Help.......I have to cater for a difficult guest. Details inside...

I bet she eats a lot of salmon.

Grilled chicken breasts and steamed veggies for dinner. Dessert, fruit and cheese plate with honey. Appetizer…um…fresh veggie tray with dips, plus other things for guests who don’t have such restrictions?

I don’t know how you can reasonably serve your other guests when some of the things she can’t have are natural parts of food (sugar, fat, sodium). Is there any way you can talk to her directly to get some ideas?

The answer I wanted to leave was “Wow, I bet she has big tits!”. Why else would anyone date her?

Try to have a few things for her, but don’t drive yourself crazy. People with strict diets know to eat before or bring some of their own food.

Sounds like she can eat chicken, salad, other veggies, and you can bother to pick up a sugar free gluten free cookie at a whole foods type market if you want to try. She might also eat tortillas, beans, something like that.

If it were me, I would never expect a host to cater to such a difficult array of dietary restrictions. I would explain that you are concerned that you may not be able to meet her needs, and since you care about her health, perhaps she should bring her own dish.

I agree with @syz, you can let them know the menu ahead of time, and she can choose to cheat on her diet maybe a little, or bring a dish herself. She probably won’t cheat regarding gluten, but she might be willing to eat rice, or potato, and have a cheat of sugar.

@syz No I want to make the effort as its not everyday I get a challenge like this. And I don’t want to make a big deal of it as its going to be the first time I’ve met her.

Thanks guys…..so grilled chicken with a tomato, roasted pepper and onion sauce? Fresh fruit with a honey glaze and perhaps a tuna and rocket salad for starters?

@BeccaBoo Well, you would need to check about the fruit and honey. No carbs means no sweet usually, including fruit, unless she really means no starch.

@JLeslie are there carbs in fruit? Seriously…..well she will have to skip dessert then and I will make something fat and full of chocolate!!

@BeccaBoo Hahaha. Well fruit has sugars, fructose. Low carb diets sometimes limit fruit, some don’t. No sugar can mean no refined sugar or no sugars. Tricky.

I would run your menu past your friend and ask him to check with her to see if she is ok with it.

Your menu sounds good except for the fruit. You could make her a small cheese tray for dessert.

Asparagus, cauliflower, and squash might work.

http://lowcarbdiets.about.com/od/recipes/Low_Carb_Recipes.htm

You could tell her she may bring a dish or dessert of her choosing if she desires. That way, there’ll be something she CAN eat.

Or as others have said, run your menu by your friend and then he can tell you whether or not it’s acceptable.

Good luck.

Honey is sugar. Cheese is usually a very high percentage fat. No dessert. No point with her diet. Maybe a cracker. She might eat fruit.

Try a wheat grass shake. Non-fat yogurt might be acceptable. Tofu.

Set up a medical tent that has been fully disinfected, with an air purifier and a bowl of carrot sticks soaked in ice water. Make sure the carrots have been organically grown, by hydroponic method and hand inspected for carrot mites.

Make her a nice salad. Seriously. Get fresh, local, seasonal ingredients and dress them with some lemon juice or a nice vinegar (an aged balsamic, or maybe sherry vinegar). If you throw in some quinoa or edamame you can get a complete protein in there, too.

When faced with these limiting kinds of choices, I ask the person for suggestions.
You certainly are great at taking it serious, but this is well beyond the typical vegan or peanut allergy alert.
Just ask the person for a few suggestions to make sure you hit the mark. It will give you a chance also to make that person feel welcome that you are taking the time to listen to their specific nutritional needs.

Kudos to you

Starter of mixed fresh sprouts (as in alfalfa, mung bean etc) with a dash of lemon juice and black pepper. She could have a corn-crisp, or similar to go with. Main: smoked tofu braised with a mix of carrots, baby sweetcorn, fresh pak choi or spring greens, using a low-salt stock cube and boiling water for the broth. Dessert: if sweetness is desired, with all the limitations above, try steamed mashed sweet potato with cardamom, and coconut shavings sprinkled on top, toast under a grill until the coconut starts to brown.

This mix has very low carbs, no added or fruit sugars, no added fat (there is not enough in the coconut to worry about) and no meat at all. Go on, dare ya!
oh, and a simple additional source of protein might be hummus: chickpeas, lemon juice, garlic and a small amount of tahini. Leave out the oil, it can still be good

Ask her. If you cannot, then try the menu you suggested but do not expect her to eat it. If she has that many allergies and restrictions she will be suspicious of anything that does not have an ingredient label on it. Make a reasonable effort but do not put yourself out.
Do not worry. She knows what she can and cannot eat. She won’t starve.

Aside from the protein allergies, are the rest of these restrictions because she’s the unluckiest person in the world, or is she just being the most PITA person on the planet? It’s impossible to have a carb free diet, everything has carbs including meat and without carbohydrates the body wouldn’t function so I can’t imagine foods with complex carbs like fruit to be off the plate. but I guess it wouldn’t hurt to ask her what she would reccomend then. It’d be really rude to expect you to cater to such a severe restriction without helping you out somewhat.

What’d i’d make:
Fresh veggie plate with edamame
Either a Chicken fajita or Chicken Tikka with breast meat with Palak Daal on the side for her instead of spanish or basmati rice.
and a sugar free pudding parfait made with fat free milk. It won’t be very creamy, but it’ll do.

