This is how the first week on my rabelaisian weight-loss challenge went – what I ate, and the recipes I used.

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Red cabbage slaw with mango, chilli, and pomegranate seeds

Chickpeas with Roast Fennel, Orange, and Black Olives

Caramelised Leek Un-quiche

Lentil salad with cumin-roast beetroot, apples and black olives

Lentil Salad with Gremolata and pomegranate

Caramelised Tomatoes with Eggs

Radicchio with kumquat, onion,  anchovy, and pomegranate

Spiced Chickpeas with Lemon and Mint

Gin-Cured Salmon with Juniper and Caraway

Chargrilled Aubergine, Roast Cauliflower, and Tomato Salsa

Baked Salmon

Butter Beans with Roasted Red Pepper and Gremolata

Winter slaw with ginger, chilli, and kumquats

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Day 1

The very best start to a weight-loss challenge

My quest to find out if my recipes would help me lose weight without the help of a diet starts with a very fine breakfast:  a delicious omelette  – 2 eggs, a teaspoon of olive oil, salt and pepper – with 2 rashers of free-range smoked bacon  (yes, bacon is diet fodder), and a thinly sliced tarocco orange. I am completely hooked by the taste of smoky, salty bacon with the incredible flavour of the Sicilian tarocco orange.

Am out for dinner, so for lunch I ate some lentils with gremolata and pomegranate seeds, a very good red cabbage salad, and my go-to bringer of joy, gin-cured salmon with caraway and juniper.

Red cabbage slaw with mango, chilli, and pomegranate seeds

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       ¼ red cabbage

• 1 carrot
• ¼ onion
• ½ red pepper
• Seeds of half a pomegranate
• ½ a mango
• ½ a red chilli
• ½ a lemon
• 1 teaspoon chestnut honey
• A handful of parsley
• Salt and pepper

1. Thinly slice the cabbage, red pepper, and onion. I use a mandolin – usual caveats about stopping before you get to fingers. You can use a food-processor.
2. Grate the carrot.
3. Cube the mango.
4. Dice the lemon.
5. Deseed the pomegranate.
6. Thinly slice the chilli
7. Mix it all together in a large bowl, apart from the chilli.
8. Add the honey and salt and pepper
9. Mix really well with your hands. Adjust seasoning till it tastes delicious.
10. Add the chilli and mix in with a spoon.

 Now I shall get on my bike and pedal off to dinner – where I definitely will not have pudding...

Day 2

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The main thing you’ll be wanting to know today, is did I say no to pudding last night – or did I grab the cake, run into the garden and eat the lot.   I did not get to be seriously overweight by being good at sharing puddings, so there’s always the risk – and it was a very fine cake:  that wonderful boiled-orange-and-almond sort with a raspberry coulis – but I said no.

I would like to claim extreme moral high ground for this act of iron will, but iron will was not called for: I didn’t actually want any. I probably should admit that I started eating largely low-calorie-dense food a few days ago and, not for the first time, I am finding that my interest in pudding has wandered off to amuse itself elsewhere.  

At breakfast I gave myself a bit of a talking to about having bacon again, but bacon doesn’t come any better than Ginger Pig* smoked- streaky, so I took no notice. Besides, I like to get away with as much as possible while I lose weight. So once again, I had omelette, bacon, and orange – and a great deal of coffee.  I will write a separate post on the subject of breakfast, because apparently not everybody in the whole world wants to eat eggs every single day.

*Name of a very good butcher, not a case of hair-colourism.

Am out for supper – putting pudding-and-wine-hogging back on red-alert – so today only lunch is reliably low-calorie-dense.

I had some leftover sea bream, plus chickpeas with roast fennel, orange, and black olives, and some shredded white cabbage.

Lunch al desko – sea bream, chickpeas with roast fennel and orange, and shredded cabbage

I originally cooked the bream with orange, capers, anchovy, and garlic, but I am not going to post the recipe yet because it was not a success. However, I haven’t established whether this was because halfway through I nipped off for a pee, forgot I’d left it on high and got on with the crossword, or because it was a bad idea.  I’ll give it another go and report back.

