what's for dinner?

april 2003

When we wrote our Joslin Quick and Easy Cookbook we filled a void for people with diabetes who wanted to eat a healthy diet and still have a wide variety of menus and recipes that represent many cuisines as well as American comfort foods. Here at www.diabetic-lifestyle.com we get frequent requests for more recipes like those in that book. Our Quick and Easy cookbook brought you recipes geared to cooking for one or two people. We hope that these recipes will be a welcome addition to your file of recipes for you and your family. We tried to bring you easy and very quick recipes that allow you to keep to your diet on busy weekday nights. As an added extra we spent $20.00 or less on the ingredients for these recipes. Bon appetite!

For this recipe, our total came in at just under $20.00. The big purchases were the fresh salmon, which cost $10.00 a pound, and the soba noodles, which were $2.50 for 8 ounces. If you can't find soba noodles, which are made from buckwheat, use whole wheat spaghetti or linguini. We used half of a large bag of frozen spinach, so we will have 2 meals from the bag for less than a $2.00 purchase. The mushrooms were also under $2.00, so there we are. The remaining ingredients except for $.50 worth of fresh ginger were in our refrigerator or pantry. My family loves this meal. We show it served in an oriental bowl, but it is not a soup. It has just enough broth to flavor the meal, which means that you put about 1/4 cup over the meal before you serve it. Use any firm fleshed fish for this recipe.   Salmon on Soba Noodles with Ginger Broth (for the recipes, click on the individual recipe above) What to make when you have a refrigerator full of vegetables can be answered by this tasty warm pasta salad. I paid $1.50 for each of the peppers and less than $5.00 for the mushrooms. Asparagus was on sale for $1.99 a pound. The rest of the ingredients I had on hand. We used pasta from our pantry, but feel free to use what you have. Do pick bite sized noodles if you have them. This is a recipe that we make often for a light dinner, so we have tried many combinations of vegetables. You too can experiment. The results will be a winner. All you need with this is some fresh fruit and cheese for dessert, and you have a light continental meal.   Warm Vegetable Salad (for the recipes, click on the individual recipe above) Our next meal answers the question, "what do I do with these boneless chicken breasts tonight?" We share a meal with an Indian flare. All you need is some store bought naan, which is an Indian flat bread, costing about $1.95. Short of finding this, you can substitute warmed pita bread. We purchased an 8 ounce container of nonfat plain yogurt for $.65. We had chicken in our freezer, as we purchase skinless, boneless chicken breasts on sale. This made our 1 pound about $2.00. The cilantro and mint cost less than $3.00 (would be free if I'd planted an inside herb garden). We bought a small cucumber and cherry tomatoes for less than $4.50 and the lettuce for $.95. The rest of the ingredients we had at home. Total about $13.05.   Indian Grilled Chicken with Cherry Tomatoes and Cucumber (for the recipes, click on the individual recipe above) Rice bowls have become very popular and the varieties can be endless. We happened to see large shrimp on sale for $5.99 a pound so we bought a pound and, knowing that we had the rest of the ingredients we wanted at home in the pantry and fridge, our shopping for dinner was done. Even if you added the costs of the other ingredients, the cost per person would be well under the price of the commercial rice bowls, and ours was more delicious, and low in sodium.   Shrimp and Apple Curry Rice Bowl (for the recipes, click on the individual recipe above) BSP and FTG