[Closed] Help me to eat healthier

Please don't be demoralised by the notion that your kitchen is too small, you don't need a large kitchen or acres of worktop space to prepare and cook meals for yourself from scratch - this is my tiny kitchen and all the food preparation i do is carried out in that small area to the right of my cooker whilst my ingredients are usually laid out to the left but you do need to be organised and have everything to hand beforehand. I figure you are probably a bit demoralised by viewing the immaculate huge kitchens as shown in TV cookery programs (and from some of the kitchens as posted by fellow STW'rs) - i know i am and whilst i'd love a huge kitchen i doubt the quality of my cooking would improve very much. Remember - size ain't everything 😉

It will take you a good while to organise yourself but persevere with it and before too long you'll be experimenting with how to chop/prepare veg/meat etc so it all cooks together in the same time.

Practice...practice...practice, then practice some more - one of the greatest achievements (and a nice ego boost) is preparing a meal for those you care about and clearing up spotless plates afterwards 😉

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I reckon you've actually got a bigger kitchen than us, you have a fair few appliances on the side and sauce bottles etc. which if you moved off would giv eyou mroe room. I carried on busy int he kitchen etc until 9:15pm last night redoing all the cupboard shelf height so that I could stand up a big tub of flapjack oats and get squash inside a cupboard to clear off counter space. Impressed myself with a wave of genius and hooking pan lids on the back of the pan cupboard 😆

It's actually quite good having this thread and writing down what i plan to have each day, almsot like a confessional! This morning was overnight oats again, one less tablet wahoo then off to the hospital for 5 vials of blood!! Lunch is a ham salad sandwich on multigrain bread. Tea tonight because I don't finish til 7pm is just going to be two rounds of multigrain toast with a boiled egg on each and then I'll jump on the turbo again.

I'm planning tomorrow on making the leek and bacon pasta for tea so that'll my first ever experience of cooking leeks... what can go wrong!

I'm also planning on cooking up a batch of flapjacks with mixed fruit as I've done before but I know it has a lot of golden syrup and butter in it so I'm wondering whether there's a better option. I generally just use them as cycling snacks so it's not like I'd be consuming it on a normal day.

Also the spray oil, do you have to buy the ready packaged bottles or can you fill it yourself from a normal bottle of virgin olive oil?

Bought some onions and garlics yesterday for future concoctions and a few people have been telling me to think about getting a hand blender so that i can make some soups up.

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well organised! ditch the big biscuit tin, loads of space for a fruit bowl there!

Loving those pan handles on doors, such a good idea!

Think you have more cupboards than we do in our kitchen, same amount of workspace. We have one cupboard dedicated to the Mrs' baking stuff and another one for baby stuff.

Just cleared out the old larder of our boiler (moved into the coalhouse) so we can use it for all the pans we have. Didnt free up as much space as i though >.<

Edit - cook the leaks with the bacon for awesome tasting leeks, or just fry them with a small amount of butter over a low heat, treat them kinda like onions in terms of cooking them. That's how i do them anyway 🙂

I'm planning tomorrow on making the leek and bacon pasta for tea so that'll my first ever experience of cooking leeks... what can go wrong!

If you're frying them, keep the heat low and take it slowly, it's very easy to end up with black bits otherwise. (This is generally good advice for all aliums). If you've got a steamer that's a great way to prepare them too.

I'm also planning on cooking up a batch of flapjacks with mixed fruit as I've done before but I know it has a lot of golden syrup and butter in it so I'm wondering whether there's a better option. I generally just use them as cycling snacks so it's not like I'd be consuming it on a normal day.

Also the spray oil, do you have to buy the ready packaged bottles or can you fill it yourself from a normal bottle of virgin olive oil?

Your kitchen isn't any smaller than mine. Don't let that hold you back from cooking anything.

my first ever experience of cooking leeks... what can go wrong!

You need to move the veg away from the radiator though – they won't last long there.

And avoid buying bagged multiple items - you are short of space and it will take you an age to get through that much garlic if you are just starting out with your cooking. A good alternative to fresh garlic are the jars of minced garlic[url= https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/267144432 ] such as Nishaan [/url].

organic raw agave syrup instead of treacle. sweeter than treacle so you use less too. its perfect in flapjacks- you cook it at lower temp though.

The jury is out on whether agave is actually better for you but its lower GI.

leeks are gorgeous. we have ours often wok fried in a little sesame oil with a piece of salmon on top

Never really properly cooked onions before either..... I think I've seen mum do them to go on her burgers before though haha! 😆

'Heat the oil in a large non-stick frying pan. Add the leeks and 2 tbsp water, and cook for about 10 mins until very soft. Add the bacon, turn up the heat and fry until cooked.' I'm guessing a sort of medium heat and once they're kind of soft then they're done! I'm sure they'll be nice in the pasta but not sure I fancy tasting one just to see if its done 😆

The veg trolley is in the garage and that radiator isn't turned on ever. Previous owners were going to convert the garage into an extension with a kitchen so they had it installed.

