When life gives you courgettes - make ratatouille

 

When I came home from holiday, I found two bad boys waiting for me in the fridge. And by that I mean two humongous courgettes. What else is a girl to do than make ratatouille? Also, eating a bit lighter is a great idea after my one week of all inclusive all day buffet holiday... We had hardly finished breakfast (you know, just a bit of scrambled eggs and bacon, maybe a fried egg as well, followed by a round of croissants and finished off with some donuts, slices of pineapple and watermelon) when it was lunchtime (although I admit we didn't make it to lunch every day as we were still digesting breakfast). And then came dinnertime with a full buffet of salads, cold cut meats, grilled fish and meats with all sorts of sides you could imagine, maybe a bit of pizza on the side, then the light round of cheese and crackers followed by dessert of fruits and small cakes and maybe to finish, you know just to cool off a bit, some chocolate ice cream with chocolate syrup and sprinkles). All this to keep us fuelled for a busy day of lying on the beach, reading a book or maybe even walking along the beach with our toes in the wet sand. But that is all over now. So hence the need for a bit of ratatouille. And what could be better now that the garden is starting to produce some ratatouille ingredients. Looking at the number of courgette plants, I better start coming up with some more recipes soon.

Apparently the secret to a good ratatouille (according to Delia, and who am I to argue) is that your veggies need to be chopped into large enough chunks so they don't turn into mush when cooking, but retain their shape. I loosely used Delia's ratatouille recipe as a rough guide, although I did make some alterations, and used whatever veggies I happened to have around. This makes quite a big batch, so we had some for dinner, I popped a bit in the freezer and took some with me to work for lunch.

InvisiblePinkRatatouille (serves 4-6):
1 large courgette
2 medium aubergines
13 medium tomatoes (because that's what I happened to have in the fridge)
2 onions
2 cloves of garlic
1 red pepper
1 yellow pepper
2 tbsp olive oil
salt and pepper
fresh thyme and basil
3 tbsp tomato puree

The howto:
Roughly cut your courgette and aubergines into large chunks, place into a colander, sprinkle generously with salt, and mix. Weigh them down with a few plates or something else appropriate and leave for an hour or two to drain. This will remove the bitter taste from the aubergines, and also remove liquid to keep the ratatouille from becoming soggy. In the meanwhile, peel the skins of the tomatoes. This is easiest if you score a little cross on the bottom of the tomato with a sharp knife, then dip the tomato in cooking water for about 30 seconds or so, and then submerge in ice cold water. You can then easily peel off the skin. Remove the tomato seeds, and cut the tomato flesh into rough chunks (I cut them in half, removed the seeds and left them that size). Also, roughly chop your onions into chunks, as well as the peppers. Finely chop the garlic.

When the courgettes and aubergines have drained, rinse off the salt in cold water, and pat them dry with a clean towel or kitchen roll. Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan to medium heat and add the onions. Cook the onion until starting to soften. Then add the chopped garlic and cook for another minute or so. Add the courgettes and aubergines along with chopped thyme and basil (I just eyeballed it, but I think I used about 2 tbsp of fresh finely chopped basil ann 1 tbsp fresh thyme leaves) with a bit of salt and pepper. Let cook for about 10 minutes. Add the red peppers and tomatoes, add the tomato puree, give it a good stir and let cook for another 10-15 minutes. The veggies should not be mushy, but keep their colour and shape, and the cooking time will depend on the size of your veggie chunks. Taste and adjust salt and pepper. I rarely use salt in my food, but here I think it helps bring out the flavour of the veg. Serve as a side with meat, or as a veggie main on it's own.

The verdict:
I know ratatouille purists will say you shouldn't put tomato puree in it, and I'm not sure if these are the correct proportions of ingredients. But it turned out really nice, and it was even better the next day. I used quite a bit of thyme, so if you are not a huge fan, just reduce the amount a bit. I know some ratatouille recipes add sugar, but I don't think it was needed. This is such a simple, healthy and beautifully colourful food, and you can adjust it to include/exclude whichever veggies you like/have in the garden.

Tomato soup

Some days you just need a lovely and comforting bowl of hot soup. I am still not rid of my stubborn cold. Yesterday also turned out to be a day when life once again sent a reminder of how sudden things change without any warning. Life takes you on weird, winding paths, and sometimes it's very hard to see any reason for why things turn out like they do.
Talking about comforting soups, if you have been reading my blog for a while, you could not miss the fact that we had quite a tomato crop this summer. I just couldn't believe how much tomatoes our plants produced. However, as we only moved in in July, the wonderful previous owners grew the tomato plants and all we had to do was harvest the wonderful orbs of red yummyness. During high tomato season they matured so quickly that all I could do was to freeze them whole as I just didn't have time to make tomato sauce every evening after getting home from work, particularly as we were working on the Bachelor pad most evenings during last year's harvest season. And now I have the wonderful task of using up all that produce from our own garden. The great thing about the frozen tomatoes is that when they defrost, the skin is really easy to pop off without having to go through the time consuming process of blanching. 

My sister discovered this tomato soup recipe on the BBC good food website and encouraged me to try it. It's basic and doesn't have any fancy ingredients but it will have a great flavour, particularly if you will have access to really ripe, sweet tomatoes. It makes a great, affordable lunch full of flavour and it's healthy too. Add some (home baked) bread and it makes a perfect lunch.

