Gestational Diabetes Recipes

This is one small step for man but one giant leap for gestational diabetes cooking. We’ve cooked up a GDM-friendly curry using evaporated skim milk and a dash of coconut essence instead of light coconut milk. This results in a massive 38g/ 1.4 ounces less fat! Although the 48g/ 1.7 ounces of carbs in the can of evaporated skim milk still needs to be counted, reducing the fat is a much healthier option. Too much fat in your diet can increase weight gain and makes it harder for your insulin to work properly. (Main carbohydrate containing ingredients are listed in bold.)

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon light olive oil
  1 brown onion, cut into thin wedges
  1 tablespoon of finely grated ginger
  1 tablespoon red curry paste (ready-made from supermarket)
  1 x 375ml/ 13 ounce can evaporated skim milk
  1 tablespoon coconut essence
  8 small potatoes, cleaned and diced
  1 tablespoon fish sauce
  500g/ 1 pound beef for stir-fry, cut into thin strips
  200g/ ½ pound green beans, trimmed, cut into 3cm/ 1.2″ pieces
  8 yellow squash, quartered
  1 lime, finely zested and juiced
  Fresh coriander to serve

Cooking tip: You do not want to let your curry boil or bubble at any time once you’ve added the evaporated milk otherwise the milk will separate and go gluggy. Don’t get any hotter than a gentle simmer at any time. In this way your meat will also come out poached and tender. And pre-cooking your potatoes before adding them to the curry means you won’t need to turn up the heat.

Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Cook onion and ginger for a few minutes, stirring occasionally. Add curry paste and cook for 1 minute until fragrant.

Reduce heat to very low and stir in evaporated skim milk, coconut essence, fish sauce and beef. Simmer on very low heat for 5 minutes or until beef is almost cooked.

Now add cooked potatoes, green beans and squash. Cover and continue to cook on very low heat for another 5 minutes until squash and beans are no longer completely raw. Before serving, stir lime rind and lime juice into curry.

Serve topped with coriander.

Note: Only serve the equivalent of 2 whole potatoes per person to remain within the carb allowance. Also asparagus, zucchini or broccoli would be a tasty addition to this curry.

Post-GDM suggestion: I’ve kept the carbohydrates to just potato. You could halve the amount of  potato, add more vegetables (zucchini, asparagus etc) and serve with Doongara Clever Rice instead.