Rules can break your commitment

I’ve just seen on Face Book that my niece is starting a ’major health kick 28 day plan’. She says she is giving up smoking and alcohol (both excellent commitments to make!), and that she intends to cut out sugars and fats altogether.

Alarm bells are already sounding in my head! Very few people can set these kinds of limitations, all at once, and succeed.

The greater the number of stringent rules you make for yourself when committing to a diet or health regimen, the less likely you are to keep them up. The only rules – not even rules, but guidelines - you need to implement to lose weight and lead a healthier lifestyle are:
1. Make healthy food choices
2. Master portion control
3. Consume sufficient kilocalories/kilojoules
4. Introduce gentle exercise
5. Don’t set a time limit

Making healthy food choices means eating more fresh fruit and vegetables, and choosing whole grain products over their refined equivalents – whole grain bread and pasta, brown rice etc.

Mastering portion control is a little more difficult and takes a bit of time. Use the Google search tool above, type in ‘food groups’ and it will list all the posts I have written in the past about how much of what equals a portion, and how many portions of each food group your body needs in a day.

Eating enough is tied in to portion control. If you eat the number of portions from each food group, each day, you will be getting sufficient energy from a healthy variety of foods. When you radically limit the quantity and quality of the foods you ‘allow’ yourself, you will be hungry, tired and quickly get depressed and down on yourself. All foods are 'allowed' - just watch your portion sizes.

Introducing gentle exercise is as easy as parking on the far side of the lot, before walking briskly into the mall or shopping centre, where you will use the stairs in preference to the lift or escalator.

Don’t set a time limit. You will more than likely set an unrealistic goal, not be able to meet it, and get despondent. You will lose faith in yourself, be de-motivated and give up on the whole idea! Slow and steady attains the goal – it’s not a race. Changing too much all at once means you have too much to think about and consider every time you want to eat.

Have a great weekend.

Chicken Ukraine : Wk18/5

Serves 4 : Easy : Quick

Ingredients
4 skinless chicken breast fillets

2 Tblsp chopped parsley
1 garlic clove, crushed
2 tsp olive oil

1 slice whole wheat bread, crumbed
Chicken spice

Method
Preheat the oven to 180ºc.
Spray a baking tray with non-stick cooking spray.

Slit the chicken breasts three-quarters of the way through horizontally, so that they open like a book.
Mix the parsley, garlic and oil together.
Spread the parsley mix over one ‘page’ of each chicken breast, and close each ‘book’.
Place the chicken on the baking tray.
Press the fresh breadcrumbs on the top of each fillet.
Sprinkle with chicken spice.

Bake the chicken at 180ºc for twenty five minutes.

Cut each fillet in half diagonally.
Serve with a fresh mixed salad.

Link to .pdf files for Week 19

Go here for the recipes and shopping list for Week 19.

Potatoes

Wikipedia tells me that potatoes are the world’s fourth largest food crop, after rice, wheat and maize; and that nearly a third of the world’s potatoes are harvested in China and India! The average global citizen, over the last decade, will have consumed 33kg of potatoes per year.

I remember, with delight, that as a child I went to firework displays and stood round the bonfire burning my fingers and mouth on baked potatoes, but I have never baked a potato in foil, in the oven, in all my (many) years of cooking. I usually do them in the microwave in a little water, but they are just not the same cooked like that. From the oven they come out fluffy and the skin goes a bit crispy. What is the secret? Maybe it’s best that I never find out, otherwise I would be cooking them every day!

A few years ago the potatoes in this country were packaged and labeled as ‘suitable for’, so I could buy potatoes specifically for baking or mashing or chips or boiling. That labeling seems to have fallen away and our supermarkets now stock potatoes graded only by size. I like to buy the ‘medium’ size (about the size of a tennis ball), they usually weigh about 120gms each which is a handy portion for one person. If you mash them, of course, they shrink before your eyes and it looks like you should’ve cooked two per person instead of one.

I’ve recently been experimenting with mashed potatoes and found that they bulk up very nicely and look and taste more interesting if you combine them with something else. By adding white beans you can retain the texture and colour while adding to the flavour. Peas and mint, broad beans or soya beans change the texture and colour, and keep the kilocalories/kilojoules down. Spinach is very good too, but then you should ‘crush’ rather than mash. Try leaving the skins on, too (anything to save peeling!)

If you want creaminess in your mash, reach for natural fat free yoghurt or smooth cottage cheese, or a little bit of low fat mayo. Add some spices – nutmeg is very good and wholegrain mustard makes an interesting addition. And a teaspoon of baking powder in your mash is supposed to make it light and fluffy.

You know how left over mash picks up a funny taste in the fridge? Mash in some sweet potato and that taste won’t appear.

Four B roast : Wk18/4

Serves 4 : Easy : Time depends on size of joint.

