Ingredients:

Parsnips

Animal fat (fat drippings from roast chicken/duck/meat) or olive oil

Salt

Pepper

Honey

• peel the parsnips and slice into long wedges
• Place in a bowl and add animal fat/olive oil and mix till all parsnips are coated
• Place parsnips on a baking tray and sprinkle with salt and pepper
• Place in a hot oven (180oC) for 15 mins or untill golden brown
• Remove from oven and drizzle honey over the parsnips, mix well till parsnips all coated.  Return to oven for a futher minute.

Ingredients:

peeled and chopped potatoes

animal fat  (fat or roasting juices from roast chicken/meat/duck etc) or Olive oil for a more healthy option!

Salt

Pepper

• Boil the potatoes in a sauce pan till soft and fluffy on the surface
• Drain the water and put thepotatoes back in the sauce pan.  Add the oilive oil or roasting fat/juices to th saucepan and replace the lid.  Carfeully shake the pan in a circular motion to coat the potatoes with oil.
• Place the potatoes in a roasting tin, sprinkle with salt and pepper
• Place in a hot oven (180oC) till golden brown

4 portions

Ingredients:

4 spring onions or two leeks

4 tbsp wheat free soy sauce

Zest and juice of one lime

2cm fresh ginger grated (use a cheese grater!)

2 cloves garlic finely sliced

4 boneless and skinless salmon fillets

• Mix soy sauce, zest and juice of the lime, ginger, garlic and leeks.  Place the salmon fillets in a dish/bowl and spread the mixture all over them. Marinate in the fridge overnight.
• Preheat oven to 200oC
• On shets of thick foil place each salmon fillet with some marinade and a feww slices of leek. Wrap up well in foil, place on a baking tray and bake for 15 mins.

Tips:

• Instead of the zest and juice of one lime, use an orange
• Instead of salmon try using chicken
• Serve the baked salmon on rocket & spinach salad leaves or with noodles

4 portions

Ingredients:

200g AdukiBeans

2 wheat/yeast/dairy free stock cubes

1 finely sliced onion

3 carrots sliced

1 leak sliced

1 butternut squash peeled and cut into chunks

1/2 tsp cumin

1/2 tsp tumeric

250g kale

• Soak the beans in cold water for 12 hours or overnight.
• Drain the soaked beans, rinse well with cold water. Place in saucepan with cold water and boil hard for 15 mins (removes toxins)
• Drain water and rinse the beans well.
• Place 1 l fresh cold water in the saucepan with the beans & stock cubes. Bring to boil then simmer for 10 mins.
• Add the remaining veg (except the kale)and spices, simmer for 15 mins
• Add the kale simmer for 2 mins.
• Serve.

Tips:

• I sometimes use chopped parsnip instead of carrots

This is the really tasty soup that seems to piss off everyone on all floors of PSSRI and ppl in the chemistry depatment. It is like these ppl have a fish phobia or something!!!!

4 portions

Ingredients:

2 garlic cloves finely sliced

5cm fresh ginger grated (i use a cheese grater!)

3 packs of miso paste (some brands contain yeast – i use Blue Dragon brand which is yeast free. you can find it in the supermarket aisle with other oriental sauces/noodles etc)

200g cod (or other white fish) cut into chunks

2 red peppers deseeded and chopped

3 pak choi sliced

2 handfulls mangetout or sugar snap peas

100g Fresh peas

4 spring onions

• Bring 1 and 1/4 litre water to boil. Add garlic, ginger and miso, boil for 1 min then add fish and the mangetout/sugar snap peas and pepper. Bring to boil then simmer.
• Skim off the foam, cook for 2 mins.
• Add pak choi & spring onions and cook for a further minute
• Place into bowls add raw fresh peas, stir and serve.

