Runner's World: Healthy Mac 'n' Cheese

I was meant to go running today so the recipe I selection came from Runner's World magazine.  I was sold by the title 'Fight Fatigue with Mac 'n' Cheese.  I'm invariably tired and the idea of mac 'n' cheese seemed quite an appealing treat after pounding out a few miles.

Sadly the run never happened as I was awake from 1am and was just thinking around 5am that I'd probably be best getting ready to run when I must've nodded off until my toddler alarm clock woke me.

Today is one of those mad-busy days when I'm trying to juggle lots of things.  In an hour or so I'm going to hit the road to Southampton to my cousin's 21st.  It's a fancy dress party so I'm hoping to leave early and get changed 'darn Sarf' rather than having to drive across Salisbury Plain dressed as Cruella de Vil.

As there's only party food, I figured I could probably still get away with the mac dish and as I've not had much sleep, I could test it's fatigue fighting (gimmicky) claims.  I'm driving back home again tonight.  Mad, I know but I have to be back for Miss A.

Comfort food!

It's an interesting recipe that uses cauliflower as the base for the white sauce instead of a traditional roux.  As a fan of cauliflower cheese, it seemed like an ideal dish.  And with a bit of work (or maybe if I paid attention to the recipe rather than my sofa-diving child) it could be really tasty.

One thing I forgot to add was the olive oil which saved 60 cals per serving.  MyFitnessPal.com calculated what I put in to the recipe as 330 cals and having just realised I forgot the oil, that means what I ate was only 270 cals.  Bargain! More nibbles for me later :)

There was also too much cheesy topping to fill my dish.  It's kind of like a cauli soup that you put on top and I was worried that it was a bit thin, but after baking, it had thickened up nicely.  I may reduce the stock a bit next time so that the cheesiness is more intense.

I also forgot the mustard, added a pinch of cayenne to the cheese sauce and put the parmesan into the cheese sauce by mistake rather than sprinkling it with the breadcrumbs.  I reckon this is a better solution and the breadcrumbs would be good with some fresh herbs mixed through instead.

It was REALLY filling.  I thought when I was making it that I'd be able to easily eat the lot, but one portion and I'm absolutely stuffed.  I know what I'll be having for lunch tomorrow.

So a short blog today, and they will be much shorter over the coming weeks as it's back to work Monday Was that a collective sigh of relief I heard blog readers?

Recipe - Serves 4 (I made half)

• 625ml vegetable or chicken stock
• 1 medium cauliflower, cored and cut into florets
• 225g macaroni (the recipe recommends wholewheat, but you have to buy that off the interweb, I used Waitrose regular)
• 40g grated cheese such as sharp cheddar, gruyere or emmental
• 20g grated parmesan
• Pinch of Cayenne
• salt and black pepper
• 40g wholemeal breadcrumbs

1. Preheat the oven to 200c/180c fan. 
2. Cook the cauliflower in boiling salted water for 25 minutes.  Remove from the pan with a slotted spoon and set to one side.  Cook the pasta in the cauliflower water for five minutes.  Drain and rinse to cool; put the cooked pasta in a greased baking dish.
3. Blend the cauliflower in a food processor with the stock, both cheeses, cayenne, salt and pepper.  Pour the sauce over the pasta.  Top with breadcrumbs and season with a little more black pepper.  Bake for 20 minutes.

Mis Pensamientos: Kale Chips

This recipe really doesn't sound thrilling, but do stick with it, it's really quite novel.  I came across this recipe courtesy of the lovely Mike who pens the Mike's Baking blog.  I love Mike's blog because it's full of all the stuff that I want to eat but shouldn't and fab pictures of it all too.  In fact, if I had the opportunity to decide my last ever meal on this planet (assuming I was also capable of eating it) then I would probably consult Mike's blog for ideas.  I'm still desperate to make his Espresso Cupcakes and Holiday Cauliflower but right now I'm having to make do with munching a guilt free brownie as I write as I'm trying to be good.

Take three ingredients...

So on the subject of being good, I've never been a fan of diet snacks that are peddled on lots of diet programs.  Having successfully done WeightWatchers and discovering that you can eat an entire tub of Ben and Jerrys on a Saturday and still lose weight by the weekly weigh-in on Wednesday (the ice cream was consumed on a day when I did an awful lot of hiking up and down cliffs), I now try to follow the ethos that a little of what you fancy does you good.  So long as you only have a little.  And therein lies my problem.  If I'm not in the right frame of mind, I will quite happily eat a family size bag of lime Doritos or a tube of Pringles.  Which is why I can be fat.

