Walnut and aubergine dip

My appetite seems to be getting less and less each day. I guess the high protein and the eating breakfast every day almost without fail makes this happen.

I love having a selection of dips in the fridge for lunch. This, tsaksiki, houmous, a tomato salsa and a load of crudites - raw carrots, cucumber, cauliflower florets to eat it with. The walnuts in this dip give it a great texture as well as flavour.

Thread a few cloves of garlic on to a skewer and put these on a barbecue along with some aubergine. You can cook them in the oven if you prefer, but I like the additional smoky taste that the barbecue imparts. Once blackened, remove the skin. Put the walnuts in a hot oven for 5 minutes or dry roast them in a pan.
In a large pestle and mortar, bash the garlic till it's a paste. Bash the walnuts till there are some small and some larger pieces for texture. Bash the aubergine till it's a paste. Mix all three together and add the juice from a couple of limes, a couple of handfuls of chopped mint and a couple of tablespoons of olive oil. Serve with crudites.

Fruity Quinoa porridge

I'm really trying hard with breakfast. When I eat a good one, it really stops me being hungry all day and I'm not tempted to pick. My go to breakfast has become mashed bananas with almonds, pistachios and yoghurt, but I don't feel like that every day.

This one is great and can be made the night before. It's nutty and fruity and very filling.

Boil up one cup of quinoa and two cups of milk, stirring all the time. After about 5 minutes of boiling add half a teaspoon of cinnamon (nutmeg, all spice, or a combination also work well), half a cup of sultanas, and a diced up apple and boiled for a further 5 or so minutes until thick and creamy. Serve it with warm milk and toasted almonds (you could also drizzle on some honey if you go gently!).

It is very filling and nutty and stored overnight in the fridge then served with more milk makes it even better.

Cauliflower cheese

I really really miss pasta. I'm not sure what is the hardest about this diet. Low sugar, no potatoes or no flour, but as flour is in pasta and cake and pastry and I have always made the roux for the cheese sauce with it, and bread and, and, and, that it is probably flour that is the hardest.

I have really been craving a macaroni cheese, which I'm not going to have, but figured that this would sort out the worst of the craving. I was right, and what is more, I far prefer this version of cauliflower cheese to the old version I used to make. I'm fairly addicted to it (that and the cheesy mashed cauliflower that is just the same thing, just finished off differently).

To make this, break the cauliflower up into florets and put in a microwaveable and oven proof bowl. Dab with butter and a tablespoon of cream and microwave at full power for five minutes. I have never used a microwave for cauliflower before. It stops it becoming soggy. Much better.
Stir in some grated cheese - cheddar, emmental, comte or similar. If making cauliflower cheese, then pop this in a preheated oven (around 200c) until it is golden brown. For the mash, zap it in the microwave for another five minutes then blend until smooth. Just delicious.

Houmous, avocados and nuts

 Ok, all part of the learning curve. I've now realised that of all the nuts you can eat, it's the cashews that are the problem. So all other nuts are fine.

Most of the time the high protein in this food has meant that I'm not hungry, but sometimes, generally if I'm late with a meal or have a lot of work on, or have maybe had a bit too much chocolate or other treats, I have found I'll get hungry. Or maybe it is just greedy since I experience it generally when other people are eating. I have now learnt to always have some snacks easily available to stop me going for the wrong food.  Avocados, houmous and nuts are great for a low GI snack. And you don't need very much to feel full again.

I'll eat the nuts as they are, or I'll fry them up with some kosher salt (I always wondered why kosher salt appeared in so many recipes but recently realised it is just because it is beautifully flaky), or have them with some dried fruit if I'm craving sweet stuff. And I've been amazed at how little I have wanted before feeling full.

Avocados are great too. I generally have one around for when I'm peckish. Very low GI.

So, I finally discovered the secret to really great houmous. I'd tried using dried chick peas, soaked overnight, then boiled. I'd tried removing all the skins, both of which definitely made a much better houmous. I'd tried playing around with the amount of tahini, and with making my own tahini. All this made a difference. Sadly, like so many other things the real key was the olive oil. I massive amount more than I used to use. It really makes all the difference. I tend make big batches now, as I like to have it in the fridge all the time (together with a box filled with crudite - carrots and cauliflower,  mainly as I found that cucumber goes a bit soft if it's not eaten fairly soon after cutting.
Play around with the ingredients to get a perfect houmous for you, but for me, it's this:
Soak 1/2 kilo of dried chickpeas overnight with a tablespoon of bicarbonate of soda (which makes the chick peas softer and better for blitzing).  Drain them then put them in a pan (or two) and cover with cold water. Bring to the boil and keep boiling until they are soft. This might take an hour, might take much longer. Don't have plans that take you out of the house (hence doing a lot at one go).
Once they are cooked, switch off the hob, but leave them in the water. Once cool, drain them, keeping some of the cooking water. If you want, remove the skins. I prefer it without the skin, but sometimes life is just too short.
Mash the chickpeas. Add lemon or lime juice to taste. I like about 5 limes but try with less and adjust. I am now eating this every day so I've dropped the garlic from it but before I ate so much houmous, I liked it very garlicky - again to taste.

