Thursday, May 31, 2012

Big in flavor and renal friendly cooking adventure

My beloved yoga teacher has not been well. She is on a strict renal diet. For all the she has done for me and be there for me through the years, the least that I can do is to do some cooking for her. I know she loves to eat, I have been experimenting and creating different dishes that are low in potassium and phosphorus. I am very surprised how limited the diet can be and how fun it is to come up with ideal to replace one for another. I didn't post any recipe, however if you are interested in any of these dishes , please let me know and I will sent you the recipe.


Korean inspiration dinner to go
Momi like Korean food. I made a simple stir fried mix vegetable and a mock-beef strips cooked in shoyu and mirin sauce. I separated the 2 elements to make reheating simpler. The small green container is not spinach. It is a renal friendly version of the classic Korean spinach or watercress side dish. I lightly sautéed some arugula, toss with the classic Korea seasoning of shoyu, pepper and a splash of sesame oil.

India Kheer inspired frozen dessert with rose petals
Momi loves Kheer, India rice pudding, dairy is off her current diet list. I used rice milk and the spices, rose petal to create a frozen dessert that has the taste of Kheer. The trick here is to thicken the rice milk with cornstarch to give it that creamy "ice cream" like texture

Orzo salad with cucumber and red pepper with a basil dressing 
Summer is finally here, I noticed that Momi pinned a quinoa salad recipe on her Pinterest. I wanted to create something similar by using orzo as the "grain", replace the tomatoes with red pepper and elevate the taste by combining basil and Italian parsley in a light vinaigrette.

Lilikoi (passion fruit) tapioca pudding with a burnt sugar crust 
Another version of pudding. This time with rice milk and tapioca. The rice milk lack texture and the tapioca does not bring much richness, so I added eggs to give the pudding the richness.

 Very simple Asian noodle salad
Momi is vegetarian, this is a very simple noodle salad with julienned carrot, celery, green onion and Asian 5-spice tofu for protein. The dressing is a simple vinaigrette with a splash of sesame oil. I usually would make this dish with a peanut dressing, but nuts is off limit for her.

 Soy crumble and vegetable topping over garlic fried rice
You will actually find this recipe here, it is just my fried rice with vegetable topping. I added an extra egg in the rice to make sure she had enough protein in her diet. The vegetable topping here is a mixture of chopped asparagus, cabbage and soy crumble. (Rinvented Old Fashion Chinese "Vegetable Rice"

Renal friendly Classic India rice pudding
This is the 1st recipe I experimented with. I replaced the milk with rice milk. It is a much lighter version. but still have all the flavor and bold taste of a classic kheer.

Aloha!