I think I'm in love

...with Joseph's Sugar-free Pecan and Walnut Brownie bites! I think, when I'm old and grey, I'll define my life by the time before and after I discovered them in my local independent health food shop.* They are GREAT, and VERY more-ish; I managed to polish off a 312g packet in 24 hours ALL BY MYSELF!!!

The brownies are sweetened with maltitol, but a special formulation which (according to the company website) doesn't upset one's tummy. Plus, they appear to be fairly low in fat and calories. Even better!

* I haven't seen them stocked anywhere else in the UK sadly.

Recipe: Dhal

Dhal is an economical and nutritious lentil-based 'stew'. I've adapted this recipe from the DK book Yoga: Mind and Body.

Dhal

Serves 4

Dried green lentils
1 medium onion, finely chopped
3 medium tomatoes, quartered
1 piece of ginger, peeled and grated
1 or 2 cloves of garlic, grated
1 or 2 green birdseye chillis, chopped
1/2 tsp black mustard seeds
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp turmeric
4 cloves
sunflower oil
salt

Boil the lentils in water for 25-30 mins, until tender. Meanwhile, fry the garlic, onions, ginger and chilli in a pan with a small amount of sunflower oil, until the onion is soft. Add the mustard seeds, cumin seeds, turmeric, cloves and salt (to taste) to the pan. Cook for a few minutes (the mustard seeds will start to pop). Add the tomatoes to the pan and stir well.

Meanwhile, drain the lentils. Add to the tomato, onion and spice mixture and mix well. Cook for a few minutes to combine the flavours. Add a spot of water to the pan if the mixture is too dry.

Serve with brown basmati rice.#

#N.B. The combination of rice and lentils makes for a nutritionally complete meal.

A tasty (and seasonal) way of getting your greens: Braised Winter Greens with Chestnuts

This is a recipe I have adapted from Fuschia Dunlop's Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook* (p. 228). The original calls for pak choy, but it works equally well with winter greens (I used a mixed bag of green cabbage, spinach, curly kale and swiss chard from ASDA).

Braised Winter Greens with Chestnuts

Mixed winter greens, chopped (not too finely)
Cooked chestnuts
Vegetable stock (I used Marigold Vegan (and yeast-free) stock powder)
Freshly ground pepper
Vegetable oil

Take a handful (or more) of chestnuts (quantity depends on how much you like them - their flavour can be quite strong). If large, chop into smaller chunks. Lightly fry in a small amount of vegetable oil. Add the winter greens (quantity depends on number of mouths to feed - remember the greens will cook down to nearly nothing, so you'll need more than you originally think!), and stir well, coating in the oil. When the leaves have wilted, add a small amount of stock. Stir well, turn the heat low and place a lid on the pan for a few minutes until any stems are tender. Serve as a side dish, perhaps with a piece of oven-baked salmon and a jacket potato.

* Incidentally, this is a GREAT cookbook. I put on a banquet for friends during Chinese New Year using recipes from its pages, and they all worked out brilliantly and tasted fantastic (and many can be easily adapted for the anti-Candida diet too).

Organic Nut Roast - yuck!

I thought quite seriously about whether or not to post this, but I decided to go ahead, not least because I feel it encapsulates a real problem with the kind of products offered by supermarkets for shoppers following special diets.

I had high hopes for Asda's Organic Nut Roast. The description sounded promising:

Roasted peanuts, carrots, onions, parsnips, red lentils and chick peas, topped with crunchy sunflower seeds.

Yummy in fact. (Yeah, I know, peanuts are prohibited on the anti-Candida diet, but I'm maintaining and besides, what is all that about anyway? What makes peanuts bad, when other nuts are okay?)

Sadly it was really bland. Even a liberal douse in soy sauce couldn't save it. TV programmes like Five's 'Breaking Into Tesco' imply that all new products are rigorously tested and trialed by consumer panels and food tasters, but if that was really the case, how the hell did something as tasteless as this nut roast ever make it to the shelves?! I dread to think what it tasted like in its early development. Yuck. I could do so much better.

Overall, I'm very disappointed. :(

Twinings Ginger and Lemon Infusions

Hurrah! Twinings Ginger and Lemon Infusions/tea-bags no longer contain nasty citric acid! That makes me very happy indeed.

I made this discovery during my trip to Asda yesterday evening, where I also picked up lots of other anti-Candida-diet-okay stuff. Lots of blog posts to come. :)

Recipe: Bacon and sweetcorn risotto

Slightly strange-sounding combo, but really very tasty. May not be suitable for people just starting out on the diet because smoked bacon is often prohibited, at least to begin with.

