More flapjacks

I made more flapjacks (no photos unfortunately), based on the recipe here. Quantities I used:
500g oats
100g butter
4 tbsp. peanut butter
6 tbsp. rice syrup
2 tbsp. Stevia
3 bananas
100g pumpkin seeds
75g raisins
2 oranges' worth orange zest
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
I baked them for over an hour, which was too long - I should aim for around 50 minutes next time. Also, they weren't quite sweet enough, so I should add more Stevia next time. Still tasted good though!

Breakfast surprise

Not a great surprise if you've prepared it, but tasty nevertheless ;-). Here's my take on a yoghurty. grainy, fruity layered breakfast :-).

Ingredients:
Yoghurt alternative (or low lactose dairy yoghurt) (I used some soya yoghurt and some CoYo coconut yoghurt which is absolutely delicious, if a little high in fat - available in some Tescos or online e.g. goodnessdirect.co.uk)
Milk alternative (I used a bit of hemp milk, though actually have no idea if it has been tested for FODMAP levels yet - seems to agree with me though :-))
quinoa, oat and buckwheat flakes - I got the latter two in my local Polish shop
Grapes
Grapefruit
Chopped ginger (I got the Sainsbury's frozen version)

I whizzed up the two yoghurts with the hemp milk, then layered the fruit, grain flakes and ginger with the yoghurty mixture, sprinkled with a bit of cinnamon on top and refrigerated overnight. Delicious and creamy, and not very much effort :-).

Butternut squash and pepper soup. Note: Medium FODMAP

Butternut squash is on the 'amber' list of low FODMAP foods, so half a cup in the space of one meal should not be a problem. I was very slightly disappointed with this soup, as it tasted a little bit insipid in comparison with its rich cuminy-cinnamony smell, which might have been due to the potatoes I used to thicken it, or the squash not being particularly sweet. Either way, it was certainly edible, and an addition to my cooking repertoire ;-).

Ingredients:
one medium butternut squash
one red pepper
a few potatoes
mild olive oil for frying
asafoetida
bay leaves
peppercorns
one tsp garam masala
salt
glucose (I used a couple of teaspoons for sweetening the soup to give a little more flavour)

Wash, peel (as needed) and chop the vegetables. Heat up the oil in a pan and fry the asafoetida, then add the pepper and the rest of the veg. Cover in water. Add bay leaf, peppercorns, garam masala and salt, and boil until vegetables are soft (hourish?). Attempt to fish out bay leaf and pepper (I leave one or two in to provide some spice), add the glucose (optional for some additional sweetness), whizz, enjoy. Bon appetit :-)

Low FODMAP friendly ready-made desert

I was very excited (I don't get out much) to read the ingredients on this, as I need to avoid sucrose but have a pretty big sweet tooth. Sweeteners here include grape juice, maltodextrin and dextrose (i.e. glucose), which as far as I can tell all agree with me, and this has a mild non-addictive background sweetness, which is just right. Note it's the 'a hint of lemon' flavour only which is low FODMAP, as the others contain glucose-fructose syrup. I've seen these in health food shops, and they're also available online, for example from Goodness Direct.

Carrot and pecan cake

I made the carrot and pecan cake from the excellent Sue Shepherd's and Peter Gibson's 'Food Intolerance Management Plan', merely substituting their suggested flours for the Dove's mix with some maize flour, and sugar with the glucose/stevia mix. I hope that including some of their recipes encourages any readers (if there are any! ;-)) to buy the book - it's brilliant and the cake was delicious. I might substitute some of the nuts with a few raisins next time. No pictures as made during a busy Christmas and it disappeared pretty quickly! :-)

Ingredients:
230g Dove's self-raising gluten-free flour mix
40g maize flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
200g glucose
20g stevia
90g chopped pecan nuts
2 carrots
125ml oil (original recipe states vegetable, I used olive)
3 eggs
125ml lactose-free milk

Sift and mix the flours, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and xanthan gum. Add the glucose, stevia and nuts. Grate the carrots and lightly whisk the eggs. Combine the carrots, eggs, milk and oil with the dry ingredients. Bake in a greased baking paper lined tin (the original recipe said to use a 20 x 9cm loaf tin, but I had enough batter for this and a few muffin cases too), at 140ish C for 1.5ish hours, covering the cake with baking foil halfway through so that the top does not burn. Let cool and eat :-).

Flapjacks

I adapted a feel-good flapjack recipe from the BBC Good Food website (the original is available here). Not sure exactly how low FODMAP these are, as I included sweetened cranberries for a festive feel (I made these at Christmas) and a hefty five bananas. The original recipe includes peanut butter, and these might have been better for it, but I left it out as my little niece is not yet eating nuts. They were a little squishy but definitely edible!

Ingredients:
475g oats
250ml water
5 tablespoons glucose
2 tablespoons cornflour (1 might actually be enough)
5 small bananas
50g butter
150g Ocean Spray craisins (sweetened rehydrated cranberries)
40g raisins
zest from two oranges
(2 tablespoons peanut butter - I did not include this, but it's in the original recipe and I'll include it next time round)

Make a syrup from the water, glucose and cornflour, and combine with butter which has been melted (I use the microwave) and whizzed-up bananas. Mix the oats, orange zest, craisins and raisins with the wet ingredients. Bake in a tray lined with greased baking paper at 140-ish C for 1.5ish hours. Allow to cool, cut up, eat! :-)

Vanilla cake

Yum! I used the same recipe as for the raspberry, chia seed and vanilla cake (adapted from here), but left out the raspberries and added just a few raisins instead. I also used a little bit of Stevia (20g) to make it a little sweeter and used 2 instead of 3 eggs. The caramel-like vanilla really came through - delicious :-).