Weight watchers Day 1

Day 1 of the diet is under foot and to be successful in dieting you need to be prepared. So to get off to a good start (and because Ryan woke up at 4.45am to catch a flight to Hobart) I got up nice and early and prepared a beautiful, delicious and low point weight watcher lunch for today. 

Actually last night when I made a salad for dinner, I put some aside for today (keep your salad crispy by only putting the dressing on before you eat it). The chicken was also a left over portion from our roast chicken last night, so this morning I just needed to wash the strawberries and sort out my breakfast.


Breakfast


My toast for breakfast works out to 2 pts to every 1.5 slices in the loaf (some are bigger than others) and 1/2 tsp of jam is only 0.5 points (very thinly spread).
I had 1/2 a mango left in the fridge, which when cut, cleaned and weighed up was 140g (1pt), so I'll throw that into my breakfast. A great big glass of water and a handful of vitamins. As I've started running and exercising again, I'm back on the fish oil (for joints and 2 capsules is 1/2 pt), magnesium & calcium (for bones) and big ugly multi-vitamins (for general health).
Total breakfast 4.5 pts.

Lunch


Today's lunch menu includes a salad of iceberg lettuce, green & red capsicum, tomato, red onion, lebanese cucumber (all free in points), 1 TBS avo (1 pt) and 140g of roast chicken (2 pts). I added a dressing of a splash of fish sauce and balsamic vinegar and a generous pinch of salt and a shake of pepper (free). For a snack, I have a punnet of strawberries (0.5 ww points). Total Lunch = 3.5 pts.


Ode to Strawberries

Strawberries are the dieter dream in summer. They are refreshing, sweet, delicious and ONLY 0.5 ww points for a WHOLE punnet! Yes! Which means you really can go crazy with them.

Also they are so versatile, why not try a strawberry smoothie with a small nestle diet yoghurt (0.5 pts), ice and a handful of strawberries. (1 pt)

Or make a delicious desert by making sugar free jelly with only 1/2 the amount of water and replacing the other half with a yoghurt (1/2 pt) and chopped up strawberries. You can have a huge bowl and it won't cost you more than 1 point.

And then finally (and this is one of my favourites) slice a few strawberries into a jug of water. Chill the water in the fridge and by the time its cold, the water is infused with the beautiful flavour and sweetness of the fruit. You can keep topping it up for a few days with the same strawberries. You can also do this with orange, lemon, grapefruit rinds.

Be careful when buying strawberries as they love to sell you fresh strawberries on the top of the punnet and mouldy soft ones on the bottom, so be sure to open your punnet and inspect all the strawberries before committing them to your trolley.

Exercise

Lauren and I went for a great morning jog past the bridge and around Kirribilli.  The Jacarandas are in full bloom and its just beautiful.

Today is forecast at a Random 35 degrees and already it is HOT!  So, if you're reading this before setting off to work (on this fine Melbourne cup day) than wear something cool and take a water bottle as you're going to need it.

Here are some photos I took on my way to work yesterday of the stunning Jacarandas.

Dinner

At 7pm, it was still 35.2 degrees!  It reached 38 degrees in the city during the day.  After work I went for a quick swim down at the pool, the water was so warm it wasn't really refreshing, but still cooler than just sitting in normal air.

I finished the day off with a cool tuna and avo salad and an organic steamed zucchini on the side.  I successfully stayed away from wine and chocolate.  Yay me!   So one day down, only another 28 more to go!

(This photo was taken from the pool looking, onto Sydney Harbour)

Now You're Cooking! And Now We're Fat? :)

Only a few hours to go before I need to announce a winner of my logo competition.  If you haven't already had a look on 99Designs, please do so and let me know your thoughts before 3pm (Sydney time) today. 

I've had a great response and it's been hard work giving feedback and working with the designers.  I'm a bit dissapointed that the newer entries are really just a copy of the older entries and in the last few days there have been no exciting changes.  But soon we will have our company logo, and that is VERY exciting. 

We're also registered the domain name, well in fact we registered 2 domain names, because we had a slight spelling error in the first registration, so we have www.nowyourcooking.com.au and www.nowyourecooking.com.au.   I figure if we misspel it, then somebody else will too :)   Ryans (with much cursing) is working on my website and so things are really moving along.

Sadly, with all this 'Now You're cooking', it turns out that 'No We're Fat!', so I am off this afternoon to re-join fat-club (aka weight watchers) and loose 5kg in November, so as of this morning, there is No more chocolates, No more crisps, No more cakes, No more (or as little as possible with Le Cordon Bleu) butter and No more (or very limited) alcohol.

