Green bean casserole

One of the staple dishes of Thanksgiving dinner seems to be green bean casserole. That would be the one made with cream of mushroom soup and canned fried onions. I don't remember this dish from my childhood, so I'm thinking it's something that has been popularized in recent years by one or the other food manufacturer. It has become so popular that grocery stores in this area regularly fill up one of the end caps of a food aisle with all of the ingredients in one convenient spot.

It's a tasty dish, to be sure, and a handy way to get kids to eat green beans. Unfortunately, it's overloaded with sodium and carbohydrates and is roughly the consistency of glue.

Happily, I found a recipe for green bean casserole that is none of these things. It appeared in the same place I found the Frog Eyes (My HEB Goodness, Holiday, 2007). I haven't actually made the recipe as of this writing, but I have all the ingredients at hand and hope to have prepared and tasted it by the time this post is published.

Here's the recipe:

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Splendid Green Bean Casserole

Prep Time: 10 minutes/ Cook Time: 15 minutes

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• 2 large shallots, peeled and sliced thin
• 2 cups fresh sliced mushrooms
• 2 tablespoons HEB Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• 2 bags (12 oz. each) HEB Ready Fresh Go! Green Beans
• 1/4 cup HEB Texas Twist Ranch or Caesar Dressing

1. Heat oven to 500 [degrees] F. Line small baking pan with foil and spray with nonstick olive oil cooking spray. Spread the shallot rings evenly in the pan and bake for 5 minutes or until golden. Remove and cool.
2. Combine mushrooms and olive oil in a microwave-safe bowl. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and microwave on high for 2 1/2 minutes. Set mixture aside.
3. Prepare green beans according to package directions, drain, and place in large serving bowl.
4. Top green beans with mushrooms, dressing, and shallots. Serve warm. You can also cover the dish with plastic wrap, refrigerate, and microwave for 5 minutes on high before serving.

Makes 10 servings

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Nutrition Facts:

One serving = 3/4 cup
80 calories, 2 g protein, 5g total fat, 1 g saturated fat.
0 g trans fats, 7 g carbohydrates, 1 g dietary fiber, 2 g sugars,
0 mg cholesterol, 70 mg sodium

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I'm having to make some substitutions, especially in brands (sorry, HEB, all your stores are across town here in Houston). That's gonna make some difference in some of the nutrition numbers, but, since I'm watching carbs, I'll be sure that those are not adversely affected by the change. Your mileage may vary.

*crossing fingers*

UPDATE: Made it. Ate it. Loved it. The only seasoning, however, came from the salad dressing that we added before we served the dish. We used Newman's Own Ranch Style dressing. While the dish tasted good, I felt that it needed more flavor. Everyone else seemed to manage it without anything else, but I had to hit the salt shaker. In any case, I am now confident enough about the dish to start playing with the recipe. Mmmm.

Thinking about squash

Little Sister found a recipe for stuffed acorn squash a while back and brought it for Sunday dinner a week or two ago. It was so yummy, stuffed with brown rice and apples and cranberries and who knows what else. I enjoyed the taste even as I knew that I was loading myself with carbs.

There's a difference between summer squashes and winter squashes, and that is carbohydrate content. Summer squashes have fewer; winter squashes have more. But is it enough to matter?

Here is the 100 gram serving (less than a cup in most cases) of raw, sliced summer squashes:

• Yellow crookneck, 4.04
• Scallop, 3.84
• Zucchini, 3.35

Here's the same serving set up for winter squashes:

• Acorn, 10.42
• Butternut, 11.69
• Hubbard, 8.7
• Spaghetti, 6.9

One hundred grams is not equivalent to one cup in all of these squashes, so serving size will vary. I have avoided the winter squashes for years because of their comparatively high carb count, but I might want to rethink that. Smaller portions is, at some point, going to have to become as big a concern as carb count. Perhaps sooner rather than later? In the meantime, a little winter squash might be okay.

Of course, I will have to figure out which one is a hubbard squash, won't I?

