Why Paula Deen Has Diabetes

The Lady's Brunch Burger (also known as a Luther)

I do have some healthy eating posts waiting to be written.  For now, I want to talk about Paula Deen.  She's trending on Twitter right now because she's announced she has diabetes.  I for one am shocked!  I mean she created such dishes as these:

Ham Fried Rice, Pineapple and Fried Egg

Krispy Kreme Doughnut Bread Pudding

Sausage Pancake Egg Sandwich

Twinkie Pie

Cheese Fudge (this fudge actually has Velveeta in it)

How can the woman that created Twinkie Pie have diabetes? Ok, seriously, the bigger shock to me is that people didn't think she already had diabetes.

I do believe her when she says that she doesn't eat this way everyday. She has always said on her shows that people should eat her dishes in moderation (and yes, I watch.  I point to that Krispy Kreme Bread pudding every time someone mentions Paula Deen).   Obviously, "moderation" isn't working.  That being said, I don't think the problem is that she literally shovels butter into her face 24/7 and is literally always chomping down on sugar coated pancakes topped in fried eggs.  I think the problem, as it is with most of us, is those sinister sneaky calories that we tell ourselves don't count or don't even think about.

I know it's hard for southerners, like myself, to eat healthy foods even when we try.  My mom is vegetarian and she has never eaten large portion sizes, but she still has coronary artery disease.  It's because we eat bread with every meal here.  We like our sweet tea, and we like our desserts with every meal.  We add a few extra dashes of oil here and there. Even individual portion sizes add up, especially as we age.  We loose some of our basal metabolic rate every year.  As we continue to eat the same (and often move less), those extra 200 calories a day add up (and some southern women drink way more than 200 calories of sweet tea every day).

The dirty little secret about moderation is that most of us, apparently Deen included, don't understand what moderation is.  Moderation isn't having fried chicken once a week, having dessert with just one meal or having Krispy Kreme bread pudding, well, ever.  Those once a weeks add up.  They don't add much if they are just 100 or 200 calories above what you normally eat, but I know most people's "only in moderation" meals are more like 1000 or 2000 calories above what they normally eat.  Eating out one meal a week can easily add 1000-2000 calories to your weekly calorie intake.   I've heard dietitians say just 100 extra calories a day will add 10 lbs of weight to most people in one year.  So, 1000 calories a week?  You're looking at bad news, and most of us who get diabetes won't be sponsored by Novo Nordisk.

Get Steamed: Steamed Banana Pudding

Yum, but not good for dieters because bananas are full of natural sugars.

I had 2 overripe bananas sitting on my counter, ready to go bad.  I didn't feel like a smoothie (I bought them for that purpose, but it's too cold).  I don't like eating overripe bananas raw.  I hate throwing them away.

So, I googled for quick banana recipes.  I found a few, but this warm pudding sounded just right for a cold night.  I modified the super easy "sexy banana" recipe I found on Modern Paleo Warfare (original) to make it dairy free.  It's not low calorie or low carb.  Bananas are calorie and carb dense.  Every banana has 27 grams of carbs and 118 calories, so it's hard to find a low carb banana recipe.  Bananas are one of the few fruits people trying to lose weight should avoid.

Moist and kind of bread like, similar to spotted dick.

Since I'm just trying to eat whole, healthier foods, bananas are fine with me.

Steamed Banana Pudding  

(makes 2 servings)

1 egg

2 large bananas

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup of almond flour

3/4 cups of coconut milk

cinnamon to taste

1. Mix all the ingredients together in a blender.
2. Pour the mixture (it will be runny) into greased ramekins. It doesn't rise much so you can fill them almost to the top.
3. Bake at 200 degrees for 20-30 minutes.
4. Turn out of pan like you would an upside down cake.  You can top with whipped cream.  There actually is a dairy free whipped cream that's only 1 carb per serving, but a serving is much smaller than pictured in the photos.

I think next time, I might throw in a handful of chocolate chips.  That would be divine.  

Fresh out of the oven.