Tomato soup (serves 4):
1-1 1/4 kg tomatoes
1 onion
1 carrot
1 celery stick
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tsp tomato puree
black pepper
a good pinch of sugar
2 bay leaves
1.2 litres (2 pints) vegetable stock (or less if tomatoes produce a lot of liquid)

The howto:
Prepare the tomatoes by chopping them in quarters and removing the cores. Then chop the onion, carrot and celery. Heat olive oil in a large saucepan, and sauté the chopped onion, carrot and celery. Cook until the vegetables start to soften a bit, about 10 minutes on medium heat. Add the tomato puree and give the vegetables a stir before adding the tomatoes, sugar, black pepper and bay leaves. Cook for about 10 minutes until the tomatoes soften. Add vegetable stock, if there is a lot of liquid from the tomatoes (my frozen tomatoes produce more liquid than fresh tomatoes, so I don't add very much stock at all, just a stock cube and a splash of water). Cook for about 25 minutes. Puree with a handheld blender or liquidizer, and season with either salt, sugar or pepper according to taste. Serve while hot or freeze in individual servings. 

The verdict:
I love the simple favours of this soup. When you cook with tomatoes, you should always add a bit of sugar to balance the flavours. As I'm using my own tomatoes, this soup actually cost next to nothing. It is the perfect way to use the frozen whole tomatoes, as they get a bit sloppy when they defrost. I prefer to handle them when half thawed, it's easy to peel off the skin and cut out the hard stem while they are still frosty, once completely thawed they are a bit challenging to work with. You can blanch the tomatoes or just leave the skins on, as the blending will get rid of any unpleasant bits of tomato skin. 

Viva Veggies

The other night we had a power cut at home. It followed a very short but rather extreme winter storm with high wind, pouring rain and some loud thunder and lightning. First we thought it would be really quick, as we were assured engineers were already on site when we called the electricity company. But it started to get dark, and still no sign of electricity. It was rather nice and atmospheric to have the house lit with candles, and the Culinary Consultant soon started snoring on the sofa. But I started worrying about what would happen with all the stuff in the fridge, not to mention the freezer in case we would have a longer power cut. And then I realised we have an even bigger problem - the snakes! They are dependant on electricity to keep their tanks warm. So we started to plan for what we could do in case the power cut would be long. Over the Christmastime, I know there were households without power for days. Luckily the power came back on after about six hours, several of which we actually spent at a friend's house enjoying wonderful Cosmopolitans. But after the incident we made a contingency plan for future power cuts. We will buy hot water bottles and get some equipment so that we can boil water even without electricity to keep the little ones warm comfy in case of an emergency. Things I never thought I would do: make plans for snake re-heating.

The power cut was a great reminder that it is always good to keep some emergency food at home you can eat even if you don't have any electricity at all to heat things up. Crackers, jams, tinned food... Although I guess we could have driven off to the nearest Tesco in case of an emergency, but you never know. It could be extreme weather, or something else weird. We already learned last summer during some problems with the water supply that having a few gallons of drinking water always stocked in the garage is a great idea. And there are probably a few other things we should stock up on, such as a few flashlights and batteries for them. So remember to keep safe out there and plan for unexpected emergencies. Particularly, we are so dependant on electricity that it becomes quite hard to imagine life without it, but extended power cuts do happen. 

Well, after the above public service announcement, on to more interesting subjects. Such as today's yummy dish. Looking back at my food diary from the last few years, I used to eat much more veggie dishes than I do now. I guess having a dedicated carnivore in the house has shifted my cooking to include meat or fish at almost every meal. I'm not sure I'm happy with this, I would love to eat more vegetarian. The Culinary Consultant will eat anything I put in front of him, but I know he prefers a meal which contains something from the animal kingdom. 

I got this recipe from a friend and she said this was the best vegetarian dish she had ever had. So obviously I had to try it out. And tell you all about it!

Viva Veggies (serves 4-6 as a side):

1 bunch broccoli

1 bunch cauliflower

2 tbsp butter

225 g (1/2 lb) mushrooms, sliced

1/2 cup mayo

1/2 cup sour cream

1/2 cup Parmesan, grated

Salt and pepper to taste

3 tomatoes, sliced

55 g (1/4 cup) butter, melted

1/2 cup breadcrumbs

The howto:

Precook broccoli and cauliflower until tender crisp. Sauté mushrooms in 2 tbsp butter. Grease a 20x20 cm (9x9 in) dish. Mix mayo, sour cream and parmesan and mix the sauce with the veggies. Transfer to an oven proof dish and cover with tomato slices. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Mix melted butter with breadcrumbs and sprinkle over tomatoes. Although not in the original recipe, I sprinkled some additional grated parmesan on top. The original recipe instructs to cook for 20 minutes at 160 C (325 F), I cooked for about 30 minutes at 180 C to get to my desired result.

The verdict:

As my friend suggested, this was a rather tasty meal. I'm not sure I would go quite as far as calling it the most delicious vegetarian dish ever, as there was a oven roasted aubergine I had in an italian restaurant once which is pretty hard to beat. But this was definitely delicious. I particularly liked the topping with the cheese and buttery breadcrumbs. I also liked the combination of mayo and sour cream, it was tasty and yummy but at the same time refreshing because of the slight sourness. And the Culinary Consultant ate it without complaining, so I think it had to be quite good as he prefers things from the animal kingdom.

I made this as a light (well, light as in no meat, but not necessarily light as in low calorie) lunch and served it with bread. This makes a good lunch or veggie main on it's own, but both me and the Culinary Consultant agreed that it would also make a wonderful side to any meat or fish dish. This will definitely go on the list of dishes I will make again. The only change I will make is to add a bit more mushrooms, but I guess the proportion of mushrooms to cauliflower and broccoli depends on the size of your bunches of veg. Mine were rather big so there was a lot of cauliflower and broccoli compared to the mushies, but that is of course easily remedied. I very warmly recommend you try this, it's very yummy!

