Monthly Archives: October 2026

Classics, Good Food

Gołąbki, version light.

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Version light, with minced turkey meat and what a triumph!

I’m on a constant lookout for tasty, rich in protein and low in calories meals. I came across this option for gołąbki, clasically made with minced pork and rice. Pork is temporarily off the limits for me, but I made these today for all 3 of us, I had 2, Izzie and Florek 3 each. We all approved.

While the lovely, fresh, white cabbage leaves were being blanched, I put together a filling of rice, minced turkey, some porcini mushrooms and a good amount of chopped, fried, red onions. Seasoned it all genererously with salt and pepper, then also a splash of soy sauce and a drop of toasted sesame oil, never a bad idea. Once filled and rolled, the cabbage leaves cooked slowly under the lid for less than an hour, then got served with delicious tomato sauce and oven roasted potato wedges. I could have easily eaten double the portion, but I didn’t. After a month of this sort of actions, I am 2kg down. Without suffering, without giving up vino, without starving. Onwards!!! 🙂

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Dutch, while on diet.

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Florek has started a new job this week, for a Dutch company. He’s gone to Amsterdam for a few days and came back with a suitcase full of stroopwaffels and pinda saus, on request of his wife, who felt like some flavours from her au-pair days in Rijswijk, some 25 years ago.

Stroopwaffels are delicious, but sweet and I have done a good job cutting down on sugar, pinda saus on the other hand is super calorific thanks to its peanut content, but my frend Chat suggested that as long as I don’t go ballistic on it, I can still enjoy some nice chicken skewer dinner with pinda saus. So I did. And I enjoyed every bit of it. I measured my meat and my rice, ended up having barely any rice, so that I could smear some more of the sauce on the chicken.

Chopped pieces of chicken breast (150g for me) I have briefly marinated in some soy sauce, cumin, ground coriander, ginger and garlic, before stabbing it on the skewers and cooking in the oven for about 20 mins, only taking out before the end to smear some pinda saus on it, the rest of which I served in the bowl on the table. Plain rice, some cucumber, chili and coriander completed the picture. Oh, and a glass of cab sav did too.

Lekker! 🙂

Good Food

Warm welcome to the lentils.

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I continue with my 1600kcal per day diet. I’m hardly sticking with what’s written on the menu, but with the help of my friend ChatGPT I research the recipes and try hard to stick with the reduction. It’s working so far, check in last week brought -4cm in the waist and around 1,5 kg down. Not a French revolution, but it’s just a start, hopefully.

About once a week I allow myself to go off the rails a bit, last Saturday we went out with the neighbours and LauDe, I had a tagliata with porcini and again had not loved how heavy my stomach felt after the beef and eating late.

But because I was only given a 14 day menu to be repeated and cooked in batches, I quickly got bored of it, I do my own research. Some things, like poke bowls with prawns and fresh tuna have become a favourite, even Izzie asks for them. Today, after a nice workout I’ve cooked for myself a batch of soup, recipe from Chat, with lentils- a first ever in my pantry. Used the scales for everything, didn’t want to take the piss, will share the chicken with the cats too!

On a small amount of olive oil (booooo) I have fried a medium white onion, 2 carrots and some celery, 2 cloves of garlic. Seasoned with pepper and smoked paprika. Sauteed the thing for 5-7 minutes, added 150g of rinsed lentils, 250g of chopped potatoes, a can of datterini, 2 bay leaves, 900ml of chicken stock. 3 small chicken thighs. Covered the pot and let it simmer for roughly 30 mins. I decided I was happy with the seasoning, so removed the chicken, took it off the bone, added some parsley and destroyed a bowl of it. Good, filling, delicious soup, if I could add one more thing, would be a generous glug of olive oil on top, but no, I only added a tsp. Once Florek comes back from Holland, we will collect our olive oil from frantoio, where we have taken 37kg of our own olives last Saturday. 🙂

For the science

Back on diet.

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Yup, the time has come to face the music. I have been enjoying my food and dolce vita for 4 years now, without giving it much thought. I’ve been drizzling the wonderful Italian olive oil liberally all over my food, never bothering to find out just how calorific it is. Never worried much about portion control, as long as a portion of pasta for 3 people did not exceed 250g. Also, pushing 50, my metabolism has its middle finger constantly stretched out towards me, which is not helping. I have reached 62kg on the scales, many of my beautiful clothes in the wardrobe don’t fit me anymore, I don’t like what my body is becoming.

Ola Żelazo, with whom I have been exercising for a while now, has come up with “Zdrowe Odchudzanie” project, all about losing weight in a healthy way; it is to be stretched out for 6 months. It does not promise -10kg within a month, only to return with some extras a few months later, it promises to introduce different eating habits, while training with Olka and hopefully for the results to stay. Signing up for it was no brainer, I did. I have a two week menu now, more as a guidance than a strict diet and I’m using it as such. The aim is about 1600kcal a day. I’m saying goodbye to pizza for now, burgers, cheeses, generous bowls of delicious pasta, I will be following Courtney’s advice though to aim at 80-20 kind of efficiency, so I will get myself off the hook every now and then, I won’t be ordering salad when going out with friends and will make most delicious food next Saturday, when Lara and Sergio come for dinner. And the next day I’ll be back to 1600kcal. This is the plan. I hope I can stick with it, it would be great to have a nice waistline again.

On Friday evening Florek and Izzie enjoyed their pizza, I made for myself a kind of cauliflower bake from the new menu and I was shocked at how good it was. Will be definitely making it again. It was around 230g of cauliflower, finely chopped, panfried on a SMALL amount of olive oil, then a handful of parmesan in, one egg, all mixed well, formed into a small disc and baked in the oven on the baking sheet for about 25 mins. Then some of my lovely tomato sauce went on top, the same I used for the pizza, good stuff, from fresh tomatoes and melanzane, a handful of grated mozarella, ONE SLICE of salami on, this was not on the recipe, but I will not give up on flavour for half a year. Lots of oregano, a few slices of fresh tomato, back in the oven for 10 minutes. Fresh basil and onto the plate. Really nice. Onwards and upwards, or something like that! 🙂