Don’t Skimp on the Spices

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Planning a menu on a restricted diet–be it the Low-FODMAP protocol or otherwise–means a lot of the same.

With broccoli, asparagus, cauliflower, various beans and peas all on the trigger list that leaves a lot of repetition of spinach, green beans, and carrots (not to mention the ubiquitous green salad) as side dishes. Of course there are more options available seasonally, but these are our core components. Even the proteins can get a bit repetitive without a helping hand from the spice rack.

Whether you’re following a recipe or experimenting on your own, a careful perusal of the spice blends on your shelf will turn up some High-FODMAP ingredients–namely garlic and onion powders–in the ingredient lists. Curry powder, chili powder*, steak seasoning, taco mix, etc. Even the simple-sounding Lemon Pepper usually includes both garlic and onions! (And I can report from personal experience that even the small amounts in the Lemon & Pepper seasoning blend are enough to provoke a reaction in an otherwise safe meal.)

The solution, as with any specialty diet, is to make your own. Often it’s just a matter of making up the blend without the offending powdered garlic or onions, but what if you find yourself missing those flavors? There’s always asafoetida (aka hing) powder–a little of that goes a long way, and I’d suggest saving it to apply per dish, not including it in the pre-mixed spices–or a drizzle of garlic oil if appropriate for the recipe. You can still add a sprinkle of green onion tops to the dish while it’s cooking for a more authentic flavor, and some well-diced turnips add a peppery bite to a soup or stew in place of onions.

Here are a couple of my go-to blends we use regularly in our kitchen.

Taco Seasoning

1/4 cup salt
2 Tbsp red chili powder
1 Tbsp ground black pepper
1 Tbsp cumin
1 Tbsp oregano

Combine in a glass jar and shake until combined; makes about a half a cup. Use 2 tsp mix per pound of protein of your choice; go up to a tablespoon if you like your tacos hot!

Curry Powder

4 Tbsp coriander
2 Tbsp turmeric
1 Tbsp cumin
2 tsp ginger
1 1/2 tsp black pepper
1 tsp mustard
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp red chili powder

Combine in a glass jar and shake until combines; makes about a half a cup. Use 2 Tbsp mix per pound of protein of your choice, 1 Tbsp if you’re seasoning vegetables, or as much as your recipe requires.

While there are plenty of seasoning blends just a convenient search away, I also have two “old-fashioned” books to recommend for just this sort of kitchen quandry. First is one of my long-time favorites, The Kitchen Companion by Polly Clingerman. It’s currently out of print but if you find a used copy either online or at a yard sale, snap it up! This is my go-to for all sorts of cooking basics, time and temp charts out the wazoo, and just all sorts of kitchen awesomeness. The other is The Spice and Herb Bible by Ian Hemphill. In addition to being a veritable encyclopedia of herbs and spices in their various forms, there are usage suggestions and spice blends galore–perfect for kitchen experimentation!

 

*For the record, if you buy your red chili powder in “bulk” at the Indian grocery like I do, remember that this is straight chilies whereas the chili powder called for in most recipes is rather “diluted” with other things. Pare down accordingly or risk the wrath of your tastebuds!

Low-FODMAP Seeded Chicken Salad

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jwalker_nb_seededchickensalad_crackersA lot of living with a medically-necessary restricted diet, is finding ways to enjoy our favorite foods in ways that fit our new needs. Some ingredients post more challenges than others, it’s true, but often it’s just a matter of knowing your ingredients.

Chicken salad–either as a salad topping, sandwich filling, or snack with crackers–used to be one of my favorite things to whip up for picnics or a weekend lunch. My preferred version’s not-so-secret ingredient used diced apples for their bright flavor and crunchy texture. Sometimes I’d also add walnuts, but not often. Since apples are ingredient-non-grata on a Low-FODMAP diet (they’re naturally high in fructose, fructans, and polyols), I needed to tweak my go-to recipe. And while walnuts are fine, in limited quantities, they don’t show up in our home very often due to Todd’s dislike of them.

Low-FODMAP Seeded Chicken Salad

1 celery stalk, small dice (~ 1/2 cup)
3 green onion tops, sliced (~ 2 Tbsp)
1/2 cup red seedless grapes, halved
2 Tbsp hulled sunflower seeds
1 1/2 – 2 cups shredded chicken breast
1/3 – 1/2 cup mayonnaise
salt & pepper to taste

Combine everything in a large bowl and stir until thoroughly combined. Serve atop mixed greens or with crackers. Makes about 2.5 cups.

Make sure that your mayonnaise is low-FODMAP–many include onion or garlic for flavor and if you’re sensitive to fructans this could be an issue for you. Hellmann’s seems to be a reliable choice (we buy the olive oil variety) but you need to always check the labels as formulas can change. Of course you can also make your own mayo or even substitute a lactose-free Greek-style yogurt for some or all of it.

