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Low FODMAP Stock-A-thon

2 Full size baking trays in an oven with 4 chickens and lots of vegetables .

Costco does frequently have low FODMAP stock. It’s ok stock but nothing to write home about. Certainly buying it is a lot easier than making it if you value your time. I don’t really find it challenging to make stock as It’s something I do while doing other things. Yet, another trip to Costco. We had a food processing day. We elected to make multiple loads of stock instead of freezing the ingredients and thawing them to make stock later. This resulted in trying to make 4 loads of stock at the same time.

2 Full size baking trays in an oven with 4 chickens and lots of vegetables .
Full size baking trays in the oven with 4 batches of stock.

(2 “loads” of stock per full size baking sheet.) It gave me an excellent perspective on stock making through the different methods that I could make them. (Insta pot, Slow Cooker, Stove Top.) The secret to making stock this way is to pick flavourful ingredients and assume that 1 tray will make ~8 servings(Double batch of stock). So pick your vegetables for 1 serving and you should be safe to multiply it by 8.(Stay in green according to Monash) Said another way, 1 batch of stock for me typically yields about 4 cups of stock. 1 cup of stock is usually a serving. It can be less of a serving in sauces but it’s a good rule of thumb to live by. I usually run my stock ingredients twice. That means I drain stock and refill the ingredients with water to get a second run out of the same ingredients. This gives me the 4th cup of stock and I usually incorporate this back into the first run of stock. After I have both batches finished I typically will reduce the volume of stock by 3/4. This give me a nice concentrated stock that stores compactly. I often will add water back to reconstitute the stock. (And this will help to thaw my Stock Cubes.)

My analysis of the different methods:

Stock pot vs Slow Cooker vs Insta pot

  • Slow Cooker
    • Positives:
      • Set it and forget it. Throw everything in. Put in on for 12 hours.
      • It reduces as it cooks.You do lose some water over the 12 hours which makes it better easier to reduce
      • Cook anywhere there is a plug – This is something people don’t think about, but I have cooked stock in many rooms in my house.
    • Negatives
      • It’s Slow – 12 hours is just a long time.
      • Can’t control heat – you pick low or high, if low still creates too much of a boil you can’t do anything about that. A boil will agitate the ingredients and cause your stock to be cloudy. Most times this isn’t an issue but it depends on your SlowCooker/CrockPot.
  • Stock Pot
    • Positives:
      • It’s massive. I could put two batches of Stock one Stock Pot.
      • It reduces as it cooks.You do lose some water over the 12 hours which makes it better easier to reduce
      • You can control the heat to exactly where you want it. (You want it just simmering so that you don’t agitate it and make a cloudy stock.)
    • Negatives
      • It’s Slow – 12 hours is just a long time.
      • Your stove is occupied for 12 hours or longer
  • Instapot
    • Positives:
      • It’s Fast Throw everything in. It’s done the first round in ~ 2 hours
      • Cook anywhere there is a plug – This is something people don’t think about, but I have cooked stock in many rooms in my house.
      • Does not need a stove element
      • Low Agitation: The increase pressure means that the stock doesn’t boil and hence doesn’t agitate the ingredients, and produces a very clean/clear stock. (Must use natural release for “No Boil”. If you quick release it will agitate your stock and produce a murky stock.)
    • Negatives:
      • Natural release: It’s better to use a natural release, when making stock and you need to actually turn off the pot after it’s done cooking so that it will cool enough to do a natural release. (The residual heat of the stock makes takes a long time to reduce especially with “Keep Warm” on.)

Over all, I find the Instapot the best option, as it’s the best use of my time and lease use of power to complete the same amount of work. There is nothing wrong with the other methods, I just like the speed of the insta pot.

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low FODMAP Microwave’s are a weapon in the battle.

Microwave with reflection of messy kitchen.
My messy kitchen.

The secret to eating to not cheating on a FODMAP diet is being able to deliver low FODMAP food when you are hungry. Like it or not that mean a microwave should be a weapon in your battle against hunger. I recently upgraded my microwave and I wanted to share some very fast snack that you can use to help you stave off getting “Hangry” so you can keep on the low FODMAP diet.

