Pancakes! Flapjacks! Hotcakes! Griddlecakes! Whatever you call ’em, I love ’em!

Time to try out another breakfast recipe.  This is another on that is simply a blood sugar experiment, not a cooking one.  Simple ingredients.

Whole wheat pancake mix and sugar free syrup.  I just followed the box directions to mix up the pancakes and tossed them in the frying pan.

Not to brag, but I’m the best pancake maker ever.  lol

They’re always very well shaped and I’m great at flipping them.  Except for the first pancake, that one always come out a bit … Cajun.

But the rest of them get better.

Add a little margarine and syrup.  They have that slightly gritty taste that whole wheat pancakes always have, but they were still good.

But my blood sugar afterward was 128.  Not so good.  😦  Lesson learned.

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Black Bean Burgers

This one is not a quick and easy one.  Lots of ingredients, lots of steps.

And that’s not even really all the ingredients.  But it’s easy to share what I did, because I used an actual recipe!  This doesn’t happen too often, as you may have noticed.  Black Bean Veggie Burgers from AllRecipes.com.  The only changes I made were dry beans instead of canned and oats instead of bread crumbs.

So I soaked the black beans, using the quick soak method and then boiled/simmered them for about 40 minutes until they were tender.  Tossed them in a bowl and then used my potato masher to mash them up.

Into the food processor went the onion, green pepper, and garlic.

Chop everything up teeny tiny, then follow the recipe, mixing everything together.  Then form them into patties.  (Because of the earlier adventures in guacamole making, my hand was still bandaged.  So to form the patties without messing up my hand more, I put a plastic sandwich baggie over my hand.  It worked surprisingly well!)

So the recipe makes four burger sized patties and one small one.  Pop those in the oven at 375 for 20 minutes, flipping halfway through.

While those were baking, I made a quick salad of spinach, tomatoes, broccoli, and goat cheese.  And of course my sugar free salad dressing.

Burgers are done!  They were slightly brittle, but not too much.

Assembled the burgers using whole wheat sandwich thins instead of buns, and reduced sugar ketchup and pickles, plus mustard and cheese.

It was very delicious!  Good substitute for regular burgers, even if it’s a bit of work to get there.

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Spinach Quesadillas for Cinco de Mayo!

Ok, so I planned the quesadillas before I realized it was Cinco de Mayo.  But still.

Today’s ingredients:  Whole wheat tortillas, reduced fat mozzarella cheese, onions, spinach, low sugar salsa, dried black beans, avocado, and tomato.  Before leaving for work, I put the black bean in a bowl of water to soak.  So when I got home they were ready, just needed to be rinsed and placed on the stove (in water) to boil.

Then I started on the quesadillas.  Very easy.  Lay out the tortillas and on one half put cheese, onions and a bit of spinach.  I also sprinkled some cumin on for some extra flavor.

Then just fold them in half and pop them into a 400 F oven! For 13-15 minutes.

Now for a quick quick guacamole for the side.

Right after this picture, there was an extended break in the cooking process.  I attempted to remove the avocado pit by my usual method of sticking the knife point into the pit and twisting.  It pops right out.  However, this didn’t quite work this time, as instead of going into the pit, the knife skidded and went into my hand.  Ow.  Lucky for you all, I didn’t take any pictures of this.  Lucky for me, I didn’t bleed on any of the food!  But my new advice for you is to just dig the pit out with a spoon.

So bandaged and back to work, I pulled the quesadillas out of the oven.  Mmmm, delicious.

Finished up the guacamole, instead of making it complicated I just mashed up the avocado and added a bit of garlic.  I was going to chop a tomato and add that, but I really just wanted to eat and nurse my sore hand for a while. The black beans had been simmering away this whole time, so I added a bit of salt and cumin and then spooned them out onto the plate.  Added a bit of salsa on both the beans and the quesadillas.

This is the lowest sugar salsa I could find in my store.  It’s not no sugar but < 1 gram per serving.

The end result was absolutely delicious.  And my blood sugar two hours after dinner was 108.

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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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Garbanzo Bean “Scallops”

I was at lunch this week with my coworkers and several of them got scallops.  I don’t eat seafood, but scallops always look good enough to make me wish I did.  (I’ve tried them though, bleh.)  So I thought I’d try to make a bean patty that mimicked a scallop.

(Please excuse the camera phone quality, I didn’t charge my camera batteries yesterday morning, as I was not expecting to decide to start a food blog.)

Ingredients:

1 large can of garbanzo beans (7g sugar in entire can)

1/2 large onion

1/4 cup bread crumbs (1g sugar) – I used Italian flavored because that’s what I had, but plain would probably be better

2 packets Sazon Goya seasoning (no sugar) – I like my food very very flavorful, if you like less use just one packet or a packet and a half

Drain the garbanzo beans and then put them in the food processor or blender and run until they are a paste.  Add the onion (chopped into a few pieces to help it blend faster) and the seasoning.  Run until well blended.  Add the bread crumbs and mix well.  Form the mixture into small patties.  If the mixture is too soft to shape, add a bit more of the bread crumbs.

Place the patties into a hot frying pan, either non-stick or coated in cooking spray.  Cook until they are a golden brown and flip them over.

After both sides cooked they were still a bit…floppy.  So I thought I’d bake them a little bit.

I laid them in the baking dish and baked them at 375 F for about 15 minutes.

As a side for the “scallops” I turned to the thing I’d been craving for days: fettuccine alfredo.  But of course the fettuccine was something I am no longer supposed to have.  So instead, I went for green bean alfredo!

This was the simple part of the dish. I wasn’t up to make my own alfredo sauce tonight, so got a jarred sauce that had no sugar.  I was surprised to see that many of them did!  Warmed the sauce on the stove and poured it over frozen french cut green beans that I had cooked in the microwave.  Sprinkled a bit of Parmesan cheese on top.

Finally the “scallops” came out of the oven.  Dinner is ready!

Did I mention this was dinner for one?  Oh well, good thing I like leftovers!

So, the final verdict?

The green beans are definitely in the library of quick and easy, low sugar side dishes.  The scallops need some tweaking though.  The flavor was wonderful.  I loved them.  But the texture was off, even after the baking.  It was a mush patty with a slight crust on the outside.  This one will require some more experimentation before I call it ready.  They definitely taste good enough to overlook the texture though.  Overall I’d give it a B+.

My sugar reading two hours after dinner was 114.  And, perhaps more importantly, I was full.

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