Ten in 10 Week 9: The First Hurdle

With only one week left to go of the official Ten in 10 Challenge, I'm not too sure of what I've achieved - it felt great to begin with as I was fairly healthy with my eating anyway and have always exercised regularly. But now, I feel like I started at the finish line, dragged myself backwards and tripped over the first hurdle, ending up in a heap right back at the start.

Oh dear.

Look, it hasn't been a complete disaster - two of my goals were exercise-related (namely stretches for greater flexibility and upper body exercises to build strength) and I've pretty much kept up with those. The secret? I have a weekly grid with each of these exercises/stretches listed. I then mark them off every day as I complete them. And as one of those people who gets a weird kick out of ticking off items on to-do lists and the like, this motivates me enough to just do them. I hate seeing things unfinished.

Hm, maybe if I had done this for my two healthy eating related goals (cut bread intake and find more healthy baking recipes), I would have more success on this front. With the bread thing, I was focussing on cutting out bread loaves, buns and such - which I've done. But, as you may have read in week 2, week 6, and er, week 7, this has steadily been replaced with higher doses of unhealthy refined carb substitutes instead. Not good.

And the baking? Well, looking back over the Challenge so far, this is probably what I've been lagging with the most. I wanted to make cakes with no sugar, no butter, no flour, and with a bit of luck, none of these three naughties altogether. But it's proving difficult.

I spend quite a lot of time researching recipes and ingredients but I do this in quite a haphazard way - just kind of bookmark things here and there, stumble across interesting healthy food facts and file them to read later on but end up forgetting. Then suddenly, it's nearly feed-the-aikido-guys time so I hastily whip up a cake that I happen to have the ingredients for. And I always have butter, sugar, flour and eggs. Doh.

But fear not. The challenge is not over yet. I plan to keep working on these particular goals well past the ten week challenge anyway, but in one last final push to get up to speed with my goals, I'm going to do a bit of a healthy baking marathon this week...so make sure you check back to see how it goes...

You might be interested to read my other posts on the Ten in 10 Challenge.

Other Hungry Jenny healthy food thoughts you might be interested in
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Friday Pie-Day: Steak and Sweet Potato Pie

Of all the pies I have made (and I've racked up quite a number now), I have never, ever made a steak pie.

What?

Ok, so I've calmed down quite a bit on the whole 'I love beef and pies and all-things-meat-like' in recent months, but really, this is no excuse. I cannot have a beef-free pie portfolio.

So this week I give you...

Steak and Sweet Potato Pie! *ahhh*

And guess what?

IT DIDN'T GO WRONG!

Perhaps at first glance, it doesn't seem the most complex of pies. But, what I'm very proud of with this particular pie is that I made the pastry from scratch *beams proudly*

I'm not entirely sure why but I have always had issues with shortcrust pastry. We just don't get on. I try to knead it and it sticks to my hands. I add my flour and the whole thing breaks apart. It always ends in tears - me slapping the cracked dough bits into the bin, running to the shop to buy some pre-made pastry and vowing never to make shortcrust pastry again.

But this time was different.

I was calm, cool, collected.

Ok, that's a lie. During the whole 50 minutes that this was in the oven, I was perching infront of it every five minutes, staring through the window - because all I could see was the butter of the pastry bubbling away dangerously. This has happened before - I never seem to get the flour and butter into proper breadcrumb mixture before kneading.

I'm pretty sure that's not really supposed to happen - I mean it doesn't with pre-bought pastry anyway. But this time, I decided to just leave it in a bit longer until the pastry looked a bit more solid.

And thank goodness I did, because it turned out to be one of the tastiest pies I've ever made! And it had REAL pastry!

Steak and Sweet Potato Pie

Click on the recipe name for full details.

If you're using pre-made pastry, skip straight to step 3. Take the pastry out the fridge 10 minutes before rolling out.

1) Rub plain flour, salt and butter in a large bowl to a breadcrumb mixture.
2) Pour in egg yolk, and mix into a dough. Knead, wrap in clingfilm and refridgerate for 30 minutes.
3) Brown steak cubes, then remove from pan.
4) Fry ginger, garlic and onion, followed by sweet potatoes, pepper and hot stock.
5) Bring to the boil, then leave to simmer for about 15 minutes. Return the steak to the pan for the last 5 minutes.
6) Roll out two-thirds of the pastry on a floured surface and line the bottom of a pie dish.
7) Add the steak mixture, then roll out the remaining pastry to top the pie, sealing the edges.
8) Bake at 200 degrees C for 30-40 minutes until crispy and brown.

