Tag: main meal

Fried Potato Omlette


Serves 1
Time: 15 mins
~ low FODMAP ~ failsafe ~ low salicylate ~ low amine ~ dairy free ~ gluten free ~

Ingredients

1 large white potato (a)
1 tbsp canola oil (b)
2-3 eggs
3 cm or 7 g celery (c)
25 g dark green tips of leek (d)
1 pinch citric acid
1 pinch salt

Foodnotes

(a) Use white brushed, coliban, sebago or kennebec potatoes, or other large white potatoes with white flesh. Check the colour before buying brushed potatoes because they can come in yellow.
(b) Use canola oil that has no antioxidants (no 310-312, 319-321)
(c) Celery is low FODMAP at 75 g (FODMAP Friendly App, 2018)
(d) Dark green tops of leeks are low FODMAP. They are also slightly higher in salicylates than the white part although suitable for failsafe elimination. Tip: re-grow the leeks.

Instructions
  1. Thickly (double) peel the potato and then slice thinly
  2. Rinse the dark green tips of leek and celery and chop finely
  3. Heat the canola oil in a large frying pan on high heat
  4. Fry the thinly sliced potato until all the potato has started to go transparent and some is lightly browned
  5. Add the green tips of leek, celery, salt and citric acid to the potato and cook until the celery begins to go soft
  6. While the potato is cooking, separate the eggs into whites and yolks
  7. Beat the egg whites until light and fluffy and then gently fold in the egg yolks
  8. Pour the egg mixture over the potato and spread evenly
  9. After a couple of minutes, flip the omlette
  10. When the egg is cooked through, remove from the pan and serve immediately
Personal notes

Usually the omlette falls apart in the flipping stage, probably because my frying pan is much larger than my egg flip, but even if it does, it will taste good.

This is my go-to meal when I’m short on time or resources, or cooking at someone else’s house. I’m actually surprised it’s taken me this long to get it up on the blog, but I guess I must have been more organised in the last few months! It’s good because the ingredients are things I almost always have in the house (especially now I grow my own leeks) and most of my family and friends have them too. If not, eggs and a potato are very easy to pick up at the shop. If citric acid and celery are not on hand, they can easily be omitted; likewise, if fresh chives are on hand, they make a nice addition. So the ingredients are readily available, it’s fast to cook and it’s filling – can’t ask for much more in terms of convenience! I most often have this for lunch on a Saturday morning when I’ve run out of food before doing the weekly shop, or as a light dinner if I’ve flown in late to visit my family and they haven’t had a chance to get to the butcher and buy some fresh meat for me.

I actually made this particular omlette a couple of weeks ago as I had a choir concert on in the evening and I wanted to bring a light dinner with me that wouldn’t require refrigeration for the day. I only managed one bite before the concert as everything was a bit hectic, but it was very welcome immediately afterwards. Because of the eggs, the omlette should be eaten the day it is cooked rather than as leftovers. Cooked eggs build up in amines if left for a day or longer.

This week I need to use up lots of eggs as one of my friends has given me some of her chooks’ eggs and I’m going away soon. I actually made quiche last week, so it might be too soon for another quiche, but perhaps some salads… Last time I tried to make an egg salad I decided to boil all the eggs at once and then freeze the last. I discovered that hard boiled egg whites do NOT freeze well. While the yolk maintains it’s original consistency, defrosted egg white turns rubbery and is quite unpleasant – an experiment that doesn’t need to be repeated. The quiche recipe won’t be appearing here any time soon either as I am liberalising some salicylates back into my diet and so the quiche was filled with high and moderate salicylate vegetables like jap pumpkin, zucchini, carrot and sweet potato (low FODMAP at 1/2 cup or 70 g, The Monash University Low FODMAP App 2018). It was delicious though, and I don’t seem to have reacted!

