Dinner with friends

After a mixed weekend in North Wales - brilliant times with my best friends, plenty of food struggles (I mainly existed on chips), it was nice to be back at home and focusing on my gut health.

Last night I visited one of my closet friends; our evenings together are pretty predictable - a couple of glasses of wine, a superhero film or two, and a nice dinner. This time around, being that L is such a brilliant friend, she went over her recipes, made a few changes, and made a gorgeous FODMAP friendly dinner for me. Not only was it filling and tasty, she served it with a side of gin and tonic and a dessert of Green and Black's deliciousness.

After a bit of persuasion, she's let me share her recipe. Give it a try, let me know what you think...

L's Delicious Salmon and Coconut Sticky Rice Bowl

Takes 30 minutes to prepare and cook (30 seconds to wolf down). The recipe makes two large portions, or two decent sized portions and leftovers for lunch!

Ingredients

2 salmon fillets

a handful of tenderstem broccoli 

3-4 baby corn ears

1/2 a courgette

pak choi

2 tsps olive oil

3 tbsp shaoxing rice wine

3tbsp light soy sauce

150g jasmine rice

160ml can of coconut cream

150ml water

pinch of salt

freshly ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Lay the salmon on tinfoil in a baking tray, drizzle in a little oil and freshly ground black pepper. Wrap the foil loosely so the fillets are covered. Pop in the oven for 25 minutes.

Rinse the rice thoroughly, then pop in a pan with the water, coconut cream, and pinch of salt. Bring to the boil, then simmer with the lid on for ten minutes.

Dice the veg into smallish chunks/julienne batons. Lightly fry in the olive oil. Pop a lid on for a few minutes to generate a little steam/moisture. 

Remove  the rice from the heat and set aside for 5 minutes.

Once the vegetables have softened, add the light soy sauce and shaoxing rice wine to the pan. Ensure all vegetables are coated. 

Remove the salmon from the oven and chunk/crumble into the vegetable pan. Stir in the rice.

Serve with a side of prawn crackers!

Baking - FODMAPs style

Baking, and sweet treats, are my favourite things. It's no secret. There's a reason I get something new from Lakeland every birthday and Christmas. So, with an afternoon off and a fridge full of blueberries, I felt it was time for my first foray into FODMAP friendly baking. After a little rummage around the internet, and using some of my baking knowledge, I took this recipe and adapted it to be not only FODMAP friendly, but vegan and, even if I do say so myself, pretty bloody tasty.

Here they are, fresh from the oven, and looking a lot closer to scones than muffins. time to split them open and see how they taste;

Well, they look pretty good - moist, soft, and feel really spongy. There's a nice jam/compote consistency from the blueberries, cooking and seeping into the batter, and they taste better than they look (hard to believe, I know). The blueberries were a little tart, next time I might stew them slightly with some sugar, or cut them in half and dust them in icing sugar, to get that super sweet taste I've been craving, the muffins themselves had an unusual texture, closer to an american pancake than a crumbly muffin, but overall, they came out perfectly. My housemate, who has no restrictions in her diet (lucky!), had a try. She was dubious at first, telling me they looked dense and dry, but as soon as she tucked in she was won over. Her exact words? 'well, that's surprisingly delicious. Not what I was expecting at all'. I think that's a compliment! For those who want to try it out, the recipe is below.

Makes 12 large muffins. 15 minute prep time, approx 30 minute bake time. Too much washing up time (any washing up time is too much washing up time).

300g gluten-free flour (I used Doves Farm)
115g caster sugar
1.5 tsps baking powder
1/2 tsp xanthan gum
pinch of salt
250ml lactose free milk (I used Rice Dream)
2 eggs / egg replacement (I used this 4 teaspoons of baking powder mixed with  teaspoons of sunflower oil and 4 tablespoons of water to make these vegan).
90g of unsalted butter or butter replacement  (I used Flora Freedom)
1 tsp vanilla essence
150g blueberries
zest of 1 lemon

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees (fan).
Sift the dry ingredients - flour, sugar, baking powder, xanthan gum, and salt - together with the lemon zest.
Melt the butter/butter replacement on the hob to a smooth liquid.
Mix the wet ingredients - butter, milk, egg/egg alternatives, vanilla essence - in a separate bowl/jug.
Add the wet ingredients to the dry bit by bit, whisking to ensure a smooth batter consistency.
Stir in the blueberries.
Split the mix between 12 large muffin cases, or 24 small cake cases.
Bake for 25-30 minutes, until a knife comes out dry.

