Banana omelette

A variant on this. I caramelised the bananas, then proceeded with the omelette as normal, dropping them in as one would a savoury filling, with cream and a pinch of salt. More cream and a dash of maple syrup to serve. A weekend breakfast treat.

Gluten misadventure

I don't eat gluten. This didn't start as a deliberate exclusion; after a few years eating more or less Weston A Price style, I decided to cut the carbs. And low carb whole foods automatically left very little room for glutenacious fare - it was a kind of de facto gluten free diet. I noticed quite a few health improvements that I hadn't expected, and I won't go into these here except one - after some time I realised I hadn't had a single mouth ulcer. This was something I'd had all my life - not constantly, but now and then, especially if I accidentally bit my mouth or scratched my throat swallowing something sharp. Then I was more or less guaranteed to suffer for a week or two. From what I'd read about them over the years, aphthous ulcers are a disordered immune response, often to minor trauma, and this went hand in had with the other improvements I'd seen (allergies and autoimmunity). Googling mouth ulcers+gluten reveals a silent horde of others who have experienced the same thing.

So. A few days ago I got the first ulcer I've had in two years. One of those buggers at the back of the throat, which are particularly annoying because you can't apply the only treatment I've found that actually works (Canker Cover, a sort of gel patch that sticks over the ulcer and heals it in half a day - really). Sure enough, I remembered swallowing something scratchy a few days earlier, but I was puzzled - that's happened on numerous occasions over the last two years and no ulcer ensued. Then I remembered another thing that happened about the same time. I'd eaten in a hummus-type restaurant (social obligations, not my choice), and thought I could play it safe by ordering a Greek salad. This, when it arrived, turned out to be a dollop of green stuff from the meze selection - ie, chopped vegetables swimming in dressing. This inspired instant misgivings - what's in the dressing, for god's sake? - but I'd paid for it, so I started eating it. A few forkfuls in, my misgivings deepened. The odd kernel of sweetcorn was turning up. Not often enough for it to be a deliberate inclusion in the recipe, but very consistent with its being either leftovers scraped from another diner's plate, or detritus adhering to the single serving spoon that did duty for all the meze selection, which included all the usual suspects - couscous, bulgur, pitta, ful medame, etc etc.

At this point I stopped eating.

Now, I don't eat out all that often. When I do, I choose things that shouldn't have any gluten, but so far I haven't routinely asked if something is categorically gluten free. I wasn't seriously worried about the salad. Oh well, I thought, maybe I've eaten a tiny bit of gluten by mistake, I won't order salad here again. I didn't think much more of it.

However, the next morning I had a bit of GI distress, which is very unusual for me. (A case of mild constorrhea, if that's not TMI). This lasted a couple of days. I didn't think much of that, either. It wasn't that bad, and it didn't last. Then up pops this goddamned ulcer, and that got me thinking. If it had just been the GI symptoms, I wouldn't have connected it with gluten, but the GI symptoms and the ulcer, when I hadn't had a single ulcer in two gluten free years, and when before I got several in a year...

This a long and rambling story. The short version is that I'm pretty sure I got glutened in that meal. The ulcer is just too much of a coincidence. The GI symptoms are more interesting, though. GI distress was never a problem for me in the past - but when you've been eating a problematic thing all your life, I suspect that either you partially acclimatise, or you just get so used to the effects you don't know any different. I'm quite ready to believe that having not eaten any gluten for some time, my GI tract would be more likely to react strongly to a reintroduction.

Of course, it's probable that I've been inadvertently exposed to gluten at some other point during these two years without knowing it, and I haven't been aware of any symptoms. Possibly this happened not to coincide with any mouth-biting, though.

And of course I don't know for sure that I did eat gluten, and I don't know for sure that any of these symptoms were the result even if I did eat gluten. But I find it very interesting.

