Dirty Rice – PKU friendly, low protein and low carb

Over the last few months I have become more and more interested in paleo recipes and how they can help my weight loss and body change efforts. Throughout my weight loss journey I am dedicated to remaining on diet and by taking this approach the weight is coming off oh-so-slowly but surely.

Quite often I browse websites checking out recipes for things I could try. Today I came across this – dirty rice! The ‘dirty’ refers to the colour, which in this dish comes from the large number of spices, which in addition to adding colour are high in antioxidants and abundant in flavour!

Now, be sure to work the phe out on this one for yourself. It will depend on what part of the world you live in. For me in the UK, cauliflower is a free food (as long as I follow the guidelines about this – for example, not eating broccoli in the same day). I know that in other countries it is not free.

Anyway, enjoy! And if you give it a go I’d love to know what you think.

Paleo Dirty Rice – Grain Free Rice Recipe | Elana’s Pantry.

Is it Paleo chart

A few non PKU friends have been eating a Paleo diet and they are feeling great and amazing results with their body transformations (yes, I’m talking fitness here). I like the whole idea of eating clean though it can be very, very hard on a low protein diet – if not impossible. Still, if anyone is game here is a chart that can help you decide what to eat and what not to. I am thinking about giving it a try. Maybe. We’ll see.

Is-It-Paleo.jpg (517×640).

Healthy recipe: Sweet potato and parsnip curry

I’ve been doing my best to eat healthier, more filling and more nourishing food lately and as part of that I’ve got a stack of recipes I have either come up with or tried. This recipe was inspired by a meal one of my PKU friends from Ireland told me about and I have

Sweet Potato and Parsnip Curry

added my own tweaks to it to suit my tastes. You aren’t limited to the vegetables I have used – you could use anything you like and even add chilli for a spicy kick! I hope you enjoy it – I will post a picture of this recipe soon – I was more interested in eating this than taking pictures of it and blogging it was an afterthought. This recipe makes enough to freeze 2 additional large portions.

Ingredients
2 small or 1 large sweet potatoes, chopped
1 parsnip, chopped
1 carrot, chopped
2 x tinned chopped tomatoes or you could use fresh tomatoes
1 Knorr Beef stockpot (or a crushed beef stock cube)
Half an onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely sliced or crushed
1 heaped teaspoon of mild curry powder
Water (use your judgement on this one)
Measured dollop of coconut yoghurt if available/allowed (to serve)

Method

1. Sautee the onions and garlic in low calorie cooking spray (eg Fry Light) until translucent.
2. Add the stockpot, sweet potato, parsnip and carrot. Stir the stockpot in until it melts and let cook just for a minute or two.
3. Add the tomatoes and curry powder, stir then simmer until the vegetables are tender.
4. To serve, add a measured dollop of coconut yoghurt if allowed. I use 2 exchanges worth of Rachel’s Organic Greek Style Coconut Yoghurt.
5. Serve with low pro rice or an allowed amount of boiled brown rice.

PKU friendly weight loss meals

If you’ve read my last post you’ll know that I’ve challenged myself to prove that you can lose weight and stay on the PKU diet. To do this I joined Weight Watchers – the onus is still on me to plan and cook my own meals but the tools available to me help me to find fresh ideas, balance the amounts and quality of food I’m putting into my mouth and give me the support – and accountability – I need to make it happen. [Edit: I have since removed the posts about the weight loss seeing as I couldn't dedicate the time to blogging about it. The weight loss efforts continue on though, I haven't given up!]

I started my weight loss challenge on Thursday and so far I feel like I’m doing pretty well. I haven’t had any soft drink (my biggest weakness – when I was small I was given soft drink to wash my formula down because it was all that helped but now I can’t seem to exercise any self control when it comes to fizzy drinks), I have not gone over my phe allowance once and I have provided my husband and myself with healthy, nutritious meals every day. I have not been hungry once. An added bonus seems to be that my weekly grocery shop was cheaper than usual thanks to my meal plans!

I’ve even found some products on the supermarket shelf that have helped me satiate that mid-afternoon sugar craving without going overboard!

At the moment I’m eating 15 – 18g protein per day. I know that’s a lot for some people but I truly believe this could be done on less with some clever substitutions.

