Tag: baking

White bread

I just ate the last one

A Kaiser roll – the hell of white bread – probably the unhealthiest thing I eat.

I shall have to quit all bread – especially the Kaiser roll
Ooh and my other favourite the croissant
Ooh! And there is the chocolate croissant too – I also love that – and French bread delicious!
And I like those little whole-wheat crackers you can put anything on
melba toast they are called – yes I love them too

I also love sesame seed knakerbrood. (crispbread or cracker to you)

In fact I am a total knakerbrood fan
I have ta least five varieties in my knakerbrood tin on the kitchen counter where I can easily get at them.

These are foods I will have to drop for the duration
perhaps forever
I know that as I go on with this diet I will loose the taste for them
as I did when I was backpacking around Southeast Asia
where you only get rice and there is no bread.

It worked

But it also worked because I was carrying an 11 kilo backpack and walking everywhere.

So this is how it’s going to be, the crackers can wait, they keep forever.
The bread is all now gone – there is none in the house and no more is entering the house.

I just hope my husband doesn’t start baking his glorious whole-wheat loaves again
they are irresistible.

Baba Ganoush

Otherwise known as Aubergine dip or if you don’t even use the word Aubergine, eggplant dip.

A delicious middle eastern recipe that is also simple to make, very nutritious as well as delicious.

It is also possible to play with the flavour profile by adding spices and herbs or even other vegetables.

The recipe.

2 Aubergines
2 cloves of garlic
40ml of olive oil, or 2 tbsp
1/4 tsp coriander
1/4 tsp cumin
40ml Tahini or 2 tbsp
juice of a lemon
salt to taste
finely chopped parsley to finnish.

Grill or roast the Aubergines whole for 35 – 40 minutes, or until blackened and soft.
Allow to cool completely.
Peel or scoop out the flesh.

put all the ingredients into the blender except the parsley,
and mix till it’s a smooth luscious paste.
season to taste, and serve with the chopped parsley sprinkled on top.

super easy and greet as a snack with crackers.

Enjoy.

Focaccia, the easy recipe

It is actually incredibly easy to make focaccia.
Give it a try, it is the easiest type of bread to make, anyone can do it.

Before you put it in the oven you can cover it with any topping you like.
This one has tiny tomatoes, chopped black olives and oregano.

Try garlic, onions, rosemary, herbes de provence, chopped courgette or aubergine, paprika, chilli or even kapers.
Dare to experiment. Mix it up for a different eating experience every time.

Here is the recipe.

500g white flour
400ml (warm) water
1 sachet instant yeast
8 tbsp olive oil (and some extra)
1 tsp salt

topping
Tomatoes sliced
oregano
black olives, chopped
olive oil

technique.

First dust a work surface with flour ready for the kneading.

Oil and flour a large flat baking sheet, (16 by 12 inches).

In a large bowl mix the flour, yeast and salt and add the water slowly while you mix to get a soft liquid dough. Use your hands as this is such fun. However a wooden spoon also works.

Pour all the dough out onto the floured surface and knead for about five minutes. It should become smooth and stretchy.

Oil the bowl liberally and put the dough back in it, cover with a cloth and leave to rise for about an hour.

Pour the almost liquid bubbling dough into the baking tin and spread it out evenly with the fingertips,
Don’t worry if it deflates a bit as you push it into the corners.

Cover and leave it to rise for 45 minutes.

Heat the oven at 240c or 465f or gas mark 9 to be ready for the focaccia.

Make holes in the top by poking with the fingertips for the authentic focaccia look and cover with some more oil, add your toppings last, in this case olives, tomatoes and oregano.

Bake for 30 minutes.
When you take it out of the oven add some sea salt and more olive oil.

Eat this warm!

Don’t be afraid of yeast, this recipe always works.

a few tips.
Massage some oil into your hands before kneading, this usually helps to stop the dough sticking.
Do not leave the rising dough in a draft, yeast hates that, as well as the cold. a warm dark spot is best.
Always cover with a clean tea towel.
To avoid the tea towel sticking during the second rise, oil the surface of the dough first.
Make sure tho oven is already hot when you are ready to bake the focaccia.

