Bread of heaven

Nearly a week in the UK, left me feeling somewhat porky, thanks to lots of meals out, fish n chips, and Sainsbury's bags of little French onion toasts. It's also difficult and impolite to refuse when you're offered a cup of tea and a biscuit/slice of cake/sandwich every 30 minutes, and imbibing some alcohol was also necessary at points of the weekend. On my return to Amsterdam, the trousers seemed a little too tight, the marks the underwear left a little too deep. Time for, well, not exactly a diet, but a restructuring of my food intake.

I've tried Atkins in the past, and it left me morose, tearful, and desperate for a biscuit after seven days. I was reluctant to try that again. However, an Atkins-lite variation might work: increase the protein, cut down/out rice, pasta, and potatoes, and -- hardest of all -- stay away from the baking. Regular readers know that I love baking: A weekend just isn't right without a batch of muffins, some pancakes, or (occasionally and) a tray of cookies. I start getting twitchy by Sunday morning, riffling through cookery books and surveying the contents of my cupboards. But, I could not disobey the command of my overly tight jeans. There was to be no baking.

So, what have we eaten in the past week? I've had to divert my culinary efforts into more complex main courses and fruit-based desserts. (This is where I part ways with Atkins; nothing can convince me that fruit and vegetables are bad for you.) Snacks included boiled eggs or small amounts of cheese instead of the usual chocolate digestives. We have had:
Eggs provencal (eggs baked on a bed of tomatoes, peppers, mushrooms, courgettes, and beans).
Miso soup with rice noodles, pak choi, beansprouts, mushrooms, and baked ginger tofu.
Sashimi and sushi (instead of just sushi; less rice that way).
Falafel in pitta bred with garlic sauce and Greek salad.
Pea croquettes with salad -- these were fantastic! Ordinary frozen peas defrosted, mashed with garlic cream cheese, wholemeal breadcrumbs, and herbs, and then egged/Panko breadcrumbed, and deep-fried.
A cheese board with carrot sticks, peppers, and pitta bread.
Nigel Slater's baked aubergines, tomatoes, and beans with cumin and harissa (which I've just polished off for lunch today).

Not carb-free, but far less reliant on the pasta/rice standbys than normal. PJ made some fab beer bread, but we didn't finish off the loaf this time. Desserts were fun, too: strawberries and oranges macerated with a little sugar and orange flower water, topped with a cream/Greek yoghurt/icing sugar combo. PJ said this was better than Dream Topping -- mighty praise, indeed. And last night, we had frozen mango yoghurt puddings with a strawberry puree -- very 80s. I even included a mint sprig on one, despite Matthew Fort's stricture than one should never put something on a plate that can't be eaten (as seen on the Great British Menu final): PJ loves mint sprigs and polished his off, along with the dessert, in short order.

Has it worked? Yes, it has. The jeans are definitely looser, the stomach feels flatter, and generally I feel considerably less of a lardy bloater than I did a week ago. Damn! I'm going to try to keep going cold turkey on the baking until the weekend, just to see if I can break the habit. Although, I have come across a spiced teabread recipe that I'm dying to try ...