FODMAP Free Sunday

This weekend I got busy in the kitchen making FODMAP-free foods for the fam.

#1: Whole Chicken Chicken Stock (adapted from here)

Ingredients:

Organic whole chicken including giblets
Handful fresh parsley from farmers market
3 stalks sad little celery from farmers market
2 bay leaves
2 tbsp rice wine vinegar
1/2 carrot from the farmers market

Put it all in the crockpot with a buncha water and set to 20 hours on low. Results TBD. I'll take the cooked chicken out tomorrow and use for salads/sandwiches.

#2: Chicken Broccoli Cheese Bake (adapted from here)

Ingredients:

1 cup brown rice
Organic chicken cutlets
Olive oil
1/2 head broccoli
Parmesan cheese
Cheddar cheese
Salt and pepper

Cook rice, cook chicken in dutch oven. Steam broccoli. Mix it all together and bake for 15 min. Went over well. But will it reheat? Probably four servings.

#3 FODMAP Friendly Pumpkin Bread (adapted from here)

Ingredients:

1 cup canola oil
2 cups granulated sugar
4 large eggs
2 cups canned pumpkin
2/3 cup water
3 1/3 cups quinoa flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice (cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, clove)
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Mix oil, sugar, eggs, pumpkin, and water; add flour, bp, bs, salt, pumpkin pie spice and vanilla; stir a little. Preheat oven to 350. For muffins, bake for 35 min. For bread, 50 min. These were DELICIOUS. Half the muffins are already gone. Probably all that sugar + oil! {NOTE: The bread was a little squishy near the middle. Might need to bake it longer at a lower temperature.}

#4 Fall Beef Stew (adapted from here)

Ingredients:

1 lb organic beef chunks
1/2 cup or so of quinoa flour
salt and pepper
olive oil
1 16 oz can salt-free diced tomatoes
2 carrots from the farmers market
5 turnips from the farmers market
5 red potatoes from the farmers market
1 tiny celery stalk chopped up real small
1 tbsp chopped parsley
1 2/3 cups water
1/3 cup dry red wine
1 tsp thyme

Coat beef chunks in flour, salt and pepper; brown. Add liquids and stir in the rest of the flour; add veggies and spices; bring to a boil and pop in the oven for an hour and a half at 350 degrees.

The beef was really tough, there were too many turnips, and while the carrots and potatoes were perfect consistency the turnips were very soft. But the flavor of the sauce was great. Wish I had beef stock and more wine on hand. Makes roughly four to six servings.

#5 Poor Woman's Pesto-like Power Spread

Is there such thing as a FODMAP-free garlic/pesto substitute? I made this one up. It's pungent and thrifty, but who knows if it will actually get eaten.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups turnip greens, celery leaves, parsley, broccoli
Olive oil
Lemon juice
Salt
Pepper
Parmesan cheese
Balsamic vinegar

Boil water. Dip greens into the water for 30 seconds. Blend in blender. Add olive oil, lemon juice, salt, pepper,  splash of balsamic vinegar, and parmesan cheese to taste/consistency. Apparently this is very nutritious, if somewhat overpowering, and I probably should have cooked the turnip greens. Will try on pasta or crackers (?) Maybe a sandwich spread? Next time add kale, spinach, basil. Call it Soylent...

FACTS AND FIGURES
 
Prep time: I spent about four hours preparing everything, but that includes chatting with a friend and doing all the dishes.
Servings: Hard to tell; probably 4 each of the entrees.
Agony rating: 7/10. Peeling and chopping; browning meat; measuring ingredients for pumpkin bread; ay ay ay.
Taste and stuff: So far, so good!

*COSTS OF STUFF I HAD TO BUY SPECIAL*

I tossed the receipt, and bought many other things at the grocery, but the cost of all this food probably came in around $70-$80. That includes the fancy organic meat and the organic farmer's market vegetables and eggs. So overall this will probably come in around $6-$8 a serving once I use all the chicken in the slow cooker, which while not stupendous is certainly doable.