Tips:

• Add thin rice noodles to cold soup that contains a lot of liquid, reheat in the microwave for 3 mins and voila – a homemade pot noodle or more substantial meal….
• I add all sorts of veg like runner beans instead of mangetout or sweetcorn instead of peas etc

4 Portions of filling tasty soup!

Ingredients:

225g yellow split peas

1 wheat/yeast free vegetable stock cube

1tsp wheat/yeast free bullion powder

1 onion finely chopped

2 sweet potato peeled and diced into chunks

4 carrots peeled and sliced

1/2 tsp cumin

• Soak the split peas in cold water for 12 hours or over night
• Rinse the soaked split peas well and place in a large saucepan. Add 1.5l water, the stock cube and the bullion powder. Bring to the boil then lower the heat and simmer for 25 mins. Skim off any scum that rises to the surface.
• Add the onion and veg, simmer for 15-20 mins. Serve.

Tips:

• Use Butternut squash aswell as or instead of sweet potato.
• Allow to cool then blend using a hand blender for a smooth consistency soup – though i personally prefer chunky veg soup
• Chopped parsnip goes well in this soup as well

2 Portions

Ingredients:

2 Lamb shanks

2 cloves garlic cut into slivers

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground cumin or tumeric

1/2 tsp ground ginger1/4 tsp ground cloves

1/4 tsp ground pepper

2 tsp salt

1 tbsp olive oil

6 tbsp honey

• Preheat oven to 160 oC (Gas mark 3)
• Pierce gashes into the meat and place slivers of garlic inside
• Mix all the spices, pepper and salt in a bowl then pat the mixture all over the shanks
• Heat the oil in a pan, once hot sear the shanks on all sides to seal the flavours
• Place each shank on a piece of really thick foil and drizzle 3 tbsp honey over each. Wrap up the meat within the foil and place the parcels on a baking tray/roasting dish to catch juices that spill out
• Bake in oven for ~2hours for really tender meat

OK so its my first post. I decided to be honest about my fatness this time after not really being succesful at weight loss last year!

So my weight on 29th June was 11st 8lbs which was border line obese if you pay any attention to BMIs, the weight seems to have just crept up and up since moving to MK. I was also a dress size 16 by this point. It was around this time that i started developing an allergy [itchy pallate, ears, toungue and sometimes nose; blocked ears and an unpredictably runny nose were the symptoms]. Being the middle of summer i assumed that it was hayfever. It used to drive me crazy at night and stopped me from getting a good night’s sleep.

I did some asking around and came to the conclusion that i may have a fod allergy so started cutting our wheat and dairy. I still found that i was getting milder reactions so cut out yeast too….unfortunately this has meant giving up beer and bitter : (

Anyway, it seems to be working and i only get allergic reactions when i eat out or when i eat packaged food that contains wheat/dairy/yeast. As a sideline i have also lost weight – all be it rather slowly cos i am soooo lazy! Today I am 9st 12 so have lost a total of 1st 10lbs and now wear a dress size 12 (although am still considered overweight according to my BMI). I also finally have my allergy test later this week, so fingers crossed that i will actually find out what i am allergic to as it is a pain in the backside having to carry around my antihistamines everywhere i go.

Cutting out wheat/dairy and yeast hasn’t been too traumatic for me as i do a lot of cooking myself and have found it easy to substitute wheat flour for rice flour and milk for soya milk etc. I was suprised at how expensive “allergy-free” food actually is and the lack of tasty wheat free, dairy free yeast free recipes out there so have decided to upload lots of my own. Olly has been my guinea pig and seems to think the food is amazing! Just thought i should share my recipes with friends…

Happy birthday sis, hope you enjoy your day.

RSS (Really Simple Sydication) is an easy way to keep up to date with stuff without having to go to all the effort of visiting a webpage! So with this is mind I have made your life a little easier and enabled it on the blog:)

There are two main ways of doing it (that I have figured out so far),
1 – LiveBookmarks – These are dynamic bookmarks which show many things, so a livebookmark of this blog will show the most recent posts, that way you know when a new post is made.

2 – Syndication – Those enlightened few that use some kind of RSS feed reader can paste this link (http://www.ollyandbecca.co.uk/blog/wp-feed.php) into it and any new stuff will scroll seemlessly across the page at your leisure. I use this, it’s ok.

Any other suggestions/problems are welcome.