First Time for Everything

I've been sick for the past three weeks and not with Crohn's for a change. First I had the nasty lurgy (nasty cold to you non-Brits) that is making the rounds. Now I have the flu. The well and proper flu.






Getting sick was inevitable. Since mid-October, things have been completely mental and I've been working lots of overtime, on top of which have been final university classes, other outside of work commitments and trying to have something that resembles a social life (which is why this blog hasn't been updated in ages). Anytime I try to take some of the heap of overtime I'm owed, I still end up wrapped up in work stuff. I couldn't even take a holiday in Germany a few weeks ago without work creeping in (bad enough I was sick through the whole trip). It's not that my employer is in anyway being unfair, it's just that after a long lull in the summer months, everything has happened at once. It happens. But by early December I was extremely run down. I knew this was coming.

 The reason why this is worthy of a blog post is that this is the first time I've been properly sick since being on Humira. I had a bit of a head cold in early October that I was able to get over in a few days with rest.
Not so lucky this time, there was no option for rest with everything that's been going on at work, never mind the busyness with the run up to Christmas.

Humira suppresses part of the immune system, and as such, it makes it harder for your body to fight off general infections. I'm sure you can see the little problem here.

So, while I ride the fevery, achy, coughing fit wave of flu, I've had to come off the Humira this week in hopes that my normally hyperactive immune system will kick in a beat this virus into the ground. What this means for the Crohn's situation, I have no idea. I just have to hope that I have enough of the drug in my system from the last 10 months to hold things steady.

In the meantime, I will continue camping out on the sofa and in bed with the books I got for Christmas and will spend New Year's Eve in self-imposed quarantine, dosing up on large quantities of paracetamol. Of I find some energy, I may even build a blanket fort. I lead such a rock n' roll life!

But hey, it's still better than last New Year's when I was tanked up on steroids and was starting to lose my marbles while simultaneously being slowly poisoned by Azathioprine. Compared to that, I'd really rather have the flu!!

It's World Toilet Day!!

Toilet, loo, washroom, bathroom restroom, there are lots of names for toilets. Seriously, #WorldToiletDay is a real thing, raising awareness about the good 'ol loo around the world. A large part of the population of the world doesn't have access to proper loos, which is a huge public health issue. Few things can so significantly increase as a community's overall health as having access to a toilet.

Everyone has stories about loos, both good and bad. While there are many hilarious stories of Westerners navigating squat toilets in parts of Asia, there are also thought provoking ones about people coming to Europe or North America from other parts of the world and being perplexed at the idea of going to the loo inside your home, never mind horrified at the thought of using perfectly clean water to wash it away.

 Anyone who has camped has stories about loos, or the lack thereof as the case may be. My personal jury is still out on which was worse; using the woods with nothing but a trowel or the infamous pit toilet 'lats' at Girl Guide camp. The former is bad for lack or privacy, poison ivy and trying to balance, the latter is worse for the smell. Both are made worse when you have your period.

Anyone who goes to gigs has stories about loos. Toronto's Lee's Palace still holds the title of the worst gig venue loos in the city; so bad that they were immortalised in Scott Pilgrim vs The World. It was also were I saw the best ever loo graffiti. It was 1993, condom machines were still a new fangled idea and written down the side of the one in the ladies toilet were the words 'This is the worst chewing gum I've ever tasted!'

 As for worst venue loos in the UK? That crown safely remains with the infamous music festival loos. The worst of Guide camp lats on a grand scale. Ewww.

For a fun history of loos, English Heritage has put out a fun list http://blog.english-heritage.org.uk/top-10-toilets-through-time/?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=Facebook&utm_campaign=Property%20%26%20Brand&utm_content=WorldToiletDaySo why am I wittering about this? Because those of us with IBD are on intimate terms with loos. We spend a lot of time in them.  I can tell you where every public toilet in my city centre is, and I'm every other person with IBD in this city can too. Picking up on this, Crohn's and Colitis UK have made us IBDers this handy map, which is a rather nifty idea - http://www.crohnsandcolitis.org.uk/whats-new/the-great-british-toilet-map-is-launched

 So next time you're in the loo, spare a thought for those who don't have access to one. And spare another for someone who has IBD who doesn't have access to one. Because that, for lack of a better word, us truly shit.

We’re Talking Turkey!

