Songs I Want To Sing At The Top Of My Lungs

Below, I present to you my playlist of “Songs I Want To Sing At The Top Of My Lungs.” Five full hours of songs so singable that I literally cannot not sing them when I hear them. Some of these are classics and some are trash, and I love them equally.

You Shook Me All Night Long           AC/DC

Rolling in the Deep                              Adele

Set Fire to the Rain                              Adele

You Oughta Know                               Alanis Morissette

You Learn                                            Alanis Morissette

Both Hands                                          Ani DiFranco

Little Plastic Castles                            Ani DiFranco

Breathe (2AM)                                    Anna Nalick

Chain of Fools                                     Aretha Franklin

Boston                                                  Augustana

Hey Jude                                              The Beatles                                               

Let it Be                                               The Beatles

Oh! Darling                                          The Beatles

Ain’t No Sunshine                               Bill Withers

The Longest Time                                Billy Joel

Is This Love                                          Bob Marley

Something to Talk About                     Bonnie Raitt

The Story                                              Brandi Carlile

Before He Cheats                                 Carrie Underwood

F**k You                                              Cee Lo Green

Lady in Red                                          Chris de Burgh

Fix You                                                Coldplay

Elias                                                      Dispatch

Flying Horses                                       Dispatch

Not Ready to Make Nice                      Dixie Chicks

Islands in the Stream                            Dolly Parton & Kenny Rogers

Straight to Hell                                     Drivin’ n Cryin’

Som of a Preacher Man                        Dusty Springfield

What I Am                                            Edie Brickell

Free Your Mind                                    En Vogue

Criminal                                                Fiona Apple

We Are Young                                      Fun.

Careless Whisper                                  George Michael

I Will Survive                                       Gloria Gaynor

Crazy                                                    Gnarles Barkley

I Love It                                                Icona Pop

Land of Canaan                                     Indigo Girls

Never Tear Us Apart                             INXS

Fire and Rain                                         James Taylor           

You’ve Got A Friend                            James Taylor           

Bartender’s Blues                                  James Taylor           

Angel from Montgomery                      John Prine

Heartbeat Song                                      Kelly Clarkson

Bad Romance                                        Lady Gaga

Cult of Personality                                Living Color

Royals                                                   Lorde

What A Wonderful World                    Louis Armstrong

I Try                                                      Macy Gray

Like A Prayer                                       Madonna

Obey Your Guns                                   Matrimony

On Children                                          Mischords

Little Lion Man                                     Mumford & Sons

Don’t Speak                                          No Doubt

Heavenly Day                                       Patty Griffin

These Arms of Mine                             Otis Redding

A Whiter Shade of Pale                        Procol Harum

Worn Me Down                                    Rachael Yamagata

Send Me On My Way                           Rusted Root

Whatta Man                                          Salt N Pepa

Angel                                                    Sarah McLachlan

The Boxer                                             Simon & Garfunkel

The Sounds of Silence                          Simon & Garfunkel

Bridge over Troubled Water                 Simon & Garfunkel

Cecilia                                                   Simon & Garfunkel

Nothing Compares 2 U                         Sinead O’Connor

Take The Money And Run                   Steve Miller Band

Wild Mountain Honey                          Steve Miller Band

One                                                       U2

With or Without You                           U2

Brown Eyed Girl                                  Van Morrison

I Will Always Love You                      Whitney Houston

Je Veux                                                 ZAZ

I’m open to additional suggestions – hit me up!

Mint Honeydew Smoothie - My favorite new low-FODMAP dessert/drink (with or without vodka!)

I can’t. stop. drinking. this. It’s hard for me to find dessert treats that I can actually digest, and this one is as sweet and yummy as ice cream. It can also be turned into an impressive cocktail.

Mint Honeydew Smoothie

Ingredients:

1/3 ripe honeydew

6-7 mint leaves

½ cup water

2 ice cubes

Directions:

Blend together the honeydew, mint leaves, ice cubes and water, until smooth. Add mint for garnish.

If it’s time for an adult beverage, add 1.5 ounces of vodka to the blender.

You’re welcome.  

Low-FODMAP Maple Sage Turkey Sausage

Honestly, like, honestly, this turkey sausage is so good that I could eat it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And since it’s low-FODMAP, sometimes that dream comes true.