Let me know how you get on.

The diet game



Most of us have been on a diet at one time or another

I think I must consistently be on an overeating diet. I eat just what I like when I like. I do try to do meal planning because I have to shop for the food. However I never stick to it. I open the fridge every day and see what is there, from this point I choose what I feel like preparing today.

It’s always too much.

So the trick would be to create smaller meals, dish up smaller portions, use smaller plates. This, however only leads me to go back to the kitchen later and find something else to eat.

I appear to have no control over my appetite, I wonder if anybody has any control, at all, really.

I avoid the scales, and wear stretch jeans and long flowing tops to hide the bulging stomach. I hide my body, I am scared of wearing a bikini, and I hate that.
Yet I still overeat, nothing I read or decide or do changes the amount I eat, as if my body and all its organs are ganging up on me. Is this true? Am I really not in control? Is anyone at all in control?

We all should know by now that diets don’t work, fad diets, crash diets, calorie controlled diets, low carb diets, keto diets, vegan diets, even the no-diet diet, I could go on and on, and on.
It’s a trap, it’s a game, we cannot win, we cannot break even, but we can get out of the game.

I enjoy food too much to stop eating it, all of it, as much as I can manage to stuff down me as it’s all delicious. I am a good cook, my husband is a good cook, the restaurants we go to have excellent cooks, in fact they are such good cooks they are called chefs.

How to get out of the diet game? I believe it lies on the plane of enjoyment and going for the healthy options, which are always more delicious than any kind of junk food. Remember you are what you eat, so I’m made mostly but not only of vegetables, which sounds pretty cool. We can enjoy our food and not overeat if we stick to a few simple actions and decisions. All of which are hard to make as we are all creatures of habit.

I didn’t say it was easy, changing habits never is.

Change by doing all of the above, and above all savour every morsel, taste every mouthful, eat slowly letting the taste buds do the work they were meant to do. Restrain yourself from gorging no matter how delicious, change the habitual way you eat, where, when, how and what.

You’ll be lucky! It’s a game, but can you win? Is it an unchangeable  way of life? I can’t sustain this diet game, can you?

Welcome

Hello sweethearts, just wanted to welcome you to my blog.

Mostly about food.

I came by the title in my adventures as a health conscious foodie.
I found that I could be a perfect vegan for quite long periods of time; except for cheese.
It was very hard for me to stop eating cheese as I was addicted to it
Since being a perfect vegan required that I stop I found a way to do so.
However I have fallen from my perfect foodie pedestal often, because of cheese.

The thing is I really like my health, I also really love food.

All kinds of food.

I would prefer to be a perfect vegan at all times,
it’s not as if I could go straight for the carnivore diet, I don’t even like meat that much.
Mostly i’m really suspicious of meat (was that really run down on the road today?)

And I’m also a social coward so when someone dishes up platefulls of delicious traditional fodder they have spent hours preparing in hot steamy kitchens I feel obliged to try some before quietly mentioning I actually prefer vegetables.

Yes, vegetables.

The look of horror on their faces is sometimes quite surprising, then they always ask.
“Where do you get your protein from?”
They don’t even KNOW that proteins are made by plants, they really believe they all come from animals. How crazy is that! And they also can’t work out why I haven’t dropped dead yet from malnutrition and how come I am so strong? They find this all very suspicious. but that’s OK, the message gets across.

And yes, I still sometimes accidentally eat cheese and sometimes other bits of dead animals too.

It’s a big secret.

But please don’t tell, I wouldn’t want it to become a habit.

This site is mostly about my adventures with food, recipes, eating out, and general dieting.

Some nutritional science might be alluded to.

It is also about staying healthy and all the circumstantial evidence which might actually support how to do this.

I hope you enjoy!