Dining Out Low GI

It is possible! Even in a relatively small town, with a small range of options. I've been lucky enough to have a few meals out in the past few weeks. This is what I chose that didn't blow the GI budget.

Lunch with a friend and Mr Adventures at Bensons. You have to love the pumpkin, walnut and fetta salad on the lunch menu. Sadly the oven had been set to scorch for the pumpkin that day- it was almost petrified in texture. Still tasted ok. And I never buy red leaves to eat at home, but they always make them taste nice.

And then an excuse to have breakfast at Benson's with Grandma Adventures. I've long loved the mushrooms and spinach on toast. It's cooked in a garlicky sauce. Yum. Now you can have an option extra of a poached egg. Of course I ordered grain bread under that pile of veg. And I had a green tea instead of the usual smoothie treat that (used to) I like.

A family lunch at the Union Bank- chickpea felafel wrap with salad. Probably not what I would previously have ordered. But it was tasty. And as everyone else ordered fish and chips, and as the serves are very large, I got to eat a piece of fish too.

Master Adventures loves a cheese plate. He made short work of this. I must admit to helping. Those dried apricots were by far the best I've ever had. Must find out what brand they use, they were astonishing. The cheese was great too, and the little pot of fruit paste- possbily peach- absolutely delicious. I tried a dried muscatel- they still don't work for me- all those little seed. Blech.

Broad Bean Felafel Fritters

My broad bean experimentation continued with another recipe from the same Sydney Morning Herald article (Caroline Velik, Spring Means Beans, 28/9/10). This time for Broad bean felafel fritters with minted yoghurt. I never got around to making the minted yoghurt as I had plenty of homemade cheese that I was experimenting with at this time.

These delicious fritters combine broad beans with chickpeas. Chickpeas are low gi and help to counteract the medium gi rating of the broadbeans, making these fritters a low gi treat.

I was Really Surprised at how much I loved these. They are absolutely delicious. I would love to make these for most of the year. Sadly the broad bean season is quite short, so I bought another kilo of broad beans today, so I can enjoy another batch of these soon. Best thing is my husband doesn't like chickpeas, has convinced himself that he doensn't like broad beans either, so I get to eat all of these without any competition.

Broad Bean Felafel Fritters

1kg fresh broad beans
400g tin chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 cup loosely packed coriander (cilantro) leaves
1 cup loosely packed mint leaves
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp ground cumin
1 red chilli, seeded and sliced
1/2 lemon, zest and juice
1/2 cup plain flour for dusting
Vegetable oil for frying

Remove broad beans from their outer shells. Bring a pot of water to the boil, add beans and cook for a couple of minutes until soft. Remove and drain. Peel off outer pod and set aside. Put beans and chickpeas in a food processor and pulse to combine.

Add coriander, mint, salt, pepper, garlic, spices, lemon zest and juice and pulse until finely chopped.

Use your hands to shape the mixture into 10-12 small patties, then lightly dust with flour to coat.

Heat oil in a large frying pan and cook fritters on both sides until lightly browned. Drain on paper towel and set aside. 

The picture suggestion in the original article just had the fritters, with minted yoghurt served with a rocket salad. I decided to make a wrap, with avocado, rocket, grape kumatos, and homemade soft cheese. It was fantastic. The fritters are so light and fresh tasting compared to regular felafels. Wonderful. These fritters are absolutely delicious. If you're trying to eat low GI or not. They're just delicious, my favourite sort of low GI experience- food that you'd choose to eat regardless.

Notes

The minted yoghurt was just 1 cup plain yoghurt, mixed with 2 tblsp shredded mint leaves.

These could be gluten free if you use a gluten free flour at the end, and using a gluten free wrap obviously. 

White Bean Puree, or my Accidental Vegan, and Almost Raw, Lunch

Inspiration can strike any time or any place it seems- even in the Staff Dining Rooms of the world. Not for the food that exists there obviously, it really is uninspired and pedestrian, and sometimes downright inedible. But occasionally you may find an old Women's Weekly lying about, that has an attractive sounding recipe. Such as this one from November 2009. Truth be told, I'm sure that this edition would also be lurking about somewhere in the house too, but I found it in the Staff Dining Room. And today it became my Accidentally Vegan Lunch. Vegan isn't quite my thing. It's fine for those who want it of course, and fine for the occasional lunchtime dalliance. But I'm not vegan, and I'm not even vegetarian.

How I made it look for the photo

Butter beans are low GI (I used ready canned ones, which have a GI of 36, if I'd been more prepared and cooked them at home, then the GI is even lower!)

