Nutrified Kay

Country 23: Botswana 🇧🇼⁣
I made vetkoek and curried vegetables. This is sort of a African version of sloppy joes. Vetkoek are fried bread rolls and Vetkoek actually means fat cake in Afrikaans and is also very popular in South Africa. ⁣
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I could definitely could do with more practice with the technique for this dish, as my bread rolls ended up quite raggid and not very smooth. It's been a long time since I've made bread dough from scratch! And I also had the oil too hot meaning the outsides ended up slightly over done whilst trying to make sure the inside of the bread dough was cooked! 😅⁣
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But the end result was super tasty, crunchy slightly sweet bread rolls and tasty curried mixed vegetables. Both myself and my partner definitely approve of this dish! 😋⁣

Happy dietitians week 2024! 💙 It's been a hectic week so I am condensing all the themes of the week into 1 post!

I chose a career in dietetics after finding the theory side around nutrition and health fascinating in my catering and food science lessons at school and college. I took some time out after college due to mental health and then worked in care for a short while but did not want to be a nurse. Becoming a dietitian seemed a perfect way to combine my passion for caring and helping people with my interest in nutrition and health.

My first role in dietetics was a band 5 NHS dietitian on a Gastro-Surgical rotation in an acute hospital. With a weekly general clinic, as well as shadowing and supporting the IBD clinic and a varied inpatient caseload. ⁣I also shortly after started on the British Dietetic Association (BDA) Gastroenterology specialist group committee as a resources officer and I've had some fantastic opportunities come my way due to this role and developed further skills. ⁣

Some of my key achievements include getting my B6 gastro-surgical promotion, writing 2 articles for Clinical Nutrition magazine, creating 2 new diet sheets for my dietetic department and helping run the BDA Gastroenterology study day including speaking to a 100 dietitians at the AGM.

Country 22: Bosnia 🇧🇦⁣
I made another byrek/burek for this country dish (see week 2 for my Albanian version). Burek is popular as a street food snack in Bosnia. ⁣
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Filo pastry filled with vegan mince and onion and shaped into a spiral served with yoghurt. Now I think I overfilled the pastry which consequently made it difficult to shape and spiral so it did split and not look as neat as traditional Bosnian burek but this didn't compromise on the yummy taste! 😂😋⁣
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Week 21: Bolivia 🇧🇴
This week I made Pique a lo Macho
This is basically spicy meaty loaded fries 🍟

I made homemade deep fried chips (I normally make homemade airfried chips but for authenticy I deepfried). These are topped with [vegan] beef and hotdog cooked in a beer broyh pepper, tomato, red onion and chilli and served with llajua spicy tomato salsa, mayo and ketchup. It is also sometimes topped with hard boiled eggs.

It was super tasty, definitely a good dish 😋

What a fantastic jam packed study day of learning and networking at British Dietetic Association Gastroenterology specialist group AGM and study day!⁣
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Some very interesting topics including gut directed hypnotherapy in IBS, conflicting advice in ileostomies and long term management, liver disease and digital triage and group education. And for the GSG AGM it was a bit nerve wracking to get up and talk in front of 100+ people (albeit briefly) but a proud moment, and we have some really valuable feedback to move forward as a specialist group! ⁣
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It was fantastic to meet the rest of the GSG committee face to face after numerous teams calls! Very proud of us for pulling off such a successful event. And lovely see a few other familiar faces...dietetics is a small world afterall! ⁣⁣

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Next on my country cooking challenge: Bhutan 🇧🇹⁣
For this week I make Jasha Maroo which is a spicy chicken stew, traditionally served with red rice, however I substituted this with brown rice. ⁣
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Lovely flavours of onion, garlic, ginger, chilli, leeks and tomatoes. A nice simple dish to make after a few rather technical and complicated dishes. ⁣

Week 19: Benin 🇧🇯⁣
This week I made Amiwo. This is a traditional Benin dish consisting of a tomato flavoured cornmeal paste, a sort of savoury pudding. The final product shared some similarities in texture to mashed potato. This is typically served with grilled chicken and a vegetable relish.⁣
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The amiwo involves making a base of tomato, onion, garlic and herbs and gradually mixing in cornmeal to make a thick paste, cooking then pressing into ramekins to let it firm up. ⁣
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I overcooked the vegan chicken a little, but the actual Amiwo was delicious. Which was a relief after last week's fail! ⁣

