If you follow a raw food diet you literally, only eat raw food. Anything that is heated above 40C is not considered raw. Obviously that means no cooking of food. Less obviously, it also means you cannot eat the majority of milk, cream, yoghurt and chocolate products, as these are all heated above 40C in the manufacturing process.

These regulations rule out most of my favourite desserts so I had to think outside of the box. I often look at recipes on the web and wonder what some of the more unusual food combinations and processes actually taste like.  So rather than putting this months challenge in the “too hard basket” I decided it was time to give it a go. If nothing else it will satisfy my curiosities.

I keep stumbling across recipes for raw chocolate mousse. As dairy is off the menu in a raw food diet, avocado is used to give the dessert the mousse like texture.  Intrigued by eating avocado for dessert, mousse was the answer to the raw food challenge.  I am currently in the early phases of a kitchen renovation and in preparation I am eating my way through the freezer to make space for frozen meals for when I’m kitchen-less.  To create a little more space in the freezer I decided to use some frozen raspberries instead of chocolate.  I adapted a recipe from 84th&3rd and came up with this raspberry mousse.

This mousse is quick and easy to make.  It is a one pot wonder, which is quite unusual for dessert.  And because you can use frozen raspberries it is chilled enough to eat immediately.

And the verdict? It was quite nice. It tasted like a dessert and had the texture of yoghurt. I’m not going to lie though; in a blind taste I would choose a mousse with cream and egg whites every time. I do however have a pretty good recipe up my sleeve if I ever happen to entertain any vegans or raw foodists.

Raw, Vegan Raspberry Mousse (serves 2)

1 ripe avocado
150g frozen raspberries
30g maple syrup
pinch salt
2 mint leaves, finely chopped

Put all of the ingredients into a food processor and blitz until smooth and well combined. The raspberries can be used frozen, but this does slow down the pureeing so you will probably need to scrape down the bowl a couple of times before blitzing again.

Serve immediately with extra raspberries and a sprig of mint or chill in the fridge.

While doing my research on how to reduce the husbands cholesterol I came across the 5:2 diet. A fasting diet that helps reduce cholesterol and is also great for weight loss.  The 5:2 diet involves fasting for 2 non-consecutive days a week.  Although it is described as fasting, which to me implies no food, what it actually means is restricting your daily Calorie intake to 500 Calories for women and 600 Calories for men.  This sounds very little, but if you are clever about what you eat, you can eat 3 small meals a day. Just remember drinks count as Calories so no cappuccinos or wine!

Six months on I have reached my target weight. I’ve lost 12KG and 2-3 dress sizes (depending which shops I go to). I am no longer fasting on a weekly basis, but I now know I have a great way to keep my waistline in check.  If I’ve had a big eating weekend I will do a fast day during the week for maintenance.

I couldn’t resist including that all important before and after shot, after all, it’s not a real dieting article without.

How does a fast day look for me? I start the day with one slice of toast with low fat spread and Vegemite.  This equates to about 100 Calories.  My usual breakfast is a slice of toast and if I’m busy at work I can easily keep going to lunch on 100 Calories.

For lunch I aim to eat 70-100 Calories.  This could be a bowl of homemade soup or low fat lunch slices with tomatoes or pea puree.  I find it easy to keep the Calories down if I make things like soup myself.  I have found some great recipes online, that I have collected on my Pinterest page.  There are a few food bloggers doing this diet as it lends itself to people who like to eat.  I could never be disciplined enough to Calorie count for 7 days a week, but I’m stubborn enough to stick at it for 2 days a week, knowing I can have those duck fat roast potatoes on the weekend.

I save the greatest number of Calories for the evening. Some people prefer to eat the largest meal for breakfast, to set them up for the day, but I’m not really a breakfast person, so 100 Calories is just fine.  Now you might be feeling a bit hungry by now, so I make sure I get the largest volume of food for my 300 Calories.  Dinner often involves a grilled piece of chicken or fish with lots of vegetables, but no potatoes. I have also found that bourghal is relatively low in calories so you can eat quite a lot for 300 Calories.

There has been mixed press about this diet.  Many people suggest the diet encourages you to binge and eat badly for five days a week.  I actually found the opposite.  The limited Calorie intake made me realise that I don’t need to eat such large portions the rest of the week.  I can now identify when I’m full and can stop eating and I actually think my stomach may have shrunk a little!

