Avocado Week continues with a scrumptious salad featuring the sweetness of beets, the creaminess of avocado and the zing of grapefruit. Thanks so much to SoCal Avocados for sending me avocados to play with! Did you miss my post for Avocado Toasties with Kiwifruit Salsa & Bacon? If so, you’ll want to read it now [...]]]>

Avocado Week continues with a scrumptious salad featuring the sweetness of beets, the creaminess of avocado and the zing of grapefruit. Thanks so much to SoCal Avocados for sending me avocados to play with! Did you miss my post for Avocado Toasties with Kiwifruit Salsa & Bacon? If so, you’ll want to read it now so you can get in on the avocado giveaway from SoCal. Plus, the toasties are delicious!

I used a couple of products in this salad that you may have trouble finding at your local grocery store: blackberry-ginger balsamic vinegar and blood orange extra virgin olive oil. (I picked these up the last time I was in Maine and thought they would be perfect in this salad.) If you can’t find them, no worries. Just use whatever fruity vinegar and interesting olive oil you can find. Sherry vinegar and plain old EVOO will work too.

WARNING: If you are taking any prescription medication to combat high cholesterol such as Lipitor, Pravachol or Zocor, skip the grapefruit in this salad and use oranges or another citrus fruit instead. Grapefruit and grapefruit juice can keep your liver from metabolizing cholesterol medicines properly.

Avocado Week featuring four varieties of SoCal Avocados begins! Virtual Potluck has teamed up with the terrific folks at SoCal Avocados to provide you with a bunch of recipes today. I’ve made so many yummy dishes with the fruits I received that I’ll be featuring avocado recipes all week. Visit Miss in the Kitchen to [...]]]>

Avocado Week featuring four varieties of SoCal Avocados begins! Virtual Potluck has teamed up with the terrific folks at SoCal Avocados to provide you with a bunch of recipes today. I’ve made so many yummy dishes with the fruits I received that I’ll be featuring avocado recipes all week. Visit Miss in the Kitchen to see links to today’s recipes and keep reading for a chance to win your very own box of SoCal Avocados.

Did you know that avocados don’t ripen while they are on the tree? Picking them releases a natural gas called ethylene which begins the ripening process. When the avocados first arrived, they were a bit hard, but it didn’t taken them long to ripen. At one point, I had so many ripe avocados that we were eating them three meals a day! (The recipe below was breakfast one day.) I finally ended up freezing some of them (according to SoCal’s handy directions included in the package) – just let them ripen, take out the pits and mash them in a freezer bag with a squeeze of lemon or lime juice.

SoCal Avocados shipped me 12 avocados which included the varieties listed below.

Bacon	Fuerte	Hass	Pinkerton
Photos courtesy of SoCal Avocados

• Bacon – a large avocado with a yellowish color and thin, smooth green skin. The flavor is slightly sweet and milder than some of the others. I used Bacon mashed up and mixed with pineapple as a topping for chicken tacos (recipe will be posted soon).
• Fuerte – similar in appearance to Bacon, but much smaller. These ripened the quickest and I used them first. Fuertes are very creamy and the flesh is pale green. The flavor was richer than the bacon and a little bit spicy. I used my Fuertes in salads and to top a spicy tortilla soup with shrimp (recipes will be posted soon).
• Hass – a medium sized avocado with thick, rough skin. When the Hass avocados arrived, they were green, but they turned a purplish black color when ripe. This avocado was my favorite; it was buttery, creamy and nutty. I used Hass in the Avocado Toasties with Kiwifruit Salsa and Bacon recipe below and I also used it in an amazing avocado cheesecake recipe that I will share later this week.
• Pinkerton – a large avocado that looks like a dark green pear with nubby skin. Its flesh is a creamy pale green color. Pinkerton is great in guacamole and avocado-based dips.

If you’re on the East Coast like I am, you may be hesitant to purchase avocados from California over the Internet. I generally prefer to buy local from people I know as much as I can, but my options are limited. This is the next best thing to buying local – you are directly helping a small ranch in the U.S., the produce is picked and shipped the same day by really friendly people and the quality is better than anything you’ll ever find in your neighborhood grocery store. I’m seriously considering joining SoCal’s Avocado of the Month program.

