Recipes for diabetics type 1 - Soups and Salads

 Butternut Squash Soup

Ingredients:

1 butternut squash

1 med. onion, diced

1 clove garlic, minced

1 inch ginger root, minced

4-6 cups Water

Directions:

Cut butternut squash in half, length-wise, and remove the seeds. Then cut into cubes, removing the skin. I cook this in a deep pan because I hate waiting for the squash to cook. Spray your pot or pan with oil (I use coconut oil for the taste) and put it on med-high heat. Sauté the onion, garlic and ginger until the onion is translucent.

Toss in your squash cubes and cook for 10 minutes. Then add between 4-6 cups of water. 4 cups for smaller squashes, 6 for large ones. Reduce heat to low and simmer for  20-30 minutes. You should be able to pierce the squash with a fork and have it fall off with ease.

From here, you can either move the soup to a blender, 1-2 cups at a time to puree it or you can use an immersion blender like I do. It's easy and I can puree it right in the pan. After you have finished pureeing the soup, it's ready to serve.

We often eat this for lunch or dinner but I also like eating it as a sweet snack by adding a dash of cinnamon, nutmeg and clove (pumpkin pie spices)

Cream of Mushroom Soup

Ingredients:

1 cup crimini mushrooms chopped

1 cup Shitake mushrooms, chopped

2 cups chicken stock

3 tbsp unsalted butter

2 garlic cloves

1 cup soy milk

1 medium onion, chopped

1/4 cup whole wheat flour

2 tbsp fresh parsley

pepper, to taste

Directions:

On medium heat, melt the butter and saute the onion.  Whisk in the flour until blended and thick.  Add the chicken broth and soy milk slowly.  Cook for 5 minutes.  Add in the spices and muchrooms.

The soup should start to thicken up but don't worry if its still watery.  Once the the soup has reached boiling, reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes.

Turn off heat and blend your mixture either by moving it to a blender or using an emmersion blender.

Curried Tofu Salad

I made this for a BBQ and it was a huge success!

Ingredients

2 bricks of Extra Firm Tofu (diced, small)

1 red bell pepper, diced small

5 green onion, diced

1/4 cup dried cranberries

1/4 cup kalamata olives, pitted and diced

1 can Low fat coconut milk (Thai Kitchen has a great one)

1 apple, diced

2 packets of Truvia

2 Tbsp curry powder

Directions:

Add tofu, apple, cranberries, onion and bell pepper into a large bowl. In a smaller bowl, mix the curry, sugar and coconut milk together. Add the curry mix to the other ingredients then place in the fridge to chill for an hour.

Tuna Salad

Ingredients

2 cans of no salt added albacore tuna

1-2 green bell peppers, diced

2 cans green beans, drained and washed thouroughly

1 cucumber, skinned and diced

2 tomatoes, diced

1 head of lettuce, chopped (or 1-2 bags of pre-cut lettuce)

1 cups mushrooms, chopped

1 cups radish, chopped

1/2 cups low fat mayonnaise

1/4 cups Dijon mustard

Pepper to taste

Directions:

Rinse lettuce, dry with paper towels and then place in a large bowl. Add bell peppers, green beans, cucumber, mushrooms, radish tuna, mayonnaise, mustard and pepper.  Stir until everything is coated lightly with the mayo/Dijon.  Place in the fridge for at least 20 minutes.  Add tomatoes before serving.

When mashed with other ingredients, the tomatoes will make the salad watery which is why I always place them in last.

Vegetable Cheese Soup

This is comfort food. Its rich and delicious and is great as a side dish to any meal

Ingredients:

1 onion, diced

2 clove garlic

3 zucchini

3 red peppers

4 stalks of celery, diced

1 cup mushrooms, sliced

1 cup water

1 cup low sodium chicken broth

1 cup soy milk

1 cup regular milk

8oz shredded chedder cheese 1 cup brie cheese, cubed black pepper to taste.

Directions

Place your red peppers in a broiler skin up. Continue to broil until the skins turn black and bubbles. Place them in an air tight container, or paper bag for now.

Remove the skin from the squash (this makes it creamy when you puree it) and cut them into small chunks. Spray some oil into a pot or deep pan and put it on med-high heat. Sauté the onion, garlic and ginger until onions are translucent. Then mix in the squash and celery. Sauté for 10 minutes.  Add water, chicken broth, soy and milk then bring to a boil. 

While your soup is heating up, grab those peppers you just roasted and peel the skin off. Once your soup is boiling, reduce heat and add the mushroom and roasted peppers.  Stir for 5 minutes then start adding in the cheese.

After the cheese has completely disolved, take several small batches and place them into your blender or use an immersion blender right in the pot/pan.

Quinoa Salad

This tastes just like a pasta salad!

