Ham and eggs

We're finishing off the ham I had cooked earlier in the week. This is a tasty way of eating it: heat through some thick slices of ham using a little oil in the frying pan and serve with eggs and tomato! Frying helps heat the ham through while keeping it moist too.  A simple lunch at around 500 calories (including the buttered toast).
If you are thinking about losing weight and (like me) you are fed up with restrictive diets, why not take a look at how we lost weight. Our method is simple and sustainable - and the weight loss surprised us.
We deprive ourselves of nothing, eat all of our favourite foods - and have thoroughly enjoyed the way we have lost almost 7 stone in weight between us.
If you would like to know more about how we have achieved our huge weight loss eating all this wonderful food - see OUR UNIQUE METHOD.

Copyright © (c)forgetdietingforever 2012, all rights reserved.

The danger zone

The Christmas weight gain danger zone confronts us. Left over goodies, waiting to be polished off. That tin of chocolates or biscuits sit innocently in the corner now the visitors have gone. The odd mince pie which you can't throw out. So if you are going to polish things off, just be mindful of how many calories they contain and how those calories fit into your daily allowance. See what we think about CALORIES.
My partner was busy polishing off the mince pies two years ago... until we saw just how many calories there were in one of them. Three mince pies equated to a Sunday roast dinner - and we know what we would prefer. That's how our interest into calories began. We then worked out how many calories we could eat.
Our weight loss method has actually saved us money because we ditched conventional diets and didn't have to go to any diet classes.
We now understand WHY we were overweight and more importantly HOW we could do something about it without eating diet food and feeling miserable. We came up with this UNIQUE IDEA and followed this for the last two years losing almost 7 STONE in weight between us. 

Mushroom ravioli

There's an Italian theme going on here... The gorgeous home made pizza we made the other day (which was so good we are going to make it again soon) and now this fabulous pasta.
Here is our mushroom and blue cheese ravioli starter. One large ravioli was tantalisingly tasty, just how a starter should be.
We've eaten the ravioli as part of another meal (shin of beef) before. We decided it was so delicious it deserved a plate all of its own.

The pasta was made from scratch and stuffed with mushroom and blue cheese. 

(To serve two). Dice 4 fresh mushrooms, place in a pan with salt/pepper to release the liquid. Keep cooking until the liquid disappears. Remove from the pan, add some blue cheese - to your own taste - we added just a small amount - depending upon the strength of the cheese. We used about a thumb nail of cheese for the two starters. If we didn't have time to make pasta we would at least make the mushroom mix, as it goes so well with the beef, and buy some freshly made lasagne sheets. 

The sauce was a reduction of the cooking liquor with the addition of salt and pepper. Reduce to your desired thickness.

We served the ravioli on a small bed of spinach with a tarragon cream sauce.
Today we're having roast belly of pork (Chinese style) with pak choi and mash.
If you would like to know more about how we have achieved over 6.5 stone weight loss eating all this wonderful food - see OUR UNIQUE METHOD.

Copyright © (c)forgetdietingforever 2012, all rights reserved.

Weekend plans

We've decided to have some fish for dinner and chosen this great recipe - sea bass on creamy risotto. The fishmonger had better looking sea bream (Dorade) so we're having that instead of sea bass. They are quite similar in texture but the sea bream has a stronger flavour.
For a starter, we're having mushroom ravioli. The last time we enjoyed this ravioli was with our shin of beef, but as its so tasty, it deserves its place as a great starter. We'll serve this with a tarragon cream (chop a few shallots/garlic, wine, double cream and tarragon).
Tomorrow we're having chinese style belly of pork with pak choi and mash. It's so easy to make and as we're fairly busy, we can leave it to its own devices slowly cooking away.
So how has our weight fared over the festive season so far? We are pleasantly surprised - as it's remained extremely stable. We've found the richness of some of the food has filled us up enough to stop picking and snacking. We've eaten the chocolates and cakes too, so haven't missed out on anything. We have managed a couple of walks - each lasting around an hour. Because the weather is so miserable, we've tended to stick close to home just in case, but its surprising just how much you can walk once you get going! Walking to the pub is something we do naturally now, and the 20 minute walk (one mile) adds up to around 80 calories (one chocolate biscuit).

Find out how we have achieved over 6.5 stone weight loss eating all this wonderful food - see OUR UNIQUE METHOD.

Copyright © (c)forgetdietingforever 2012, all rights reserved.

