Yeast starter for bread - & the bread

Last year I began reading everything on food labels, and was horrified by what I found. It was clear that the interests of the food manufacturers are not necessarily those of the individual. So I've been cutting down as much as possible on all processed foods, even apparently innocuous products such as tinned tomatoes, orange juice or bread. I haven't cut them all out all the time, and I certainly wouldn't want to - it's extremely useful to be able to open a tin of chickpeas in order to make hummous quickly. The new regime isn't about being neurotic about food, it's about making life as healthy as possible at home, in order not to worry too much when we're out and about. It's also about taking a view, aiming for balance, not fretting too much. In this way, lapses don't mean the end of the regime (as they would if we were "on a diet"), they just mean you know you should try a little harder for a day or two. This also means I can experiment with food - and I do, all the time.

So I began thinking about the bread we eat. I used to make it, but the children came to prefer sliced white flannel (what a galling admission!), and it gradually petered out. I got out of the habit. This was partly because it was a time-consuming and fiddly sort of breadmaking, involving searches in the supermarket for yeast, weighing ingredients out exactly, and generally fretting. I've been reading Dan Lepard's wonderful book, The Handmade Loaf, which proposes a very different, traditional method, using a starter. This is the bread which has been made for centuries, first in Europe, then taken by those admirable women who travelled across America in wagons, so that once on the West coast it became the sourdough loaf which is such a feature of San Franciscan cooking. This is food which you can adapt endlessly; it's food which involves sharing and generosity; it's food which fits in with a busy life. It also frees you from the food processing industry, especially if you can find a local source of flour.

Once you have a starter - yeast and flour, water, perhaps some sugar - all you have to do to make bread is mix part of it with some flour. Then you feed your starter with more flour, so that the process can begin again. If you want to help someone out by giving them some of your starter, just add a little more flour and water. If you don't want to make bread for a while, just leave the starter in the fridge until you do. When the moment comes to make bread, you can measure it all out carefully - or you can use your ladle to approximate the quantities. Despite using the same starter, you can make all kinds of different breads by changing the shape, the flour, the flavourings, the method of proving and kneading. It turns out that most bread has traditionally been made using a starter (to keep the yeast alive in the absence of a shop); it's only in the days of so-called convenience food that we have complicated things by making ourselves dependent on the supermarket.

It's not remotely complicated to make a starter, it just takes a few days. That is to say, it takes you a couple of moments, but you can't use it for a few days.

Starter

Dissolve 3 tsp dried yeast in 450ml warm water. Add 375g strong white flour. Cover, put to once side for at least three days, stirring twice a day. I used one of those French jars, about 8 or 9 inches tall, which was fine, except at the very beginning when it bubbled over, so I switched to a big bowl, which I covered with a teacloth. It seemed to be a one-off, because I now keep the starter in a French jar, and although it bubbles up when I add flour and water, it doesn't get anywhere near to overflowing.

Bread

1. Sift 175g strong white flour with 75g wholemeal flour, and some salt if you want (I leave it out, for me it's part of the point of making bread; apart from taste, the main effect of salt is to improve the keeping qualities of the bread).
2. Add 500ml of starter. Mix the starter and flour, adding a little more water to make a firm dough. You will have to feel your way here, so it would help if you've made dough before. Generally, you want to avoid using too much water, otherwise your loaf becomes rather hard (my early attempt at making buns, years ago, being known as bullets on account of too much water).
3. Knead the dough; you want it to be smooth, you want it to be what bakers call elastic, you'll know it when you get there, even if you haven't made bread before. It'll take 10 minutes by hand, no time at all in a Kenwood (indeed, using a machine, the danger is that you over-knead it). I can't give any advice about a breadmaker, because I've never used one.
4. Now it needs to be left to double in size. This is the moment when you can take control of the timings. If you want the loaf soonish, then leave it somewhere warm, and it will take about 2hrs. If you want it for breakfast, then put the loaf in the fridge, and it will take all night.
5. Knock it back (this just means giving it a punch to let out all the air), shape it, put it on a floured baking sheet, and leave it to prove. It's ready to bake when it's doubled in size. Slash it, cook it in a hot oven, 220C - check if it's done after half an hour (tap it on the bottom, it's ready when you get a hollow sound). It might take up to an hour.

