The FastDay Forum

Oh some outcry here and my @fatdog that was a very big post to get through. My brain gets bamboozled at the figuring but recipes look good and I like to keep up with your progress.
I like the name of the 'wee beastie' too. How is your energy level with low carbs

Hmmm... agree with @gillymary - last week's blog-in-one-post is a heck of a long read: I'll try to split it into at least two or three food posts a week...

As for energy levels with the low-carb, you know, I actually think mine have gone up - well I suppose they have to, to cope with all the extra standing, stirring and cooking - though I must confess to being knackered by the end of the day.

Monday, day twenty-nine, fast day: what to do with a quarter of a cabbage and a large carrot that need eaten before they walk out of the fridge? CBB's cabbage gratin comes to mind (p82, day 2 of low-carb log), but it's actually too good a recipe to mess with, and it makes for four servings. So, somehow, the idea of cooked eggy, cheesy slaw emerged... dog's dinner no. 4 is born.

The recipe ate up all of my post break-fast calories and most of the carbs, but it was worth it. I further blew the calorie budget with a square of 85% chocolate - simply can't find food 'closure' without it:

....... Calories 569.45 Carbs 31.29 Fat 35.18 Protein 27.30 Fibre 12.51

For the recipes the figures below are: ......... amount used : cals : carbs : fat : protein : fibre

dog's dinner no. 4 - cooked eggy cheesy slaw
cabbage, white, shredded, 32c/C5.0/F0.2/P1.4/Fi2.1/100g
......... 274g 87.68 13.70 0.55 3.84 5.75
carrot, julienned, 41c/C9.58/F0.25/P0.93/Fi2.8/100g
......... 87g 35.67 8.33 0.22 0.81 2.44
onion, fine sliced, 43cal/C9.3g/F0g/P0.71g/Fi2.1g/100g
......... 42g 18.06 3.91 0.00 0.30 0.88
eggs, brown, 151cal/C0g/F11.2g/P12.5/Fi0g/100g
......... ~54g x 1 of 81.54 0.00 6.05 6.75 0.00
stilton, 410c/C0.1/F35.0/P23.7/F0/100g
......... 32g 131.20 0.03 11.20 7.58 0.00
chilli, red, fine chopped, 40cal/Fa0.2g/Ca9.5g/Fi1.5g/P2.0g/100g
......... 7g 2.80 0.67 0.01 0.14 0.11
sunflower oil, 125c/C0/F13.8/P0/Fi0/15ml
......... 7.5ml 62.50 0.00 6.90 0.00 0.00
s&p; 0.0
total for dog's dinner no. 4 419.45 26.64 24.93 19.42 9.18

Method: 1. heat the oil in a non-stick pan (wok even!!); 2. soften the onions, add the chilli and after a couple of minutes add the cabbage; 3. cook the cabbage until it has softened which might take ten minutes or more; 4. add the carrot and soften it down too; 5. in a separate bowl, beat the egg and then mix in the cheese and plenty of salt and pepper; 6. pour the cheesy egg over the veggies and after three or so minutes turn and mix cheesy egg in with the veg.

This quantity of cabbage is unlikely to be to a normal being's taste, but FatDogs are strange beasts and, although I had to reheat my dinner part way through because it took a while to eat, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I'd suggest a half-serving of this with something else would be more likely to be appreciated by humans

==================================

Tuesday, day thirty, feed day: right - time to shift that quorn mince out of the freezer before the OH heaves it. I'm thinking of lasagne, as my cheese stocks are rather high and I wouldn't be venturing into completely unexplored territory.

Except I'm not sure what to substitute for the pasta: cabbage (if only I'd planned ahead - I could have saved myself from eating 274g of it last night!); aubergine or courgette - not fond of either when cooked in sauces; or the 'egg and cream-cheese pizza-base / pancake' - suggested by some bright spark on-line, might be a bit much with cheese sauce too; or very thin egg crepes - another on-line suggestion, has certain merits; or even low-carb / gluten free fresh pasta - I seem to have all the ingredients that are needed for one of the recipes (see below), just not the pasta rolling machine... I think I'll have a bash at the fresh pasta (so much for not venturing off-piste).

There are quite a few low-carb / gluten free fresh pasta recipes out there - the most disappointing have a great fanfare and then list 'gluten free / low-carb flour mix' in their ingredients, duh.

