Curry and more curry

Okay, so I thought I would share a couple curry recipes that turned out pretty well, in case anyone is interested.

My husband is Indian, and I'm white, and before we started dating I was a pretty meat and potatoes plain kind of gal. Other than the fact that I now definitely can't eat potatoes, my tastes for food has broadened immensely since we have gotten married in particular. Anyway, so I used to think that "curry" just meant curry spice, but in fact, it's not. It's sort of a general term for sort of a gravy type sauce with distinct spices that are usually used. It took me a while to get a taste for it, but now I particularly enjoy it. Interestingly, my husband's family originates from the south of India and the cuisine and curry is referred to in Wikipedia under Malayali Cuisine.

Anyway, the good news is that I'm allowed to have Coconut milk, which is used in the following recipe for Cauliflower Curry. Sometimes my mother in law makes it with potato included, but in this case I used butternut squash and it gave it a really nice sweet contrast in comparison to the spices in the curry.

Curried Cauliflower

1 head cauliflower

Half a butternut squash, cubed into bite-sized pieces

1/2 large onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

~ 2 tbsps of olive oil

1 tsp cumin

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

1 tsp turmeric

2 tsps ground coriander

2 tsps garam masala

1+ 1/2 cups of coconut milk (I used Maggi Coconut Milk Powder, a good tip from my mother in law)

Heat pan on medium high heat with olive oil, add onion and garlic and saute. Add the cauliflower and squash. Mix the coconut milk powder with water as directed on package. I put the spices all in the coconut milk and mixed, then poured it over the ingredients in the pan. Leave on heat with cover, mixing occasionally, until cauliflower and squash are soft to bite. Serve over rice of choice.

The second curry recipe I used over chicken, but this one calls for yogurt (as many curries do), and this is a little challenging because almost ALL yogurts on the market today are made from skim milk. Skim milk has potato source in it :( (Did I mention I miss yogurt soooooooooo much!) Anyway, my ND did let me know about one type of yogurt called Saugeen yogurt which is made from whole milk, and it's only available where I'm located at Planet Organic. They only make a plain yogurt, which is fine in this case as Indian curries call for plain yogurt. Anyway, I particularly enjoyed this recipe. Originally I was trying to make my own Tandoori Masala to make Tandoori chicken, and so I found this recipe online that was for Tandoori masala....anyway, it smelled right, but didn't taste like Tandoori. But, it turned out a lovely curry, and I enjoyed it very much so I thought I would share it with you...

Chicken Curry

1 pkg bone in chicken thighs (club package contained 9 thighs)

2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

1/2 medium onion, chopped

1 tbsp finely chopped ginger root (I didn't have fresh ginger on hand so I used dry ginger spice)

1+1/2 tsp tomato paste (make sure there's no salt in it)

1+1/2 tsp garam masala

1+1/2 tsp ground coriander

1+1/2 tsp cumin

1/4 tsp turmeric

1/8 tsp cayenne pepper

~ 100 g plain yogurt (Saugeen brand)

Mix the tomato paste, garam masala, coriander, cumin, turmeric and cayenne in with the yogurt. De-skin the chicken thighs. Put the thighs in a bowl and marinate them in the yogurt and spices overnight if you wish, or for an afternoon was fine. When they're ready, heat a pan over medium high heat. Saute onions, ginger and garlic. Add marinated chicken and any left-over yogurt marinade. Cover and let simmer until chicken is cooked. Serve with rice of your choice. I served this one over Jasmine rice, but of course Basmati is standard. Regular brown rice would do as well.

Anyway, I quite enjoyed these, and there's no salt added to them, and they're sugar free and potato free. The nice thing about curries is that they're not really that hard to make, once you've got the ingredients. Often grocery store bought Indian pastes have a lot of salt and sugar in them. We've gotten our spices from an Indian grocery, and they are way cheaper and make many more curries than the bottles you find in the stores. That being said, I am still trying to find a good recipe for Tandoori, and I have not been able to reproduce the flavor from the packaged stuff from the Indian grocery (it's full of salt!!) If anyone knows of a good recipe for it, let me know!

Enjoy!

6 weeks is WAY past! Update...

Okay so I realize I have been completely slack and many friends I know have been asking me how my eczema is and if it's gotten better. And I realize 6 weeks have come and gone and for anyone who might be rrrrreally interested as to how things are going I might have left you hanging...anyway, so a lot has happened in the last few weeks and I thought I'd update you on some things I've learned.

1.) Eczema

I don't have a pic to post but I would say that my eczema has, and has not, gotten better. Has: is less red and less raised from the skin. Has not: gotten smaller or gone away. In fact, I have new spots, particularly noticed on my thighs, and my forearms. Somewhat discouraging.