When I did WeightWatchers, I met a lady who spent her entire points allowance every single day on chocolate.  I jest not.  Every day she lived off of the equivalent of four mars bars.  And she lost weight.  Because she ate what she fancied, but she didn't eat more than she should.  Okay this is not the healthiest diet ever, but it goes to prove that you don't need to live off of low fat yogurt and lettuce leaves.

For those of you who are not au fait with the world of diet clubs, basically WW gives you x amount of points based on your current weight that you can 'spend' in any way you choose.  Every food has a points value.  K had 22 points, and I believe that Mars bars at the time where 5.5 points each.  It's changed recently and I've not been for many years, but it's very flexible.

...spread on a tray and stick in the oven...

I have friends who swear blind by Slimming World.  I'm not quite sure how this works but I've been told that sometimes you can eat as much spag bol as you like in one sitting.  This appeals to me a lot.  But until I've read the fine print, I will not be participating in such a madcap scheme.  One can only assume that the plan also includes Breatharian days.

One of the other things that I know a lot of Slimming World people love is the No Point snacks.  Which is quite right.  There is seriously no point to them.  One friend enthused long and loud about tortilla chips made from lasagne sheets.  She sent me the recipe.  Full of excitement I went out and bought lasagne sheets (the dried kind) especially.  In one word - euuuuuw!  I can't quite sum up my utter disgust at these.  I think I'd rather starve all day and have a packet of Walkers Bacon Crisps than stuff my face all day with those things.

...wonder where on earth it all went to...

Personally, my favourite crispy, low fat snack when I'm dieting is the good old poppadom.  Yes they are amazing when they're deep fried and all puffy, with a slight oily sheen and a satisfying crack just before you plunge them into a bowl of mango chutney or lime pickle.  But have you ever tried microwaving them?  It doesn't always work with all brands and you'll need to play around with your microwave as my new one doesn't cook evenly and I always get a hard edge on one bit, but my old one cooked them like a dream.  Just stick a two poppadoms in on high for 90 seconds, et voila.  A snack for around 80 cals (again brand dependent and excluding the yummy dips)

So I was torn the other day when I happened across a tweet from Mike about Kale Chips.  First off, just the word sparked my curiosity but when I read it, it became one of those recipes that I just had to try out.  Then I got a bit worried it would be another of those gimmicky diet foods that was trying to be something that it wasn't.  I figured it might be a bit like Chinese deep fried seaweed (which I love) so decided it would be worth a go.

...et voila! Healthy telly snacking at its best :)

Ocado duly delivered what I thought to be an enormous bag of kale this morning so while making Miss A's tea (always a risky time for me and my diet) I had a go at the recipe.  It's dead simple.  Just massage a little extra virgin olive oil through some kale, put on a baking tray, sprinkle with salt and bake at 190c (170 fan) / Gas 5 for about fifteen minutes.

I used 100g of kale and one tsp of oil so according to MyFitnessPal.com, this works out at about 70 cals for the portion.  I was a little worried that 100g would make loads for one person.  But cooked kale is like spinach and after a little cooking disappears to not much at all.

And it tasted just like Chinese seaweed.  But without all the deep frying bit (I looked up how to make proper Chinese seaweed by Ken Hom on the UKTV Food Website).  For a more authentic taste, you could add a little sprinkling of soft brown sugar but obviously that would up the calories.  It's probably also worth experimenting with other flavourings.  I can imagine a few chilli flakes pepping it up nicely if that's your thing.

So a tasty recipe for a different healthy snack although it's quite expensive - the bag of kale cost £1.07 from Ocado and I would say it only serves two greedy people like me - or four if you're good at sharing.  I am also a little worried that any nutritional benefit from the kale may have been destroyed by baking it - if I was really virtuous, I'd just eat a bowl of steamed kale instead.  But life's too short.

The original recipe can be found here.  Definitely one to give a go if you ever see kale on special in the supermarket.

