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Tips to avoid Cross Contamination.

It’s pretty common for FODMAP people to eat with others. Well it’s practically unavoidable. Here are some tips to help keep everybody safe.

Know your enemy (allergies/intolerances.) There are lots of great websites out in the world to help you discover if each ingredient your are using is a source of cross contamination. When it comes to FODMAP one of the best tools I use is the FODMAP app. If you looked on the web and still don’t know ask your guest. They’re rather you ask, than get sick.

List all the ingredients. Make a small recipe card that describes what is in each dish. It makes for a great presentation and helps special diets make educated choices about what they choose to eat. They will appreciate your subtlety in directing them to which dishes they can eat.

Serve guests with special diets first. Quietly ask your guest with dietary needs to get their food before others get their good. They know how to not cross-contaminate their food. This avoids polite but uneducated guests from making accidental cross contamination mistakes. I say quietly as some people do not like making their dietary issues a topic of conversation, even though they would really appreciate you letting them go first.

Use new packages/ingredients . If you are having someone over that is sensitive to food, use new packages. This avoids potential accidental cross contamination. A perfect example of this is buttering your toast. It’s normal to spread the butter on toast, then take some more butter and spread that on toast. You have contaminated your butter with gluten.

Use dedicate packages/ingredients. Like buying things new we have dedicated packages to only be used when making things like “gluten free”. This helps to ensure that you never cross contaminate as you only use it for one thing. We have a friend that has a severe gluten intolerance. Therefore we have sugar that we only use for baking gluten free. We have another regular sugar for when friends come over or we are cooking baked items that contain gluten.

Use new measuring cups for different ingredients. This can be annoying but also can help your guests feeling great. You may not think about what you just used the measuring cup for. Was it FODMAP friendly? If you get into the habit of a new measuring cup for every ingredient you don’t have to worry about what it was used for.

Pour into, do not scoop. When you are using anything for cooking, pour into your measuring tool. (I usually do this over the sink) Do not scoop out the ingredients. This helps to make sure the contamination only goes in one direction. Out into the measuring tool, not into the bag/box/container.

Use two spoons. If you want to taste something while you are cooking. Use one spoon to pour into your tasting spoon. This keeps your germs out of the cooking and keeps cross contamination down.

Cook Contaminants last. If you can make it fit in your schedule. Cook anything that has contaminants last so they can’t possible cross-contaminate food.

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The secret to cooking bacon

Bacon is low FODMAP so it’s a wonderful world. But what the secret to cooking amazing bacon?

Well, start it actually start in the store. Don’t buy cheap bacon. The next key is to look at the bacon in the store. Look at the meat to fat ratio. Some packages you can clearly see what the bacon fat to meat ratio by looking at the package. Sometime you can flip the package over and look at the meat to ratio on the back. Yes, they actually make packaging with windows so you can see the meat/fat ratio.

Cut your bacon in half to cook it. This may sound crazy but it actually enables better cooking by giving you more space in the pan and more ability to move it around in the pan.

Package of bacon cut in half

As an added bonus you, don’t need to heat the whole package at once, saving some calories. I typically bag up the other half and freeze it for another day. I find it less messy to cut the entire package in half and just squeeze the package into a zip lock.

1/2 a package of bacon in a plastic bag. Ready to be frozen.

Start by turning the pan on to just under medium and laying the bacon flat on the pan. Here you can see cutting it in half has given us a little more room.

Raw bacon in .a frying pan.

Bacon won’t cook evenly on it’s own. Every 2-3 minutes rotate more cooked bacon from the center to the outside edge, and less cooked bacon to the middle of the pan. This is the key to evenly cooked bacon. After bacon has shrunk a little it’s time to flip it. When on piece is done remove it. You don’t have to remove all the bacon at once. Just remove bacon as it finishes. Look at the picture below you can see some is ready to be taken off an others need a little longer. I like to take my bacon off when I see some caramelization (darker colour) and let it finish cooking off the pan.

Semi-Bacon in a frying pan.

