Summertime Diabetic-Friendly Meal: Shrimp, Broccoli Slaw, and Southwestern Potatoes

This week we are thrilled and honored to have Shelby Kinnaird, the Diabetic Foodie, join us as a guest blogger. She shares with us a wonderful summertime menu. Enjoy the visual inspiration and the step-by-step she shares to make your meal making...fun, doable and very tasty! Enjoy! And Live vibrant!

What meal says “summer” to you? For me, I can’t think about summer without remembering our annual family trips to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. We always stayed at a place directly across from the fishing pier and could easily walk to the beach. My favorite meal to eat out was a shrimp basket – golden fried shrimp, creamy coleslaw, crispy French fries, and those deep-fried nuggets of cornbread heaven known as hushpuppies.

Since I have type 2 diabetes, that meal isn’t happening for me anymore. Or not very often, anyway. Instead of moping about it, let’s create a new, healthier spin. We’ll enjoy the same elements of shrimp, slaw, and potatoes without worrying about sky-high blood sugar afterwards. But how?

Instead of battering and frying the shrimp, we’ll boil it in a zesty combination of apple cider vinegar and Chesapeake-style seafood seasoning (e.g. Old Bay). Instead of using mayonnaise as the base for our coleslaw, we’ll try an Asian-inspired vinaigrette. We’ll also add broccoli slaw and red bell peppers for some variety. Instead of frying our potatoes, we’ll season them with Southwestern spices and roast them until they are crispy. (If you’d like other tips and tricks for meal planning, check out my new book The Pocket Carbohydrate Counter Guide for Diabetes.)

Here’s our revised menu, portion control provided by Livliga. Recipes for the slaw and potatoes may be found on my website, Diabetic Foodie.

• Peel & Eat Shrimp (recipe below)
• Sesame Broccoli Slaw
• Southwestern Potato Rounds
• Homemade Cocktail Sauce – Simply mix horseradish into ketchup until you get the amount of zing you like.

Making adjustments like these is one way to continue enjoying your favorite foods after a diabetes diagnosis. Maybe you can’t eat a giant all-you-can-eat platter of fried food anymore, but is that really a bad thing? Your heart doesn’t think so.

How to Get this Meal on the Table

Instead of just throwing recipes at you, I’m going to give you a “recipe for the meal,” meaning I’m going to show you how to get this entire meal on the table quickly. And who doesn’t need help with that?

The first thing you need to do is make sure you know where all of the recipes are that you’ll need. You can print them out or view them on a tablet or your phone. (I’m old school and always print them out so I can scribble notes as I cook.)

If you have a second person to help, put one person on slaw and cocktail sauce and the other on shrimp and potatoes.

Here’s the basic plan:

1. Put the water on to boil for the shrimp
2. Preheat the oven for the potatoes
3. Make the slaw
4. Cook the shrimp
5. Prep the potatoes and place in the oven
6. Remove shrimp to a bowl so it can cool a little bit before you try to peel it
7. Make cocktail sauce
8. Flip potatoes
9. Remove potatoes from oven
10. Eat!

Peel & Eat Shrimp Recipe

Ingredients

• 8 cups water
• 2 cups apple cider vinegar
• 2 tablespoons Chesapeake-style seafood seasoning (such as Old Bay)
• 1 pound shrimp, deveined but with shells still on
• Cocktail sauce

Directions

1. Place water, vinegar, and seasoning in a large stockpot. Bring to boil over high heat.
2. Add shrimp and cook for 2 to 3 minutes, just until they turn opaque and pink. Turn off heat, cover the pot, and let shrimp sit for 5 minutes.
3. Remove shrimp to bowl and cool.
4. Peel, dip in cocktail sauce, and eat!

Serves 4

Calories: 80 calories   Fat: 1g   Sat Fat: 0g   Cholesterol: 143mg   Sodium: 1601mg
Carbs: 1g   Fiber: 0g   Sugar: 0g   Protein: 15g

Note: The sodium count is a bit inflated because a lot of the seasoning stays behind in the shrimp water. However, shrimp is inherently high in sodium as are most seafood seasonings. If you’re watching your sodium intake, look for a salt-free or low-sodium seasoning and reduce your portion of shrimp.

Guest Blogger Bio

Shelby Kinnaird is the Founder and Publisher of Diabetic Foodie, a website featuring recipes and tips for people with diabetes. Her motto is “a diabetes diagnosis is not a dietary death sentence.” Shelby is also the author of The Pocket Carbohydrate Counter Guide for Diabetes: Simple Nutritional Strategies to Lower Your Blood Sugar. A passionate diabetes advocate, Shelby runs two support groups in Richmond, VA.