Mock yams

One cup of diced sweet potato (raw) is 23.42 grams of carbohydrates. One cup of chopped carrots (raw) is 12.26 grams of carbohydrates. All orange veggies are not the same, but they look close enough for my purposes. We are substituting carrots for sweet potatoes this Thanksgiving.

My Prince loves sweet potatoes, preferably candied with sugar and smothered with marshmallows. Ditto for Mama. I have fooled My Prince with carrots before, so I'm going to try it with Mama. He liked it enough to ask for more. He even (pause to absorb the shock) liked the carrots so much that he asked to learn how to cook them for himself when I'm gone.

Here's what I do:

• Boil some peeled baby carrots until very tender. You can put a little sea salt in the water if you want to. The important thing to put in the water, however, is your sweetener. I use Splenda, but you may have other thoughts about what works best for you. Use maybe 1/2 to 1 cup. You want the carrots to taste really sweet.
• If the cooked carrots taste sweet enough, just drain, add some butter, and serve. If they need more sweetness, drain most of the liquid and add more Splenda until you think you've got the taste you want. Then butter and serve.
• To get a brown sugar taste, you can use Splenda's version of brown sugar or just splash in a bit of sugar free maple syrup. I use the maple syrup because it doesn't have as many carbs as the Splenda brown (I'm serious about the splash bit).

If you really want to fool everyone, mash the carrots. My Prince was happy to have the whole ones, but we may have to be a little more devious with Mama. Still, we tend to eat less when we are served an intact vegetable rather than a mushy mound (I think).

Thanksgiving dessert

We are trying to avoid the traditional pumpkin pie this year, although it is a struggle. It's one of Mama's favorites (at this time of year). It happens that I also like this pie, so I want to avoid having one within range of my (sadly lacking) willpower. Maybe I can buy her a pie before I leave, with instructions to eat it all before I return (like that will go over well).

Big Kid Cousin came up with a recipe for pumpkin cheese cake but decided against adding to the workload by trying a complicated new recipe. I volunteered my Dreamsicle Pie, and that is what we are going with.

Originally, I "invented" this pie to serve as a pumpkin pie alternative solely because it was orange. The main ingredient is: sugar free orange Jello (or whatever the house brand equivalent might be). The important thing for this occasion is orange color and sugar free. I also "invented" this as a pie, so I made a "crust" for it. This year, we will skip the crust because of food/teeth issues for the elders.

Here's the pie:

• Make the sugar free orange gelatin according to package instructions. I use one large or 2 small packages. Allow to set in refrigerator.
• Remove your now fully set orange gelatin from the refrigerator and dump it into a blender. Add a small amount of heavy whipping cream and blend it until you have a smooth mixture that is a pastel shade of orange. Keep adding cream (but not too much) as long as you think the mixture will not become runny and still needs a lighter color.
• Pour the mixture into a glass pie dish, with or without a crust. Cooking spray might be needed if you don't have a crust. (I guess I will find out on Thanksgiving.)

The crust:

• Mix chopped pecans and a small amount of melted butter or margarine (just enough to lightly coat the pecans).
  
• Place the pecans in the bottom of a glass pie dish and press into shape to form a thin crust on the bottom (and up the sides if you have enough nuts).

With or without the crust, cover the pie with plastic wrap and return to the refrigerator for some more setting time. Cut and serve as proudly as you would a homemade pumpkin pie.

The whole pie tastes like a dreamsicle ice cream and is delicious. It has zero carbohydrates without the crust and very few with the crust. The dreamsicle taste with nuts just goes to a whole new level of yummy.

You can make this pie with other flavors of gelatin. Try something red for Valentine's Day, even green for St. Patrick's Day.

I've not tended to worry about garnishes nor bothered with any topping. You might try try it with whipped topping of some sort (mind the carbs!) or sprinkle a few nuts in the middle of the top, but the pie is certainly tasty enough without anything extra.

Too salty

I made one of my "usual" Mystery Stir-Fry dishes a couple of days ago and almost couldn't eat it. It was just way too salty.