I had a follow up appt with my ND who placed me on a probiotic supplement that apparently is supposed to act as a barrier to my "leaky gut." Leaky gut meaning that my gut has toxins in it that it has not been able to handle, and thus releases them into my body and my skin reacts to this. What my ND REALLY wants to treat me with is an amino acid treatment, BUT (the big but) is that I am still breastfeeding my son, and the amino acid treatment is not safe while I am breastfeeding. So folks, my son loves the boob, and it looks as if we're in for at*at least* 3 months more of breastfeeding. So my treatment is kind of on hold.

Since I have gotten new spots of eczema since I started the probiotic, I asked my ND about what was going on because I was concerned. Her response went something like this:

I’m worried the eczema is acting up because your body is starting to mobilize toxins that have been stored because you have removed the food toxins from your system. This happens sometimes when we aren’t treating with L-glutamine (the amino acid) at the same time. As for the length of time, unfortunately it is all over the place. Sometimes we see results in 2 weeks but more often it is 1-2 months. The full term of treatment depends on how you respond but I’ve had people on it up to a year (mostly at a low dose). We could always do a high dose if you ended up going that route and it might shorten the duration.

So, I'll be honest. I have been a bit disappointed. But I will say I don't think I had the correct perspective on Naturopathic treatment. I think in our Westernized medical culture we're often so used to going to the doctor and expecting a quick fix or a drug that's going to eliminate our problems. And seeing an ND is not like that. It's more holistic, it takes time, and it's about healing from the inside out. So I'm not giving up just yet, even though I would have liked to have had better results right away. But I have come this far, and learned some really interesting things, and my cooking and eating has improved immensely in health and substance. And really, hopefully I will be able to get the proper treatment in a few months. Until then, I am just going to keep experimenting with cooking.

2.) Weight

BIG BONUS! I am 10 pounds lighter than I was when I just found out I was pregnant with my son in Dec 2008. People, I put pants on today that were TOO BIG. If that's not enough incentive for you to cut out processed sugar and starchy carbs, well, good on you. And I have not been exercizing, either. It will be interesting to see what happens when the weather gets better and I get out walking and running more.

I will admit, though, having to make most of your food from scratch seems to have eliminated some unnecessary snacking on my part as well, so I am certain this has contributed to my weight loss.

3.) Cooking

Okay I know I have not been updating frequently to give you some recipes, so obviously you can't know what I have been cooking, but really, the amount of stuff I am learning to make makes me feel really empowered. I know what's going into my food, and it has been perfect timing to learn to eat healthier, because my son turned 6 months this past February. He needs food with less salt, less sugar, more content, and he's getting it. Cooking for my son has been great motivation. However, there are days that the work involved in making your own food has outweighed the scales of motivation. But, I'm working on it, and it will get easier.

I will post a couple things I've been really excited about in the next day or so: I made my own pizza and pizza sauce from scratch, and I also whipped together a really nice chicken curry.

Until the next post....

Okay, I actually did post last week, but something went wrong and it didn’t save. And I was too tired to type it all out again, so I just left it. So here goes. Sorry it took so long.

Someone had suggested to me I make a comment on Lent (since we’re about a week and a bit into it) and having such a restricted diet. What does one give up when already having given up so much in the diet? Well, let’s just put it this way, my Lent commitment has nothing to do with food. That being said, having to make so much from scratch is sort of a penance in itself. Not always, but sometimes. Sometimes it gives me great satisfaction to know I have made something from scratch, but on the days when I don’t feel like cooking, I wish meals were easier. It’s certainly taken some organization and a bit more planning on my part. Anyway, it’s a bit off topic, but if you’re curious, I’m reading a book by Henri Nouwen for Lent, called “The Return of the Prodigal Son.” It is speaking to me.

That being said, the great part about not having any food related fastings for Lent, there are brownies that just came out of my oven J Here’s the recipe:

Wet Ingredients

½ cup unsweetened apple sauce

1 cup maple syrup

2 eggs

4 squares Baker’s unsweetened chocolate, melted in glass bowl over boiling water

1 tsp vanilla extract

Dry ingredients

½ cup whole wheat non-enriched flour

¼ tsp Bob’s all Natural Sea Salt

½ cup chopped walnuts

Mix wet, dry separately, and then together, bake at 350F for about 20 – 25 mins.

