Cream Cheese Zucchini Bread

This bread is very moist - almost a cross between bread and a cake, so we eat it with a fork. The kids have been devouring this every day and keep asking for more.

 

Hodge Podge Lunch

Towards the end of the week my pre-made food supply starts to get thin. But put the leftovers all together and he still has a great meal.

5 oz protein via: 1/2 of a cheeseburger, 1/2 hotdog, slice of LC pepperoni pizza
40g peas
1 slice of cream cheese zucchini bread

7 net carbs.

Whole Foods for Breakfast

When traveling I have a habit of going to Whole Foods for breakfast. I like that their hot food bars list all ingredients. (Check their bacon though... sometimes has sugar added!)

High protein, low carb breakfast for $9 (including the cold brew coffee).

Take a hike

We had a rare, breezy 83° today so I told the family to take a hike - literally. I packed up lunches of salami, bacon & cheese sandwiches, carrots, pickles, nuts, protein chips, and lots of water.

I prefilled a syringe with Samuel's lunch bolus, an extra prefilled correction shot, glucose and his blood sugar meter. And off they went!

They had a great time, BG stayed between 70-105 mg/dL - no glucose and no correction shot needed the whole time. 

(And Mommy got some alone time.) ❤️💙💚

Dessert Kabobs

These are so easy and the kids thought they were SO fun! 

I used 3 strawberries (2 oz), vanilla & chocolate KNOW marshmallows, and low carb Magic Shell (search in "Desserts").

Make your kabobs. Put in the freezer for a few minutes. Drizzle Magic Shell over and place in the fridge until ready to serve.

3 net carbs

Chocolate "Magic Shell"

I'm finding all kinds of uses for this hard chocolate coating. I find as long as what you put it on is really cold/frozen, it will harden up nicely. If it needs a little help, just place whatever you've dipped/drizzled it on in the freezer for 30 seconds. Endless fun ideas with this!!!

I started with the recipe below, but made a few edits...

1) use a refined, neutral tasting coconut oil or your chocolate will taste like, well, coconuts.

2) This is a recipe where I think weighing works WAY better than volume and I've changed the original amounts a bit. (Maybe my cocoa powder is just really bitter, so you can try as the recipe states first and always adjust to your taste.) 

Here are my amounts:
150g coconut oil
72g powdered Swerve
48g cocoa powder

3) I use less salt - just a healthy pinch.

4) whisk for several minutes to get it really smooth.

5) you can store any extra sauce at room temp in an airtight glass container.

http://mariamindbodyhealth.com/magic-shell-ice-cream-topping/

Orange/Vanilla Dreamsickle Ice Cream Float

This is a labor intensive dessert, so bear with me! :)

🔸Fill glass half way with diet orange soda
🔸Top with low carb vanilla ice cream
🔸Insert straw and/or spoon
🔸Enjoy!

Correction Shots

How I prep syringes for our friend/neighbor to be able to do corrections while Samuel is at their house.

I asked our pharmacy for a tall pill container. I fill the syringes with a few different doses and write the dose using a super-fine Sharpie on the end of the syringe plunger and on the cap itself. (Note: you can only put the cap back on over the plunger if your dose is about 2u or less.) Then just put the pre-filled syringes in the pill container. My friend keeps these in her fridge.

They text me his blood sugar and I tell her which dose to use. Easy peasy.

Note just for clarification...
we dilute to a 1:4 ratio, so "1" is actually a 0.2u correction, "1.5" is 0.3u, and "2" is 0.4u. The beauty of this is that my friend doesn't need to know any of this. She's just pulling out the number listed on the syringe that I tell her.

Ice Cream Soda

So easy and refreshing in the summer!

1) Loosely fill glass with low carb vanilla ice cream (2 different recipes on this blog).
2) Add 1-2 Tbsp sugar-free vanilla syrup (Jordan's, Torani, etc).
3) Fill half the glass with unsweetened vanilla almond milk.
4) Top with club soda or seltzer and stir.

Variations:
🔹Try different flavored ice cream. I love almond ice cream with Jordan's sugar-free almond syrup.
🔹You can also use diet root beer, cola or orange soda instead of club soda or seltzer.

Chicken & Egg Salad

5 oz chicken & egg salad, peas, raw broccoli and ranch dip. 30+g protein 7g net carbs.