Even though I’m not fasting strictly anymore I do still enjoy some of the lower Calorie dinners.  This stir fry was one of my firm favourites.

Pork and Vegetable Stir Fry (serves 2, 292 Calories per serve)

200g pork fillet, fat and sinew removed
30ml soy sauce
10ml Mirin
10ml Sesame oil
12g grated ginger
10g chopped, fresh garlic
200g carrot
150g snow  peas
1 can baby corn spears
10g fresh coriander, leaves picked and chopped
2g sesame seeds

Slice the pork into long, thin strips. Mix the soy sauce and Mirin together in a bowl and add half the sesame oil to make a marinade. Put the pork strips in the bowl, stirring to coat with the mixture and leave to marinate for 10 minutes while you chop the rest of the veg.

Prepare the veg ready for stir frying: cut the carrot into matchsticks; the snow peas into strips; halve the corn spears.

Heat a wok or large frying pan to high and add the rest of the sesame oil.  Remove the pork from the marinade, reserving the liquid for later.  Quickly fry the pork until it is brown on all sides and just cooked. This should only take a few minutes.  Remove the pork from the pan and set aside.

Add the ginger and garlic to the pan and fry for 1 minute, then add the carrot, snow peas and corn. Stir fry quickly on a high heat for about 2 minutes until heated through but not over cooked. Stir fried veg should be hot but crunchy.

Return the pork to the pan and add the marinade. Stir fry for another minute until the pork is hot and the marinade is bubbling.Serve sprinkled with coriander leaves and sesame seeds.

If you are not watching the calories so closely this is great served with noodles. Cook the noodles and stir through when you add the marinade to coat them with flavour.

Tropical and exotic are kind of interchangeable in my world.  If we’re talking fruits, we’re talking all of those fruit that were not readily available growing up in the UK. The first dish I ever cooked in my high school home economics class was pineapple upside down cake.  Despite the pineapples coming from a tin I still classed it as an exotic, tropical fruit cake.  I toyed with the idea of recreating this dish, but I do not look back fondly on my high school cooking days.

With pineapple upside down cake disregarded, it started me thinking about mango and passion fruit.  Two fruits I hadn’t eaten fresh before moving Down Under.  The other consideration was the health benefits.  I love cheesecake, but it’s not the healthiest dessert in the world.  So with a bit of tweaking, I was able to reduce the calorie content, and make a cheesecake that contains about 40% less calories than a typical serve of cheesecake.  With your average slice of cheesecake containing 383 Calories per slice, mine weighs in at a slightly healthier 226 Calories per slice. Although I cannot claim it to be healthy, I can claim it is healthier than a typical slice of cheesecake. Despite it’s sightly healthier claims, it also tastes pretty good too.

Mango and Passion Fruit Cheesecake (serves 12)
60g Nice biscuits
60g rolled oats
60g almond meal
60g butter, melted

250g tinned mango
250g light cream cheese
250g light Ricotta cheese
180g Low fat Greek yoghurt
1/2 tsp vanilla bean paste
75g caster sugar
3 large eggs, beaten
4 passion fruit

Pre-heat oven to 160 Degrees Celsius.  Grease a 22cm loose bottom, round, springform tin.

Start by making the base. Break up the biscuits and put them in a food processor.  Pulse until they look like bread crumbs.  Remove from the food processor and do the same with the rolled oats to break them up a bit. Return the biscuit crumbs to the processor with the oats and add the almond meal. Add the melted butter to the crumb mixture and pulse briefly until they are all combined, and there are no dry bits left in the mixture.

Press the crumb mixture into the bottom of the pan. Bake in the oven for 10 minutes then allow to cool.

Put the mango pieces into a food processor and blitz until it forms a smooth puree.  Put the cream cheese and ricotta into the bowl of a stand mixer and mix briefly to combine. Add the yoghurt, vanilla bean paste, caster sugar and continue to mix until smooth. Be careful not to over mix as it can become quite loose.  Ensure the eggs are well beaten, then add to the cheese mixture and mix until combined.  This should thicken the mixture slightly.