The ingredients were not much different than what I have used in the past: chopped white onion, chopped celery, diced chicken breast, chopped broccoli, sliced carrots. I did throw in some leftover smoked ham, but that came to maybe half a cup and the overwhelming taste there was "smoke" (which happily disappeared in the cooking process).

I used the "usual" spices: sea salt, coarsely ground black pepper (reminding self to refill that bottle), garlic powder, curry powder.

What I was experimenting with was Knorr Caldo de Tomate (tomato bouillon). I bought the chicken flavored kind. Since I want to try to make sauces without thickeners, I thought this would be a good addition to my Mystery Stir-Fry. I added two heaping teaspoons to my stir fry and stirred and fried (mostly steamed actually) away.

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwww!

After I burned out the salty taste buds in my mouth for at least a week, I checked the label on the tomato bouillon. I was shocked to find that I had just added 2 x 38% (+ heaping) of my daily requirement for sodium.

I'm cooking with less salt these days and using sea salt whenever possible. I wonder if that has not only reduced my sodium intake but changed my taste for saltiness. Whatever it is, I don't think that tomato bouillon is going to make it onto my pantry shelf as a staple unless I can find a salt free version.

I did actually try to find a salt free or low sodium version of this bouillon by looking at the Knorr corporate web sites for the US and for Canada (there isn't one for Mexico, but the Canada site is way cool). There is no mention of tomato bouillon on either site. I didn't do too well with the Latin American sites since they were written in Spanish and Portuguese. Going to the home company (Unilever) brought me to the environmental/healthy eating brag page where, assuming that this bouillon is manufactured somewhere in South America, the brag is that "soups" for that area have seen an average 7% reduction in sodium.

Well, whoopdeedo!

1. I can't find the bleeping product on any of the company's many web sites. Do they even claim it in public? Are they ashamed of it? They should be because . . .
   
2. 910 mg of sodium per teaspoon is a crying shame. Indeed, given the ingredient list which shows salt as the first ingredient, the whole product is probably mislabeled. This is not chicken-flavored tomato bouillon but tomato-flavored salt.
   

Thinking about Christmas

There's a quite a bit of thinking yet to be done about our Christmas celebration this year even though I haven't finished thinking through our Thanksgiving celebration. However, I was just doing my round of blog reading (this is mostly how I get my news these days) and ran across yet another discussion of the economy's effect on Christmas. That made me think about my birthday. LOL!

The discussion included some thoughts about giving less for Christmas, commiserating with those that would have little or nothing to spare for Christmas in this economy, and the joys of giving homemade gifts. I've been making many of my gifts for years since I make jewelry and seem to be able to please most of my female relatives with my creations. Indeed, the stand out presents for my birthday this year were a trip to my favorite bead shop sponsored by (and shared with) My Prince and a kick ass pile of beads from Big Kid Cousin. I am delirious with all the fun I will have with these treasures.

I did, however, get the biggest laugh out of a present that a couple of family friends gave me, since it was most peculiar to reach into the tissue-stuffed bags and feel . . . limes. Once I got through mugging about those, I began pulling out a half dozen limes, a large jicama, and not one but two bottles of hot sauce: Del Primo Green Sauce and La Costena Taquera Salsa Hot. This has to be one of my most memorable presents. The occasion and the company surely helped make it so, but I was also struck both by its simplicity and it rightness. The gift will be used (indeed it has already been partially consumed). The gift will be appreciated (I love spicy jicama and know that I will enjoy these sauces). The gift will not be a burden (it's not something that will take up space for years to come). I do have to recycle the bottles that the sauce came in, but otherwise there is minimal waste from this gift. (There would be less, of course, if I could compost, but that ain't gonna happen at Mama's house. My Prince is not too fond of the idea either. *sigh*)

Just to re-emphasize the value of this sort of gift, BKC did her own version of hitting the sweet spot. Not only did she give me the beads with which to make what will become one of my favorite necklaces (once I get it made), she had some chopsticks sticking up of her bag. I was delighted, of course. I love to eat with chopsticks, especially well formed ones that don't threaten me with splinters. These were lovely to look at and will be lovely to use. They are also a renewable resource, being made of bamboo. Maybe BKC should be MGC (my green cousin)! Down in the bottom of the bag, there was yet one more present to be discovered: Red Monkey Organic Cayenne Pepper. I may carry this one in my purse, diguised as "medicine," to sprinkle on my food whenever the need arises. :) As BKC knows, I already set a bottle of it out on my table along with the regular seasonings.