Replenish the remaining starter with flour and water in the same quantities (a little maths is in order here). Now it will bubble away, waiting for the next loaf. This time, you could use different flour; you could decorate it with poppy seeds; you could dig out a recipe for ciabatta and make that instead (if it says to use processed/dried yeast, just use your starter). The second time you make a loaf using this method, you can just get on with it, because the starter is there, waiting for you to use it. Keep the starter in the fridge, just get it up to room temperature before you start mixing.

When you are adapting recipes, don't fret too much. The yeast in the starter will do most of the work for you, and it's forgiving stuff. Remember that the women who crossed America in the wagons didn't have scales, they just had measures, so the best way to claim this recipe for your own, to make this something you can do quickly and easily, is to work out how many ladles of starter are needed for each ladleful of flour in the bread, and how many ladles of water and flour you need to replace what you have taken out of the starter. I found it a little complicated to work out (maths is not my strong point), but once you've done it, you never need to use your scales when you are baking bread. Dan Lepard's book gives percentages of ingredients for each recipe, and the point of that is so that you can use a ladle rather than a scale.

Jamie Oliver's books have good bread recipes, and sensible advice on how to go about making your own. The key thing is that once you've got this going, it only takes a few moments to mix. If you mix it after breakfast, you've got a loaf for lunch. Or you can slow it down so that it's ready at supper time. Either way, it's delicious, and it makes you feel very clever and competent.

I made the starter last week; I made the first loaf with it on Saturday, with the help of Catrin (she was extremely helpful with the maths). She's just emailed to say that she's made a starter. I'm looking forward to reading her blog about how the bread went ... and I'll keep you posted about where I go from here.

Joanna

PS I forgot to say, the bread was delicious - I brushed it with water and dotted it with fennel seeds. We ate it for lunch, and it was gone in a moment.

Pudding

If you're on a low cholesterol diet, or trying to lose weight, then pudding is thought to be a bit of a minefield. I haven't found it so. It's true that we aren't great pudding eaters - I probably make one a week, and that's enough for everyone. The rule of thumb is to make sure that fruit is the main ingredient. Now I know that that's a problem for the many chocaholics who find themselves having to reduce their cholesterol. Lucius and I are both keen on chocolate, and we eat very good quality black chocolate in tiny squares a couple of times a week. I find that's enough, although I'm not sure Lucius would agree. What I have also found is that, since starting the new diet, I do not have such a sweet tooth - I really can't eat mass produced milk chocolate any more, because it's too sweet, and too fatty. And I never crave chocolate, whereas before I occasionally did.

One important thing to remember is that if you are restricting eggs in your diet, it's actually the egg yolks you are restricting, not the whites. You can eat unlimited quantities of egg whites, indeed there are books you don't want to read which are full of recipes for omelettes made from egg whites only and other similarly disgusting low-fat treats. Lots of recipes can therefore be adapted (I haven't done much experimenting in this field, but will keep you posted when I do). However, it does mean that meringues are allowed. Also macaroons and their Italian cousins Amaretti (you can get very good quality ones in Waitrose these days, but they're easy to make, and the almonds are good for you). So pavlova with a mix of 0% Greek yoghurt and 0% fromage frais topped with raspberries and blueberries is healthy, delicious, and does not make you (or any guests you may have) feel as if you're either on a diet or deprived.

Waitrose gives away useful recipe cards, and there's one at the moment with a good idea for low fat baked Alaska. You buy a flan case (the cards are aimed at getting you to try new products), chop a peach onto it, pile on half a tub of raspberry sorbet, and top with a meringue made with 2 egg whites and 100g caster sugar. It needs 3-4 minutes in a very hot oven. I'd only use the bought cake if it was low fat (ie 5g fat per 100g); otherwise I'd make it myself. (Sorry, I haven't checked; nor have I tried this, it's just a new train of thought.)


Low fat sponge cake

Sift 50g sr flour and mix with 40g caster sugar. Beat five egg whites to soft peaks; gradually add 60g caster sugar. You can then add 1 tsp of vanilla essence, if you've got it (but you don't need to if you keep a pod of vanilla in your cooking sugar). Now fold in the flour mixture, and spread this onto a Swiss roll tin. It needs about 15 minutes in a medium over (180C). Obviously for the baked Alaska, you want this cake to be round, and I think it would be okay in a pizza tin (you don't want to put it in a Victoria sandwich tin, because it would be too thick). If you want to use this cake to make a Swiss roll, then you should turn it out onto greaseproof paper to cool, spread it with your mixture, and then roll it up, which is less fiddly than it sounds. It doesn't keep all that well, altlhough if it's stale, you can use it in a trifle (obviously the usual substitutes for cream, and if you must have custard, you can mix it down with yog or fromage frais).



