Tasty recipes for IC Diet beginners?

[Mrs. Peel]

I know this topic is probably redundant. Please feel free to link to posts from the past.

My husband and I take turns cooking dinner. We really love Mexican, Indian, and Caribbean foods, but I guess I'll have to give them up until I get to the elimination diet phase. A major part of our traveling was exploring new foods.

I've seen plenty of excellent salad dressings here, but I'm looking for main courses, vegetable, and rice recipes right now. I haven't been on the diet long enough to have gotten an IC cookbook.

Thanks for being there!

[KarenAnne]

I have the cookbooks & they are great. But I've been cooking our food the way we ate while growing up, meat & potatoes type food. I too have had to give alot of my recipes up. I make alot of roasts & all, but my favorite IC meal has been roasted turkey, plus it lasts several meals if you're not up to cooking.

I buy a large all natural turkey breast from Wegman's, you can use a whole turkey. I chop up fresh sage & mix it w/ organic butter. After rinsing & patting the turkey dry, I spread the butter/sage mixture under the turkey skin & rub some outer too. I roast the turkey @ 350 degrees & baste it every 30 min. w/ organic maple syrup mixed w/ warm water (1/4 cup syrup,1/2 cup water).Roast covered w/ tin foil & take off the foil last 30-40 min. I remove the turkey to rest & put the roasting pan on a burner on high, scrappping up the bits, I add organic flour first & then stir in organic (no msg) chicken broth(about 1-2 cups), then simmer so it thickens & I strain it.

I've sliced down the turkey, or two for large crowd, & put it in the gravy in a crock pot, served w/ mashed potatoes & vegies, or made hot turkey sandwiches w/ nice crusty kaiser rolls. The maple syrup gives it a nice taste. You can also serve it over white rice, very versatile.

[Briza]

I love to cook and eat all kinds of ethnic foods. But even before IC more often than not cooked just regular American style meals, such as KarenAnne mentioned for everyday dinners: a meat/protein of some varietysimply cooked broiled, grilled, pan seared, baked, steamed, etc., veggies and/or a salad, and potato, rice, or couscous. And those types of meals do tend to be very well tolerated, esp when cooking at home where you can control the seasonings/herbs/spices and the amount of....I have been able to expand my diet quite a bit, but still, when eating out or at home, the meat, veggie, potato/rice kinda meal seems to what I always do best with and luckily is probably my favorite!
Homemade soups can also be made from scratch using only ingredients that are usually safe or that you know you can tolerate. Same for salads. If you can tolerate beans, those are also a great meal to make from scratch from dried beans using usually safe or safe for you ingredients. Pinto beans seem to be usually well tolerated and they are my favorite so I make them frequently as a bean soup. For extra flavor a low or sodium free chicken broth that contains no MSG is generally pretty safe to use as a base for soups and boiled beans, with the addition of water, usually. Also, if you steam or boil veggies, saving/freezing the water they were cooked in makes an excellent base stock for soups and is very nutritious and flavorful, moreso usually than even homemade chicken stock/broth.
If you like Vietnamese or Thai, I sometimes make the non-fried spring rolls at home or help when friends make them... they are somewhat labor intensive so best to invite some friends over to help chop all the ic safe veggies (and sauteed shrimp, fresh lump crabmeat, etc.) that you are gonna stuff them with!!! :)Also when I make spring rolls we just make one big platter with piles of all the different fixins and each guest is required to roll their own ;) (really works out well if you have a large dining table with a large lazy susan on top)...makes for a fun and interesting hands on dinner party seeing who has the best roll your own skills!!! (and wonder exactly where, when, and how they gained those skills hahahaha;))
Anyway, the work is ALWAYS worth the effort b/c they are sooo tasty and refreshing...as for sauces to dip in, I have been able to rework some of the usual Vietnamese and Thai dipping sauces to be as IC safe and tasty for me as possible.
Hope this helps a bit!

[Mrs. Peel]

Thanks a bunch! I'll keep checking in.

We have coconut palms in the yard, and last night my husband used fresh coconut milk as the liquid for our rice. Gives it a gummy texture, but it tastes great!

[kadi]

Hi there,
An online IC cookbook link for you:)
http://www.ic-network.com/icchef/

[Briza]

YOU ARE SO LUCKY!! Fresh coco milk/water, esp from a young coconut is the best!!! OMG, I would have coco palms in addition to the other palms in my yard if they were allowed to be imported from Mexico (I live in VERY south Texas, just a few miles north of latitude of Key West) or were native here in south Texas. Fresh coco milk/water has been reported to be very safe and soothing to the bladder...when I travel in Mexico I pratically live off fresh coco helado!!! But it illegal and nearly impossible to smuggle a coco palm or even a coconut across the border:rolleyes::tsk:....it will be confiscated regardless, so why even try...lol
Good idea with the rice...I wonder if you could just cook it as usual with water, using a bit less than usual water so the rice is a bit drier, and then pour the coco milk on top...that would prevent the gummy texture but still give the rice that extra yummy flavor from the coco, what do you think?

[Mrs. Peel]

I'll try your coconut rice idea, Briza. It hadn't occurred to me to experiment more after enjoying the first batch.

Are you telling me there are no coconut palms for sale in Texas? They are so easy to get in the Keys, and probably hundreds of generations past import. The most healthy ones are the Malayan with the orange nuts.

[Mrs. Peel]

Thanks for the link, Kadi. I didn't realize it was available on line.

My brain hasn't been working too well from being sick and trying to wrap my head around the tentative diagnosis.