Yes, you can have pie

Today I picked up a recipe book written specifically to give you tasty, filling recipes that are low-fat and low-carb. Their chicken and ham pie is good, coming in at about 430 calories per serve but I felt it could be improved upon.

 

The Filo pastry is tremendous. It gives the feeling that you're having pastry without the extra calories and simple carbohydrates that puff or shortcrust pastry gives. Although it doesn't qualify as frugal cooking as breast meat is quite expensive, at the moment, it is more important for me to lose weight.

 

Ingredients:

500g chicken breasts chopped into bite-sized pieces

300g wafer-thin cooked ham cut into 1cm squares

1-2 onions, chopped finely

1-2 leeks, sliced

2-4 carrots, sliced into circles

300g mushrooms roughly chopped

250ml water

5ml soy sauce

200g low-fat creme fraiche

100g low-fat natural yoghurt

2-4 garlic cloves crushed

1 chicken stock cube

2 tsp plain flour

Olive oil in a pump spray

 

For the pastry:

4 sheets filo pastry

12.5-15ml sunflower oil

 

Method:

Spray a non-stick frying pan with the olive oil and put the onions in to fry, stirring until they're translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the chicken, keep stirring until all the pieces of chicken are cooked on the outside. Add the leeks and carrots and turn the heat up.

 

Add about 200mls of the water and crumble the stock cube and stir to dissolve. Add soy sauce and continue to cook on the high heat until the liquid has reduced by about two thirds. Transfer to a large casserole and sprinkle the flour and disperse the ham evenly over the mixture. Stir in the creme fraiche and yoghurt and season with lots of black pepper. Push the mixture down until it is evenly spread across the dish.

 

Pre-heat the oven to 200°c/Fan 180°c/Gas 6.

 

Stack the sheets of filo pastry on top of each other and cut into nine pieces. Using just the tip of a pastry brush, dip into the sunflower oil and brush both sides of the pasty. Scrunch each piece up until you've done all 36 pieces.

 

Arrange the scrunched pieces of pastry on the top of the mixture. Place the pie in the oven and cook for 30-35 minutes until the filo is golden on top.

 

Serve with green vegetable. The original recipe said to not add potatoes, but I think you need a few new potatoes to keep you fuller for longer - about 100-120g, roasted with just one spray of olive oil.

 

This should serve four at 331 calories per serving (without potatoes or green veg).

 

And just in case you're wondering, I've lost 10.1kg (22.3lbs) in 7.5 weeks.

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Arty blogs

Just to let you know that from now onwards I'm going to post art-related stuff over on my other blog Inkingly Mine and save this blog for the other stuff.

 

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More recipes to share

I'm back on the whole "losing weight" thing again. I refuse to call it a diet because a diet sounds temporary. This is a permanent change. I'm not following any particular plan but I'm going to a low-fat, low-simple-carbohydrates food regime. Previously, I used to allow myself larger quantities of carbohydrate but only if it were complex - wholemeal flour, wholemeal pasta etc. Now, I'm not limiting it, just applying portion control on everything I eat. I've mentioned some of the things I've been cooking to friends and they expressed interest in having the recipes.

 

These three recipes rely on cauliflower. It sounds strange, but trust me, the cauliflower is essential for moistness and to reduce the total carbohydrate significantly.

 

To prepare the cauliflower for these recipes, cut the stem out of the cauliflower and cut into florets. Place a quarter at a time into a food processor and blitz with the blade until about the consistency of short-grain rice. Put into an airtight container and freeze. When you need to use it, take it out of the freezer and place back in the food processor with the blade and blitz until crumbly again.

 

Pizza muffins

 

Ingredients:

80g finely chopped onion

80g finely chopped peppers

80g wholemeal self-raising flour

10g baking powder

80g cauliflower rice as prepared above

10g chopped fresh oregano or 5g dried

5g sugar (I use Truvia to reduce the calories further)

40ml skimmed milk

40g crumbled low-fat feta

30g tomato paste

1 large egg, beaten

30g chopped black olives

2.5g garlic granules

Olive oil in a pump spray

 

Method:

Spray a non-stick frying pan with a little oil and fry off the onions until tender. Add the peppers. When cooked transfer to a small bowl to cool.

Heat the oven to 200°C and spray a muffin pan with oil.

In a large bowl, mix the flour, cauliflower rice, baking powder, oregano, sugar and garlic granules together.

Stir milk, feta, egg, tomato paste and olives into the onion mixture.

Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients, add the wet ingredients and combined until just mixed.

Split the mixture between the 12 muffin cups and bake until golden for about 15-18 minutes. Leave in the pan to cool for 5 minutes. Turn out onto a wire rack.

 

60 calories for muffin. These make very shallow muffins. You can push the boat out and double the recipe for more of a meal rather than a snack. Or, use the standard quantity and use a 24-piece muffin pan for a party muffin.