I'll be blogging some of my weight watcher recipes, with information on Weight watchers points and portion.  Of course, please realise that these are calculated using my weightwatchers calculator and book, so might not be 100% acurate, so if you choose to use any of them, my calculations are only a guide line.  Remember that dieting comes down to hard work, determination and excercise.  I am aiming at 5 gym/running/swimming sessions a week.  I'll let you know how it goes.

Le Cordon Bleu - Lesson 9

Today was an exciting fun day and a great way to finish off what has been quite a challenging and hard week at Le Cordon Bleu.

Estatically I can report no burnt jus, no burt meat and best of all no burn fingers :) Oooh, and I'm excited to report that I was back on form at the top of the class and not only managed to produce a perfectly cooked pastry shell (I think that's the first one ever) but also managed to finish my Clafoutis Flan and Anglaise sauce so quickly that I went on to make meringues, which were very popular not only with all my classmates, but also with the Kitchen hands and Ryan at home!

So, down to the nitty gritty, we started by making a Pate Sucree (a sweet short crust pasty) , using the creaming method (aposed to the rubbing method that we used before in the quiche lorraine). To ensure the pastry is nice and crispy and short in your mouth there are a few easy tips to follow:

• Use plain flour
• Do not overwork the flour (you do not want to manipulate the glutens)
• Rest the pastry for at least 30 minutes
• Bake the pastry straight out of the fridge (make sure it is cold when it goes into the oven).

We then made the custard mixture for the Clafoutis, this is a simple egg, egg yolk, milk and flour mixture, set asside for later. We drained and checked that our pitted cherries were actually pitted. I found 2 cherry stones still in my cherries, so thinking ahead have hopefully save somebodies tooth.



Similtaneoulsy while resting, dry baking, and assembling our Clafoutis, I got started on my Anglaise. This vanilla custard sause is very high in egg yolks (and protein and fat) and is slowly baked on the stove until it thickens. It is then chilled before serving. Its so yummy, like drinking a thick creamy vanilla milkshake.

And then because I was all done, Chef Elke let me loose on the Kitchen aid with meringue recipe. I've never actually cooked meringues before and it was fun, but mostly delicious when we got to each the marshmellow type meringues that were really melt in your mouth. I saved 1/2 a tray for the kitchne hands and served the meringues with a pot of melted chocolate, which they loved. i walked into the washing area later, where I saw them all licking their fingers with big smiles on their faces, so definitely a big hit!

Finally to top off what was a great day, the TAFE has opened up a new cafe, which is selling off the produce of the TAFE students and as I arrived just as they were closing up I managed to buy a few dishes at only $1 each. Just redonculus! So Ryan and I have been eating like Kings all weekend. I bought Prawn Timbale with prawns and seafood bisque, as well as freshly made pasta with coriander pesto and finally panecotta. I actually stopped to watch them making the pasta in the morning and it was really yummy.

Terminology used
Creaming method:  First you rub the butter with a spatula or whisk until it changes colour to be a more creamy colour.  This is called creaming.  We then creamed the butter and sugar together, then add and cream in the egg before adding the flour.
Rubbing method:  Rub the butter and flour together with your finger to make a consistency similar to breadcrumbs, then add the liquids to create a dough/pastry.  This was used in my very first scone recipe.

Plain flour:  what you buy in the supermarket, low in gluten, approx. 10%
Bakers flour: used by bakers to make breads, it has approx 30% gluten.

Pictures above (from top left to bottom right):  Chocolate chip cookies (with left over pastry), Cherry Clafoutis Flan, My perfect Pate Sucree Pastry crust, Clafoutis custart batter, me and some class mates in our uniforms, drained pitted cherries

Le Cordon Bleu - Lesson 8

After my rocky start to this week with my over done Sirloin of Beef Roast (not my fault - just putting that out there!), it was now time to get focussed to to get back on track!  Today's menu was Roast Rack of Lamb, and Ryan has been licking his lips for a whole week waiting for me to come home with this dish.   The rack was served with a Roasting Jus (meaning we're to scavenge any left over trimming and veggies we can afford to loose from our other ingredients to flavour our jus) and a Ratatouille Provençal.

Provençal is a province in the south of France where they like to use seasonal veggies.  It has a warmer climate and egg plants, zucchinis, herbs and lavender can be found there in plenty during summer months.  So today, we're pretending all these ingredients are 'in season' here too.

Our first job was to 'French' the lamb rack.  Initially when you buy a rack (that has not already been frenched) it is covered with sinew, meat and fat all the way to the top of the bones and it takes a good amount of time and somewhat gruesome effort, as well as wasted meat trimmings to get it looking like this.   Lamb rack is a premium cut of lamb, so all the extra bits that we chopped off were used in our jus.  Nothing was wasted, well maybe a bit of sinew and fat, which add nothing but extra grease and be strained off later.

