I need help. I’m bored to tears with what I eat. I need meal recommendations. Here’s the rules: 1. No weird ingredients, I’m not gonna be able to get sea anemones or wagyu beef.
2. I’m T1 diabetic, so it has to conform to my diet or have a reasonable way around.
3. It’s just me eating, so the giant roast beast ain’t happening.
4.And I’m lazy as hell. Keep it kinda simple.
Any ideas?
Do you like Italian? Pasta Puttanesca is dead simple and tastes great.
2 tablespoons olive oil
5 garlic cloves
2 15oz cans diced tomatoes
1 can anchovie filets
15 pitted kalamata olives
2 tablespoons capers, drained
1 teaspoon dry basil
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flake
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
Pasta of choice
Boiling salted water
Grated parmesan cheese
Mince the fresh garlic. Add the olive oil to a large hot frying pan, then add the minced garlic. Saute briefly, do not brown. Add the canned tomatoes. Drain the anchovies and mince small; add to tomatoes and garlic. Slice the olives and add to the tomatoes. Add the capers to the tomatoes. Add the red pepper flake and black pepper. Reduce heat to a simmer. Add pasta to boiling water for 10-12 minutes, or until al dente.
Serve tomato sauce on top of drained pasta, top with grated parmesan cheese
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Aldi sells these sauces you add to chicken that are really good.Tikka Masala is only one kind, but they look like the picture I linked to.
You chop the chicken into bits, heat it up, drain it. Add the sauce, let that heat up. Eat it on rice.
Easy and really good.
You will have to check the sugar content or anything else that would impact your diabetes.
My mother has just been diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes. Is what’s good for Type 1 also good for Type 2?
I’d say,yes, generally. T2s sometimes have blood pressure issues which further restricts them.
My pancreas makes no insulin, so I’m insulin dependent. T2s pancreas’ may just need help. There are oral meds they take for that. YMMV, of course.
Julia Child once said, “garlic makes it French, wine makes it good.”
Or maybe it was the other way around. Either way, the point is, use seasonings.
I am having a similar problem. Do you mind if I piggyback on your thread?
When I retired a couple of years ago, I was very excited about dinner plans. I told the Ukulele Lady we could have fascinating food EVERY night…cassoulet, seafood paella, Greek pastitsio, steamed lobsters, a standing rib roast, pheasant under glass, you name it!
She simultaneously decided to ramp up her Healthy Eating regimen. She wanted simple grilled fish or meat with a steamed vegetables or a salad, no starch. (I love potatoes, rice, and pasta. She will no longer eat white rice or white pasta. I refuse to eat the brown stuff, which my Asian and Italian friends confirm is only fit for pigs) I have been preparing two dinners every evening for the past year or two.
Lately she has been complaining that the food I serve her is not up to her standards…I’m not paying enough attention to preparing her meal… and has been fixing her own dinner when she gets home from work. Last night she had a beet salad with cucumbers, hard boiled egg, and a (light) sour cream dressing…tonight was broccoli rabe with butternut squash and chicken sausage.
My problem is that I don’t feel like making an elaborate dinner for myself alone. Tonight I had a bowl of homemade broccoli soup I defrosted from the freezer.
So, on my own, I could be eating whatever I want every night, and I am a good enough cook to whomp up anything. My problem is that I think “I don’t deserve to have veal Francesca with pasta aglio e olio ALL BY MYSELF” so I don’t do it.
Any brilliant ideas?
This attitude is sadly not uncommon, and is part of the reason why elderly widowers and divorced men often have nutrition problems. Lack of cooking skills is a far bigger contributor, of course, but even men who can cook are often resistant to cooking “just for themselves”. Yes, you should try to fix this. Some suggestions:
Every other day or so, try to work into your dinner prep a simple side dish or starter that both you and your wife can enjoy. Scale up from there to chef-level menu planning where you use many of the same base ingredients for two different versions of the same meal: one simple and healthy, and one more elaborate and rich.
Ain’t nothing wrong with homemade broccoli soup. If you are getting good nutrition overall, there is no problem with splitting your efforts between fancy one-shot meals and utilitarian “batch” cooking for simpler meals some of the time.
And for the OP: Batch cooking and freezing is your friend. It’s often easier to get interested in making a big batch of soup or stew, or even that giant roast beast, and spreading out the consumption over a longer period of time than to maintain enthusiasm about cooking yourself something new from scratch every meal.
I do do some batch cooking. I have a few faves. I freeze them in small quatities. I’m thinking I may look into some wraps or slider type sandwiches. Anyone got any recipes?
Are you sure? If it’s a matter of availability, there are probably many fruits & vegetables at your local supermarket that you haven’t tried yet. And nowdays, even small cities have ethnic markets. Try visiting an Asian or Indian market some time.
What exactly are your dietary restrictions? Low fat & sugar?
I tend to be too skinny, so fats not a problem. Of course I monitor my sugar intake. I generally do ok with homemade sauces and the like. So much sugar in canned things. Its a problem I usually can work around if I’m careful.
Toss about two pounds of beef stew meat into a crockpot. Pour in two packets of taco seasoning. Slice an onion and throw that in. Cut a tomato in quarters and throw that in two. Pop the stems off two jalapenos and toss them in, and a clove of peeled garlic as well. Cover it with water and set the heat to low. Let it cook for about 12 hours, drain it, and shred it with two forks.