BBC Good Food: Guilt Free Brownies

Pre-baby I always had a savoury tooth.  My favourite ever lunch would be bread with lots of unsalted butter, cheese and crisps.  My foodie holiday heaven would've been France as we used to eat that pretty much every lunchtime on childhood holidays.  Sure I liked sweet things.  But given the choice between, savoury won every time.

So far, so normal. Chocolate, sugar, a touch of coffee

Even in the early months of pregnancy, I was convinced I was having a boy because I craved red meat (now know that's due to anaemia).  But the minute I had my scan, it was almost like the switch governing my sweet tooth was flicked to 'On - hyperdrive mode' and I found myself daydreaming about puddings, baking and chocolate.

And that's why I'm currently having daily arguments with myself over the need to lose weight vs the need to eat cake.  Yesterday, I fell in love with the idea of a chocolate and beetroot cake on Twitter.  I've been trying to disguise vegetables in various ways for the child (childless people, you have NO idea how stressful this is) and so I've been researching vegetable cakes.  This particular notion was flaunted in front of me by the lovely Lisa aka @HarbourHussy although I have a feeling I've also seen a post from Laura aka @Philosophobia on the subject of beetroot brownies *makes mental note to tweet Laura for the recipe*

Anyhow I just had to have some chocolate cake.  And thanks to the wind keeping me awake most of the night, I had plenty of time to do some research into low fat chocolate cake.  I remember reading somewhere about the idea of putting mayonnaise into brownies.  Sounds disgusting.  But a little Google revealed a recipe on the Good Food website that uses exactly this and it has a five star rating after 98 reviews.

I had all the ingredients in my cupboard - it doesn't use butter which is good as butter is banned at the moment - so it seemed worth a shot for the purposes of this blog.

In goes the mayo!

And I have to say that as disgusting as they sound, the 98 people are right.  The brownies are really quite light but still a bit fudgy.  I do like my brownies dense and fudgy and brimming with chocolate chunks or nuts, but to have brownies on a diet that I can potentially eat on a day when I don't run without starving myself, these are really good.

Of course, they'd be better with some additions or warmed with a scoop of ice cream on the side and some warm cherry compote on top, but you can't have everything if you are trying to shift some pounds.

I used Hellmans Light mayonnaise and despite an initial worry that it contained things like mustard, vinegar and paprika and that these would spoil the taste, you wouldn't know there was anything untoward in them at all.  I suppose at the end of the day, it's not much different to using eggs and oil in the recipe.  This now has me wondering if it's just a gimmick and if you could create a similar low fat brownie without the need for mayo?  Maybe some experimenting coming on.  Of course, I would hate anyone to think I'm intimating that Hellmans would get the BBC to promote their products...

As it was the first time, I stuck to the recipe, save for two things.  I only had a mix of half 50% plain chocolate and half milk.  If I made it again, I'd probably go for a full 60% or 70% flavour, but it was still very chocolatey - just a little too sweet for my liking.

The finished article. Not bad, if I do say so myself.
(Mug from LF Designs, designed by @JotStudios!)

I also had a panic about the lack of vanilla essence in my cupboard so ended up using a teaspoon of amaretto flavoured coffee syrup.  This added 20 calories (shock horror!) to the entire recipe.  I then realised I had a tub of vanilla bean paste in the fridge, but no matter.  The amaretto flavour came through really well and if you're trying to keep calories down, it's worth experimenting with other syrups for flavouring.  You could always drop a teaspoon of sugar to compensate.

By using light mayonnaise and cutting the brownies into 16 pieces rather than 20 pieces, they came out at just 110 cals each.  I personally think that the size was okay, but you could cut them bigger and it would still be a lower calorie treat than a regular brownie.  But will someone please tell the Good Food team that you cannot cut 12 squares from a cake that is square in the first place.  They will be rectangles.  Or if not, my junior school teachers failed me somewhat.

This is the recipe from the Good Food website, but if you're not dieting or want a real treat, I've also posted my own recipe below.  Incidentally, mine come in at just shy of 300 cals if you cut them into 16 or only 150 if you make tiny triangles (but who'd want to do that?)

