Roasted Ratatouille Chicken

After exactly four months of eating low GI, my current weight loss stands at 50 pounds. I still have a long way to go, but, obviously I'm delighted. It hasn't felt like being on a diet as I've been able to eat amazing food, and although I have the odd craving - spaghetti carbonara and scones with cream and jam - I'm looking at you!, I haven't found it at all difficult. Dishes like this help. They are great hot, straight out of the oven, but also work well cold, so make loads extra and fill tupperware for later.

Ingredients

Stock

One onion, 

A teaspoon of peppercorns

2 or 3 bay leaves 

A handful of dried mushrooms.

Water

For the rest:

4 chicken breasts

2 courgettes (zucchini)

5 small or 2 large aubergine (eggplant)

A generous handful of cherry tomatoes

One onion

Four cloves garlic, finely chopped

A bunch of rosemary (this freezers well so you can buy it, wash it, dry it and freeze it)

2 tablespoons olive oil

salt and pepper

To make this, first make stock. 

Next we cooked the aubergine (eggplant) and peppers on a barbecue, but you can put in the oven if you prefer.

While those are cooking, chop up the courgettes into largish chunks and put them in a baking tray.

  

 Remove the leaves from the rosemary, leaving a couple of intact stalks, and chop the leaves finely.

 

 When the peppers and aubergine are blackened on the outside, remove the skins and cut them into bitesize chunks.

 

Add the tomatoes to the cougettes.

Mix the rosemary, garlic and olive oil.

Spoon half this mix over the cougettes and tomatoes.

Turning to make sure that they are coated evenly.

Add salt and pepper.

Cut the chicken breast into individual breasts.

 Make small cuts in the top and bottom of the breasts

Rub the rest of the rosemary mix in, making sure you also go under the skin.

Arrange the chicken, skin down in amongst the vegetables.

Add the onion and put the sprigs of rosemary on the chicken breasts.

 Cook at around 200 C for about 20 minutes.

Turn the chicken over and put back for 20 minutes more.

Add the peppers and aubergine and mix well.

Cook for 20 more minutes

Serve hot or cold.

Chocolate truffles

I'm now four months into this diet and today my weight loss hit 50 pounds. There have been some ups and downs along the way. I haven't 'cheated' as I'm really trying to see it as a lifestyle change, so allowing treats as I go along, but I also have avoided flour, cooked root veggies, rice, and other high GI foods. Chocolate truffles are great as they are not too bad. Obviously you can't eat a kilo of them, but one - or two - as a treat are fabulous. The ingredients all fall into the low GI range and they are really simple to make.

Making chocolate truffles is really easy, but needs to start a day in advance. You'll need 2 saucepans, a pyrex dish with a lip that fits over the saucepan, but still allows steam to escape, some baking paper, some disposable gloves, a bowl, a spatula, a knife, spoon and fork, a sieve, and some petit four paper cases. 

For around 15 truffles you'll need 200 grams good quality chocolate and 200 ml double cream, a pinch of salt and some cocoa powder.

Start by putting some water on to boil. You need it to come to just below the pyrex dish when it is sitting in the pan. Meanwhile, chop up the chocolate into chunks. Once the water is boiling, put the pyrex dish containing the chocolate over the water and let the steam melt it.

Just before it is fully melted, warm the cream - you don't want it to boil, but you don't want it cold so that the chocolate sets before they are stirred together.

Add a pinch of salt, plus any brandy, rum, whisky, coffee (one heaped teaspoon of espresso powder, made up with as little water as possible works well) at this point. Personally I prefer the truffles to be pure chocolatey goodness!

Remove the melted chocolate from the heat and pour the cream into the chocolate.

Stir the mixture quickly.

Until it is glossy and even.

Pour this into a bowl lined with greaseproof paper and leave to set overnight.

The next day (or at least four hours later if you are really stuck for time), sieve some cocoa onto a plate.

If you prefer, you can roll the truffles in nuts, or coconut, or dip them in melted chocolate.

Also, if you want flavoured truffles, you could add chopped stem ginger, apricots, nuts, etc. to the mixture as you are rolling.

Take a truffle sized piece of the chocolate mix and, wearing gloves as it is extremely messy, roll into a ball.

Then roll in the cocoa.

Put in a paper case and eat, or gift or freeze (they freeze really well).

Spiced oranges with labneh

I love low GI desserts. This one is fabulous, but you do need sweet oranges, if you are not going to add any sweetener - I was very tempted to stir through a spoon of honey.

First make the labneh. This is hung yoghurt. You will need some cheesecloth.
Make this three layers thick and put in a bowl.