There is a lot out there that I think we probably don’t consider eating that a lot of us can work into our diet… This week during my weekly shop I came bome with Weight Watchers Cream Cheese (2.2g per serve), Weight Watchers Belgian Chocolate Brownies (1.5g) and Buttercup Wholegrain Bread (2g per slice). I also bought some goodies at my weekly Weight Watchers meeting that fill me up nicely and I can work into my diet.

If anything, the biggest problem I have had since Thursday is keeping my phe intake consistent. It’s lower than it’s been since my daughter was born in December, but I need to work on the consistency more.

Here is my food diary so far. I will start from Friday – I didn’t start until half way through Thursday because I didn’t sign up until then!

Friday

Breakfast - 1 serve of rolled oats, cooked in water with 1 tbsp of sultanas, a couple of drops of vanilla and 1tsp honey. One banana. 125ml Lophlex LQ orange flavour (4.8g)

Lunch - 75g (dry) Loprofin pasta with 25g Weight Watchers Cream Cheese, grilled mushroom, zucchini, asparagus and halved cherry tomatoes. 1 plum. Lophlex LQ orange flavour (4g)

Dinner - Jacket potato topped with fresh tomato and 25g WW Cream Cheese served with assorted steamed veggies. Formula. (5g)

Snacks - 1 cup of coffee, 1 WW belgian chocolate brownie (1.5g), 1 nectarine

Alright… no time right now to type out any more, but other meals have included grilled veggie sandwich, stirfry and veggie cous cous (4.8g and I could barely finish because it was so filling).

I will post some pictures soon!

Delicious pumpkin soup recipe – PKU friendly

To me there’s nothing more delicious on a cold day than a hot bowl of pumpkin soup. I’m guessing this probably comes from growing up in a home where mum always cooked up her ‘special’ pumpkin soup if it was cold, if I was sick or if it was a special occasion (including enormous pots of the stuff at my 18th birthday party!).

The phe in this recipe is going to depend entirely on what country you’re in, given that it seems every country has a different way of counting pumpkin. In Australia pumpkin is free. You will also need to weigh the potato and then work out the phe per portion depending on the amount of phe in the potato you used.

I apologise now for the lack of picture but my last batch of this recipe (the first I’ve made in years, though i can’t think for a moment why since it’s almost gone!) is very lumpy due to the fact that i don’t own a blender or food processor and I didn’t mash my veggies up first. Next time I make it up (which will be soon) I’ll post a pic

Please bear in mind that nothing in this recipe is exact! There is room to play around a bit depending on your tastes. This recipe works great on the stove or in a slow cooker. If you do it stove top after step 1 just throw all the ingredients in, bring to the boil and let simmer as you would any other soup. Below is my version of the slow cooker recipe, which I prefer as I have found the flavours to be a bit more intense.

Ingredients
1/4 medium sized butternut pumpkin/squash, peeled and diced
1 small potato, peeled and diced
1/2 a medium onion, peeled and sliced (can dice if you prefer, but I like the texture it adds)
1 – 2 cloves of minced garlic, depending on your personal taste
1 tsp nutmeg (can add more if you like)
2 cups water
1 knob butter
Ground sea salt and cracked pepper, to taste
Cream – to serve

*If you don’t have a blender or food processor, boil or steam then mash the pumpkin and potato before adding it to the pot/slow cooker

*Pre-heat slow cooker on high for 15 minutes before use for best results

Method
1. Place the butter, onion and garlic into the slow cooker (or a heated pan on the stove). When butter melts down give it a stir.
2. Add pumpkin, potato and water to the slow cooker pot. Don’t worry if the butter hasn’t melted – this won’t affect the final result. Stir well.
3. Add salt, pepper and nutmeg, stir well. Put the lid on and cook. If your time is limited (4 hours), leave on the high setting. If you have five or more hours, set the slow cooker to low and let cook. It doesn’t matter how long you let it cook for, as long as everything is nice and tender - mine was on for 10 hours and it was delicious. To maximise the effectiveness of the slow cooker avoid taking the lid off too much. You don’t need to stir often, or even at all.
4. When your soup is done, remove the lid, stir well. Carefully transfer into a blender or food processor (make sure it is heat resistant) and blitz it until you get the texture you want.
5. To serve, place in bowls and add a measured dollop of cream and stir through well. You can do the recipe without the cream but it isn’t anywhere near as nice!

