A Diet for Me
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Slimming Italian Style?

8/4/2015

 
After yesterday's Chinese inspired stirfry, and another pound in weight lost I decided to go Italian for today's major meal.

Italian menus are slightly deceptive. For us here in the UK, the thought of an Italian restaurant conjures pictures of pizzas or steaming bowls of pasta covered in tomato or cream based sauces.  On my one trip to the USA it seemed to be very much the same over there.  

But visiting Italy a few years ago, meals in restaurants seemed to be less of a one course pasta fest and more of a multi-course banquet. We visited Pisa, home of the famous leaning tower. I hope the food there was typical of Italy, but it’s always difficult to tell when you’re visiting a particularly well known tourist destination.  Regardless, the food was delicious.

For starters there was a platter of antipasti, slices of cured meats and salamis with pickled vegetables, then there was a primi course which involved a small plate of pasta, and then a main course, which was a fairly simple but very tasty dish of meat or fish, but no accompanying pasta.

And then of course, if you could fit it in, dessert.  I don’t think we managed desert once during the vacation. Everything else was just so delicious.   

So for my version of the three week diet I decided to try and adapt one of my favourite Italian classics, meatballs in tomato sauce.  It's inspired by a large collection of Italian cookbooks, but is no-doubt completely un-authentic. However, it has lots of flavour and served with brocoli and courgettes instead of pasta makes a diet compatible meal.

One of the advantages of making your own meatballs is that it's one of the easiest ways to control the portion size.  I weigh each meatball and have them around 1oz (25g) each then I can dish up however many are required depending on the situation.
                     
Meatball ingredients -
amounts depend on how many you want to make,  I make large batches of about 50 balls at once then freeze them.

Equal quantities of pork and beef mince.
onion, chopped small and sweated until softened.
salt, pepper, thyme and parsley (or whatever you want to flavour it with)

Mix together the pork and beef and add the sweated onion. season with salt pepper and flavourings.  Then take one small ball of the mixture, flatten it into a patty and fry until cooked through.  Taste for seasoning. This is the difference between every gorgeous batch of meatballs and every average one I've ever eaten.  It usually take me a couple of goes to get the seasoning right, adding more salt and pepper, or thyme until I have a meatball I want to eat more of.

Then shape the meatballs into consistently sized balls.  I like to weigh mine as mentioned earlier.

The balls can be frozen now or cooked by browning in a frying pan and then adding to home-made tomato sauce and cooking until they're cooked through.

Not Quite Chickening Out of the Diet :-)

3/3/2015

 
Day 3 of my 3 week diet dawned with the good news that I'd now lost 2 pounds.  A pound a day isn't bad, hopfully I'll be able to keep it up.  Although I have to say that I'm not sure I could do more than 7 days on this very restricted choice of food and cooking methods. 

In fact I did feel it was so restrictive that I decided to add cooking methods, so long as they were low in fat and calories.  I was feeling quite pathetic and a little irritable,  presumably because of the unusual lack of sugar so I felt that something comforting was required.

So for lunch I had soup.  Normally I would have sweated the vegetables down in butter to really release the flavour and then added chicken stock, but this time I just put them in plain water and cooked them until soft.  Then a quick blitz with the stick blender and a load of seasoning and we're done.  It tasted a bit thin, but was warming and more satisfying than a cold salad would have been.

Dinner was another cheat of Turkey Stirfry.  This worked really well. In a stirfry a little meat goes a long way and turkey is a stronger flavoured meat than chicken so it made for a tastier stirfry without marinading the meat ahead of time.  There is also another cheat here in the form of the liquid,  but I really felt it was necessary to optimise the flavour. 

The method is based on a cookery demo I saw by chinese chef Ken Hom.  He prefried the meat then drained off all the oil while the vegetables were cooking,  he also did the steaming trick with the liquid to make sure the vegetables were all cooked correctly. 

