Help me with cheap recipes for a restrictive diet

Cafe Society
1

Sigh. I’m a good cook, I LIKE to cook, but I’m getting so freaking tired of cooking for my poor husband these days. He has major gastrointestinal issues of indeterminate cause, and his doctor has suggested he try avoiding FODMAPs (“Fermentable Oligo-, Di-, Mono-saccharides And Polyols”, yeah.) And he feels a lot better when he’s been strict on that. We’ve challenged a lot of foods and found a few things he can eat from the crazy-ass FODMAP list, but more that he can’t. And a lot of what he can’t eat are my go-to cheap meals (beans and pulses especially.)

(And I feel awful about complaining about it because it’s definitely way, way worse for him!)

So a short list of things he can’t eat (note that none of this is a contamination thing - he doesn’t have to worry about soy sauce, for example, or other things with a tiny bit of the offending food.)

Beans and lentils
Stone fruits and most dried fruits
Probably cruciferous vegetables (we haven’t tested those yet)
Corn, whole or as corn flour or tortillas or whatever
Dairy (non-cow dairy seems to be okay, so he eats goat cheese)
Soy
Wheat

Happily, onions and garlic and mushrooms challenged successfully so it seems we can eat those. Thank holy Christ because I have no idea how to cook things without chopping an onion first.

There’s also a lengthy list of things he WON’T eat, with seafood and eggs on the absolute no list. (Eggy eggs that is.) He doesn’t care for sweet potatoes, squash, meat with fruit, asparagus, beets (both of which he can’t have anyway), cooked carrots… he’s a picky eater to start with and this has NOT HELPED.

So I’ve had a damned hard time finding things he likes that he can eat, especially since we’re trying to save money. We’ve been eating a lot of meat and neither of us LIKES meat very much. Especially as quick weeknight dinners we’ve been eating a lot of marinated chicken or steak with green beans and/or rice, or Thai curries with chicken and bell peppers and onions. Or sausage and peppers and onions. Or a pot roast in the crock pot with potatoes, or burgers with goat cheese on them and no bun. Or I’ve done chicken breasts with two cans of salsa in the crock pot over rice, and that’s tasty and gives us good leftovers.

But I’m getting bored and I’m just TIRED of looking at cookbooks, even paleo cookbooks, and getting excited about a recipe until I find the one key irreplaceable ingredient that he just can’t eat. So I thought I’d see if any of you have any ideas. Cheap, pantry-focused, and quick would be extra good.

2

That’s a bunch of tough restrictions about the only helpful thing I can come up with is to suggest sweet potato noodles. Which are enough different from sweet potatoes that I didn’t even know that’s what they were made from. My favorite dish is japche. But they can also work for anything where you want a flimsier noodle.

3

What “squash” doesn’t he like? They’re all pretty different to me. Zucchini is different than butternut is different than spaghetti.

I would cook him up a spaghetti squash and make it how you’d like regular pasta spaghetti. To me, it doesn’t really have a taste, just a feel.

Since you’re eating rice have you tried any rice flour products, to give you bread of some kind for something quick?

I wonder if these rolls can be made with goat cheese? I’ve made them with both cottage cheese and cream cheese. They make a pretty good roll if you can’t have wheat, and I like to make big turkey club sandwiches out of them.

If you can’t do soy, you’ll have to make your own mayonnaise I think. I think all shelf-stable brands have soy. I used this recipe to make mine, and blended it right in a $4 glass jar from Wal Mart.

Once you have mayo you can make a BLT wrap - chop up bacon and tomato and mix it with mayo (and pepper if you want) and then wrap it in some nice lettuce leaves.

If you want to completely eliminate soy you can use coconut aminos instead of soy sauce, which you can find at Whole Foods or probably any health food store. To me it tastes exactly the same, at least for a flavoring.

Have you ever cooked a pork loin for him? Does he like that? That’s one of those things that could feed 2 people for 2-3 days and is versatile. Make your own marinade or try a vacuum sealed one with marinade. And since it doesn’t take long to cook you can throw it in the oven when you get home while you’re getting everything else ready.

