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.

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.

Best ever PKU low protein pancakes

As you all know I’ve been taking a bit of a break from blogging until we’re in a living situation that allows me to get back into the kitchen and cook on a more frequent basis. We move next week and I’m really looking forward to it – a kitchen will a full sized fridge, a splashback instead of the bare plasterboard wall we’ve got now and on the same level as the rest of the house which will make looking after my daughter and cooking at the same time much easier!

Still, sometimes no matter how much you want to avoid it (in my case for fear of ruining said bare plasterboard wall… my mother in law would kill me!) you have no choice but to cook. And as they say, necessity is the mother of invention.

Well, this morning I spent most of my time procrastinating… about my breakfast! You see, I wasn’t particularly well organised in my shopping this week and I didn’t plan my meals particularly well so here I am on friday morning, hanging out for my husband’s pay day on Monday, and with excrutiatingly little in the fridge and cupboards except for low protein products, various out of date things (oops!) and a few odds and ends that don’t exactly equal a meal. Don’t get me wrong, it was actually quite productive! During my procrastination I managed to feed, bath and play with the baby, put her down for a nap, make myself a low protein latte while I delighted in the gentle hum, hissing of steam  and delicious coffee smell coming from my home espresso machine, clean the kitchen and bathroom and put on a load of washing. Eventually though, it was inevitable that I was not going to be able to ignore my hunger any longer.

I knew I was going to have to get creative if I wanted a meal that was going to fill me up and not blow my morning’s phe budget. I have been avoiding doing too much low protein cooking (or any cooking for that matter) but I decided to summon up everything I had to make myself a batch of pancakes from an unknown recipe.

Here is the final product:

I’ve got to say, I’m pretty pleased with them. Now, they’re NOT phe free. I attribute that as to why they’re so good. The good thing is though, you don’t need to eat the whole recipe. My next experiment is going to be making this recipe oil free.

Kate’s PKU Pancakes (based on a recipe from Fate Special Foods)
200g fate baking mix (you can try any other baking mix you have but I can’t guarantee results)
1 tsp baking powder
450ml water
50ml oil
A good splash of vanilla extract (I didn’t measure but I used a lot)
Pinch salt
1 – 2 tablespoons sugar (I used Demerara sugar)
1 medium egg (6g protein/6 50mg exchanges)

Method
Place all ingredients in a large bowl and mix with a hand mixer until well combined. The batter should be quite thick. Heat a frying pan at a touch over medium heat and put in one or two squirts of low calorie spray (don’t use pouring oil or butter – it will make the pancakes overly greasy, gummy and not very nice).

Spoon the mixture into the frying pan and tilt the frying pan in circles (let me know if you want me to put up a video of what I mean by this) to get the mixture to spread out a bit but there’s no need to do anything else to it. You will need to flip the pancakes when lots of bubbles appear on the surface but BEFORE they burst. It takes a few goes but you’ll get the hang of getting the perfect colour soon!

To find the grams/exchanges per pancake simply divide 6 by the number of pankcakes or pikelets you make. I used a large soup ladle to put the mix into the frying pan and I made 12 pancakes plus a small pikelet.

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.

Low protein PKU crumpets recipe

I absolutely LOVE these crumpets. They taste pretty close to the real thing and they look like the real thing too. I haven’t quite perfected getting rid of the white look on top, but I know other people have so it is possible! They take a while to make but are well worth the trouble. I have to say, these crumpets got me through the early stages of my pregnancy when I could barely eat!

Ingredients
300g Loprofin mix
1 sachet yeast (comes with mix)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp bicarb soda
250ml tepid water
1 carton Loprofin PKU drink or 200ml of some kind of PKU milk
Oil for frying (you can use butter, which I prefer for the flavour)

Method

1. Mix the baking mix, yeast, salt and bicarb soda in a large bowl. Then mix water with the PKU drink and pour into bowl.

2. Mix with a wooden spoon for 5 mins (awesome arm workout!) or with an electric hand mixer until smooth and creamy. Cover with cling wrap and leave to rise in a warm place for around an hour (keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn’t spill over).

3. Once the mixture has risen put a drop of oil in a non-stick frying pan and rub into surface with a piece of kitchen towel. Heat the pan to a medium heat.

4. Take a table spoon and scoop up some of the mix, using another table spoon you can sort of shape it a bit and also helps when putting it in the pan. I actually spoon the mixture straight into greased egg rings – they keep the mixture in place and give a nice shape.

5. Cook for around 4-5 mins. The surface of the mixture will start to look dry and little bubbles will burst to create ‘holes’ like you seen on real crumpets. When you’re satisfied with this (don’t overcook the underside) flip over for a minute or two (again be careful not to burn) to finish the crumpets off. 

6. Leave to cool before eating. The crumpets are delicious still warm with butter and drizzled with honey or jam.

7. To eat just drop into the toaster like you would with regular crumpets. Enjoy!

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.

