Friday 13 October - Bao with Sticky Belly Pork

Not the lowest fat dish by any stretch of the imagination, but I used pretty lean pork, and the accompaniments are in the main pretty healthy!

We discovered these steamed buns during a trip to Wagamamma a few weeks ago, and I had a hunt round for a recipe as we enjoyed them so much. This one was from The BBC food website, and we've cooked it a couple of times now, but also made the buns to use up left over char siu.

The dough is a pretty basic bread dough, but made with plain flour, and a spoonful of baking powder in addition to the yeast.

While this was rising, the belly pork filling was started.

Slices of belly pork were fried, and then set to one side.

Then into the pan went an unusual ingredient - some brown sugar, which was caramelised in the pan juices.

Once this was lovely and brown, in went soy sauce, shaohsing wine, sliced garlic and ginger and a couple of star anise - the pork went back into the pan along with some water, and into the oven to braise slowly.

Once the dough was double I formed it into flat ovals - I did this by hand, no need to use a rolling pin. These were brushed with a mixture of sunflower and sesame oil , and then folded over a chop stick and left to rise again.

Once risen they were steamed over a wok of boiling water for around ten minutes

For the toppings, peanuts were crushed in a pestle and mortar, and mixed with a teaspoon of togarashi spice powder, and spring onions and cucumber were sliced up (in the same way as for duck pancakes)

Then it was a case of stuffing the buns with the toppings and wolfing them down as quickly as possible - absolutely delicious!!

Tuesday 10 October - Baked Beans

We were given some pea bean seeds by a fellow allotment holder - they were so beautiful that I ended up podding them all and putting them in a jar to eat - although we may use some of them as seed next year.

As they were so fresh, they didn't take long to cook after being soaked for a day - around half an hour rather than the hours that commercial beans can take.

I simmered the beans, then made a sauce - the last of our tomatoes, some of the lovely carrots that we have been so successful with this year, onions, garlic.

These were roughly chopped, and fried in a teaspoon of oil, along with an elderly pack of pancetta cubes which I found in the back of the fridge.

I added water, and lots of flavourings - english musard, a good squeeze of ketchup, worcester sauce and tabasco, before blending and sieving, and then thickening the sauce with a spoonful of cornflour.

Then the beans were added into this and all simmered for a while so the beans absorbed the flavours. At this stage I realised I'd been a bit stingy with the bean quantities, so I added a small tin of butter beans to pad it all out a bit.

I baked a couple of large potatoes after spraying them with olive oil spray, and sprinkling with salt (I remain to be convinced that a drizzle of olive oil isn't just as healthy)

The beans were served over the jacket potatoes, with some cheese and worcester sauce sprinkled over the top. 

I used this lower fat cheese - things have moved on a lot with low fat cheese, and it actually tastes fine, but it definitely doesn't melt in the same way as proper cheese.

As we still have a huge jar of borlotti beans from the allotment I will definitely do this one again - it's a simple and healthy meal, but it satisfies my desire to cook something rather than just open a can after work

Monday 9 October - Salmon and Spinach

There was very little cooking involved in this, but a surprisingly delicous meal for an Autumn Monday night.

Salmon fillets - I simply seasoned these, drizzled a dash of white wine over and topped with slices of lemon, before baking in the oven for 15 minutes in a foil covered dish/

A quick, low fat tartare sauce - low fat creme fraiche was warmed in a pan with some chopped parsley, some capers and a squeeze of lemon juice.

Served with some spinach which I simply stir fried along with the water clinging to it after washing, and tiny piece of butter. We added some sweet potato mash alongside.

Friday 6 October - Pumpkin Chickpea and Banana Curry

I am really not a fan of bananas, but in this curry they are amazing. I first cooked this about 30 years ago from a Vegetarian food magazine and lost the recipe, but have since managed to find it online.
We have a large number of Butternut squash this year on the allotment, so any way we can use them up is a bonus - they are actually nicer than pumpkin in this recipe as they are not as soft when oooked. This is a very simple curry, using curry paste - I found an elderly jar of tikka masala paste in the cupboard so used that here.

The squash was cubed and then tossed in the curry paste, and then fried off.

The base of the curry was onions, garlic and ginger, and I added a couple of the lovely hot red chillies that we have grown this  year to spice things up a bit.

Then in with some spices - cumin, coriander, cinnamon and turmeric and some chopped tomatoes - we are just finishing off the last of this years tomatoes from the greenhouse.

Some stock was added, then the chick peas and the squash were added and it was simmered until the squash was tender

Finally the sliced banana was added and it was warmed through.

We served with some brown basmati rice, some shop bought roti and some low fat yoghurt that I strained through a jcloth and mixed with some grated cucumber and mint sauce.

This was by no means an authentic Indian meal, but a very delicious Friday supper none the less!

Starting Again

This blog was started with the intention of keeping a record of weight loss. It's turned into an interesting record of what we eat, but I'm now a fatterandfiftysomething.

I've recently been diagnosed with high cholesterol, and decided that I didn't want to start taking drugs to manage this from the outset - so the diet is starting again, and along with that I'm hoping to update this blog more often.

Remains to be seen how things go as I'm hopeless at sticking to things, but hopefully I can produce some edible food, lose a bit of weight and become a bit healthier along the way