Hello BariBrothers, BariSisters, BariFamilies, and general lovers of healthy, good food. My name is Smye and I live on a small farm in the Pacific Northwest.

During both pre and post op appointments with my nutritionist, I was horrified by the suggested things I could eat once I was back to 'regular foods.' The suggestions I was given were flavorless, full of preservatives & junk, and/or otherwise reminiscent of the american 'instafoods' that are, in my opinion, a huge part of the original problems. That said, I wanted to share some of the real, whole foods I've been enjoying lately without hurting my sleeve or deviating from the dietary guidelines provided to me by my NUT. I'm down 86 lb since I started this journey on Jan 22, 2015, and loving every meal as much as, or more than, pre-op.

I've spent the last 7 years accommodating good food to meet my partner's corn, dairy, and gluten allergies without losing any of the flavor or texture with 80% of all ingredients sourced from my own small farm, so it wasn't too big of a jump to make these recipes low carb, high Protein and delicious.

Over the next few weeks I'll be posting recipes like:

Bariatric BibimBop
Pho
Pastrami Sandwich
Madras curry with fried tofu
chicken tenders with sauce
Sushi - Philadelphia rolls in particular
Personal Pizzas
Smoked cherry-glazed chicken
Barbeque-smoked chicken
Ham and cheese omlette
Pickled duck eggs
Quiche
Ham, egg & cheese sandwiches
Bari-bread
Guacamole Cheeseburgers
And many more

There's no need for food to be tasteless, uninteresting, or questionable in it's contents. If there's something you'd like to see that's not here, please PM me and I'll do my best - I also make sure to try everything myself and feed it to my executive chef neighbor before I post it to ensure it's excellent!

Edited May 2, 201511 yr by Smye

chicken Tenders Prep Time - 10-15 min Cook Time - 10-12 min

For those of you without any love for coconut, put your prejudice aside and give these a try - the roasting essentially eliminates the coconutty flavor and lends these tenders a spendidly breaded texture & flavor. Don't use coconut flakes or chop them to powder, but a shredded coconut with grain sizes similar to dry rice are about perfect here. Give them a try with your favorite low sugar sauce (I'll be posting a few shortly) and see if you can't stop making these.

Ingredients:

Chicken Breast, skinless & boneless - 1 large

Coconut Flour - 1/4 cup

Egg - 1

Coconut Milk - 1 Tbsp

Dried Shredded Coconut - 1/3 cup

Salt & Pepper to taste

Preparation:

Preheat your oven to 400 F.

Place the chicken breast between two pieces of plastic wrap and pound to roughly 3/4 inch - 1 inch flat. Keep it as even as possible

In one bowl wisk the coconut milk & egg together. In another bowl, place the coconut flour, and in a third place the shredded coconut.

Slice the chicken strips into roughly 8 equally-sized strips. Dip each strip first in the flour, then the egg/milk mixture, and lastly in the shredded coconut before placing on a large baking sheet.

Bake chicken strips for 10-15 minutes or until chicken has cooked through and coconut has browned but not burnt. Salt & pepper to taste.

Dip, bite, enjoy.

Nutrition (makes 4 servings of 2 strips each)

Calories: 182

Fat: 10 g

Carbs: 5 g

Protein: 17 g

Sodium: 104 mg

Thank you for posting this recipe!! I copied, pasted, and printed it then went to the grocery store to buy the ingredients! I want to try making it tomorrow. I hope it turns out well. It sounds delicious!

Your recipes look lovely but it is your nutritionist's advice I find awful!! How very unhelpful of her/him!! I have never eaten anything other than "real" food and my NUT specifically warned me off junk food, over-processed food, artificial sweeteners etc..

I think you must have been very unlucky! Most people I know we're given advice similar to that which I received.

I like "Real food, Real Weight Loss, Real Delicious" Thanks for some great recipes to try soon!

Smye,

Thank you so much for this thread!