I also tried making Thai Chicken Balls this week, based on this recipe. These were a fair amount of work for the result, and I wasn’t sure if it was worth it. They were a little dry, but tasty. I am trying to figure out how to make my own Sweet Thai Chili Sauce. The store bought stuff is tasty but full of junk. Basically in this recipe I just used a Thai chili pepper and honey. It had the reminiscence of Sweet Thai Chili taste, but not quite. Nonetheless, it wasn’t bad, but I need to do some experimenting. I had a small chicken in my freezer, so I took it and made ~ 4 litres of chicken broth, then I took the chicken, de-boned it, and pulsed it in the food processor. I also must say, I bought some fresh cilantro herb from the store for this recipe. Yum. I want to grow some this year so I can have it whenever I want to plop it into a recipe. It gives a really fresh flavor. Anyway, check out the link and cut out the sauce.

***

I had my ND appointment today. There’s a mild to moderate improvement in the appearance of my eczema, but nothing to write home about. However, with the information that I gave her today, she tells me we’re on the right track. The fact that my eczema is not weeping anymore is significant. If I could remember why, I’d tell you. But I trust that my ND is right. I have also noticed some differences in my son’s skin and in his bowels. This too, is encouraging. I am debating having him tested for intolerances. The greater chance is that he likely has the same intolerances as me. But I am scared to get him tested, lest we discover he has other intolerances, and then I am not sure how we would eat/cook at all in our household.

Unfortunately, the next treatment she wants to give me has to wait until I am finished breastfeeding my son. I am guessing then, that we won’t be able to proceed as planned for another 5 months at least. My ND wants to give me amino acids to clear up my “leaky gut.” This means that I still have some toxins that are not being processed properly, and my intestinal tract is releasing them into the body instead, resulting in eczema. But, she did give me a Human Microflora powder, which is supposed to help protect my gut for the time being.

This is somewhat unfortunate, as I would like to get moving on this, but I still want to breastfeed my son until he’s about a year. That said, we have started Baby Led Weaning, which totally relates to my food experiences right now, so I’ll chat about that in another post.

Granola and Risotto (no creative names for this post, sorry!)

Per title, I want to tell you a little about the risotto and granola I made.

First, I'd never had risotto until recently. And if you like thick, creamy, starchy stuff (as I do) you will love risotto. Basically it's an Italian rice dish, and so I wanted to try making it at home. Here's a YouTube link showing how to make your own Risotto. It's really not that hard, just takes some tweaking and some time. Now of course I had to make a few adjustments in the ingredients. I can't toast the rice in butter, so I used olive oil instead. And because I can't have salt, I can't use regular chicken broth, so I could use homemade broth, or broth without potato-based salt in it (it's the iodine in salt that has potato source). Superstore's organic section has Imagine brand broths and soups. They're made with natural sea salt. So I used a beef broth, some standard white wine, and button mushrooms. I left out the parmesan cheese at the end (very sad, I am certain this would have been delish). My ND said I could have cheeses as long as I stuck to the higher fat ones, but I decided to stay away for now. Anyway, like I said, the risotto was thick and creamy and had a nice mild taste. I'd like to experiment with it to see what other flavors I can get.

Now, granola bars. If people knew how easy this was, everyone would be making their own granola bars. Really. This is one of the first items I attempted to make when starting my diet, so I've had the opportunity to try a few things. First, I didn't have a recipe for granola bars, so I went to All Recipes and found a recipe called Playgroup Granola Bars. Check it out. It's really easy. At first, I subbed honey for the brown sugar, but then I got my hands on some maple syrup, and I liked the taste of this much better. Here's the base recipe with a few variations.

Processed Sugar Free, Potato Free Granola Bars

Dry Base:

2 cups rolled oats

1 cup no name all purpose whole wheat flour

Dry ingredient options I've tried (I usually picked about 4, and kept each to about 1/4 to 1/3 a cup

Kamut grain

Cocoa powder

Flax seed (I grind this in the Magic Bullet)

Unsweetened coconut

Prunes (chopped)

Dates (chopped)

Sunflower seeds

Pumpkin seeds

Dried Apricot (chopped)

Cherry Raisins

etc etc you get the idea

Wet Base:

1/2 cup honey

1 egg, beaten

1/2 cup applesauce

2 tsp vanilla extract

3/4 cup maple syrup

Place on parchment paper that has been lightly greased with olive oil, on a cookie sheet. Bake at 350 for approximately 15 - 18 minutes.

The allrecipes.com recipe has them in the oven for 30 - 35 min but I find when cooking with honey or maple syrup it bakes faster, I'm not sure why. As you can see, I also subbed applesauce where the vegetable oil was.

On my eczema: I think it might be getting a little better. It's less red and the skin is softer on my hand in that area. It's hard, because with all this cooking, and my little one I am constantly washing my hands and I know I exacerbate the ezcema by doing that. But I do think I am starting to notice a difference. I'll keep updating.

