your heart. It's super fun!

3. There are always obstacles and challenges to face. Always conquer them. They are NEVER impossible to overcome or too large to get in the way of your dreams!

Starting Here

Where the heck do I start? I don't know if this is normal when starting a personal blog, but I have put off starting this blog for almost a year! Tonight I am fed up with this procrastination and burdened by all the writing going on in my head so I will make it easy on myself by just starting off with tonight's baking endeavor. 

As a Type 1 Diabetic, I am hyper aware of what is going into my mouth... Except in the dessert department. I never EVER say no to chocolate. It is just rude to refuse such a beautiful craft. I do eat it in moderation and I stick to dark chocolate because it satisfies my cravings with one (& 3/4) pieces.

My Diabetic Baking Habits:

• I don't use artificial sweeteners (most are bad for the body and they make me feel funny)
• I like whole wheat flour because it doesn't "spike my sugars"
• Honey and Applesauce are wonderful sweeteners
• I'll cut the amount of sugar in any recipe and so far it hasn't altered it

I am embarrassed to admit but I have not touched a diabetic cook book... Until this week. The anguish of seeing the ugly word "DIABETES" printed on the front of a "dessert" book, with artificial sweetener recipes tucked inside. Too much to handle frankly I'll shoot up for the real deal instead!

Fatefully I was at the library this week and came across a massive collection of diabetic cookbooks. I picked up "Diabetic Desserts" By Betty Wedman P.H.D. published in 1996, a year after I was diagnosed and I was curious about the "ancient" baking methods for diabetics. To my delight she used sugar in all of her recipes. Tonight I made the chocolate chip cookies. These babies are so yummy and of course the batter is even better. 

Chocolate Chip Cookies 
3/4 cup oil (I use olive)
3/4 sugar
1egg
1 2/3 cup whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons baking powder 
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1tbs coco powder

Set the oven to 375F. Cream together oil, sugar, and egg. Add flour, coco powder,baking powder, chips. Mix well. Add 2 tbs water if batter does not stick. Spoon onto a lightly oiled baking sheet. Bake for 10-15 min.