Keeping the planning straight in the face of many changes!

It all boils down to this .....

For once, there's a fairly good reason why this meal planning post is a tad delayed.

I put the plan together on Monday evening, as usual.  Then, that evening, I watched "The Food Hospital" on Channel 4 (all about using food as medicine), which reminded me that I was going to try to find the website which gave the Inflammation Factor for various foodstuffs.

Versus this!

Having done so, I quickly realised that a great number of the foodstuffs that I had been eating were right up there on the scale of "foods that are really bad for people with inflammatory conditions".  If you consider that both Polymyalgia Rheumatica (inflammation of the blood vessels) and Arthritis (inflammation of the joints) are both conditions that have contributed towards my current disability, then perhaps I needed to do something about it.

Hence, my diet has changed fairly radically - and the menu plan had to be changed along with it. Interestingly, it didn't have to be changed all that much.  I had planned to have Macaroni Cheese on one evening, which has had to be ditched, but otherwise everything else has stayed (pretty much) the same.  It's more a case of changing what I had for breakfast and lunch, rather than the dinner meal.  In brief, the dietary changes involve the loss of a great deal of carbohydrate and the input of foodstuffs with positive scores for inflammation such as mackerel (+465), chilli (+498), green leafy veg etc.

I've got to say, that although I am missing our oaty bread (-49 for 1 ounce), I am absolutely cock-a-hoop about increasing my vegetable consumption.  I absolutely adore veggies of all kinds, so to be "forced" to eat more of them is so far up my street that it's not even funny.

You may notice a change in the types of dishes I'm blogging about, but it will be interesting to see how that change manifests itself - if at all!

No doubt I'll bore you all to tears with talk of "Inflammation Factor" scores (breakfast today - mackerel & horseradish on toast - scored +350, for instance).

So, it's probably a good thing that I didn't do all of this until Monday evening - which was after we'd been to Macdonalds to cheer up a very glum Son & heir.  (It worked, he was much more cheerful after a "Big Tasty" burger).

Here's the plan for this week :

Tues : Macdonalds - Big Tasty burgers all round!

Weds : Prawn Patia, Saag Bhajee & white rice

Thurs : son - pizza, adults - Bacon & brussels sprout risotto

Fri : Chicken & Tenderstem® casserole with cheddar dumplings

Sat : Toad in the hole with carrots, swede & Tenderstem® broccoli

Sun : Roast gammon ham with baked Mozzarella gnocchi

Mon : BBQ glazed pork steaks with baked sweet potatoes and peas.

There now, doesn't really sound like "diet" food does it?  I would say that's because it really isn't "diet" food.  For instance, with the chicken casserole with cheddar dumplings - I will have more of the vegetables than the chicken and dumplings.  So dishes that might score a potential negative score, I'll just have more of the positive scoring elements.  Easy!

I was looking forward to making the Prawn Patia (which is an Anjum Anand recipe) and had sourced an alternative Spinach Bhajee recipe from a curry recipe book that we'd had for donkey's years.

In the event, the Patia was fairly successful but the Spinach wasn't.  At all.  Anyway, I'll leave the explanation of that for the blog posting or I'll be repeating myself - and considering I'm taking Cod Liver Oil capsules at the moment, that's the last thing I want to be doing!

Hubby had a mad rush of blood to the head on Thursday and, instead of making a Bacon, Mushroom & Sundried Tomato risotto, he opted for a Bacon & Brussels Sprout risotto!  This from the man who professes to abhor Brussels Sprouts!  Is it any wonder I get confused?

I'm afraid that again, this is one which will have to wait until its own blog post to be explained fully.  However, the fact that it is getting its own blog post should tell you that I thought it was remarkably successful.

This evening (Friday), we've just had the Chicken & Tenderstem® Broccoli Casserole with Cheddar Dumplings and it was really lovely.  Well done Jo Pratt for putting together such a yummy casserole dish.  If you're curious ahead of the blog post, you can find its original format on the Tenderstem website here.  You won't be surprised to hear that I tinkered about with the recipe a little bit!


