Omega-oils-tastic salad!

Went a bit nuts with the Omega fatty acids with this dinner...

 

Omega-tastic salad; serves 1 (easily scales up) - (763kcals - 42g protein, 45g carbs, 46g fat, 2.3 fruit and veg)

• Mixed oriental leaves (Abel and Cole) - a good handful (40g)
• Smoked salmon trimmings - half a pack (60g)
• Red salad potatoes (Abel and Cole) - a decent portion (175g)
• Red onions (Abel and Cole) - quarter of a small one, finely chopped (25g)
• Jerusalem Artichokes (Abel and Cole) - a couple of small ones (40g)
• Food Doctor Omega seeds - 1 heaped tbsp (25g)
• Mixed bean sprouts (Abel and Cole) - a couple of heaped tbsp (25g)
• Free range eggs (Abel and Cole) - 2, hardish boiled
• Extra Virgin olive oil - a good couple of lugs (10ml)
• Fresh lemon juice - juice half a lemon
• Mayonnaise - a good heaped tbsp (30g)
• salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

1. Cut into bite-sized chunks the potatoes and artichokes (hopefully some are small enough to leave hole).
2. Boil the potatoes and artichokes to firm, but cooked.  Drain and set aside to cool a little.
3. Boil the eggs, drain and set aside to cool a little before peeling the shells.
4. Finely chop the onion.
5. Put the mayonnaise and half the lemon juice in a bowl. Add the onion and mix.
6. Add the warm potatoes and artichokes to the mix and the heat of the potatoes will help the dressing mix to coat them well.
7. Lay the salad leaves in a wide bowl.  Sprinkle the bean sprouts and seeds on top.  Add the salmon trimmings to cover about 50% of the surface, mostly in the middle of the bowl.
8. Drizzle the olive oil over the surface and the rest of the lemon juice and season with black pepper.
9. Cut the eggs in half and arrange around the edges.
10. Spoon the potatoey mix onto the centre of the bowl and season again with black pepper.
11. Serve immediately.

Flaming salad!

(...or how I made a very pretty salad with lots of reds and oranges in it.)

We had a load of peppers (190g) and tomatoes (300g) from Abel and Cole that needed using up, so I roasted the peppers in the oven with olive oil and fresh thyme and rested them in the fridge overnight in olive oil.  Next day, I'd decided to make a salad with them so fished out the tomatoes and some left-over baby new potatoes (120g) from a previous dinner, chopped it all up together and added lots of Spanish chorizo (50g) (thank you Ocado for some really nice stuff on that front - soft, sweet and nicely flavoured with lots of paprika) and a dash of lemon juice, black pepper and a pinch of salt.

And look how it turned out...

Sooo pretty!  And so tasty with amazing quality ingredients from Abel and Cole.  The only ingredient not from them was the chorizo.

Not really feeling the journal vibe

I'm really not feeling the journalling vibe at the moment.  Probably mostly because I've been out and not been doing very well on the keeping things sensible front.  So.  Quick round-up and probably a couple more days of quiet if I'm still not up to it tomorrow.

Monday... I had a great gym.  We went out to dinner (I had goats cheese terrine, steak with spinach and cabbage, and stilton and water biscuits at the end) to celebrate something.  I ended up lots of kcals over maintenance (2962kcals, 750kcals over maintenance) mostly due to the Bellinis before and the champagne during dinner.  We stayed out in town - fantastic blaggage on where we stayed but that's a story for another day.

Tuesday... rest day; we couldn't be bothered to cook so we ended up with takeaway.  I was still very comfortably under maintenance kcals (1646kcals, 140kcals under maintenance), but...

Wednesday... the scales punished me big-time.  Back up 1.5kg again.  Yeah I had saltiness in the takeaway, but seriously.  *sigh*

Gym today was good and bad.  I was "helped" by some guy who told me that seeing as my planks looked so comfortable (hah!) I should try lifting alternate legs, or doing Superman planks.  Yeah.  Thanks.  I do know how to progress planks and actually I was trembling during those planks.  However, my arms did feel amazing during and after my clean and presses, buzzing/fizzing/vibrating; nice!  AND, my negative motion pull-ups are getting better and more controlled.