Guilt Free Brownies

• 85g dark chocolate , 70% cocoa solids, chopped into small pieces
• 85g plain flour
• 25g cocoa powder
• ¼ tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 100g golden caster sugar
• 50g light muscovado sugar
• ½ tsp coffee granules
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 tbsp buttermilk
• 1 egg
• 100g mayonnaise (I used Hellman's Light)

1. Heat oven to 180C/fan 160C/gas 4. Pour enough water into a small pan to one-third fill it. Bring to the boil, then remove the pan from the heat. Put the chopped chocolate into a large bowl that will fit snugly over the pan without touching the water. Sit the pan over the water (still off the heat) and leave the chocolate to melt slowly for a few mins, stirring occasionally until it has melted evenly. Remove the bowl from the pan, then let the chocolate cool slightly.
2. Meanwhile, lightly oil and base-line a 19cm square cake tin that is 5cm deep. Combine the flour, cocoa and bicarbonate of soda. Using a wooden spoon, stir both the sugars into the cooled chocolate with the coffee, vanilla and buttermilk. Stir in 1 tbsp warm water. Break and beat in the egg, then stir in the mayonnaise just until smooth and glossy. Sift over the flour and cocoa mix, then gently fold in with a spatula without overmixing.
3. Pour the mixture into the tin, then gently and evenly spread it into the corners. Bake for 30 mins. When a skewer is inserted into the middle, it should come out with just a few moist crumbs sticking to it. If cooked too long, the mix will dry out; not long enough and it can sink. Leave in the tin until completely cold, then loosen the sides with a round-bladed knife. Turn out onto a board, peel off the lining paper and cut into 16 squares.

Rebecca's brownies

• 185g 70% Dark Chocolate
• 185g unsalted butter
• 40g cocoa
• 85g plain flour
• 100g white chocolate
• 275g golden caster sugar
• 3 large eggs (at room temperature)
• 100g chocolate chunks - mixture of dark, milk and white (I use the Cooks Ingredients ones from Waitrose)

1. Preheat oven to 160c fan/180c/gas 4
2. Line the base and sides of a 20cm (8") square cake tin (approx 3" deep) with baking parchment
3. Melt the dark chocolate and butter gently until liquid.  Leave to cool to room temperature
4. While the chocolate mixture is cooling, chop the white chocolate into small pieces. 
5. Sift the flour and cocoa into a bowl
6. Whisk the eggs and sugar with an electric mixer until thick and pale and fluffy.  When the mixture is ready, the beaters should leave a trail on the top of the mix when you lift them up.  This takes anywhere from 4-10 mins depending on your mixer.
7. Using a rubber spatula, fold the cooled chocolate into the egg mixture using a gentle figure of eight motion.  Try to combine well without over-mixing.
8. Sift the flour and cocoa (again) into the chocolate and egg mixture, and mix using a figure of eight motion.  
9. Finally stir in the chocolate chunks until evenly distributed
10. Pour into the pan and bake for 25 mins.  
11. Bake for 25 mins then pull the shelf out a bit and gently shake the tin. If the brownie wobbles in the middle, it's not quite done, so slide it back in and bake for another 5-10 minutes until the top has a shiny, papery crust. (I also double check the middle with a cocktail stick) Take out of the oven.
12. Cool in the tin until completely cold, then cut into sixteen squares and demolish!!  

Lorraine Pascale's Chilli Con Carne

Today was yet another day that didn't quite go to plan.  I won't bore you with the tedious details as I'm saving the wry observations about where I went for another blog post.  I'll just mention that my intention was to capitalise on the husband and child both being out (separately) for the day and have a go at making sushi.  This has now been postponed to a rush-job tomorrow during the twenty minutes or so of the child's afternoon nap.

Finished chilli with rice

In some ways, I'm quite glad that I didn't have time to potter at home as on Day 4 of the diet, I am craving cake.  It doesn't help that lots of my Twitter pals are busy tweeting pictures of the glorious cakes they're able to make because they are not having to be ridiculously healthy to shift a lot of weight.  @kateselwood1, @dickybundock, and @harbourhussy being just some of the culprits (definitely worth a follow as they're all lovely tweeps though).


And so it was that I ended up making Lorraine Pascale's chilli for tea.  This had been planned for another time as I wanted to start stockpiling a few meals for when I go back to work next week.  Sometimes, there's nothing I want to do less than cook three separate meals when I've been out of the house since 6am.  It's worse when I'm on a healthy eating jag, so having calculated that this was a reasonably diet- (I hate that word) friendly recipe, I gave it a go with the plan to freeze several portions.

