An OMS Diet Diary

Chronicles of a venture into a vegan plus seafood (OMS) diet..

[omsdietdiary-blog]

Chia Crackers and Vegan Cheesy Pasta Tuesday

Not one but two great successes yesterday.  First I found something to do with my chia seeds other than stick them in a smoothie.

OMS friendly seeded crackers.  Just mix chia seeds with whatever other seeds you’ve got (I used poppy seeds, sesame seeds and milled linseed), plain flour and olive oil.  Let it rest for thirty minutes, then roll the seedy doughy mixture  out very thin between two sheets of parchment paper.  Slice it into squares and stick in the oven on the parchment paper.  150°C for forty minutes.  And hey presto - crackers!  #nomnom  I found the recipe on the Yummly app.

Then...

Vegan cheesy pasta, using the nutritional yeast I bought this week.  Again I found this recipe on Yummly.  Sorry for the blurry photo :/. I got the creamy texture by blending boiled cauliflower, added nutritional yeast, turmeric, paprika, salt and pepper then stirred in wholewheat pasta.  I’ve got some “cheesy” sauce left over.  I’m going to try it on my homemade pizza this week. :D

[omsdietdiary-blog]

Tempeh Tempeh

Made a tempeh and mixed bean chili last night (the one from the OMS cookbook) which was interesting.  On the side are baked tortillas (no oil or salt, just cut them up and bake them for about 10 minutes at 150°C, turning them over halfway through).

I’ve never had Tempeh before.  It seems a bit like Quorn in texture etc but the taste is more....organic :/.  I definitely can’t imagine eating it without a ton of spices.  But I’ve still got half a pack left so I’ll have to try another recipe this week.

[omsdietdiary-blog]

Quinoa Bites Update

I warmed up (and crisped up) the bites in the oven at lunch time today and ate them with salsa.  It was really yummy.  Even better than when they were fresh from the oven a couple of days ago!

See previous blog for a link to the recipe.

[omsdietdiary-blog]

“Cheesy” Quinoa Bites

On the continuing hunt for snackage, I found this recipe for Cheesy Quinoa Bites and them made yesterday.

Of course, they don’t have cheese in them and they’re pretty yummy.  

As you can see, two got polished off immediately after they came out of the oven.  The kids really liked them yesterday.  They’re not so fond today, so it’s not a prep-ahead-of-time recipe methinks.

[omsdietdiary-blog]

Thai Seafood Curry

I had a thai curry pack (lemongrass, galaghal, garlic, birds eye chilis and shallots) in the fridge that needed using up.  The challenge of course was how to make a Thai curry (which had been a staple before I went OMS friendly) without coconut milk.  But I found a way.  Last night I made this:

Thai curry!  

Ingredients Seafood mix Vegetable mix of your choosing Lemongrass Galanghal Chilis Shallots Garlic Coconut Essence Plant-based milk Basil

First I cooked off the thai curry pack in a little water.  I kept it simple, throwing the chilis and shallots in whole, crushing the garlic, scoring the lemongrass down one side, grating the galanghal).  Once that had cooked, I threw in the veg.  I used sliced red peppers and mange tout but you could use anything you had in the fridge.  Once that had cooked, I added a few drops of coconut essence and the plant-based milk (I used oat but rice would have probably been better).  Once the milk is beginning to bubble, add the seafood and let it simmer for 10 minutes.

Serve with rice.

[omsdietdiary-blog]

Feeling Fine with Fish & Chips

The blip has well and truly passed, I’m pleased to say, and I’m feeling fine and enjoying my new food.

Last night we had OMS friendly fish and chips.  We had hake fillets (baked in the oven atop lemon slices for 15 minutes, though 12 probably would have done the trick), home made chips (the potato was boiled for 5 minutes, then the chips were left to cool before tossing them in extra virgin olive oil, salt and thyme, then were were baked for 15 minutes) and mushy peas (peas were boiled for 15 minutes, then mushed up with a spoon of soya yoghurt, a little salt and pepper and fresh mint).

No, it’s not the same as getting fish and chips from the chippy, but it’s a decent alternative.  I’ll definitely make it again.  I might not bother with the sweet potatoes next time, the regular potato chips were nicer.

[omsdietdiary-blog]

Mummy’s OMS friendly baked spinach and oat pancakes with houmous dip went down a storm at the kids’ dinner time. I call this a massive win.  If only tea could be this easy every day!

