Santoku Knife

Busy day yesterday out finishing up some contract work followed by nasty storms.  So, no new experiments to share.  BUT, I wanted to brag about my newest tool/toy, a Santoku Knife.

I  have been searching for a decent Chef’s Knife for awhile.  All the fancy cooking shows use them and frankly, using steak knives to cut tomatoes is getting a little old.

I picked this one up over the weekend at Macy’s – on sale for $9.99 – and had the opportunity to use it last night cutting up an onion. I must say that I have fallen in love with it.  The knife is light and very easy to handle. It cuts so quickly and smoothly it’s just unbelieveable.

I definitely recommend a good knife to anyone who cooks at all.  It made the nasty process of cutting an onion so quick that I didn’t cry and tear and there was barely that leftover onion-y smell on my hands.  Bravo, Santoku.

Cauliflower

At the time I was diagnosed with diabetes, I was in the midst of a different medical emergency.  An effect of that was medication for 6 months which prohibited free comsumption of various vegetables that contained a lot of Vitamin K.  One of which is cauliflower. 

I am now off of that medication and to celebrate, last month, I got my first head of cauliflower in 6 months.  Oh, what a happy day!

I like it best raw, with a little light ranch vegetable dip.  It’s a fresh, yummy vegetable.  The best part about cauliflower is that it only has 5 grams of carbs and contains 77% of your daily Calcium requirements!

So that is my ode to cauliflower.  Left to another day is my ‘Desert Island Food’, broccoli!

Meatball Sub-stitute

After a day full of grocery shopping and other little tasks, I was about to make my next new recipe for Mediterranean Meatballs.  I then figured out that the jar of roasted red peppers that I was unable to find on my grocery list was a main component.  Bummer.

So on to my next experiment.  I grabbed some frozen meatballs from GFS in the freezer, fresh mozzarella, and canned pizza sauce.  Put all this in a cute little dish, topped with some oregano, and took it for a whirl in the microwave for 2 minutes at 50% power then 1 minute at full power.

What turned out is what’s pictured above.  A pretty good fast dish that was warm and cheesy and again, fast.  Altogether the dish had 17 g carbs so it was a good deal.  Not that I really enjoy using the microwave but hey – you gotta do what you gotta do.

For the purposes of this blog, I’ll share links to the sources whenever possible.  (Some of the magazines require subscriptions for access to the recipes online.)

I will not directly post a recipe if it belongs to someone else.  Seems fair, right?  If you have a question about a recipe, leave a comment and I’ll get back to you.

The timing of my diabetes diagnosis was pretty good, tax refund time!  So, like any curious cook, I spent a few bucks on magazine subscriptions.  The first one I got was for Taste of Home’s Healthy Cooking.

In the April/May 2009 issue, among many other great recipes was one for this delicious side dish, Brussels Sprouts with Bacon.  I’m always looking for ways to incorporate more veggies into my meals so I decided to give it a go.

The dish was super quick to make with the exception of quartering the brussles sprouts.  It tasted great and is a make-again recipe.  At 11 g. carbs per serving it also provides 5 g. protein which makes it is a nutritious dish also!

To get this recipe, you must register for the Plus (+) section of Healthy Cooking’s website.  Right now you can order a free test subscription for access to the website.

(You may notice this image as the current header for this site.  That’s because it’s one of the first recipe images that I took with my brilliant new camera!  Gotta love that Digital Macro setting.)