This particular recipe is one that Pascale's mum used to make her with a few tweaks.  Despite eating chilli a fair bit, it's something I've never made from scratch.  I've always used the Old El Paso Chilli Seasoning pouches.  Which is silly. Because you still have to do all the chopping and adding of extra things like tomatoes and veg.  It just saves having to wade through cupboards looking for rarely used herbs and spices (although now, my spice collection is just taking up all the spare space on my microwave I use them so often).

See my family don't like spicy things.  And of course growing up in the early eighties, and living with my grandparents who had survived on war rations, exciting food was hardly de-rigueur. I remember pleading with my grandfather on one occasion to let my mum cook spaghetti bolognaise for tea.  Such a meal was positively cosmopolitan as far as my granddad was concerned.  It eventually became a household staple.  To be fair, when my gran retired, she did try some more adventurous meals, but her cooking was best when it was simple comfort food.

Ingredients

Another household staple (and my second favourite after spag bol) was mince, beans and rice.  Which is basically my mother's bolognaise sauce with a tin of baked beans mixed in.  So chilli without the spice.  But suggest to my mother now that she should try chilli that isn't spicy but just tasty and she will turn her nose up at it without further consideration.  She's missing out.

Spicy food is really an anathema to my mother.  Mention Indian food and she breaks out into a cold sweat.  Likewise, anything from the Chinese that even mentions it's been near a chilli and she wouldn't entertain it.  So she made me chuckle last week when she asked what Thai food was like.  My normal response is 'really tasty Chinese food'.  Because it is.  The dishes are similar, but the flavourings are just much more intense.  But to my mother, I said 'it's like really tasty Chinese food BUT it's really hot'.  Oddly, that didn't deter her.  She's still intent on going out on whatever shindig it is that's frequenting a Thai restaurant.  The woman who won't eat tasty chilli going for an all out Thai chilli fest.  Oh to be a fly on the wall.

Getting back to Lorraine's mum's chilli.  It is one of those comforting dishes.  It really tasted like something a mum would make.  There's nothing massively special and mindblowing about it.  But on a cold, wet, windy night tonight, it's like having a lovely foodie hug.

It required a lot of tasting during cooking.  To start with I wasn't convinced by the flavours.  I'd added a carrot and a couple of celery sticks to bulk it out a little and to try to get some veg into my fussy toddler's diet (she's having this for tea tomorrow if I don't sneak downstairs and make a midnight snack of it).

But if I'd paid attention to the blurb around the recipe, I would have read that the flavours take time to develop.  Even after an hour of simmering, it wasn't doing it for me.  But then I left it for another hour and reheated it.  And as if by magic, it tasted just about right.  I did add a little tomato puree (about 1tbsp) to compensate for the less than tasty chopped toms I used.

When I'm done with the stricter side of healthy eating, I'd love to give Thomasina Miers' chilli a go as that's a more authentic Mexican type recipe that takes nearly all day to cook, has a touch of chocolate in it (still intrigued by this one) and uses stewing steak rather than mince.

I think this will become a staple in the Crowdey household - at least for me!

The recipe can be found in Home Cooking Made Easy although there is a very similar one on the BBC Good Food website that is very highly rated too.

James Martin: Lime Basil Chicken

Sometimes the best laid plans never go smoothly.  And where Currys is involved, best not even bother planning at all.

As regular readers will know, my dishwasher decided to blow up the week before Christmas.  I hummed and ha-ahed for a bit over where to buy one from given my previous experience with Currys and my fridge and cooker but in the end got suckered in by their post-Christmas deals.  Sucker being the operative word.

Here it is, 8.15pm and it's still not been delivered.  Because the numpty driving the van managed to get it stuck in someone's driveway so they have had to send out a crew with a smaller van to offload the items and then continue the delivery.  And despite the call centre being able to speak to the drivers, they can't tell them to not waste their time by coming to my house.  I expressed my frustration that Miss A will be in bed and my dogs will go mental, as is their wont when anyone comes into the house after dark.  But Currys didn't care.  So I am dishwasherless (the husband doesn't count) and in a little while I'm going to have to get a little bit grumpy.