Jacketless Potatoes


Serves 1
Time 1 hr 40 mins
~ low FODMAP ~ failsafe ~ low salicylate ~ low amine ~ dairy free ~ gluten free ~ vegetarian ~

Ingredients – potato

1 large white potato (a)
1/2 tbsp canola oil (b)
1 tbsp Nuttelex Original
1/4 tsp salt

Suggested toppings

15 g / 1 iceberg lettuce leaf
22 g / 1 red cabbage leaf (c)
8 g / 2 dark green tips of spring onions (d)
1 tbsp chives
12 g / 1/4 stick celery (e)
15 g / small handful of sprouted mung beans
20 g / small handful of bean sprouts
1/4 cup tinned chickpeas, well rinsed (f)
30 g / 5 green beans (g)

Foodnotes

(a) Use white brushed, coliban, sebago or kennebec potatoes, or other large white potatoes with white flesh. Check the colour before buying brushed potatoes because they can come in yellow
(b) Use canola oil that has no antioxidants (no 310-312, 319-321)
(c) Red drumhead cabbage is low FODMAP at 1 cup (89 g, The Monash University Low FODMAP Diet App, 2018)
(d) Tip: re-grow spring onions
(e) Celery is low FODMAP at 75 g (FODMAP Friendly App, 2018)
(f) Tinned chickpeas, well rinsed, are low FODMAP at 1/4 cup (42 g, The Monash University Low FODMAP Diet App, 2018)
(g) Green beans are low FODMAP at 14 beans (75 g, FODMAP Friendly App, 2018)

Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 160 deg C
  2. Thickly (double) peel potato
  3. Cover potato in canola oil and then wrap in alfoil
  4. Bake the potato in the oven at 160 deg C for 1 h 30 mins, or until a skewer passes easily through the potato and it is soft all the way through
  5. Allow the potato to cool slightly and then peel off the alfoil and cut up
  6. Place the Nuttelex on the hot potato and allow it to melt. Sprinkle with salt
  7. Rinsed and chop desired toppings and serve with hot potato
Personal Notes

This recipe is very versatile and can really be anything you choose. I’d suggest picking and choosing the toppings depending on what is available as they are not all necessary to make a good sized meal. I have also adapted this recipe several times – a particularly successful adaption has been to swap the chickpeas for left over (defrosted) roast chicken pieces – just be sure to defrost and add the chicken immediately before eating. Do not try and freeze the whole meal as the potato does not usually freeze well (speaking from experience!). If you want to make leftovers, I suggest storing the combined toppings and potato separately and in the fridge. When you are ready to eat it again, heat up just the potato and then add the toppings.

My favourite thing about this recipe is that is can be easily done with family and friends or while travelling. It is pretty hard to mess up if you have family or friends that want to cater for you. If you are camping, you can cook the potatoes in the fire (if it is fire season) and the vegetarian toppings mean you don’t have to worry about amines. If you are camping but it is fire ban season, or you need a quick and easy meal, boil the potatoes instead and serve with Nuttlex, salt and the same toppings. I had boiled potatoes with toppings on a recent Easter camping trip (photo below) and it worked really well.

Staple Beef Pasta Sauce

Serves 6
Time: 1 hr
~ low FODMAP ~ failsafe ~ low salicylate ~ low amine ~ dairy free ~ gluten free ~

Ingredients

500 g fresh beef mince (a)
35 g dark green tips of leek (b)
80 g celery (c)
650 g / 2 large white potatoes (d)
250 g swede
1 tin brown lentils
150 g green beans (e)
250 g green cabbage (f)
500 mL homemade chicken stock
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp citric acid
1 tbsp maple syrup
1 tbsp canola oil (g)
400 g / 6 serves of low FODMAP, failsafe, dairy free, wheat free pasta or spaghetti (h)
250 g / 1 large carrot – moderate salicylate option

Foodnotes

(a) Ensure very fresh meat (as instructed by dietician)
(b) Dark green tops of leeks are low FODMAP. They are also slightly higher in salicylates than the white part although suitable for failsafe elimination. Tip: re-grow the leeks.
(c) Celery is low FODMAP at 75 g (FODMAP Friendly App, 2018)
(d) Use white brushed, coliban, sebago or kennebec potatoes, or other large white potatoes with white flesh. Check the colour before buying brushed potatoes because they can come in yellow.
(e) Green beans are low FODMAP at 14 beans (75 g, FODMAP Friendly App, 2018). Frozen green beans can be substituted for fresh green beans and used in the same way.
(f) Green drumhead cabbage is low FODMAP at 1 cup (94 g, The Monash University Low FODMAP Diet App, 2018)
(g) Use canola oil that has no antioxidants (no 310-312, 319-321)
(h) My prefered pasta is Ceres Organics gluten free Quinoa Rice Spaghetti, Fusilli or Penne. See comments on pasta here