Single Serve Strawberry Shortcake (aka: 90 second cake)

Melt 2 Tbsp unsalted butter in microwaveable bowl. 
Add:
3 Tbsp almond flour
2 - 3 tsp 0 carb sweetener
2 - 3 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp baking powder
Pinch of salt
Mix well. 
Add:1 large egg
Mix well.

Grease a 10 - 12 oz ramekin. Add batter and microwave for 90 seconds. Set aside to cool.

Whip some heavy cream with 0 carb sweetener. Slice 1 strawberry.

Remove cake from ramekin and slice in half. Put a little whipped cream between the cake layers, top with more whipped cream and the strawberry.

4 net carbs.

Carrot "Apple" Salad

Years ago I used to make a simple, crunchy carrot & raisin salad. I've not considered it in years though because of the raisins. This new low carb version just popped in my head and it was really delicious. Both kids scarfed it down. And since it uses shredded carrots the portion looks a bit bigger than it really is.

1 10-oz bag shredded carrots
1/2 cup sugar-free mayo
2-3 tsp 0 carb sweetener
5 oz (1 cup) finely chopped fried "apples" (zucchini)
sprinkle of cinnamon.

Mix everything well and chill for at least an hour.  (I usually double the recipe!)

Search the blog for "apples" and you'll find the "apples" recipe.

This makes for a fast, refreshing, crunchy side dish.

Chicken & Egg Salad

Chicken & Egg salad, riced cinnamon cauliflower, peas, and a strawberry. My kids just eat all of this cold from the fridge.

Different Insulin Profiles

Visual of how different insulins work. Common/nickname listed too.

Cheeseburger on a 0 net carb SmartBun

Cheeseburger on a 0 net carb SmartBun, peas and coleslaw. 6 net carbs.

The "flour" used to make SmartBun's are actually fibers and the sweetener is erythritol, so it is 0 net carbs. After a few tests I've learned I don't need to bolus Samuel at all for any carbs. But the bun does have 10g of protein which I take into count when bolusing. 

 

https://smartbakingco.com/

A1c = 4.8%

Great Endo appt yesterday (saw a new Dietician too). No issues or push back about LC or him having ketones (being in nutritional ketosis).

She reviewed 2 weeks of BG readings and said "a non-diabetic kid's BG would be 60-100 mg/dL so I'm good with any of these 60's because I can see he's flat".

So thankful to have a great Endo who supports our choice to strive for non-diabetic BG levels.

Cherry Kool-Aid

I make up a batch of the cherry Kool-Aid and add 0 carb liquid sweetener to the glass instead of sweetening the whole bottle, so everyone can make it how they like it.

NOTE... All flavors (I've found) except cherry contain maltodextrin and/or cornstarch which would spike a T1. Cherry is the only flavor we've tried.

Nuts & chocolate

Pecans, shelled peanuts and Lily chocolate. BG was on the lower side, so peanuts will bring him up a tad. I do shelled to slow the kids eating down some.

Note:  BG was low'ish, but not truly low.  When truly low, I only correct with glucose.

Chocolate Avocado Cookies

A few thoughts after making these a few times...

1) I use Walden Farms pancake syrup - 0 carbs
2) I used the optional vanilla and extra sweetener. I don't like stevia, so I used 2 Tbsp of birch xylitol. I thought it was too bitter without.
3) I put half the chocolate chips in the batter and sprinkle the rest on top. I use KNOW chocolate chips.
4) The recipe calls for 6 giant cookies. I made 12 smaller cookies, but still baked for 12-14 minutes.

https://www.sweetashoney.co/chocolate-avocado-cookies/

Simple Breakfast

3 scrambled eggs, hot "cereal", full-fat plain yogurt. 

6 net carbs and 31g protein.

Colton's Steakhouse

Steak - no sauce, cauliflower, broccoli and a few carrots.  Colton's also has buckets of peanuts on the table.  We let Samuel partake, but we include that in his meal/bolus and limit it to just a few.

No Corections!

Love days with no glucose or insulin corrections. And a super tight Standard Deviation to boot. Finished out a respectable week. On to tomorrow and next week...

 

Great Day

Love days with no glucose or insulin corrections. And a super tight Standard Deviation to boot. Finished out a respectable week. On to tomorrow and next week...

Wine Spritzer

5 oz of cold white wine
5 oz cold seltzer
3/4 oz sugar-free fruit-flavored syrup

Shake and pour over lots of ice. Perfect for a hot, sunny day.

* I used Riesling, which is 5 carbs. My T1 friends may want to use a drier, lower carb white wine.

