Beef with Portabella Garlic Sauce and Garlic Parmesan Broccoli

This week's cook at home dinner included one of my favorite main dishes.  Garlic Beef & Portabella Mushrooms served over a tiny bit of whole wheat egg noodles. I really enjoy using pre-made sauces, because it saves me a bunch of time that I don't have.  So, I used Progresso's Portabella Mushroom Recipe Starter pouch.  They have the recipe right on their website.

My favorite part of this dish is that the meat and mushrooms are very filling.  Plus, without the noodles, it's really low in carb, so I can have two servings of steak and sauce if I'm extra hungry.  Of course, I was starving tonight!  So, I totally had that second serving.

I also tried a new a new side dish recipe: Garlic Broccoli Parmesan.  This is my new favorite way to make broccoli (Thank you, Pinterest!).  I will definitely be making it again.  It went perfect with my garlicy beef dish too.

All Yummy!  Plenty of leftovers for tomorrow.  Is it tomorrow yet?

Stats:
Hubby Approved?  Yes on the beef and noodles, no on the broccoli (he isn't a cheese fan, so that says nothing about whether it's really good or not.).
Pots/Pans: 2 Pots, 1 Skillet
Starch carbs for the meal: 48 grams (2 servings of steak, 1/2 serving of noodles).
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 45-50 minutes
NOTE: I usually take longer than most recipes say they are supposed to take.  So, you may be able to do it faster.  :)

To make it easy, I used frozen broccoli and pre-sliced mushrooms.  I put the Broccoli in a pot steaming on low and had a pot of water ready to boil for the noodles before I started on the steak part.  After the steak was done, I started the noodles.  Towards the end of simmering the steak dish, I drained the noodles and mixed up the broccoli.  Voila!  Dinner.

Recipes

Beef with Mushroom Garlic Sauce
Servings: 4
Carbs per serving: 9 grams (starch carbs)
Recipe: http://www.progresso.com/recipes/beef-tenderloins-with-mushroom-garlic-sauce/320d89b8-65fa-44b6-bd0f-6a9be47bbd58
Recipe alteration: I used flank steak and cut it into smaller pieces, instead of medallions.  I have tried to make this without removing the meat, but it always comes out a lot more soupy.  I don't mind it that way, though.

Garlic Broccoli with Parmesan
Servings: 4
Carbs per serving: 6 grams (non-starch green veggie carbs, so I can eat as much as I want...woo hoo!)
Recipe: http://www.thegraciouspantry.com/clean-eating-buttery-garlic-broccoli-with-parmesan/

I eat crunchy munchies!

I absolutely love crunchy chips, crunchy cheesy snacks etc...  You know.  All those "processed" foods us diabetics aren't supposed to eat.  Yes, for some diabetics that might be true.  Thankfully, I get to keep them on the menu.

Before diabetes, I would get a big bag of crunchy munchies from the pantry.  I would mindlessly crunch and at some point I'd think; "I should probably stop now."  Did I stop?  Of course not!

When I shifted the way I eat, I stopped buying big bags of crunchy munchies.  It's rare that we have a big bag in the house.  When we do, it's for a game day, BBQ or something with guests.  The bag doesn't get opened until guests arrive and usually there's nothing left, but every now and then there are leftovers. Sometimes we'll just throw them out.  Usually, we buy something that's not one of my favorites, so I'm not tempted to eat the whole bag.

I may not buy big bags often, but I do buy crunchy munchies every week.  Have you ever seem the little $0.50 lunch box sized bags?  Look at the back.  Most are between 12 and 17 grams of carbs.  A perfect carb serving size!  

After a few months of buying these, I noticed that there's something about finishing the bag for me.  There's just something so satisfying about licking my finger, sticking it in the bag and picking up all the crumbs I can get.  There's something satisfying about tapping the last few crumbs into my mouth by holding the bag up to my lips.  Pure crunchy/salty bliss!

I never needed to eat tons of crunchy munchies, I just needed to empty the bag!!!  I empty my little lunch box bags and I'm perfectly happy to move on to some veggies or protein for my next snack.  

What's your trick for keeping the crunchy munchy carbs at a reasonable count?

I love food testing.

I don't know about you, but I actually like a good experiment.  I find it fun to posit a theory, run a test and get some results.  Now, I'm not a scientist and I was never good at science in school.  However, I find that I've rekindled my love of experiments through being diabetic.

I hear stories of diabetics who never test.  People who are afraid of looking at their numbers.  Maybe it's because I'm in the early stages of the disease and my numbers are never scary high, but I love testing.  It's information that can help me make decisions later.  I like taking advantage of that.

One of my favorite thing to do is food test.  I'll eat a salad or something with no negligible carb along side something with carbs in it.  A one carb serving usually, but sometimes I want to see if I can push the envelope, so I'll eat two carb servings.  Then I do the postprandial test at 2 hour mark, after I eat.  I don't log, note or monitor in any scientific way (that's too much work!), but I make a mental note of how my numbers were.

For example, when I first started testing, I ate spaghetti and sauce at my favorite restaurant and took my Metformin.  I found out that even with whole grain pasta, my postprandial glucose was in the 130's.  For me, this is not where I like to be after dinner.

So, last week I went out to dinner at my favorite restaurant for spaghetti and had a little over one carb serving of whole grain pasta with meat sauce.  I knew, going in, that there wouldn't be much besides pasta so I made sure not to go in hungry...that way I wouldn't eat the whole bowl.  I ordered a salad and a bowl of spaghetti with meat sauce and Italian sausage.  Oh, boy was that tasty!!  I also only had a tiny bit of bread.  I ate every bite of salad and sausage though.  So, I was full.  I took the rest of the pasta home.  My postprandial was mid-90's that night.  Now THAT's what I'm talking about!

It was easy to know what I needed to do to enjoy my favorite pasta and not shoot my numbers into the 130's. If I hadn't tested, I would've never known how much pasta to eat.  I wouldn't have known when to stop.  I certainly would've eaten more.  So, testing gives me valuable information.

FYI - I've been eating a little bit (like 4-5 bites at a pop) of the leftovers every day since Monday.  I've eaten it with lunch, for a snack as a side dish at dinner and finished it off today.  Such a tasty treat!!!  Now, I don't bring things like this into the house very often, because it's hard for me NOT to eat the whole thing.  Every now and then, I can resist though.

What favorites have you tested?  What do you do in order to keep yourself from going overboard?