Bonus: I weigh less now than I did before I got pregnant with my son. 5 pounds lighter than my pre-pregnancy weight, just by eliminating processed sugar. Oh and maybe yoga once a week. Life is good.

Slack as of late...here's an update (ha that rhymes)

Not that I have that many followers to apologize to, nor in the grand scheme of things do I consider this really really important, but to any who are reading, I do apologize for not keeping up over the past few days. Parenting is new to me and has kept me very busy over the last few days as I have a near 6 month old who I am convinced will be getting teeth very soon.

That being said, I have had a few frustrating meals; in addition to the fact that I have some new spots of eczema. Now, I have heard from a couple people that often when changing a diet like I am, that your symptoms may get worse for a little while. I would consider that to be my case at the moment. Not wildly worse, but I do have some new spots, and my hands are desperately itchy and the ezcema is creeping up my ring and middle fingers on my left hand. I am convinced though, that this venture is my only hope, so I will be sticking to it for a good time to come. I mean, practically the whole back of my left hand is covered in ezcema. It's really bad. And so I don't really have much choice.

Onward with some frustration, my bread seems to be touch and go in my bread making machine. It'll produce one lovely loaf, then a couple weird ones. The top of the last loaf (which is usually the glorious heel of the bread) came out looking more like brains than bread. Nonetheless, I didn't want to waste it, so this morning I had what you might call "bread nuggets and honey" for breakfast. McDonalds, eat your heart out.

I was keeping the yeast in the fridge since I opened it, and so I thought it might be a temperature thing, but alas, after a couple weird loaves and the yeast being brought to room temperature, I'm still wondering what the deal is. Granted, the bread maker is a little rusty, and sometimes I think the motor smells like it's burning when it's on knead cycle....it's either the motor or the bread's too thick? I don't know. If anyone has any wisdom out there feel free to pass it along. I think I'm going to try another flour. Someone suggested Speerville Mills flour...I have been meaning to get it but not able to get to the store to do so.

If you follow my Facebook, you'll see that I was wondering if I could make processed free sugar date squares. As a matter of fact, I did try it. They didn't turn out perfect, but they were deliciously yummy, just like date squares should be. I took the recipe off Jean Pare's "150 Delicious Squares" cookbook (you know Jean Pare...the one with the series of Company's Coming cookbooks, who as of late has stopped matching the color of her shirt to the color of cookbook). Hilariously, the date squares in here are called "Matrimonial Squares." I've never heard them called that, forgive me if that's common knowledge to you. I'm left wondering why I got proposed to over an Asian chicken recipe instead of a good batch of Matrimonial Squares.

Anyway, for the bottom and top oat layers, I directly subbed honey for brown sugar, and applesauce for butter. It came out a bit gooey. In hindsight, I think I would have decreased the amount of honey or applesauce, or a little of both. The bottom layer wasn't quite cooked, although the top layer turned out quite nicely. They were better the second day after having sat in the fridge. I'm sure you could take any date square recipe and sub what I did. Just be sure not to add any sugar to the date filling. Dates already have enough sugar in them anyway, that without the addition, it's plenty sweet.

I made this for dinner the other night. My husband thinks I have a woman crush on Lovoni. That's okay, he's got one on Donovan Bailey. I'm not sure why. He says he seems like a cool guy. Well Lovoni's a cool cook. That suffices for me wanting to make her dinners, does it not? Anyway, the fish wasn't bad. I didn't have chilies so I used hot red pepper flakes. I'm sure it would have been tastier with the chilies.

To polish my post off with one last frustrating moment. So in the past few months I have been making a pretty good chickpea curry. I've been using the canned chickpeas, up until yesterday (they have loads of salt in them). Well an email from the receptionist at my ND's office reveals you can buy chickpeas dry, and soak them for 20 hours and proceed as planned. Not true. I soaked my chickpeas from 10 pm the night before until 5 pm the next day, and they were totally hard. I mean, you could hear them plunking onto the plate. Phoned my mother in law. Truth is, they need to be boiled in the appropriate ratio of water to chickpeas, until the water evaporates. Not that this is any spilled milk to cry over, but everything in my kitchen feels like an experiment lately, and too-hard chickpeas are just not yummy. And there's lots of leftovers.

Until the next meal!

Squashing out dinner invites and squashing in recipes!

Tonight, as one comment suggested, I made butternut squash fries.

Delish. Peel the squash, pull out the seeds and gunk from the middle, and cut it into "fry" like pieces. Put 'em in a bread bag, add no more than a couple tablespoons of olive oil, a generous pinch or two of natural sea salt, and all spice (pumpkin spice seasoning - aka cloves, cinnamon and nutmeg). Bake them in the oven at 425 for 20 min, flipping at 10 min. I added a little extra sea salt when I flipped them. They weren't crispy, but they're squash. They were soft and yummy and I enjoyed them immensely. Thank you for the suggestion.

