Category: 400 and Under

Skinny tomato soup

As I lumber my large and ungainly way into January and prepare to go back to work, I make a start on the diet. My cunning plan to emerge as slender as a supermodel is based around eating tasty but sensibly low calories breakfasts and lunches and then having something truly delicious, yet very low calorie for supper.

Lunch.. that is the problem. I want something really tasty to keep me going. I drink black coffee all day and I need a different taste.

Now. It is Sunday night and I haven’t really thought it through, so I start rummaging in the cupboards. There aren’t any tins of tomatoes…. I can’t believe it, because I always buy plenty. There’s lots and lots of stuff in there to make delicious meals but I am trying to cut calorie corners.

What I do find is a carton of V8 vegetable juice … look at the goodness in that…

and an  onion.. and a packet of bonito stock, or dashi.

This is a combination of fish flakes (a bonito is related to the mackerel and tuna, dried and shaved into flakes)  and seaweed… it may sound strange but it is going along the umami route – a deep, flavoursome stock that gives you “mouth feel” as if what you are eating is rich and certainly more calorific than it seems. It doesn’t taste fishy… just savoury.

Don’t add it if you don’t want to, or if you can’t find it – add ordinary vegetable stock or miso instead. The aim is to make what would otherwise be a thin soup (with, therefore, very few calories in it) into something that tastes if it has more body and richness to it.

So, one onion, chopped (about 100 calories, raw) and one tablespoon of oil  (about 120 calories) – see how much work I do for you? Calculating all this?

Sweat the onions till soft with a pinch of salt (that makes them stay soft and translucent)

Add a sachet of bonito stock and stir round.

Pour in the V8 (190 calories for the litre)  … how healthy is this going to be? All those vegetables in there…stir it round and let the onions finish cooking.

Now, if you have fresh coriander chop it and stir it round.. or, if you have a tube of it (always handy to have some in the fridge) give a quick squirt

Remember those chillies I made chilli oil with? I got one of those out and added it

And a squirt of ginger as a livener…

And whizz it all to a silky smoothness

Now, by my reckoning that comes to maybe 500 calories or so for the litre…. that’s a LITRE.. That’s a panful.  A good sized mug full will only be 100 -125 calories.

There’s a richness and fullness to it that makes it so very satisfying. It’s tomatoey (as it should be) and savoury – not just salty… and there’s a hint of a nip of ginger and chilli.

It’s not just one dimensional.

Flashforward to Monday lunch….

It’s a winner. Can this be the way forward?

New Year’s Eve

Today is the day that I think about what I want to achieve in the new year.

I am going to be more focussed this year – the resolutions I made  last year were “discussed”

 

…………with the help of numerous glasses of champagne, and our beloved L&L, in a revolving restaurant, high above Hobart, Tasmania.

We were spending days in the brilliant sunshine of an Australian summer 

and eating fresh oysters and fish straight from the boat

and it all seemed so easy.

Of course this would be the year that we did things… we would lose weight, become supremely fit, reverse the ravages of time and become all-round-gorgeous.

Ahem.

Maybe it was the sun that went to our heads?

This year, though, I am going to really make an effort. In all honesty, all I did try to do was to cook delicious things for the Bear and his friends. I just didn’t try to make us thinner. Butter and cream featured strongly……Nothing wrong with butter and cream, though, but perhaps I had been just a tad generous.

I have started to collect recipes that gave us 400 calories and under per serving, so that if we were very sensible with breakfast and lunch, we could have a delicious supper and still keep to just over 1000 calories a day, which should, theoretically, make us whippet-thin within weeks. It would also allow us room for manoeuvre if we had people round.

The problem with diets is that it is so easy to lose interest when faced with a crispbread and some cottage cheese. If I could produce meals with a sense of luxury about them but still keep the calories low then surely we would be on to a winner?

Of course, last year I wasn’t writing this. Any bold promises I made were only heard by a select few and they are unlikely to point and laugh and tell me I am a failure.

This year I am writing it down so whoever reads this will see what I have said. I can’t threaten you with violence if you point out that I have failed, as I do to my nearest and dearest.

So… in 2010 I will make it my aim to seach out delicious recipes that are low calorie… BUT would make you think you are not on a diet.

I will make sure that  we eat healthily and happily.

I will make sure that this time next year there will be a distinct difference in our shape and size and general state of health.

I will still cook the occasional greedy and gluttonous treat but that will be balanced by our other efforts.

Instead of saying “I really should” or “I’d like to” or “Let’s think about”, I will say that we ARE doing something. That mushroom foraging course I always say we must book – well, we will do it.

Those walks I say we will go on – well, we shall do them.