 

Banana bread

 

The banana and sugar (sweetener) mask all taste of the cauliflower. But, with the addition of cauliflower the cooking time is extended and varies from oven to oven and depends heavily on the shape of the tin.

 

Ingredients:

120g lightest spreadable butter (my preference is Lurpak).

65g Truvia or other stevia-based sweetener.

120g wholemeal self-raising flour.

120g cauliflower rice as prepared above.

10g baking soda.

2 eggs.

Between 2-4 bananas (depends on the size and ripeness of the bananas, better to have a little more than you think).

 

Method:

Put the butter and sweetener into the mixer and mix using the plastic blade. Lift the lid and scrape the sides until the butter and sweetener are creamed.

Peel the bananas and rip into chunks and add to the mix while blending.

Stop the mixer and add the flour half at a time until everything is thoroughly mixed.

Pour the batter into a non-stick 2lb loaf tin and place in a pre-heated oven at 180°c (170°c for fan) for 40 minutes. Reduce temperature to 150°c (140°c) and cook for a further 40 minutes.

 

124 calories per slice.

 

Pizza base:

 

All the cauliflower does in this is reduce the carbohydrate by about half and makes a wholemeal pizza base a little lighter.

 

Ingredients:

250g wholemeal self-raising flour.

375g cups of cauliflower rice

80ml cup skimmed milk

65ml sunflower oil

Pump spray filled with oil

 

Method:

Pre-heat oven to 190° c.

Put all ingredients into a bowl and mix until mixture leaves the side of the bowl. Gather the dough into a ball and knead 10 times to make smooth. Divide the ball into two.

On a lightly-floured board roll each half into a 30cm circle.

Turn up the edges 1cm and pinch.

Spray surface with oil.

Bake in the oven for 10 minutes.

Cover with chosen toppings and bake for a further 10-12 minutes.

 

Makes 2 pizzas. Half a pizza per serving is 367 calories. Load the toppings with lots of vegetables, lean meat and a very sharp cheese.

 

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Granny's Shortbread

Shhh. You're not allowed to share this recipe with anyone. Nah, not really. This is the recipe for shortbread that my granny taught to my mum and she to her children. I'm sure granny learned it from her mum and she from her mum etc. and so this is the most authentic shortbread I've ever come across. What is really good about it is that it is simple to remember:

• 4 parts plain flour
  
• 2 parts butter
• 1 part sugar

This means you can scale the recipe up and down as you need it.Method:

Rub the butter and flour together until the butter has disappeared into the flour. Add the sugar and continue to mix and it will eventually start to clump together. Put a handful onto a clean surface and then press the mixture together until you have a circle of shortbread with no clumps falling off. Pinch around the edges, prick the surface with a fork to decorate and sprinkle a small amount of white sugar on the top. Cut the circles into quarters and place on a greased baking tray and cook in a low oven for about 35 minutes, just until they start to go golden. Remove from the oven and allow to cool before allowing people to tuck in.

Now, that's what mum taught me. It was all done by hand and since I had an accident falling down a flight of stairs and badly damaged my left hand, I find the manual combining of the ingredients and the pressing it into disks very hard to do. So, here's my new variation.

• 250g soft butter - really soft
  
• 125g Demerara sugar (I find it gives a nuttier taste)
• 450g sifted plain flour

Using a food processor, blend the butter and sugar together until thoroughly mixed. Add the butter/flour mixture to the sifted flour. Combine with your hands until it all starts to clump together.Now, you'll need one of those hamburger presses. Mine is from Tupperware. Dust a tiny amount of flour in the hamburger form and a little on the underside of the press. Take a fistful of mixture (about halfway between a golfball and a tennis ball in size) and form it into a loose sphere. Place in the hamburger press and push down hard to spread the ball out into the hamburger form. Once the mixture is spread evenly over the form and you've pressed far harder than you think you need to, turn the pressed shortbread out onto a clean surface. Cut the circles carefully into quarters, prick the surface and dust with white sugar as before. Transfer to a baking sheet covered with non-stick baking paper or equivalent and bake in a low oven (160°c) for about 35 minutes. Much easier on the hands.

 

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Studio Organistion - May

I'm sorry everyone, but there will be no challenge for May. April has been a very full month and I've been unable to do any work in the studio.

Come back in June for the next installment.

Judi


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Eastercon - Olympus 2012

Oh, it's so nice to be home!

Just about every year, Zandy and I (and now with G) go to this strange thing called Eastercon. It sounds like a really strange thing to go to, but with its own context it is a wondrous thing.

After all, can you imagine any profession where a conference is held once a year that both people within the profession and ordinary people can go to and mingle freely, meeting and discussing a huge variety of subjects of interest to the profession, garnering opinions from the people who use the profession, that people can network (or not, if they want to) and freely share information, where the professionals eat and drink in the same spaces as the consumer, for four days, in one hotel?

