Cheap, filling and calorie reduced Grünkohl meal

There had been a bit of a discussion on the Wildfood board about making meals below 2 pounds about 3 Euros, as I was aiming to make Grünkohl that day and was not as I would normally do using all fresh ingredients ( car was at the workshop). I decided to put my frugality to the test.

This will give you 8 portions of 500g of Grünkohl and potatoes, 100g of Kasseler and approx. 35g of bauch (smoked cured pork belly).

So I had bought the day before at Lidl (pronounced Leedl for the UK  advertising agencies):

824 g piece of Kasseler  (pure flesh no fat)

300g of smoked cured belly

I had in my store cupboard:

200g of onions ( peeled and roughly diced)

1 fat clove of garlic peeled, crushed and finely diced)

660g Bio Grünkohl from a jar

12.5g Freeze dried soup vegetables (Aldi-Portland)

500g of small potatoes (about 24)

1 tablespoon of duck or goose fat (I always have a jar or two in the fridge)

1 litre of vegetable stock (2 knorr stock pots in a litre of boiling water)

First soften the onions and garlic without taken on colour in the duck/goose fat (or oil if you don’t have any duck or goose fat).

Melt the goose fat 

add the diced onions

add the garlic

Make up your stock and add the freeze dried vegetables to the stock allowing it to stand for a few minutes.

Pour the Grünkohl into a large pan, and add the onions and then the stock/vegetable mixture. Bring to the boil and reduce heat to a simmer.

Slide in the belly pork and kasseler. 

Remove the meat from the pot and set aside covered for later.

Now add the peeled potatoes, mine were floury  local ones, but any will do, though the floury ones do thicken the broth. (you may require more liquid, then add another 500 ml of boiling water).

Lid on and cook at a rolling simmer until the potatoes are cooked.

Slice the Kasseler into 100 g pieces (I sliced into 50 g slices and added 2 to each plate it looks more), and the belly into 8 even pieces.

Return to the pot to warm through or portion for the freezer.

We had it that evening and I took a portion up to our neighbour. I divided the rest into 5 equal portions and froze for another day.

The total cost was €9.91 making it €1.24 per portion, so well within the limit. For those that are watching their weight or even on a diet the meal came in at 348 K/cal.

So you can make a filling meal for far less than €3 and if you are on a 5/2 fasting diet it is perfect for the fast day. You can even have a portion at lunch and another in the evening and still be below 700K/cal.

Teriyaki beef with Udon noodles and a Japanese salad

I had been to our local abattoir to see what they had on special offer and saw that they has fillet steak for a paltry €20,-a kilo, now this was a bargain so I decided to get myself a thick 300g chunk, not knowing what I was going to do with it. I must tell you that at the minute I am on a diet to get my cholesterol, triglyceride, sugar and weight down (I was bordering on the obese level). This had been playing havoc with my sugar levels. I am doing the 5&2 method, this is where you fast for two days and eat normal for 5 days. The two fast days (below 600Kcals/day) can be any 2 days that you choose, it is not a fixed day so you can swap any day that doesn’t suit you. I have lost 7kg in about 6 weeks and do not find it a hardship, with a bit of fore thought you can come up with some very nice and tasty (important) food in a 300Kcal menu, and that twice a day will do the trick. I had bought the steak on Thursday on my way to the Docs for get my 6 monthly check up, with the view of cooking it on Friday, but how was the only problem.

I was reading a magazine in the waiting room and in it was an oriental section and part was taken up with healthy Japanese food culture and there it was beef Teriyaki with a Japanese salad.

I have adapted this as they used bottle sauce and I have made as near as I could an authentic sauce.

Fillet steak Teriyaki with Japanese salad.

For one person (I am just one)

You shall require:

275-300g fillet steak sliced into not too thin slices

 

Teriyaki marinade sauce

2 tbsp. wok oil

4 thin slices of ginger

100g sugar snap peas

100g green beans

½ tsp. salt

2 small chilli’s sliced thinly

1 small tomato diced

1 tsp. toasted sesame seeds

To make your own marinade

3 tbsp. of mirin

2 tbsp. dark soy sauce

2 tbsp. honey

2 tsp. dry sherry (instead of sake)

2 tsp. rice vinegar (the type used to make sushi rice)

1 tsp.  grated ginger

1 spring onion sliced fine

Mix all of the ingredients together and marinade the steak in this for at least 6 hours.

 

 

Bring a pan of water to the boil add the salt and blanch the beans, remove with a slotted spoon and cool in ice water, repeat with the sugar snap peas.

Noodles

1 sachet (200g) Udon noodles

1 sachet of miso soup

Make the miso soup to 5ooml

Add the noodles and heat through

 

The salad

½ red pepper sliced on a mandolin

1 spring onion cut into 3 cm pieces and sliced length ways very thin

3 cm piece of carrot grated

The sugar snap peas sliced very fine

2 tbsp. Gari (pickled ginger)

1 tbsp. sesame oil

Place all on a large platter leaving space for the Udon noodles and drizzle with the sesame oil.

Heat the oil in a frying pan or wok, add the ginger and fry for a few seconds, drain the steaks (don’t rub the marinade off) and add to the pan, now stir fry quickly, remove and set aside.

 

 

Now add the rest of the marinade add the green beans, the diced tomatoes and sesame seeds

 

Place the noodles in the middle, put the sliced steak on top and pour over the teriyaki sauce with the chilli bean sauce.

That’s it folks.

 

Cauliflower rice

Here is an amazing recipe; I am along with a few others on the wildfood web site trying to lose a bit of weight. Lee the web owner and site Guru is also on a diet. He told us about this rice substitute, it is cauliflower, yes you read it correctly cauliflower, it originally came from "Fat Secrets" the programme that he is following, and so here is how I made it:

You will require 1 cauliflower head and that’s it in its purist sense, now Lee thought it would be even better bulked up with some pre-cooked rice. This made me think “Bulgar”, so I made up some Bulgar with Marigold vegetable stock and soy sauce.

Remove the florets’ from the stalks(don’t throw them away) and pulse them in the kitchen machine, I have a smallish Moulinette, so had to do it in two batches, do not over blitz, it should look like small grains of rice, transfer  to a microwave bowl and cover with cling film.

Chop the cauliflower stems quite small.

For the stir fry you will require:

The chopped cauliflower stems

2 spring onions sliced

2 pointy paprika diced (1 red and 1 yellow, but this was just for aesthetics)

100g of pre-cooked chicken strips (you could make your own, but I bought these)

2cm of ginger grated

A thumb nail size piece of shrimp paste

Pinch of chilli shrimp powder

Some anchovy sauce (about a tsp.)

Soy sauce

Fish sauce

Oyster sauce

1 table spoon of wok oil

Here we go, this is quick, oil in wok, in goes the cauli stalks, stir fry over a high heat until just starting to colour, then grate in the ginger, then the rest of the veg.

 At this point, put the bowl with the Cauliflower rice, into the microwave and cook at highest setting for 3 minutes.

When it goes ping, take it out of the microwave, give it a stir and then cling film back on and into the pinging machine for another minute.

Add the chicken strips, as these are already cooked they just need heating through.

Add the shrimp paste, shrimp chilli powder, and all of the sauces to the stir fry, keep it moving.

Remove cling film, stir in the Bulgar wheat (any liquid not absorbed pour into the stir fry). That is it, no more, no less, plate up your rice and spoon your stir fry over the top.

All you have to do is eat it, this gets a great big thumbs up, Lee thanks for the tip, it was fantastic.

For true vegi meal just miss out the fishythings and the chicken, you could use torfu