January 2017
Happy New Year! Welcome to NOM. So the madness of the holiday season is behind us and it’s time to start thinking towards a new year. For most of us it’s about trying to shift a few of those festive pounds, joining gyms with the best intentions of going every week and making resolutions we may or may not stick to. In this edition we have something that will help you out in #NotSpon, and some super simple Comfort Food recipes for you to try at home.
Contents
#NotSpon
4
New Year, New You, watching what you eat just got a whole lot easier!
Quick Dishes
6
Super simple, super easy and super tasty!
Comfort Food
8
Favourites to get you through January Smoked Haddock with Grain Sauce Oven Baked Pork Chop Homemade Fish and Chips
9 9 10
Portly Eats
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Aperitivoin Pescara, Italy
MY FITNESS PAL January is normally the time of year when we jump on the scales and shock ourselves in to buying a gym membership. We depress oursleves loathing the fact we just couldn’t say no to that fifth mince pie or extra glass of wine. But here we may have your salvation from Christmas excesses. My Fitness Pal (MFP) a free app that moniters your weight, exercise and food consumption. For many of us its the restriction of foods that we love that can make us give up quickly on new diets. While there are some restrictions on My Fitness Pal. For example, you are given a daily calorie goals which has been worked out from the details you fill out when you log into the app for the first time. Your height, age, sex, weight, goal weight and activity level from Not Very Active to Very Active. Once set up all you need to do is log what you eat, this can be fiddly sometimes, weighing fresh food and typing it in but, it does become second nature very quickly. To help you with logging MFP and the MFP community have preloaded all of the nutrition information of thousands of products onto the system, and with the bar code scanner it makes it super easy to fill out preprepared products too.
# No tSp o
MFP also remembers your regular foods and will let you create foods if you are cooking for a family. Creating foods can be done from the app or in browser and is super handy for per portion calorie amounts. You can also log your activity MFP has over 300 activities logged including swimming and running and the app can be synced with wearble health tracking gadgets too, giving you a clearer more accurate diary. You must be careful to make sure you don’t under or over eat and yes, if you want to you can chow down on a Quarter Pounder with Cheese from McDonald’s (955 calories). Although, make sure you log it and don’t under eat just so it fits into your goal. Be sensible about the app, the food and the exercise. It will help you to create good habits that you can stick to when you have reached your goal and it does let you have a sneaky chocolate bar once in a while too.
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Three Ingredient Thighs 2 chicken thighs (de-boned), 1 courgette, Handful of salad leaves This can be made for as many people as you need to feed. 2 chicken thighs per person and then up the courgette and salad accordingly. Start off by taking the bones from the chicken, I used some scissors to snip the meat from the bones. If however, you dont fancy that, your butcher should be more than happy to do it for you. Put the chicken to one side and slice the courgette into round slices at a jaunty cheffy angle, you know, it makes it look pretty. If you have a crinkle cutter you could do that too and they’ll look even better! In a hot dry pan put the chicken thighs skin side down and cook for 5-6 minutes on that side. The oils and juices from the chicken will come out into the pan. Once the skin is dead crispy turn them over and cook for another 4 minutes. Remove the chicken from the pan and leave to rest. Into the same pan cook the courgette and salad leaves for about 2 minutes on a high heat. Finally return the chicken to the pan, cook for another minute or so and serve.
Chicken Salad Chicken Breast, Salad Leaves, Red Pepper, Yellow Pepper, Garlic Powder, Soy Sauce, Olive Oil, Salt and Pepper, White Wine Vinegar, Bread, Little oil for frying
For the chicken, season well with the salt, pepper and garlic powder. In a pan on a medium heat lightly fry the chicken until cooked. Then leave to rest in a warm place (an oven on a low heat). Put the salad leaves into your bowl and then slice the peppers and add to the leaves. For the croutons rip or slice the bread into small chunks and then in a little more oil fry in the same pan used for the chicken until they are crispy. Once cooked, add the the salad bowl. Finally, for the dressing, in a jar or small bowl, mix together 50ml of Olive Oil, 20ml soy sauce, 20ml white wine vinegar, 1/2 teaspoon of garlic powder and seasoning. Dress the salad and place the chicken on the top.
Good food doesn’t have to be difficult @portly_gourmet
Co mfo food to make you feel good through Janaury
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January can feel like it goes on forever. The dark nights, cold days can make it seem bleak, but there is hope! Comfort food in all its shapes and sizes! Food that tastes wonderful and touches you deep in your soul. We have a few ideas in the next couple pages to help you through the dark nights.
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Smoked Haddock and Grain Mustard Sauce 200g chunk of smoked haddock, Milk enough to just cover the fish in the pan Splash of double cream, 2 tsp of Wholegrain Mustard, 1 tsp English Mustard Asparagus spears, tender stem broccoli or even purple broccoli works really well too! Put your haddock in the a, cover with the milk and bring it to the boil. Simmer for around 5-7 minutes until the Haddock is nicely cooked. Remove the fish and turn the heat up. Add your cream and mustard and reduce the sauce. While you’re doing this you can boil (or steam if you prefer) your asparagus. Once your sauce is reduced and your asparagus is cooked your ready to eat! Place the haddock on top of the asparagus and smother in the sauce.
Oven Baked Pork Chop 1 Pork Chop, Salt, Pepper, Garlic Powder, Onion Powder. Oil the pork chop, season with salt, pepper, garlic powder and onion powder and chuck it in the oven at 220 until its nicely crispy, turning it over half way through.
Homemade Fish and Chips 2 tails of Hake 1 handful of chips (I cheated with ready to go ones) Broccoli 1 cup of SR flour ½ cup ice cold water Pinch of Salt, Pepper, Paprika & Garlic powder We started by heating the fryer to 190c (its highest setting) to make sure that everything would be cooked and more importantly crispy. Once the little red light had blinked out and the oil was up to temperature, We added the chips and cooked them for about 5 minutes until they were nicely golden brown and crispy. Then we tossed them in a bowl with some salt (you can add some truffle oil here if you like, it makes them amazing) and put the broccoli on. We then put the chips in a warm oven so we could get on with the hake. For the batter mix the flour, water, salt, pepper, paprika, and garlic together. It should form a fairly thick batter, by all means add more water if you like it thinner. Pat the fish dry and dunk it in your batter mixture making sure it’s well coated. Finally add the fish to the fryer and fry until golden and crispy, again around 5 minutes or so. Once it’s at that stage, plate it all up and enjoy some homemade fish and chips!
Aperitivo, Pescara, Italy Long lazy afternoons spent on holiday in France or Italy are the memories that get us through the coldest of winter evenings, Aperitivo and Aperitif is something we lack in The UK constantly having to go or be somewhere.
For me at the moment Aperitivo is part everyday life, living on the east coast of Italy. Those long afternoons are a key part of the culture and tradition here, Aperitivo rules above all else.
Po rtly Eat s
In the early evening the streets are full of locals heading for a light bite and something to drink, some stick to coffee but most have something a little more interesting. Aperol and Campari Spritz being among the favourites. Apertivo is a perfect time of the day to sit back and enjoy the evening sunshine. PG
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Thank you for reading our first ever issue, we hope enjoyed it. We will be bringing you more and more foodie ideas in the coming months. To contribute or for advertising enquiries please contact: portly.gourmet@gmail.com Thank you again for reading.