Tomorrow is hubby's first go at a Toad in the Hole.  He's bought some lovely chipolata sausages to have in the Toad, as he has a theory as to the length of time a sausage takes to cook -v- the depth of the Yorkshire pudding batter.  We've even bought a new roasting pan especially for the Toad, such is our dedication to getting it right.


I'm looking forward to this one, as I am completely useless at making Yorkshire Pudding. It will be interesting to see how hubby gets on with it - and fingers crossed that he gets a lovely crispy, risen Toad in the hole.


As I said in my last blog post, I am opting for easier dinners on a Sunday for the foreseeable future.  As such, this Sunday I shall be pot-roasting a gorgeous piece of Gammon, which we'll be having with Baked Gnocchi with Spinach, Tomato and Mozzarella (instead of Mascarpone).  Both are simple "assemble, cook and serve" dishes which should go well together.  Hopefully, I'll be capable of getting from the kitchen to the living room this time!

I'm really looking forward to Monday's dinner.  Not because of the pork, although the BBQ glaze sounds really delicious - and I absolutely adore pork - but because of the baked sweet potatoes.  I'll be making chilli cream to go in them again and just know they'll be utterly gorgeous.


Now, as far as additional bits of cooking are concerned, in the pipeline for this week I have a recipe for a lovely Cream of Celery Soup, using some truly gorgeous Fenland Celery that was sent to me to try.  I find it completely bizarre that you can't get Cream of Celery soup any longer and wonder what the majority of the celery crop gets used for!  It probably gets sent abroad because us Brits are useless at finding uses for it - like so many of our fine produce.


Aside from that, I'm just waiting for Son & heir's birthday cake to be finished, whereupon I'll be making an Avocado Pound Cake.  Hopefully this will happen before the beginning of December, as I want to enter the Avocado Brotherhood's "Blog an Avo" competition!


Oh, and of course, I'm trying to find suitable things to have for breakfast.  Breakfast seems to be the hardest meal to fulfil without using carbohydrates.  After all, we get so used to eating cereal and toast!

Jonty is hopeful of a taste!

So far this week, I've had tinned mackerel & horseradish on one slice of toast - which as I said above, worked out to be a positive IF score even with the one slice of toast.  I also had a fresh orange, which bumped the score up a bit.  A spectacular success was the cherry tomato, parsley and chilli omelette (see above), followed by a Kiwi Fruit, which went down extremely well - although timing helps with that one. I tend to have my breakfast when I return home from taking Son & heir to school - which makes eating things like mackerel and chilli a lot easier.  I couldn't eat any of that, having just got out of bed!  Even a cup of tea is often a challenge, first thing in the morning.

If anyone has any bright ideas as to savoury or fruity (particularly citrus - but not grapefruit) items that don't include carbohydrates that can be eaten for breakfast, I'm all ears!

.

Crunchy Baked Pork, Baked Sweet Potato and Tomato Salad

It's a bit of a long title that one, isn't it?  However, the title is the hardest part of this meal - and I'll treat it as a meal, rather than three separate dishes, as it all went so well together.  With no pots or pans to wash up, this one is definitely a winner in my book!

To begin with, I set to with scrubbing the sweet potatoes.  Their skins never appeal as far as eating them is concerned - although they're very tasty, in fact - but I like to make sure they're scrupulously clean, all the same.  I always top and tail them too, as these bits always seem so gnarly, I can imagine dirt can't help but hide in there.  If I was dirt, I would.

I then dry them off, rub them with olive oil, liberally sprinkle with salt & pepper and into the oven they go for their first half an hour.

Next, I tackled the pork steaks - which was easy enough.  They just needed the bulk of the fat trimming from their backs and they were good to go.  Dustbin 1 (Jonty) was on hand for this operation, just in case there wasn't enough room in the actual bin for the offcuts.  He's a thoughtful dawgie, like that.

Next job was to make up the flour/egg/breadcrumb plates.  The flour was easy enough, or so I thought.  It seems that the abortive gnocchi attempt had used up all our plain flour, but fortunately we had lots of bread flour, which got used instead.

