When I saw Harry Eastwood's new cookery book, A Salad for all Seasons, I couldn't resist it.
The recipes look delicious and easy to prepare, and I think they will be great for my non FAST days.
This is my first make from it - Pimm's Fruit Salad.
The syrup is made from 200ml Pimm's and 70g caster sugar.
I had some Blackberry and Elderflower Pimms that worked so beautifully with the fruit
that Mr Kiss didn't even notice the pieces of chopped cucumber :-)
I thought I would sail through my FAST days,
but supper couldn't come round soon enough tonight.
I was starvin' marvin.
Hoisin chicken with lettuce and mushrooms
(recipe from 'the FAST diet recipe book)
Chicken and mushroom is always going to be a hit with me, and
the added splash of hoisin made this very tasty.
My 'new diet' criteria...
- Easy to follow
- No ridiculous 'health' foods that are impossible to get hold of
- I still want to be able to cook, so no meal replacements like bars, or shakes
- Has to be healthy and balanced, with no banned foods.
- I like cheap :-) so, no expensive ingredients
- I have to be able to talk Mr Kiss into following it too, so it has to allow 'proper' food - no cottage cheese salads or fromage frais sauces.
- I have to lose at least SOME weight :-)
RESULTS.
The FAST diet
Eat as you normally would 5 days of the week, and limit your calories to 500 on the other 2 days.
(600 for men)
Sounds easy, right? Watch this space :-)
FAST Day Breakfast #1 (approx 200 calories)
Spinach and Ricotta Cannelloni
This is definitely not a recipe for the faint hearted -
it has a whopping 47g of fat per serving -
naughty, but nice :-)
Filling cannelloni is something I have never done before, so it was a bit messy to begin with,
but I soon got the hang of it,
using an icing bag, with the end snipped off.
Despite the recipe saying 10 servings, Mr Kiss and I managed to chomp our way through half of the dish.
Then I was sorely tempted to eat some more when it was cold.
I LOVE cold pasta.
But, I made myself freeze the leftovers for another day.
Men and their toys!!! A recipe for disaster.
A couple of weeks ago our neighbour crashed his motorbike and shattered his knee
into more pieces than it should be!
He's just got out of the hospital, so I baked him a little treat.
I used the recipe from the Spring Cupcake Heaven magazine.
To me, these were more like a muffin than a cupcake, but just as tasty.
Recipe notes.
Instead of a nice golden brown colour, my cupcakes were a little on the grey side,
has anyone else had this?
I think it's because of the juice from the strawberries.
The original recipe called for them to be mashed, but next time I would just cut them into small pieces and see if that helps.
I ran out of icing sugar, so my recipe (above) uses 2/3rds of the original buttercream quantities, but as you can see from the picture, I still had plenty of frosting to generously cover the 12 cupcakes.
If you're wondering where to get strawberry syrup, for the buttercream,
I used a strawberry dessert sauce,
the kind you buy in a squeezy bottle, to drizzle over ice cream.
Chips, of course ;-)
Well, these are not, strictly speaking, chips
but they taste just as good and are probably better for you.
Sweet Potato Wedges.
Simply cut your sweet potatoes into wedges.
You can peel them if you like, but I don't bother, I just wipe them with some kitchen roll and cut off any gnarly ends.
Then toss them in some oil and seasoning.
Good old salt and pepper is fine, or try paprika or cajun seasoning,
or my favourite, chinese 5 spice.
Put them on a baking sheet, in a single layer and bake in a pre-heated oven at 200C (180Fan)
for about 25 - 30mins - turning them after 15 mins.
Broad beans are my favourite veg right now, and they are delicious in this saucy, summer dish.
When I'm cooking just for us, I tend to leave the beans in their skins - especially when they're going in this type of dish.
But, if I'm cooking for others, or using the beans in a salad, I take the skins off.
It's time consuming, but they do look prettier that way.
Saucy Chicken and Veg recipe