Luckily I only burnt the sauce, not overcooked the fish, and it was delicious cold, and went exceptionally well with the chickpeas and white cabbage – which I kept very simple, just adding a little olive oil, salt and pepper, so it didn’t compete with the flavours in the chickpeas or overwhelm the bream.

Chickpeas with Roast Fennel, Orange, and Black Olives

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I love the combination of orange and fennel, and if you roast the fennel so it’s golden and caramelised on the outside and squidgily soft on the inside, and add some bitter black olives, it is really delicious.

Serves 2

• 1 can or 100g dried chickpeas cooked with coriander and cardamom seeds, and peppercorns
• 2 bulbs of fennel  
• 1 orange – tarocco if you can get one.
• 3 spring onions
• 10 black olives  
• 4 teaspoons olive oil
• Balsamic vinegar
• Salt and pepper

1. Wash the fennel and cut into wedges. Put them into a bowl and add salt, pepper, and 2 teaspoons of the olive oil.
2. Mix them well so that the oil completely covers the surface of the fennel – preferably do it with your hands.  
3. Put on a baking tray and roast in a hottish oven (200º / 180º fan / gas mark 6) for about 40 – 60 minutes – the exact timing depends on the heat of your oven and the moisture content of the fennel – turning from time to time. You are aiming for a golden outside, and soft enough inside for the juices to be escaping and beginning to caramelise. You do not want them either hard or burnt.
4. While they are cooking, drain the chickpeas and put in a bowl large enough to have plenty of space to mix the salad well.
5. Slice the oranges very thinly – you don’t want the skin and pith to be thick chunks – and cut the rings into quarters or sixths. If your orange has very thick pith, zest it, and then cut the pith off and just use the flesh.  
6. Thinly slice the spring onions and roughly slice the black olives into rings.
7. Add the roast fennel, the remaining 2 teaspoons of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper, and mix it all very well together.

Day 3

So – did I hog the wine and the pudding last night or did my iron will prevail?

If I had an iron will, I wouldn’t be fat. And I was greeted with, ‘Negroni? I am using a particularly fine vermouth’ before I'd even parked my bike.  I might have stopped it at that, but a bottle of Mersault appeared on the table.  Mersault. And when it was finished, another one took its place.    It would have been a slap in the face of the gods to say no. I didn’t quite hog it, but I did my best to show my enthusiasm.  Most of supper was very helpful to my downsizing mission  – chicken, lots and lots of vegetables – and delicious. I was restrained around the potatoes, but did have a small slice of lemon tart, and a rather less small amount of cheese – a perfectly gooey Mont Dor.  Will see in a few days’ time whether this kiboshes the week’s downsizing.

But despite the Mersault, I woke up bright and breezy, and got a lot more done in the afternoon, because I am not fighting to stay awake for most of it.

Another delicious breakfast

Breakfast this morning was gin-cured salmon with a tomato and red onion salad, and olive oil  (one teaspoon) scrambled eggs.  I absolutely love the salmon – if you haven’t tried it I heartily suggest you hie immediately to the recipe, stopping only to pick up a large slab of salmon from wherever you can find one. It needs to be large, because once it’s ready you will want to eat loads.  Although, if you haven’t got time, get in a good supply of smoked salmon. The term salad is a bit of an exaggeration for the tomato and red onion – it consisted only of chopping up a few cherry tomatoes and adding a few shavings of red onion and some salt and pepper.

For lunch I had some delicious leftovers (I often do) – the remains of the red cabbage salad and the chickpeas with fennel and orange, with a bit of extra shredded white cabbage.

For supper I made a caramelised leek un-quiche – no pastry, and no cream either. I have to confess that it would have been better with double cream, but I didn’t miss the pastry; the important thing is to sauté the leeks till they are well caramelised and all the liquid has evaporated, and season them really well.

I ate it with a chicken breast, cooked very simply in a little olive oil, with chopped rosemary, and salt and pepper, and a lentil salad with cumin-roast beetroot, apples and black olives. I love doing lentils like this, but it would have been equally good with plain lentils with olive oil.

Day 4

Today, breakfast consisted – as is very often the case – of eggs, tomatoes, and bacon, but as it was the weekend, I decided to caramelise the tomatoes and cook the eggs on top – which is so quick and easy that it barely merits the words recipe.  If I had wanted to make it more filling or completely vegetarian, I could have added some cooked cannellini beans.