I consulted the recipe (which again, I can't remember where I got it from.  I am SO going to have to keep a note of recipe sources)  as to how much dijon mustard to use in the egg mix.  I had copied down three tablespoonfuls!  Surely not!  I pondered this for a while, then decided on three teaspoonfuls as being the far more sensible alternative.  As it was, I would only use two teaspoonfuls in future, as it had far too obvious an influence on the overall flavour, I felt.

Next, was the breadcrumbs, garlic and herbs.  I quickly ran two slices of Oatilicious bread across the grater to create the 1 cup of breadcrumbs.  Next, I grated two cloves of garlic in there, then chopped a tablespoonful of fresh parsley and a teaspoonful of dried tarragon.  If I could have found fresh tarragon, I'd have used it.  However, Mr Asda hadn't heard of fresh tarragon, so that was that.  In retrospect, I'd cut the garlic down to one clove, as it did tend to slap you around the face a bit.  Between the garlic and the mustard, I'm afraid the tarragon took a very back seat - which wasn't how it was supposed to be, I'm sure!

So, on with the dipping.  First in the flour, then the egg mix, then onto the breadcrumbs.  It occurred to me then, that I had no idea whether I was supposed to be breadcrumbing one side or both sides.  Although the one side I had done, had used an enormous amount of the breadcrumb mixture and I really wasn't sure it would last for all six.  Still, it didn't seem to make sense to do just one side, so after a bit of judicious dusting off, I breadcrumbed both sides.  In fact, I ran out of breadcrumbs towards the end and the last two had just one side breadcrumbed - so I'd make a little more, the next time I do this one.

Something else that I would make sure to do, is to turn the steaks halfway through cooking.  Because I didn't do this, one side was crunchy and the other a tad soggy - which was a shame.  However, you live and learn.

Once the Pork was safely in the oven and the Sweet Potatoes had been turned, I got on with the Tomato Salad.  It was a simple matter of slicing two large vine ripened tomatoes and some cherry tomatoes.  Then add liberal amounts of freshly ground pepper, a sprinkling of sea salt, a drizzle of balsamic vinegar and likewise of extra virgin olive oil.  Next, slice up a red onion and sprinkle that over the top, along with a little of the parsley - or basil, if you've got it.  Leave to let the flavours mingle for some 15-20 minutes before serving.

So, the last thing to do was the Chilli cream to go in the Baked Sweet Potatoes.  Again, this is incredibly easy.  Decant a small pot of soured cream into a bowl, add finely chopped fresh red chilli and some finely chopped parsley.  There is an alternative, which involves coriander instead of the parsley and lime zest.  I love this particular version, however son & heir isn't good with lime, so we had the parsley version.

I loved this meal, even though the Pork was way too garlicky for my taste.  Hubby had problems with the garlic too, and found the Pork wasn't tender enough for his preference.  He loved the Baked Sweet Potato and chilli cream, plus the tomatoes.  Son & heir ate everything except the last half of his sweet potato, which was incredible considering what a fussy-pants he's becoming.  He even ate the cherry tomatoes with balsamic on them!  Mind you, I didn't tell him about the balsamic.  *wink*  I thought I'd just wait and see.

So, apart from the problems I've outlined above, I think next time I'd flatten out two of the steaks in the hope that they would be able to become more tender during the cooking process.  I can't think of any other way of ensuring they come up more tender that doesn't include par-cooking them before adding the egg and breadcrumb mix, which isn't the best route!

Here's the recipe for the Pork, if you need the recipe for either the potatoes or the tomato salad, just let me know and I'll include them.

CRUNCHY BAKED PORK (feeds 3)

Ingredients :

6 pork steaks, or 3 pork chops
1 cup of plain flour
1 egg, whisked lightly
2 tsp Dijon mustard
1 cup of breadcrumbs
1 clove garlic, grated
1 tbsp chopped fresh parsley
1 tbsp chopped fresh tarragon
sea salt & freshly ground black pepper.