Turkey Stirfry Recipe


Ingredients

Serves 2

6 ounces turkey steak , sliced into smallish pieces.
Two large carrots sliced
4 large mushrooms sliced
1 clove of garlic chopped
1 onion sliced
A handful of broccoli spears or calabrese florets
2 handfuls of spinach leaves well washed
A handful of kale sprouts, with the ends trimmed
1 stick of celary finely sliced
A few french beans, trimmed and cut into small pieces (not on the plan but I had some in the fridge that I wasn’t going to waste!)
[flavouring] liquid.  I used a mix of half rice wine and half light soy, but you could just use plain water. If you do make sure to season well with salt and pepper.

Method

Stirfry the turkey in a tablespoon of oil in a wok. When the turkey is white all over transfer to a seive over a bowl so that the oil can drain away.

Wipe the wok clean put it back on the heat and add a couple of teaspoons of oil. At the onion and stirfry for a couple of minutes then add the carrots fry for another couple of minutes. Add the broccoli, kale sprouts, celery, garlic and French beans and fry for another minute before adding the mushrooms.

After another minute return the turkey to the wok, pour in the liquid and put the lid on the wok. Allow it to steam fry for about two minutes before stiring, and putting the lid back on for another couple of minutes.

When the vegetables are cooked to the level that you like them, remove the wok lid, add the spinach and turn the spinach into the vegetables so it wilts in the heat of the pan this only takes a few seconds.

Serve on preheated plates

Mediterranean Breakfast

25/2/2015

 
In all honesty, I'd prepared for my 3 week diet by eating far to much rich curry the night before and had spent quite an uncomfortable night.  Completely self inflicted, and as I was told, I deserved no sympathy!

After following Karen's progress and hopefully learning a few lessons, I decided  to make the breakfast as tasty as possible.  Even though it seemed a bit early in the day for vegetables, I though not stinting on the quantity would probably help me make it through the morning without too many hunger pangs. There appears to be no limit on the amount of vegetables allowed, providing they are on the approved list. So my first  invention of the week was Mediterranean Melange...

Mediterranean Melange.
Serves 2.

2 large mushrooms
1 large red pepper sliced
Half a zucchini
1 spring onion, finely chopped
2 medium tomatoes. quartered.
a little chopped herb. I used basil because that's what I had most of, but oregano would also be in keeping with the theme.

Place all the ingredients into a microwave proof bowl add a tiny splash of water, cover the bowl with clingfilm and pierced a few small holes in the top to let the steam out.

Microwave on full power for four minutes stiring halfway through.

Season with salt and pepper (and a little balsamic) and then eat.
 
It was suprisingly nice. in quite a bland way.  It would have been improved no end by the addition of some cheese, perhaps a little Italian parmesan.

It did keep the hunger pangs at bay to an extent,  but I was still pretty hungry by lunchtime.  And I have to say the effect of a salad without any protein or fat component isn't anything like as sustaining as when the salad comes with meat or fish.

I was pretty suprised to read in the 3 week diet manual that the list of allowed vegetables included no salad.  No Lettuce, no salad leaves and no cucumber. I can only assume that this was an accidental ommision.  Perhaps the author doesn't like salad! 

Anyway. I included them as I've read in numerous places that salad vegetables on the whole have negative calories, that is to say, they use more calories in the digestive process than they provide.  (Having checked Wikipedia disagrees) And I decided that I'd have a pretty dull week with only the very restricted list of permitted vegetables.

Dinner was similar to breakfast.  but this time I used tinned tomatoes (probably another cheat) instead of fresh and stuffed the microwaved mixture into a couple of nice red bell peppers before baking them in the oven until they were soft.  It was much stronger tasting than breakfast, which for dinner was a very good thing.  

Roll on tomorrow and some protein.


Is This The Most Exciting Reason To Diet Ever?

24/2/2015

 
Well it may not be the most exciting reason ever, but it's most definitely one of the most exciting things to happen to me!