Add tahini - I like a lot of tahini, a jar with this, but again, adjust to taste. Put all the ingredients in a food processor or a blender with a little of the cooking water to loosen it and blitz till it is smooth. Taste and adjust!

Eat with crudites.

Fish with capers and olives

I guess it's all the protein but I'm finding I'm eating less and less. I want meals that are lighter and smaller. And the weirdest thing of all is that I'm forgetting to eat. This has never happened to me before. Ever. And now most days I have to remind myself. I'm just not hungry.

 I tried just not eating, but then wanted to snack on chocolate later. Chocolate is low GI, but I am no longer fooling myself that it can therefore be eaten as and when I want. A small piece some days is fine. More than that and I notice the difference in my blood sugar the next day. I totally pigged out on chocolate truffles the other day after missing lunch (I had five) and the following day my blood sugar was at the highest end of ok, whereas it's been at the lower end for most of this diet.

So light meals have become key. I love this fish, served with some steamed veggies as, although it is packed with flavours. I have found I'm eating lots of capers and olives now and I'm buying limes, a kilo at a time.

To make this, either fillet a fish, or use ready filleted. Skin on or off, up to you. Line a steamer with ginger slices, top with the fish and cover with lime or lemon slices. It'll only take about 5 minutes till it's cooked, but this will vary according to how thick the fish is. In a separate pan add chopped up olives, capers, and cook gently in their own juices until warm. Stir in chopped spring (green) onions and generously cover the fish with this mixture on the plate. Include some lime slices too. I prefer this hot, but it is good cold too.

Mushroom and walnut soup

This soup is equally good hot and cold so I make extra and keep it in the fridge. It is very low GI and filling so makes a great lunch.

The ingredients you'll need, as well as the mushrooms and walnuts, are, dried mushrooms, an onion, some butter, yoghurt (or milk), cream (you could use yoghurt if you prefer), dry sherry (this makes a big difference to the flavour and adds real depth, but you could, of course, substitute it or leave it out if you want, black pepper and a little parsley for a garnish if you have it.

Make a stock using dried mushrooms, onions, peppercorns and, if you like, some celery. Dry fry some walnuts. Pick out a couple for garnish and put to one side. Chop up the onions and gently fry them in a little olive oil. Put to one side. Slice the mushrooms and fry these in butter, with a little oil added to stop the butter from burning. Pick out a couple of slices to use as garnish and put the rest in a blender along with the onions, dried mushrooms that made up the stock, a dollop of yoghurt and a little stock. Keep adding stock until the soup is the right consistency for you. Once this happens, reheat it (if you want it hot) and serve with the mushroom slices, walnuts and a drizzle of cream.

Chilli con carne

This is filling and warming as well as being low GI. I have found myself making it with lots more beans than I would have, if I was going to eat it with rice.

To make the chilli, make a stock - I use a vegetable one with dried mushrooms, onions, garlic, bay leaves, salt, pepper, and leave simmering. Meanwhile chop up the onions and red pepper into small pieces. Fry over a gentle heat to 'sweat' these and then take off the heat. Fry the minced beef with cumin powder, chilli powder - you can, of course use fresh chillies but I prefer the evenness of hotness from the powder. Once browned, add the onions, some roasted tomatoes and a little stock. Keep adding stock to keep moist. Add a tin of tomato puree and leave to simmer for an hour to let the flavours develop. Just before serving, add the kidney beans and stir very gently. Serve with sour cream.

Baked apples

I really like desserts so I've tried to work out ways to make desserts lower on the GI/GL load. These baked apples are stuffed with dried fruit (raisins, sultanas and apricots, but not dates or figs which are really high on the Glycaemic Index), nuts and seeds (slivers of almonds, walnuts, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, etc), and then, instead of sugar, I use spices to enhance the flavours. Great served with greek yoghurt or cream.

Soak some raisins, dried apricots and sultanas in some warm water. Core some apples - preferably baking apples and place them on a baking tray. Chop up the apricots and mix the soaked fruit with a selection of chopped nuts and seeds. Stir in a generous pinch of cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice and stuff the mixture into the apples. Sprinkle with almond slices and pop in a medium oven for around 30 minutes. Great served with greek yoghurt.

Leek and butter bean soup

I've found chick peas, butter beans and kidney beans great as I don't miss the potato when these are in the meal. I find I'm eating soup most days and this one is one of my favourites. It's staightforward to make, and reheats well. The rosemary really brings the soup together.

I prefer it unblended, but you can also blend either the whole soup or part of it if you prefer it thicker.

Chop up and fry some onions, leeks, celery, and crushed garlic in a little olive oil. Add some vegetable stock made from boiling together an onion, a handful of dried mushrooms, some bay leaves and a few pepper corns. A splash of white wine works really well too. Very finely dice the leaves from a sprig of rosemary and add that, along with the butter beans.