Method :

1.  Pre-heat your oven to 180deg C/350 deg F/Gas mark 4.

2.  Trim the pork of the majority of its fat and prepare a roasting tray to receive it once coated with breadcrumbs.

3.  Then, prepare three plates - one with the flour, plus some seasoning.  The second with the egg and mustard mixture and the last with the breadcrumbs, garlic and herbs.

4.  Dip each steak or chop into firstly the flour, then the egg, then the breadcrumbs and place it onto the roasting tray.

5.  Once every one is coated, place the roasting tray into the oven for 15 minutes.  At the end of that time, remove from the oven and flip over onto its other side.  Replace and bake for another 15-20 minutes, or until they appear to be done.

6.  Serve.

.

This week's meal plan .. has changed .. and again .. and again ..

I know it's Saturday and it's hardly worth publishing a blog post regarding the meal plan for this week, when you consider that we've only got three days left of it!  However, I thought it'd be fun to demonstrate just how flexible you can make a meal plan, for those who say "I could never meal plan, we change our minds too often".  Well, welcome to the meal plan for those who can't make their mind up.  (Like us, at the moment!).


So, Tuesday started as being a Chicken Curry.  Then, because Son & heir was going to be coming back from a few days' away visiting his cousin and we couldn't be sure when he'd get back, it changed to Pizza.

We'll get to you - eventually!

Wednesday inherited the Chicken Curry, right up until my parents spent a thirty five minutes on the phone to me, thus using up the majority of the time I had in which to cook it.  So, we had fish and chips.


Thursday was Thai Meatball Curry - which turned out to be heaps better than the first time Hubby tried it, so it has gained a foothold on our "regulars" menu.  I'll have to ask hubby for the recipe now that he's refined it a bit, so that we can share it with you all.


Friday was originally going to be Corn & Bacon Pasta Bake, but then I had the Chicken Curry looking for a day to appear on, so the Pasta bake got bumped in favour of the Chicken Curry.  That is, until we realised that Son & heir would be out at a friend's house for dinner that night.  So the Chicken Curry got bumped until next week, in favour of the world's biggest and loveliest bacon sandwiches.

See this bacon sandwich? Well our were far, far better than this.

Regrettably, we didn't catch a photograph of these sandwiches.  They consisted of : white bloomer bread, cut thickly.  One half of which had cheddar cheese melted on to it.  Next came our butcher's lovely, lovely bacon.  Huge pink rashers of gorgeous back bacon that doesn't shrink, doesn't leak fat everywhere and tastes fantastic.  Next - and this is the piece de resistance of this particular sandwich, in my opinion, came a Portobello mushroom which had been baked in the oven with a little olive oil.  Top that with another slice of Bloomer bread and tuck in.  Flipping gorgeous - and it left us both feeling as full as if we'd just eaten a plate of dinner, never mind a sandwich!

Baked boats of golden loveliness.

Saturday has always been the day for Crunchy Baked Pork with Baked Sweet Potatoes and tomato salad.  Amazingly, that is still what's on the menu for tonight!  I'm crossing my fingers that it will turn out to be really tasty (it's another new recipe) and I'll be able to share it with you all.


Sunday is the spot where the Corn & Bacon Pasta Bake landed.  I had intended to be making a chicken & sweetcorn pie, but until I'm feeling a little bit better, I think I'll probably err on the side of wisdom and leave it for a while.


This particular pasta bake is my own creation - never made before.  So we'll have to wait and see whether it is a winner or not!  I've talked through the proposed recipe with Hubby and he feels it's worth a go, so keep your fingers crossed for Sunday!



Monday is another day where the intended meal has stayed put, but if you consider that it's only fish in batter with potato croquettes and peas, you'll probably understand why.

Poor old Chicken Curry!  It really was the casualty of this week's menu plan, but considering we've got everything either in the cupboard or freezer for it (except the fresh coriander), I'm sure it will make a bid for freedom in next week's meal plan.

Doesn't it just demonstrate how our meal plans are based around Son & heir, though?  When you take him out of the equation, our immediate response is to jettison what we were due to have and conjur up something fabulous (to us) that we know he would have hated and so wouldn't have appeared on the menu list.  Roll on the days when he's grown out of his teenage faddiness and we can eat a wide selection of foods again!