A couple of the more useful hopeful ones:
http://glutenfreegirl.com/2011/07/glute ... esh-pasta/ uses gram flour, millet and potato starch amongst other things...

or maybe chickpea and flaxseed pasta (third and only other ingredient is water!) http://backtoherroots.com/2011/09/27/ch ... uten-free/ which one commenter made with soy - needed 2T extra water

And the one I'm going to try:
http://yourlighterside.com/2009/05/reci ... aghetti-2/
It was posted four years ago and has very few comments so it could be a complete disaster, but nothing ventured, nothing gained... Looking at the on-line wisdom I'll make sure to boil it very briefly, a minute maybe, before putting it into the dish. I'm pondering one of the comments which suggests a little cornflour. I think I'll also put a little black pepper in with the salt...

Fingers crossed.

Well, gosh. I do believe that that worked - OH gave it 9.8 (a little generous perhaps) and, if fed to the unwary / slightly sloshed, they might not even notice that they weren't eating real pasta lasagne.

As my first attempt at making fresh pasta of *any* sort, I'm rather proud of myself! The pasta could certainly have done with being rolled *much* thinner; overlaps are probably to be avoided - those bits were give-aways, possibly because of the thickness; salt and then salt a bit more; and it might be worth investigating whether the pasta does better with being boiled a wee bit first (which I did) ,or not doing this step at all, in relation to its 'bite'.

Yippee! Pasta is back on the menu! Now all I need is one of those pasta mangle-wurzle machines so that I don't have to fight with the rolling pin and bread board.

As for the recipe overall, I'll do something better next time than the 'cream cheese with grated cheese' that substituted for a proper cheese sauce.

Otherwise - jolly tasty and it didn't cripple the calories or dent the carbs:

....... Calories 1387.39 Carbs 25.74 Fat 94.96 Protein 55.01 Fibre 20.24

FatDog's low-carb lasagne no. 1

quorn mince sauce
quorn mince, 105c/C4.5/F2.0/P14.5/Fi5.5/100g
......... 350g 367.50 15.75 7.00 50.75 19.25
mushrooms, cc, organic, 15cal/C0.4g/F0.5g/P1.8g/Fi1.0g/100g
......... 105g 15.75 0.42 0.53 1.89 1.05
bell pepper, green, 20c/C2.6/F0.3/P0.8/Fi1.6/100g
......... 96g 19.20 2.50 0.29 0.77 1.54
tomatoes, tinned, chopped 15c/C3.0/F0.1/P1.0/Fi0.7/100g
......... 400g 60.00 12.00 0.40 4.00 2.80
onion, red, co-op, fine sliced, 35cal/C7.6g/F0.2g/P1.3g/Fi1.4g/100g
......... 116g 40.60 8.82 0.23 1.51 1.62
garlic, fine chopped, 149cal/Fa0.5g/Ca33.06g/Fi2.1g/P6.36g/100g
......... 7g 10.43 2.31 0.04 0.44 0.15
chilli flakes
......... 5ml 0.00
italian herbs
......... 5ml 0.00
basil, dried
......... needed an extra 10ml 0.00
lemon juice, 26c/C2.0/F0/P0.4/Fi0.3/100ml
......... 15ml 3.90 0.30 0.00 0.06 0.05
sunflower oil, 125c/C0/F13.8/P0/Fi0/15ml
......... 30ml 250.00 0.00 27.60 0.00 0.00
s&p 0.00

Method: 1. heat oil in non-stick pan (a wok, even); 2. add onions and cook until softening; 3. add green peppers and cook a minute or two, then add garlic, mushrooms, herbs and spices; 4. when mushrooms are somewhat reduced add quorn mince and slushy tomatoes; 5. cook until reduced, season and put on very low heat until needed.

cheese sauce
cream cheese, full-fat, 260c/C2.8/F25.0/P5.4/Fi0/100g
......... 100g 260.00 2.80 25.00 5.40 0.00
mature cheddar, sainsers, grated, 390c/C0.1/F32.0/P25.5/Fi0/100g
......... 180g 748.80 0.18 62.82 45.90 0.00
nutmeg, ground
......... 2ml 0.00
water
......... enough to make the 'cheese sauce' just about spreadable! 0.00
s&p 0.00

