A dinner and its dessert

The best way to spend a Friday night and a Saturday morning when the housemates are in Wales is definitely to go to the shop, get ingredients and cook. No one is in the way trying to cook at the same time and most importantly: the house is nice and quiet and I can listen to music downstairs as the TV isn't on 24/7. Lovely!

So what did I make?

Lasagne

Lasagne
8 portions

3-4 courgettes
1 kg pork mince
250-300 grams Tofu
250 ml double créme
2 tins of sliced mushrooms
Cheese
200 grams feta cheese
Sambal Oelek (very hot)
Spices

Cut the block of tofu as thin as possible and cover them in Sambal Oelek or spices.

Peel the courgettes and cut them in half. Slice them lengthwise about half a cm thick. Put them in a hot dry pan to add some colour and flavour. Then put them at the bottom of a roasting pan.

Fry the mince with spices and put over the courgette.

Drain the mushrooms and put them over the mince.

Make a cheese sauce from the cream and cheese. Boil the cream and remove from hob before putting the cheese in. Don't boil when you have put the cheese in as this could make the sauce grainy.

Pour the sauce over the mince.

Place the tofu over the mince and add a layer of cheese and finally chopped feta cheese.

Put in a preheated oven at 175°C for around 40 minutes


and

Chocolate cake with coffee icing

Chocolate Cake
12-16 portions

200 grams ground almond
200 grams dark chocolate (72% or 85% for a richer flavour)
200 grams real butter (not margarine)
1/2 cup sweetener (effectively 1/2 cup of sugar. If using a sweetener, look at how that specific brand convert the measurements)
25 grams of cocoa powder (can be removed to make it less rich)
5 eggs
A dash of cream

A few drops of peppermint oil if you have it.


Icing
250 grams of mascarpone
5 egg yolks
Instant coffee powder


Melt chocolate and butter in a bowl over hot water.
Mix the dry ingredients and mix with the butter and chocolate.
Add the eggs, a dash of cream and extra flavouring if any and mix well.

Pour the mixture into a greased pan.

Bake in the oven at 150°C for 45-60 minutes depending on how sticky you want it.

Mix the mascarpone and egg yolks and add as much crushed instant coffee as you want. I did mine quite strong as the cake itself is quite rich

Tip the cake onto a plate and let cool before putting on the icing.

Grate some chocolate and put on top.


The cake is very rich so even though it is quite small it serves more people than you think.


Alternative: Skip the icing and serve with whipped cream and raspberries.



So what do we do with the 5 leftover egg whites?
Meringues of course!

5 egg whites
1 cup of sweetener (equals 1 cup of sugar with mine)
A few drops of lemon juice

Whisk whisk whisk and do the over-the-head-trick to see if it's thick enough.

Place on a tray and put in the oven at 125°C for around an hour

My evening

Enjoying a lovely hot chocolate. There's nothing like dieting, ey?!

Lymphoedema and Low Carbs

After gaining 15 kilos since starting university in England 2007 I decided during the summer of 2009 that I was going to lose the unnecessary kilos again. At that point I had barely heard of LCHF but was living with my mother for half the summer and since she was eating according to these guidelines I thought it wouldn’t do me any harm trying. Not did I think then that I would be helped with more than just my weight loss.
I don’t want to say my weight loss has come without fail but the diet has given me the patience to wait for the kilos to slowly disappear instead of giving up like I’ve done on numerous of diets before.
Now nine months later I’ve lost ten kilos and I’ve still allowed myself to have weeks off from time to time. But the biggest difference isn’t the weight loss itself but that my general health has improved appreciably.I’m suffering from primary lymphoedema, which means that since birth the lymphatic glands in my legs aren’t working properly.In short this means my legs can’t get rid of excess fluids that are therefore collected in my legs and swellings appear.

On and off this can cause a lot of discomfort as the swellings can stretch the skin. The condition is also drying out the skin as the nutrition in my blood can’t reach the skin properly.
This is a condition that I, from several doctors, have been led to believe is something that I will have to live with and that there’s nothing I can do apart from trying to manage it in the best possible way. I accepted this and that I would never wear a dress and for 23 years this was my reality.

There are no solid evidence that a lymphoedema treatment works better with a diet containing products with a low carbohydrate content but some doctors support this (however not mine) and I am now also willing to stand behind the statement that it does help.

When it comes to the weight loss itself, I don’t know enough about diets in general to know if I lose weight because of the exclusion of carbohydrates or if it’s because I eat less calories due to greater feeling of satisfaction because of the fat but in the end I’m just happy I’m losing weight. But I can say for sure through my own experience that by removing unnecessary carbohydrates in my diet, my legs are now less swollen compared to before I gained the weight.

