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This is a hearty soup good for summer or winter. Serve by itself or with salads or sandwiches. It goes particularly well with hush-puppies. This recipe uses dried beans, not the canned variety. It’s not much work since you use your crock pot, and it’s well worth it!

• One 16 ounce pack of white beans (northern or navy), pre-soaked or parboiled according to package directions.
• 1 ½ cups cubed ham
• 1 15 ounce can of diced tomatoes, with juice
• Half a stick of margarine
• Small diced onion
• One carrot, finely diced
• 6 cups of water
• Salt and pepper to taste

Put all ingredients in your crock pot and cook on low for 6-8 hours, or until beans are tender. If you prefer a thicker soup, transfer some or all of it to a pot and boil hard on the stovetop until it thickens – about five minutes. If the soup doesn’t appear to be thickening well, add about a teaspoon of sugar.

This soup reheats well; if fact, it probably tastes even better the second day. Make a big pot and take some for lunch or reheat for leftovers.

This is a great recipe that’s very versatile. Use whatever meat and vegetables you have on hand, and you can get a unique meal each time.

Cook one cup of dry rice (either brown or white) as you normally would. While that’s boiling, work on your meat and vegetables.

I like to do this dish with chicken or with only vegetables, but you could use beef or pork too. A lean cut of meat works best.

1. Slice one chicken breast thinly and stir fry in olive oil. Remove it from the skillet when it’s done.
2. Add any vegetables you like to the skillet and stir fry those as well. I like to use onions, red and green peppers, corn, celery, broccoli and spinach. If you’re in a hurry, use a bag of frozen vegetables instead.
3. When they’re almost done, add a can of diced tomatoes with the juice. If you like spicy food, use tomatoes with green chilis.
4. Add the cooked rice and chicken.
5. Add a little chicken stock or water with a bullion cube.You’ll want just enough liquid to allow the dish to simmer for a few minutes without boiling dry.
6. Add salt and pepper to taste. I like to also add a bay leaf and parsley and some hot sauce.
7. Cook until everything is heated through and most of the liquid has boiled out.

I like to fix a big batch of this and take if for lunch two or three days. It’s a great way to get plenty of vegetables for lunch, and if you use brown rice, it’s also okay for diabetics to eat.

Take this for lunch, and you’ll have people asking what smells so good!

This recipe makes great use of pasta, particularly whole wheat pasta. I have an article on whole wheat pasta, if your still hesitant to try it.

This is a great, easy dish. It gets even better if you let it sit a day in the fridge. It’s also a good way to use up extra cooked spaghetti. I know I almost always cook too much.

The amounts are estimates. Stir it up, taste it, and tweak it to your liking.

• 2 cups cooked spaghetti (or any pasta)
• 1 diced cucumber
• 1 diced tomato
• 2  tablespoons of salad supreme seasoning
• 1 quarter cup parmesan cheese
• Italian dressing

Mix everything and then begin adding the italian dressing. We like ours with quite a lot (maybe a quarter of a bottle), but you may like less. This is one of those dishes I literally throw together, taste, add a little of this and that, taste…. You get the point.

If tomatoes or cucumbers don’t do it for you, try celery, sweet peppers, etc. I’m sure it would turn out tasty with lots of different combinations.

Broccolini over whole wheat pasta

Originally uploaded by MontageMan
If you’re like me, you’ve heard (and read) that whole wheat pasta tastes awful, is hard to get used to, etc. I’m here to tell you that it isn’t so.

Since my husband found out he was diabetic almost a year ago, we’ve been changing a lot of our eating habits. White bread got replaced by high fiber wheat. Potatoes are a rarity. Pasta fell in that category too for a long time.

We bought Dreamfields pasta, which is white, for a while. It didn’t affect his blood sugar, (more…)

This is super easy, and very good. By making a couple changes, you can make them much lower in carbs than they normally would be, and you won’t notice the difference.

• Ground beef (about a pound and a half)
• Low-carb flour tortillas
• Canned enchilada sauce
• Mozzarella cheese
• Tobasco sauce (if desired)
• Refried beans (if desired)

Fry your ground beef as you would for tacos. About a pound and a half of lean ground beef is enough to make about eight enchiladas. Add powdered taco seasoning and a little water and allow the meat to simmer until the seasoning cooks through. Add salt and pepper to taste, but be careful. The taco seasoning can be a bit salty. I tend to go light on the taco seasoning since it can be a bit high in carbs.

Choose low-carb flour tortillas. Add two or three spoonfuls of the meat to each enchilada and roll up. You can add cheese inside the enchilada, but I prefer to just put it on top.

Spread some enchilada sauce on the bottom of a baking dish. Place the rolled, filled tortillas in the pan, close together. Spoon more enchilada sauce over the top. If you want to avoid the carbs in the sauce but still add heat, mix in some extra tabasco and then use less enchilada sauce.

Sprinkle liberally with mozzarella cheese.

Bake on 400 degrees until they’re sizzling and the cheese is melted and bubbly.

I serve refried beans on the side rather than adding them to the enchiladas. They’re relatively high in carbs, so we tend to do better by having a small side serving of them rather than putting them inside the tortillas.

Enjoy!

This is a great breakfast dish. It also reheats well, so make some extra for weekday morning breakfasts.

• Six large eggs, beaten
• 2 tb margarine or butter
• Half a large onion
• Two stalks of celery
• Half a green pepper
• About 1/3 cup of frozen spinach
• 1 cup Shredded cheddar (or any other cheese you like)
• hot sauce, to taste

Dice all the vegetables and stir fry them in the margarine or butter until they’re just starting to get tender. Set them aside to let them cool a bit.

