Delicious Parsnip and Ginger Soup

Freshly harvested parsnips, by Marj Joly

Feeling chilly in this wintry weather? Then try the Parsnip and Ginger Soup recipe over on the River Nene website. Instead of butter, I substituted half olive oil spread and olive oil, yeast-free stock powder and a splash of soy sauce, instead of Worcester sauce.

Delicious!

10 Things Fungi Have Done for Us

Fungi (and yeast and thrush) gets a bad wrap on this blog. Thought it was time to redress the balance. ;)

BBC NEWS Magazine 10 things fungi have done for us

Recipe: Super quick and easy flat bread

Very flat bread! By Basheem

Perfect for breakfast emergencies!

Serves many, best freshly cooked and serve warm.

Super quick and easy flat bread

3 cups of rye flour

1 - 1 1/2 cups of warm water

salt

vegetable oil

Put flour and a good pinch of salt in mixing bowl. Make a well. Add a small amount of water and mix together. Continue to add the water to the flour until a soft dough forms.

Pull off a small piece of dough, roll into a round. Place on a floured board and press flat until around 1 cm thick.

Add a small amount of vegetable oil to a small frying or griddle pan. Add flat bread to pan and cook either side for a minute or so, until golden brown.

A perfect accompaniment to savoury dishes.

Recipe: Beef Goulash

Hungarian paprika by vi4kin

A delicious and comforting - and, most likely, completely inauthentic - casserole for a chilly autumn day:

Beef Goulash

Serves 2

400g quality stewing steak trimmed and cut into pieces
4 medium tomatoes
1 onion, peeled and chopped
1 clove garlic, crushed
1tbs plain flour
1 tbs tomato puree
1 tbs paprika
1 yellow, red or green pepper
salt and pepper
vegetable oil
atural yogurt (optional)


Heat oil in a large frying pan, or casserole dish. Add pieces of beef, a few at a time, and seal. Remove from pan/casserole. Add onions and garlic. Sweat until translucent. Return beef to pan/dish and fry together for another couple of minutes. Place in a casserole dish if not already.


Meanwhile, skin the tomatoes (place in a bowl and pour on boiling water, leave for a few minutes before removing, skins should slide off easily). Carefully chop the skinned tomatoes, being careful not to lose too much juice. Add to the casserole dish, along with the tomato puree. Stir the beef, onions and tomatoes together. Add seasoning and flour. Stir well. Put lid on casserole and place in the middle of an oven at a medium heat for 1hr-1hr, 30 mins.


Towards the end of the cooking time, prepare and slice the pepper into medium strips. Add to the casserole. Stir everything together. Add a little water if it looks a little dry. Return to the oven for another 30mins-1 hr, until the meat is tender.


Serve from the casserole dish, with mashed potatoes and a green vegetable, or brown basmati rice. As an extra-special finishing touch, add a swirl of natural yogurt and a sprinkling of paprika.

Recipe: Carrot and Potato Rosti

Rude veg by Silversprite

A delicious, quick and easy recipe:

Carrot & Potato Rosti

Makes one large rosti, which will serve two as a side dish, or one as a main course.

3 medium carrots, washed and peeled

3 medium potatoes, washed and peeled

butter or olive oil spread

salt and pepper

grated goats cheese (optional)

Grate the carrots and potatoes. Place in a bowl. Season to taste and mix well with hands.

Heat a knob of butter/olive oil spread in a small non-stick frying pan. Squeeze excess water out of potato/carrot mixture with hands, or in a clean tea-towel.

When the butter/spread is nice and bubbly, add the carrot/potato mixture, pressing it into the pan. Cook on a moderate heat, turning every five mins or so (it helps to turn the rosti out onto a dinner plate, before sliding it back into the pan), until golden-brown and crispy on both sides (around twenty mins).

For an extra treat, add grated cheese to the top of the rosti and allow to melt in the pan.

Recipe: Sesame Beef with Carrot Kinpara

Carrot Love by Chris Campbell

I've just eaten a delicious dinner based upon two recipes recently uploaded by Maki to her excellent Just Bento blog:

Easy Sugarfree Carrot Kinpara (try not to inhale the chilli fumes, like I did!)

Sesame Flavoured Beef (I omitted the mirin and substituted the brown sugar for xylitol)

I served the beef and carrots with boiled broccoli and King Soba (would provide a link, but their website appears to have mysteriously disappeared) brown rice noodles.

Highly recommended!

Diabetic Hampers

Look what I've found! Of course, there's no guarantee that all the contents would be anti-Candida friendly, but it's a start.