I like to eat this hot, so I reheat any from the fridge the next day.

Chicken with preserved lemons (or limes)

As with most dishes packed full of flavour, this is great cold, and the chicken, infused with the lemon flavours makes a fabulous salad ingredient.

You'll need to start it a few weeks before you want to cook it, however as the first step is to make the preserved lemons (or limes) and these take a number of weeks before they are ready.

To make the preserved fruit, clean it thoroughly and scrub the skin to remove any wax. Cut it almost all the way through into quarters and pack it with salt. Turn it upside down and press it into a jar so it releases some of its juices. Repeat until the jar is full, then top up with more fruit juice or warm water and seal it (make it in one of the jars with a rubber seal). Store it in a coolish darkish place, turning fairly regularly and topping up with more juice if necessary.

To make the dish, first make some stock. I make a vegetable stock from dried mushrooms, an onion, bay leaves, possibly celery, and peppercorns which I boil up.
Fry a couple of onions, sliced into strips and add a teaspoon each of ground ginger and ground cumin. Crush three garlic cloves and chop them and add to the pan.
If you have saffron, add a few strands to the stock.
Once the onions are translucent, add the chicken, some pepper, two of the preserved fruit and some stock and cook on a low heat for around one - two hours. Don't add salt as the fruit and the olives are both salty.
Chop a couple more lemons into quarters and add them plus a generous handful of olives to the pan. Cook for a further five minutes then serve.

Jerk Chicken

When I started this diet, the weight fell off. After around a month, or so, things got a bit harder. I found that just eating as much as I wanted of everything, as long as it is low GI, wasn't totally the way to go. Cheese, cream, pork belly, are all fine, GI wise, but obviously not great, either calorie wise, nor for the heart. Now, don't get me wrong, I wasn't eating slabs of cheese every day, but simply wanting less food as I was virtually never hungry has stopped being effective enough to get the weight off. At the beginning, weight loss wasn't my primary objective (although it was also decidedly important), but the weight came off anyway. Having got this far, I really wanted to continue, so I decided to at least start to think about the calories I was taking in too. Chicken is great for helping along the weightloss. Full of protein, wonderful from a GI perspective, and this particular recipe is so full of flavour, works great hot or cold and can be cooked just in the oven if you don't want to fire up the barbecue.

Put a tablespoon of peppercorns and a tablespoon of all spice berries in a pestle and mortar and pound them together. Add to this mixture half a teaspoon each of cinnamon and nutmeg, four or five spring onions and chilli to taste (I like to use the bigger chillies so that the flavour gets evenly distributed, or chilli powder for the same reason). Put everything in a blender and whizz it up to a paste. Stir in a tablespoon of soft brown sugar, two tablespoons of soy sauce, a teaspoon of salt and the juice of a couple of big limes.
Put some chicken drumsticks in a clean plastic bag or a tupperware box with the marinade and shake well and often to keep them coated. Ideally leave in the fridge overnight, but a few hours will do if you don't have time.
You can barbeque them, but I personally prefer to cook them in the oven to ensure they are cooked evenly and then transfer to a barbecue for a few minutes to give them a final smoky taste. Delicious hot and cold. Great for parties. Great for snacks, straight from the fridge too.

Smoked salmon and prawns with horseradish cream

Smoked salmon, prawns and avocados are very low GI. This comes together really quickly and the horseradish cream lasts well.

For the horseradish cream, mix horseradish sauce (I can't get fresh horseradish here, but if I could, that would work wonderfully), with cream cheese or whipped cream. Mix in finally chopped chives or spring onions. Serve with  smoked salmon, cooked prawns, and spring onions.

Burmese tomato salad

I had this in Burma the first time I went there, and it's so simple and keeps well in the fridge. This goes well with grilled or poached meat and leaves my mouth tingling.

Thinly slice tomatoes, red onions, garlic and chilli. arrange on a plate and pour some soy sauce over. Marinade for at least an hour. Before serving squeeze a lime, then grind some black pepper over the tomatoes.

Passion fruit pavlova

Whilst desserts aren't exactly great on the low GI rating, I wanted to be able to have treats. And I love this. It is a meringue, made with brown sugar and stirred through with toasted almonds, then sandwiched with cream (scented with vanilla) and passion fruit scooped straight out of the fruit.
One of the golden rules with low GI is nothing processed so, whilst brown sugar isn't great, it is better than white, and hopefully the nuts and the cream lowers the amount of sugar that will actually be absorbed into the blood stream.

Bash 100 grams of whole almonds in a pestle and mortar until most are powdery, but there are some bigger pieces for crunch. Put these bigger pieces in the oven for a few minutes to go brown. Leave the oven on.
Separate 4 eggs. Do each one individually since, if there is any yolk in the egg white the meringues will go hopelessly wrong. Using an electric whisk (or a serious amount of muscle power) whisk the whites until doubled in size, then add 100 grams of soft brown sugar and whisk until you can turn the bowl upside down without the contents falling out. Add a teaspoon of white wine vinegar then slowly fold in the almonds and a further 125 grams of soft brown sugar. Line a baking tray with baking paper (no oil or butter) and dollop a spoonful of the mixture on to the paper then shape into a 'nest'. Finish the rest and put in a hot oven (around 200 degrees) for around 20 minutes till they become a light golden colour. Allow to cool in the oven then remove, peel off the paper and layer with whipped cream and vanilla essence, and passion (or another) fruit.

