Tag / low sugar

by Alexandra Roumbas Goldstein

Breakfast, lunch or dinner: the joys of savoury porridge

How I did it, less elegantly but very deliciously.

How I did it, less elegantly but very deliciously.

I got it into my head this morning that I had to make savoury porridge. I’ve been trying to find interesting ways to get veggies into my breakfast for a while but I wasn’t in the mood for an omelette or frittata (the omelette’s slightly more sophisticated cousin).

I was also in the mood for porridge, and a couple of weeks ago I was in 26 Grains at lunchtime inhaling a gorgeous Indonesian chicken brown rice porridge, so the idea of making it savoury had obviously been in my mind for a while.

How 26 Grains did it all professional and proper like.

How 26 Grains did it all professional and proper like.

I had neither the time nor patience to make brown rice happen, but there’s genuinely no reason not to cook porridge oats in a savoury dish; after all, it’s generally the sweetness of the milk (and our habit of adding fruity toppings) that makes them taste more puddingy. While most of the traditional savoury porridge type dishes that you might think of from elsewhere in the world (such as congee) are rice based, there is simply nothing stopping you experimenting.  Inspiration and ancestry need not go hand in hand. At least, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

So after poking around the fridge and cupboards and supplementing with whatever looked interesting as we took an early morning turn around the supermarket, this is what I made. It’s a bit fast-paced but it’s super easy, all done in under half an hour and MFP tells me it only has 4g of sugar – perfect if, like me, you prefer a low-fructose diet.

Ingredients

(Makes one serving)

40g porridge oats
300ml water*
Vegetable bouillion powder*
85g mushrooms, sliced
A generous handful of spinach, whole or loosely torn
2 spring onions, chopped
A few leaves of basil, rolled up and thinly sliced
An egg**
Coconut oil for frying

Method

Prep all the vegetables first, and boil a full kettle – you’ll need it both to make up the stock and to poach your egg. Make up your stock, and get water into a pan to simmer for your egg.

Start off your porridge on the hob, using the stock. This recipe uses too much water on purpose as I wanted a really soft, swollen-flaked porridge – quite different to the thick, almost chunky “sweet” porridges I prefer. Adjust this to your own preference, but if you use my amount you’ll need a longer than usual cooking time to give the oats time to absorb the liquid. You’ll need to stir this quite frequently to stop it burning, so keep the heat medium-low. This is not a restful recipe, but you’ll make up for that when you eat it.

Put the coconut oil in a pan and start it melting. As it does so, check the poaching water – when it’s right, tip in the egg (this is the method I use). While the egg is cooking, put the mushrooms in the pan to sautee in the coconut oil. I also added all but the green fronds of the spring onion as I find it too strong  to have too much of it raw, but it’s up to you.

When the egg looks done – I like it with a runny, gluey middle – fish it out gently on a slotted spoon and set it to one side to drain. Duck egg whites are a bit more rubbery and translucent, so don’t worry if you haven’t used these before. Also, it will cool a little but this will not matter at all.

Go back to stirring the porridge until it’s the consistency you want. At the same time, the mushrooms will be almost ready – chuck in the spinach towards the end to just wilt, plus half the basil to warm it through. Season.

Pour the porridge into a bowl, spooning the vegetable mix on top. Gently tip the egg onto the top of that, and then sprinkle with the spring onion ends and remaining basil. Season again to taste, and dig straight in.

Runny yolks. Not beautiful to look at but SO GOOD.

Runny yolks. Not beautiful to look at but SO GOOD.

I meant to add a squirt of ketjap manis over the top for a hint of sweetness (and just to complete the ludicrous clash of multiple cultures already going on); I forgot, and it was still the most delicious thing I’ve made for some time. Also, it could probably have done with another texture – some nuts or pine nuts, or even steel-cut oats – but I have to admit for a fondness for comforting, baby food simplicity sometimes.

This is very much a ‘substitute what you like’ type recipe – in fact, it’s not even a recipe; it’s basically an elaborate serving suggestion.

I can feel a new obsession brewing already, as I try to work out what the next wonderful combination I can squeeze onto a plate is. And of course this is far from just breakfast. I’m a big fan of all foods at all times (pizza for breakfast; Shredded Wheat for dinner), but I particularly like the little glow of smugness you get from starting off the day with a couple of handfuls of veggies. Especially on the days when you know you’re likely to finish it on a dinner of a multipack of questionably flavoured crisps.

Oh dear. This is going to be a whole Pinterest board, isn’t it?

*I would usually just use my own stock here but I wanted a lighter vegetable stock and also it was frozen and I was feeling lazy
**I used a duck egg for richer flavour as I was feeling fancy, but as with all the above this is completely optional

Tasty Tuesdays on HonestMum.com

Free From Farmhouse
by Alexandra Roumbas Goldstein

I Quit Sugar: Thoughts from the end of the 8-week programme

After the half-way point and the week seven screw-up, I’ve had a bit of a chance to examine how I feel about IQS in general and whether or not I think it’s a) worthwhile and b) something I’ll be able to keep up indefinitely – since it is supposed to be a sort of ‘reset’ leading to permanent liberation from sugar binge cycles.

