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
- Pre-heat the oven to 350F.
- 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.
- Then I add the brown sugar blend and beat on medium until well blended.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- I prep two cookie sheets with parchment.
- 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.
- 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.
- Once out, I pull the whole parchment sheet off onto a cooling rack so they don't keep cooking on the hot sheet.
- After rotating, I prep the next sheet.