Splenda Lemon Meringue Pie

My husband was recently diagnosed with diabetes (he made it through
Thanksgiving without his Bg ever getting over 130 two hours post prandial,
hurrah for him!). Anyway, regular pumpkin pie with sugar is just WAY to
carby for him to eat. So I just made some simple modifications to my
standard pumpkin pie recipe and it was great! I couldn't even taste the
splenda at *all* (normally I don't like artificial sweetners, they have a
bitter taste that I notice too much).

So I thought I'd post what I made and how I modified it.

There are two significant problems with pumpkin pie. The pastry crust and
the sugar in the filling. Sugar is easy you just replace it one for one
with splenda. Bang, there goes a jillion carbs out of the pie. For the
crust I implemented a suggestion my husband had read on some newsgroup or
website or something: Replace the pastry crust with a ground nut crust.

Probably there are those of you who "do this all the time" but it was a
first for me and I have to say I was very pleased with the results. I
finely chopped up walnuts in the food processor, mixed them with butter and
splenda, and pressed them into the pie plate. I should have sprayed the
plate with some non-stick spray, I think. The pie was hard to get out of
the plate, but that was also probably because I cooked the pies a little
too long (not burnt or even brown on top, but very very set, they were
shallower pies, I usually make deep dish which takes longer to set up in
the oven). But I think if I just used non stick spray and watched them a
little more closely, they'd release just fine.

But here's the good news. The whole pie only had 101 total carbs and 25
grams of fiber (Everywhere but in the US you subtract the fiber from the
carbs to get the total carbs, they don't do that in the US, so the total
carbs for the whole pie everywhere but the US is 76). One slice (1/8 of
the pie) has 12.6 total carbs and 3.1 fiber (in the rest of the world that
would be 9.5 total carbs).
7
So a single slice of pie is significantly less than one "carb choice" if
you follow the carb counting meal plan, and it has monounsaturated fats for
your lipid levels, and fiber, also for your lipid levels (there is as much
fiber in once slice of this pie as there is in the most grainy whole grain
bread slice).


Siobhan's Low Carb Pumpkin Pie with Walnut Crust

Makes 1 nine-inch regular depth pie (not deep dish)

Crust
1.5 cups finely chopped walnuts (almost powder, but not paste)
3 tbsp butter, softened
3 tbsp Splenda (must be sucralose, other artificial sweeteners can't be
baked)

Filling
2 eggs, beaten
15 ounces canned pumpkin/cooked pumpkin
12 ounces evaporated milk (I used non-fat/skim)
1.5 cups splenda (again, must be sucralose)
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp ground allspice
Dash or two ground nutmeg

Make the crust:
Mix the chopped walnuts and splenda together, then smoosh in the butter
until it's all crumbly. Spray a 9 inch shallow pie pan (not deep dish)
with non-stick spray then press the nut mixture on the bottom and sides of
the pie pan. Put in fridge to chill until ready to bake.

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Beat the eggs then add the rest of the ingredients (increase or decrease
spices to taste). Pour into pie shell but don't overflow the crumb crust.
Place in oven and bake for 10 minutes at 425 then reduce temperature to 350
and bake another 45 minutes or until a knife inserted in the center comes
out clean.

-- 
Siobhan Perricone
"You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake." -- Jeannette Rankin

Source: rec.food.cooking