Pie out.

Read my other Friday Pie-Day adventures.

Have a look at my other recipes!
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3 Ways to Bake Fish

Baking fish scares me. I fear that it will dry out, that I will open the oven door to a shrivelled rubbery sorry so. But I find that poaching them takes away too much of the flavour, and I don't really like the texture of grilled fish (apart from salmon). And pan-frying? That just seems a little odd to me right now.

Right, so baking it is. So how do we avoid the risk of the rubber then? Simply make a good sauce to top the fish with. Much like marinading meat to stop it from drying out when you cook it, you can spread a bit of sauce over fish for it to seep through and keep it moist.

Coconut Baked Cod (above)

Click on the recipe name for full details.

1) Pour coconut milk into an ovenproof dish with cod.
2) Sprinkle over tarrgon and coriander.
3) Bake for about half an hour at 200 degrees C and serve with steamed veg.

Tomato Baked Salmon with Steamed Rice Salad

Click on the recipe name for full details.

1) Bring basmati rice to the boil, then leave to simmer for 20 mins, adding dwarf beans halfway through.
2) Sprinkle basil over salmon fillets and lay sliced cherry toms on top.
3) Bake for 20 mins at 190 degrees C.

Lemon Veggie Topped Haddock

Click on the recipe name for full details.

1) In a small bowl, mix natural yoghurt, lemon juice, garlic and ginger.
2) Finely chop some mushrooms and onion and add to the yoghurt mix.
3) Put the haddock fillets into an ovenproof dish and spoon the mixture over.
4) Bake for about 15-20 minutes at 190 degrees C.

If you liked the look of these, you might be interested in my other seafood recipes.

Or have a look at my other recipes!
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Attack of the Giant Hungry Jenny

"Ooh, now what do we have here...?"
"Help!"

"Mwah-ha-ha, I could just crush you now, you helpless Orange."
"Please don't! Just tell me where you took my friends and family!"

"Well, take one last look my friend, here they are."
"Why..? Please don't hurt them!"

"Ha, don't you worry, it's YOU who will suffer."
"Nooo, my beautiful skin..!"
"Yum, yum, yum."

Watch out world, I'm taller than a postbox, me!

Er, was that too random for you? Well, that means you haven't experienced The Leaning Tower of the Big Fuji Apple either...
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Ten in 10 Week 8: Anything in Moderation?

As the final weeks of the Ten in 10 Challenge swing by, I'm finally starting to pick up the motivation I lost sometime over the last couple of weeks. My plan last week to kick myself back into gear was to surround myself with Happy Fruit, to stop myself reaching out for Evil Carbs.

Making dishes with colourful fruit is certainly alot less guilt-tripping for the body and mind than say, a giant cookie.

Well, if you're working out regularly, you can eat whatever you like, right? Anything in moderation, you always hear. Well, is that really so? I always used to think so but after another rollercoaster week, I'm wondering if it's really true...

To illustrate, let me tell you about my day. This morning, I had blueberries and satsuma segments with natural yogurt. A banana as a mid-morning snack. Then around lunchtime, I cycled down to the market to stock up on fresh fruit and veg. Feeling restless at home, I then went out for a long walk, realised I had forgotten about lunch, and ended up buying a couple of sausage rolls to just 'keep me going' until dinner. Now, as I write this, I'm snacking on a large bag of Cadbury's Giant Chocolate Buttons.

Now, I'm not a massive fan of people who tell everyone what they've eaten on a regular basis, but writing this out now is making me ask myself if I'm really achieving anything. Yes, I still do a few exercise classes a week, and am managing to do extra stretches at least every other day, so I'm not lagging too much in that respect. But I think I've developed a dangerous 'cancel-out' mentality which is screwing with me.

It fools me into thinking I can just binge on more junk food that I'd usually eat, as long as I carry on eating healthy food and exercise at the same time. But as I sit here now with a heavy stomach and sugar-loaded mind, I know that this is still cheating.

It's like scoffing on a burger whilst walking on the treadmill. You just can't cancel it out like that. Ok, I just need to stop this now.

You might be interested to read my other posts on the Ten in 10 Challenge.

Other Hungry Jenny healthy food thoughts you might be interested in
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Friday Pie-Day: Char Siu Pork Pastries

A real tasty pasty treat this week.

