Too hot to cook, almost too hot to eat...

Blimey, that was a hot June!

I'm a wimp when it comes to hot weather, I stay inside in the cool, only going into the garden in the early morning and the evening. I follow the European fashion of keeping the curtains drawn and the blinds down during the day, to keep the heat outside where it belongs. So, come the evening, it's still relatively cool in the house, and I can open all the windows and enjoy the summer in my own way.

I do cook during the summer, of course, but nothing complicated. Lots of salads, mostly green leaves, and my favourite coleslaw.

I tend towards a coleslaw without mayonnaise most of the time, finely shredded red and white cabbages, a smidgeon of julienned carrot and some sliced spring onions. Tossed in a lemony vinaigrette, this goes with most meats and fish.

So here are some of the plates I set before myself in the cool of a June evening.

It was only a little scallop...

A totally unexpected treat: Bob nipped over to Sainsbury's to get a loaf of bread and some milk, and came back with smoked cod for breakfast tomorrow, and a pack of eight fat, fresh, scallops from the cheaps counter—reduced to £1.70 from £7. Bargainous!

So, instead of cold meat and salad, we had scallops and salad. Look at the caramelisation on these little beauties!

Sad to say, from a keto point of view, scallops DO contain carbs. Not a huge number, but more certainly than crab, prawns or most fish. I was equally shocked to find that octopus and squid also have a higher carb count. Who would have guessed?  But at 1.5g of carb per scallop, there was still only 6 carbs on the plate, and scallops (and all seafood for that matter) is a little bomb of nutrition and minerals so I'm happy to add them into my diet.

All Day Long, mate.

Sausages and a nice pork chop...

Back in the day, you couldn't get a low carb sausage for love nor money. If you found one, it was dry, tasteless, lacking in everything sausagey.

But the new wave of high meat sausages are delicious, and very low in carbs. I found these sausages in Sainsbury's new Taste the Difference selection. These are called The Meaty Ones and are 97% pork, with just one gram of carbohydrate for two sausages. I'd recommend them to anyone wanting to keep gluten out of their diet too, and, actually, for anyone else! Delicious.

It has turned colder the last couple of days, and merits warmer food. This pork chop hit the spot the other day. I allowed myself a spoonful of apple sauce...

Salads galore...

I find I am eating a lot of salads.

By which I suppose I mean the easiest option, when faced with a limited selection of green vegetables to pick from, is to put together a green salad, and maybe add in one or two higher carb bits and pieces for variety. It looks fresh, and it fills the plate.

So far, I am keeping to my stated aim of eating less than 30grams of carb a day, and eating within an 8 hour window, fasting for the remaining 18 hours. I'd like to say the weight is falling off, but it isn't at the moment. I've lost around 12lb in a month, which is good by anyone's standards, but 10 of that was in the first 10 days, and I've stayed roughly the same since then. But I will Hold The Faith, and keep going.

Even if the weight isn't falling away, I feel much more lively, much less achey. I'm sleeping better. My husband says his arms fit round me more easily, so we are using how far up his arm he can grab when he hugs me as my optimal point of reference for whether I am losing girth or not...

So, without further ado, here is a batch of salads for you,

Poussin with mushroom tarragon cream sauce and spring greens

Delicious little poussin, such a tender wee baby. I roasted him in butter and tarragon, cut him in half (one for me, one for him) and doused him in mushrooms sauteed in butter with chopped tarragon and a fat dollop of extra thick cream, plus a bit of the chicken cooking juices.

Plus some spring greens for vitamins and fibre. 10 carbs for the meal.

Yummy.

Lamb Kebabs - Friday 18th May

Yummy lamb kebabs. My favourite for a sunny day!

I usually interleave the cubes of lamb with onions and red and yellow peppers, but I've found onions to be really bad for my digestion since I had my gall bladder out. The flavour of them is fine if I don't eat the actual onion and some types are better than others, spring onions for example. But the normal yellow onions... oh dear.