Pour the cheese mixture onto the cooled biscuit base and bake in the oven for 1 hour.  After 1 hour it should be set, with a slight wobble in the middle.  Turn off the oven and allow it to cool in the oven with the door open slightly, for 1 hour.  This was the general consensus from an number of recipes I read, apparently it stops the cheesecake from cracking.  Mine still cracked a tiny bit, I can only imagine what would happen without this stage, and I wasn’t prepared to risk it.

To serve, scrape the flesh and seeds from the four passion fruit. Pass 3 of the fruits through the sieve, reserving the juice and discarding the seeds. Keep the seeds from 1 fruit, mixing with the juice of the rest of the fruits.

Drizzle the juice and seed mixture of the top of the cheesecake and chill until ready to serve.

Roaming Cow Dairies has introduced a new range of yoghurts that are Australian made and support Australian farmers.  The brand appealed to me because they strive to use the best quality ingredients keeping the good stuff in and not adding the bad stuff. Because there are no artificial thickeners and the tub tells you the cultures that are used I will be able to use this yoghurts as a starter culture for some of my cheese making.

Needless to say I chickened out with flavoured options and stuck with what I know.  I do really like to cook with yoghurt so that is what I did.

I used the Greek Style to make some Labne.  I’ve been wanting to perfect this recipe for a while, turning the dip like product I made before into the more traditional looking Labne balls you can buy in the shops.  This time I followed my recipe with an additional step.  After draining for 24 hours I gently pressed the cheese with a 500g tub of margarine for 24 hours.  Setting the muslin wrapped yoghurt in a cheese mould raised in another tub so the whey could drain away.

This allowed the cheese to firm up to a consistency that I could actually roll it into balls, cover with Sumac then store in olive oil.  This will keep for much longer than the dip style cheese I made before and will make a great addition to my home made cheese boards.

As I’m still trying to eat more healthily I have been adding the low fat Greek yoghurt to dishes instead of cream.  It works in sauces and dressings, like the one for my chicken and egg salad.  You just have to be careful not to boil sauces with yoghurt as they have a tendency to split when heated too high.

And finally I made a highly indulgent blue cheese sauce.  This is the perfect accompaniment at a summer barbeque and I am quite partial to blue cheese in my burgers.  I used the low fat yoghurt, but I’m afraid that doesn’t really cancel out the blue cheese; however, it is much better for you than using cream or mayonnaise.

Blue Cheese Sauce
125g blue cheese
180g Roaming Cow reduced fat Greek style yoghurt
6 spring onions

Chop the blue cheese into small cubes.  In a bowl, stir the blue cheese through the yoghurt and mix until most of the blue cheese is combined.  The mixture will go green when well combined but there should be some blue cheese chunks left to give it some texture.

Finely slice the spring onions, discarding the leafy green tops.  Stir through the yoghurt sauce.

Serve the sauce as a dip, or as a dressing for pork or beef burgers.

Nic Cooks was provided with the Roaming Cow Yoghurt to review.

Anyway, for me,  the difference between success and failure on the 5:2 diet is to find foods that look filling but are low in calories. This way I can fool my brain into thinking I am eating more than I actually am.  That’s where raw vegetables come in.  I have discovered that raw veggies contain less calories than cooked which means I can put more on the plate.

For this recipe I have left the asparagus raw because I found some really young, delicate stalks. If you can only get fatter, tougher asparagus then you may want to blanch them for a couple of minutes in boiling water and allow to cool.  This may add a few more calories to the dish though!

I used some of my home made whey ricotta as it is too delicious to resist. I had to guess the calories, so judged it on the whole milk variety, but you could of course buy low fat ricotta and have more.  You can also drizzle with extra virgin olive oil on days when you are not counting the calories so closely.

Zucchini and Asparagus Salad (serves 2, 102 calories per serve)
40ml fresh lemon juice
1 small clove of garlic, finely chopped
10g red chilli, finely chopped
200g small zucchini (courgettes)
100g asparagus
30g spring onions, finely sliced
30g black olives, sliced
60g ricotta
6g fresh mint leaves

In a large bowl, make the marinade by combining the lemon juice, garlic and chilli.

This is my Jamie Oliver moment, I always think of Jamie when I crack out the speed peeler.  I’d never heard of a potato peeler being called that until I started watching Jamie, but the name has stuck. Using a speed peeler, peel the zucchini until you can peel no more.  You should be left with a large pile of zucchini ribbons.  It looks a lot, but it does shrink when marinaded in the lemon juice.

