Dirt Eater

I love when there's dirt still on my vegetables! It excites me to think that it was not so long ago that they were in the ground at someone's family farm. It reminds me of where my food comes from, the people who grow it, and the health/environmental/financial benefits of shopping at my local farmer's market.

With the market in full swing, I have made it my mission to attend the White Plains Farmer's Market every Wednesday. This market is small, but convenient to my job and has some good deals on dirty but awesome produce. Just wait until garlic is back in season! Oh. My. Lord. So good.

I usually leave the market with a big, fat bag of produce and delicious lunch/dinner ideas swirling around my head. However, once that bag of produce enters my apartment, it is in danger zone, fighting to get out of the abyss that is my vegetable drawer!

Thank goodness that my obsession with the farmer's market also happens to coincide with my obsession for all things salad. Almost every single veggie in the recipe was grown in the Tri-state area and Pennsylvania.

Maybe now you'll let me forget that whole banana thing?

Farmer's Market Salad

by Bonnie Graham

Keywords: salad low-carb salmon

6026989

Ingredients (Enough for two large salads)

• 2 salmon fillets, preferred size

Marinade ingredients:

• 1 tbsp liquid smoke
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tsp smoked paprika
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• salt and pepper

Salad ingredients:

• 1 head red lettuce, torn into bite-sized pieces
• 1 ripe tomato
• 1 bunch radishes, halved and roasted (recipe to come)
• 1 bunch baby carrots or 2 - 3 regular carrots, halved and roasted
• 6 - 7 strawberries, sliced
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar

Instructions

1. Place salmon in a ziplock bag with all of the marinade ingredients. Let sit for at least 20 minutes or several hours.

2. Prepare all of your veggies and add whatever ones you like/have on hand.

3. Cook your salmon over medium high heat, skin-side down, until desired doneness is reached. You should try to get a crispy bottom. It may help to put a lid on the pan to help the fish cook all the way through.

4. Dress your salad with balsamic vinegar and olive oil, or a dressing of your choice.

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Breaking Down

Shockingly, this isn't a post on the status of my mental health. It's about my resolve.

Remember that rather impassioned lecture I gave you on bananas not growing in the US, but in some third world nation where entitled gringos snapped pictures of the day laborers as they placed our Dole products into bags for shipment? How disturbed I was by the whole scene?

Yeah....well....I'm a total hypocrite. I have been knocked off my high horse.

But at least I can admit it.

Due to my recent obsession with Pinterest (if you don't know you MUST try it) and all of my vegan blogs, the call of banana usage was reinstated. So many recipes use bananas as an alternative way of sweetening a variety of baked goods without adding any other sugar. Plus, bananas are a great source of potassium and other vitamins & minerals. AND with the warm weather here, my craving for all things ice cream is kicked up 10,000 notches. Bananas have been able to provide a nice frozen treat alternative without ruining my blood sugar.

Does it sound like I'm making excuses? Like I'm trying to convince you why it's okay that I'm buying bananas again? Trying to sway you into thinking that I'm NOT a hypocrite?

Well, you'd right.

But maybe I can distracted you with THIS:



Yogurt pops just don't photograph well.



Peanut Butter Banana Greek Yogurt Pops

Ingredients (Depends on your popsicle mold)

• 1 1/2 c nonfat Greek yogurt
• 1 large, ripe banana
• 2 - 3 tbsp honey
• 2 - 3 tbsp peanut butter
• Popsicle molds

Instructions

1. Mash bananas in a large bowl to your preferred consistency. I left a few chunks in mine.

2. Add Greek yogurt and honey. Stir well to combine.

3. Swirl peanut butter through yogurt mixture, trying not to combine too much that there are still swirls of peanut butter running throughout your popsicles.

4. Fill your popsicle molds. Freeze until solid.

5. To remove your popsicles, run the mold under hot water for 5 - 10 seconds or until pop slides out. Enjoy.

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God, you're so easy. Look at how I distracted you there. 

Sugar, Sugar, Honey, Honey....

"But you can't have honey!!"

I've been hearing those words a lot lately. It makes complete and total sense why people would say it. Espeically since when I was first diagnosed, all liquid sweeteners were forsaken. I wouldn't even touch them for fear that they would be absorbed through my skin causing my blood sugar to sky rocket!

However, lately, I've been reconsidering my stance on all things sweet. Well...most things.

Most of the food blogs I read use sweeteners like maple syrup, honey, or brown rice syrup as their sugar of choice. While it's not surprising that these healthy, all-natural blogs aren't touting granulated sugar and high fructose corn syrup as their sweeteners, I had assumed that things like maple syrup were just as bad.

For someone like me, it is. At least in terms of carbohydrates, but not in terms of health.

