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Chapter 4 Recipes

This chapter provides you with nearly 200 tasty recipes, which are suitable for the time you are on the diet and beyond.

To help you find your way around the recipes they are split into the following sections:

• Breakfasts and Brunches

• Soups

• Sandwiches and Light Lunches

• Main course salads

• Poultry – chicken, turkey, duck

• Meat – beef, pork, lamb, venison

• Fish and seafood – white and oily fish, shellfish and other seafood

• Vegetarian

• Sides – those accompaniments for your meal, whether starchy, vegetables or salads

• Pasta

• Sauces, dressings and dips – to add extra zest to your meals

• Desserts

• Bites – scones, muffins and snacks

The recipes have been devised and kitchen-tested, and then nutritionally analysed by software designed specifically for this function. The diet allows you to follow a range of different calorie and fat bands, and the recipes reflect this, some being higher in calories and fat and others lower. In Chapter 4 you will find a list of all the recipes ordered by their fat content and another with their calorie content. This is to enable you to choose easily, not only by the type of recipe you fancy, but also by their nutritional value.

Some recipes provide one portion, while others provide for 2, 4 or (very occasionally) 6 portions. Many people who are on a diet are also the cook for their household, so the recipes have been written to make them as family-friendly as possible, with simple instructions and to minimize time in the kitchen. Storage instructions have also been provided, so if you make a dish that serves 4 but eat only one portion, you can save the remainder for another day.

Don’t forget to weigh out or measure all the ingredients so that you meet your diet goals.

Hints for Lower-fat Cooking

There are lots of ways to cut down on fat in your diet, and tips are included here so you can use them when cooking. They fall broadly into three categories: the food you buy, how you cook it and the equipment you use to do so.

Ingredients

• Use reduced- or no-fat ingredients – semi- or skimmed milk, reduced-fat creams and yogurts.

• Spreads come in a range of different fat levels from 20–80 per cent fat. Use the lowest you can, remembering that if you cook with them, the lower the fat, the more water is present, so they may splutter if you try to fry with them.

• Oils are all almost 100 per cent fat. Choose unsaturated oils such as rapeseed and olive oil, which are high in monounsaturates, or polyunsaturated sunflower or corn oil. Most vegetable oil is rapeseed.

• If you are using cheese, use a reduced-fat version where you can. You can usually use less cheese if it tastes strong, so mature cheddar and parmesan will taste more evident in recipes than a mild cheddar or Edam.

• Choose the leanest meat you can afford, and trim off any visible fat. Cheaper lean cuts make great stews.

• Don’t add oil to the pan when you are browning mince – let it brown in its own fat.

• When you are cooking chicken, if it has the skin on remove it before you cook if it is a stew or stir-fry, but if you are grilling keep it on to prevent the meat from drying out, then take it off before serving.

• Weigh and measure diligently. They may look innocent but flavourings such as pesto, sundried tomato paste, coconut milk or block coconut and curry paste all contain fat, so measure them out.

Cooking Methods

Lower-fat needn’t mean zero fat, but it is important to control the amount of fat you use when cooking. Some cooking methods such as stewing and steaming rely on moisture rather than adding fat, and others use dry heat such as grilling and baking.

• When making a casserole or stew it is not always necessary to sear or brown the meat in oil first. Delicious stews can be made ‘from cold’, just placing all the ingredients in a casserole and popping it into the oven on a low heat to cook. You can use cheaper cuts of lean meat this way.

• Fish or poultry can be steamed in a foil parcel, which keeps the food moist and avoids adding fat.

• Fish and poultry can be gently poached in water, wine or milk. Adding herbs or citrus zest adds flavour. The poaching stock can then be thickened with cornflour for a sauce.

• Microwave ovens often have a range of settings, and microwaving can be a great way to cook fish as moisture is retained and the food is cooked quickly, helping to preserve vitamins.

• Grilling or barbecuing food uses high temperatures, so food that is naturally low in fat may need to be sprayed lightly with oil or marinated in low-fat ingredients to prevent it from drying out.

• Baking or roasting, like grilling, is great for many foods, but you may need to protect the food with foil, or lightly spray with oil.

• Stir-fried food can be higher in fat than you expect, so if you like to stir-fry, invest in a non-stick wok and measure out 1 tablespoon of oil to do the initial frying. If food starts to stick add water rather than more oil.

• Dry frying is useful for foods that contain some fat, to which you don’t want to add any more. Bacon and mince are easily dry fried over a gentle heat in a non-stick pan.

• Griddling was traditionally used for cooking foods such as drop scones, but recently griddle pans or hob attachments have been designed with ridges so that fat can drain away from foods that contain fat. Oily fish like tuna or salmon, poultry, chops and steak as well as vegetables such as courgettes and peppers can be successfully griddled.

Equipment

There are several pieces of equipment that will make your life easier and add to your cooking experience. If you can, invest in these:

• Measuring spoons. 1 level teaspoon is very different from 1 heaped teaspoon when it is a high-fat ingredient, so buy a set of measuring spoons.

• Electronic scales. These will help you measure out ingredients accurately. Scales that can be reset to zero once a pan or bowl is on top are very useful.

• An oil spray or ‘mister’ that you can fill with rapeseed or olive oil will help you cut down on your usage of oil even more than measuring it out with a teaspoon.

• Non-stick pans. Buy yourself at least one heavy pan that is large enough to brown mince, or cook a stew.

• Sharp knives and a knife sharpener. Trimming off fat relies on a good knife, so either treat yourself to a new one, or buy a sharpener to improve the ones you already have.

• A hand blender/wand blender. If you don’t have one of these gadgets already you will be surprised at how useful they are. Because you can put the blender in the pan, making soups becomes so much easier, and you can make shakes and knock lumps out of sauces and gravies quickly, too.