On the topic of squash, I think it's my new favorite thing to eat. My husband and I visited friends last Saturday night, and acorn squash was on the menu. I was so thankful for our host. She tried so hard to get all my eating requirements right, and overall, she did a fantastic job. She has a friend who is a naturopath who helped her out. It resulted in acorn squash with a lovely risotto spooned into it (I've never made a risotto and I really want to try). Okay, the risotto had chicken broth in it, which obviously has loads of salt, but other than that, everything else she made was wonderful. Chicken with some olive oil and lemon to flavor, and loads of fruit for dessert.

Since I'm now a person with a restricted diet, here's my take on going over to other people's houses to eat. I figure it's a heck of a lot of effort just to cook for myself right now, so asking someone else to avoid the numerous things I can't eat is pretty senseless, and not very considerate to them, particularly if they invite you over for dinner. I suppose it might be easier if you were to say, "oh I'm a vegetarian" because avoiding veggies is pretty obvious - a veggie is a veggie. But who's going to know what to look for when trying to avoid potato? So in the future, I'm either going to eat whatever is on my plate or bring my own food. I mean, it's tough cooking for someone who has food intolerances and a particular diet. I remember having to prepare food for someone with a restricted diet before I had any real knowledge or interest in what I was putting into my body. It kind of makes you groan - "oh.....what are we going to cook for him/her if they come" kind of thing. I wish that sounded more charitable, but somehow it's true.

On the ezcema front, I'm still a major itch-bomb, but I do notice the appearance on my hand is slightly less angry, less red, and a but less raised from the skin. I wouldn't claim anything promising yet, but at least it's not spreading any further. I am hopeful though. And a major bonus is that I've dropped about 3 pounds-ish. As I was saying on my Facebook page, I was able to zip up a pair of pre-pregnancy jeans for the first time since I last wore them. I don't think I'd wear them anywhere just yet, but I'm close. This is good news.

I made Ginger Pork for supper tonight. Lovoni Walker has a ginger pork recipe on her website which I based this off of, (see the link if interested) but I didn't have everything in my cupboard, so it looked a little like this:

3 boneless pork chops thinly sliced. Took the chops and marinated them for 1/2 hr in the following:

• 4 tbsps of Tamari sauce (replaces regular soy sauce)
• say about 3 tbsps of honey (replaces granulated sugar)
• the juice of half a lime (Lovoni uses sherry in her recipe. Sherry can also be replaced with a mixture of grapefruit juice and a little apple juice, which I have used before, but I didn't have either on hand. I actually really liked the lime better I think)
• Pepper to taste
• Arrowroot starch (recipe calls for cornstarch but this has potato source in it)

Put the following in a wok or frying pan on med-high heat:

• 2 -3 cloves minced garlic
• half an onion or some shallots
• couple tablespoons of peanut oil (I didn't have any so I put in natural peanut butter and a little olive oil)
• 2 tbsps minced or zested ginger root
• 1 tsp dried red pepper flakes

Cook the above for a couple minutes or until fragrant. Add the chops with the Tamari marinade. As it cooks, you can add some sesame oil (I love this. Not too much though, it's quite strong). Lovoni also uses rice vinegar which I have added in the past but it too has sugar in it so I omit it for now.

We served it over baby spinach. Someday I will try it with real bok choy.

Until the next meal!

Meatballs and fudge!

Okay so I realize I'm posting twice in one day but I'm falling behind with my daily food intake...so I thought I'd share with you a couple of things I made over the past couple days.

First, meatballs. From scratch. And when I say, from scratch, I mean I had to make my own breadcrumbs from scratch. I'm a little irritated about that! It was very time consuming! The recipe I have used up until my new potato free, sugar free journey calls for breadcrumbs in it, and I was too lazy and too hungry to risk trying a new recipe without them for fear of it not working. So anyway, off I go, toasting my own homemade bread in the toaster oven, numerous times, to make sure it was hard and dry enough to crush with my heavy-duty Paderno silver bullet rolling pin. (I kid you not when I call my rolling pin the silver bullet. If I ever thought someone was breaking into my apartment I'd go for this rolling pin to defend myself, see attached picture). Anyway, it took me something like 30 minutes to crush the toast to get a cup of breadcrumbs. The of course the groundbeef wasn't fully unfrozen, but just soft enough to get in there with my hands. So my hands were freezing, and then with all this raw meat handling, there was a lot of hand washing, which I am sure did not help my ezcema covered hands. Oh well.

