h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

thought I'd just bung this down here n the Dining Hall, as it seemed a good thing to put here. I'm going to start putting down my best "down day" recipes, or menus that help me keep on keeping on with JUDDD.

One of my fave menus is a bowl of creamy tomato soup (without the cream, ming), some sauteed in broth broccoli, garlic and mushrooms, and some tea. Comes to around 450 is you go a little overboard.

Tomato soup is low in carbs and has some fiber, depending on if you made it yourself and left some of the skin and seeds in.

Damn, I think antipreviewism is the name of my disease. The title has been corrected, not that it matters *now*, since it can't be changed up top there!

This is a meal I already ate quite often... Mainly because its quick, filling and quite tasty... And a lot of the ingrediants are either from the cupbaord r freezer, or with teh fresh stuff, just things I useually seem to have in:
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Supprizing though just how many calories are in the butter... I'd do it with olive oil or something instead, maybe groundnut, but I find it harder estimating how much I'm tipping in when its oils rather than block fats
Think I got the calories right

This down day cookbook is a great idea!

I'll have to try your chicken and rice, 2Legs. It sounds delicious.

SC, I drink tomato juice sometimes on down days. Campbells has 6-packs of individual servings in two sizes. I think the size I buy is around 13 ounces and has only 70 calories for the whole can. I'll check for sure when I get home.

With the rice dish, I sometimes add other spices and herbs; tumeric I use quite often, and also things like oragino and rosemary dried herbs... No idea if they do much calory wise though
Also, if I've got them, and Iwasnt it spicier, I'll add a diced chilli pepper or two

Goes pretty well with leafy salad too
Of course, before this ere diet thing, I'd often have a couple or one naan bread[s] with it... at two hunred or so calories each but with the veg and rice i find it pretty filling even without sticking the extra calories from the naan bread on to it
Still need to find something for this evening though... must do a grocery shop

Do you have a freezer? I buy bags of frozen stir-fry vegetables. the entire bag is less than 200 calories. The one I use most has 180 calories per 16 ounce bag. I shake half a bag of the veggies (90 Kcal) into a wok with a little chicken broth (5 Kcal) and about 4 ounces of chicken breast (120 Kcal). It is surprisingly filling and comes in at only 215 total calories.

Yeh, I've actually got two freezers... useually full of pizzas
I'll have to have a look at what frozen vegies they do actually, not sure I've seen bags of frozen stirfry veg, but probably that is because I've not looked ,biggrin>

They might call your vegetable mixtures by different names. One I buy is called Mediterranean Mix. It has broccoli, cauliflower, courget and broad beans. I think it has 160 calories for the entire bag. The stir-fry mixes here have quite a lot of different vegetables. One has sugar snap peas. That one is the highest calorie one. It has 200 calories per bag. The one with asparagus has 180 calories. There's one with a variety of colors of sweet bell peppers, one with French sliced green beans. Most of them have onions, broccoli, water chestnuts and carrots.

Oo I really must check this out tommorrow, I love* water chestnuts; rarely get them though as a whole tin is really more than I'd want in a single meal...

Most tinned foods will hold a couple of days in the fridge if you strain away the liquid and put the food in a clean container with a tight-fitting lid. I've done this with artichoke hearts, olives, tuna and other stuff.

As long as it looks OK, smells OK and tastes OK it should be OK to eat, but at the slightest miscolouring, dispose of it.

As much as I hate to admit it, using prepared foods like frozen dinners on down days makes sense. That way you know exactly how many calories you're eating. But I avoid them whenever possible because of my food sensitivities. It's just safer for me to cook whatever I eat from fresh ingredients. So I probably overestimate or underestimate my calories for down days sometimes. It's hard to know exactly when you cook from scratch.

When I was doing Weight Watchers, I noticed that there was a "renegade" plan, using the points thing. One of the members noticed that if you ate the same amount of points every day, you soon hit the "plateau" phase, where you weigth just hunkers down and won't budge. So, she started doing something very like JUDDD. And it worked for her -- she never did hit the stuck phase of the WW program. I think her routine is called Wendy's plan or maybe the Wendy plan.

Today is my down day, and I had a lovely dinner.

A low fat chicken burrito (240 cal, and 4 g fat), with 1/3 cup brown rice (cooked), 1/2 cup of sliced onions and peppers, and about a quarter cup of green peas, seasoned with some chipotle pepper, black papper and and carne asada seasoning. Wasn't hot enough, to I topped in about a tsp of Buffalo Wing sauce. YUM! I feel like I pigged out, but it's al about 450 or maybe 500. This morning all I had was two clementines and some hot tea.