First, I am so glad you brought up the topic of processed foods. You are right – we get the surgery to lose weight and become healthy and then we are bombarded with messages to eat processed instafoods that aren’t necessarily healthy, natural, or even filling.

You clearly have talent in the kitchen. Thank you for your generosity in sharing these recipes and including the nutrition information – a must for us. I love how you use spices to make your recipes so interesting and even healthier.

Can't wait to try some of these!

OK! I made the coconut chicken tenders recipe!! DE-LICIOUS!! I wish I had made one of your dipping sauces, instead I used half a tablespoon of regular honey barbecue sauce. This was a super easy, super quick, super tasty way to cook chicken! Thanks again!

Oh and as for your cookbook or cooking blog, I would subscribe as well! I like @@jess9395's title suggestions. To add to the blog title, after it is a HUGE success and adapted to a book, I like "Real food for Life: Delicious Healthy Eating after Weighgt-Loss Surgery"

@@Tanika81, thank you so much for the feedback, I'm gratified to hear that you liked them. Also, the book title is awesome, you'll absolutely be in the 'special thanks to' section

@@Alex Brecher, Thank you for your thoughtful response. If you give any of these a try, do let me know what you think. Also, when I start the blog and if I, as suggested by @@Tanika81, do ever publish a cookbook - would it be acceptable for me to post links to both here on BariatricPal? And/or do you, given your role within the WLS community, have any resources you could point me towards to get that ball rolling?

@@KateP, I think my NUT was coming from a place of "most american's eat junk, at least the macronutrient profiles of these foods are in line with dietary recommendations and don't require any prep." I'm disgusted by the actual foods she's suggested, but appreciate the 'harm reduction' approach - even if I wish it had been followed up with 'but, I most recommend whole, nutritious, fresh foods.' To her credit, when I told her I would not be eating the junk suggested, she was very supportive and has been collecting some of my recipes to share with future clients

@@drmeow, Thank you! I'll add your vote to the tally. Currently it's looking like that will be the tagline rather than the title, but I'm giving it until Wednesday or so to make a decision and actually get to URL for the blog.

Smoked Leg of Lamb (goat) Prep Time - 5 minutes Wait Time - 45 minutes Cook Time - 2-4 hours

As I mentioned in my smoked chicken recipe, I LOVE smoked foods. I'm all about the flavors of the world around me and keeping things as natural and close to the earth from whence my sustenance comes (since I can't know how the sun actually tastes without going near a nuclear fusion reaction). And the flavors around me include the wild trees that grow in the woods around my farm (as well as those that grow near family in other parts of the country). I have actually never prepared this recipe with lamb, but with young goats from the farm. My chef friend, on the other hand, raises lamb and when we did a blind taste-test, we both couldn't tell them apart, so lamb from your local grocer should be fine with this recipe.

Ingredients:

Butterflied Leg of Lamb - 1.5-2 lb

Minced Garlic - 1.5 tsp (or more, 1 Tbsp if you're a garlic fiend like my partner)

Salt - 2 tsp

Black Pepper - 1.5 tsp

Onion powder - 2 tsp

Fresh rosemary leaves - 1 tsp

Hickory wood - 3-4 'chunks' (pegan, almond, and alder also work well. My favorite (if you can get it) is dried blackberry vines. Weird, I know, but phenomenal)

Preparation:

Preheat your smoker and soak your hickory.

Mix all herbs and spices with garlic into a thick paste - leaving out the rosemary leaves. Don't lick your fingers, it smells amazing but the taste raw leaves much to be desired.

Rinse and pat dry leg of lamb. Lay out with the side through which the bone was removed up. Sprinkle evenly with rosemary.

Roll up the leg of lamb so it is as long and thin as possible, tie with kitchen twine.

Rub the outside of the lamb evenly with your herb paste. Then place into a foil 'boat' which you very loosely close over the top of the lamb.

Add hickory to the smoker, and allow to come back up to heat while the lamb sits in its run.

Smoke the lamb until the internal temperature reaches 135 F - if you don't have a thermometer, this is about when the lamb will feel roughly like your cheek in terms of firmness when you poke it with your finger.

