Month: January 2012

BETTER than a sandwich!

For a quick boost try the following super tasty liver loving lunch:

Quick pitta lunch

Wholemeal pitta bread, sliced open, spread with humous or tahini, add slices of avocado, a handful of watercress and spinach, and season with a dash of lemon juice, salt and black pepper. For extra nutrition and yumminess add sesame seeds or pine nuts or sunflower seeds. Scrumptious.

Wow! Tasty, quick POWER salad.

Puy lentil salad with soy beans, sugar snap peas & broccoli

Serves 4

Ingredients

• 200.0g Puy lentils
• 1.0l hot vegetable stock
• 200.0g tenderstem broccoli
• 140.0g frozen soya beans , thawed
• 140.0g sugarsnap peas
• 1 red chilli , deseeded and sliced

Dressing

• 2 tbsp sesame oil
• juice 1 lemon
• 1 garlic clove , chopped
• 40.0ml reduced-salt soy sauce
• 3cm piece fresh root ginger , finely grated
• 1 tbsp clear honey

 Boil lentils in stock until just cooked, about 15 mins. Drain, then tip into a large bowl.

1. Bring a saucepan of salted water to the boil, throw in the broccoli for 1 min, add the beans and peas for 1 min more. Drain, then cool under cold water. Pat dry, then add to the bowl with the lentils.
2. Mix together the dressing ingredients with some seasoning.
3. Pour over the lentils and veg, then mix in well with the chopped chilli. Pile onto a serving platter or divide between 4 plates and serve.

Per serving

302 kcalories, protein 22.0g, carbohydrate 42.0g, fat 7.0 g, saturated fat 1.0g, fibre 8.0g, sugar 9.0g, salt 1.41 g

Recipe from Good Food magazine.

Day or night, alone or with friends – tasty goodness.

Avocado and black bean wraps

Serves 4 for a filling meal, or halve the quantities and serve with a leafy salad for a lighter lunch.

Ingredients

• 8 wholemeal wraps (in world food isle with Mexican stuff, or in bakery section)

• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 onion , chopped
• 3 garlic cloves , chopped
• 1 tbsp paprika
• 1 tbsp ground cumin
• 5 tbsp cider vinegar
• 3 tbsp clear honey
• 3 x 400g cans black beans , rinsed and drained
• choose a few toppings-  diced avocado, salsa, sliced jalapeño peppers
• crème fraîche / yoghurt or Tabasco / hot pepper sauce, to serve

Serve with green salad, sliced tomatoes, or green beans and sweetcorn.

1. In a large frying pan, heat the oil. Add the onion and garlic, and cook for 5 mins.
2. Add the spices, vinegar and honey. Cook for 2 mins more.
3. Add the beans and some salt / pepper, and heat through.
4. Remove from the heat and mash the beans gently with the back of your spoon to a chunky purée.
5. Spread some beans over wraps, scatter with your choice of toppings and add a spoonful of crème fraîche / yoghurt to cool down, or a splash of Tabasco / hot pepper sauce to spice it up.
6. Roll up and YUM!

Sin free sinning!

This wonderful recipe is from a very good friend:

Fat free fudgy wudgy brownies

Preheat the oven to 180C

Dry ingredients:

¾ cup of wholemeal flour

¼ cup cocoa powder

½ cup white flour

1 tsp baking powder

½ cup Demerara sugar (or brown sugar)

¾ cup broken walnuts (optional)

Handful dark chocolate chips (optional)

Mix the dry ingredients together in a bowl.

Wet ingredients:

1 ½ cups black beans (one tin drained and rinsed well)

1 cup pitted medjool dates (this can be anywhere from 7-10 dates depending on their size, or just use ordinary dried dates if you don’t want to fork out for medjool)

¼ cup maple syrup (or date syrup, which is particularly tasty, or indeed any other kind of syrup)

Whiz the wet ingredients together in a food processor until completely smooth.

Then add:

1 TB balsamic vinegar (or cider vinegar)

3 tsp instant coffee (optional but enhances the flavour)

1 tsp vanilla essence

2 TB flax meal (ground flax seeds) or other ground seeds such as hemp powder

1 cup water

Whiz that all up until it is smooth, then mix in with the dry ingredients.

Spoon into a greased 9×12 or 9×13 pan.

Bake for 14 minutes then take the pan out and rotate it and put it back in for another 14 minutes. Test with a toothpick to see if it comes out clean. If not put it in for 2 more minutes.

Let cool before you slice. Slice it into 16 brownies-4 by 4.

Store in an airtight tin. I think they taste better the next day. Yum!

 

I’ve been monitoring the ‘de-tox diet’ phenomenon for many years, and each year my scepticism grows. Avid marketers have spotted a desire for many people to find a solution to the modern malaise of feeling tired and sluggish, and there is a proliferation of products – powders / pills / soups /  excercises / regimes / books / websites / treatments etc that claim to help powerfully cleanse the body and leave you lighter, fresher, and generally bright eyed and bushy tailed.

However, on the one hand many run of the mill Doctors will tell you that the liver does a perfectly good job of dealing with toxins. On the other hand many people feel generally under par much of the time. Although I agree that the liver generally does an excellent job, some of us may need a wee bit more help for our liver to do the job we want it to.  Given the disadvantage that those with Gilbert’s Syndrome experience, with a reduced capacity to process certain toxins, it makes sense to me to look after my diet so that I can help my liver. But I don’t want to burden my body with the shock of suddenly changing my diet to all fruit or liquid or pureed broccoli or whatever. My message would be to make a lifestyle choice to ensure you feel better EVERY day.

So, what can we all agree on?  Well, water is good for you. Drink plenty of it. Alcohol may be ok in small quantities, but personally it makes me feel awful so I avoid it. Caffeine can mess up your blood sugar levels and so reduce your ability to maintain consistent energy, particularly because those with Gilbert’s Syndrome are lacking in an enzyme that needs stable blood sugar levels for it to work properly. Eat little and often to keep your energy up, but make sure you stick to wholefoods such as brown rice, wholemeal bread, crackers, jacket potatoes etc and plenty of vegetables and fruit and not high fat food. This will help you maintain a steady weight, not experience hunger pangs, as well as avoiding over burdening your liver with fat processing. Protein is supposed to help with extra energy. I avoid eating animals and animal products for environmental reasons as well as health and compassionate reasons, so my sources of protein tend to be marmite (full of an awesome range of vitamins), and nut butters, such as peanut butter and cashew butter (high in fat but replace margarine and used as my only source of fat– don’t rule it out completely as your body does need fat), avocado, hemp powder added to soups and dressings, plus lots of soya milk.

Star liver foods include: broccoli, garlic, turmeric, avocado, beetroot, apples, lemons, walnuts.

If you need caffeine then try swapping to green tea which is better at cleansing the liver, and more gentle to your system than coffee.

Don’t forget a little naughty treat is ok. But use it as a reward for staying generally more liver conscious and once a week rather than every day. I like the 80 / 20 rule – stay 80% within a good diet, then the other 20% ain’t so bad.