5:2 DIET - CHEESE SAUCE, VEGAN AND 125 CALORIES!

Here's a simple 'cheese sauce' - low in calories and so easy to make!

(Use it with this lasagne layered with potato.)

You'll need:
Free and Easy cheese flavour sauce mix - available in the 'Free from' section of Sainsbury's;
Nutritional yeast - from your local health food shop;
Bouillon powder - widely available

Directions:
4 heaped teaspoons of the sauce mix
300ml water
1 teaspoon (5g) bouillon powder
2 dessertspoons (10g) nutritional yeast (nooch)

Mix a little of the water into the powder in a saucepan and stir into a paste - add the rest of the water. Place over a low heat and allow to simmer, stirring frequently. When the sauce thickens, stir in the flavourings.

And that's it!

OR: Recently, I've been making a 'cheese' sauce from scratch - I haven't got around to putting my own spin on it, yet, but I will.

Calorie count: The sauce - 78 cals; bouillon powder - 12 cals; nooch - 35 cals.
Total - 125 calories

I'm off to buy a cauliflower - can't wait to make a tasty, vegan, cauliflower cheese! :)

I finally got around to making a cauliflower and broccoli cheese bake, using this cheese sauce variation which is quite a bit richer than the one above:

Cheese sauce:

2 dessertspoons Free and Easy cheese sauce powder 78 cals

2 dessertspoon nooch - 40

1 teaspoon bouillon powder - 12

1 teaspoon curry powder – 5

1 teaspoon garlic powder – 5

100g soy cream - 190

200g water

5:2 DIET CAULIFLOWER/BROCCOLI CHEESE BAKE - vegan

I cannot believe just how easy and tasty this was - why have I not made it before?

I made this for a  non-fasting day (NFD) - but it turns out to have very few calories at all, so it's perfect for either a FD or a NFD!

Cauliflower and broccoli cheese bake 

(Serves 2)

Half a head of cauliflower, in florets - 90

Couple of florets of broccoli - 31

100g onion, chopped - 31

100g celery, chopped - 8

Cheese sauce:

2 dessertspoons Free and Easy cheese sauce powder 78 cals

2 dessertspoon nooch - 40

1 teaspoon bouillon powder - 12

1 teaspoon curry powder – 5

1 teaspoon garlic powder – 5

100g soy cream - 190

200g water

Method:

Divide the cauli and broccoli into florets and lightly simmer in a little water, along with the onion and celery.

Meanwhile make the cheese sauce:

Mix the dry ingredients in a small saucepan, then add the water and soya cream. Place over a little heat and stir continuously until the mixture thickens.

Place the tender vegetables in a shallow baking dish and cover with the cheese sauce.

Bake at 200C for 20-25 minutes.

Total calories 524 - so 262 cals per portion

I had this with 85g of homemade bread - 215 calories, so the total is still under 500 calories. If I was to have this on a FD I would have it with a small baked potato - 100g would be 72 cals.

5:2, or INTERMITTENT FASTING - some hints and tips

5:2: if you’re doing it for weight loss means no snacking – ever!

If you want a treat – and who doesn’t, now and again – incorporate it into your meal. If you do have to have something, a biscuit, say, then look at it before each mouthful and make a conscious decision whether or not you need it. 

(BTW, the only safe way I’ve found to eat a biscuit is to take one (that’s 1!) out of the packet on your way out of the house. Then don’t start eating it until you’re halfway down the road.)

Other techniques I’ve found useful:

Use smaller plates for your evening meal

Put less on your fork and eat each mouthful slowly, savouring the flavours.

It takes roughly 20 minutes for your body to recognise that it has eaten – so, if you feel like a second helping, put a timer on for 20 minutes. If you still want something, then go ahead, but at least you’ve thought about it.

After the evening meal, announce in a loud voice that, ”The kitchen is closed!” And mean it!

If you do succumb to the lure of the leftover curry on the hob late in the evening, tell yourself, “Ah, well, that’s breakfast sorted! I’ve just had it a bit early.”

But before you get to that stage, set the kitchen timer for 20 minutes – or drink a pint of water – or go and do some exercise.

Wine. I’ve reduced the amount of wine I drink by about a half. I only know this because, whereas I used to make 20gals of wine a year, now I only make 10 gallons.

I used to drink half a tumbler of red with my evening meals, but noticed on a couple of occasions that the wine was disappearing without me even noticing! J So I reduced the amount I put in the glass and tried to appreciate every mouthful. It didn’t happen overnight, but eventually I found I could enjoy as little as 50ml with dinner. Not every night, sometimes I have double that, but often, when I do, I still have a centimetre or so of wine left after I’ve finished eating.

On FDs I don’t have any alcohol, instead, with my meal I have the same tumbler filled with iced water. The ritual and the unfamiliarity of the iced water seems to satisfy the need for a drink whilst I’m eating. I’ve tried this on ‘normal’ days – with limited success, I have to say!

Mumsnet has had a thread, 'Tips and links for those practicing IF'. Well worth a look!

VEGETABLES - seriously undervalued!

