Diabetic-Friendly Desserts

More and more companies are offering no sugar added products that can be used by themselves or in combination with healthy ingredients to lower the carbs in what we eat for dessert. Edy's makes slow-churned ice cream varieties that are creamy and quite tasty. Lately we've been buying M-T Fine puddings that are made with splenda. We make the pudding 2% milk and eat it hot over fresh fruit. Chocolate and bananas, vanilla and just about anything.

Now Comstock is making a cherry pie filling that tastes better to me than the normal sugary kind. It's just a little more tart. We make it into a pie and sprinkle just a TBSP of splenda sugar blend on top and it turns out quite delicious. Sometimes we make a crumble for it rather than using pie crust, and it makes a great topping for sugar free ice cream.

Pillsbury is making chocolate and vanilla cake mixes and frostings that are sugar free but taste very much like the real thing. We were eating those for a while but I must say, we found the substitute to be gas-provoking! So don't eat it on a night before you have to go to work!

Feel free to add your comments and share what you've found for low carb, healthy desserts!

 

Savory Tomato Pie

I finally figured out what to do with those hard as rock, pinkish looking tomatoes that are available in Northeastern grocery stores from November to May. Savory tomato pie. There are a lot of recipes for sweet tomato pie, which tastes a little like apple pie. But the savory pie is a nice, winter comfort meal if you like crusted entrees. We do.

Prepare a bottom pie crust by brushing on an egg.

Slice 4 nice-sized tomatoes and season them with garlic salt, lemon zest and pepper. I use one of the Penzey's spices called Ruth Ann's Muskego Ave. Chicken and Fish Seasoning, which has those ingredients in it. Once seasoned, dredge the tomatoes in flour and set them aside.

Thinly slice a medium onion, and sautee it for 5 minutes in oil. Once it looks tender, add a teaspoon of basalmic vinegar, mix it in, and then spread the onions into the pie shell. Pour a couple of teaspoons of olive oil in the skillet, heat and then lightly saute the tomatoes, one layer at a time, just long enough to cook the flour a little. As each pan of tomatoes is done, put them in the pie, until you have 3 or 4 layers.

Sprinkle cheese on top, and add the top pie crust. Bake at 375 for 45 minutes until the crust is brown. Now.. this is the way I made it the first time but it was a little calorie dense from all that crust. I think it would be good with just the bottom crust, or maybe just into an oiled casserole with no crust. Make it a meatless meal because the tomatoes have a certain amount of oil absorption. A side salad would be best because the temptation to have more than one slice is huge!

This dish is so tasty, it may not even need the cheese. Recipes call for mozzarella and cheddar, but a little parmesan would probably suffice.

Enjoy!!