Instructions
    1. Rinse dark green tips of leek, celery, potato, green beans and green cabbage
    2. Thickly peel potatoes and swede, and chop into small cubes
    3. For a moderate salicylate option, peel the carrot and chop into thin slices
    4. Finely chop celery and green tips of leek, keeping them separate
    5. Top and tail green beans and then coarsely chop
    6. Coarsely chop the green cabbage
    7. Drain canned lentils and rinse well
    8. Heat 1 tbsp of canola oil on high heat in a large pot
    9. Add celery, 1/4 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp citric acid and carrot (moderate salicylate option) to the pot and cook until celery starts to go clear, about 5 mins
    10. Add green tips of leek to the pot and cook until they soften, about 2 mins
    11. Turn the heat down to moderate-high and add the beef mince. Continually stir until the beef mince is no longer pink, adding a small amount of water if the mince starts to stick to the bottom of the pan
    12. Add lentils, potato, swede and chicken stock to the pot
    13. Add extra water until all the vegetables and meat are covered
    14. Bring the sauce to the boil and then simmer with the lid on until the potato and swede are soft, about 20 mins
    15. Remove the lid and add green beans to the sauce
    16. Around this time, cook the pasta according to packet instructions
    17. Simmer the sauce until the water level is just below the vegetables and meat, about 10 mins
    18. Add the green cabbage, maple syrup and 1/4 tsp salt to the pot
    19. Cook for another 5 mins until green cabbage is soft
    20. Serve immediately with low FODMAP, failsafe pasta, or freeze immediately to avoid amine build-up
Personal Notes

The long awaited pasta sauce is here! Or maybe it is not long awaited, but I’ve definitely refered to it several times. It has been one of my staples – easy to make in large batches and it freezes well.

I have been working on this recipe for a while, tweaking ingredients so that it tastes good and making sure there is no FODMAP stacking going on. I think I finally have it right! As I cooked this sauce I was speaking to a good friend on the phone and I realised that although I call this my staple pasta sauce, it can also go by different names, and they would call it “nutrition mush”. Slightly less appealing, but rather accurate – vegetables, meat and carbohydrates all in one. If the sauce seems to be a bit watery, it can be thickened with gluten free cornstarch, or you can add some rice early on to soak up the water. If adding rice, it can really be eaten as a meal on its own without the pasta.

Just to prove that I really have been working on this recipe for a while, here is a photo of the same pasta sauce but back in February and with buckwheat pasta rather than quinoa and rice spaghetti. Alas, although the sauce tastes better now, the lighting is not as good at my new place.

Beef Burgers

Makes 16 patties, Serves 8
Time 30 mins
~ low FODMAP ~ failsafe ~ low salicylate ~ low amine ~ dairy free ~ gluten free ~

Ingredients – Beef Patties

560 g fresh beef mince (a)
130 g tinned chickpeas (b)
2 eggs
1/2 cup Orgran plain gluten free flour
10 g / 8 dark green spring onion tips (c)
1/2 + 2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp dried chives
Approximately 1 cup of quinoa flakes or rice crumbs

Ingredients – For Each Burger

Low FODMAP, failsafe bread roll (d)
Nuttelex Original
Iceburg lettuce
Red cabbage (e)
Fried egg
Peeled, grated carrot (moderate salicylate option)

Foodnotes

(a) Ensure very fresh meat (as instructed by dietician)
(b) Tinned chickpeas, well rinsed, are low FODMAP at 1/4 cup (42 g, The Monash University Low FODMAP Diet App, 2018)
(c) Tip: re-grow spring onions
(d) Low FODMAP, failsafe bread rolls can be made from Well and Good Crusty Bread Mix, warm water, canola oil and rice flour. Preparation of the rolls takes 1 h 30 min in total. The bread mix is available online from Gluten Free Direct – Order here.
(e) Red drumhead cabbage is low FODMAP at 1 cup (89 g, The Monash University Low FODMAP Diet App, 2018)