Well, if you're an aspiring science fiction/fantasy writer, Eastercon is a good place to be. As well as having the opportunity to meet very well successful writers like George R R Martin (I've also met Anne McCaffrey, Robin Hobb, Iain Banks and Charles Stross) you can rub shoulders with editors and publishers from the major Science Fiction/Fantasy labels and genre magazines and meet others in the same boat as you. Buy them a drink and compare notes of how to cope with rejection. You can go to panels to discuss how to avoid the biggest potholes in your plot (one panel discussion was on how to get published) and others on tips to improve your craft.

If All Things Literary Isn't for you, you might go into the games room and play a myriad of games. You might join the costumers and create something marvellous for the masquerade or costume ball. You might wander through the art show and see work from some of the most successful artists hanging alongside art from new people. You might have the opportunity to see Mitch Benn live (and for free), or knit a Clanger or Dalek. And there's so much more to do and see.

This is Eastercon.

The Guardian has written an excellent article here about the community of SF and how there is something for everyone, to coin a phrase.

But at the end of the weekend, you pack up your room and leave the cocooned space where fairies magically appear and make your bed and clean your dishes, and you return to harsh reality where your house is 11.9°C and the nappies need folding.


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Location:Radisson Edwardian, Heathrow

Studio Organisation Challenge - April

So now you know how you want your craft space to look, now we need to start moving towards that goal.
Challenge for April:
Tools you will need:
Garbage bags
Empty cardboard boxes
One or two empty plastic boxes with lids
A few large shopping bags (bags for life are ideal)
Labels
Pens
If like me, your craft area is full. Hopefully, full of craft stuff, but mine has also been used as a dumping ground for all sorts of odds and sods. We need to clear some space so that we have room to put away our stash. Your room might also be a place where activities other than crafting happens.
1. Take out your plan that we made last month of your space as it currently looks. Divide your space up into four chunks. You will work on each chunk each week. Your chunks may not be uniform in size as some areas will have more stuff in them than others. Divide them up by the amount of stuff you have in each area. Draw this on your plan and letter each section A, B, C and D.
2. Take a garbage bag, a cardboard box, one plastic box and a shopping bag. The garbage bag is for rubbish. The cardboard box is for things to go to charity, the plastic box is for items to keep and the shopping bag is for items you'll PIF (Pass It Forward) or sell.
3. Now, working on one section (doesn't matter where you start), remove items and sort into the various boxes. Don't be too precious about things at this point and only throw, PIF or put for charity the things you really don't want. Once you've cleared a section, take the plastic box and put the items in it back. Use your labels to label any containers where you can't see the contents, but don't try to sort into categories, just get it off the floor. At the end of each week, put the garbage bag into the garbage, take the box to the charity shop and put the items you want to PIF/sell up on some list or a selling website. Do it immediately or it will just fester. If you list something and it doesn't sell, don't put it back on the shelf. PIF it if you can, or give it to charity. By the end of this month, you should have more space. And maybe a little more money.

This is my studio divided into the four areas.
Now, I have a confession to make. March was taken up by some urgent paperwork that needed to be done, so I'm a little behind schedule at this stage, but I have started and a couple of play groups in my local area have benefitted from the decluttering and I've gained back the use of some of the wire cubes that will eventually go up to the studio. I've also removed a lot of paperwork that should be in the house. But I'm not posting any photos as it currently looks worse than it did before (this was to be expected). My goal for the end of this month is to not have anything sitting in boxes on the floor.
Send me your plans and I'll post them up here for us all to compare. Email them to judihodgkin at gmail dot com.
See you in May!
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Organisation Challenge - March

For those of you who missed it, I blogged about why I need to get my studio organised here. Please watch the video to see how chaotic it can get. It wasn't always like this. You can see that it was once a tranquil, creative space.

This challenge has been devised to help us all get our craft spaces organised and sorted. It is an individual challenge. Because I'm based in the UK and living on an extremely low budget, I've tried to set this up so that a) I'm spending little, if no money and b) the things I do buy or have bought are available most places in the UK. Ikea is over an hour's drive from me, so I'll only get stuff from there if I can not get it (or something similar elsewhere). Most of my suggestions are about repurposing and reusing.
And I cannot emphasise how much these are all suggestions. If you don't like an idea, or think you have a better one, please feel free to post it as a comment.

I'll also be working through the exercises a month ahead of you, so if you have any questions, please feel free to ask them in a comment and I'll answer as best as I can.

So here's my challenge for March:

Size up what you've got.