This recipe freezes well.

Veggie stroganoff – a quick and easy low pro meal

While shopping last week I decided to do the unusual (for me at least) and check out the pre-made sauces in Woolworths. I’m so glad I did because I picked up the Masterfoods Beef Stroganoff recipe base and I found that per serve it’s free! Yay!

So tonight, feeling thoroughly exhausted from a full day of house hunting, I didn’t want to cook so I decided to give a veggie stroganoff a go.

As it turns out, it made a delicious, low phe and relatively healthy meal! It was so yummy that I stuffed it down before i realised I hadn’t taken a photo (yes, photographing my food is a rather quirky habit of mine if you hadn’t already picked up on that one! lol).

Simply chop up your choice of veggies – free, not free – it depends on what your phe tolerance is and what you like. I used green beans, mushrooms (really an essential for this recipe), onion (again, essential!), carrots, parsnip and pumpkin.

Sautee some garlic, the onion and mushrooms (if you’re having them), meanwhile you need to cook the other veggies – boil, steam… anything goes. When the veggies are cooked throw them into the pan with the sauteed ingredients, add the pouch of Beef Stroganoff Recipe Base. Simmer for 10 minutes, add two tablespoons of light sour cream, simmer for another minute and voila! You have a delicious, healthy low pro meal.

The beauty of this is that you can do half and half – that is half low pro and half normal. Tonight I used half the pouch of sauce on my veggies and the other half over sauteed garlic, onion and a cooked sliced up sausage for Ed. He loved it and it was so easy to do.

Serve with whatever suits your diet. I had mine over 2g of brown rice to make up my phe, but it would go very nicely over low pro rice, with bread or even on a baked potato/sweet potato.

Eating healthily – FATE sweet potato curry recipe

As promised, here is the first of my healthy PKU friendly recipes!

FATE Sweet Potato Curry

This is a recipe by Eileen Green from FATE Special Foods in the UK. It is absolutely delicious, and as I discovered today it works brilliantly cooked either the way the recipe states or by following steps one and two, mixing in the curry powder and then throwing the whole lot into the slow cooker for six hours or however long you want to leave it.  You can also do this recipe with different combinations of veggies. Tonight I did half sweet potato and half pumpkin and it is just as delicious!

However, if you choose to use a slow cooker, beware! It magnifies the heat of the chilli!

This recipe makes enough for you to have a hearty and healthy meal and then freeze extra portions. It reheats well in the microwave.

Ingredients
2 tbsp oil (I use olive oil)
2 tsp cumin seeds
1 – 2 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 tbsp fresh ground ginger, chopped or grated
1 or 2 medium sized fresh chillies, chopped (you can tweak this to your own taste)
250g onion, roughly chopped
2 tsp ground coriander
4 tsp curry powder
2 tbsp fresh coriander, roughly chopped
1 tbsp tomato puree
500g sweet potatoes, cut into bite sized cubes
150g french beans, snapped into medium sized pieces
2 x 400g tins tomatoes
200ml water
Salt and pepper to season

Method
1. Heat the oil in a saucepan. Add the cumin seeds and cook over a gentle heat for about 30 seconds until they turn darker, but not burnt.

2. Add the chopped garlic, ginger and chillies. Cook for about 1 minute. Add the onion and leave to cook over a high heat for about five minutes, until softened and starting to brown lightly.

3. Add the ground coriander, curry powder and fresh coriander, stir well. Leave to cook for a couple of minutes to cook the spices. Stir in the tomato puree.

4. Add the sweet potato and french beans then add the tins of tomatoes and water. Stir and use the back of the spoon to gently crush the tomatoes. Season with salt and pepper and leave to gently cook for about 30 mins or until the vegetables are cooked.

PKU Vegetable Tart recipe

This tart is absolutely delicious served with a tossed herb salad and makes a delightful light meal for lunch or dinner.

PKU Vegetable Tart

Pastry base
115g low protein flour (I used loprofin)
60g butter
30 ml (2tbsp) cold water
1 tsp French or English mustard

Topping
You can fill the pastry case with pretty much whatever you like, as long as it won’t be too soggy (so lots of sauce is a bad idea).