Bresaola Pizza

This home made pizza was delicious. The bresaola and mozzarella was a nice change, and because the pizza wasn't swimming in cheese, it was also quite low in calories. We used a basic pizza dough and added our desired toppings. This was my pizza where the base was pierced all over with a fork before baking to stop it rising too much and create a thinner crust. A little can go a long way.
The dough was deliciously crispy yet light and fluffy on the inside too, and we will be making it again. We spread the base with a little passata (mixed with minced garlic) before adding the rest of the toppings. Depending on the toppings used, and particularly the amount of cheese, will depend on the calories - this one was about 550 calories.

REMEMBER: We all have a calorie allowance - and we like to post our main meals to show you what we are eating. You won’t find us posting every last morsel though – but we hope this gives you an idea of how far calories can go!

Read about OUR UNIQUE METHOD of weight loss and find out how we have lost weight eating the food we love.

 Copyright © forgetdietingforever 2012, all rights reserved.

Today's menu - curry and pizza

Yes, that's what we're making today! We love this curry recipe so much, and it goes well with most fish  and meat. Today we'll use up the left over turkey.
The other thing we want to try is a bresaola beef (because we have some left over) and cheese pizza with rocket salad. I've been wanting to try this for a few days. Making the pizza dough from fresh looks fairly simple. We could use any topping. I'll post a picture/recipe later.
The rain's stopped, so we are going for a walk no matter what. An hour in the fresh air will give us around 250 calories and help offset the indulgences!

Find out how we have achieved over 6.5 stone weight loss eating all this wonderful food - see OUR UNIQUE METHOD.

Copyright © (c)forgetdietingforever 2012, all rights reserved.

Food... and more food at Christmas.

Our Christmas turkey meal was quite rich, and here's the first helping before the gravy was added. With red cabbage, cauliflower cheese, honey roast parsnips, sprouts and chestnuts and more, it was very very filling. Followed by a choice of home made trifle or Christmas pudding - some had both!!
Snacking was out of the question as there just wasn't any room left - perhaps maybe for the odd chocolate, mince pie and glass of wine ...
Oh and then there was pork pie, pickles, ham and resurrected leftover roast potatoes. None of which were eaten in large quantities but there was just enough to satisfy.

Today - Boxing day - we are still full ... and we've found we have eaten much less naturally. No need to snack on anything at all. It was the same last year, we found we had a natural tendency to cut back after indulging. By eating the way we have done while losing weight, we've  learned the art of listening to our body again. We don't need 'diets' to control our weight any more.
Find out how we have achieved over 6.5 stone weight loss eating all this wonderful food - see OUR UNIQUE METHOD.

Copyright © (c)forgetdietingforever 2012, all rights reserved.

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Merry Christmas everyone! Thank you for visiting our blog and we hope you have enjoyed some of our recipes. See what we can eat while losing weight - it's been a really enjoyable experience. Right now we are in the middle of preparing all the vegetables - the kitchen looks disorganised... but that's Christmas!! I'll see if I get to capture some of the festivities and post them up later.

A touch of luxury - mince pies & cream

I made some mince pies yesterday - and these were absolutely delicious. I've never made sweet short crust pastry using the food processor so I thought I would give it a try. The result was amazing - the pastry was so 'short' and just about perfect. I used this recipe from the BBC Food, although I altered the amount of ground almonds in the mix (used 25g almonds and upped the flour by 50g instead). I also made more mince pies than the recipe suggested - which meant each mince pie had less calories!
My only gripe is that I had the oven on too high and slightly overcooked them. But, they didn't last long, and the brandy cream added a touch of luxury.
Now I'm not going to count calories because that's not fair but I suspect they are around 200 calories each and the cream is extra.
I have to make some more today, so I'll be watching the oven temperature!
It was the leftover shop bought mince pies that first drew our attention to calories two years ago....
The festivities were over and the mince pies lurked in the kitchen. Rather than throw them away and be wasteful, my other half would mindlessly take one every now and then as he walked past them. I picked up the half empty box and found that each one contained 230 calories. Three mindless mince pies was the equivalent to our standard Sunday roast dinner!! We just didn't realise, but now we do....  we still eat the mince pies, but savour and enjoy every mouthful.

Find out how we have achieved over 6.5 stone weight loss eating all this wonderful food - see OUR UNIQUE METHOD.

Copyright © (c)forgetdietingforever 2012, all rights reserved.

Sea bream or Dorade

We had fish again tonight because the fishmonger had so much on offer and we couldn't refuse! The sea bream was excellent, cooked in vegetable oil and a little butter. We served this with new potatoes which were very waxy and didn't soak up too much fat.
Because we wanted to join friends for a drink, we decided to par boil the potatoes first for 12 minutes. We then plunged the potatoes into cold water to stop the cooking process, then removed from the water to await our return. Upon return from the pub, we continued cooking the potatoes in a little oil in the frying pan with the lid on - removing the lid at the end to crisp up which produced these fab sautéed potatoes. The fish took just minutes to cook and we added some watercress dressed in a little olive oil to complete the meal. We reckon this dish is around 500 calories.