Chickpea salad

Chickpeas are low GI and so I've found them great to have around in various different guises. This salad is fresh and tasty as well as filling.

It's simple to make, too.

Just drain the chickpeas (it's worth keeping the liquid - it's full of protein and therefore great to add to stews and stocks), and toss them with finely chopped mint, lime juice, spring onions.

Roasted cinnamom pears

I like desserts. And I miss cake, and ice cream, and tiramisu, and tarts - especially tarte tatin, my absolute favourite - and cherry pie and on and on.

I can have some chocolate. Small amounts of high quality chocolate hit the spot nicely, but sometimes I need a pudding.

I've now emptied my freezer. It's two and a half months into this new way of eating and the reality is, I can't go back, so I gave away the ice-cream and the leftover mince pies, and hot cross buns. The bread went too and the cakes, and sausage rolls and oven fries (I don't think I'd ever used them - surely they are just potato that has been sliced up and frozen, not sure why you'd pay for that). I'd kept a few chocolate truffles, one occasionally just finishes off a meal nicely, but I wanted a pudding. This works well. It just uses the fruit's natural sweetness and the woody notes of cinnamom work well with the pear flavour.

Core and peel the pears. Mix softened butter with cinnamom powder and smear this on the pears. Arrange in a baking tray and cook for around 15 - 20 minutes at about 200 c. Serve with greek yoghurt.

Pearl barley asparagus risotto

I really miss potatoes and rice sometimes.  I've got a cauliflower mash that I now prefer to mashed potatoes, but was still looking for a rice substitute. 

This recipe doesn't make a creamy risotto, but instead a tasty alternative.

Rice is high GI, but pearl barley isn't. It makes a great substitute, being nutty and great for absorbing the flavours it's cooked in.

 

 

 

To make it, first make a vegetable stock with dried mushrooms, onions, bay leaves, black pepper corns, and maybe some celery. Boil this up with drinking water and keep hot so that it doesn't cool down the risotto during the cooking process.

Melt a spoonful of butter with a drop of oil (the oil stops the butter from burning) and once it is melted, pour in a cupful of pearl barley. Once it is giving off a buttery popcorn smell, add some stock and, optionally, a glass of wine. Keep stirring all the time.Add stock as needed. Meanwhile, in a separate pan cook some onions. Once translucent, put to one side. In this case we made asparagus risotto, but this works well with mushrooms, chicken, prawns, etc.

Once the pearl barley is nearly cooked, add the onions, asparagus, and if you have it, the chopped up rind of some parmesan.

Keep stirring then serve with thin slices of parmesan cheese.

Eat it straight away.

Ginger salmon and stuffed eastern peppers

For me, the key throughout has been to have lots of lovely food in the fridge, with different flavours so that it's easy to find something I fancy eating at any point when I want food and I don't end up going back to my old habits.

Both the salmon and the peppers are fantastic cold and keep for a while in the fridge, so it's worth cooking them, to have together or separately, hot or cold.

For the salmon, line a steamer with thinly sliced ginger, place the salmon on top and the lime on top of that. Put on a pan of boiling water and cover. It will be cooked in around 15 minutes. Delicious hot or cold.
For the red pepper, we stuffed these with middle eastern flavours. Dry roast half teaspoon of cumin seeds, cardomom pods and coriander seeds. Then pound them in a pestle and mortar, throwing away the skin from the cardomom. Dry roast a handful of pine nuts and add them to the crushed seeds.
Chop up equal amounts of onion and aubergine (eggplant) and fry them in olive oil. Throw in some quarters cherry tomatoes and turn off the heat.
Mix a tablespoonful of tomato puree with a cup of boiling water and when it's dissolved, pour this over a cup of bulgar wheat. Stir well and cover for 5 minutes, then add a tablespoon of olive oil and fluff up with a fork. Add this and a teaspoon of chopped dried mint to the aubergine mix and stir well.
Cut the top off a red pepper and fill with the mixture.
Drizzle with olive oil and cook for around 25 minutes at about 225 degrees. Delicious hot or cold.

Tuna with soy sauce and cauliflower wasabi mash

The meatiness of the tuna makes this so satisfying, and the wasabi works really well with the cauliflower. I discovered a recipe for mashed cauliflower that used the microwave instead of steaming it and I was so happy. The weird wet and graininess went and instead you get a mash that is super delicious and really nicely textured. You can change the wasabi paste for cheese for a more regular mash, but the wasabi here worked really well with the fish to give a sophisticated, Japanese edge to the meal.

