Recipe: Smoky Tomato & Chickpea Stew - 112 calories per portion

I fancied something with a bit of heat and smokiness for my tea tonight so decided on a tomato & chickpea stew flavoured with chilli & paprika. When I checked the fridge, I also saw I had a courgette to use up to so figured I'd bung that in too.

As it's so low calorie, I decided to serve it with a small portion of quinoa on the side. I really struggle to cook quinoa - it always just ends up a bit wet and soggy. I've tried the two-parts stock to one part quinoa, and Ive tried just cooking it in a big pan of water then draining, nothing seems to work! My friend Ally has also blogged about cooking quinoa too, we'll keep on practicing and let you know if we come up with a fool-proof method. If you have any top tips then please do share!

I used 30g (dry weight) of quinoa, which is about 110 calories, so a sub-250 calorie meal, perfect for a fast day, and plenty of leftovers for tomorrow. I have some ideas for non-fast days too - see variations below.

Smoky Tomato & Chickpea Stew (makes four portions)

Ingredients:

Few sprays One-Cal olive oil

75g frozen diced onion

1 tsp frozen chopped garlic

1 courgette, sliced then cut into quarters

1 tin chopped tomatoes

1 tin chickpeas in water

1 tbsp double concentrated tomato purée

1 tsp smoked paprika

1/2 tsp dried chilli flakes 

Method:

Spray a few sprays of oil into a large saucepan then add the onion, garlic and courgette and fry off.

Add in the tin of chopped tomatoes, chickpeas and tomato purée and stir through, then stir in the paprika and chilli flakes.

Simmer for about 10 minutes then taste and add more paprika, chilli, salt or pepper to taste, then simmer gently for about another 5 mins.

Nutritional Info per serving:

Calories: 112
Fat: 3g
Carbs: 15g
Protein: 6g
Sugar: 5g

Variations:

I'm already planning ahead with how I'm going to use the leftovers for tea tomorrow on a non-fasting day. This would be delicious with some chorizo in, and as luck would have it, I bought some at the fabulous Kirkstall Deli Market this weekend just gone, I think I'll also add in some chunks of chicken breast too, and maybe serve it with a nice hunk or warm crusty bread. YUM!

Recipe: Thai Green Veg Curry - 237 calories per portion

Even though yesterday wasn't a fast day, I'd kind of pigged out on the amazing Raspberry Mojito cake that my pal Ally made and bought into work, so I thought I'd try and make something under 250 cals for my tea, then I could have the leftovers today, which actually *is* my fast day!

I was in the mood for something a bit spicy and fragrant last night, and as my lovely OH had done the grocery shopping on Tuesday, we had some yummy veg to use, so I decided to cook up a big pan of Thai green curry.

I've made Thai green curries before and they're so easy peasy. I bought a fairly big pot of green curry paste a while ago from the ace Hang Sing Hong oriental supermarket in Leeds city centre, and we still had some left in the fridge. I couldn't actually remember how much to use so plumped for 100g, turns out that was probably a bit much as crikey it was HOT! Might drop it to 75g next time!

Also, I discovered when logging the recipe in MyFitnessPal that there is such a think as LIGHT coconut milk, so will endeavour to find this lower-cal lower-fat alternative when I next go shopping to replace the can I used last night!

Thai Green Veg Curry (makes five portions)

Ingredients:

100g Green Curry Paste (from oriental supermarket - I used Mae Ploy)
400ml tin Coconut Milk

1 red onion, chunkily diced
350g courgette, sliced
350g sweet potato, diced into bite sized chunks
100g frozen edamame beans

Method:

Warm a large saucepan and add the curry paste. Next, add in all the veg except the edamame beans, and stir through to coat them and start to fry off in the paste.

Tip in the tin of coconut milk and stir through. Then use a bit of boiling water to swill out the can (about half a tin) and add in to thin it down a touch. Let it simmer for about 15 mins or until the sweet potato is just cooked through.

Add in the edamame beans and simmer for another 5 minutes or so until they are cooked, and then serve in a nice big bowl.

