Day 19: Chicken Caesar Salad

Today’s Exercise: 32 minutes on Wii Fit, 14,000 steps

Caesar salad has always been one of my favourites but there is always the high-calorie aspect of the croutons and the dressing to contend with. That is also leaving out a slight unease that I have always had with the consumption of raw egg. With homemade croutons and a dressing that omits the raw egg this is recipe that I’ve been itching to try.

In making this I have made the changes of using two chicken breasts (one per person) instead of a roasted one.  Also I didn’t scale down the ingredients for the dressing as we would be talking about truly minute quantities. Still, due to the lack of raw egg it’ll store in the fridge for a few days incase you want to use it later.

Ingredients (two servings):

Salad:

• 2 chicken breasts, grilled and sliced into strips
• 8oz romaine/cos lettuce, torn
• 1/3 cup red bell pepper, cut into strips
• 1/2 cup croutons
• 2 pinches of Parmesan Cheese

Dressing:

• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 1 1/2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
• 2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
• 2 tsp Dijon mustard
• 1/4 tsp sugar
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp black pepper
• 1 garlic clove, minced

First make the dressing by either whisking all the ingredients together or by mixing them in a food processor. Then set aside.

In a large bowl mix the lettuce, pepper and chicken together and pour over 1/2-1/3 of the dressing then toss. After this add the croutons and cheese, lightly toss then serve.

Adapted from here

Verdict: What made me really happy about this recipe is that it tasted very much like a Caesar Salad you would would get in Marks & Spencer, the mark of a great salad. The peppers are an odd touch but they do work.

Calorie Count: 306 per serving

Day 19: D.I.Y. Croutons

When it comes to the world of salads I swear that croutons are the invention of the devil. Always delicious yet always deep-fried! In fact I remember going to Pizza Hut with my dad and he would get the salad bowl for himself… and I would always steal his croutons (and his bacon bits but I don’t think I’ll find a low-fat version of those). They’re also a bastard because they go so well with soups and salads, which are MEANT to be the healthy option, ARGH!

So ahead of tonight’s recipe I decided that I would get that crunchy devil off my back and attempt to make my own croutons… the fact that low-fat versions are hideously easy to make just the search all the more worthwhile.

Ingredients (for two servings):

• 1 slice of thick white bread (I used the Weightwatchers brand)
• 2 tsps Italian seasoning, dried herbs
• a few sprays of low-calorie oil

First pre-heat your oven to 180 degrees celsius. Then use a sharp knife to cut the slice of bread into pieces that are about 1/2-3/4 of an inch along each side.

Spray a baking sheet with the low calorie oil (about seven times) and then scatter the bread over it. Then sprinkle the dried herbs on top. And cook for 5 minutes. Then take the croutons out of the oven, turn them over, spray a further two times with the low-calorie oil and cook for a further 5 minutes.

Then take them out, leave them to cool and use in your salad or soup.

Adapted from here

Verdict: Not bad, they taste pretty much like the croutons we’ve come to love just without the gilt. Huzzahs all around!

Calorie Count: 40 per serving

Day 18: Grilled Mushroom, Pepper and Goat Cheese Melt

Today’s Exercise: 32 minutes on Wii Fit, 9000 steps

We’ve all had those days. You know what I mean? Those days where even though you’ve started a new way of healthy eating you find yourself bloating and putting on the pounds. What doesn’t make it better is when your Wii Fit throws a hissy at you because you’ve put on 3 pounds in 2 days where it might as well tell you that you’re a heaping lazy sack of crap.  The fact that the reason behind this weight gain is a distinct lack of dietary fibre in your diet makes it all the worse. So one large bowl of All-Bran with skimmed milk and a chopped banana on top later and suddenly the world doesn’t feel so… bloated.

ANYWAY! Today’s recipe is a bit of a gamble on my part since I really am not overly fond of mushrooms.  Shock! Horror! I know that I’ve used mushrooms in a few recipes already but some of them are exceptions that prove the rule. Since I have never tried this type of mushroom there is a possibility that this recipe will fall flat on its well grilled face. No problem with being adventurous though now is there?

Ingredients (serves 2):

• 1/4  cup balsamic vinegar
• 1 tbsp  olive oil
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 1 red bell pepper, cut in half and seeded
• 2 (4-inch) Portobello mushroom caps
• 1/6 cup fresh basil, chopped
• a pinch of salt
• a pink of black pepper
• 2 rolls, cut in half
• 1/4 cup soft goat cheese

Start  up a George Foreman grill and have it warm up, remember to always add a few sprays of low-calorie oil. While it does mix the garlic, vinegar and oil in a bowl and add the mushrooms and pepper halves. Toss the vegetables so they are well coated and then remove. Place these vegetables onto the grill and cook for 4-5 minutes. After they are well grilled take them off the grill and leave to cool for a bit.