Ingredients

1/2 cup uncooked quinoa

3/4 cup Water

1/4 cup lemon juice (approx. 1 medium sized lemon)

1 orange or red bell pepper, diced

1 cucumber, diced

1/2 cup cherry tomatoes

1/4 cup kalmata olives, pitted and chopped

1/3 cup of mozzarella, cubed (3 string cheese sticks works well)

2 Tbsp olive oil

Directions:

In a small pot on medium heat, bring quinoa, water and lemon juice to a boil. Turn the heat to low and simmer for 10 minutes or until the liquid is absorbed. Remove from heat and let sit for 5-10 minutes. Move quinoa to a large bowl, fluff with a fork and add in the peppers, olives, cucumbers, cheese, and tomateos. Drizzle with olive oil and mix thoroughly.

Simple Syrup

As a diabetic, you should really be careful if you're going to drink. It's a delicate balance and if you decide to drink you should be very responsible about it. Monitor yourself, don't get so drunk that you don't remember how much you've had or forget to test your blood sugar.

With that said, during the summer, Rob loves whiskey sours and mint juleps. He doesn't really drink them that often so once in a while for a BBQ, I'll make him a simple syrup with artificial sweeteners.

Simple Syrup:

Boil 1 cup of water. Once it reaches its boiling point, add 2 cup of Diabetisweet. Once it has dissolved remove from heat and let cool. You now have simple syrup that you can bottle.

Sour Mix:

1 cup of the sugar free simple syrup

1/2 cup fresh squeezed lemon

1/2 cup fresh squeezed lime

My recipes can be a great start at creating healthy meals not only for people with diabetes but for anyone looking to cut down on salt and complex carbs. So now let me give you ideas on how to substitute ingredients for your personal recipes.

White Sugar: There are a variety of sugar substitutes out there. Rob is allergic to maltodexrin, a bulking agent used in many food items and especially in most sugar substitutes. As you will see in my recipes, I primarily use Truvia, which uses erythirol as a bulking agent, and Diabetisweet.  I should warn you that DiabetiSweet has that bitter "diet" after taste.  If you're not into that...I don't recommend buying it.  I use it for my simple syrups because once it’s boiled down, I can't taste it.  But it’s overwhelming to me in cookies or pies.

Brown Sugar: DiabetiSweet Brown Sugar Substitute is great to bake with. As I mention in the section above, it has a "diet" aftertaste that I can't stand but you may like it. If I really need to have that brown sugar taste and white sugar just won't do, I use Agave Nectar or Brown Rice Syrup.

*One quick note on Agave Nectar and Brown Rice Syrup...we used them as our primary sweetener for some time until Rob's doctors warned against it.  They are natural, organic and have a low GI but in the end they have the same amount of carbs as honey and therefore NOT sugar free.  They didn't say it was bad, they just wanted to point out that it will still raise your blood sugar levels slow or not so be sure to take insulin, naturally. =)

Milk: My suggestion is to use Almond or Soy milk instead of cow’s milk, if you can. Regular milk, whether it’s Vitamin D, Low Fat or Non-Fat, still contains a lot of sugar, anywhere between 14-16g per 1/2 cup. The less fat it has, the more carb actually. 1 cup of Silk Soymilk Light Plain contains 2g of fat and 8g of carb.

Salt: I have found that excluding salt from my recipes doesn't make the food lose their taste.  If you're adding in other spices you might find that you don't miss it after awhile.  If you want that salty taste, try switching to sea salt. We have a grinder and use about one or two twists for an entire meal. The difference between sea salt and table salt is that the latter is more processed, contains additives to prevent clumping and has iodine. Yes people say you need iodine for thyroid health, but its pretty much in every other processed food item we eat, there is no need to add more. For reliable info on what I just said, check out what the Mayo Clinic has to say on the subject.

Canned Tomato Products: Safeway Brands, Del Monte and Organics have some "no salt added" canned products that work very well for making tomato sauces or even salsa. These are great for quick meals. Organics tomato paste has the lowest sodium per serving that I've found so far, so I always buy that.

Beans: Safeway Brands have low sodium canned beans you can buy if you're not interested in soaking beans all day or doing a flash cook. That is really not my thing so I buy these beans from Safeway to make hummus, tacos, chili and so on. I've also been known to buy in bulk from Costco and washing the beans to remove most of the sodium located in the sauce.

Ketchup: I have become the kind of person who now makes her own ketchup. I'm on a new kick of avoiding processed sugar so I make my own with a small amount of maple syrup, tomato paste and other spices. It really doesn't take that much time so I reccomend you do some searches online to find one that works for you. it.

Sour Cream: Instead of sour cream which is full of fat, I use fat free Greek Yogurt. Fage and Chobani are the only one I can buy in huge tubs from Trader Joes or Whole Foods so that's what I go for. 1 cup of non-fat Fage yogurt has 120 calories, 0 fat, 9g of carb and 20g of protein.

Broths/Stocks/boullions: Most broths contain an insane amount of sodium per serving. I've search several different stores and the two best broths I've found are the Trader Joe's brand and Pacific. You can buy Pacific Chicken Broth and Pacific Vegetable Broth on Amazon in 8oz packets. I'm a huge fan because they are organic and the chicken broth is from free range chickens and for some reason that makes me feel like a better person inside.