Snack with bacon

Bits of bacon (no sugar), pecans, olive, 1 piece of Lily's chocolate.

Skinny Girl Dressing

Low carb, sugar-free Balsamic vinaigrette dressing. I found it at Walmart.

Roasted turkey

Roasted turkey with Walden Farms BBQ sauce, Peas, Guacamole, and Swiss cheese.

7 net carbs

New and Improved - Stay-Soft Lower Carb Ice Cream

I've tweaked my ice cream recipe to reduce the amount of heavy cream and eliminate the half and half - both have a lot of calories and excess fat, and half and half can spike some T1's.

I replaced the half and half with almond milk, but it has a tendency to freeze rock hard and have more of an ice milk consistency. A secret ingredient...ok, not really secret, but very important, allows it to get super thick and creamy, but stay scoopable! This is such a TINY amount of vodka for the amount of ice cream it makes, I have no concerns about feeding this to the kids once per week (at the most).

I play around a lot with flavor add-in’s. This version used almond extract and about 1/4 tsp. freshly grated nutmeg. It was SOOOOO good!!!

Basic vanilla recipe is posted, but the sky's the limit on varieties!

Italian sausage

Italian sausage (4.5 oz), Southern-style smoked green beans (90g/3oz), and "Corn" bread.

7 net carbs.

Sugarfire BBQ

First time taking the kids here. Lots of meats, burgers and salads to choose from. Sides are the toughest part to stay low carb - only viable option was cole slow. I tested with Diastix and got some definite glucose detection, but not horrible. We proceeded since that was his only carb.
Underbolused just a tad (he had more protein here than he normally would at home)- spiked about 2 hours after eating to 114 so did a tiny correction and he settled in the 70's.

You may be able to tell from the 2-handed shoveling that he liked it. 

Virgil's Zero Soda

Virgil's 0 carb/calorie soda. Stevia sweetened. Several flavors.

 

 

Bear Foot Cafe Breakfast

Low carb breakfast with these cuties...

🧒 Samuel = breakfast skillet with sausage, ham, bacon, green peppers and 3 eggs. (Hold the potatoes, onions and toast)
👧 Evie = 3 eggs & 2 sausage patties. (Hold the hashbrowns and toast.)
👩 Me = 3 egg omelet with sausage, ham, bacon and cheese. (Hold the hashbrowns and toast.)

BG at breakfast was 76, 11am was 68, 12:40pm was 63 (1g glucose).

⚠️Omlelet Tip⚠️ Many restaurants use pre-made omelet mix that includes wheat, sugar and even pancake batter. Always make sure they use whole, fresh eggs! IHOP is an example that puts pancake batter in their omelet mix!

Low carb Margarita

2 oz. Lemon juice
2 oz. Tequila
1.5 oz sugar-free vanilla syrup
1/2 tsp orange extract OR orange oil

Shake over ice and pour into salted glass (if you like salt). This isn't a super-sweet Margarita. If you like sweeter Margarita’s, I'd reduce the lemon juice to 1.5oz.

 

Crispy Low Carb Pizza

This is my take on a fathead-style pizza.  My husband says what he dislikes about most LC pizza is that it's trying too hard to be like wheat pizza when it's obviously not.  Of all the pizza I've made, this is his favorite. (He grew up just outside NYC and is picky about his pizza, so I take this as a compliment, lol!)  This pizza gets quite crisp if rolled thin, but still has a little chew.  I included some pics to try to help guide the thickness.

NOTES:
1) I never use pre-shredded cheese.  I grate my own.
2) You can cover the edges of your pizza with aluminum foil after your toppings are on to prevent over browning.

RECENT EDIT /VARIATION:

I was recently making this and as I was dumping in the almond flour (because I bake by weight, not volume) I accidentally added too much.  Instead of trying to scoop it out I decided to leave it and see what happened. Turns out we lived it!  The original amount (85g) makes a more cracker-like crust. The "oops!" amount (110g ~ a little less than a cup) makes for a breadier dough.  Both are good... just a little different.

Flavored Yogurt

I've been using flavored oils a lot more to add flavor to foods (baked goods, yogurt, ice cream, etc). 

Yesterday the kids had "banana" yogurt for the first time with no added carbs.
I used Walden Farms pancake syrup as my 0 carb sweetener, but stevia, monk fruit, etc would work just fine. I add about 8 drops of the oil per 1/4 cup (56g) of yogurt and mix well.

The sky's the limit on flavored oils... there are a 100+ flavors out there.