You may not need a lot of additional salt if your sunflower seeds can fill that role, and the grapes add a touch of sweetness.

You may not need a lot of additional salt if your sunflower seeds can fill that role, and the grapes add a touch of sweetness.

To make this a quick recipe, I like to keep a few 13 oz. cans of chicken breast (water-packed) on hand. Drain the chicken and then break up the meat with your fingers and it’s perfect for a dish like this where you want the chicken distributed throughout the salad and not in chunks.

Artisan Nut Thins Group

When we have friends coming over it’s nice to put a bowl of this out with crackers. Wheat-free crackers often leave something to be desired, however, so I was pleased to receive samples of Blue Diamond’s Artisan Nut Thins to try with it. The crackers have a shiny look to them, are very crisp (almost brittle), but the flavors are quite tasty. I served up the chicken salad as a snack with some of the Sesame Seed, Flax Seed, and Multi-Seed Nut Thins and all seemed to go over very well. My favorite is probably the Flax Seed variety, though they’re all tasty.

jwalker_nb_lowfodmap_seededchickensalad_nutthins

(Keep in mind that Nut Thins from Blue Diamond are primarily almond flour, and almonds have recently been found to be higher in FODMAPs than originally thought. Because of this you need to gauge your own sensitivity to almond products, including Nut Thins.)

So I’m Making My Own Yogurt Now?

Nibbles

Yup.

In fact, as I write this post  my latest batch of lactose-free yogurt is perking along on the kitchen counter.

My EuroCuisine Yogurt Maker at work.

My EuroCuisine Yogurt Maker at work.

Now, why would I go to this much trouble when there are ready-made options available, even for the lactose-intolerant and Low-FODMAP among us? Because not all options are created equally.

I enjoy my afternoon yogurt snack both for taste as well as health benefits. I discovered ages ago that it helped keep me healthy long before Acitivia and the like started marketing as such. And, yet, the Low-FODMAP challenges showed me just how sensitive I am to lactose, even the reduced amount in most Greek-style yogurts, so I knew I needed to be a bit more careful with what I was consuming.

That left me with pretty much one option at our local grocery store: Yoplait’s Lactose Free French Vanilla

Lactose Free

image via Yoplait.com | While it comes in peach, strawberry, vanilla, and cherry, my store only carried the latter 2

And while I wasn’t a huge fan of the flavor or texture, it was acceptable and got me my live cultures at a reasonable .60 a serving. At least it did when they kept it in stock.

About the time supply was getting a bit spotty, I saw an electronic yogurt maker on one of the many flash-sale sites and, while intrigued, managed to talk myself out of buying it by the end of the day. Until, of course, I was at the not-geographically-convenient Earth Fare in town and found the other lactose-free/Low-FODMAP yogurt option by Green Valley Organics.

image via Green Valley Organics

I was thrilled to find this yogurt! I’d tried and loved their sour cream but this was the first time I’d found their yogurt on the shelf. As I reached for the cups on the top shelf, my eyes fell on the price sticker: 1.99 a piece! That’s 3 times the price of the Yoplait, and even if the taste and texture are much more to my liking, I couldn’t justify the additional cost and the weekly trips out of my way.

Suddenly the price of the yogurt maker wasn’t looking so spendy! Too bad for me that that particular flash sale had ended. Still, I was on the hunt and within a month had found a decent deal at a store I’d been given a birthday giftcard to.

Since then I’ve been making my own yogurt from lactose-free milk and either an existing bottle of yogurt or the starter culture easily found in almost all health-food stores. It takes maybe an hour, all-told, to prep the milk mix (a little time to warm it to 180 degrees F, then a little longer to let it cool to 110 before adding the starter/cultures, then to ladel it into the glasses to “cook”) and if I’m smart I’ll set it up before bed so it’ll be finished the next morning and ready to go after a few hours chill time.

I haven’t experimented much with flavoring them before putting them into the yogurt maker, but I have been adding powdered coconut milk to the mix to get a thicker yogurt without having to go through the pain of straining it myself. Most days I top it with a spoonful of Welch’s Natural Strawberry jam (the only one I’ve found, so far, that meets all the Low-FODMAP requirements) and maybe a bit of granola and this really hits the spot.

I haven’t worked out the per-price comparison of making vs buying, but I know that I like the end result a lot better.

Low FODMAP Living: Bye-Bye Onions and Garlic

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image via stock.xchng | photography by rwetzlmayr

image via stock.xchng | photography by rwetzlmayr

Onions are one of the favorite foods of picky eaters to pick on, maligned for their pungent scent and taste. Of course, many a cook knows that once an onion is cooked it changes to a wonderfully sweet and savory flavoring agent and would never dream of cooking without it. And let’s not even get started about how many dishes would just not be the same without a healthy dose of garlic!