4

Can you get dried pasta that doesn’t have wheat? If you can there’s a whole lot of things open to you.

If not, Chilli; beef and red wine casserole with mashed spuds, lamb stew. Plenty of options.

Try the beef and red wine casserole. You’ve got a crock pot, so toss in a kilo (2 pounds) of diced beef that’s been tossed in seasoned flour, some chopped mushrooms, onion, garlic, chopped celery and carrot, a tin of diced tomatoes and half a bottle of red. Other herbs to taste. Lob in some diced potato and or sweet potato if you like, some peas or beans.

Do for 8 hours on low in the crock pot, serve on rice, quinoa or mashed spuds.

Another would be a simple Thai beef Salad Thai Beef Salad | Donna Hay

5

How about normal potatoes? Rice noodles? Pineapple for fruit. For milk, try Carnation evaporated milk - it’s treated to a higher temperature than normal.

By seafood do you mean shellfish or fish as well?

You might find this link about goats’ milk of interest.

6

Have you tried buckwheat noodles?

Also, it might be easier if you make a list of what he can and will eat.

7

We crumble half sweet Italian sausage and half hot Italian sausage and sauté it with onions and apples, until the apple are caramelized and the sausage is cooked through.

I also add chopped apples and halved grapes in my green salad with sharp cheddar, and your choice of dressing.

He doesn’t like raw carrots, does be like cooked? I made chicken fried rice that was pretty damn good two nights ago. I cubed chicken breast (this would also work well with pork loin) and marinated in minced garlic, grated ginger soy sauce and a splash of canola oil. I’m lazy, so I cooked my rice with frozen peas and carrots and corn, then set it in a colander to “dry out” a bit. I added two tablespoons of rice vinegar to the rice, and kept stirring it with a fork to release the steam every so often. I sautéed off the chicken and removed it from the pan, then cranked the heat and added two tablespoons of oil. I stir-fried my rice/veggies for a few minutes, added soy sauce, more ginger and garlic, and stir-fried for another few minutes. Obviously, the veg is infinitely swappable, as are the protein options. Might even be good with mushroom as the base. Notice, we don’t like eggs either, so those were omitted from the dish. You can certainly add a scrambled egg to your own portion.

8

I have tried to edit that post twice with no success. There are rules violations on all of those suggestions! Maybe you can alter them in some way?

9

We’ve tried gluten free bread and pasta alternatives - a lot of the breads have bean flour in them, but he’s okay with the few that don’t. I can’t stand them personally. Trader Joe’s brown rice pasta is by far the best on that front but to me there’s still something a little gross about it. We have used it as a weeknight thing, but I either resent the pasta quietly or have to make two batches.

You see, BeeDub? You’re just going on your merry way and then you realize, shit, apples. Or goddamn it, this has corn in it.

A major category I forgot about is sweeteners - he can’t have honey, molasses, HFCS, or any sugar alcohols. Sugar and maple syrup is okay. So you can see how a lot of sauces that would be totally fine fail on the honey or molasses front. Not that we ate a lot of HFCS before but this really makes restaurants hard even if they have gluten free options.

ZipperJJ, squash. If it’s called squash he doesn’t like it. Personally I have a visceral horror of the very idea of spaghetti squash but I have never tried it. I suppose I should take one for the team and give it a shot.

Oh and he’s allergic to raw pineapple. And seafood means anything from the water. That and eggs are the things he absolutely positively will not budge on. Other things he’ll try to please me, but seafood and eggs are an absolute no go. And he totally can detect the egg in fried rice, too. No souffles, quiches, custardy puddings, etc.

I’m thinking what he really can’t have in milk is casein - I wouldn’t even have tried him on goat cheese except that I have a friend who is so allergic to casein that her skin freaks the fuck out if she has, say, butter frosting on a piece of cake. Watery blister things. But she can have non-cow dairy just fine.

I’ve actually got a pork loin recipe from a paleo cookbook that I was going to try in the crock pot tomorrow - I am very leery of pork loins because my mother used to murder them, but I’m willing to try it.