Find out how we have achieved over 6.5 stone weight loss eating all this wonderful food - see OUR UNIQUE METHOD.

Copyright © (c)forgetdietingforever 2012, all rights reserved.

Halibut

We finally managed to buy some fabulous looking halibut - and we enjoyed a 180g fillet each (200 calories) for dinner. There is an award winning smokery not too far from us, where I bought our smoked salmon - only to be confronted with a beautiful display of fresh fish. Couldn't resist and ended up with my shopping bag full with clams, halibut and sea bream.
Halibut is a meaty fish - the texture is very much like tuna, but the flavour is more like haddock. A great fish if you hate picking out bones - as the fish is huge and only has one central bone. This steak was boneless as it came from one side of the backbone.
We served the halibut with some spinach and spiced butter beans. We cooked the butter beans in some white wine along with chopped tomatoes, chopped parsley, coriander seeds and seasoning (I could have added a few more chilli flakes too). When the beans were soft, we stirred in some olive oil and warmed this through before serving. The whole meal came to around 450 calories so we added some bread to increase the calorie content - to help ensure we don't pick later!
Find out how we have achieved over 6.5 stone weight loss eating all this wonderful food - see OUR UNIQUE METHOD.

Copyright © (c)forgetdietingforever 2012, all rights reserved.

Quick meals

Today we've eaten beans on toast for lunch and for dinner we ate a small steak with new potatoes and some salad. With plenty of Christmas prep to be sorted out, our meals this week will be relatively simple.
I spent around an hour making sausage rolls today. I used sausages with a high meat content making them less greasy. Simply remove the sausage skin and roll the contents to fit the flaky (puff) pastry and seal. It's worth the effort and I made around 60 sausage rolls using 2 packs of pastry and 1.5kg of sausages. That's another job done - and my good quality sausage rolls are sitting in the freezer ready to cook!
We've planned our meals for the week so we know what we are going to eat. This helps us feel less stressed and we avoid the risk of eating on the hoof which could lead to bad choices. Let's face it, there's a ton of food coming our way, so we want to try and be fairly good on the run up.
Tomorrow I'll probably make a batch of red cabbage and freeze that too. They are so easy to make and can be prepared beforehand. It freezes perfectly so we make a large batch.  On the day, just before we put it in the oven, we'll sprinkle with orange zest, cover in foil and reheat.  Then we remove foil about 10 mins before we want to eat.
On Christmas eve I also like to make a cauliflower cheese. There are lots of recipes to be found, and we basically par-boil a whole cauliflower, sit this in an oven proof dish and cover with our favourite cheese sauce.  We eliminate unnecessary fat calories by not using CREAM.  Some recipes call for masses of double cream, which we prefer not to use as there is so much food being passed around on Christmas day, that the last thing we want is a very rich side dish.  Our alternative recipe is so tasty and I'll be honest, you wouldn't notice it hasn't got cream, because the cheese is quite flavoursome itself.

We make a flour and butter base (roux) and once it's cooled down a bit, we add some cold whole milk and seasoning (salt/pepper/mustard and pinch of nutmeg).  Cook this through, while stirring, for around 5 mins.  Add a bayleaf and onion to the mix (remove before pouring sauce on cauliflower).  The only trick is - to have the sauce just thick enough.  Too thick and it will be too sticky. Then finally sprinkle with some very strong grated cheese - we use 50-70g of mixed parmesan and mature cheddar. I also like to sprinkle a little smoked paprika on top. Put this in the fridge until required (wrap in clingfilm).  To bake, simply remove clingfilm, top with foil and sit in bottom of oven where it doesn't mind a few extra minutes if we get our timings wrong.  Remove foil for last 15 mins or so.

If you would like to know more about how we achieved our fabulous weight loss see OUR IDEA.

Copyright © (c)forgetdietingforever 2012, all rights reserved.

Delicious BBQ beef

EASY SLOW COOKED BRISKET OF BEEF

Begin by marinating your beef joint overnight in the following RUB

one teaspoon each of smoked paprika

ordinary paprika,

cumin, 

dried thyme

salt and pepper

Then place it in the oven covered in foil, sat on a bed of onions and a small cup of water. It slowly cooked for around 4 hours at 120°C while we were out shopping. We then added some peeled potatoes and turned up the heat to 180° and continued cooking until the potatoes were done.
We served with salad and some boiled sweetcorn. Delicious!! Cheap and tasty.
If you would like to know more about how we achieved our fabulous weight loss see OUR IDEA.

