Ham is good for you (well, combined with lots of vegs and fruit...)

Ah, today was another creative day for cooking.
I had my favorite weekend breakfast again (the mushrooms, tomato's and bacon. Mmmmmm), for lunch I had a whole pineapple (also very good), and for dinner I stir fried a courgette (in slices), a sweet pointed paprika/bellpepper (I like those very much!), and 250 grams of ham in cubes, seasoned with lots of currypowder and pepper and a bit of sweet chili sause (that combines with everything)... I had half of this, and half a can of red beets in slices as salad. The combination between the salty ham and the sweeter bellpepper and ret beets was very good. The other half I'll keep for tomorrow.
All in all I had no more than 800 kcal today, which is good, for yesterday at lunch I had some rolls of bread with cheese and soup (I was with someone else), so I ate starchy and lots of calories, though my breakfast (fruit) and dinner (leftovers from thursday) were not very caloric.
Once again I have to note that eating this way is a very easy way to lose weight. You must eat lots of fruit and vegetables to get to the advised amount of calories. And now I realise how good this food is, I don't really need pizza's or pasta any more...
Have to try out more creative idea's soon. I'll keep y'all informed!

KISS

Today's motto was "Keep It Simple, Stupid!".

Breakfast was so simple I didn't even take a picture - two apples and an orange. No protein made me a bit peccish, so I made a nice big lunch.
It was stir fried tenderloin and broccoli with the simplest of salads - tomato and cucumber.

Hardly had time for dinner, so to eggs and a salted herring with some veggies hed to do. They did.

All in a day's work

All right, that's too many posts. So I'll just do one post a day. That seems reasonable.

Breakfast is what you see, no surprises.

Lunch is a nice (though not so nicely displayed) Victoria bass with some salt and lots of thyme, accompanied by stir fried tomatoes, fennel and celery stalks. Also some fresh ones there.


Dinner is two eggs with stir fried mushrooms, red cabbage and aubergine, or eggplant if wou will.

Simply outstanding!

Finally after some not very noteworthy meals (prepackaged vegetables to stir fry), today I made something to even rival Cornells most outrageously good recipes.
What I did was: I took a large broccoli (400 grams?), a package of 250 grams of a kind of mushroom they call the 'chestnut mushroom'. It's brownish rather than white and has a bit more taste to it. And then a large sweet pointed paprika (bellpepper). Yes, there are more varieties of this kind of pepper than I even thought possible. But this one is really good: it's color is dark red, it's taste is sweet and a bit pepperish at the same time. (Better than the small, yellos 'snack paprika's' I tried last weekend). I cut the broccoli in pieces, and the paprika, and I cleaned out the mushrooms (without cutting them). I stir fried some chicken (200 grams, in pieces), added the vegetables, and then added a bit of ketjap and a bit of sweet chili sauce.
Sadly I can't describe the taste of it. I was sorely tempted to eat it all, but I kept half of it for tomorrow evening. I can honestly say it was the best I have made for a long time.

Today I had two kiwifruits, one banana and three tangerines for breakfast (with some nuts) and for lunch I had the customary 300 grams of carrots and 100 grams of chicken. All in all approximately 950 kilocalories today. I'm proud of myself!

Purple Pork

Food, food, food - that's all this blog ever seems to be about. You'd think I'm obsessed with it. Maybe I am. I'm addicted. If I don't eat, I die - really!

This linner was tenderloin with leaks, red cabbage and mango. It was all right, but I got it wrong, the tenderloin should have been less well done and the mango should have been fried longer. Then the meat and mango would have made a perfect match. (I ate twice this amount by the way).

Rays of Gold

What can I say? Breakfast anyone?

Dutch Fries

Dinner is pork tenderloin with mushrooms and red cabbage. The orange chips are fried pumpkin slices.

I made the mistake of adding a bit of salt to the pork dish (which turned out to have needed none) but none to the pumpkin. That turned out to be a bit bland, so I sprinkled just a little salt over those as well. That made all the difference. I've decided that the Netherlands gets a second national dish (the other one obviously being salted herring), in our dutch national colour, orange. Ladies and gentlemen, may I present you - Dutch Fries.

