Irritable Bowel Syndrome – Page 10

Vegetable tart

This vegetable tart was made using frozen gluten free pastry bought at the Allergy & Free From Show over the weekend. It is a quick and tasty recipe for a weekday evening. Serve with some green salad.I used coloured carrots for effect but orange ones will do just fine.

Ingredients

5 carrots

spray oil

4 pieces of frozen spinach

2 eggs

60g of hard cheese sliced thinly

One pack of frozen gluten free pastry*

Method

Slice the carrots length ways so they will lie flat, spray with oil and roast.

Roll out the pastry between cling film and when shaped line a flan tin or suitable oven resistant tin. The pastry should then be pricked with a fork and baked blind for 10 minutes at gas mark six.

Defrost the spinach and squeeze to remove as much moisture as possible. This is important to avoid a soggy base to the flan.

Break the eggs and mix with a fork, then brush the pastry with the egg wash to seal it from moisture. Place back in the oven to seal the flan for 2 minutes. Remove from oven and add ingredients.

Lay the spinach on the base of the flan, add thin slices of cheese over the top and then the roasted carrot.

Pour over the rest of the egg wash and bake for twenty minutes at gas mark 5, 190 deg. C.

Serves four for lunch. It should be suitable for people with #IBS following a low fodmap diet and people with coeliac disease.

I used Gluten Free Kitchen shortcrust pastry https://www.theglutenfreekitchen.co.uk/

November 7, 2016

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Thai green chicken curry – scarily low fodmap!

It’s now October – time for the nights to draw in and Halloween is just around the corner. Have you time to cook some dark dishes for All Hallows’ Eve? Would you like a story before we begin out tasty treat? You would? Now I am not in the habit of believing in ghosts being a pragmatic scientist at heart, but I do love a good story and a recent visit to Wycoller Hall certainly stirred the senses and not in a good way. The Lancashire area is steeped in legend and tales of witchcraft and haunting and the ancient hamlet of Wycoller is no exception. The old dilapidated ruin of Wycoller Hall holds a story within it’s architecture to chill you to the core. This the tale of Wycoller Hall and the headless horseman that haunts it’s grounds.

Locals watch the weather forecast with trepidation – it is said that the horseman rides when the weather is stormy and wild, a night reportedly not to wander out, perchance you encounter the headless spectre and his steed.

Simon Cunliffe, Lord of Wycoller was said to have been short to temper and hearing of his wife’s reported indiscretions with another man, lost all sense of reason and drove his horse ferociously down the lane and over the cobbles back to the hall. On arrival he leaped from his mount and ran through the hall and up the stairs to his wife’s bedchamber. Before death his wife allegedly cursed the family with downfall, a fate which later came to pass. Showing no mercy he murdered her and left, racing back up the lane on his horse, never to be seen again. The spectres dark fate on tempestuous nights is to repeat this event ad infinitum.

The story goes that when the weather is wild a rider is heard galloping down the lane, over the ancient pack-horse bridge. The dark horses hooves sparking cobbles, the whites of the steeds eyes blazing, nostrils flared and flaming, flanks sudoriferous. His mount, headless above Stuart ruff – literally losing his head to his outrage – is certainly a sight to behold leaping from his horse. Entering the ruin he is heard striding up long vanished stairs to the lady Cunliffes bedroom. A crack of a whip is heard then bloodcurdling screams echo around the remaining walls of the hall. He then returns to his mount and is heard dashing up the lane into the underworld – till the next time the weather is as stormy as his temperament.

Now looking at the image below tell me you can appreciate the atmosphere at this little hamlet? Even in the height of summer it can be very chilling. What is the story telling us? Well perhaps anger only ultimately hurts the angry person? I wonder?

The recipe above uses the second Fodify spice mix – Thai green curry

Ingredients

2 cooked chicken thighs

1 teaspoon of Fodify spice mix Thai green curry

1 Kaffir Lime leaf

400 ml of chicken stock

1 teaspoon of fish sauce

1.5 teaspoons of tamarind

200ml of light coconut milk

2 teaspoons of cornflour

1 aubergine

Small amount of oil to fry herbs and aubergine

Method

Add oil to the pan and fry the herbs for 2-3 minutes to release the flavour. Add the aubergine, finely chopped kaffir lime leaf and cook. Add the tamarind, stock (home made or perhaps Atkins & Potts classic chicken stock or Borough Broth Chicken Bone Broth – although this choice is very expensive.) and the rest of the ingredients and serve with rice noodles.

Serves 2

All ingredients for this recipe were purchased.

October 28, 2016November 28, 2016

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Pumpkin chicken and pesto pasta

It is my favourite time of year and I do love roasted vegetables. Here is a dish that provides some comfort on cold nights and left overs can be warmed up the next day for lunch.

Ingredients

75g of garlic infused olive oil

1 inch slice of parmesan

15g of fresh basil

2 tablespoons of pine nuts

Salt to taste

1/2 small pumpkin

2 large chicken thighs

Basil leaves and toasted pine nuts to decorate.

150g gluten free pasta.

Method

Slice the pumpkin in half and then slice into eight even slices

Remove seeds

Add basil, oil, pine nuts, parmesan and salt to a blender and blend till smooth to make the pesto.

Place the slices into a roasting tin and place the chicken on the top (this will allow the fat to drain into the bottom of the tray – if you have a roasting tin drainer use this too.)

Spoon the pesto sauce on to the chicken and pumpkin.

