I’m originally from Virginia and we know our ham. When the Grillmaster arrived with something called “turkey ham,” I wasn’t sure whether to be horrified or happy that he was concerned about fat and calories.
Patricia Wells has a recipe for Ham & Cheese Bread in her new cookbook, Salad as a Meal. Although it looked delicious, it didn’t make my short list of recipes to try because, well, it’s bread and I’m a person with diabetes. Imagine my surprise upon discovering that the amount of carb in this bread wasn’t a problem, but the amounts of saturated fat and cholesterol were a tad high. Enter the turkey ham!
I couldn’t find Comté cheese, so I used Gruyère instead. I made four changes to Patricia’s recipe and reduced the calories, fat and cholesterol significantly while increasing the protein and fiber by just a hair. I also managed to increase the sodium. I guess that’s the downside of using turkey ham. My changes? I used a mixture of whole-wheat pastry flour and white flour instead of all white flour, an egg substitute instead of eggs, the aforementioned turkey ham instead of ham and I skipped the olives. (The olive omission was a personal preference; I didn’t leave them out for nutritional reasons.)
The resulting Turkey Ham & Cheese Bread was outstanding at dinnertime with a Mexican-themed salad and even better, toasted, at breakfast the next day. I baked my bread in three small loaf pans instead of one large one. This allowed me to more easily determine a serving size (1/4 of a loaf rather than 1/12) and I could freeze the extra loaves intact.
All nutritional information provided here was calculated by Diabetic Foodie using the tools on the nutritiondata.com website.
Makes 12 servings
Per serving (Patricia’s version): 234 calories, 18g fat (6g sat), 73mg cholesterol, 320mg sodium, 11g carb, 0g fiber, 1g sugar, 8g protein
Per serving (DF version): 177 calories, 11g fat (3g sat), 21mg cholesterol, 359mg sodium, 11g carb, 1g fiber, 1g sugar, 9g protein
Disclosure: For my participation in the Four Weeks of Salad as a Meal Challenge, I received a copy of Salad as a Meal by Patricia Wells plus two copies to give away. This post contains at least one affiliate link, which means if you click it and make a purchase, I will receive a tiny fee. Please see my disclosures page for more information. |
Being a carb lover, I flirted with the idea of making this recipe when first flipping through the cookbook. Happy to see someone tried it.
Wow, top with one of your perfectly poached eggs and you’re good to go! Brilliant interpretation to achieve a diabetic friendly recipe.
I’m going to try this recipe without ham- using sundried tomatoes instead perhaps?
Sundried tomatoes sound really good! What cheese?
This is one of the recipes that is on my shortlist to try once I am moved into my new apartment, which will have a much more functional kitchen than where I live now. Though it does seem like it would be a perfect compliment to an Easter supper, doesn’t it?
It would be perfect for Easter.
This bread sounds so fabulous! I’m not the biggest ham lover so I think the turkey ham would be a perfect substitution :).