So last weekend was Thanksgiving for us Canadians, and I hosted my annual indulgence of all things turkey. Thanksgiving dinner involved a boneless, turkey breast roast courtesy of my friendly butcher, stuffing, roast potatoes, gravy, steamed carrots and green beans, roasted butternut squash, an apple cake with maple glaze and more terrible jokes than I could count out of my 7 ½ year old niece who decided she needed to be the entertainment for the evening. Nom!

Fortunately, most things on the menu already fit with the whole low-residue thing (one of the advantages of me doing the cooking!), so the only thing I really had to adapt was my stuffing reciepe. I made everyone else the usual kind, and I made myself a low-residue version (*sobs*).

I’m not a fan of the traditional sage and onion stuffing balls favoured in the UK, I much prefer my mom’s recipe, and seeing as there is rarely any left at the end of the meal, I think everyone else does too!

This stuffing works well with chicken too. I never stuff the bird; I cook the stuffing separately so that I don’t need to worry about the possibility of food poisoning from it (as often happens at this time of year) and it allows me to cater better for special diets.

I tend to save the ends of loaves of bread in the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving and toss them in the freezer. When I’m ready to make the stuffing (which can be done the day before), I thaw and then tear up the bread into small chunks. I used the equivalent of about 4 slices of bread for this. I spread it out on a baking sheet, and pop it in the oven at 180C/350F for 10-15 minutes, giving it a good stir half way through.

Once the bread is dried out (but not overly toasted), I take it out of the oven and let it cool.

For my normal stuffing, I chop up half an onion and two sticks of celery into small pieces and add this to the bread.

For those of us doing low-residue, I substituted 1 tsp of celery salt and ½ tbsp of onion powder.

I then melted 1/4 cup of margarine (use butter if you are using dairy) and poured that over the bread, mixing well. Then I added the following -

    ½ tsp parsley
    ½ tsp of sage
    ½ tsp of thyme
    ½ tsp of rosemary (yes, I am also humming Scarborough Fair)
    1/4 tsp of salt (I leave this out of the low-residue version because of the celery salt)
    1/4 tsp of fresh ground pepper

I give that all a good mix. Then I add ½ cup of chicken stock to the mix, and stir it until everything is well moistened. If you are doing dairy, this is particularly scrumcious if you use ½ of evaporated milk instead of the chicken stock.

Then I transfer everything to a greased baking dish, and cook it in the oven for about 45 minutes (about 30 if you are only using a very small amount).

When done, serve with your bird for a tasty side dish!

What a Pain!

One of the joys of still having your ovaries after a hysterectomy is that you still get 'phantom periods'. Compared to life pre-hysterectomy, these 'phantoms' are pretty manageable, but they are still rather unpleasant. And they can bloody hurt. I was woken out of a dead sleep by the pain a few nights ago, and considering how much a good night's sleep is a luxury for me, I'm really rather resentful of my ovaries for doing that to me.

Pre-hyst, I lived with chronic pain for years. I was never really not in pain for about 5 years before I had the op; even when I didn't have my period, I had a constant low-grade pain in my pelvis. And when I had my period, it was agonising.

The problem with pain is that the experience is subjective. One person's pain is not another's, and there are different types of pain, which feel totally different, but could have the same levels of intensity. Which makes it very hard to assess or measure. Failing an objective measure, doctors often use a 1-10 pain scale like this.



The problem these pain scales is that this is still pretty subjective. One person's 2 is another's 7. Before my hysterectomy, every day was at least a 2. Periods varied between a 4 and an 8. I always held back on saying it was ever a10 because I'm the kind of person who always thinks things can get worse. I have experienced a 10; that was after my op when the hospital cocked up my pain management. I have no words to describe that experience, but I still remain ever in debt to that student nurse who realised something was terribly wrong and did something. When I was in the midst of the Crohn's flare, the gastro clinic kept asking me if I was in pain. Yes, I hurt, but compared to life pre-hyst, it was rather manageable. Frankly, the problems I was having with my back at the beginning of year hurt a hell of a lot more than my abdomen.

Of course, the problem with all of this subjectiveness is that there is no objective measure of pain. Which means that lots of people who are in pain aren't believed. Like most women with endometriosis/adenomyosis, I lost track of the number of times I was told my pain was imagined, that I was attention seeking or that I was nuts. And just about anyone with a chronic pain problem has had the same experience.