So Bob got the onions, I got some of the flavour from the marinade. I chop everything up and marinate for a few hours in lemon juice, oregano, olive oil, seasoned just with salt. You could add cumin in there too, if you like, but I find it masks the flavour of the lamb a bit.

Onto skewers, alternating all the different bits, and slammed under the grill for 15 mins or so, turning from time to time, until cooked through and nicely singed on all the edges.

p.s. isn't singed a strange word when it's written down? I always envisage slightly charred food singing away at the top of its voice. But then I'm known to be a bit odd...

Sea Bass and Samphire - Thursday 17th May

I love samphire for it's bright, salty flavour, perfect for bringout out the flavour of a delicious fish like sea bass.

This meal, took me a solid 5 minutes to cook. How quick is that! The purple sprouting broccoli (yes, it goes green when it's cooked...) takes around 2 mins to steam, the samphire less than a minute in a pan with butter and a little water, and the sea bass fillet in a frying pan with butter and oil for 5 minutes to make sure the skin is lovely and crisp.

I don't count calories btw, although this is very low in calories, I am counting carbs. I have a daily allowance of 20-30 carbs (the lower amount for preference, the upper if I feel like stretching it a bit...) and this meal came in at 3 carbs.

Giving me room for strawberries and cream for pudding. Mmmmm

I'm back.... and oh, what a difference a couple of years makes!

Well, hello! 

I've decided to start posting my dinners again, as I have just started on a new eating regime.

I am Intermittent Fasting each day, fasting for 16 hours and eating in the 8 hour window left. And in that 8 hour window—from 12 to 8 in my case, though any window is fine, you can adjust it to your normal schedule, just make sure you don't eat for at least 16 hours.

Because I decided to eat ketogenically at the same time, I have found the fasting a doddle. After a few days, I simply wasn't (and still aren't) hungry during the fast, and a first meal at 12 is something to look forward to, but not crave. Likewise, no sugar or starch is gradually stopping any craving for bread and cakes and chocolate.

I should have remembered from my Atkins days in the 90s how well I felt, too. I have so much more energy, I don't need a nap in the afternoon anymore, my mood is better, and I think my brain is sharper.  I stopped Atkins after a couple of years because of fruit, and I hope to goodness that this isn't going to throw me off my horse again this time. But I am including a small amount of fruit from the off this time, so it's got to be worth a go, don't you think?

Why?

Well, I was forced into having a blood test to carry on with my current medication, and that showed that not only was my cholesterol high, but my liver serum levels were high as well. That is a marker for Fatty Liver Disease, not something I want.  The doctor advised the only way known to get that down was to lose weight. So here I am. Dieting for my health.

Internet research time. I had watched, and tried out, Intermittent Fasting before, the 5:2 system, but found the 500 cal days impossible to keep going. I was hangry all the time. But I still kept an eye on the research, and recently Michael Mosely has been talking about the benefits of 16:8 everyday fasting instead of two days a week. It has been found to clear out your liver—the best of news—lower your cholesterol, and reverse any tendency towards Type 2 diabetes. All what I need to do.

Is it a fad? I don't think so, though many will say it is. But is that because it has been adopted by a swathe of Instagram influencers and A list celebrities?

Well, only time will tell. In the meantime, here I am. I've kept to the regime rigorously for the last 3 weeks—not long, I accept, but long enough to know if I can keep it going—and I've lost 12lb, and feel good.

So I'm off again, with my dinner pics, to remind myself of what I am eating and what I should be eating if ever I slip.

Let me know what you think, I love to hear from you all.

A Chicken and Avocado warm salad - A Bird in the Hand

I love, love, love chicken and avocado. Creamy smooth avos and deliciously juicy chicken thighs.

I am perhaps not as enamoured of quinoa, but in this recipe from Diana Henry's ace book, A Bird in the Hand, it works very well indeed, lifted as it is by the zingy lime and chili dressing.   I have the book, but you can find the recipe here, on Delicious magazine's website:

(edit Feb 2019: sorry, my picture seems to have disappeared from the blog post, (and it was on an old phone so I don't know where it is now...) I'll just have to make this again and take another one!) 
 
