Bacon, Leek, Italian Sausage, and Roasted Radish Soup

I love enjoying vegetables when they are in season because they are cheaper and they taste better.  The two spring flavors in this soup are leeks and radishes.  You might think the spicy flavor of radishes sounds strange for a soup - and I think you would be right.  The trick is that roasting radishes mellows out their flavor and even brings out a touch of sweetness.  This makes roasted radishes a good alternative to potatoes when we are low carbers.

 

This is a quick and hearty soup with fun spring flavors.

 

 

Ingredients:

4 Strips thick-cut Bacon cut into small pieces
1 Pint Radishes quartered
1 Large Leek sliced into bite sized pieces(about 3 cups)
1lb Italian Sausage
4 cups Homemade Stock - I used a pork stock, but chicken would also work well.

Toss the radishes in salt and olive oil roast them  in the oven at 425 for 25 minutes.

 

While the radishes are roasting, brown the bacon in a dutch oven or stock pot.  When the bacon starts to get crispy add in the leeks.

 

 

Brown the italian sausage in another pan while you saute the leaks in the bacon fat.  Once the leeks get wilty you can add the stock. 

 

Add the browned italian sausage and roasted radishes.  Add salt to taste - the amount depends greatly on the saltiness of the stock used.

Enjoy on a cool spring day!!

Racing High

This past weekend I tried my first 5k since being diagnosed diabetic.  I've done a 10k (1 week after getting out of the hopital, and much to the surprise of my new endo) and a marathon - so you might thing a 5k would be no big deal. 

It turns out that different distances pose very different problem in terms of maintaining good blood sugar numbers.  While in a marathon I have to work on keeping my numbers from getting too low - a 5k poses the opposite problem for me.  I finished the race with a reading of 185 - waaaay higher than I like to see.  I suppose for diabetics that aren't low carb this is a common occurrence, but I haven't seen a number this high since the first few weeks after diagnosis.

The short time and high intensity result in my liver dumping out sugar that my body doesn't get a chance to use up before the race ends.  I had a similar problem the first few times I did a crossfit workout.  I took some insulin after the race and my numbers came back into line - but now I have to come up with a strategy to prevent this in the future.  I found that taking a 0.5-1 units of insulin (Humalog) prior to starting a short, high intensity crossfit workout was useful, so I might try that at the next race. 


Keep in mind that everyone responds differently to different types of exercise and we all need to do our own trial and error to find what works for us.