How to eat well with diabetes

By HFG expert and dietitian Tracy Kelly, head of clinical care at Diabetes UK

Enjoying what you eat is one of life’s pleasures. But if you have diabetes, or cook for someone who does, it can be tricky at times to know what to choose.

That’s why today, on World Diabetes Day, Diabetes UK is launching Enjoy Food, a new online guide to help everyone affected by diabetes put the excitement back into cooking and enjoy a healthy diet. 

Funded by our National Charity Partnership with Tesco, Enjoy Food offers recipes, advice and expert diabetes nutritional information online.

 

Enjoy Food is live at www.diabetes.org.uk/enjoyfoodnow. You’ll find simple, practical advice for every budget, to help you serve up delicious family-friendly meals – from meal planning and the weekly food shop to everyday healthy swaps. You can also request handy information packs on the website.

We have been hosting Enjoy Food pop-up events in Tesco stores, too, to give customers free dietary advice and simple suggestions on how to make living with diabetes more manageable. More events are taking place during November, so look out for one near you. 

Enjoy Food is a fantastic way to learn more about how people with diabetes can eat food that is both healthy and tasty. We hope it will help people shop, cook and eat well, and take the uncertainty out of cooking with diabetes.

Visit www.diabetes.org.uk/enjoyfoodtoday, or order a free information pack by calling 0800 585 088.

Let’s make food enjoyable for everyone living with diabetes.

How to make gluten- and dairy-free banana bread

By Rebecca Almond

Here at HFG we love to tinker with recipes, both in the test kitchen and in our own homes – swapping out less healthy ingredients for nutrient-rich and allergy-or-intolerance-friendly alternatives. So when a friend with coeliac disease invited me to her new flat for coffee, I set about searching for a sweet treat I could bake to take along – one that everyone would enjoy.

Banana bread is a classic coffee break snack, and one that’s simple to make. Cookery books and recipe websites are filled with variations on the theme, but many are high in calories and contain gluten. For me, bananas are sweet enough, so I decided to leave out the usual maple syrup/sugar/agave nectar component. And to make the loaf gluten-free, I put the coconut flour I’d picked up at a health food store a few weeks ago (clueless as to what to do with it) to the test.

The result? A moist, subtly-sweet loaf that’s low in calories (only 117kcal per slice!), high in fibre and protein, and, crucially, something all of my friends and I happily tucked in to. Give it a go yourself and let me know how you get on…

Coconut, chia and banana loaf

PREP 10 min + resting COOK 40–50 min CUTS INTO 10 slices

3 ripe bananas (you want the skins to be nicely speckled)

6 eggs

1tsp vanilla bean paste

½tsp ground cinnamon

2tsp gluten-free baking powder

70g coconut flour (I used Sukrin)

20g chia seeds

Desiccated coconut, to sprinkle (optional)

1.     Put the bananas, eggs, vanilla bean paste, cinnamon and baking powder in a blender and whiz until smooth (the mixture will be quite runny, like a smoothie). 

2.     Sift the coconut flour into a large bowl, then stir through the chia seeds. Slowly pour in the banana mixture, whisking with a balloon whisk until thickened and combined. Cover and set aside for 10 min to allow the flour and chia to expand. Heat the oven to 170C/fan 150C/gas 3½ and line a 1lb loaf tin with baking paper. 

3.     Pour the cake batter into the prepared tin, then smooth the surface with a spatula. Decorate the top with a sprinkling of desiccated coconut, if you like (you could use sliced banana or chopped nuts, or leave plain – it’s just as delicious), then bake on the middle shelf of the oven for 40–50 min until golden and an inserted skewer comes out clean. If the top looks like it’s browning too quickly, cover loosely with foil. 

4.     Remove the loaf from the oven and leave to cool for 5 min before turning out on to a wire rack to cool completely. The loaf will keep, well wrapped, in the fridge for up to a week – if you can make it last that long…

SERVING SUGGESTIONS: A slice of this loaf is perfect as it is, but you could top with a drizzle of runny honey, natural seed butter or a little ricotta cheese, if you like.