Anyway, I don't plan to ever intentionally eat gluten again. And I think I'll tighten up on restaurant meals, too. If it's the kind of place where you can ask if something's gluten free, I'll ask, and if it's not that sort of place, I'll just have a drink and skip dinner. The social element is kind of the hardest, actually - nobody wants to be the one making a fuss, and if you haven't got a recognisable medical condition to point to, people might think it's a fuss about nothing. But I have to ask myself - is being a compliant social individual really worth eating something you have reason to believe will harm you?

Fish gratin

I wondered about what to call this one. It's a strange concoction born of circumstances: I was dining alone, which does sometimes lead me to odd experimental hashes. I still had a fancy for fish pie, but also cauliflower cheese, which is another of those old fashioned comfort dishes (and this time something I really did eat a lot of as a child). Also I'd happened to impulse-buy a cauliflower this morning. Anyway, the idea of an unholy union of the two things started forming itself in my head, and I also had the idea of making a change from potato and topping it with rice. Wasn't really sure how it would turn out, mind. I parboiled the rice and cauliflower first, then plonked it all in a dish with chunks of raw white fish. Bit of cream and some cut up cheese on the top.

It looked, and in fact tasted, like a rather peculiar rice pudding. Not so surprising for the rice simmered in cream, I suppose, but more so for the cauliflower and fish; even they somehow tasted of rice pudding. It was strange, but not unpleasant. I do like rice pudding. Of course going the whole hog and putting jam on it might have been gilding the lily.

It's not something I'd serve for a dinner party, but I scoffed the lot in front of the TV.

Fish pie

Fish pie always seems like nursery comfort food, which is odd because it's not something I ever remember eating as a child. Not for school dinners, and definitely not at home. Nevertheless, it became a favourite after I started eating fish. The recipe has evolved over the years and sometimes varies, but I tend to do it like this: Sauté a little onion and celery in butter, add a dash of white wine or vermouth and let boil away. Put chunks of raw fish in the dish (this time it was haddock), then stir in the onion mixture, a good glug of cream, some chopped parsley and some grated cheese (not much, just enough for a subtle flavour). Top with mashed potato. The usual way with mashed potato toppings is to make the mash very squishy and buttery, and smooth it over in a homogenous, fork-fluffed seal. Or even, god forbid, to pipe it on with an icing bag in decorative little blobs and rows. I prefer to make the mash dry - no butter, for once - and rather than smoothing it on, drop it in bits and pieces. That way, you don't get a uniform seal, so excess moisture can evaporate as it bakes, and you get a crunchier, craggier top surface. I do shepherd's pie like that, too.


I tried a slightly new variant with the veg - I added a wedge of lemon and some chicken stock while they were cooking. Part of the ongoing bone broth campaign. It worked pretty well.

Salmon with beetroot

A slightly mixed bag of a dinner. Salmon fillets, fried, with a sort of
relish-y mess of sautéed onion, beetroot and lemon with cumin and dill. Beetroot is always good with salmon, and cumin with beetroot; I did wonder if all three together might be gilding the lily, but I was pleasantly surprised. The yellow stuff at the back was leftovers from another meal, an idea that was born out of a general plan to consume more bone stock. I sautéed an onion in butter, then added rice with a dollop of jellied stock, turmeric and black pepper. I wasn't expecting much from that either, to be honest, but it actually turned out pretty good. And some brussels sprouts. Butter on everything.

Pizza

Not pizza on a plate, this time. This was really a frittata, containing sundry veg and some crumbled feta, but it came out looking so much like a pizza I had to take its picture. Good, solid, stomach-lining fare.

Water kefir

For most of my childhood, my parents carefully followed conventional health advice. That meant whole grains and low fat - though since most of what fat there was, was vegetable margarine, that may have been a blessing of sorts. However, on the plus side, it also meant sweets and soda pop were strictly rationed. Pop was very much a treat, a few times a year, and evokes happy memories of hot summer holiday afternoons.

Of course, these days I drink regular pop practically never. Apart from the myriad health concerns, it just tastes absurdly and unpalatably sweet. But, especially in the summer, I drink water kefir, aka tibicos, on a daily basis. For those who haven't tried it, it's a kind of fizzy homebrew probiotic pop, made basically from a sugar solution fermented with water kefir grains - little slippery, translucent, self-propogating crystals. The process is actually very simple, once you get the hang of it. About ten minutes every few days keeps us supplied. It's also a great source of probiotics, being fermented by a colony of bacteria and yeasts.

