Ice Cream

 Homemade ice cream from Atkins, phase II and up.  The ice trays are an attempt to solve the problem of how hard it freezes.  It is difficult to gouge it out of a container after it has been in the freezer.  I've tried using the pampered chef containers and ice shaver, but it is likely to just stay in the freezer because I don't want to eat a whole container at once.  The ice trays should allow me to get a couple of chunks and Larry to get how many he wants...easily.

I also froze the remainder of the homemade barbecue sauce in ice trays.  I have at least a half dozen extra ice trays on hand.  Once the cubes are frozen, I empty them into freezer bags.

New Recipe

I had tried fake mashed potatoes made with cauliflower. I wasn't impressed.  But my son kept insisting it was good when he made it.  Well, I'd thought I'd followed directions and it sounded like he used the same ingredients I had.
But during the visit, he made it.  Evidently the difference was that I'd used the blender to puree the mixture and he'd used the food processor.  I didn't have a food processor when I made it but thought a blender would work the same.  Not.
His "mashed potatoes" are quite good.  Now, cauliflower doesn't taste like potatoes, but butter, heavy cream, and sour cream with salt and pepper pretty much take care of the difference.
I wonder why my cursor isn't showing up.

Poster Child

Today a friend at the hospital said I am a poster child for my diet:)

Low-Carb

simplerich.blogspot.com has a really nice post about the low-carb, high fiber diet with a picture of his dinner, his grocery list and how much he spent for the week.
I didn't see anything that looked like snacks on his list, but if he eats all that, it may be meal time before he's hungry again.

What Did You Eat for Lunch?

Three people at the hospital asked what I had for lunch.  Two of them are dithering about going on the Atkins diet.  The third said he didn't eat anything but had sweet tea:)
I had baked chicken, turnip greens, salad, and water.

Diet Side Dish

 Larry cooked a roast.  I used the juice from the roast to make this side dish.  I put onion, bell peppers, hot peppers, mushrooms, and 1/4 t xanthum gum in the juice.  I cooked the Dreamfields elbow noodles in a different pot and then combined them when the pasta was cooked. 

I made the spinach quiche several times.  This one has frozen broccoli instead of spinach.  I cut it into eight servings and then eat a serving for whichever meal I want.  It works well for breakfast, lunch, or whatever.

Crepes - Reflection

Moderation isn't my strong point.
I made crepes for the first time last night.  The first few were ragged.  A spatula didn't flip as well as the silicon batter scraper.  The substitution of low carb pancake mix for flour was successful.
The problem was, I ate two crepes piled high with my apple filling and topped with whipped cream.  And I ate them pretty late.
My weight didn't suffer from my overindulgence, but my blood sugar was 130 this morning.  I'm trying to keep it closer to 100 and under sometimes.
Theoretically, that treat was "on my diet" if eaten in moderation.  That's what I'll do next time...just eat one and eat it earlier in the day when I have some hope of moving next!

Crepes

As I may have mentioned, I don't like to move and I do like to eat.  I thought the fitbit would help me be aware of just how little I do move and maybe encourage me to move a little more.  Maybe it is; it is too soon to tell.
But my other thing is eating.  I saw a chef preparing crepes on my vacation.  I didn't eat them even though the cherries and whipped cream looked really good and the crepes smelled good...
So I've been thinking about crepes.  I decided I wanted crepes with strawberries and whipped cream.  Plan B would be apples simmered in butter with splenda and cinnamon as filling for my crepes.
I'm going to have to use Plan B (apples) because the strawberries looked pretty bad.  I just went and picked apples off our tree so they should be all right.
I'm going to make the crepes with low-carb pancake mix instead of flour. 

No Internet

I wasn't able to connect to the internet with my air card until just now.  We had rain today, which was good.  But I wish we could have had rain and internet:)
My liquid splenda arrived today.  It doesn't taste quite the same and the granulated splenda but I think it is going to be all right. It is lower-carb than the granulated due to lack of filler.  I found a recipe for a low-carb creme brulee and have been waiting for the liquid splenda to arrive before trying it. I found the banana flavoring so I'm ready to try it now:)
I've ordered a fitbit which was supposed to arrive Wednesday of last week and hasn't gotten here yet. 

Crustless Quiche

My post that was titled Good Link has some very useful information.  I made this crustless quiche today.  It is a ham and spinach one, but I plan to try others, too.  They freeze, too.  My husband liked it, too.
I also found several recipes for creme brulee.  I love creme brulee.  I was looking at the nutrition information for several different ones when I noticed there were two different numbers for carbs...one was a little less than half as much as the other.  The smaller number was if liquid splenda was used.  The note said the granulated splenda has more carbs than the liquid because of the fillers.
I have looked for the liquid splenda in three stores and didn't find it.  Today I ordered some from Amazon.  When I see the packaging, I may recognize it on the shelf.  I thought it would be in a bottle.  But evidently the bottle is inside a box.  So it may be available locally.

Vitamin K - Atkins Diet

It has been of concern to me that some people I know are not supposed to eat vegetables because vitamin K encourages clotting.  I knew that.  I thought it was a good thing because it means people don't bleed to death from a cut.
But it turns out people all over the place are taking blood thinner.  People are encouraged to take low-dosage aspirin to help protect again blood clots.
If I ever am told not to eat vegetables, my diet will be out the window unless I try to get all my fiber through supplements.  I'm not sure if fiber supplements have have vitamin K or not.  I guess I should check.
Something else to wonder about.