When they are ready to handle slice the pepper into thin strips and then with the salt, pepper and basil. Spread half the cheese onto the bottom half of each roll and lay a mushroom on top. Then top this with the pepper mixture followed by the top of the roll. Then, what I did, use a sandwich press to heat the rolls for 6 minutes, then I thanked the powers that be for my mum having a thing for buying kitchen gadgets.

If you do not have such implements you can use a regular grill for both parts. For the first bit just grill the vegetables for 4 minutes per side, then for the final heating of the rolls grill then for 5 minutes a side whilst using something like a frying pan to squish it down flat.

Adapted from here

Verdict: I was more than shocked that I liked this, and I mean really liked this. Because of the very strong flavours of the basil, goats cheese and the red peppers you can’t really taste the mushroom beyond a slightly meaty taste and texture. I know that I will be making this again at some point and, when I do, I will be using a slightly stronger cheese (maybe a blue cheese like gorgonzola) to give an even bolder taste to this melt.

This dish also has the dubious honour of being the first meal that was a real pain in the neck. The roll kept falling apart at every given opportunity and in the end I had to use a fork to press the rolls down as I lowered the top plate of the press onto them. Blerg!

Calorie Count: 317 per serving

Day 17: Sesame Chicken

Today’s Exercise: 32 minutes on Wii Fit, 10,500 steps

Today has been a bad day in terms of cravings. I guess that now I found a good low-fat/low-calorie recipe for chocolate cake (still incredibly tasty) and one for cheeseburgers that there are many things left that I need to find good alternatives for. Then again today’s main craving was for a sausage roll… and something tells me that THAT is beyond anyone’s efforts to make a good low-fat version.

A commonly recurring one is for Chinese takeaway which means that there is likely to be many MANY more recipes where I am trying to find low-calorie versions. The mango chicken is a sort of substitute for sweet & sour chicken (granted I never order that from my local but it’s nice to have now and then) and today’s is a pre-cursor for trying a recipe for General Tso’s Chicken (the original version of which stands as one of the few recipes I created myself).

Anywho, with today’s Sesame Chicken I read a few of the comments and made the following changes. Firstly I doubled the ingredients for the sauce as, seriously, when is there ever too much sauce? I also chose to add a crushed clove of garlic as many people have mentioned it as a delicious addition.

Ingredients (serves two):

• 8oz chicken meat, cut into chunks
• 1/2 cup honey
• 1/2 cup soy sauce
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 tbsp cornflour
• 1 tsp minced ginger
• 2 pinches of chilli flakes
• 1 tbsp sesame seeds, lightly toasted

Whisk the honey, soy sauce, chilli flakes, garlic, ginger and cornflour together to make the sauce, then set aside.

Get a wok onto a high heat and add a few sprays of low calorie oil and then add the chicken chunks. Stir-fry them for about 6 minutes so that they are well cooked through. Now reduce the heat and add the sauce mix and the sesame seeds. Leave this to simmer for 5-10 minutes (depending on how thick you want your sauce).

Then serve with rice or whatever takes your fancy.

Adapted from here

Verdict: This really tasted like something you would get from a good takeaway, which is exactly what I was hoping for. The original recipe called for a lid to be put on the wok as the sauce simmered but if you have it on a low enough heat then you get away with it. The chicken was nice and tender and the sauce was extremely flavourful. Personally I was a bit worried about putting half a cup of honey in the sauce but it actually added a nice layer of flavour which toned down the saltiness of the soy sauce. Also the heat supplied by the two pinches of chilli flakes was enough to bring a nice warmth to the back of the mouth without being too overpowering.

The main plus was the doubling of the sauce ingredients otherwise there really would not have been any sauce left except that which had coated the chicken. All in all, this is a good start in my attempts to produce healthy versions of traditionally indulgent dishes.

Calorie Count: 210 per serving

Day 16: Devil’s Diet Cupcakes

Today’s Exercise: 32 minutes on Wii Fit, 11,500 steps

Like I said yesterday, just because you are trying to convert to a healthier lifestyle there is no need to cut out the nicer things. Granted having fish & chips or Pizza Hut every night is not the best idea but a treat every now and then is not a bad thing. Low-fat desserts, especially cakes and biscuits, are notoriously hard to get right. I mean this is not my first attempt since starting this blog (that’s right there are two in the cache waiting to be published) but I thought it was about time to post one. Since this is one I made today it makes sense to post it first.

Now, whoever the woman was (since it’s to do with low-fat cakes I think it’s fair to credit the female gender with this recipe) makes the unusual use of diet soda in the place of eggs, water and oil. For a while the idea of a Diet Coke cake has become one of those dieting urban myths. I mean a low-fat, low-calorie, low cholesterol chocolate cupcake? Has to be too good to be true.