  • Protein
    • Bacon – wrap it in paper towel 1 minute per slice
    • Crack an Egg in a bowl- 30 seconds cook time, 20 second wait, 30 second cook time. (Egg is less likely to explode a little wait time.)
  • Veggies – (the secret to good microwave food is steam, so water is often added to help team the veggies as well as microwave them.)
    • Almost any low FODMAP frozen vegetable, 2 tablespoons of water, in a bowl with a loose lid, and cook for 2-3 mins . Cool them quickly under cold water.
    • low FODMAP Fresh vegetables, 1/4 cup of water, in a bowl with a loose lid, and cook for 2-3 mins . Cool them quickly under cold water.
    • Baked Potato – wash it, poke it, cook it for 3mins, flip it, 3 more minutes. Poke it with a fork. If it slides in easily, it’s ready, if not keep cooking. (Add 1 minute to each side per potato. If you want to cook more than 1 potato.)
    • Any oven Potato dishes – Cut your oven cook time by 1/4 by microwaving. 2 minutes of cook time = 1 minute of microwave time. I strongly suggest you Only do this for 1/2 the cook time and finish them in the oven so they still have the “oven cook” feel to them.
      • An example: If you are supposed to cook for 40 mins. Cut the cook time to 10 minutes microwave and 20 minute finish in the oven.
  • Reheat leftovers – 2 tablespoons of water, cook them with a lid, and let them sit for 3-5 mins. This 3-5 mins allows the heat to even distribute and is well worth the wait before eating.

Eating out Guide

  • Plan ahead
    • Ask if the restaurant has an allergy protocol.
      • Honestly, eat at a chain restaurant. They usually have well established allergy protocols.
    • It’s way easier if you preview the menu before and figure out if this is somewhere you can eat. You should have an idea of what you want to eat.
    • Once you have an idea of an option. Contact the restaurant ahead of time. The more notice you give them the better they can help you. Ask to talk to the Chef and work through substitutions with him.
    • If you don’t have time to call ahead use a reservation service like Open-table. Its an app that lets you make reservations but also lets you add messages, that they are reminded to respond to.
    • We have had great results by requesting a knowledgeable server and explaining we have allergies. (At the time of making the reservation.)
    • Where possible avoid “the rush” as you will get better service visiting restaurants that aren’t getting slammed.
    • Pick a place with a burger on the menu, Steak, or Sushi. These usually are good options for low FODMAP.
  • Use the word “Allergy.”
    • If this doesn’t trigger a visit from the manager/chef, you are in for a bad time. This means they don’t have an allergy protocol and you are relying on your server to protect you. This can be a crab shoot so watch out.
    • Use Simplified FODMAP list: Give the chef/server the simplified list to remove the worst FODMAPs:
      • Grains: Wheat and rye-based products
      • Vegetables: Onion, garlic, leek, cauliflower and mushrooms
      • Fruit: Apple, pear, dried fruit, stone fruit, watermelon
      • Dairy: Milk and yoghurt
      • Meat/alternatives: Legumes
  • Work with the menu.
    • Ask for substitutions.
    • Ask for pre-made sauces on the side or eliminate any sauces completely.
    • Ask if what you want can be “Made to order?” (Watch our for BBQ dishes. They are often pre-made and can’t be “clean” as they usually have rubs on them.) This typically means you have a chance to modify it. As they will make the dish when it’s ordered. If it’s pre-made then you will have a harder time.
    • We have found it’s easier to discuss everything that is going to show up on the plate. Menus do not always tell you everything. Ask about garnishes. What is pre-made? What is made to order?
  • Be Brave!
    • Mistakes happen. If you get a dish that doesn’t match what you discussed let your server know immediately.
    • If you spent all the time following the above steps and what your discussed doesn’t show up, let the restaurant have a chance to make things right. You aren’t being an a**hole, you are being kind to give them a chance to recover.
  • Be Loud with your praise.
    • If they get it right post and let others know!