Put the zucchini in the bowl with the lemon juice and stir until well coated.  Add the asparagus and leave to stand for a few minutes to allow the flavours to combine.

Just before serving add the spring onions, olives and mint.  Dot with the ricotta and sprinkle with mint.  I served this with a small portion of grilled, white fish giving me a satisfying 300 calorie dinner.

Calories calculated using Calorie King, based on the quantities given above.  Weights refer to ingredients once leaves, peel, stalks etc. have been removed.

Having never had to worry about dieting, it wasn’t really on my radar and I had not developed the self control required for such things, but when my BMI finally tipped from the OK to the not so OK it was time to do something about it (I was by now more than 20kg heavier than the day I got married).

This realisation coincided with my husbands need to reduce his cholesterol, so now seemed to be the perfect time to give it a go, that and the fact I refused to go out and buy a whole new wardrobe.  In a bid to help, my mother sent through some information about a new diet that everyone is talking about in the UK, the 5:2 diet. The 5:2 diet claims to help you live longer, reduce your cholesterol and as an added bonus lose weight.  The idea being you eat whatever you want for 5 days of the week and to balance that out have two fast days a week. The fast days encourage your body to breakdown the fat and cholesterol that usually just hangs around, unless you are an exercise enthusiast, which I am not.

The initial sound of this was horrific, I could never go without eating! But in actual fact, when they say “fast” days they actually mean limit your calorie intake to 500 calories for women and 600 for men.  I investigated what this would look like in real terms, and it actually seemed achievable.  You can read more about the diet here.

So 6 weeks in I am feeling slimmer and healthier and I have lost a whopping 5.7 KG. I still have a few more kilos to go and I imagine it will become more difficult as I get closer to my target weight but for now I am as pleased as punch.  It suits me because I love to cook, eat and dine out, which in my eyes is not enjoyable if you are always watching what you eat.If I can eat what I want for most of the week, and control it on days I am working, it could be the answer to my prayers.  I pick the fast days according to what I have on in the week, there is no particular recommendation as to which day is better – too easy.

A typical fast days eating looks like this: a slice of toast for breakfast (100 calories), a bowl of soup for lunch (100 calories), a small piece of protein and veggies for dinner in the evening (300 calories), and only water to drink.  I thought I would be starving without snacking but I have learnt that feeling hungry is actually not so bad, especially when it is doing you good.  I don’t feel hungry all day and I never feel more hungry than I do on other days.

In order to not feel too hard done by I need to eat something three times a day even if it is something small.  I’m also not very good at eating the same thing too often, especially two days in a row (although fast days do not have to be consecutive days, but sometimes it works out like that).  I thought it would be difficult to find recipes that fit the bill and still make me feel like I’ve eaten but as this seems to be the diet for foodies there are a few fellow bloggers posting great recipes to get me started, like Karen at Lavender and Loveage and Fiona at London Unattached.

I cannot guarantee that you are able to eat exactly what you want and still lose weight, as I have dramatically reduced cheese, butter and cream for the rest of the week due to the low cholesterol side of things, but even in the week I ate roast goose (crispy skin included), chocolate and wine I still lost a small amount, so once I reach my goal I think it will work for maintenance, no holds barred.

As a food lover, I find it really important to have variety in my diet, so I am now on a mission to find a variety of low calorie meals for fasting days. Here is a recipe for my new favourite grain bourghal.  I am using the CalorieKing app to calculate my calories, so hopefully they are accurate.  Quantities can be increased for non-dieters or non-fasting days.

Bourghal, Tomato and Capsicum Salad with Griddled Chicken Breast 285 Calories (serves 1)

25g bourghal
1/2 small clove garlic
80g tomatoes
80g capsicum
15g spring onions, white part only
15g sliced, pitted black olives
10g mint leaves
10g parsley leaves
20ml  fresh lemon juice
100g chicken breast, skin and fat removed, about 1 cm thick
salt and pepper
olive oil spray

Put the bourghal in a large bowl and cover with plenty of boiling water and leave to stand for 45 minutes.

Finely chop the garlic, tomatoes, capsicum, spring onion and herbs and set aside.

Just before the bourghal is ready, heat a griddle pan to high.  Season the chicken breast and spray with a small amount of oil.  Cook the chicken for 8-10 minutes until cooked through, turning half way. Allow the chicken to rest while you assemble the rest of the dish.

