BEEF STEW WITH PEARL BARLEY

I've seen kidney patients question the use of barley and the dieticians answer was as long as it's pearl barley it's okay for us.

So I tried this last night and ended up throwing it out. It might be really good for people who like barley, I just don't happen to be one of those people. Also I can't eat onions or garlic which really does flavour things.

I made a beef/barley soup not too long ago. The recipe said to add a Tbsp of Balsamic Vinegar. It did give a nice "tang" to the soup but, again, it wasn't something I'd eat a lot of, mostly because I don't like barley.

I do know one thing I did wrong. I only bought half the required amount of beef. Having recipes in lbs and having to shop in kgs drives me nuts! So if I need pounds or oz of something I usually write the amounts down in metric before I shop. Didn't do that this time. Canada changed to metric eons ago but I've never been able to think that way.  My kids will say something is 50 metres away. Well, that could be 50 feet or 50 miles, I dunno. The recipe also says to add 2 quarts of water which threw me. I AM used to litres now strangely enough. So I may have put too much water in too. But is a quart a litre? I think so.

Anyway, if you want to try out this stew you can find the recipe on DaVita

Now here is a great link for you "Demystifying Kidney Disease for the Average Joe"  

It's a blog written by a doctor that I came across. I don't know this doctor but his descriptions are in plain english and that's good.

DO I EVER "CHEAT"?

First of all a link to NUTRITION AND KIDNEY DISEASE from the University of North Carolina, School of Medicine. This link has "nutrition ideas and the kidney diet",  along with alternatives to many of the foods that we love but can't have. I've come across a lot of these type of lists but I bookmark them all and save any pamphlets, etc, that are handed to me at the Kidney Clinic.

Now, do I ever cheat on my diet? Not as much as I used to. It was difficult when my husband was alive. The cutting out sodium wasn't so bad, but it seemed like all of his favourite foods weren't exactly good for me so a lot of times I ate grilled cheese sandwiches or tomato soup or potato pancakes.

Now that he's gone and I'm cooking only for myself most times plus being at such a low functioning rate I stick to the rules most of the time but, yes, I still do cheat. On the other hand when I was talking to the dietician at the Kidney Clinic she told me I can't deprive myself ALL the time so as long as I don't do it often it won't have too much of an effect. My son has his own eating habits and is old enough to fend for himself. My daughter doesn't mind my kidney friendly dishes and if she wants something different she, too, can fend for herself.

Since my daughter is away this long weekend my son suggested we have pizza for dinner. He's 35 years old but is on the autism spectrum and he is just so sweet, he kept asking me over and over if I was sure it was okay for me to have pizza. I don't know how often I can but I figure once in 3 or 4 months I'll let myself cheat. I have 1/2 a small pizza with pineapple and green pepper, both of which are okay for our diets. I skip any type of sausage or meats. The cheese, tomato sauce and salt is bad enough. I never thought of it before but there is so much cheese on the pizza's we order that I think next time I'll ask them to use maybe half the cheese they normally would on mine.

A few weeks ago I was grocery shopping and feeling very sorry for myself. I was feeling a bit down anyway and then I'd pass this or that food that I used to eat and love that is no longer on my diet. So for the first time in about 2 years I bought myself a chocolate bar at the checkout. It doesn't take much to cheer me up.

THE THING ABOUT ENERGY

I've discovered a couple of things about energy. I can last 3 hours if I'm doing something I really enjoy. If I'm anxious or if what I'm doing doesn't promote energy then I get tired quickly.

So when my niece and family came to visit I was afraid if I drove to see them that I might be too tired to drive home. Driving in the city does make me anxious and after 3 hours my lack of concentration would make it dangerous for me to drive.

Since she has small children I suggested they come to where I live and we'd go to the local bird sanctuary. Her kids are 3 (almost 4) and 18 months. When my kids were that age, many eons ago, visiting the ducks and geese was a favourite activity.

We had our picnic, walked the trails for about 1 1/2 hours and then had a snack before leaving to go back to our respective accommodations. We even got a nice picture! Although it was a windy day and my hair tends to be flyaway when it's first washed. I definitely need to get a copy of Photoshop to fix stuff like that.

I like this photo best cause little Audrey is such a clown. Very well behaved children though. It was my first time meeting them. 

I was feeling a bit worn out when I first got home so just read and watched some TV. I'm also hooked on a couple of Facebook games. Last night I slept for a full 12 hours. Today I'm feeling a lack of energy but not totally zonked out. I've been working on entering data into my genealogy program, which is a nice quiet thing to do. 