Are avocados good for you?

Yes! It’s true that avocados are high in calories and fat, but they are low in cholesterol and sodium and are an excellent source of dietary fiber, Vitamin K and Folate. They also provide a healthy dose of vitamin C. One large avocado (flesh only) contains about 322 calories and 29g of fat. However, only 4g is saturated fat, 4g is polyunsaturated fat and 20g is monounsaturated fat. In other words, it’s full of fat, but it’s good fat. One fruit contains 17g of carbohydrate, 13g of which is fiber, 975mg of potassium and 4g of protein.

Giveaway

Are you ready to win a box of 12 SoCal Avocados? All you need to do is visit their website and come back here and let me know which variety of avocado you would most like to try. I’m sure they would also appreciate it if you liked them on Facebook, followed them on Twitter and subscribed to their email list. The contest will run through Saturday, Feb. 25, 2012. The winner, to be chosen at random, will be announced on Sunday, Feb. 26, 2012. You must be at least 18 years of age with a U.S. mailing address to win.

And now on to the first of many avocado recipes you’ll be seeing in the next week (or two)!

Disclosure: I received 12 free avocados from SoCal Avocados. I also received an additional 12 avocados to give away on my blog.

Avocado Toasties with Kiwifruit Salsa and Bacon

Adapted from Bon Appetit (December 2010)

I was fortunate enough to visit New Zealand last year – my stepson was doing an internship there. We quickly learned that kiwi are birds (or how New Zealanders refer to themselves) and kiwifruit are what you eat!

1/2 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon fresh lime juice
1/2 teaspoon agave nectar
1 teaspoon hot sauce
2 kiwifruits, peeled and cut into 1/4-inch cubes
1 green onion (white & green parts), finely chopped
4 slices turkey bacon
1/3 of a 14 oz ciabatta loaf, sliced in half horizontally, then cut crosswise to make 4 pieces
1 Hass avocado, halved, pitted and peeled

In a medium bowl, whisk together 1/2 tablespoon lime juice, agave and hot sauce. Stir in kiwifruit and green onions.

Cook bacon on griddle over medium heat until crisp. Drain on paper towels and crumble.

Heat same griddle over medium-high heat. Grill bread pieces, cut side down, until surfaces are toasted. You’ll need to press the bread down with a spatula as it browns since it has a tendency to curl up. Remove from heat.

Mash avocado with remaining 1 teaspoon lime juice. Season with salt & freshly ground pepper.

Spread each piece of bread with 1/4 of the avocado mixture. Top with 1/4 of the kiwifruit salsa and 1/4 of the bacon. Serve immediately.

Makes 4 servings
Per serving: 249 calories, 11g fat (2g sat), 15mg cholesterol, 453mg sodium, 33g carb, 6g fiber, 4g sugar, 7g protein

Nutritional Analysis: The sodium in this recipe is coming from the turkey bacon and the hot sauce. If you are watching your sodium intake, you may want to cut back or eliminate these ingredients.

It’s been a busy week, so I was looking for something to throw together quickly for dinner. I had some wonton wrappers and ricotta cheese in the refrigerator and some pasta sauce and pesto in the pantry. I defrosted some Italian turkey sausage in the microwave and dinner was on the table.

I like this recipe [...]]]>

It’s been a busy week, so I was looking for something to throw together quickly for dinner. I had some wonton wrappers and ricotta cheese in the refrigerator and some pasta sauce and pesto in the pantry. I defrosted some Italian turkey sausage in the microwave and dinner was on the table.

I like this recipe because it’s easy to prepare and subject to endless variations. You can change the type of sauce and pesto you use. You can skip the sausage and make it vegetarian. You can mix different herbs into the ricotta. You can make it spicy or mild. You could even add some chopped vegetables. And it’s way lower in carbohydrates that regular lasagna.

The nutritional information below was calculated using the particular brands of pasta sauce (Classico Spicy Tomato & Basil) and pesto (Classico Traditional Basil Pesto Sauce) I used. You can cut way back on the sodium in this dish by using homemade sauces or by selecting lower-sodium versions in the grocery store. You also might want to skip or reduce the amount of Parmesan and the turkey sausage, which are both high in sodium. The sugar is coming primarily from the pasta sauce as well, so using homemade will cut down on the sugar in this recipe too. However, overall, the calorie count is fine and the carb count fits into my eating plan. Your mileage may vary.