Tuna steaks with soy sauce and cauliflower wasabi mash
Soy sauce – one tablespoon per tuna steak
Rice wine vinegar – one teaspoon per tuna steak
honey – one teaspoon per tuna steak
Tuna steak
one head of cauliflower
two tablespoons of cream
one tablespoon of butter
one teaspoon  of wasabi paste
two spring onions
Mix the soy sauce, vinegar, half a chopped spring onion and honey together in a plastic bag. Add the tuna and leave in the fridge. Cut the cauliflower into florets and put in a microwaveable dish. Dab with the butter.  Mix the cream and wasabi paste together and add to the cauliflower. Microwave it on full for 5 minutes. Stir (if you wanted to use cheese instead of wasabi paste, add the cheese now). Microwave for a further 5 minutes. Blend it in a blender. Stir through the spring onion and keep warm.
Heat a non-stick pan until smoking hot. Remove the tuna from the marinade. Cook on the griddle for 2-3 mins on each side until seared on the outside, but still pink inside.
Delicious.

Chicken with chorizo

The smokiness in the chorizo blends fabulously with the chicken, and the olives, making this a dish that fills your mouth with different flavours. I've found that lots of different taste sensations have helped me to feel full sooner. Plus with two types of meat, this is chock full of protein that leaves me full for a long time. It keeps well in the fridge, maybe even improving as the flavours mingle.

One thing I started realising that I needed to cut back on my portions. Leaving out the rice, potatoes, pasta, etc. meant that I just couldn't eat as much, so my serving size got smaller, and so too did the plate.

Of course I'd heard how you should serve meals on a smaller plate to make you feel that you were eating more, but no such trick seemed necessary to me. Just the pure protein hit I was taking meant that I simply didn't want much. I started taking doggy bags home from restaurants, and people weren't sure if I was feeling ok, I was eating so little, but I felt great. I had energy that I hadn't had for so long and it made me want to dance and swim and walk and run upstairs and all those things I hadn't wanted to do for so long. Of course, by now the weight was coming off, and simply not carrying around all those extra pounds made a huge difference, without all the added benefits of the way this diet made me feel, the lack of sluggishness from carbs, the fact that my heart and all my other organs were taking that much less pressure. My knees weren't hurting all the time. I could crouch down to talk to a kid without worrying if I was going to be able to get back up. It was really working and I felt great.

It was around now that people started to notice. Not the weight loss as such - I have such a long way to go that I think that will take a while, but my face, I had energy, I wasn't as red, as grey, as tired looking. I was getting back to myself and this is what they were noticing. But of course as I felt better, I wanted to do more, swim, walk and so on, and then this meant I felt even better and then I wanted to do this more. I seemed to be on a fabulously uplifting spiral. But at the very very bottom of it. Nevertheless, getting on those scales seeing the weightloss (it doesn't go down in one straight line but plunges then stablises, then goes up a bit, falls a bit, drops, rises, much like the profit chart in a cartoon company. But overall, week by week, if not day by day, the weight was coming off and I haven't been hungry once.

Dishes like this help.

These are the ingredients to make the dish for four to six people.

Handful of dried mushrooms
6 Bay leaves
Teaspoon peppercorns
10 tomatoes, roasted, peeled and chopped (or a tin of tomatoes if you prefer)
Three onions
Three red peppers
2 cloves of crushed garlic
Four chicken breasts
100 grams chopped chorizo
2 tablespoons olive oil
75grams olives
Put a pan of water on to boil. Add mushrooms, bay leaves peppercorns and some chopped onions and boil to make a vegetable stock.
In a large pan fry the onion, garlic and red pepper strips until transparent (on a low heat!). Remove from the pan and add more olive oil. Fry the chicken pieces until golden brown. Add the onions, peppers, garlic, tomatoes and some strained stock.
Bring to the boil, cover and simmer for around half an hour.
Add the chorizo and olives. Cook for a further 5 minutes.

Roasted cauliflower

Cauliflower has been a total saviour. From mashed to roasted, if you work with it's funky taste, it makes an amazing dish that I have been amazed to find totally addictive. Going back to the fridge for more and more and just a little more.

In this recipe I roasted it, shwarma style. The tahini - a sesame paste chocked full of protein and low on the GI scale, finishes it off perfectly.

Par boil the cauliflower for around 6 minutes. Meanwhile mix room temperature butter with a pinch of cumin, cardomom, nutmeg, allspice and cinnamon.
Remove the caulifllower from the boiling water and place on a baking tray. Coat with the butter (getting it in between the florets if possible) and put in the oven for around 30 minutes (or on a barbecue if you prefer). Meanwhile mix tahini, olive oil, and some ice water, till it can be poured.
Roast some pine nuts, chop up some spring onions, deseed a pomegranite. When the cauliiflower is done, pour over the tahini mix, sprinkle with the other ingredients and serve. It's also delicious in a salad.

Walnut, leek and courgette salad

I've found I'm getting through loads of nuts. They pack a protein punch and mean I don't miss the carbs. I find that they are particularly good when the dish doesn't include meat or pulses. The protein hit is always great for filling me up.