So why am I wittering about this? Because I read a really interesting article about the potential use of brain scans as an objective way to measure pain. It has some interesting potential, but is very controversial. It's worth the read.
http://www.vox.com/2014/10/15/6895171/how-doctors-measure-pain-brain-scan-fmri

That’s Pants!!

What do you think of when I say the word ‘pants’?

If you’re Canadian, you probably think of this -

If you’re British, you probably think of this -
Or you think of ‘pants’ as a negative exclamation, ie: “That’s pants, that is.”, or “What utter pants!”

But if you are British, have Crohn’s Disease and are on a biologic drug such as Adalimumab (Humira) or Infliximab (Remicade), you are probably enrolled on the “PANTS” study.

I can never decide if that name is just an IBD joke, or if someone quite seriously named it that, only to have all of the patients and hospital staff involved with it across the UK giggling childishly every time we mention it. Either way, it stands for "Personalised Anti-TNF Study". How they got PANTS out of that, I have no idea.

As I’ve stated in several previous posts, biologic drugs are still new-ish, and there are a lot of things that doctors don’t really understand about them. Humira and Remicade are a type of biologic drug known as an “anti-TNF” therapy. TNF (Tumour Necrosis Factor), or more specially, TNFa (a for alpha), is a component of the immune system implicated in auto-immune disorders like Crohn’s Disease and Rheumatoid Arthritis. And like everything in the immune system, there is more that we don’t know that what we do know.

What we do know about anti-TNF therapy is that when it works for a patient, it works really well. It gets the inflammation down, lets the inflamed area heal (guts in the case of IBD, joints in the case of RA) and seriously reduces the need for surgery and steroid treatments.

What we also know about it is that it is bloody expensive. I currently have £2000 of medication in my fridge if that gives you any indication as to what we are talking about.

What we also know is that, like all medications, they can have serious side-effects.

And what we also know is that it works really well in about 70% of patients. And it doesn’t work at all in 30%. And no one really understands why.

Hence the study. What they are trying to understand is what is it about the 70% and what is it about the 30%. And they are also trying to see if there is a way to “personalise” the treatment to be sure that it will work and will continue to work. It builds on a lot of previous work on genetics in IBD and they are trying to figure if there are particular genetic factors or biomarkers that make it work or not work. Needless to say, with my family history of IBD (father, paternal aunt, paternal cousin, and we suspect my paternal grandfather and great-grandfather), the hospital were very anxious to get me on board with it.

I don’t have to much to be in the study. Every three months or so when I am at the clinic, I add the research nurse to the list of professionals I see. The research nurse is lovely, but, um, well this probably sums her up best -

She always forgets something. She gets me to fill out a survey, weighs me (again!!!), gets one of the consultants to poke my tummy, adds another four vials to my blood work regime and packs me off with equipment for a, ahem, sample, which I have to post off to the research sponsors in Exeter.

Yes, I said post. As in, by Royal Mail. I feel so sorry for the postal workers (rest assured, it’s send sealed inside several different containers and bags, rather like a Russian doll). But that’s all I have to do. That’s my big contribution to science.

If you want to read more about the PANTS (snigger) study, you can read more here - https://pantsdb.co.uk/about 

Blood and Politics

In my 10 ½ month “relationship” with the IBD clinic, I have had so much blood sucked drawn that I’ve gotten to know most of the regular phlebotomists. I know which ones are less likely to bruise and generally have a nice manner. I’m particularly fond on one fellow who has a very gentle and calming nature about him while also being quick and speedy at getting the needle in and the blood out with minimal discomfort.  Today, I wasn’t lucky enough to have him. Today, I had “The Temp”.

I was at the clinic for my once every three months appointment with the research nurse. I will do another post about the research study I’m enrolled on, but generally my involvement involves nothing more than having a bunch of additional blood work done and filling out some surveys. So after my brief appointment with the nurse, off to the blood lab I go, vials and paperwork in hand.

Today is also “the morning after the night before” of the Scottish Independence Referendum, so needless to that was a topic of discussion for most people.