Unfortunately, though, in testing for trigger foods during the FODMAP challenge phase, I found that garlic and onions are no longer my friends. Well, to be honest, they weren’t being friendly for the last good while, I just didn’t realize it. They were one of the first foods we chose to challenge because of how important they were in our cooking, and it was a sad realization that they would no longer be welcome in our kitchen (at least not for anything I’d been eating).

Onions and garlic (along with leeks, shallots, and other members of the allium family) contain fructans in levels too high for many folks with IBS to process. (This is, incidentally, the same FODMAP that is present in wheat, barley, and rye.)

So, how does a former chef go without onions and garlic in her kitchen?

She doesn’t. Not completely at least.

First of all, green onions (scallions) are safe if only the green tops are used. Thus, we buy at least one bunch of green onions a week, sometimes two. A side benefit to using green onions is that they’re even easier to prep, sometimes I just use the kitchen shears rather than a knife and cutting board. By this same logic, the usually-discarded tops of leeks can also be used and they are very nice in stir-frys and chunky soups. Now, they do add color to the dish (which isn’t always a bad thing) but sometimes you want them to not be so obvious but you still want that onion flavor.

Enter asafoetida.

Asa-what-ida? Asafoetida is something I’d first encountered back in one of the Indian Cooking Challenges I participated in, as certain sects in India require diets to be allium-free. This powdered latex (so not the best choice for those with a latex allergy, I’m guessing) comes from a perennial herb common to Afganistan and India, Ferula, and has a very strong smell that’s kinda hard to describe. But in food, especially if it’s allowed to cook a little in some warm oil, it tastes remarkably like garlic and onions. This makes it a perfect addition to meatloaf or burgers where you want to make sure the flavor carries through. Just remember that a little goes a long way. A couple of dashes from the container (which should only have a very small hole in the top or bottom) is enough for a pound of meat.

Another surprise substitute that really works for onion is a small turnip shredded into your soup. We tried this with a New England-style Clam Chowder with impressive results. If turnips are available and there are no other borderline FODMAPs (foods that are safe in limited quantities only, as are many of the “allowed” fruits and vegetables, but can become triggers if a lot is ingested) in a dish, I’ll happily grate one into the dish for that peppery flavor that might otherwise be missing.

As for garlic, which we really would not want to live without, there’s another cool thing about FODMAPs it helps to know: fructans are water-soluble, but not fat-soluble. Meaning, you can use infused oils with no problem!

On an as-needed basis you could cut a clove of garlic into large chunks, let it saute in your oil of choice for a few moments and then remove the garlic chunks and continue on with your cooking, getting the flavor without the fructans. (You can do this with quartered onions, too, by the way.) We could do this but it seems wasteful and time-consuming to me, so we just buy garlic-infused olive oil at the store, easy as that.

Can you make your own infused oil? Absolutely. BUT (and this is a kind of big caveat, so please pay attention) you must be very careful how you prepare the oil (cook the garlic in hot oil for a prescribed time) and store it properly (in the fridge) to avoid botulism poisoning. Like all things grown in the ground, there is the possibility of botulinum spores to be on the food. The spores need warm temperatures and an air-free environment to do their dirty deeds, and that’s just what an infused oil provides. While it’s rare to meet all the specific requirements for the toxins to become active and dangerous, it’s not a chance I’m willing to take when there are commercial products available that are safer.

Granted, I seldom find a bottle of garlic-infused olive oil for less than $10 for 8 oz, but the good news is that these oils tend to be strong, so a little goes a long way in a dish. YOu can also cut it with a bit of regular olive oil if what your wanting is to brush it onto bread, etc.

Keeping onion and garlic out of my diet means being very wary of most soups and stocks (onion is almost always included) as well as bullion cubes and soup bases. Many sauces and condiments have one or both of them in there, and I’ve found that it doesn’t take much to set my system off. The other thing you have to really watch for with onion and garlic are your friendly neighborhood grocery store spice blends. Man do they like to sneak these flavorings in any number of products we would normally buy. Thankfully, making your own spice blends without onion or garlic powder is a very simple enterprise and can be done in batches or as needed. We make our own curry powder blend, our own taco seasoning, etc. and the quality of our dinners hasn’t suffered one bit. While you can include asafoetida in your mixes, I would caution against it only because the powder can really overpower the scent of other ingredients. Instead, put a note on your at-home-spice-blend to add a dash of it to your meal when you prepare it and get better results.

Making the transition to a Low-FODMAP lifestyle hasn’t been easy, but finding good substitutions and work-arounds has made it less difficult than we initially anticipated.