2legs, there are very few if any herbs or spices that have more that about 5 calories, so feel free to rock out on those. If you use tomato paste, since it's concentrated, don't use more than a spoonful, and a small spoon at that!

Happy adventuring this weekend!

SC, there is a brand of frozen Mexican foods here called Baja Cafe. I love their tamales. Gluten free and each tamale is individually wrapped. They are just 130 calories each. Another down day meal I like is one of these tamales with a half cup of Kuner's refried black beans with lime juice for 110 calories. I top both with diced raw onion and a fourth of a cup of shredded Mexican blend cheese for another 110 calories. This brings the entire meal in at 350 calories. If I have it, I might add a couple of tablespoons of home made chili over the tamale before I add the onions and cheese. Not sure how many calories, but certainy less than 150.

Hyp, that sounds very good. I went to Trader Joes today, and noticed that they have a *lot* of gluten free stuff, including a brownie mix, that's also fat free.

One of my favorite things at TJ's is a "creamy tomato soup" which doesn't have any cream in it, but tastes wonderful. I picked up 3 4-cup cartons, as I don't go there very often. My favorite store is in Glendale, where I used to live, and I don't care for the two stores in my general area, so I stocked up. Also, got a few other goodies I love there -- a large pkg of fresh blueberries and some mango black tea. I love mangos, but heard that they're not so good for people looking to lose weight. Not sure why, but that's what I'd read, that tropical fruits in general are not good. Maybe for diabetics losing weight though, not everyone.

I also got some of the Greek style plain yogurt. It tastes just like sour cream to me, so I'm going to put some on a small baked potato, and see how it works out. I'll let you know, as it's fat free and fat free sour cream is awful stuff, while the yogurt is rather good..

Ooo the plain yogart to substitute for the sour cream sounds like a good idea, lettuce know how it work out

Found a couple of interesting things when looking at the frozen grocerys section on the online grocery tesco website... Some frozen rice and steam veg (I guess they're basically a microwave version of boil in the bag), which are pretty cheap and look very low calory; Easily be able to do a little stir fry of vegies and some meat and then have one of the portions of the rice to accompany them

Also found a couple of 'ready meals', which happen to be on offer this week, both come in a bit under 400 Calories, so they will be handy 'reserve' meals for down days when I can't be bothered to cook... again I guess I could put either some salad or some veggy with them to still come in under 500 and help bulk them out a bit, and of course just adding some veggy gooodness
I found some frozen stir fry packs too, which are pretty low calory, so I think I'll get them as well to go with stir fry stuff (I do a lot of stir fry meals anyhow, though tend to do them more normally in the summer and not in the witner )

Today is a down day for me... which oughta not be too hard as I've so little food in anyhow I doubt I could find anything for lunch even if I wanted too actually must do my online shop today, it'll be three weeks Monday or Tuesday since I last bought any groacerys... I may try and defrost the freezer today as I can't remember the last time it was that* empty
If nothing else I probably oughta be spending less on food overall with this diet

Well this is the Chicken and spinach and mushroom recipie I plan to make this week (well I'll probably end up making it twice as the pack of fresh chicken I'm getting has two chicken breasts in it, plus the bag of spinach and the tub of crem frage is enough for two as well) :
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I've not actually made it yet though... so I'll have to report back on if it works or not; I've knocked out the butter and double cream called for in the origional version of the recipie, replacing the butter with olive o oil spray and the double cream with the crem frage...
Actually if I can use a slightly* smaller bit of chicken than 200 Grams, then I can have one of the frozen rice N veg portions I@m buying (which come in at 160 Kcal), ... think I'd need to knocke only about ten calories off the recipie to enable to ahve that with it and still make it under 500 in total
Oh, and I had to skip the accompanyment they had in the origional recipie that would make it way over the 500 mark I think
Still no idea what is on the menu for tonight...

That sounds good, 2Legs. It's hard to go wrong with chicken and spinach.

SC, I've heard so much about Trader Joe's. Wish we had one here, but we don't.

I'm an up day tommorrow, but as the grocerys are arriving, I may well do the spinach and chicken/mushroom thing tommorrow, I can be a bit more relaxed about it and go a bit more liberal with some rice or pasta to accompany it... probably rice as I had pasta again tonight
Was looking earlier at some calory counts on things from the online shop I use... I think I'll be trying to switch away from carbs especially* pasta, and instead go with lean meats, quite low calory some of the fresh meats, and I useually find meat fills me up...
I've had two quite low calory days in a row, yesterday I think was about 800 or 900, and today I think* just came in at or under 500 but it all oughta be easier for me to do the down days now I've some grocerys arriving - first shop since I started on this, so until now its been kinda making do with waht I could find left lurking in the cupboards and back of the freezer