Likewise with my dinner plans for today.  I'd decided that I was going to do something radical and make Chicken and Rice for the husband (chicken breast baked with Schwarz Chargrilled Chicken Seasoning, a packet of Uncle Ben's rice, gravy and two bits of bread and butter - his favourite dinner) and I was going to try the Cod and Chorizo stew from Waitrose Kitchen which I discovered via the lovely Kate Selwood's blog.

Suggesting changing Chicken and Rice night to the husband is tantamount to sacrilege.  I quickly backed down and suggested chicken curry.  We settled on Chicken Tikka with Frying Pan Naan which is normally a weekend only thing as it takes so much pre-preparation.  Hmmm...  And I'd already started writing the pre-ramble for the Chorizo stew recipe too.  Best laid plans and all that...

Step forward the lovely James Martin.  *Swoon*  Along with Nick Knowles and Chris Jarvis (CBeebies Presenter), James is one of my guilty crushes.  It's something about the combination of the Yorkshire accent, the love of fast cars and the way he handles a deep fat fryer.  If I lived with a man who could cook (properly I mean), especially one who probably secretly deep fries butter, I would be the size of a blue whale.

On a foray into town yesterday to look for an A4 desk diary - how hard are they to find in a little hick town like what I live in??? - I mistakenly wandered into Waterstones.  Having lovingly leafed through the Primrose Bakery book and The Boy Who Bakes, I tore myself away at Miss A's behest to feed the ducks, knowing that it was a bad move to buy yet another baking book when I'm supposed to be trying to be healthier for the next few months (and shift about 24lbs!).

Next stop on the diary hunt, WH Smiths where they had James Martin's Masterclass for a fiver down from £20.  Bargain.  Handed my money over and then realised that I was probably better off buying one  of the baking books given the cardiac-arrest-inducing recipes Mr Martin peddles.  Would I find anything in there that I could eat whilst on a diet?

The answer is yes.  There are probably two recipes I can get away with although I'm currently obsessed with his Club Sandwich with Bacon Mayonnaise recipe.  Mmmmm.  Bacon Mayo....  Luckily, the recipe I chose also fitted in with tonight's Indian theme and comes in at under 500 cals with a 75g (uncooked weight) serving of basmati rice.  Result.

Lime basil chicken with apple and mango chutney

Sadly, only the one picture as I raced to get everything pre-prepped this afternoon just in case Currys might actually deliver in the allotted time slot.  Silly me.

It is really tasty (although the husband didn't like it) and it's beautifully moist thanks to the marinade.  The huge amount of basil makes it smell like it's marinating in posh pesto, but when you actually taste it, the Indian influences do come through.  The ginger was hard to taste even after I doubled the quantity, but this may be because I used Garden Gourmet rather than fresh.

It would work really well in home-made tortillas of the Dan Lepard variety with some salad and a little coriander mayo and I'm sure it would be good popped on skewers and on to the barbecue.  If we ever get any sunshine this year!

Recipe

• 4 x 175g skinless and boneless chicken  breasts
• 75g basil leaves
• 25g coriander leaves
• 1oz mint leaves
• 1 green chilli, chopped
• 2 tbsp peeled and chopped root ginger
• 2 tbsp veg oil
• 2 tbsp plain yogurt
• Salt

1. Slice the chicken breasts into 4 pieces, place in a owl and set aside.
2. Place the fresh herbs in a blender along with the chilli, ginger, vegetable oil and yoghurt and puree to a smooth paste.  Season with salt to taste and pour over the chicken pieces, stirring them in the marinade to coat evenly, then cover the bowl and leave in the fridge for 1 hour.
3. Preheat the oven to 200C/Gas 6
4. Remove from the fridge and lay the chicken pieces on a baking tray.  Bake in the oven for 10-12 minutes or until cooked through.
5. Remove from the oven and serve with lime wedges and sprigs of watercress.

Lorraine Pascale: Salmon and Sweet Potato Fishcakes

Day Two of the 'healthy' eating regime and my willpower is starting to wane already.  What makes it so hard is being at home rather than in the office where I'm distracted from the rumble of my belly by far more important things.  But when you're home all day (and I have another whole week off yet) and the weather's miserable and your really hungry and your toddler won't eat their English Muffin with banana and peanut butter, it's really hard to stay focussed.

