Tomato and chili sauce

This is pretty feisty - make at your peril!

Ingredients
2 bags of tomatoes (roughly 10-12)
heaped tablespoon of hot chili powder
2 large onions
2 peppers (I used orange and red last time)
3-4 cloves of garlic
1 teaspoon of paprika
1-2 tablespoons of salt
3-4 tablespoons of palm oil
1 stock cube of choice (I used vegetable last time I made this)

Blend onions until fine
Fry onions -  in pressure cooker without lid on -  gently in palm oil for about 10 minutes
Add garlic (chopped for stronger flavour, crushed otherwise) for 5 minutes
Add paprika and chili - fry off for 5 minutes
Add stock cube
Blend tomatoes and peppers until roughly chopped
Add tomatoes and peppers to onions and stir in
Add lid to pressure cooker and bring to max pressure
Turn heat down to minimum and cook for 30minutes to 1 hour (less means fresher, rawer tomatoes)
Season to taste

Serve 2 ladles of sauce with rice

We normally make a batch of this and it will last us about 3-4 days (2 people)

Pork tenderloin with creamed leeks, parsnip mash and sweet potato

to come...

Interesting article on carbs

Here's an article on carbohydrates from Spark People
http://www.sparkpeople.com/resource/nutrition_articles.asp?id=590

Having followed a very low carbohydrate, and very low calorie diet (Exante) for some time I have to agree with some of this. Not sure I agree with all - I found my weight loss was fat not protein - and its easy to address the dehydration aspect. Thats just a bit of a change in lifestyle.

Whilst I'm off Exante now, I've kept up the water consumption. I have put on weight again (about half what I lost) but am now trying to adjust my lifestyle to be healthy enough to lose weight again. Focus is on vegetable juicing, reduced meat in diet, generally not snacking and breaking some of the emotional connection with food (as a reward, as a de-stresser etc)

Typical daily diet at the moment is:

Breakfast:
Breakfast bar
Lunch:
2 rounds of tuna and cucumber sandwiches on wholemeal bread
Grapes
Snack:
Small box of carrot sticks and sugar snap peas
Dinner:
Vegetable juice
White rice and tomato/chili sauce

At the weekend I'm trying to vary it a bit mainly so I get chance to cook. I'll give it a few weeks on this and see how it goes!

Tuna sandwich filler

We're on a health kick at the moment to reduce the amount of crap we eat - ie weird preservatives, added sugar etc. So we're starting to make more things ourselves rather than buying ready made stuff.

Ingredients
2 tins of tuna
6-8 pickled gerkins
half a white onion
salt to season
4 tbsp red wine vinegar

Blend until smooth - season to taste. You could add mayonnaise instead of the vinegar but this is a healthier option.
Not the prettiest food in the world but pretty tasty.

Hoummus

Hoummus is easy and really cheap. We tend to buy big pots from CostCo but when I saw chickpeas on offer, I thought why not make a big batch up. And fill an old CostCo hoummus pot....

Ingredients
4 tbsp tahini
2 tins chickpeas - save the water in one tin
Juice of 1 lemon
Juice of 1/2 lime
3 cloves garlic
salt to taste

Add all ingredients to blender and blend until smooth. Season with salt and lemon juice to taste.
If the hoummus is thicker than you like, add the water from one of the tins of chickpeas until you get the consistency you want.

Thrice cooked chips

Definitely not my recipe - first inspired by Heston and loads of people seem to do it now.  Best chips I've ever eaten and I'm now starting to do them in large batches as they take far too long to make otherwise.


Ingredients
Decent potatoes
Big bottle of oil
Salt
Dipping sauce

Peel and slice potatoes into reasonably chunky chips
Discard any bits which are too small or too thin
Keep them under water whilst preparing to stop them going black

Bring a big pan of water to the boil and add the chips for 10 minutes.
When done, spread on a tray to cool then place in the fridge until actually cold

Heat a pan of oil on a medium heat until a grain of cooked rice (or a breadcrumb) floats to the surface immediately when dropped in
Seperate your chips into batches of around 15
Deep fry the chips in batches until the edges start going brown - about 3-5 minutes

Remove and drain of oil on kitchen roll
Place in fridge until actually cold  - I'm freezing a few batches at this point so will let you know how they get on. I also have a set in the fridge to keep for a few days.