.

Three taste sensations in one dinner! Pork with rhubarb BBQ sauce and baked sweet potatoes.

The three taste sensations are :

1.  The rhubarb barbecue sauce;
2.  The baked sweet potatoes;
3.  The chilli cream that went in the sweet potatoes.

(And the pork was pretty special, too!  The salad, well, it was salad.  What can I say?).

Let's deal with the barbecue sauce first.

I put "BBQ Pork" on the menu list for this week, fully expecting to do my usual chilli/soy/honey mix for the pork steaks.  However, in browsing food blogs during the week I spotted a recipe for Rhubarb Barbecue Sauce from IslandVittles.com.  As I am sure you will appreciate (from the title of the blog, if nothing else!) any recipe involving rhubarb and I'm interested.  (I've also bookmarked their Rhubarb Gin for future reference).

It looked, from the recipe, as though it could be a bit of a fiddle to make.  However, it was rhubarb and deserved further investigation.  In fact, I couldn't have been more wrong.  The recipe (available on the IslandVittles.com blogsite) is easy peasy to make, involving chopping rhubarb and onion, then a bit of frying and mixing (sugar and tomato paste), followed by boiling and simmering (with herbs & spices), then a bit more mixing (with Dijon mustard, cider vinegar and honey).  Couldn't have been any easier.  Because I was making a half-size batch, I didn't simmer mine for the full hour as it seemed to be quite thick enough at around a half an hour.

I, too, used a stainless steel tea ball for the bouquet garni ingredients.  Well, all except the bay leaf which was easy enough to extract at the end.  I didn't have a whole dried chilli, so just included some dried chilli flakes into the tea ball.  One other difference was that as I can't abide cloves, I used a star anise which also went into the tea ball.  I reckon that tea ball was a genius idea for using whole spices which you ultimately want to extract - and I may well use it again in curries.

The end result was a Barbecue Sauce of some considerable character.  Tasted on its own, it definitely made your taste buds sit up and take notice, but when smoothed onto pork steaks, it moved from "great" to "superb".

I heartily commend it to you, especially as we are in the height of Barbecue season.  We must be, it's raining!

So, the second taste sensation was the baked sweet potatoes.  Why have we never considered baking a sweet potato before now?  We kept asking ourselves this last night, as we were tucking into that gorgeous sweet orange flesh that went so well with the Barbecue pork.

After all, they are easy enough to prepare for baking - a simple wash under the tap and a good old scrub with a potato brush and they're ready to be rubbed in olive oil, sprinkled with salt and pepper and into the oven they go.  No different to a normal baked potato.

I was anticipating them taking around an hour, but in fact (as they were fairly small ones) they only took three-quarters of an hour to bake.  They looked a bit deflated and collapsed after baking, plus there was a worrying amount of baked-on sticky juice underneath them that made them look as though they'd been welded to the silver foil.  However, they came free from their moorings without any difficulty and held their shape to be transferred to the plate.  I had visions of them collapsing half-way.

Which brings about the next flavour sensation, which was the chilli cream which was used as a topping.  Boy, but did it go well with the sweetness of the potato flesh!  Goodness, but my mouth is watering with the memory.

It's a simple enough recipe, simply take a pot of soured cream and add the grated zest from a lime, a chopped red chilli (I abandoned the seeds) and some chopped coriander.  Add a little salt and pepper and mix.  Hey presto - chilli cream for use in baked sweet potatoes.

With a side salad of mixed leaves, beetroot, cherry tomatoes, radish, olives and red pepper, we ate like kings last night - and I can't believe how good for us it all was.  The pork was trimmed, so was virtually fat free.  Hence, the only fat was in the chilli cream - which was a teaspoonful or so and the small amount of olive oil that went into the Barbecue sauce.  I suppose there was sugar in the Barbecue sauce and natural sugars in the sweet potato, but other than that, it had to have been good for us. If it wasn't, please don't burst my bubble.  *chuckle*

.