I shall read my favourite cookery books again and work through them… I have picked out the first few…. Elisabeth Luard, for example. There is so much to explore in this book – European Peasant Food reflects recipes that make the most of the ingredients to hand. Recipes that have been forgotten, in the main, and really need to be revived

Also, we are very lucky in that we have some marvellous friends from Turkey who KNOW how to cook – nights spent with F & E have inspired me to look through my collection and I shall make more Middle Eastern/Turkish/Moroccan food…

And I shall also read through some of the books that  first inspired me to cook

And once I have done all that….. well there are still many more packed bookcases to work through

So, this time next year, the last day of 2010, how much will I have achieved? Will I be thin, fit, well fed and well read? Or will I have fallen by the wayside and just managed the reading and feeding?

Here’s to 2010!

Happy New Year to everyone and may all your wishes and resolutions come true!

Puy lentils and peas

One of the most delicious vegetable  dishes the Bear and I have is made from what might seem to be an unlikely combination of lentils, peas and onion…. it’s quick and easy as well as low calorie. What more could you want?

Puy lentils are a beautiful browny-green colour and they have a lovely nutty flavour

They just need a quick rinse and then put them in a pan with twice the amount of water and bring gently to the boil.

I sometimes add stock granules to the water and that adds another dimension of flavour to the lentils.

While they are gently boiling, finely slice a red onion

and put the slices in a bowl with some olive oil… maybe three or four tablespoons

This starts to soften and mellow the onion.

Then squeeze half a lemon

Pour the lemon juice in and stir round

Add a few handfuls of frozen peas and no, you don’t need to defrost them.  They start to defrost gently and not boiling them keeps them full of flavour. That lemon juice and olive oil dressing seems to emphasise the sweetness of the peas.

By now the lentils will be cooked – they keep their firmness to some degree but they shouldn’t be hard.

Drain them quickly… and then…while they are still hot add them to the bowl

Stir them through the mixed peas and onion, making sure they are all covered with the lemony dressing.

The heat of the lentils softens the onion to perfection and takes the last chill off the peas.

This really is an excellent side dish to serve with roast meat… one of our favourites is roast lamb. The lentils and peas are all you need to serve with a few slices of meat – we don’t even bother with potatoes – which means it makes one of the simplest suppers ever

Pork and Pepper Goulash

The Bear has returned from a trip to Australia and I have returned from work. We meet upstairs in the kitchen.

I need to cook something and I need to make sure it is not only quick to cook and serve   (before he falls asleep from jet lag) but also to get us back on our diet. It will have to be something from the 400 and Under section of my recipe files.

On my way back through town, in the rush hour traffic, I pulled in to the supermarket to see what there was and saw some pork.

I knew there was a recipe that I had cooked before that turned out to be surprisingly  tasty. I say surprisingly, because it wouldn’t have been my choice when I spotted it. I said, didn’t I, that I looked through magazines and cook books for recipes that gave us under 400 calories per serving?  Well, I always index tab them and show them to the Bear to see if there’s anything he fancies. He picked this one  from delicious.magazine (sept 2008). And this one had two things going against it in my eyes… it involved pork (not my favourite meat) and caraway seeds – very definitely not my favourite flavour.

Still, it was his choice and I am, despite appearances to the contrary, quite pleasant at times….

And as it happened, it turned out to be incredibly delicious. And also very quick to cook. Time to do it again, I thought.

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So I got 4 boneless pork steaks – not too much fat on them – and not too expensive. I knew I had all the other ingredients that I would need, which is another good reason to read this recipe and keep it in mind.

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I needed a tin of tomatoes, a red onion, some smoked sweet paprika, some caraway seeds, a jar of roasted red peppers in oil and some yoghurt.

First of all, while waiting for the kettle to boil so I could make the poor, exhausted Bear a cup of tea, I sliced the red onion and put the frying pan on to heat through.

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Not much oil in the pan and get them softening, before adding 1 tablespoon of smoked sweet paprika

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and a teaspoon of caraway seeds

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Stir it all round and while the flavours are blending, cut the pork into bite sized pieces. Take the rind and any excess fat off (we are on a diet, you know!) and add that

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get that meat in and stir it round, letting it brown

I swear, all that took just a few minutes. All I had to do then, once the meat was browned, was to add a tin of chopped plum tomatoes and let it simmer for fifteen minutes.

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Now, as I was in late from work and as the Bear was starving, I didn’t want to delay supper. I had some Anya potatoes (those knobbly ones) and I put them on to steam (yes, it really should have been mash but I knew this would work) All I would have to do with them would be to crush them so the gorgeous juices soaked in….

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… and some of the juices would be coming from the roasted red peppers. Most of the supermarkets have them and they are a great storecupboard standby. They have a real depth of flavour and a long shelf life so they are perfect to get and keep for moments like this.

