joyful2beeblogs

When I married my husband many years ago, he was in seminary and I was a nurse working days and nights in local hospitals. Unfortunately, he was allergic to chicken and there were other foods which he didn’t care for. So, most of the dishes, I cooked were made with ground chuck. I made a great spaghetti sauce with a cup of red wine added to the tomato sauce with onions and spices to add flavor to the ground chuck to go with the spaghetti noodles. Most dishes I prepared were enjoyed by both of us.

We both loved the delicious pepper steak that I made, with sliced green peppers, onions, and sliced water chestnuts with chow mien noodles on top. Another was a wonderful eye round roast that I cooked with sliced carrots, sliced potatoes, water and bullion cubes and a cup of red wine, like burgundy and prepared rice for it.

I had days off so I enjoyed cooking and eating these dishes plus any other meal with hamburger or ground chuck, like spaghetti, or his mother’s hamburger casserole with shell macaroni, French onion soup, crumbled bread on top and grated cheese on top of that.

But years later, we found out he had diabetes. That would have blocked the second helpings of the carbohydrate-loaded casseroles and other foods, that he loved to eat. Being a diabetic was not easy for him. He knew what he was supposed to eat and what he could eat from smaller helpings.

I was diagnosed as pre-diabetic as early as forty years ago. I lost fifty pounds since the Covid epidemic. My A1C stayed stable and just 0.2 of a point higher than normal for many years. Now that I am seventy-three years “young” my A1C went up a whole number. So I was put on Metformin in the mornings. I don’t often eat lots of sweets or even lots of simple carbohydrates, like I used to. So far, I am doing well.

But my cooking has had to change over the years since his passing in 2009. I don’t do much cooking. I have a crock pot, electric skillet, a wok, and an electric George Foreman grill. But there is only me here to eat what I prepare. If I cook a whole batch of any of the above foods, I would have to freeze parts of them and thaw them out in the microwave oven.  But then the frozen foods in the freezer might get stuck in the back of the freezer and get freezer-burn.

So I have come up with some “easy to cook” dishes. For major meals I keep a supply of small cans of peas, mixed vegetables, or beans or peas. I buy the frozen meals by Healthy choice and other similar frozen dinners. I find that many of the frozen dinners don’t have a good amount of nutritious vegetables and sometimes not as much meat as I would prefer with my pre-diabetes. So I figured out ways to increase the vegetable and protein foods. I also found that some nuts are high in protein and may add a lot of flavor or nourishment to some dishes.

The easiest thing to add is a good supply of additives; such as, almond slivers, or whole or sliced almonds, pecans, walnuts, or peanuts, (if you like them). There are many different frozen vegetables that you can buy and only use enough for yourself and one or two other people, (depending on what they might like) or seal the bag to use again later.

Eating a high protein meal needs, I believe with my prediabetic status, 15 or more grams of protein. One of the cheapest sources of meat is chicken, unless you want to cook and parcel out parts of a big turkey. The problem with that is, the larger helpings might not last in the freezer as long without freezer burn, if they are there a very long time.

So unless you are allergic to chicken, chicken is the right size for anything. I found in one or two stores, bags of chicken that have been cooked and sliced. The bags have roasted, rotisseriey, or grilled chicken, ready to do something with it. You can always thaw the frozen, cooked parts in whatever amount you need to use or eat. I find that chicken quantities in the frozen dinners are not as substantial as the amount of protein, as I would prefer. So I keep a portion of the dated, cooked chicken in the refrigerator, so I can add that to a TV dinner during or after the container of food has been heated sufficiently. Protein from meat may have a little more fat on it but that little amount can help you feel full and satisfied.

Remember the bags of cooked chicken? There are also frozen peas, mixed vegetables of several different kinds. If I have a TV dinner that doesn’t seem to have much to offer, think about the vitamins in the fresh, frozen vegetables. Look at the values on the bags to see which veggies offer the most vitamins. There are even frozen mushrooms that can be placed in a colander with other frozen vegetables and set the colander in a slightly smaller bowl and run hot water over them until the TV dinner has cooked in the microwave. You will be surprised at how the veggies can add so much to a bunch of rice or mashed potatoes, or even meat.

I have also found eggs to be a nice part of breakfast. I used to buy the English muffins that were frozen with a frozen poached egg and slice of cheese in them. The cheese always practically melts onto the plate. So I bought “over the counter” English muffins and froze them; I added cheddar cheese or American cheese to one side and poached an egg (or scrambled it if it fits). And I could eat breakfast in a few minutes. I even bought an egg cooker that can poach, cook scrambled eggs, or boil eggs in the shell in a matter of minutes. One or occasionally, two eggs are not so bad unless you have high cholesterol levels.

Oh, and don’t forget baby carrots. They taste good, are filling, and nutrious and can top off an almost full stomach. If you like celery, in my opinion, they’re not as tasty as baby carrots and lack the flavorful taste of baby carrots. If you like sweet or regular potatoes, they take 3 to 4 minutes on each side. If you’re diabetic buy the small ones of either variety.

Don’t forget to check the vitamins you can get from a variety of foods too, as well as time saved by using the microwave, less cleanup afterward, and the pleasure of seeing what you created!