It was a very ordinary Tuesday afternoon when I received an email from my Uncle Joe.  Would I like to accompany him to Buckingham Palace when he receives his MBE from a member of the Royal Family.  I read the email three times to make sure I wasn't imagining it. And then I picked up the phone.  It's incredibly exciting and I am beside myself with anticipation!


So now I'm will be slimming into an, as yet unpurchased, summer dress and a hat.  The dress code for Buck House is pretty formal and I'm certainly going to make the most of it.

For my own part I really need a Kick Start.  Otherwise it's not that I won't get going, but I'm going to need to buy the dress in late April that's not that far away.  I can't be just losing 2 pounds a week, I've done that before and it's really hit and miss. I need something a little more drastic if I'm to look my best.

I had a search around and read about someone (Karen) who is testing the 3 Week Diet plan.  It does sound pretty severe, but the figures from Karen's progress reports indicate that she's has lost about a pound a day for the first week. And like it says in the 3 Week Diet reviews
it is only for 21 days and then I could either continue or resume some sort of normality. 

So I've taken the plunge, taken Karen's advice, and prepared my meal plan for the first week. And so I don't deviate from the plan before I've even started, my internet shopping will arrive in the morning. That way I can't be swayed by anything on special offer in the supermarket.

The first week looks pretty austere.  Vegetables steamed, boiled or raw.  That means salads for lunch,  steamed for dinner and for breakfast, well, I'm taking a punt on microwaved mushrooms being a staple until I'm also allowed protein - eggs give a much more breakfast like feel to a meal.

I did the low-carb diet once before and microwaved mushrooms with cheese are actually perfectly acceptable - especially if you can face the garlic and herb soft cheese.  That's actually quite yummy! 


It appears that one of the key points in making the diet achievable is to try and make the food as flavourful as possible. I  feel that steamed or microwaved vegetables will probably need some sort of flavour booster.  I shall take a leaf out of Karen's book, cheat a little and add perhaps a little chilli or worcestershire sauce, to perk up the flavour.

And so until tomorrow, I'm dining on one of my favourite meals.  Homemade (pale imitation) Thai green curry made without lemon grass and rice. And then it's dieting with a vengeance.  3 week diet system here we come!
 


Buckingham Palace

Why Must I Diet?

23/1/2015

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Today is the 21st of January.  According to the newspapers this morning today is the day by which almost all New Year's Resolution dieters will have given up. This year, for a change, I decided not to put myself in that category. 

I thought I'd wait until all the Christmas chocolates have been polished off, especially we we had a special trip to the chocolate city of Bruges before Christmas to buy the good stuff. While we were "doing the continent" we also managed to pick up a couple of gorgeous French cheesesand some of the miriad of delicious  pate that the French do so well.

I love to eat.  I'm very lucky in that where I live has a number of very good gastropubs nearby which serve brilliant food.  And I can cook, when I have time, so dieting has never been top of my list of fun activities.

So as you can imagine, although I was dismayed when I had to undo my trousers in order to lean over far enough to lace my boots, I wasn't entirely suprised.

I've been putting off this moment, but now I have some important meetings scheduled and it's either slim down or buy a new wardrobe.  and it's pretty difficult to find fat peoples' clothes that don't look like tents.  Not all fat people are 6 foot tall, and some of us would appreciate clothes which didnt need to be shortened by a foot before they can be worn stylishly. 

And of course, if you want to exercise (which I don't, but my doctor tells me I must) then finding clothes to fit is an absolute nightmare.   And then there's the blood pressure, and the danger of diabetes.  So all in all I have to just get on with it  

I read about the Deliciously Ella blog at the weekend which really made me think that I need to
use this as an opportunity to make a diet as tasty as possible.

I read that you should never start a diet on Monday - because you get to the weekend and then the change from not working means that you;re more likely to break it.  So I'm planning to start on Tuesday.  I have a day working from home, so I can organise myself and make sure I get off to a good start.
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    Hi, I'm Mary. I love to cook and to eat. 

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