Ingredients:
1 pound organic ground turkey
2 tablespoons chopped fresh sage (if you substitute dried herbs, make sure to use less)
1 tablespoon chopped fresh basil
½ teaspoon chopped fresh rosemary
2 tablespoons maple syrup
1 teaspoon sea salt
¼ cup gluten-free flour (*make sure it doesn’t contain corn, oat, or quinoa flour)
3 tablespoons olive oil

Directions:

-In a large bowl, hand-mix the turkey, herbs, maple, salt, and 1 tablespoon of the flour.

-Place the rest of the flour on a plate.

-Shape the turkey mixture into about 12 patties, dredging each one lightly in the remaining flour.

-Heat the olive oil on medium-high heat (I find that my cast-iron pan works particularly well for this dish).

-Drop the patties in the pan and cook for about 7 minutes per side until they’re browned, and cooked all the way through (cooking time will depend on the thickness of the patties so you’ll need to cut into one of them to see if it’s done).

Good luck not eating them all at once!

*The flour I use is made from brown rice, potato, and tapioca. I recommend that you avoid using flour that contains oats, corn, or quinoa, as these things can be difficult for some people to digest (for example, I have trouble with corn and oats).

Low-FODMAP Bone Broth

Bone broth is rich in minerals and proteins that support our body's healing processes, as well as digestion and skin health, among other things. If you have any digestive disorder or immune problem, it’s a good idea to drink bone broth regularly. I put about a cupful of broth into a mug, heat it, and drink it every day. You can also use bone broth to make soups, or you can use it to flavor rice, vegetables, etc. Here’s my low-FODMAP chicken broth recipe:

Chicken Broth
2-3 pounds of chicken bones (they can have some meat on them, but it should be mostly bones)
1 gallon of water
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar (this is essential for leeching the minerals out)
2 carrots carrots, coarsely chopped

2 celery stalks, coarsely chopped
2-3 bay leaves (optional)
1/2 teaspoon salt taste the broth after a couple hours and add more if you think it needs it)

In a stockpot, combine the water, chicken, vinegar, and vegetables, bay leaves, and salt. For best results, let it all sit for half an hour before turning on the burner. Then bring the soup to a boil. As soon as it’s boiling, scum will start rising to the top. Remove the scum with a big spoon – this is nasty stuff that you don’t want in your broth! Reduce the heat, cover and simmer for 24 hours. Tip: you’ll want to reduce the heat enough that the stock is barely simmering. If you leave on too much heat the water will boil away.

After 24 hours, pour the broth through a strainer into another large pot. Refrigerate until the fat rises to the top and congeals (this might take a full day). Skim off the fat (you can reserve it for cooking). Now you can pour the stock into smaller containers and freeze whatever you can’t use within a few days.

NOTE: If you use beef bones instead of chicken, the broth will be much more gelatinous. It's pretty gross when it's cold, but it'll liquefy again when you heat it up. It's not as tasty to drink as chicken broth, so if you're new to the world of broth, I strongly recommend that you start with chicken! Move on to beef when you're a broth veteran and you can handle its uber-bony taste/texture. 

Low-FODMAP Spinach Chips

Kale is my enemy for so many reasons, not least of which is that it’s high-FODMAP and super hard to digest. Also I think it’s gross unless it’s drenched in olive oil and baked to a crisp. Luckily, I just discovered that spinach chips are as yummy as kale chips (and by that I mean, anything soaked in oil and sea salt is delicious). Recipe:

Ingredients:

Two cups of raw spinach

1-2 tablespoons of olive oil, depending on how oily you want them

Sea salt, to taste

Directions:

-Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

-Put the spinach in a large bowl and toss in olive oil and sea salt.

-Lay parchment paper over a baking pan and spread spinach on top, in a single layer.

-NOTE: you can put the spinach straight on the pan (not on parchment paper) if you want – it will be oilier this way, and you’ll have to scrape it off the pan with a spatula, but this wasn’t a problem for me.

-Bake for 10-12 minutes or until crispy. The timing can be tricky – I recommend that you check on it every minute starting at 10 minutes to see if the leaves are crisp.

Enjoy.

Low-FODMAP (bean-free) Zucchini Hummus

Low-FODMAP (bean-free) Zucchini Hummus

I can’t tolerate garbanzo beans (or any kind of beans, really) but I miss eating hummus. This Low-FODMAP almost-hummus recipe is fab! NOTE: To keep this low-FODMAP, you shouldn't have more than 2 tablespoons of hummus per serving, because high quantities of tahini include enough FODMAPs to cause digestive distress. 

