Showing posts with label tiredness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tiredness. Show all posts

Saturday, 19 October 2013

Constant Cravings

I should warn you, this is a post about pregnancy. I tell you now so that you can move on to a different site, should this kind of thing not interest you. I promise that normal, gluten free food-y, service will be resumed very soon. In fact, scroll to the end of the post for a rather lovely stuffed onion recipe!

You might have noticed that I've not been blogging much over the past four months. June and July passed in a haze of long naps, spicy pickled onions, and Nutella, and before I knew it, it was August! September was unfortunately dominated by a Crohn's related infection that resulted in a trip to hospital, but all is well now. Our family and friends know our news and I thought I'd share it with you, too. After all, many of you have been on the journey to good health with me.

I'm 22 weeks pregnant. After three major surgeries, the removal of my large intestine and a decent chunk of small intestine, and nearly two decades of inflammation and ulceration in my abdomen, I wasn't even sure that was a possibility. Before I was diagnosed Coeliac, I lost so much weight that my periods stopped and didn't return for four years. One surgeon told me that Crohn's would have reduced my chances of conceiving, I saw gynaecologists who said, "maybe, maybe not" while all around me friend after friend popped out babies of their own. Advice ranged from, "just relax and it'll happen" to "I can give you the details of a good fertility clinic," but nothing helped.

I was starting to feel an affinity with Tian Tian, the panda at Edinburgh Zoo as certain family members became increasingly impatient over when (and if) a baby would ever arrive.

The funny thing is, that in spite of really quite wanting a baby, I was more concerned about being healthy enough to cope with a pregnancy and to look after myself and the resulting sprog afterwards. Fortunately, my Crohn's is in remission and, apart from various vitamin supplements and injections, I'm medication free. In fact, the timing couldn't be better, I've been off Humira for a year (it takes six months to clear your system and isn't recommended for pregnancy), my colectomy scars have had eighteen months to heal and I have the most energy I've had in a decade. Of course, that's not to say that I believe pregnancy will be easy, there are always risks. As scar tissue stretches and internal adhesions tear with this growing wee one, I've had all kinds of pain. I know that bowel obstructions and problems with the stoma are common for women like me, plus, there's the issue of not necessarily absorbing as many nutrients and water as people with entire, and fully functioning, digestive systems. 

I used to feel deep disappointment when pregnant friends confessed to not really having any interesting cravings, often demanding, "go home and eat a box of crayons for me!" One friend had cravings for tomato juice, while another confessed to eating bucketloads of daal. I've had rather unexpected cravings for onions. It doesn't matter what kind of onion, be it raw, pickled, roasted, fried or in soup, I'll eat it in vast quantities! This explains why, when the waitress at a restaurant told me that their soup of the day - French onion soup - wasn't gluten free, I got a bit tearful at the thought of missing out on onions. It turns out that onions are high in vitamin C, Folate, and Potassium so perhaps cravings aren't as strange as I first imagined.



Stuffed Onions
The memory of onion-soup-gate has me craving onions once again so here's an inside-out sage and onion stuffing recipe that's a brilliant side dish for your roast.

2 tsp rapeseed oil
50g stale gluten free bread (a slightly past-it Udi's bagel is particularly good here)
25g pancetta, cut into lardons
a few sage leaves, chopped
4 large-ish onions


  • Peel the onions and slice off the top and the root end off, leaving enough to hold the onion layers together. Drizzle with oil, season and pop into the oven at 180°C for 30 minutes.
  • Cut the stale bread into ½ cm cubes and put in a bowl.
  • Add the pancetta into lardons to the bowl with the chopped sage, salt and pepper. Stir together.
  • When the onions are soft, but still holding their shape, remove from the oven and scoop the middles out, leaving just the outer 2-3 layers.
  • Chop half of the inner parts of the onion and stir into the rest of the stuffing mix.
  • Fill the onion shells with stuffing, pack it quite tightly, and return to the oven for a further 30-40 minutes.


Wednesday, 23 May 2012

Pepperoni Pasta

Yes, I know that I've been a bit sporadic on here since going back to work.  In my defence, I have had a fair amount going on.  On top of work and studying, I have had a few jaunts to Scotland and the New Forest to spend time with family.  Oh, and I have joined the team at Domestic Sluttery!  Check out the site every Friday for a gluten free recipe from me.

I have been eating a few more meals for one recently, too.  The Husband's job has meant that he is working away some weekends and after the first few weekends of surviving on crisps and ice-cream, I decided to adopt a slightly healthier meal plan!  Cooking for one has has its challenges - I tend to be an overgenerous cook, so attempting single portions isn't easy - especially when you are busy or tired, or both.  I am still fighting exhaustion since the operation, so I have been eating a lot more quick and easy food; buckwheat noodles with stir-fried vegetables, lentil soups, omelettes and frittata-type dishes, and this pasta.  It's basically all the things I like on a pizza, with pasta and it's jolly good.  Go on, give it a try.


