Chicken Soup, Not for the soul but for the health benefits!

I love a hot steaming bowl of chicken soup.

Now I am not talking the Heinz version with cream & calories a plenty, I mean the traditional, homemade version that my Grandmother taught me to make.

On this new journey of my life I am looking at ways to not only cut the calories and the fat but also to reduce the amount of Carbs that I have been consuming.

As a nation we are carbing ourselves up like it is going out of fashion, every meal eaten contains either bread, pasta, rice or potatoes, the filling ourselves with all this carbohydrate is not helping me get into my skinny jeans and so I needed to look at options, including chicken soup and how to reduce them.

My Grandmothers recipe, as tasty as it was contained chicken thighs (8) with skin on, fried in oil and browned before being added to the pot, a few potatoes to thicken it & lots of salt & some olive oil to add to consistency.

My version was still healthy but was more nutritious and did not contain and salt, a low salt chicken stock cube was added. I used a whole chicken (also trying to cut down on costs) but first of all whilst cooking my vegetables in a one spray of olive oil sprayer I decided to take the whole skin off the chicken (prior to cooking).

What proceeded was an operation of sorts with hidden bits of skin tucked into the neck and bottom (the weight alone of a small chicken was 105g of pure skin, not something that i want leaching all its calories in to my healthy soup!

Ingredients

1 small free range chicken


1 onion, halved

1 rib celery

1 courgette, diced

2 leek, washed and chopped

2 carrots, peeled and diced

A few stalks parsley

A few peppercorns

1 chicken low salt stock cube (Knorr)

2 bay leaves

1 tablespoon dried Italian Herbs
 
snippet of chives
 
Put all the vegetables in a large stockpot and fry in one spray of olive oil spray, once softened add the chicken on top and cover with water, and bring to a boil. Add the stock cube and all the herbs & skim any scum that appears, then let cook at a simmer for about 2 hours. Remove the chicken and once the chicken is cool enough to handle shred all the meat from the bone and add back into the pan.

Simmer for 10 minutes and then serve with a few chives freshly snipped on top.
It is a bowl of comfort and nutrition & shall be something that I am making on a biweekly basis.
 
After trying to work out the calories on the two soups, per bowl, and this makes 4 large bowls the original soup was 450 calories per bowl
 
This version that I have made healthier is 150 calories per bowl.

A healthy new me emerges

Having spent the majority of my life on a diet only to end up giving up every time I lost weight, giving myself a reward for doing so well, then failing to start again until I had put back on all or most of the weight that I had lost has left me in my mid thirties deciding that as I, as I was so nicely informed this week am "pushing 40" I do not want to be batting with my weight as I move over into my next decade of life.

After many fad diets, carb free, only soup, 1200 calories, bananas and milk, special k, weight watchers, slimming world, slim fast, pills, yes I have tried them all & no they have not worked for me at all. The only thing to do is the good old fashioned way of eating sensible, healthy food 1800 calories a day and exercising every single day for the minimum time of an hour.

Being a keen cook, food is something that is always on my mind, and not something that giving up having delicious foods is an option for.

Last night, in a bid to reduce my carb intake from 12pm I had egg white omelet stuffed with a slice of ham, a low fat slice of cheese & served with salad with balsamic vinegar on the side.

Not being a natural lover of leaves, it was quite interesting to actually eat salad and to taste some of the great flavours that I had shunned for over 30 years, it was quite delicious.

Morrison's do a lovely sweet salad in a bag complete with carrot, pepper and a selection of leaves that at the small price of 99p the bag will easily last me a few days.

My Omelet comprised of

1 whole egg
2 egg whites
pinch of white pepper
spray of olive oil to coat the small pan
one slice of sainsburys Brunswick ham
one slice of ledammer light cut into 4 pieces
fresh chives snipped to garnish

I mixed together the eggs and pepper in a bowl.

meanwhile I heated the oil in a pan then added in the eggs, tilting the pan to ensure that the eggs ran to the side & flipped once cooked on one side.

