5:2 diet: vegetarian fast days 3&4

I’m quite busy at the moment, so day 3 and 4 will have to be jammed together into one post. Fasting is getting both easier and harder, which, I know, is an oxymoron. It’s easier, because I now know exactly what to expect in the day, the hunger and moods and all. But it’s also harder, because I know exactly what to expect, the moods and hunger and all.

Then there’s fact that I’m not really loosing weight, which is making me question the whole experiment. In the two weeks, I didn’t even loose a kg. I lost somewhere between 5 dkg and 8 dkg, which seems like almost nothing and I’m not even really sinning on the non fast days. (Ok, maybe I am, but by drinking way too much craft beer which always seems better than cakes, even though it’s more or less exactly the same or even worse, with the alcohol and all)

Anyway, tomorrow I’m planning on day 5 and I feel a cold coming on. If I wake up tomorrow feeling like shit, I’ll probably give up on the whole diet. If I feel OK, I’ll definitely fast, because some friends are coming over tonight and I made banofee pie;)

Anyway, here’s my fast days 3 and 4.

Breakfast 3: Cinnamon apple oatmeal (142)

20 g oats (71 cal) + 1 apple (71 cal)

Breakfast 4: apple&yoghurt&cereal (162 cal)

10 g malted wheats (34 cal) + apple (71 cal)+ 0 fat yogurt (57 cal)

Lunch 3: Cous cous with creamy mushrooms (200 cal)

1 tso olive oil (40 cal) + 50g onions (20 cal) + garlic clove (5 cal) + 5 g dried porcini mushrooms (14 cal) + 150 g chestnut mushrooms (48 cal) + 50g 0 fat greek yoghurt (29 cal) + 25 g couscous (40) cal

Soak the porcinis in about 1 dcl of water. Chop everything that needs chopping, heat the oil, add the onions and garlic, saute for 5 minutes. Then add the chestnut mushrooms and the now rehydrated porcinis (chopped if they are big) and just enough of the water the porcinis were soaked in to cover everything. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Cook on low heat for about 5 minutes. Prepare the cous cous in the mean time. Just before serving, mix the yoghurt into the mushrooms. Serve topped with a bit of chopped parsley.

Lunch 4:Chick pea curry (141 cal)

100g drained check peas (72 cal) + 100 g frozen spinach (26 cal) + 100 g chopped tomatoes (22 cal) + 40 g white onion (16 cal) + 1 clove garlic (5 cal) + 1 tsp curry powder ,1/2 tsp fenugreek, ½ tsp cumin + ½ tsp mustrad seeds (lets say 0)

In a nonstick skillet saute the chopped onion, garlic and spice with a tbsp of water for 5 minutes. Add al other ingredients and cook for 20 minutes.

Dinner 3: Mixed baby greens and egg salad (140 cal)

2 cups mixed baby greens (15 cal) + 1 small egg (60 cal) + 15 g 0 fat greek yoghurt (10 cal)+ juice of half lemon (5) + 2 tsp mixed seeds (50 cal)

Dinner 4: Broccoli stir fry (204 cal)

1 clove garlic (5cal) 50g yellow bell pepper (16 cal) + 50g carrot (20 cal) + 150 g broccoli (49 cal) + 50 g tofu (38 cal) + 5 ml sesame oil (41 cal) + 1 tsp mixed seed (25 cal) + 1 tbsp soy sauce (10 cal)

Heat the oil, add garlic, add carrot and bell pepper, fry for 3 minutes, add broccoli, a bit of water and soy sauce, fry for 5 minutes. add tofu, cook 3 more minutes. sprinkle with seeds before serving.

5:2 Diet: vegetarian fast day 2

My second fast day is done! Just as the first one, and probably most of the rest is going to be, this one was vegetarian. It was slightly tougher than the last, because I also had full on PMS. And that always makes me crave fatty foods. Contrary to what you may think,  I did get them, in a way, because I had some tasty cauliflower and cheese for dinner:) (yes, again, there was room fr cheese in the 500 calories. Isn’t that amazing?)