I’ve found it, largely, to be extremely beneficial. There are some caveats and watch-outs that I’ll list below, but on the whole I’ve found that mostly good things have come out of it. Such as:

  • Increased energy (eventually – I did have a two week sluggish dip in the middle)
  • Improved skin
  • A lower susceptibility to bingeing / bloating
  • Fewer sweet cravings (I still turn into a carb addict come Lady Week though I can usually stave it off with cheese and oatcakes – soz for the TMI)
  • More veg cravings (I always liked them but now I actively crave greens if I don’t get them)
  • Rediscovering how sweet certain things – especially fruit – really are (does wonders for your appreciation of them!)

I’ve also lost around 12-14lbs, which has levelled off and stayed stable for a week or two, suggesting that this weight is more or less my natural setpoint. I was aiming for better health, but I’m not going to argue if nature wants me to fit my clothes better. I do still need to work on fitness, but I am walking more than I used to.

On the whole, approached as a programme that is about resetting attitudes rather than going on a mad health purge, it’s a really handy way of structuring a fresh approach to food, and getting into healthier habits. I’ve struggled for years to ‘listen to my body’ and I’m still not 100% there, but without the influence of shedloads of sugar – and I was eating a LOT – I find it a hell of a lot easier than I did. Since completing the 8 weeks I’ve added back 1-2 helpings of fruit per day, usually lower fructose choices like berries, but they’re my favourites anyway; I also nibble on fairly regular infusions of 80-100% dark chocolate and it’s all felt very manageable. I continue to track what I eat out of curiosity, and I can still see patterns of more and less disordered eating here and there (the female reproductive cycle has a lot to answer for), but on the whole I’ve levelled out at around 25-30 grams of sugar a day, and that seems to leave me in a happy place. I had a slice of my daughter’s birthday cake and all was well – and I didn’t want more than a little bit. That was the place I wanted to arrive at, and I’m happy with it.

Now for the caveats.

  • Sarah WIlson touches on it in the book, but fat really can be a problem. I think I’m pretty much convinced that there’s nothing bad about fat in general and I’ve made my peace with eating more of it without that automatic feeling of guilt but there is such a thing as too much of a good thing; a few almonds = a good snack, an entire pack of almonds = unnecessary. Now, I refuse to be pejorative about food or eating, and I won’t say that it’s a case of ‘good’ vs ‘bad’, but I do know that there’s such a thing as ‘enough for me’ vs ‘too much for me’. And it’s very easy to blur that line when you’re crowding out sugar with fat. So it’s something to watch out for.
  • As a manifesto, the book has flaws. Some of the science is a bit woolly, the (meaningless) word ‘detox’ pops up and there is the inevitable cherry picking of data to support a particular view (and make the book readable, to be fair). I would have liked to have seen a twice as long introductory sector looking into this in more detail. The fact is, I already wanted off (most) sugar, because I find when I increase the amount I eat, I eat more stuff I don’t really want to and feel emotionally and physically crappy. But I missed the detail and delving of something more comprehensive like HAES.
  • The other thing to watch out for is unrealistic expectations. Wilson is careful not to make any specific health claims, and simply talks about how the knock on effect of her new approach to eating has appeared to improve her thyroid condition, but be wary of assuming that going low sugar will fix everything. If your symptoms improve, then that’s excellent, and at the very least I can’t imagine that putting a bit less crap into the body could be actively harmful. But don’t fall into the magical thinking trap.
  • Although the posters scream “lose weight”, it’s actually (rightly, in my opinion), a very small part of what’s touched on in the book. Wilson basically says some people lose a bit of weight, some people lose quite a lot – ie YMMV. Feeling altogether better is the aim here, not setting any weight or body targets.

This is probably the last I’m going to post about this, apart from if I share a suitable recipe, cos genuinely I think it all gets to be a bit dull and repetitive if all you do is evangelise about some food fad or other. I know that some people asked for an update after the 8 week point, so here’s what I’ve found overall, and I’m really happy to answer any questions here or on Twitter. 

 

by Alexandra Roumbas Goldstein

I Quit Sugar: What happens when you inevitably* screw up.

Before I began the IQS programme, I had afternoon tea booked with a friend for a couple of months down the line. It actually fell in week seven of the programme – around the time a certain amount of sugar, or at least sweetness, creeps back in, but before you’ve really completed the programme.

Now, I know you’re thinking “well, that’ll have been the screw up, then”. But actually it wasn’t. I found myself pleasantly and comfortably controlled on the day – except it wasn’t a case of control but just calmly allowing my body to decide what it was comfortable with. I ate scones, but with a little scrape of jam because more than that didn’t taste that good anymore. I ate half each of three little pastries but then I just felt like I was done. I had half my glass of prosecco because it was too hot to drink any more.