Week 18: Belieze 🇧🇿⁣
So unfortunately this week of the challenge was my first complete flop. This dish was supposed to be Salbutes: puffed deep fried tortillas topped with shredded chicken and pickled red onion. ⁣
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Unfortunately the tortillas did not go to plan. I couldn't get ahold of corn masa which is cornflour that has been milled from corn kernels with the hulls removed so I used regular cornflour. The dough was incredibly hard and crumbly and consequently I struggled to get the dough thinner. Unfortunately upon frying them the outside crisped up well but the insides had raw cornflour in 😭. When I realised I ended up serving the toppings with some mexican rice instead as a makeshift solution. Lessons to be learned around ingredients substitutions! ⁣
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Luckily the toppings were tasty and I used a unique ingredient called achiote paste which is a Belizean and Mexican spice blend to flavor the vegan chicken. ⁣

Week 17: Belgium 🇧🇪⁣
This week was a Belgium twist on sausage and mashed potatoes called Stoemp. Rather than just potatoes, this mash contains carrot, cabbage, leek and vegan bacon bits as well. Mixed together with nutmeg and cream and topped with fennel and thyme flavoured melted butter. ⁣
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Not the most appealing looking meal but very tasty, and a good way to sneak in extra vegetables. It was one of my partners favourite dishes I've made so far!

For any dietitians/Dietetic students following this page:
I will be attending this as a committee member of British Dietetic Association (BDA) Gastroenterology specialist group.

It's going to be a great day for networking with some exciting talks lined up! 😊

I hope to see some of you there!!!
Buy a ticket: https://www.bda.uk.com/events/calendar/gastroenterology-specialist-group-study-day-and-agm.html

Week 16: Belarus 🇧🇾⁣
Potatoes are the basis of most Belarusian cuisine so this week I made Draniki, or potato fritters/pancakes stuffed with "mince' and served with sour cream. ⁣
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These involved grating potato and flavouring. And making up a mince mix. Then creating patties of potato, with mince in the middle and more potato on top and shallow frying. ⁣
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I was worried about all the raw ingredients cooking but it all worked out fine and was very delicious. 😋⁣

Week 15: Barbados 🇧🇧⁣
For this week's country challenge I made Barbados Roti. Unlike in Indian cuisine, a Barbados Roti is not only a type of bread but a bread filled with a meat and often potatoes. I chose vegan chicken and potato as my filling with lots of spices!⁣
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It was a new challenge to make my own roti's. I made them too big for the pan and they are no where near circular and neat like the ready made ones! I was worried they wouldn't be cooked as they are only pan fried for a few minutes but luckily the finished product was delicious! ⁣

Bangladesh 🇧🇩⁣
A popular dish in Bangladesh and India is Baingan Bharta. This is smoked and minced aubergine mixed into a spiced tomato sauce. ⁣
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Traditionally the aubergine is smoked over an open flame but I'm unable to do that so I roasted in the oven with some garlic and smoked paprika then finished on the grill. ⁣
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I also made my own pilau rice with basmati rice. cinnamon, bay leaves, cardamom, cloves and more fried in oil then simmered in water and milk. I did not make my own roti this time but watch this space...⁣
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There was so much flavour, I love making homemade curry dishes 😋🌶️⁣

Proud to have my second CN magazine article published! Read all about the latest evidence for probiotics in IBS in the March 2024 Clinical Nutrition magazine! 🦠💜📝⁣
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Stay tuned as I will soon be revealing an additional exciting project I have taken on! 📘⁣

Wk 13: Bahrain 🇧🇭⁣
Chicken machboos the national dish of Bahrain. Lots of flavours in this dish including cloves, cardamom, nutmeg, cumin, dried black lime (had to buy this specialist ingredient, one of the recipe websites advised not to skip or replace this due to its unique taste!). ⁣
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First you make the base with onion, lime, ginger, garlic and some spices then you put marinated chicken in with water and tomatoes to boil before finishing the chicken in the oven and cooking the rice in the spiced flavoured water. As a a vegan I used vegan chicken style breasts. Then served with a sumac, garlic and parsley yoghurt. ⁣
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⁣I also got a scratch map to mark off where I've cooked from so far! (Although a few countries are so small you cannot see them!) 🗺️🥘

Week 12: Bahamas 🇧🇸. Cracked conch with rice and peas. This Bahamian dish is typically made with deep fried snails. To make this dish vegan I've used oyster mushrooms alongside some seaweed mixed into the batter. The peas part comes from pigeon peas, also known as gungo beans cooked with some brown basmati rice in a coconut and spice broth. ⁣
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Not sure my batter for the mushroom conch was perfect but still some good flavours from the dish! ⁣