Confused yet?

The reality is that a carb is a carb is a carb....in terms of insulin need. Fifteen grams of sugar requires just as much insulin for my body to process it as 15g of whole wheat bread or apple sauce. Each will raise my blood sugar, maybe just in different ways.

Still with me?

When I started doing some research on what the benefits of using alternative sweeteners, such as honey, molasses, and maple syrup were, I learn that these things actually have significant health benefits in addition to just makin' shit taste good. They're high in minerals and vitamins where sugar does not have any. Plus, they're often sweeter then regular sugar, causing you to need less in recipes.

While I'm not going full throttle and using only honey as my sweetener of choice, I have started to use it more frequently in recipes in conjunction with Truvia, an all-natural, low-carb sweetener made from the stevia plant. I do feel like this fits in more with the life style I'm trying to create of clean, healthy eating.

Plus, it gives me an excuse to "practice" all my baked good recipes. :)

On note on a agave nectar, this substance has confused me for some time. While it's low on the glycemix index (and therefore good for those with impaired pancreai), it apparently isn't any better for you then the high fructose corn syrup. It's just as processed. It happens to also just be marketed a way to make you think it's healthy. Talk about informed consumers!

Out of the Box

Ingredients: Sugar, Vegetable Oil Shortening (Partially Hydrogenated Soybean and Cottonseed Oils, Monoand Diglycerides, Polysorbate 60), Water, Corn Syrup. Contains 2% Or Less Of: Cornstarch, Salt, Natural and Artificial Lemon Flavor, Preservatives (Potassium Sorbate), Sodium Acid Pyrophosphate, Citric Acid, Sodium Citrate, Colored with (Yellow 5)

Standing online at Target, that was my reading material.

For my birthday, I thought I would make myself some cupcakes. Lemon ones with lemon icing. Sounds delicious, right? Until the lemon icing rolled on its side, exposing its nasty under belly. Once I saw that list of ingredients, I knew there was no way I was buying that icing. Or the cake mix!

I figured, "I'm creative. I'm a good cook! It shouldn't be hard to make a healthier, more natural icing!" Still wanting the shortcut, I bought a new organic cake mix with a list of familiar ingredients and set out to make my own frosting. 

.......

Noticing the lack of pictures here? 

Unfortunately, the organic cake mix ended up tasting more like corn muffins then lemon cupcakes. I know I'm in trouble when my friends politely decline finishing a cupcake! The frosting, however, was actually pretty good...if it had ever achieved it's full frosting potential. Which it didn't. Because I refused to put in the required 3 1/2 cups of powdered sugar!!!! Diabetes. Blood sugar. Come on, people!

Feeling a little deflated from the previous night's insulin pump adventures and disappointed that no real birthday cake had yet been consumed, I decided to take another crack at cake making. Except this time, it would be for breakfast. It would be a tried and trusted recipe. It would still be lemon flavored!

 

Lemon-Strawberry Birthday Breakfast Cake
Makes 1 cake, but could easily be increased to make more

Cake Ingredients

1/3 c oat bran 
2 tbsp unsweetened applesauce
3 tbsp milk
1 large egg
1/4 tsp baking powder
1 - 1 1/2 tsp lemon extract
1 1/2 tsp sweetener of your choice (Brown sugar adds a nice flavor, but I usually opt for the truvia!)

2 - 3 strawberries, chopped
pinch of salt

Icing Ingredients1/4 c cottage cheese

1/2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp to 2 tsp sweetener of your choice

1/2 tsp lemon extract

splash of milk, if needed

1 - 2 strawberries

Method

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease a small ramekin.
2. In a small bowl, whisk the egg.
3. Whisk in applesauce, lemon, and milk.
4. Mix in oat bran, sweetener, salt and baking powder until just combined.
5. Pour into well-greased baking dish, spread evenly, and bake for 32-36min, until a toothpick comes out almost clean.
6. Slide a knife around the edge and flip out onto a plate. 

7. For icing, place all ingredients in a small blender or food processor. Blend until combined. Add milk if you prefer a thinner consistency. 

Home is Wherever I'm With You

It's strange to think of breaking up as a necessary part of a relationship. It's a bit counter intuitive, really. You work to stay together, not to fall apart. Many people feel like once a relationship is over, it's done with, never to be re-visited again!

While I do think that this can be true, for Jerry and I, our break-up was an absolute necessity for our relationship. As hard as we worked to keep our relationship together, we both knew we needed our separate time and space to figure our shit out. While there's still things for us to work on, having that space gave us the breathing room we needed to be the people we truly are in a relationship we actually wanted.

And I guess it worked because, here we are, at our two year anniversary.

