Baby marrow, tomato and cheese "starter"

I was a bit peckish Sunday night at around 11; and didn't feel like defrosting meat or just snacking on straight cheese, so rummaged around my fridge and used a few ingredients, my trusty pan and the microwave to create an odd, but very tatsy snack for myself. I liked the crunchy topping and base concept so much that I recreated it with a few added tweaks and ingredients for myself and the other half as our "starter" to our braai chops last night. My favourite part of this has to be the crunch from the marrow parmesan "chips" - I'm going to be using these on so many things in future!!!

This is what I used to make two side plate servings:

2 x firm just ripened tomatoes
4 x medium baby marrow's, sliced in rounds approximately 5mm thick
1/4 cup grated parmesan
Ghee for frying
1/2 an onion, finely chopped
3 green chillies, finely sliced (adjust for your heat preference)
1/4 teaspoon crushed garlic
sprinkle of rosemary salt to taste
4 slices of mozzarella / to taste
Avocado oil
Greaseproof paper

Throw the onion, chilli, garlic and half of the sliced baby marrows into a pan on high heat with enough ghee to fry and coat all ingredients. While that is going, place the rest of your sliced baby marrows into a container, drizzle some avocado oil over (you can use any LCHF friendly oil / fat, I just like the taste), shake around to coat all slices, and then place them in a single layer onto greaseproof paper on a plate. Ensure that there are minimal gaps between the slices and that they don't overlap.Sprinkle your grated parmesan over the slices, and pop into the microwave on high for ten minutes.

Your fry up should be half way there by now - ensure you keep tossing everything in the pan so that the baby marrow slices are evenly browned as much as possible on both sides. While this and the microwave timer countdown continues, slice your two tomatoes into about 1cm thick slices and arrange as you wish on the two side plates; one tomato per plate. I overlapped mine in a circle - this is the base of your dish. Once the microwave is done you'll see the parmesan has melted and crisped up over the baby marrow slices - crack / peel the bits off of the paper into a side bowl - this is your crunchy topping of win!

Now add the mozzarella slices to the mix in the pan and let the cheese melt, combining it with everything in the pan to make a glorious gooey mess :) Once fully melted and combined, place half of the mix on each side plate on top of your tomato slices, spreading it as evenly as you can. Now sprinkle your crunchy marrow parmesan "chips" on top, and you have a #LCHF friendly side or starter that is absolutely delicious and bursting with great textures and contrasts! I really enjoyed this and will definitely make it again; and I cannot wait to find other applications for my marrow "chips" :)

LCHF CAULIFLOWER SOUP WITH BACON AND ONION

I make a mean potato soup. And you can go ahead and replace "mean" with "YOU'LL LEAVE YOUR MOTHER'S APRON STRINGS AND PROPOSE TO ME" :P

Alas, that isn't very Banting Lifestyle friendly, now is it? It seems my aim in life (at least in the kitchen, that is) is to find ways to replace the foods I miss post hitching my eating wagon to the LCHF post.

Cue cauliflower. The wonderful, humble, available in abundance frozen *don't look for me fresh*, cauliflower :) Here's a quick and easy recipe for a cauliflower soup I made that is as close to my precious potato soup I'll ever get without using the little carb laden spuds.

CHOFFEL'S QUICK 'N EASY CAULIFLOWER SOUP
(aka Potato soup replacement)
1kg bag frozen cauliflower
1 litre milk
300ml boiling water
1 x Knorr Chilli Beef Stock Cube
Ghee for frying
6 rashers streaky bacon
1 large onion
Celery Salt to taste

Finely chop the onion and cut up the bacon rashers into small pieces, and fry these in ghee in a large pot until both are cooked. I defrosted my cauliflower and riced it in my Twister before adding it to the pot, but you could just as easily throw the florets in whole (we'll be blending later anyway).

Add your stock cube to the boiled water to dissolve and add that to the pot, along with the 1 litre of milk (FULL FAT!).
Bring the pot to the boil, and then reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes, adding any seasonings you want to - I just used celery salt and was happy with the outcome.

Once your soup has cooled down, blitz in a blender or use a hand blender in the pot (I'm a great fan of one pot cooking!). Some may like their soup chunky, but I like the fact that blending it combines the flavours and "spreads" the bacon and onion goodness all the way through.

This soup is great served hot or chilled, and freezes perfectly.