Nutrition Facts for Steamed Banana Pudding

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Amount Per Serving (makes 1)

Calories:  485

Total fat: 31.2 g

Protein: 15.4 g

Total carbohydrate:  40 g

• Dietary Fiber: 9 g
• Sugar: 19 g

Dual Tone Spooky Cakes: Quick Halloween Idea

This bundt cake looks a little a ghost.

I used to make rainbow cupcakes when I was a kid, similar to these.  We would get bowls of cake mix and dye them colors and make a big mess, but they'd turn out cute anyway.  I was reminded of this the other day when I surfing the web and saw a black and orange cake.  The author made black cakeballs and put them in the middle of a cake pan.  She then covered the balls with batter and baked it.  It made very neat circles in her cake.  Mine are more random, but I think they look sort of oozy and spooky.

This is a simple half/half dual tone cupcake

For these, I separate my cake batter and dye each part a different a color, but you could use separate cake batters too.  In the cupcake, I dyed one half of a vanilla cake batter orange and the other half black.  For the bundt cake, I used one of those "12 cupcake" devil's food mixes for the black, and a whole white cake mix separated in half.  I dyed one half green and the other half orange.  The cupcakes require a little finer hand.  You spoon one color into your cupcake pan, then put the next color down.  You can swirl them if you want.  If you use a piping bag, you can get intricate layers by piping a small amount in the middle of your paper cups and piping the same amount of the next color on top of that layer and repeating (that works well with rainbow cupcakes).

The cake is a lot easier, even if you want to make intricate layers, but it's the same concept.  You can do as many layers as you want, or just make one black spot in the middle, etc.  This would be a fun activity for kids.  The rainbow ones are awesome for Easter.

The icing for the cupcakes was just a can of icing dyed orange.  For the bundt, a regular icing wouldn't be drippy enough.  I made a glaze and dyed it in two colors.  Here's the recipe for the glaze.

Check out that owl platter. Isn't it adorable? I love Halloween.

Bundt Glaze:
4 ounces softened cream cheese
1 to 2 tablespoons milk
2 cups powdered sugar

1. Blend all the ingredients together in a food processor, mixer or blender.  I normally start out with 1 tablespoon of milk and add to my desired consistency.
2. If the glaze is too thin, add more sugar.  If it's too thick, add more milk.

Once you blend it, you can separate it, dye it your colors and drip it on in whatever pattern you want.  You have to wait until your cake is cooled or it will all melt off and not look pretty at all.

Broken Glass and Chocolate Pumpkin Cupcakes

Bloody glass cupcakes

One of my guilty pleasures is Martha Stewart's living.  I don't think I've ever done one of her arts and crafts or even made a recipe straight out of there, but I love to look at it anyway.  Her Halloween edition has always been one of my faves.  This year, I saw her broken glass cupcakes and had to emulate it.

Similar to Martha's

I can't find them on her website.  Her website is notoriously hard to navigate.  The article in the magazine (the Halloween edition with "Mothra" on the cover) just had a photo of the cupcakes, and not even a how-to.  I went to the website to find out how she made her sugar glass, but no such luck.  I swear, you can search for the exact recipe title on her website and not find something.  She is pimping a new book on holiday crafts and baking, so maybe it's in there.  Who knows.  This is why I rarely visit the website or make anything she has in her books.  I did a Google image search for Martha Stewart broken glass cupcakes, and the ones pictured to the right look the most like them.  The shards of glass were clear and the "blood" was coming out of the cupcakes.  They're ok, but they don't look gruesome enough for me.

Sugar glass is easy to make, and lots of fun (but it can be dangerous), so I went to town.  Sugar glass is basically just a hard candy, spread out.  Since it's supposed to look jagged and broken for this, it's super easy. I have a low-cal version of a cupcake recipe too, but we'll do to the sugar glass first.   You can make sugar glass just as many ways as you can make sugar candy, so no recipe is incorrect.

Sugar Glass 
3 cups sugar
1 cup water
1 cup clear corn syrup
Red food coloring

You can tell my sugar wasn't heated smoothly,
but dirty glass works for this.

