I am enjoying this thread. Hope to see, and post, some low carb/glycemic recipes.

*waves hello to everyone*
 

Bless you Ursy, and thank you for finding Gram's noodle recipe! It would take me an hour or more to find it right now.
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In general for diabetic cooking, bananas and dates are not allowed, nor is honey--and since fat converts to sugar in the body, too much fat isn't allowed either. But you can substitute unsweetened applesauce for butter or shortening in most quick-bread recipes, and grated zucchini for bananas.

I sometimes make home-made applesauce for dessert. It's pretty easy to make. Here's the technique for Spicy Applesauce.

Gather several kinds of apples (you can use just Red Delicious, but it's a little blander), wash them, and peel them if you like or leave the peels on. Cut them into chunks or slices--thinner slices cook faster--put the seeds and cores in your compost pile, and put the apples in a saucepan with one tablespoon of melted butter in the bottom. If you are cooking entirely fat-free, you can use water--but the butter makes a big difference, and is a small amount for that many apples.

Cook them on medium heat, stirring often, until they start to soften.

For every six to eight big apples, add in one teaspoon of cinnamon and one teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice (you can easily adjust these amounts up or down). Stir well and continue cooking. The apples will continue to soften. Add just a little more water if needed to keep them from sticking, but be VERY cautious--it won't cook out very easily if you put in too much; better to turn the heat down and just keep stirring. Mash the apples as you go (a handheld potato masher works for this); they'll get easier to mash as they cook.

When most of the apples have cooked down and been mashed, stir in two teaspoons of vanilla (optional but oh, so good!). Finish cooking and mashing. Serve warm--don't burn your tongue!<---voice of experience, lol--or cold.

Apple suggestions:
Red Delicious
Golden Delicious
Jonathan
Rome Beauty
MacIntosh
Gala
Any other sweet eating apple

Avoid Granny Smith apples for this recipe unless you like tart desserts.

Here's the recipe.

Spicy Applesauce

6-8 big apples, washed, peeled if you like, cored and sliced
1 Tbsp butter or water
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
2 tsp vanilla extract

Melt butter in saucepan, pour in apples. Cook over medium heat, stirring often, until apples start to soften. Add cinnamon and pie spice. Continue cooking, stirring and mashing often. When most of the apples are mashed, stir in the vanilla. Cook until all the apples mash down. Serve warm or cold.

Hey Chancie! How cool that you joined the farm!! I've often wanted to do something like that.

My sympathies on your back and the lack of gardening. I noticed for myself that just growing herbs in pots made a huge difference for me; hope that having your own fresh herbs will make things better for you, too!

like many here I grow in season which can be pretty long here in southern virginia. There is no way i could afford to eat what i eat if I had to buy it fresh. But off season or if I'm busy and can't grow as much as I consume I bake a whole chicken once a week. I eat two meals from this and then prepare a noodle soup. Whatever chicken is left I can pretty much get a quart or two of soup so one batch I might make a broth and meat with coconut milk, lemon grass and curry. I'll add hopefully shitaki mushrooms I buy in a can from Ollie's for a buck a can (I buy 20 cans use them all the time) I add roasted red pepper I also buy at ollies unless its season and I'm growing them. I then add some kind of Japanese Somen, rice noodle or the like. I love this soup.

I make another batch with big egg noodles or ziti, chopped celery,basil portabella mushrooms. More of an Italian chunky soup.

Sometimes a Chicken Cacciatore. It's light on chicken but I can get at least 2 meals from a left over chicken.

So I eat the legs and thighs, my favorite, 2 meals and the rest goes towards meals I freeze. Lots of bang for your buck and everything I cook and eat is gourmet. I never skimp on ingredients.

How interesting, June! Do these come out tasting more like the egg noodles in the store? And does the recipe make a lot of noodles? It looks just from the flour amount like it's double my Gram's recipe, which makes enough noodles for a HUGE pot of soup that lasts two hungry people several days.

Anyhow, if it does make loads of noodles, have you tried drying them? How well does it work?
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Ursy, I hear you about ravioli being fiddly. Have you tried a ravioli press? I saw them when I ordered my pasta machine. There's even a ravioli rolling pin, and a ravioli stamp like a cross between a biscuit cutter and a cookie stamp! Here's a link to an amazon page. [ame="http://www.amazon.com/Norpro-Ravioli-Maker-and-Press/dp/B000BBGV0G/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=home-garden&qid=1274371466&sr=8-1"]Amazon.com: Norpro Ravioli Maker and Press: Home & Garden[/ame]
Someday after everything has settled down financially, I want to try one, probably one of the mold-type pans that makes a bunch at once.

edited to correct the link, again and again... oy... maybe this last one will go somewhere.... *crossin fingers*

How cool is that ravioli press?! I am going to keep an eye out for one of those!
Thanks Catie! xx

Oooh, ooooh, OOOOH!

I just came across this and I had to share it -
http://www.aldenteblog.com/2009/03/f...g-horrors.html

AAACCCKKKK!!! My eyes, my eyes!!

My "favorite" (NOT) was the armadillo.

I just discovered this tomato sauce recipe and I'm dying to try it.
Just 3 ingredients - a can of tomatoes, butter, and an onion (ok, 4 if you count salt).