And there you have it; a delicious, filling, LCHF friendly soup that'll satiate any cravings for potato soup you may have :)

Fat2Fab Mini Challenge - lose weight, gain moola :)

I haven't actually mentioned I think why I started on this LCHF Banting journey - it was all due to my work bestie Blessed Barenness who educated me on it, did all the exhausted research and whose noticeable weight loss convinced me to give the hype a test run. When I became really serious about it though, was when the Fat2Fab challenge launched - a very cool idea thought up by the folk over at Get Slim (you can buy all your LCHF goodies from them!) and which has resulted in a FB group and a whole lot of idea sharing between those of us participating. We're a closed group who put money in a kitty each month, with the goal being to be the biggest loser at the end of the challenge in December - the winner (loser) wins the pot!

So much interest was shown in the challenge that Get Slim have launched mini chalelnges, which run for 3 months and have a prize pot of R2000 at the end of it. As somebody who is not only competitive but permabroke, the Fat2Fab challenge group I'm in is a perfect fit :) And of course I'd love to win our pot at the end of it, but even if I don't, it is such a great help having a support group to share ideas / gripes / recipes / successes / failures with - I swear some days without the challenge I would have bought McDonalds and just thrown in the towel! The challenge has kept me on track and motivated; so I'd definitely recommend checking out the mini challenges now offered by Get Slim. There is a registration fee of R800, but this nets you the following:

"The mini challenges will run for a period of 3 months each and the first one will start on the 1st March2014! Entry will be R800, which will include an admin fee and a starter pack. Your starter pack will include a few samples of our great products, as well as some tips and suggestions on how to successfully follow a lchf diet to optimize your success. It will also include online support, via email and our Face Book and Twitter accounts. The winner will win R2000 cash!" <- link is in the text and in the image below - go check it out!

Adjusting to the eating plan - tweaks and tribulations

I've been doing the new lifestyle eating since 4th Feb officially, but have definitely had my cheat days rather regularly :P The beauty of it is it comes right fairly quickly in terms of getting back to your initial weight pre cheating. The bad news? It means you "lose" time on losing weight really - I tend to be yo-yo'ing in a constant range of 2kg's, just missing my personal first big goal - to get under 80 and stay there.

Most recently, Saturday eve was a dinner at Monte Casino for Chicken's work award's dinner, and I cheated - red wine and Jameson's, and having some of the served chocolate mousse. The dessert DEFINITELY wasn't worth it - horrible packet type crap and I would've expected more from the restaurant we were at. I had a few mouthfuls and left it. Alcohol definitely seems to play quite a major role in the weight loss stakes; more so than I would have thought to be honest; though it does seem to "come right" after 3 days - mostly water retention is to blame for the weight spike I tend to experience after a night out of "having a few" I think. I also suspect that my focus has been far too much on the fat content of my new eating plan, and not balanced enough towards veggies, which has also slowed (read - stalled) my weight loss.

So my focus now shifts to trying to incorporate more veggies that are not carb laden (been eating too much butternut) and avoiding more of the hidden carbs in favour of more balanced meals. I got too caught up in the OMG LOOK AT ALL THIS FATTY FOOD THAT'S LEGAL YAY and didn't keep in mind that no matter what you are eating, you still need to do so within reason :P

Hey, I'm still just over 3kg's (NOT 23 as in original post bwahahahahahahaha) lighter than I was at the start of this journey, and I still get to eat great food - I just need to keep in mind I don't need to eat enough to feed a small army!!

Last night's dinner just FYI, and it was great! And I am down this morning versus yesterday :)

I almost forgot to take a pic; hence the half eaten state :P It's pork bangers (Eskort as their meat quality is higher IMO and the carb / 100g count isn't too high) fried in ghee with chopped fresh homegrown chilli from a newly acquired tree I have managed not to kill off as yet, and homemade coleslaw which is carrot, cabbage, Cross & Blackwell Tangy Mayo and a healthy dollop of chilli sauce previously acquired from a homefoods market. Was DELISH.

Breakfast this morning was a homemade soup from my Chicken - baby marrow, cream and blue cheese, and lunch will be beef curry. This evening I'll be making us some chicken livers with cauli mash. So, as you can see, still eating very well, I just need to be more wary of the VOLUME of what I'm eating :)

The best LCHF friendly mashed potato replacement

No new recipes tried as such, just a LCHF friendly version of a Cottage Pie, or Shepherds Pie as RMR calls it. Standard mince "filling" as you would make yours for Cottage Pie, and the "mash" topping was caulimash, which worked beautifully.