Remove from the smoker and place directly on a preheated grill on high. Grill each side for 30-45 seconds, just long enough to sear/caramelize the outside of the lamb.

Tent the lamb in foil for 15 minutes. Slice across the grain into 8 even medallions and savor the delicious flavor.

Nutrition (per slice from 2 lb raw):

Calories - 111

Fat - 5 g

Carbs - 1 g

Protein - 15 g

Sodium - 667 mg

Note: This is FANTASTIC with a side of wilted mixed hearty greens (kale, chard, etc). Just don't cook your greens in too much grease (or any). OR, take my favorite route and grill bok choi and chard for a more barbecue-esque side.

Edited May 4, 201511 yr by Smye

@Smye I will be trying the sushi this week but with smoked salmon, I think this will be just scrumpdidilydumptious! I will report back on how it all goes thanks again for the recipe!

@@jess9395, as you're prepping for goats, check out http://hoeggerfarmyard.com/the-farmyard/the-dairy/dairy-goat/ and Storey's Guide To Raising Dairy Goats. It sounds like you've got a good handle on goats already, but I wonder if these resources might not help sway your husband

eggs.html" rel="external nofollow">Pink Pickled Eggs Prep Time - 5 Minutes Cook Time - 40 minutes Pickling Time - 10-30 days

Maybe you've had pickled eggs at the store. Maybe you liked them. If you did, I think you're a little odd, but we can still be friends. Maybe you hated them, in that case I'm with you. I was doubtful at first when my partner first suggested I look into pickling an excess of duck eggs. However, I was getting 2-3 dozen eggs a day and, despite selling to 30 families, had a huge surpluss, so I figured what the heck. I'll go for it. It took some serious trial and error, but WOW, these are incredible! I've used chicken eggs for this recipe as I doubt most of you have duck eggs (though duck eggs are FAR superior) and the calorie count below is a bit of an overestimate as it assumes you drink all the pickling liquid and eat 1/3 of a beet with every egg. So enjoy freely. An adaptation from a recipe I first read in Mother Earth News, these make an eggcellent Breakfast on the go!

Ingredients

Eggs, Hard Boiled & Peeled - 12

Apple Cider Vinegar - 2 cups

Water - 1.5 cups

Stevia Powder - 3 tsp

Non-Iodized Salt - 2 tsp

Allspice, Whole - 1 tsp

Cinnamon, Whole - 1/2 stick

Cloves, whole - 1/2 tsp

Beets (2" diameter), topped, scrubbed & cut into quarters - 4

Preparation:

Pack eggs into a sterilized quart jar.

Add everything else to a medium saucepan and bring to a boil over medium heat. Cover, reduce heat to a simmer and simmer for roughly 30 minutes until beets are easily pierced. Strain out the beets (you can eat them partially (1/3 at a time) alongside the eggs, or whatever you like). Chill the liquid until room temperature at the hottest. Pour over the eggs, screw on the lid, and pop the whole mess into the fridge. Give them at least 10 days before you serve, but feel free to eat one a day, one every other day, or whatever timing you want to figure out how you like them best. My favorite is roughly 15 days.

Nutrition - assuming you eat everything:

Calories: 87

Fat: 5 g

Carbs: 4 g

Protein: 7 g

Sodium: 486 mg

Edited May 4, 201511 yr by Smye

how about

Bari-Good Foods from Smye to You if you pronounce Smye like me.

if you pronounce SMye like as in eye, then

Bari-good foods-Done Smye way.

@@jess9395, as you're prepping for goats, check out http://hoeggerfarmyard.com/the-farmyard/the-dairy/dairy-goat/ and Storey's Guide To Raising Dairy Goats. It sounds like you've got a good handle on goats already, but I wonder if these resources might not help sway your husband

Thank you!!

@@Stevehud, I love it. Definitely pronounced like eye

i guess the obvious one is :

I cooked it Smye way!