It is rather a shame that I can't get the same lighting and brightness to my picture of my dinner.. but then, as I've said before, it is just dinner, the photo taken on my table before I eat it, so I shouldn't whine too much. Oh, and it was taken on my phone, so I could instagram it... perhaps not the best thing as the light gets darker with autumn arriving. Back to double photoing with camera and phone, and a colder dinner, I guess.

Result was less faff than it looks on paper, very delicious, and to be made again. Time taken (if you ignore the time for the tomatoes, though they probably needed less in my oven, they came out slightly singed rather than just caramelised. I am still soaking the burnt bits off the roasting pan...) about half an hour including prep, so not bad at all.

More lamb.. are you a breast or a leg person?

Fabulous breast of lamb from Layer Marney lamb, bought at the Essex Food festival. Glorious.

Rough recipe?

Roll up breast of lamb (I cut whole breast into two, and rolled these up separately, cooks a bit quicker) . 

Put on top of sliced onions in pan. 

Half cover with lamb gravy (best use E Cuisine Home Chef lamb stock cos its the only lamb stock worth using) put in oven gas mk 4, covered with foil. 

Bake for 3 hours, basting from time to time. 

Take out, rest, and while it is resting, add 1 tablespoon of blackberry vinegar and reduce until syrupy. Onions will have melted into the gravy. 

Cut each half breast into two pieces and put on plate, cover with gravy. 

Eat.

Breast of #layermarney #lamb with #essentialcuisine lamb glace. Stunning.

A photo posted by Lynne Clark (@josordoni) on Aug 12, 2015 at 12:31pm PDT

Lamb and salad. Slam it in!

Slam in the Lamb! #lamb #dinner #salad #delicious

A photo posted by Lynne Clark (@josordoni) on Aug 10, 2015 at 12:07pm PDT

I have been posting my dinners on Instagram and couldn't work out what to do to get them here for you too.. well I have at least discovered (if it works) how to embed the picture here.

Today's dinner was a 20 minute marvel. Lamb steak tossed in lemon juice, seasoning, mediterranean herbs and olive oil, grilled and served on a salad mainly consisting of fine green beans, broccoli, cucumber and little gem lettuce. Simple.

I'm on Instagram too now!

I'm so sorry I've been missing in action again... happens from time to time that life gets in the way of telling you about my dinner.

BUT.... I have been using Instagram lately, since I got a new phone that allows me to. (my old  one would only let me post pictures of dinosaurs) so do come over there and check out my quick snaps.

Mostly food, but sometimes other bits and pieces I like.

And I promise you more dinners here soon. 

Come and see me here:

 

Diana Henry's "A Bird in the Hand" - Chicken with anchovies, lemon and rosemary

It is a long story , the one about waiting to get hold of Diana Henry's fabulous cookery book A Bird in the Hand

Three copies the publisher sent to me, three copies disappeared into the black hole that is Royal Mail. But eventually it and I were united, and I was finally a happy chick.

I gave the honours of first choice to Bob, and he homed in on Chicken with anchovies, lemon and rosemary.  It is not dissimilar to my favourite Spezzatina, made with anchovies and vinegar, but this one has onions (should have been shallots, but I didn't have any) and wine, and is topped with lemon and garlic - I added parsley to that mixture, to make a classic Italian gremolata, which I love. 

It came out beautifully. Apart from the little tweaks above (and where would I be if I didn't tweak) I followed the recipe, and it came out just as it should. 

We had roast Italian style potatoes and fresh, lightly blanched spring greens and it was gorgeous. And easy!! Hurray for easy! 

disclaimer: I was sent a review copy, but I did the cooking, the eating and the writing! 

Red Cooked Pork and Carrots - Hong Shao Rou (紅燒肉)

I had a small piece of pork belly in the freezer, nice, but it was really too small to roast. What to do?