Mmmm...lunch

Thankfully, lunch for me today was Lorraine Pascale's Sweet Potato and Salmon Fishcakes from Home Cooking Made Easy.  Chosen because fish is one of the few things the fussy toddler will eat.  So she's having them for tea.  Whether or not she'll like them is another matter.  But it seemed like a really nice, healthy-ish recipe for me, my blog and my healthy eating regime.

To help me remain focussed, I'm also on the look out for things that will motivate me through the next few long, dark-weathered months.  We're holidaying in North Berwick this summer so I can't even use the 'I need to look vaguely okay in a swimsuit' level of motivation as the last time I wore anything less than full wet weather gear on a Scottish beach was about 25 years ago.

View from my desk

When the local art shop reopens, I intend to get a huge piece of board to put on the wall of our study where I can stick these little motivational snippets.  At the moment, the only thing I can see right in my eyeline when I'm sat at my Mac is the lovely 'Keep Calm and Eat Cake' canvas which came via Santa from the lovely Martin at Chick Shack (follow him on Twitter @Chic_Shack)

My clippings so far include the photos I posted of me yesterday at my slimmest and fattest and a piece from Runners World about a woman who only seriously started running in her mid-thirties and went on to win the New York Marathon at 43.  Okay, so I won't delude myself that I stand a hope in hell of doing that, but if I can get myself round a marathon before I'm forty, I'll be happy.

So if you have any little motivational snippets you'd like to send my way, please do.  I need all the help I can get!

Ready for the oven

And I was rescued from the torture of toddler leftovers by the making and eating of these salmon fishcakes.  Like all the Pascale recipes I've tried, they're very tasty but I did find the mashed salmon and potatoes very very wet to work with.  To the point that I shaped them, put them down while I prepared the egg dip and then when I picked them up again, they fell apart.  

I can see why they'd need to be refrigerated if you go for the frying option.  If (or rather when) I make them again, I'd probably just heat the mash mixture for a couple of minutes to let it dry out a little before shaping.

They are covered in Panko breadcrumbs which made a really nice and crispy outer although I'm sure they look more aesthetically pleasing with regular breadcrumbs.  And if you wanted to be really healthy, you could use wholemeal ones.

They make for a really filling and tasty lunch.  I had mine on half an English muffin with a pile of salad veggies and feel stuffed full, but in a light-stuffed, rather than Christmas-pudding-stuffed way.  I made half the recipe and it made three generously sized burgers.

And at 279 cals for the burger, the muffin half and a tablespoon of Hellman's extra light, this is diet food at its tastiest.  

Recipe

• 500ml fish stock
• 400g sweet potato, peeled and diced 
• 200-250g salmon  fillets, skin removed and each one cut in half
• Large pinch of paprika
• Squeeze of lime juice
• 1 bunch of fresh chives, finely chopped
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 1 lime cut into quarters to garnish (optional)

Coating 

• 1 egg lightly beaten
• 100g dried breadcrumbs (I used panko but any kind will do)

The fishcakes can be either shallow fried in a little oil for 2-3 minutes over a medium heat or baked in a pre-heated oven for  20-30 minutes at 180c/160c fan/Gas 4

1. Heat the stock in a lidded frying pan until boiling.  Cook the sweet potato and fish until the potatoes are soft when poked with a knife.
2. Drain in a colander then return to the pan and add all of the other ingredients (except the oil and items for coating) then mash together.
3. Divide the mixture into four and shape into patties about 2 cm thick.
4. Put the beaten egg and breadcrumbs into two separate dishes then dip each fishcake in turn, first into the egg and then into the breadcrumbs.  Depending on how well the mixture coats the fish cakes, you may want to double dip them.
5. Place on to a very lightly oiled baking tray and into the oven for 20-30 minutes.

Sweetcorn and Chilli Soup

The New Year has barely begun and I'm already worried that I've broken one of my New Year's resolutions.  This being the one about not eating the child's leftovers no matter how hungry I am nor how wasteful I might think it is to throw them away.

When I did WeightWatchers 15 years ago, I was childless, but still paid attention to the tips about not hoovering up leftovers and not licking cake bowls.  When I'm being good, the second I've taken the last useable scoop of goodness from a baking bowl, I immediately squirt Fairy round it to prevent any unnecessary licking.  I have, on occasions of desperation, tried to find a route between the random lines of  liquid to savour some of that uncooked cakey goodness (what cake doesn't taste better before it's been cooked??).  It always ends horribly and teaches me a lesson for being a lardy-whatsit.