I read a few recipes and it said a clove of garlic which I've assumed is a full garlic so I figured I'd use them up.... they'll last a while at least!

Leeks are best oven-cooked in butter and a little salt.

I read a few recipes and it said a clove of garlic which I've assumed is a full garlic so I figured I'd use them up.... they'll last a while at least!

That would put you off garlic for life!

I'm guessing lower GI is a good thing? I know it's glycaemic index.

I read a few recipes and it said a clove of garlic which I've assumed is a full garlic so I figured I'd use them up.... they'll last a while at least!

I made that mistake once. As a kid I never tasted garlic as it was verboten in the house. Decided to treat and impress GF one day by cooking gazpacho soup. Book recipe called for '5 cloves of garlic'. I too thought a 'clove' was the whole 'bulb'. I bought 5 bulbs and minced the lot. The soup was quite as expensive as it was inedible 😳

Yes, usually. GI is a measure of how quickly the carbs in something are absorbed. Low is better cos it trickle feeds your body nice and steadily, high is worse* because it slams your bloodstream with loads of glucose, meaning your pancreas has to work hard and dump a load of insulin into your blood which means all the glucose gets absorbed into your muscles OR if they are already full, made into fat. Then the insulin hangs around a little too long, too much glucose is absored, your blood glucose get a bit low and you get hungry.

This is why you hear people saying they can go all morning without breakfast comfortably, but if they eat something they are starving by 10am. And if you eat loads of high GI food all the time, your cells become tolerant to insulin (like you do with alcohol or caffeine) and your pancreas needs to produce more, which makes the cells more tolerant, and you end up with insulin resistance, and your pancreas has to produce so much that it gets knackered and you end up type 2 diabetic.

BUT

The GI is a measure of purely how fast carbs are absorbed. So some things (like parsnips) have a high GI because they would make your blood sugar go up; but because they have very little carbs a normal serving actually has a small amount of carbs in it. So even if they are absorbed quickly they don't have a big effect on blood sugar and insulin. So a better measure of the impact a food has on you is called Glycemic Load or GL which measures the effect a normal portion has on your blood glucose.

Broadly GL and GI correlate, but not always. Some things have a higher GL because you tend to eat more of them - potatoes for example go down really well and traditionally we get big portions of them, which makes the GL high. Likewise pasta has a relatively low GI for a starchy food but a higher GL because you tend to get served a plateful. GL is a better measure.

* unless you are exercising for a long time at higher intensity, because you've used up your muscle carb stores and need them replaced asap with minimum effort from your gut. Hence sports drinks etc for racers.

'Heat the oil in a large non-stick frying pan. Add the leeks and 2 tbsp water, and cook for about 10 mins until very soft. Add the bacon, turn up the heat and fry until cooked.' I'm guessing a sort of medium heat and once they're kind of soft then they're done! I'm sure they'll be nice in the pasta but not sure I fancy tasting one just to see if its done

That sounds a poor recipe, you'll end up with horrible watery, soft bacon. Cook bacon on a high heat first, then turn down and do the leeks as it says. Much more flavour off the bacon caramelising too.

That sounds a poor recipe, you'll end up with horrible watery, soft bacon.

first ever experience of cooking leeks... what can go wrong!

you could fail to wash them properly - peel of the outsides and then wash in a sink of water. Then cut up and wash them again. Dirt and grit seems to get inside the layers and spoils the eating experience..... and while a bit of mineral is good for you, you can't 'overwash' leeks IME.

+1 to getting high quality bacon, worth the extra and where you aren't paying for all the water content in cheap stuff I'm not even sure that on cooked weight it's actually any cheaper. But if you do get cheap stuff, precook in the microwave and then drain onto kitchen paper and get shot of the horrible white scummy salt water.

GolfChick, that's not a small kitchen. From your description I was expecting to see a galley kitchen of the size in many boats. Your kitchen looks ideally sized in many respects: everything is conveniently within reach. If you read articles on designing kitchen layouts, they always emphasise the importance of the [url= https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitchen_work_triangle ]work triangle[/url], which should be kept small. Your kitchen is much more efficiently and better laid out than mine (and cleaner and tidier).