“The Temp” who does my blood sucking work starts the conversation about the referendum result and quickly wanders into a big complaint about Prime Minister David Cameron and his policies. Now I won’t disagree about that, believe me, in my line of work, I have more than enough to say professionally about his coalition-of-convenience government, never mind what I have to say about him personally. She complains about the changes to Old Age Pension and the impending removal of the fuel subsidies for seniors and the end of free bus passes for over 60s. I completely agree. But then the conversation went like this:

The Temp: “I mean, I’m an OAP and I’m still working 16 hours a week, and all these immigrants . . . “
Me (interrupting): “Um, I’m an immigrant.”
The Temp: “ . . .All these immigrants come in here collecting all of these benefits leaving nothing for us . ..”
Me (interrupting): “I'm an immigrant.”
The Temp: “Well, no, you’re . ..”
Me (interrupting again): “Yes I am. Can’t you tell by the accent?”
The Temp: “Well, that’s different with you, I mean... um... you’re working . ..” (The only reason she knows this is because I’m wearing my work ID badge)
Me: “No, it’s not, I’m an immigrant. And you have no idea what immigrants have to go through to get into this country or that we are usually not entitled to benefits.”
The Temp: “Well, no, I mean, I don’t mean that. I mean, I’m not racist or anything, but . . .”
Me: “I’m sorry, but anyone who says those exact words has just proved themselves otherwise”

I have lost count of the number of times in my almost 8 years of living in the UK that I have had conversations with (almost always White) Brits that go like that. More than once I have had to call out people’s racist bullshit by pointing out that they are only saying those things to me because I happen to be White like them. And it truly and utterly pisses me off.

I have no patience for racism at the best of times, and I have even less for people who clearly hold racist views and then try to excuse themselves by saying “I’m not racist, but ...”.

However, I seriously have no patience for this from someone from within the NHS. There is absolutely no excuse for this in a publicly funded hospital that serves one of the most multicultural cities in the country. And seriously, has she not taken a look around at her colleagues? AT LEAST HALF THE STAFF IN THAT HOSPITAL ARE IMMIGRANTS, INCLUDING MOST OF THE DOCTORS!!!

Bloody hell woman, you are in the wrong job if you hold views like that. And I would also say that you are in the wrong job for doing this to my arm this morning.



So not only are you a racist cow, you’re also pretty shit at taking blood. Cheers for that.

And as much as I want you take those racist views and shove them somewhere unpleasant, I think the more fitting IBD thing to say would be that I want you to take those racist views and drink them down in a big glass of Moviprep. Hopefully the literal shit storm that will create will teach you to keep your racist views to yourself.

Asking Too Much

I’m kind of losing it. I am yet again facing another night of no sleep thanks to dreadful insomnia. Again. And no sleep does not help my already poor mental health.

I’ve never been a good sleeper. Neither is my mother, so I come by this naturally. But as anyone with chronic illness will tell you, sleep is an integral part of keeping well. Unfortunately, despite my best attempts, I am just not that lucky.

The problem is multi-fold. I struggle with getting to sleep, staying asleep and waking up too early. Often all three at once. It is made worse by perimenopausal night sweats which require multiple changes of PJs and sometimes even the sheets. Ongoing back and hip problems can make it difficult to find a comfortable position, even with a good mattress. Sometimes my body is tired, but my brain isn’t. Sometimes it’s the other way around. Sometimes my eyes are tired, but neither my brain nor my body are. Then there is the Crohnie curse of being awakened by your own stomach noises.

And everything is made much worse when the Brain Weasels and “Late Night What-Ifs” http://esl.fis.edu/learners/fis/current/english/poetry/whatif.htm come to roost.

Four months on Pred meant four months of drug induced sleep deprivation. And six months since coming off Pred, things haven’t gotten much better.

And believe me, I have tried just about everything to help me sleep. ‘Have a dark environment.’ Apparently black out blinds, no street lighting on my cul-de-sac and a sleep mask are not enough. ‘Try using white noise’. I’ve tried the following forms - fans, humidifiers, air purifiers, low-level radio static, classical music, leaving the window open for road noise - none of them work.

‘Have some hot milk’ - doesn’t work for me and I don’t like the taste. ‘Have a drink!” While too much alcohol can make me sleepy, I end up with fitful, restless sleep rather than a sleep worth having. ‘Have a relaxing bath’ - just wakes me up. ‘Do more exercise’ - wakes me up. ‘Do gentle exercise’ - as someone who has done Tai Chi for years, I can say also doesn’t help me sleep.

‘Read!’ - I do loads of reading - mindless stuff, children’s books, young adult fiction, books I can’t get into, 800 page tombs of political or social history, academic papers, case law, policy and procedures manuals, legislation - I have tried it all. Doesn’t work.