I've had slightly less luck with the topping for apple crumble. I suspect in the end I will give in, and use the nasty marge. But last time, I used a blitzed mix of Amaretti, Brazil nuts, jumbo oats and almond oil. I can't remember the exact proportions, but I do remember that when I tried without any oil it was completely inedible. The almond oil is worth using for this, because it adds sweetness and flavour. Sue Kreitzman has a recipe she calls apple crumble: the topping is 75g ricotta (read the label carefully to make sure you get the low fat version), 75g plain flour, 25g rolled oats, 1 tbsp marmalade (or, in a related recipe, maple syrup), 1 tbsp brown sugar, plus vanilla and spice. I thought it was good, but the children laughed when I called it crumble.

I remember that my grandmother used to make a pudding with stewed apple which was topped with crunchy breadcrumbs (probably fried in butter); I will look it up in Mrs Beeton, but probably not until the end of the summer. I'm sure we could adapt it.

Well that's enough pudding to keep me going for most of the summer. But I'll get back to you on the question of chocolate, and lemon, which I love.

Joanna

More things for breakfast ...

It's a problem, breakfast, because Lucius is so keen on a traditional fry-up (weekends only), and of course we don't do that any more. Two eggs a week, no sausages, not much bacon. But actually, there's lots of other things you can eat which are much better all round. Tomatoes on toast (wholemeal, unless we've run out, in which case there's generally the children's nasty white sliced); mushrooms on toast (much more delicious cooked with a bit of stock, some sherry or wine, and a little Worcester sauce); scrambled eggs with smoked salmon (that's my favourite); kippers.

I like fruit and yoghurt. At the moment, I'm eating a lot of rhubarb, cooked in orange juice/zest (so from a fruit, not a box), with a little honey stirred in. Later in the summer, I'll go back to my autumn and winter staple, plums halved and baked in grape juice with cinammon and cloves. For a change, I also do dried fruit, which I cook in lots of different liquids, and flavour on a whim with various different spices. Cardamom features regularly, as does China tea. When the gooseberries are ready to pick, I will cook them with elderflower (and if it's over by then, I'll stir a little elderflower cordial into the fruit after it's cooled). None of this takes very long, and I generally do it while I'm cooking anyway. Then I don't have to think in the morning. Stewed apple is an autumn breakfast, but that's more trouble - none of the others needs much preparation. Having said that, it's worthwhile trouble, because you can't buy cooked apples with the delicious sharpness of apples stewed at home (even when you're finishing up the wizened ones at the bottom of the fruit bowl, even when they're all eating apples rather than cookers).

This week I bought a juicer in a sale, because a friend who came to supper gave us a huge quantity of grapes, more than we were able to eat. The grape juice was nicer than any I've ever bought, so it was quite inspiring. My heart sinks at the thought of "healthy" things like carrot juice and spinach juice (both suggested on the box the juicer came in), but I'd quite like to experimeent with tomato juice. I've never been able to understand why commercial tomato juice has so much salt ...

Toast and Marmite ...

We decided on a complete change - if no butter, then none of that fancy marge either. Early on we were pointed in the direction of the new marge that lowers cholesterol, but when I read the instructions, it turns out you have to eat it two or three times a day to have any effect, and that's not going to help a total change of eating habits. So olive oil. Problem: how can you eat toast and Marmite without butter?

So far, I haven't found anything that's quite right, but here are a couple of solutions. Put Marmite on the toast, then a thin layer of 0% fromage frais, or a little of the new ultra lite (ie under 5% fat) Philadelphia. Lucius doesn't like either of these ideas, and eats dry toast with Marmite, but I can't do that. Either way, it's not the same, it's not as nice, and you don't want to eat it so much. And that, of course, is the point.

Joanna

Getting started ...

So what happens is, you decide to eat healthy heart food, you read some of the British Heart Foundation booklets they gave you in the hospital, you go to the supermarket full good resolutions, you read a few labels and discover everything is full of fat and salt and sugar, and if it's not it's got transfats, and you don't really know what they are but you know you shouldn't be eating them. And you think, well okay, he's on statins, it'll be okay, diet doesn't matter very much, the statins will take care of it. So then I thought about the 20 or so minutes before we reached the hospital when I really thought he might die, and thought that my genes are probably just as dodgy as his - and our children are too young to be orphaned.