For this tart I used fresh garlic, fresh sliced tomatoes, torn basil leaves, onion, cracked pepper, sea salt and low protein cheese.

Method
1. Preheat oven to 200 degrees C/Gas mark 6

2. In a medium bowl rub the butter into the flour until it resembles breadcrumbs. Make a well in the centre and add the water. Mix with your hands to combine together.

3. Dust a work surface with low protein flour. Place the dough on the surface and knead for one minute. Divide the dough up into four (or however many tarts you would like to make) and roll each piece of dough out. Press the dough into a pastry case or yorkshire pudding tins. slightly prick the base and banke in the pre-heated oven for 15 minutes.

4. Remove the cases from the oven and fill with your desired filling, then return to the oven. The time you bake your tart for will depend on your filling. I baked the tomato based tart for about half an hour.

PKU adult Debbie Colyer interviews me about PKU in Australia

As a lot of you will already know thanks to Facebook, my good PKU adult friend Debbie Colyer has been staying with my husband and I in Melbourne for the last couple of days.

Having Debbie stay has been fantastic – we’ve had a real PKU fest and have had a lot of discussions about raising PKU awareness and fostering more of a sense of community amongst PKUers here in Australia. A big focus for our conversations has been the huge differences in support and even treatment between PKU clinics within Australia and also the issues facing PKU adults here in Australia. We’ve also done a bit of cooking, and I’ll post pictures and recipes in the coming days.

Last night was Debbie’s final night staying with us and she sat down with both Ed and I and interviewed us both about PKU. Debbie has been taking part in the Vodafone World of Difference program for the better part of the last year which has seen Debbie work full time for the New South Wales PKU Association. She has had the opportunity to learn a lot and has been to two major PKU conferences in the US, interviewing people linked in some way to PKU along the way.

I was thrilled Ed agreed to be interviewed by Debbie, though I did have to promise him that I wouldn’t get offended, angry or upset about anything he says – I meant it too, because I know how difficult I can be to live with and to love sometimes when I’m not as compliant with the diet as I should be. I’ll post that interview in the coming days as well, but in this post I have included a 25 minute long interview with me which discusses a lot of issues surrounding PKU in Australia. I hope you enjoy the interview (which I’ve had to split into three parts because of the length) and any feedback and input you’d like to provide would be really valuable to the exciting things we’re planning to do this year.

Part one:

Part two:

Part three:

A healthy PKU friendly meal idea

Sometimes finding food that is both healthy and PKU friendly can be a real challenge. That’s why I’m always so excited when I find something that checks both of these boxes.

While out shopping with my mum yesterday I was browsing the gluten free range in the hope of finding something useful for the low protein diet when my mother ran over to me flapping something manically in one hand – like me, mum gets excited when she finds something lower in protein and healthy!

She had found rice paper. Now, most likely its taken me a while to catch on but I’d never even considered using rice paper for lower protein meals before. In fact, even though I knew rice based things were sometimes lower in protein (like rice pasta) I never even picked a packet of rice paper up. I had a look, and yep, the rice paper was quite low in protein. I was still skeptical – as much as I love to cook and make a mess in the kitchen while I experiment with low pro dishes, the reality is that I often end up going for whatever is quick and easy, especially since I do low and high protein versions of most meals (for my hubby). I figured rice paper was going to be really difficult to work with.

Now don’t get me wrong – there is definitely a knack to working with rice paper, but on the whole it is a lot easier than I

Vegetarian rice paper rolls are low in fat and quite low in protein too. They make a healthy and delicious meal.

expected and the rolls I made were awesome dipped in honey soy sauce.

To make the rice paper rolls I stirfried strips of carrot, zuchinni and onion with garlic and a little soy sauce. I then soaked the rice paper in tepid water for about 30 seconds, moved them carefully (this is where the knack comes in – they smoosh and stick together quite easily) onto a clean tea towel. You then pat them dry with another clean towel on top (very gently), move the paper (which should now be kind of see through and rubbery and very, very floppy) onto a small plate. I then put a small amount of the veggies in the middle of the paper, folded the top and bottom down, the left side over the top of the veggies and then making it as tightly bound as I could I rolled them up. Its a bit hard to describe but you’ll get it when you make it! You could use whatever you like in them, including fruits.

You will need to calculate the protein count depending on the brand of rice paper you buy.

If you try this I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!