Yes My mate suggests buying a slow cooker ?
If you're strapped for time and don’t have a pressure cooker, then try taking a slow cooker recipe and portioning it down and put it in a lidded casserole dish on 150°C/300°F for 1.5 to 2hrs to get a very similar result. The only difference is to add a bit of extra liquid to the recipe (water or a bit extra of the liquid ingredients already used) as casseroling tends to evaporate the liquids a little more.
I’m a huge fan of one pot cooking for the fact that it’s fast and easy to prepare and also results in a lot less dishes at the end. So often I’ll take a slow cooker recipe and add all my low carb veges in it as well, park the whole lot in the oven for an hour and half while I do other stuff and whala - excellent healthy hassle free meal at the end of it! Plus all the veges get to absorb all the surrounding flavours so it makes the whole dish even better!
I also had reactions to metformin - that began as being positive but eventually became very negative which is why I went of it as well.
I was initially on 1000mg per day which my diabetic nurse moved up to 1500mg fairly shortly after to help get my bloods under control. I had been wearing glasses for distance vision for about 15 years prior to my T2 diagnosis. All my bloods were in normal range over that 15 yr period except for about a year prior to my T2 diagnosis (unfortunately my GP failed to tell me I was in pre-diabets I latter found out). During the pre-diabetes year there were no significant changes to my vision, so what happened next both surprised and amazed me at how potent metformin is. Within about 2 to 3 weeks of taking it my vision almost completely corrected from -2.5 to -.25 to the point were I no longer needed glasses! That both amazed me but also alarmed me at how potent metformin actually is on the body. And I am certain it was not my diabetes that was impacting my vision as I had needed the glasses for 15 years prior with normal blood sugar readings over that time. This correction stayed consistent for the full time I was on the medication.
Then about 4 months into taking the metformin I started to notice that my face would become very red as soon as I took the meds and stayed like that for the best part of the day. I discussed this with my nurse who said she had never heard of it and to keep taking them. I accepted that for lack of knowledge and the symptoms slowly worsened to other noticeable unusual skin behaviours on my body to which I then booked an appointment with my GP who immediately told me to stop taking them as by bloods were under control at that point and he agreed that diet management was the next best step for me. I have stayed in normal blood sugar range ever since, however my vision slowly returned back to -2.25, which I’m fine with as it was obviously the metfornin that was unnaturally producing the vision improvement - but the skin conditions occurring were such that I needed to stop it. They have since halted since stopping the medication, and I’m glad I did stop it as that was always my goal anyway. So I am of the opinion that one should only take metformin if it’s necessary and once one reaches the point were diet is obviously consistently managing your T2 blood sugar levels, stop the meds as soon as possible and trust your dietary changes will see you through. They certainly have for me.