Sugar free sweets

I spent last weekend at home in sunny Suffolk. My favourite chocolate shop in Woodbridge - Les Chocolats Belges (OMG! They do mail order!!!) - stocks a really good range of diabetic confectionery, most of which is sweetened with maltitol. Since I was last at home in July they've started to sell even more Candida diet-friendly treats. This weekend I picked up Cavalier White Chocolate (contains milk powder), as well as my usual Extra Dark 72% favourite, and a packet of wine gums, sweetened with maltitol, and manufactured by a Dutch company, de Bron, who make a broad range of sweets. Really 'authentic' taste and texture. I noted that the shop also had chocolate spread and individual Belgian chocolates. Now all I need is for someone to make fudge with maltitol/xylitol - what absolute bliss would that be?!

Great recipe resources (and update)

If you're looking for some delicious and easily adaptable recipes, look no further than River Nene and Abel & Cole. Both companies deliver organic veg boxes in the UK (I get mine from River Nene), and both host a multitude of brilliant vegetable-based (but not necessarily vegetarian) recipes on their websites. I've been inspired by and made some really lovely dishes based on their recipes. A couple of my recent favourites are:

Swiss Chard and Walnut Lasagne and Green Soup (I've had a lot of chard to use up!)

With reference to my own Candida battles, as I mentioned a couple of posts ago, I have been experiencing a (fairly mild) flare-up. Keeping to the straight and narrow AND eating plenty of yoghurt seems to be helping. I'm back on the supplements too. Oh lordy!

Sourdough at Somerfield!

Yes, it is true! Somerfield have started to sell their own 'best ever' sourdough boule. I'll be trying it out later. Yum. :)

Back to Basics

FLARE-UP ALERT! I've been just too naughty and lax about my diet recently. So, it's back to basics for me. I guess that means I'll be posting here more frequently. And eating lots of yogurt. Yuck!

Sourdough Bagels

Since starting the Candida diet I've really missed bagels with smoked turkey, gherkins and mustard. Mmmmmmm...mustard *drool*. So imagine how delighted I was to discover they can be made and are, in fact, more authentic, with sourdough starter.

I used the recipe I found at Sourdough Home. This is, IMHO, the best site for naturally leavened bread recipes and tips; lots of sensible, down-to-earth advice. I followed the recipe to the letter* (although I did omit the overnight proving). How did they look?

Brilliant! And how did they taste? YUM! The method is fairly time-consuming, but well worth the effort.

*I could only get malt extract - used approx. half the quantity (weight) of malt powder recommended in the recipe. Which reminds me: a quick trawl of the Internet could not confirm whether, or not, malt extract is permitted on the candida diet, so this recipe might be something to save for special occasions, or choose to avoid if you're just starting out on the diet.

An announcement!

Djinn is eating wedding cake. Djinn doesn't care. ;)

New potatoes in a Japanese stylee

Photo by poluz

Just a quick post (mired in a case study at the moment - ugh) to let you all know how yum this recipe -courtesy of Maki - is.

N.B. Instead of butter I used Olivio, or Bertolli Spread, or whatever it's called now.

Tip: Kikkoman's soy sauce doesn't contain any added sugar. I buy it in big litre bottles from the Chinese supermarket and decant it into one of their pretty glass containers as and when needed. Works out much cheaper.

Recipe: Lemon Polenta Cake

By alasam

Anna has asked me to post the recipe for Lemon Polenta Cake. I don't normally reproduce recipes published elsewhere, but as this is an adaptation, I'll make an exception (suggested substitutes in brackets).

Lemon Polenta Cake

Serves 8

175 g butter (olivio)
175 g caster sugar (xylitol)
2 large eggs, beaten
150 g ground almonds
85 g polenta
1/2 tsp gluten-free baking powder
zest of 2 large lemons
2 tbsp lemon juice

For the lemon syrup:
85 g caster sugar (xylitol)
zest and juice of 1 large lemon

Preheat oven to 180 degrees c. Line the base of a 17 cm spring-release cake tin with non-stick parchment paper and lightly grease the sides.

Cream butter (olivio) and sugar until light and fluffy. Gradually beat in eggs. Fold in almonds, polenta, baking powder, lemon zest and juice, and mix thoroughly.

Spoon mixture into prepared tin and bake for 45-50 mins or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Set aside to cool.

To make syrup, place sugar, lemon zest and juice, and 2 tbsps water in a small pan and heat until sugar (xylitol) dissolves. Simmer for 5 mins, then remove from the heat.

Remove cake from tin and transfer to serving plate. Using a cocktail stick, prick the cake in several places. Drizzle over with syrup.