Hummus 2.0

I have been using an app called My Fitness Pal ever since I started my weight loss journey in September 2011. Or I guess I should call it my new life. I really like the app. It has a huge database with nutritional information on food items, and it allows you to create your own recipes and calculates the nutritional content of them. It's really easy to use, and it even has a barcode scanner, which has identified the majority of food items I have used it for. Basically you tell the app your weight, and how much weight you want to lose per week (1 lb, 0.5 lb, stay at current weight etc) and it will calculate your calorie allowance. You can also add workouts, there is a database of approximate calorie burns for many sports, although I always wear my heart rate monitor when I work out to get a more exact count. It's a really nifty little app, I have it both on my iPhone and iPad, and you can use it online as well, although the few times I have used it online, I have found the user interface to be much inferior to the apps.

Anyhows, although in general I have mostly good things to say about the app, I was bitterly disappointed last week. I thought the app would save your data indefinitely. However, I wanted to go back to my data from 2011, to the time I was losing weight really quickly, to check on things like daily carb amounts I was eating, but there was no more data left!! I was so disappointed, as on of the reasons I started using this app was to find something that would form a lasting database of my eatings and sports. Seems like I didn't eat anything before March 2012. Which makes me so sad. I would really have wanted that data. But other than that, I still really like the app for keeping check on my daily calorie intake, and to keep an eye on carb and protein levels. Below are a few screenshots from one day last week. I'm currently on a really calorie restricted diet, just to kick start my weight loss. I'm also aiming to reduce my carb intake a bit more than I have for the last few weeks, again just as a kickstart. I seem to quite comfortably get into the 100-150 g carbs per day range, which is quite ok as I work out a lot, but thought I would aim for 50-100 g for the next few weeks, just to be extra strict and hopefully get some booming results during January.

I'm actually off on holiday the first week of February, so it would be nice to have shed at least a little bit of the wobbly bits before that. Also, I know from experience that staying on a really restricted calorie diet and working out 1-2 hours a day is really tough. It's ok as long as you have quite a bit of fat to burn off, but later weight loss has to slow down and I have to get in a bit more calories if I want to keep up this amount of sports. Which I'm totally ok with. One and a half year ago, when I started my new life, I decided not to think of this as a diet, but as a permanent lifestyle change. And I'm still doing that. I know I failed in the latter half of 2012 and put on some of the weight I had worked so hard to lose, and I am incredibly disappointed with myself. I did keep up with my exercises, but my eating just got out of control. Too much chocolate, and way too many mince pies. But I also know I have two options, to dwell on that and keep on eating like a pig because I feel like nothing I ever do will make a difference. Alternatively I can admit that I strayed, payed the price, and will now be strict and work hard to get back to the healthy me I was last summer. And I am happy I don't have anywhere near as much weight to work off as I did back a year and a half ago. I also know I will stray again, and put on weight, but I hope the next time I will catch myself a bit earlier so that there is less to work off. Carboholism is a tough thing to live with.

Anyways, that was quite a long detour to today's recipe. The point is, I enjoy having fruit for snacks, but decided that for the moment, I need to control my sugar intake a bit more. So I needed another snack instead of the fruit, and decided to make hummus my snack for next week. I have made more and less successful attempts at hummus in the past, and I have posted one of my favourite variations on the snack here. As yummy as that variation is, I still wanted to master the original hummus as well. Also, the other recipe contains pistachios, which firstly are too expensive for every day use and secondly add quite a bit of calories to the recipe.

I stumbled upon this recipe of ethereally smooth hummus on Smitten Kitchen, one of the great food blogs I follow. Apparently, the secret to really smooth hummus is to peel the chickpeas. Fair enough, lets peel. In the comments section to that post there was a link to another food blog called Coffee and Quinoa for something called extra creamy hummus. The author of the blog had wondered how to get that really light and fluffy hummus consistency, and discovered that there are over 3 million google hits for the search term 'creamy hummus'. Apparently, the secret is in the order you add the ingredients, you need to emulsify the tahini with lemon juice and water before adding the other ingredients. That should take care of the textural aspects. However, I am still also in search of the exactly right proportion of ingredients for my palate. And I think one of the secrets is that you need to add a bit of salt to enhance all the flavours. I'm usually not a big fan of using salt when cooking, and have gotten used to quite a small amount of salt in food. Which is one of the reasons I have to make my own hummus, I find the store bought one way too salty. But here, I have admitted defeat and use a bit more salt than I would optimally like to, as it's the only way to get the taste just right. Also, I added a bit more tahini than I have used before, and lastly, reduced the amount of garlic quite a bit. Raw garlic is a bit too bitter for my tastes, and I always make my hummus as a snack for the next few days, so the garlic taste really has time to develop while the hummus hangs around in my fridge. A little goes a long way in this case. Of course, you can easily change the amount of garlic to fit your palate. Also, I would love to roast my garlic before adding it to the hummus. But I just can't be bothered, especially since I usually make my hummus on a Sunday night which for me is not a time to be very fancy with my cooking. Using all these small changes, I think I have finally arrived at a recipe I'm happy with. Both textually and flavourly (yes, I know it's not a word, but nonetheless...)

Hummus 2.0 (serves 3-4 as a snack):
1 pack (1 cup) of chickpeas (net weight 380 g, drained weight 230 g)
3 tbsp tahini
juice from 2 lemons
1 tbsp water
1 garlic clove
1 tbsp ground cumin
0.5-0.75 tsp sea salt
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

One serving (a third of the recipe, as that's what I consider a large enough snack, contains 233 kcal, 16 g fat, 18 g carbs of which 1.2 g sugars, and 7.3 g protein)

The howto:
Peel the chickpeas. This is easily done if you place the chickpea between your thumb and index finger and gently pop the chickpea out of it's shell (see pictures below). It's a bit tedious, but worth it, although probably not absolutely necessary. Put tahini, lemon juice and the water in a food processor, and mix for about 20-30 seconds until the tahini becomes white and fluffy. Then add the garlic, cumin, salt (maybe start with a smaller amount, and add more later if you think it's needed), olive oil and chickpeas. Mix until you have a creamy paste, I needed to add about 2 tbsp of water (or the liquid from the chickpeas, if you aren't an idiot like me and drained it all away) to get a nice texture. Serve topped with some olive oil and smoked paprika.

