Sue-on-the-farm
Jan 9, 2014 at 3:47 pm
We, Himself, Kidlet & I, have been living on “the renal diet” since 2009. When your kidneys fail and you must be on dialysis, you really have to watch what you consume. Luckily, we’re past hemodialysis [hemo–of the blood, in hospital, hooked up to a machine for 4 to 6 hours 3 to 4 times a week] where liquid intake is also restricted. We’re living with peritoneal dialysis – basically 2 litres of saline swishin’ out your abdomen absorbing the bad stuff that your kidneys would normally filter out, and replacing it up to 5 or 6 times a day.
Apparently there is no more restrictive diet than this:
– must be “heart healthy” [i.e. counting calories and watching the fat content]
– low sodium [once you start reading the labels, you quickly realize there isn’t gonna be any meal-from-a-box/can days]
– low phosphorus [no nuts, legumes, brown rice, chocolate, cola – if it’s brown it’s probably bad] [ya, just when I had everyone converted to brown rice and whole wheat pasta and was working on introducing black beans to the mix]
– low potassium [potatoes & carrots must be double-boiled or soaked to leech potassium, forget about kiwi and bananas]
We’ve had the basics down for quite some time and now we’re out crawlin’ the inter-webs looking for inspiration to literally spice up our lives. We’ve been eating a lot of squash. We’d always enjoyed spaghetti squash but have been trying out different ones.
I clicked on this link because a.] the photograph looked so inviting and b.] just checking to see if there is something we don’t already know about roasting a squash.
All this to say, I’m a new reader and I haven’t read anything else here yet [but I will] and my vote is for more basic recipes. Yes, the inter-webs are full of resources but I enjoy your introduction, the thinking behind the recipe and because we are so restricted, we need to see the building blocks of a more complicated recipe to find where we may have to adjust it.
Something I personally have looked for in the past few years, specially for foods that we haven’t used before, are shopping tips [what differentiates a good butternut squash from a “don’t buy that one”?], and storage and preservation tips.
You mentioned you’ll be using the squash in a couple of up-coming recipes. How will you store your roasted squash until then? How long will it keep in the fridge before it’s, aw darn, I forgot about that squash I was going to use and now it goes to the compost pile?
Does it freeze well? If it doesn’t freeze well to consume as is, can it be incorporated into a soup or stew or is it like tomato – eat it fresh, eat it soon or cook it into sauce before you freeze it?
My own tip, that I’ve learned since I became a Farm Woman In Training – you can freeze whole tomatoes and there is even two good reasons to do so. First, when tomatoes are ripe for harvesting and after everyone is to the point of “If I see one more fresh tomato I will just simply die”, and it’s hot and you’ve just had it up to your eyebrows with lovely, healthy tomatoes and dealing with them – just toss them in a good freezer bag and throw them in the freezer.
The second reason for freezing them whole is that then they are incredibly easy to skin. Straight out of the freezer bag, run the tomato under warm to hot water and the skins will literally slide and pop right off. I didn’t learn this ’til I was well into my thirty-somethings and I’ve always been annoyed with tomato skins and this knowledge literally changed my life.
One last thing, the next time Hubby wants Alfredo, look for a package of Knorr Garlic 4-cheese sauce mix. The sodium is not off-the-charts-bad, [yes, it’s bad, but not off the chart!] and is super easy and quick to make in the microwave. This is often our once a month cheat meal. With fresh pasta [preferably a coloured, veggie based one] and shrimp. We plan for a super low sodium day before and after splurge night and then forget about it all and just enjoy! If there are left-overs [I made it for just myself once] they actually re-heat nicely the next day. Everyone needs a cut themselves some slack, go to ideas, in their repertoire, even foodies and wanna be healthy food bloggers. Hey, if we can do it, so can you!
I look forward to perusing the rest of your site.
