Candida Can be Fun! A Book Report

Wow - doesn't time fly? No updates generally means nothing of any import to report, which is kind of true. Though I am aware that I had promised to give some feedback on the recipes in Rebecca Richardson's Candida Can be Fun!.

Overall I am very impressed. As I said in my last post, the simple fact that Rebecca is British makes it so much easier (for me) to source the ingredients and work out cooking instructions. Yes, North America, we *are* separated by a common language. You wouldn't believe how much time I have spent in the past trying to decipher recipes! A down-to-earth, realistic book with simple and genuinely tasty (and adaptable) recipes has been sorely lacking; an oversight which has been admirably resolved here by Rebecca. I have tried several of her recipes to date, and nothing has put me off trying further ones in the future. For instance:

Beef Mulligatawny Soup on p. 43 is absolutely delicious; really quite special. Though, when it came to it, I rather wished I had not tried to blend it with my handheld. This needs a good whizz in a 'proper' goblet liquidiser. In the future I will use all the same ingredients to make a casserole instead, which will be just as good.

Hungarian Aubergine with Polenta (p. 73) was really tasty. Invest in some good quality paprika for a lovely, full-bodied smoky flavour. I wasn't so thrilled by polenta though - not to my taste. When I make this again, I shall substitute rice.

I've made Sesame Seed Parsnips (p.103) several times. A good, simple recipe that helped me work my way through the enormous quantities of these not-so-favoured-by-me root veg that showed up in my weekly veg box earlier in the year.

Tabbouleh (p. 121) made with quinoa instead of bulgar wheat was fantastic and even better the next day after the ingredients had marinated together in the fridge overnight. Ate it in various combinations with other ingredients over the following three days and didn't get bored.

Courgette and Butternut Squash Pasta on p. 62, has been my only disappointment to date. It's the sort of recipe which really needs cheese - something 'young' and tangy like feta. I was also rather unimpressed with the texture of cold corn pasta (I'd made a big batch for packed lunches). If I make this recipe again I will substitute wholewheat pasta twists. Roasted butter squash is, however, one of the most delicious things ever. So, even if you don't make this recipe, try adding it to salads. Well worth the (minimal) effort.

So, all in all, Candida Can be Fun! gets the thumbs up from me. Well worth the £20 cover price.

Buy it from Amazon here.

- or direct from Rebecca here.

In other news, would we all agree that The Cardboard Diet needs a make-over? Wordpress is beaconing...

New (to me) cookery book and great recipe

On the look out for another recipe book full of healthy, easily adaptable recipes, I bought the Readers' Digest Food For Your Body at a second hand bookshop last week. It's full of lovely, simple recipes, most of which are candida diet okay (with the odd substitute).

What most attracted me was the section on mood food and, last night, I made one of the recipes suggested to restore a sense of calm (which I'm sorely missing at the moment!), Pan-fried Salmon with Pineapple Salsa (p. 275). I won't reproduce the recipe here, but suffice to say it was easy to follow and worked out really well. I substituted the maple syrup/honey for a tsp of granulated xylitol, with no obvious disadvantage. All in all a very tasty recipe, and one I will be making again.

I'm desperate to try out the Lemon Polenta Cake recipe on page 129, but I fear I won't be able to get polenta at my local Co-op. :( Will have to wait until I've got a chance to go into town again next week.

Update and Book review: Cooking Without by Barbara Cousins

First things first. As I'm sure my regular readers must have noticed, I have been absent for several weeks. To cut a long story short, I haven't been very well recently (completely non Candida related!) and had to come home for some much needed R&R. Blogging hasn't been my top priority. And apart from anything else, I have - as a result of leaving Leicester - lost my super-fast broadband connection, to be replaced by an antiquated dial-up modem thingy. It's frustratingly slow. However, that doesn't mean that 'developments' on the Candida front haven't occurred.

I am now on new medication. In fact, the medication I was so concerned about taking before. For the first couple of weeks I really did struggle with the side-effects, which included nausea, complete loss of appetite, aches & pains and feelings of unreality, but since then I've felt increasingly great. And now I'm a super happy bunny - or at least I would be if it would stop raining for five seconds. But, here, we're not interested in that. We're bothered with Candida...

