Low Sugar Eating at the Ballpark?

Since the only people who read this blog right now are people who know me, you’re all well aware that I am a huge baseball fan.  Yesterday my team returned home and presented me with a new dilemma.  How to I eat low sugar at the ballpark?  All my standard fares are loaded with carbs: burgers and fries, fried chicken and fries, half-smokes and fries, and nachos.  Of course I could just always bring my own food with me, but I was certain there was a way to make ballpark food work for me.

So I got to the park early, prepared to head to all my favorite stands and ask for their nutrition information, analyze them, and figure out how this would work.  But then I took the easy way out.  I saw the stand “The Healthy Plate,” with their turkey wraps displayed front and center.  This was surely the stand for me!  So I asked for their nutrition information.  The guy running the stand didn’t have it with him.  “Well what sauce is in the wraps?”  He assured me it was mustard and just mustard.  “Nothing with sugar?”  “Oh no, not at all!”  Sounded good to me.  Serve it up!

One bite in I knew that the sauce was definitely NOT just mustard.  😦  And it definitely had sugar.  But I’d already paid eight bucks for it, so it was going to be my dinner anyway.  Two hours after dinner (well, two hours and three minutes, had to wait for the inning to end!) my blood sugar was 140.  One meal in the fail column, this was not low sugar.  But I’m still determined to find what ballpark food will work.  Updates to come.

At least my team won!

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Mini Spinach Frittatas

Sunday morning breakfast is probably my favorite meal of the entire week.  Growing up it was the one meal my busy mom had time to make fabulous.  Eggs, hash browns, cinnamon buns, biscuits and gravy, pancakes, french toast, and lots of fresh fruit.  (Not all at the same meal, of course.)  And then it became the one meal that I had all the time in the world to devote myself to.  Breakfast food is some of my favorite in the world.  So of course, one of the first things I needed to figure out was how to make a low sugar breakfast.

And this is actually not a breakfast that took much time, only about ten minutes to mix it up.

Ingredients

Eggs (or Egg Beaters)

Yogurt

Parmesan cheese

Green onions

Spinach

Start by cracking six eggs into a bowl and then beating.

Add two dollops of yogurt, a bit of parmesan cheese, a couple of chopped green onions, and two handfuls of spinach, torn up into small pieces.  In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not one for exact measurements.  Here’s a representation of what I mean by a handful, a “closed” handful, not a wide open hand.

Sprinkle on a little bit of garlic salt and mix all the ingredients together.  Then, pour the mixture into a greased muffin pan.

Sprinkle on just a tad more parmesan cheese and then bake at 350 F for about 25 minutes, or until the top develops a slight crust.

The turkey sausage I got was precooked, so I just popped it in the microwave when the frittatas were almost done.

It did take a bit of finagling to get the frittatas out of the pan. And I’ll admit, I’m on of those people that likes ketchup on my eggs.  But I hadn’t yet bought any low sugar ketchup, so I used some of my balsamic vinaigrette on it.  It worked pretty well.  No final picture of it on the plate, I ate it too fast. 🙂  Blood sugar two hours after this meal was 97.

I also did some more shopping today and found a whole bunch of low and no sugar products.  Even a whole no sugar section in my grocery store I had never taken notice of before!

I mostly focused on finding the products I could in the regular aisles of the store, and was successful for just about everything.  It just took a lot of label reading and careful checking.  I spent about an hour and half at the store, slowly checking every aisle for the items on my list.  I was glad to see that almost everything I liked had a no sugar version, even sweet pickles!  But my favorite find of the day was probably this…

Delicious!  It’s not no sugar, but no sugar added, so it’s better than regular ice cream for a small indulgence.

This shopping trip did cost me a bit more than usual, since I’m one who typically buys solely generic products and generic brands don’t tend to make no sugar versions.  But I also had a meal plan for this week, instead of just buying willy nilly. And I figure I won’t need to replace all my condiments every week.  🙂

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Artichoke Heart & Goat Cheese Stuffed Chicken

Today we start at the grocery store, where I found one (and only one) company that makes a line of sugar free salad dressings.  This is wonderful news.  I love salad dressing. (I’m sure there are other sugar free dressings in the world, just not in my local store.)