Cool, and serve.

How do they do that?

FODMAPs are off the menu, and I need to find a whole new way to eat. How am I going to do that, I hear you ask? Well, I've got myself some brilliant help.

I grabbed a couple of books, one of which I carry on me constantly, I've found a brilliant dietitian, and I have joined a really supportive online community who are there to support when I'm desperate for a little garlic, or trying to find something to replace onions in my recipes.

That's right, onions and garlic are off the menu, and for someone who is regularly told off for adding too much garlic to every dish they cook, it's all a bit of a struggle. Apples are gone, mushrooms and I have split up, I won't look at asparagus again. I'm looking for gluten-free alternatives to my favourite things, I've swapped my milk for something called rice dream, and I'm cooling off all summer with frozen coconut milk.

Every day will be a challenge, a casual trip to the supermarket now takes over an hour while I check every packet for hints of things I'm no longer allowed. There's going to be a lot more cooking at home, and I'll be documenting it all here, as well as on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram - because why not go all out.

So far, it's been just over a fortnight following the plan and some days are easier than others, but the benefits are well worth it. I've lost a dress size in bloat, I'm sleeping better, and, best of all, my gut seems to have calmed down a lot. Surely, it's worth all the moaning and lack of garlic bread. We shall see...

What's it all about (Alfie)

So, this is a story all about how my life got flipped, turned upside down.

In April of this year, I decided to test my 'iron gut' by eating two fillets of out of date salmon. It looked a little grey around the edges but, with a cocky confidence I no longer possess, I assured myself that I could handle it. It wasn't going to kill me.

It nearly killed me (slight exaggeration).

I contracted salmonella poisoning. I know what you're thinking; food poisoning isn't all that bad, a little time spent on the loo, a spot of vomiting, a couple of days in bed, nothing you can't handle. Salmonella poisoning is a whole other beast. I had 10 days of constant vomiting and diarrhoea, I couldn't keep down so much as a glass of water. I had fever sweats, and cold flashes, I passed out on my bathroom floor. There was talk of ambulances and IV fluids. I shed almost three stone in those ten long, sweaty, sleepy days. Then, as suddenly as it arrived, I was well again. The bug was out of my system. I could eat, I could get out of bed, I could skip off to work. I was healthy. Or so I thought.

For the next three months, my stomach never quite settled. I would be running to the loo when I least expected it, I experienced my first bouts of heartburn and indigestion, I would wake up in the night with pains in my chest that made me want to vomit. I was off food, something that rarely happens to me. I would have three or four bites of a meal and declare myself done. We assumed that my stomach had shrunk, ten days without eating would do that. I thought it would settle. When it became clear that settling wasn't going to happen, I headed back to my GP. There were blood tests, stool samples, urine tests, every part of me was poked and prodded. It took a month to work it out, but I finally had an answer. I had developed Post-Infection Gut Inflammatory Disease. My stomach and intestines were not absorbing food correctly, they were not digesting things the way they always had, I had intolerances I hadn't had before. There was only one thing for it, a complete diet overhaul. Time to work out what I could and couldn't handle, and that's how I started on my FODMAPS adventure.

But Jen, I hear you cry, what on god's green earth is a FODMAP? Well, it's something that appears in every food you eat, some are good for you and some are nothing but trouble.

FODMAPs are a collection of short chain carbohydrates and sugar alcohols found in foods naturally or as food additives. FODMAPs include fructose (when in excess of glucose), fructans, galacto-oligosaccharides (GOS), lactose and polyols (eg. sorbitol and mannitol). (source)

The basic premise is the lower the FODMAPs, the better the food for your gut health. So, here goes. I'm off on an adventure, to work out how to keep my stomach happy. Who knows where it might lead...