The verdict:
Finally a hummus that tastes exactly the way I think hummus should taste like. It is so much better than the store bought, it has lots of flavour and a nice tang from the lemon juice. And like I said, it might seem like there is quite a bit of salt, but it really brings out the rest of the flavours. I think it's garlicky enough with one clove, especially after an overnighter in the fridge, but if you are fond of garlic or are serving it right up, then another clove or two might be a good idea. Ideally, I would love to use roasted garlic, but as I said above, I can't be bothered. Which in itself is a bit ridiculous, it's not like it takes long. Well, the baking time is rather long, but the prep takes all of five seconds. But the hour long wait is usually too much for me.

There are quite a few variables to making good hummus. First you need to find chick peas to your liking. One option is also to buy dried ones and cook them yourself. My favourite brand is Tesco's Organic chickpeas in water, they seem to be cooked to perfection, usually every single chickpea is whole and not mushed up at all, and they are very easy to pop out of their skins. Another variable is the tahini, I used to have another brand, now I'm using Al'Fez Natural Tahini, which I like better than whatever it was I had before. Although tahini is usually something you don't have a choice on, there is just one brand (if that), and you should just thank your lucky stars your grocery store stocks any brand. I got the one I have now at the Co-op. Then of course there is the lemon juice, which will vary from lemon to lemon, and some garlics are more potent than others. Which is why it's good to sample the tahini, and possibly adding some lemon juice or salt if the flavour is not quite perfect. And I guess it goes without saying, you want a good extra virgin olive oil. I usually keep two different olive oils at home, one cheap for cooking, and then an expensive, really good one for things like dressings, dipping and hummus.

New Year, New Waistline

And so the misery of yet another year has begun. No more holidays in sight (well, to be honest, I'm jetting away to the Canary Islands in the beginning of February but it's still a lifetime away...), no sugar, no chocolate, no fun. Well, apart from going to the gym. Which is great fun! I just have the best instructors ever, they make me come back again and again, because working out and sharing some of their amazing positive energy is the best thing ever. Healthy life is obviously a balance between eating healthily, enjoying some goodies every once in a while, and being physically active. For me the hard thing isn't the exercise. I really enjoy it, honestly. Well, at least 90% of the time. Sometimes dragging yourself out in the rain and the dark to get to the gym is a bit uninspiring. Especially now that I switched to another gym which is not around the corner like my old gym. But it's totally worth it, the classes are much better, and the instructors are amazing. 

Clearly my problem with the healthy lifestyle is eating healthy. Well, not even that is such a problem really, I like healthy food. I'm lucky that I really love fresh veggies in all forms. It's the part about enjoying goodies within reason that I struggle with. I just can't keep it to a small treat every once in a while. If I told you what I have eaten over the last three or four months, you would not believe it. You would think it would be impossible for a human being to gob down so much food. But trust me, my friends, it is. And that is why I am currently wearing only skirts, as I cannot get the zip done on my jeans. Not even on my fat jeans! The only way to try and lose weight for me is to go cold turkey on sugar in all it's forms. No treats until the jeans fit again. It worked for me a year and a half ago when I got rid of almost a third of me. Part of that has been creeping back, and now I'm taking action again. I'm not going to quite the extremes I did back then (I don't think months of doing three hours of exercise every single day is really a good idea in the long run) but I have to get rid of my sugar addiction. I did it once, so I can do it again.

To keep on the straight and narrow I have decided I will have to give up one of my favourite hobbies. No more browsing Pinterest or food blogs. Looking at pictures of all those wonderful cakes and cookies and chocolates and bars and pies and whatnots is just too painful. Except of course, I have already slipped. However, I can proudly say that what I found was NOT this Oreo cookie bark from Cookies and Cups, but this really yummy looking lentil stew from Chocolate Covered Katie. And this was a great find today as I was going to make a lentil soup. But that was just the same old lentil soup I always make, so I was really happy to run into this recipe. And I had almost all of the ingredients at home. The only thing I didn't have was mushrooms. And having just got home from work, I really couldn't be bothered to go out mushroom hunting, so I decided to finally use up the bag of dried mixed mushrooms that has been living in my kitchen for way too long. And I threw in a handful of dried black trumpets as well, lovingly hand picked straight out of the clean Finnish forests by my Mum. I'm currently trying to use up all the food I have stocked in my kitchen, I have such a bad habit of buying more and more without using up the old ones first, and with a kitchen the size of a shoebox, it might be a good idea to try and keep the food stocks to a minimum. It's not like I'm going to starve, with six (!) grocery stores within a five minute walk. Truth be told, there are a few things I absolutely must have stockpiled in my kitchen. As long as I have onions, chick peas, tuna and tinned tomatoes, I'm ok. I know that's enough to survive on if there was a crisis. Not that I know what kind of crisis that would be, but still. Better safe than sorry.

Well, after all that rambling, I guess it's time to finally get to the good part. This recipe is not only healthy and colourful, but it is also great for using up any left over veggies from the fridge. The list of ingredients may seem long, but at least for me, almost all were things I already had at home. Fresh mushrooms will work as well as the dried ones, the original recipe used fresh mushrooms.

Lentil stew, slightly adapted from Chocolate Covered Katie (serves 6):

40 g dried mixed mushrooms

2 onions

1 tsp coconut oil

2 cloves of garlic

4 big carrots

3 stalks of celery

2 bell peppers (I used one yellow and one red for the nice colours)

2 tbsp apple cider vinegar

1 tsp salt

2 tbsp tomato paste

2 tsp dried cumin

2 tsp smoked paprika

1 tsp dried chilli flakes

2 cups dried red lentils

400 g tinned tomatoes

2 cups vegetable broth (i.e. 2 cups of water and a veggie stock cube)

100 g spinach

grated zest from one lemon (original recipe says 1 1/2 tbsp, but I only had one small lemon at home, so I ended up with a bit less)

According to my estimations, one serving contains 209 kcal (2.7 g fat, 43 g carbs of which 7.9 g sugars and 14.7 g protein).