Today's newspapers are full of the story that, for a healthy life-style, we should increase the '5 fruit and veg a day' to 7 - or even 10!  But the Guardian reports on a Liverpool University study which suggests we should give up the fruit, and concentrate on vegetables, instead - identifying sugar as the real culprit!

As a vegan who isn't all that fond of fruit, this is right up my street - but a traditional omnivore might not find this so easy.

The problem with many people's perception of vegetables - which was certainly mine before I became a veggie - is that they are seen solely as an accompaniment to meat in a main course. The 'meat and two veg' syndrome, this could be called.

Now I've been veggie for 12 years and a vegan for 8, my views are diametrically opposite. So much so, that now, instead of thinking 'chicken curry', which was a staple of mine for many years, I'm now thinking, 'cabbage curry' - and making cabbage the centre of the dish. You all might think this is bonkers, but I absolutely relish the taste of a chunk of cabbage stalk (I'm talking of the 'rib' down the centre of a cabbage leaf) when I come across it in my veg curries - so why not?

I've just posted a chilli non carne - made with chick peas - recipe elsewhere on the blog, and I have to tell you folks, it ranks up there with any chilli or curry recipe I made in my pre vegan days. (For dinner tonight, I've just had a bowl of the leftovers…swoon!!!) 

Veggies are seriously undervalued!

5:2 DIET - CHICK PEA CHILLI NON CARNE (VEGAN) 400 Cals

For dinner I had the smaller bowl with 50g of rice. The rest is leftovers! (Whoopee!)

For yesterday's Fast Day dinner, I thought I'd go for the full 600 calories - but, try as I might, I fell well short!

I had a tin of chick peas, so I thought I'd try them in a chilli non carne for a change - an experiment well worth doing, as the dish turned out to be very tasty indeed!

Ingredients:
About 500g mixed veg (onion, cabbage, celery, mushroom), chopped - 150 cals
1 tin chopped tomatoes - 86
1 tin chick peas - 288
2 Fry's vegan sausages - 116
Seasoning (1 teaspoon bouillon powder, 2 dessertspoons chilli sauce) - 32Dried herbs

Total 668

However, this made 10 servingspoons of chilli - and I only needed 3! So, 3/10ths of 668 is almost exactly 200 calories.

With this I had 50g (dried weight) of white rice - 186 cals.

Total 386 calories all together. 

And it was too much - I was uncomfortable for about an hour after finishing this.

'Twas bloody gorgeous, though! :)

A LATE NIGHT SUPPER - ITALIAN SODA BREAD AND CHILLI

OK, a star instead of a cross - just for fun!

Out for a game of bridge this evening – we’re all beginners, but it’s great fun – which meant I couldn’t have my usual pre-dinner pint and a glass of wine with the meal, since I would be driving.

During the evening I enthused about my latest favourite bread – Italian soda bread, which I had made over the weekend whilst staying with my daughter. I made it on the Sunday evening, and, since I was fasting after dinner, I was unable to taste it until Tuesday lunchtime. Made with simple ingredients – Sainsbury’s basic self-raising flour and Lidl’s EVOO, it was full of flavour.

On my return home tonight I thought I deserved a drink, so I poured half a pint of beer and the soda bread was still on my mind. I knew I could knock one up very quickly, so that’s what I did. I thought that if the white flour version was tasty, a soda bread made with wholemeal flour should be even tastier. Accordingly, I took out a bag of ‘Park Mill, Bateman’s Strong, Stoneground wholemeal flour’ I'd acquired, and made it with that + plus 2 teaspoons of baking powder.

It was in the oven within 5 minutes and took 20 minutes to bake. The result was a loaf weighing about 350g and would have cost around 28p if I’d have used own-brand wholemeal bread flour at £1.50/1.5kg or 34p if I’d used my usual bread flour, Doves Organic wholemeal. Whatever, this bread is cheap!

So what about the flavour? Well, I was expecting it to be much more flavoursome than the loaf made with white self-raising flour, and maybe it was. But, since I’d rather eat wholemeal for health reasons, this was well worth doing.

Here’s the recipe:

200g wholemeal flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

¼ teaspoon salt

125g (or ml, they’re both the same) cold water

25g extra virgin olive oil.

Mix together into a soft squishy dough, knead (flatten and fold) several times, then flatten out into a circle about 2.5cm thick. Place on a baking sheet lined with baking parchment and cut a cross into the dough almost all the way through. Soda bread is a bit denser than yeast-risen dough and this allows the heat to get to the middle of the loaf easier.

Bake at 220C for 15-20 minutes. Look for a good colour underneath. It’s done when a skewer passed through the thickest part of the loaf comes out clean – or, when it breaks apart cleanly. Wrap in a tea-towel until it cools, to give you a softer crust.

Oh, what about the chilli, I hear you ask! Well, I had a sixth of the loaf with a couple of dessertspoons of chilli non carne leftover from dinner - along with half a pint of stout and about an inch of wine. And very nice it was too. 

I no longer feel guilty about eating at night - since I no longer have breakfast, this evens itself out! :)

Update, 4 days later:
I ate the last of this loaf this lunchtime - at four days old it was still OK. Probably best to eat it by the third day, but if it goes over into a fourth day, it still won't be stale!