What I mostly make is ginger beer. I use a mason jar that holds about 3 litres, and e-z cap beer bottles. It's a 2-stage process. First I whizz up a largish chunk of raw ginger in the blender with water. Then I strain it into the big jar with a sieve (the leftover ginger mush I use up for cooking). Along with this goes about an ounce or so of sugar. Any old sugar will do, though I tend to use jaggery or light muscovado if I've got it; the flavour is stronger and you get a few extra minerals. Half a lemon, or lime, or an orange, unsqueezed. And the grains (you can get these easily online). Top up to the brim, and leave for about 24 hours.

Pretty quickly the fermentation becomes apparent. There's a constant bubbling and sometimes the grains will float up and down in the jar, which is quite entertaining to watch if there's nothing on TV.

Then comes the bottling. The easiest way I've arrived at to do this is to fish out the lemon, squeeze it into a large jug, and then pour the rest of the brew into the jug through a sieve (to retrieve the grains). Then pour into the bottles, seal and leave out for another 24-48 hours. After that they should be stored in the fridge or somewhere cold, or they'll carry on fermenting and either burst a gasket or turn vinegary.

Depending on how much sugar you use in the first place, and how long it ferments, this formula ends up something like a sparkling, very dry, ginger ale. Not sweet and with a complex, slightly beery flavour; in fact, it also goes some way to making up for the lack of beer on a gluten free diet. I make a batch one or two times a week. Between batches, the grains sit in sugar water in a much smaller glass jar in the fridge.

That's the ginger beer version. You can make all sorts of varieties. Fruit brews are particularly good - complex, fruity and winey; I made one with wild blackberries that was absolutely ambrosial, like a beaker of the warm south. White grape juice makes something like champagne, and apple juice a dry cider. In this case, though, it's better to keep the fruit element apart from the grains. Just add a bottle of finished kefir, or some sugar water from the resting grains in the fridge, to the juiced fruit and then proceed as before.

Safety note: when I first started making water kefir, I read all sorts of dire warnings about exploding bottles. I've never had a problem yet, but it's certainly possible if the fermentation allows too much gas to build up - if you use a lot of sugar and leave the stuff out for too long. This sounds scary, but with common sense you shouldn't have a problem. My initial fermentation jar doesn't have a completely airtight lid, so that lets excess pressure escape at that stage. Failing that you could cover the jar, or jug, with cloth or kitchen paper and a rubber band just to keep the dust and flies out. For the second stage - the bottle conditioning - you can use plastic pop or water bottles. Beer bottles are designed to withstand some pressure, though. If you're making something about as fizzy as beer, you'll be fine. And you pretty soon get to know how fizzy the brew gets, and how soon. A good thing to do is, at least for the first few batches, to open the cap once or twice a day to see how the pressure is building. A huge gust as you open it and you know there's a lot of pressure. It's also as well to try this over a sink, as occasionally you might get a geyser fountaining out. In my experience though, this only happens with very fruity beverages.

Safety note no.2: some alcohol will be generated. I've seen estimates ranging from 0-2%. Personally, I'd guess from the taste and lack of intoxicating effects that it's on the lower end of that. Perfectly ok to give children, in my opinion, though to be absolutely safe you might want to avoid quaffing literally pints of the stuff before getting behind the wheel. Of course, you might want a more alcoholic brew, in which case you could try upping the sugar content and going for a longer fermentation. (You could also experiment with adding hops, I suppose. Traditionally these were used in beer for their antibacterial action - suppressing the bacterial growth in favour of the yeast, the yeast being the more potent alcohol-creators.) Be warned, though - letting the mixture get too alcoholic in the initial stage when the grains are still present could well pickle and kill them. Better confine the alcohol pursuit to the second stage, and bear in mind the need for caution with pressure build-up, as above.