Tasty Experiments

Nutty chicken curry

In an interesting coming together of circumstances, I find that I'm changing my eating habits. I'm not bad as a cook but there are times when life's pressures get to a point that I take refuge in 'old favourites', and variety goes right out of my repertoire. Old favourites such as spag bol, roast chicken, home-made burgers, chicken breasts in creamy sauce, kedgeree, sausage and mash, spaghetti carbonara, and so on make such a regular appearance that there's a danger of identifying the day of the week by the meal.

It never got that bad, but I was beginning to realise that, as the weeks went by, we were always eating the same things, and that is very boring. Then a number of things happened.

First, my dearly beloved announced that he was going to eat as little meat as possible as he is really vegetarian de coeur and, while difficult in a business context, at home he aimed to practically give it up totally. This meant at my home too.

Secondly, I discovered a really useful food website, BBC Good Food. I like it because it has lots of tasty recipes, including vegetarian ones; they are well explained, are mostly easy to do and don't take all day. They don't seem to have a huge list of bizarre ingredients either, although if you have a bizarre ingredient to hand, you can search for a recipe in which to use it. Another thing I like is the comments section where people leave comments on how they rate the dish, what changes they made because they didn't have all the ingredients, and other suggestions.

Thirdly, I found I wanted to diversify my tastes and explore different flavours, trying out chillies and other Asian and oriental dishes.

Fourthly, because I had a recent non-scare concerning my health and thought it was high time, anyway, that we ate a bit less meat and hopefully cut down on my food bill (some hope!).

I have taken to buying in packets of cereals - mixtures of quinoa, barley, rice, couscous, etc. - and pulses - red lentils, chickpeas, split green peas. I don't know if I'm also, subconsciously, laying in siege stores, stocking my pantry with dried goods as a buffer against rising prices.

I've had to buy in a few spices I didn't have previously, but no great investment, and it was great fun to wander round the shelves of Mondial Market in Le Cres once I'd stocked up on Yorkshire tea and baked beans.

One of the best dishes I've tried so far is the Coconut dhal recipe. Made with red lentils, coconut milk, and green chillies, it was quick, easy and very comforting after our bike ride in the wet and windy Aude. The fried onion added a lovely luxurious crunch.

My TWDB had his daughter over the other weekend and together we rustled up a Chickpea, aubergine and tamarind curry. The aubergines were roasted in the oven drizzled with oil and added to the other vegetables including green beans in a tasty stock perked up with garam marsala and mustard seeds. We served it with lemon rice and naans. It went down a bomb.

My boys are notoriously fussy about certain vegetables so I made a Spicy root and lentil casserole which had carrots and parsnips in it (on the black list) and it went down without a murmur. I like to use seasonal produce wherever possible so this one was perfect for a nasty winter's day. When I told them they had been eating carrots, which they had noticed anyway, natch, they said that the curry made them taste really good. I also excelled myself that day and made some naans. The bread machine did all the hard work and then I pored over a frying pan waiting for them to cook. It's a time-consuming process as each one takes about 5 minutes, so it's not something I'm going to do too often, but they did taste fabulous, much much better than the ones I buy in Carrouf.

Last night I made a Nutty chicken curry which had peanut butter, Greek yoghurt and chicken breast chunks in a sauce of coriander, ginger, and red chillies. I stirred into it some leftover mixed cereals and it was delicious. It wasn't too powerful, but had a good kick.

The boys are perfectly happy to have meat-free meals and seem to love the spices I've been using, so this has encouraged me to try many dishes I wouldn't have thought of cooking before. The good thing about Asian vegetarian recipes is that they don't base most dishes around cheese. As my two don't eat it, many British staples are out of the question.

Come the summer I'll be testing their resistance to peppers and aubergine which they currently detest, but may find edible if disguised in a tasty curry. Where there's a will there's a way... maybe.

Science Diet

While Creationists might reject science as a basis for understanding how the earth was created, they might be interested to know that science can help us with dieting and eating to stay slim. Personally, I don't have a problem with my size, have never dieted but eat healthily and don't give way to snacking. However, understanding, scientifically, how the body deals with food is useful for all of us who wish to stay slim and not sink into middle-aged spread.

If you have been watching the BBC series 'The Truth about Food', you may be as amazed as I was last night at some of the revelations. If there is one thing I hate, it's fads, and this programme dispelled all the myths about those crappy, boring diets which involve so much will-power and fail as soon as the dieter is back to normal food.

The essential information from the programme is this:

1. Metabolic rate is not responsible for weight gain. Eating is.
2. Eating low-fat dairy products will enable your body to purge out more fat than if you eat no dairy products at all. Eat low-fat products to avoid adding to your calorie intake and thus adding fat.
3. If you have evidence of how much you've eaten, as in a plate of bones, you'll eat less.
   
4. If you take a larger portion of food, you will eat more. Supersizing distorts your perception of what is a reasonable amount to eat.
5. The most filling foods are proteins, so to keep you feeling full for longer, make sure you eat a protein-rich meal.
6. Eating soup is the best way to ward off hunger. The water and solids mixed together fill the stomach and pass through your intestines more slowly than a meal of separate water and solids so you feel satiated for longer.

I would also add that eating in front of the television distracts you and you end up eating more because you are not paying attention to how much you are eating.

All the information was researched and tested scientifically. No fads, no get-rich-quick quacks bossing you about, no starvation. You can lose weight and stay slim by eating wisely and getting your heart rate bopping.

Isn't that good news?