When ready to eat -
Deep fry the chips again until a nice deep golden brown colour - roughly about 6-8 minutes

I recommend serving with mayonnaise :)

Stuffed mushrooms

Ingredients
4 portobello mushrooms
handful of peanuts
2 peppers (yellow and orange)
10 cherry tomatoes
3 slices granary bread
handful of basil leaves
1/2 tbsp salt
good glug of olive oil
grated cheddar
salad (spinach, cucumber, 2 tomatoes)

Blend peanuts, peppers, tomatoes, bread, basil, salt and a hefty glug of olive oil
Remove stalks from mushrooms and fill with the blended mixture
Cover with grated cheese
Put under grill until cheese is brown (note that this leaves the mushroom with a lot of bite so cook longer if you prefer)
Serve with a salad

Omit the bread if you want to reduce the carbs

Experiments in Beef Jerky

I love beef jerky and have wanted to have a go at making my own for ages. Now I'm finally getting round to it. I currently buy random bits of meat from Tesco's reduced section whilst I work out my recipe!

Very roughly in quantities I'm using 500g meat in each Batch (this has varied but as a guide, 2 tbsp chili, 2tbsp garlic/ginger combo is ok for about 1kg - see needing to halve things in Batch 7 and 8 onwards)

Method

Cut the fat off the meat
Slice the beef very thinly, cover in spices

Marinate for 2 hours

Cook at 75 degrees, with oven door slightly open, until dry

The beef should be spread straight on the oven shelf or skewered and hung between the rungs of an oven shelf

Note this will drip so I put a tray covered in foil at the bottom of the oven.

Batch 1: Kilishi style
Beef skirt
Peanut butter (smooth) - about 3 big tablespoons
Chili powder

so kilishi is a Nigerian type of jerky thats very spicy and covered in peanuts. I found a recipe that called for oil, peanuts and chili and figured I could get away with peanut butter and chili.


Verdict
This needed to cook overnight (about 18 hours in total) as it wouldn't dry - due to the peanut butter. In the end I think I used far too much peanut butter as it was still moist. I didn't marinade this one but put it straight into the oven. Quite tasty but I think I can do better..

Batch 2 : Dry kilishi style but without peanuts
Topside beef
2 tbsp ginger/garlic mix
2 tbsp chili
1 tbsp salt
Beef and spices placed in a bag and left to marinade for 2 hours

Verdict
3.5 hours - dry but with a bit of moisture left. Cracks when bent
 Very tasty and fiery as hell :)


Batch 3 : Kilishi and Vietnamese mix
Topside beef
2 tbsp ginger/garlic mix
2 tbsp chili
2 tbsp fish sauce
2 tbsp light brown sugar
1 tbsp salt
2 tbsp worcestershire sauce
Beef and spices placed in a bag and left to marinade for 2 hours

Verdict

3.5 hours - dry but with a bit of moisture left. Cracks when bent

 Very tasty and fiery as hell  and with a nice sweet taste too

In the photo, the lighter one is Batch 2, and the darker Batch 3

Batch 4 : Kiliishi/Vietnamese/Honey mix
2 tbsp ginger/garlic
2 tbsp chili
2 tbsp fish sauce
1 tbsp salt

juice of one lemon

2 tbsp honey

2 tbsps worcestershire sauce

Verdict
Marinaded overnight
Too heavy on the spices - this is ok but not as good as previously

Batch 5 :  Kilishi mix Attempt 2

2 tbsp ginger/garlic

2 tbsp chili

2 tbsp (or more) ground/chopped peanuts

1 tbsp salt

Verdict

Marinaded overnight
Bit heavy on the spices but pretty good

Batch 6 :  Biltong mix

2 tbsp ginger/garlic

2 tbsp fish sauce

1 tbsp salt

juice of one lemon

2 tbsp vinegar

2 tbsps jack daniels full smoke bbq sauce

Verdict

Marinaded overnight
Not bad - not as good as Batch 3 but smoky flavour was good - need to try a combo.

