Sunday, February 23, 2014

Blood Sugar and Oatmeal Choco-chip cookies

OK, it's been 2 months since my last post.  My blood sugar reading has been pretty stable, today was 104, 7 day average 102 and 30 day average 101.  I had one low reading, low as in way off the norm, of 90.  I took it twice to make sure I didn't mess anything up.  But I think it was because I had a very busy day, very physically busy, and really ate light, including very few carbs, much lower than normal.

I also had two high reading, 126 and 128 about a week apart.  Both of those readings were after eating out.  I think I need to work on making better choices whenever I eat out, but to be honest, i don't like eating salads in most places.  I don't mind a side-salad instead of fries or potatoes, but most of the larger, meal-sized, salads are nearly as bad as most of the rest of the menu.

To help deal with that, I've downloaded a bunch of restaurant menu nutritional information PDF's to my phone and PC. This way I can plan what's better on their menu than take guesses.  Hopefully that will help.

As for cooking, so far I have been keeping things pretty basic.  Grilling meats as opposed to other preparations, lots of greens and salads, and for snacking I've been making batches of oatmeal-chocolate chip cookies that contain about 10-12 carbs each.  So two cookies for a mid-afternoon snack satisfy a little sweet-tooth and don't do much in elevating my blood sugar.  I evaluated a number of recipes and settles on one with minimal white flour and use walnuts and Spenda Brown Sugar blend instead of straight-up brown sugar.  I've estimated the carb count based on several recipes and the best part . . . the whole family likes them, so I make them in large batches and they usually last most of a week.

Ingredients:
  • 1 Stick of Crisco Butter Flavor shortening (16 Tbs)
  • 4 Tbs of unsalted butter, melted
  • 1 Cup and 2 Tbs of Spenda Brown Sugar Blend
  • 3 whole eggs
  • 3 tsp vanilla
  • 1 Cup Unbleached White flour
  • 1 Cup Whole Wheat flour
  • 4.5 cups of Old-Fashioned Oatmeal
  • 1.5 tsp salt
  • 2.25 tsp baking soda
Recipe:
  1. Pre-heat the oven to 350F.
  2. I melt the butter while beating the shortening on low.  Once it's melted I add it to the bowl of the mixer to combine.
  3. Then I add the brown sugar blend and beat on medium until well blended.
  4. Add the eggs and vanilla.  Beat on medium until well combined.  I have tried to beat until light and fluffy, incorporating more air, but I haven't seen it make much of a difference.
  5. While the liquid ingredients are beating, I combine the oatmeal, white and wheat flour, salt, and baking soda in a separate bowl and mix well.
  6. Once the liquid ingredients are ready, I incorporate the dry with the liquid about a quarter cup at a time, on low.  It comes together as a very dry mixture and I usually have to switch to my dough hook to mix.  
  7. Once done, I toss in 1.75 cups of chopped walnuts and 12 oz of semi-sweet chocolate chips.  Be careful here, the mixer will be working very hard!  You might need to push the mixture back down to get it well mixed.
  8. I prep two cookie sheets with parchment.
  9. Using a tablespoon scoop, I scoop up a level tablespoon and place on the cookie sheet about 1.5 inches apart.  I get 25 per sheet.  The cookies don't spread a lot.  If you are after more of a flat cookie, up the butter content.
  10. Bake one cookie sheet at a time, 7 minutes, then rotate and cook another 7 minutes.  When I pull one out, I put in the next right away.
  11. Once out, I pull the whole parchment sheet off onto a cooling rack so they don't keep cooking on the hot sheet.  
  12. After rotating, I prep the next sheet.
I get about 125 cookies.  Once cool, I bag them up in two gallon-sized zip lock bags.  Like I said they last between 5 and six days around my house.  Because of my blood sugar, I limit myself to 6 a day, two about 10 AM, two about 3 PM, and if I get munchie after dinner, two more.  So far. so good!