Meatless Meals

I sometimes find myself going through a meatless phase. I don't know why but very often when I make a meatless meal, (I don't say vegetarian as I almost always use a meat stock) I find I don't miss it at all.

Using lentils in particular make a meal seem almost meaty. Cheese will give a similar result.



I am doing lots of cookery demos at the moment for older people and some young and this was a huge hit.  

Spinach Leek and Ricotta Lasagne

Filling
1 large red onion sliced
3 leeks washed and finely sliced
1 clove of garlic crushed
1 pack of spinach washed
1 250g ricotta (use as much or as little as you like)

Tomato sauce
1 red onion diced
1 clove garlic crushed
Few sprigs fresh thyme (leaves only)
1 tin of chopped tomatoes or passata
Splash of red wine (optional)

Sheets of lasagne
1 or 2 fresh Mozarella balls
Fresh Parmesan grated

Method
Make tomato sauce first by cooking onions and garlic until soft in a little oil. Season. Add thyme and tin of tomatoes and cook down until thickened slightly (about 20 mins).

While the tomato sauce is simmering, in a large frying pan saute the onions, leek and garlic for a few minutes until softened. Season. Add spinach and cook until it is just wilted. Drain off any excess liquid. Cool slightly and stir in ricotta cheese. If you want a lower calorie option you can use a reduced fat creme fraiche.

fabulous contrast in colours

Stir in the ricotta

Layer up tomato sauce, sheets of lasagne and the filling in an oven proof dish. Finish with a layer of tomato sauce and scatter torn pieces of the mozarella. Finish with some parmesan grated.

One for now, one for later

Place in oven at 180C fan for about 25 minutes or until the lasagne feels cooked when pricked with a knife.

Any extra is suitable for home freezing.

Delicious readily available ingredients (chard in place of spinach)

Update on Slimming World

My weaponry

Three weeks in and I've shed 8lbs or 3.63kg. That's eight packs of butter to put it in context. Try picking up eight packets of butter and see what that's like.

Apart from the first few days it hasn't really been that difficult. I did notice I had very little energy at stages in the second week and think this was due to the reduction in carbohydrates. When I say carbs I mean bread at lunchtime particularly.

I had asked what SW's take on sourdough bread, but had to do a bit of research myself to get the answer. SW assume (probably rightly) that the vast majority of people eat white sliced pan (with added hydrogenated fat) or homemade brown bread with refined white flour, which they do. So I was advised as it was bread it should be "synned".

I did a bit of research myself and from what I can gather if you make your own sourdough using flours such as spelt, rye, kamut, the glycaemic index is as low as wholewheat pasta and so could be also considered a free food. Even using conventional wheat flour it still has a lower GI due to the presence of lactic acid.

Pasta is made from durum wheat, which is a less refined variety of wheat and has a higher protein and gluten content. Slimming World allows you to eat pasta as a "free food" because of it's higher glycaemic index. But, if you do a bit of digging into this you get very varying information. Basically what I can glean is that the less refined the pasta is the better. Also the thicker it is (penne as opposed to spaghetti) and the less it is cooked, al dente as the Italians eat it, is the way to go. I think using wholewheat pasta would be a better choice.

I also am not convinced that white rice should be "free". White rice is really, really refined. I have switched to using brown rice completely.

I have used nuts, almonds in particular when I was wavering and feeling particularly hungry. I saw a programme on Channel 4 (I think) that proved that although nuts contain a lot of (good) fats the method of calculating the calories may be inaccurate, so they contain 20% less than originally calculated at least. And also we are incapable of digesting and metabolising all of the fat. 

I have not trimmed every scrap of fat off my meat. Actually this would be impossible as my own pork is quite fatty. I am still using rape seed oil and pork lard for frying albeit a lot less than before. I am still making roast potatoes or oven chips using pork lard. I use butter sparingly as well.

The biggest thing I have given up is sugar. The only sugar I use is a good big teaspoon full of muscovado on my porridge. I still haven't managed to find out how many "syns" muscovado sugar has but I know it's less than refined sugar. I'm working on it.

For breakfast I measure out two tablespoons of organic porridge oats. I used to use four. I add blackberries picked and frozen last September. I add a half a dessertspoon of ground flax seed and a teaspoon of mixed seeds and muscovado sugar. Sometimes I slice a banana into it if I'm feeling hungry. I use a smaller amount of full fat organic milk. SW says the seeds, and any more than 175ml of the milk must be "synned". I don't bother. I figure I'd rather eat something good for me and lose weight slower.

Lunch, a bowl of homemade soup using my own stock (I don't "syn" this either) and a couple of boiled eggs.

Dinner, I find I'm eating more vegetarian as I can use lots of beans, lentils and even vegetables to fill up on.

In the evening, which was when I used to get longings for sugary stuff, I now eat a big bowl of fruit with a few dollops of Glenisk full fat organic Greek style yoghurt. I really don't buy this "syn-free" Mueller light with lots of sugar replacing the fat.

As I said before the bulk of SW's advise is sound. But the main reason I am doing it is for the discipline of having to weigh in. It sure puts manners on me at the weekend when I'm tempted to open a bottle of wine. I am still having a couple of glasses for a weekend treat. A couple is fine, it's when I finish the bottle that all willpower goes out the window and the fridge gets raided for cheese and crackers.

I also read here that alcohol is not as fattening as once claimed. I discovered accidentally before that a couple of glasses of red did nothing to hinder my weight loss. I thought it was just me but maybe not.

I just have to keep this routine up now and not give up as I have every time before going back to my old habits.

For optimum weight loss and for health benefits cut out sugar and all wheat flour even wholewheat completely would be my advise. Switch to spelt which has not been bred to become nothing but an empty refined carbohydrate source.

Butcher or Bin Man

This Italian-style sausage was made using off-cuts from my last pig slaughtered. When I say off-cuts I mean pieces of meat that my butcher was casually carving off the shoulder I had asked him for and binning. I stood chatting to him not really registering what he was doing. But then I shouted stop. He looked startled then amused. He fished the pieces out of the bin and bagged them up for me still looking amused.

I thought about it afterwards. How far have we come from The Famine? I mean have we actually progressed at all? 

How have we become so casual about food waste? How have we got to the stage that we bin perfectly good meat because we can't be bothered doing anything with it?

With these pieces of meat I made an Italian-style sausage. I just looked up a recipe and loosely followed it. I know now I added too much salt but apart from that it was really good. I wrapped it in cling film and left it in the fridge for a couple of weeks. I then used my small vacuum packer and vac packed it and cooked it in a water bath for an hour at just under simmering point. I left it in the fridge again for another week.

I can't find the recipe again as I really had no idea what it would be like and was just trying this out as an experiment. I do know there were dried herbs (I used Herbs de Provence that I bought last year in the south of France), paprika, chilli flakes and garlic powder and lots and lots of salt. The pork cuttings were from the shoulder and had a good coating of fat. Essential to carry flavour.

Italian sausage and bean casserole

I made a pork and borlotti bean type casserole with the sausage to serve with pasta. It had lots of red wine and garlic and the usual mirepoix.

I really wish I could butcher my own pigs because to be honest, when you go to the trouble to feed them and care for them the way I do, it really galls to think a butcher can casually bin any part of them.

Next time I will go over to my butcher and gather up all the off-cuts to make some more. I have since found this recipe here.

It's not the same as the last time but the great thing about making sausages is it is all trial and error. Just don't do what I did and lose the recipe.