Having just entered a new chapter in our lives, I can't say that it has been all rainbows and sunshine. We're definitely making our way through this transition process to come out on what I am sure will be a stronger, happier side.

I'm always amazed by Jerry's patience, his easy-going nature, and his playfulness. It's something I'm rather grateful for as I definitely would have killed me by now or at least locked me in a closet for several hours.

Whether it's because we had a three month break in our relationship or because I love him just as much today as I did last year, it certainly doesn't feel like two years have passed. As much as I might complain about his emanation of scents (which I'm sure are contributing to global warming), his guitar-related paraphernalia, or any number of his other idiosyncrasies, I have myself a really great man. I am thankful for each day that he is in my life.

Happy Anniversary, Dearling. Thank you for resisting the urge to lock me in a closet.

Diabetes: Ruining Birthdays Since 2010

Initially, I had this as a working title for a post about Jerry's birthday last year. Now I'm recycling it since diabetes reared it's ugly little head this weekend in attempt to ruin mine!

Not-uh, douchebag!

For my birthday this year, my friends and I took a wine tasting tour of vineyards on the North Fork of Long Island. We had a great time. It was beautiful day. Wine and plenty of food was consumed!

I knew I had over eaten throughout the day and was completely aware of the fact that I would most likely have high blood sugar throughout the day as a punishment for my gluttony. When I know high numbers are coming, I tend to be a little avoidant of testing. I know, I know. I shouldn't do that. Blah blah blah. Whatever.

After several hour of not eating had passed, just as I was getting ready for bed, I gave in and finally tested. 398!! Holy shit! I knew the day was bad, but I didn't think it was that bad.

I walked into the bedroom to play my favorite "Guess the Hyperglycemia!" with Jerry. As he took his turn, I started to program the high number into my insulin pump in order to correct the blood sugar (meaning give myself insulin to come back into normal range). Except, my pump was not cooperating.

In fact, as I press the button to go up to 398, the numbers are the meter just kept running, going higher and higher. No worries. No insulin was given during this time. In fact, that right there was the problem....and explained my 398 blood sugar. My pump was broken! It probably hadn't been giving me insulin for hours.

Want to add insult to...well, insulin pump? My back-up plan, you know the plan every good diabetic should have when wearing an insulin pump, where you have "just in case" insulin pens sitting in your fridge to give yourself shots in the event something was to go wrong with your pump. Oh yes, that plan. Well, that plan was still in the refridgerator at my old apartment in Queens!!

After getting off the phone with Medtronic, the manufacturer of my pump, who couldn't magically fix my pump over the phone and was sending me out a new one to arrive on today, Jerry and I had to get in the car and drive over to Astoria to pick up my "back-up plan," only to turn around and drive right back to Jersey so our exhausted asses could go to bed.

While this little venture was quite the annoyance, it is also an excellent lesson. First, it shows me how to dependent I have become on the pump that figuring out how much insulin to take at each meal has definitely been a challenge. Second, the importance of actually having a back-up plan accessible and not just saying that I do. Third, to always think ahead in terms of birthdays because diabetes can be such a dick!

30 Years Young

I was out to dinner with my good friend, Erica, a few weeks ago. During dinner, she said something rather wise. It must be because she's approaching her 30th birthday too.  

She said something along the lines of when you're 16 years old, you think you know everything. Everyone else is an idiot. Your parents, your teachers, pretty much an adult in your life just doesn't get it and probably never will. At 21, with your alcohol-infused brain in the driver's seat, you realize you obviously didn't know everything at 16....because you know it all now! At 25, you start to get the sense that maybe there are things you don't know. You consider the possibility that there might still be things for you to learn. And at 30....well, at 30, you realize you actually don't know shit!

I have come to have a new appreciation for the saying "Men plan. God laughs." As life moves along, it's clear that it just doesn't unfold the way that you expect it to. Things get tossed in the way that you never would have expected. Oh, hello there, Diabetes!

If you had asked me at 16 or 21 or even 25, what I'd be doing when I was 30, I probably would have told you that I would be married with at least one or two kids while successfully running my own non-profit organization. Of course, by 30, I would be wildly successfully, completely healthy, and well on my way to financial independence!

You can stop laughing now.

If I was today what my deluded younger self thought I should be, I would married to the wrong person, with children I wasn't ready for, in a job that was over my head. I am actually really glad that I'm not any of those things.

While at times I still feel like I'm waiting for life to start, I see how much life I've already had and how really fucking good its been. Its had its ups and downs, but it has shaped me into the person I am today.  And she's not too shabby. I also see how much more life there is to come and it's pretty damn exciting.

So...go ahead! Come at me, 30! I am ready for ya!