Home Made Kimchi

When I visited Japan 2 years ago I was impressed by their pickled veggies. When I got back home I realised that my life just would not be complete without a Japanese pickle press, so I got one at Amazon (http://amzn.to/hViyFN) and forgot all about it. Until now, that is, when I decided I needed a little kitchen challenge and decided to go make my own kimchi.

 Looking pretty

I went for the most common type of kimchi, based on Chinese cabbage, and here is the recipe I used.

Kimchi
1 head of Chinese cabbage
125 g salt
3 dl water
half a scallion (green end), shredded
1/2 dl chilli powder (I used a Thai, very hot, variety)
15 g sugar
20 g salt
3 cloves of garlic, minced
10 cm ginger root, minced
2 tablespoons of fish sauce

Boil the 125 g salt with the 3 dl:s of water until salt is solved. Chill.

Wash and trim the Chinese cabbage leaves of all brown spots.

Put the leaves in the press. Pour the salt water over them. Place the lid on top, pressing the leaves down (see picture). Leave it like that overnight.

The next day, rinse the cabbage leaves. Squeeze them to get as much moisture out of them as possible.

Mix grated garlic and ginger, shredded scallion, chilli powder, fish sauce, rest of salt and sugar in a bowl.

Gradually work the chilli mixture into the cabbage leaves, making sure it gets everywhere.

Put everything back into the press and put the lid on.

Leave it like this for 3-6 days (I left mine for 4).

When opening, the volume of the cabbages has shrunk to half its original volume.

Put kimchi in jars. It should be eaten within 3 to 6 weeks.

At first bite it tastes very salty. Almost too salty. But then the other aromas start to come through. There is sweetness from the cabbage, ginger, onion juice... In the end the chilli hits. It's VERY hot but the funny thing is, you don't feel that until the end, and the only way to quench that is to have another bite. I now understand how Korean people can be so addicted to this stuff. It's awsome!

Friday is Judgement Day (no 2)

I hadn't expected to lose any weight this week as I've hardly moved out of my house, but I had lost about a pound.

Weight
Start: 54.4 kg
Week 1: 53.3 kg
Week 2: 52.9 kg

The numbers for body fat should not be taken seriously but more as an indicator. Today I measured both 33.0% and 33.7% within seconds of each others, so they are obviously not very accurate (I picked the number in between to put in the table). Also, these numbers say that I'm verging on overweight, and I really don't think anyone would say so seeing me live, so again, don't read to much into them.

Body fat
Start: 35.4%
Week 1: 33.7%
Week 2: 33.35%

My plan is to stick to the diet for 2 more weeks. If I continue to loose weight at this pace I should be able to get into my pre-pregnancy clothes by then. Yay.

Tjälknöl and me bitching about my week

This week I've managed to stick to my diet, but it has really been more about just surviving rather than enjoying myself eating exotic food. My husband has been sick so I've been taking care of stuff at home, not managing to get to the gym. On top of that the washing machine has broken down, leaving us in a sea of dirty laundry and, worst of all, my youngest is having some kind of phase, sleeping no more than an hour in one go. So this week, every few spare minutes that I've had for myself, I've just dived for my bed, hoping for a few minutes of blissful sleep.

Foodwise, we made this Swedish type of roast, named Tjälknöl, at the beginning of the week. It was huge, so we've been eating of the same piece of meat, just varying the veggie preparations to go with it. Good if you've other things to see too than cooking.

Tjälknöl

1 frozen roast, I've tried this on beef and elk.
lots of salt
a little sugar

The night before eating, remove the roast from the freezer. Put into a 75 degrees C warm oven and let it roast in there over night (12 hours). No need to bother yourself with doneness, pink meat or any of that stuff. The meat will have shrunk to 2/3 of its original size and be very dry and sad looking in the morning. That's ok.

Fill a pot, big enough to the roast to fit into 1/2 way up with water. Make it boil. Solve as much salt as possible in there. It should be saturated saltwise. Add a few tablespoons of sugar as well. Chill.

Dump the meat into the saline solution, let soak for 6 hours.

The meat will be tender and have a nice salty tang to it. Cut it in thin slices and serve it as you would serve any type of cold cut roast.

I didn't manage to get a photo of the Tjälknöl, but here are some veggie preparations that went with it:

Easy bean salad with celery, tomatoes and white beans.

Asparagus with egg, butter and lemon sauce.

Armenian chickpea and spinach stew. Same as last week.

Georgian and Armenian Goodness Galore

The food we had during last week tasted SO GOOD. Maybe it was because of the state of ketosis that comes with a strict GI diet ("Hunger is the best spice", the Swedish proverb explains it all), mabye the sense of taste get heightened when sugar is cut out or mabye the food just was just really really good.
I managed to stick to Georgian/Armenian food for most of the week. This is what we tried:

Tuesday: Vospapur - Armenian Spinach and Lentil Soup.
A hearty stew of red lentils, spinach and tomatoes gently flavoured by garlic lemon and cumin. Filling and warming - yes. Photogenic - no, so no photo of this one.

Wednesday: Chakhokbili - Georgian Chicken Fricasse with Herbs and Tomatoes. This was a good one. Real chicken (real meaning the type with skin and fat still intact) first fast fried for a good crisp, then stewed with onions, white wine and lemon juice until onions disintegrate. Lots of fresh mint, basil, parsley, cilantro and tarragon added at the end along with fresh tomatoes. I served it with baked zucchini rounds.