The howto:

If using dried mushrooms, rehydrate the mushrooms in boiling water for 20ish minutes. Chop onions, finely chop the garlic, and chop the carrots, celery and bell peppers. Heat the oil in a large saucepan and cook onions for about 5 minutes. Then add the garlic, carrots, celery and peppers and cook for another 5 minutes. Add the mushrooms, vinegar and spices and let cook for another 5 minutes (15 if you are adding fresh mushrooms). Add the lentils, tomatoes and broth, and cook until the lentils are done (for me this was about 40 minutes, and I had to add another cup of water during the cooking, so keep an eye out). Right before serving, add spinach and lemon zest, and cook for 2-3 minutes. 

The verdict:

Food with lots of veggies in different colours is always tasty. It's nice to eat because it makes you feel so healthy. This was a bit different from my usual lentil stew, which was really great, I need to stop cooking the same old things over and over. This stew was nice and warming on a cold evening, and with plenty of lentils it's nice and filling. Also, letting it all slowly cook together really brings out the natural sweetness in the veggies, I think the addition of tomato paste and lemon really enhances this aspect. 

One thing I have always wondered about, is how all the "real" food bloggers always get their food to look so nice. Just have a look at the photos on Katie's blog, the stew looks so beautiful and colourful and appetising. Mine, despite tasting absolutely wonderful, turned out to look like a bunch of red goo. Oh well, beauty is only skin deep. 

Moroccan soup

This is one of my all time favourite soups. And we are definitely back in high soup season. I mean, who wants soup in the summer? But when the evenings are getting chilly and it's dark outside, there is nothing like a hot bowl of soup to warm you up after crawling around in the mud for bootcamp, or whatever it is you happen to do out there in the dark and rain. I find soups great when trying to lose weight, as you can have a big bowl and still only have a reasonable amount of calories. It also makes your meal stretch out as you sit there and spoon all that broth. You have time to get that feeling of being sated and not go back for seconds. Although, I pre-define all my portion sizes while cooking, so there is no seconds. Otherwise I would eat a whole pot if this soup in one sitting. As you have probably figured, I'm trying to lose weight pretty much all the time, so there are a lot of soups at the InvisiblePinkHouse. How come it's such a struggle to go down even a few pounds, but it's easy to put on at least double that in just a few weeks of sloppy eating? I think it definitely defines the laws of thermodynamics Soups are also quick to throw together and can be left to cook while doing other things, so perfect to get going after coming home from the gym and left to slowly cook while taking a shower and getting into my jammies.

I got this recipe from my colleague, and have slightly adapted it and it has become one of my favourite soups. I usually make it fully vegetarian as in the recipe below, but sometimes add in stir fried chicken if I want to make it richer. The soup freezes well, I like to pack it into portion sized servings, move it to the fridge the night before I eat it (or take it out in the morning and let it thaw in room temperature until lunchtime). The flavours just get fuller when you heat it a second time.

Moroccan soup (serves 4):

2 onions

2 carrots

3 stalks of celery

2 cloves garlic

a piece of fresh ginger root

1 tbsp oil

2 tsp harissa paste

1 tbsp ground cumin

400 g tinned tomatoes

2 tbsp tomato puree

1 vegetable stock cube

1 can chickpeas (400g)

20 g quinoa (or couscous)

fresh coriander and lemon to serve

One serving contains 210 kcal (6.9 g fat, 29 g carbs and 7.8 g protein).

The howto:

Finely chop onions, garlic and ginger, slice carrots and celery. Fry in oil for about five minutes, add the harissa paste and ground cumin and fry for another few minutes. Add tinned tomatoes, chickpeas, tomato puree and stock cube along with about 500ml water. Let cook for half an hour, add quinoa and let cook for another 10 minutes or so, until the quinoa is done. If you like more of a stew consistency than a soup, just add more quinoa. Serve with a wedge of lemon and finely chopped fresh coriander. 

The verdict:

This is a really warming and spicy soup. I love to have it with some rye bread. Finland meets Morocco. It's funny, this is the soup that has made me like celery. I think I had never bought celery before making this soup, as I really didn't like the taste of it. But then again, the only time I had really paid attention to it was when it was served to me raw. And I still don't like the taste of raw celery, I'm pretty certain we are not meant to eat it raw. But in soups and stews, it has become on of my favourites. The flavour gets nice and mellow when it's cooked and it looses all of that horrible bitterness that makes it so unappealing when raw. Now celery is one of those things I always try to keep in my fridge, in fact right now I have two giant packs of celery in the fridge, waiting to be chopped into whatever soup or stew I'm making next. Basically this soup has everything I like, carrots, onions, tomatoes and chickpeas. Oh how I love chickpeas, sometimes I eat them straight out of the can, that's how much I love them. And I had never had Harissa before trying this soup. I like it because it gives the soup a very warm and spicy taste without being too hot. I have a very delicate mouth and I don't like anything hot like chillies because they just hurt my mouth. But Harissa (in controlled quantities) gives a sweeter kind of hotness, which I absolutely love.

Yummus

It should be fairly obvious from some of my previous posts that I love chickpeas. And let me tell you, I really love hummus. The cumin, lemon, garlic and tahini. What's not to love. However, I have struggled to find a really good hummus recipe. And funnily enough, my new favourite one is not even proper hummus. It doesn't have any tahini or lemon in it. And it's modified from a recipe for chickpea burgers from the wonderful blog A Cosy Kitchen. I made the burgers a while ago, and when I was tasting the mixture for the burgers, I realised this is like hummus but much better. So with a few changes it became my new pseudo-hummus. It's so darn yummy it became yummus. 