Then on half the upturned omelet i lay the cheese and ham and after a couple of minutes once browned on the other side I tilted the pan so that the omelet folded in half like a giant sandwich and rolled it onto my waiting salad plate and garnished with the chives.

Not my actual omelet, but it looked a lot like this one!

It was Delicious, I enjoyed every mouthful, sorry that there are no pictures of this amazing omelet that came in at a grand total of 173 calories (with salad) but it was consumed for too quickly for the camera to come out and document it.

The fact that the rest of the family were tucking into a pot roast chicken casserole that I had made them, complete with Yorkshire puddings, potatoes and vegetables could I suppose have contributed to me eating it so quickly, but surprisingly I was quite full afterwards, and from 6pm until going to bed, a juicy red apple was the only other thing that I had eaten.

A day of trying very hard on the diet has not only worked successfully, but I enjoyed every part of it. The part of course except for throwing away my sons Yorkshire pudding remains, it was a close call, but i managed not to pinch his leftovers when the washing up started.

Marmalade - cookingmomma style

After the success of lemon curd gate (none left due to family fondness). Was taken out for lunch with the kids to Pizza hut, 2 yummy slices of super supreme (minus the olives) and walking to the car passed mini tesco were dozens of seville oranges on sale.

I admit did not see them as oranges, what I saw were jars full of marmalade, decorated with toppers designed by my children with elastic bands. £3 later and they were mine.

I have changed the children into their dressing up clothes, buzz & sleeping beauty are dancing around the living room giving me time to get friendly with finely dicing some orange peel in to the juice and water.

I suppose lots of people would not be enjoying the chopping and slicing bit, but I find it soothing and thereputic, I could spend more time slicing veg for the sunday roast than I actually spend on the roasting joint itself - I digress, sorry

SO back to the Marmalade

5 Large Seville Oranges
2 900g bags of sugar
4 pints of water

(This makes between 5 and 6 jars which I wash in hot soapy water and then put in the oven at 140 0c to dry for about 25 minutes)

Half all the oranges and squeeze the juice into a very large heavy pan

Keep all pips and membrain and wrap in muslin, tie and add to the pan (dont forget to recove this later)

slice up all the orange peel (i like mine quite thick, but its your marmalade so do as you please) and add this to the pan

Now the boring bit - wait 2 hours whilst it is simmering away & then test by scraping a peice of peel with a spoon to see if it has softened. & it will have reduced by about half.

Once happy with this, then add the sugar & wait for it to come to the desired consistency (spreadability factor) and put a wooden spoon in , hold it in the air for a minute and the marmalade should drop in one thick drop when it is ready.

With a funnel (or if like me you dont have one use a metal ladle) and carefully fill the jars up to the neck & put the lids on straight away.

Do your thing with the labels, and enjoy with hot toast every morning

***One peice of advice, hide one jar, somewhere where you know no one will find it so that it does not disapear like lemon curd gate!

Costa Coffee & Pirates

This morning as one of my 'many' parenting duties, at the last minute courtesy of my daughter she informs me that Tuesday is not only the afternoon that a sponsored walk is taking place (whilst thrusting a crumpled sponsor form at me) but that with just 2 days notice I have to arrange pirate outfits for her and her brother.

now yes I am a creative person, although writing, cooking & having a great imagination (& not too bad with paints) but sewing is a great big No No - It just ain't going to happen.

Off to the party store this morning slightly worrying that it is not the time of year for pirate popularity, however have managed for the price of £11.99 each to get them both matching girl and boy ones, very very nice. Will blog about the event after Tuesday once every friend has been handed to my daughter on the phone to ask for sponsorship (HA!! Not many going to say no to her are they ****Sneaky laughter****)

Once said items had been purchased the thought of coffee sprung to mind.

Children were both happy playing with Nanan who had come over in my panic about needing outfits & slight panic. Decided I could reward myself with a nice coffee from Costa - which is handily next door to the birthday shop.

not stopping at just a coffee, a croissant which they warmed for me in the industrial panini machine (they know me too well here) and my day is now perfect.