It sounds too simple, but so many people are just raving about it (for example, the 3 links below - not to mention the accompanying comments on each post), I have to give it a try -

http://smittenkitchen.com/2010/01/to...er-and-onions/
http://orangette.blogspot.com/2007/0...ato-sauce.html
http://racheleats.wordpress.com/2010...e-of-the-year/


28 ounces (800 grams) whole peeled tomatoes from a can (San Marzano, if you can find them)*
5 tablespoons (70 grams) unsalted butter
1 medium-sized yellow onion, peeled and halved
Salt to taste

Basically, you simmer it for 45 minutes, then you throw away the onion.

Fresh Garden Salsa
 

We've made this a couple times for church events and parties last summer. It's been a big hit. It is a little time consuming, but it's fun when multiple people work on it together. The first time we did it, my mom, daughter and I all chipped in and we had an abundance of salsa!

1. Visit the farmer's market! Get locally grown, fresh picked, in season, organic produce... that's made the difference, and what you'll find may vary from time to time. :)

This made a large batch - adjust quantity as needed!
6 ears of corn
6 tomatoes (depends on size)
2 bell peppers (we picked multicolors when they're available)
2 hot peppers (we found several variations)
2 onions (vidalia, and purple are great for this)
bunch of cilantro
4 garlic cloves

2. Take the silk out of the corn, but leave the husk. Soak corn with attached husk in cold water for 10-20 min. Grill the corn. Cut corn from ear.

Chop the remaining ingredients very small.

Throw it all together and mix well.

Add 1-2 tsp of lemon juice and salt to taste.

Put it covered in the fridge overnight.

:)

I bought one of these when Pete took me to The Vermont Country Store.

I haven't used it yet, but I can't wait to try it out!


http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3005/...baa5fd9ece.jpg

I am currently in lust with all versions of these bagged wonders for the microwave:

http://i557.photobucket.com/albums/s...00931506PM.jpg

I have a pork roast in the fridge. It started life as a New England Boiled Dinner, and it's morphed several times. All the taters and sauerkraut are gone, and the last of the carrots got used up tonight. The broth has made spaghetti a couple times and penne rigata once. I've reboiled the roast a couple times and added significant amounts of water to the broth each time--it still gels, so I know there's still calcium coming out of the bones (yay for us!).

I topped the first two pastas with shredded cheese (4 cheese Mexican blend); tonight I topped it with homemade yogurt and discovered that yogurt is GREAT with pork! I dumped in the carrots, too, and tonight also dumped in a can of generic diced tomatoes w/jalapenos.

The flavor of the meat and broth just keeps getting better. I never knew you could cook like this!

The final destination of the broth (probably a couple batches) will be rice.

The final destination of the meat--after I use some to make burritos or enchiladas or something--will be pulled pork, with honey mesquite barbeque sauce.

I think the label on the pork said "shoulder arm picnic roast" or some variation on that, and it was a ten pounder on sale for $1.39 a pound.

I'll be doing this again!

Tomato acid hint
 

Btw, wanted to share that I've discovered there isn't really such a thing as low-acid tomatoes, only high sugar tomatoes. That makes them like oranges, yanno? So much sugar that you just don't taste the tartness--but the acid is still there.

Gryph is allergic to the high acid content, so I fugured out how to neutralize it--baking soda! One 14 or 15 ounce can of tomatoes + 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon baking soda = no acid reaction! It does make the tomatoes foam up (just like baking soda and vinegar), so make sure you have enough room in the pan if you try it--and of course, raw baking soda is not exactly delectable, so you want to do this only in dishes that will be cooked.

It's really nice to be able to use tomatoes again!

PS, thanks to PearlsNLace for doing the research about the low acid tomatoes!

I so love roasted vegies - really brings out the flavour.
I never really liked sweet potato until I tried it roasted with sour cream on top. That's the best way to have it, if you ask me!

Anyway Chancie, your pasta sounds yum!

Wow Cath, $1.39 a pound is a pretty amazing price. I don't think we'd ever find a special like that here in Australia. The best I've seen is about $4.00 a kilo (now the online converter says 1 kilogram = 2.20462262 pounds, but I don't want to think that hard so let's just say $2.00 a pound) but that's a very rare find. That was for a pork roast.

Meat is getting more and more expensive. The cheapest meat here is turkey mince (something like $2.50 a pound). I imagine it's because turkey meat must be relatively cheap to produce, but I wonder why? Chicken mince and beef mince is more like $5.00 - $6.00 a pound, on average. It would be interesting to do a comparison.

Oh, yeah... but that was Australian dollars... too many variables - I give up!

Ursy -

When you say mince, is that comparable to what I'd call "ground"? When I read mince, I think something like paste. It can't be the same, I think.

I've been striving to not by meats (as much), or to look for local sources rather than chain super markets. I do buy a lot of turkey (ground), and fish when able. I don't mind paying a little more for the right meats when I know I'm saving money elsewhere (produce).

Oh yes Freckle, I think you guys call it ground. Funny how we have to negotiate different terminologies across the ocean. I read an amusing discussion about biscuits and cookies just this past weekend - here it is:

http://ask.metafilter.com/43569/What...biscuit-abroad

Because what you guys call cookies, we call biscuits. We tend not to have biscuits in the U.S. sense at all. It intrigued me greatly when I first heard of them. I think I'm going to have to try them!