Apart from the blip caused by eating boiling bacon the other week, the low-fat diet is going really really well and my gall bladder is pretty damn good. Having totally given up chocolate of any description, I thought I would be having serious withdrawal symptoms by now but nothing - apart from a sudden craving when a Twix advert was on telly the other evening. There are still a few unopened packets of chocolate-covered raisins and some white chocolate buttons in the kitchen but I have no interest in them whatsoever. Not that I'm doing without sweet stuff at all - oh no, I'm happily wolfing down marshmallows, jelly babies, liquorice allsorts, parma violet sweets, crystallised fruits and dried fruits. Anything I fancy really as long as it has very little saturated fat.
Lunchtimes usually consist of home-made soup followed by plain cottage cheese, marmite and a bagel (I never knew bagels were low in fat until recently) or sandwiches made from things like salmon and cucumber, extra light Philadelphia and cranberry jelly, hard boiled egg and salad cream, or Quorn slices with mustard. Anything really as long as it doesn't contain much saturated fat and as long as there is no butter on the bread.
Evening meals have been a bit hit or miss lately as I'm still experimenting with what is tasty as well as low-fat. A stir fry with some Quorn chicken-style pieces added was a great success and the chicken curry I made last week with low-fat plain yogurt and korma curry paste tasted divine - trouble was the yogurt had separated over the heat so it didn't look so nice. Next time I try it I'll add the yogurt at the very last minute. I also enjoyed a marinated tofu and noodles recipe I found in a low-fat cookbook but my low-fat lasagne (veggie base layer with plain cottage cheese on top and a home-made tomato sauce on top of that) was only very so-so. A good old-fashioned beef stew seems to suit me well and I'm going to try a beef stroganoff this week made with very low fat creme fraiche.
Puddings for me now mainly consist of either low-fat organic yogurt (as long as there is no aspartame in it) or fresh fruit - often a banana - or stewed fruit. I've found that the vanilla low-fat yogurt makes a great topping on stewed fruit - just as nice as custard.
Bearing in mind that I used to eat industrial quantities of cheese, butter and cream on a daily basis I am astounded that I've not had major cravings over the past few weeks, but not a one. I know I have a lot more energy than I used to have, a lot less wind than I used to (apparently a sure sign of a grumbling gall bladder) and I think possibly, just possibly, I may actually have lost a bit of weight too - bonus!
Well done on such delicious sounding food - you're certainly being very creative! Glad to hear that your gall bladder has stopped giving you trouble, as well.
Posted by: Caroline | 02/28/2011 at 02:24 PM