Spoon in some yoghurt and tie up the cloth.
Leave overnight for it to separate.

When you open it, the yoghurt will be thick and creamy.

Next, peel and slice some sweet oranges.
Cook in a pan with a teaspoon of cinnamon and some star anise - 2 or 3 pods.

Meanwhile crush some pistachio nuts in a pestle and mortar.
Toast in the oven for around 4 minutes.

Serve the oranges, without the star anise, with a spoonful of labneh, sprinkled with the pistachios.

Warm chicken and lentil salad

Lentils are low GI so great to include in the diet, but can be dull without some fantastic other flavours around them. I would love to make daal, but just want chapatis, and although I have some ideas on how to make low GI chapatis, I haven't experimented yet, so for now, I'm using them in lots of salads. This is a warm and satisfying salad, filled with amazing flavours.

Ingredients

One chicken breast

100g raw lentils

A generous handful of mushrooms, cleaned and sliced

A tablespoon of butter

2 cloves garlic, crushed and finely chopped

A handful of peanuts, bashed in a pestle and mortar

5 spring onions, cut the bottom into 8 cm strips, finely chop the rest

A selection of leaves

A bunch of parsley florets

Bring some water to the boil.

Add the chicken breast and boil for 20 minutes until cooked through.

Remove the chicken from the water and leave to cool.

Add the lentils to the same water. Bring back to the boil.

Boil for 25 minutes until cooked, but still firm.

Melt the butter in a pan.

Add the garlic.

After one minute, add the mushrooms, cook for 4 minutes.

 Add the peanuts.

Meanwhile, shred the chicken.

Add to the mushrooms.  

Add the spring onions.

Add the parsley

Add the lentils

Stir well.

Arrange the leaves in a bowl and pour the salad over.

Eat while warm.

Stir fried beef with ginger

This is packed with flavour.

Ingredients

A thumb sized piece of ginger

2 stalks of lemon grass

A tablespoon of vegetable oil

4 cloves garlic

One onion

One piece of good quality beef - about 200 grams

A generous handful of beansprouts

A generous handful of mange tout

A generous handful of coriander

A splash of soy sauce.

Firstly prepare all the ingredients as the cooking time is fast.

Peel the ginger and cut it into matchsticks.

Finely slice the lemon grass.

Crush, peel and finely chop the garlic.

Cut the beef into slivers.

Peel the onion and slice it into strips.

Clean teh beansprouts, mange tout and coriander.

Top and tail the mange tout.

Chop up the coriander and its stalks.

 

Heat a tablespoon of vegetable oil over a medium heat.

Add the ginger and the lemon grass.

Add the garlic

Stir

Add the onions.

Then add the beef and the soy sauce.

Add the rest of the ingredients.

Stir for one more minute and serve.

Chicken fusion salad

I was delighted to realise recently that vermicelli noodles weren't made with rice as I had always assumed but with mung beans, and so they are back on the menu. 

This salad is really straightforward. 

You will need:

A chicken breast

2 small packs of rice noodles

a generous handful of coriander - chopped up

Some thin slivers of red pepper

a couple of handfuls of beansprouts

10 spring onions chopped up

juice of 4 limes

If you wish, some sweet chilli dipping sauce or a spoon of honey and a chilli pepper, chopped into tiny pieces.

Boil up some chicken until it's cooked through and leave to cool (I also love this salad without the chicken, or with prawns, fish or smoked salmon).

Cook the vermicelli in boiling water for a couple of minutes until cooked and leave to cool.

If using the honey, mix the honey, lime and chilli.

Strain the noodles well then chop them up

Shred the chicken breast.

Toss all the ingredients together and serve.

Pork steak with cauliflower mash, cabbage and bacon.

It's coming up for four months since I started eating low GI. At first my blood sugar and weight dropped dramatically, then my body kicked in, fighting the changes, then they seemed to sort themselves out. I virtually never crave carbs, love the food I'm eating, find restaurants, particularly cafes really hard going, not because I am tempted - I'm full the whole time so not tempted, but so often there is nothing on the menu that is low GI. Most places are great at being willing to make changes, but it'd be lovely to not have to ask!

This week we made a few more dishes. This one is simple and barely needs a recipe, but here goes.

First we made cauliflower mash, which is the same recipe as  cauliflower cheese but the ingredients are then blended into a mash, and sprinkled with chopped up spring onions.

For the pork chop we kept this plain, frying it in hot oil to seal in the flavours, then reducing the heat right down to ensure it cooked through. The result was moist and full of flavour.

For the cabbage, we simply chopped up and fried some bacon, in it's own fat, then stirred it into warm cabbage and served immediately.