Boom! Easy carne guisada. Put it in a taco, or a burrito, or an enchilada, or on top of nachos, or whatever else you fancy.
Ukulele Ike, have you read Judith Jones’ The Pleasures of Cooking for One? Excellent book, excellent food, good ideas, small portions. I’d recommend it to the OP, but it’s definitely a cook’s cookbook - it’s not really written for quick/easy cooking.
As far as the OP:
Frontera makes excellent Enchilada Sauces. I’m much more of a make-your-own-sauce kind of person, but I found these during my kitchen remodel when I didn’t have the ability to cook much. I can’t speak to the other sauces on that page, but both the green and red enchilada are worth keeping around. You can make a pan of however many enchiladas you want with a bag of store-bought corn tortillas, this sauce, some cheese, and whatever meat you have lying around. If you want to spice it up, add some dried chile or taco seasoning. Or chopped jalepenos, or salsa, or whatever. It’s easy, fast, delicious. I tend to serve it with a salad of cherry tomatoes, cucumber, red onion with oil & vinegar.
Omelets are dinner food. Throw in whatever you have lying around (ham, peppers, mushrooms, cheese, etc) and serve with a green salad.
You mentioned wraps; the problem I have with most wraps is that wrap-sized tortillas are enormously carby (I, too, am a T1 diabetic). But you CAN get low-carb wraps that are reasonably tasty, or you can use a couple fajita-sized tortillas (15 carb each) and make quesadillas or small wraps. I don’t really have recipes, other than “take meat, cheese, lettuce, onion, mayo/mustard/etc and wrap it up.”
You can make easy pork filling for wraps or enchiladas or tacos with a pork shoulder, Just buy one (whatever size you like), chop it into 1" chunks, throw it in a pot, cover with water. If you want to be fancy, add in a dried chile or two and some garlic or use beer instead of water, but you really don’t need it. Allow to simmer for a couple hours until the pork shreds easily. Pull the meat out of the liquid, and then boil down the liquid until it’s syrupy. Shred the pork, mix back in with the reduced liquid.
When you want to eat it, take as much pork as you want for the recipe, and fry it up in a pan until the outside gets crispy. Use as a filling in enchiladas/wraps/tacos/etc. You DO want a sauce or salsa with this - this technique of doing the meat gives you a nice rich meaty flavor and some texture from the fry, but it doesn’t bring heat or sauciness per se. I like it that way, I want my flavors distinct. A good sauce will complete the dish.
Freeze whatever pork you don’t use in individual portions.
That’s what I have off the top of my head, if I think of more I’ll come back!
I’m gonna definitely look into the Frontera products. Those look great. Thx!
First, you DO deserve to be able to make and eat a wonderful dinner for yourself.
Second, expose your wife to some other ideas about what constitutes healthy eating. Certainly, lobsters and paella are healthy foods! There are many doctors now who say brown rice is bad for you. Gundry, for example, struck me as a quack at first, but a friend who has suffered years of digestive issues, everything prescribed by various doctors did not help, but then another md said she should try Gundry’s diet, and voila! her issues healed in lighting speed. I’m not saying she should follow any fads, but just realize that fat is not as bad as she might think it is, and white rice once a week or so might not be bad for her at all.
Maybe once a week for a wonderful gourmet dinner for the both of you, and then she can go back to her austerity diet. And you can make special meals for yourself several days a week. If you make a larger amount, you can divide it into freezer portions, so that even when you don’t feel like cooking for “just” yourself, you’ll still have a lovely food option.
Here are two easy ideas that fit into a diabetic’s diet, and that can varied a great deal so you don’t get bored.
Deviled eggs have an infinite number of variations. Besides the usual mayo-mustard-onion versions, you can mash the yolks with avocado. Or even store-bought guacamole, if you really don’t feel like cooking. Or curry. Or add chopped bacon bits. Or whatever strikes your fancy. Chopped water chestnuts would give a nice crunch.
I recently stuffed mushrooms with chopped roasted artichoke hearts (you can use canned or frozen ones if roasted are not available), a little pancetta (or chopped bacon bits), onions, shredded parmesan, a small amount of panic bread crumbs, finely chopped almonds, a little white wine, a garlic hot pepper spice blend, because I love those things, but ymmv. Rubbed the mushroom caps with olive oil, stuffed them with the stuffing, topped them with more parmesan, and baked at 375 for half an hour. I loved them. But you can vary this according to your preferences any number of ways.
Mushrooms – or eggs, for that matter – or giant artichokes – can be stuffed with shrimp, or crab, or sausage, as well as vegetables. You don’t need a lot for the stuffing to give a lot of flavor.
Another one - tortilla pizza. Easy & really good.
That sounds great. I’ll be making beef barley soup today.
To the OP - I get bored at what I eat at work. I do have my own small refer in my office so I can mix it up a bit.
I’ve come up with a little bit of a different sandwich that is quite tasty and very easy - Toasted dark rye bread, sliced roast beef (just from the deli) cream cheese, sliced tomato.
Pasta isn’t a great choice for people with diabetes. The whole wheat stuff is better but tastes so wheaty it overwhelms the sauce.
I do lots of soups that I make in advance, lean meats and salads, and street taco-type meals with corn tortillas. Ban Mi salad, sushi salad. You can find recipes all over so I won’t post one here. I don’t have diabetes but do have blood sugar issues, some people call it prediabetes, like whatch yourself bub.
