I have been reading books about eating again, and as per usual there is a resultant change in diet. I am one of those people whose reading should probably be closely supervised. After I read dr. atkins' new diet revolution I lived of pork chops for a couple of years -happily, I might add. This time, I read You are what You Eat by Gillian McKeith and also Skinny Bitch. Both good books, the former was rich on dietary advice and the experience of reading the latter was more that of being punched in the belly while at the same time having someone shout at you in a megaphone from three feet away. So I have some new ideas. Both books promote a diet based on fruit, vegetables and some grains (one of them says fish are ok, the other is going against Nirvanas assertion and says that fish do indeed have feelings, so the jury's still out on that one).
I boiled the whole thing down in my mind to this one idea: I will only eat food that my body is able to recognize as food.
So I'm eating a lot of veg and fruit these days, and after a loooooooooooooong time eating pork chops and chicken wings 70% of the time, it is a bit of a challenge, but it is dawning on me that vegetables taste really really good. They taste more than meat, and they all taste differently, and they actually do make me feel better (ok, I'm not going to discount the placebo effect here) - so I will try to eat like this as much as possible and see if that helps me not crave chocolate, pepsi max, ice cream and potato crisps every evening.
It means I will have to try out some new recipes, and cooking without meat is a very novel concept for me, but this one was definitely a success:
BAKED ROOT VEGETABLES
Carrots
Onions
Potatoes
Sweet potato
(any root vegetables are supposed to work well, and the amounts are really up to how much you want. I used two carrots, an onion, a sweet potato and four or five quite small potatoes)
2dl chicken stock (ok, maybe it was beef stock -the cube had got separated from the mothership. I think either will work)
two cloves garlic
some fresh ginger, grated.
Butter, to butter the pan (sorry, cow, I know I shouldn't exploit you like this)
I peeled the sweet potato, because the original recipe said so and I have never met a sweet potato before in my life. Did not peel the carrots or potatos even though the original recipe said so, as they were really fresh and had delicate skin and I wanted to keep as much of the nutrients as possible. The onion I had to skin, obviously. And then I just cut all the root vegetables into similar-sized pieces, and put in the pan. Then poured stock with garlic and ginger over the vegetables, and baked them on 180 degrees celsius for about 40 minutes until everything was tender. It was absolutely delicious.
If I didn't have a mind full of images of poor mistreated chickens after reading the skinny bitch book, I would mention that this would almost certainly be a lovely accompaniment for roast chicken, but I won't mention that at this point.
This is going to work out splendidly, I can tell.
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