[omsdietdiary-blog]

The Continuing Success of Baked Pancakes

I had some leftover baked pancake mixture (see my previous post) in the fridge so I thought I’d use it up for my daughter’s tea. I added some defrosted frozen spinach and baked oats (from my breakfast stock, see previous post on Breakfast) and plopped small balls of the mix in a baking tray. What came out was a delicious savoury treat. I sliced two of the small spinach pancakes up, served with raisins and hummus and had one very happy little girl. And one happy mummy 😜.

Photos to come.

[omsdietdiary-blog]

Pita Crisps

What a life changer!

I followed the recipe from the OMS Cookbook, and I’m so happy now I have a decent alternative to crisps!

So easy - just split the pita breads in half, brush lightly with extra virgin olive, season with salt (I added paprika too for an extra kick) and stick in the oven on a low heat (150°C) for 20 minutes.  Hey presto!  Now I have crisps!

And as a bonus, they keep for two weeks in Tupperware so I can make them in batches :D.

[omsdietdiary-blog]

Baked Pancakes

Hooray for pancakes!!  I adore them.  So does my daughter (my son not so much).  Last week I made DD, Buttercup, or The Wrecking Ball as we call her, a pancake with fruit for her tea and it made me wonder if I could reimagine the pancake to make a super healthy OMS friendly alternative.  This is what I came up with and I’m quite proud.

First thing’s first - silicon baking pans.  They’re great!  If you don’t have any I highly recommend them.  I’ve got two cake pans, one loaf “tin” and these two smaller heart shaped ones knocking about in the back of the cupboard.  I think I bought them to make the other half valentine’s cakes one year but haven’t used them since.  But they were perfect for this job.

Since oil is the big adversary, silicon pans means you can easily bake your mix (whether it be cakes, bread or, in this case, pancakes) without it sticking.  So here it comes....

The Ingredients 125g self raising flour (or, to make it gluten free use gluten-free flour and baking powder instead) 2 tablespoons (or 20g) sugar (I used caster sugar but you could use any I imagine, or syrup or honey instead since it’s just to give it a slightly sweet flavour) 125ml soya milk (or other vegan milk alternative) One egg white

This should be enough to make 4-6 pancakes depending on how thick you make them.

And that’s it!  It’s such a simple recipe, I think you could experiment a bit with the ingredients and try out different things (like an egg substitute if you want to go full-vegan, or add in some nut/seed butter to the mix since I excluded butter from the pancake recipe but didn’t replace it with anything).

The Recipe First, preheat the oven to 180°C. Mix together the flour and sugar (and baking powder if using), leave to one side.

Then in a separate, and relatively large bowl (when you’re stirring you don’t want the mixture to go over the sides!) whisk together the egg white and the milk.

Once that’s done, pour the flour mixture into the bowl and beat the lot with a fork until the batter is smooth.

Pour or spoon enough mixture to make a layer on the bottom of the silicon pan.

Then bake in the oven for 15 to 20 minutes (again, depending on how thick a layer you made for your pancakes).  You can always bake for 15 minutes and check to see if they’re done enough.  They should be slightly brown around the edges but it doesn’t matter if they’re pale around the middle.  The consistency should be chewy, not crisp.

Then serve with a little fruit or maple syrup and enjoy!

[omsdietdiary-blog]

My OMS Cookbook arrived yesterday!!!  So excited to try out some recipes.  First step, check out the list of ingredients and go shopping...

[omsdietdiary-blog]

Breakfast

Breakfast.

I love breakfast,  I love hash browns, croissants, toast lavished with butter.  No more.  Finding new ideas for what I can eat for breakfast was a priority.

Obviously cereal with soya milk is my easy go to.  And soya milk is nice, I’m haven’t missed cow’s milk at all.  In fact, I wonder why I ever drunk it.  Also toast with almond butter.  Almond butter is a new discovery.  It’s less intense than peanut butter and makes for a great butter substitute (on toast etc, I haven’t tried it in baking).

My new “usual” breakfast now though is an interpretation of what my mum was doing.  Home-made muesli.  It’s super easy and you have full control over what you’re eating at breakfast.

First you need oats.  I tried it with raw straight from the packet rolled oats (that’s what my mum uses) but I found them too stodgy.  So I lay down a thick layer of rolled oats on a baking tray and stuck them in the oven for 15-20 minutes.  Not too high.  Somewhere between 150°C and 180°C should do it.  I then kept those baked oats in a Tupperware pot and have been dipping into it.  There’s probably ten days worth of breakfasts in the pot, so it’s really not labour intensive.

A couple of spoons of oats, followed by a spoon of seeds (you could use flax seeds I guess, but I use the milled linseed mix that Aldi sell, I’m sure most supermarkets would offer something similar), and a handful of mixed nuts.  Then I drizzle honey on top.