For lunch I ate the remains of yesterday's leek un-quiche with some spiced chickpeas and salad with kumquats, onion, anchovy and pomegranate seeds. I nearly threw the radicchio out – it looked like it ad been in my fridge for about a decade, but when I peeled off the first couple of layers, it was perfectly fine underneath.  During the afternoon I ate  a delectable, perfectly ripe mango and a tarocco orange. For supper, I finished up the salad and the chickpeas with a very simply sautéed breast of chicken.

Caramelised Tomatoes with Eggs

For a very simple, and very quick (5 minute) breakfast, this is hard to beat. You can add other herbs and spices – thyme is very good – but at breakfast, I want to eat quickly, not fiddle around. I have the legendary Elizabeth David to thank for introducing me to the idea of lightening-quick tomato sauces.

• A good handful of cherry tomatoes per person
• 2 eggs per person
• 1 teaspoon olive oil
• Salt, pepper and a pinch of sugar

1. Roughly chop the tomatoes and put them in a bowl. Season well with salt, pepper, and a pinch of sugar, and mix really well.
2. Heat the oil in a small pan on a high heat till it’s good and hot, then throw in the tomatoes, and cook until the juices have run out and are on the point of caramelising – about 2 – 3 minutes.  Depending on the water content of the tomatoes, you may want to turn down the heat after you add them to the pan  – you are aiming for caramelised, not burnt.
3. Add the eggs on top, and turn the heat down a bit till the whites are cooked, but the yolk is still runny.

Diva Notes

Cooking Tomatoes

‍Watery, undercooked tomatoes are revolting. They must either be cooked very fast over a high heat, or slowly over a medium or low heat for about 20 – 40 minutes, or sometimes longer. Do not wishy-washily assume that you can cook them for a short amount of time on a low heat. You know they are cooked when the flavour is intense and sweet. If it is not, they are not.

Keep the Tomatoes Whole

To make it even easier, don’t chop the tomatoes. It’s not quite as good, but it is even quicker, which with the usual time constraints of getting to work in a timely fashion is sometimes worth it.

Heat the oil until it’s almost smoking. Throw in the cherry tomatoes. While they are getting over the shock of being quite so hot, add salt, pepper and the pinch of sugar. Then take up your masher and squish the tomatoes.  Cook for another minute or two and then break the eggs on top of them.

N.b. The tomatoes may take revenge for their harsh treatment and squirt juice at you.  Stand well back, wear an apron, or remove all light-coloured clothing.

Radicchio with kumquat, onion,  anchovy, and pomegranate

Radicchio makes for excellent salads – gorgeous colour, robust enough that it doesn’t collapse into a wimpy heap if you add heavier ingredients, and just enough bitterness to be interesting, without making your eyes water. There are many salads to make with it, but I love this one. To make a successful radicchio salad, you always need to balance the bitterness with salty, sweet, and acidity – and the combination of kumquat, anchovy, and balsamic does a very good job.

Serves 2 – 3

• 1 head of radicchio
• 2 – 3 kumquats
• 4 anchovy fillets
• 1/4 red onion
• Pomegranate seeds
• 2 – 4 teaspoons of olive oil
• Balsamic vinegar
• Salt and pepper

1. Roughly chop or break up the radicchio – so you have a good, but not unwieldy expanse of leaf.
2. Very finely slice the onion and kumquats.  
3. Cut the anchovies into long strips.    
4. Put everything in the bowl apart from the anchovies, season well, add the oil and vinegar, and mix really well.  
5. Add the anchovies.
6. To serve: scatter a few anchovies and slices of kumquats on top.

Diva Notes

Leftover Radicchio

Radicchio looks terrible the next day – as if it’s had far too much to drink and has a massive hangover – but it’s actually really delicious. So don’t throw away any left over; eat it for lunch the next day.

Anchovies

Always add the anchovy after you have seasoned – otherwise you will put salt on top of them. And even though they are salty, the salad still needs to be salted.

Spiced Chickpeas with Lemon and Mint

This is a lovely lemony, spicy, way of doing chickpeas – originally inspired by wonderful Sami Tamimi and Tara Wigley in their brilliant book, Falastin.