White Bean Puree

300gm can butter beans, rinsed and drained

40gm ground almonds
1 1/2 tsp fresh lemon juice
1 medium clove garlic, crushed
45 mL extra-virgin olive oil, plus extra, to serve
sea salt, ground white pepper
ras el hanout

1. Process beans, almonds, lemon juice and garlic in a food processor until smooth

2. With motor running gradually add the olive oil until thick and creamy. Season

3. Transfer mixture to a saucepan. Stir over low heat until warm. Transfer to a serving dish, drizzle with oil and sprinkle with ras el hanout.

How it looked when I actually ate it. 

Notes
Of course I modified the recipe.
The original recipe called for a 400gm tin of cannellini beans, and I only had a 300gm tin of butter beans. So I used those, and did a 3/4 recipe.

I was distracted, and so added most of the oil, before realising I was supposed to blend the other stuff first (Note to self- read the recipe all the way through- hey I just noticed the warm it up in a saucepan bit- I didn't do that either, hmmmm I really need to make this again, and have a go at making the recipe, I will try warming the leftovers tomorrow), not that I think it mattered a whole lot. My texture was more rustic than thick and creamy. Still tasted fine.

The ras el hanout is my own addition. I have a magnificent tin of it that I got from Maha in Melbourne on my last visit. Just the smell of it is intoxicating. Which you need, just in case you accidentally make yourself a Vegan Lunch. You could of course use a myriad of other spices- sumac, za'atar for instance.

I hate raw carrot (nearly as much as celery), so I peeled them lightly to make them (marginally) more palatable. This was a bit too much of "eat what's good for you", and I still have at least half a bunch of baby carrots for tomorrow. Oh goody. I think I might have to blanch them too.

Ok, so the beans are cooked, and I blanched the asparagus.

Cucumber Rounds with Smoked Salmon

It's fun to take inspiration and ideas from lots of different sources for foods that taste great and still fit within my new low GI world. Because if it doesn't taste great, then really, well, I don't want to eat it anyway.

This quick and easy hors d'oeuvre came about as a suggestion in Curves Fitness and Weight Management Plan book, that my lovely friend Veronica gave to me.

The photograph isn't all that good, something about my skills as a photographer's wife I fear. Perhaps I'll remake them sometime soon and get a better shot. 

Easy as. It's simply smoked salmon and cream cheese on rounds of cucumber used instead of crackers. I had some sheeps yoghurt cheese to use up the night I made these so I used that instead of cream cheese. Even Mr World ate them, although there was some grumbling about the non-use of crackers.

Creamy Vegetable and Barley Soup

I've been wanting to make this soup for a few years now. A combination of a snowy weekend (in Spring!) and my low GI leanings finally spurred me on. I'd wondered about it before- lots of vegies, and using skim milk powder for the Creamy part is unusual and something I hadn't used before. My version is  based on a recipe from diabetes 2 by Jody Vassallo, part of the Health for Life series.

For some reason I seem to forget to take photos of meals that I mainly make for lunch. So this is the very last time I ate it, when I added some left over creamed corn to it to pad it out. Not exactly representative of the soup, but you get the idea.

Barley has one of the lowest GI values of any carbohydrate food (25), and it actually lowers the GI of any meal. It's not a food that I have eaten all that frequently, but I can sense that it may be in my future. I have used it in soups a few times, but not regularly, and have never tried it as a side dish. There is a recipe for Pesto Barley in the same book that might be tasty.

Creamy Vegetable and Barley Soup

1 cup (195g/6 1/2 oz) pearl barley
2 tsp canola oil
4 eschallots
2 large carrots, chopped
2 celery stalks, chopped
1 medium parsnip, chopped
2 medium zucchini (courgette), thickly sliced
300 g (10oz) pumpkin, chopped
Sea salt, freshly ground pepper
2 large sprigs thyme
6 cups (1.5L/48 fl oz) hot reduced salt vegetable stock
1 cup (150g/5 oz) fresh or frozen peas
1 cup (200g/6 1/2 oz) fresh or frozen corn kernels
1 cup (100g/ 3 1/3 oz) skim milk powder
2 tblsp chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

1 Put the barley into a large pan, cover with water and cook over medium heat for 40 minutes or until the barley is soft. Add extra water during cooking if the barley is drying out. Drain well.

2 Heat the canola oil in a large pan, add the eschallots, carrot and celery. Cover and sweat over low heat for 10 minutes until soft.