Instructions
    1. Drain and rinse tinned chickpeas well
    2. Place the chickpeas in a large bowl and mash them with a fork
    3. Rinse the dark green tips of spring onions and chop finely
    4. To the chickpeas add beef mince, 2 eggs, spring onion tips, 1/2 tsp salt and 1/2 tsp dried chives. Mix well
    5. To the meat mixture, add flour slowly, mixing well. The resulting mixture should stay together when rolled in balls
    6. Prepare a bowl filled with rice crumbs or quinoa flakes. Prepare a plate for the uncooked beef patties
    7. Take a small handful of beef mixture, about 1/3 cup in volume, and roll into a ball, then squash until it is only 1 cm thick. Place the pattie in the bowl of quinoa flakes or rice crumbs and coat well. Place the uncooked pattie on the prepared plate
    8. Beef patties can be cooked one of two ways. If you have the use of a BBQ, beef patties can be cooked on te BBQ using non-stick BBQ liners to minimise meat browning. Seal on each side and be careful not to brown the meat but cook it through. Cooking on a BBQ takes about 10 min
    9. If you do not have the use of a BBQ, beef patties can be cooked in a frying pan on the stove. Heat the frying pan to medium-high heat and sprinkle 1/2 tsp on salt into the pan. Place the patties in the frying pan, cook for 3 mins on each side, shaking the pan to redistribute the salt when flipping. Cook for up to another minute on each side or until the beef patty is no longer pink when cut.
    10. While the patties are cooking, rinse the lettuce and red cabbage and tear into small pieces.
    11. In the hot pan or on the BBQ after cooking the beef patties, fry the eggs for the burgers
    12. Assemble the burgers immediately before eating. Butter the bread roll and put beef pattie, iceburg lettuce, red cabbage and fried egg in the burger. Any burgers not eated immediately should be frozen immediately as they contain meat and eggs. Eggs should be fried fresh if the defrosted burger is eaten on another day.
    Personal Notes

    Firstly, thanks for being patient in waiting for my latest post. I moved house and life got a bit crazy, so I reverted to my staples of schnitzel and roast vegetables, basic pasta sauce and chicken stir-fry or beef stir-fry and didn’t try any new recipes, or take the time to weigh ingredients. My PhD is also pretty full-on at the moment, lots of nights where I don’t start cooking until late.

    Unfortunately, cooking late with other things on your mind can lead to mistakes! Before Easter I badly burnt myself on the oven, and tonight I forgot to add canola oil to the bread mix – which I realised as soon as I took the rolls and loaves out of the oven and saw that they were small and looked strange! You can see in the photo below the rolls look different to the ones at the top of the page. Oops! I guess we all make mistakes, and luckily the burgers tasted good anyway, and that’s what matters.

    I prefer to make these burgers with rice crumbs and use the BBQ, but as a result of moving house, I don’t have either of these two on hand. The image at the top of the page is of the same burgers that I made at my old place using the BBQ and rice crumbs. Tonight I used the frying pan, which also worked well as it is a bit easier to keep an eye on them and make sure they don’t go dry (see photo below).  Using a pan can slow down the cooking process depending on how many patties you can fit in the one pan – in my case it took 3 batches to cook all the patties. The rice crumbs provide a better coating to prevent meat browning, but the quinoa flakes also seemed to work fine.

    Finally, choko chutney is a nice addition to the beef burger, especially if you have the burger without the egg as the egg yolk acts like a sauce. Once chokos are back in season, I will publish a recipe for choko chutney.

Lamb, Lentil and Vegetable Pie

Serves 6
Time: ~ 1 hr 10 mins
~ low FODMAP ~ failsafe ~ low salicylate ~ low amine ~ dairy free ~ gluten free ~

Ingredients

300 g diced lamb (a)
1 leek (b)
70 g celery / 3 sticks (c)
1 swede
1 large white potato (d)
1 tin of lentils (e)
200 g green beans (f)
160 g green drumhead cabbage (g)
1 packet Genius gluten free shortcrust pastry (h)
Rice flour for dusting
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp citric acid
2 tbsp gluten free cornstarch
3 tbsp canola oil (i)
canola oil spray or rice bran oil spray (j)
1 egg
3 cups of low FODMAP, failsafe chicken stock, or water
marbles or 1 cup of rice (not eaten)

