Autumn tacos with onion, squash and chorizo

Recipe from 'Mexican Food made simple' by Thomasina Miers.

Hardly any adaptation needed here. I replaced the citrus juices for the pickled pink onions with white wine vinegar, that is all.

It was gorgeous!

Taco filling

1 clove garlic
sea salt and black pepper
4 tablespoons olive oil
1kg butternut squash cut into cubes
1 chili de arbol (I used generic supermarket fresh chili as it was all I had)
250g cooking chorizo cubed
2 shallots
1 tablespoon fresh chopped oregano.

Roast the squash and the chili in the oven until it starts to get colour on the edges. Fry off the shallots and chorizo, add the squash and chili and the oregano and seasoning before serving.

Pink pickled onions

2 red onions, thinly sliced and blanched for ten minutes
1 fresh scotch bonnet chill
juice of one orange and 2 limes (I substituted white wine vinegar here)
salt and pepper
chopped coriander leaves to sprinkle on top before serving.

Blanch the onions add the sliced chili and add just enough liquid to cover. Leave to steep for as long as possible. Will keep for a few days.

The tacos, clearly, were out of a packet. I'm human. ;)

Lets talk bodily functions

So, it's like this.

For about four years I've had an increasingly problematic digestive system. Manifesting itself in violent diarrhea, painful cramps and smelly wind.

Glamorous, hey?

After a long virus related illness and a course of antibiotics, the diarrhea  became so frequent and so disruptive that is started to impact on my life in a big way. Try as I might,  I could no longer seem to get anywhere modifying my diet. So, when my GP muttered the acronym 'IBS' at me without even looking up, I went to see a very expensive, non NHS,  private  nutritionist.

Firstly, my poo got sent to America, and I found out I had absolutely none of one of the friendly gut bacterias absolutely necessary for healthy digestion. This has been blamed on 'modern life' including repeat courses of antibiotics as a child, and the contraceptive pills ability to suppress the bodies natural balance.

Then, along with taking various enzymes, probiotics and vitamin supplements I was advised to exclude all gluten, dairy, citrus and corn/ maize from my diet. Whilst I waited for some food sensitivity blood test results.

Eight weeks later I got the blood results in addition to looking at information I recorded in food diaries and 'transit' tests.( Again glamorous to the very end) The only thing I got back in my life was was sweetcorn! I was shown to have immune reactions to legumes, eggs, dairy, rice, brazil (borderline) and peanuts (borderline), bananas (borderline), soya (borderline), chili (borderline), bananas (borderline) and wheat (borderline).

Er. My already restricted food groups just got a whole lot smaller.

I LOVE food. I LOVE cooking. I LOVE eating out and socialising over food. I do read my cookery books in bed. Im not ashamed to admit I cried. 

To stop myself from falling into a pit of misery I'm going to try and be positive. So here I will document the recipes of the feasts I still manage to have. And the ways I've got through this without going stir crazy.

And let's get this straight from the outset. I come from the Jay Rayner school of food enjoyment, greedy, unapologetic and delicious.

There might happen to be insights on MY personal digestive health and food intolerances, and how I might eventually get cured (my nutritionist assures me this is entirely possible) . This blog will also however, feature quite alot of pig meat, a fair bit of alcohol, and an insatiable appetite.

You have been warned.