Next on my country cooking list is Azerbaijan 🇦🇿. For this I've made dolma which is essentially cabbage or vine leaves stuffed with mince, rice, onion and herbs and cooked in a broth and served with a garlic yoghurt. ⁣
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Dolma is recognised as one of Azerbaijan's international cultural heritage dishes. It was quite fiddly to fold filling into the cabbage leaves and admittedly some fell apart when cooking (I may have overfilled a few!) but they taste good and were very filling!⁣

I took a break from my cooking around the world challenge due to ill health and the busyness of Christmas season. I had completed weeks 8 to 10 but not got round to posting so I will post these now. Plan is to re-commence with week 11 shortly! 👩‍🍳🌍

Pictures 1, 2 and 3: Wk 8: Armenia 🇦🇲. I made Armenian manti which are intricate little dumplings with a mince filling, cooked until crispy and served with broth and a yoghurt garlic sauce.
This is probably the most time consuming recipe I had to make, as you can see in the 2nd picture, there's a process of making, kneading and resting the dough, rolling it out super thin and shaping and filling with the mince mix. But it was super tasty! 😋

Picture 4: Wk 9: Australia 🇦🇺
So I struggled a bit with this one. Although there is indigenous Australia, the sort of food they make would be impossible to replicate on my vegan diet. And general Australian cuisine tends to very similar to British, one of their national dishes is fish and chips! They also take influence from many other Europen countries too.
I ended up picking a dish that is apparently on the menu of almost all Australian pubs and a very popular dish: chicken parmigiana. I used a vegan fake chicken breast, vegan cheese, a homemade tomato sauce and homemade fries. Tasty and simple! 😊

Pictures 5 and 6: Wk 10: Austria 🇦🇹⁣
For this week I made käsespätzle, dubbed Austrian Mac and cheese. Made with homemade noodles (spätzle), cheese, chives and fried onion.⁣
It was quite nerve wracking making this dish as it used a technique I'd never used for. ⁣See the second picture! You had to make a dough, then push bits through a colander into boiling water to create mini noodles. You can also use a spätzle maker but I chose not to buy one and made it the more challenging way! It was hard work pushing the dough through the colander and I was worried about how it would turn out but in the end it worked well and tasted absolutely delicious! 😋⁣

I am thrilled to announce I've got a promotion to a band 6 specialist gastro-surgical dietitian job post at my current NHS trust. An exciting next step in the right direction for my career! 😁🥂🎉

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Week 7 of my cooking around the world challenge is Argentina. I made a sort of deluxe Argentinian hot dog called choripan. It is a popular street food, often served at sports games. It's essentially a fancy hot dog consisting of a bread baguette, spiced chorizo and topped with chimichurri, a green herby sauce and salsa criolla, an Argentinian salsa. ⁣
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Funnily enough vegan chorizo is easier to come by than vegan hot dogs for me, so this may be a new option for me than traditional hot dogs! Plus I think we can all agree a crusty baguette beats a hot dog roll! ⁣

Exciting news, I've just had my first article published for CN magazine! It's a 3 page spread introducing synbiotics 🦠💊. Make sure to keep a look out if you receive CN magazine online or via post! 📖🖱️⁣
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It was a fantastic opportunity I got through being on the committee for the British Dietetics Association Gastroenterology specialist group. It was quite a bit of work, especially with all the referencing but it was incredibly rewarding and I'm very proud of myself! 👏⁣

Week 6: Antigua and Barbuda in the Caribbean 🇦🇬. I made their national dish which is fungie and pepperpot. You might recall fungee from my previous post. These are similar dishes, but fungie has the additional of okra as well as cornflour as a Caribbean twist. ⁣
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The pepperpot is a hearty vegetable and beef stew. I used vegan beef pieces. It was very flavoursome. And the fungie was useful to mop up the excess sauce! Although I'm not 100% sure I got the texture right and I put in a bit too much okra it seems! Was certainly a new experience and bit of a challenge to make the fungie! ⁣

Week 5 Angola. This was actually made a few weeks ago but I'm behind in posting 🤦‍♀️😂. I made the national dish of Angola, Muamba de Galinha with fungee. This is a chicken like stew made with palm butter/concentrate. Served with a a cornflour dough called fungee which is a staple in many African countries. 🇦🇴⁣
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I wanted to make this authentic, but I had some difficulty obtaining palm butter. There's a few world food supermarkets near me but unfortunately they are mostly Asian orientated. I ended up paying (probably way to much) to get some from eBay. ⁣
It was worth it as it was very tasty and full of flavour. 😋⁣
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The fungee cornflour dough was very unique, I've never had anything like it, it was good to try something completely new, but not something I will probably be making regularly. ⁣