The products: Kashi Honey Sunshine® cereal, Kashi Berry Blossoms™ cereal and Kashi Cinnamon Harvest® cereal

The testers: The Grillmaster, my [...]]]>

The nice folks at Kashi sent the gang at Virtual Potluck some samples of their cereal to try. My 23-year-old stepson came for a visit, so we decided to taste-test all of them in the same morning.

The products: Kashi Honey Sunshine® cereal, Kashi Berry Blossoms™ cereal and Kashi Cinnamon Harvest® cereal

The testers: The Grillmaster, my stepson (affectionately known as “Crease” since he’s a lacrosse player) and me

The set-up: Three bowls, taste cereal dry, add unsweetened almond milk, taste cereal again with milk

Honey Sunshine

Berry Blossoms

Next up was Berry Blossoms. The Grillmaster said it had too much of a candy flavor for him and that it “wasn’t for adults.” Crease liked that it was “very berry” but wondered “what berry are we talking here?” According to the ingredients, we’re talking a combination of strawberry, blackberry and blueberry. I thought it had more flavor than the Honey Sunshine and that it would be a perfect cereal to get when our nephews (ages 9 and 7) come for a visit. It’s similar enough to the sugary stuff they usually ask for, but much healthier.

Cinnamon Harvest

Last up was Cinnamon Harvest, a cereal I have had many times before and purchase often. Crease said it was “shredded wheat, except with flavor.” The Grillmaster liked it, but said it had just a bit too much cinnamon to eat alone. He likes it better crushed up on top of fruit and yogurt. I love this cereal, especially when combined with raisins, dried cranberries or dried cherries. It holds up well to milk.

Human sniff test

Canine sniff test

The chart below shows how the cereals stack up nutritionally. Surprisingly, Cinnamon Harvest has more carbs and sugar than the others.

Thanks to everyone who commented. Hope you’ll stick around and [...]]]> Congratulations to Dana from New York City, who won the Paleo People granola giveaway. Dana will receive four pouches of granola in the following flavors: Cappuccino Crunch, Cacao Nut, Apple Crisp and Banana Nut Crunch. Hopefully, she’ll let us know which one she likes best.

Thanks to everyone who commented. Hope you’ll stick around and keep reading Diabetic Foodie. I’ll be giving away some yummy avocados soon!

Back in January during the Tasty and Healthy New Year Challenge, I made some “cupcakes” starring chocolate and ginger for the dessert phase. I was ready to post the recipe when Virtual Potluck rock star GrooVy Foody created a sensation with her Chocolate Quinoa Cupcakes. Not wanting to compete with that, I saved this recipe [...]]]>

Back in January during the Tasty and Healthy New Year Challenge, I made some “cupcakes” starring chocolate and ginger for the dessert phase. I was ready to post the recipe when Virtual Potluck rock star GrooVy Foody created a sensation with her Chocolate Quinoa Cupcakes. Not wanting to compete with that, I saved this recipe for Valentine’s Day and I made Lemon Loaf with Almonds for the challenge instead. But now it’s Valentine’s Day and I’m ready for some chocolate. How about you?

I’m usually more interested in how food tastes than how it looks. For some reason, I decided to get a little bit creative when decorating. I cut a heart out of some heavy paper and stuck a T pin through it so I could easily remove the heart after sprinkling the muffin cakes with powdered sugar. (I must admit that the needle part was The Grillmaster’s idea.)

A few tips if you make these muffin cakes:

• They dry out pretty fast. Eat them within a couple of days, give some away or freeze them. If you freeze them, they make a quick breakfast on a busy morning.
• A muffin cake that’s past its prime still tastes good if you top it with a mixture of yogurt and blackberry all-fruit.
• Dice the crystallized ginger as finely as you can. It’s nice to get hit with the gingery zing, but too big a chunk can be overpowering.
• If you sprinkle all of the muffin cakes with powdered sugar and then store them covered, the sugar will absorb into the cake and you’ll lose your design. They’ll still taste fine, they just won’t look as pretty.
• If you have a muffin whisk, use it to avoid overbeating the batter.

