Category: Uncategorized

As a follow up to my last post about Ice Cube trays. I had some extra mashed potatoes leftover from a dinner. Instead of throwing them out I used the trays to help make life easier for our next dinner. This was an amazing life saver the other day. They are perfectly portioned to become a part of any meal. I froze them in ~1/2 cup each. I added a tbsp of water per cube. Microwaved for 1 minute, then 30 seconds later another minute. (You could probably just do 2 mins a cube to reheat.) This was a real life have that saved food from the compost, saved time, and tasted amazing. Totally something I would definitely suggest you doing. I used to make complete frozen meals with leftover potatoes but now I think this is my new way of freezing mashed potatoes as it really allows a ton of flexibility.

r/FODMAPs had a post about 2 cup ice cube trays a while back.(See picture below) This is a thank you to that person. I didn’t buy the ones they suggested I found this cheaper version for $21 CDN. I made my favourite peanut chicken stew into a frozen meal pack. I know have 4 servings ready as a frozen meal I can thaw/reheat. (Rice actually freezes pretty well, and with a stew it’s perfect!) If you are struggling with meal planning this might be a great tool for you to help make frozen meals. The meal cube is easier to thaw/store. Even if you are going to reheat multiple servings at 1 time you will find that this is easier to reheat than 1 large freezer bag. Just add to a microwave safe dish and add 2 teaspoons of water and a lid place on top. (Don’t seal the lid) This will help use the steam to reheat all sides of the cube at once.

This will also help a lot with my stock making. I always thought it was clunky to measure out my stock then add it to a plastic back to be frozen. Now I can just poor in a freeze. This will be so much easier! Enjoy!

If you ever wanted to know how much green food you can eat, Monash has posted a great blog post on this to help you understand the how to navigate this. The guidance has always been you can eat several servings of green at a meal but this helps to really clarify what that means.

There is nothing better than Cutting up your own steaks. You hands down get the right thickness, and the right size. You can make them super thick or thin, whatever floats your boat. You also just can’t beat the price. Buying large chunks of beef is much cheaper than buying steaks pre-cut in the store. I just get angry when I go to buy steak and end up paying $15 a steak for a steak I don’t even enjoy eating. These steaks shown above a delish tenderloin steaks. When the steaks are broken down this way you get the steak meat at about $1 an ounce. You can’t beat that price. Any meat that doesn’t look like I can cut into a steak I chop up and use for Beef and Broccoli or Kabob meat. Now of course you are going to have to freeze the meat to make sure it keeps. Here’s a cool trick to help keep your meat as fresh as possible. I use plastic bags to freeze meat, but it can be hard to squeeze out all the air, and air is your enemy in the freezer. To get the air out, partially sub-merge your meat in a bag in a sink full of water. The water static pressure will help to squeeze all the air out for you:

Final product with air squeezed out:

I was actually really impressed with how well this worked.

For more tips on Saving money check out my Costco shopping post, that I wrote previously.

I convert recipes all the time from {recipe’s in the wild} to low FODMAP. There are a lot of easy recipes, that pretty much you swap out garlic and onion and your good. There are other recipes that take more refinement. If you are making a dish that contains a Monash app green/yellow/red then you have to restrict the amount of that ingredient. And sometimes you can get away with only a restriction, other times it creates an imbalanced flavour or decreases the volume from 4 people to 2 peoples worth of food. This is where creativity comes in! This is also why I test food on my poor family before sharing it on the website. I thought it might be interesting for others to see the process/collaborate so I’ll share my start to finish in a series of posts. Here’s the recipe that I like (Found on the internet) and Here’s my process so far. I will later on post the final recipe and chat about what it took to create it. My family only tolerates repeated meals every other week so it will take some time for the process to be complete.

For now here’s the recipe we’re working with Spinart Enchiladas. This is a pretty literal translation. It’s OK but it’s not amazing. And it needs more volume to actually be filling enough for more people. This is also a portion controlled dish with you needing to eat less than a third of it to be in a “Green” FODMAP friendly zone.

My notes say that we need more filling. (So need to develop other vegetables, to fill it out.) Also I think I want to add cheese into the filling even if that’s a sin for Enchiladas…. I’m not enchiladas expert but I think more creaminess would be good. These are my initial notes.

I have enlisted my Mother to help with the recipe. She is an excellent cook in her own right, she is actually the one that gifted me my “Cook’s Illustrated” subscription and cooks for my vegetarian father all the time so may be able to give me pointers on how to make this delicious.

More to come!

I have enjoyed lobster for a while. I love it cooked, steamed, boiled, and grilled it. I think low FODMAP isn’t about not enjoying food it’s about making the best of what you got. Well, lobster is amazing and well, it’s low FODMAP. I have tried to learn how specifically to cook it and I feel I finally have a handle on it. I have tried and failed multiple time but my friend I’ve finally arrive at how to make it to help you be more awesome.

First off.. let’s do frozen tails.

Wait a second. Frozen? Aren’t we supposed to love fresh….isn’t it better? Why do you say such sacrilege? I do love fresh, I just don’t cook fresh lobster tails. “The Keg” is my golden standard and is a canadian steak/lobster restaurant. They cook lobster tails that I’m forever trying to impersonate. They have an amazing allergy protocol so please tell them what you need on the plate to stay safe and enjoy. So for this article , No I don’t like fresh. (They won’t behave the same as I’m instructing so don’t use them.) Instead, I suggest got fresh? Eat fresh! Boil and eat my friends, boil and eat! The rest of this article is for us poor suckers that must eat previously frozen.

Wow, didn’t know that I’d find this, didn’t know anyone did this. I haven’t watched the entire channel, but I have watched some of it and I’m actually impressed.

Please check it out: Grit and Groceries

Check out their Garlic Oil video.

Really please support people that are willing to go all out to help us out. Support our own!!!

It was early on when I was testing out Spatchcocking a chicken that I broke scissors. Yes, the plastic scissors I was using broke. (It hurt.) You might notice this in the recipe that the photos mysteriously don’t show me cutting both sides of the spine. This is because the scissors broke mid recipe photo shoot. I’m really glad they did break. Now I have some amazing kitchen shears that work really well and clean really well. (They come apart for easy cleaning.) If you enjoy cooking this is one of those tools I have to recommend. They are purpose built, they’re made tough, and they’re easy to clean. Please consider picking up a pair if you like spatchcocking a chicken (Flattened Chicken).

I normally don’t like to lecture about safety, but the fact they easily come apart so you can clean all surfaces, is really a selling feature. The low FODMAP community has a hard enough time without getting sick due to bacteria. Protect your gut, by some shears that disassemble.

Here’s the one’s I use, but by all means buy any ones you want. (I don’t have affiliate links, i’m just trying to be helpful.)

Hey I see lot of great stuff on the r/FODMAPS group on reddit.

Actually a time sensitive issue has come up. If you are good with psyllium husks then this if for you

https://shop.schaer.com/us/en/p/catalog/low-fodmap-starter-kit-bundle-10099

This acutually came up on r/FODMAPS on reddit. I suggest reading this post which is full of great tips for doing a low FODMAP elimination

https://www.reddit.com/r/FODMAPS/comments/ld9ooi/tips_and_tricks_for_the_elimination_phase_that_i/

In general I find the reddit group very supportive. They often are very supportive of questions where the other may not really have done any research: (Is this low FODMAP?!? [Picture of ingredients]) So it’s a resource that you should be aware of if you are starting out your FODMAP journey. There is lots of recipes and support.

Check it out: https://www.reddit.com/r/FODMAPS/