Sundried tomato and Basil Muffins

These muffins are a great snack, and a good alternative to traditional, sweet muffins. They rise beautifully, just like normal muffins.

This recipe is from www.nutrition4me.com.au

Makes 6 Muffins

Ingredients
2 cups loprofin mix
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp Orgran Egg Replacer
1/3 cup olive oil
1/3 cup pizza sauce
200 ml Milupa LP drink
1/4 cup fresh basil leaves, chopped
1/2 cup sundried tomatoes, roughly chopped

Method
1. Combine dry ingredients in a bowl.
2. Add olive oil, pizza sauce and Milupa, stirring after each addition.
3. Add basil and sundried tomatoes, stirring to combine. Do not overmix.
4. Spoon the mixture into a lightly greased muffin tray and cook in a moderate oven for 10 minutes or until cooked (I cooked mine at 180 degrees C for around 20 minutes, but bear in mind cooking times in different ovens vary greatly).
5. Cool on a wire rack.

Pumpkin Scones recipe

These scones are SO GOOD! Seriously, all I’m going to say is that I think I’ve found my new favourite snack. So easy to make too!

This recipe comes from www.nutrition4me.com.au

Ingredients
60g Nuttelex (or other dairy free margarine)
2.5 cups Loprofin baking mix
1/4 cup caster sugar
1/2 cup cooked pumpkin, mashed
1 tsp egg replacer mixed with 2 tbsp water
3 tsp Wards Baking Powder, sifted 3 times (I forgot to sift and they still came out brilliantly!)
1/2 tsp salt
3 tbsp rice milk

Pre-heat oven to 210 degrees C

Method
1. Cream Nuttelex and sugar until light and fluffy.
2. Stir in pumpkin and egg replacer mixture, mixing well.
3. Add dry ingredients. Mix thoroughly.
4. Add the rice milk and mix into a soft dough.
5. Turn out onto a floured surface and knead lightly.
6. Roll out to 2cm thick and cut into round shapes using a 5cm scone cutter.
7. Brush with a little rice milk and bake for 15 minutes.

PKU Spicy Fruit Buns recipe

This recipe is a slightly tweaked version of a recipe by Eileen Green – I’m guessing the original, using FATE baking mix makes absolutely amazing buns, but I have tweaked this to suit the products we have available to us here in Australia.

These buns are absolutely delicious warm out of the oven spread with butter and are great with or without the glaze. Personally, my preference is no glaze, simply because it is so sticky!

Ingredients:

Spicy Fruit Buns… yum!

250g Loprofin Baking Mix
250g Wheat Starch (available for Asian grocery stores) – If you can’t get this use 500g of Loprofin
3 tbsp Unflavoured Metamucil (I think Benefiber would be okay too)
1 sachet yeast (in Loprofin box)
Pinch salt
75g Demerara Sugar
2 tsp mixed spice (or more if you like a really strong taste)
100mL oil
420mL warm water
250g dried fruit (just sultanas is okay)
Extra baking mix for shaping

For sugar glaze:
75g Caster Sugar
75mL water

PRE-HEAT OVEN TO 200 degrees C

To make the buns:

1. Place the baking mix, wheat starch, sugar, salt, spice, yeast and Metamucil into a bowl and mix well. Put the measured oil and water into a seperate jug.

2. Pour the oil and water all at once onto the dry ingredients and have an electric hand mixer with dough hooks ready. Start the mixer up on a low speed. The mix will be fairly runny at first but will thicken up after around 30 seconds.

3. Mix very gently on the slowest speed without beating for 1.5 – 2 minutes. Do NOT lift the mixer out of the mixture – just gently glide them around the bowl to ensure everything gets mixed in. The mixture will be smooth when it is ready.

4. Using a metal spoon stir in the fruit.

5. Take a piece of cling film and place it on your scales. Sprinkle it with baking mix (I didn’t do this and it worked just fine) and dust your hands with baking mix as well. Using a metal spoon weigh out about 100g.

6. Transfer the weighed mixture into your dusted hands and gently shape the dough into a bun shape. Repeat for the whole mixture.

Remember – as long as you have baking mix on your hands the dough will not be sticky!

7. Place the buns onto one or two greased baking trays, leaving room between them to rise (it is okay if they are touching a bit when they rise). Place the tray/s into large polythene bags and tie the ends up, trapping enough air inside so that the bag is well lifted above the buns. Place in a warm area and leave to rise until doubled in size – about 30 mins.

8. Place in a pre-heated oven (see above) for about 30 mins until golden brown.

If you want to make the glaze, do this while the buns are baking by placing the water and sugar in a saucepan. Bring to the boil and allow to simmer for 5 minutes.

9. When the buns are cooked take them out of the oven and if desired immediately brush with glaze.

Store in airtight containers. Freezes well.

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.