Anyway, they turned out lovely, I made 36 of them, ate a few, and froze the rest. I made a quick dipping sauce out of Tamari Sauce (sea salt based, Natural Soy Sauce) and honey. I wanted to add mustard, but I can't, because there's processed sugar in that... the honey and soy wasn't that great, but like I said, I was hungry, and it made do for now. My husband came home later and added the mustard to it and said he liked it.

Here's the Meatball recipe. If anyone has a good meatball recipe that does not call for breadcrumbs....pass it along! I'm not so into having to make my own every time!

2 eggs

3/4 cup of milk substitute (I used Rice Dream original non-enriched drink, but you could also use homogenized milk which has no potato source in it)

~ 1 cup of breadcrumbs from a bread with no potato source in it

A bunch of green onions

A couple cloves of garlic, minced

A family pack of lean ground beef

~ 1 tsp of oregano and dried parsley each

Baked in a 400 degree oven for about 15 min.

Secondly, I would like to share a quick and easy recipe for Fudge substitute passed along from my ND. I made this because I was craving a sweet and wanted to see what it was like. It's not bad. It's definitely sweet, but very heavy and rich. Couldn't eat too much of it in one sitting. And although it was good, it definitely is not the real deal. Nonetheless, it helped sway the craving.

Freezer Fudge Recipe

1 cup nut butter (I used salt free natural peanut butter)

1 cup cocoa

3/4 cup maple syrup

2 tbsps water

Melt all the ingredients in saucepan over medium heat. Transfer into a small square pan and place in freezer or fridge.

Chicken Noodle Soup, yes?

So I imagine after my last post perhaps you're wondering what I've been eating for the last few days.

Side note: can I just vent for a second? This is taking a lot of effort! I feel like everything I make needs to come from scratch. Between caring for my 5 month old and making homemade food, I've got little time for much else since I started this thing....

...however, moving on. On the topic of "from scratch," I am proud to say I made chicken noodle soup from scratch, all by myself, and it was delicious, and completely potato and processed sugar free. While breastfeeding my son, I channel surfed to entertain myself in the wee hours of the morning and found VIVA network's Simple Fresh Delicious cooking show, with Lovoni Walker. Besides the fact that I really like listening to her accent, I also really like the way she cooks. Anyway, a show recently aired where she made her own chicken broth and chicken noodle soup (hit the links and it will bring you to her website and you can watch the video on how-to). Anyway, we had a whole small chicken in the freezer so after putting it in the slow cooker, I took the carcass the next day and boiled it in some water, with the carrots, onion, garlic, celery etc. Lovoni actually uses the whole chicken to make the broth, which in hindsight I will do next time, because then the chicken is cooked and I can easily use it in salads, sandwiches, etc.

Regardless, it turned out quite lovely. The key was using no-additive sea salt. Everything else was natural, except I can't use whatever noodles I want, because most pastas from the grocery store are enriched (translated: thiamine, riboflavin, and/or niacin in them). But, Superstore's PC Blue Menu pasta is non-enriched. I just took it and broke it up into little pieces before adding it into the soup. All in all it was a lovely meal, although I must say it was more time consuming than I would have liked. Because my son takes short naps, it was an all day affair of unfreezing the broth, peeling carrots and other vegetables, boiling the soup etc etc.

Check out the links to Lovoni's page if you're interested in making your own chicken noodle soup. I imagine after doing it a few times it would go a lot quicker and easier, and it was easy to make it potato free.

The ins and outs of Potato Free, Sugar Free

Have I mentioned at this point I have major cravings for sugar? In a minute, you'll understand why.

Before I post any other recipe or cooking adventures, here's the lowdown on what a potato free, sugar free diet entails, according to my ND. Let's start with potato.

See, potato is cheap, and so a lot of food makers put it in things to add to taste. So it's not just white potatoes, sweet potatoes or yams that I am supposed to eliminate from my diet, but all other things that have potato added to them. Here's a list of "words" I am supposed to avoid in labels, that indicate that some form of potato source was used in a product:

• Potato flour/starch (this includes baking powder, and it's also very very common in cereals)
• "Enriched" ie: enriched flour. Also known as "thiamin, riboflavin and niacin" <- or one of any of those three
• Vitamin A Palmitate (this is in milk and butter! The thinner the milk is, the more Vitamin A Palmitate they put in to add to taste! That being said, I am allowed to have homogenized milk. Yogurt, though is off limits, since it's all based on skim milk....very sad)
• Dextrose (this is in canned foods, bacon, lunchmeats etc)
• Salt and most sea salts (yes, salt. The iodine in salt is based from potato, can you believe that? And believe me, salts in almost everything)
• Yeast (most yeasts have some potato source. This makes most beer and breads off limits)
• Modified food starch (haven't seen this one much)
• MSG - also known as "natural flavoring" (who would have thought natural flavoring would be anything but natural?"
• Pantothenic Acid (I really don't know what this is but haven't seen it yet on a label)
• Hydrolyzed vegetable protein (haven't seen this one yet, either)
• Propylene glycol
• Vegetable Broth
  
• Tapioca

Now here's the worst: What words must I avoid on labels for a sugar free diet?