By rarely having “pins and needles” in my legs anymore I’ve come to the only likely conclusion that the carbohydrates in the quantity I ate them made my condition worse.
It would be easy to say that it got better because I’ve lost weight and therefore the appearance of my legs has improved and I can agree to an extent. But there is so much more to include; the problems were there even before I gained the weight in the first place and now the dryness on my legs has improved as well. Even my hands, which every winter dries out and cracks with bleedings as a result, are feeling better.

Another reason why I want to believe this is working is that since Christmas (after a break for Christmas and holiday) I’ve been on this low carbohydrate diet and felt fine. But in February I went to Sweden and stayed with my boyfriend where we had a lot of pizza, sweets, pasta and crisps. For about two weeks afterwards I had “pins and needles” in my legs at night and I can’t believe that’s a coincidence. That’s proof enough for me.
But at the same time, I want to point out that I don’t believe the diet alone is the solution to the problem.

According to my lymphoedema specialist here in England, lymphoedema can potentially be dangerous because of the legs having, and always will have, a reduced immune defence with an increased risk of dangerous infections. Therefore I believe that a good diet together with continuous treatments is the best option. So with good food mixed with support stockings, rich moisturisers and shower crèmes kind to the skin I think you’re going to get very far.

I know I’ve come far with this combination and now you can see me in a dress on the shopping trip as well as on the night out and the wardrobe is constantly growing now when I’ve found a whole new department to shop in.

(picture from http://www.sydostran.se/index.72975---1.html)

This post has been published as an article in Swedish here

Hints and Tips

Smoked mackerel is just amazing!
The egg milk with chocolate flavour is just amazing!
Egg milk with chocolate flavour just after you've had smoked mackerel is horrendous.

Bottom line: Do not mix smoked mackerel and chocolate drink. Ever!

Preparing for a Friday night out

A problem that many people on a Low Carb High Fat diet seem to experience is that when drinking alcohol, the effect of it is a lot stronger and people who have previously been able to drink quite a bit can no longer handle it like they used to. As far as I know there is no answer to why this is happening.

Tomorrow I'm going out for a 21.st birthday and since I've been told (not asked) that I WILL be there and that I WILL drink cocktails with miss Birthday (not that I'm complaining though) I have tried to prepare my body these past few days. I don't know if it makes a different at all but to me it's all about "better safe than sorry".

I have been adding a bit more carbs to my meals and hopefully it will make a difference.

For tea yesterday and today I therefore had pork with a garlic cheese sauce, mushrooms and lots of spices served with feta cheese and cauliflower

Fry the pork in butter and add looooads of spices.
Put soft cheese with garlic and some butter in a bowl and add boiling water and stir.
Add the sauce to the pork and let it simmer for a while so it thickens and the spices and sauce mix well.

I prefer to put the meat and sauce on top of the feta cheese as it melts it a bit, which is just lovely.

Eat!



(And yes your observation was correct, I did say I might have a cocktail or two and yes there might be carbs in there but hey, it's her 21.st birthday and why have rules if you're not allowed to break them from time to time?)

Sticking to it

Beer on St. Patrick's Day? I think not!

Do i have to do it?

When starting a Facebook group for my blog I got a message from my lovely cousin asking if I really had to go through the trouble of going on a diet? Can't I just eat normal and eat less? I could do, and I believe it would work too - theoretically. But at the same time I know myself. I know that me eating little would turn into me eating a bit more and then I'm sat there with a full plate of delicious food.
Also, when I don't eat it I don't want it. When I eat a slice of bread, I want one more. When I eat sweets, I want more. When I don't eat it? Well then I don't want it.
The good thing about being on a diet for me is that it is something special. I actually find it quite fun and challenging because it forces me to think about what I do.
At the moment with sharing a house at university there isn't much room for experimental cooking but on the other hand I have a lot of time on my hands to search the web for recipes and tips. For example did you know you can bake on protein powder that people that go to the gym use? I for sure didn't. Now that's not a realistic option as the products I've been looking at cost nearly £20 per kilo but that shows there are alternatives out there and there's more and more coming. I also found that on the 31st of March the first Low Carb High Fat book with baking recipes is coming out in Sweden to which I will soon be going back. Great! 104 pages of baking recipes with no flour or sugar. And why do you need flour and sugar? Last summer I made a cheesecake for my family without any of them and it was the dessert hit of that summer and the taste was no different apart from the nuts I used in the base instead of Digestive.
My point is that there is so much out there to help that once you know what you're doing there's not much different from cooking what's considered normal food. It's not about skipping something and leaving an empty space on the plate, it's about replacing. I mean, do I really need that potato with my food when I can have cauliflower?
At the end of the day, for me at least, it's all about thinking outside the box and creating a whole new lifestyle. If it works and I feel good then I don't see why not.