We recently managed to buy some lovely bunches of coriander (cilantro) and parsley from a local market. As we don’t normally use a lot of either of these herbs in our cooking, only enough for adding a bit of taste, I decided to minced them up, put them into an ice cube tray and freeze them. The beauty of having freezing them in the ice cube tray is that you get just the right amount of herbs for a single serve.

You’ll need:

• A bunch of coriander and a bunch of parsley – if you like parsley more, use more parsley and vice versa
• Some good olive oil – used form binding the minced herbs together
• Any other herbs, sauces, etc that you would like to add. For instance, Kim likes spicy food, so I added minced chili, garlic and cajun spices
• Food processor of some sort
• Ice cube trays

 
Directions:

1. Roughly chop the herbs up
2. Mince using the food processor adding the olive oil so that it’s almost at a pesto-like consistency.
3. Add any extra ingredients you wish.
4. Once you are happy that the mixture is minced thoroughly, spoon it evenly into the ice cube trays
5. Keep in the freezer until frozen
6. Once the mixture is frozen, remove the cubes from the ice cube trays and place them in a zip lock bag and put them back in the freezer. The zip lock bag makes it easier to use the cubes later one

Now when you need some extra herbs in your salad, chicken or fish dish, just pull out some of the cubes, defrost them quickly in the microwave and you are set!

The thing that I have noticed is that no matter how healthy/low-sodium/low-potassium a meal is, it may not be appetising without some sort of condiment. It may taste good, but not amazing, so I have decided to make some homemade, low-sodium condiments to not only help make our food taste better, but also be able to be eaten by the whole family.

The first of these homemade condiments is mustard.

Normal mustard may not seem to be too salty, for instance, one that we have at home has around 40mg of sodium per serving. That doesn’t seem too bad, but when you look at the per 100g amount of sodium, it’s over 1g…that’s quite a lot of salt. So looking around the Internet and having a look at the ingredients of store-bought mustard I came up with the following recipe.

Ingredients:

• 25g of mixed, dry mustard seed (can’t remember the brand, but it was in a small plastic packet, not a bottle)
• 150ml of white vinegar
• 1 teaspoon of white sugar
• 1 teaspoon of corn flour
• 2 cloves of garlic
• sprinkle of dried Italian herbs

 
Directions:

Some of the recipes on the Internet say you should soak the dry mustard seeds in the vinegar overnight. I forgot to, so all I can recommend is that you leave the mustard a few days before trying it, otherwise it has a very “earthy” taste which I can only guess is because the vinegar hasn’t had a change to break down the mustard seeds too much.

1. Put the dry ingredients into a food processor. Process them until it’s a pretty well powdered, don’t worry if you can see pieces of the mustard seed, that adds to the character.
2. Mix the vinegar into the dry mixture a tablespoon at a time until you have a pretty thick consistency. If you taste it now and you haven’t soaked the mustard seeds then you’ll see what I mean by an “earthy” taste.
3. Spoon into a container. I then placed it in the fridge and will let it sit for a few days for the flavours to blend. After being in there for one day it’s starting tasting pretty good.

For my first recipe, I will be doing a really simple, low-sodium, hamburger.

Like a lot of things you can always add extra ingredients, depending on your taste, but Kim loves these.

Ingredients:

• 100g lean beef mince, strangely enough we have found that the local Lenards (famous for it’s chicken) produces the best lean beef mince we can find.
• Dried coriander
• Dried Italian herbs
• Garlic, we use dried granules as it’s very convenient and adds enough taste
• Chili flakes, Kim loves spicy food
• Pepper, told you she likes spicy food
• fresh, finely chopped onion
• teaspoon of no-salt tomato sauce

 
Directions:

1. Put the mince into some sort of mixing bowl
2. Add all of the dry ingredients and the onion, mix thoroughly
3. Add the tomato sauce to bind the mixture
4. Divide into two, even patties
5. Spray a non-stick frying pan with some non-stick spray
6. Cook until there is no pink in the very middle of the patty
7. Serve with your choice of salad vegetables and bread. Kim has hers on some freshly baked buns, topped with lettuce and beetroot

Over a year ago my wife, Kim, was diagnosed with IgA Nephropathy (Wikipedia definition). Being in the IT industry, one of the first things I did was search the internet to find out as much as I could about the condition and how it can be treated.

Things that might help Kim regain her kidney function I remember quite clearly:

• Taking fish oil
• Low protein diet
• Low sodium diet
• Low potassium diet

 
What I hope to do is blog meals that will not only try to meet the requirements of Kim’s diet but be tasty. I also hope to chronicle our journey with this disease.

DISCLAIMER: I am not a medical professional, am not I dietitian, nor do I have any expertise with regards to any renal issues, I am just blogging my observations based on Kim’s progress.
Your own situation MUST be taken into account before trying any of the recipes I plan to post. If in doubt, consult a renal specialist or dietitian that is aware of renal issues