Nutritional Info per serving:

Calories: 237
Fat: 13g
Carbs: 25g
Protein: 5g
Sugar: 8g

Variations:

For a meaty dish, you could add in some chunks of fresh chicken breast just before you add the coconut milk, obviously this will up the calories a bit, but if you use light coconut milk (and maybe a bit less curry paste!) and reduce the amount of sweet potato a bit then you'd still have a filling meal for under 300 calories. YUMMY!

Progress report

Went for my monthly weigh-in this morning and have lost 2kg (4.5lbs) in my first month on the 5:2 diet. Hurray!

Recipe: Courgette & Mushroom Frittata - 160 calories per portion

Eggs are fabulous. Packed full of protein, they can form a great base for a meal.

I generally use whole eggs when I'm making a meal with them, but on a fast day when I'm trying to keep things super low calorie, I'll often substitute one or two whole eggs for egg-white only. By doing this tonight, I had a yummy dinner for a completely bargainous 160 calories!

Courgette & Mushroom Frittata (makes one generous portion)

Ingredients:

125g closed cup mushrooms

100g courgette

1 whole egg

2 egg whites

Splash skimmed milk

Salt Chilli & Garlic grinder

1-cal olive oil spray

Method:

Clean and slice the mushrooms and courgette, then fry in a pan in a few sprays of oil

Meanwhile lightly beat the egg & egg whites together in a bowl with a splash of milk. 

When the veggies are lovely and golden, combine with the egg mixture and season well with the grinder. Tip into a small ovenproof dish...

... then pop into a preheated oven at about 180*C for about 10-15 mins or until it's set and golden on top

Try to resist scoffing straight away, or else you *will* burn your mouth!

Nutritional Info per serving:

Calories: 160
Fat: 7g
Carbs: 5g
Protein: 18g
Sugar: 4g

Optional Extras:

This is a *super* low calorie version, so if you can afford a few extra, I reckon this would be delicious with a bit of grated cheese stirred through the egg mix, and maybe also a bit of chopped up ham or gammon too. If I was making it again I'd probably fry up some onion with the other veggies too.

If you try it, let me know what you think!

Essential ingredient: Salt, Chilli & Garlic Grinder

There are some things in my store cupboard I find myself reaching for again and again. My Salt, Chilli & Garlic Grinder is one of them

It was less than £1 from one of my favourite mooching spots, Home Bargains. It seasons and gives a great chilli kick to whatever I'm cooking and is a great easy cheap way to get some flavour into your food, which can sometimes be a challenge if you're trying to keep things as low calorie as possible.

My Chilli & Garlic Mushrooms are a great example of where this grinder has spiced up a dish!

Our approach to cooking

We're a family on a budget. And not just a financial one either, we also have to spend our time wisely, and restrict our calories.

My first post on this blog tells you more why I'm rationing the calories. As for time and money they both come down to the same thing: we have two kids!

My OH and I decided when we got pregnant with my daughter (now 6) that we'd do what we could to avoid having to pay for childcare and that one of us would give up full time work to look after the kids. So now I'm at work full time during the day, and when I get home from work, OH leaves for his part-time evening job. This means we don't eat our tea together during the week, and the only time we get to spend all together as a family of four is at the weekend, and it's really precious to us.

So we're short on time together, and until OH goes back into full time work when our son (3) starts primary school Sept 2014, we're also conscious of the pennies.

This impacts on how we like to shop, cook and eat.

We don't like to spend hours in the kitchen chopping and prepping - we're happy to take shortcuts when we can, so we keep the freezer stocked with bags of frozen ingredients like sliced peppers, casserole veg and diced onion. Morrisons do a fab range of frozen chopped herbs and spices like garlic, ginger, chilli and parsley. These items work out way cheaper per lb than their fresh counterparts and there is much less wastage, as we've had an awful tendency in the past to let our fresh veg go past it's best before we use it and end up chucking it away; a terrible waste of food and money.

We keep a well stocked spices cupboard, and always have tins of chopped tomatoes and various legumes in, as well as the usual store cupboard basics like rice, pasta, couscous, and more recently quinoa.

So we've always got enough in to cobble together some kind of filling stew, casserole or slow cooker dish. Which brings me on to how we like to cook....

