This T1 diabetic eats pasta, including Puttanesca, all the time. It’s entirely possible for many diabetics to have a reasonable portion size of pasta and a side veggy and keep their blood sugar in line.
Note “reasonable portion size.” That’s really the key for me. It obviously depends on the person, but for me, I cook 6-8 ounces of dry pasta (depending on how hearty the sauce is) for Mr. Athena and I, he eats a little more than I do, and we end up with one serving left over of most pasta. And honestly, that’s more than enough - I’m full and don’t want any more to eat.
I have the opposite problem. When I was single I became a pretty good cook if I do say so myself ('Though I never quite mastered sauces) to the point that when we were married, I did the cooking and DesertWife did the laundry.* I had my dozen easy staples of course, but tackled something more ambitious regularly.
However now I’m living with DesertRoomie who is pretty much meat and potatoes and can’t stand leftovers so I stick to the basics in small batches and can’t be assed in fixing something simple for her while I nosh on another thing more interesting for myself.
*We both thought we got the better part of the deal.
I love SkinnyTaste - it has a great variety of lighter foods and most of them do not taste “diet-y”. We especially love the chicken Shwarma and I just made some outstanding broccoli cheese soup that freezes well. The set up of the site is very user friendly- you can look up recipes easily by ingredient, diet style, cooking implement (i.e slow cooker, skillet, air fryer, etc). The cookbooks she has are also very good.
“Garbage Casserole”, or “Shepherd’s Pie” or Leftover casserole. The scare quotes are because some will dispute the terminology.
You need a casserole dish. I have some that make just two servings, I also have a family size one as well.
You need an assortment of vegetables. You can obtain this by purchasing a bag of mixed frozen vegetables at your local supermarket. I usually use whatever is in the fridge.
You need a protein - browned ground beef/chicken/turkey. Vegetarian “crumbles” that might be Quorn or soy or a mix of stuff. Lentils. Whatever.
Gravy or sauce of some sort. I’m terrible at making gravy so I buy mine in a jar, just have to open it up and it’s ready to go, no mixing required. It could be beef/chicken/whatever gravy. It could be tomato sauce. It could be alfredo sauce. Doesn’t really matter.
Dump vegees and protein into casserole dish. I try for either a 2:1 vegee:protein or a 1:1 depending on my mood. Pour gravy/sauce on top and mix. Smoosh it all level in dish. Pop in oven for about 30-40 minutes at around 350 (although 325 or 375 will also work).
I usually whip up some instant potatoes to top the whole thing, but you’re worried about carbs so I left that out. You could also use mashed sweet potato, or breadcrumbs, or crushed chips/crisps, in a thin layer. You could use shredded cheese. Or not.
At the table add condiments to taste - salt, pepper, hot sauce, whatever.
You may notice that this is not, actually, a set recipe. That’s because I’ll use whatever stuff I have on hand to make this. You can come up with whatever variation you like. Or mix it up - one week it’s shredded rotisserie chicken leftovers in alfredo, after Thanksgiving it’s shredded turkey with whatever vegee bits are left over in turkey gravy served with leftover cranberry relish. Ground chicken in cream sauce another time then ground beef mixed with whatever leftover peppers I have from tacos two nights previous and some onion. Back when I could still eat lentils I’d use them instead of ground beef sometimes.
The point is, there are no “weird ingredients”. Buy the vegetables, protein, and sauce YOU like and that conform to your diet. You can make it as low carb as you like. You can use stuff that doesn’t really require prep, just mixing in the dish and popping it in the oven.
Someone upthread mentioned cassoulet. This is a version that I invented while on an RV trip out of what was left in the fridge. It’s actually pretty darn good. Rule of thumb is about 4 oz of each main ingredient for every person being served, so the recipe makes enough for about four servings.
Olive oil
1 large chicken breast, cut into bite-sized pieces
salt & pepper
1-2 Italian sausages, mild or hot or both, skinned (I prefer the latter)
3 cloves garlic, diced
1 15 oz. can white beans, undrained
1 15 oz can diced tomatoes, undrained
A few sprigs of fresh rosemary, stripped from the stalk
Season the chicken with salt and pepper. Brown it in the oil and remove. Add the broken up sausage to the pan and brown well. Return the chicken to the pan and add the garlic. Cook for about a minute, then add the beans, tomatoes and rosemary. Cover and simmer for 30 minutes or so. Add additional salt/pepper to taste.
