Ask questions about the food you buy

When you're shopping for food, don't be afraid to ask questions of your suppliers. This will be a lot easier in the smaller stores. I can't see supermarkets being all too helpful to an inquisitive shopper. If your suppliers aren't happy to answer questions or don't know the answers then find a new supplier.

Be sure that you are getting the correct info. I just found out that some kebabs I was purchasing form my local butcher were not gluten-free as I had previously been informed. Luckily, I'm not coeliac. Still, I wasn't impressed.

Fresh, whole cuts of meat are always your best bet at the butcher. Be vigilant, it's your gut.

Eating well at Christmas get-togethers

I had my second family Christmas gathering today. It's the first year I've been completely gluten-free so it was interesting to see what a difference it made.

The first and most obvious change was that I didn't drink any beer. Today, I had a few very small glasses of Pinot Noir. I honestly don't miss drinking beer. Wine doesn't bloat me and I don't have to urinate nearly as often. Both positives.

The pre-meal snacks were a bit more difficult to negotiate. There was a lot of cracker and dip action. I steered well clear. I did partake in a few kettle chips, I must confess.

The main meal was a cracker (no pun intended). Ham, turkey, chicken and a full array of salads. I decided that to go strict Paleo today was a tad crazy but I did make good choices anyhow. I avoided the bread rolls and the pasta salad (which looked amazing). I did take one risk: the chicken stuffing looked suspiciously bready. I did my best to avoid it but probably got some cross-contamination. All in all, I could have eaten completely Paleo and GF without much trouble.

Dessert. A problem. The Christmas Pudding was out of the question. Egad! The horror. Alas, my mother came to the rescue with a gluten-free fruit cake which I topped with hard sauce and custard. Oh, the decadence.

So, it can be done. One can get through a Christmas feast without falling completely off the rails and eating crap.

Slow cooked lamb shanks

My mum is awesome. As you know from the previous post, we've just welcomed our daughter, Ava, to the family. Mum has been lending a hand to help us get used to the bigger family. A couple of days ago she turned up to visit and ended up cooking us dinner.

Mum cooked us lamb shanks in her slow cooker. Yes, she brought her own slow cooker to our home.

Anyway, this isn't a post about how awesome my mum is. Let's talk about Paleo-style lamb shanks.

Without even thinking about it mum cooked a Paleo meal. It's that easy.

Here are the ingredients:

• 4 lamb shanks
• chopped mushrooms (about two cups)
• a tin of tomatoes
• chopped onions (two)
• water (a cup or so)

Here's the method:

• whack everything in the slow cooker and wait 6-8 hours.

Nothing could be easier. It took about 10 minutes to prepare.

Lamb shanks aren't the cheapest cut of meat but any fatty cut will do; try chicken thigh or gravy steak.

Hospital food

My wife gave birth to our second child today. We now have a healthy little girl in the family. Her name is Ava.

So, Erica - my wife - is at the mercy of hospital menus for the next few days. And let me tell you, they leave a lot to be desired.

We asked for a gluten-free lunch. We got vegetable soup (with excessive salt), a gluten-free salad and cheese sandwich, a fruit plate and a container of orange juice. Nothing but carbs. No protein and no fat. How the hell is my wife supposed to produce milk and recover eating that crap?

Next was dinner. Erica ordered from the menu picking GF options. The main was a great chicken fillet and veg dish (no complaints there) but they served it with more veg soup, another fruit plate (all other desserts were not GF) and a bread roll. A bread roll! Not a GF bread roll either.

Holy crap. How can people in a hospital environment make such stupid and fundamentally flawed nutritional decisions?

Luckily Erica is not Coeliac, she chooses not to eat gluten so the possible minor contamination won't see her in trouble. However, the truth is that she should not be exposed to this at all. If she had a peanut allergy there's no way peanuts would be allowed anywhere near her by staff.

So, when will the medical fraternity learn that nutrition is the base of all health?

Cold Avocado Soup

So summer time is coming up fast. You don't see a cold soup very much other than a consomme and making one of those is a nightmare. However this avocado variation is fast, healthy and YUMMM!