Easy Pasta for One

1tbsp oil
2 anchovy fillets
50g sliced pepperoni, cut into bite-sized pieces
85g pitted black olives, sliced
1 large plum tomato, peeled and chopped
15g fresh basil, chopped
salt and pepper, to taste
75g gluten free pasta (I like Doves Farm Organics penne)

  • Cook the pasta in boiling salted water, drain when ready (but reserve a cup of the pasta water for later on).
  • Heat the oil in a pan and add the anchovies, cook for a couple of minutes until it breaks down into the oil.
  • Fry the pepperoni in the anchovy and oil for a minute. Chuck in the olives and tomato and bring to a simmer.  Stir in the chopped basil. 
  • If the mixture is a bit thick, pour in some of the pasta water to loosen the sauce. Taste the sauce and season as you like - remember that the anchovies and pasta water will be quite salty anyway.
  • Add the cooked pasta and mix well with the sauce. Serve with a little Parmesan cheese, if you fancy.

Sunday, 21 August 2011

With Fronds Like These...

Well, I am now officially in my thirties.  I survived the festivities relatively unscathed, thanks to my wonderful Husband, and Mum and Dad (and helped along the way by an exceptional strawberry and basil pavlova at the Ubiquitous Chip in Glasgow.)    So, that's it.  The moment I have been dreading since I turned 29 has passed and I am older, wiser(?), and healthier than I have ever been.  Except for the massive anaemia.  I currently have two default settings: at work, and sleeping.  Occasionally I have mustered up enough energy to indulge in something I love - playing in the kitchen.  Inspired by my Riverford Organics vegetable box, I came up with this.

Fennel Frond Pesto
I have used sunflower seeds, but you can just as easily use pine nuts. (the Husband has a nut allergy and although pine nuts aren't technically nuts, they make him nervous, so I substituted them.)

50g fennel fronds, thickest stems removed
1 fat garlic clove, peeled and roughly chopped
25g fennel bulb
juice from half a lemon
10g sunflower seeds
50-100ml cold-pressed rapeseed oil
pinch of salt

  • In a mini food processor, or with a mortar and pestle, finely chop the fennel fronds (you might need to add them in a few at a time to fit them in).
  • Add the garlic, fennel bulb, lemon juice, and sunflower seeds and grind to a rough paste.
  • A little at a time, mix in the oil until you have a consistency that you are pleased with. I like a loose paste. 
  • Taste, and season as necessary.

Try this tossed through boiled new potatoes, or as an accompaniment to fish.

Monday, 28 February 2011

Ingredients of Convenience

Despite the complete exhaustion I have felt over the last few months, plus occasional bouts of pain/sickness/insanely busy work, I have still been keen to cook meals from scratch.  I don't want to rely on ready made, processed meals; even when overwhelming tiredness is threatening to prevent me from doing anything but sleep.  Apart from the limited choice of gluten free options, they are expensive and full of preservatives and flavourings that are likely to wreak havoc with my Crohn's Disease.  So, if convenience food is out, what about convenience ingredients?  By this, I mean peeled and chopped vegetables, tinned tomatoes with ingredients like olives, onions, or chillies already in there, frozen mashed potatoes, and canned beans, peas, and lentils.  In the past I have been loathe to shell out on prepared vegetables (why pay extra for someone else to chop them up for you when it takes minutes to do it yourself?) and canned pulses (what is so difficult about soaking dried ones overnight before you need them?), but a blood haemoglobin count of 6.8 (normal for me is usually 12, normal for normal people is 15) and a folate count of 2 (normal is 10) have meant that the task of slicing an onion feels like a monumental job, and preparing ingredients for the following day is the last thing on my mind when I'm ready to sleep at tea-time.

So, I swallowed my pride and browsed a whole new section of the supermarket aisles.  I discovered packs of soffritto, onion, carrot, and celery cubed, diced onions, butternut squash and sweet potato - ready to cook, even peeled garlic cloves!  My freezer is stocked with chopped garlic, ginger, and chives, and I have tins of button and sliced mushrooms, chickpeas, potatoes, and fried onion piled up in my cupboards.  This will not be a permanent feature of my kitchen, but while I wait for the various anemia treatments to take effect, it is the ideal way to help me cook home-made dishes for Husband and I. I have only taken the pre-prepared route with veg and pulses, with meat I bought it enough for a month's worth of meals, cut it into portions and froze it, ready for when I want it.

