As I mentioned in my last blog post, I've recently been diagnosed with Gestational Diabetes. It can be a struggle to find foods that are both low carb and meet my pregnancy cravings. One of the hardest cravings for me to ignore are pancakes; they just taste so good right now! Fortunately, the awesome blog Detoxinista had the perfect solution: grain free Almond Butter Pancakes. I made them immediately, and while they didn't taste exactly like traditional pancakes, they were delicious in their own right. The next time I made them, I switched out the almond butter for peanut butter, and upped the cinnamon, and found them to be even tastier to me. They are a breeze to make, and low carb enough where I can even have a drizzle of real maple syrup on top. Yum!
As many of you know, I'm pregnant with my second child. Like with my first pregnancy, I developed gestational diabetes around my 25th week. As I have mentioned in the past, there are a lot of misconceptions about gestational diabetes; mainly that is caused by something that the mother has done (or not done). This can lead to a lot of guilty thoughts when a woman is first diagnosed. The truth is, many cases of gestational diabetes are due to genetics. I live a very healthy lifestyle: my diet is made up of nutritious and unprocessed foods, I exercise five times a week, and I maintain a healthy weight (and healthy weight gain during pregnancy). Yet the hormones in my body go crazy when I get pregnant, and my placenta starts having trouble regulating insulin, and unfortunately, there is nothing I can do to prevent it. What I can do, however, is stay on a very strict diet during my pregnancy, that allows my body to handle the diabetes without medicine. I'm not going to lie: it's really hard to be on a rigid diet when you are in your third trimester; a time when you are starving and just want to eat what you want to eat, when you want to eat. Instead, I have to eat a certain amount of carbs (not too much, not too little) on a very strict schedule (every 2-3 hours, no earlier, no later).
I've finally found my favorite recipe of the summer: Tomato Pie. I could seriously eat a slice of this delicious, fresh-tasting pie every day for the entire season. It is the perfect way to highlight the deliciousness of in-season tomatoes. If you aren't familiar with this Southern dish, you are in for a real treat! The most important part of this recipe is obviously the tomatoes; you want them fresh and ripe. The best choice would obviously be to pick them from your garden (which is what I did this year), but not everybody has a green thumb (don't feel bad; I don't either. My husband is our family gardener. I kill plants just by glancing at them). In that case, you should get your tomatoes from a grocery store that has organic, locally sourced produce, like Earth Fare. That's right; it's time for this month's Earth Fare recipe! You can get all the ingredients for Tomato Pie from Earth Fare, with help from your garden if you are lucky enough to have one. As for the tomatoes, make sure to choose tomatoes of the heirloom variety: Brandywine, Cherokee Purple, Beefsteak, Black Krim, Ugly Ripe, etc. You want the big, meaty types of tomatoes that aren't too seedy and liquidy. This is vital to making a perfect tomato pie!
Southwestern Sloppy Joes is one of those recipes that I've been making for almost a decade now, and yet still it love as much as I did the first time I made it. It's zesty and messy and downright delicious. It's the type of meal where you should probably use paper towels instead of napkins, but opt for neither, so that you have an excuse to lick your fingers. I wish I could take credit for coming up with this recipe, but I actually found it in a Cuisine Tonight magazine, the "Sandwiches & Salads" edition. Whatever you do, do NOT skip the coleslaw. It's the best part!