• Sugar, Glucose, Sucrose
• Molasses
• Brown sugar
• Turbinado (I have to research this one out of curiosity because I saw it at the Bulk Barn)
• Sugar cane, cane juice
• Sugar beet
• Fructose corn syrup
• Splenda/sucralose (not that I ever used these anyway)
• ....and finally, erythrobate (I have no idea what this is)

As you can see, that eliminates a LOT of stuff, particularly the sugar part. Sugar is in practically everything in the centre section/aisles of the grocery store. And sweets made with traditional brown or granulated sugar are out. So is chocolate, except unsweetened. I was jonesing chocolate the other day and took a big bite into the unsweetened stuff and thought my life was over it was so terrible. Then I gave some to my husband and I won't repeat what he said. Thankfully, cocoa is okay. And, thankfully, my ND gave me a list of substitutes for processed sugar. Hence, honey has become my best friend. As we speak, my husband is going to the grocery store to pick me up some maple syrup, which can also be used as a sub, because the sugars are natural.

No salt is particularly hard, as well. It's in tons of stuff. Even most seas salts have potato source in them, so a non additive sea salt is necessary. Still tastes good. I wonder why more people don't use it.

So let's put it this way - this is going to require some ingenuity and effort on my part to learn to make more things at home instead of buying ready-made. I am thankful I am on maternity leave now, or it would be extremely difficult to find the time to learn a bunch of new recipes and search for new ingredients or brands I had not used before. I warn you, I won't claim I'm a particularly good cook. I've just gotten into cooking more in the last year, and I'm grateful for that, since I learned some basics. It would be terribly hard if I didn't like cooking or have any skill in the kitchen to start changing my diet in this way.

Anyway, there's a peek into the limitations I have at present. I'll explore more into what that entails, and possible substitutes for this stuff, as the cooking continues.

No yeast? No Store Bought Bread....

So I've got a bit of explaining to do about what you can and cannot eat when trying to avoid both potato starch and processed sugars. But I also have had to eat to live since I've started this thing, and that's meant having to start experimenting with food! So before I get into all the do's and don'ts of a potato free, sugar free diet, I thought I would share with you my little bread making escapade. I've included links to some of the products I used.

If you didn't know, most types of yeast used in making bread have some source of potato in them.

News to you? Definitely news to me. So although I am not gluten intolerant, it came as surprise to me that during my 6 week "cleanse," I cannot eat most types of store bought bread. That's a problem for me. I like bread, I like toast, and I pretty much eat it everyday. So there's got to be a solution for this obstacle.

So Ezekiel brand bread was recommended to me by my ND, because they make a yeast free bread. So I went to Superstore and bought a loaf, but at $5.99/loaf, I'm not so into repeat purchase. I phoned my parents, who have a breadmaker they aren't using anymore, and decided to investigate how to make my own yeast-free bread, or at least make a bread with a yeast I could use.

Anyway, the yeast my ND recommends is Bakipan brand yeast. Apparently it is made with no potato products, amongst other potential allergens and intolerances. It cost me $6.45 for a 113 g bottle, and generally you are using a teaspoon or so, so it should last for quite a little while.

However, making homemade bread has a couple other obstacles if trying to avoid further potato sources, as well as sugar sources. Additional items of concern: sugar, milk and butter. "Milk and butter too?" you're thinking? Yes, I thought the same thing. But believe it or not, there's potato source in those as well. I'll get into that in another post, but for now, trust me on these substitutes. Use a non-enriched (we'll talk about this in another post as well) Almond milk or Rice milk to replace the milk, and olive oil to replace the butter. Honey replaces the sugar. Oh, and make sure you use a non-enriched whole wheat flour as well.

Here's the recipe I used to make my own whole wheat bread, potato free and processed sugar free. It smelled delicious baking in the machine, and turned out nice and soft on the inside. Albeit, whole wheat bread is a little heavy, and won't rise as nicely as if you used bread flour or white flour, but we'll get into why you can't necessarily use those in another post as well.