The pan lid storage on the cupboard door is a good idea, but I would be worried that the lids could too easily come off the screws from which they are hanging, and break the glass lids. In fact those screws on the door were probably used to fit a door pan lid holder like [url= https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_2_14?url=search-alias%3Dkitchen&field-keywords=door+pan+lid+holder&sprefix=pan+lid+holder%2Ckitchen%2C208&crid=3VZZHOX54TROV ]these[/url] which would be much more secure. If you have room for a ceiling or wall mounted pan rack, you can often store the lids of the pans by sliding the handle of the lid over the handle of the pan (providing the lid has a handle, not a knob, and subject to the shape/width/depth of the two handles), like this:

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In my kitchen I have installed [url= https://www.amazon.co.uk/MasterClass-Wooden-Kitchen-Shelf-Stainless/dp/B000J3EFY0/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&qid=1516278272&sr=8-9&keywords=wall+mounted+pot+rack ]this pan rack[/url] immediately in front of the window: the window reveal makes it possible to hang large frying pans which would touch the wall if the rack were mounted on a blank wall, and the pans are low enough for 5'10" me to reach (I don't use the shelf above) and don't significantly obscure the window.

Good luck with your leek and bacon pasta. I would cook the bacon first in a little oil, remove the bacon when crisp and set aside, and then soften and cook the leeks in the oil and bacon fat (for more flavour), i.e. in the same way that another BBC Goodfood recipe says to do for [url= https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/827639/leek-and-bacon-risotto ]leek and bacon risotto[/url]. If there were any brown or burnt bits stuck to the bottom of the pan, I would remove the leeks when cooked and 'deglaze' the pan with a splash of white wine and knock off the burnt bits (a.k.a. fond) with a wooden spoon (don't remove them: they're the most flavoursome bits). This also makes cleaning the pan afterwards much easier. Once the alcohol has boiled off, add back in your leeks and bacon, and then add the cheese.

Thanks for those suggestions, I may start doing the leeks and then just see what happens with the liquid amounts and whether most of the water cooks off. Want to stick to the recipe as much as possible before then going adventurous. Part of my proble, with recipes is that I stick to it for fear of having to bin the whole lot. I think if I stick to it first I can atleast then modify it a little as I go on. Just wondering what I should have along side the baocn and leek pasta rather than just a whole plate of pasta. Is the bacon in the recipe enough protein in take, maybe I should do something to go along with it. Is there a pretty good home made garlic bread maybe...

golfchick why not use MyFitnessPal app? As long as you tap in what you are eating into the diary it automatically shows you how much protein, carb , sugar etc you've eaten in a given period. It's v easy to use.

Funnily enough am just going back to it today after a long hiatus - and Xmas/NY eating habits need breaking 😳

The MFP diary really does help me monitor what I eat, which also helps me plan meals. It's not an exact science but a handy guide.

For ease of prep and protein I make a lot of simple dark green lentil dishes along with rice. ie

http://ameliafreer.com/puy-lentil-stew

Make batches and freeze then microwave as required. Simple.

Is there a pretty good home made garlic bread maybe...

madness johndoh I tell thee. chopped garlic, butter, mash it. slice a baguette (not all the way though) stuff the butter in (about a teaspoon in each bit), wrap in foil bung in oven 200c 15 mins. piece of the proverbial . you can get fancier with an oil7butter mix, parsley, grated parmesan , removing foil at the end for browning etc but butter plus garlic plus bread =win

hope the leeks go well

howsyourdad1 - beat me to it! It's about the easiest thing you can possibly cook!

Want to stick to the recipe as much as possible before then going adventurous. Part of my proble, with recipes is that I stick to it for fear of having to bin the whole lot.

This is definitely a good idea, nothing wrong with it. When you get more confident you can start modifying them. Be aware that sometimes recipes are wrong - if you're using recipes off the internet make sure you read the comments, a lot of the time you'll find people complaining it was too watery / salty / flavourless / whatever, so even if your meal didn't turn out great it might not be your fault!

madness johndoh I tell thee. chopped garlic, butter, mash it. slice a baguette (not all the way though) stuff the butter in (about a teaspoon in each bit), wrap in foil bung in oven 200c 15 mins.

yeah, but you've still got to buy the baguette.

Pizza base is dead easy* and there's great satisfaction in making your own bread, then cover that with your garlic butter mix and bake on a tray in the oven. Cheese and caramelised onion marmalade even better, although you will be susceptible to vampires.

* 250g white flour, 150g water at 37C (give or take), splash of olive oil, pinch of salt, 4g dried baker's yeast.

You get the water at the right temp by mixing 100ml tap water with 50ml fresh boiled. Add in the yeast and stir and then leave for 15 mins to hydrate. Then in a big bowl add flour and salt, and then add the water and oil and fold in with a spatula / wooden spoon until it's sort of together and then get it out and knead for a couple of mins until it gets smooth and elastic. Back in the bowl, cover with cling film and then leave all day. Then in the evening knead it back together, split into quarters and allow to rest and rise again. 30 mins or so. Then roll out (or learn to hand stretch, it's not hard) and bake in a hot oven with topping of choice for as long as it takes for the base to crisp up and the topping to colour and bubble.

edit - agree with Johndoh though - baby steps. But making your own pizza is great..... and might entice him into the kitchen too.

sure, I'd say it's one of the easiest things to make that tastes 100 times better than the shop bought version. its a good start to learning how to prep. garlic too!