Yummus (serves 3):
1 onion
2 cloves garlic
1/2 tsp harissa paste
1tbsp ground cumin
1tsp paprika
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 can (230g) chickpeas
30g unsalted pistachios
2tbsp olive oil
salt to taste


Finely chop the onion and garlic, and saute until onion is done, about 5 minutes or so. Add harissa paste, cumin, paprika and cinnamon, and fry for another minute. Add about 2tbsp of water so that a paste-like texture forms. Combine the onion-spice mix, chickpeas, pistachios and olive oil and blend to a paste. Add water if needed. Season with salt to taste. Serve with carrot, cucumber and sweet pepper sticks.


One serving contains 260 kcal (17g fat, 21g total carbs of which 3.0g sugars, 8.5g protein)


The verdict:
Well, I guess it should be obvious from the above that I absolutely adore this. My only problem with it is that when I make a batch, I plan to eat it as a snack for the next few days. Often, it tends to just disappear right out of the bowl where I make it. Fancy that, disappearing yummus. 


Compared to the other recipes for (proper) hummus I have tried, I think the key to success here is that the frying somehow softens up the taste of the garlic, the onions add a wonderful slightly sweet taste, as do the pistachios. I'm usually not big on using salt in any food, but I would say, in this recipe, just give it a good pinch of salt. It somehow brings out the sweetness of the onions and pistachios to a whole new level. I think next time I'll try to throw in a bit of tahini as well, see if it gets even better or if it will mess up the perfect symphony of flavours.

Late Friday quickie and a rant

I know it's not Friday anymore, but yesterday evening when I was writing this up, I managed to fall asleep on my sofa. At 9.30pm on a Friday night. Yes, my life is thoroughly exciting. 

So, this lentil stew is the ultimate Friday comfort food, the one that started my obsession of cooking something quick and easy (and sometimes even healthy) on a Friday night. About a year ago, I realised I need to lose some weight. Well, I had actually realised it long ago (like 10 years ago or so...) but last September I finally reached the point where I decided I have to do something about this disaster *now*. And it wasn't enough to lose *some* weight, but actually quite a lot. By coincidence I happened to stumble upon an advert for bootcamp on the for-sale email list at work. I emailed the personal trainer, who offered me a free trial month of bootcamp. Which is probably the only reason I went, I certainly did not believe the promises they made on the website. "Lose a stone the first month or your money back". To me that screams hoax from the start. However, I thought I might as well do the free month, and then figure out what to do next. 

Well, here I am, ten months later, and over five stone lighter. Actually, I got there in about six months, so I did lose about a stone a month. I still can't believe that has actually happened. And yes, it has involved blood, sweat and tears. Well at least sweat and tears, can't remember any blood along the way. The bootcamp involved a total diet change for me, and workouts three mornings a week (at 6.30 am!!). Well, getting up was really hard. Until the weight just started falling off in big chunks. After the first two weeks I had already lost several pounds. That is all the motivation you need. 

So that was a bit of a detour, but I did have a point. In addition to the early morning workout sessions, the bootcamp included a diet plan. I always thought I was pretty tuned in to healthy food. I knew sugar was bad, and fats were bad. Back home the nutritional guidelines are presented as a "plate model" where you will half your plate with veggies and greens, a quarter with meat, fish or some other protein and a quarter with potato, rice, pasta or some other carb. In addition you should eat low fat dairy products and bread, preferably rye bread with "healthy" fats such as margarine (yuck). I had been trying to eat like that, but I just couldn't seem to shift any weight. Sometimes I would lose weight if I just dropped calories to absolute minimum, but it would all come back, and I would feel hungry and horrible. And of course I'm not denying that I love my sugar and chocolate, I'm a carboholic and baby I was born that way, so stuffing my face with doughnuts did play a role at times. An important thing the bootcamp made me accept (not realise, as I have realised it years ago, but to accept that it's the only way forward) was that I'm not on a diet. This is not something that will end. This is a total, and (hopefully) long lasting change.

The bootcamp nutrition plan pretty much was based on two ideas, detox and the idea that "fats don't make you fat, sugar makes you fat". And it's not one of those things where you can just replace carbs with lard, bacon, butter, cheese and cream. It's basically built around the idea that you should prepare your food from fresh, high quality ingredients which don't include things that are bad for your body, such as sugars, alcohol, caffeine and additives. You can have pretty much unlimited greens and veggies and reasonable amounts of lean protein. No refined carbs, no dairy (apart from full fat yoghurt), no starch carbs except post workout (in the form of quinoa or sweet potato). Obviously no sugar or alcohol. And nothing that comes in a jar or tin which contain ingredients you cannot pronounce, or know what they are. Basically just plain good home-cooked food, made from fresh (and preferably organic) ingredients, with all the bad stuff left out. I was a bit worried about some aspects of the nutrition plan, such as the high amount of eggs and the types of fat that were used. We have all learned eggs are bad and increase your cholesterol levels, and coconut oil is the most horrible fat possible. Well, after six months on the bootcamp nutrition plan, I did a health check which included things like blood cholesterol levels, blood glucose levels, enzyme tests for liver function etc. And while I've never had problems with high cholesterol, my LDL (the "bad cholesterol") was even lower than it used to be, my HDL (the "good cholesterol") was also in a very good range, as were all the rest of the tests. So while I will probably redo the blood tests in another six months or so just to keep an eye on the situation, I think I'm genuinely healthier than I have ever been. And I certainly wasn't able to run 20k ten years ago! (Not that running distance necessarily is the best measure for fitness, and in the end 20k is not that much, but for me it's better than I've ever done!). 