We cook an awful lot of bung-it-all-in-a-pan-and-leave-it-for-a-while-see-what-happens kind of dishes. OH often bungs a load of stuff in the slow cooker in the morning then goes out for the day with the youngest to his various playgroups and whatnot (howcome my 3 year old has a better social life than me?!), so I often get home from work to a house that smells of yum and a slow cooker full of something delicious.

More often than not, it'll make up 4-6 portions. Our children are extremely finicky and rarely eat what we eat (a whooole other story which I might blog about at some point!) so when we cook up a pot of something, it'll usually do us for 2 or 3 days. 

 We've got a healthy collection of tupperware and takeaway type containers to freeze leftovers in. It's brilliant for me when I get home from work to be able to get a portion of sommat out of the freezer that is yummy, healthy and home cooked.

So one of the reasons I'm writing this blog is to get a collection of these dishes together that are all around the 250-300 calorie mark - perfect tea for a fast day!

Feel free to share your thoughts with me. Have you got any shortcuts that save you time and money in the kitchen?

Recipe: Chilli & Garlic Mushrooms - 41 calories per portion

Mushrooms are just super for fast days. They bulk out a dish nicely for very few calories and can be cooked using a bit of water rather than having to use oil.

Tonight I made Chilli & Garlic Mushrooms as a side dish for my Scrummy Stuffed Peppers, and very nice they were too for under 50 calories!

Chilli & Garlic Mushrooms (makes one generous portion)

Ingredients:

125g closed cup mushrooms

1 tsp frozen chopped garlic

5g light spread (I used Utterley Butterly Light)

Salt Chilli & Garlic grinder

Method:

Clean and quarter the mushrooms, and place in a saucepan with the garlic and 2-3 tablespoons of water over a low heat, allow to steam for about 10 mins, taking care not to let the pan boil dry, add a bit more water if you need to

Once the mushrooms are cooked as much as you like them to be, drain off any excess liquid and add in the spread and season to taste using the Salt Chilli & Garlic grinder, and pepper if you like. Warm through until the spread has melted then you're ready to serve

Recipe: Scrummy Stuffed Peppers - 271 calories per portion

So I used a portion of the leftover Quorn Pasta Sauce that OH made last night to make a filling but low calorie fast day tea tonight.

Yes that's right that's even CHEESE on the top - cheese on a fast day is the height of luxury! Pictured with a side of Chilli & Garlic Mushrooms to give a total calorie count of 312 calories for my evening meal - perfect for a fast day!

Scrummy Stuffed Peppers (makes one portion)

Ingredients:

1 red pepper, halved & seeds removed
25g (dry weight) easy cook rice
1 portion Quorn Pasta Sauce
10g mature cheese, grated

Method:

Place the pepper halves on a baking sheet and put in a preheated 200ºC oven for 15 mins

Meanwhile, cook the rice in plenty of boiling water, until it is just under done, still with a slight bite.

Drain the rice and return to the pan, adding in a portion of the Quorn Pasta Sauce. Heat through until simmering.

By now the pepper halves should be ready to fill so remove them from the oven and stuff with the rice/sauce mix. Top with grated cheese and return to the oven for another 10-15 mins until the cheese is all melty and golden and the pepper is soft and sweet.

Nutritional Information (per portion):

Calories: 271
Fat: 5g
Carbs: 41g
Protein: 13g
Sugar: 14g

Recipe: Quorn Pasta Sauce - 88 calories per portion

My lovely Other Half is brilliant, and super supportive of my efforts to lose weight. He's been on a bit of a weight loss journey of his own and has become really conscious of calorie content, getting more veg into our diets, and generally eating more healthily.

His 'thing' with cooking is creating one-pot pan-fulls of tasty stews and casseroles. I've convinced him more recently to switch to lean cuts of meat, up the veg content, and bulk out with beans and chickpeas and the like to get more for our budget - both financial and in terms of calories.