Pizza base is dead easy*

🙂

Just wondering what I should have along side the baocn and leek pasta rather than just a whole plate of pasta. Is the bacon in the recipe enough protein in take, maybe I should do something to go along with it. Is there a pretty good home made garlic bread maybe...

100g is a standard largeish serving of pasta. If you didn't feel very hungry you could reduce it to 75g or even 50g. If you were having a traditional italian meal with several courses then you would only have 50g-75g. Bear in mind that the cheese is also a protein. If you want more protein, then have some nuts as a starter/nibble beforehand.

If you really like and want garlic bread, then fair enough, but for me garlic bread on top of a heavy pasta dish like that would be too much. I prefer to think of what ingredients and foods go together or complement one another in terms of taste, texture and flavours, rather than in terms of scientific food groups, but pasta and bread are both flour ('double carbing') and the butter in the garlic bread is more dairy fat on top of the cheese and the fat from the bacon. I like bread with my meal, but I would tend to eat somthing like part of a (homemade) foccacia roll before the pasta, and then use the remainder to mop up the remains of the sauce after eating the pasta.

Rather than thinking about protein or food groups or thinking about food simply as fuel/nutrition, think instead about what to your taste buds would go well with that sort of dish. To my mind, you are having a fairly rich/heavy pasta dish, so I would want things with it or after it that would cut through or counter balance that fat and richness, for example a glass of white wine with it, and/or a winter leaves salad with an olive oil and vinegar dressing, and/or a piece of fruit (e.g. an orange or an apple), i.e. things which are all somewhat acidic.

Part of my proble, with recipes is that I stick to it for fear of having to bin the whole lot.

It's just cooking. No one is going to die if you make a mistake*. If you never make a mistake because you always stick rigidly to the recipe, then you will also never learn or develop that feel for cooking that comes from trial and error and experimenting/playing around a bit, whether it be with ingredients, or the process (increasing or lowering the temperature a bit, varying the cooking time etc.).

* There are a few exceptions, but you will get plenty of warning about those, e.g. picking wild mushrooms, soaking kidney beans etc.

When you have a complete disaster, just laugh about it and stick a frozen pizza in the oven.

If you really like and want garlic bread, then fair enough, but for me garlic bread on top of a heavy pasta dish like that would be too much

This, double carbs is too much for me.

I prefer a nice salad with my pasta, or even just have it on a bed of rocket and spinach leaves with some roasted tomatoes tossed through.

how are you getting on OP?

Just seen this thread and we have started cooking from the current Tom Kerridge Lose weight for Good program.  There are a whole bunch of brilliant recipes in the book and he majors on big flavours and low calories.  Worth looking at the first couple of programs on iplayer if you missed it and then getting the book if it appeals.

It's going really well actually and I'm really enjoying everything I've eaten but also finding it equally quite tough at times. Eating healthier is definitely more expensive and I've had to spend some money on the kitchen to fix and sort things to make life a little easier and more enjoyable. Daft things like a new frying pan, two new baking trays now, new spatulas, new kitchen roll holder, new bin and then there's keeping the veg stocked up buying fresh more often. Have had the same bag of oven chips in the freezer now since this thread and I haven't touched them once.

Logging everything on myfitnesspal which has really highlighted some imbalances in my diet, sugar in particular and its really hard work trying to stay under recommended allowances. A cup of tea for me equals 18g of sugar so I've now cut back to only two cups a day just to try to keep under the allowance. It's also made me think more about what I choose to eat so for example I had to work late tonight so when I got in I figured focus on protein and whatever small thing I ate make sure it was good rather than just convenient so I chucked some onions and mushrooms in a pan and cooked a quick omelette.

Following the porridge thread the other day I've been n bought some different types of oats and tomorrow morning I'm going to be following the 'perfect porridge' recipe. I've been n bought more good quality versions of the same food so the bargain basement peanut butter has been replaced with a non palm oil version. I've also made the swap to a seeded wonder loaf which although costs £1.40 a loaf I'm really enjoying. Make roasted veg a lot, love sweet potatoes and have made a few of the recipes now, leek and bacon, butternut macaroni cheese.

It's quite hard to tell if its making a difference because when I started this diet change I also started my tablets so I can't definitely say which has made the biggest difference. I'm having to exercise ridiculous self control to not just binge on the worst stuff imaginable like biscuits or mini eggs but I'm lasting so far with just an odd biscuit or two with my last cup of tea for the day. Hopefully this will be rewarded tomorrow night because instead of eating proper food for tea we're going to a new pudding only place!!

18g is a shit load of sugar, I used to take 2 sugars in tea, weaned myself off over a year or two, not too difficult really.