Bridging Foods is amazing! Don’t believe me? Taste it and see!
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Bridging Foods is amazing! Don’t believe me? Taste it and see!
I had tried to eat gluten and dairy free in 2007 and failed miserably as ultimately I had no support or vision and so ended up with bowls of plain quinoa and millet to eat for ‘breakfast’.
This was not yummy by any stretch of the imagination – it was no wonder I gave up almost as soon as I'd started. Five years later all the reasons to try this were still rife in my body, i.e. constant acid reflux, bloating, discomfort after every meal, lethargy, rashes ... Something had to change and it was time to take action. I was encouraged by my esoteric practitioner to listen to my body and around the time of making this decision, after reading so much contradictory stuff on the internet about acid reflux, I was introduced to the recipe book Bridging Foods and quite literally haven't looked back since.
This recipe book is different because it doesn't suck you in and tempt you to make food that will make you feel rubbish for hours after a microsecond of yumminess in the mouth. Contrary to that it’s jam packed full of healthy recipes, for food that supports your body to actually feel good, and, wait for it, these recipes also taste amazing! Don't believe me? Suck it and see!
There's a handy introduction in this book explaining the impacts various food groups have on our bodies and why eliminating these from our diets may positively affect how we feel, from the inside out.
I found these simple words easy to comprehend and they also helped me, in turn, to pass on the wisdom to other people when advising them of my dietary requirements.
In addition there's a really handy 'in the pantry' list to help get you started as, when you first begin to eat differently like this, it can feel as though for every recipe you've got to buy new ingredients. The book is then split into sections covering all meals of the day, snacks, dips, etc. which is obviously handy to find what you're looking for quickly.
I haven't tried all the recipes but many of them, and have loved them all. I found working with new ingredients required practice in some cases, one example being the dairy free cheese cake. My boyfriend made it for me for my birthday and it was out of this world amazing!! Totally perfect! However, when I tried to make this myself, I used a deeper dish, but baked it for the same amount of time, and as such, it didn't set, so was a bit of a disaster! More like cheese cake soup...! This is an example of how not to be disheartened when cooking new things with new ingredients!
A recipe we have used endlessly is the Open Lamb Kofta (pg. 45). We have this as a main meal – we absolutely love it! The only word of caution here would be that once you've found a brand of corn tortilla that is gluten free, keep checking each time you buy as we found that what was once gluten free, is no longer! At this point we converted them to lamb burgers but also invented our own ‘meat pizza’ whereby the corn tortilla is replaced by the spiced meat, pressed onto the baking tray to make a base which we then top with very thinly sliced veg which we then oven bake. Adding an egg or frozen spinach on top actually keeps it quite moist too!
Another one of my personal favourites and one, the taste of which blew me away so much I felt it should be served in top restaurants, was the Pasta Free Chicken Lasagne (pg. 110).
Being honest, it does take two hours to cook by yourself – much more fun to share the load a bit with this one as there are three parts: the filling, the layers and the sauce. So worth it though, it's absolutely divine and a firm winner for those who initially turn their nose up at the thought of gluten and dairy free food. This proves GFDF food is by no means boring! So many flavours in this dish! This dish introduced me to nutmeg, now I use it in all my egg dishes! This is another one I made my own a bit as well by making it with classic beef Bolognese. I also learnt that a sprinkle of cauliflower rice grilled on top rather resembles the taste of browned cheese ... who knew?
So you can see this book is far more than simply a recipe book; for me it's been a companion through a journey of rediscovering my body from the inside out.
As my body tells me I can't eat something, I adjust these recipes slightly to suit it. For example, I rarely eat sweet stuff now as I find it too stimulating, but I didn't just stop eating pudding overnight. I made them with less added sugar (agave nectar, maple syrup, etc.), then I would eliminate these sugars completely leaving just the fruit. So over time my sweet tooth became a lot less sweet and then any sweet stuff was too much and so I didn't eat it anymore.
Now these recipes serve as a great backup for those times when I'm with others who do still have a sweet tooth. This is why the name ‘bridging foods’ is so appropriate for this book as it helps you to migrate or bridge the gap from the classic modern diet that is often high in sugar, to a more loving diet as your body calls for it.
Filed under
Gluten free, Dairy free, Bloating, Sugar, Healthy diet