The Wild Side

Yesterday I went to market and picked up some wild salmon. The colour was just so beautifull I had to show you. A fresh, deep red. Yummy. Fried it in a bit of olive oil (never use anything else) with salt and pepper.

I added some celery stalks, an orange, olives and fried fennel. Yummy.

Shakira

So what's with the Title? Hey, you try giving a relevant and attractive name to every singel meal you make and soon, you'll be calling them Beyonce too.

And anyway, Shakira would have liked the taste of this, I bet. And it would have been good for her too. In fact, I wouldn't be at all surprised to find out she eats like this already.

It's a fried egg with paprika and pepper (I guess I could have called it PnP). The reds are strawberries (why do I even bother to name everything) and nectarines. The yellows are mango slices. I think from now on I'll stick to naming things that aren't so bloody obvious.

Nuts!

Ah, the absence of lettuce...
This was supposed to be an omelet, but it worked out differently. There's two eggs less one yolk, half a courgette and a tomato with a seasoning of paprika, chilli, chives and strips of nori yaki. A very chuncky salad of celery stalks and nuts (pecans, hazelnuts, walnuts, paranuts and almonds) in the centre there and since I'm starting to get the hang of this mammoth plate, I made sure dessert was already included: strawberries, cherries and grapes.
This would have made an exelent breakfast, by the way.

Victory!

Finally, the last tip of the iceberg lettuce surrendered today. It took stir fried veal liver, half a red onion, a paprika, a pear and a nectarine to kill it, though. The taste of victory was good.

O, and I had yesterday's leftovers for breakfast.

a hobbitty breakfast

Today I had what has fast become my favorite weekend-breakfast since I'm eating like Cornell... what I call a 'hobbitty' breakfast. As it has nice, crispy bacon, tomatoes and that age old favorite of the little guys with the hairy feet: mushrooms. Who wouldn't make a shortcut to those? Anyway:
I took 6 small slices of bacon, three tomatoes (in slices) and 200 grams of champignons (mushrooms, also in slices. First baking the bacon, then adding the mushrooms, followed by the tomatoes. Added a bit of currypowder and pepper, and then some of my favorite ingredient: sweet chili sauce. Hmmm... With some hot coffee: delicious...
Tomorrow I'll have more.
I lunched on radishes. Hardly any calories but filling. Though I think these are better in combination with something. They have a really distinctive taste.

Yesterday I ate with my brother: lasagnette, so I didn't keep the 'rules', but at the birthdayparty I managed to say 'no' to chips and snacks and munch on the cucumber. For lunch yesterday I had half a pineapple and lots of strawberries. mmmm.... Who needs bread?

Johan

Fit for a Hobbit

I decided I could teach Jamie Oliver a thing or two about nudity. The stir fried chicken, courgette and mushrooms have no seasoning whatsoever. And the flavour could have tempted a gourmet who had just devoured a horse, as dessert.

All this was laid on a bed of my never ending pile of iceberg lettuce (now I know why they compare the thing to a mountain) and tucked in under a blanket of paprika and radish. Since I wanted to give Jamie a break in a seriously unfair fight, I squirted on some curry. Yeah, baby!

But the sheer size of that plate! It's inhumane! I worked hard but it got the better of me. In my defence, I had been snacking during the afternoon. A bit of emotional eating actually. Carrots, nuts, grapes, cherries - I had been studying hard and hit a wall, so I resorted to one of my stress-relief tactics - munching. Still, I hadn't eaten that much. Man, was that plate a pile. I'll have the rest for breakfast. Or lunch. Thank goodness I actually forgot to add the double-slam -bang ingredient - mixed nuts... wow, that could have gotten ugly.