Diet Update

Someone I'm close to went on the Atkins Diet recently in an effort to lose a little weight, bring down blood sugar numbers and cholesterol numbers.  It has been very inspiring to have somebody to talk to about my diet.  If you have ever been on a diet and nobody else is, you know how you talk to people who have no interest in it and just generally bore everybody stiff. 
I had set as my weight goal (way back when) to lose 75 pounds.  After I lost about 45 pounds and had gone down several sizes, I decided I'd give it a rest to see if I could maintain the loss.  My lab work numbers had all improved on the diet.  I'm 0.1 away from "normal" for blood sugar.  My cholesterol is in the normal range.
But now is a good time for me to lose the next portion...I have somebody to diet with even though we are hundreds of miles apart.  MyFitnessPal is a site that allows people to track what they eat broken down in categories.  It isn't geared for Atkins so I'm constantly over in fat, calories, etc., but I can track my fiber and carbs...the two things that are important about this diet. The site also allows friends so I can have a diet buddy:)

I Asked the Doctor

I asked the doctor about a test for clogged arteries as I had been on the Atkins diet for several years.  I'd been eating lots of meat, cheese, eggs, saturated fats and became concerned that even though my lab results have consistently improved, perhaps my arteries were clogged.  He said he could check right then.  He put the stethoscope in various places and said I was clear.

Bedtime Snack

I found a recipe for the Swiss Chard.  Start with olive oil, saute garlic and crushed red pepper.  Cut the greens into one inch strips.  Put the greens in and cover them for five minutes.  Turn it over for five more minutes, covered.

I divided it into two bowls, one for Larry and one for me.  I ate mine and his.  He doesn't like crushed red pepper or garlic.  I thought it was pretty good.  It was on my diet and didn't take long to prepare (if you don't count the time it took to grow it).  Also, it was something different. 

Swiss Chard

That pile of green leaves is Swiss chard.  I haven't eaten it, to my knowledge, but Leigh says it is good.  One seed came up, a year after we planted it.  I'm cooking it now.

I am always on the look out for a green vegetable that I like.  There aren't many, and the Atkins diet calls for lots of low-carb fiber.

Nice Day

My diet lunch was slaw, steamed broccoli with butter, an 8 oz. steak, medium rare, and water:)
I found a suitcase at Bed, Bath, and Beyond with spinners.  I also got one of the cooling towels from them.
A sporting goods store supplied me with one of the little backpack things with a tube to drink from.
We saw Snow White. It was pretty well done.  I especially liked the settings.
Home next with the progress made on the summer kitchen.

 The one sticking out on the left is for the grill.

The rest of the metal trim is on the roof and they started building a couple of porches.  One of them is for the grill.  I have no clue what the other one is for.

Then we rode around looking at stuff.  I picked today's open gardenias and put them in the gator's glove box while we picked blueberries.

The orange lilies are finished but the others are still nice.  This one is from Paul and Ruth in Grand Bay.  We didn't know if it would survive up here, but it is doing just fine with no particular care over the winter.

Pasta Dish

Today I decided I was in the mood for pasta (I used my Dreamfields pasta so it was on our diet).
I put a whole lot of garlic, some olive oil, diced jalapeno, and black olives in it.  Larry ate his and said I got too much garlic.  I thought I did, too.  I put two cloves of elephant garlic in.  I thought it would be mild enough that it would be just enough.  It wasn't mild at all.  It was strong.  It was still good enough to make again.

Health Update

They test for a lot of things every six months.  The doctor wants it to be every 4 months.  But anyway, we went for our consultation following the lab work done Monday.
My glucose was in the normal range, my A1C was 5.9 (down from 6.1) and the high end of the range is 5.7.
My cholesterol is in the normal range except my hdl was 75 and 60 is the high end.  But hdl is the good one and nobody wants me to bring that number down so it will be in the normal range.
My triglycerides were 75.
So those were the numbers I was concerned with and they were all good.
Larry's numbers weren't good, but they were all better than last time.  So it was an excellent report for both of us.  The doctor asked what diet I use and I told him, low carb, low sugar, high protein, high fiber, high fat...the Atkins diet.

Today's Challenge

I usually plan to have one challenging thing (or one annoying thing) per day.  Today's challenge was to try to make Crab Cakes using a recipe claiming to be like Joe's Crab Shack.  I like Joe's Crab Shack, and I had a pound of crab meat.  I didn't have Old Bay Seasoning.  So I looked up a recipe for that and didn't have all the ingredients for it, so I put a dash of everything I had that was in that recipe.  Then I started substituting so the patty itself would be on my diet (Atkins).  I'd been planning this for a while.  I had saved end-of-loaves from low-carb bread so I tried making my bread crumbs.  That turned out all right, but not as easy as I had envisioned.  Then I used peanut oil to fry the patties.  I had to put a couple more eggs in the mixture so the crab and stuff would make a patty.  And I used crushed pork rinds instead of flour.  So I made them and Larry said they were good.  I do understand that he doesn't really like crab cakes all that much.  But he was willing to eat them.  I thought they were OK.  I didn't throw them away, but I don't know that I'll make them again.

Cheese Crisps

 This is a cheese crisp Larry made smeared with alluette garlic and herbs.  I'd bought cheese crisps (expensive, but 0 carbs) and put the alluette on it like a cracker.  So Larry looked at where the cheese had melted off of his cheese toast, tasted it and decided he would make it himself.  So he cut three slices and cooked them at 350 for 15 minutes.  The pan below is going to go in at 350 for ten minutes.  I'm very pleased Larry has started playing with his food:)

Note: 12 minutes next time

I was congratulating him for figuring that out when he said Leigh told him about it.