Yeast Free Living

Archive for the ‘Convenient Candida Diet Meal Ideas’ Category

We used to enjoy tacos frequently in my house prior to the kids being diagnosed with several food allergies and my going on the candida diet.  Tacos are so easy to make, fun to eat and oh so tasty.  Our taco night took a bit of a hiatus mostly because I could not for the life of me figure out where to buy or how to make a tasty wheat free, gluten free, corn free, soy free, yeast free wrapping for our tacos.   I tried brown rice tortillas for this task but they would just crumble under the weight of the taco filings and they made eating tacos significantly less enjoyable.  I really thought that we would have to get use to naked tacos but then I stumbled across a terrific recipe for Gluten Free Flour Tortillas at Gluten Free Cooking School.  This recipe is nothing short of spectacular and very easy to make.  I use my own yeast free gluten free flour mix to avoid using soy, as my children are allergic to it, but if soy is not an issue for you feel free to use the suggested gluten free flour mix in the original recipe.  I did have a little difficulty rolling out the tortillas but this tutorial on how to role out gluten free flour tortillas helped with that.  Gluten free cooking school is a terrific resource and I am looking forward to making other recipes from this site in the near future. 

So now that we finally have an acceptable candida diet taco wrapping what can we put in our yeast free tacos?  Well seasoned yeast free taco meat is the first thing you need and then there are numerous possibilities for yeast free taco fillings.  The following are a few of the fillings that we use to make our yeast free taco night spectacular:

Lettuce
Fresh tomatoes or canned tomatoes without preservatives
Homemade salsa of store bought salsa without preservatives
Plain unsweetened yogurt
Organic canned beans
Avocado
Guacamole

Some days you just don’t feel like chopping.  Recently, I feel like all I do is chop the entire day.  I am always busy chopping this or that for recipe after recipe and there are times when I just don’t want to chop another thing.  Until recently I would always chop fresh tomatoes if I needed them for a recipe.  I use chopped tomatoes often for things like ratatouille, fixins for tacos or to make salsa.  I would get caught without fresh tomatoes often and become frustrated.   I usually did not feel like running to the store in the middle of the dinner rush and would have to switch gears.  I yearned for the convenience of using canned chopped tomatoes but I was having a hard time finding a brand that did not contain any preservatives and therefore would be safe for the candida diet.  Calcium chloride, salt and citric acid are the most prevalent preservatives in canned tomatoes that are prohibited on the candida diet. 

I was fortunate enough to find Pomi Chopped Tomatoes in the supermarket one day.  The only ingredient in these tomatoes is tomatoes and I am so happy to have this as an option now.  I am able to throw together the recipes that require chopped tomatoes almost effortlessly.  Additionally, I do not have to worry about my tomatoes going bad or running out of them.  I just keep a couple of boxes of Pomi Chopped Tomatoes in the cabinet and I am covered.  If you have been looking for yeast free chopped tomatoes I urge you to give these a try.

Sometimes when I plan on making brown rice as a side dish for dinner I forget to start cooking the rice until the main dish is finished.  It stinks when I let this happen because brown rice takes forever to cook.  I am usually standing at the stove with two very hungry kids demanding something to eat that instance and I am so frustrated that it will take about 35 – 45 minutes to finish the brown rice.  Having made this mistake more than once got me thinking about Minute Rice.  Minute Rice is a brand name of instant rice, which is named as such because it is precooked and therefore can be prepared significantly faster than regular rice.  I remembered that my mother had used white Minute rice sometimes so I wondered if there was brown Minute rice and if it was of course okay for the Candida Diet.    Thankfully, Minute does make a brown rice which cooks in 10 minutes.  This rocks!   The ingredients in it are precooked parboiled long grain brown rice.  As far as I can tell this is not prohibited on the Candida Diet.   I looked up parboil and this  just means boiling the rice to partially cook it.  I did not find anything that indicated preservatives or additives maybe added to the rice during this process.   While the brown Minute rice does not taste as good to me as regular brown rice I am still happy to have a box of it on hand just in case.  We all make mistakes and having something to turn to when I do, helps me to not get so frustrated with all of this candida diet cooking.

I used to eat a lot of tuna fish prior to being on the candida diet.  I gave up tuna fish because I was accustomed to eating it with mayonnaise and since I could not find a vinegar free mayonnaise in the store and had not yet learned how to make my own candida mayonnaise I just decided to go without.  Eventually I did find a a recipe for yeast free mayonnaise and of course I wanted my good old tuna back on the menu.  When I went to the store to get some tuna I began to label read like all good candida dieters do and could not find a brand without salt.  Even though I occasionally break the no common table salt rule (prohibited on the candida diet because it contains dextrose) I really wanted to find a tuna that contained no salt.  I was unable to find such a product at my local grocery store.  Since I am a fan and frequent shopper of Trader Joe’s I checked out their tuna on one of my visits.  Although a few of their varieties also contained common table salt there was one variety that did not.  Trader Joe’s Albacore Solid White Tuna is packed in water and has no salt added.  It is also a dolphin safe brand

If tuna is something that you have been missing on the candida diet because of the salt issue please give this brand a try.  Remember not to let the mayonnaise thing intimidate you either.  Yeast free mayonnaise is really easy to make.

