An interesting experience

kerry_lamb

I've enjoyed reading all the info and reflections about food here, what we should eat and what we should 'leave behind' in our efforts to survive and be healthy. Meat or not? Dairy or not? Miracle mushrooms etc etc.

'Listening' to my body got interesting yesterday: We were having guests for dinner and I spent a couple of (post-chemo) days preparing food. Took me a little longer because of the SEs! I made roasted lamb-shanks, boiled potatoes, a brown-rice/mushroom, red capsicum & eggplant casserole, a rice and capsicum/basil one for the non-mushroom eater; a celery, leek, parsley& cream sauce and a dish of silverbeet. 

When it came to eating it, I could not even begin to eat the lamb; it was revolting to me. (The others devoured it passionately!)  The potato (which I normally love) tasted of absolutely nothing so I left it. The sauce with cream? No.   What tasted like the best food I had ever eaten was the rice/mushroom, red capsicum & eggplant casserole. The mushrooms were amazing, as was the leek.  A piece of seriously vintage cheddar was completely tasteless. The silverbeet: delicious!

I know the old taxotere robs us of our taste buds post-chemo, but I considered my eating experience last night to be a bit of a blue-print for my future food consumption. 

katoMato

Wow...I'm humbled. You cooked. During tx (taxotere/cytoxan) i no more could cook than fly. (Actually, flying was easier.) You must be able to cook in your sleep!

Yes, my taste buds are completely tweaked, some surmise - permanently. Last Tx was October of 2007, and to this day nothing, i repeat, NOTHING is salty enough. During TX's "Chemo week" all i ate was Tortilla Soup. Nothing else made it through to my taste buds. Except chocolate. For some reason, chocolate still tasted like chocolate. One year out now, things are MUCH better, except for the whole salt thing. I've learned not to salt things AT ALL, and let people add it at the table - because I've ruined many a meal adding salt "to taste".

kerry_lamb

Kato, I actually have a major craving for salt as well, and I can't taste it. I can't add it to food for fear of killing my family! I ask them them to add it just in case I overdo it..weird, isn't it. I'm going to run with this plain vego diet for a while..I need to lose 20 lbs so the loss of taste will be an advantage there!  Do you worry about about the tweaked tastebuds? Has it affected 'healthy' eating at all?  Plain white bread with butter last night was just tasteless grease. (A good thing to stop eating!)

AccidentalTourist

Hi Kerry,

If you can find the time I would be grateful for the recipe for rice/mushroom, red capsicum & eggplant casserole.  It sounds delicious.

Nena

kerry_lamb

Hi Nena,

Not so a much a recipe as an instruction from Chemo-Girl who was trying to get a meal done!

The Caps were on special so I had about 7 big ones which I sliced all the sides off and one or two big eggplants, sliced (I didn't peel them, but you could. I like the fibre.) I layered these in a casserole sprinkling a little salt as I went (LITTLE) and a LITTLE bit of olive oil. Lid on and into a med-low oven for a couple of hours. Season..pepper and lemon juice maybe.

I'd cooked the brown rice already too. It's a good thing to have in the fridge..well-drained, though. So then I stir-fried (olive oil and a bit of butter) a big sliced leek and a BIG heap of fresh sliced champignons..some basil paste..but you don't need that..until it was done and then mixed it all together. It's a nice simple dish, especially if you are the only one eating it (my crew don't eat mushrooms)..you can dip into it over a couple of days. It's nice to have something healthy while the taxotere makes you feel like crap. A good winter dish too, but I guess they are not winter veges. 

Daffodil

I'm not doing chemo, but at dinner out tonight, the first thing I tasted was the heap of wild greens sauteed with onion! and I brought home half the flat iron steak.

I had to look it up: red capsicum seems to be sweet red bell pepper; silverbeet is Swiss chard. Your dish does sound satisfying!!

AccidentalTourist

Thank you Kerry.  I will try your dish at the first avaliable opportunity.  Since I started buying only expensive, organic meat I try to be inventive and make it last longer.  For example: I buy a whole organic chicken.  I use 1 breast in a stir fry with various vegetables.  The other pieces can be used in variaty of dishes, mostly casseroles.  The carcas I cook in a lot of filtered water with carrot, celery stick and an onion to make a stock.  I then use this as basis for various dishes, soups etc.  I used it tonight to make a risotto by gently frying chopped onion, carrot, celery, leek and garlic.  I then added arborio (or any other risotto rice) and added stock to it one laddle at the time with more or less constant gentle stirring.  Just before the rice is creamy but with a little bite in the middle you can add final ingredients for flavoring.  There is always meat left on the carcas which can be added to the risotto.  We like it with seafood/mushrooms but it is delicious on ints own.  I am on dairy free diet but people who are not can add grated parmesan in the last minute. This is making me hungry and it is 3am in the UK and definitely not the time to raid the fridge.

Nena

kerry_lamb

Hey Nena! Thank you! It is 4.19pm here and I am thinking about dinner...... The leek thing is interesting..I could eat a whole onion and not taste a bite, but a leek is the tastiest, yummiest thing!

I agree about stretching the food to the max! Are you no-dairy for a reason? Dairy is screaming 'no!' at me atm. 

AccidentalTourist

I got the advice for dairy free from the book called 'Your life in your hands' written by a five times BC survivor Jane Plant.  It kept comming back until  she changed her diet and I am pretty convinced by her argument that milk is full of growth hormones and is only suitable for baby cows. I do miss cheese though both on its own and the way it enhances other dishes.  Too bad.