‘Take some herbal remedies’ - two points on this - a) which herbal remedy, there are thousands; and b) when you have the number of allergies I have, taking untested herbal remedies is not necessarily a good idea. ‘Ask you GP for sleeping tablets’. I know this works well for some, but they leave me zombified and still unable to sleep, and frankly, the last thing I need with the state of my mental health is a one way ticket down the road of benzo dependency.

So here I am, wide awake at 4am with 2 ½ hours to go until my alarm goes off. Again. I’m past being fed up with this shit. Is it too much to ask for a few good night’s sleep? Yes, apparently it is. As is asking life to cut me a break for a change. That, apparently, is asking far too much.

Can I Ask A Favour?

“I don’t mean to be nosey, but I’ve been thinking that you’ve lost a lot of weight.” - Random Colleague

“No offence, but that outfit really doesn’t fit you anymore.” - Random Friend

“Geez, there’s hardly anything left of you!” - Random Colleague

“Wow! You’ve lost so much weight! You look great!” - Random woman I occasionally see at the hairdresser

“I was just saying to my husband that you haven’t looked well, you look like you’ve been wasting away.” - Random Neighbour

Just a few of the comments I have had over the past few months and in my head all I can think is “I KNOW!” and “FOR FUCK’S SAKE, WILL YOU STOP REMINDING ME?!!!”

The one topic that I have struggled to write about most in this blog has been issues with body image. I can talk more openly about the ongoing difficulties Crohn’s has contributed to with my mental health than I can about what Crohn’s has done to my body image. As a woman who has generally prided herself on not obsessing about her weight and body image (unlike many women who are socialised in the Western world), I have found this part of the Crohn’s journey very difficult. A big part of is because the hospital have made such a big deal about it as I outlined in an earlier post - http://foodlovingcrohnie.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/the-great-weight-debate.html  But the other sad reality is that I lost the best part of 3 stone (about 40lbs for you non-Brits) very quickly at end of last year and the fact is that all of the above statements were just stating the hurtful truth (except for that woman at the hair dresser, more about her later).

But I seriously could do without the constant reminders.

When I was at my lowest weight, I couldn’t stand to look at myself. I was completely and utterly ashamed of my body. I mean really, truly ashamed. You could easily see my ribs, my spine and some of my wrist bones. I actually removed the mirror from the bathroom for a couple of months so that I didn’t have to look at my emaciated self. It was horrible, not only because I was ashamed of what I looked like but also because I was ashamed that I felt that way about myself. I’ve had to do a lot of work on these feelings, and I do mean A LOT of work, but one of the worst things about “shame based emotions” is having them constantly re-enforced by those around you.

And I get enough re-enforcement every time I open my wardrobe and I'm faced with a pile of clothes that don’t fit anymore.

To give a demonstration of just how much weight I’ve lost, here’s me today wearing a pair of jeans that fit 15 months ago.

To give a context as to how big these jeans really are now, I was able to stuff a pudgy teddy down them.

And for fun and giggles, I discovered that I can actually stuff 5 teddies down them.

Of course, the irony of this demonstration is that I’ve actually gained back just short of half of the weight I lost at the end of last year. I could probably have fit ten teddies down those jeans back in January.

Despite the media implying that women somehow gain weight just by looking at something “fattening” (and I could really rant about the media and women’s body image, but I’ll leave that for another time), gaining weight is actually harder than you think. You need to consume an awful lot of calories over and above what your ideal daily intake should be over a significant period for it to actually result in sustainable weight gain. And that’s assuming that you spend a lot of time on the sofa, which I don’t.

I was on holiday last week, which involved lots of visits to various National Trust sites in the West Country and that involved consuming vast quantities of really yummy cake. And I didn't gain a thing. Some people might relish the idea of eating indulgent cake and not gaining weight, but when you have IBD, it’s not really that simple. One of the main hallmarks of Crohn's is "malabsorption" where your body doesn't absorb much from the food you eat when you are in a flare. The hospital prescribed low-residue-low-fibre-fat-restricted-diet the hospital prescribed doesn’t help (I’ve given up the fat-restricted part now). And despite weight gain being one of the main side effects of Prednisolone, there is a small minority of us who have the exact opposite reaction to it. Gaining weight can be a bit of an uphill battle for some of us Crohnies.

So what I am asking is this. If you haven’t seen me in a while and want to comment about my weight, I am kindly asking you to keep your thoughts to yourself in my presence. Feel free to gossip behind my back about it, but I really don’t want to hear it.