I got a freebie from Ocado the other day; a new snacky bar thing, branded by "Elizabeth Hurley".  I was very skeptical and then I read the ingredients and there actually wasn't any crap in it.  I tried it today after my protein shake after gym as I was still hungry (I'm having one of those "permanently hungry" days :o/)  Very sickly sweet but pretty flavourless in the end though.  It was supposed to be banana and chocolate flavoured but it was just bland and sweet.

So, not impressed and wouldn't bother actually buying these.  There are plenty of other, better products on the market already and, yeah it may have "only" 100kcals in a bar but there's nothing special about it, it didn't taste of much and it was only 26g.  Many many other, better fish in the sea.

Dinner today was not too bad in the end, despite the fact that Halloumi goes rubbery pretty quickly after cooling down.  The mango went very nicely and mint in the dressing topped it off nicely.  But, like all of the rest of today, I'm still hungry.  I am.   It's not fair.  I wish I wasn't.  But I am.  And all I really want right now is crusty, white baguette with spread, not even butter.  I could nip out and get some from the Sainsburys down the road, but I'm not going to.  This week has started off badly enough already (though the food on Monday was really good and clean too, I drank a bit too much wine) and I'm not sure how much of my current weight is transit/water etc.  So I do want to be close to my loss kcal target for the day.

B - greek yogurt with 1 scoop MP Max, fruit compote and flaked almonds
S - banana
L - salad; lettuce, celery, cherry tomatoes, beetroot, sweet pepper, Food Doctor Herb Boost, chicken breast
*gym*
S - 1 scoop MP Max in skimmed milk
S - Elizabeth Hurley bar - chocolate and banana
S - carrot and houmous
D - salad; lettuce, mint, olive oil, vinegar, mango, toasted pine nuts and grilled Halloumi

Calories (kcal) [kcals to maintain weight (inc. exercise)	1765 2220]
Protein (g)	140.8 (32.3%)
Carbohydrate (g)	137.6 (29.6%)
Fat (g)	73.7 (38.1%)
Fibre (g)	23.9
Fruit & Veg	12.2

Accidental dinner out

My office is in an area of the city which is undergoing lots of redevelopment; scaffolding and dug up road everywhere!  Anyway, this is resulting in lots of nice eateries and cafes popping up around the office; most recently a Brasserie Blanc which I can see from my desk.  It officially opened last night so we decided at about 5pm to go for dinner :o)

We both had the starter from the specials menu; a sausage salad with tiny poached egg and potatoes:-

Which was pretty delicious.  The tiny piles of crisped wisps of onion were gorgeous!  The potatoes were just perfectly cooked and really tasted of potato, like the Castle Potatoes (a single, smallish potato still in its skin, sliced along the fat axis into 1/8" slices and, I think, roasted with no oil) I had with my slow cooked veal for main course.


Mr TOTKat (below) had steak for a main course and it was delicious!  Much better than the ones at Relais de Venise, L'Entrecote over the alley.

And it all went a bit pear-shaped after that and we ended up having loads of bread before the meal and at the end with cheese and dessert wine.  Oops!  Still!  It was a lovely night out and the food and drink was really rather good (though the cheese wasn't all that exciting, which was a tiny bit of a shame).  I don't think I'm going to be losing any more weight over the next couple of days :o)  (which is a good thing as I don't want to lose any more thanks very much!)

Sub-optimal day

Well, it never was going to be a great day, given how it started at 05:30, was it? And to top it off, I've just started to get a sore throat and hot/itchy eyes. Having not had more than a niggle of a cold in god knows how long, I really don't want to start again now.

B - huge bowl of porridge with raisins and chopped banana
L - ham, Philadelphia Extra Light, mustard and tomato sandwich on toasted wholemeal granary bread
S - carrots and caramelised onion houmous
D - salad: chicken fillet, lettuce, cous cous, sweet pepper, honey and mustard dressing

Exercise - none, enforced rest

Calories (kcal) [kcals to maintain weight (inc. exercise)	1393 1784]
Protein (g)	82.4 (24.5%)
Carbohydrate (g)	194.5 (54.3%)
Fat (g)	31.6 (21.2%)
Fruit & Veg	8.0