You'll need:
A piece of paper
Some cardboard scraps (the small sides of cereal boxes are ideal)
Some clear plastic or transparencies
Permanent pen
Sticky tape
Measuring tape
Scissors or knife, cutting mat and ruler
Eraser
Calculator

1. Measure your space. No matter how big or small the space is you've got to create in, you need to know how big it is. Let's face it, unless you remodel your house (which goes against the low-budget philosophy of this challenge), it's not going to get any bigger. And, you may want to reduce the amount of space you're taking up at the moment, so it will be useful to know exactly how big this space is. Be accurate in your measurements. I've done mine in millimetres.

2. Draw your space to scale on a piece of paper. You can determine what that scale is, but it is important that you remember what the scale is. Mark on your drawing where windows and doors are and any fitted things that can't be removed (fireplaces, fixed shelves, etc) or won't be removed (like benches and cupboards). Don't forget to mark if the doors and windows open inwards or outwards and where the latches are. You'll need to plan the placement of your furniture so that you can still open windows. As you'll see on my drawing, I've drawn in some of my benches, but I'm open to the suggestion that at least one of the benches might need to be removed, so I've drawn the fixed ones plain but left out the one that might be coming out. Make a few copies.

3. Measure every single piece of furniture you have, or plan to have. You need to measure the obvious things like width and depth, but I also want you to measure height and floor clearance. Measure how much door or drawer clearance each piece of furniture needs. For example, if you have a 60cm wide cabinet, you'll need 60 cm in front of it to open the door. Try to allow at least a metre clearance for your chair/s.

4. Draw the width and depth outlines to scale (the same scale as your room drawing) in cardboard and cut out (you can cover the cardboard in white paper before starting so that you have a writable surface). I've made mine out of mount board scraps so that they're robust. Mark on each piece the height and the floor clearance. In my case, I've also drawn the piece of the bench that I'm open to moving so that I can see if I can use it somewhere else. I've also draw the shapes of some wire cubes that I have in the house that I might be using.

5. Draw out the door/drawer clearance allowance on the clear plastic or transparency, cut out and stick to the shape it corresponds with.

6. Lay your furniture cut outs on one of your room plans as things currently stand. Draw around the cut outs. You now have a picture of what your room looks like from above. Over a cup of coffee write down what works and what doesn't. For example, I've found that my computer desk just becomes a dumping ground for things as I walk in the door. I therefore need to think about either correcting my bad habits when I use my studio (unlikely) or find another way of coping with my habit - ie create a drop zone. But I like that I have most things to hand near my craft desk just by wheeling around. At the moment everything is in boxes so I have to move four or five things just to find one item. That isn't working for me at all. I've also just been given the base cabinets from a friends kitchen. Do I have enough or too many for this space?

7. Ok, it is important to not rush the next step. Take your time and get it right. Place the pieces of furniture on another room drawing and move them around and adjust them. Pay attention to how the clearance allowances impact on each other. They're done in clear so that you can see where they'll clash, but that might be okay. The metre allowance behind your desk is essential. Anything less and you'll find it very cramped. Another important thing to remember is that you should allow between 1 and 1.5 metres in any passage ways as fire exits. This is essential if you ever plan to have guests in your craft space.

8. Once you're happy with the placement of your furniture, draw around each piece and annotate what it is (don't forget height and floor clearance). The advantage of this is that you can take your other copies and try out different layouts. As you get something that works, draw the outlines and annotations and then compare against your previous drawings. Which one works best for you? It may help to draw in the width of passage ways as well. Once you have your plan you can put the cardboard shapes and the original measurements and room drawing into an envelope and keep for future changes. Yes, you will probably go through this again in the future because our spaces are constantly changing and evolving. But hopefully, we'll get it right for the moment so that you're not having to change it again soon.
We're going to work to achieving this floor plan. But, you might find as we go through the rest of this challenge, that your floor plan has to change. That's okay. Put the plan somewhere safe so that you don't lose it.

Here is a video showing how I worked through these steps and how my floor plan evolved.


And here are the floor plans as referenced in the video so you can see them up close.

Life Artistry course at Woodbrooke

Along with a very good friend of mine, I will be teaching a weekend course at Woodbrooke Quaker College called Life Artistry.

It is the being held on the extra long Jubilee bank holiday weekend, starting Friday night and finishing Monday afternoon.

Details can be found here:.

The description doesn't really do what happens on the course justice. Over the course of the weekend, Wendrie and I teach you a bunch of techniques and help you to build your own journal. We show you how to use different triggers to help you journal the spiritual and mundane in your life. A journal doesn't have to be all words. It can be completely visual. All we do is give you the tools to help you start and develop your own journal.

There are plenty of gaps in the programme that allow you to retreat and reflect on what you're doing, allowing you to develop and piece of artwork that encompasses you.

If you'd like to do this course, there are currently 10 places left. The facilities at Woodbrooke are very good and the grounds are stunning. Being the beginning of June, the weather should be incredible.

Any questions, please just comment and I'll get back to you.

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