When I came back from that shopping trip, I felt I had lost my culinary bearings - just how much saturated fat was there in parmesan? In Somerset goat's cheese? In a lamb chop? In a coconut? I bought piles of books, but they mostly seemed to be full of bland food utterly unlike what we were used to. Sue Kreitzman's books were the most useful, full of tips and useful recipes, but, even so, the whole thing felt rather staid, and not the kind of thing you could imagine Nigel Slater or Nigella getting the saucepans out for. So I read them, put them away, and got out my "proper" cookbooks. And started cooking again, adapting, discarding, picking up on new tastes.

And that's the key: as you eat more vegetables, less saturated fat, your tastebuds change, and you have to be receptive to this, start cooking things you might not have tried before. As you take out the saturated fat, you realise how much we have traditionally relied on this highly unsuitable food as a flavouring. And so you add herbs, spices. You learn that nuts are good to eat so long as they're not roasted and salted, and that not only are they not fattening, but they'll help you lose weight. You find that if you eat porridge or home-made muesli with lots of dried fruit at breakfast, you don't really want anything to eat until lunchtime. And then, if you eat - say - vegetable soup, some wholemeal bread and a salad, you probably won't get a chocolate craving in the afternoon. And if you do, well then dried fruit is good, and dried pineapple works the very best. And after a while, without ever trying or limiting the amount you eat or being faddy, you find you have more energy than before, and that you are two dress sizes smaller than you used to be.


Muesli

This is well worth the very little trouble it takes.

When you read the ingredients list on shop muesli, it's rather surprising to find sugar and milk powder, and coconut (saturated fat problem) - and you thought this was a health food. Luckily it only takes a few minutes to make, and you don't have to make it very often. Get a really big bowl. Put in a packet of rolled oats. Stir in as many packets of dried fruit and nuts as you like - I like it to be at least half fruit and nuts, because it's almost the only way to get Lucius to eat them. At first I used to chop them up, but now I don't bother. If you've got a sweet tooth, then put in lots of fruit (dried cranberries and cherries, as well as raisins, apricots, pineapple, dates, although I draw the line at freeze-dried strawberries). I also always put in various seeds - sunflower, poppy, pumpkin, whatever there is. Mix it all together, and then store it in a big jar. It needs an occasional stir because the smaller things tend to sink to the bottom, and sometimes you need to add a few more bits before it's all finished up.

You can eat this in a variety of ways. Mostly, we just pour milk on it and eat it straight away. Often I eat it with 0% fat Greek yoghurt. Sometimes I grate an apple into it and cover it with apple juice. Even more rarely, I do this the night before, and then it's like a sort of uncooked porridge. At this point I have been known to add blueberries.

It is much more delicious than any muesli I have ever bought. My sister in law toasts the oatmeal, and that is very delicious, but too much trouble for me - the only time I tried, the first batch was undercooked, the second was burnt. The main thing is not to worry too much about the ingredients, just accept that it will taste slightly different every time you make it.

Joanna

Onions and garlic

The onion family is very good for healthy heart eating. I used to roast whole onions (the small so-called cooking onions you get in a large bag in the supermarket) for about an hour, when we were having a roast dinner. Now I find them rather bland, because they have effectively steamed in their skins. They taste very sweet. You can do the same with a whole head of garlic, and then lop off the top and squeeze it like a delicious toothpaste onto bread, or eat it with whatever else you're eating.

These days, I use the big Spanish onions, peel and slice them, put them on a roasting tray with some olive oil, and bake them for about half an hour. Sometimes I forget, and the edges get really black, and Lucius - amazingly - says they're even better that way. I occasionally add chunks of red and orange pepper to this mix, but generally it's just the onions. They go with everything, and they keep for days in the fridge. Rather like the salsa verde, they're useful to pep up something bland when you're in a hurry. Huge reward for little effort (I know that for this type of cooking I do have the advantage of the Aga; all the same, I'd switch the oven on specially to make roasted onions).


Skordalia

Here's something else from the onion family that we eat occasionally, this is a pungent Greek dip - we first had it at a small Greek restaurant run by an energetic old lady in a village half way between the site of the Battle of Lepanto and Missalonghi where Byron died (neither of which we visited).