The picture above is Chef's demonstration rack, notice how in this rack there is a large piece of sinew in the middle of the meat.  This is because this is one of the top ribs and the turning into the next cut of meat (separated by sinew), I think it's the shoulder blade.  I was luck to get one of the bottom 4 ribs, where there is now sinew present.  This means less trimming for the jus, but more yummy meat to eat!  So when ordering or buying lamb, ask for the bottom 4 ribs to get more meat for you money!

The ribs were encrusted with a parsley, breadcrumb and butter crust.  We sealed the lamb, layered on the crust with a bit of dijon mustard, roasted it until it was 55 degrees internal temp (this time using my thermometer) and then crisped it up in the salamander.  The lamb then rested for 5 minutes before we served.  This relaxes the meat and prevents it bleeding onto your plate.

Some more interesting facts (skip if you're sensitive about where your meat comes from):  Normal lambs are reared for under a year and are therefore called 'Yearlings'.  Spring lambs are normally reared for 3-5 months before slaughter.  Mutton is meat from a sheep more than 1 year old.  Lambs are not aged by time but instead by the number of teeth they have.

This is Jon, who has his workbench next to mine.  After presenting his lamb to Chef for assessment, he promptly walked back to his workbench, picked up his lamb and ate it!  I thought he was only joking, but no, he ate it all up.  Luckily for Ryan I waited until I was home to share mine with him.

Here is another picture of my lamb with the ratatouille.   For the ratatouille we fried all the ingredients separately in oil, so that there weren't too many in the pot at once, then added them all together with some chicken stock, seasoning and herbs and finished it off in the oven with a cartouche (wax paper shield) on top.

Tip:  Salt is a flavour enhancer, so adding it while you are cooking can help to extract taste from your meal.  Adding it after you have cooked will still help, but will not do as good a job and can just leave your meal tasting salty.

Anyway, today was definitely more successful than yesterday.  My jus was a bit black because I scrapped the sediment off pot with my whisk, but tasted good.  As for injuries, today I had 2 :( One burn on my poor left thumb, from the oven (ow!) and one cut from picking up chopped veggies with my 9" chef knife, and have now learned the hard way why you should instead use a pastry scraper to pick up your chopped items.   Luckily no blood was shed on my knife or food and after a little blue plaster patch up, i was ready to continue on.

I was so exhausted after coming home that I fell asleep around 9pm on the sofa waiting for Ryan to come home from after dinner drinks.  I am starting figure out why you're supposed to do this studying when you're 19!

Le Cordon Bleu - Lesson 7

Today's menu included Roast Sirloin with Chateau Potatoes, Glazed carrots and Sautéed beans and zucchinis, but sadly today I was not the the top of the class, and in fact had a a bit of a disastrous day.  Admittedly it wasn't my fault, but still.  An on the up side, I did take my disaster home and Ryan still loved it.

So, what happened?  Well, my workbench oven doesn't have a thermometer but instead a dial that reads 1-7, so i didn't have the temperature right for my roast sirloin, so head chef offered for me to use the electric oven, close to my desk.  This is a far superior oven compared to my workbench gas oven and chef suggested and showed me how to use the built in meat-internal thermometer attached to the oven.  I actually have my own meat thermometer that works pretty well, but according to chef, this one is really accurate.  Well actually it isn't because i waited and waited for my medium-rare sirloin roast to hit 55 degrees, but eventually we had a manual check and it was nice and hard, and also when checked on another thermometer read 68 degrees (medium well)  :(  Arg!  Also, my turning is a bit disastrous and well it's pretty hard to make a plate look attractive when the main attraction is a piece of leathery looking meat.  Chef said he wouldn't penalise me for the over-done bit and he said he though my veggies were done well, but I'm still sad!

But on the up side, Ryan was impressed with my turning (this is when you take a perfectly good veggie and cut most of it away until you are left with a whole bunch of barrel shaped, uniform sized smaller versions of the initial veggie), which is encouraging as he's already seen many attempts of mine.

Above:  This is Chef's beautiful pink roast sirloin

During the demo, Chef also demonstrated Seared Pepper and her crusted tuna with English spinach, picked ginger and roasted tomato.  We also got to try the Chocolate Semi Freddo that Chef Elke made during class last Saturday.  It was divine!!!  Yum yum, with fresh raspberries.

Above: Chef plating and serving Seared crusted Tuna

Chocolate Semi Freddo served with fresh berries and double thick cream. Yum!