Last night for dinner I had stuffed green peppers. Last time I made them I had some filling left that I froze in individual servings so it was a quick and easy dinner to make. The recipe I use I can't share because it's from a published book Creative Cooking for Renal Diets from the Cleveland Clinic Foundation. 

It was written by a dietician who also has PKD. While I like a lot of her recipes I do question ones, anywhere, where the recipe contains, in particular, potatoes or tomatoes. This stuffed green pepper recipe does have no sodium added tomato chunks. But it's delicious. My daughter loves it. She just puts some Salsa on top to add to the flavour. This book is available on Amazon along with a lot of others that look interesting. 

Last night's dinner SHEPHERDS PIE

I'd like to also add to my blog things that I come across that other PKD patients may be interested in. This is a trial that a doctor in Britain is using to make donated kidneys healthier and to avoid the need for so many anti-rejection meds. Which is a good thing.

Breakthrough in kidney transplant 'could cut waiting list'

I love shepherd's pie and this is a quick and easy recipe for making it. It's based on a Weight Watcher's recipe with my own twist.

The Weight Watchers recipe uses instant potato flakes on the top as we normally would on Shepherd's Pie.  I was told once by a dietician that instant potato flakes are better than regular potatoes so I suppose depending on your kidney function you could use those. But I took a cue from the dietician on the Canadian Kidney Foundation dietician's page and I use phyllo dough instead.

Ingredients

1 lb lean ground beef
1/2c chopped onion
1/2c each sliced baby carrots and frozen peas
3/4c low-sodium beef broth
1 tsp Thyme
1 c prepared instant potato flakes OR 4 oz frozen phyllo dough, thawed and cut into 1/4" slices
dash of paprika (optional) good if you choose to use potatoes

Preheat oven to 350F

In a 10" non stick skillet cook beef over medium heat, stirring with a wooden spoon to break up meat, 3-4 minutes , until no longer pink.

Add onion, cook, stirring constantly, until onion is softened, 2-3 minutes

Add carrots and peas; continue to cook and stir until vegetables are tender, about 5 minutes

Add broth; bring mixture to a boil. Reduce heat to low and let simmer until most of the liquid is absorbed, about 10 minutes

Transfer mixture into a 1 1/2 quart casserole. Top mixture with your choice of prepared potato flakes, spreading and fluffing with a fork, sprinkle with the dash of paprika; or arrange phyllo dough around the edges.

Bake until heated through, 15-20 minutes.

Serve with 1 tbsp ketchup on the side for dipping fork.

Makes 5 portions.

Obviously, from the photo, you can see that I ripped the phyllo dough rather than cutting it but that's okay.

Because I'm on my own and like variety I like to divide things like this into portions and freeze. It also gives me a few days of meals I don't have to cook. The easiest way to divide is to allow it to cool in the fridge to make it more "solid". When it's first baked it's quite difficult to divide.

FIRST ENTRY

Oh dear. I know this layout is completely wrong but I liked the shaggy background so I'll just stay an individual with a unique design.

I want to start this blog because I have Polycystic Kidney Disease. This is an inherited (usually) disease that is passed from parent to child. If a child is lucky enough not to get it (like my 2 sisters) their kids are safe as well, it doesn't skip generations.

There's lots of information on the Web about this condition but it you are interested in the basics you can find them here:  Genetics Home Reference

We who have PKD are born with it, it isn't something that develops, but there is no telling when it will start to affect your life. There are lots of children who are close to kidney failure because of it, or there are people like my aunt who lived to 90 before she had to go onto dialysis. At 64 I am apparently 2-3 years from needing to start dialysis. I'm trying really hard to slow the progression of my disease by eating right... and I need to exercise more, I know that.

I was diagnosed at age 23 but it's never really caused a problem aside from high blood pressure and, now that I look back at my life, lack of energy. I'm 64 now. I still have no real symptoms aside from exhaustion a lot of the time.

One of the main things I've struggle with is diet. Cutting down on salt was easy, but then they get into phosphorous and potassium and protein. I do have a guide but it says you can have 3 servings of this and 2 servings of that, etc. For a snack one diet said "9 grapes". Are you kidding me? 9 grapes? No way would that stave off the hungries. But I am trying. I'm trying to use recipes from renal friendly sites and a lot of them have how many grams or mgrams per serving of particular nutrients.

So I've decided to write a blog with my own recipes that I've changed to be more renal friendly and links to recipes that I've tried and like.

I'm not a dietician so can't say that my recipes are exactly right but the recipes that the links lead to are written by dieticians.