Spray your baking dish with cooking spray. A deep dish pie plate works fine, as does a 9×9 square dish. You can also use muffin tins for egg bites.

Beat your eggs in a mixing bowl. Add the vegetables, hot sauce and cheese and stir well. Pour into the baking dish. Bake on 450 degrees until the eggs are set, about 20 minutes. The muffin tins take a little less time.

Substitutions

You could use something like Egg Beaters if you don’t want real eggs. Likewise, any vegetables should work. I’ve used mushrooms in the past. I’ve even put a couple spoonfuls of salsa in. Use whatever you like and what you have on hand. Obviously, you could add meat if you want. We just prefer it with vegetables and cheese only.

This recipe is very vegetable-dense. If you’d rather have a recipe with fewer vegetables and more egg, add a couple eggs to the recipe and don’t use as many vegetables. This is a great way to “sneak” vegetables into your day, and they really are delicious.

This is a great bread machine recipe, and it smells and tastes fabulous. I realize molasses may sound strange in bread, but it gives the bread a wonderful flavor and scent. I promise, you’re going to think this is fantastic.

Put the ingredients in the bread machine in this order.

• 1 1/2 cups of warm water
• two tablespoons of butter or margarine, at room temperature
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• four tablespoons of molasses
• 3 cups of whole wheat flour
• 4 teaspoons of vital wheat gluten
• two tablespoons of bread machine yeast

Bake on your bread machine’s whole wheat cycle.

Note that this is a pretty generic whole wheat recipe, so if you have one you like already, simply substitute the molasses for either the sugar or honey (whichever your recipe calls for).

If the whole wheat is a bit dense for you, try substituting one cup of regular bread flour for one cup of the whole wheat. If you go with this option, then cut the amount of wheat gluten. If you don’t, your bread is likely to rise too much and overflow the pan (ask me how I know that…)

I haven’t tried letting this sit overnight in the bread machine’s timed cycle, so I can’t speak to how well that works. If any of you try it, let me know how it goes.

This is a little different twist on your traditional vegetable soup. This is a super easy, delicious recipe that’s easy to tweak to accommodate your tastes and preferences.

Meatballs:

• One pound of hamburger (lean)
• quarter cup of plain bread crumbs
• two large eggs
• half  a cup of parmesan cheese
• salt,  black pepper, red pepper to taste

Gradually add about one half to three fourths of a 15 ounce can of tomato sauce as you mix the meat mixture. You want it wet enough to allow you to form the meat into balls, but not so wet that it falls apart. Work the tomato sauce in gradually so you don’t get too much.

Pinch off small amounts of the meat mixture — about enough to form a one inch meatball. Work each meatball in your hands before forming into a ball and setting aside. Kneading the meat will help the meatballs stay together in the soup.

Soup:

Add the following vegetables to your soup pot, with a little margarine or olive oil.

• One large carrot, diced
• Two celery stalks, diced
• One large onion, diced
• One half of a green or red bell pepper, diced
• One potato, peeled and diced
• One quarter of a cabbage, cut into chunks

Stir fry the vegetables just until they begin to get translucent. If you’re using a crock pot or in a hurry, you can skip the stir frying step, but it does add a lot of flavor.

Add

• four cups of water
• one can of diced tomatoes, with juice
• one can of whole kernel corn, drained
• salt, black pepper and red pepper to taste
• dried basil, to taste

Bring the soup to a rapid boil and drop the meatballs in one at a time. When all the meatballs have been added, reduce heat to a simmer and cover. Don’t stir the soup for at least thirty minutes to avoid breaking up the meatballs.

Simmer for about 45 minutes or until vegetables and meatballs are cooked through.  This is a great hearty soup that does well on its own or with rolls or sandwiches.

If you’re watching your sugar or carbs, then you know that traditional cranberry sauce is loaded in sugar. Here’s an alternate recipe you can use. I tried it for Thanksgiving, and it turned out great.

1 bag fresh cranberries

1 cup splenda

capful of lemon juice

1 packet of unflavored Knox gelatin

Put the cranberries in a pot with a splash of water and the lemon juice. Cook them, stirring constantly, until most of the berries have burst. Add the splenda and stir in. Depending on the thickness you want, you may need to add another quarter cup of water at this point. While it’s still hot, stir in the Knox gelatin and continue to stir until it’s dissolved.

You can allow this to cool in a bowl, or in a mold. Once it sets up, it will be pretty stiff. This amount of splenda gives it a nice combination of sweet and tart. If you like your cranberry sauce really sweet, then you’ll probably want to stir in another half cup. You can taste it, or course, before you add the gelatin, to be sure you’ve gotten it right.

This will make a great Christmas recipe.

I’ve made these twice, with great success. I can’t even tell they’re low-carb.

Beat two eggs in a mixing bowl with three tablespoons of oil and 1 1/2 cups cream thinned with water. I like to do mine about half cream and half water, until it’s the consistency of whole milk. Add carb quick to that until it’s the thickness of pancake batter. If you want to add flavoring (vanilla or almond would be good), now is the time.

Fry pancakes in a hot, greased skillet. I wouldn’t recommend skipping the oil; these tend to stick a bit. When they’re golden brown, poke the center to make sure they’re done. Serve with butter and syrup. We like Walden Farms.

These pancakes come out nice and fluffy, just like my regular ones. Enjoy!