Pretzel Success, Chemistry Fail

Nibbles

As I mentioned last week, I finally gave in to my intentions of making pretzel bread over the weekend and, let me tell you, it’s definitely too easy to make. As in, I could make a batch every weekend without allotting much time and that’s dangerous.

But before I get into the specifics, I need to tell you how this whole thing got started.

On one of the digital scrapbooking forums I frequent, there was a thread about football foods, and a picture was posted of some doughnut-hole acorns made by dipping the top of a doughnut hole into Nutella, and then rolling them in chopped nuts or chocolate sprinkles. Finished off with a pretzel stick stem, they do sorta look like tasty acorns.

I thought, I can do that!

But I also wondered what sort of savory applications this illusion food technique could apply to. Someone suggested mini-corndogs, so that was a definite option, but I thought if I made mini pretzel rolls, dipped them in a cheese & mustard dip (I was thinking more like a fondue, but it turns out there’s a standard pretzel dip that more than fits the bill), and then rolled the tops in crumbled bacon, it’d be quite a hearty snack for that weekend’s game.

So of course I did all three.

Corndog, Doughnut, and Pretzel Acorns

(sorry about the glare, I was going for easy clean-up and the foil didn’t play nice with the camera)

Rather than re-post other people’s recipes, here are the 2 I used for the homemade portions of this project:

Bretzel Rolls (Bavarian Pretzel Sandwich Rolls) from food.com

Cheese and Mustard Dipping Sauce from countryliving.com

Both of these recipes are simple and straight-forward. I made the pretzel rolls as directed but I divided each of the 12 pieces of dough into 3, for 36 mini rolls. I did change one other part of the pretzel recipe, and that’s where the other half of my title comes in…

Pretzel bread isn’t really that different from any other yeast bread, it’s how they’re cooked that make them pretzels. Like bagels, the pretzels are first poached or par-boiled before baking to give them the chewy exterior. Unlike bagels, however, the water for poaching pretzels gets baking soda added to it, which gives it that distinctive flavor.

I decided, however, that using plain water was boring. Why not use something a little more flavorful, I thought, so for the 2 quarts of poaching liquid, I started off with 12 oz of beer, then made up the rest with water. Sure, once the liquids came to a boil it foamed up a bit (unanticipated consequence number 1), but that was easy to deal with.

It was when I had to add the baking soda to the boiling liquid that I discovered unanticipated consequence number 2.

Who remembers their science classes on combining vinegar and baking soda to make a volcano? The acid in the vinegar reacts with sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) to create carbon dioxide (and some other things), i.e. bubbles. Did you know that beer also contains an acid? Alpha acids, to be specific, found in the hop plants.

Yes, In the midst of making bagels, I made a beer-cano, too.

Alas, there are no pictures of this debacle as I was too busy trying to get the spewing pot from the stove to the sink. In fact, I’m lucky there are pictures of any of the process as my camera was on the counter between points A and B–I’m still cleaning off bits of baking soda out of the lens, but the camera appears to have escaped otherwise unharmed.

And speaking of unharmed, turns out baking soda can be used to treat burns. Which might account for the fact that two fingers on my left hand got doused in boiling, bubbling over water/beer/soda mixtures and only got a little red and puffy, didn’t blister, and were totally fine by the time I went to bed. So I suppose you could call that 2 crises averted, though I could have avoided the whole thing if I’d just given half a thought to the chemical make-up of what I was doing!

At any rate, the pretzels eventually got their dunking in the bicarb’ed water (with remnants of beer) and then baked to a golden brown.

Pretzel Rolls fresh from the oven

They were delicious. So delicious I was a little concerned I was going to eat them all before I could transform them into their acorn disguises!

Enough survived my carb-lust, however, and they made excellent appetizers for Sunday’s game, even if they weren’t as acorn-y as the mini-corndog versions.

MiniCorndog Acorns

mini corndogs, dipped in mustard-cheese dip, and rolled in crushed pretzel sticks

Pretzel Acorns

pretzel bread, dipped in mustard-cheese dip, and rolled in crumbled bacon

Doughnut-hole acorns

doughnut holes, dipped in Nutella, and rolled in chocolate sprinkles

I’d heated the Nutella spread on the stove before starting to dip the doughnut holes, but even then it got clumpy and lumpy pretty quick as the glaze from the doughnuts got mixed in. Unglazed or cake-style doughnut holes might hold up a bit better to this treatment.

And, then, from the just-because-it’s-there file:

doughnut acorns with nutella and bacon

I had leftover bacon crumbles and figured what the hell, right? When first dipped, though, the Nutella totally overpowered the bacon, but once they’d had a chance to sit out for a bit, the flavors equalized and it wasn’t half bad. Not something I’d be seeking out in the future, but I can see why some people are all over the bacon and chocolate craze.