Recipes for: January 3, 2009

Dinner: Ham-Bean Soup inspired by the Black Bean Soup recipe from Dana Carpender's 200 Low Carb Slow Cooker Recipes. We bought a bone-in ham (organic, Matha Stewart brand) from Costco, and have eaten it in various incarnations since Christmas Eve. Jim got most, but not all, of the meat off with his favorite electric knife. I covered the ham bone with water and it is simmering for a couple of hours with half of an onion (chopped), a clove of garlic (chopped), a handful of baby carrots, and about 6 stalks of 'on its last leg' celery (chopped). I used some of the broth to make the soup for dinner. I do have to be careful - for some reason, Jim's blood glucose measurement is higher in the morning when he has had soup for dinner the night before.

Recipes for: January 2, 2009

Dinner: Nancy's Cabbage and Noodles: I sauteed some chopped onion in olive oil in a large non-stick skillet for about 5 minutes. I added one clove of sliced garlic, about 1/4 of a small head of cabbage, knife-shredded, and continued cooking for about 5 more minutes. I added some small pieces of leftover ham - about 1 cup - and 2 packages of shirataki-tofu fettucini noodles and heated it all through. I sprinkled with fresh ground black pepper, and some crushed aleppo pepper. It was wonderful. Will definitely make this again.

Dessert: I tried a recipe for maple-walnut tea cakes from Rozanne Gold's low carb 1 - 2 - 3. The recipe called for sugar-free maple syrup. I accidentally bought a bottle of maple syrup that had some sucralose (I do not like the taste of sucralose) but made the tea cakes anyway. They turned out great! Jim says eating them is like having a piece of his mother's Austrian walnut strudel (a bready nut-roll - not German strudel).