My mince was a bit on the runny side which made for a more "mash and mince" feel than a Cottage Pie, but it was tasty regardless. The topping is just grated cheddar mixed with Celery Salt as I felt the caulimash was a tad on the bland side. The caulimash was a head of cauliflower, florets steamed until mushy, and that was then combined with a good dollop of ghee and crushed garlic and pureed to a mash consistency with my hand blender. Et viola! The words best LCHF friendly mashed potato replacement!

Sadly, up 400g this morning. No cheating since Monday this week and three dog walk days down, so I am a bit disappointed, but will see what the rest of the week holds. I suspect I just ate too much of the good stuff yesterday / last night :P

THE *BEST* CHICKEN KEBABS, EVER, HANDS DOWN

When I got home Monday night at 5pm, there was no power, and it only came on again past 8:30pm, by which time I was nice and dozy from reading Silence of the Lambs (first read through... I know, awful of me..) by candlelight and couldn't be arsed to cook food for myself or eat anything. I'd also already spent over 2 hours in the kitchen deboning chicken thighs (never, ever, ever, let me think this is a good idea again) and prepping the marinade for said chicken by said candlelight.

This was all in prep for the Chicken Kebab recipe that is in The Real Meal Revolution Book, what has become my LCHF / Banting bible and which I cannot recommend enough.

Yesterday morning (it being Tuesday) I fried off the made marinade mixture (it says to do this for 15 minutes prior to applying to the kebabs and cooking), let it cool down and then threw it in with my decimated "cubes" of deboned chicken thigh to let the pieces marinade during the course of the day. I am really glad I did this - it does say in the recipe that you can coat and cook immediately but if time allows I always prefer letting meat marinade for a while to really make sure the flavours from the marinade get in there good and proper like :P

So, when I got home last night all that was left to do was thread my now well marinaded decimated chicken bits and skin, and cubed red and yellow pepper pieces, onto kebab sticks. It says in the book to cook at as high a heat as possible; I did mine in the oven on a baking tray at 200 degrees Celcius, for approximately 45 minutes, checking on them every 15 - 20 and turning them. There is so much oil in the marinade that there isn't much cause for concern re burning your chicken. The recipe also calls for you to process the marinade down to a smooth pulp. Due to the no power situation I used my Twister when prepping the marinade pre frying the following morning, so the cashew nuts were still fairly chunky. Honestly, I cannot imagine this dish any other way and my Chicken agreed with me; so if you don't have a hand blender / blender to make the marinade into a puree as recipe calls for, don't stress - you'll probably prefer it chunky like we did. I also cut up the left over pepper pieces and cooked them along with the kebabs in the sauce on the tray -a very nice add on I'd recommend doing (not actually shown in below image - use your imagination!).

Once ready, served them up on a plate with the greek yoghurt dip (added Chermoula and garlic) and OH MY GOD are these just the best damn tasting chicken kebabs I have ever eaten!!! My mouth is watering just writing up this blog post. Even if you're not interested in the eating lifestyle, I'd recommend The Real Meal Revolution book just for this recipe, it's that good! Which leads me to - no, sorry, I'm not going to post the recipe here. It isn't mine, so it is not mine to share; I'm sure if you google you'll find it online somewhere, but it won't be from my blog. I do hope you get to make them and try it for yourself, they really are bloody scrumptious!!

I have one here for lunch today.... I'm wondering how long I'll be able to restrain myself.

Oh yes, and you see all that glorious oil (the marinade alone has a cup of olive oil in it) in the images? All that beautiful double thick full fat Greek yoghurt? I devoured every morsel and droplet on my plate... and I'm down 300g this morning :)

Because NoMu makes everything yummy - cauli rice

Last night's dinner was terribly simple, but I did try my hand at cauli rice for the first time so thought I'd share that at least.

Dinner featured chicken wings with the NoMu Poultry rub (good lord this stuff is good) and I added their African rub to my homemade "smoor" (a fried tomato and onion sauce reduction for you non saffers / terribly english peeps) along with chopped chilli', salt and pepper and a whole lot of butter.