And to that woman at the hair dresser? Seriously sweetie, I really don’t recommend Crohn’s Disease as a weight loss plan. If you want my Crohn's, please take it from me. I'll even give it away for free.

Lamb Stew

I don’t want to say that it’s gone cold here. It’s not really “cold”, it’s just really cooled down very quickly. And it’s bloody damp. I will admit that I broke down on Friday and turned on the heating for an hour just to get the damp out of the house.

So in light of that, I figured it was time to get back to making soup and stews. I have been only gradually re-introducing lamb into my diet this summer. I love lamb, and the constant availability of fresh lamb is one of the many things I love about living in the UK. In Canada, most of the lamb comes from New Zealand, meaning it’s frozen, and very expensive. In the UK, I drive across country roads where sheep roam and think about what tasty things I would do with one who is stupid enough not to move when my car is approaching.

Silly beast, don't you know that you'll end up on my plate if you wander that close to the road?

When I was last at my lovely butchers, I got some diced lamb shoulder that has been waiting in my freezer, so with the change in weather, I thought it was time to thaw it out and stew it.

I prefer to make stews and casseroles in my slow cooker, but due to a particularly bad week for mental health and insomnia, getting my act together to get everything into the slow cooker in the morning just wasn’t happening. I also only had a very small amount of lamb, and a slow cooker really needs to be at least half full to work properly, and the amount I was working with wasn’t going to cut it.

So this is what I did for a tasty stew for one or two -

I used ½ lb of diced lamb shoulder (with most of the fat trimmed off) and tossed it in 1 tbsp of flour (gluten-free flour works fine) and some salt and pepper.

I heated about 1 tbsp of olive oil in a big pot, then added the lamb and browned it on all sides.

Meanwhile, I peeled and chopped a carrot and a potato into small pieces. I added these to the pot and let it cook off for a few minutes, stirring so that it doesn’t stick.

I peeled 2 shallots and 2 cloves of garlic, and put these into the nifty little cooking basket I found a few weeks ago, and hung that on the side of the pan.

I added ½ of dried thyme and 1/4 of dried rosemary. I made 2 cups of beef broth (I used Knorr Stock Pots). I put the heat under the pan up to high, and added about ½ cup of the broth and scrapped all of the bits off the bottom of the pan. Then I added the rest of the broth. I brought it to a boil, then popped the lid on and turned the heat down to a simmer and left it for 35 minutes.

Mmmm . . . tasty stewed beast!

New Kitchen Bits and Such

I know full well that I don’t NEED anymore kitchen porn gadgets, but I really couldn’t resist this one. The last time I saw the dietician, she suggested that rather than sticking with the onion and garlic powder that I could throw an onion or clove of garlic whole into my cooking pot and then could fish it out before eating, therefore infusing the flavour without the stringy residue bits. I tried this a few times, and while the taste sure beats the hell out of the powdered stuff, as I don’t tend to use a whole onion (even if the recipe calls for it, I like the taste of onions, but I don’t like it to overpower things), it usually just fell apart on it’s own, making it rather a pain to fish it out again.

But in the most recent Lakeland porn catalogue, I spotted this -

It’s listed as a pasta basket, and I’ve seen them used in restaurants for pasta before, but I thought, hey, that might work for adding onions and garlic without adding onions and garlic! And I was going to Lakeland anyway, so . . .

I wasn’t sure when I bought it whether or not it was going to work, particularly as I wasn’t sure if it would properly fit my pot. Fortunately, it did, so I gave it a go in both a soup and in a chicken casserole.

Verdict? It’s great! Keeps everything together, but definitely lets the flavour in. And it washes up well in the dishwasher to boot!

In other news, I was very glad to clean this out of my handbag this weekend -

Anyone on steroids like Prednisolone for any length of time needs to carry one of these bright blue cards with them at all times. If you have an accident, your body may not be able to produce enough of the right hormones to keep you alive if you’re on steroids, so this needs to come with you in case you need to show it to emergency personal. Not only do you need to carry it while you’re on them, but you also need to carry it afterwards for months, a time pretty much equal to the amount of time you were on them. Well, I’ve been off the steroids now for 4 ½ months after being on them for 4 months, so I happily tossed it out this weekend!

The Trouble with Multi-Tasking

The Co-operative’s Food Magazine can be a source for the odd good recipe. I say odd, because either what they have doesn’t work with the whole low-residue thing, or is just not of interest. But’s it’s free, so I’m not complaining!

