Back to meal planning after a really long time. The blog is taking slightly new direction with much more focus on really healthy but hopefully still delicious recipes. Our new diet is trying to address some of the health issues husband has been saddled with. The recipes are suitable for people with pre-diabetes or type 2 diabetes and will aim to help keep blood glucose levels in check.  I'm trying to create recipes high in fibre and nutrients but low in carbs, specifically carbs that the body would turn into sugar quickly.

The other equally important focus is heart-health, low salt and saturated fats, lowering cholesterol and blood pressure and keeping the arteries clear of plaque.

This diet is actually healthy for almost anyone. We are not particularly trying to lose weight, but both of us just a couple of weeks in already have lost a few of pounds.

It's not all brilliant (yet) - it's "a bit of  a learning curve", as we say in office bullshit when we haven't got a bloody clue. The low carb pasta options don't always behave the way you thought they would, husband doesn't always behave the way you thought he would, some of the food comes out looking a bit strange, or "like catfood" as husband diplomatically put it the other night.

And I have serious cheese cravings. Cheese is not necessarily all bad (protein and calcium - good!), but many cheeses contain a lot of salt and saturated fat so I've tried to steer away. One night at around midnight husband caught me at the fridge shoving a chunk of goat cheese into my gob. Slightly embarrassing.

So for this week I tried to put together a fantastically healthy plan.

Monday
Leftover San Fransiscan Cioppino fish soup from Sunday

Tuesday
Tuna steaks with asparagus and green salad

Wednesday
Chia meatballs in tomato sauce with low carb pasta
Thursday
Chia meatballs again

Friday
Brown rice and vegetable chicken biryani

Saturday
BBQ ribeye steaks (a Saturday treat, not necessarily as low in sat fats as we would like), oven chips, salad and veg

Sunday
Salmon on the barbecue, either smoked or gridironed with veg
Have a good and healthy week everyone!

Thank God for the glutein-free craze, whether a justified health trend or a fad. It means that now after husband's diabetes diagnosis there are actually decent alternatives and we can still enjoy our pasta without spiking husband's blood glucose levels.

I love pasta, not as much as I love husband, but still a lot, so it would be difficult to let go of it altogether. So thank you all real and pretend celiacs and the food industry who are often maligned, but who actually do really good things. Like food for people to eat. Like pasta.

I am working my way through all these different options out there and hopefully will be able to give a better review at some point.

So far we've had slightly embarrassing mushy green pea pasta (I'm sure it can be really nice, but I overcooked it), reasonably nice red lentil pasta and excellent edamame pasta.

An excellent pasta alternative that won't leave you feeling cheated or deprived

There are of course the wholewheat and spelt pastas which we always used to eat anyway because they taste better and are at least a little bit healthier than white pasta. But they do still contain a lot of carbs. But then it also gets a bit scientific, because apparently these varieties contain resistant starch which is ok, so some diabetics in the know say the best way is to test. Literally test your post-prandial blood glucose after eating different foods.

I knew there had to be a reason for me to suffer through 5 years in a shit inspiring but challenging job in diabetes care.

So now we test. Husband is really cute when he tries to protest, but then obediently but looking a bit victimized gives me his shovel-sized hand and lets me prick his finger. With the sarcastically named "Delica" device (gotta love marketing), which of course is not delica but fuckinhurtica.

We have just started the testingbiz so there's not much to report yet. Today's dinner of herby hake with 3 small new potatoes, lots of fresh podded peas, broccoli, spinach and leak was awesome. PP glucose 5mmol/L! That's what I'm talking about!

Not what the doctor ordered yet, but wife knows best.

If husband dies of starvation it was for a good cause and with a nice low glucose reading!

Some interesting ingredients that these new pastas are made of that I have come across so far:
- chickpeas
- green peas
- edamame & mung beans
- soy beans
- black beans
- spirulina (a bit too new age for me)
- brown rice


So for anyone who wants to keep away from those nasty spikes whether you're pre-diabetic, diabetic or maybe you just like eating weird expensive (non)pasta, they offer a great option of indulging in that real pasta feel without shooting your blood sugar through the roof. I haven't been so hot on the calories, but I'm sure there is a great weight loss opportunity here as well. Some of these pastas have a lot of protein and other good stuff like potassium. Potassium is awesome for hangovers, which of course you won't have if you follow a real diabetes and heart-healthy diet. But if you don't, good for you!

Most supermarkets will nowadays have some of these pastas. I found a couple of varieties in my local Morrisons, but healthfood shops usually have a good selection. Wholefoods is amazing. It has become my new shopping Mecca.

One of my favourites so far is the edamame and mung bean fettucine I found at Wholefoods the other day. It's got a nice bite to it and to my pretty forgiving and flexible taste buds it actually tasted really nice. Like it actually had a taste, or maybe it was all the nice stuff I surrounded it with.