Two children prancing around the house giving it big "Ooh Arrghhh me hearties" and using a plastic coat hanger as captain hooks hook & I am able to get on with some cleaning (after a little light blogging and twitter catch ups) and enjoy the rest of what I hope to be a fantastic weekend!

Healthy & Traditional versions of shephards pie

Being on a diet sometimes can be as much fun as getting a bikini wax. This is my findings when looking for foods that I used to love before becoming part of the diet club who quite simply can not afford the calories for hearty meals such as shepherds pie, without having to survive on soup and salad for the rest of the day.

I am a girl who likes her comfort food, mash, pies, Great British Classics, cakes, afternoon tea at the best of times so it comes as quite a shock when looking at the values in what were my favorite foods.

Today I made two versions of Shepherds pie
 1. Traditional with the addition of cheesy mash, an unexpected treat in the middle, lots of vegetables in with the rich meaty gravy & topped with even more cheese to go into the oven and brown to a Divine crispness.

Dish Number 1 (the not so healthy one)

Ingredients


Shepherd's pie

2 tbsp olive oil

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

500g minced lean lamb

1 large onion, finely grated

1/2 head Broccoli

1 handful frozen peas

1 large carrot, finely grated

1 large carrot cut sliced
2 cloves garlic

1-2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce

1 tbsp tomato puree

1 pinch fresh thyme chopped

1 sprig of rosemary, chopped

250ml red wine (the kind that you would drink not cheap stuff)

300ml chicken stock

1kg potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks

50g butter

2 egg yolks

4 slices extra mature cheddar cheese (Cathedral city sliced mature)

Cheddar, for grating

Parmesan, for grating

Olive oil

Sea salt & freshly ground black pepper
 

Method
 
1. Preheat the oven to 190 0c 


2. Heat the olive oil in a large pan until hot. Season the mince and fry in the oil over moderate to high heat for 2-3 minutes. Stir the onions and carrots into the mince then grate the garlic in as well. Add the Worcestershire sauce, tomato puree and all the herbs and cook for a couple of minutes, stirring constantly. Pour in the red wine and reduce until almost evaporated. Add the chicken stock, bring to the boil and simmer until the sauce is thick and coats the back of a spoon.

3. Meanwhile, cook the potatoes in boiling salted water until tender. Drain then return to the hot pan over low heat to dry out briefly. Mash with a potato masher (I prefer the oxo good grips one)

Then beat in the egg yolks, followed by about 2 tbsp grated Parmesan.

4. Spoon the mince into the bottom of a ovenproof dish. Add the slices of cheese on top of the mince, (this gives a great melted cheese surprise layer when serving!) then layer the mashed potato generously on top of the mince, starting from the outside and working your way into the middle. Grate some extra Parmesan  and cheddar over and season well with pepper & salt.  Bake in the oven for 25 minutes, until bubbling and golden brown


Healthier Option

For this option I took out some of the fat & cheese & added more vegetables and used small baby potatoes that I cooked and sliced (hotpot style) to save on more calories, but still giving some of the taste.

Ingredients


Shepherd's pie

1 tbsp olive oil

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

300g minced extra lean minced beef

150g frozen mini vegetables (Birds eye fresh carrot, cauliflower, peas & bean mix)

1 large onion, finely grated

1 large carrot, chopped

2 cloves garlic

1-2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce

1 tbsp tomato puree

Rosemary, Thyme & Oregano - a pinch of each

350ml beef stock

300g small baby new potatoes

low fat cheddar for grating
Olive oil

Sea salt & freshly ground black pepper

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 190 0c
2. Heat the oil in a large pan until hot. Season the mince and fry in the oil over moderate to high heat for 2-3 minutes. Stir the onions and carrot into the mince then grate the garlic in as well. Add the Worcestershire sauce, tomato puree and all of the herbs and cook for 1-2 minutes, stirring constantly. Pour half of the beef stock and reduce until almost evaporated. Add the remaining stock, bring to the boil and simmer until the sauce has thickened and can coat a spoon.

3. Meanwhile, cook the potatoes in boiling water until almost tender. Drain then whilst still hot slice (hotpot style) and set aside

4. Spoon the mince into the bottom of an ovenproof dish. layer the sliced potato over the mince & top with 2 tablespoons of grated Parmesan. Bake in the oven for approximately 20 minutes, until golden.

