Decorated Shortbread Cookies

My daughter and I were on vacation last week and she found a cupcake shaped cookie cutter she wanted so I told her we'd make cookies for dessert on Sunday. I used this shortbread cookie recipe, but swapped coconut oil for the butter to make it dairy-free. That makes it a bit harder to work with, but still doable.  I also had to bake it a few extra minutes until firm.

I added strawberry extract and a little red food coloring for a pink'ish cupcake. The icing is Swerve confectioners with almond extract and a little almond milk - mix until smooth. Just put the icing in a Ziploc baggie and snip the corner to pipe onto the cookie..  I used KNOW chocolate chips for decorations and added a little whipped cream on the side (almond milk whipped cream for Samuel).

About 3-4 net carbs.

Bananas Foster Sauce and Cupcakes

It's been about 12+ years since I've made Bananas Foster.  I stopped eating it years before going low carb because of the calorie count (butter, sugar, bananas - YIKES!).  So it really hasn't been on my radar for a low carb adaptation, but it popped in my head yesterday so I thought I'd give it a go. Originally I was just going to make the "banana" sauce to top ice cream, but after I made it, I realized it would be a great addition to cupcakes/muffins too.

This turned out to be a really, really delicious dessert for about 5 net carbs.  Samuel especially liked the "banana" cupcakes.  His birthday is in 2 days and he asked instead of the birthday cake we had planned, if he could have these cupcakes with whipped cream on top. I already made extra cupcakes, so this totally works for me. Haha.

So here we go.  This is a modification to two easy recipes.  To make the Bananas Foster sauce, I basically used the Fried "Apples" recipe.  Yes, I used zucchini to mimic bananas.  Cut the pieces quite small so they can soften well. I added quite a bit more Jordan's Vanilla Skinny Syrup because you want the zucchini to really cook down and get soft like bananas would.

Then I took the zucchini out to leave just the sauce.  Add more Jordan's Vanilla Skinny Syrup if it cooked down too much.  Then while it simmers add about 3/4 tsp of xanthan gum and whisk really hard to thicken - just like a gravy.

Then add the zucchini back in to coat.  Turn the heat off and let it cool just a bit.  Add about 3/4 tsp of Banana Cream oil.  (I like oil better than extract - it has a much less pungent/chemical taste to me.) Serve right over ice cream.  To use in the cupcakes too, let cool.

To make the cupcakes, I actually used my Low Carb Corn Dog recipe. I just added a little extra sweetener and added about 1/2 tsp of banana oil. Then I added about 1 cup of the Banana Fosters sauce and mixed well. I baked in lined muffin tins at 325° degrees for about 23-25 minutes.  They were really, really moist from the zucchini.

Precision Counts

This afternoon Samuel was a bit high (127mg/dL) so I was thinking about how insulin I wanted to correct with.

OriginallyI was going to do 1.5u, but then thought that might not be enough. My husband was in the room and I mentioned I might do 2.0u and he was a little hesitant thinking it might be too much. But, he said "you're darned if you do, you're darned if you don't" so we compromised and I did 1.75u.

EXCEPT we're not talking about FULL units here. We dilute insulin to a 4:1 ratio so we are really talking about a difference of 0.3u vs 0.4u. So the compromise of "1.75u" was actually a correction of only 0.35u which ended up bringing him down to 76mg/dL (CGM leveled off there), which puts us in a much better position for his dinner bolus. Perfect!!  🥰