Cut them into pieces and then add them to the tomatoey pork after it has had fifteen minutes or so, cooking

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… then add a couple of large spoonfuls of yoghurt.

And that’s it. Done and dusted in less than 40 minutes. Squash the potatoes with a fork so they are broken up and then spoon over the delicious (and I say this as a person who doesn’t LIKE caraway) meat and sauce.

The tomato and caraway make a beautiful rich and savoury sauce for the meat, which is still tender…..

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A sprinkling of parsley sets it off… all that for less than 400 calories (396 according the the recipe) … maybe 550 if you add the potatoes?

Well… it WOULD have been 550 calories but it was so utterly delicious I did have an extra spoonful. I do my best, you know. It was quick and easy, low calorie…… but I am greedy.

It is supposed to feed 4 so if you are strict and divide it by 4………. or maybe invite two friends round? That should solve things. What can you do, eh? Totally delicious…….

Tandoori Pheasant

 As you may know (if you read my post about Game) I do tend to get my hands on a variety of game birds. The latest to turn up was pheasant.

One of the luxuries of having a ready supply of game is that you can experiment more readily than you would if you can only get  the occasional bird.

About a year ago, I scrawled some notes about a recipe for Partridge Tandoori. I know it was Valentine Warner but when I searched for it online, I couldn’t find it, so I can’t link to it. You’ll have to take my word on it. He had worked out the calorie count as coming in around 329 calories per serving. Well, pheasant would do instead of partridge and it would still be able to feature in the 400 and Under section.

You don’t need a tandoor oven to cook it on – you could use a barbecue, but I think in this weather, it is appropriate to stay indoors and use a griddle pan.

The trick with any tandoori dish is the marinade. The meat (whatever sort you are using) goes into that and stays overnight to absorb the flavour.  If you want this you need to start a day ahead . The only reason it is red is because of red food dye so we can miss that out, I think. So… start with making the marinade

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You’ll need 2 tsp of ground cumin

2 tsp of turmeric

1 and a half teaspoons of ground coriander

1 tbsp of garam masala

Nutmeg – a good grating

1 tsp salt flakes

6 garlic cloves, peeled

Half a small onion

1 red chilli, de seeded

Half a juiced lemon

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Blitz them all into a fine paste

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Then  add 250 ml yoghurt  – I was using the Total Greek Yoghurt 0%

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and give it a quick blitz but don’t over process it – see it has some texture?

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Put it all into a large bowl. It needs to be large because you are going to put your pheasant in there.

And now for the fun bit. I have some poultry shears, which are big, strong scissors that can snip their way through any bird… if you are going to be doing this sort of thing a lot then it would be a good idea to get some. If not then have at the carcass with a sharp knife – but watch your fingers

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You need to cut the bird, first down the breast bone

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so you have two bits

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and then separate the legs and thighs

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Then, take the skin off… the skin of game birds is not like the sweetly savoury crispy skin you can get on a roasted chicken, so just stick your fingers in there and rip it off. It’s quite easy, really… and besides the skin is already torn from where it was shot.

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Now then.. you have a plate of naked pheasant, cut neatly (or not)  into pieces.

 Because you are going to marinade the pieces overnight, you want that spicy, yoghurty mix to get into the flesh. Score the breasts and thighs with a sharp knife so that the marinade can get into the flesh.

Really give it a good covering, squishing it about….

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and then cover the bowl with cling film and leave overnight.

The next day, wipe your griddle with a piece of kitchen roll and vegetable oil then get it hot. Lift out each piece of pheasant at a time, shaking off the excess marinade and lie it down in the pan.

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Don’t move the pieces around too much because you want them to get a lovely. slightly charred crust…

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It will take maybe 8 or so minutes on each side…..

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Just check that you are happy with the amount of cooking… I quite like it just cooked and tender but you may be different.

All you need to serve it with are some lemon quarters and maybe some naan braed on the side

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That was delicious … and perhaps one of the tastiest ways of eating pheasant.

All that and under 400 calories…. oooh, I feel thinner already!

Chicken Jalfrezi

We have decided on a new regime. We seem, somehow, to have become rounder.

Somewhat stout, actually. We are going to have to go on a diet. Only thing is, we aren’t very good at diets … well we aren’t very good at chewing on celery and raw carrots.

What we thought we could do is eat as if we weren’t on diets but make sure what we do eat is low calorie.

I started to go through magazines looking for recipes that came in at under 400 calories a serving. My thinking behind this was that if we ate sensibly at breakfast and lunch then we could look forward to something nice at supper.

But supper had to be low calorie….. I wanted proper food not some kind of packet.

You can buy packets of ready meals that have the calories counted for you but that wasn’t the way I was going to go.  If I could make sure that each serving was low calorie but still home made and tasty.. well that was the answer.