Ingredients (makes 24):

• 1 pack of Devil’s Food Cake mix
• 1 330ml can of Diet Coke

Because this is pre-made cake mix the recipe is dead simple. Basically add the can of Diet Coke and then use an electic whisk to beat the mixture for 2 and a half minutes on the medium setting. Spoon the mixture into 24 casings (about a tablespoon in each one) and bake at 180°c for 15-20 minutes.

Found here

Verdict: There are moments in life which scream like a Hallelujah chorus. These cupcakes are a stroke of dieting genius. The strong taste of the chocolate overpowers any lingering taste of the cola, the fizziness of the Diet Coke then makes the batter extremely thick and (when whisked) feel extremely light. The outcome of this is a moist and rich chocolate experience which tastes better than when you make it with the eggs, oil and water.

The success of this recipe is going to inspire further experimentation with different combinations of cake mix and diet drinks. If you have an idea of possible fantastic combinations that need trying, leave a comment.

Calorie Count: 88 per cake

Day 15: Steak with Chimichurri Sauce

Today’s Exercise: 31 minutes on Wii Fit, 9000 steps

This is a recipe that I have been itching to try for a while ever since I first saw it advertised on Epicurious in their ‘Around the World in 80 dishes’ promotion. Being an Argentinian recipe this has intrigued me (especially since I have this misguided want to have sampled recipes from rendom places around the globe). Before this I have only tried a recipe from one other South American county, Peru. This is a recipe that I am likely to feature at some point during this blog as it’s low-fat and rather tasty, so watch this space.

In making this Steak with Chimichurri Sauce I opted to substitute out the flank steak for rump steak for the sheer reason that it’s something that I found in the freezer. Apart from that, and the resizing of the portions to fit 2 people rather than 4-6, this recipe has been left as is.

Ingredients (serves 2):

• 8oz rump steak, trimmed of the fat
• 2/3 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp ground cumin
• 1/4 tsp ground coriander seed
• a pinch of black pepper
• 1 small-medium garlic clove
• 2/3 cups fresh coriander leaf
• 2/3 cups fresh flat-leaf parsley
• 1/8 cup vinegar
• 1/6 cup olive oil
• pinch of cayenne

Preheat a George Foreman Grill. While it heats up pat the steak dry. Then mix together the cumin, coriander seed, pepper and half the salt and then rub the mixture onto both sides of the steak. Grill the steak on the George Foreman for about 6-8 minutes until medium rare. Then let stand for a few minutes until cool enough to handle.

In a food-processor (I love my Magic Bullet) mix together the garlic, oil, cayenne, parsley, coriander, vinegar and the remaining salt. The sauce is meant to be thick so don’t worry. Just keep pulsing until all the herbs are finely chopped and everything is well mixed together.

Now take the steak and slice it very thinly and serve with the sauce.

Adapted from here

Verdict: I overcooked the steak a bit as the steaks I had were very thin. Note to all: Adjust the cooking time depending on the steak’s thickness. The seasoning of the steaks was really good but the highlight has to be the Chimichurri sauce. With the coriander and parsely somehow managing an equiilibrium instead of one overpowering the other it was a great little sauce to dip the thin pieces of steak into.

Calorie Count: 270 calories per serving

Week 2: Weigh In

Current Weight: 236 pounds

Weight Change From Last Week: 2 pounds lost

Weight Lost So Far: 8 pounds

Right so I guess that in my first week I managed to ditch all the ‘water weight’ and now we are getting onto the real business of burning up fat. This is actually one area in which using the Wii Fit everyday tends to fall down a bit as it makes you weigh yourself every time you get on the Balance Board. When you are consistently losing a pound (or more) a day it is true that you feel extra motivated  BUT when you are in the realms of losing one or two pounds a week, like where I have just entered, it becomes more frustrating.

I guess that I can take solace in the fact that now it is definitely the fat that is being lost. All 3500 calories per pound of it. Which means that somehow I must have created an average deficit of 1000 calories a day. When I think about this it’s impressive that I have managed to do this without completely cutting out food that I love, I mean I had German Frankfurters for lunch (thanks to The Sausage Man) and some Ben & Jerry’s last Monday. Good times.

Day 12: Mango Chicken

Today’s Exercise: 31 minutes on Wii Fit, 9000 steps

I never realised how hard it would be to find a fresh mango. In my town we have a Morrisons, Co-Op, Somerfield and a Tescos yet none of them stocked a fresh mango. It took some extra measures to find one but finally one arrived.

This recipe originally called for 1/4 cup of cashew nuts, but I decided to leave these out for one reason: calorie count. I love cashew nuts but by removing them that leaves an extra 100 calories to spare. That meant I could make a decent rice side-dish to accompany this unusual recipe, always a plus.