The filling is char siu - a Chinese barbequed meat, usually pork. If you've ever walked past a Chinese restaurant that specialises in roasted meat dishes, you will have seen the glistening char siu pork hanging in the window, alongside whole roast ducks, chicken, crispy pork and a goose or two as well.

The ones I made above are based on the ones you'd expect to find in a dim sum restaurant. I can't get enough of them when I go for dim-sum (quite literally - there are only 3 per plate and there's usually 4 of us). So I decided to make slightly smaller ones so that I could make more! Well, that's kind of the story anyway...

Now, I didn't make this completely from scratch. I cheated and bought the puff pastry. This is mainly because I wanted to concentrate on getting the pork right. You can quite easily get char siu sauce in a jar from an Asian supermarket but it's very easy to make yourself, and of course, it's a bit more reassuring as you know exactly what is going in the sauce. No hidden nasties.

This is definitely one to marinade your pork in overnight so I had 500g of pork fillet swimming in sauce and ready to roast. I used Ching-He Haung's recipe from her book Chinese Cooking Made Easy. The recipe creates 6 pastries, but uses only half of the roasted pork, as she suggests using this for a different recipe. Aha, I thought - all I need to do then is use all of the pork and make slightly smaller pastries to create more of them!

Well.

One error.

I forgot that I would need more puff pastry to do this. So I still ended up using half the roasted pork fillet anyway! And because I essentially only had 6 pastries worth of puff pastry to work with, I was desperately trying to pack the pork into tiny triangle pastry shapes:

Fifteen long minutes and 3 triangle pastries later, I resorted to stamping out small circles in the rest of the pastry to pop the filling on top instead! They do taste alot more satisfying encased inside the pastry though so next time, I will have to remember to get the quantities of the ingredients right...

At least I now have some leftover roast pork, which is in the freezer and ready to be thawed for more char siu happy times!

Pie out.

Read my other Friday Pie-Day adventures.
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Why (Slightly) Healthy Cakes Don't Work

a) The consistency/texture is just not the same as a 'regular' cake.
b) The quantities for 'alternative' ingredients are less easy to judge.
c) They are not as visually appealing.
d) It doubles the chance of messing up the whole recipe.

So, what's the answer?

e) All of the above.

I've had my fair share of disastrous cakes. And my latest cake-up (ka-boom), which I hang my head in shame as I show you, has made me realise something...

No, that's not mouldy cheese

A little pattern amongst any cake-making errors I make. On each occasion, the cake was made because it seemed healthy - free of butter, flour or sugar. (Er, remember my sugar-and-butter-free apple cake disaster?) The one above is butter-free, and contains natural yogurt and a bit of vegetable oil. But what came out, as you can see, was what looked (and tasted like) congealed blocks of lard. Yum.

Then thinking about it again, I realised that I would want to omit flour, butter AND sugar to deem a cake to be truly healthy. And the Hungry Jenny cakes that have gone wrong only ever have one of these ingredients omitted in the attempt to be at least slightly healthy. But what's the point of that anyway? The attempt, yes, the attempt to be healthy is good news at least, you might say.

But not, I should point out, when they turn out like this:

"What's wrong with it, it's alright isn't it?" my sister asked.

"LOOK AT IT!" I screamed, pointing at the rest...

(I didn't really scream at my sister, I'm not a maniac)

The taste of this was not too bad actually, just overly soggy because it's got loads of eggs and carrots in it. I just kinda left it in the oven a bit too long and the non-stick tin failed me, leading to the burntness-and-dumping-onto-plate-situation.

You can probably tell that it's at this point that I stop caring about the presentation, because it's just not something to be proud of. I just had to take a photo because the situation is just laughable. I'm sorry if I hurt your eyes with it, I promise to post up a nice-looking cake to redeem myself soon (I hope).

So, you see - when you choose your path to baking a cake, there is no middle road - you go full fat all the way with your ingredients, or you make sensible healthy substitutes for everything, leaving no room for single bad ingredients to slip in.

I realise I'm probably not being entirely fair. Of course these mishaps are partly (well probably mostly) down to my own foolish baking tendencies. But a common thread has been found amongst my cake disasters and I just wanted to warn you now, because having to throw away an entire cake is not a good feeling.

Well, looking on the bright side, you're being healthy in that sense by not being able to eat any cake at all.

Fancy a laugh at my other Hungry-Jenny-Faux-Pas?

Other Hungry Jenny healthy food thoughts you might be interested in

More Hungry Jenny cakes here.
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