Bacon and Sweetcorn Risotto
(Serves 1)

Brown risotto (arborio) rice
2 rashers of good quality smoked back bacon (make sure that the meat hasn't been coated in sugar!)
1 shallot
A cup of sweetcorn kernels (I used frozen)
Chopped fresh parsley
1/2 litre stock (I used Marigold yeast-free stock powder)

Cut the bacon into slices and fry until crispy in a saucepan (no need to add additional oil). Finely chop the shallot and add to the bacon. Add sufficient rice (about half a mug-full) and stir. Coat well in the oil from the bacon. Add a small quantity of stock, stir and simmer until the liquid has been absorbed. Continue to add stock in small quantities, until rice is al dente and creamy. Add the sweetcorn and parsley and heat through. Serve!

Hot chocolate - a plea!

Dear Readers,

Has anyone come across a candida diet friendly hot chocolate/cocoa powder/recipe? It's freezing cold here at the moment, and I'm in desperate need. Green tea just doesn't cut it when you want a lovely, comforting and warming mug of cocoa!

Yours hopefully,

Djinn x

***UPDATE***

Take half a teaspoon of Cadbury's Bournville Cocoa, and mix into a mug of warm goats milk. Add a teaspoon of xylitol and mix well. Delicious!

Chocolate Pudding? I don't think so...

I've been trying out Rice & Rice dessert from my local health food store. I was hoping for something akin to chocolate mousse. I was sorely disappointed. It's rather like eating brown starch (which is all it is really), with a really strange texture somewhere between blancmange and Instant Whip (either of which would be infinitely preferable).

I shan't be repeating the experience.

New Recipe: Lemon prawn linguine

This recipe includes a dash of tabasco sauce. Now, while its main ingredient is vinegar, I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest it's okay in moderation...besides, you're hardly going to add more than a couple of drops to the sauce, unless you have an iron-cast tongue!

Lemon Prawn Linguine

Serves 1 hungry person!

frozen prawns, defrosted
juice of one lemon
half a small onion, or one shallot, finely chopped
wholewheat linguine (or spaghetti)
dash of tabasco sauce
olive oil spread
fresh herbs (i.e. parsley)
freshly ground pepper
manchego or other hard sheep/goats cheese, grated


Melt a good knob of olive oil spread in a pan. Add the onion/shallot and sweat until soft. Add the prawns and stir for a minute or two. Add the lemon juice, pepper and tabasco sauce to taste and simmer over a low heat.

Meanwhile cook the pasta until al dente. Drain and return to the pan. Add the prawns/onion mixture and stir into the pasta with a handful of chopped, fresh herbs.

Sprinkle with the grated cheese and serve with a simple green salad, drizzled with flaxseed oil. Delicious, even if I do say so myself!

Soup!

I've discovered a new range of soups recently by Sierra Rica and available from Tescos (and quite possibly other retailers). They don't list the ingredients of their organic vegetable stock on the jars, but I'm trusting that they're yeast-free. I tried Chestnut and Carrot with Ginger and Tomato and Basil. Both very tasty.

Lemon Polenta Cake: A triumph!

I made it - and it was good! Very good, in fact. Even though I managed to stick too much polenta and not enough lemon juice into the batter! A great gluten-free recipe.

I'm doing this Thing-A-Day project in February. My lemon polenta cake is my Day 1 contribution. See the link for a photo and a bit more information about the cake.

N.B. I replaced the caster sugar in the recipe with granulated xylitol.

A weird, but tasty combination: Bacon-wrapped tofu

In the last few days both Maki @ Just Hungry and Profgrrl have mentioned the peculiar-sounding Japanese delicacy, bacon-wrapped tofu. It felt like someone was trying to tell me something. So, tonight, I gave it a go. And jolly tasty it was too. I used unsmoked back bacon (perhaps streaky would be even better?), a firm tofu ,and left the soy on the side as a dipping sauce. The overall 'package' was quite salty, but that was counteracted by the accompanying brown rice and steamed purple-sprouting broccoli.

All in all, a bit of a success!

Could a better diet cut crime?

This is absolutely fascinating. Wouldn't it be wonderful if the world could become a better place just through encouraging good nutrition? And how many young lives could be turned around? Oh, I'm coming over all hippy-like. ;)

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.

Vegetable Bouillon

Just a quick note about Marigold Swiss Vegetable Bouillon (Reduced Salt). It's completely Candida diet friendly, suitable for vegans, and has less salt than the Kallo Yeast-free stock cubes. And a much more pleasant taste - very herby, and curry-powder free! Look for the purple tub!