Here's the recipe I did using this edamame and mung bean fettucine. Unfortunately I didn't have the blood glucose monitor at hand then, so we don't know what the real life effects would have been. But I assume they would have been ok, the pasta only contains about 11.3g or carbs in 100g (vs 65-70g in normal white pasta!!), and the portions consisted of a lot of veg as well.

Edamame and mung bean fettucine with chicken and spring vegetables

For the chicken:
Rapeseed oil
2 boneless chicken breasts
Salt
Pepper
Juice of half a lemon
1 tsp dried oregano or marjoram

½ cup fresh (or frozen) podded peas
1 leek
Bunch of asparagus

For the dressing:
2 tsp dried or 2 tbsp chopped fresh basil
1/3 cup feta
3 spring onions
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar

For the pasta
150g Edamame and mung bean fettucine (or other pasta of your choice)
water
salt

Vegan parmesan to sprinkle

Bring the water to boil in a large pan and add in a good pinch of salt.  Cook the pasta according to pack instructions.
Cut the chicken breast into bite size chunks and season with salt, pepper and oregano. Pod the peas and prepare the asparagus cutting it into one inch pieces. Wash and chop the leeks.

Heat oil in a large frying pan and once hot add in the chicken and cook until browned on the outside and cooked through. Squeeze in the juice of half a lemon and et aside.

Add a little rapeseed oil in the pan and add the leek and asparagus. Continue cooking for 3-4 minutes on low to medium heat. Add the peas and continue cooking for another couple of minutes until all the veg are al dente.

Toss the chicken, vegetables and sauce together and make sure it is all piping hot.
Sprinkle with healthy and diabetes and heart friendly vegan parmesan
Serve immediately with a fresh green salad.

One of the bitterest blows dealt by our new super healthy diet brought on by husband's health concerns, or more accurately my concerns over husband's health, is having to let go of parmesan and pecorino. I'm sure we don't have to completely let go, but I can no longer grate it to pretty much everything I cook. I can still eat chunks straight out of the fridge myself and I often do. Sometimes I substitute dinner with a lovely salty chunk or two. After all, it covers the two main food groups I'm after at the end of a busy day: salt and fat. But what I can no longer do is to grate a bit, or a lot, into almost everything I cook for us.

Because it is mainly fat and salt. Protein of course as well, so perfectly acceptable for anyone with unclogged arteries like me! At least I think they are unclogged, but with the amount of cheese, I do wonder.

But in these dire times,  to the rescue: vegans! Those weird hippies with pale faces, flat hair and hemp shoes, who always make us feel guilty and inadequate somehow as we stumble through our lives destroying the earth and making dolphin babies cry.

Kidding. I have a colleague who is vegan and has a lovely complexion and voluminous hair, and who always wears the most amazing heels (presumably plastic because she is a very serious vegan).

So, solution: vegan parmesan! What a brilliant idea. I don't remember how I came across this in my grief over my lost beloved parmigiano and even more so pecorino (even saltier), but once I started googling through my tears maybe for something like "parmesan healthy alternative" I found lots of recipes. They are all essentially the same, raw unsalted cashews (sometimes some other nuts), nutritional yeast (what the hell), garlic powder and some add also onion powder. All ingredients that meet husband's arterial demands.

I had to google nutritional yeast, because I had a feeling the fact that all recipes said nutritional yeast and not just yeast might be a clue of some sort. I'm glad I did. As it turns out, nutritional yeast is not at all the same stuff you use in bread baking. That definitely would not work here. A nice shop assistant in Holland & Barrett immediately found me this key ingredient as well as some raw cashews and off I went on my righteous quest for cruelty-free parmesan perfection.

It turned out delicious! It really tastes quite lovely and looks very much like grated parmesan. It of course won't melt in foods, but otherwise you can use it as you would grated parmesan. The only tiny niggle I have is that it doesn't really taste like parmesan regardless of what many the vegan blogs that advertise this recipe say. The poor vegan writers probably haven't had a proper chunk of lovely fatty real parmesan as long as they can remember.

So, sorry to announce, this tastes great and will probably work nicely sprinkled over a pasta dish or a soup or in pesto and I will continue using it because it's delicious and healthy, but is doesn't really taste like parmesan. It tastes like ground salted peanuts. Or like ground raw cashews and nutritional yeast.

Edamame and mung bean fettucine with chicken and green vegetables and a sprinkle of vegan parmesan

Vegan parmesan

1 cup raw cashews
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp onion powder

Place all ingredients in a blender and pulse until the right consistency (same as grated parmesan). Don't over-blitz, because apparently it can turn into a paste, which is not what we want here.

Sprinkle over salads, sauces or soups and pretend it's parmesan.

Store in a jar in the fridge and it will keep for about a month.

Heart-healthy grass-fed lean lamb and chickpea pasta bake