VERDICT: A day well spent. We will have breakfast and dinner for almost a full workweek. SUCCESS.

Fast Baked Salmon with Spinach Salad and Sweet Potatoes

Today was one of those crazy days where I had to really hustle to get a cooked meal on the table by 8. I had promised to do a live webcast with a group of students at 7 from home, so I left work at 5:30 on the nose, ran to the grocery and grabbed two fine-looking salmon steaks and two lemons, and was home by 6:20. Thankfully this thing took only fifteen minutes to prep, and so all I had to do was pop it in the oven and tell husband to take it out when the timer went off.

We still have a lot of sweet potatoes left over from Monday, so I decided to add those as a side dish. Add a tiny spinach salad, and this dish is near perfect!

I used my Dutch oven - one dish, easy to clean, makes food taste good.

Love you, Le Creuset.

Ingredients:

2 or however many salmon steaks you want
1/4 lemon per salmon steak
Pepper
Salt
Olive oil
Dried rosemary

Preheat oven to 400 F. Coat the bottom of your Dutch oven with olive oil. Throw in salmon steaks. Cover with salt and pepper, rosemary, and thin slices of lemon and lemon juice.

Hello, my lovelies.

 Then cover and set the timer for 20 minutes.

While that business is happening, prep your plates with the salad. I used spinach, tomato, and canned artichokes. We buy prewashed salad greens and two or three tomatoes every week, and I always keep croutons and olive oil in the house, so this wasn't anything that needed much planning. The artichokes were a find--I bought them a few weeks ago for some unknown purpose and tucked them in the back of the fridge. Obviously skip these if you are low FODMAP.

Top with a generous pour of olive oil followed by a drizzle of balsamic vinegar. Add some croutons (skip if you're not eating wheat/gluten) if you have them right before serving.

I used my last three minutes to stick the leftover sweet potatoes into a pie tin and added them to the oven, next to the salmon. Then I ran to the bedroom, where I did the webcast.

At 7:55, I emerged and was greeted by a finished but slightly lukewarm feast. Just look at all those colorful antioxidants!

One of these days I'll figure out how to take a less blurry photo.

So, how did I do?

Overall, I was really happy with this meal. And it performs well according to 4 out of 5 of my rules:

1. The rule of waste. Awesome. You buy a salmon steak, you eat the salmon steak. Plus I got to use leftovers. And I will definitely find a use for the spinach, artichokes, lemon and tomato I didn't use.

2. The rule of cost. Not so good. Salmon is expensive.

3. The rule of time. Killed it. Fifteen minutes of prep, twenty minutes of (passive chef) cooking, and quick cleanup.

4. The rule of health. Awesome. Salmon = protein, omega 3s; you've got your dark leafy greens in both the salad and the side dish; some good beta carotene and vitamin C in the other veggies and lemon juice; and decent amount of non-grain fiber.  Plus, the meal is low in FODMAPs, lower if you omit the artichokes and mushrooms.

5. The rule of Cartman? We always follow the rule of Cartman in this house. 


FACTS AND FIGURES
 
Prep time: 15 min
Servings: 2
Agony rating: 2/10. So easy! Tomatoes and lemon needed slicing, and the jar of artichokes took a while to pry open. But the only cleanup was a cutting board, a knife, two plates, two forks, a serving spoon, the pie tin for the sweet potatoes and the Dutch oven.
Taste and stuff: 8/10. Husband loved it. I thought the salmon could have used more salt and lemon.

*COSTS OF STUFF I HAD TO BUY SPECIAL*


Spinach: $3.99 for a 5 oz tub; I used about 2 oz., so $2
Lemons: 2 for $1.20; I used 1/2, so $0.30
Salmon steaks: $11.79
Artichokes: $2.19 a jar; I used 1/3; so $0.73
Tomato: Guessing here, but let's say it was $.50 worth of tomato
Croutons, olive oil, vinegar, rosemary, salt, pepper: pantry staples, already bought
Total cost of stuff I had to buy special: $15.32
Cost per serving: $7.66


VERDICT: SUCCESS.