1. Before you start, get everything together.  Sugar glass comes together pretty quickly and once you start pouring, it's over in a second.  If you're making broken glass, get a baking sheet ready (either spray it with some cooking spray or rub it down with some oil or butter).  If you're going to do something more elaborate like a mold or form, get the materials you need ready.  For my prep, I also got the food coloring and a paint brush.  You'll need to spray a spatula and some spoons with some cooking spray too, to help you smooth out the glass.
2. Combine all the ingredients except food coloring (unless you want solid red glass) in a sauce pan and cook on medium heat until the mixture reaches 300 degrees on a candy thermometer.  If you heat the liquid too fast, the sugar won't be as clear but it's not that big of a deal in this prep.
3. Poor the liquid on the prepared surface and quickly spread out. This is the dangerous part.  Remember this sugar is 300 degrees! Don't touch it.  Use your tools to spread it out, but work quickly.
4. While the sugar is still a little wet, splash or paint the red coloring on to resemble blood drops. You should have the "glass" spread out and painted within a few minutes.
5. Let cool.
6. Crack into shards (this is the fun part).
7. Decorate as you wish.

Easy Vegan Cupcakes
Let's talk about doctoring up a cake mix.  For these, I used a whole can of pumpkin in a chocolate cake mix instead of the oil, water and eggs. So, you just take the dry cake mix, mix in the pumpkin and bake.  People love it, and it's an easy way to make a cake mix vegan.  Just make sure your cake mix is vegan.  Most are. Store bought icings are mostly vegan too, but read the label.  Let's be honest, these mixes and icings aren't animal or vegetable foodstuffs.  They're mostly fakey fakey processed ingredients and oils. But enjoying them every now and again won't kill you, just don't eat the whole dozen yourself.  

I think I stole the pumpkin idea from Hungry Girl (I saw it on a talk show), but it tastes better to me than a regular cake mix anyway.  It only works well with chocolate cake mixes.  You can barely taste the pumpkin in a chocolate cake mix.  Pumpkin and chocolate go well together anyway.  If you use pumpkin in a white cake mix, you'll have pumpkin cake.  It's good too, but people can tell it's pumpkin.  In chocolate, I normally get, "This tastes like something, but what is it?" 

According to Hungry Girl one cupcake made this way has 181 calories, 3.5g fat, 37g carbs (eep), 2g fiber and 2g protein.  I just think they taste better that way (they seem to be richer).  

You can make a homemade cake and icing and decorate it too, but I'm going to be honest again here.  If I'm going to make a cupcake for kids or people who I know will care more about the decoration and icing than the cake, I'm not going to go to all the effort of making the cake taste like the best cake ever.  It's like the time I slaved over a stove for hours making homemade pasta sauce one week, got rave reviews.  A few weeks later, I didn't have time so I brought in Prego ... also got the rave reviews.  Seriously, most people don't care, and if the cake is a box cake, I'm less likely to eat it all.

I'll have some healthy food next week, and maybe some unhealthy ones too. I'm thinking about making more Halloween treats.  I have several Halloween events to go to, and sometimes I like to bring snacks.  We'll see.

Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls: Fall Faves

Unhealthy, but delicious

 It's fall, so I'm probably going to get a little unhealthy here.  I've been personally trying to avoid carbs and sugar, but those are required baking for friends around this time of the year.  With the holidays season coming up and my favorite goofy holiday, Halloween, it's hard to avoid carbs and unhealthy things.  At least if you do the baking yourself, from scratch, you're less likely to eat too much (that's what I tell myself anyway).

There was a pumpkin recipe contest at a local festival this past week, so I threw in my hat with some delicious pumpkin cinnamon rolls.

Here's a tip about cinnamon rolls.  They are almost always softer right out of the oven.  The main reason is the sugar in the cinnamon filling.  Sugar is hygroscopic, so it sucks moisture out of the dough.  My favorite way to combat that is just covering them in more butter and sugar (icing), or popping them in a microwave for 10-15 seconds.  Yum!  If you're looking for a lower calorie way to combat hard rolls, just use plain cinnamon and butter for the filling.  The rolls will still be good, but less sweet.

Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls
Dough
1 cup pumpkin puree
2/3 cups milk
2 tablespoons butter
1 egg
1 package yeast
2-3 cups flour
2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
1/2 tsp salt

Filling
1 stick melted butter
1/4 cup brown sugar
2/3 cup white sugar
2 tsp cinnamon (sometimes I use more, I like cinnamon)

Cream Cheese Icing
4 ounces cream cheese
1 stick of melted butter
1 tsp vanilla
2-3 cups powdered sugar
1-3 tablespoons milk

Carmel Glaze
2 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon milk
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup powdered sugar
Pinch of salt

The dough

1. Prehat over to 350 degrees.
2. Heat pumpkin, milk, salt and butter on stove until all are warm and butter is melted. It should be warm to the touch, but not hot (lukewarm)
3. Add pumpkin mixture, yeast, egg, pumpkin pie spice and 2 cups of flour to mixer bowl.  You can use a stand mixer or bread machine or just do it the old fashioned way.  I use a stand mixer.  Adjust flour until you get a dough that is smooth and somewhat sticky.  Knead that dough for about 6 minutes (with a dough hook or bread machine, this is easy).
4. Cover dough and let rest until it doubles in size (about 1 hour).  Prepare filling while you wait.
5. To prepare filling, just mix the melted butter and sugar together in a bowl and mix well.
6. After dough has rested, roll out into a 15 by 10 inch rectangle. 
7. Spoon or brush filling on the rectangle.

   

   Roll the dough (this is for smaller rolls)

8. Roll the rectangle up tightly.  If you prefer more, smaller cinnamon rolls, roll along the 15 inch end.  If you prefer larger, thicker cinnamon rolls, roll on the 10 inch end.  Along the 15 inch should make 12 rolls.
9. Cut the cinnamon rolls, the width depends on your tastes.  I normally make mine 3 fingers wide.  Use a serrated knife for best results (some people use dental floss or string, but being careful and not exerting too much pressure with a serrated knife works).
10. Place either on a baking sheet or Pyrex dish.  Some people like to bake their cinnamon rolls so they touch (like in a Pyrex dish).  Personally, I like mine to be separate and round.  I normally bake them on a baking sheet and spread them apart while they rise and when they bake.
11. Let the rolls rise for 1 hour, until doubled.  At this point, you can also put them in the fridge and let them rise overnight.



Roll size.

12. I sometimes brush the tops of cinnamon rolls with egg yolk, but I don't always. It makes the top shiny.  If you're planning to use a lot of icing, this is a wasted step, but sometimes I just want a drizzle.  For the pumpkin ones, I skipped this step.
13. Bake for 20-30 minutes, or until the center of the cinnamon roll reaches 190 degrees and the tops are golden brown.
14. While they cook, you can make the icing. I used two icings (one is just an accent drizzle).
15. Cream cheese icing: mix cream cheese, butter, vanilla, lemon, milk and 2 cups powdered sugar in a food processor and mix until creamy.  You can add more milk if it's too thick and more sugar if it's too thin.  I like my icing drippy.
16. Caramel drizzle icing: Heat butter, sugar, milk, vanilla and powdered sugar on stove.  Cook for about 8 minutes, until the sauce is a caramel like consistency (about 235 degrees or so).

    

    These rolls are touching, obviously.  They don't form perfect circles.

17. When cinnamon rolls are finished baking, let them cool a little bit before icing.  They should still be warm when you ice them.  I poured the cream cheese icing all over first, then drizzled with the caramel.
18. Enjoy (just not too much, these are very unhealthy).

 

These rolls form more perfect circles

Nutrition Facts for Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls (It's bad)

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Amount Per Serving (makes 12)

Calories:  486

Total fat: 22 g

Protein: 5.4 g

Total carbohydrate:  73 g

• Dietary Fiber: 1.4 g
• Sugar: 47 g

On the other hand, a Cinnabon is 730 calories and 114 grams of carbs.  Those Pillsbury canned cinnamon rolls are much better.  They are 145 calories and 23 grams of carb.  A McDonalds cinnamon roll is 340 calories and 52 grams of carbs.  

You could cut the calories considerably by limiting the icing.  With no icing, it's just 304 calories, 18 grams of fat, 32 grams of carbs (7.5 sugar and 1.4 grams of fiber).  Since it's still not healthy, where's the fun in that?