This salad is filling and delicious.

Chop the courgette (zuchini) into chunks and, if it's at all bitter, salt it and leave for 20 minutes before rinsing and drying. Cut the base and any grotty bits off the leeks and cut to a size that will fit comfortably in a pan. Mix olive oil, crushed garlic, salt and pepper and toss the leeks and courgette in the oil mixture. Place the courgettes in a hot pan and cook, stirring only very occasionally. Five minutes later add the leeks and keep turning occasionally until charred slightly on the outside. Meanwhile, dry fry some walnuts or almonds. Chop these into smallish chunks. Squeeze a couple of limes and mix with olive oil, crushed garlic, salt and pepper. Remove the stems from the parsley and chop. Chop the leeks to bitesize pieces.Mix together all the ingredients and serve on a bed of lettuce or directly in the bowl.

Shakshuka

 I roast a pan full of tomatoes most weeks and keep them in the fridge, completely covered in olive oil. This oil makes a great tomatoey base for all sorts of dishes, and can also be reused with each subsequent batch of tomatoes. Just simply cut the tops off the tomatoes and fill a baking tray with them. You can add oil, salt and pepper, but you don't need to (and if you want to reduce the oil, they'll keep for a couple of days or so without the oil).

This is a fabulous filling breakfast. I like the showmanship of giving everyone their own pan on the table, but you can serve it from a big one in the middle. The flavours here are deep and delicious.

For this you'll need a pan that can go in the oven and on the hob.
 Start with some red peppers (yellow peppers work well too, but the green ones have the wrong flavour). I like to remove the skin - either by peeling it off with a knife, or by cutting the peppers in half, remove the insides and grill them, skin down over a hot barbecue until the skin is black and can be pulled off. If life is too short, you can miss this bit off. Slice these into strips. If you prefer you can chop them into chunks instead.
Fry some cumin seeds in hot oil, but don't let them burn. Turn down the heat and add some onion - a couple of big onions or lots more shallots, sliced thinly and until they are soft..Switch on the oven for later. Add some finely chopped garlic and the pepper and continue to cook on the hob until the peppers are soft too. The smell of this cooking is wonderful.Add the garlic stir around and add the peppers and cook over a medium heat stirring occasionally for about 10-15 minutes until the peppers are soft. Add some salt and pepper and some paprika. Many recipes call for saffron, but I can't taste it amongst all the other flavours here so I leave it out. Add some roast tomatoes (this is the primary flavour here so plenty of tomatoes) and cook for a while longer until it's all hot.
Break a fresh egg into a bowl. You can tell if an egg is fresh before you break it by placing it in some water. If it lies flat (or as flat as an egg can lie!) then it's fresh, the more one end rises the less fresh it is, and if it completely floats, throw it away! When you break a fresh egg, the white will cling together (think a good fried egg look whilst an unfresh egg will have a very runny white. You need a firm white and to have not broken the yolk for this.
Make a space in the tomato mix (or more than one if you are doing this as a meal for many people to share) and pour the egg(s) into the space(s). Season and put in the oven for around 10 minutes. It's ready when the white has set.

Courgette spaghetti with prawns

So many dishes cry out for pasta or rice. And both of them have incredibly high GI and GL levels. I have managed to miss both out completely, and for some dishes that's been easy. Simply a case of serving the stew or the chilli or the curry straight, without the rice. Sometimes though, it's really lovely to have a substitute and this one works really well. It's got a fresh taste and complements the prawns nicely.

I've made this a couple of ways in the past. Not sure which one I prefer. Play around and see what you think.
For the 'spaghetti', cut the courgette (zuchini) into thin long strips. If it's bitter, toss in salt and leave for 15 minutes then rinse thoroughly. Taste it then probably rinse it some more.
If you want, you can make a stock. You can use chicken stock, fish stock, vegetable stock (I always use a home made vegetable stock with dried mushrooms, onions, bay leaves and peppercorns, but play around - I love stock made from weak earl grey tea and a splash of white wine!) and cook the courgettes in the stock. This time, however we used the other option - a simple acidic marinade.

For this, we used frozen prawns, two courgettes (zucchini), two limes, garlic, 2 tomatoes and half an onion

Cut  the courgettes into strips - we used a wavy peeler. Pour freshly squeezed lime juice over and a generous grind of black pepper. toss and marinade for 20 minutes.
Cook the prawns in a spoon of olive oil with crushed garlic, onion and finely diced tomatoes.
Great to serve hot or cold.