I’ve got to say, I felt pretty smug. It was like everything everyone says about moderation had totally clicked but, more than that, I had gone in with the attitude that I wasn’t going to be restrained or say “I shouldn’t”. I was going to go in and have exactly what I wanted. And by giving myself full permission to do that, I didn’t feel the need to overindulge.

Flushed by my success, I went back to normal eating the following day. And then work book club hit, and suddenly wine and orange juice and crisps and sweet popcorn and fizzy cola bottles and jelly beans were all within a foot of me. And for the first time in weeks they seemed appealing. And I went for it. Spectacularly.

Within the hour, the following symptoms appeared:

  • Itchy, hot skin
  • Jitters / shakes (not the visible kind)
  • Headache

Overnight, I experienced:

  • Poor sleep
  • Anxious thoughts (you know, the 3am type. At 3am.)

The morning I felt:

  • Bloated and rough with a skin flare up.

 

Now, there might of course be other reasons for some of these. While I had very little wine, alcohol does have an effect on sleep so that could be a contributing factor. We’ve had a bit of familial upheaval recently with schools and whatnot – not negative, but stressful. It might or might not be related to things that happen to women on a lunar basis. Hell, there could well be a psychosomatic element. But it seemed thoroughly too coincidental by half that all these symptoms appeared suddenly, en masse, on the night after I chose to gorge on something I’ve been avoiding for weeks.

I do wonder how it is I fell into the trap in the first place – trying to be sociable? Lady cravings? Overconfidence in my new found ability to say no? – but from discussing it with one of my friends it seems she did the same: ate sugar, felt bad, regretted it, got back on the wagon. Lather, rinse, repeat until the message sinks in. And certainly Sarah Wilson talks a lot about ‘lapsing’ (which, as she says, is not a lapse but just an experiment to see if you really want to continue eating sugar). After my experience, I’m not in a hurry to repeat my test, and I’ve been ‘crowding out’ with fats and veggies today to try and stave off the inevitable sugar hangover cravings.

I present this not really as evidence of anything expect my own experience, so do take from it what you will. It’s convinced me to get back on track, but then I’m the only person I have to convince…

*By which I mean when I inevitably screw up. Your mileage may vary, and your engine may be better tuned. But if you were all that brilliant, you wouldn’t be reading about quittin’ sugar, cos you’d have done it already so ha! Now we’re rubbish human together. Group hug!

by Alexandra Roumbas Goldstein

Simple short crust pastry jam tarts (diabetic option too)

Baking02-10Partially inspired by one of Rachel Allen’s programmes I was half-watching, I had a yen to experiment with some pastry as I’ve never really made it before. I thought I’d start with the simplest, which is short crust.

The principle with short crust is that fat should be half the weight of the starch in the mixture. So if you use 200g of (plain) flour, then you need 100g of fat. And for every 200g of flour you need roughly half a beaten egg. I use, at my mother’s suggestion, though Nigella concurs, a mixture of Stork margarine / butter and vegetable shortening (I use Trex but Crisco is much of a muchness). You could use entirely the latter for vegan pastry, but you’d probably have to be even more restrained with the egg as Trex is more damp than butter.

For 30 of these (using two silicon tarlet tins of 15 each), I used 300g of plain, 00 flour, 75g of Stork and 75g of Trex. The fat and flour go into a food processor and are quickly pulsed to make damp sand (or rubbed together with fingers if you’re without electrical aid). I guessed at pre-heating the oven fortuitously accurately. For little pats of pastry like these, around 150 degrees Celsius is fine.

For sweet pastry you can add one tablespoon of icing (confectioner’s) sugar, or a teaspoon of fructose for diabetic-friendly cakes. For savoury, a teaspoon of salt will do nicely. Or you could add nothing at all – I’ve forgetfully done that before and it still makes for lovely, buttery pastry.

A little of the beaten egg is poured in at a time and it’s pulsed / combined until it just combines; the pastry shouldn’t be too damp. I found I used just over one, but it will vary so best to just add a little at a time.

Once you can just about bring it together, wrap it up tight in clingfilm and pop it in the fridge for at least 30 minutes. In dire straits, Ms. Allen says the freezer for 15 will do. It makes it far more workable.

Roll it out between two sheets of clingfilm and use a cookie cutter just wider than the tarlet cases. Stamp out your shapes and pop them into the tartlet tins, pushing down gently to form a dip. Then drop around half a teaspoon’s worth of the jam of your choice into the dip – a no-sugar-added version if necessary. Don’t be tempted to overfill – some of the ones in the picture are slightly too generous and it upsets the nice pastry to sweetness ratio if you overdo it. The jam heats up and becomes rather runny, spreading to become a fetching jewel in the middle. I also used lemon curd which tastes wonderful but needs a lot longer to set after heating.

Eight to ten minutes is ample; the pastry might still look quite pale but it will be quite a dry texture already, and firm up more as it cools.

Half an hour to cool… and then a yummy tea time. Very simple, very quick, generally made from storecupboard ingredients and pleasing to everyone from kids (who can easily help to make them) to grannies. Love it.