I hate to list things he can have and likes because I’m sort of hoping that maybe I forgot a whole food group that I can make him try and you will all tell me what it is, but proven safe foods that he likes include:

Meat (extra well done)
Potatoes
Green beans (although eventually I think we’re going to turn into goddamned green beans)
Salads with normal salady things on them
Rice, including rice milk and rice cereal
All herbs and spices
Cheeses that don’t come from cows (I assume any dairy from other animals but we’ve only tried cheeses)
Bananas
Coconut, including coconut milk and AWESOME coconut ice cream
Diet sodas (aspartame, etc. is fine)
Dark chocolate as long as it doesn’t have milk solids
Sugar and maple syrup
Mayo, mustard, ketchup without HFCS, any sauces without honey, molasses, HFCS, dairy, or much wheat
Wine and any liquor except rum
Onions
Mushrooms
Bell peppers of all colors
Berries except blackberries

We do need to explore stew options more widely. We both miss chili but we can’t really get excited about it without beans, you know? (Shut up, Texas.)

The Korean sweet potato noodle thing sounds really interesting - I suppose they’d have that at Whole Foods or somewhere?

The thing that makes this absolutely hardest, no question, is no beans.

10

How about quinoa? It’s a grain, and apparently it’s a gluten-free choice (if the gluten is part of what’s causing your husband’s haywireness) although it can contain traces of gluten if the processing plant isn’t careful. Quick cooking and pretty tasty - I have a recipe for a salad that is right out for you because it contains honey and peaches but is quite yum. It might be a good choice for some starch side dish for you two; adds some variety.

11

Yeah, it seems there’s about a zillion stews and stir fries that should cover your bases. That’s what I’d explore in your situation. Then again, probably half of what I cook fits your restrictions. (I don’t use a lot of corn, my wife dislikes legumes, I’m not big on fruit, etc. The wheat would be the hardest part but not too difficult to get around as long as rice and other grains are on the table.)

Oh, and pork loin is awesome. If your mother (like mine), cooked the hell out of it, please give it another chance. Just use a thermometer and don’t overcook it. I like to cook it to about 150 and let it rest. It’s still a bit pinkish at this point, but not terribly so. They’re pretty easy to do simply. One of my favorite rubs is approximately equal parts of crushed fennel seeds and black pepper with some salt. I basically use this recipe and add black peppercorns to it. Feel free to substitute arrowroot or some other thickener for the corn starch if you want to make the thickened gravy that goes along with it (but you’ll be fine with just spooning over the unthickened gravy, too.)

12

Another tip for pork loin. If you like it slightly more done (like 160+), brine the sucker. That will give you continued juiciness at well-done levels. I don’t brine my own pork loin, but for anyone who is a bit squeamish about the merest fleck of pink in their pork, I brine it and it works out to be juicy at well done levels.

13

Quinoa is fine, but I haven’t really done much with it lately because our go-to was a corn and bean salad with it. I should revisit it.

14

If he’s fine with mayo, then he’s fine with egg yolk.

15

He’s fine with cakes too but that doesn’t mean he’s fine with eggs. Let the guy decide what eggs he doesn’t like, okay?

16

Shepherd’s pie might work well. That’s basically seasoned ground beef and whatever veggies you’d like, with a mashed potato topping and crust.

17

The USDA says 145 now, man! Do it! :smiley:

And of course that’s in the fattest part. A pork loin will have thin ends, so if you cook it any higher the ends will be toast.

18

I looked on Amazon and they have it I’m sure whole foods could get it if you asked.

19

I don’t bother listening to the USDA, and have had pork done to 145 before they changed their guidelines (hell, I’ve had raw ground pork before, too). Thing is, I don’t like my pork quite that rare. I like an extra five-ish degrees on it. That’s the sweet spot for my tastes, closer to what is “medium” on a steak, but not quite medium well.

20

Yeah, Mr. Z ain’t eatin’ no pink-ass pork. He won’t even eat prime rib with some pink in it even though I explain that it’s just part of the way it’s cooked and that it doesn’t feel rare at all. Nope. He’s the one they save the shitty steaks for.

(So I cook things the way I like them and then usually just throw his in the microwave for a bit.)

ETA - I assure you that he has many, many sterling qualities.