Maple Grove Farms of Vermont, I now love you.  Their website says they also have a dijon flavor that wasn’t in my local grocery store.  I may have to buy this online.  And a sugar free maple (flavored) syrup.  And if the syrup is anything like their salad dressing, it will taste wonderful.

Now, on to checking labels.  I’m sure everyone else out there already knew the importance of checking labels before you buy things, but this was not something I’d ever worried about before.  I’d find the item I want, pick up the cheapest brand, and be on my way.  It worked for me.  Well, you know, kind of.  But now I’ve checked more labels in the past few days than I have in my entire life.

The can on the left has 8 grams of sugar in it.  The jar on the right has none.  The can was found in the canned foods section, where one would normally look for this type of thing.  The jar was in the international foods aisle and was actually slightly cheaper.  Without reading the labels I probably would have bought the canned one.  In fact I almost did, because I assumed that because the others were marinated that they would contain more sugar than the non-marinated ones.  I was wrong.  I can admit this.  On occasion.  Don’t get too used to it.

So home with our ingredients. The amounts aren’t particularly important, adjust them to make the size meal you want.  What I used will feed two.

4 boneless skinless chicken breasts – I got thin cut ones, but regular ones would be fine as well.

1 jar artichoke hearts

Goat cheese – feta would work as well.  Mozzarella probably would too.

Green onions

The artichoke hearts were quartered already, but I wanted them a bit smaller.  Since I’m too lazy to try to cut them regularly, I pulled out my handy dandy Slap Chop!

I chopped up about half the artichoke hearts and tossed them in a bowl.  Next I cut up a couple of the green onions.

I tossed them in the bowl with the artichoke hearts and added a handful or so of the goat cheese.

Mixed these together and then used this to stuff the chicken.  Since I was using thin cut chicken, I laid the chicken out, put the mixture on top and then rolled two of the sides together, securing them with a toothpick.  If you’re using regular chicken breasts, cut one side open and stuff the mixture inside.  Then, place your chicken in a baking dish.

Aren’t you glad I included that up close shot of raw chicken to show you what it should look like?  Doesn’t that raw chicken look delicious?  Bleh.  Anyway, I had the oven preheated to 350 F, so I covered the chicken with foil and put it in for 35 minutes.

While that was baking, I started on my salad.  I drained the liquid from the rest of the artichoke hearts and put them in my salad bowl.  Then I chopped some tomatoes, into fairly large pieces.

I also took half a can of black olives and cut them in half and chopped a few more green onions.  I mixed the tomatoes, onions, olives, and more goat cheese with my artichoke hearts.  Then I dressed them with my wonderful new bottle of …

Maple Grove Farms of Vermont Sugar Free Italian Balsamic Dressing!!!  Yum.  I mixed all this together into a wonderful summer salad.  (What do you mean it’s not summer?  It sure was outside my house today!)

It may not look fabulous, but it most definitely was.

Finally the chicken was done!  (I pulled it out at 34 minutes cause I was hungry.  It did it no harm.)

The verdict?

WONDERFUL.  SO WONDERFUL IT REQUIRED ALL CAPITAL LETTERS.  THAT’S PRETTY WONDERFUL.  The cheese in the chicken melted to create a magnificent creaminess, with just the right amout of flavor from the artichokes and onions.  The chicken itself was wonderfully moist.  The salad was light and fresh tasting, with just the right amounts of saltiness and sweetness.  This meal is going right into my regular rotation of meals.  That salad I could probably eat every day.  (And I might have to in a few months when I have a garden full of tomatoes!)  You should all try this for yourself, I guarantee you’ll love it.  Just take the toothpicks out of the chicken before you eat it.

And two hours after dinner my sugar was 97.  I don’t know how long the doctor will have me monitoring my sugar, for now it’s just a week.  But whenever he has me checking, I’ll let you know how the meal in question affects it.

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