Method: 1. add water to cream cheese for a spreadable consistency; 2. season generously and mix in nutmeg; 3. grate (or slither) cheddar cheese and set aside.

pasta
soya flour, 424c/C16.0/F20.0/P39.0/Fi12.0/100g
......... 84g (== 1 cup) 356.16 13.44 16.80 32.76 10.08
eggs, brown, 151cal/C0g/F11.2g/P12.5/Fi0g/100g
......... ~54g x 1 of 81.54 0.00 6.05 6.75 0.00
sunflower oil, 125c/C0/F13.8/P0/Fi0/15ml
......... 15ml 125.00 0.00 13.80 0.00 0.00
water
......... 30ml to 40ml 0.00
s&p 0.00

Method: 1. mix soy flour, salt and pepper in a big bowl; 2. make a pit in the centre of the mix and add the egg and the oil; 3. gradually whisk / mix in the flour with a fork until dough is crumbly; 4. add a little water at a time until you have a not-too-dry / not-too-wet dough; 5. work the dough with the heel of your hand for about five minutes; 6. cover with cling-film (or an upside-down bowl will do) and rest for about half an hour; 7. we're not too bothered about the shape of our pasta sheets as we can simply jigsaw them in, so just break off walnut sized pieces of the dough and roll them as thin as is humanly possible (a little extra soy flour on the board and rolling pin might help here), some suggest resting the rolled pasta for a while too (I had no time to do this and was actually rolling them whilst boiling and layering!)

bringing it all together

Method: 1. bring salted water to the boil in a large pan; 2. using half the quorn sauce make a first layer in an oven-proof dish; 3. dunk a pasta sheet into the boiling water for a minute, drain the water off and layer onto your sauce and repeat until the sauce is covered; 4. cover the pasta with a layer of cream cheese (thin, if anything like mine) and then slithered cheddar; 5. use the remains of the quorn sauce to make another layer and repeat 3. & 4.; 6. bake in a pre-heated oven at 180C for about 20 minutes or until the top is golden brown and bubbling; 7. serve with a nice leafy salad

total Cals 2338.88 Carbs 58.52 Fat 160.55 Protein 150.23 Fibre 36.53
FatDog's ¼ portion of dog's low-carb lasagne no. 1 584.72 14.63 40.14 37.56 9.13

=========================================

Apologies for typos - the spell-checker does not appear to work on pasted-in material when using the Chrome browser (wave to @Moogie)

I was thinking FD while I was reading your very expressive recipes that a photo of the aforementioned dish would be memorable because as I read I get the impression your recipes sound very tasty and I bet things look good at completion. I am just salivating about all that Stilton. This dish sounds great too. You are converting me while I am not really yet vegetarian I don't tolerate wheat well so your recipes would be a great alternative when I want to cook low carb indulgent cheesy dishes

@gillymary I was beginning to think that perhaps wheat didn't agree with me either (bloat after pasta, pizza, bread-fests) which helped in my deciding to go low-carb - must say that I've not noticed any bloat in the last month (tmi: except for the occasional transit backlog, which is different). I've actually felt quite energised and am looking at fitness classes even! One of the papers that PhilT posted further up-thread (p2) mentioned that people embarking upon a low-carb diet increased their energy expenditure.

I'm hoping that I will find a sustainable carb level at around the 70g level (up to 100g even) which will make this WoE more viable - it's proving rather expensive just now with so many eggs, nuts and cheeses, and restrictive with respect to raiding the the bargains shelf in the supermarket! It's very much a culinary voyage of discovery. But I'll not be going back to consuming 'white' carbs with any regularity again, they're reserved for emergencies or for very special occasions, and maybe a rare fantasy blow-out to keep my system on it's toes.

I've thought about taking pictures of the food as some of the dishes really do look good - last night's lasagne and Sunday's Thai bean cakes come to mind - will see what I can do.

Cheers, FatDog.

[Moogie]

@FatDog The forum doesn't have a spellchecker, so this must be something to do with settings on your system as to whether it works when you paste things in or not, sorry! There's nothing special about the text inputs here which should interfere in any way.

Yes I thought both those recipes would have looked good as well as a few others past.

