Hi Yellowhair I've been cooking for a diabetic for years. Tell me, Type 1 or type 2? I also need to know what other issues your DH has? My DH has been fighting renal failure for 3 years, successfully. Each diet for diabetics varies based on their specific needs. I recommend using grapeseed oil instead of butter for making scrambled eggs or baking. It works beautifully and hasn't the flavor of Olive oil, but the same good health benefits. Try to keep the red meat portions fist sized or less. Vanilla is a great flavor replacement instead of sugar for many recipes. My DH loves crepes for breakfast because he can put slenda on them like powdered sugar. Here's one recipe, I've got more if you want email me... Crepes in a blender! 1 1/2 cup milk 1 cup flour 1-2 eggs (I usually us 3 for the extra protien for my crepe loving daughter) 1 tablespoon grapeseed oil 1 teaspoon vanilla Blend away Heat pan and cover in grapeseed oil the crepe mix should easily spread around the pan thinly flip and serve I usually make 3 batches and keep in fridge. They are gone by the end of the week they microwave up quick and easy you could freeze them if you wish Another cook for a diabetic, Carlota

I'll be the odd (wo)man out here. I love to cook, but I've been doing since I was 11 yrs old, and frankly cooking 7 days a week is drudgery. Add in breakfast and/or lunch and it's a pain. I loved my career and it wasn't unusual to be gone 12-13 hrs, 5 days/wk. Weekends were crammed with errands and family/friends. We are fortunate to live in one of the greatest restaurant areas in the world: the San Francisco Bay Area. There is great food at all price points. You can eat for $5 or $500, but either way you could eat well -- check out NYTimes' Seth Kugel's visit last month to Portland, where he gave himself an $8/meal budget and was wowed by the amazing meals he got from the local food trucks. When I worked it wasn't unusual for us to go out 4-5x/wk. The question was, "What country do you want to eat today?" We could do Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Thai, Cal-Mex, American, Moroccan, Korean, French, Italian, Burmese, Greek, and more - all within 1 mile walk, and usually several iterations of each one (you couldn't even count how many Chinese restaurants of various regionalities there were). Now we're retired. We have both money and time. When I feel like cooking, I make the dishes that took too much time when I was working - long slow braises or slow-roasting, or dishes that just require an enormous amount of prep. But we still go out 3-5x/wk, When we travel around the area as we like to do (we just got back from Napa last week and will be in Sonoma next month), we travel specifically to eat. In Napa, we had amazing, elegant, fabulous Cal-French food that I would never bother cooking in a million years. There were brilliant combinations, such as the black cod served with a seafood sabayon, roasted matsutake mushrooms, and the tiniest perfect baby turnips that had no bitterness at all. Or an amazing carpaccio, dressed with nothing but a touch of Meyer lemon EVOO. I cook when I want to, but dining out is simply more fun. No shopping, no prep, no dirty dishes, no leftovers, no fuss. Yes, I could grow my own piquillo peppers and buy Ceylon cinnamon -- but why? I'd rather go to the great Spanish tapas restaurant a few minutes away and have them roast, skin and stuff the peppers with fresh chevre; roast, skin and sprinkle the cinnamon on fresh beets; and make that perfect paella 'tradicionale" for my spouse and the dreamy Fideua Negre, noodle paella with squid ink, for me. I mean, do I seriously want to buy a pressure cooker just for my octopus? Why should I bother cleaning and skinning a cephalopod when there's at least a dozen restaurants that make fabulous smoke-grilled octopus within 5 miles of our house? Should I want to soak the bacalhau in 8 changes of water over two days? It would just be so much easier to go to the Cuban or Portuguese or Italian restaurants, and have a couple of orders of really amazing salt cod fritters or roasted salt cod with polenta, instead! The take-out food these days is so much better quality than before. One place offers a marvelous frozen (bake it at home) chicken pot pie - perfect butter pastry, organic chicken breast and organic vegetables - all they offer is either a fried chicken sandwich on artisanal roll with housemade slaw, or the pot pie. That's it; they open 4 days/wk for 3 hrs a day and then go home to raise their baby daughter. Lines out the door every day. One specialty market with various food sellers (we lust after their pork tomahawk chop - wowie! What a hunk of meat!) has lovely little frittatas with artichoke, red pepper and Gruyere. My DH hates frittatas, so I buy one for myself while he gets the penne with San Marco marinara and Kurobuta pork meatballs; that way we both win. I loathe Food Network. When I write up reviews on the restaurants we've eaten at (I do it for my own archives, not to publish them), I often refer negatively to "Food Network chefs" - cooks who slop the food out as fast as possible, in ridiculous combinations of too many ingredients. They don't know the difference between a sauce Amoricaine and a Bordelaise. Bleh. It's taken me decades to get my DH off the crappy food he grew up with. But he's finally come around, so that when we drop $$$$ on the perfect dinner at Etoile or Spoonbar or La Folie, he says, "That was absolutely worth every penny." And you know, it is. Here is a link that might be useful: NYTimes Frugal Traveler does Portland on the cheap This post was edited by jkom51 on Wed, Sep 10, 14 at 0:17

Thank you so much for the ideas and support! It turns out she has two dorm-sized fridge/freezers (one has her TV on top and I didn't notice it, lol) so she has more storage space than I'd thought. She lives nearby so DH sees her often (stops on his way home from work) but is more than willing to stop by on his way to work with food at least once a week. So far I'm using Rubbermaid-type freezer containers, the same I've always sent home leftovers in, as she has her own dishes. DH's car just had some $$$ repairs so there's no money for buying separate dishes right now - DH says the food's more important than the presentation, and his mom is very practical. So far I've got 2 containers of pasta with beefed-up marinara, 2 meals of brisket with homemade baked beans and new potatoes and 2 bowls of from-scratch, from-fresh chicken soup. It's a start. I don't think the budget would allow it (gonna be a tight holiday season) but do you think she could possibly work a bread machine? I've never used one so have no idea how difficult they are to use. If she could operate it, I may suggest it to my SIL. I'm thinking a small electric skillet and/or a small toaster/convection oven might be useful, if she has the space (and if they would be permitted).

Hi Christine, Sorry to hear about your friend. I am mom to a T1 son who was diagnosed at age 3, now 11. There are no good cook books, but I do think Cooking Light is a great resource. Two important things: I urge you to tell you friend to get diagnosed by an endocrinologist specializing in Diabetes. Many times doctors without a lot of experience with the disease will see an adult with high BGs and call it T2, because T2 used to be called "Adult Onset" and T1 used to be called "Juvenile". The diseases are actually very different as T1 is an auto immune disease(frequently triggered by Strep, though this is still a suspected and not proven link) and T2 is not. T1 is the inability to make insulin, T2 is typified by insulin resistance and they must be treated differently. There is also a Type 1.5 AKA as LADA (Latent Autoimmmune Diabetes of Adults) which is very frequently misdiagnosed as T2 and must be treated differently than T2. An accurate diagnosis is not based on Blood GLucose numbers alone, there would have been other blood tests, to measure GAD antibodies, and Serum Insulin levels(a type 2 would have had sky high insulin levels, a type one negligible). Secondly, cooking for a diabetic is often thought of as low carb cooking, but it is not. Low fat is also very important. Frequently upon diagnosis, your insurance will cover at least one visit to a Registered Dietician. This would be a great thing for your friend to take advantage of.