3 Add the parsnip, pumpkin, thyme and stock and bring to the boil. Season to taste. Reduce the heat and simmer for 15 minutes. Add zucchini. Cook for a further 15 minutes until vegetables are soft.

4 Add the peas, corn, and barley and simmer for 5 minutes or until the vegetables are cooked. Add skim milk powder and parsley.

Serves 6

per serve fat 4.5 g, protein 17.5 g, carbohydrate 48.5g, fibre 10.5g, cholesterol 5.5mg, energy 1280 kJ (305 cal), gi 38 low


Notes
I made quite a few modifications to the recipe, with ingredients and technique.
The recipe called for leek but as there were no leeks available when I made this,  I substituted 4 eschallots. For some reason onion terminology is very confusing in different countries, this is what an Australian means by eschallot or french shallot.

Even though the zucchini were thickly sliced, I didn't want to cook them for half an hour so I added them 15 minutes in.
I'm always suspicious of recipes with no seasoning, and don't think they taste all that good, so I added salt, pepper and a couple of large sprigs of thyme (just because I'd bought some for something else so had it on hand)
The original recipe added the peas, corn and milk powder at the same time. The milk powder bubbled up and looked lumpy. I would add it at the end, after the peas and corn had cooked.
It was quite nice, I'd be happy to make it again.
Cross-posted to soupsoupglorioussoup

Blueberry Salsa

Is there anything better than smoked chicken salads as the weather starts to warm? Perhaps it can only be bettered by adding a delicious blueberry salsa. I've just rediscovered this recipe. I used to make it years ago, in those halcyon days before children I suspect. The blueberries in the past few weeks have been sensational, wonderfully sweet, and I began reminiscing.

This recipe is from one of Donna Hay's earliest books- At My Table, which has been out of print for some time I believe. I remember this book was the first time I discovered Donna Hay. I bought it when I was seconded to Albury in my intern year in 1998, oh so long ago. It has stacks of great recipes, lots of which I used to make. And lots of the recipes fit perfectly into the low GI lifestyle.

It's quick, ever so simple and tastes fab. And it gives you an excuse to have some extra mango lying about the house- never a bad thing, even if you've done too good a job at encouraging your child to like mango, and he becomes stiff competition for leftover mango.

Blueberry Salsa

250gm (8oz) blueberries
1/2 mango, chopped
1/2 red onion, chopped
1 tblsp (20mL) soft brown sugar
3 tblsp (60mL) raspberry vinegar

Place the blueberries, mango, onion, sugar and vinegar in a bowl and mix to combine.

Notes
The smoked chicken from Woolies is wonderful. The smoked chicken from the Masterchef supermarket sucks.

Balsamic Tomato Salsa

This was Absolutely Fantastic. I'll be making this again and again. My favourite kind of food to cook at home, wether I'm on a low GI diet or not. Ridiculously easy to make, and tastes glorious. I'm already thinking of different ways to use it. It would be great with salmon or lamb. You could adapt it to make a delicious pasta sauce, use it as a sandwich/wrap filling. It would have been nice with some shaved parmesan added on top.

The recipe was from the Sunday Telegraph Body + Soul last week (17/10/10), and reprinted from the October issue of Good Taste. The recipe as presented was for Chicken with Silverbeet and Balsamic Tomato Salsa, which would have been all low GI. Making it for a 9 year old as well as myself I didn't risk the silverbeet and chickpea combo (even though he likes chickpeas), instead using some pasta and vegies.

Balsamic Tomato Salsa

200gm punnet grape tomatoes, halved
1tbsp balsamic vinegar
Sea salt, ground pepper
2 tblsp pine nuts
1 tblsp snipped fresh chives

Heat oven to 190C. Line a baking tray with baking paper. Place tomato, cut side up, on tray. Drizzle over vinegar. Season to taste. Bake for 5 minutes. Add pine nuts and bake for 4-5 minutes or until tomato collapses and pine nuts are toasted. Transfer tomato, pine nuts and pan juices to a bowl. Add chives and toss to combine.

Notes
Because I was making this for a child to eat, I only used about 2/3 of the balsamic vinegar (he didn't like it anyway, but did eat some). The child of course had a higher ratio of pasta on his plate- bribery is everything. He decided that he almost liked the pine nuts so that's a win.
It took much longer than 9-10 minutes in my oven (everything always does, I suspect it's the oven)
We had mashed kumara, with the cauliflower and asparagus.
I was hoping to use grape kumatoes (or tomaccoes as Mr Adventures refers to them) but of course there was none at the shops yesterday.