How about Chinese style? Red cooked pork is delicious, the fat and skin turn into a soy sauce tinted soft jelly that works wonderfully well with rice. I cooked sushi rice as I wanted something much stickier than basmati - I didn't have any other rice that would be sticky, and it worked excellently. I followed (roughly) this recipe - more for the method than for the quantities.  The blanching of the pork I only did for 10 minutes as I had already cut the pork into cubes and I added star anise and a few slices of ginger to the blanching water.

The rest of the ingredients are as per the recipe, except that I increased (roughly doubled) the amount of dark and light soy sauce, and used dry sherry instead of Shaoxing wine as I didn't have that in stock.  I also added carrots to increase the amount of veggies, (that was a suggestion in my Ken Lo Chinese cookery book) which worked really nicely.

A warning though - when they say that the pork spatters when you are caramelising it with the oil and sugar they are right. Wrap a tea-towel around your hand and tilt the pan away from you when you are stirring the pork, or you will have a blister on your hand like I do.. :(

I didn't take the sauce right down to a sticky coating as I wanted some gravy to go with the rice. I served it with the sticky rice and finely sliced spring greens stir fried with grated ginger,  finely chopped chili (just a little) and oyster sauce and scattered with sliced spring onions.

Delectable and one for the recipe file I think :)

Fridge picnic... with Yoghurt Crusty Bread

I had made some bread. Easy delicious yoghurt bread, which is my favourite at the moment, and I really couldn't be bothered to have anything difficult alongside it for dinner.

So to the fridge... I found:

2 Peppers

half an aubergine

2 courgettes

A couple of tomatoes and half a cucumber

Cheese.

Half a jar of giardinera pickles

I cut the peppers/aubergine/courgettes in strips and drizzled them with oil, dried oregano and salt and pepper and popped them in a very hot oven for half an hour, then let them cool.

Everything else just went on a plate. Fridge picnic day :)

Pork and bacon meatballs... mmmmmm

Meatballs are so good, whether made of beef, lamb or in this case pork.  I found a pack of pork mince in the Sainsbury's cheaps counter for only 30p so I had to buy it didn't I!

I sauted a finely chopped onion with some chopped streaky bacon and added it to the pork with salt, pepper, fried sage and an egg yolk.  Squished together my hands but not too much,  the mixture should stay fairly loose or the balls will be heavy. Wet your hands before making the meat balls, it stops the mixture from sticking to your fingers. Make balls about the size of a ping pong ball and chill for 10 mins in the fridge.

Heat a little oil in a frying pan and fry the meat balls until they are golden all over and then transfer to a baking tray and cook in a medium oven for another 10 minutes or so. They will keep in a low oven for another 10 minutes or so if you need to delay them until the rest is cooked.

They are good with tomato sauce and pasta, or any mixture of roast vegetables, but today I fancied some mashed potatoes.

I made a simple sauce of the meat juices with some chicken stock, capers and grainy mustard, and served with Bramley apple sauce and fresh veg on the side.

Crispy Skinned Salmon with Green Curry broth and steamed veggies

It was fish day of course on Good Friday. Salmon, pan fried in a little olive oil on the skin side until it is really crispy and you can see that the fish is cooked about half way up the side. Then take the pan away from the heat and turn the fish over to rest and finish cooking while the veggies steam.

You can see how the fish is JUST cooked through, but not at all powdery. This is the best way to cook salmon in my opinion, oven baked is hard to judge when the fish is cooked and it is so easy to overcook and ruin it, turning it into pink cotton wool.

I made a laksa type broth of coconut milk and green Thai curry paste with fish sauce, sugar and lime juice. Added two packs of ready to heat Udon noodles (my favourite noodles, thick and toothsome, I love them added to broth or fried, Amoy do them in packets easily available at most supermarkets)

The broth went into bowls, with a mixture of mange touts, broccoli, baby corn and pak choi which I had steamed piled on top and the salmon finally with the skin uppermost to keep it crisp. A scattering of chopped spring onions and coriander and we're done.
I love a 10 minute dinner!!