Serves 4 – 6

• 200g dried chickpeas or 2 tins of chickpeas
• A good pinch of pepper corns, coriander and (deseeded) cardamom
• A teaspoon each of coriander and cumin seeds
• ½ red onion
• 1 unwaxed lemon
• Pomegranate seeds from half a pomegranate
• 1 red chilli
• A handful of parsley
• A few sprigs of mint
• 2 teaspoons olive oil

1. Soak the chickpeas overnight in plenty of water and a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda.
2. Cook them with the whole peppercorns, coriander and cardamom seeds; add salt at the end. Or open the tins. Drain well, and put in a bowl.
3. Crush the coriander and cumin.
4. Very finely slice the onion and chilli.
5. Zest the lemon into julienne strips, and then peel it like an apple – using a knife – removing all the pith as you go, and then roughly chop it
6. Finely chop the herbs.
7. Remove the pomegranate seeds from the shell. Do it over the chickpeas so the juice is not wasted.
8. Put it all together in a bowl, season and mix really well.  Check the seasoning until it tastes good.

Day 5

Today was a lovely day – I started with olive-oil scrambled eggs, cured salmon and tomatoes, and then had friends over for lunch. Food-wise, things went swimmingly: I love cooking up feasts so we started with gin-cured salmon with green salad and mustard dressing, and followed it with baked salmon (yes, salmon twice but never mind),  spicy roast cauliflower with chargrilled aubergine and tomato salsa,  butterbeans with gremolata and roast red peppers, and crushed potatoes with gremolata;  we finished with raspberries and ricotta as a non-pudding. All fabulously low-calore-dense. Wine was another matter, and this time there was no Mersault involved.  

Chargrilled Aubergine, Roast Cauliflower, and Tomato Salsa

This dish – originally inspired by the brilliant book Falastin (Sami Tamimi and Tara Wigley) – tastes sensational and looks amazing – and is much simpler to do than it looks.

Serves 4 – 6

For the Aubergine:

• 4 aubergines
• A pinch each of crushed coriander, cumin, and cardamom seeds  
• 3 cloves of crushed garlic
• Juice of half a lemon
• Balsamic vinegar
• Salt

1. Heat up a cast iron griddle pan till it’s really hot and chargrill the aubergines, turning them from time to time, till the skin is burnt and they are completely cooked through.  
2. When the aubergines are cooled a little, peel off the skin, pull the flesh roughly apart, and put it in a sieve; sprinkle with salt, and leave to drain for at least 30 minutes – the longer the better.
3. Pull the strands apart with your hands so that you have long strands, or mash with a potato masher.
4. Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl and season well.

For the Cauliflower:

• 1 large cauliflower
• 1 teaspoon each of ground coriander and cumin seeds
• ½ teaspoon ground turmeric
• 6 teaspoons olive oil
• Salt and pepper

1. Preheat oven to 220º / fan 200º gas mark 7
2. Cut / break the cauliflower into smallish florets.
3. Put in a bowl and add all the other ingredients. Mix well with your hands to make sure that the cauliflower is well coated with the oil and spices.
4. Lay florets on a baking tray and roast for about 30 minutes – turning it over after about 15 minutes – until cauliflower is tender and golden.  

For the Tomato Salsa

• 4 handfuls of cherry tomatoes – about 250g
• A few sprigs of thyme  
• A small handful of parsley
• 2 teaspoons olive oil
• 2 teaspoons lemon juice
• Salt and pepper

1. Finely dice the tomatoes.
2. Finely chop the thyme and parsley.
3. Put everything in a bowl, mix well  and season till it tastes good.  

You can make it in the food processor, using the pulse button.

To Assemble

Spread the aubergine onto a serving plate,  pile on the cauliflower, and spoon over the salsa.

No time for a recipe?

Just simply roast some cauliflower – following the steps above  – with a little olive oil, salt and pepper.  It's delicious just like that. And make a simple tomato salad.