I find slow cooking to be the least labour intensive method at the moment, tonight we are having slow-roasted pork belly.  To accompany it, a chorizo and chickpea casserole (with tomatoes and mushrooms for Husband - they are too high residue for me). The chickpeas, potatoes, and mushrooms are all tinned, the tomatoes were slow roasted earlier in the week, and the chorizo took less than a minute to slice! It's not time consuming, but it is satisfying to know that we can still eat home-cooked meals with little exertion from me.

Sunday, 27 February 2011

Bird-brained and Wood Pigeon.

After almost a year of living in Kent, I finally got a referral to a Gastroenterology consultant at Kent and Canterbury Hospital.  Until now I had been driving the 2 hour journey to Buckinghamshire because I was worried about the consequences of leaving my brilliant consultant there.  It turns out that I shouldn't have been so concerned, there is more the one fantastic doctor working in the NHS.  (Please, don't blame me for being pessimistic - I've had some real clunkers in the past.)  My new consultant (and gastro nurse practitioner) are incredibly thorough and effective - in the 4 weeks that I have been under their care they have treated my iron deficiency anemia with a blood transfusion and a series of iron injections, discovered folate-deficiency anemia and started a folic acid regimen, diagnosed a protein deficiency, and have scheduled a gastroscopy to investigate the reason I don't seem to be absorbing these essential minerals. Oh, and are changing my treatment from Infliximab to Adulimubab.  Phew!

Being anaemic has caused a variety of symptoms, the obvious tiredness, shortness of breath, dizziness, and palpitations are one thing; but nothing has prepared me for the constant loss of concentration!  So far today I have started to saute onions and completely forgotten about them - until the smell of burning reminded me, and left my lunch to go cold.  Cupboards are left open, jobs are half-done, television shows end and I have no idea what happened...  I'm not even sure what day of the week it is most of the time, and this is with treatment!  I do hope that normal brain function returns soon - I've been reading the same page of Bram Stoker's Dracula for three weeks now and I'd like to finish it soon.

Despite all of this, I have managed to keep up with my try-new-things-in-the-kitchen resolution.  This week, pigeon.  Wood Pigeon to be exact.  Not much unnerves me in the kitchen; I can gut fish, joint rabbits, prepare offal, but the frailty of these tiny birds threw me.  I wasn't sure how best to cook them, concerned about overcooking them, unsure if I should joint them, or keep whole, wondered if I should roast, braise, grill or fry.  In the end, I roasted them whole, then removed the breasts and served with boiled potatoes and watercress, with a white wine and roasting-pan-juices reduction.  I found pigeon meat to be a little too strong for my liking, but Husband loved it.  And, it turns out that he has been taking photos of my food with his camera-phone, so I can actually post some evidence of this meal!  I used the leg meat to make a pasta sauce with slow roasted tomatoes, balsamic vinegar, capers, parsley, garlic and olives.  The sweetness of the tomato and saltiness of capers cut through the game-y richness and I enjoyed this far more than the first meal. Of course, the carcasses made a wonderful, dark stock.

"That's too special to just serve with pasta!" (according to Husband).

Tuesday, 5 June 2007

Energy?

Sooo tired! On Sunday morning I woke up before my alarm, got up, dressed, had breakfast and was ready for church before I realised that this was not normal for me. Where had this energy come from? Could it be the copious amounts of food and 3 different weight-gain supplements I had the day before? Doubtful. I was sick the day before and didn't each much and didn't manage all my supplements. Could I be cured of Coelics?! That seemed unlikely too. I hope that it is part of the exceedingly slow healing process that I've noticed since starting on the gluten free diet. By about 3pm I was exhausted again and ready to sleep for a week, but it was nice while it lasted.

I'm back to complete lack of energy now. It's a struggle to even open my eyes in the morning, let alone get up. I have to force myself out of bed. Throughout the day I feel as if I could fall asleep at any moment and it's quite normal for me to have a nap in the evening. I know that it's a result of malabsorption and once my intestines heal I'll feel better. When will that be? I'm bored of this now. Sunday morning was a glimpse of what I could feel like, it's made me impatient.

Yesterday I was so sleepy in the evening that I couldn't be bothered to cook. This would have been the ideal situation to rescue one of the meals that Lovely Bunny cooked for me to freeze. (If I'm honest, I'm desperate for an excuse to eat one of the frozen meals because they are gorgeous. I tasted a bit to check seasoning and could have finished the lot then and there!) Instead, The Musician decided to make salmon. The salmon, however, was lovely. The accompaniment was achieved by par-boiling then sauteing potatoes, panicking and throwing in some onion, stirring vigorously, then adding chopped peppers! It actually tasted quite nice, I think it could be improved by popping it the oven and roasting for half an hour. Next time!

Today, I think I will cook. I re-discovered Delia Smith's recipe for moussaka and it seems a fairly simple process to adapt it to make it gluten free. I'll let you know if it works!