Once the bourghal is tender (45 minutes soaking) drain to remove all excess water.  Return to the bowl and stir through the chopped garlic, vegetables and herbs.  Season to taste with the lemon juice, salt and pepper. If it is not a fast day it also tastes great with some extra virgin olive not, but that would tip this dish way over the magic 300 calories.  Serve with the chicken.

Calorie count is a guide, and worked out based on the quantities stated.

Once you have the buttermilk you are ready to make the paneer.  This will have to be made at least a day before but could be done a few days in advance if you keep the buttermilk in the fridge once prepared.

Cheese needs an acid to curdle the milk.  With the Jamie Oliver recipe I used lemon juice but for this recipe you use larger quantities of the more lightly acidic buttermilk.  I had my doubts as to whether the homemade buttermilk would work, but after heating the milk to the correct temperature it curdled as per the recipe.

Then I got a bit confused. The milk curdled beautifully but the next part of the recipe was to heat further, but somehow I think I heated it a bit too much as the finished product was multi-textured with parts of it clearly over done.  This did not deter me, I completed the recipe, including adding some cumin seeds to make a flavoured cheese.

The final product was not quite the right texture but it tasted good and was perfect for cooking with.  I added it to some Gozleme and made a curry accompaniment with spinach and tomato.  The paneer had a great flavour, especially with the extra addition of cumin, and if I hadn’t overheated it, it would have been even better.  I still enjoyed it with my curry and this is definitely one I’ll be doing again.  Next time I think I will drain once it has formed the curd mass rather than heating it further and see what the result is.  If anyone else has made this cheese, please let me know what you think.  But for now, here is my recipe for the side dish I made to go with a curry.

Spinach, Tomato and Paneer
100g onion, thinly sliced
olive oil for frying
1 tablespoon Coriander seeds, crushed in a pestle and mortar
1 teaspoon cumin seeds, crushed in a pestle and mortar
250g tomatoes, deseeded and flesh chopped
100g spinach
150g paneer
salt and pepper to taste

Put a small amount of oil in a frying pan and gently fry the sliced onion over a medium heat.  Add the crushed coriander and cumin seeds and fry for about ten minutes until the onion is cooked but not brown.

Add the chopped tomatoes and stir for a minute then add the spinach and allow it to wilt.  Finally add the paneer and stir to combine.  Season to taste then serve as an accompaniment to a curry.

The spinach and paneer mixture was also great served cold the following day as a filling for a wrap.

Chobani is America’s number 1 yoghurt brand and has recently been released for sale in Australia.  You can buy it from Woolworths in New South Wales and Victoria.  The yoghurt is strained so is ideal for cooking, as the straining should prevent it from splitting when heated.  It is also low in fat, which makes it perfect for my new healthy diet.  This delivery was a very timely one as it coincided with the need to clear my fridge of cream, creme fraiche and the like and replace it with something a little healthier.

I have to confess I am a little partial to cooking with cream and creme fraiche so I was finding it difficult to cut out completely.  Instead I decided to try substituting the cream for yoghurt in a few of my favourite dishes.  The 2% Chobani worked well in beef stroganoff. I make this recipe from Rick Stein, serving it with rice instead of matchstick potatoes. It also worked really well in a Rick Stein Moghul Chicken Korma recipe – a relatively healthy curry option.

I also like to accompany some dinners with sour cream or mayonaise. A big no, no on a fat reduced diet so instead I made a simple yoghurt raita to accompany meats and fish.  This involved finely chopping some apple and fennel and mixing with the Chobani.  Finished with some salt and pepper and a dash of lemon juice it turns yoghurt into a cream accompaniment.

I’m now on the look out for healthy, enjoyable meals to replace old favourites.  I am quite partial to a jacket potato with cheese, but cheese is off the menu for now.  Instead I made a simple coleslaw with equal quantities of finely sliced red cabbage, radish and carrot ribbons peeled with a speed peeler.  Mixed with some 0% Chobani, salt, pepper and lemon juice to tasted it made for the perfect Saturday lunch.

As a final treat I made us some dessert.  I love this recipe from Jamie Oliver for a quick ice cream style dessert.  I know this frozen yoghurt dessert is essentially the flavoured yoghurt I hated as a child, but if Jamie calls it an ice cream I can happily eat it (psychologists would have a field day with my funny food rules.)