Bread Machine Potato Free, Sugar Free Whole Wheat Bread (1 +1/2 pound loaf)

Water: 1 cup + 1 tbsp

Honey: 2 tbsps

Non-Enriched Almond or Rice Milk: 1 tbsp

Olive Oil: 2 tbsps

Whole Wheat Non Enriched Flour: 3 + 1/2 cups

No additive Sea Salt: 1 +1/2 tsps

Vital Wheat Gluten: 2 tbsps

Bakipan Fast Rise Yeast: 1 +1/2 tsps

Combine the wet ingredients in the bread pan. Combine flour, salt and wheat gluten and pour over the wet ingredients (do not mix the wet and dry, the dry should sit over top the wet). Tap the bread pan to level the ingredients. Dig a small well in the dry ingredients and pour the yeast into it (yeast must not get wet). Place bread pan in bread making machine, choose Whole Wheat Setting, medium color.

It took a little experimenting. The first loaf I made was only a 1 pound loaf, and I didn't use vital wheat gluten, so the loaf turned out pretty stubby and short. Bearing in mind like I said before that whole wheat bread made in a bread machine generally doesn't rise very much because of the weight of whole wheat flour. Every bread machine is different too, so the measurements for each may be a little different. Basically I took a recipe from the bread machine manual and subbed what I needed. But the receptionist from my ND's clinic also emailed me a recipe for her bread machine, and I thought I would include that as well for others to try if they are interested. I definitely will be trying it as well! Mmmmm bread.

2 tsp yeast

12 oz water

1 ½ tsp salt

2 Tbsp honey or malt

1 ½ Tbsp Oil

4 cups flour ( see below)

Rapid setting dark crust

Options:

3c whole wheat and 1 cup oat gives light large loaf

2 c whole wheat , 1 c rye, 1c oat gives a low dense loaf with a fine grain

"Eczema free in 6," says she....

As I write this, I am eating an unsalted rice cake, with unsalted peanut butter, and a big slob of honey. I am very very very thankful for honey right now...

Okay, so here's the deal with this whole potato free, sugar free thing. I have really bad eczema. I have it everywhere. From my legs, to my abdomen, to my hands and yes, even small spots on my eyelids, on occasion. You name it. I have been struggling with this eczema itch since Fall 2006. How and why? I was stung by a wasp and broke out into widespread hives. Once the hives went away, I was left with itchy spots on my skin, most notably on my legs. Dermatologists couldn't help, and the eczema was annoying, but bearable. Until I got pregnant in 2008. It got worse. And following my son's birth in 2009, it went nuts. I was desperate. It was suggested to me to visit a Naturopathic Doctor, and here I find myself ready and willing to do whatever it takes.

My Naturopathic Doctor (herein called ND) is confident that my eczema will settle on the following basis: Most people have allergens and intolerances. Imagine your intolerances sitting in a small bucket. You can only have so many intolerances - or reactions to intolerances, before the bucket fills up. Once the bucket fills, it has to spill over. If you're a lucky one, your bucket never spills over, and you never have a problem. However, if you're like me, my bucket's been leaking since 2006 when I was stung by the wasp. According to my ND, my weakest system is affected by all the extra load up of toxins from my overflowing bucket of intolerance. Thus, I have widespread eczema.

So today I'm posting a picture of the worst spot of eczema I have, on my left hand. Now, I have a 4.5 month old, and I'm a little obsessive about hand washing, so I'm sure that's not helping. But I'm sure you'll agree when looking at the picture it's pretty bad. I may warn some of you that it might be a little gross. But at the end of 6 weeks, I'll post another picture to compare and see if this potato free, sugar free diet has made an impact.

Here's hoping it does, anyway, because like I said previously, I'm pretty much desperate.

I'll start posting about food and recipes soon.

So long potato chips. It’s a sad day.

Welcome to my little experiment on the internet. I am one of many people who have likely visited a Naturopathic Doctor and have been told I need a lifestyle change. A change in what I eat, that is. After 26 years of eating mashed potatoes, French fries, starch, pastries, dairy, desserts, you name it, I’ve been told I am intolerant to potato starch, the day after I just learned to make sweet potato fries.

Did I mention that apparently I am intolerant to processed sugars, as well? :(

So, under the wing of my Naturopathic Doctor, I am trialling 6 weeks of no potato starch and no processed sugars in my diet. And I thought I'd write about it, for a few reasons: The first being that I googled potato intolerance to find recipes to support this lifestyle change and really couldn't find a whole lot out there, just a lot of gluten-free stuff. Which is all fine, but I can still eat wheat. I don't need any more intolerances in addition to the ones I have! Second, I'm conducting a little experiment to see if a medical condition I have will diminish or disappear completely by cutting these intolerances out of my diet, and I want to document the process. And third, although the thought of me posting part of my life on the internet kind of freaks me out, a little support or a few ideas along this dietary journey might be nice.

So if you'd like to follow along or have something to say or add, welcome to this little, potato free and processed sugar free spot on the world wide web :)