5:2 recipes: Mushroom, tomato and cardamom curry

Not the best pic I've taken because I was ravenous and couldn't be bothered to faff around with it but better than it might have been thanks to Hipstamatic

I've got a bit lazy about 5:2 lately, largely because I've found it's just about possible to keep my weight under control without it (more on this in due course) but after a heavy week last week I decided I needed a proper fast day.

This is what I made for supper. Mushrooms are brilliant diet food as they have diddly squit calories which justifies you having more indulgent ingredients like crème fraîche and rice which makes you feel as if you've had a proper meal. Which, of course, you have.

Don't leave out the cardamom. It makes it.

Serves 2

1 tbsp oil
1 medium onion, peeled and finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 tsp grated fresh ginger (optional)
2 tbsp curry paste (I used a korma paste but reckon a garam masala paste would be even better. But use what you have)
6-8 cardamom pods crushed, husks removed and seeds ground with a little coarse salt - or 1/4 tsp ground cardamom
250g mushrooms, wiped and sliced
2-3 medium to large tomatoes (about 225-250g), skinned, seeded and chopped or 1/2 a 400g tin of chopped tomatoes
Salt, freshly ground pepper and a squeeze of lemon if necessary
A handful of coriander leaves
2 tbsp low fat yoghurt or half-fat crème fraîche (optional)

Heat the oil in a frying pan over a moderate heat and fry the onion until it starts to soften. Add the garlic, stir for a minute then add the curry paste and cardamom. Stir, cook for a few seconds then add the mushrooms, stir and cook until they begin to release their liquid. Add the chopped tomatoes, stir, bring to the boil then lower the heat and simmer while you cook the rice - or veg. (Steamed broccoli would work well). Check the seasoning of the curry, adding more salt if necessary and pepper and lemon juice to taste. Stir in the coriander leaves and heat through. Stir through the yoghurt or crème fraîche if using and serve with rice or a green vegetable.

About 175 calories without the yoghurt or crème fraiche (about another 20-25 calories). 75g of cooked rice would be an extra 80 calories - you could, of course, have less.

3 meals for two from a £1 bag of veg

Having bought a £1 bag of veg at the Feeding the 5000 event last Saturday I decided to make it the basis for the next day's meals - fortunately a quiet Sunday at home with just me and my husband to cook for. I decided I wouldn’t buy anything extra and make do with what we had in the house.

The tomatoes went into a tomato bruschetta - simply quartered, seasoned, anointed with olive oil and, at the last minute, a drizzle of balsamic (you could use a few drops of wine vinegar instead). Oh, and a sprinkling of fresh thyme - I didn’t have any parsley, basil or chives.  I split two of the rolls I'd also picked up, toasted them and rubbed a clove of garlic on the cut sides as the base. If I’d had some feta or goats cheese I’d have crumbled a bit on top.

I could alternatively have fried the tomatoes, added a dash of chilli sauce and served them with eggs for breakfast. Or turned them into a fresh pasta sauce or a tomato and rice salad like this one on the blog.

Next, what to do with the lettuce and leeks? I washed the lettuce and decided to make a soup with the outer leaves and two of the leeks along with a handful of frozen peas from the freezer to give it a bit more colour and texture. This is roughly the recipe I used though you could easily vary it. It was so delicious I'll make it another time.

Leek and lettuce soup

(enough for 3-4)

1 tbsp olive oil or other cooking oil
A slice of butter (20g or thereabouts)
2 leeks, trimmed and sliced or a large sweet onion
A handful of frozen peas (about 50g)
Outer leaves from a round lettuce, washed and roughly sliced
700ml vegetable or light chicken stock
sprig of fresh mint (optional but unnecessary if your peas are minted)
Salt and pepper, preferably white

Heat a saucepan over a moderate heat, add the oil and then the butter. Once the butter has melted, stir in the sliced leeks, put on a lid and cook over a low heat until the leeks begin to soften. Add the peas, cook for another couple of minutes then tip in the lettuce and the mint, if using and stir. Pour over the hot stock bring to the boil and simmer for about 10 minutes until the leeks and peas are cooked.