Ian’s Alphatots are one of the best candida diet and allergy friendly products that I have discovered to date.  With a 2 and 7 year old at home it is imperative to have some convenient food to heat up at a moments notice.  I struggled for many months trying to find such products that would fit not only candida diet restrictions but cater to my kids multiple food allergies.  When I would find a product they usually would not like it.  While at Whole Foods one day I decided to do some label reading in the frozen food section.  I was hoping to find frozen french fries to have on hand for the children.  I make terrific baked french fries that both of my kids enjoy but sometimes we require something much faster.  Most french fries at Whole Foods were off limits for one reason or another but I was thrilled to find that Ian’s Alphatots had all candida diet friendly ingredients and were okay for both kids allergies.  The ingredients in Ian’s Alphatots include, potatoes, canola oil, rice starch and sea salt.  I was so glad that these would work for my children and even more excited that I could eat them too.  They are a little pricey at $3.49 per 12oz bag at Whole Foods and over $4 at some other places but I always buy a few bags to keep them on hand.   Even people with dietary restrictions deserve convenience sometimes.  This have been so hopeful to my household.

I use Trader Joe’s Organic Brown Rice Pasta Fusilli so much in my recipes that I decided it deserved it’s very own post.  This is truly a great candida diet product and I prefer it to most other brown rice pasta styles available.   We all know after reading labels for a while that the products with the fewest ingredients have the best chance of being candida diet friendly and there are only 2 ingredients in Trader Joe’s Organic Brown Rice Pasta Fusilli, Organic Brown Rice and Water.

I have tried to use brown rice spaghetti in some recipes but it seems to really stick together and this rarely happens with the brown rice pasta fusilli.  I usually only buy the spaghetti style if the kids request it.  I think they sometimes miss twirling the pasta around on their fork.  Tinkyada is the other brand I buy from time to time.  I usually buy their lasagna noodles and their spaghetti seems to not stick as much as the Trader Joe’s Brown Rice Spaghetti does but it is a little more expensive.  For special occasions I do not mind paying a little extra but for day in and day out meals I stick with Trader Joe’s Organic Brown Rice Fusilli..  I use it in my soups, pasta dishes, prepared food recipes and the results are always spectacular.  It you are struggling to find which type of yeast free pasta for the candida diet be sure to give this one a try.  You will not be disappointed. 

Beans are a terrific source of protein and fiber but we do not always have the time necessary to cook beans.  Many dried beans require hours of soaking and even after soaking usually still have very long cook times.  Preparing dried beans is something that I choose to do on the weekend.   I know that canned foods are not really recommended on the Candida Diet but after some thorough label reading I did uncover some canned beans that may be helpful and still adhere to the diet in a crunch.

Nature’s Promise Organic Black Beans are delicious over rice, in dips and can be used in a variety of recipes.  Nature’s Promise Organic is a Stop & Shop brand.  I am not typically a Stop and Shop customer but I was there one night getting a movie from the Redbox and needed to run in.  I was delighted to find this organic line of products and even more excited at the price.   This can of beans was actually cheaper that the ones I had found at Trader’s Joes.   The ingredients in Nature’s Promise Organic Black Beans include Prepared Organic Black Beans, Water and Sea Salt.  Based on the label it appears that they are Candida Diet friendly.

It can’t really get much easier than this meal idea.  You will almost feel like you are living your old life of convenient but nutrionally inept food.  All ingredients except the salt in the Marinara Sauce is candida diet approved.  I wish that they would have used sea salt.  Trader Joe’s does with a lot of it’s other products but I still buy this salt.  I figure that this is a very small cheat and me consuming this has never conincided with a relapse of symptoms. 

Cook soba noodles according to the package directions and then top with sauce.  Remember to purchase 100% pure buckwheat as I have seen many mixed with wheat.  I always pair with a salad or a steamed vegetable.  I hope this helps prove that it does not need to be a gourmet meal to be candida friendly.

Bon Appetite!

Have you ever walked into your local grocery store around midday and noticed the display of fully cooked rotisserie chickens?  I never really paid attention to this display until recently.  I began to question whether those chickens would be okay for the candida diet.  A fully cooked chicken would sure be convenient enough and could be easily paired with brown rice or a baked potato and any vegetable.  I could even use leftovers for chicken salad the next day. 

The next time I was in the supermarket I mad an effort to inspect this amazing chickens a little more closely.  The first one I picked up was an Italian seasoned rotisserie chicken and the ingredients read chicken, dextrose, glutamate and some other stuff.  This chicken was a no go.  The next couple of chickens that I inspected had similar ingredients.  I was about to give up.  Then I so one lonely little chicken away from the name brand rotisserie chickens and to my delight the ingredients read “Chicken.”  Hooray, just chicken!  I was thrilled.   So the next time you that you are strapped for time and need to throw together a candida diet meal very quickly give a rotisserie chicken a try.

Bon Appetite!   

Tennille