You know, it's funny. My mom, who is a wizard in the kitchen - an exceptionally creative cook - complained that with this new starch-free eating style of mine it would be almost impossible to whip up a decent meal. I think I need to show her this blog. People somehow associate healthy with difficult. I really don't know why. It's never been so easy for me to cook good food. I don't even have to plan it. I just buy fresh ingredients and throw them all together. What's the big deal? Try ordering a Big Mac without the tomato. That can be tricky. Getting yourself a half decent frozen pizza, now that's tough. And getting it to taste good is so close to impossible you could see the pores with your eyes shut. This, this is a piece of cake (without the cake).

My friends, especially the female ones, sometimes ask me why I don't have a girl friend. It's simple. I'm old fashioned - I want a woman who can outcook me!
For marriage proposals, use the comment function below. Please include picture.

Need I say more?

Lunch was delicious. Stir fried chicken and - you guessed it - my favourite veggy with ground paprika, mustard seed and salt.

The salad is iceberg lettuce (there's no end to the thing, it seems like I'm not even putting a dent in the amount I cut from that one head - I'll have to have more tonight) with a tomato, half a red onion - seriously, who would call this beautiful purple red? - extra vierge olive oil, balsamico vinegar and a mix of black, green, red and white pepper.

It doesn't get easier than this and it doesn't get very much tastier either. I love this troglodyte food.

Goodmorning!

Breakfast:
Olives, cherries, grapes and a pear. What else do you need?

CuCuCuCucumber

Today I'm compensating in advance for two birthdayparties I will attend this weekend, so not a lot of calories...
Breakfast: 200 gram of cherries, one banana, two tangerines.
Coffee: a dried fig.
Lunch: 300 grams of carrots, and 100 gram of 'schouderham'. (don't know the english translation. Delicious meat).
In between: two apples, as usual.
Dinner: Salad of a cucumber in slices, 200 grams of cherrytomatoes in halves and some dressing. I make this salad more often, very good. The cucumber is really fresh and the tomatoes are a bit more sharp.
Complete with a rice cracker later on the evening: 650 kilocalories.
I've bought a pineapple for tomorrow: yum!

Johan

Brunner

This salad was supposed to be brunch. But it was way too much. The gargantuan size of the plate makes it look more reasonable, but there was no end to it. I ate half of everything, a very satisfying meal, and left the rest for dinner tonight.

It was half an iceberg lettuce, about 250 g of veal liver and about 150 g of chicken breast stir fried in olive oil with some Ketjap Asin and a bit of salt, two tomatoes, half a melon, green as well as black olives with selectively applied dressings of extra vierge olive oil, balsamico vinegar and lemon juice.

As a snack in the afternoon I had a few carrots and a handfull of white grapes.

I won't at all regret having the rest tonight. Desert will be a handfull of white grapes and a handfull of cherries.

For those who like to count their calories:
100 g veal liver: 185 kcal
100 g chicken breast: 158 kcal

The rest of the ingredients were listed in silly and unuseful quantities on the website I got this info from - things like a slice for melon and a bowl for cherries or grams for iceberg lettuce. But I estimate the total of the day (including the snacks) to be below 1400 kcal. I don't care because I don't count, but basically it means caloriewise I ate about three quarters of what a male adult should. Of course that is uninteresting compared to the fact that my food today was very nutrient dense and tasty. That's what counts.

Same old, same old...

My meals today were not really exceptional.
For breakfast I had two tangerines (in parts), one banana (in slices), 250 grams of cherrys and a large handful of nuts (approximately 30 grams). I had a dried fig (provided by a turkish delegation of veterinarians a colleague of mine had entertained the day before) with coffee. For lunch I had 250 grams of carrots and an apple, followed by two apples at the end of the afternoon. For dinner I microwaved the 'white and yellow'-meal from yesterday. All in all I calculated my caloric intake to be 1050 kcal.

Johan

The Light Horse

Today's lunch was stir fried horse steak, broccoli, cauliflower, red onion, mushrooms and asperagus. As long as they're in season I want to enjoy them as often as I can. There's three teaspoons of ground mustard seed, two teaspoons of garlic powder and some salt in there.