The most recent edition featured a lemon loaf recipe that I thought looked pretty good. So seeing as the weather is completely foul out today as Britain is hit with the tail-end of Hurricane Bertha, what else is a Crohnie girl going to do but stay in and bake (amongst other things).

So the recipe goes like this -

175g of sugar
110g of butter or margarine
2 eggs
4tbsp of milk
175g of self-raising flour
Zest of one or two lemons

The British like to cook by weight, Canadians by volume, so I’m always a little thrown by measuring weight. So I put the bowl on the scale, zeroed it off and started adding margarine. At first I thought it was asking for a lot, because I was pretty sure 110g of margarine was about ½ cup (ish) and it seemed like more. And then I realised it was set to ounces, not grams.

Thankfully, I hadn’t added anything yet, so I just scooped it back into the container and started again. Then I added the sugar, and beat it until fluffy.

Then I added the eggs one at a time. The first one turned out to a be a double-yolk egg. I’ve never sure what to do when that happens, but figured I would just work with it, and added the second egg once I had mixed it up. As I was making this a dairy-free recipe, I used 4tbsp of rice milk instead of milk and stirred it in.

I shredded the outside of a lemon on my cheese grater for the zest, and added that to the mix. Then I measured and folded in the flour.

I poured it into a greased 1lb loaf tin and baked it on 180C/350F for 45 minutes until my cake tester came out clean.

For the icing it said -

Juice of one or two lemons
3 tbsp of icing sugar.

I finally got around to buying a little juicer and used that to squeeze the above said lemon.

Isn't it cute?!

 Then I mixed in the icing sugar. It seemed very thin, so I added another tbsp of icing sugar.

It then said to poke holes in the loaf and then pour the glaze over top. So I used the back of a kebab skewer and poked holes and poured it over.

The icing seemed really really runny, and hadn’t mixed as well as I thought so there were sugar lumps in it.

While finishing with de-frosting the freezer (which I was doing at the same time, multi-tasking, you know!) I had the thought that if I let that glaze harden in the pan, I would never get the loaf out. So I wedged it out onto a wire rack.

Something didn’t look right. I used the right sized tin, why is it so flat?

Something's not right here

And then when checking something on my tablet, I noticed the web page that was open on converting 175g of self-raising flour to plain flour. What did I forget? Baking powder.

Crap. This is what I get for multi-tasking.

‘Tis, um, rather dense. And although nice and lemony, a bit too sweet with that glaze. I suspect this one isn’t coming on my camping trip later this week . . ..

Pierogies, aka Perogies, aka Pyrogys, etc

You can tell I’m Canadian because I’m doing a blog post on pieorgies. That may surprise you because pierogies are a staple dish of eastern Europe, but believe me when I say that Canadians are absolutely obsessed with pieorgies.

In countries like Poland and Ukraine, pieorgies were a side dish equivalent to the British and Irish use of potatoes and the Italian use of pasta. It went with everything. It’s filling, full of carbs and cheap. Time consuming to make, but cheap. Really cheap. I remember a friend’s Ukrainian-Canadian grandmother disparagingly looking at us discussing the pieorgies we had had at the Butler’s Pantry Café in Roncesvalles (once known as Toronto’s Polish ghetto, now a super-gentrified neighbourhood out of most people’s price range) and telling us that pierogies are “nothing but peasant food”. Yep, it is. And they’re bloody tasty!!

There are two reasons why Canadians are obsessed with pieorgies. One is that there have been huge waves of Czech, Slovak, Polish, Russian and especially Ukrainian immigration to Canada over the decades (hence, the variety of spellings in the title). Huge parts of the Canadian prairies were settled by Ukrainians at the during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

World's Largest Pyrogy in Glendon, Alberta. Seriously, the town symbol is a pyrogy.

And there was a lot of immigration from all over Eastern Europe to Toronto just after WWII as a huge number of "DP's" or “displaced persons” were granted asylum in Canada and many settled in and around the old factory workers housing in the western part of the city. So effectively, if you didn’t have a Polish or Ukranian grandmother raising you on pierogies, you had a friend who had a grandmother who would happily serve them to you. The other reason Canadians love pieorgies isn’t so sentimental. It’s because they’re cheap. When I was at uni, you could buy a huge bag of frozen ones at the supermarket for $5. If you were careful with them, they’d last weeks. Cheaper than the other Canadian student obsession of Kraft Dinner. And they tasted better and actually contained cheese.

