Sunday 17 January 2016

Wellington regrets and why hangovers and fasting are not good bedfellows



It’s all a learning experience isn’t it? What I’ve learnt today is that it’s a mistake to drink too much the night before a fast day. Not only did the fact I’d consumed two days’ worth of calories in beef Wellington, chicken liver parfait and raspberry jelly make for incredibly depressing reading on the scales this morning, but the red wine I used to wash it down has made me feel somewhat less than in the pink, and I can’t eat anything to make me feel better (quavers, bacon butty, cheese toastie).


The food was delicious though, and the company good. Here are the recipes if you want to do an incredibly retro dinner party:



However all good things (weekends, eating opportunities) come to an end and we’re back in a working week and two fast days to kick it off. I lost 1.5% body fat and 1.1 kg over my last two fast days so I’m pretty excited, and hopeful it’ll repair some of the beef Wellington inflicted ravages.


My eggs worked so well last week that I’m having them for breakfast on both days this week: two medium eggs, two tablespoons of cottage cheese and a pinch of garlic salt, scrambled in the microwave. Delicious and exactly 200 calories.


For dinner tonight we are having baked spaghetti squash with goats’ cheese, pesto and balsamic vinegar. This is a vastly calorie-reduced version of a meal we had for dinner once a week in my younger, care-free, I-can-eat-whatever-I-want days (and as a side note why did I not appreciate that properly?). The fully loaded version is a bag of fresh pasta (fusilli is my favourite), ½ a boursin, a glass of white wine, half a jar of pesto, some grated parmesan and a dash of balsamic vinegar, we called this ‘quick pasta’ as it takes 10 minutes to make (cook the pasta, drain, add the rest of the ingredients to the pan and stir on the heat for another two or three minutes until the cheese has melted). It is also absolutely delicious but at 800 calories (I worked it out when the realisation I could no longer eat whatever I wanted started to dawn on me) it’s a very occasional treat these days. The calorifically slashed version is two cups of baked spaghetti squash (teased free of its skin) with 50g goats chess, 1.5 tablespoons of pesto and a splash of balsamic vinegar. It comes in at around 300 calories and I have high expectations that it will still be pretty tasty.*


Tomorrow night we will be having tenderloin (150g per person) with balsamic vinegar and braised leeks. I had steak with balsamic vinegar in Florence when we were doing our Italy tour a few years ago and it was delicious. I doubt the balsamic I managed to buy in Waitrose in Dubai is as good as the one at the restaurant in Florence but I think it’s worth a try as a béarnaise definitely bursts the calorie budget. The steaks are cuts I saved from the tenderloin for last night’s beef Wellington. The braised leeks’ recipe looks delicious (http://www.bbcgoodfoodme.com/recipes/237604/tender-braised-leeks?GEO_REDIRECTED=true#.VptgZlKVAt8) and in fact will be slightly lower in calories as I will be omitting the olives. And all for 300 calories :-).

More details on actual diet effects to follow in the next few weeks as we're coming up to a trip away which will require bikini wearing...



* Confusingly the fully loaded pasta ingredients are for two people and the spaghetti squash is for one.
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