Baked Salmon

I  often have this in the fridge –  it’s delicious and very filling.  And, more to the point, ready to eat whenever I am starving, have no time to cook, and doughnuts are grinning at me enticingly through the letterbox. It's very simple and easy to do – and quite plain , so it provides a perfect foil for interesting vegetables.  You can add a couple of teaspoons of olive oil if you like, but it doesn’t need it.  Serve hot or cold

Serves 6  

• 1kg filet of salmon
• Grated lime zest and ginger
• Crushed garlic
• A few sprigs of flat-leaf parsley and thyme
• Salt and pepper

1. Descale and rinse the salmon, and lay it on tinfoil in a roasting tin.
2. Add the garlic, lime zest, ginger, parsley, salt and pepper. Rub all over the salmon
3. Wrap it up and put in a hot oven (200º / fan180º /gas mark 6) till just cooked – about 15 – 20 minutes, depending on thickness of salmon.

Diva Notes

Descaling Salmon: This is a horrible job. Get the fishmonger to do it. You may need to be forceful; do not be fobbed off with excuses. If forcefulness fails, scrape them off with a knife into a plastic bag, so at least you won’t compound the misery by blocking up the sink.  If you cook salmon often, it’s worth getting a fish-descaler – no, I don’t mean marry your fishmonger: it’s a handy little gadget; I have one that’s attached to the back of a rather good garlic crusher I found in Italy.  

No time for a recipe?

It doesn't get much quicker than this, but you can also cut it into fillets , salt and pepper it, and sear it for 2 minutes on each side. If you have some good veg dishes, meat or fish can be very simple.

Butter Beans with Roasted Red Pepper and Gremolata,  

I love the creaminess of the butter beans combined with the sweet bitterness of the roast peppers and the freshness of the gremolata.  

Serves 4 – 6      

• 200g dried butterbeans  – or 2 tins
• A teaspoon each of peppercorns, coriander and cardamom seeds
• 3 roasted red peppers
• Gremolata
• Balsamic vinegar
• 4 teaspoons olive oil
• 1 clove of garlic

For the butterbeans

1. Soak them overnight with a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda.
2.  Boil them with the whole spices. Add a teaspoon of salt at the end.
3.  Drain and leave to cool.  

For the roasted peppers

1. Pre-heat the oven to 200º / fan 180º / gas mark 6
2. Deseed the red peppers and cut them lengthways into 6 pieces.  
3. Put them into a bowl and add a good pinch of salt and 2 teaspoons of olive oil.
4. Mix it well with your hands – this way a very little oil can completely coat them, and the salt starts to draw out the juice, ready for caramelising during the roasting.  
5. Put them on a baking tray large enough for them to have plenty of room to lie flat, and roast them for about 40 minutes, turning them from time to time.  Put in a bowl, drizzle over some balsamic vinegar, add extra salt if necessary, and allow to cool.

For the gremolata:

• A handful of parsley
• The peel of one lemon  
• 1 clove of garlic
• 1 – 2 teaspoons olive oil  
• Salt

1. Peel the lemon with a potato peeler.
2. Crush a clove of garlic  and wash the parsley.
3. Put the strips of lemon peel and crushed garlic on top of the parsley, and finely chop.
4. Add the salt and olive oil, and mix well.

Putting it all together

Put everything in a bowl and mix really well.  Play with the balsamic, salt, and oil until it tastes really good

Diva Notes

Cooking Peppers

Peppers need to be either raw or really well done – and cooked long enough for their juices to begin to caramelise.  Anything in between is insipid and unpleasant.

So far, my MP has ignored my suggestion to make serving half-cooked peppers a criminal offence.  

They do not want to be burnt and crispy either.

The peppers that is; not those responsible for half-baking them.

But do not despair: people all over the world cook them every day and it’s really quite easy.

Precisely how long they take will depend on the peppers and your oven, so check them after about 20 minutes – turning them over if they have browned a bit – and then check on them every 10 minutes or so (more often when they are nearly done), turning them when needed. When they are glistening and streaked with brown, and looking limp and on the verge of crinkly, take them out, put them in a bowl, and drizzle a teaspoon or two of balsamic vinegar over them.  And take a moment to admire your culinary brilliance.  

And on the subject of red peppers:

Do not substitute green peppers; they are an abomination foisted on humanity by an uncaring world.  Have nothing to do with them unless they are the small Tuscan friggitelli peppers.   Although in this case, have nothing to do with them either: they wouldn’t work as well, are not readily available in Britain, and are not quite worth flying to Italy for if you are not already there.

