It's spring: Cherry Blossoms!

Really I think I just wanted to do this post because I seem to have an attraction to cherry blossoms.  As much as I love the sunny weather out here in California, I admit that I feel as if we are missing out on experiencing "the seasons" like they do in other parts of the world.  I did see some Cherry blossom trees in bloom though the other day and it made me happy.  It reminded me of around this time last year when Cy and I were in Japan and had the chance to experience "Spring" in full - mainly in the form of Cherry blossoms.  Seeing and smelling all the beautiful pink blooms, tasting all the amazing cherry blossom flavored foods.  Not always so diabetic friendly, but still fun to look at.

Whenever I go to Japan or when one of my friends go to Japan, I usually ask them to bring me back some baking ingredients.  Everything from freeze dried purple potato flakes to cherry blossom extract.  And more often than not I end up hoarding and "saving" them for ''special'' occasions...meaning they end up sitting in the cupboard for a very very long time...

In anycase, in honor of springtime, I thought I'd pull out my salted cherry blossoms and actually try to bake something with them.  My version of cherry blossom shortbread -  the flowery saltiness of the cherry blossoms perfectly complimented the sweet shortbread.

When cooking for a diabetic, there's a lot of thought that goes into choosing certain ingredients over others.  For example, there's a lot of debate over various sugar alternatives and how they affect your blood glucose level and how its metabolized in the body...one of these days,  I would love to research and do an in depth post on it for my own knowledge. For now, I am going with splenda.

If you feel like baking these, they do carry salted cherry blossoms at Japanese grocery stores if you're lucky enough to have one nearby, or you can always find them online.  

OR I'm always a fan of altering recipes - If you're able to come up with any alternatives to Salted Cherry Blossoms let me know!

We all gotta start somewhere...

I love reading food blogs.  And the idea of starting my own has flitted through my little brain from time to time, but I've always brushed it off - partially because it seemed like there was already a plethora of amazing ones out there, and partially (or mainly) because of my laziness.

So what changed my mind?  My bf Cy and I both love to cook, and often do so for our close friends and family.  But when it comes to our everyday food, I find myself having to really consider what dishes would satisfy our foodie tastebuds, and still be "safe" for Cy to eat.  Diabetes runs in Cy's family genes and unfortunately, Cy has not been able to escape its evil clutch.  He's had diabetes since he was younger and it's a burden he's carried for a good portion of his life.  It's almost ironic that he met me, the girl with the ultimate sweet tooth.

So this blog is a place to record my experiments and search for tasty, diabetic friendly food for Cy, as well as some of the dishes we cook for others...and then there will also be the occasional random rambling ;)