Homemade Vs bought

[Illbethereinaminute]

I've gone down the route or trying to reduce my UPFs so I'm doing things like making my own ham/pesto/stock/mayonnaise and as of today I'm attempting bread.

For brunch I had lean steak cooked in 2.5ml extra virgin olive oil and 5g real butter, poached eggs, rocket and a teaspoon of homemade pesto.

For dinner I'm making a chicken thigh traybake using homemade chicken stock (and probably one shop bought one) leeks, peas, onion, garlic, homemade ham and shop bought soft cheese and some cheddar.

I have no idea how to track calories for stuff like this though because a lot of it is just "a bit of this" and "a bit of this" I glazed my ham with sugar, honey and mustard but I've no idea how much of each I used, I just added a bit of everything in until it tasted how I wanted it. I did measure my pesto but there are roughly 100 calories in just 10g which means in 100g there are 1000 calories whereas shop bought there are only about 300.

My pesto is literally pine nuts, EVOO, proper parmesan, garlic and basil. Shop bought has way more ingredients like potato flakes and emulsifier.

My bread will no doubt also be highly calorific but it is only a mix of white and wholemeal flour, yeast, evoo, pinch of sugar and water.

I enjoy cooking and baking so I'm always finding new stuff to make but I'm also trying to lose weight! If one teaspoon of homemade mayo/pesto is twice the calories as a teaspoon as shop bought is it actually worth it?!

I'm genuinely not. I weighed it after I had made it (albeit tasted a bit during the process) and after I took a teaspoon out. It wasn't exactly 90, maybe more like 91/92 but it wasn't at 100g so I estimated that including the teaspoon I took out for my steak got me to 100g total.

Now there was a small amount left in the blender on the sides but I scraped it as best as I could, we can't be talking anymore than 5g.

I weighed the pine nuts separately (9g) the parmesan (40g at the beginning then I added in another 15g) again weighed separately. Obviously the oil was measured in tbsps but to be fair if we assume 1g=1ml then yes it should weigh more but it doesn't.

Am I going to have to make another batch to check?! The calories 😱🤣

Ha ha, I'm afraid so!

You can reduce the cals in homemade pesto by using a bit of water along with the oil.

A lot of calories apps allow you to create recipes so you can just rack eg 1 tbs homemade pesto instead of having to weigh everything every time. It may not be accurate to the gram but it’s good enough.

Well apparently it freezes well so I might just do that. I'll reduce the parmesan though because I think I put a bit too much in. Maybe even reduce the garlic to 1.5 cloves not 2. I think the oil needs to stay and yes I could use water and reduce the calories but then it's not a bit of a sad pesto. I would rather not make it at all I think (not confirmed, come back to me in a few months!)

It does freeze well. I wouldnt reduce the cheese, I would increase the nuts hugely. Im going to be on tenterhooks for this update

Also, being picky, tablespoons you say. What sort of tablespoon, a measuring tablespoon in a spoon set? Or your big ol' kitchen spoon?

I would use a scale next time for accuracy. Oil weighs slightly less than its ml equivalent, so 100ml of water, weighs 100g, but 100ml of oil weighs around 90g or 92 or so. Slight difference, not huge but we must have accuracy in this pesto experiment, its important

I made an error with the basil, it was 2x30g bags not 2x70g bags. So I probably used about 40-50g.

Doesn't really make that much of a difference though.

If I can convince the kids to leave the house today I'll go get some more basil and oil and make another load and weigh it all. No more nuts though, I think 10g was more than enough but I generally don't like pine nuts. I'm quite tempted to try a different nut like a pistachio and see how that turns out but since EVOO is so expensive I can't be falling down these rabbit holes and making several batches of different flavour pestos, as tempting as it is!

I did wonder if the act of blending makes the ingredients weigh less but a quick Google suggests not.

I think I need a new blender too, the only one I have is one of those upright smoothie ones but it's a pig to scrape anything remotely thick out of.

Oh and the spoons were the measuring spoons so an actual 15ml tablespoon.

Im keen to try this experiment in a couple of weeks OP (that is literally how sad and boring I am) so if you can wait two weeks and you dont want to make more, Im going to try it!!

Have you thought about eating dinner earlier too so it has time to digest before you sleep? Supposed to help. I’m trying all little things like this. Something has to work. I’m actually trying to have dinner for lunch so my big meal is out of the way then something small like sandwich for dinner. Solidarity to you x

I can't wait that long but I am going to have to wait until at least tomorrow because I cba to take the moaning children to the supermarket for the stuff and I need to wait for my blender to arrive.

I also have no excitement in my life and this week especially has been extremely dull.

I'm going to make another batch, reduce the nuts slightly to 8g, reduce the parmesan and the oil slightly. Initially it was too runny so I needed more cheese to thicken but then it was a bit too parmesany even by my standards.

I'll measure the oil in spoons but then I'll weigh it and then I can add up all the weights and see what the final weight of the pesto is at the end. By my rough calculations, the batch I just made should have weighed a minimum of 185g and there is surely no way I ate 95g with my food/tasting along the way...

This is going to bug me now until I've made my new batch!

I usually do and I actually did yesterday in the end because I had a sandwich again.

On a workday I eat breakfast at 7.30 and dinner between 5 and 7 depending on if I've had lunch. I don't get a lunch break so what I eat has to be eaten on the go if I have time so it's often easier not to bother.

You sound like me lol

If its too runny thats why it needs more nuts without being too cheesy. You can do a selection, say some walnuts or cashew nuts, pistachio like you said

More nuts/less oil. I started off with 5tbsps but it was struggling so I added #6, think I should have gone with a half a tbsp.

I'm running out of pine nuts so I'll use them and then one day try pistachios instead.

Pesto experiment completed.

In total I had 125g of all ingredients and was left with 92g of pesto. So that leaves 33g of "missing" pesto which fills up one of my egg cups.

I'm going to assume it's just everything I couldn't get out of my blender, it seems a bit too much, maybe we can account 2-5g for when I dipped my finger in to taste it twice but that still leaves a lot clinging to my blender which is exactly why I bought a new one but it's useless and doesn't blend.

If anybody can recommend a small blender that can blend small quantities of food then please let me know. I have a smoothie blender which is tall and thin so not great for thicker foods. The new one I got was more of a jug so better but the blades were positioned too high in the bottom so impossible to blend small quantities.

@Illbethereinaminute many many years ago I used to make pesto in an italian deli, he substituted half walnuts to the pine nuts and half pecorino cheese to the parmesan (Obviously to make more money but it was very popular). If I remember rightly was equal quantities of cheese ro nuts and he watered down the extra virgin with pomace olive oil but that's probably not necessary in the quantities your making, this was bucket loads🤣
Perhaps a coffee bean grinder would work🤔

i think only you can decide for yourself whether its worth it or not - wholefoods often fills you more up than UPFs. Have you noticed if you get satisfied with eating less of the mayo when its homeamde?

You need a bullet for blending.

pesto is a ridiculous thing to try and lose weight on though! Nuts oil hard cheese….i mean it’s calorie heaven but you can’t sniff it without calories. I’d say chickpeas and milk as a substitution for some of the oil/nuts/cheese.