Everything from scratch
So! I am having some friends over to my place this Saturday, and, due to my variety of food issues (still following paleo & FODMAPs diets), I am preparing most of the food. What a great opportunity to try out a handful of new recipes (and annoy the shirt our of my neighbors with my noisy food processor…)! Here are some of recipes I’ve made so far:
I replaced the honey with maple syrup (slightly less), and they came out really moist! A bit too sweet for me, but I’m trying to include close to the called-for amount as some who have eaten my paleo sweets say they aren’t sweet enough (I think I’m super-sensitive to sugar since I don’t eat much at all. Just check the labels of your sauces to see how much you are in fact consuming).
My cheapo food processor wasn’t too pleased with the spinach at first, so I just kept pulsing, then scraping the contents up from the blades, and pulsing again. I used chives instead of garlic (a FODMAPs “avoid”), and it came out pretty tasty! Avocado is on some “caution” and “avoid” lists for FODMAPs, but it was only one to a large amount of spinach, and sometimes I just want to eat what I want to eat. And hope my digestive enzyme supplement kicks in.
Again, subbed maple syrup for honey. The stickiness of the batter sort of clogged my cheap hand mixer, but everything mixed together nicely by hand. I added a little bit of crumbled Hershey’s unsweetened baking bar (delighted to find unsweetened chocolate at Martin’s!) instead of the chocolate chips (I love what Enjoy Life is trying to accomplish with their products free from the top 8 allergens produced in dedicated facilities, but their chocolate chips are loaded with sugar, and I can’t eat most of their products comfortably). Haven’t tried them, but they smell pretty darn good!
In the process of making this recipe, I rediscovered how good sweet potatoes are straight out of the oven! Maybe their delectable nature was accented by my severely reduced sugar intake (I’ve noticed that fruits & vegetables taste much more flavorful to me now). Good thing I made two, so I had enough for the dip! Again, I had to substitute for garlic, so I added some cumin and threw in some cinnamon on a whim. NOM!
I made this sauce to accompany shrimp. AGAIN, I modified a bit. I used red pepper flakes instead of the roasted peppers and a bit of paprika. I used a whole, fresh pineapple as canned fruit is on the FODMAPs “avoid” list. Wow, what a great mix of sweet and spicy! I think it will be great with un-breaded, chilled shrimp!
I used apple cider vinegar instead of white wine. I used 1/2 EVOO, 1/2 coconut oil. Mine did not get as thick as pictured, despite very slow drizzling of oil and vigorous whisking. It’s sitting in the fridge, so we’ll see if it stiffens up at all. It’s not a huge deal if it doesn’t, I’ll just use less. I made this specifically to use in a chicken salad recipe (I’ll sub cucumber and fresh dill for the dill pickles. Man, the ingredients in store-bought, canned pickles…).
UPDATE: the mayo did in fact firm up in the fridge, to the point of a solid state, but it mixed in fairly well with the other ingredients.
Well, those are the most exciting things I’ll be presenting to guests, as well as some deviled eggs (basically dry mustard and lactose-free yogurt mixed in with the yolks).
Yeah for home cooking!
UPDATE: I also made some crackers (can’t find the exact recipe link…) from walnut & almond meal (ground in my food processor), coconut oil, chives, coconut flour, and salt, blended then rolled thin between two sheets of parchment paper (with a wine bottle, no rolling pin in my kitchen) and baked for 15 minutes (cut into more-or-less squares 10 minutes in). Pretty tasty! And nice to know exactly what I’m eating! It will be interesting to see how everyone responds to the foods I’ve prepared; it’s been a while since I abandoned the “regular” versions of some of the foods, so I think my tolerance for substitutes is much higher- hope they like at least some of it! And if not, I will happily eat leftovers.
hemhawseesaw 