Foodnotes

(a) Ensure very fresh meat (as instructed by dietician)
(b) Dark green tops of leeks are low FODMAP. They are also slightly higher in salicylates than the white part although suitable for failsafe elimination. Tip: re-grow the leeks.
(c) Celery is low FODMAP at 75g (FODMAP Friendly App, 2018).
(d) Use white brushed, coliban, sebago or kennebec potatoes. Check the colour before buying brushed potatoes because they can come in yellow.
(e) Tinned lentils, well rinsed, are low FODMAP at 1/2 cup (The Monash University Low FODMAP Diet App, 2018)
(f) Green beans are low FODMAP at 14 beans (75 g, FODMAP Friendly App, 2018). Frozen green beans can be substituted for fresh green beans and used in the same way.
(g) Green drumhead cabbage is low FODMAP at 1 cup (94 g, The Monash University Low FODMAP Diet App, 2018)
(h) Available in some Coles supermarkets in Australia
(i) Use canola oil that has no antioxidants (no 310-312, 319-321).
(j) Canola or rice bran oil spray should have no antioxidants (no 310-312, 319-321) or soy lecithin (moderate amines). Propellants such as propane, butane, isobutane are fine.

Instructions
  1. Take Genius shortcrust pastry out of the freezer the day or morning before and defrost in the fridge.
  2. Take Genius shortcrust pastry out of the fridge and warm to room temperature on the bench
  3. Cut off green tips of leek. Rinse the tips and then chop them finely.
  4. Rinse celery and chop finely.
  5. Thickly (double) peel large white potato and swede. Chop into small cubes.
  6. Drain and rinse tinned lentils.
  7. Top and tail and rinse green beans. Chop into small pieces, about 4 cm in length.
  8. Finely chop cabbage.
  9. Heat 1 tbsp canola oil in a large pot or saucepan on high heat.
  10. Add celery and cook for ~3 mins until soft
  11. Add green tips of leek, salt and citric acid and cook until soft.
  12. Remove celery and leek from the pot.
  13. Preheat the oven to 200 deg C
  14. Add 1 tbsp canola oil and turn heat down to medium.
  15. Add diced lamb to the pot and seal with frequent stirring. If the lamb starts to stick, add 1 tbsp water.
  16. Once lamb is sealed, add potato and swede and turn heat back up to medium-high. Cook for about 3 mins.
  17. Return leek and celery to the pot along with lentils.
  18. Cover the meat and vegetables with chicken stock, or water if you have no homemade low FODMAP failsafe stock.
  19. Simmer with lid on for 20 mins.
  20. Meanwhile, spray the inside of a 25 cm diameter pie dish with oil.
  21. Knead the pastry, divide in two and roll out to fit a base and lid the pie dish.
  22. Place the pastry base (and sides) into the pie dish, then line with baking paper and fill with marbles or rice.
  23. Cook the base pastry for 10 mins. Afterwards remove the marbles/rice and baking paper.
  24. Add green beans and cabbage to the pot and cook for a further 5 mins with the lid on.
  25. Mix the cornflour in a small amount of water so that it does not form lumps, and then add to the pot.
  26. Take the lid off the pot and evaporate the water (~ 10 mins) until a thick mixture is left (it should not resemble soup).
  27. Scoop the pie filling into the pie and cover with the pastry lid, pinching around the edges.
  28. Beat the egg and then brush it over the pastry lid.
  29. Cook the pie for 20 mins, until the lid is light brown.
  30. As the pie contains meat, serve immediately, or freeze immediately.
Personal notes

This pie taste much better with chicken stock rather than water, but water is a good backup if there is no stock on hand. The current recipe makes a very full pie, and it could be made without the swede and potato. I tend to chop the swede up very small because I don’t like the taste of it on it’s own but it’s good hidden in a meal. I recommend making the pie on a weekend rather than weekday as it is quite time consuming. I spread the pastry a bit thin, and it ended up cracking, as you can see below.

At Coles this week, I found a leek with the most green I have even seen in a shop. Very impressive!

Edit: I recently re-read the RPAH charts and discovered that the emulsifier soy lecithin that is often used in canola oil spray is actually moderate in amines. I have since switched to using rice bran oil without soy lecithin.