Take the pan off the heat and cool slightly then ladle the lettuce and a few other chunky bits into a blender or food processor. (Leave some behind for texture*). Whizz then return to the pan. Adjust the seasoning and reheat gently but don't cook it too long or you’ll lose the colour. If you had a little leftover cream to stir in at the end or some extra herbs to scatter that would be extra good.

You could also add some fried bacon or ham if you had some for the final heat-through which would make it more substantial. Even then we had enough for 4 bowls.

The remaining leek went into a favourite pilaf along with the mushrooms (could have sworn the recipe was on the blog but I can’t find it. It’s in the book though). It wasn’t as good as usual as I didn’t have any cashew nuts (I used walnuts instead which were a touch too bitter), had to use tomato paste instead of fresh tomatoes and had no fresh coriander.

As you can see it was all a bit brown, relieved only by the remains of the lettuce which I served as a salad with a yoghurt dressing (see below) and a slosh of hot pepper sauce which I acquired from a guy in a pub. As you do . . . Easily enough for 3 though, especially given the soup we had first.

What else could I have made with the mushrooms? A pasta sauce. Garlic mushrooms on toast. A sort of stroganoff if I’d had a dash of cream. Mushrooms à la grecque. And with the leeks? A frittata. Leeks vinaigrette, This smoked cod and leek chowder. Leek bhajis, maybe (I did think of that but didn’t have any gram flour).

The main thing, as I said at the beginning, was I didn’t buy anything I didn’t already have in the fridge or the storecupboard even if it meant altering an idea or a recipe. And that’s the whole point - to adapt what you cook to what you have available, which is easy enough to do assuming a basic set of spices and seasonings (though I accept this is tough on a really tight budget). For most of us though it’s primarily a question of not wasting what we have. And that’s what this event was all about.

What would you make from these ingredients?

For more information about Feeding the 5000 and Fare Share UK visit their websites. 

* Or, if you prefer or don't have a blender, just serve the veg un-whizzed which also preserves the colour better. (Note how the arty photography app Oggl I was playing about with also improves the look of the dish ;-)

** (1 tsp Dijon mustard, 1 tbsp cider or wine vinegar, 3 tbsp olive or other oil and 2 tbsp plain yoghurt - and a splash of water to thin it)

5:2: Quick red lentil and carrot dal

After 24 hours of eating pure protein* I was gagging for something veggie tonight and hit on the notion of trying to make a low calorie version of my favourite dal. I found a couple of packs of pre-prepared veg in the local Tesco (don't hate me) and that clinched it.

I'll probably tweak it a bit. The carrot made it a little on the sweet side so you could cut it down or up the lentils slightly although that will obviously make it more calorific. On the other hand if you just chopped up a carrot and some swede it might clock up fewer calories - I found the bag I'd bought had some potato in it.

Normally I use a fair bit of oil to fry the onion and spices so they weren't quite as enticingly crispy as usual. But it's not bad. Not bad at all. Particularly for a cold February night.

Serves 2-3 (500 calories total so about 200-250 cals per portion)

1 large onion (150g) (47 cals)
200g mixed carrot and swede, cubed (82 cals)
80g red lentils (265 cals)
5g chunk of fresh ginger, grated (2 cals)
1/2 level tsp turmeric or a little more if you're into turmeric. It is very healthy (4 cals)
750ml light vegetable stock made with 2 tsp Marigold vegetable bouillon powder (24 cals)
50g sliced cabbage or raw spinach leaves (16 cals)
about 5g chopped fresh coriander (2 cals)
1 tsp cumin seeds (8 cals)
1 tsp coriander seeds (5 cals)
1/4 tsp chilli flakes
1/2 tsp coarse salt plus a little extra salt to taste
1 tsp oil (40 cals)
1 clove garlic, peeled and finely sliced (2 cals)

Halve the onion, chop half of it roughly and set the rest aside. Put the chopped onion, carrot and swede in a saucepan with the red lentils, ginger and turmeric. Pour over the stock, bring slowly to the boil, skim off any froth then simmer for 20-25 minutes until the vegetables are soft, adding a little extra water if you need it. Take off the heat and mash roughly, just to break the veg down a bit.

Blanch the cabbage briefly in boiling water. (If you're using spinach you don't need to do this.) Drain and add to the lentils along with most of the chopped coriander leaving a little for garnish.

Thinly slice the remaining onion. Grind together the cumin seeds, coriander seeds, chilli flakes and coarse salt with a pestle and mortar.

Heat the oil in a non stick frying pan and add the sliced garlic and onion. Cook over a moderate heat for 2-3 minutes then add the roughly ground spices. Continue to fry over a low heat for another couple of minutes taking care not to scorch the spices.

Serve the lentils and cabbage topped with the spicy onions and a few extra coriander leaves.

If you can't be bothered faffing around with whole spices you could always add some diluted curry paste to the dal as I did with the Spicy 5 Vegetable Stew I made recently.

*I was at a scallop dinner last night. Then ate scrambled eggs and smoked salmon for breakfast today.

5:2 Easy spicy 5 vegetable stew

Looking at the arctic scene out of the window this morning I must admit the last thing I wanted to do was fast but having worked out today was the only day I could fit in over the next 3 days I reckoned I'd survive provided everything I ate was hot.

I was thinking vegetable curry but it somehow morphed into a soupy stew. A rather more calorific one than I'd intended as I hadn't checked out the calories in parsnips or Jerusalem artichokes which have almost as much as potatoes. But it still came in well within the daily allowance especially as I only had just over a third of it.

Dieting or not it's a really good frugal recipe too as you can use whatever veg you have to hand - even a small potato wouldn't be a problem though I might skip the artichokes and use swede instead if I was in danger of exceeding my daily limit.

I don't think tomato would add much unless you had a couple of squishy tomatoes you needed to use up (skin and chop them first. Leave the seeds in - they're fine). Celery or fennel would be good as would a handful of shredded greens or spinach chucked in towards the end. If it wasn't a fast day you could add chickpeas or lentils or serve it with naan. Or tweak the seasoning and turn it into a couscous.

The most significant thing though was that I didn't use any oil. The veg are just boiled which keeps the calorie count down and speeds up the recipe to about 15-20 minutes. Probably 5 minutes in a pressure cooker, which I still have to master . . .

Spicy 5 vegetable stew (376 calories)
Serves 2-3 at 125 calories a bowlful

1 medium onion (100g) 31 calories
1 medium carrot (105g) 30 calories
1 medium parsnip (105g) 69 calories
1 medium to large turnip (150g) 47 calories
4 Jerusalem artichokes (145g) 105 calories
1 tbsp korma curry paste (25g) 55 calories
750ml hot vegetable stock made with 1tbsp Marigold vegetable bouillon powder - 36 calories
A handful of chopped coriander leaves (10g) 3 calories
Salt and pepper

Peel and cut up the veg into chunky pieces. (Do the artichokes last as they discolour.) Put them in a saucepan or casserole, cover them with the hot stock and bring to the boil. Turn the heat down and simmer until the veg are almost tender. Some will cook faster than others - it doesn't matter. You can mush them up to thicken the stew.

Weigh out the curry paste, mix it in a bowl with 2 tbsp of the stock you've cooked the veg in and add it back to the pan. Reheat and simmer until the veg are fully cooked (another few minutes). Add the chopped coriander and season to taste. That's it!

PS A less successful experiment was unsweetened porridge made entirely with water and a sprinkling of cinnamon. I know the Scots eat it that way (except for the cinnamon) but to me it tasted like soggy oat-flavoured cardboard. I think next time I'd have to include a teaspoon of sugar which would be only 16 calories. Not a disaster.