Yesterday he made a cracking pan of pasta sauce with Quorn and veg and it was lovely. We ate it with pasta (75g dry weight) giving a total calorie count for the meal of 353 calories. Four portions left over too - 2 for the fridge and 2 for the freezer. A pretty versatile sauce too, plenty of different ways to use it, in fact I used it in a different way for my tea tonight too, but more on that later!

Anyway here's the recipe....

Quorn Pasta Sauce (makes 6 servings)

Ingredients:

20 sprays One-Cal olive oil spray
1 red onion, diced
1 tsp frozen chopped garlic
100g frozen sliced mixed peppers
250g frozen chargrilled mediterranean vegetables
130g frozen quorn mince
1 tin chopped tomoatoes
1/3 tube tomato puree
2 veg stock cubes, made up with boiling water
1 tsp paprika

Method:

In a big saucepan, fry off the diced red onion and garlic. Chuck in the rest of the ingredients and simmer until delicious. Season with plenty of turns of the Salt Chilli & Garlic grinder, and a few turns from the pepper mill

Nutritional Info per serving:

Calories: 88
Fat: 2g
Carbs: 12g
Protein: 6g
Sugar: 8g

About My Journey

I've been on a weight loss journey for almost three years now. At it's peak, four months after my son was born, my weight reached 113.55 kg. That's 17 stone 12 lbs. Or 250lbs. However you express it, thats a whole lotta Rosey!

With a BMI of 39.1, a shade under the borderline into morbidly obese, I knew I had to make a change. Looking to start keeping a food diary, I signed up to My Fitness Pal on 1st August 2010 and I have never looked back. I asked the nurse at my local GPs surgery for help keeping me on track and started going to see her once a month to get weighed and talk about my progress.

I managed to get down to 72kg by Christmas 2011 (that's 11 stone 5 lbs in old money) a total loss of 6 and a half stone, well over a third of my starting weight. I'd made it just into the 'normal' BMI zone. Hurray!

Unfortunately, I've then struggled to keep it going. After 18 months of calorie counting, I felt like I needed to give myself a break and took 6 months off. I gained half a stone back. Starting back on it again in September 2012 I lost the half stone I'd gained back by February 2013 and got back to 72 kg.

During March, despite pretty much sticking to 1400 calories a day, I gained a kilo. I found this really dispiriting and over April, I fell right off the rails, baking cakes for 4 different events across the month and scoffing most of it. At my weigh in at the end of April I had gained another 5kg and was back up to 78 kg, almost a stone gained in two months.

I felt really disheartened and like I'd never be able to eat 'normally' again. Trying to stick to 1400 calories a day was no longer working for me, and I felt like there was no light at the end of the tunnel. I needed to try something different.

I'd seen some chat on MFP about 'intermittent fasting' and following a '5:2 diet' so I thought I'd give it a try. The principle of the Fast Diet is that you eat a very low calorie diet on 2 days of the week (500 calories for women, 600 calories for men), then eat 'normally' for the other 5 days. Once you've reached your goal weight, you continue to fast one day per week.

As well as weight loss benefits, this diet is also said to have other health benefits as well, improving cognitive function and staving off Alzheimer's, and extending life span, although research into this is still quite limited at this stage. For impartial info about the Fast Diet, have a look at what the NHS has to say about it here.

I decided I'd still track my calories every day to make sure I don't just go nuts on my non-fasting days. Using this calculator, I worked out that the total calories I need just to maintain my current weight is 1860 per day, so I have set my allowance to 1800 for my non-fast days, giving me a total calorie allowance per week of 10,000, so about the same as my previous 1400 calorie per day diet.

I'm just starting my fourth week of following this eating pattern and I must say I've found it quite enjoyable! Strangely, I look forward to my fast days, and relish the challenge of trying to create exciting meals within a strict calorie budget. It's also nice to know that even though you're having to deny yourself treats, you can look forward to treating yourself tomorrow. I can't even tell you if it's working for me yet, as my first monthly weigh in isn't until next week, but I'm feeling pretty hopeful as my clothes feel less snug!

I'm starting this blog to keep a bit of a recipe book for all my favourite fast day meals, and to share them with others who are trying a calorie controlled diet. If you're one of those, I hope you find this blog useful, please share your stories with me.