Saturday 22 Oct 2011

This morning I woke up with a headache.  Perhaps it was because I drank less water than other days?  More likely that I clenched my teeth in my sleep.  It's a pity though because I get these headaches frequently and haven't had any for a month so I thought it may be diet related.

Timing	What I ate
Breakfast	Smoothie with yoghurt, soaked almonds, banana, raw cacao and sprinkles
Snack
Lunch	Holford's Cashew and Sesame Quinoa (see pic): Protein: 100g red quinoa, 1Tbs chopped cashews Veg: 1 carrot, 2 Tbs fresh peas, spring onions, lettuce, tomato, cucumber
Snack	1 stick of celery with hummus
Supper	Pauline Todd's chickpea curry (see recipe below). Starch Veg: 58g brown basmati rice
Drinks	7 water

I made this for dinner on Thurs night with white quinoa and today we ate it with red quinoa.  It's really delicious.  The cashew nuts make it more interesting and that sesame and tamari sauce is just so yum.

Pauline Todd's Chickpea Curry

This might seem like a huge fuss.  As soon as we'd finished lunch, we got busy with preparing dinner!  Mum's here with me for the day and she's also on this diet and she's lost 3kgs and is also inspired and happy to spend heaps of time preparing yummy (and slimming!) food. 

Ingredients for a meal for 6. (ie: makes a lot but will keep well and improves over time)

Garam Masala

Roast the following in a very hot dry pan for 2 mins:
½ tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp cloves
cinnamon bark
2 tsp coriander seeds
10 cardamom pods
1 tsp peppercorns

Allow to cool and the grind in a coffee grinder to form a aromatic powder.  Then add:
½ nutmeg (finely grated)

Jamie Oliver's Rogan Josh paste

1 red pepper (or 75g roasted peppers from a jar)
2 tsp cumin seeds (I used ½ tsp because I'm not crazy about cumin)
2 tsp coriander seeds
1 tsp black peppercorns
2 cloves of garlic (crushed)
a thumb-sized piece of fresh root ginger (chopped)

1 Tbs paprika
1 tsp smoked paprika
2tsp garam masala (made above)
1 tsp turmeric
½ tsp sea salt
2 Tbs groundnut oil
2 Tbs tomato purée
1 fresh red chilli
a small bunch of fresh coriander

Grill the red pepper to blacken the skin so that it can be removed.

Dry roast the cumin seeds, coriander seeds and black peppercorns in a dry hot pan (yes... again... as done for the garam masala).  Cool and then crush in the pestle and mortar until fine

Whiz ALL ingredients in a food processor to form a smooth paste.

And finally... the curry 

First brown on top of stove in a big oven proof casserole dish:
2 onions

Then add and brown :
3 brinjals
3 Tbs pumpkin seeds
3 Tbs sunflower seeds

Then add:
2 cloves of garlic (crushed)
a thumb-sized piece of fresh root ginger (chopped)
6 tomatoes (skins removed in hot water)
2 sweet potato (roughly chopped)
2 yellow peppers
1 tin chick peas with juice (or you can cook up some chickpeas yourself - we did!)
jogan rosh curry paste (made above)
3 Tbs tomato paste

Heat, but don't boil.

Bake in oven at 150 for 10 min.
Turn down to 100 and cook for a further hour (or longer) and keep it warm.