Well I got my Stilton and I would use it on a 16:8 day so any suggestions as to a delightful recipe as Have never cooked with Stilton usually just have with very thin crackers and a quince paste I have made.

@gillymary Mushrooms and stilton are made for each other.

You could try CBB's field mushrooms and blue cheese custard - I did a cheat's version of this on day 21, you'd only need to add two beaten egg yolks to the cheese in step 5, and maybe leave out the broccoli (which was my addition) to avoid any risk of 'soggy-bottoms'.

At their simplest, mushroom and stilton pots: use the wee 100ml pots of the type Gu puddings come in - 3/4 pack with mushrooms and then crumble stilton on top and bung in a hot oven until the cheese is bubbly and brown - variations on this, and much more sophisticated versions, are endless.

I use stilton in many vegetable gratins - e.g. cauliflower and / or broccoli, fennel. Indeed, I'd use it in many recipes that called for cheese if I could afford it, but then I like very strong cheeses - stilton can overwhelm a recipe if the the cheese is *meant* to be bland.

Stilton in salads is delicious too - try spinach leaf (and others - e.g. romaine), walnut, pear and stilton. And omelettes with stilton and mushrooms are luscious - mmmm... that's tomorrows repair-day omelette sorted FatDog

Oh yum I love strong cheeses too so I can hardly wait to do a mushroom and Stilton pot for my lunch one day very soon, thanks FD much appreciated

Wednesday, day thirty-one, repair day: I'm jumping ship and joining the 'repair' rather than 'fast' day folk from now on - it's a much better descriptor of what the day's purpose is for me. But, even then, 'repair' doesn't properly reflect the anti-degenerative aspects of this WoE / WoL - 'pro-health'? Bit lame... 'Repair' will do for now.

Yesterday's lasagne is rather too calorific for a fast repair day (unless I go for a non-FatDog-like sparrow portion) so pondering the options centering on a green bell pepper.

Well, grumph. Thoroughly out of sorts day - first time that I've felt angsty-hungry, from late afternoon onwards, and woozy headed too. Dinner was a nice enough greekish-style salad with rocket, plus two ryvitas with a mini-portion (16g) of boursin, followed by the ever-present (single) square of 85%. Had intended to make CBB's sesame and black pepper crackers(p96) but felt so odd that I abandoned the idea.

Still hungry an hour after dinner so had a wee portion of almonds. And still hungry a further hour later, and sore-tummied, so took OH up on his offer of sultanas (10g) to get things moving. Looking forward to bed (it's only 21:30 and I'm usually still up at 02:00hrs). Grumph. Assuming I don't have a complete breakdown, accounts for the day are somewhat over at:

....... Calories 591.30 Carbs 35.64 Fat 37.11 Protein 21.90 Fibre 14.46

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Thursday, day thirty-two, feed day: bother it. I think the cabbage figures might have been right(ish) after all - caught by the U.S. of A. trick of needing to subtract fibre from carbohydrate. So please feel free to eat a quarter pound of cabbage with no carb worries after all, it's probably only 3g carb / 100g not 5g

Dinner was easy - Tuesday's lasagne (smaller portion as a neighbour joined us for dins) with a ready-made pomodorino tomato salad from Sainsers, followed by strawberries and cream! Oooh, and accompanied by a very nice glass of sauvignon blanc. Plus the usual break-fast and late evening snacks... A nice easy no-cook day. Except I'm hungry, or think I am: this is a new trick, and I don't like it. Humph.

Ha! That's the hunger away - just needed to 'do' something other than contemplate my plateau.

....... Calories 1365.83 Carbs 34.80 Fat 94.20 Protein 50.45 Fibre 17.33

==================================

Friday, day thirty-three, repair day:

Hmmm... could the stall and hunger be something to do with the increase in carbs meaning a decrease in protein and fat - because I've not increased the calories - just when my system was nicely getting used to all that lovely fat? And it's even more extreme on repair days, as the % carb calories for 35g is much higher than before - indeed, at 28% it goes over the eco-atkins level (24%).

I suspect that yo-yo-ing from generally less than 10% carb calories on feed days to, now, up to 28% carb calories on repair days is confusing the heck out of my gut (tmi: might account for the somewhat liquid deposits that I'm making, that's when I make any deposits at all).

