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! 🙂

They seem like a trend  now, Masterchef contestants are cooking them,  Jason Atherton in Saturday Kitchen did too,  so it was time for me to make my way to the butcher’s and place the order.  I’m a big fan of ox cheeks, even managed to convince Florek to them, but my last night’s effort with pork cheeks was not a triumph, I must say.  They didn’t look the part  when I was preparing them, I’ve removed quite a lot of fat and sinew and them proceeded to braise them they way I would do ox cheeks, but for less than 2 hours, as the size was considerably smaller. While they were braising, I’ve made a side of roasted, grated beetroot and some dauphinoise and then when I tasted them shortly before serving- I quickly panfried 2 eggs for Florek, I knew he would not be enjoying pork cheeks. There were 2 or 3 pieces of beautifully tender meat that I ate and rather liked, but mostly I ended up with lots of fatty pork, the texture of which did not appeal to me at all. The sauce was lovely and rich and I saved it, but the pork went to the bin, sorry to say.

I’m glad I tried, for the science, but will not be running back to Toby’s for some more.

Having heard Rick Stein talking about their amazing smoky flavour, then Thomasina Miers about the diversity and authentic taste, I placed the order on Amazon and made tacos this evening, which were served with ancho chili salsa.  I used Jamie Oliver’s recipe from 15 Minute Meals. The crowd is divided. Half of the crowd, Florek, is not quite sure if he likes it. He can take a lot more heat than me, but as for the taste he wasn’t exactly drinking this salsa. The other half, myself, did like the flavour, but could hardly take the heat in that bowl and will be reading some more about what to do with the remaining 2 anchos.  We had a little of the salsa on the chicken last night, but the majority of it went to Andy’s, a big Mexican food fan and a chili enthusiast.

For the salsa, I first rehydrated the chili with enough boiling water to cover it in the blender. 2 spring onions in, 4 cherry tomatoes, 1/2 a bunch of fresh coriander with stalks, 1 fresh red chili,juice of 1 and 1/2 limes, a splash of balsamic vinegar and 1 tbsp of soy sauce.  All this blitzed into a salsa and served alongside chicken tacos with cheese and avocados. Further research to be continued. 🙂

There is this very annoyingly pleasant series on BBC2 called “Rick Stein’s Long Weekends” which I binge on and get ideas from. It’s annoyingly pleasant, as the dude travels to places like Reykiavik, Bordeaux, Lisbon or Vienna, walks around, eats and drinks and gets paid for it ( bastard!!!).  I watched him eating fishcakes made entirely differently to those I’ve been making for years, had some cod in the freezer and tried them today. I’m glad I did, that had to be done for the science, but it will now the the return to the old method, lightly cooked fish, spuds squeezed through the ricer. Those I made today consisted of raw cod, quickly pulsed  in the food processor, a shallot, spring onions, fresh red chili, lots of coriander, lemon peel and seasoning. I also coated them in sesame seeds, the idea seeded really appealing, but turned out to be quite disappointing.

The texture was nothing like I expected, spuds do add softness. Couldn’t taste the lemon and chili. Those lovely sesame seeds were lost, panko is the way to go, no doubt.

From today’s  episode in Vienna I crave one thing- apple strudel.  I might well make it tomorrow!