Ingredients (for two)

• 8oz chicken breast meat, cut into inch long chunks
• 1 red bell pepper, seeded, cored and sliced into 1 inch pieces
• 1/2 yellow bell pepper, seeded, cored and sliced into 1 inch pieces
• 1 1/2 spring onions, sliced into thin strips lengthwise
• 1 mango, pitted and cut into 2/3 inch chunks
• 250ml chicken stock
• 1 1/2 tbsp sugar
• 1 tbsp light soy sauce
• 1 tbsp rice vinegar
• 2 tsp cumin
• 2 tsp cornflour
• 1/2 tbsp minced fresh ginger

Whisk together stock, sugar, soy sauce, rice vinegar, cornflour and cumin and then set aside.

Heat a few sprays of low-calorie oil in a wok on a high heat and then stir-fry the chicken for 3-4 minutes until it is cooked through. Then set aside. Add a few more sprays of oil to the wok and stir-fry the peppers for 2 minutes followed by the ginger which is cooked for a following 30 seconds.

Reduce the heat and then add the chicken and the sauce mix and cook for a further 2 minutes until the sauce is thickened. Finally stir in the onions and mango and serve.

Adapted from here

Verdict: When I first smelt the stock mixture I wasn’t exactly keen on it. Once it was cooked and the mango was added  it tasted really nice. The main reason it was nice is because it was different, like an alternative form of sweet and sour chicken. In the recipe they were very specific was the size of the chunks of mango, chicken and pepper but in reality I just cut it up to what I thought looked right (and cook quicker as I was ravenous). So yea, it was nice.

Calorie Count: 251 per serving

Day 11: Lentil Soup

Today’s Exercise: 31 minutes Wii Fit, 10,500 steps

As promised this is the soup that I decided to make. Since I’ve been having a lot of meat today (having had the remaining burgers as breakfast and lunch) I really needed something that was purely vegetarian. By meat I meant more like solid meat rather than the stock I used to make it, since for the sake of taste I always prefer chicken soup stock versus vegetarian.

Another main reason for making this is the inclusion of harissa. Although it is widely available this is an ingredient that I had never heard of before last week so had to go out and both buy it and use it as soon as possible. There are a few other harissa friendly recipes lined up so I can make good use of the jar. Hooray for no waste!

Ingredients (serves 3)

• 1 1/4 onions, finely chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 1/2 tsp cumin
• 2-3 carrots, peeled, finely diced
• 1 litre stock
• 3/4 cup red lentils, (remember to rinse!)
• 1/2-3/4 tsp harissa

Warm a large saucepan with a few sprays of low-calorie oil and brown the onions and garlic with the cumin. When browned then add the carrots and sauté the carrots for a minute. Add the stock followed by the harissa and the lentils then bring to the boil and simmer on a low heat for 10 minutes. Then season with some salt and pepper to taste and serve hot.

Verdict: I was shocked by this recipe. I have never had lentils outside of a curry and this was very nice indeed. Personally I would have added more harissa but I have a fairly good spice tolerance, nevertheless it was very tasty. This is definitely something to make again in the winter months.

Calorie Count: 300 per serving

Day 11: Quick-Ass Soup Stock

Today, for the first time, I am posting two recipes in one day. The reason behind this is that today I have decided that I wanted to make some soup, and why the hell not. Summer may not seem the perfect time for a hearty warming soup but when it’s good then it’s lovely all year round.

So, because of my apparent need for soup, I found a neat recipe online which i will be making later tonight when my mum gets home from work. Yeah yeah I know but right now I am between education and no-one is willing to hire me for temp-work, what are ya gonna do eh? At least I’m basically being paid to keep a clean house and cook. Almost a househusband… well houseson.

ANYWAY! The key behind any good soup is a good stock so this is a recipe I have been using for a few years as a base for every soup that I make. Most cookbooks say that you need to use a chicken carcass or chicken thighs to make it properly but seriously who has the time or inclination to do that. Personally it’s a waste of chicken meat that could be used in other food like that breaded chicken I made. So I use stock cubes (or those fantastic Knorr Stock Pots) and it tastes gorgeous nonetheless.

Ingredients (makes about 1 litre of stock)

• 1 litre of water
• 1 leek, finely chopped
• 3-4 carrots, roughly chopped with the skins on
• 1 tbsp coriander seeds
• 2 chicken or vegetable stock cubes (or stock pots)
• thumb-sized piece of root ginger, roughly chopped

This recipe is as simple as anything, just combine all the ingredients in a pot and bring to the boil on the lowest possible heat. It’s best to have it heating for about 20-30 minutes before it reaches boiling point so that the flavours are all free to mix together.

Just as it reaches the boil you turn off the heat and then you strain all the solid parts of the stock either by manually skimming it or using a colander.

Adapted from The Wagamama Cookbook

Verdict: This always works a treat no matter the soup and it smells great as it warms up.

Calorie Count: 50 calories per litre.