The burning question: muffin or cupcake? The original recipe called it a cupcake, but I thought it was more of a muffin. I think of cupcakes as being fluffy and overly sweet, this was more dense and savory – sort of like a savory chocolate gingerbread. Some say if it has icing, it’s a cupcake; otherwise, it’s a muffin. Michael Ruhlman, author of Ratio, says if it’s a muffin it should have 2 parts flour to 2 parts liquid to 1 part eggs to 1 part butter.

What do you think? Muffin or cupcake?

I do pretty well with my diet until I travel. Then I seem to take on this “I can splurge because we’re on the road” attitude. If we only traveled once a year it wouldn’t be a big deal, but we seem to take some kind of trip every month. When we took a vacation [...]]]>

I do pretty well with my diet until I travel. Then I seem to take on this “I can splurge because we’re on the road” attitude. If we only traveled once a year it wouldn’t be a big deal, but we seem to take some kind of trip every month. When we took a vacation to the Florida Keys in January, I decided I was going to make some changes. So this month’s way I’m going to Build a Better Me is to make healthier food choices when I travel.

Quick reminder: Those of us involved with Virtual Potluck are working to make ourselves healthier in 2012, but we aren’t focusing exclusively on losing weight. Once a month, we’ll each be posting what we are doing to improve our health and well-being. Thanks again to Foodhunter’s Guide to Cuisine for coordinating this project.

If you travel by air, eventually you’ll find yourself at the mercy of airport food establishments. You may have a layover, an unexpected delay or maybe you didn’t eat enough at your last meal and you’re experiencing a blood glucose low. Most food available in airports falls into at least one of three categories: sugary, starchy or fatty. Choices are improving – I did see some fresh fruit and nuts – but, in general, the offerings are not optimal. For this trip, I decided to take my own snacks. Fortunately, the nice folks at Paleo People had just sent me samples of their gluten-free granola. I was concerned I wouldn’t be able to get the granola through airport security, but it wasn’t a problem.

We had a midday flight and ate a big breakfast before we boarded the plane. When we landed two hours later, we were hungry, but wanted to make the trip from Ft. Lauderdale to the Keys before rush hour set in. Enter the granola.

Paleo People sent four flavors – Cappuccino Crunch, Cacao Nut, Apple Crisp and Banana Nut Crunch. The one I could easily reach from the front seat of the car was Cappuccino Crunch, so we started with that. The Grillmaster loved it and said it really took the edge off his hunger. I liked the fact that it was very moist, not dry like some granolas. We stopped at a supermarket in Key Largo and picked up some necessities, including plain yogurt and fresh berries. The next morning we made parfaits, layering the Cacao Nut granola, yogurt and fruit – healthy, relatively cheap and we didn’t have to get dressed to have breakfast! The next day we did the same with the Apple Crisp granola. We saved the Banana Nut for afternoon snacking.

The Paleo People granolas are different from others you may have tried. The “Paleo” movement is one where food choices are based on ingredients cave-dwellers would have eaten: nuts, seeds, berries, fruits, spices and natural sweeteners. Most granolas contain a lot of grains; these have none and are completely free of gluten, wheat, sodium and cholesterol. The thing you need to be aware of as you are snacking away is that each 5 oz pouch contains 5 servings! You can gobble down 400 calories in a heartbeat. Here’s the nutritional information for each flavor:

Would you like to try Paleo People granola? See below for how to win free samples of each flavor.

Besides carrying my own snacks and eating yogurt-granola parfaits for breakfast instead of going out, I did a few other things to make healthier food choices on my trip.

• We limited ourselves to eating one meal out per day. We had breakfast in the room most days. For lunch we either went out or had leftovers from the previous night’s dinner out. If we went out for lunch, we ate something light like cheese, crackers and fruit for dinner.
• I made better menu selections when we did eat out, opting for grilled fish and salads whenever possible. A couple of times I got an appetizer and soup instead of an entrée. Even when we went to El Siboney, a fabulous Cuban restaurant in Key West, I brought half of my dinner home and ate it the next day.
• The Grillmaster likes to have a glass of wine while watching sunset. I don’t drink alcohol much anymore, but when I’m on vacation I want something besides my usual water. This time I bought Vernor’s diet ginger ale and drank it out of a wine glass. Next time I may try the drink the Taste folks from N8tion.com made to go with my Sweet Potato Wontons (if I can find rum extract).

