Recipe: Beany shepherds pie

Here's a recipe for a vegetarian shepherds pie which has the same look and consistency of a 'normal' shepherds pie made with minced lamb. It was devised by my Mum over my Christmas break and went down very well with a meat-eating friend for whom I cooked it last week. It's packed full of fibre, is very frugal and can be made predominantly from store cupboard staples, providing you have an onion and a potato or two hanging around.

Beany Shepherds Pie

Serves 2

cooked lentils (consult the packet for quantities per person)
1 tin of Whole Earth baked beans
small onion
two large potatoes
yeast-free, vegetable stock cube
tomato puree
two cloves of garlic
freshly ground pepper
small amount of goats milk
small amount of olive oil spread
vegetable oil for frying

Cook the lentils and drain well. Meanwhile slice the garlic, dice the onions and lightly fry. Add the lentils. Cook for a few mins. Add a good squirt of tomato puree (about a tablespoon's worth). Stir in. Break up the stock cube and add to the mixture with freshly ground pepper to taste. Add the baked beans, mix well and check seasoning. Turn low and simmer.

Boil and mash the potatoes with a dash of goats milk and a couple of heaped teaspoons' worth of olive oil spread. Put the lentil/bean mix in a deep, oven safe dish. Use a fork to cover evenly with the mashed potato. Cook in the oven at a fairly high temperature (200 degrees C) for about 20 mins, or until the potato has browned.

Serve with peas and extra gravy if required.

Sweet things continued

In my continuing quest for sweet, but anti-Candida diet friendly, things to eat, I've come across Fruit 4U bars, made by Lyme Regis Foods and purchased at Waitrose, as individual bars or in boxes of five. There are three flavours: Apple, which is okay; raspberry, the best in my opinion, and black cherry, which I haven't tried as it doesn't appeal. They're kind of similar to the Frutina Fruit Snacks I bought at Holland & Barrett, but more cakey and less leathery. Not bad, anyway.

The raspberry version (which is what I have to hand at the moment) is comprised of 94% fruit (apple and raspberry juice concentrate - 10%), non-hydrogenated palm oil, pectin, soya lecithan and natural flavours (whatever those may be).

Here's a photy from the Lyme Regis Food website so you'll know what to look out for.

Fibre 'lowers breast cancer risk'

Just read this on BBC News Online (and actually listening to the report on BBC Breakfast News as I type). I don't eat wholemeal bread, but I do get a lot of fibre, fruit & veg and vitamin C. So, even if the anti-Candida diet isn't helping with the yeasty-beasties, it's clearly all-round a good way to eat.

Soup

As I type I'm trying out the tin of Suma Carrot & Coriander Soup I picked up at Waitrose yesterday. It's not bad; well seasoned, fairly spicy. Not as good as my own of course, but takes considerably less time to prepare!

It was, however, the only soup in their range available at that particular supermarket, that didn't contain any prohibited ingredients (I'm assuming corn syrup is a bad thing). Still, it is encouraging to note the increasing range and availability of Candida diet friendly products in British supermarkets. Food shopping is certainly much easier now, than when I started the diet in December 2004.

Waitrose - woo hoo!

Waitrose is the place to go for candida-friendly food! Stopped at the Bury St Edmunds branch on my way back to Leicester this lunchtime. Picked up masses of good stuff which I'll blog over the coming week or so. To begin with, I had their ready-prepared Chicken Jalfrezi tonight (really good; spicy, but not too hot) with frozen, but microwavable brown rice (six sachets - generous one person portion) per bag. Waitrose is my new favourite supermarket. Shame there isn't a store round here.

Quick and tasty lunch idea

Wholewheat pasta tubes;
Olive salad mix (capers, sliced green olives and strips of roasted red pepper, in brine - comes in jars from Tescos);
Shavings of hard goat's cheese; and
Freshly ground black pepper.

Delicious! :)

Convenience food

Apologies for my long absence. It's nearly halfway through the month already and I haven't yet posted anything for January. Part of the problem is that I'm still at home in Suffolk on an extended Christmas holiday. I'm being cooked for and not getting the opportunity to experiment with anti-candida recipes as much as I would normally. The other factor in my elusiveness is my limited access to the Internet. And when I do get a chance to get online, I'm having to rely on a painfully slow dial-up connection. The other stuff I blog for my Department tends to take priority, meaning 'The Cardboard Diet' gets bumped down the 'to do' list. Oh well, I'll do my best to rectify the situation in the coming days and weeks - promise!

So, until I get a chance to get back in the kitchen, here's the low down on a few anti-candida friendly convenience foods I've recently found in the supermarkets.

Tinned Soup

Sainsburys' So Organic Spicy Lentil and Mixed Pepper Soup - yet to try this. Sounds good, but I wasn't very impressed with the other soups in their So Organic range I've previously tried. But, I'm prepared to give it a go.

Heinz Special Root Vegetable and Barley Broth - now, I was AMAZED to find this. Not necessarily because it is an okay Heinz soup, but because - with it being a Heinz soup - it should be available from most shops, helping to make life that little bit easier. I tried it at lunchtime. It's really not bad. It includes big chunks of parsnip and swede and slices of carrot which make it look fairly 'home made'. Plus, the addition of the barley is lovely. Little on the gloopy side for my taste, but beggers can't be choosers as they say.

Rice

Have been meaning to blog this for ages. Uncle Ben's produce a microwavable wholemeal rice, with nothing in it except rice, vegetable oil and salt. A great store cupboard standby. The whole pack just takes a couple of mins at full blast in the microwave to heat through. It's hard to believe it would be as good as freshly cooked rice, but seriously, it is.

Tinned tomatoes

Equally I keep forgetting to mention Sainsburys' So Organic Chopped Tomatoes, which are thankfully free of citric acid and any other additive nasties. My only criticism is that you do tend to get a lot of 'end' pieces in these tins (y'know - the bit where the stalk used to be), but if you're not fussy, that shouldn't be a problem. And if you are as fussy as me, you can always fish the offending chunks out of the tin before you use them!