What’s funny about living in the UK is how despite huge amounts of Polish immigration over the past 10 years, pieorgies have just not caught on. I lived in a town with a huge Polish population, and lived in a block of flats that was almost entirely Slovak, and it took my local Sainsbury’s five years to catch on that having a Polish food section might be a profitable idea. Meanwhile, the little Polish shop up in town was making a killing. They stock pierogies, but they were a Russian brand which I found unbearably salty. So after having an online discussion with my trusty group of Canadian ex-pats (our conversations always end up being about food), I learned to make my own thanks to someone’s Ukranian grandmother’s recipe.

What does this have to do with Crohn’s you ask? Onions aside, pierogies are low-fibre and low-residue. And full of carbs, which is what you need when you are trying to regain the weight you lost during a flare-up.

There are many ways to make pierogies, but my personal favourite is the good ol’ potato and cheese kind. Pierogies are one of the reasons why I am so glad that the whole not-being-able-to-get-dairy-down thing has ended. Plain potato ones are just, well, plain.

Pierogie making is kind of a whole day affair, so it’s the kind of think you do when the weather out is awful and you have all day. They freeze well, so you can make a huge batch and put them in the freezer for later.

To make the dough, use -
3 ½ cups of plain flour
½ tsp of salt
1 egg - beaten
2 tbsp of vegetable oil (I use sunflower oil)
3/4 cup of warm water.

Combine the flour and salt first. Combine the egg, oil and water in another bowl.

 

Make a well in the flour and pour in the liquid.

Mix well. You’ll eventually just have to use your hands. Once it’s more or less mixed, turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead well, about 5 minutes or so, until the dough is elastic. It should be neither too wet or dry. If it’s too wet, add an extra tablespoon or so of flour. If it’s too dry, wet your hands with some water while kneading (it usually doesn’t require much water to get it right, so I find this works better than pouring some in). Roll into a ball, and cover with cling film and leave to rest in a warm spot.

Meanwhile, peel and chop a big, fluffy potato (the kind used for jackets is best) and boil until cooked. Strain the water, then mash the potato, but don’t use butter or milk like you normally would for mashed potatoes. Add sea salt and freshly ground pepper, and mix. If you’re doing low-residue, add about 1tbsp of onion powder. If not, finely chop and fry some onion separately, then add it to the mixture.

This one done with onion powder

Once mashed, add a bunch of shredded cheese. A huge double handful should do it (less if you want it less cheesy). 

I like a combination of Mature Cheddar and Double Gloucester, but you can use what ever kind of cheese you like (cottage cheese is popular, but I don’t recommend it with potato, it’s too wet).  Leave to cool.

Boil a big pot of salted water. Keep it boiling on the stove while you make the pierogies.

After the dough has rested, roll it out with a rolling pin until it’s 1/4" thick. Then cut the dough into circles. Some people use fancy Pierogies cutters, I’m fond of using a Bailey’s glass.

The Bailey's glass has seen more pierogie dough than Bailey's in its time

Use a teaspoon to scoop the cheese and potato mixture into the dough, then using slightly damp fingers, crimp the edges of the dough closed. It’s really important that there is a good seal on the dough, or else the contents will explode when you boil them.

Then add them to a pot of boiling water, typically for about five minutes. The nice thing about pierogies is that your know they are cooked when they float to the top! If they stick together or stick to the bottom of the pan, add a bit of oil to the pot. Lift the pierogies out with a slotted spoon to drain.

If you are going to freeze them, parboil the pierogies for about 1 minute, then remove and drain. Once cooled, freeze initially in a single layer on a cookie sheet on some freezer paper so they don’t stick together, then transfer them to a re-sealable bag. When you want to cook them, boil a pot and throw the frozen pierogies in the pot one at a time and cook until they float.

Some people like to eat them right away, but I’m partial to the artery-hardening traditional practice of frying them before eating them. My personal preference is to fry them in butter, but margarine or olive oil work just as well. Heat the frying pan until hot, then add about a tbsp of fat. Once it’s melted, add the pierogies and fry until browned. About five minutes on each side.

And to add to the artery-hardening traditional practice? Serve with bacon!!! If you don’t do pork (for low-residue reasons or otherwise), turkey bacon is a reasonable substitute, but I’ll admit, not as nice as the piggy kind.

Truly wonderful, stick to your ribs comfort food!