Why We Eat (Too Much) - recipes, menus, photos and ideas thread 1

[CatherineCawood]

Hi all WWETM'ers! Welcome to a thread for posting recipes/food plans/menus/photos and ideas.

If you want the general discussion on the book please go to this thread

Today I had:

oats and yoghurt with seeds and raspberries.

A fabulous peach.

Oatcakes with sardine paté.

Cheese and ham as a pre-dinner snack while watching the football.

Chicken with a tarragon beurre blanc, marinated courgettes and radishes, lettuce and tomato salad.

Cherries.

A good day’s eating. Everything was delicious.

Sounds wonderful @TheLeadbetterLife

Tapas was more successful today!

Beef in garlic sauce
Mushrooms in garlic sauce
Fried breaded goats cheese with onion confit
Dates with bacon

(If you're seeing a lack of vegetables it's because DH doesn't really eat them, onions and mushrooms are the best I can do).

The kids of course were offered all of it and just ate bread and bacon. But it was nice.

Those tapas sound delicious. How was the garlic sauce made?

Loving all these ideas!

@catherinecawood - it was a cheap tagine and I put it straight on the burner without a heat diffuser. So my fault. Yes a green pepper would be nice in there wouldn't it. My friend loved it too, and there's plenty left !

Going to try @TheLeadbetterLife's oatcakes this week with gram or spelt flour. I love oatcakes and cheese.

Ground flax seeds now a priority today.

Just a contribution of my own: roast kale or 'seaweed'

It's still available round here, even tho out of season, and I love roast kale. Chop and pick it over to remove the hard stemmy bits. Add a generous amount of olive oil, use your hands so all coated. Add some good salt and put on tray or tin plate in oven and roast till crisp. Deliciously salty and crispy.

Good salt seems a bit pretentious but it really makes a difference to dishes I find. I love Himalayan pink rock salt and the french Sel de Guerande you can get from Ocado.

Not pretentious at all. Sounds good
Think I may have made it before in SW days with, ahem, frylight....

Glad you liked the tagine. It's on my make again list.

@Words I love kale cooked like that, I sprinkle a small amount of cheese on the top too; either feta or a cheddar/parmesan mix. I like broccoli and cauli nero and chard done the same way.

I spent a bit of yesterday boiling eggs to grab and go, marinating oyster mushrooms, making sundried tomato antipasti and kimchi. In the summer this sort of thing is the sum total of my cooking.

Definitely going to do that kale next time we make a Chinese meal. I love crispy seaweed. I’ve done it in a wok before, but it was very messy and nearly started a fire when the oil bubbled up!

I now have the ground flaxseed and sprinkled a teaspoon on my Greek yog and fruit. I really like it texture wise.

However, it was chocks away this morning in the blockage department - train definitely departed the station so all good again !

I guess I could add the flax and chia seeds to smoothies too, couldn't I.

Grain-free Staffordshire oatcakes.
I used to love staffordshire oatcakes with bacon for breakfast but you can't buy them down here in the South West and they normally they have flour in them anyway. These don't, They're a little more tarty than a traditional oatcake but still lovely and very satisfying. The one on the left is thicker than the one on the right. I watered the batter down to see if I could make it more like a pancake, it works. They're a big success, they'd be good as wraps (thick kind) or as pancakes (thin kind).
4 tablespoons oat flour (I just wizzed oats up in a blender)
4 tablespoons greek yoghurt
2 eggs
Salt
Oil, butter or ghee for the pan

Beat the eggs, add in the yoghurt and mix thoroughly. Mix in the oat flour to make a batter, add salt to taste. No need to whisk.

Heat a little oil in a frying pan, when hot, add half of the batter. You'll need to spread it with a spatula, it's thick. Cook on a medium heat until the oatcake frees itself from the pan and the top is set enough to turn the oatcake with a spatula. Turn and cook on the other side.

You can add water to the batter to make it the consistancy of single cream if you want to make pancakes.

I forgot the pic

@TheLeadbetterLife

The beef one kind of did itself, stir fried on high heat with 8 lightly crushed garlic cloves and a tablespoon of sherry near the end.

The mushrooms were fried with 4 cloves sliced garlic, then added 2 tsp lemon juice, 1/2 tsp sweet paprika, 2tbsp dry sherry and 1/4 cup chicken broth and simmered a bit.

I've just made some of the Scottish kind. The recipe called for a mix of flour and oats. I used gram flour ( chickpea flour) - never used it before. They have a rather unusual taste. Not unpleasant, just different.

Will have another go with oatmeal, or whizzed oats.

