Food is essential to life and one must eat to nurture the body and the mind. Food at it’s best should appeal to the senses of taste, scent and sight.

Food has always been an essential ingredient of family and social life. I consider it important to eat fresh, tasty food and share the wealth with extended family and friends.

Through my childhood there was an ever present vegetable and herb garden. Growing, preserving and storing food for winter was a part of daily life and every member of the family was involved. We raised our own crops and our own poultry. We went foraging for mushrooms and collected shell fish on the beach. Autumn woodland picnics were a tradition and a chance to collect nuts and wild herbs.

Food is my life and has been since childhood. I am a voracious cook and love to create fresh and interesting gourmet dishes that will win over the taste buds of friends and family.
All of my recipes have traditionally started with five cloves of garlic and a liberal sprinkling of chopped onion. I always said that if I were forced to cook without these ingredients that it would be like cooking with one hand tied behind my back. But it turns out that I was wrong!

My cooking and my life changed when I discovered that not only am I a diabetic but I have severe food in-tolerances and would be forced to surrender not only lactose and gluten but also fructose oligos and polyols which are in my beloved onions and garlic.

The good news is that I survived to cook another gourmet meal! If you want to find out more about my journey and learn about some tasty recipes then watch this space. I will be regularly posting new mouth watering recipes with lush colour photographs.

I have included on of my favourite fish recipes, it tastes great and is fodmap diet friendly.

Bon appetite for now.

Recipe for Barramundi, saffron and cherry tomatoes

Ingredients:
You will need a thick based pan with a lid that can be used both on the hob and in the oven.

• 2 Barramundi fillets
• bunch chives
• 6 spring onion tops
• 2 red fresh chillies
• large sprig of fresh dill
• 500 gms cherry tomatoes
• 2 table spoons saffron and ginger syrup*
• 2 table spoons garlic infused oil*
• sea salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste.
• serves 2
• * See recipe for instructions on making these items (coming soon)

Method:

Heat 1 tablespoon garlic infused oil in the pan, add fish letting it brown of on both sides, remove fish and allow to stand.

Add rest of garlic infused oil to pan and sauté chopped chillies, ginger, half of the chives and onion tops.

Place fish on top of this mixture, and simmer for 1 minute each side and sprinkle with sea salt and fresh ground pepper to taste.

Sprinkle the finely chopped dill, the rest of the chives and onion tops over the fish. Then top with cherry tomatoes (I used a mixture of yellow and red tomatoes)

Drizzle the saffron and ginger syrup over the top, place lid on pan and cook in a pre-heated oven at 175c for 40 mins.

Serve with suggestions:

Stir fry Asian Greens and Radish
Steamed potatoes

*See recipes pages for all recipes.