Ingredients
1 x Aitchbone beef roasting joint

Freshly ground black pepper
2 tsp beef stock powder

400gm potatoes
1 head broccoli
1 large butternut, peeled and cut in chunks
250gm green beans

2 cups water
½ cup wine

1 – 2 Tblsp maizena

Method
Pour the water and wine into a shallow ovenproof dish.
Stand the roast on a rack over the water dish.
Spray the meat with non-stick cooking spray.
Grind black pepper over, and sprinkle with stock powder.
Put in the oven at 160ºc for 45 minutes per kilo, plus an extra 20 minutes.
(The meat should be moist and still slightly pink in the middle.)

Meanwhile boil, steam or microwave the vegetables.
Keep warm once they are cooked.

When the meat is done to your liking, remove from the oven and cover with foil.
Allow to stand for 10 minutes before carving

Tip the juices from the water dish into a small sauce pan.
Add a little more beef stock powder, and thicken with the maizena.

Serve with Dijon mustard or horseradish sauce.

I found this joint sulking in the bottom of my chest freezer, and thought I had better use it up! I have some left over for sandwich lunches.
Aitchbone is a close grained cut. Don’t overcook it, it will just go tough.
The ‘Four B’ name comes from the Butternut, Broccoli, Beans and Beef.
There is no need to preheat the oven. Turn it on when you put the roast in.

Warming Food

I am afraid that winter has come early to the southern hemisphere. As I sit here, I am dressed in a spencer, a lamb’s wool jersey and a tracksuit top plus pantyhose, denims and slippers. And I am cold.
There is nothing like being cold to increase the appetite – especially for starchy foods: mountains of creamy mashed potato and thick slices of hot toast dripping butter! There’s nothing the matter with either potatoes or toast, it’s just what you eat with them (and the amount you eat) that can be a problem.

My favourite food solution to the winter chills is soup, it’s warming and satisfying and oh, so easy to make. I operate on the ‘rusty nail’ principle (remember the children’s story?) Here’s how I go about it.

I pour at least 1 ½ liters of water into a large saucepan and put it on the stove to heat.
Then I toss in 150gms of mixed dried peas, lentils and barley.
And 1 Tblsp of stock powder.

Next comes the ‘what’s in the fridge’ part.
Could be I have:
2 large carrots – scrubbed, topped and tailed, chopped
Celery – 2 stalks, scrubbed and sliced, leaves and all
Turnip – 1 or 2, scrubbed, topped and tailed, chopped
Leeks – 2 - well washed and sliced
Butternut – about ½ peeled and chopped
Green beans – end of the packet, looking a bit sad, topped and tailed and chopped
Courgettes – 3 – 4 topped and tailed and chopped
Aubergine – 1 peeled and chopped
I add these to my simmering pot as I prepare them.

Now, what’s in the store cupboard?
A can of chopped tomatoes with onion
A can of chick peas, cannellini, kidney- or butter beans, mixed beans (1 can, contents rinsed and drained)
Pasta? 1 cup of pasta – shells, alphabet shapes, broken spaghetti – sometimes I use rice.
These are unceremoniously added to the pot.

I check to see if I have enough water in there (add more if necessary), then I cover the pan and while it simmers away for 25 minutes or so, I dig a loaf of crusty bread out of the freezer and put it in the oven to thaw and re-crisp (about 20 mins at 180ºc). And I’ll maybe take the cheese out of the fridge – you get a better flavour when it is not so cold.

Once I’m ready to serve I blitz the soup with my hand blender – just 3 or four times, I’m not trying to puree it, only thicken the stock. Voila - wonderfully tasty, warming, filling, healthy soup.

Do you have a ‘rusty nail’ soup recipe? You can use any or all of the ingredients I’ve listed, and plenty of others. What are your essential soup ingredients?

Sweet and sour fish : Wk18/3

Serves 4 : Easy : Quick

Ingredients

500gm smoked haddock, skinless
1 onion, quartered and thickly sliced
150gm button mushrooms, sliced
1 green pepper, cut into cubes
1 ±410gm tin chopped tomatoes
1 ±220gm tin pineapple pieces in fruit juice
60ml cider vinegar
3 Tblsp soy sauce
1 Tblsp tomato puree
2 Tblsp maizena
250ml water

240gm rice

Method
Put the rice on to cook in lightly salted boiling water.
Once cooked, drain and keep warm.

Cut the haddock into chunks.
In a bowl, mix together the maizena, soy, vinegar, tomato puree and water.

Spray a large pan with non-stick cooking spray.
Put the onion pieces, mushrooms and peppers into the pan.
Dry fry for a few minutes, then add the tomatoes and pineapple pieces and juice.
Add the fish pieces.
Simmer for 10 minutes.
Add the combined maizena and liquids.
Allow the sauce to thicken while stirring.

Serve the sweet and sour fish over the rice.

As a side dish, I served home-made Chinese pickles with this.