So, yes, I had a fine birthday and, yes, I got some wonderful presents. These were not cheap presents, especially in combination. Groceries are not such a bargain these days. But I'm thinking that this is both the season and the time to start looking at food gifts as a way to lower the cost, the wasteful consumerism, and general greed of Christmas in the US. I will, no doubt, tell myself that a girl just can't have too much handmade jewelry, but the truth is, she can't have too many spices either. We may not have time (or, in my case, skill) to do the carb-laden baking that some will do this season. We may not be able to sew or make jewelry or do carpentry or any of the many other skills that would allow us to make a special present for those on our gift list, but we could, I think, figure out something that will make good eating better.

Thanksgiving hors d'ouevres

For our shared Thanksgiving this year, we have all sorts of appetites coming to the table. A couple of these appetites are in danger of being too small, as in they don't eat enough unless we put something in front of them and get a little pushy about eating. A couple of these appetites are on their own timer, not necessarily related to "meal time," and, when they gotta eat, they gotta eat.

Not knowing exactly when we will be able to get it all on the table, Big Kid Cousin and I have decided that a small plate of appetizers would not be amiss. Indeed, since we've decided that we aren't going to have a salad, some raw and pickled vegetables might even take its place. At least we'll have something that our various "appetites" can nibble on if we take too long getting everything set out.

I'm thinking right now of three items that we "premiered" at the last birthday party. They are tasty and low carb and really made a hit.

Marinated mushrooms was the most popular of this trio. Monterey brand mushrooms has been available at Sam's Club for several years, and I've been buying them for years in Austin. They make a nice appetizer for My Prince. I notice that they are more expensive at my home club than here in Houston, so I might just buy here to take with me. Four of these mushrooms have 1 gram of carbs/1 gram of fiber. As far as I can tell, it's a free food. They were also a big hit at the birthday party; several people asked where to get them.

That's exactly what I'm doing with the marinated asparagus that I found here in Houston but couldn't (didn't) find in my Austin club. This the same asparagus that I used for my version of Frog Eyes the other day. They have a slightly sweet taste, which is not surprising once you discover that there is some sugar in the marinade. Still, 8 stalks has only 2 grams of carbs, so you will be sated by the taste (I am) before you hit your 2 carbs.

The relish plate will also include Mt. Olive Kosher Dill Petites. I will just use one of the PicklePaks, since that quantity will suffice for our purposes. I first picked these little packs out just prior to Hurrican Ike because they made for a convenient low-carb snack. During the hurricane aftermath, they were useful since they didn't need to be refrigerated. (You might be able to find out more about them at www.mtolivepickles.com, but I'm not gonna provide a link to the site. I went there to confirm the nutritional information, since I don't feel like climbing the step ladder to get to the pickles on the shelf right now, but the web site just annoys me--music, broken links, excessive decorative (as opposed to useful) graphics.) My recollection is that the pickles have 0 carbs per serving. In this case, one serving is the whole picklepak.

So, one relish tray/plate will have:

• marinated asparagus
• marinated mushrooms
• kosher dill petites

One serving would be 8 asparagus spears, 4 mushrooms, and all of the pickles on the plate for 3 total carbs minus 1 gram of fiber (if you count that way). Since I'm not climbing a ladder to find out if pickles have fiber (and Mt. Olive messed up on filling in the blank there), we'll have to leave it at 1 gram of fiber. Not too bad for an appetizer, especially when it sneaks in some more veggies for our picky eaters.

