Introducing.....

Welcome to my new blog! Here, I hope to share recipes, food ideas and more I've gathered and learned from the 20 years I've had diabetes and the 20 years I've kept off around 50 pounds. I am not a health care professional; I'm just a patient who has had some success at maintaining weight loss and who enjoys eating good foods. I also enjoy cooking, so when I was told I had diabetes, I decided to look at my new diagnosis as a challenge. How could I cook foods that would appealing but would fit in with the dietary challenges of managing diabetes?

Since I am starting this on Christmas Eve, I thought I might start off with a holiday recipe, one I found back in November of 1993 -- just 7 months after I was diagnosed. I was not looking forward to either giving up pumpkin pie or having an extremely tiny sliver of pie. That was until I found this recipe in the November, 1993 issue of Diabetes Forecast:

Low-calorie Pumpkin Pie

Ingredients:

Nonstick spray

1 16-oz. Can solid-pack pumpkin
1 13-oz. Can evaporated skim milk
1 egg
2 egg whites
½ cup biscuit mix
2 Tbsp. Sugar
8 packets heat stable sugar substitute
2 tsp. Pumpkin pie spice
2 tsp. Vanilla

Heat oven to 350° F. Lightly spray a 9-inch pie pan with nonstick spray.

Place all ingredients in blender, food processor, or mixing bowl.

Blend 1 minute or beat 2 minutes with mixer.

Pour into pie pan and bake for 50 minutes or until center is puffed up.

One serving is 1/8 of the pie, has 110 calories, 18 grams of carbohydrates, 6 grams of protein, 2 grams of fat, and 175 mg sodium. A slice actually fits into my diet -- I need only 1 unit of Humalog for a slice of pie!

I've made this pie every year since. Here's what it looks like:

Well, I hope this is a good start. Happy Holidays!