Would make a fine dinner too. I didn't have any tonight, because yesterday a friend came over for evening tea and since she brought some delicious seedless white grapes, I broke my fast. So I'll keep it tonight. I did have an apple and a few strawberries.

And check out my new black plate. It's humongous and makes eating even more fun.

Rise and Shine

My breakfast: two apples, half a melon and a fried egg. Everything I fry or stir fry is done in olive oil.

White and Yellow...

My friend Cornell is not the only one eating like a cave-man. Allthough he is much more creative cook than I am, he asked me to put up my meals. I fear they will serve to highlight Cornells creations as culinary highpoints, but so be it. My meals are simpler and besides paleolithically approved aiming for a low caloric intake. It's hard to eat much more than a thousand kilocalories if you only eat fruits, vegs, a bit of meat and some nuts...

So what did I have today?

For breakfast I had some pineapple (prepackaged at the supermarket), two tangerines, one banana and a couple of strawberries.

For lunch I had 250 grams or so (half a package) of carrots and some dried mango (also bought at the supermarket)

In between I had two apples.

For dinner I had half a cauliflower (medium sized) in bits, half of a yellow paprika cut up and half of a chickenfilet (also cut in pieces). This all stir fried with some currypowder, pepper and a bit of ketjap and chili sauce. Truly a yellow and white meal! Actually I stir fried the whole cauliflower, the whole paprika and the whole chickenfilet, but I'll leave the rest for tomorrow.
In all, only 850 kcal today so far...

Fast Flashback

Since I'm having a short fast tonight I thought this would be a good time to post a dinner I did about a month ago. I took a picture to send to a friend, so here it is.

It's a filet of smoked rainbow trout on a bed of stir fried courgette, eggplant and spring onions. I probably used ground musterd seed, chili pepper, salt and garlic as spices (I really don't remember).

The salad is cucumber, paprika (aka bell pepper), more spring onions, the stem of a broccoli, sun dried tomatoes, olives and witlof. Yes, that's the english name for the white stuff you can see at the top, though you may now it as belgian endive, chicory or chicoree, depending on where you live. Now I'm going to stop talking about food before I decide to skip my fast...

Wonder Wok

Lunch! Stir fried chicken breast, courgette, paprika and my favourite green - asparagus. After this mornings rant about the blandness of dutch cuisine and the lack of proper use of spices (such a waste, after all those centuries of growing rich trading them across the globe)
I thought I should set the right example. So I added ground garlic, chili pepper, paprika, musterd seed, ginger and just a little salt. Perfectly suitable as a nice dinner too.

And maybe not in the picture, but I also ate a few hazelnuts and some pistachios, a few carrots and three apples during the afternoon. I'm skipping dinner to give my metabolic pathways a break. Time for repair and maintenance. That's what your cells do when you let your insulin levels drop by not eating for a while - when the levels are high, e.g. because you've been eating empty calories, you store fat. So contrary to popular dutch belief potatoes do make you fat. Especially if you eat them on a daily basis. In fact, the people I know who like potatoes the most and eat them most often are in fact the people who have the most problems with their weight. So beware the pomme de terre...

Pink Sunshine

My breakfast this morning was a nice reddish pink grapefruit , an apple, a tomato, half a cucumber and a salted herring. In my opinion the salted herring is the only redeeming food in the pathetic dutch cuisine. Actually, we don't have a cuisine, we only have food.

There is a perfectly reasonable explanation for this rather unique absence of tried and true dishes that represent a cultures gustatory fancies. The Netherlands was very late to industrialize. It made a rather sudden turn to factory life and certain household magazines, in an attempt to aid the poor worker who's gastronomical routine was now thrown out of whack, dictated what a decent and healthy diet should be.

This amounted to bread with cheese for breakfast and lunch and a hot meal after working hours. This meal was always to consist of three parts: potatoes, vegetables and meat (or fish, once a week, on fridays). Pitty about the potatoes, cheese and bread, or we would have had an artificial paleolithic diet imposed on us and been spared the diseases of affluence.