Finishing the bacon after cooking. Finally, on top of a plate, place a long piece of paper towel. Long enough to cover the plate twice. (Don’t double it up.) . Place the left side on the plate, and let the rest hang off. Place the bacon on the plate covered with paper towel. When all the bacon is cooked fold the extra paper towel over and gently pat the bacon. This will mop up the extra bacon grease

Bacon in paper towel.

Voila! Amazing bacon cooked perfectly:

Cooked bacon on paper towel

Now if I have got you in the mood to eat bacon. Why not try FODMAP Poutine?

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10 Person low FODMAP Dinner Party Menu! Here is our stress free strategy.

Recently had my pescatarian father come to visit. Here’s a menu that worked for our 10 person family style party. At the end I explain the timing and strategy to make this into an easy cook without last minute pressure.

Appetizer:

Dinner

Dessert

We made the Cheese Cake and the Spinach Artichoke Cheese Dip the day before. We did not cook the Dip until the day of but let it sit in the fridge over night. I also marinated the salmon the day before by adding all ingredients to a ziplock and let it site overnight to really get the flavour into the Salmon.

We finished the Cheese Cake the next morning as our recipe suggests. We cooked the potatoes and Vegetables back to back in the morning. No more than two trays in the oven at the same time ensure correct cooking. To re-heat them we used slow cookers on low stirring every 15 mins. This allowed us up to pay attention to our guests as they arrived and not get ‘buried’ in the kitchen with last minute cooking. This freed up the oven to put the Spinach Artichoke Cheese Dip 1 hour before everyone arrived and cook the salmon just before serving dinner. I did use my toaster oven to cook the Chicken with our BBQ spice on it. I know not everyone has a toaster oven but I timed it to be ready when the Salmon was finished. (I could have cooked it with the Dip if I didn’t have the oven as that obey’s my only 2 pans in the oven at a time rule.) Quinoa was cooked at the same time as the salmon and may have not been needed. But I love Quinoa and salmon so I did it for the love of it.

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How to cut Cherry Tomatoes

Ever have a lot of people Cherry Tomatoes at one time? Find it tedious to slice them one at a time? Here’s a safe way to cut multiple tomatoes at once. Place your cherry tomatoes on the bottom of a place.

cherry tomatoes on the bottom of an upside down plate

Place another plate on top to make a Cherry Tomato, Plate sandwich.

Tomato plate sandwich

With your knife parallel to the table and with your hand on top of the plate you can now cut the Cherry Tomatoes. (I had to move my hand to make the photo work but trust me you want gentle pressure on top of the plate.) Do not forget to let the knife do the work. Saw back and forth to allow the blade to cut, do not push the knife through the Cherry Tomatoes.

Knife cutting through cherry tomatoes sandwiched by two plates.
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How to butter fly a chicken breast.

Want to cook chicken breasts in 20mins? Here’s a quick tip to get it done. Wash your hands ’cause this is hands on.

Place your chicken breast flat on a cutting board.

raw chicken on cutting board

Clean you hands, cause this requires getting dirty.

You will be cutting it in half lengthwise. Place you hand on top of the chicken. Start cutting with your knife parallel to the board.

Hand on top of raw chicken breast, on a cutting board, being cut by a knife parallel to the cutting board

Work the knife back and forth being careful to not but your hand. I like to shift my hand towards the end so it’s out of the way of the knife:

Cutting chicken with a knife. Hand out of the way of the knife, on raw chicken, on a cutting board.

Eh Voila, chicken that cooks in 20 mins @ 400f. If you like throw some our BBQ chicken spice.

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Lazy Sunday Stock

I was feeling a little tired this morning so I figured why not be productive by making some stock. My Dad is coming over this weekend so I needed to make some vegetarian recipes. To help with that I thought that it might be time to make a vegetarian soup. Of course if you are going to make soup you need to have stock. It’s really hard to find FODMAP stock as most recipes use onion and that’s a no-no. I decided it was time for me to take up the challenge and make some FODMAP friendly vegetarian stock.