Casino

Last night both DH and I were taken out for a meal and a night at the Casino.

After being driven to Napoleons Casino

We had a few games on the machines before going in for dinner. I had to blog about this as the food was awesome & without sounding like a gambler as its just for the food, but I cant wait to go again!

Starters

Chicken Liver Pate, Waldorf salad & crusty bread

The pate was strong & meaty with an excellent contrast to the salad. The crusty bread was actually warm toasted foccacia with rosemary.

Sirloin Steak with hand cut chips, onion rings, grilled mushrooms & tomatoes

The steak hardly needed a knife to cut through it, very tasty & succulent with perfect seasoning. The onion rings were crisp alongside the hand cut chips which had just the right amount of salt & crunch.

Panacotta with grilled peaches & raspberry coulis

Creamy, smooth, delicate and delicious all at the same time. This was my desert of choice, however I did agree upon ordering to 'go halves' with my husband who had ordered

Profiteroles filled with Chantilly cream & hot chocolate sauce

A great combination for sharing two puddings, the cream filling in the profiteroles was the nicest I have tasted in a long time. I don't think the kitchen have had plates returned so clean before!

cheese & crackers

Coffee & cream

The final course of cheese and biscuits & coffees were delicious. Sharp Cheddar's, port soaked cheese, goats cheese rolled in fresh basil with a large selection of biscuits and crackers.

A 2 litre cafetiere was delivered to our table with mints & the meal was savoured over great conversation before hitting the tables.

To our surprise, we were all handed some gambling coupons in the form of chips for the tables which went on to see us through the night & come home with £35 more than I went with.

Highly recommend this as a night out. Amazing!

Lemon Curd

Yesterday I had a go at making some lemon curd. I am trying to find ways to take all my favorite foods & how to reduce the calories and up the nutrition to make them healthier and more accessible as part of a healthy diet.

It was time to hit the lemons!

The first recipe I tried was courtesy of Leith`s Cookery Bible by Pru Leith and Caroline Waldegrave
"2 large lemons


3 eggs lightly beaten


3oz/85g butter


8oz/225g granulated sugar

Preparation:

Grate the zest of the lemons finely and squeeze the juice.

Place all ingredients except the lemon zest into a double boiler or a heavy saucepan.

Heat gently, stirring all the time until the mixture is thick.

Pass through a sieve then stir in the lemon zest.


Spoon into warm jam jars and cover. "

 Everything went into the pan & the stirring began.

The smells in the kitchen were awesome, although stirring did take a good 20 minutes for me to get it to the right consistency.
 
Already as I was making this batch I was thinking of ways to change the recipe so that it would be less calories & fat.
 
Replacing the butter with canola oil, swapping sugar for sugar substitute would change the health benefits quite substantially.
 

Once I added the zest it came together pretty quickly. As we are using this in the morning and have 3 people queueing up for a sample I decided to decant it into small tupperwear containers to hand out as there is little chance that this batch is going to make it past noon on the following day!
 
The taste was wonderful, creamy, tart, ideas such as filling a pastry case with it and topping with whipped cream, lemon curd tarts, lemon bakewells, lemon bars were popping up in my head.
 
Although I am on a diet, incorporating a little of something as good as this into my diet is a much better choice than choosing processed junk foods, when something pure and simple such as this is more appealing, healthy and delicious. I shall be doing the recipe with limes too & compare the two tastes!

Healthy Energy Bars to help me on my new dieting journey

Today I made some energy bars, courtesy of Ellie Krieger who I adore as a healthy cooking goddess. So I made the Energy bars precisely as per her instructions, which is hard for me as I love to experiment and was desperate to start adding cherries, walnuts, a few chocolate chips...the list goes on.

However I stuck with Ellie & the results were awesome.