Ingredients:
- 1 zucchini, chopped, sauteed in olive oil
- 3 tbsp fresh squeezed lemon juice
- 1/3 cup tahini 

- 1 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
- 1/2 tsp. sea salt
- 1/4 tsp. fresh ground black pepper
- Mint leaves or cilantro (you can leave this off if you want)

Directions:
1. Sauté the zucchini in olive oil until it starts to turn soft.

2. Place the lemon juice and tahini in a blender or food processor and blend for about 30 seconds (it should look creamy and smooth)

3. Add the zucchini, olive oil, sea salt, black pepper and blend.

4. Garnish with fresh mint leaves or cilantro if you want.

Enjoy!

Low-FODMAP, Gluten-Free, Paleo Sliders with Sweet Potato "Buns"

These low-FODMAP, gluten-free, paleo sliders on sweet potato “buns” are a MAJOR WIN. Trust me.

Recipe:

-several half-inch-thick sweet potato slices, boiled for 5 minutes to soften them slightly, skin removed

-ground turkey (or beef)

-1 teaspoon fresh rosemary (can use ½ tsp dried)

-1 teaspoon fresh sage or thyme (can use ½ tsp dried)

-1 teaspoon sea salt

-1/2 teaspoon pepper

-2-3 tablespoons olive oil.

-Dijon mustard

-lettuce and tomato for the burgers

Using your hands, mix the ground turkey with the herbs. Shape into slider-sized patties and sauté in olive oil until they’re browned on the outside, and as done as you like them on the inside (5-ish minutes per side). Add more olive oil if the pan is getting dry/sticky.

Meanwhile, in another pan, heat up a tablespoon or two of olive oil on medium (amount will depend on how many sweet potatoes you’re cooking). Sauté the sweet potato slices for a few minutes per side, until they’re starting to brown/darken.

Then, build the burgers like you see in the photo above - Dijon mustard, lettuce, tomato. You may need to eat with a knife and fork, depending on how crispy you made the sweet potatoes. They're ridic yummy either way. 

Low-FODMAP Plantain Crackers

My new FAVORITE snack (thanks to my nutritionist Sarah Kennedy for the suggestion) is homemade plantain crackers. I bake some every week - they are SO easy to make! My non-digestively-challenged husband can’t stop eating them either.

Ingredients:

3 plantains, not over-ripe (but not green)

½ cup coconut oil (you can reduce this if you can’t handle too much fat)

sea salt

Direcitons:

1. Heat oven to 350.

2. Cut the plantains open and put them into a food processor in chunks. Add the coconut oil. Blend/process until completely smooth.

3. Lay parchment paper on top of a cookie sheet. Spread the plantain mixture onto the parchment paper, making sure that it’s super thin (cracker thin!) and even.

4. Bake for 10 minutes. Then pull the cookie sheet out of the oven and score the mixture into cracker-sized squares with a pizza cutter or big knife. Sprinkle sea salt on the tops of the crackers.

5. Bake for about 50 more minutes, or until the crackers look like they’re just about to burn. They should be dark brown and feel crispy to the touch. In this photo of my first attempt at the recipe, I actually liked the darker ones better than the lighter ones:

Enjoy! These suckers are SO GOOD!

BTW, these are great just by themselves OR with any kind of dip. Occasionally I am able to make myself eat them with chicken liver pâté so I can up my intake of Vitamin B’s and iron (maybe I’ll include my chicken liver pâté recipe soon, though I can’t promise it’s my most delicious).

Later! xo

My other projects:

My Novel, Shadow Swans: http://www.amazon.com/Shadow-Swans-Laura-Thomas-ebook/dp/B0056C414I

Laura Thomas music: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Laura-Thomas/151476024869894

Low-FODMAP App!

Hello my friends!

For anyone else following a low-FODMAP diet, you’ll be psyched to know that Monash (they are THE authorities on the FODMAP diet) has created a low-FODMAP APP! With this app you can find out the latest info about which foods are most digestible for gastrointestinal losers like us.  You can download the app here:

http://www.med.monash.edu/cecs/gastro/fodmap/iphone-app.html

I will be back for more blogging soon – sorry I’ve been M.I.A. My days have been getting sucked into a time vortex, but I shall bust open that vortex soon. xo