Saturday 29 September - Low Fat Paella

Set off on our bikes this morning to the wonderful Viviers Fish Sheds in Old Portsmouth as we had Paella in mind for supper.

A wonderful selection of fish was available as usual, and we came back with clams, mussels and raw prawns to add the box of baby squid I already had in the freezer at home

There are not many jobs I really, really dislike in the kitchen, but cleaning squid is one of them, Bob had to take over as I got to number 6 as it all got too much for me!

Normally we add chorizo to Paella - it's one of the best bits to be honest, but that is not part of the low fat diet, so we did some experimentation with little chicken fillets dusted in paprika and then added to the Paella at the start of the cooking process.

I always start the squid off at the beginning of the cooking - so it was fried along with the onions and garlic, in a bit of spray cooking oil.

I then added some chopped peppers and seeded skinned tomatoes and the paella rice and chicken pieces. Stock and wine were added and right at the end in went the cleaned shellfish.

 

The chicken wasn't quite the same as having chorizo in it, but a fairly good substitute! As usual we made far too much of this as it's so hard to cook in small quantities.

Thursday 27 September - Fragrant Chicken Wraps

Been for the results of my blood tests today, and I don't have diabetes, or high cholesterol which is all good news  - I'm still fat though....

I've decided not to go for immediate surgery for my gallstones, I need to lose weight and change my diet and the gallstones are the incentive I need to keep up with this low fat, high excercise depressingly low alcohol way of life.

I am very impressed with Gok Wans book to date, and tonight we cooked the recipe that made me buy it in the first place. Stage one was to mince some chicken - I would have gone for thigh, but low fat is the idea here, so breast it was...

This was stirfried with ginger and garlic, then put to one side

The added flavourings were, peppers, bamboo shoots, water chestnuts and mushrooms.

Some soy, rice wine and fish sauce were added, along with chopped cashews

Served on a lettuce leaf, with a topping of cucumber, tomato and sesame oil.

Was very tasty, a good mix of textures and taste - next time I will add chopped coriander though, as felt that was the missing link...

Wednesday 26 September - Steak and Kidney

Eating as little fat as possible is proving to be easier than I thought, but I'm finding the majority of meals a bit unsatisfying - in some ways it's probably doing me a world of good as I'm filling up with many glasses of water instead of wine, and eating more fruit in the last couple of weeks than I've probably eaten in my entire 46 years.

Autumn is most definitely here now, so fancied something a bit more satisfying - had picked up some very lean beef skirt and a couple of pigs kidneys last weekend, so these were retrieved from the freezer and a beef, kidney and root vegetable hot pot was devised.

Beef and kidneys were cubed, and fried in a pan which was just brushed with oil to stop the meat sticking

 

We chopped up a selection of vegetables - onions, carrots, parsnips and swede, and these were then layered in a casserole dish with the meat.

We added some beef stock mixed with a bit of red wine, and some worcester sauce and then topped the whole thing with sliced potatoes and shoved it in the oven.

It's currently bubbling away and smelling rather good - we'll serve this with some steamed savoy cabbage.

 

 

Saturday 22 September - Veal and Creme Caramel

We were a bit stuck for what to cook, so on the way back from a day out stopped in Waitrose in Chichester for a wander. We found some rather lovely looking stewing veal, which was fortunately reduced for quick sale, so snapped it up. One of the advantages of this, is that it was only 2% fat, so well within my diet guidelines.

I made this into a stew using tomatoes and rosemary along with some white wine to make the sauce, and added a handful of tiny black olives into the mix. This was served over polenta, with just a couple of ounces of parmesan added to it, and topped with a gremolata of chopped garlic, parsley and lemon rind.

For afters we made creme caramel using the Mary Berry recipe from GBOO the other week - this was using the first of the eggs from our new chickens who are now laying quite regularly.

 

The recipe was really easy to follow, and I was delighted when they actually turned out of the ramekins.

It was delicious too!

Thursday 20 September - Turkey and CousCous

Been a bit quiet on the blogging front as it's quite a struggle to find interesting meals to post about at the moment - the as fat free as possible diet is full of lettuce, and fruit and glasses of water in the main!

For this meal I picked up some turkey steaks and decided to try and find something a bit different to make with them - I then spotted this on the shelf which I was given as a birthday present

 

So I cut the turkey up and rubbed the pieces with this, adding a tsp of oil, and the juice of a lemon - then left it in the fridge for a couple of hours before threading on skewers and grilling.

So, something Moroccan style to serve with it - Couscous being the obvious - I soaked this in a bit of stock, and a tsp of oil, then added chopped herbs (mint and coriander) and the chopped rind of two preserved lemons. I had a couple of ounces of low fat feta in the freezer, so chucked this in too.

I'd spotted new season pomegranates in Lidl this morning, so one of these was used for garnish, along with a tablespoon full of toasted flaked almonds that were lurking in the cupboard.

Worried it might all be a bit dry I made up a dressing from low fat natural yoghurt, some mint sauce, and a dash of tabasco.

Will do this again, possibly with chicken next time - and the good thing is a bowlful of leftover couscous for lunch today!

Thursday 13 September - Pumpkin

The pumpkin patch on our allotment has proved to be a huge success, and 10 pumpkins, all in the region of 6kg have been produced. We picked one this week, and have had to find lots of meals to use it up in, so soup on Tuesday, and today a Middle Eastern Pumpkin and Chickpea stew from Hugh Fearnley Whittingstalls Veg Book.

 

I started off by using up some of the tomatoes we have grown (not a great crop this year unfortunately), these were roasted along with some garlic and herbs and then pureed to a sauce.

Other ingredients included spices ( I added chilli powder to the recipe) lentils, onions, garlic, chickpeas and orzo. The recipe included celery which I left out as I can't stand it cooked and in pieces.

This was all cooked together, I reduced the amount of oil down to a couple of teaspoons as I've had to cut out on fat almost completely due to Gallstones.

Absolutely delicious - we served it along with some harrissa that I mixed into a bit of the stock for an added kick.