Some Reader Questions

Hi Dana,

Just wondering if you ever had a chance to de-carb any of the holiday recipes sent in? I'm starting to plan my Thanksgiving meal now and wondered if the two recipes I submitted could be de-carbed. If not I'll just find something else to make. I think I sent in the Wisconsin Cranberry Salad and the Cranberry bread.

Also, I'd asked if any of the Whey Protein powders were safe for kids under 18. Let me know if you ever find out the answer.

Finally, my husband and I just discovered the wonderfulness of Jicama! Have you ever heard of it? It's sometimes called a Mexican Potato and our whole family LOVES it. My husband cuts it up into fries. Then he puts them in the deep fryer and then seasons then with Paprika, Salt and Onion Powder. OH MY, SO GOOD! They are better than regular fries! The carb count is pretty low too. If you have ever used them, do you know if they could be turned into mashed Jicamas? I surely hope so!

Thanks for all your low-carb work!

Sarah

Hey, Sarah --

I just mentioned the holiday recipes on Facebook yesterday -- I'm fighting to keep my weight off while working on slow cooker recipes, and I'm scared to add any more food! So no, I haven't tried anything. But I'll look at 'em and see if I have some brilliant suggestions for you.

Wisconsin Cranberry Salad
Serves 8

1 cup ground fresh cranberries
1 cup ground Macintosh apples or other tart apples
1 cup sugar

Combine in a bowl. Cover and chill 24 hours. Next
day add:
1 cup mini-marshmallows
1/2 cup finely-chopped, pecans
1 cup whipped cream or Cool Whip

Mix and chill. Serve cold.

Okay, running the Wisconsin Cranberry Salad through MasterCook, and using Cool Whip, I come up with 33 grams of carb, 1 gram of fiber. Just subbing Splenda for the sugar (or you could use erythritol) and real cream, whipped (with something other than sugar) for the Cool Whip, it drops to 10 grams, 1 of fiber.

You can get sugar-free marshmallows from CarbSmart (and probably other places.) They're made with maltitol, so they're likely to make everyone fart as they sit around watching football later on, but what the heck. 1 cup of regular mini-marshmallows has 27 grams of carb. I count half the grams of maltitol, since you absorb roughly half of the stuff. So swapping out mini-marshmallows for sugar-free marshmallows (Don't know if you can get sugar free mini-marshmallows, but you could use your kitchen shears to snip the big ones in quarters. I'd spray that shears with Pam first, though!) would save you another gram and a half or so per serving.

Hmm. I'll have to look through my inbox for your other recipe.

Talked to the nice folks at Designer Whey, and they said they know of no reason that people under 18 can't consume their product, but that I should call the particular manufacturer who had this warning on the package. Do you have a brand name for me?

Dana

Forgot to mention this is my email to Sarah, but I'll haul out the deep fryer this winter and try making jicama chips! Why not?