Peel and cube 2 large potatoes; cook through. Process with 100g of blanched almonds (or pine nuts), 4-15 (yes!) cloves of garlic, 250 ml of olive oil, 1 tbsp red wine vinegar. Again, this is a recipe you can vary - I've never made it with blanched almonds, because I never have them in the house, and I'm really not going to start peeling nuts just to improve the look of the thing. I've got another version of this which uses bread instead of potatoes - let me know if you'd like that and I'll post it.

It really is worth a try. You can use it as a dip with chopped vegetables, or you can add it to soup and stew.


This week's experiment is going to be a sourdough loaf, which will involve making a starter which captures natural yeasts. I've tried this before, and only succeeded in making a nasty smell in the scullery. The new instructions are simpler, and only take five days to get to the breadmaking stage. I'll keep you posted.

Joanna

Blogger seeking comments.... Do give it a go....

I've had lots of great emails and conversations with you about this blog, which is great. The blog would be hugely enriched if you occasionally contributed something in the comments ... then it's like a conversation - you can add a better idea, or ask about something, or just pass the time of day. It really is very easy to add a comment, just as easy as sending an email. In order that I don't feel hugely bossy, I am going to give you an extract from a blog written by a great friend of ours who got me started on this. She had exactly the same problem when she started her blog in December ... here are her instructions for how to blog:



"I have had so many wonderfully sustaining, touching, funny, irreverent emails in response to my blog ... that the only disappointment has been the near-zero take up on the comments front. If it works, it can be a brilliant further dimension to the blog, like a friendly mutually supportive forum, we are all friends together here I promise you. ...

To begin with, I thought that the reason I wasn’t getting any comments was because you were all too shy and retiring…. but I’ve changed my mind.Having asked several of you specifically to post comments, really quite clever people with degrees and Phds and ologies as Maureen Lipman would say, and discovering the only people who have found their way onto the blog are Nigel and Sally Swycher from La Jolla, California (America is another country and they do things differently there, so they don’t count) and a quartet of 11 and 12 year old girls from the City of London School for Girls. Now they are extremely bright and applied, and obviously a credit to their academic institution, which came 10th in the Sunday Times League Tables by the way, so I attach no blame or censure whatever when I say with all respect that what you probably need is a teeny bit of HELP.

I therefore contacted lovely patient David Cohen from Conde Nast who helped me set the whole thing up. He has logged onto the blog today and agrees that it's “not that easy” to navigate, which is IT-ese for impossible, and offers these “ simple and usable instructions”. Let me know if he’s lying.

Apparently, the way it works is:

You choose the post (i.e. diary entry) you wish to reply to. You click the "0 comments" (or "1 comment" etc) link at the bottom, which will take you to a new screen with just the post you have chosen and any and all comments already made to that post. Scroll down to the bottom of this and click "Post a comment".

This will take you to a log-in screen. If you have a Blogspot account you can log in, and the comment will appear under your username. This is not rocket science and could be an option if you fancy making frequent comments. If you don't, you can click "log in anonymously". Don’t worry, I am getting to the point very soon, now, so do wake up there at the back.

Either option will lead to a final screen where you can compose your message. If you log in anonymously you can simply add your name to the bottom of your comment, so I know it’s come from you. Be sure to click "publish comment", too, not sure what the precise wording is but it will be something like that.

If for any reason, you subsequently have second thoughts about your comment, such as there being someone who might log on who you would prefer not to read it, and would rather it were deleted from the record, email me (joannacary@ukonline.co.uk) and ask me to delete it. Apparently only I can do this because I am the all-powerful "Administrator" ..

Dave then concludes thus. And I have to tell you I have already majorly simplified his message. “I hope the above makes sense - I'm sure if you give out these instructions, once people have done it once or twice they'll see that it’s quite easy once they know what they're doing.”

Let me know if he’s right."


DO give it a try
Joanna
PS thanks Debs!

Salsa verde

Okay, well I think I've made everyone feel thoroughly daunted by posting that list of good things to eat. Those are just suggestions for what you can best eat instead of all the nasty saturated fats you are taking out of your diet. They come from the Superfoods book listed, as do the suggestions for how often you could be eating them for maximum benefit. We try to eat a lot of those foods, but don't always manage. And we don't worry about it, because our number one rule is NOT TO BECOME NEUROTIC ABOUT FOOD.