The cauli rice was really easy to do; grated fresh cauliflower heads some time back and stored the result in packets in the freezer. I took out a bag last night, nuked it in the microwave for 6 minutes, and then threw it into the pan I cooked the chicken wings in and turned the heat up. I tossed the cauli rice in the leftover juices (chicken fat and NoMu Poultry rub) and added extra rub for flavour. The "rice" had a slightly crunchy consistency, a fabulous taste and both myself and the other half thought "nutty" when eating it. All the recipes I've read for this state to add finely chopped onion and fry in coconut oil. I like things spicy, and had the chicken fat handy, so it made sense to do it the way I did. It's obviously NOT like the white starchy rice you're used to consuming, but it is really good, and it went fantastically well with the homemade smoor. Will definitely be having this again!

And just so we're clear here - this was not sponsored by NoMu in any way - I just absolutely adore their rubs, pesto mixes and grinders (their smoked salt grinder OMFG), and will always support local where I can.

NOT BUYING THE LCHF / BANTING "HYPE"?

If you, up until now, have not felt the need or urge to learn more about it, WHY THE F NOT?

No, seriously, you're doing yourself a disservice. I give you this gift in an effort to mend your erroneous ways dear interwebs voyeur - it's Sharon, my work bestie, after 6 weeks of Banting, and yes, I have her permission to post this here. We've all seen before / after photos', but this is somebody I work with and know personally, and this is a post that is not sponsored or paid for in any way shape or form.

Right, NOW are you interested? Thought so :) Sharon's done a lovely summary on her blog with all the links and resources you'd need to get started on LCHF / Banting titled "LCHF - What I'm Doing", enjoy!

OMG it's ALIIIIIIIIIIIIVE!!

Yes, it's me, I'm back, and I found my old blog... so instead of starting yet another one that I don't continue with and update regularly, why, it makes sense to resuscitate this one instead don't you think ol' chaps hmmm? Hello world, how have you been? Pip pip right you are, onwards and all that ay wot wot?

I may or may not fill in the gaps of the past *ahem* few years at some stage if I feel up to it, but for now I'm using this platform for two main reasons:
1 - to keep a record of the new recipes I'm trying out
2 - to share said recipes should they work and be of interest to somebody on the same path

The path? Why, the Low Carb High Fat (LCHF) or Banting lifestyle - the new craze that seems to be infecting anybody with a social media account as far as my mouse can click!!

I'll expand on that later, plenty of time ahead :) For now, I'm all excited about this morning's kitchen experiment!!

I'm getting oh so slightly bored of scrambled eggs with cheese as breakfast - I do it because it's quick and easy and doesn't require much thought when I'm half asleep in the morning. I've seen quite a few recipes on the interwebs for LCHF / Banting breakfast "muffins" though, and decided to give them a bash this morning. I like the idea of these because they're pretty simple to do, you can make endless variations, and it's a really good way to use up leftovers in your fridge if you have the need. On top of that, they'll keep in your fridge for a week which means brekkies, or even a tasty lunchbox treat, is right at your fingertips. I'm not sure about freezing these bad boys, if anybody has done so with their own run on a similar breakfast "muffin", please let me know how it turned out post defrosting and reheating? Mine won't make it past tomorrow night, I can promise you that ;)

Okay, so first off, just two links for the sites that inspired my own attempt this morning (there are MANY variations):
Nom Nom Paleo - a very cute little site filled with interesting recipes - be aware though, not all are LCHF / Banting friendly due to it being a Paleo site.
Our Best Bites

Right, so my version! I had leftover mince in the fridge from trying out the LCHF version of spaghetti bolognaise last night - baby marrow noodles in place of the spag, so I figured why not use that! I fried it up in a pan on a high heat to reduce the liquid content, and added two grated baby marrow's to the mix along with a chopped fresh jalapeno near the end when most of the excess liquid had been cooked off.

The egg mix I used for this was 6 large eggs, about 100ml full fat milk, a teaspoon of baking powder, tabasco sauce, pepper and herbal salt (I like spicy and I like seasoning!).

I used a standard sized muffin pan that makes 12 and greased it well with butter.

Next, poured the egg mixture about a third of the way up in each well; I might use 7 eggs next time as I was *just* a tad short to make all the wells the same fill as I wanted to. Added a fork full of my mince / baby marrow mixture into each well.

Topped each one off with grated cheddar and a pinch of smoked paprika.

Popped into a preheated oven for 30 minutes at 180 celcius - the smell after 10 minutes was mouth watering, and the end result once these bad boys came out did not disappoint!!

So there you have it, my first post on LCHF / Banting kitchen fun! These are damn delicious - I've had four already and I strongly suspect another 2 will be meeting their demise shortly.... and at less than 2g carb per muffin by my reckoning, I can do so without stressing about the scale too!!