Here’s another great resource for Restaurant Advice: (Reddit Post)

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How to freeze stock.

chicken stock lying flat on the counter in plastic bags ready to be frozen
Chicken stock ready for the freezer.

I like to freeze stock in the size that I’m going to use it. I use zip lock freezer bags measured in proportions of either 1 cup or 1/2 cup.

Tip: Test the size of your soup ladle. My soup ladle is 4 oz, so 2 scoops is 1 cup.

I also like to ‘flat pack it.’ This mean freezing it “flat” on a tray first. It only takes about an hour to freeze. This not only gives a uniform shape, it allows more efficient packing into the freezer, Then, I pack them frozen into a bigger zip lock bag or container for storing up to two months. This way I don’t lose any at the bottom of the freezer!

To thaw the stock in a hurry ‘fold’ it into squares so that it can be placed into a bowl and quickly thaws easily.

two bags of chicken stock in plastic bags, lying flat in a metal cooking sheet.
Chicken stock ready to freeze.
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Costco Meat

Coscto is a place to buy meet in bulk. But have you ever thought about buying $5 steaks there? Well as no surprise they do sell at $5 a steak but it comes with some work:

costco beef tenderloin.

If you don’t know, the best tasting steak on the planet is beef tenderloin. I recently found out the reason I hate steak at home is because the cuts of meat offered by the grocery store, really are just cheap cuts of meet. They are either too tough, or lacking in flavour. Change your life, buy a whole beef tenderloin and cut it up yourself!

How on earth do you cut the huge cut of beef? Well I usually go lazy method and use a cutting board with some wax paper as extra `clean surface’:

cutting board with wax paper

Once you have the roast out of the plastic wrapper, take a close look at it. You have to start thinking like a butcher. What can you do with this ? I cut off the thin end for the best skewer beef you have ever tasted. To me this is a perfect use of the delicious beef. If you where to cut it into a few steaks, they would be super small. I just cut it off and cube it.

Beef tenderloin being cut on a cutting board.

Ok so you say, “But I don’t like meat on a stick!” No problem. If you don’t want to cube the beef for skewers, then you can tuck the tip, or thinnest part underneath and use butcher string to tie it up into a uni-formally thick rolled roast. Basically you roll the meet like a sushi roll, and then tightly tie it off with string.

Work with the meet, not against it. Some cuts of meat have other pieces that are only attached with fat. This isn’t great for `grilling’ steak. So I usually cut it off and use it as a roast or more cubed skewer meet:

Trimmed tenderloin.

Now it’s time to cut into steaks! Cut the steaks as thin or thick as you want to eat. This is all to individual taste. Generally this makes about 15-20 steaks out of the roast, all depending on the cut or thickness. And these steaks are amazing! They are flavour full and and tender. (tenderloin -dug):

steak

OK so now you have 20 steaks. Either throw an amazing party, or freeze it. If you are going to freeze it here are some tips:

  • Use zip-lock freezer bags.
  • Label the bags before you have “meat hands.”
  • Pack the meet as flat as possible, single layers.
  • Air is your enemy: Get as much air out as possible. Air = Freezer burn.

Enjoy your $5 dollar steaks that are better than any $10 steak you can find in the grocery store!

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Shopping at Costco for 1 person (or 2 persons)

OK, OK, we know that Costco is a huge for discounted food. Costco gets you the discount by volume so how do I (or We) shop there, save money and not waste family size food? We will show you how to show you how to freeze like a beast. All you need to know about freezing food for a later day.

You can imagine that as I make recipes I need to have food portions measured. Now I appreciate that no everyone has a scale, so how do you portion food without a scale? Use the good old calculator and food label to figure out. Use the weight on the label, and then divide by ‘X’ equal portions. Here’s how I did our salmon. Look at at the bottom left it says 1.39 kilos.

The label says:

Costco price/label on Salmon

I’m a Canadian but I still cook in pounds. So this is around 3 pounds. This means if I want to make 1/5 pound servingings I need to cut this into 6 equal servings. (Now, I happen to know that the last serving of salmon I usually make are small so I will actually be doing this in 7 servings but the last 2 pieces count as 1.)