When we began this, the biggest problem seemed to be making food taste of something. No butter, not much salt, no cheese, it all began to seem rather tasteless. We eat enormous quantities of herbs, and quite a few spices. Lucius claims that spices are "wasted on him", but we now eat quite a lot of mild curry (cumin, maybe just a little chili), and he likes it a lot. (By the way, when making mild curry, be aware that coconut contains a great deal of saturated fat.)

Salsa verde

Salsa verde is something I always have on the go - it makes anything bland taste wonderful. We use it on potatoes, in soup, with boring chicken breast when I couldn't think of anything to cook. It takes five minutes to make, keeps at least a week, and is particularly useful for producing instant meals.

This is the basic recipe, which you must feel free to vary. It's slightly different every time I make it.

Process 2 cloves of garlic, some capers, a tin of anchovy fillets, a bunch of flat parsley, of basil, of mint, 1 tbsp Dijon mustard, 3 tbsp red wine vinegar, 8 tbsp good olive oil. You can vary the proportions. It's especially good with a lot of mint, and I often use coriander. The aim is to get a sauce the consistency of homemade mayonnaise (but it's quicker and easier to make).

Some basic rules

I made this rule sheet a couple of weeks ago, and, as I was writing it, became aware that we have been backsliding. So we've got sterner recently. But the idea of using strict rules for home eating is that then, when we're out, we don't have to fuss if we can't follow the diet. It's a way of life, so it needs to incorporate the occasional treat (thank you Isabel E for introducing us to the Artisan du Chocolat), the occasional lapse.

What the sheet below doesn't say is that processed food should be a no-no. Once you start reading the labels, you quickly realise that, however fancily they package it, processed food contains high levels of fat (mostly saturated), salt and sugar. These are all things to avoid. So you need to know how much of them you are actually eating - which means putting them in yourself. Or not.

I was given a really good piece of advice by a nurse in the cardiac department of the Ninewells Hospital in Dundee: don't think about what you're taking out of your diet, think about what you're putting in. So we started by concentrating on putting in the seven portions of fruit and veg (now I'm told it should be nine!), which naturally limits the amount of other things you can eat. And because cheese is largely off limits, I started to develop other ideas for flavourings to add when I would have added cheese. I'll post something in a day or two about the way I've tackled that problem (I think it's been our biggest problem, because we used to eat quite a lot of cheese without really noticing the totals).



BASIC RULES

* Do not think of what you are taking out of your diet, think of what you are putting in.
* Aim to eat seven portions of fruit and veg a day (this is the most important rule – if you’re only going to make one change, this should be the one).
* Eat more fish.
* Meat: twice a week max, and no more than the size of a cigarette packet at once (also cut away all visible fat). Never eat chicken skin.
* Cheese: once a week max, and no more than the size of a matchbox at once.
* Eggs: 2-3 a week (but as much egg white as you like, which means you can adapt lots of recipes which call for eggs).
* Butter, cream: never! Use olive oil instead. And fat free fromage frais.
* Pudding, if any, should almost always be fruit (fresh or cooked).
* A little black chocolate once or twice a week is fine; nuts &/or dried fruit are good to nibble on.

GOOD THINGS TO EAT

* Legumes: all kinds – green beans, baked beans, chickpeas, lentils etc
* Cabbage family – not just broccoli, but also Brussels sprouts, chard, rocket, cauliflower, watercress, kale, turnips, all kinds of greens
* Cereals: oats, wheatgerm, ground flaxseed, brown/wild rice, barley, wheat, buckwheat, rye, millet, bulgur wheat, spelt, couscous, etc
* Oranges, lemons, tangerines, limes, and grapefruit, unless you’re on statins, in which case never. It shouldn’t all be in the form of juice, as part of the goodness is in the fibre. The zest is good, too
* Pumpkin: also carrots, butternut squash, sweet potatoes and orange peppers
* Salmon, also halibut, tinned tuna, sardines, herring, trout, sea bass, oysters, clams
* Spinach: also kale, spring greens, pak choi, Romaine lettuce
* Tea: black tea is fine
* Tomatoes: also watermelon, papaya, guava
* Skinless chicken/turkey breast
* Nuts: walnuts, almonds, pistachios, sesame seeds, peanuts, pumpkin and sunflower seeds, pecans, hazelnuts, cashews. NB not roasted/salted
* Yoghurt, fat free and unsweetened
* Blueberries, red grapes, cranberries, loganberries, raspberries, strawberries, currants, blackberries, cherries
* Onions, garlic, shallots

RULES FOR EATING OUT

* Be strict at home so you don’t have to fuss when you’re out.
* Don’t worry if you lapse, this is not “being on a diet”, this is a way of life. Just try not to lapse too often or for too long.
* Menna’s tip is to ask caterers for “no dairy”, and you’ll generally get plain cooked food, with no sauce, no fat, and fruit salad to follow.

USEFUL BOOKS

* Anything by Sue Kreitzman.
* Superfoods, by Steven Pratt and Kathy Matthews. Written in American self-help style, but interesting (the basis of the good things to eat section).
* in the BBC Good Food book series, a little square book called 101 Low-fat Feasts has lots of good ideas.

Something a little more glamorous

Having started blogging this morning on a whim, I am now worrying that the kedgeree recipe will give the impression that we have become earnest, sandal-wearing, bean-eating near veggies, who only eat food that is brown, mushy, ugly and tasteless. Well, no, actually. As this unfolds, I will explain some of our new basic recipes, which take the place of the saturated fats we used to use as flavourings (butter, cream, etc). But in the mean time, I'm going to post a fantastic Raymond Blanc recipe I tried this week.

Essence of tomatoes

This requires two short bursts of activity, and can be made ahead. It is utterly delicious. The ingredients seem a little extravagent, but the pulp can be used either to make a stock (that's what I did this week, and it is going to be the basis of a beetroot risotto this evening), or to add to the bolognese sauce to increase daily veg portions without making people feel deprived of meat. (Actually, now I come to think of it, this is the ideal way to add veg to mince, because it wouldn't make it watery.)

Process: 2.5kg good tomatoes, 1 stick of celery, 1 shallot, half a bulb of fennel, 1 clove of garlic, some thyme, a little tarragon (I don't grow this, and couldn't find it locally), some basil, 1 tbsp sugar, 2 pinches of cayenne pepper, 5 drops of Worcs sauce, 3 drops of Tabasco (I might leave this out next time). Leave this to marinade all day.

Next you have to strain the pulp. I've got a fine seive, and that worked well. But you could use muslin, or a kitchen cloth. RB says that it needs straining for "at least 15 mins". Well, it's not nearly long enough. Half an hour would get most of the juice, a hour would get it all. DO NOT THROW AWAY THE PULP (see above). Chill the tomato essence.

You could just drink this wonderful cold soup like this, with a few drops of olive oil and some finely shredded basil leaves. But it is even better - and more glamorous - with tomato chopped into it. What you do is skin and deseed six large plum tomatoes, chop them up small, and put this mixture into the bottom of your soup plates. If you want real glamour, you can arrange them using a ring (we used an egg-poaching ring, but a napkin ring would do as well), and gently spoon the soup round it, and then float the shredded basil and oil round the tower. There isn't always time for this sort of caper, but even without it, the soup is delicious, and a lot cheaper than a visit to the Manoir au 4 Saisons.

Kedgeree

This morning I made kedgeree for breakfast. It took not much more than 10 minutes, and was delicious. As we were eating it, I wondered if, next time, I would remember how I had cooked it. And then it occured to me that if I blogged my food discoveries, I'd never lose them in the general household muddle that is my filing system. It would also make it easy for all those people who have asked about our new, post-heart-attack diet.

We try to eat kippers once a week. Living, as we do, as far from the sea as you can get in the British Isles, it is sometimes tricky getting hold of decent, undyed kippers. If we manage to get those (Tesco is our best source), I put them in foil in the oven for 15-10 minutes to heat them through without stinking out the house. We eat them on toast with tomatoes, either raw or also cooked in the oven. But, if we can't get decent kippers, and have to resort to dyed fillets, they're not so good cooked in that way, because they taste rather harsh. So ...

Kedgeree

I cooked one mug of basmati rice and a cardamom (split open) with two and a half mugs of water. Once I got the rice on, I put the 3 kipper fillets in a flat serving dish and poured boiling water over them. Then I chopped up 3 spring onions and a handful of parsley. When the rice had absorbed all the water (watch carefully, or it sticks to the bottom of the pan; you lose the bottom inch or so of rice astonishingly quickly, and you have to soak the pan for an hour to free it), I covered it with a tea towel while I drained and flaked the fish in the same dish. I added the rice, a small pot of 0% Greek yoghurt (150g) and the greens.

The yoghurt was much nicer than all that butter people generally use in kedgeree, because it gave it an edge. Half way through eating it, I thought that it would have been even better if I had finished it with lemon zest and juice. Next time.