A shared Thanksgiving

Our thoughts are turned to Thanksgiving now as, along with the rest of America's foodies/moms/persons-with-appetites, we ponder what might be served and enjoyed on our overladen tables of autumn bounty. This year's turkey day will be very different from years past, and, I must say, I am quite looking forward to it.

For my nuclear family (i.e., My Prince and our real and fictive children), there has been little opportunity to have a Thanksgiving Dinner at our own home with just our own selves to please and serve. Instead we have had to divide ourselves among three households of our parents' generation and consume at least two massive turkey dinners within the typically four-day holiday period. These dinners have been prepared (his side of the family) by some wonderful cooks and served in mass quantities or consumed (my side of the family) at various buffets in hotels and restaurants. This was (a) expensive, (b) food coma inducing, and (c) occasionally stressful.

This year will be different in that we have removed My Prince from the struggle. He will stay--peacefully and happily--in Austin while we put together a version of Turkey Day here in Houston. Instead, for him and the grandkids still in Austin, we will share a meal on the Sunday after Thanksgiving (when I hope to be back there to prepare it). We still don't know what that meal may be, but we've all agreed that it can be as simple as Mystery Casserole just so long as we can be together and express our thankfulness for each other and the good things in our lives. I look forward to it.

Meanwhile, here in the Bayou City, Big Kid Cousin and I have collaborated to have a shared Thanksgiving Dinner, which we will prepare for our mothers and her aunt. The youngest person in the group will be >60; all of us have our own handicapped hang tags for the cars. Needless to say, BKC and I are concentrating on simple and easy fixings at the same time we are striving mightily to keep everyone from slipping into a food coma for one reason or another.

Our biggest concern in this meal is carbohydrates, of course. Three of the five participants in this feast need to avoid carbs like the plague. Getting the sugar out of the menu is pretty easy--we are opting for sugar-free on just about everything. Getting the starch out is an altogether different matter, so we are going to have to sacrifice some traditional items from the menu or seriously reinvent those items to get rid of the starch.

There are other challenges to be overcome, of course. We have picky eaters who like simple foods which would do well on the Children's Menu of a restaurant. We have menu restrictions related to gout and colitis and some concern about phosphorus levels. We also have traditionalists who can't quite see a Turkey Day without "the official Thanksgiving menu." It's gonna be fun to try to work our way through all these problems.

I look forward to it.

World Diabetes Day

Friday, November 14, was World Diabetes Day. Who knew? No one at our house anyway. It's my bad, I guess, for not paying more attention to the news stories on the home page for this account, but we might wonder how much coverage the day actually got in other news outlets (snark intended).

In the meantime, the good news was that we had a party on that day. With two diabetics in the group, menu planning was something of a challenge. Fortunately, Big Kid Cousin had a big (kid?) hand in making sure that most everyone involved had a clear understanding of the need to pay attention to the dietary issues that the diabetics (and others) faced.

And it was a success!

There were two birthday cakes (birthdays being the occasion for the party). One was an animated "cake" that had what looked like a Cabbage Patch granny popping in and out, singing "Happy Birthday." The other was a sugar free concoction, made with a Sweet-and-Low cake mix. Everyone got to enjoy some cake one way or another.

The rest of the table was delicious and (mostly) low carb. I made frog eyes (yes, they turned out fine). BKC assembled some impressive hors d'ouevres of cocktail sausages, cherry tomatoes, and cubed Colby Jack on a toothpick. Little Sister brought not only the cake, but some fried chicken sticks (they looked like french fries) with a beef and cheese dipping sauce for them. Family friends brought queso and chips. An aunt brought her special "pie" with hash browns for crust and assorted veggies for pie filling. We set out some cashews and a plate of pickled items (the pickled mushrooms were a big hit).

While there were some carbs on the table, it was possible to avoid them and still fill your plate. The funnest part was Mama, who opined that this was the "best ever" table of refreshments. If Mama's happy, we can all relax.