I try to make quick work of it. I use some extra ‘plastic wrap’ to make sure my food stays on a clean surface.

Salmon portioned into 7

To save the environment and make it really easy to pull out single serving I usually wrap this in plastic wrap and then throw it into a bag. The portions were quite long so i found wrapping it on the diagonal worked better.

A portion of salmon on plastic wrap

OK now we have Salmon purchased cheap from Costco, Frozen individually for whenever you want to have salmon.

I do the same for chicken but with Chicken I don’t use plastic wrap I just throw two in a back and flat pack it. Making the chicken as flat as possible without damaging anything is the key to fitting more into your freezer.

raw chicken in a a plastic bag.

Here’s how to flat pack ground meat.

Either use the weight divided by portion count or actually weigh the meet.

3.3 kg of frozen pork and a scale on a brown counter top.

Once you have portioned the meat in the bag, you want to make the meet as flat as possible. This helps for for two reasons.

  • Storage:
    • standard flat squares store easier than a ‘ball-o-meat’.
  • Thawing
    • It much quicker to thaw flat packed meet.
    • It also thaws more evenly than a ‘ball-o-meat’.

To flat pack, this means getting most of the air out and meat in every corner of the bag. The secret is not to use force but brains. I start by trying to make a letter “I” where it flares out at the top and the bottom.. You want meet in the corners of the bag, but you can air stops this. The easiest way I have found to get meat into the bottom corners is to keep the top open keep the bag up right and bang it on the counter this usually helps meet fall into the corernes. Once you have meet in the bottom corners I close the bag 3/4 of the way and start massaging it flat.

You’ll get the hang of it. The more you do it the easier it is. I suggest going as thin as possible as it also helps with thawing the beef later when you need it.

Ground beef flat packed.

Now if you are doing ribs, I suggest

  • Remember to take the membrane off. This is way easier to do now and makes the “ready to cook”. Check out my rib recipe for instructions on how to remove it.
  • Cutting them in half, it’s just easier to work with them. Both with Tinfoil later when you are cooking and now fitting inside a plastic bag.
  • Cut them in half, 1/2 a rack is a pretty good serving for 1 person making this ready for a 1 person meal.
  • Costco was nice enough to make a 6 pound package with 3 ribs racks. This makes the math easy, this is 6 servings of 1/2 rack each.
  • I also wrap them in plastic wrap cause this makes them so they don’t stick together and I can pull out just 1 serving.
1/2 rack of ribs wrapped in plastic wrap in a bag.

This all depends on how much room you have to what you can do. But I definitely suggest using plastic wrap to help you select portions for when you need them. It’s also super helpful to have an idea how much your are cooking so please label your bags. (I suggest actually labeling once you do the math on the labels so your hands are still clean and you don’t have to do them after portioning as often this will mean extra hand washing.)

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Eating in Company

A great solution to eating with mixed company is to offer the “Build your own” option when cooking. I have some close friends that love to have us over, and cook low FODMAP for us and non-fodmap for them. The easiest way to do this is have some strong non-contamination protocols and build your own.

I previously wrote a pos on how not to cross contaminate so I won’t repeat it here. But it would be helpful to talk about this with guests or make yourself aware. A quick simple strategy that should really help cut cross contamination is have seperate serving tools for each dish/topping/ingredient. Think make your own salad, this is pretty easy if you make people use utensils to help reduce cross contamination. A common problem area is think sauces or dressings. You don’t want people to “dip into the contamination” and put it back in the dressing. Try and have sauces/dressings be poured and do not give out a utensil. To be honest just bringing up the topic to help people be aware is HUGE. A lot of people are not aware and need to be educated.

I feel “build your own” is a great way to have both FODY people and non FODY people co-exist at a meal. It gives more options than just making one generic dish for everyone. It’s like making Taco’s. I make the best Taco’s. (According to my tastebuds.) I choose what to and not to but on my taco. This enables huge satisfaction for the guest as customization is King.

In short if you are having a “mixed dinner” think going ‘build your own’.

Do you have any tips for how to have a low FODMAP/none FODMAP dinner? Add comments below and let me know what you think.