Copyright © (c)forgetdietingforever 2012, all rights reserved.

Chip shop

I often wonder if just thinking or talking about a certain food, switches on a light and before you know it you're eating it?
After the mention of fish and chips today, the seed was planted. We were rushing around, and ended up ... at the fish and chip shop. We don't have these very often, so we enjoy them when we do. The difference now, is that we SHARE a large portion. As you can see the plate is still full - with around 180g of battered cod which is plenty. It was certainly filling enough.
We've experienced this phenomena before - and would imagine this is one of the reasons many restrictive 'diets' fail: because the food on your mind is not allowed.
A little of what you fancy is surely OK? We haven't given anything up, so we can make a choice to eat this if we want to. That freedom has helped us continue following our unique method of eating which has taught us a lot about food and how we eat it. Owning up to enjoying this - why not!
Find out how we have achieved over 6.5 stone weight loss eating all this wonderful food - see OUR UNIQUE METHOD.

Copyright © (c)forgetdietingforever 2012, all rights reserved.

Lemon souffle recipe (how to make it rise)

Here is our fab dessert - LEMON SOUFFLÉ -very low in calories but very impressive.
To serve two:
Zest of two lemons, juice of one. 70g castor sugar, 20ml limoncello liqueur. Cook these ingredients to dissolve sugar. Add 7g cornflour (mixed with small amount of cold water). Cook for a few minutes. Let it go cold. Whip two egg whites until it forms stiff peaks. Fold one third into the lemon mix and then fold in the rest. Put into buttered ramekins (which have been sugared). Cook for 10 minutes at 180 degrees (fan oven). Dust with icing sugar. Enjoy the sherbet lemon dessert for around 250 calories!
TIP: Never whisk the egg whites in a bowl that has had OIL in it - as the eggs will most likely collapse and the dish will not work. We did - we had plastic bowls and have learned our mistakes. We use glass bowls now.

EAT the food you love - like we do and ... forget dieting. You'll feel much more satisfied and it may just stop you snacking or craving something you feel you deserve.

REMEMBER: We all have a calorie allowance - do you know yours? 

We like to post our main meals to show you what CAN be eaten. You won’t find us posting every last morsel though – but we hope this gives you an idea of how far calories can go!

Read about our UNIQUE METHOD of weight loss and find out how you can lose weight eating the food you love.

Copyright © forget dieting forever, all rights reserved.

FONDANT POTATO - with RACK OF LAMB

Fondant potato with herb crusted rack of lamb. A delicious combination. All served with a lamb and rosemary jus.
My tastebuds were tingling as the dish came together.
Interestingly, the lamb is around 265 calories per person - so we estimate the whole dish at around 650 calories.
The meal was fairly easy to cook - it just needed some military planning! A bit of a fuss, but we were looking for a challenge.

We prepared the following beforehand:
The jus was made using some pre-bought lamb stock and a couple of large sprigs of rosemary. This was simply boiled and reduced to the consistency we wanted. We added a dash of sherry (could also have used port) just to sweeten it a little.

The fondant potatoes made by placing the raw potato in a pan and covering with chicken stock, and cooked until soft. We did this in the afternoon, so they were half prepared.
The next part of the cooking was to fry them in some butter until golden brown when you are ready to eat. We didn't use as much as some of the recipes out there...
The mint pea puree was a mix of chopped shallot, garlic, peas and mint cooked until soft then pureed.

***

Then when we were ready to eat:
The lamb was already French trimmed by our butcher. We browned the meat in a frying pan, then brushed with dijon mustard and covered in (25g) breadcrumbs mixed with chopped rosemary, parsley and thyme. The lamb then went into oven for around 8 minutes - which was medium/rare for us. Depends on the size of the chops.
We fried the potatoes in butter while the lamb cooked.
The carrots were cooked in orange juice, for a sweeter result and we added a tiny piece of butter at the end.
We wrapped partly cooked green beans in parma ham and pan fried them with a few tiny mushrooms.

***

So what do we think? The sweet nuggets of lamb were delicious - but you would get more for your money if you bought lamb rump. The rest was gorgeous!!!!!
Oh and if that wasn't enough, we decided to make this LEMON SOUFFLÉ infused with limoncello liqueur. Mmmm, what more could we want?

***

EAT the food you love - like we do and ... forget dieting. You'll feel much more satisfied and it may just stop you snacking or craving something you feel you deserve.

