Thursday, November 22, 2007

Happy Thanksgiving!

The oven's pre-heated and I'm putting the rolls in. 20 minutes of baking, 20 minutes of blogging.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you.

Two things come to mind: Gratitude and Fatty food. Counting blessings and Counting calories. Life is neat so let's all eat. Yeah, ok.

So let it be said: I'm grateful I got off sugar. I don't miss TUMS or those extra pounds. I'm grateful my off-sugar mentor got off sugar: she's still alive and healthy.

The rolls baking in the oven are the store-brand frozen enriched white dinner rolls my honey has taken to his family's Thanksgiving gathering forever. They thaw, they rise, they get baked, some of them get eaten. Tradition.

For this gathering, though, I made my Cranberry Sauce , which I mentioned in a previous post.

Dissolve 1 packet of unflavored (Knox) gelatin in 1/2 Cup pure cranberry juice. (NOT cranberry juice cocktail or juice blend.)
Heat 1 1/2 Cup pure cranberry juice to simmering, and stir it into the dissolved juice/gelatin.
I also add a packet of Stevia - cranberries are pretty tart.
Whizz half a bag of fresh cranberries in the food processor and stir them into the juice.
Let it gel in the fridge.


No sugar, no artificial sweeteners, and NO HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP.

I also made Deviled Eggs . I turned the jar of dill relish backwards so my honey wouldn't notice it's not SWEET pickle relish.

Hard boil eggs.
Peel, cut in half, pop the yolks into the food processor and the whites on a plate.
Add a spoonful (don't make it watery) of DUKE'S regular mayonnaise (the only commercial mayo I know of without sugar), a good healthy squirt or so of jalapeƱo mustard, and some dill pickle relish. Whizz. Stuff the eggs.


No sugar, taste great.

Incidentally, I like to use cake decorating tips and frosting bags for this, or a zipper food bag works fine too: no mess and pretty eggs.

Now, you may remember from an earlier post that stuffing mix is sweetened. I can only hope that the ones in charge of the turkey make their own.




Oh yes - I have the ingredients chilling for Pumpkin Ice Cream . Cold Stone Creamery has pumpkin ice cream and I confess I did taste some and it was delicious - except for the obvious fact that there's sugar in it. I will be making a batch my way very soon, and I'll let you know how it turns out.

Saturday, November 3, 2007

Artificial Sweeteners

Now, THAT'S a lot of sweet!

While searching the net for the list of artificial sweeteners at the bottom of this page, I ran across this information from the USDA.

In 2006 the average PER CAPITA DAILY consumption of HFCS was 197 calories, according to The USDA.

And 211 calories of cane and beet sugar.
Per person.
Per day.

Not to mention all those other sweeteners.

Wanna lose weight?

No wonder 20 pounds dropped off me when I quit eating sweeteners.

_________________________________


List of artificial sweeteners

Natural sugar substitutes:

* Brazzein
* Curculin
* Erythritol
* Fructose
* Glycyrrhizin
* Glycerol
* Hydrogenated starch hydrolysates
* Lactitol
* Mabinlin
* Maltitol
* Maltooligosaccharide
* Mannitol
* Miraculin
* Monellin
* Pentadin
* Sorbitol
* Stevia
* Tagatose
* Thaumatin
* Xylitol

Artificial sugar substitutes:

* Acesulfame potassium
* Alitame
* Aspartame-Acesulfame-Salt
* Cyclamate
* Dulcin
* Neohesperidin dihydrochalcone
* Neotame
* P-4000
* Saccharin
* Sucralose
* Isomalt

With thanks to http://www.diet-health-nutrition.org/list-of-artificial-sweeteners/
even if they do think these things are food.

Mint Jelly is History.

I grilled a lamb steak last weekend, for the first time in a loooong time.

I've always liked
mint jelly

with lamb- but I find it's all full of high fructose corn syrup. what to do?

I found this delicious mint sauce imported from England at Fresh Market. Lots of real mint and vinegar, no sweetener at all, and way better on the lamb. Good Stuff!