Let's hope that we are more aware of World Diabetes Day next year. It's a good opportunity to educate others about the issues. We did have a little discussion about some diabetes issues (especially hypoglycemia) at the party, but that was mostly because one of the diabetics started having problems because she didn't get to eat soon enough. We need to do better, and that starts with education.

Frog Eyes

Rhonda Schaefer of Victoria (Texas, where else????) didn't win last year's contest for holiday recipes, but she got a picture of her appetizer in HEB's holiday food thingie (My HEB Goodness, Holiday 2007) and her recipe on their web site. Sadly, I saved the picture but never went to get the recipe from the web. Sorry, Rhonda!!!!

Still, the frog eyes look yummy. As I look at the picture, what I think that I am seeing is something like thin sliced ham, spread with cream cheese, rolled around asparagus, and then sliced for spiral wraps. If that is not what Rhonda Schaefer intended, oopsie and so-sorry and I'm-sticking-with-my-interpretation.

Indeed, I'm planning a practice run to see how this will work for an upcoming par-tay.

Getting ready for Thanksgiving

This is a "transition year" for my family, so we won't be having a "traditional" Thanksgiving, whatever that is. Instead, while My Prince and the grandkids get through with all their stuff and I finally get back to Austin the Sunday after Thanksgiving Day (when we will have a meal for giving thanks), Mama and I will join Big Kid Cousin and her crew for the Big Day. It will be kinda fun, with an age range from 62 to 91.

The challenge of the day, however, is all of the food restrictions we have among us. The biggest one is the need to go low carb. Two diabetics and one quirky digestive tract pretty much dictate that we kill every carb we can find. Still, there will be an abundance of sweet tooths (teeth?!) at the table, so we are gonna have to be creative as well as careful.

I've found a nice little treasure trove of recipe and other ideas that HEB published for the 2007 holiday season (My HEB Goodness, Holiday 2007). I might just write about those if I can get a chance over the next few days. In the meantime, I'm quite interested in the page they devoted to "Tips for Diabetics During the Holidays." Here they are:

• You can control your diabetes by eating small portions.

This, I am told, is how to control a lot of things, including weight. Sadly, it's hard to turn away from something that tastes really good. That's why I find it easier to avoid the dark side of large portions by making something that needs a lot of chewing, that is filling, and has as few carbs as possible.

• Use smaller portions of bread, potatoes, and dressing (which contains starch). The vegetable dishes should be free of sauce and excessive butter. Always include fresh fruit and vegetable salads on your plate.

Or, like, don't serve bread, potatoes, and dressing--or anything else that contains high amounts of starch. Butter doesn't scare me, and (hello!) it contains no starch. Sauces are an important part of cooking and flavoring food, so why not think of sauces that contain no starch or (if you are really afraid that olive oil is going to bite you) fat. Why does everyone try to shove high carb fruits down a diabetic's throat? I eat them now and then, but fresh fruit is a serious argument for "small portions." Berries are different, of course, and I do love avocado and tomato, but I'm guessing that that's not what the HEB foodies were thinking about.

• Vegetables served with low-fat or salsa dips make good appetizers.
  

Or serve with salad dressings. I learning to make my own viniagrette (or what I call viniagrette). Tossing a bunch of carrot slices in a small bowl of that or using it for a dip is quite tasty and filling. It's harder to find things that I might like to dip into salsa.

• You can make a lot of healthy desserts by replacing sugar with products such a H-E-B's BetterSweet.

Duh! Just as big a problem, however, is getting rid of the other carbs in desserts--like flour or pre-sweetened fruit.

• Skip the crusts of pies and the icing on cakes to cut down on fat and carbohydrates.

Indeed. Or make your crusts of nuts (all nuts), and ice your cakes, if you have to have cake, with sweetened cream cheese.

• Take a long walk after a holiday meal. It will help control your blood sugar level and you'll feel better.

Word! I especially like the part of the walk that involves letting someone else do the dishes. ;)

Big Kid Cousin and I are already having great fun trying to figure out what we can cook that will satisfy the traditionalists among us and keep us all healthy.