I love a 10 minute dessert too - we had a quick lemon and sherry syllabub (just lemon juice and sherry, a little sugar and a small pot of double cream mixed together and whipped until softly peaky) mixed with crushed meringue and raspberries, piled into a (bought) meringue nest. Yummy!!

Lentils and eggs

An easy fridge and cupboard meat free day of a little chopping and slicing, and very little cooking.

I used a can of Merchant Gourmet Puy lentils as the base for this salad, and added some julienned raw carrot, finely sliced and blanched flat beans, chopped coriander leaves, hard boiled eggs, sliced avocado, finely chopped red onion, and some halved cherry tomatoes. 

The dressing was simple, olive oil with lime juice and salt. I didn't add any chili this time, but a finely chopped red chili would go beautifully.

And that is it!! all in the 8 minutes it took to cook the eggs.. :)

Chicken and anchovies... mmmmmmm

Chicken and anchovies. Oh so good... I explained how to make it back in 2013, and can't believe it is that long since we had it! Reminding myself of delicious dinners was the main reason that I started this blog, and it is times like this when it proves to be very useful indeed.

Of course, there are problems when you go to the fridge for the jar of anchovies you know are there, and suddenly remember that you ate them the week before.. but ... aha! there is that tube of anchovy paste that you bought last year in case of running out of anchovies in a jar ..now is that time :)

So go read the other recipe, and then sub a worm of anchovy paste about 3 ins long instead of the 5 anchovy fillets, all the rest is the same!

Baked cod with Herby Sourdough Crumbs and Cider Beurre Blanc

Three things I adore... Chunky cod, herby crumbs and beurre blanc.

Crumbs to top fish are so easy to make, and they add a really excellent texture to the softness of the fish.  They are just as good on a rack of lamb, or a vegetable gratin, so they are a useful thing to know how to make.

I had made some sourdough semolina bread... it was alright, but I wouldn't say it was amazing flavourwise.  Look.. it looks lovely doesn't it!

But it had almost no flavour and I was looking for a lovely wheaty depth from the semolina with just a tiny bit of sourdough tang. It had neither. It was just meh. So into the food processor it went and out came lovely chunky crumbs that I knew would be really crunchy when baked.

It is a matter of moments, though you probably do need a food processor or liquidiser to make the fresh breadcrumbs - sourdough isn't essential, I've even used packaged sliced bread to make this if that is all I have. In extremis you could use panko breadcrumbs though they won't have quite the right texture.

Finely chop and sweat an onion in a little oil -  don't let it brown - and then add a couple of ounces of butter and let that melt off the heat.  Add in enough breadcrumbs to make a sandy mixture.
Finely chop a fat handful of parsley - curly or flat leaf are both good - and add that with salt and pepper to the crumbs.

Grease a piece of parchment paper and lay the skinned fish fillets on it in a shallow baking dish.  Cover the fish with the crumbs patting them into place but not pushing them too flat, you want to keep the light crunch, not squash the bread into a flat pastry.  Bake the dish for 15 minutes then rest for a couple of minutes in a turned out oven whilst you make the beurre blanc sauce. Your fish should flake beautifully, and be lovely and pearly just like in the posh cookery shows..

It is rare that I bake or fry white fish without serving beurre blanc with it. The creamy yet sharp sauce brings out the very best in haddock or cod.   For this sauce I used cider, as I had it handy, but white wine is just as good.

Very finely chop a shallot and put into a small saucepan. Add a glass of white wine or cider and half a glass of white wine or cider vinegar. Don't season at this stage. Bring to a simmer and allow the liquid to reduce to about 3 tablespoons.  Off the heat, add around 70 grams of unsalted butter, cut into small chunks and swirl the pan to melt the butter into the reduced wine. Add a finely chopped handful of parsley or dill - or chervil if you can get it - and season to taste - I used a good pinch of Essential Cuisine fish stock powder.  Use fairly quickly whilst the butter is still creamy.