Below is her actual recipe & I urge for people to try this as the results were outstanding

"Ingredients


Cooking spray

1 cup quick cooking rolled oats

1/2 cup raw unsalted sunflower seeds

1/2 cup toasted wheat germ

1/4 cup whole-wheat pastry flour

1/2 cup dried apricots

1/2 cup raw almonds

1/2 cup raisins

1/2 cup pitted dried dates

1/2 cup powdered nonfat dry milk

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/3 cup pure maple syrup

2 large eggs

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Coat a 9 by 13-inch baking pan with cooking spray.

Place all ingredients except the syrup and eggs in a food processor and pulse until the mixture is finely chopped. Add the syrup and eggs and pulse until the mixture is well combined. It will resemble a coarse paste.

Transfer to the baking pan and spread evenly. Bake until just done, about 20 minutes. Cut into 20 squares."

Apparently these are good to freeze & take out in the morning for a delicious treat in mid morning

My version turned out like this

I also decided that as I was having something healthy to eat now that the bars were made that a low fat hot chocolate was in order.

Having seen these in the supermarket the last few times I decided to give into temptation and purchase an Options low fat Belgian Brownie Hot Chocolate Drink

It was 60 calories of (in compared to others that I have tried) of yumminess

This evening, after having family pop round and have a taste of the energy bars, I am going to have to make another batch and so might try adding some sour cherries, dried blueberries for a little variety as it was so easy to make putting everything into the food processor.

Tomorrow I shall be tackling Lemon Curd in a bid to make it more healthy. Now time for some sleep ready for a work out in the morning so I can afford the calories to have another one of the energy bars!

Summer to me is a big batch of strawberries sitting on my kitchen counter waiting for me to dive into. Whether it be the classic strawberries and cream, strawberry and creme anglaise tart or making jam to be spread on hot buttered toast, I love strawberries.

The one thing that can not be beat is picking them fresh from the field and eating over half the pickings in the car on the way home. Something I have to keep on reminding myself is that I always need to make sure that we pick twice as much as I think that we are going to need to account for the ones that get away in the car.

Tonight for dinner I made Coq Au Vin, with couscous. Whilst the oven was on as I am in thrifty mode with holidays looming I oven roasted some pork chops with carrots, onions and mushrooms and served chassaur style with some stock, wine and a touch of cream with pasta tat was tossed in butter with some fresh herbs from the garden.

I made enough so that we could all eat tonight and there were 4 meals leftover packed into Tupperware boxes ready for lunches over the next couple of days.

My 3 year old son could not eat enough of it, officially coq au vin is his new favorite meal (until tomorrow possibly)

Desert were some strawberries (from tesco as the farm does not open for pick your own until Friday) and they were not the sweetest that I have tasted and so sprinkled a little caster sugar and a teaspoon of balsamic vinegar over them, left them to rest for an hour and then we had them for desert. According to my two children (pictured below) they were Very Very nice!

It cost how much??

A morning out can turn into a very expensive day when having two children in tow who get taken for their routine feet measuring.

Both have grown a full size since the last time we went, resulting in two children getting each a pair of summer sandals, slippers, shoes and trainers. This does not include the school shoes that my daughter will be needing for September.

£180 later and desperate for a coffee, like a ray of sun through the clouds comes Costa Coffee, not Starbucks like I would have preferred after having bacon for breakfast giving me the feeling of a desert in the afternoon sun, a skinny latte certainly hit the gap!

The kids enjoyed our visit to Costa and Babycinos & Marshmallows are always a hit on any visits that we have to coffee shops!

No trip to the shopping centre when the kids have been amazing can be complete without going on the rides that seem to appear from nowhere, alongside a hot food van selling hot roast pork sandwiches, jacket potatoes which looked Divine, but as this was a kids day out the majority vote was won by 'Mr Happy Meal' and so it was hamburger happy meals all round. however no toys in the box today as my two children were quick to point out.                                                                                                         

Tonight we are having some simple sandwiches and soup, and my husband is picking up a few beers, after all the England Match is on and we need to show a little support (by drinking at least!)

Can eating healthy and Comfort cooking work together?

My husband recently got a promotion at work and asked me as a moving in to the new building to make a batch of my triple chocolate brownies.