On the weight loss front, absolutely nothing is happening. I have more or less the exact same weight I had when I started a week ago. I’m also blaming PMS for that, because it always feels like my ankles absorb a ton of water from the air, because it’s so much more fun for everyone when they’re swollen.. So I’ll give it another week and if nothing changes till then, I’ll stop with the diet and try out something else.

Anyway, here’s what I ate on fast day 2:

Breakfast: Scrambled eggs with veggies – 141 cal

50 g chestnut mushrooms (16 cal) + 50 g yellow bell pepper (16 cal) + 50g white onion (20 g) + 1 medium egg (88 cal)

Lunch: Minestrone with barley – 151 cal

100g chopped tomatoes (22 cal) + 50g leeks (12 cal) +50g frozen peas (33 cal) + 100 g celery sticks (10 g) + 50 g carrots (22 cal) + 15 g instant barley (52 cal)

(Chop the veggies, put in a pan, add tomatoes, some basil, oregano and seasoning, cover with water and cook for 10 minutes. Add barley and cook for 10-15 more minutes)

Dinner: Cauliflower&cheese – 200 cal

5g butter (32 cal) + 5g pastry flour (18 cal) + 15 g mature light cheddar (46 cal) + 75 ml semi skimmed milk (18 cal) + 200 g cauliflower (76 cal) + 1/2 tsp wholegrain mustard (around 10)

Cook the cauliflower for 10 minutes, save some of the water. Melt the butter, add the flour and milk and cook until it thickens. Add ¾ of the cheese, mustard, salt and pepper. If the sauce is too thick, add a bit of the cauliflower water. Put the cauliflower in an oven proof dish, pour the sauce over and grate the rest of the cheese on top. Bake for 20 minutes on 180. I made 2 servings of this, because my boyfriend also had it for dinner (with some steak, obviously:)), and I would recommend you do the same, otherwise the amounts of everything you’re using are so small, it gets hard to cook.

Ps: I’m using the android app “My fitness pal” to calculate all of the calorie values, just so you know where I get the numbers from. I hope it’s accurate. It has this cool feature where you just scan a bar-code and the app has the product with all of its nutritional info in the database, which makes a lot of things a lot easier.

(traditional Slovenian) Wild Mushroom and Potato Soup

If you were to ask me what a traditional dish from where I come from is, I’d probably say Potica, because it’s what every Slovenian says from the top of their head. And I would then explain to you that’s it’s a cake and all of it’s variations and … But then you might ask me about savoury dishes and I’d probably have to take a minute to think about my answer. It’s hard to define our culinary national identity, lots of the dishes we claim are “ours”, you can also find all around central and eastern Europe. But then I’d remember this wonderful soup, so simple and ubiquitous in the specific area where I come from (The area around the Pohorje mountain), no-one probably even thinks about it as anything special. Every shady restaurant will serve a variation in mushroom season (late spring-early autumn), but if you’d actually take the time to go to one of the mountain cottages (they’re usually quite large and can host more than a hundred people, the “cottage” part is just an expression) you’d get something so delicious, you’d speak about it for years. (Just ask my friend D….).

Traditionally it would be served with one of the best things that ever came out of a kitchen, something I’m going to call buckwheat polenta, because I don’t think the word “Žganci” has an actual translation. You make it by cooking coarse buckwheat flour until you get something resembling potato mash – but because I had no buckwheat flour on hand, I couldn’t make it here and won’t write a real recipe until I try it with available products (In Slovenia you can obviously buy a product called buckwheat žganci). Then on top of the poletna and soup, you’d get a large spoonful of ocvirki – pig fat and cracklings, which is pretty much the only thing in the world that’s slightly better than bacon.

Anyway, here’s the recipe for the soup part of the dish. It has potatoes in there, so the buckwheat is more a luxury than a necessity and if you really wanted to have something meaty in there (and didn’t have “ocvirki”) you could add bacon lardons and that would probably be almost as good as the version you’d get on Pohorje. My version also had carrots in it, because I feel guilty if there’s almost no vegetables in my dinner and because that’s how I’m used to making it.