Roast for 30 minutes (the chicken is ready when juices run clear.)

Cook the pasta in boiling salted water (use directions on the packet and don’t overcook it some makes of pasta will disintegrate if cooked for too long.)

Chop the pumpkin and chicken and mix with the cooked pasta, if desired use a small amount of the drained juices to flavour the pasta – but not too much as it will be high in fat.

Serves two

October 23, 2016

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Lamb wrapped in kale

Kale is tough, stringy and overtly pretentious, but it looks really great in photographs – perhaps the reason most ‘wellness’ bloggers overstate it’s usefulness. The real deal with kale is however it is low fodmap and really great for making parcels to cook other food. Using kale to produce a parcel to roast meat is that it cooks for longer in the oven helping the leaf texture to soften. It also holds in the juices of the meat. I love the colour of this kale – purple and green is my favourite and when served with chard the result is a veritable rainbow! So there we have it – all kale is really useful for is wrapping! Unfortunately this method of cooking will not preserve its water soluble vitamins, I for one would prefer to get my vitamin C from citrus fruit, rather than chomping on a kale leaf.

Ingredients

2 small lamb steaks – I used slow cook lamb

A few sprigs of rosemary and mint

1 teaspoon of Moroccan spice (Fodify Foods Moroccan mix is low fodmap and was purchased by me.)

Seasoning (small amount of salt + pepper)

Small drizzle of oil

Sprinkle of pine-nuts

Kale leaves

Skewers to secure the leaves around the meat.

Carrots for roasting and chard to serve alongside.

Method

Add the oil and spice to a pan and heat.

Seal the meat using the oil and spice mix, season.

Wrap each lamb steak in kale leaves, additional herbs and secure with the skewers. Ensure you add all the oil/spices left in the pan for additional flavour.

Roast in an oven gas mark 3 for at least 2 hours (depending on the size of your meat.)

Allow the meat to rest for 10 minutes then serve on the kale sprinkled with a small amount of pine-nuts.

Carrots spray with oil and roast till soft, I like these really cooked well so they develop sugary flavours and are crisp at the end. The dark ones are purple carrots! You can serve chard cold but it does taste great quickly sauteed, again with a little spray oil.

September 24, 2016

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Maple Syrup

A great infographic from compound chemistry about maple syrup http://www.compoundchem.com

Maple syrup is a sweet tree sap that is high in sucrose and low in other sugars, so it is suitable for the low fodmap diet. Maple syrup may be derived from a natural source but it is still a sugar and therefore should be consumed as a treat – more important perhaps when considering the cost! The syrup has lots of health claims attached to it and has been proposed by some to be a ‘superfood’ and to be superior to table sugar in nutrients. The additional minerals and vitamins that are found in maple syrup, when compared with table sugar, are also found widely in other foods consumed in the diet at much higher levels. So a healthy balanced diet does not depend upon maple syrup to provide vitamins and minerals. Maple syrup also will usually be used in small amounts therefore will not likely contribute massively to nutrient status. There is no such thing as a ‘superfood’- I have stated this before, some of you will be fed up with me harping on about it :-). But I feel an overwhelming dietetic urge to repeat – superfood status is marketing concept to allow a high price to be attached to more unusual food items. Although maple syrup is derived in a way that might attract a higher price than other sugars, I don’t have too much of an issue with this – but please don’t call it super.

Other reported beneficial ingredients in maple syrup are Phenolic compounds, they are suggested to have an antioxidant effect – more evidence is needed to test out this hypothesis. Also, the recent proposed use of Maple syrup in prevention of Alzheimer’s disease, has only been shown in the test tube and animal models and not a randomised control trial (RCT) in humans – the gold standard method. Completing studies in the test tube is very different to the human body, which is much more complex. Therefore much more research in humans should be completed to study the benefits (or not) of the phenolic compounds found in maple syrup.

So my suggestion is – eat maple syrup if you want a low fodmap sweet flavouring and enjoy it for what it is – a flavoured liquid sugar, use it occasionally as a treat. The benefits are of course it’s low fodmap status and it does have a really nice flavour. Should you buy the pure version? Yes, using the pure version is advisable, cheaper varieties can contain fructose based sugars, so you should certainly check the label for ingredients prior to purchase.

Maple syrup is from Canada and is widely used in the United States but it is not so frequently used in the UK. Although with the development of the fodmap diet it is becoming more widely known. It can be used in recipes and goes particularly well with pecans, one of my favourite nuts! It is also commonly drizzled on pancakes and waffles.

What about other tree saps? Well birch syrup is produced from another sap that it harvested – it contains fructose as one of its main sugars (42-54%) therefore this is not suitable for individuals with fructose malabsorption or on the exclusion part of the low fodmap diet.

September 10, 2016

Jules_GastroRD2 Comments

Celeriac Soup – low fodmap

I have half a celeriac left so as promised I have made a soup. This was very easy to do and is based on home made chicken stock and has a topping based on bacon, pecan and sunflower seeds. If you want a vegetarian version just omit the bacon and chicken stock and use vegetable stock instead. I really like soup, it is filling and yet low calorie and this soup has a very refreshing flavour due to the added tarragon.

Ingredients

Half a celeriac

1 courgette

2 carrots

A small cup of home made chicken stock

2 teaspoons of chopped fresh tarragon (use one if dried)

1 pint of water

Seasoning to taste

For the topping

1 rasher of bacon

1 tablespoon of sunflower seeds

1 tablespoon of chopped pecan nuts.