Today's menu

Greek yog, blueberries strawberries and flax powder sprinklies
Green salad ( fantastic fresh leaves from the market ) with feta, home made soup
Lamb chop, cauliflower rice, a few pots, fresh peas
Half roast apple with cream - no honey or sweetening

I feel very full! I think it's the flax. Smaller portions than usual today, and not as hungry as usual - despite ten miles with the dog today.

Made some mayo this pm as well as the oatcakes. It threatened to go wrong, but was easily rescued. For potato salad or on hard boiled eggs this week.

Dinner tonight. I was absolutely starving so inspired by @Words' crispy kale, I had a pork chop brushed with kejap manis (soy based sauces will have to be prized out of my cold, dead hands), mushrooms, fine beans (all air fried) and roast broccoli with feta. 'Twas lush

I typed a message, posted it and it's gone!

The staffordshire oat cakes look amazing. Might give them a go.

I've got myself confused and have bought bulgar wheat instead of buckwheat. What an idiot. Only realised after I had it for lunch! Doh! It is fibre heavy but so high in omega 6 🤦‍♀️ fortunately I've also had tuna and wild salmon today so that might have helped to balance it out a bit?

I'm such a wally!

Hi all,

I'm joining this thread, it's such a good idea. I was on the first thread and have been dipping my toe in and out but have decided to go for it properly. I'm sick of my clothes not fitting and want to get into a size 12 dress for a wedding in Nov.

Today's menu x
2 coffee & cream
Greek yogurt (I get mine from aldi and think it's on plan) with fruit, this is if I feel like breakfast.

Lunch - mixed salad, toms, cucumber, spring onion, avocado, tuna & mozzarella.

Dinner - roast salmon & veg.

Does anyone have a recipe for pesto made with olive oil? I tried one last week and it was AWFUL.

@StrawberryFizz26 I have one that I think was a Jamie Oliver one originally. It's pretty good.

½ clove garlic, pounded to a pulp
1 big bunch of basil
1 handful of pine nuts, very, very lightly toasted
1 handful grated parmesan
extra virgin olive oil
A squeeze of lemon juice

Add roughly torn basil to garlic and wizz in processor. Add the pine nuts and wizz. Add half the parmesan and stir (not wizz). Drizzle just enough oil to bind the sauce and make it gloopy. Add most of the rest of the cheese, season to taste. Add oil and/or cheese if necessary to taste and consistency. Add a squeeze of lemon juice to make it 'zing'

Any particular reason for cream in the coffee? It's not off-plan, I just wondered.

@StrawberryFizz26 I have one that I think was a Jamie Oliver one originally. It's pretty good.

½ clove garlic, pounded to a pulp
1 big bunch of basil
1 handful of pine nuts, very, very lightly toasted
1 handful grated parmesan
extra virgin olive oil
A squeeze of lemon juice

Add roughly torn basil to garlic and wizz in processor. Add the pine nuts and wizz. Add half the parmesan and stir (not wizz). Drizzle just enough oil to bind the sauce and make it gloopy. Add most of the rest of the cheese, season to taste. Add oil and/or cheese if necessary to taste and consistency. Add a squeeze of lemon juice to make it 'zing'

Any particular reason for cream in the coffee? It's not off-plan, I just wondered.

Duplicated post. I couldn't see the first one and my post was still sitting there unposted so I posted it again. Sorry!

Day 3 for me. Feel at a bit of a low ebb, might be missing sugar?

Had porridge with full cream milk and a few blackcurrants for breakfast, lunch was some leftover potato and kale hash, with ham, cheese, spinach and tomatoes. And an apple in between.

Tonight might be some sort of rice dish, but I have two questions (still reading the book!)

• is soy sauce okay?
• is it too much to have three meals containing carbs in a day? (potato, rice and oats)

@ColouringPencils

Potato, rice and oats are all good.

It may slightly depend what version of the plan you're doing - right at the end of the woe chapter he outlines one where you can actually count carbs but you can follow the way of eating without doing so if you like.

Have a little sugar if you want it. You could try having more fruit? He says fruit is ok though try not to have more than 2 pieces a day.

Any ideas on gravy please? I promised the kids sausage and mash tonight but overlooked the flour in the gravy! Fine for them, but I love gravy!

B - Porridge
L - Lentil curry
D - Sausage and mash (good quality sausages and a treat), carrots, peas and any other veg I can find

Personally I would just eat the gravy. It's not that much flour!

But others may have better ideas!

You can use arrowroot to thicken stuff instead of flour.