Batch 7 : Bilton Mix 2

1 tbsp ginger/garlic

2 tbsp fish sauce

1/2 tbsp salt

juice of one lemon

4 tbsp vinegar

2 tbsps jack daniels full smoke bbq sauce
2 tbsp worcestershire sauce

Verdict
Not tried yet

Batch 8 :  Kilishi mix Attempt 3

1 tbsp ginger/garlic

2 tbsp chili

2 tbsp (or more) ground/chopped peanuts

1 tbsp salt

Verdict
Not tried yet

Mackerel with ginger and lime soup

Ingredients
8 mackerel fillets
2 inches of ginger
1 white onion
1 red onion
2 sweet potatoes
3 big cloves of garlic
lots of birds eye red chilies (I used about 10)
Handful of salt (about 2 tbsp)
1 lime

Chop fish and add to a pressure cooker
Chop all ingredients roughly  and add to pressure cooker
Add enough water that its well covered and veg starts to float

Cook on high pressure for about 1 hour (I put it on a big gas ring on full until the steam comes out, then transfer to the smallest ring on lowest setting for remainder of time)

Blend resulting mixture and taste - season as needed
Add juice of one lime - stir in and serve

You could add cream to this but I don't think it needs it. I don't blend this too much either as I like finding bits of ginger in the mix. It does have a bit of a lumpy fish consistency though so if you don't like that, blend until smooth.

This is not a low carb soup but is pretty healthy given theres just basically fish, veg and water - no oil, no butter, no cream...

This makes loads - full pots worth!

Pork steaks with coleslaw and salad

No picture I'm afraid - we ate it too fast...


Pork steaks are great but tend to dry out really easily so I wanted a nice healthy meal without feeling like I was chewing a piece of leather. Also sage is my biggest success in my herb garden and is threatening to take over so this was a good opportunity to eat some of it! The truffle oil is important to get a wonderful mushroomy taste - if you don't have any, try another oil with a strong flavour that will complement the sage.


Ingredients
Truffle oil
Fresh sage
Good wholegrain mustard
Rocket
tomatoes
Homemade coleslaw (see previous post!)
Spring onions


This is very easy...


Place pork steaks on the grill pan
Drizzle truffle oil over them
Chop your sage roughly and sprinkle on top
Grill under a hot heat until the fat is nicely browned (I wasn't timing this but would guess about 10 minutes)
Turn over and spread a thin layer of mustard on top
Grill again until nicely browned (say 10 minutes but keep an eye on them)


Serve with a good helping of coleslaw, chopped rocket, tomato and spring onions dressed with a little balsamic vinegar.

Calories around 450, carbs around 10-15g

Homemade coleslaw

I love coleslaw but there's so much crap in shop bought slaw that I decided to make my own last night. I made the recipe up on the spot but have had a bit of a poke around the internet and its not vastly different from others out there. A lot is in the consistence - I like to use the large grater on my food processor to make this so its quite fine but you could slice by hand for a chunky slaw.


Please excuse the picture - this is all that is left from the mountain we made with this recipe, but we can't stop eating it!

This makes a *lot* - enough to fill my large food processor!


Ingredients
1 small white cabbage
2 small onions
3 carrots
english mustard (2 tsps)
cider vinegar (2 tbsps)
2/3 big jar of  lite mayonnaise


Shred carrots, cabbage, onions and add rest of ingredients. Simple. Tastes possibly better the next day too! (keep in fridge). I reckon there's less than 70g carbs in the whole lot (a big serving is therefore about 7g max). Only calories are really in the mayonnaise and again depends on serving size but about 100 calories maximum per large serving.

I'm going to try a few variants on this - next one will be with slightly less mustard, a mooli (indian radish) and some lemon juice. I'll let you know how it turns out

The perfect steak

So I'm sharing this because I'm fed up of eating crappy steaks in restaurants and knowing how easy they are to cook!


I'll take a picture of a well cooked steak next time I make one to add to here (trust me it won't be long!) 


Steak and spinach is my default reward meal when on low carb/calorie diets - that big meaty steak with a huge pile of spinach feels like a real indulgence but actually isn't bad at all for you.