Pork and prunes

I found stews a great help. They are easy to make, and, though they take a bit of cooking initially, they reheat really well. This one freezes well which has meant that I make a big batch and freeze it in individual portions which can then be reheated quickly and easily. 
I found fairly early on that cooking big batches of meals that could be frozen in individual batches meant that I could keep it interesting and always have a wide selection of choices to eat. This has been invaluable as it meant that there was always something I wanted to eat, available in just minutes. 
There were two initial problems with stews for me. One is, I felt that they needed potatoes. The other was I was used to thickening it with flour, or mashed potatoes or carrots. All these would increase the GI of this stew dramatically. With the potatoes, I don't add them, but I do tend to include something else in the stew. In this case whole, toasted almonds, in others chick peas or other beans. And for the thickening, almond powder works well, but so does tahini. Because I make so much houmous, I always have tahini in the fridge, and a spoonful goes a long way. Of course there are other options you could use, and I'm sure I'll find more, further along this journey. For now, here is the recipe for the pork and  prunes.

Fry chopped pork shoulder till golden brown. Make a vegetable stock from dried mushrooms, a chopped up onion, bay leaves, peppercorns, maybe some celery, and put this on to boil with drinking water. Meanwhile fry (or cook in some water, if you prefer) chopped onions, till translucent, and roast whole almonds in the oven or in a dry pan.
When pork is golden brown add a cup of stock, onions, tahini to thicken the stock, a glass of white wine (optional but well worth it), cover and cook for around 45 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Add more stock, prunes and cook for around 20 minutes more, adding more stock as required. Add the almonds a couple of minutes before serving and sprinkle with chopped parsley.

Dried apricot breakfast

Dried fruit is full of flavour and with the oranges, this dish is full of fibre. 

I have been eating some dried fruit with nuts between meals most days. This quickly satisfies my need for something sweet and the protein in the nuts has filled me up.

By soaking the apricots you add some bulk to them before eating. The liquid that the fruit soaks in becomes naturally sweet so you don't need any additional sweeteners.

Soak some apricots (and cranberries, if you wish) in enough warm drinking water to cover them. Ideally these should soak overnight but one hour will do. Toss with orange segments, mint and roasted pistachio nuts. Serve with greek yoghurt.

Aubergine with spicy peanut sauce

For this one, I used a barbecue, but you can cook the aubergine (eggplant) in the oven or directly on the gas. Peanuts and other nuts are great to include every day as they stave off the hunger, whilst providing a protein hit so I have been keeping them around to snack on. 

For this I chargrilled the aubergine on a barbecue then carefully peeled off the blackened skin.
For the sauce, I roasted a generous handful of peanuts, and pounded them with sesame oil, a dried chilli (just one, but to taste), garlic, the juice of one lime, and salt. You can add roasted tomatoes if you wish, they add a depth to the sauce. Cook the peanut mix with some drinking water to make a pourable sauce and pour over the aubergine. Scatter with herbs - parsley, coriander or spring onions  work well.

This is great served cold so another fabulous dish to have in the fridge. Use it as a side dish, a snack, a light meal, in a salad. 

Baked fish

I've been finding it helpful to cook dishes that are as good cold as hot. That way, I always have something easy to eat in the fridge and I'm not tempted to go to a no good for me option. This fish dish hits the spot perfectly. The tomatoes are juicy and full of flavour after cooking and complement the fish perfectly. It's fairly quick, and straighforward if you don't fillet the fish yourself. Filleting adds to the sense of achievement though!

Fillet the fish. Toss gently with olive oil, salt and pepper. Lay in an oven proof dish on top of mini tomato halves, and onion rings. Sprinkle with olive pieces, capers and herbs - in this case we used rosemary, but dill, parsley or basil are all good. Bake in a medium oven - around 200 degrees C for around 20 minutes, serve once the fish is no longer translucent. We ate it with a green salad, dressed with balsamic vinegar and olive oil.

Poached eggs

I find that eggs fill me up well and so I don't want to eat for a while. The key to the perfect poached eggs is to get the eggs really really fresh.

To make sure the egg is fresh, I put it in a bowl of water.  It should lie flat. When you break it the white (or at least most of it) should form a circle. If it's just watery, you won't be able to use it to poach eggs in this way. Before you start cooking, break the egg into a small bowl.

I start this meal by snapping the asparagus. The idea is to be able to cook the tender part, leaving behind any tougher ends. Plunge it into boiling water for around five minutes. When it's nearly done, put a steamer above with the spinach. This will only need 30 seconds or so - it just needs to wilt. Arrange on a plate.

Boil the water for the egg. You want a pan that isn't too big. Add a teaspoon of vinegar - I use white wine vinegar. This helps the egg to hold together. You can add salt too, if you like, though I prefer to add it after cooking.

When it's simmering, swirl the water round fast until the middle drops down. Pour in the egg and leave to cook for around a minute, then check if it's ready by carefully lifting it out with a wooden spoon. Once the white is cooked, but the yolk is still runny, lift it onto the veggies, sprinkle with chopped spring onions, and eat immediately.

Fragrant Chicken Soup

I have found that with all the protein I'm eating, and so little in the way of carbs, the amount I want to eat has gone right down.

Soup is a great option as it makes a great lunch and most will keep well, both in the fridge and frozen.

With fragrant chicken soup, the amazing flavours stayed with me, and the chick peas make it filling long after eating, and made it not so hard to go without bread. This isn't such a problem for me now, but when I was first changing my eating habits, these little things made all the difference. It's amazing how quickly it became a habit.