I am behind in posting, but I have been making my country dishes each week, I'm actually up to week 6 (but skipping a week to make a Halloween buffet!)....anyway.. week 4: Andorra 🇦🇩.⁣
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I made Escudella which is the national dish of the country. It really is the stew of all stews, typically containing a wide variety of different meats, starches, beans and vegetables. There is so much in it, every mouthful has different flavour and textures! 😋🍲⁣
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I used a mix of vegan meats (including some leftover vegan bacon, vegan meatballs, vegan chicken and beef) alongside chickpeas, pinto beans, some soup pasta, a bit of rice and a wide variety of vegetables. I made so much that I still have leftovers in the freezer that I've been taking to work! ⁣
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With my dietetics cap on, it got me thinking how it would be a great high protein meal, and a great way to use up leftovers and bulk cook. ⁣💪

(I forgot to post this a few weeks ago!)

Week 3 of my cooking the world challenge: Algeria 🇩🇿⁣
In case you haven't already realised, I'm going alphabetically! If I was to get to the end of the alphabet it would take me to 2027!😂 I wonder how long I'll manage keep this up 🤔 it's certainly making my weekly meal planning more interesting!⁣
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So last weekend I made tofu shakshuka. This dish is traditionally made with eggs but I found some veganised recipes online that used tofu instead. Originally I cut the tofu into neat circles to represent circled of egg but I then found I had loads of off cuts that I didn't want to waste so sprinkled extra tofu on top. ⁣
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I served with some crusty bread and Algerian Zrodiya mcharnla, a marinated spicy carrot side dish. Both the main and side were so flavoursome and delicious, both were harissa paste heavy! ⁣
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If anyone's local, find me at this healthy living day!

I'll be next to the vegan runners group stand talking all things healthy eating with an emphasis on more plant based diets. 🌱

Week 2 of my cooking the world challenge. This week is Albania 🇦🇱

I've recreated Byrek, a layered filo pastry pie that can have a variety of fillings including vegetables, cheese and meats. I chose one of the popular vegetable based fillings, spinach and a vegan version of feta cheese. Albania gets a lot of inspiration of its dishes from Greece and Turkey, and Byrek is actually a traditional dish of the Balkans, however I tried to follow traditions Albanian recipes in making this.

As a side to boost protein I was going to make Gigantes Plaki, butterbeans in a tomato sauce. However I somehow missed butterbeans off my grocery shop list! Luckily I had some pinto beans in the cupboard so I just substituted them. They were really flavourful with the parsley and the time they baked in the oven.

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I love creating new recipes and trying new cuisines. I've decided to embark on a challenge, each week (ideally) I'm going to create a dish from a different country (veganised to suit my diet). ⁣
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Today I've made some traditional Afghan dishes: Kofta Challow (meatballs with Afgan rice) and bolani (flatbread with potato and leek). 🇦🇫⁣
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Admittedly I did make a few short cuts with ready-made vegan meatballs and flatbread after a full day of work.. But I did try and follow traditions such as how I cooked the Challow (rice).🍚⁣
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Recipes were predominantly inspired by Afghan Cooks. It gets big approval from both me and Reece, my partner. Very flavoursome rice and tomato sauce, and the bolani was also delicious! 😋⁣
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Last weekend alongside my colleague, I presented a talk on diet in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD; Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis) to Crohn's and Colitis UK North Essex Network as part of a medical meeting. ⁣
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We also got to listen to talks from our lead IBD consultants and surgeons, and I learnt a lot. We also heard from the trust research team about upcoming local IBD research. ⁣
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At the end we also had a panel Q&A session as the audience asked us questions from surgery and pregnancy to the evidence around vegan and plant based diets in IBD. And of course we had to offer some oral nutrition supplement samples including Modulen! ⁣
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It's Dietitian's week 2023! I'm sharing lots throughout the week over on my NHS's trust AHP (Allied Health Professional's twitter account, so go give it a follow
www.twitter.com/esneft_ahp

So far, Monday was selfie Monday and I shared a bit about myself and my work colleagues on why we got into Dietetics and our career journeys so far.

Tuesday was day in the life and I've created a video showing what I get up to as an acute hospital Dietitian! Check it out! https://youtu.be/IHA_rbhNPH8

To come:
Wednesday is sharing my team's top hacks, tips and nutrition advice for various conditions. Thursday we celebrate our key wins and successes of the year and Friday we have a bake off challenge!! 💙

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