Oooh, yummy vegetarian dinner

Hmmmm, so this might not be the healthiest veggie meal, but it was very yummy and conveniently used up a few odds on ends in our fridge:

I served this as 1/2 past and 1/2 salad, and this make enough for 3 portions of pasta and 3 portions of salad, but you could always enlarge it by increasing the aubergine (and not eating half of it while it's cooking) and the pasta.  Once the cheese is added to the pasta, its quite rich, so you don't need a mega portion (or what am i talking about? its so yummy, you'll go finish the 3rd portion in the kichen! ;)

Aubergine and Brie Pasta in a zingy tomato sauce
Ingredients
3/4 - 1 aubergine, diced (approx. 1cm squared pieces)
a splash of olive oil
a healthy shake mixed dried herbs, or pizza topping herbs
a generous pinch of sea salt
a tiny sprinkle of cayenne pepper

1/2 a jar of tomato pasta sauce (from the fresh isle section of the supermarket)
3-4 cups of cooked pasta shells
110g south cape brie (or any small triangle of mild brie), chopped into small pieces
1/4 bunch chopped (or chiffonaded) fresh parsley

Method:

1.  heat the olive oil and fry the aubergine until its crispy light brown with a few darker areas and soft the whole way through.  While it's cooking, add the herbs, salt and pepper.  Have the heat on medium, don't rush cooking the aubergine
2.  while the aubergine is cooking, cook your pasta (according to directions on packet)
3.  when the aubergine is cooked, add the tomato sauce.  take off the heat.
4.  when the pasta is cooked, drain and put the pasta back into the pot.  add the pasta sauce (with the aubergine) into the pot of pasta. add the chopped parsley and the chopped brie.
5.  serve while the brie is busy melting.

I served this with a light salad of ice berg lettuce, blanch julienned carrots, fresh broad beans, cherry tomatoes, lebanese cucumber, 1/2 avo, 1/4 bunch chopped parsley and a dressing containing the juice of one lime, olive oil and a splash of fish sauce.

Enjoy

Ode to Almonds

Ines bought this along to the Breakfast on the bridge last Sunday, and I just had to make it.  Thanks for the recipe Ines!  Ines also told me that by soaking the almonds, your body is then able to absorb up to 90% of the vitamins, whereas your body can only absorb up to 10% of the vitamins of an un-soaked almond.

So, this inspired me to do a bit of research and after a quick look on the interweb, I have found the following:

Almonds are considered one of the healthiest and most nutritious nuts of all.  They are a well balanced food, which are a great source of protein, fiber, vitamin E, omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, calcium, magnesium and zinc.  They reduce blood sugar levels and free radicals in the body and play an important role in stabilising the state of a human being.    It has even been noticed that almonds reduce the risk of weight gain, if taken twice a week. 

Health & Nutrition Benefits of Eating Almonds
    * Prevent cancer as they are low in saturated fat.
    * Assist strengthening of bones as they contain protective nutrients like calcium and magnesium.
    * Protect against cardiovascular diseases and cancer as they contains phyotchemicals.
    * Reduces the risk of heart attack.
    * Help in checking blood cholesterol levels.
    * Good for the digestive system as they contain lots of fiber.
    * Reduce levels of homocystein (the amino acid thought to contribute to the build-up of fatty plaque in the arteries) as they contain folic acid.
    * Assist in controlling diabetes, by lowering blood sugar after meals.
    * Help to clean the body of free-radicals as they provide essential anti-oxidants.

However it is not all good news!  Almonds are difficult for most people to digest because of an enzyme-inhibiting substance in their brown coating, so before you eat almonds they should be soaked (or sprouted) overnight to remove the inhibitor so that the enzymes secreted during digestion can do their job.

How to Soak Almonds
It is best to use raw, organic almonds, but these directions can also be followed for blanched almonds too. Simply rinse your almonds and then cover them with purified water in a glass or stainless steel container overnight for 8-12 hours. Some websites recommend that you change the water and wash them every few hours, but as a minimum give them a good wash in the morning before you use them and throw that water away.  Once soaked, you can then drain, pat them dry with paper towel and refrigerate them in an airtight container, for up to 6 weeks.

How to eat them
Almonds are best combined with fermented foods, non-starchy land vegetables (especially dark green leafy ones) and ocean vegetables. They also combine with other protein/fat foods like milk kefir and avocado. They're great to toss into a green, leafy salad, or in the delicious smoothie recipe below.

Avo, Almond & Date smoothie

This is so creamy and delicious!  You can control the sweetness by varying the number of dates you add.  I only had 8, and that was sweet enough, but I know Ines used 10 and that was great too.  So, play around to your own taste.

Ingredients
1 x ripe avo
a small handful of soaked almonds
8 - 10 dates (depending on how sweet you like it)
1 - 2 glasses of water (depending how thick you want it)

Method
Peel the avo.
Add all ingredients into a blender and blend until smooth.  I added about 2 glasses of water and it was still thick.

Storage
This will keep in the fridge for a few days and Ines said that she freezes hers.  Its always a good idea to freeze in an ice cube tray and when frozen move into a small ziplock bag, as the smaller amounts will cause the item to freeze quicker.  Keep away from smelly things in your freezer.

Eat - Yum!