You could add raisins etc as well but I’ve never liked raisins and sultanas.  I’m having to slowly train myself to tolerate them!  I can’t afford to be picky anymore.  :P

[omsdietdiary-blog]

10 Day Crash

Ten days ago I ate meat for the last time.  It was spaghetti and meatballs.  It was only OK.  From Thursday 16th March I did not touch meat, dairy or any products cooked with oils (so read pretty much anything pre-prepared in the shops.  Even sushi is made with rapeseed oil for Pete’s sake!).

But so far it’s been worth it.  I’ve had more energy.  I’ve had a really productive week.  Everyone’s noticed.  My Dad said to be careful, it might just be a placebo effect.  I agreed but I was so excited to be able to do things with abandon again I made the most of it.  I haven’t missed cheese.  I’ve been happy to swap crisps for nuts.  I’ve been excited to try out new ways of thinking about what I’m going to cook.

Then today...

I crashed.

Suddenly it’s too much.  I feel exhausted.  I feel fed up of having to walk around the shops for fifteen minutes looking for anything I can and want to eat before huffing and just picking up an apple.  Again.

I miss crisps.

[omsdietdiary-blog]

At Overcoming Multiple Sclerosis (OMS) we are committed to improving the lives of people with MS through a scientific diet and lifestyle recovery program.

[omsdietdiary-blog]

Dairy-free anchovy pizza with capers, garlic and onions I totally cheated on this one.  It was my first pizza night since I decided to start the OMS diet (every Friday night is pizza night in our house).  I used store bought pizza bases (after checking the sat fat levels, my lazy self deemed them acceptable but otherwise making your own pizza bases is doable and there’s tons of walkthroughs online to help like this one: http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/pizzadoughbase_70980). 

My brother has never liked cheese so he always has (with accompanying mockery from his nearest and dearest) a cheeseless pizza.  But now that was my inspiration. Also, in Italy there is the Pizza Marinara - which has no cheese. So I took these ideas and I ran with them.

Ingredients Pizza dough base Tomato paste Passata Tinned anchovies Capers (I got mine in a bottle from the Dolmio section of the supermarket) Garlic, sliced thinly. Onions, chopped small (optional)

On the pizza dough base I lay down some tomato paste, then poured some passata over that and spread thickly across the base.  The lack of cheese means more sauce is needed to avoid the pizza goes too dry,  Then on top of that I lay down the rest of the ingredients.  I sprinkled some oregano and black pepper on top and stuck in a pre-heated oven (180°C) for 10 minutes.

So basic, it’s not even a recipe!  :D  But it was my first pizza night on the OMS diet and I would call it a resounding success!!

[omsdietdiary-blog]

Why Go Vegan?

My name is Hana.  I am an illustrator, gamer, mum of two and I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2008.  

Since then I have been constantly in a state of “handling the situation”.  MS in an autoimmune condition of the central nervous sytem.  The fatty tissue insulating one’s nerves breaks down and causes the exposed nerves to misbehave and cause symptoms.  Relapsing-remitting MS (or RRMS for short cause, lets face it, it’s a mouthful!) causes relapses during which symptoms appear.  When “remitting” the patient can be left with scarring (and permanent problems) or they can heal.  It’s all very unpredictable.  Relapses can occur infrequently, every few years, or frequently, a few times a year.  Me personally - I was having about one a year until I started taking medication.

The symptoms mostly affected my legs (one relapse caused me to go numb from the waist down for a few weeks) and my eyes (double vision and vertigo, again for a few weeks) but they, for the most part, have dissipated during remission.

So why go vegan?

It was something never directly recommended to me, but I’d see people on MS forums talking about it.  And I met another MS sufferer who had made the decision to go vegan and hadn’t had a relapse in three years (and she was medication free).  Then a friend of mine with a different condition decided she was going to take control of her life and go vegan for the health benefits.  That was the impetus I needed.

Taking control.

Because although I had been relapse free since starting taking my medication, I was not symptom free.  Like most MS sufferers, I was living with fatigue.  And it was starting to affect my life.  I couldn’t play with my young children, I couldn’t read them bedtime stories, the idea of popping out to the shops was too much.

I was tired of being tired.  And I felt helpless.  But I hadn’t tried everything.  It was time.

I read the Overcoming MS book and looked on their website and read about the OMS diet.  And I thought I could do this.  The fact that seafood is allowed as well as egg whites helps.  A lot!  I love my seafood.  And I love baking.

I’m not a big meat eater so it wasn’t a big leap for me.  Except for dairy, I was confident.  And, ten days in, it seems to be going well.  Keeping my fingers crossed and my eyes open - on the hunt for new recipe ideas!