Supper Equals The Word My Wife And I Hate.
"Cooking"
Kids Are Adults.
Denise Works Full Time.
I (husband) work part time.
Guess who is the designated
cook 90% of the time. Me!
1 Like
Wow, Hate is a funny word to equate to “Cooking”! I do some cooking, my better half does some cooking, and quite often there is no cooking because salads are easy and quick. I am the only diabetic in our home so we don’t make “diabetic supper meals”, we eat healthy nutritional meals.
Is it possible for you to try doing a leftover cooking gig, and store in the freezer for quick and easy?!? Soups are easy to do this way, and with seasonal veggies it is even inexpensive.
I will admit that there is no better meal than when my husband makes an omelet just for me - it’s love on a plate and I adore the meal and the man!!
2 Likes
I work full-time and am a part-time grad student and am also on several volunteer committees and boards. But I live alone, so if I don’t cook, no one will. Time is definitely a challenge, especially since I"m trying to cater to food allergies (the one advantage of this being that eating out is difficult and usually more stress and expense than it’s worth), making low-carbohydrate foods, and more recently am trying to avoid more and more (as much as possible) processed foods with preservatives and chemicals.
2 Likes
I do the nearly all the cooking of meals at home, usually that is dinner during the week, but sometimes all meals during the weekend. A decade ago I basically took over this job without discussing it. My wife and I basically moved around our shared chores. Fortunately we both like cooking, so my wife is the one who isn’t always happy. I also do all the grocery shopping which I consider part of cooking (this one my wife hates, so she is happy I do it).
And I have had similar situations like you, actually having to cook four meals to satisfy the peculiarities of different family members. Let me also follow up with what @karen57 suggests, learn to make things easier. Cook in large batches on the weekend. Make “assembled” meals like pizza or tacos where you provide the ingredients and everyone is responsible for assembling and cooking their own. And I have two refrigerators and a chest freezer with lots of already prepared things like chili or soup stock.
2 Likes
I do most of the cooking, although my husband is a good cook (and sous chef). He works a lot of 12 hour days, so I have to think ahead for a sending him off with a lunch and a dinner. so I cook a lot of “big batch” things like chili, spaghetti sauce, taco meat, soups, etc so I’ll have leftovers. we also grill a lot of chicken, fish, vegetables. Some meals made recently I’ve made
- Ancho leek turkey meatballs in a green chile (Washington Post recipe) FABULOUS
- Kung Pao chicken, Martin Yan (no rice for me)
- Roast whole chicken
- Low carb eggplant parmesan (no bread crumbs), my recipe
- steak on the grill
- spicy lentil soup, Vegetarian Epicure
- curried pork with apples (this was quick and easy, maybe I’ll post the recipe)
tonight I’m making a chile rellenos casserole that seems fairly low carb. I had a bumper crop of ancho peppers this year and I have roasted and peeled them all and will use those, and any leftovers will go into small packs in the freezer.
I also keep a post it note on my freezer to remind me what meals are in there.
We have some pretty good recipes here
lots are easy and most are low carb.
1 Like
My domestic partner and I share the cooking responsibilities. When he first moved in with me six years ago, he suggested that we each “do our own thing” for breakfast and lunch, and only eat meals together for the evening meal. As a retired home economist, that sort of shocked me. I definitely was of the mind that shared meals was an important part of achieving a good relationship. But I went along with it. And it has proved to be wonderful!
We are both retired and had been before we got together. As it turns out, he gets up at 3 or 4 AM almost every day. Occasionally, I get up then, eat breakfast, and go back to bed. But about half the time he is eating an early lunch by the time I’m up and ready to make breakfast! There are also a lot of foods he won’t eat, so if I want Mexican or Thai food, I just make it for myself at lunch.
For dinner, we take turns cooking, though on nights he cooks the main dish, if I want a salad or a vegetable cooked from fresh produce rather than frozen or canned (other than potatoes or sweet potatoes), I have to make it myself. He’ll usually eat it, but he just isn’t into fussing with cleaning and preparing most produce. But he’s a good cook, making wonderful soups, stews, and various slow cooker meals, as well as roast turkey or chicken. When we cook, we typically make enough for two nights, so we each only have to “really cook” every four days. And when we make things like chili or soups that freeze well, we make enough to freeze, as well.
We do most of the grocery shopping together. He typically picks out the meats and I choose the produce.
I do most of the cooking. I have trouble calculating serving sizes and calculating carbs. How do you calculate the carbs for meals you cook.
Me. Sometimes it’s a joy and sometimes it’s a drag, but it’s better than eating in a restaurant with two preschoolers. 
I use myfitnesspal to calculate macros (including carbs) for all the meals I cook. As it turns out, I do 90% of the cooking for the family (although for my boy it’s easy: he’s on formula). Which suits me fine, since I’m the one with the dietary restrictions. My wife often “supplements” my low-carb cooking by adding carbs ranging from “horrifying” (doughnuts, cookies) to “jealousy inducing” (homemade breads, french toast and maple syrup). For me, the staples are pretty straightforward:
- Broccoli
- Chicken (usually off the bone, use carcass to make stock)
- Fathead Pizza once a week (tonight’s the night!)
- Omelettes with cheddar, bacon, and spinach
- Open-faced omelette (Savoy) with smoked fish, homemade bechamel, spinach, and parmesan
- Lots of salads with meat and “Zesty Italian” dressing
- “Stir Fry:” Non-root veggies, onion, garlic, ginger, meat, soy-sauce, chicken stock, peanuts or cashews, Sriracha sauce
- Cauliflower curries
- Occasional lentil curries (not low-carb) on workout days or “refeeds” where I’m trying to re-up my glycogen stores after a hard week
strong text
Sunkist - Appreciate Your Sincere caring attitude.