So, I urgently need to do a wee bit of analysis on my figures and review my carb allowance for repair days.

I feel (a word that my science supervisor banished) that I should aim for my repair day carb being below 15% of overall calorie intake; that's more extreme than all the diet approaches except for Atkins phase 1, but then they're not doing low-calorie repair days.

Decided: until I've done the sums (quake - stats were never a point of mine, let alone a strong point) my carb % calories allowance on repair days will be 15% which in grams is 18.75 - that's ((500 cals / 100%) * 15%) / 4 cals-per-g-carb - I'll be generous and call it 19g.

Rather serendipitously that works out at C19g : F36g : P25g for C15% : F65% : P20% - Paleo with the carbs / protein switched round. Maybe I won't bother with those sums after all: I rather like that balance .

And now for something completely different: I should mention that I'm using Alpro plain soya yoghurt in the slacker's recipe just now: a) it was considerably cheaper than the lovely Yeo Valley and b) it has fewer carbs. Well bother that - it's nowhere near as nice, so I think I'll be reverting to Yeo Valley as soon as I finish the pot.

Recipes you cry! Well, dinner was an omelette: not with stilton, as I thought it wouldn't go with my cilantro which was begging to be used, but with a *huge* lump of cheddar (out dread carbs, out!). Not sure if you need an(other) omelette recipe, but here's one anyway. I'll try for something more adventurous tomorrow.

Numbers-wise, it all went a bit pear shaped and I rolled-over into a half-repair-day (750 cals), oops; I blame the cheese:

....... Calories 753.28 Carbs 14.41 Fat 49.97 Protein 35.78 Fibre 13.32

For the recipe the figures below are (grams unless otherwise stated):
......... amount used : cals : carbs : fat : protein : fibre

omelette no. 2 - cheese and mushroom
eggs, brown, 151cal/C0g/F11.2g/P12.5/Fi0g/100g
......... ~54g x 1 of 81.54 0.00 6.05 6.75 0.00
mature cheddar, lake district, grated, 416cal/C0.1/F34.9/P25.4/Fi0/100g
......... 55g 228.80 0.06 19.20 14.03 0.00
mushrooms, cc, organic, 15cal/C0.4g/F0.5g/P1.8g/Fi1.0g/100g
......... 104g 15.60 0.42 0.52 1.87 1.04
onion, fine chopped, 43cal/C9.3g/F0g/P0.71g/Fi2.1g/100g
......... 46g 19.78 4.28 0.00 0.33 0.97
olive oil, 824cal/F91.6g/C,P&FI<0.1g/100mL
......... 5ml 41.20 0.00 4.58 0.00 0.00
garlic, 149cal/Fa0.5g/Ca33.06g/Fi2.1g/P6.36g/100g
......... 1 clove 3g 4.47 0.99 0.02 0.19 0.06
chilli, red, 40cal/Fa0.2g/Ca9.5g/Fi1.5g/P2.0g/100g
......... 9g 3.60 0.86 0.02 0.18 0.14
coriander, fresh, rough chopped, 23c/C0.87/F0.52/P2.13/Fi2.8/100g
......... 3g 0.69 0.03 0.02 0.06 0.08
s&p 0.00
total 395.68 6.62 30.39 23.41 2.29

Method: 1. heat oil in non-stick pan with a small base, saute onion until softening; 2. add mushrooms, garlic and chilli and saute until the mushrooms have reduced; 3. beat the egg in a bowl; 4. mix in grated cheese and fresh coriander with the egg and season well; 5. add cheesy egg mix to the pan; 6. cook omelette for a few minutes on each side.

Suggestions for easy flipping-over of omelettes made in a wok will be gratefully received

Mind boggles over images of you trying to flipp eggs in a wok, FD how hard would that be umm I expect that's why he question. Thinking walk my dog get to gym and back in time to make something with mybstilton. Omelette alongside that Stilton mushroom pot. Am 16:8 today so can be creative.

That's a great video @izzy - ta everso. I managed to turn my first omelette over well enough last week but blowed if I can remember how. Today's was folded. And in several pieces. Still, it all goes down the same way - and it tasted good, which is what matters

Enjoy your stilton & mushrooms @gillymary - omelette is definitely a good thing to go with them (but maybe use a frying pan).