While I do believe people have different metabolisms and what works for someone doesn't work for someone else, this was exactly what my body needed. Everyone needs to find the nutrition plan that works for them. But for me, the excess weight just fell off, and I have felt amazing ever since. I do have my bad days, weeks, and lately even two bad months where I have been stuffing myself with sugar, and I can feel it. I got my first flu in ages after being sloppy with my diet, and my workout performance has gone downhill. So it was time to get myself back into gear, and that is what this soup represents. I'm back on the strict bootcamp nutrition plan, and this is my favourite recipe from the bootcamp recipe book. I used to cook it almost every Friday last winter, my ritual after coming home from my weekly grocery shopping trip. I would let the stew cook while I put away my groceries, and then snuggle down on the sofa with my stew and enjoy the feeling of hot comfort food and the joy of not having to go to work for two days. 

I know I won't keep to the super-strict diet for the rest of my life. Once I get my few extra pounds off, I will add a bit of luxury here and there, a weekend brekkie of decadence, some cheese once or twice a week, and some rye bread. And chocolate, of course (although hopefully in smaller servings than before). I am being positive about being able to eat pretty much according the the nutrition plan for the rest of my life, I have once again become passionate about cooking, and love the food I'm eating. Of course there will be some cheats thrown in, but if you are good 90% of the time, being a bit bad every once in a while won't destroy the balance.

Well, I've kept rambling on for way too long, and will now finally get to the good part. Sorry about the soapbox type of attitude, it's just I'm really passionate about this, as I never ever in my whole life thought I would be able to lose that extra weight. I thought I would be carrying around my extra stones of lard for the rest of my life. So all the rambling is just about being relieved that wasn't true, and there are things out there that actually work. Of course they need determination, willpower, sweat and tears. Oh, and about the recipe. I know this looks very simple and unassuming, but be assured, it's yummy. 

Curried lentil stew (serves 4):

1 onion

a few cm of fresh ginger root (or 1 tbsp ground ginger if you don't have any fresh around)

1 garlic clove

15g (about one tablespoon) virgin coconut oil (or your favourite oil)

1-2tbsp of your favourite curry powder (I like to use a mix of Tandoori and mild curry)

2 cups (5dl) lentils (I like to use red ones as they cook the quickest)

4 cups (1l) veggie stock

5 tomatoes (or a tin of chopped tomatoes if you don't happen to have fresh ones)

100g yoghurt (I use full fat organic Greek yoghurt)

coriander

The howto:

Chop the onion, ginger and garlic, and fry in the oil until onion turns translucent. Add the curry powder and let cook for a few more minutes. Add stock and lentils, and cook until lentils are done, about 25 minutes for red ones, longer for green lentils. Add chopped tomatoes, yoghurt and chopped coriander and serve.

One serving contains 300kcal (11g fat, 50g cabs of which 4.5g sugars, 17g protein).

The verdict:

Like I said, I cooked this almost weekly last winter, and haven't since, until yesterday. And I was again reminded why this is my favourite recipe from the bootcamp cookbook. I love lentils in any form, and the combination of lentils and curry just works. I guess you could use a stronger curry mix to spice it up if you like, but I think you need to have some of the mild curry in there to get the right flavour. The yoghurt adds a lovely creaminess, while the tomatoes and coriander add freshness. I admit, this isn't the prettiest food, so probably not something to serve if you have guests, but if you need something healthy and soothing for a lunch or dinner, this is definitely your choice. Also, it is brilliant because all the ingredients are things I always have in stock at home, so this is perfect to cook if it's towards the end of the week, and you don't have time to go grocery shopping. In that case, I often replace the fresh tomatoes with tinned ones. The soup also freezes well, so if you are lucky enough to have a big freezer, just double up the recipe and freeze in individual servings. If you have a shortage of containers for freezing, a brilliant tip I saw somewhere is to line a container with a freezer bag, pour in the stew, let freeze in the container so it keeps a nice square shape, and after overnight freezing, just remove the container and use for something else. This way you get nice, stackable, single servings of food without having to own loads of freezing containers.

Syrniki - russian quark pancakes

I guess I should begin by apologising for another pancake post right after the last one. But then again, who wouldn't love pancakes? To celebrate the weekend, and to make up for calories lost to rather heavy cardio lately (because the tub of Ben&Jerry's I had yesterday didn't quite do it...), I wanted to make a mean weekend brunch. When it comes to cooking, and particularly weekend brunches, I definitely don't have a problem trying to think up things to cook. Quite the opposite, my problem is that there is only two possibilities for weekend brunch each week, which leaves me with an ever growing list of recipes I want to try out, or old favourites I want to revisit and maybe pimp a bit. 

Talking about long lists, I have to go off on a tangent here for just a second. If you haven't used Evernote, I want to take a few sentences to introduce you to the software that is currently the only thread of sanity keeping my crazy life together. Basically, it's a software that allows you to organize notes into notebooks, tag them with key words and attach documents and figures. It's fully searchable, you can use it online but there are also apps for the iPhone and iPad (and apparently for Android as well, Google tells me). And the best thing, it's free! Well, it's free to a certain amount of data a month, but for my use it's good enough. The only downside with free Evernote is that you need to have access to the internet to see your notes. I always keep forgetting this. For me that only makes it useful in the UK, as I tend to turn off roaming when I go abroad (oh, the joys of a scientist's salary, you can't even afford to go online... sigh). There are also other apps in the Evernote family such as the very imaginatively named Web Clipper which allows you to save webpages, draw (Skitch) or study more efficiently (Evernote Peek). There even seems to be an Evernote food app, which I only discovered now as I was browsing the Evernote webpage while writing this post. I'm not sure what the Evernote food app would have that would make it better than Evernote proper but I'll have a look at that later. What I love about Evernote is that I can make my notes wherever I am, online on my work computer or using the app on my phone. I have standard notes like grocery list, ideas for presents etc which I can update as soon as I remember that I need to buy something, or find a good idea for a present. Then I just pull out the appropriate note when I'm at the grocery store, or it's time for someone's birthday. I also keep a list of recipes I want to try. As soon as I come across a good recipe in a food blog or a magazine I clip it or take a picture of it and save it. Then I have a library of easily browsable and searchable favourite recipes when I plan next week's menu, with all the ingredients already listed so I can just copy and paste to my grocery list.