I’ve learned to put the rosemary in either an herb bag or to create a makeshift bag out of cheesecloth, as not everyone likes the herb leaves in the dish.
You’re probably crediting Child with a similar quote made by Alice May Brock:
"Tomatoes and oregano make it Italian; wine and tarragon make it French. Sour cream makes it Russian; lemon and cinnamon make it Greek. Soy sauce makes it Chinese. Garlic makes it good.”
I do a similar thing with chicken and white beans: brown the bone-in meat in a little olive oil, add a sliced onion, a couple whole cloves of garlic,and two sprigs of rosemary. Pour in a big glug of vermouth and deglaze the pot. Add one or two cans of drained cannellini beans and a half cup of chicken broth and simmer for about an hour, until the chicken is tender and liquid has thickened. Remove rosemary sprigs, which should not have dropped leaves.
We never thought of calling it cassoulet…we call it “Greek chicken with white beans.”
Do you like to cook with spices? https://www.penzeys.com/ has an awesome collection of spice blends. I can eat pasta with veggies and olive oil several nights in a row, I just change up the spice blend I sprinkle over it.
I too have the cooking for one issue (but not the diabetic, I have the opposite problem) so I also use the spice blends to change up the flavor of the leftovers so I don’t get bored.
Had to call it something for my cookbook document so I could find it again, and that’s what came to mind. I get my rosemary off the bush out front, and it always sheds the leaves. Maybe if it dried a bit first, that wouldn’t happen.
Every recipe that we inherited from the Ukulele Lady‘s Mother gets called “Greek” whatever…even if she got it from the back of a box of crackers. She was just that Greek.
Remember the Greek Chicago family from My Big Fat Greek Wedding? My mother-in-law was even Greeker than that.
The really simple solution for both Beck and Ike is to get thee hence to the intarwebz and google “keto recipes.” Keto cooking satisfies both the needs of diabetics and those who’re into healthy eating (and it sounds like Mrs Ike is doing low carb/keto eating already.) Get good at keto cooking and all your food problems will basically be solved.
Here’s my favorite item of the moment–keto friendly pecan/cherry muffins.
Cream 1 1/3 sticks of butter, 2 eggs and whatever is the 1 cup equivalent of non-sugar sweetener–I use Truvia brown sugar substitute that’s sweetened with erythritol and just a smidgen of actual brown sugar but there are some good all erythritol brown sugar substitutes out there. Add a splash of vanilla extract. Beat in 3/4 cup of almond flour, 1/2-1 cup of roughly chopped pecans and however many dried cherries as makes you happy. Fill paper cups (you gotta use the paper cups, this is a sticky recipe!) about as full as you want them to be (recipe makes about a dozen standard sized muffins) because this is not a recipe that will rise much. Bake at 350-375 (depends on your oven, mine is slow) for about 20 minutes. Cool and nom. This is what I make when I’m craving ALL THE CARBS.
If you like a Ukulele Lady, Ukulele Lady like-ah you.
If you like to linger where it’s shady. Ukulele Lady lingers too.
If you kiss a Ukulele Lady and you promise ever to be true,
And she sees another Ukulele Lady fooling 'round with you,
Maybe she’ll cry (an awful lot),
Maybe she’ll sigh (but maybe not),
Maybe she’ll find somebody else, by and by,
To sing to when it’s cool and shady,
When it’s really wiki-waki-woo,
If you like a Ukulele Lady, Ukulele Lady like-ah you.
Copyright 1925 by Gus Kahn and Richard A. Whiting, so it’s two years from the Public Domain, so I only quoted the chorus.
Um, er, we were talking food, weren’t we? Beck, what with you exiled thirty miles from nowhere, do you even have Aldi stores? I’m bored with food, too, so I eat a lot of Bag-O-Salad with little tomatoes. And sandwiches.
No Aldi store. Wal-Mart is as good as it gets. Someone upthread said go to an Asian market. None of those closer than Little Rock. Not convenient to drive that far for spring rolls or something. I’m pretty much stuck with what I can concoct on my own.
ETA
Ukulele lady song makes me want spam.
Jeeze, I miss her. I don’t even know if I have her current email. Probably doesn’t remember me, anyway. Finding Eve and Opal here told me I might like the joint because I knew of them. And Bad Astronomer. The web was a smaller place in 2000.
( taco bell would kill me faster)