5:2 DIET VEGETABLE CURRY FOR 98 CALORIES! (NOW 94cals!)

3/03/14
My fast day dinner today comes in at 94 calories - a new low! (Recipe further down this post.)

I made a few tweaks - leaving out the cumin seeds and substituting asafoetida and mushroom sauce instead of soy sauce. I toyed with the idea of only using half a tin of tomatoes, since the curry already tasted wonderful before any tomatoes were added. In the event I added the whole tin, not wishing to bother with the faff of having a dish of tomatoes hanging round in the fridge.

Weirdly, the smell is making my juices run - but I'n not in the least bit hungry, despite not eating since 7pm last night (it's now 5.30pm). 

23/02/14
I’ve just set an all-time record low (for me) for a fast day meal – just a simple veg curry, but it was so tasty and full of flavor and completely filled me up. Here are the ingredients I used - over here for the method:

5g cumin seeds and 5g curry powder dry fried for a couple of minutes – 10 cals

63g onion, finely chopped 20 cals

171g dark green cabbage, cut into strips 22

53g carrots, sliced 15

151g celery, cut into chunks 12

184g mushrooms, cut into chunks 24

400g chopped, tinned tomatoes 82

10g soy sauce 10

Total 195 calories. Divided in two this gave me 4 large serving spoons of curry – so, 98 calories altogether!

This left me very well fed, and, by staying away from the kitchen for a good half hour, I avoided adding anything else.

I’ve found, over the 2 years I’ve been practicing IF, that if I do stick to just a low calorie dinner, I’ll be satisfied with that. If I add beans or a microwaved potato, I find I want to push myself up to the 600 calories that, as a bloke, IF allows.

This fast, however, was a little different from my usual fasts, which generally begin with my final bite of dinner the day before. This time, not planning to fast today, I ate half a bar of Lindt’s Chilli Chocolate at around 10pm. So my fast didn’t really start until then! However, strictly speaking, that was only 275 cals – so, with my 98 for dinner today, I’ve had 373 calories in the last 27 hours, well below the magic 600 figure!

I decided to fast today since I skipped breakfast, as I often do, and found myself travelling back home over lunch time – so it just made sense to fast today, and have a Sunday dinner tomorrow!

This curry is an excellent basis for a range of further dishes - chilli non carne - lasagne (layered with potato instead of pasta - simply glorious!) - vegetarian Bolognese sauce - rich ragu pie, and many more. All these are to be found in the link below.

For all the 5:2 fasting vegetarian/vegan dishes on my blog, click here.