Tag: weight

Sweet vinaigrette.

Recipe

Extra virgin Greek olive oil 1/4 cup
Mirin 4 tbsp
Braggs cloudy apple cider vinegar 1/8 cup
Fine table salt to taste
Fine ground white pepper to taste
White granulated sugar 1/4 tsp
Dijon mustard 1/2 tsp

put in a jar with a lid and shake well till thick and emulsified.

This vinaigrette it is delicious, and not too sour.

Vinaigrette is all about the balance, the exact measure of oil, sweet, sour and salt, with a hint of spiciness.
I find the taste is quite different depending on the exact elements us use, should it be a Greek extra virgin olive oil or do I go for the Spanish which has quite a different flavour?
The mustard, well, just how many kinds of mustard are there?
Some are delicious in vinaigrette and some are only edible on hot dogs.
They can be rough ground or smooth, sweet or very salty, each make is completely different and adds a totally different flavour profile to the vinaigrette.

As for vinegars, there is possibly even more variation, white wine vinegar, Japanese rice wine vinegar, apple cider vinegar. Each with its own unique flavour, so experiment, decide which one to use to get the exact flavour you are looking for.

Sugar, each variety has its own unique flavour, white granulated in this case which has very little flavour, but just adds sweetness. There is deep dark muscovado, or demerara and also jaggery. All these have their own uses, and flavour recipes differently. Sweetners of all kinds have a unique effect on every dish you add them to.

Even salts have subtle flavours from table salt to black Hawaiian or pink himalayan to fleur de sel, and there are more.
I use them all in different recipes and in different ways.

Therefore I think it is important that we are clear in recipes which kind we use, which ones make the exact flavour profile we are looking for.
Each variation in the ingredients gives a variation to the flavour profile of the finished vinaigrette, sauce or dish.

So there are two recipes today

The basic recipe is

oil
vinegar
mustard
salt
pepper
sugar

This gives you the basic ingredients, and the one for todays sweet vinaigrette above, which gives you the exact recipe.

Good luck with experimenting and getting the balance right.
Every time you make a vinaigrette you can try a different mustard, a different oil a different vinegar and so on, and each time get a different vinaigrette.

That is the art of cooking, to experiment with a known recipe, technique or principle and find out what you like best or what goes best with the rest of your dish.
Dare to be different, you can even play with the proportions.
Do you want more mustard? Less salt or more sugar or oil?
What if you use honey or add celery salt instead?

Try it.

This recipe is great with all kinds of fresh salads, we ate it with little gem lettuce cucumber slices and cherry tomatoes, with a sprinkling of finely chopped spring onion.

Let me know how you get on

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.

Summer heat

As we head towards the end of August, we wait for the heat to stop, for coolness to arrive, morning early, evening late, to at last make the hot days manageable again.

Food is not really on our minds, coolness is, a perfect time for fruit, salads, ice creams.

And lots and lots of liquids, water being the best.

Drink enough water, cool, clear, crisp, clean. Chaudfontaine, Perrier, Spa, there are so many delicious waters to try. They all taste different, try some and find out.

 

I have been eating fruit, mostly.
It’s the best,
cool, sweet, simple.

Fruit requires no more work than a quick cut of the knife.
Eat raspberry, melon, watermelon, strawberries, grapes, apples, now apples are really crisp and cool.

Try something you don’t usually eat, passionfruit, papaya, dragon fruit or cactus fruit. I have, not just as they are, but chopped up and mixed in delicious bowls of fruit salad. They need nothing else.
Delicious new flavours, wonderful sweetness without the bane of refined sugars, which like cheese we know we shouldn’t really eat.

Fruit.

Quite possibly the healthiest food on the planet.

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?

Vegan mayonnaise

recipe

I’ve mentioned it often enough. My vegan mayonnaise recipe. So here it is. I eat this almost every day. It keeps well in a closed jar or pot in the fridge and there are many variations. Mayonnaise is a good basic recipe which can be changed and tweaked for different flavours. Add garlic and it becomes aioli, add herbs for freshness, add spices for curry flavour or a chilli hit. The choice is yours. Change the kind of oil you use or the kind of sweetner, the vinegar or citrus. Use orange instead of lemon, or use lime, or white balsamic vinegar. The variations are endless.

Dare to experiment, you will soon find the one that works for you.

There are two ways you can mix this. The newer one is to throw it all together with the oil on top and stick blend it in one go. This does not work so well for me. I use the slow method.

First add all the ingredients, except the oil. I give this a blend first to get a soft frothy little mixture.

Then using a stick blender I slowly add the oil and mix it all carefully so it does not split. Do not rush.

Aquafaba. I use the water from a tin of chickpeas, but it can be the water from any kind of tinned beans. Or if you boil up your own beans after soaking them overnight you can try cooling and using that aquafaba. After much experimentation I have found that tinned chickpea water works best for me.

The original recipe calls for a 1/2 tsp vinegar white wine vinegar or apple cider vinegar. I use all lemon juice

Vegetable oil, Avocado oil, peanut oil sunflower oil. I have found that sunflower oil works best for me. I never use rapeseed oil.

Mustard, here you can use any kind of mustard you like, Dijon is my favourite.

The original recipe calls for maple syrup but any kind of sweetner will work, honey or even crystal stevia. I now use a powder or icing sugar.

1 cup sunflower oil.
1/4 cup chickpea aquafaba
1/4 tsp fine table salt
1 and 1/2 tsp fresh squeezed lemon juice
1/4 tsp dijon mustard
1 tsp icing sugar

technique.
Mix all the ingredients except the oil and give it a light whisk till it lightly foams.
Slowly drizzle in the oil mixing well all the time to create a soft thick mass.
Put the mixture in a pot or jar with a tightly closing lid and keep in the fridge.

Good luck, Mayonnaise can be tricky!

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!