Anyway, while the workers toiled all day long, the new "cuisine" wasn't what boiled all day long. Factory workers wives could not afford to read the magazines and the only part of society that was told to cook differently, was the upper class, who usually are the natural guardians of "haute cuisine". And so the once very rich dutch culinary tradition was entirely wiped out. Old dutch cookery books read like completely alien fantasies.

And so we're stuck with boring dishes. The vegetables are always only a single vegetable, and like the meat, they are seasoned without any imagination at all. And the potatoes... well, all I can say is good ridence - I will never eat them again. I'll let someone else have my heart attack.

Ah, but the salted herring. A divine gift to a gastronomically challenged people. It's like nothing you've ever eaten. The soft texture, the sea-like salinity, and the hands on approach - you take it by the tail, lift it over your head and bite from below. Seriously yummy! Beware though - it's a bit of an aquired taste. But if you ever visit the Low Lands, dont forget to try our entire cuisine. Buy a salted herring, preferably at the market, and eat it on the spot. They won't be the same anywhere else.

Russian Roulette

Dinner:
Three fried eggs (just one yolk) with tomatoes and strips of yaki nori. Yaki nori is the fried seeweed used to wrap sushi in.

The sidedishes are stir fried broccoli and a salad of cucumber and lemon pieces. Seriously refreshing. It almost makes you wish there were some dried chili peppers in the broccoli. Maybe there will be next time.

The yaki nori went well with the egg, but I think it would have been even better to cut it into small pieces, do the same with the tomato and make an omelet. I'll try that next time and add something a bit spicey. Oh, and I'll go for just two eggs. This was a bit much. Maybe better as a lunch.

To the left you can see desert - a mango.

I eat this way because it just tastes better, and I'm lovin' it!
Also I'm going to pass up on the diabetes, I think it's a tad overrated.

Our Daily Bread

From a comprehensive introduction to the paleolithic diet:

Grains, Beans and Potatoes (GBP) share the following important characteristics:

· They are all toxic when raw- there is no doubt about this- it is a fact that no competent source would dispute- they can be extremely dangerous and it is important never to eat them raw or undercooked. These toxins include enzyme blockers, lectins and other types. I will talk about them in detail later as they are very important.

· Cooking destroys most but not all of the toxins. Insufficient cooking can lead to sickness such as acute gastroenteritis.

· They are all rich sources of carbohydrate, and once cooked this is often rapidly digestible-giving a high glycemic index (sugar spike).

· They are extremely poor sources of vitamins (particularly vitamins A, B-group, folic acid and C), minerals, antioxidants and phytosterols.

Therefore diets high in grains beans and potatoes (GBP):

· Contain toxins in small amounts

· Have a high glycemic index (ie have a similar effect to raw sugar on blood glucose levels)

· Are low in many vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and phytosterols- ie they are the original "empty calories"

· Have problems caused by the GBP displacing other foods

Read the full article here

-

Smokey the Apple

Lunch:
A filet of smoked rainbow trout served stir fried red onion, paprika and my favourite veg - asparagus. They were fried in olive oil and I added a bit of onion powder, garlic powder, a teeny weeny bit of salt and a dried chili pepper.

Delicious! You will eventually come across the chili and it's then you'll really appreciate the apple.

Nutty Chicken

For my breakfast this morning I had a handful of mixed nuts with the leftovers of yesterdays chicken. Also the leftover halves of yesterday's melon and cucumber and a few carrots.

Scholarly Cabbage

Dinner:
Half a chicken on a bed of stir fried broccoli, red onion and cauliflower with just a little bit of Ketjap Asin (try savoury soy sauce if you can't get that).

A simple salad of tomato and cucumber.

And don't forget what Mark Twain once said about cauliflower:
"Cauliflower is nothing but a cabbage with a college education."

Fruit 'n Fiber

Lunch was two handfulls of mixed nuts (almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts, paranuts, pecan nuts and pistachio nuts), two mangoes and a few carrots,

Red & Herring

Breakfast:
A salted herring on a bed of melon, strawberries, cherries, and blackberries.