Surprisingly my thrush symptoms have all but disappeared. To reiterate, the symptoms I've had for the past THIRTEEN YEARS have disappeared. The constant itching and soreness - GONE (providing I make sure I drink plenty of fluid)! Ever since I started on the SSRI! Was my Candida problem simply an allergic reaction to stress hormones? I'm starting to think 'yes'. Since I started popping the happy pills I have been able to relax as I haven't been able to relax since, well, I don't know when. The low-level, generalised anxiety has gone. I've turned from a 'glass half empty' to a 'glass half full' kind of girl. IT'S A BLOODY MIRACLE!!! ;)

Oh, and did I mention that I haven't been taking my (extortionately priced) supplements (apart from the multivit and iron)? NO ANTI-FUNGALS at all! It's only been a month, so I'm not going to count my chickens quite yet. But, really, I have made SO much progress over the past month I'm delighted regardless. There's light at the end of that there tunnel. :)

Okay, now onto the main business of this post. The review (or more precisely a brief report) of Barbara Cousin's Cooking Without: Recipes free from added gluten, sugar, dairy products, yeast, salt, saturated fat. Eagle-eyed and sharp of mind regular readers might remember that I reviewed Barbara's similarly titled recipe book on vegetarian cooking 'without' last summer. I was pretty impressed with that (though I had a bit of trouble with some of the recipes), but this meat-friendly collection of recipes is even better. Especially the baking section. So far I've tried the Chewy Fruit Bars (p. 225) - which benefited from 10 mins in the oven - and the Apple, Date and Nut Muffins (p. 216) - which I had with apple juice-sweetened dried cranberries instead of the dates and raisins. Both delicious (relatively speaking!). Keen to make a start on working through the savoury recipes when I get back to student life.

Watercress Soup

Apologies for my recent absence. I've been up to my neck in it recently and not feeling terribly positive, so I've been trying to cut back on the myriad of extraneous stuff I do just to relieve the pressure a bit; this blog being one one of them.

Having said all that, I had a bit of exciting news recently: I can have cakes and biscuits made with fructose now! Just need to find some good recipes and time to try them out now. Will post the results as soon as I'm able.

Continuing working my way through Miriam Polunin's book at the moment. Made Watercress Soup (p. 103) yesterday and about to have the second serving for my lunch. Pretty good, but quite gloopy, probably because I didn't add the soured cream recommended in the recipe. Perhaps a spot of goats milk will slacken the texture a bit...?

Book Review: 'Vegetarian Cooking Without' by Barbara Cousins

Have just got my grubby little mits on Vegetarian Cooking Without: Recipes free from added Gluten, Sugar, Yeast, Dairy Products, Meat, Fish, Saturated Fat, by Barbara Cousins. Looks like it's going to be really useful. Some great recipes, including puddings and cakes (Yes! Puddings and cakes on the anti-Candida diet!).

I tried out a couple of the recipes with varying degrees of success last night: Thai Tofu with Coriander, Chilli and Ginger (p. 154) was quick and easy to make and delicious (even though I wasn't able to get hold of several of the ingredients for flavouring, kaffir lime leaves anyone?!). I made (or attempted to make) Apricot and Walnut Clusters (p. 205) with one eye on the 'Big Brother' final. Not so successful - but for the most part due to me not following the recipe properly, rather than a problem with the recipe per se. I thought I'd be clever and stew the apple in the microwave instead of on the hob, but it didn't produce the necessary sticky mush required to stick all the dry ingredients together. Consequently, they were not so much clusters, than one big cake. I crumbled it up and used it as a crunchy yoghurt topping (and froze the rest). Not bad!

She's also got some useful information in there about Chinese medicine (apparently people with Candida problems are too 'damp'). Worth investigating further methinks.

Book review: Erica White's 'Beat Candida Cookbook'

Erica White's Beat Candida Cookbook is a bible for those embarking on an anti-Candida diet. As a sufferer and nutritional therapy practitioner with years of experience, she provides the definitive list of dos and don'ts.

The first sections of the book deal with her personal story and give background information on candida albicans and symptoms. The bit I'm most interested in here is from Chapter 6, where she details 'foods to avoid' and 'foods to enjoy' (pp. 42-45). My only criticism is that it is a very basic list. Often, presented with something a bit more exotic than your average British fayre, I've been unable to find the advice I need. And to be honest, if you were going to live on just the foods Erica White recommends, your diet (and life) would get very monotonous indeed.

Which takes me onto my next criticism: the recipes. While it is really helpful to have suitable recipes to hand, the perceived need to adapt them to suit every possible dietary requirement, including gluten and wheat-free, means that the recipes I've tried (which, admittedly is few) have been bland and uninspiring. Which is a great shame.

The best way I've found to use this book, is to treat it as a kind of encyclopedia of knowledge about Candida and the anti-Candida diet, and use it as the backbone for the development of your own recipes (and most of the time you'll find that - with a little bit of experimentation - you can just adapt the things you made before you started the diet, by substituting white wine, for example, with a yeast-free stock, or white pasta for wholewheat, etc). For me, following Erica White's puritan programme and recipes to the nth degree would be akin to mortification.

However, having said all that, I would really recommend everyone following, or about to embark upon the diet, to buy the book. If nothing else, it helps to know that you're not the only one out there suffering!