Get a good rump or sirloin steak - about 250g-300g - you really don't need bigger. Should be about 3/4 inch - 1 inch thick in my mind. I like both and rump is a lot cheaper. I regularly buy steak from the butcher counter at Morrisons, meat shelves at Tesco, as a joint from Costco - they're all good if you cook them right. I did find that its definitely economical to buy a large sirloin joint from Costco and slice it up yourself (compared with the beautiful but horrifically pricey steaks I bought from Waitrose recently which were about twice the price)


Take out of fridge at least 15 mins before cooking. Put some kitchen roll down, the steak on top and more kitchen roll on top of that then set aside for a while to get to room temperature and to allow the kitchen roll to soak up some surface moisture. Pat down to dry completely. If you don't dry your steak thoroughly, you will trap water under it in the pan and end up steaming it. (Same principle when frying onions - need to remember not to stir them for a while as you release water and will steam your onions rather than fry them)


Heat pan to a medium heat with a little oil. Make sure its up to temperature before starting (give it just a couple of minutes). 


Whilst you're doing that, season the steak - decent pinch on each of salt and pepper.


Add steak to pan, seasoned side down, and check clock. Cook on each side for 2 mins for rare, 3 mins for medium (roughly but trial and error will find you the time you like). Season other side in same way whilst its cooking.
Turn after your chosen time and if you have a big piece of fat on the edge, you may wish to hold the steak on its side to cook for a little while.


Your steak should have plenty of colour on the outside (ie dark brown almost burnt bits around the edges) but be very pink in the middle. If it goes too dark too quickly (or is too bloody) turn the pan down and keep the cooking times the same. If it doesn't brown quickly enough or is not pink enough in the middle, turn it up. Try and keep the cooking time about the same, just vary the heat of the pan.
Serve with a nice mustard, loads of raw spinach, maybe a big mushroom you can fry in same pan as the steak.


The numbers
nearly no carbohydrates in this (less than 10g for sure depending on how much mustard you have) - around 350-550 calories depending on how big your steak is.

Trout with celeriac

inspired by a master chef at home recipe


Ingredients
5 sticks of asparagus per person
half a celeriac
1 trout per person
3 big prawns per person
1 apple per two people
big handful of raw spinach 1 lemon
1 knorr chicken stock cube

Slice a 1 inch slice from half a celeriac
Cut out 3 circles (1 inch diameter) per person and grate the rest
Fry the circles (will be pretty thick) in plenty of butter and cook the grated celeriac in a little olive oil for 10 mins
Meanwhile chop and onion and garlic and fry in a large pan with a little olive oil
Chop an apple finely and simmer gently in juice of 1/2 lemon

After 10mins, turn celeriac circles over, add 1pint chicken stock to the grated celeriac
Add fish (filleted) skin side up to onions and garlic with a little added butter and salt

Fry for around 5 mins then turn fish over
Add celeriac (grated) to food processor with a big handful of raw spinach and pulse until a smoothish mash - set aside
Blend apple to a puree - set aside
Add large prawns to celeriac circles (in butter)


Add asparagus (5 sticks per person) to a pan of water and bring to boil

The celeriac circles should go dark brown on each side - they're healthier if you don't cook them as long and leave them with more bite but they taste soooo good cooked a bit longer in the butter :)

After around 5 mins then plate up - celeriac mash on bottom, fish on top, asparagus on one side and celeriac circles with a prawn on top, and apple puree on the other side

squeeze remaining half a lemon over fish, season with salt and pepper


The numbers
This is less than 10g carbohydrates per portion (most is in the apple!). There's small amounts in the celeriac and spinach and slightly more in the asparagus. Calories - haven't worked this out but its low. The original recipe uses cream in the celeriac mash but I think its fine without. I also cook the fish in a bit more oil and a bit longer than is strictly approved but I like crispy skin so forgive me!