Cheers, FatDog.

@izzy - the more I read about carbs, the less I understand: I think I'll have to get the Phinney & Volek book sooner rather than later and then dig out the more recent pubmed papers...

I went 'raw' for over six months many years ago: brilliant but affy hard work. From that experience, IMHO I'd suggest that you smoothie rather than juice: that way you get the whole food including the good fibre etc. - juicing, in the extreme, gives you pretty coloured / flavoured sugar-water with just the soluble vitamins etc. FatDog

Fatdog, your posts have kept me entertained, bemused and mystified in almost equal measure over the last while and I finally plucked up the courage to make a cauli based pizza, which I was extremely sceptical about, but your valiant endeavours encouraged me and I am happy to report it was a success (to me that means it didn't taste of cauliflower!), one which I hope to repeat and improve on in the future. I find myself going more and more low carb too, feel better for it, but find myself eating much more fats and oil when I cut down on protein. I lost weight years ago doing Atkins, (how many times has that sentence been repeated?) but fell off the carb wagon straight into a carbfest. Now I see where I went wrong, too much protein in place of the carbs, and as an omnivore scunnered myself to the extent of not even enjoying eggs, meat or fish and just the thought of another chicken or slice of bacon made me feel nauseous. I think I have the balance much better this time around, and am enjoying a great variety of foods, veggies in particular. I have overdosed a bit on cauliflower though and very much appreciated the pizza not tasting of said vegetable! My dil is Sardinian and I am wondering if I can persuade her to give it a try? I have my doubts
I am going to Sardinia later this week and will be abandoning my lower carb lifestyle, temporarily anyway. I blame the ice cream which I honestly think is the best in the world! Oh, and the pasta, the pizza, the bread, fruit....help !(but yum..)

I'm glad you've enjoyed my low-carb journey @dhana - it's been quite entertaining for me too! I'm afraid that cauliflower does get rather 'over-exposed' in the first few weeks of low-carbing - it has certainly been a mainstay for me (happy you didn't notice it in the pizza).

I hope you enjoy your trip to Sardinia - guilt free. And I thought that ice-cream was low-carb anyway

Saturday, day thirty-four, week-end feed day: lentils? chick peas? both!

A FatDog version of spiced lemony lentils with roast (sweet, for dog) potatoes from 'the diabetes cooking book' (Hunter & Whinney, p200) with baby leaf salad with herbs & dressing. Mmmm. Darn good thing that I thoroughly enjoyed it (as did OH and guests) because:

Oh very rude words - how did I have it in my head that sweet potatoes (C21.3g/100g) were better for low-carbing than ordinary tatties (C17.2g/100g), which I did for the others? Must have seen it somewhere in one of my GI diet books - ah ha, got you, yes, you Dr. Jennie Bond-Miller et al. - FatDog must remember better low-GI does not equate to lower low-carb! The name should have been the give-away - sweet potato. Thank goodness I didn't eat the whole lot (215g shrinks to a remarkably wee looking portion once it's roasted).

Eejit! Eejit! Eejit! Because the tatties are (perhaps) the excusable bit - the lentil and chickpea bit isn't. I mean, I know that they're both off the menu for phase 1 / carb-cleanse because of higher carb levels so that should have rung alarm bells about putting them together. Well, it did, but I willfully ignored them bells, thinking that sharing the recipe between four portions would fix it.

Another shining example of why one must plan one's low-carb menu - one will know beforehand that a sixth portion is all one may have. So, remember: no free-style cooking until you are properly experienced, oh FatDog... And even then, do some sums first.

I can't bear it - I'm still calculating the damage. Now, having blown it completely - I'm further blowing it by finishing my second (poured-before-I-realized) glass of cab. sauv. - drowning my sorrows whilst doing the sums. And the numbers are:

....... Calories 1049.27 Carbs 60.03 Fat 51.72 Protein 35.88 Fibre 25.09

Damnit.

I'll do the recipes tomorrow - I'm too miserable just now. Dear OH keeps saying, don't worry - you've done ever so well... I can't quite get him to understand that I've probably shunted myself out of a hard-worked for nutritional ketosis state which ain't going to float back on a wish...

Damnit. Not sure what to do. Starve tomorrow (Sunday)? Don't know. Howl.