Per slice

117kcal

6.6g protein

5.6g fat

2g saturates

9g carbs

7.1g sugar

4.7g fibre

0.4g salt

47mg calcium

1.2mg iron

LOW CAL

HIGH PROTEIN

HIGH FIBRE

VEG

GLUTEN FREE

DAIRY FREE

How to make pumpkin hummus

By Melanie Leyshon

Now that Halloween trick and treaters have carved their pumpkins, healthy cooks can tuck into the leftovers. Make soup, pasta dishes, roasted wedges, or try this simple and satisfying pumpkin hummus. I tasted it at Central Market, a restaurant in Petaluma, California, where it’s served as a starter with a beetroot dip. Or you could serve it as a mash, topped with grilled chicken and a drizzle of pomegranate molasses, as they also do at Central Market.

 
For my first attempt, I roasted the pumpkin, then whizzed it with the classic hummus ingredients - cumin, lemon juice and tahini. It was light and tasty, but lacked oomph. By adding a tin of chickpeas you get a richer texture and flavour. Don’t worry that this defeats the object – you won’t need to add tahini paste and you’ll get double the quantity and more nutrients, as the pumpkin adds a decent hit of vitamin A and antioxidants.

Pumpkin hummus

The ingredients

500g pumpkin, deseeded and cut into wedges

Cooking oil spray

1 x 400g tin chickpeas, drained and liquid reserved

2 garlic cloves, crushed

2tbsp lemon juice

1tbsp ground cumin

Garnish of your choice, such as roasted pumpkin or sesame seeds, or chilli powder

The method

1 Heat the oven to 200°C/180°C/gas 6. Put your prepared pumpkin wedges on a baking sheet, spray with cooking oil and cook in the oven for about 30-40 min until tender.

2 Leave to cool, then cut the flesh from the skin. Discard the skin and pop the flesh into a food processor or blender. Add the drained chickpeas, the garlic, lemon juice and cumin. Blend until smooth, adding the reserved chickpea liquid to get the texture you like. Spoon into serving bowls and garnish with whatever you fancy.

The verdict

Scarily good colour, tasty and nutritious and a good way to use up the seasonal surplus!

How to make herby kale pesto

By Hannah Sherwood

Kale, the prized ‘superfood’ vegetable, is arguably the most talked about veg of 2014. Tesco has seen a 90% rise in sales in the past year alone! And who can blame the hype – kale is rich in essential vitamins A, C and K, as well as being a good source of calcium and folate. Plus, it’s affordable, versatile and available most of the year.

I love the stuff – steamed, stir-fried, roasted or blitzed in soups and smoothies. You can even eat it raw in salads. But it was while flicking through Izy Hossack’s debut cookbook Top with Cinnamon that I came across a new way with my favourite veg – herby kale pesto. Naturally, I couldn’t wait to whiz up a batch…

Pesto 101

Pesto is a herby Italian sauce traditionally made with basil, pine nuts, olive oil and parmesan. It’s not known for being ‘healthy’, but the flavours are punchy so a little can go a long way. That said, it’s healthier to swap shop-bought for homemade as then you can control the amount of oil and cheese you use. Adding lemon juice instead of extra oil can loosen the consistency if too thick. It’s easy to make, too – a chuck-it-all-in-the-food-processor-and-blitz jobby. If you don’t have a food processor, you can make it by hand in a pestle and mortar. Quantities can easily be doubled so you can keep a supply in the fridge or freezer.

Izy’s herby kale pesto 

(makes around 10 tbsp)

Zest 1 lemon and juice ½

1 garlic clove, minced

100g kale, chopped

Large handful fresh basil leaves

4tbsp olive oil

2tbsp grated parmesan

30g walnut halves

1. Put all the ingredients in a food processor and blend to a paste. Use immediately or store in a lidded container in the fridge or freezer.

Per tbsp

66kcal

1g protein

6.8g fat

1g saturates

0.4g carbs

0.2g sugar

0.6g fibre

0g salt

24mg calcium

0.3mg iron

LOW SUGAR

LOW SALT

GLUTEN FREE

How did I rate it?

It’s hard to believe that something so quick and easy to make can result in such fabulous flavour. The pesto was gorgeously vibrant, punchy and fresh-tasting – I had to stop myself from licking the bowl clean. I stuck with the green theme and stirred it through courgetti with toasted seeds, but it would be just as delicious tossed through pasta, or baked on top of fish or chicken.

Top with Cinnamon by Izy Hossack (Hardie Grant, £20.00), is out now