But this wasn't supposed to be about making notes, it was about that oh so lovely lazy weekend brunch. This time I chose to cook syrniki, russian quark pancakes out of two reasons. I have been craving them ever since I saw the recipe posted on one of my favourite food blogs, Kauhaa ja Rakkautta a few weeks ago, and because I had a tub of quark in my fridge which was about to go off. So this recipe is stolen from that blog, and the blogger actually has adapted it from the oh so glamorous Pirkka magazine. For the non-Finns (if anyone besides my mum and sis actually read this...), Pirkka is the monthly magazine of the K-food chain, one of the two largest grocery store chains in Finland. You get the magazine if you sign up for the K-food chain loyalty card. It's one of those silly magazines that mostly contain adverts for new products disguised as articles, but I always loved browsing it when it arrived. Even now, when I go back home to my mum's place, I love to read it. The foodaholic in me loves to read about new food products. Also, the recipes in the magazine are often very useful, the type of quick and easy everyday food recipes you need to spice up your food life, instead of always cooking those same old dishes. And again, I was off on a tangent, I seem to have a problem staying focused today.

Anyways, back to quark pancakes. Finnish cuisine is strongly influenced by our geographical neighbours, and from the Russian kitchen we have the influence of using a lot of dairy, particularly soured dairy. The selection of dairy products in Finnish supermarkets is (in my very unbiased opinion) superior to anywhere else in the world. There are so many different types of flavoured and unflavoured creams, soured creams (different types) and quarks. I don't understand why the Brits, who seem to love their cream, haven't discovered the joys of flavoured creams. Back home we have savoury ones, like cheese, pepper or my personal favourite goat's cheese and tomato as well as sweet ones. Just imagine topping your cupcakes with caramel or strawberry flavoured cream. There is also a huge selection of flavoured quarks, such as berry, white choc and lemon, lime and many others. And on top of all this, you get many of the varieties lactose free. The positive side of me being thousands of kilometers away from all those yummy dairy temptations is that it has been easy to reduce the amount of dairy in my diet, and I have to admit it has had some very positive effects on my health (this despite that I have the genetics to prove that I'm lactose tolerant). Anyways, the point of this rant was that growing up eating Finnish food, I am very used to having a lot of different dairy choices available. So, although I'm happy that there is (one brand) of quark available in my supermarket, at the same time it's very depressing seeing that one lonely quark sitting there among all the gazillions of cheddars. And it's a depressing, fat free variety. I would prefer to have one with a bit of fat in it, but even fat free quark is better than no quark. Ok, rant over, I guess everyone is now aware of my feelings about Finnish dairy.

So how about those syrniki, what on earth are they? The one and only official source for  information, Wikipedia, tells us "In Russian, Belarusian, Lithuanian, Polish, and Ukrainian cuisines, syrniki (Russian: сы́рник[и]; Ukrainian: сирники;Belarusian: сырнікі) are fried quark pancakes, garnished with sour cream, jam, honey, or apple sauce." My mum used to make these quite often at some point, I think actually that might have somehow magically coincided with the time the recipe was published in the Pirkka magazine... This is one of those foods that I really liked, but didn't get around to ever making myself. You know how you just forget about some foods if you don't actively make them. Then, one fine day you stumble upon the recipe and just remember such a food actually exists, and start craving it like crazy. Hopefully this has inspired you to try syrniki, you should be able to find quark at least in bigger supermarkets. And syrniki can almost be thought of as health food (cough, cough...). Well, at least compared to normal pancakes is that they have more protein thanks to the quark, and less carbs as there is less flour than in normal pancakes. Talk about rationalising...

Syrniki (makes about 16 small pancakes):

250g quark

3 eggs

65g white flour

30g sugar (this makes rather sweet pancakes, decrease or leave out if you are not a fan of sweet things)

10g vanilla sugar (again, optional, or replace with a splash of vanilla extract, or some vanilla pod seeds if you happen to have enough money to have vanilla pods hanging around unused)

14g melted butter

The batter is pretty  stiff, so the pancakes will keep their shape while cooking.

The howto:

Mix all ingredients, and let the batter stand for at least 15 minutes. This is not absolutely necessary if you just can't wait for your pancakes, but it does improve the texture of the batter and makes it a bit easier to cook. A pancake pan is optimal for cooking, but the batter is rather thick, so you can make small pancakes on a large pan as they will keep their shape rather well. I use about a topped tablespoon of batter per pancake. The batter doesn't contain much flour, so it takes a bit of patience to cook. Just make sure to stick to medium heat, and make sure the pancakes are properly cooked (turning a bit dark on the underside, with small bubbles forming on top) before you flip them over. That way they will not break during the flipping. Serve with berries, jam, fruit and/or maple syrup. Maybe even Nutella, ice cream or whipped cream if you are feeling very decadent.

The pancakes are ready to be flipped when they are golden
brown on the underside, and bubbles form on top.

One serving (1/3 of the recipe, or about 5 pancakes) contains 326 kcal (13g fat, 28g carbs, 19g protein). This is using low fat quark, and allowing for 1 additional tbsp butter for cooking the pancakes.

The verdict:

I cannot imagine a pancake I wouldn't like, and these are absolutely yummy. I just wish I could eat the whole batch in one go! The consistency is very different from traditional pancakes, they are much softer and more spongy. I think they are actually best eaten after they have cooled a little, that brings out the flavour of the quark much better. If you happened to like quark after trying these little dreamy things, check out my previous post about a quick and easy quark berry dessert.