REMEMBER: We all have a calorie allowance - do you know yours? 

We like to post our main meals to show you what CAN be eaten. You won’t find us posting every last morsel though – but we hope this gives you an idea of how far calories can go!

Read about our UNIQUE METHOD of weight loss and find out how you can lose weight eating the food you love.

Copyright © forget dieting forever, all rights reserved.

Saturday

We love the weekends - especially as we get to boost our metabolism and eat more as we follow our unique weight loss method...
A typical Saturday lunch (like today) for when we are rushing around is a quick sandwich. Today we're eating sausage sandwiches. We use our local butcher and buy some great tasting sausages - with a very high meat content (leaving the fat behind). We fried the sausages in a little olive oil and cooked out some of the fat. With a couple of slices of lightly buttered bread, this lunch is around a very tasty 500 calories.
Tonight we're having a treat. For a change we're eating rack of lamb cooked with a variety of vegetables! It'll be different and we're really looking forward to it - I'll post the recipe later.
The weather looks as if it will hold out, and we'll wrap up and go for a good stroll after our lunch goes down.
If you would like to know more about how we have achieved over 6.5 stone weight loss eating all this wonderful food - see OUR UNIQUE METHOD.

Copyright © (c)forgetdietingforever 2012, all rights reserved.

What's on our menu?

We made this wonderful very lazy beef curry (made with beef skirt). Slow cooking is the way to go with this. Not only that, it's a very economical dish - and makes around 8 portions (about 360 calories each) if using 1 kg of meat. The resulting curry is not swimming in fat - and very very tender. We generally freeze some, it still tastes good - and it's also very handy. Tomorrow we'll be having some of this for dinner - giving it plenty of time for the flavours to develop.
Tonight we're having chicken breast flavoured with cajun seasoning, a salad, coleslaw, sweetcorn and new potatoes. It's one of our favourites and always delicious and very filling.
Our method of weight loss is so flexible - it can be picked up and put down when it suits us. When we're not following it completely, we love the fact that our weight is very stable. Keeping the method in the back of our minds seems to help us make wise food choices. We like to get the most out of our calories for the day! We haven't regained any of the weight we've lost, which is fantastic. Before we started following our method, weight gain was slow and steady - over years, so we took the view that it was better coming off slowly. Maybe that has helped our bodies adjust to the new lower weight?  Unlike a lot of 'diets' where the weight always piled back on soon after. Perhaps we are keeping the weight off because we have learned more about the food we eat? Whatever it is, we feel we now have the means to control our weight forever.

Beef and mushroom ravioli

We turned shin of beef into this fabulous meal which we haven't had for a while.
Would you believe the ingredients for this dish are around £3.50 per person and that's including the red wine!
The beef was cooked in red wine, plus (optional) star anise, thyme, rosemary, and bay leaf using the slow cooker, then set aside to cool. To stop the beef from drying out, we cooled in the cooking liquid. After removing all the meat we rolled this into a sausage shape, wrapped it in cling film and put in the fridge to cool (and heated through before serving). The pasta was made from scratch and stuffed with mushroom and blue cheese. (To serve 2). Dice 4 fresh mushrooms, place in a pan with salt/pepper to release the liquid. Keep cooking until the liquid disappears. Remove from the pan, add some blue cheese - to your own taste - we added just a small amount - depending upon the strength of the cheese. We used about a thumb nail for the two portions. If we didn't have time to make pasta we would at least make the mushroom mix, as it goes so well with the beef. Alternatively, you could buy some ready made or just go without the pasta!
The sauce was a reduction of the cooking liquor with the addition of salt and pepper. Reduce to your desired thickness.
We served ours with celeriac puree. The celeriac was cooked in whole milk. Chop into cubes, place in a saucepan, cover with milk, and bring to the boil then simmer until soft. DO NOT used semi-skimmed/skimmed milk as the liquid will separate! As we were going out for a quick walk, we boiled then turned OFF the pan and left the celeriac to cook in the residual heat. When we returned 30 minutes later, we found the celeriac was actually cooked through. This saved us having to continually watch the pan as the milk has a tendency to spill over!
The carrots were cooked in the juice of one orange. If you wish, you can pep it up with other things like e.g. ginger. The parmesan crisp was easy - simply grate onto a greased baking sheet and pop under the grill then trim to shape. To be honest, it was a little too strong for this dish - but looked good.
We estimate our dinner came to around 550 calories - so there is plenty of room for something else .....

If you would like to know more about how we have achieved over 6.5 stone weight loss eating all this wonderful food - see OUR UNIQUE METHOD.

Copyright © (c)forgetdietingforever 2012, all rights reserved.