Ingredients:

• 3 to 4 ripe avocados. They need to be ripe because were going to blend them.
• Coconut milk, a little cream too if you like thick soups. Roughly 300 to 400 millilitres.
• Cucumber, cut finely or peeled strips using a peeler.
• Some macadamias or nuts of choice to garnish.
• You can also add cooked fish or cut up chicken if you like. Cooked crab meat also goes really well too.
• 1 blender.
• Salt and pepper if necessary.
• Fresh herbs to add at the end, dill and fresh parsley.

Method:

• Remove skin and stone from the avocados. Place into the blender with the coconut milk and cream and blend. Add the coconut milk slowly and add untill it's the consistency you like.
• Pour into a bowl with the rest of you're ingredients.

So simple, tasty and refreshing on a hot day.

Makes: 2 to 3 serves

Prep/cook time: 20 minutes.

Notes:

• Gluten free
• Dairy free
• Nightshades free
• Egg free

Smoking = TASTE

Being a Chef for the past 10 years I've only just discovered how to smoke food. Well properly that is. Using the right kind of foods given the equipment we have domestically is important to consider too.

Because we can only smoke foods using a small oven were only smoking to flavour the food, not cooking it. You would need to smoke most meat and fish for days in order to cook it right through.

So here are the basic essentials:

• Wood chip. This can be purchased at barbeque's galore in a massive bag for quite cheap. Small size wood chip too i might add.
• A oven.
• Frying pan or skillet.
• Wire wrack or perforated tray. ( tray with small holes in the bottom)

Foods that are awesome to smoke:

• Fish, more so the pink flesh fish, salmon and trout.
• Chicken, the thighs are the best bit as they have a little more fat in them, but smoking a whole chicken is still awesome.
• Raw ham and turkey.
• Duck, even though the skin is quite fatty.
• Tomatoes, yep they rock. However you must blanch them in hot water for 10 seconds, remove the skin, cover with a some salt to draw some moisture out, cure for 1 hour, rinse and then smoke... hmm its a process but they taste so good.

Method:

• Depending on what you intend to smoke, a few pieces of fish or some cut up chicken then i would suggest 1 cup full of wood chip should do the trick. A whole chicken I'd use 3 cups.
• So all that's required is you basically need to cook the wood chip in a pan until it all turns black and starts smoking. Quickly place in the oven with your ingredients on top of the wrack, close the door and smoke for 20 minutes. Bigger amounts of food require a little extra time and wood chip.
• Once the food is smoked we then must cook it. Cook the item how you normally would and enjoy.

Smoking adds such a flavour hit and variety. Especially a dish that you love and have ritually.

Easy roast lamb and vegetable salad

Two nights ago, my wife cooked a cracking yet simple meal. Read about it here.
Today, I made myself a salad with the leftovers.

Here's what I did:

• roughly chopped the roasted sweet potato and beetroot
• thinly sliced the roast lamb
• sliced some baby roma tomatoes and red onion
• washed some lettuce mix
• threw it all together
• no dressing required

The lesson? Cook too much so you'll have the option of a fast, easy meal in the following days. Bring-your-own lunches just got so much easier!

Excuse Killer #3 - I'm bored

Egad! You're bored.
But it's all so yummy.
There are so many options.

Take a look back at The Food Matrix post (25/11/2010).
There are enough combinations possible from that simple list to last you a whole year.

Not satisfied?
Make Google your friend and search for "Paleo recipes" (or use ours).

Never mind the bollocks

Guess what I learned while watching the cricket recently?

Butter is bad for me.
And, get this, margarine is good for me.
It must be true because it was on the TV.
And, the Heart Foundation endorsed the message.
They even had a cardiologist on the ad explaining that saturated fats are bad for us.
Really, they did.
The doc even explained that the plant seeds in margarine are good for my health.
I kid you not.


Ads like these are one of the many reasons that:

1. I rarely watch TV
2. the general population is predominantly fat (and getting fatter)
3. people have no idea what they really should be eating
4. surgeons should not be allowed to make nutritional recommendations
5. the medical professional needs a swift kick in the ass

A few things to remember:

1. correlation is not causation
2. education is not knowledge
3. it's up to you to take care of yourself