If it was only 400 calories a serving then that would mean there was still room to bring in a side dish… we could diet and feel as if we were still enjoying ourselves! All I had to do was find some recipes

One of the first recipes I found was Chicken Jalfrezi in Olive magazine, October 2008.

And it was only 250 calories per serving!

That had to be a winner. So, what did we need?

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A large onion, sliced,

3 cloves of garlic

2-3 green chillies, sliced

Ginger grated

Chicken thighs – 6 cut into chunks

Tomatoes, 5, roughly chopped

Green pepper, chopped into pieces

Coriander – small bunch with the leaves picked off

Yoghurt – small pot

Spice mix

  • 1 tsp turmeric
  • 1½ tsp ground cumin
  • 1 tsp ground coriander
  • 1 cinnamon stick
  • 5 cloves , ground

    • Well, you can see in the picture that it is, first and foremost, rather dark. That’s because I was late in from work and despite all the lights being on, it still looks dark.

    You can also see a tin of tomatoes – I forgot to get fresh. Just as I forgot to get fresh garlic and ginger, hence the tubes of puree. Oh, and the pepper is not green but orange.

    Still… everything else is OK……

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    First thing.. heat 2 tablespoons of  oil in a pan and add the onion and a good pinch of salt and fry until it is soft and golden, then add the chillies, garlic and ginger and cook for another couple of minutes

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    Make the spice mix

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    And add it.. I had also put in the stalks of the coriander (they can’t contain many calories, can they? And they do taste nice)

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    Cook it all for a couple of minutes to round out the flavour..

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    Add the chicken pieces

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    And stir round

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    Then add a splash of water, the tomatoes and the pepper

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    You can now cover the pan and let it cook gently for 30 minutes or so.

    That gives you enough time to go and settle yourself for a while… it had been a long day for me and I was tired. Even so, that wasn’t a lot of work and was surprisingly quick to do….

    The sauce will have started to thicken up by now.. if not then take the lid off for the last ten minutes. If you are using the yoghurt, add it now and stir it in for a creamier sauce. I still had plenty left from the Total Great Greek Yoghurt Experiment, so this was an ideal dish to try it in.

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    and add the coriander leaves

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    I made steamed basmati rice to go with it….and served it up.

    Even with the rice that had to be less than 500 calories.

    A bowl of ice cream is 500 calories.. and that’s a small bowl. I know what I prefer.

    The Chicken Jalfrezi  was quick and easy to prepare (there was a half hour break in the middle while it cooked) and it was ready and served within the hour. It felt like we were having a real meal….. it certainly didn’t feel like any kind of diet I had been on before. The yoghurt made the sauce taste rich and creamy so there was a definite level of luxury about it all.

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    There you go. A way forward out of the diet doldrums. I made that after a long day and it certainly wasn’t difficult but it certainly was delicious.

    400 and Under is the way forward!

    Woodpigeon Breasts on toast with lemon and thyme fresh cheese

    I had got some woodpigeon breasts and thought they would make a lovely lunch.

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    Beautiful wild game with no additives

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    Except, perhaps the lead shot that killed it!

    I also had the lovely fresh cheese that I made specifically for this on the Great Greek Yoghurt Challenge….

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    And I have a fresh loaf of No Knead Bread

    (I think I have seen a recipe for something very like this but I really can’t find it… I can’t have imagined it, surely? I have spent ages flicking through my magazines looking for the recipe but I just can’t spot it. It was probably in Olive or delicious. a year or more ago and it involved some kind of game, on toast with a lemony, thyme-y ricotta…. probably.  I have searched online and I still can’t find it – if any of you know who did it then let me know so I can give due credit. I would hate for someone to think I was stealing their ideas and I always try to link back to originals. I would hope that people would do that for me too)

    Anyway, this is as simple as simple can be and oh-so-fast.

    First, slice and toast your bread

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    Heat some oil in a pan (I use my oil that I have steeped chillies in – it just gives things a little lift) 

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     and after seasoning the woodpigeon breasts with salt and some thyme

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    start to fry it quickly -it will only take a few minutes to get the outside browned beautifully while the inside stays pink

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    Once it is done, take it out and let it rest while you deglaze the pan with something.. wine, perhaps? Sherry? Port? Or, as I did, a Balsamic truffle glaze.

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    Slice the pigeon breast and lay it on the toast,

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    Drizzle with the pan juices

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    Put a spoonful of the fresh cheese over the meat

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    And that, I should tell you, was a lovely weekend lunch.

    And I know that, hard though it is to believe, that one portion of this will come in at under 400 calories. Just a squeak under, but under, nevertheless.

    It would be a brilliant week night supper as well, as it can be made in less than 15 minutes, if you have everything to hand.