You’ll need

(for 2 hungry people if it’s a main, 4 if it’s a starter)

• 2 cups wild mushrooms, cleaned and cut into strips (I had 4 porcinis and 1 chantarell that I brought back with me from Slovenia. The soup is better with more chantarells, but it’s really tasty with just porcinis. Using store bought button mushrooms would probably produce something good to, but that just wouldn’t be the same.)
• 1 cup diced potatoes (very small dice. Around 0.5 cm)
• 2 medium carrots, diced
• 1 medium brown onion, diced
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 tsp dried majoram (or use oregano, but than use ¾ tsp. They are basically the same, oregano is just a bit stronger)
• 1 bunch of fresh parsley
• around 700 ml (3 cups) vegetable stock
• around 100 ml (around 1/2cup) dry white wine, preferably from the north east of Slovenia;) (if you don’t want to open a bottle of wine, use around a tbsp of white wine vinegar and add more stock)
• 3 tbsp soured cream
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tbsp butter
• salt and pepper to taste

1. In a soup pan heat the oil and butter and add the onions and carrots. Saute on medium heat until the onion gets translucent. Add potatoes, saute for 2 minutes.

2. Add the garlic, saute until you can smell it (30 seconds) then add the mushrooms. Add a good pinch of salt and saute for 5 minutes, all while mixing everything gently. (don’t break the mushrooms into too small pieces)

3. Add enough stock to cover all of the dry ingredients and the oregano and let simmer for 15 minutes or until the potatoes are cooked. In the meantime chop parsley.

4. Add the white wine or vinegar (it is VERY important to wait with the wine until the potatoes are cooked. If you add acid to cooking potatoes they magically won’t cook at all), cream and a tbsp of parsley and cook for 5 more minutes.

5. Sprinkle with more fresh parsley, serve and enjoy.

6. Dober tek!;)

Whole Grain Wild Garlic & Cheddar Scones

Wild garlic season is my favourite season. Mostly because it’s also known as the beginning of spring, but the fact that some forests are lined with green luscious leaves that make the world smell like garlic isn’t bad either. Supposedly Great Britain is full of such forests, but I have no idea how to find them. I also read a blog or two about foraging in London, but the only forest in walking distance is an artificial one(for someone coming from a land that’s more than 50% forests it seems quite ridiculous that one would decide to plant a forest, mainly because one has nothing better to do) that frequently hosts illegal raves, so I don’t really like the idea of eating anything that grows there.

Luckily, I was on a short visit to Slovenia, and Norbs mother brought me some wild garlic she picked in the completely natural Slovenian forests and I brought it back home with me. I travelled with Wizz air and with the smallest possible luggage size so unfortunately I couldn’t bring tons of it, but just enough to make a few dishes. And for the first one I had to combine Slovenian products with British traditions. So I made scones. We’ve established that I’m almost a bit too fond of scones, I think I’ve also told you once or twice about how much I love garlic, so the fact that I made two batches in the last 3 days should not be a surprise to you. The second time, I even took some pictures of the process, to restart my blog with something amazing. So here’s the recipe:

Whole grain wild garlic&cheddar scones

You’ll need:

• 100 g self rising flour
• 100g whole grain flour
• 100 g butter (I use unsalted and add salt to the recipe, but use whatever you have on hand)
• 100 g cheddar, grated
• 1 handful of wild garlic leaves, roughly chopped
• 1/2 tsp backing powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• seasoning to taste
• 3/4 butter milk (or cup of milk+1 tsp neutral tasting acid (e.g. lemon juice, rice vinegar))
• 1 egg (optional)

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C and line a baking tray with parchment paper.

2.Combine the two flours with seasoning and both levelling agents.

3. Rub the flour and the butter together until most of the butter has been incorporated and you only have a few larger(pea sized) pieces left.

4. Add the wild garlic and cheddar, mix well.

5. Slowly add the butter milk until everything clumps together. You might not have to add the whole 3/4 cup or you might have to add more, that always depends on a number of factors.

6. Knock the mixture onto a large cutting board a shape a rough rectangle approximately 2 centimetres thick.

7. Cut out the scones with a knife (whatever size you like). You could use a round cutter if you really wanted to, but it’s easier to just cut them with a sharp knife because the large pieces of wild garlic that are in there could cause problems. Place on the lined baking tray.

*8. Brush tops with egg wash.

9. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden.