Category Archives: specialised diet

Coconut and chocolate brownies

Posted in cake, coconut oil, eggs, gluten free, home baking, specialised diet, Uncategorized by

An afternoon of recipe testing resulted in these – passed the husband taste bud test!

20160522_200922Preheat the oven to 190c / Gas 5. Line a 20cm square brownie tin with baking paper

Ingredients:

115 g coconut oil                                                          1/2 tsp salt

2 large eggs                                                                   1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

150 g light muscovado sugar                                    60 g coconut flour

40 g buckwheat flour

100 g dark chocolate 85% chopped in to small pieces

Method:

If the coconut oil is not melted, place over a pan of simmering water to melt it.Put all ingredients (except chocolate) in to a bowl and mix thoroughly. Add the chocolate and gently stir in. Pour the mixture in to the tin. Bake for 20-25 mins, until risen and firm around the edges. cut when cold – if stored in the fridge the coconut oil will set into a truffle type consistency.

Date and walnut cake

Posted in cake, food, gluten free, specialised diet, superfood, Uncategorized by

300416

Preheat oven to 180c / Gas 4

30 x 23 cm cake tin (12 x 9 inch) greased and lined

Ingredients:

250 g stoned and chopped dates

40 g butter

300 ml boiling water

3 large eggs (2 if using non gluten-free s r flour)

350 g gluten-free self-raising flour

150 g dark muscovado sugar

150 g chopped walnuts

125 g ground almonds

Method:

Soak the dates in the boiling water – allow to cool

Mix all other ingredients together and add the soaked dates (I don’t drain the liquid off)

Bake in the centre of the oven for 50 mins – 60 minutes or until cake is firm to touch

Turn out and cool.

I don’t add icing to my cakes but a lemon icing would taste good with this cake – topped with walnuts.

One week…

Posted in food, fructose free, gluten free, meat free, specialised diet, Uncategorized by

So…one week has passed and I have not eaten any meat at all (I have had some fish) and I cannot believe how much better I feel. The sluggish feeling has gone completely.

It has however made me realise how ‘alternative’ diets are still not readily catered for and I wonder if they ever will be. Let me explain what I mean. Yesterday, I spent a glorious day  helping out at a function with several people. All the helpers had lunch provided – a picnic. A picnic with standard fayre – an assortment of tasty looking sandwiches, crisps and delicious looking cake. It wasn’t an event ahead of which you would state you are gluten-free, fructose free and meat free – so having helped at previous functions I knew to take my own food.

The point I’m trying to make is that I couldn’t eat any of this ‘normal food’.

When my husband and I go out for dinner it can be quite disheartening when I look down the menu to see only a couple of items that I can choose from and a few more for him because he is only gluten-free..

Now I know, and I’ll say it before you do, that these diets choices I have made are from personal choice not a medical directive so maybe I should suck up and shut up. But, there are millions of people out there for whom a change of diet is a necessity to stay well.

I wonder when the balance of ‘normal’ food to ‘different diets’ will shift?