Cauliflower Cheese and Starting Again

Last week I went back to eating LCHF again.  For one reason and another I had fallen off the wagon, for nearly 9 months. Inevitably I had re-gained all the weight that I had lost, but that didn't bother me as much as the other symptoms.  The worst one was the reflux.  When I'm eating carbs I need to carry gaviscon tablets around with me all the time, which is no fun, let me tell you.  I also really hate the fact that my ankles are swollen almost constantly when I am eating carbs.

I've been low carb again now for just over 10 days, and have had no reflux symptoms at all for the last 9 days.  The constant hunger that I have when eating carbs/sugar has already receded, and my ankles have come back again.  I didn't weigh myself at the outset this time, as I don't have weighing scales in the house anymore, but some of my clothes are already slightly looser around the waist.

One of the things that I find the most difficult about eating low-carb is the amount of cooking involved.  I find that unless I have a ready supply of meals in the freezer and suitable snacks in the fridge that it is too tempting to eat foods that are too high in carbs.  I'm going to try from now on to make a point of always having appropriate meals available in the freezer, and one of those meals is cauliflower cheese.  I've always loved cauliflower cheese, and spent many of my weight watchers years trying to make a low-fat version.  They never worked though, and after a while I just resigned myself to only eating it when having a 'cheat day'.

All of this meant that the first recipe I wanted to tackle when embarking on a LCHF regime was cauliflower cheese.  And let me tell you, in all the times I have made it since, with slight differences to the recipe each time, there has never been a dud one.  It is now one of my favourite meals.

The last time that I made it I took time to write down the amounts of ingredients I used, and even took a few photos, so that I could keep a definitive recipe for myself. You'll notice that my recipe is in fact for cauliflower and broccoli cheese with bacon.  I can assure you that it will work just as well without the broccoli or bacon, but I think they make this recipe perfect.

Ingredients

1 head of cauliflower
1 head of broccoli (just use 2 heads of cauliflower if you prefer)
6 rashers of streaky bacon (optional)

400g cheddar (you could substitute 100g of this with blue cheese and it works wonderfully too)
150ml cream
400g full-fat cream cheese

Method

Steam or boil the vegetables until they are almost cooked, then drain all the water away.
Cook the bacon until crispy. Put the vegetables and bacon into a baking dish. Don't forget to put all the bacon fat in with it too.

Put the cream cheese, cream and almost all of the cheddar into a pan and stir together to make the best cheese sauce you have ever tasted.  It will seem like a lot of cheese sauce.  Trust me, you'll need it all.

Pour the cheese sauce over the vegetables and bacon and mix well to ensure there is sauce covering everything.

Sprinkle your reserved cheese on the top and bake in the oven at 200C for about 25 minutes.

Look at that - doesn't it look fabulous?

It serves 4-6 people, depending on how hungry you are.  If you're cooking for 1 or 2, just freeze the rest.  When needed again, cook in the microwave for 2-4 minutes for a speedy, delicious, LCHF ready meal.

Cheesy Leeks on Toast

I've been back on Weightwatchers for 2 weeks now and really feel like I am on a roll.  I lost just over a pound the first week, and am getting used to the restricted portion sizes.  I am staying sugar-free, but didn't manage to lose weight using that method alone.  I think that may be because I have spent so many years on one diet or another that I just cannot judge portions properly if left to my own devices.

Given that I really do need to lose a few pounds then something had to change.  In fact, let's be honest here, I need to lose about 3 stones (for any Americans reading this, that is 42 pounds, and for any Australians reading this, that is about 19 kg).

For now, I'm still staying off the refined sugar, but am also following Weightwatchers.  I just hope that this time I can stick to it for longer than 8 months - which I think is about my previous limit before the weight started creeping up again.

Anyway, today I'm at home so I got the chance to make my own lunch and spend a bit of time doing so.  I've been really enjoying Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's Veg Book and I leafed through that for some inspiration.  There is a rather wonderful looking recipe for a Leek and cheese toastie, but there was a bit too much double cream and cheddar in it for a Weightwatcher's-friendly lunch, so I adapted it to lower the propoints value.

Ingredients (serves 2)

2 leeks, finely chopped
40g cheddar, grated
2 tablespoons philadelphia light (or other low-fat cream cheese)
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1 tsp olive oil
4 slices of bread

Method

Fry the leeks in the olive oil over a low heat until soft (it will take at least 15 minutes)
Stir in the thyme, philadelphia and grated cheese (reserving 2 teaspoons of cheese for sprinkling)
Lightly toast the bread, then spread with the leek mixture
Sprinkle the reserved cheese over the top
Grill until golden and bubbling (it took 5 minutes under my grill)

Weightwatchers

 8 propoints per serving (using recipe builder on Weightwatchers website)

--> Of course, you could reduce this to 4 propoints per serving by only having 1 piece of toast per person and having a salad on the side

If you're not trying to cut calories, then I'm sure Hugh's original recipe would be even better - his Veg book is available to buy on Amazon.