No time for a recipe?

Keep the butter beans simple: Finely chop a sprig of rosemary, crush 3 cloves of garlic, and gently sauté them in 4 teaspoons of olive oil. Don't brown the garlic or it will be bitter. Season the butter beans really well with salt and pepper, and pour the rosemary-garlic oil over the beans and mix really well.

Day 6

Today I had so much left over from lunch yesterday that I didn't have to cook anything  – this is usually my aim when I cook for friends: it means I can eat interesting food, even when I am very busy – but I did discover a very delicious thing for breakfast: I heated up the butter beans with roast peppers and gremolata, and then topped it with an egg. Am expecting a Nobel Prize for services to Breakfast any day.

Lunch was a large chunk of salmon with the   roast cauliflower, chargrilled aubergine, and tomato salsa (which tasted even better today), some more of the butter beans and some green salad. It was not penitential.

Supper was the same but I ate some lentils with cumin-roast beetroot, apple and black olives  instead of the butter beans. I made it on Thursday, and the flavours had really matured – I was surprised how good it was.

Day 7

After a week of eating a low-calorie-dense diet – and a quantity of fruit and vegetables that would put Nelly the Elephant and Popeye to shame – I am so full of energy that I am very glad that I packed in some serious box-set binge-watching when I had Covid a couple of weeks ago, because I don’t know when I am going to feel sludgy enough to do it again – I might have ended up the only person in the British Isles who hadn’t seen Happy Valley.  

And if Tim Spector  – patron saint of gut microbes is listening, I have counted 35 different plants in my diet in the last week – and that’s without all the spices. Or wine.

For breakfast I had 2 poached eggs with the tomato salsa left over from Sunday lunch. The salsa was great – after a few days in the fridge tomato salad takes on a marinated quality – quite unlike how it starts out, but really delicious. As for the eggs, I am not sure a lifetime is long enough to master the art of the perfect poached egg.   There are four-and-a-half million failsafe ways to do them, and am about halfway through the options.  Somewhere out there there’s someone cackling in a haystack about how their method is the only one that works, and they will be right. I do apologise for showing pictures of tomatoes at a time like this, but I couldn't find any turnips.

Lunch was more of Sunday's  delectable salmon, an improvised salad of shredded cabbage (yes, again..) a thinly sliced kumquat, pomegranate seeds – another total surprise – and half a fresh finely chopped chilli. I dressed it  – directly onto it, alla Italiana – with salt, a tablespoon of tahini, a tablespoon of balsamic, and a teaspoon of olive oil, and then gave it a thorough mixing with my hands.  It was absolutely delicious, and a good example of needing neither a recipe nor complications to make delicious, low-calorie-dense meals in 10 minutes.

Supper involved yet more salmon – I cannot stress too highly the advantage of having things ready in your fridge to tuck into when you are busy, although by the time I have finished eating it, I might have changed my mind – and this very good slaw. The quantities are very approximate.

Winter slaw with ginger, chilli, and kumquats

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  ½ small cauliflower
• ¼ small white cabbage
• ¼ red pepper
• ¼ red onion
• 1 carrot
• 2 kumquats
• Pomegranate seeds
• Fresh coriander
• The peel of half a lemon
• 1 red chilli
• Grated ginger
• 2 teaspoons honey
• 1 tablespoon cider vinegar
• A dash of soy sauce
• 2 teaspoons olive oil
• Salt and pepper

1. Break the cauliflower into very small florets.
2. Very thinly slice the cabbage, red pepper, and onion – I use a mandolin or the food processor.
3. Peel the carrot, and then shave the rest of it into ribbons with the peeler.
4. Peel the lemon, and finely chop.
5. Slice the kumquats, and finely slice the chilli.
6. Roughly chop the coriander.
7. Deseed the pomegranate.
8. Put it all in a bowl – apart from the chilli – add some salt and mix well with your hands.
9. Grate some fresh ginger over it, and add the honey, vinegar, soy sauce and olive oil, and mix really well with your hands.
10. Play with the seasoning – adding more salt if needed – until it tastes really good.  Mix the chilli in at the end with a spoon.

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