Fat redused basil pesto

 

 I LOVE pesto, I used too use it to every thing, with salmon, pork, chicken, pasta, on soup bread, pita, ON burgers, IN burgers and on my sandwiches. After I started on the diet, store bought pesto was banned from my kitchen. For the last three years I have tride to make the perfect pesto with as little parmesan, pine nuts and oil ( I use MCT oil, which my body can break down without turning it in to poisen) as possible, but I have never been able to make it as I want it. Now I have come up with a pesto that is okey, you get used to make sacrifices on taste when you have to follow a strict diet as I have to, only 6-10 g fat a day. Off course the pesto from the store or the one Jamie Oliver makes taste fantastic, but they use like ten times the amount of parmesan, pine nuts and olive oil as I do.
So today I will share my "perfect" basil pesto:

0,10 oz pine nuts (3 g)

0,17 oz parmesan cheese (5 g)

1/2 clove of garlic

2 cups basil leaves (4dl)

1 tbsp MCT oil (use the oil your diet allows)

1/2 tbsp lemon juice (just to get the pesto more moist)

 

Lightly toast the pine nuts to get the nice creamy taste rather than a nutty taste when you toast them until they are brown.

 

 Then use a morter to ground the garlic, parmesan and pine nuts.

When this nice mix of great flavoures are ready, put it in a larger mixing bowl together with the basil and the oil.  Use a electric blender to to mince it all toghether or use a food processor and puls it all together.
Look at this nice and fresh green colour and the smell of parmesan and basil is just amazing. My mouth is watering as I writte this.

As I wrote  above I use pesto on almost every thing, last night I had pasta and chicken with pesto.
I had some left over and brought it to work the day afer, my co-workers was like hmmmm that smells nice, is it pesto?

 

Enjoy!

Fat free muffins with berries

I have spend a lot of time in my kithcen trying to find a good recipe on fluffy and moist muffins. A couple of weeks ago a god friend of mine brought a recipe of low fat muffins with a lot of berries. With a few adjustments with what I had in my cupboard they turned out perfect. You can use the kind of berries you have on hand or like the most. We used blueberries, cloudberries and raspberries. Rhubarb is also a delicious fruit to use in muffins.

8 egg whites (or 4 whole eggs)
3/4 cup sugar (1,5 dl)
2 cups flour (4 dl)
1tsp baking powder
1 1/2 - 2 1/2 cup of assorted berries (3-5 dl)
1 1/2 cup of fat free yoghurt with vanilla (3 dl)

Sift together the flour and baking powder in one bowl and mix the berries and yoghurt in another while you use an electric mixer to beat the egg whites and suger until it is light and fluffy.  When the egg whites and the suger are fluffy, gently fold in the flour mix and the berry mix before you spoon the batter in a  muffin pan/muffins forms. Fill it up about 2/3.

Heat the oven to 350 F/ 200 C and let it bake for about 15-20 minutes.

Enjoy!

Red wine fondue with my favorite vegetables and fruit

A couple of times a year the five women I work with get together and have an evening with good food and wine and exellent company. A couple of months ago we were sereved red wine fondue with chicken and smoked ham with a great variety of vegetables, salads, cheese and foccacia. This dinner was a relevation for me, I can actually make an adult dish with a little style that is so low in fat that it is ridiculous. The chicken that got this nice dark red/brownish colour after it was cooked in red wine was so tender that you can cut it in two by a faint blow.
This dish can be served with a lot of different vegetables, fruits, bread, both fat free or with fat as everyone can pick and choose what they fancy the most.
So for Christmas one of my whishes was to get a fondue pot, and guess what I got for Christmas from my Mum! Yes, a fondue pot in black iron casting, I was so thrilled. Last weekend I invited a good friend of my over for dinner, red wine fondue.

Here is a list of many things you can serve along with the Chicken, ham, or beef :

Zuccini
tomatoes
cucumber
mushrooms
orange and red onion salad ( oranges slices in thin slices with thin slices of red onions)
pineapple
sugar peas
water chestnuts
asparagus
mini corn
paprika of all colours
whole garlic in a jar (water not oil)
olives
feta cheese

I also served home made foccacia with mct oil. ( I will post the recipe later on)

You will a need a bottle of red wine, not the expensice kind. My colleauge  let the wine boil for a while to be sure the alcohol evaporated, since one of us was pregnant. I know that children might not appreciate the taste of red wine, then you can use vegetable or chicken broth instead.

It is so nice to sit around this fondue pot eating, drinking and having a good time. I think I also will use this  dish when I am alone, since it is perfect for a low fat diet and it is really healthy also.

Enjoy!