Photo courtesy of Paleo People

Giveaway

Want to win 4 bags of Paleo People granola? Just leave a comment on this post and tell me what you do to make good food choices when you travel. The contest runs through Sunday, Feb. 12, 2012 and the winner, to be chosen via random.org, will be announced on Monday, Feb. 13, 2012. To win, you must be at least 18 years old and you must have a U.S. mailing address.

I look forward to hearing your travel tips!

I don’t know if this version of beef stew was so good because of the recipe itself or because I used beef from a local farm. All I can say is that The Grillmaster and I are fans … of the beef AND the stew.

I picked up the beef from a place called Beach Organics [...]]]>

I don’t know if this version of beef stew was so good because of the recipe itself or because I used beef from a local farm. All I can say is that The Grillmaster and I are fans … of the beef AND the stew.

I picked up the beef from a place called Beach Organics in Grandy, NC. If you are ever headed to the Outer Banks from the north, you’ll pass right by this store on Hwy 158 before you cross the Wright Brothers Memorial Bridge. It’s well worth a stop, especially if you are avoiding gluten. They have a huge selection of gluten-free foods and also feature organic produce, meats, herbs and spices, bulk foods, dairy products, vitamins and supplements, earth-friendly household products and natural pet foods.

Beach Organics offers beef from Ray Farms in Powells Point, NC that is “all-natural, no hormones, no antibiotics.” In this particular stew, the beef was fork-tender and delicious. I’ll definitely buy it again.

The squash in the stew fools your eyes into thinking you’re about to eat potatoes. Then you taste the sweetness, the heat, the smoke. This isn’t your grandmother’s beef stew (unless Grandma was Moroccan, of course).

Try this stew. You won’t even miss the carrots and potatoes.

I’ve signed up to get a box of vegetables delivered every other week from a local farmers’ co-op. Root vegetables such as turnips, sweet potatoes, parsnips and rutabagas are plentiful during the winter and I’ve been trying to come up with ways to use lots of them at once. This versatile stew, with both savory [...]]]>

I’ve signed up to get a box of vegetables delivered every other week from a local farmers’ co-op. Root vegetables such as turnips, sweet potatoes, parsnips and rutabagas are plentiful during the winter and I’ve been trying to come up with ways to use lots of them at once. This versatile stew, with both savory and sweet flavors, is hearty and nutritious.

I used turnips, sweet potatoes and celery root in my version of this stew. If I’d had parsnips, rutabaga or a fennel bulb on hand, I would have thrown in those ingredients as well. I actually thought I did have a parsnip, but it was a daikon radish instead! (This is one of the joys of receiving a box of unlabeled vegetables.) The daikon probably would have been delicious in the stew, but it wasn’t the taste I wanted that particular night.

It’s hard to say how much stock you’ll need because your mix of vegetables will be different. Four cups is a minimum amount – you may need more. Just make sure you have enough to completely cover your combination of vegetables.

I seasoned my stew with some silky honey ginger white balsamic vinegar I picked up at Fiore when I was in Bar Harbor, Maine. It gave the stew a sweet tartness that was heavenly. If you have some fancy flavored vinegar, now’s the time to use it!

If you made this stew, what vegetables would you use?

Bonnie will receive a bag of Whole Wheat Pastry Flour and a bottle of Everyday Fresh Extra Virgin Olive Oil. Please let us know what great dishes you make, [...]]]> Congratulations to Bonnie K. from Sacramento CA, our final winner in the Tasty & Healthy New Year Challenge sponsored by Bob’s Red Mill and California Olive Ranch.

Bonnie will receive a bag of Whole Wheat Pastry Flour and a bottle of Everyday Fresh Extra Virgin Olive Oil. Please let us know what great dishes you make, Bonnie!

Thanks to everyone who commented during the last four weeks. Hope you’ll stick around and keep reading Diabetic Foodie.