Jabba the Hut (aged 20) and her Grandad

I really need to apply that same rule to the child's dinner plate.  There's only so much 'watch Mummy eat this one and then you eat one' that I can legitimately get away with.  That is why I have failed over the last year to lose any further weight.  I should know better.

Over these past fifteen years, my weight has yo-yo'd by a stone or two, but thankfully, I've never been in such a bad place that I've repeated the Jabba the Hut look that I was sporting aged 20.  

Me at my slimmest

I've also since discovered that diets just don't work for me. I need to eat healthily, but I need to enjoy what I eat and I need to exercise lots.  Whilst shedding the my Jabba jowls, I used to swim with my mum at the weekends and my reward would be scrambled eggs and bacon medallions.  It's amazing how many lengths I managed to clock up knowing that was what I would enjoy when I got home.

I find I run better when fuelled by a piece of coffee cake (not a regular occurrence!) or knowing that tea will be something really tasty with chorizo in it, that a diet definitely wouldn't allow.  I follow the 3, 4, 5 plus 2x1 principle.  300 cals for breakfast, 400 for lunch, 500 for tea and two snacks of 100 calories (or there abouts) plus cardio 4-5 times a week.  Touch wood, I will be back to my happy weight in the next couple of months.

Ingredients - I ski-ed slightly off piste here

I love nothing more than taking a recipe and working how I can make it fit into my healthy eating regime - although if it's something a bit naughty, I will either make it on a running day or eat a smaller portion with loads of veggies or salad (carrot cake with carrots on the side anyone?).  Hopefully this blog, which has been the cause of the recent ballooning will also help me back in the correct direction as I work my way through some healthy recipes and the odd cake here and there as a treat.

Back to my dilemma about whether or not I've eaten the child's leftovers.  For some reason, Ocado only sell massive tins of sweetcorn.  I opened a tin for her dinner the other night, only to be informed by the 'If-I-hide-my-eyes-then-the-dinner-will-magic-away' stance that sweetcorn is now off the menu for the foreseeable.  So it's been languishing in a tupperware box in the fridge for a couple of days.  Does that make it leftovers? Hopefully only to a pedant.

The idea of warm, tasty soup for lunch after a 3.5 miler at 7am was really appealing so I leafed through my cook books and a few blogs before happening on a suitable sweetcorn soup recipe in this month's edition of BBC Good Food mag - helpfully entitled 'The Healthy Issue'.

Finished soup

It was so easy to make, that the husband pottered into the kitchen while I was cooking and said 'Oh, you're not cooking so I'll do the washing up.'  I can only assume his usually super-astute powers of observation are still subject to a New Year's Eve hangover.

It's really tasty too.  It needed more salt in than I would've expected with the stock to balance the sweetness of the corn.  I used fresh stock left over from Christmas though and it's something I've never used before so maybe it's less salty than stock from cubes.  The parsley and lime gave it a lovely fresh taste and the chilli gave it the needed warmth.

Happy and will make it again.  It's also freezable and contains two of your five a day so all in all, a winning recipe.

 Please note, I even made the effort to use my proper camera today for the picture (mostly because my phone has died already)

Recipe - Serves 6 (they must use tiny bowls, I think 4 is more realistic)

• 25g butter
• 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 2 onions, finely chopped
• 1/2 red chilli, finely chopped (I 1tsp used Very Lazy Chillies)
• 800g frozen sweetcorn (I used tinned)
• 1 litre vegetable stock (I used chicken)
• 2 tbsp lemon juice (I used lime)
• 5tbsp chopped flat leaf parsley, plus extra to serve (I used 2 tbsp Garden Gourmet in the soup and just used fresh to garnish as my little plant was looking a bit sad)

1. Heat the butter and oil in a large saucepan over a medium heat and fry the onions for about 10 mins until nice and golden, stirring occasionally.  Add the chilli to the pan and fry for about 5 mins, stirring occasionally.  Add the corn, stock and some salt, bring to the boil and simmer for 10 mins until the corn is tender but still crisp.
2. Transfer two-thirds of the soup to a blender and whizz to a coarse puree.  Add this back to the pan and stir in the lemon juice and parsley.  Season if needed.