And finally, I couldn’t receive a sample of yoghurt without using it in my favourite weekend lunch, gozleme.  This delicious, filled bread is quick and easy to make as there is no need to leave the dough for hours to rise.  You then fill it with a filling of your choice, which used to be lamb or ricotta, but now I’m opting for spinach, tomato and homemade low fat paneer (post to follow).

Gozleme with Spinach, Tomato and and Low Fat Paneer (makes 4)

For the Dough
200g of 2% Chobani Greek yoghurt
pinch of salt
250g self raising flour plus extra for rolling

For the Filling
100g spinach
150g drained chopped tinned tomatoes
100g low fat paneer, chopped in small cubes
small handful of chopped, fresh coriander leaves
salt and pepper to taste

oil spray for cooking
lemon wedges to serve

First make the dough.  Place the Chobani yoghurt in a bowl with a pinch of salt and stir until smooth.  Add the flour until a dough forms.  At first it seems like a lot of flour but with a few minutes of kneading the dough should come together to form a smooth, elastic dough.  Put the dough in a bowl and cover and allow to rest for half an hour while you make the filling.

For the filling, place the spinach in a colander and pour boiled water over the top until wilted. Rinse with cold water then squeeze out the excess water and roughly chop.  Place in a bowl and add the tomatoes, chopped paneer and coriander leaves, stir to combine then season to taste.  Set aside while you roll out the dough.

Divide the dough into four equal portions.  Shape each portion into a ball then roll each ball into a 20cm circle.  Place a quarter of he filling into one half of the circle, leaving a 1cm border.  Brush a little water around the edge of the dough, then fold in half and seal tightly, making sure there are no air bubbles in the middle as they will burst open when cooking. Repeat with the rest of the dough and filling so that you have four gozleme.

To cook, heat a large frying pan on a medium heat.  Spray in small amount of oil in the pan then gently cook the gozleme, two at time.  They take about 4 minutes on each side.  Then need cooking until lightly golden but cooked through.  If the pan is too hot they will burn on the outside and the dough will not be cooked in the middle.

Cut each gozleme into quarters and serve with a squeeze of lemon juice.

Nic Cooks was sent the Chobani yoghurt as a free sample.

Anyway, back to this months blog hop, hosted by Christina at the Hungry Australian. The theme for this month is berries.  Unfortunately it is not really the season for berries and I refuse to pay the astronomical prices for berries that have been imported from overseas or grown artificially in a poly tunnel.  Thankfully, berries freeze well and as I don’t have access to my Grandma’s freezer, as I did for the June hop, I opted for the freezer cabinet of the supermarket, where you can buy pretty good quality frozen berries.  I love the combination of chocolate and raspberries, and with a delicious looking chocolate cake recipe in my new cook book the chocolate cake with raspberries was born.

As far as cakes go, this is actually pretty healthy.  If you can divide the cake into 12 there is 4g of fat per serve. If you follow the recipe in the book you can halve that and reduce it further according to the quality of the dark chocolate and the percentage of cocoa.  I’m still new to the healthy eating lark and I couldn’t quite bring myself to use cocoa powder and water instead of chocolate, so I’m breaking myself in gently and at 5.5g per serve, that is a lot less than most chocolate cakes that usually contain butter and egg yolks, and around 16g of fat.

The basis of this cake is egg whites so I was expecting the finished result to be much more like a meringue.  It’s amazing how the addition of such a tiny amount of flour and almond meal transforms it into a cake.  I wasn’t brave enough to substitute all of the flour for almond meal, but having done a bit of research around the web I think you could turn this quite easily into a gluten free cake by using all almond meal.

The end result is a light and tasty cake, which was a touch dry, so the addition of the raspberry sauce was definitely needed.  I also found the batter was quite stiff, as the base is like meringue, so make sure you smooth the top when you put it into the cake tin.  I didn’t do this, thinking it would smooth out in the oven like other cake mixture do, so my resulting cake had a very uneven top.  To rectify this I cut the crispy top off and turned it upside down.

Chocolate Cake with Raspberries (serves 12)
120g best quality dark chocolate
6 large egg whites (about 240g)
180g caster sugar
35g plain flour
35g almond meal

375g frozen raspberries

Pre-heat the oven to 170 degrees Celsius and line a 20cm loose bottom or springform cake tine with baking paper.