Mr. David - Your taking the precious commodity called time - getting back with me - tells me a lot about your sincere interest in helping us with DIABETES. May the man up-stair bless you! Questions - Have you found workable strategies you implement to not eat the doughnuts, cookies, and breads?
Question - The term myfitnesspal - first time hearing that term David - what is a fitnesspal?
So, two answers for you, one of which is likely to not be satisfying.
- How do I not eat doughnuts, cookies, and bread? I just don’t eat them. I say “no.” It’s probably not entirely fair, but I wasn’t a huge sweets-eater even before diagnosis, so it wasn’t hard to give up most sweets. I do miss a holiday pie, and I certainly miss homemade bread, but I’ve found ways around that. I fix various almond-meal based “breads” which work in a pinch. I can make very low-carb pancakes to eat with sugar-free maple syrup about once a month. I’ll put the “recipe” at the bottom, although I really just make it up as I go along.
Short answer is again, I just don’t eat them. I have too much to lose from complications, and I’m just not willing to pay the price for a doughnut, even when I do want one.
- Myfitnesspal is a website and smartphone app that allows inputting foods to get nutritional information. You can see the website at www.myfitnesspal.com. It’s made a huge difference for me, allowing me to track all of my food and exercise.
Keep working on it, and you’ll do fine!
Unless he’s I’ll, my husband cooks breakfast. We each make our own lunches, and we split cooking dinners depending on the meal or our schedules. we shop together so we are meal planning as we shop. Tonight’s meal is my crock pot pork roast with Brussels sprouts and a few carrots. Husband is on Atkins diet plan and I’m living low carb so we understand what works for each of us 
I take a bit of umbrage at the term “diabetic supper.”. A meal is a meal. The diabetic learns to make wise food choices. Other members should have the same choices.
Sub sandwiches. As a diabetic on insulin, I would pick the sub apart. Eat a little bread, the veggies, some protein. Family can make their own choices.
Please never plan a meal around me. I’m not that special.
About 12 years ago, I went through a process of upgrading my carb-counting, which had become rather sloppy over the years. I did this by utilizing carb-factors - I never used “portion sizes” e.g. a cupful of rice, but calculated the carb count from the ingredients. The Carb factor is the number of grams of carbs per gram of ingredient and there are plenty of sources online. For example for rice or dried pasta the carb factors are approx. 80g of carbs per 100g of dried ingredient. It is then just a matter of working out the total carbs for the meal and then approximating your portion (for example for 180g of rice for two persons that works out at 180 x (80/100) = 72g carbs per portion. For stuff like onions, you can just approximate based on values online (e.g. 17g carbs for a medium sized onion). You may have to throw in 10g or so for what I call “Mickey Mouse Carbs”, e.g. in various vegetables.
That way you can work out the carb count on the individual parts of the meal as a whole, estimate the portion size and add it all up. Of course living somewhere where food is sold by the gram/kg and recipes are all metric makes life a lot easier (American measures like “a half-cup” are completely illogical IMHO). However modern digital kitchen scales will all give metric readings so you could use those.
After a couple of years, my “eye” got good enough so that I reverted to an extent to estimation for anything that wasn’t high carb. I still weigh out rice - to some extent because if you use the correct ratio of rice and water, it cooks to a perfect fluffy consistency with no water left at the end.
Joel
Dear Bowie - Your Taking The Gift Of Time Just To Answer Me is A Display Of Your Kind Heart. Please send me the general instructions for creating a roast at home. Yes - Denise makes a nice meat roast using the crockpot. I would like to see the way you make yours.
Can you be so kind to direct me and answer this second question -
#2 - “Living Low Carb” 3 words - how do I start?
Graciously,
Wes
Well - small pork roast little water in the bottom of the crock - cumin and pepper on the roast - baby carrots - large quartered onion - a few whole Brussels sprouts - garlic sea salt on the veggies. Cook on high for 3 hours and check the seasoning- should be fork tender at 4 hours. I like mustard with this meal, my husband just adds a little butter to the sprouts. Low carb for me meant no grains (bread, rice, oatmeal, etc…) no starchy veggies like corn, peas, potatoes and limited amounts of tomatoes, onions, carrots. I’ve not limited any fats tho I’ve never been a margarine user. I eat three meals each day and so far have not felt deprived. My goal is to keep BS low and reap the cardio and reduced cancer risk benefit of low carb. I have mentioned on another thread I take an antidepressant due to low serotonin levels and that probably helps with the lack of carb cravings. we went out for dinner Friday and I ordered the game hen on root vegetables - so good I’m stealing the Recipie!
1 Like
Very Much Appreciated. Thank You.
Couple of strategies for that sweet tooth - go the opposite and play with mustards, vinegars, spices. Slice a cucumber thinly with slices of onion, a little salt and garlic add some red wine vinegar and a dash of liquid Splenda shake it up and keep in fridge. Now you have “sweet” pickles. Fermented slaws and sauerkraut so go well with mustards and polish sausage. If you are too hungry to cook, make a cup of low carb boullion and add a pat of butter then sip for a while till you are ready to make your meal. You can learn to make low carb versions of cheesecake, etc… but for me that just muddles my brain, easier to avoid than pretend. What if you fall off the wagon? Deal with the immediate consequences, forgive yourself (your a pretty good guy after all) and review your meal plans for the future. Carbs are our natural method of raising feel good chemicals in the brain and excercise can do that for you too as well as a loving pet (or spouse!).
Good Advice. Thanks.