HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

I will be going to visit family for Thanksgiving, starting tomorrow, so I have been busy baking pies for the big day. That way, I will have the desserts made and on Thursday, I'll be able to focus solely on the dinner. Naturally, I made my classic low calorie pumpkin pie, this time with Stevia sweetener instead of Splenda. I've never baked with Stevia, so Thursday will be a bit of a new experience for me, too! Here's a shot of my pumpkin pie:

It's a little darker than in the past, but I used brown sugar for this pie instead of regular sugar, which does add a little more color. The recipe is here.

The other "pie" I made was a cranberry-apple crumble. I like fresh fruit desserts and this is one that is loaded with flavor, though far less calories than a traditional crumble.  I used about 2 lbs of peeled, chopped apples and 1 1/2 cups of cranberries for the fruit, tossing them with 1/2 cup sugar, 8 packets Stevia, 2 Tbs lemon juice, 1 tsp cinnamon, 1 tsp nutmeg, 1/2 tsp clove, and 1/2 tsp ginger. Pour the entire mix into a pie tin sprayed with nonstick spray, cover with foil and bake in a 375F oven for 45 minutes. To make the crumble, combine 1/4c flour, 1/2c brown sugar, 2 Tbs light stick margarine, and 1 tsp cinnamon. Blend margarine into the mix until crumbly and then add 1/4c quick cook oats. When the first 45 minutes is up, uncover the fruit and sprinkle the crumble on top. Return to oven and bake for another 20 minutes or until the crumble is golden brown. It looks like this:

I got the basic recipe from the ADA's book Diabetes Meals On $7 a Day -- Or Less! I recommend this book, as it has a number of very basic and easy recipes that can be modified without much work.

With my modifications, 1/9 of this recipe has 167 calories and approximately 32g of carbohydrates per serving -- only 4g carbohydrates more than the original! Personally, I would have half of the recommended serving or even less, so I could have a taste of that and a taste of the pie without blowing my blood sugars through the roof.

With that, let me say happy Thanksgiving to all my friends! Eat well and remember that even with diabetes, you can still eat deliciously!

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!