Baked Fish with seaweed and cucumber

Based on a Raymond Blanc recipe. No pictures yet - will take next time I make it:


Ingredients
1 cucumber
fresh chives
6 tomatoes
fresh basil
120g button mushrooms
100g oyster mushrooms
4 fillets bream or similar
4 big scallops (trimmed and sliced in half)
1 pack butter
2 shallots
50g wakame
100g spinach
1 lemon
1 big glass white wine


Peel a cucumber with a potato peeler lengthways, salt well and put in fridge
Melt 20g butter with good pinch of salt and pepper and juice of half a lemon
Turn oven onto 190c whilst you're doing that and put a casserole dish inside to heat up
Brush melted butter onto fish and scallops and put in fridge for a bit
Fry shallots in 20g butter until softened, add button mushrooms until they are softened too
Add wine and bring to boil
Put fish on top of mushrooms and shallots in pan and put lid on - for 5-6 minutes then transfer the whole lot to the casserole dish, put the scallops on top of the fish, cover with tinfoil and put into the oven


Cook for 5 minutes then strain liquid (thru sieve) to use for sauce and put mushrooms back with fish, covered, to sit until ready
Put wakame to soak (30g)
Fry cucumber, oyster mushrooms and 6 tomatoes (chop into quarters and remove seeds) in 20g butter then add chives and juice of half a lemon
Fry until tomatoes soften


Put handful of spinach on a plate, then fish on top, surround with button mushrooms
then wakame on top of fish, then the tomato/mushroom/cucumber sauce - then scallops on top. Garnish with chopped chives and basil - leaving a few basil leaves whole on top


The numbers
At most I reckon there's about 200 calories in this and about 12g carbs (go easy on the mushrooms and tomatoes to drop this down)

Seafood Lasagna

Tomato sauce -
200g prawns
170g crab
1 large red onion
500g tomatoes
2 cloves garlic
100g black olives
8 mini gherkins
1 tablespoon of capers
balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon of tomato puree

White sauce -
1/3 pint of milk
200g mascarpone cheese (light)
2 tablespoons of chopped fresh dill
1/4 grated lemon zest
1 small red onion

Wakame as replacement for pasta - 2-3 layers thick.
Basically just cook these sauces seperately then assemble. Cover on top with very thinly sliced onion and paprika

Verdict - 
Pretty damn good (and great the next day). Adjustments for next time - slightly less dill, bit more lemon.
Crab is a bit of a waste as overpowered - stick to prawns or maybe squid.
I blitzed the prawns, olives, capers and gherkins in food processor - bit too fine - next time just chop prawns.
Wakame works well but needs to be thicker - I wasted half a pack - should have put it all in and gone for 4-6 layers thick.
White sauce needs to be thicker - I'm going to try Xanthum gum as a thickener.

Next time would be good with parmesan cheese on top.

The numbers - 
Assuming you eat about 1/4 this per portion, this is roughly about 250 calories and 10g carbohydrates

Introduction

I started this blog as it was originally a Facebook page to store my recipes - but I wasn't very happy with the formatting as it was difficult to read and I was a bit embarassed that 95 people were looking at it, in the state it was in.

I'd been meaning to start a blog for a while, and wanted to do one on a subject that I truly enjoy so - had to be cooking.

After doing the Exante diet (like LighterLife but without the well meaning counselling sessions) for 3 months, and losing 3 stone, I had a bit of an epiphany about weight loss as I hadn't really understood previously the role carbohydrates play. I was a bit of an expert in calorie counting but had only really successfully lost weight previously by going down the gymn every day for 2 hours, and cutting calories to sub 1500 calories per day. I don't have time these days to do that again - certainly is the best way to get healthy but I'd quite like a life outside of the gymn.

Exante is great but its hard - so I started looking at ways to "cheat". I rapidly annoyed people on various forums with my cheating, and questions, so just started figuring things out for myself. I wanted meals which I could stick within the calorie and carbohydrate limits but actually have real chewable food.

Since coming off the diet, and binging a bit, its time to eat healthy again and I want this to be a lifestyle change. So being a keen cook, I'm going to be posting recipes on here that have worked for me (and maybe a few which haven't) so I can make them again.

Its also a substitute for me for AllRecipes.com as I used that for a while, submitted recipes but I've had a real mix of good/bad recipes from there and it doesn't really give me what I want...

Often I modify recipes from other people so I'll credit them where that happens so you can find the original recipe in case you don't like mine.

My focus will be low carbs, relatively low calorie (I'm aiming for about 1200 calories per day but am not going to stress about it too much as this is not a fad, its a long term lifestyle decision.)

So - the blog is born. I'll try and make a point of adding a post each week - or more if I'm feeling very keen. If you want to see anything specific let me know as I love a challenge (thats how the seafood lasagna was born - low carb lasagna - bring it on!)