As far as dessert goes you can make her some meringue cookies, they are just egg white sweetener and some cream of tartar. You ca use splenda as the sweetener. :)

@filmfann Really? You would leave a person if they had allergies or food preferences? Why would anyone date you is a better question.

If I were you, I would ask your friend if he could speak to her (and hopefully let you speak to her too) and simply ask her exactly what she can eat. Hopefully her answer will give you an idea of something you could make, most likely a side dish, so that she will have something to eat.

Or if you’re really freaked out, you could ask your friend if he and his girfriend could possibly bring a dish that she could eat, because you don’t want to guess at what she might be able to eat and you don’t want to make her become ill.

The one thing on the list that you are unlikely to be able to fulfill, with one dish, is the fat-free part. Right now, I’m thinking some type of roasted chicken might work. You didn’t say whether or not she’s a vegetarian, but maybe you can find out. If she is, the chicken thing won’t work at all.

Here’s a recipe for Garlic Roasted Chicken that might work. Just make sure you don’t use any salt or salt-blend spice mixtures. Mrs. Dash makes a bunch of good spice mixes that don’t have salt in them.

And here’s a vegetarian, gluten free recipe that might work Portobello Mushrooms Stuffed with Quinoa just don’t use any salt for the seasoning.

And here’s a recipe for Baked Salmon leave out any salt, add a little bit of lemon juice instead.

I’ve made this Mushroom Quiche multiple times, with the fat free milk. You can omit any salt, and you can get a gluten-free frozen pie crust at Whole Foods or similar places.

But talk to them, right away, then you can get back to us and we can suggest more recipes. If the boyfriend doesn’t take you seriously, and says he doesn’t know, urge him to let you call her, yourself, because you simply have no idea of what she can eat and you want to do your best to try to accomodate her.

I think you should ask her – she will be delighted that you went to the effort. That sort of generosity is probably something she rarely experiences.

I just found a Website that is dedicated to people with allergies and other sensitivities to certain foods. Maybe you could find something in their recipes list.

But again, I urge you to speak with her directly. Otherwise, you’ll just be guessing and you’ll probably end up getting mad or resentful if you guess wrong and she’ll feel embarrassed and hungry. Most people that have dietary restrictions are used to bringing along a dish to share with everybody that is suitable for them to eat.

Ask your friend to send you a list of his gf’s favorite foods and make up a special plate to be served just to her.

Just ask her if there’s anything special you can make for her…. Or tell her you understand her medical problem, and that you won’t be offended if she brings her own food

Just and fyi… for the low carb part of her restiction most root type vegetables are high in carbs… I would definately ask her for suggestions with such limitations.

This is something I would actually give her my menu and let her know she can bring what she wants to add to it.

Now salmon is an excellant choice and very healthy but it is high in fats, even though they are the good ones she may not see it that way. I would look at something more like talapia or cod, or haddock if you are thinking of a fish type entre.

Good Luck with your dinner party, you are going to need it with this type of challange.

I like @HungryGuy‘s response the best because it gives her an invitation to bring her own food she likes and also gets you off the hook to accommodate such a non mixed company eating style.

Thanks guys, have emailed my friend and he is going to ask her what she likes and the restrictions on what I can and can’t cook. Looks like she is a mushroom lover?

@Simone_De_Beauvoir: @filmfann Really? You would leave a person if they had allergies or food preferences? Why would anyone date you is a better question.

It’s not because I have big tits.

Portabella mushrooms broiled like a steak, with garlic and spices? Maybe with some sort of Balsamic glaze?
I also love balsamic roasted vegetables. Most recipes call for olive oil, but when I am watching the fat I use olive oil flavored Pam.

Here is one of the few stuffed mushroom recipes that didn’t include cheese as one of the ingredients, making it a Contender

These Vegetarian Fresh Spring Rolls might work for an appetizer that everybody would love. You can even add thinly sliced lightly sauteed shiitake mushrooms. If for some reason she has an allergy to peanuts, them omit the peanuts and use a different sauce like This One (Note: use a fat free mayonaise, or find out if your friend can eat any of the “Vegenaise”: products. A creamy sauce is a little unusual for spring rolls, but the flavors sounded decidedly Asian-inspired and I think this will work.

This sounds yummy and I think lots of people would enjoy this, Salmon Lettuce Wraps (Note: use fat free sourcream for the dip. Your friend might object to the avocado, as it is not fat free, but again, it is one of the good fats)

Finding one dish that has all of the requirements is proving much harder than I thought, mostly because of the fat content. If you remove carbs from a dish, it will have some type of fat in it, and vice versa, otherwise you’re not really looking at dish or an entree, you’re just looking at single items like lettuce leaves or a tomato or a mushroom.

Definitely talk to this lady and see if she would prefer to bring something, or have her spell out exactly what she can and can’t eat. She may have celiac disease or be allergic to certain foods, and that is the most important thing to figure out, but she may simply be on some type of cleansing diet and might be willing to sacrifice a teeny bit of fat (from an avocado) or a thin layer of crust in a quiche (like the one I mentioned earlier).

This question is really intriguing to me, because I can’t imagine that this woman is eating entrees or whole dishes rather than she’s just surviving by foraging on particular single items like a carrot here and a bowl of fat free chicken broth there.