Roast some tomatoes in the oven for an hour, or so (if life is too short, use tinned tomatoes).

Make a stock from dried mushrooms, bayleaves, peppercorns, maybe some celery and an onion, with drinking water. Saute, or boil in half a cup of water, one chopped onion. Add half a teaspoon of: salt, cinnamom, turmeric, paprika, ginger powder, nutmeg and ground pepper. Separately saute (or boil up) one chicken breast cut into bitesized pieces. Add squished tomatoes, chopped leeks, chicken and chickpeas. Boil for 10 minutes and sprinkle with coriander before serving.

A couple of months ago, I was told that all that cooking I'd been doing - all the cooking classes where I taught baking and pastry, desserts and pies, doughnuts and panna cottas, had impacted on more than my waistline. I was diabetic. Actually, that's not strictly true. Initially I was told I was pre-diabetic which was a diagnosis I hadn't known existed, but later the doctor told me that I should have been told I was Type 2 diabetes, with a reading of 130 (where the safe range is 75-115)  and it was time to really get my life together.

Now, the doctor told me I should get the right nutritional info, but, as we live in a place that is so far from developed, that if I wanted to see a nutritionalist, I'd have to fly to another country. It was suggested I google it. So google it, I did.

I'd vaguely heard of Low GI. It was Atkins, right? Maybe with a bit of that caveman's diet thrown in - paleo? Weren't they unhealthy? Missing out carbs completely, even veggies and fruit. Raw food maybe. All a bit wishy washy and bad for the long term health. Except that the low GI diet wasn't that. It was backed by good science, rather than gut instinct.

It took me a while and lots of misunderstandings to start to get a feel for it. Of course with something like this, there is a lot of good info and a great deal of nonsense out there on the web. It could be hard sifting through it. Even little things became complicated - peas, for instance - were they low or high GI? Why did most of the books and articles I read seem to revolve around flour, potatoes, and rice. These were on my list of no nos. Slowly but surely things became clearer, and so did my way forward.

Firstly, I decided not to worry about my weight to start with. Getting my blood sugar down was the priority.

Secondly, I wasn't keen on completely giving up sugar. But I figured I could cut right back on it.

Thirdly, it seemed the major villains (apart from sugar) were rice, flour,  most things grown underground and cooked, fruit juice, mixers, sweet fruit and beer. So no potatoes, pastry, cakes, bread, rice, noodles, mangos - and just as mango season was kicking in - and gin and tonics.

But that left a lot. The good things were meat and green veggies (though being careful with which ones, broad beans and peas aren't great), fish, chick peas (and therefore lashings and lashings of houmous), chocolate wasn't bad, in moderation, nuts were great and a wonderful filler, and fruit, particularly when not too ripe was great. Think bananas like in the UK, rather than the tropics, unripe papaya or mango salad was great, though the ripe versions not so much.

It also took a while to suss the Glycaemic Index (GI) against Glycaemic Load (GL) thing. Broadly if it has a high GI, it might still not have a high GL because of the fibre, etc. in it. Hence fruit is much better than fruit juice, a watermelon has a terrible GI of between 70 and 80 (against 100 for sugar) but the load is just 4 or 5 (pasta, rice, noodles, sweetened condensed milk and energy drinks all come in at around ten times that for a comparison), so whilst it wasn't the best fruit, it was still much better than those items on my banned list, so I'd allow it on to my occasional and only in small quantities list that was rapidly piling up in my head.

Now, I cook. I like cooking. I like working on new menus. I have worked out how to cook the things I'm missing from home that here are just impossible or financially prohibitive to buy, at least often. And I teach cooking classes. I teach western cooking, and local cooking to kids and adults. So, this was just going to be the next phase in the cooking.

I set to, devising lists of foods that would work, making menus, creating courses so that others who wanted to cook this way too, could.

At first it seemed so easy. Until I started trying to visit restaurants. Very few could cater for my needs. But with a bit of switching around, and careful choosing of the restaurants, it all came together.

And the weight started dropping off.

I started to eat a low GI diet on 7 February and so far I've lost a little over 20 kilos (43lbs, or just over 3 stone) and that is without being hungry. It's been no problem being in a restaurant with friends tucking into their high GI choices as I'm full. Almost all the time. I'm forgetting to eat, which is something I never thought would happen to me as food is such a passion. Most of the time I don't feel like I'm denying myself as I'm eating delicious food, as much as I want. Cheese, chocolate, cream, meat, all are low GI, so as long as I don't get too stupid with them, they are all fine. And any diet that allows me chocolate and cheese, well, that works for me. Without trying to lose weight - just an utter determination to lose blood sugar.

And talking of blood sugar. My blood sugar dropped to 83 after a week and has since averaged 91. Slap bang in the middle of the recommended range.

And so, I decided to blog the recipes, as I continue on this journey, in the hope that it'll help others. It's just my journey, of course, but it feels like the most amazing discovery to me, and I hope it works for you too.