Being on a diet is hard enough, however when making 18 slices of the greatest smell since fresh bread I knew it was going to be hard.

My brownies turned out a treat

Even my mother who is not really a fan of sweet things, unless they come in the form of a chocolate bar with nuts in found the time to pinch a slice and add some double cream to it for a delicious dessert.

The problem that I found whilst making these was not the fact that I was making Brownies and the house smelt amazing, even the help from my two children in making them added to the fun, but my problem was that being on a strict 1250 calorie diet in order to squeeze into my tankini later on in the year, I found that it made me want to make even more comfort foods that were not at all figure friendly.

I started making Rocky Road with handfuls of marshmallows, dark chocolate, crushed jammy dodgers and bits of crumbled brownie (those edge pieces that are the best!) and once I had made 3 cake tins full of goodness, I was hooked, Macaroni cheese, toad in the hole, Roast chicken with crispy roast potatoes were all calling out to be made by me. It was all I could do to stop myself from cooking into the night.

Finally after looking longingly at the mornings farmers market strawberries, I decided to indulge myself in a much more healthy way and so had a large bowl of strawberries with some fat free Greek yogurt which were Divine. After all that cooking I had some comfort food that did not throw me off my calories, but was very hard indeed to take control of!

Delicious dinner

Tonight's dinner was also part celebration to some good news (more to be revealed later) but Chicken Casserole served on a bed of citrus couscous followed by the most delectable desert.

Let me introduce a new addition to our family dining, perhaps as a reward for every milestone of success as it is just that good and gives me more memories of our family holiday to Croatia than I thought possible, served with Waitrose extra thick single cream poured generously over the top. I know that the calories on this are far more than i would like to guess. However as a reward or treat, or even as a new style birthday cake (hint!) enough of me going on about it, I can not praise this enough.

I need to get more photo time into my weekly schedule.

I love taking photos and capturing what in just a millisecond can be lost forever, even stolen glances. feelings and expressions that I enjoy capturing and so more time is needed to dedicate to taking photos, I find that they give me inspiration for my characters, however currently I am interested in photos of food, people eating and enjoying food, not just in the fancy restaurants, but college guys biting into a sub, grabbing coffee in Starbucks, but what i find more fun is getting pictures of people deciding what they are wanting to order, looking at a menu, reading on the specials board, frowning, staring, calculating what to have in order to satisfy them selves.

More pictures to follow.

It has been a while...

I have been receiving emails lately from kitchen companies offering me pots and pans at a reduced rate. Now I have to admit they are beautiful but my kitchen is not capable of storing all the kitchen paraphernalia that i currently possess and so think that 'Hubbster' may have an issue with more items arriving for kitchen and wife use only.

I could spend hours browsing http://www.lakeland.co.uk/  or perhaps http://www.amazon.co.uk/  for the kitchen and home section, however nothing seems to satisfy my craving for all things food and kitchen related like the seller shops on http://www.ebay.com/ it is THE place to find all the American gadgets that I desire on the food network and displayed on the pages of my Ina Garten, Bobby Flay and Rachel Ray cookbooks.

Today is a busy day, I have the book to work on, my son and daughter have their trampoline lessons and then the dentist this afternoon, all this is to be fitted around the redesigning of their bedroom storage and trying to earn a living as a freelance writer who has more articles stored in her head than time allows to get down on the computer.

I have been back just two weeks from the most amazing holiday in Croatia with the family, however I do not seem to have been able to catch up since getting back, having only had broadband returned to me this week, the practicalities of having to sit in Starbucks to send and receive emails has been testing with a 3 and 4 year old for company.

So today marks the day that I am changing all that, starting here with this long neglected blog I am hereby going to achieve the following list

1. Work on book

2. Articles to write and send out

3. Resume gym training

4. Recipe book to continue working on and developing

5. Set the alarm every morning for 5am to get a couple of hours work done before the rest of the family wake up

The above 5 points are very do able however not if i don't start them straight away, and so as I sigh out of my blog for this morning point 2 is to get my articles out to the editors before the deadline on Friday.

I shall allow myself to return as a treat reward once the articles are written.

TTFN!