Break the chocolate into pieces and melt in a heatproof bowl over a pan of water. Ensure the water does not touch the bowl so that the chocolate does not burn.

Meanwhile, whisk the egg whites in a stand mixer, ensuring the bowl is clean and there is not egg yolk or shell in the whites, otherwise they won’t whisk.  Whisk until the whites form stiff peaks and the bowl can be tipped upside down without the white come out of the bowl.

Gradually add the sugar to the egg whites and spoonful at a time, until the sugar has dissolved and the mixture becomes white and glossy this should take 5-6 minutes on a high speed setting.

Seive the flour and almond meal into a bowl ensuring there are no lumps and set aside.

Continue to whisk and add in the melted chocolate until it is fully combined, then fold through the almond and flour mixture.

Spoon the mixture into the cake tin and bake in the pre-heated oven for 45 minutes, or until firm. After this time switch the oven off and allow the cake to cool in the the oven with the door open.

To make the raspberry sauce choose 16-20 of the best looking raspberries and allow to defrost.  This should leave about 300g to make the sauce. Put the frozen raspberries, water and sugar into a small pan and heat gently until the sugar is dissolved and the raspberries are turning to a mush.  Simmer for two minutes to thicken slightly.  If you prefer, you can now pass the sauce through a sieve to remove the seeds, otherwise allow to cool before serving with the cake.

To serve, arrange the whole, defrosted raspberries around the edge of the cake.  Sprinkle with the crushed, freeze dried raspberries if you have them.  Serve with the raspberry sauce.  At about 150 Calories per slice you can definitely enjoy it without feeling too guilty.

We have two months to reduce his number before the dreaded medication is prescribed.  Because of our love of animal fats we will have to go cold turkey on some things like butter, cream and duck fat but with others I’ll be finding low fat alternatives. So here is my low fat alternative to our usual Saturday morning treat of a fry-up: sweetcorn fritters.

These sweetcorn fritters are lighter than the ones I’m used to eating as they contain beaten egg whites. What a great way to use up all of those random egg whites I have in the freezer!  To make them even healthier, you could use wholemeal self-raising flour.  I’ve not been to the shops yet to re-stock my cupboards so I had to make do with regular self-raising flour.

Cheese will be the hardest thing to reduce, especially as I have just started a year long cheese making project.  I think lite milk will become my friend. So to start as I mean to go on, I made some low fat ricotta.  Because of the good quality milk I was using I didn’t feel I was missing out at all, but more on that in a future post.  For now I feel happy that I will be able to find healthier alternatives to the food we love and the duck fat will have to be reserved for very special occasions.  Don’t worry though, this blog will not turn into a health food blog, there will just be a few healthier options interspersed with the regular posts, I will just have to find some new taste testers!

Sweetcorn Fritters (serves 2)
50g red onion, chopped
1 small can sweetcorn (125g can)
30ml low fat milk
50g self raising flour
pinch baking powder
pinch of salt and pepper, or to taste
1 egg white

olive oil
3 small vine ripened tomatoes (or equivalent)
1 small avocado
50g low fat ricotta

Put the chopped onion, half the corn and the milk in a food processor with the flour, baking powder and blend to a smooth paste. In a separate bowl whisk the egg white until soft peaks are formed.

Stir the rest of the corn kernels into the batter, season to taste then fold in the whisked egg whites.

Heat some oil in a frying pan to a medium heat. Depending on the size of your pan you may be able to cook four fritters in one go; my pan is quite small so I did two at a time.

Using a large spoon, dollop a quarter of the mixture into the pan (twice or four times, depending on the size of your pan) and fry until gently until bubbles start to appear in the mixture, and the bottom is golden brown.  Turn the fritters and continue to cook for 3-5 minutes until golden brown on both sides.  Keep the fritters warm in the oven if you need to make more.

To serve, finely dice the tomatoes, removing the seeds so you have small cubes of tomato flesh.  Peel and de-stone the avocado and chop into cubes to roughly match the tomato. Combine in a bowl, season to taste and drizzle with olive oil.

Place two fritters on a plate and top with the tomato and avocado salsa. Crumble the low fat ricotta over the top then drizzle with a touch more olive oil if desired.

You could also add chili and coriander if you want to serve this for lunch, but I prefer to keep it simple for breakfast.