Thursday: Lulya Kebab - Herby Lamb Meatballs with Niveg - Armenian Spinach and Chickpea Stew. Another hit. The meatball paste was really meant to be barbecued on a spit but that seemed a bit unpractical. Ground lamb with generous additions of cumin, dried mint, fresh parsley and cilantro. Might have been the best meatballs I've ever had. The chickpea stew was maybe not that special, but great as a supportive side dish.

Friday is Judgement Day

I've decided I'll weight myself on Fridays. As Saturday is the cheat day, I figured it would be best to do the weight check the day before, so I won't be disappointed. We have this scale that also tells you how the percentage of body fat you're carrying around. I've no idea if it's correct, but, well, for me to have any kind of indication of my fat/muscle ratio is a lot more interesting than knowing your exact weight in kilos.

Ok, here goes:

Monday:
Weight: 54.4 kg
Body fat: 35.4%

Friday:
Weight: 53.3 kg
Body fat: 33.7%

That means (if I've calculated correctly):
Fat mass DOWN 1,3 kg
Muscle mass UP 0,2 kg

I'm considering that to be good for 5 days of easy diet and exercise.

More diet thoughts

This is the first time I do the GI dieting thing (with the exception of a few days of forced co-dieting while staying at my parents house) and it's proving itself to be great. I had expected it would be harder to get started, people have been telling me how they felt all strange in the beginning, fighting sugar addiction and all sorts of cravings, but I haven't had any of that. I just feel much better, more energetic, no mood swings and a generally lighter stomach feel all over. When I've felt hungry I haven't felt those ravenous cramps that I'm used to, instead there has been a very polite feeling telling me it's time to get some nutrition. And at the gym, I normally last around 5 minutes on the treadmill (I know, that's bad, but I just get so bored), yesterday ran for 16 minutes and the only reason for getting off was that my core class was starting. I could easily have stayed on the mill a lot longer. I suppose I'm one of those people that's genetically predisposed to stick to a GI type of diet, so I'm very glad I tried it, otherwise I just wouldn't have found it out. The only drawback this far is that it's impossible to get a dietwise correct meal at restaurants, not good for my social life. And I can't say I've gotten any thinner, but I suppose that's a lot to ask for in just 3 days...

Georgian Food with a GI Twist

In the Timothy Ferriss GI diet there are 3 groups of foods you're allowed to eat. They are:

• Protein (meat, fish, eggs and nuts)
• Legumes (beans and lentils)
• Vegetables (all non root vegetables, but no fruit)

As I've said before I figured out that Georgian or Armenian food should be the best match to GI-adapt since it contains lots of beans, veggies and nuts in itself.

Now, I haven't ever been to Georgia or Armenia but my source of Georgian/Armenian food is the book "Please to the Table - The Russian Cookbook" by Anya Bremzen. It has recipes for food from all over the former Soviet Union Territory and it's a must if you're into home based culinary travel. At least I haven't come across i.e. Uzbek and Thadjik recipes anywhere else.

The first recipes I tried out were Beef Shishkebabs, Green Bean and Walnut Salad and Garlicky Cheese Spread.

The shishkebabs were marinated in red wine with grated onion and garlic.
A close up:

The green beans were bathing in a dressing made with ground walnuts, lemon juice, olive oil, vinegar, chopped onions and cilantro.

And, finally, the cheese spread. This one was really good. It's supposed to be based on a mix of farmers cheese (whatever that is) and yoghurt, but since cottage cheese is the only dairy product allowed in my diet, cottage cheese it what I used. I'm including my recipe of this one.

Garlicy Cheese Spread

1 cup cottage cheese
3 tablespoons walnuts
1 tablespoon parsley
1 clove of garlic
Salt and pepper to taste.

Run everything in a blender until smooth.

Thoughts on my upcoming Tim Ferriss diet

This diet that I'm about to embark on is the one Tim Ferriss describes in his book "The 4 Hour Body" (meaning that he claims that you could have the perfect body by only 4 hours of maintanence work per week). I think 4 hours of workout per week is a lot, but maybe that's just me.

There are 5 "rules" in this diet.

• No "white" carbs. Actually, he says that all foods that could be white should be avoided. So no rice, bread and pasta of ANY kind. This will be hard...
• Same foods over and over again. This will be hard since I hate repetition. I want a new world every day.
• No calories from beverages. Easy since I mostly drink only water and coffee. But curiously enough, you're allowed to have 2 glasses of red wine per day.
• No fruit.
• One cheat day per week where anything is allowed.

 So, what will I be allowed to eat. Meat and eggs are ok. Beans and lentils also. And vegetables and nuts. I've been browsing my cookbooks trying to find one that matches the criteria and I think that Armenian and Georgian food seem to work the best. Lots of stews with meat and beans thrown in together. Not cuisines that are widely known. This will be interesting.

Crazy Asian Stuff - Collon Cream Chocolate Biscuits

Today I went to the Asian Supermarket nearby to stock up on some necessary items, and guess what I found:

Apparently they are some kind of rolled up, cream filled, biscuits. They come in strawberry, vanilla and , yes, chocolate flavour. For some reason I don't think they sell very well outside of Asia...

New year - back to reality

In my opinion, the single most boring topic of conversation are peoples diets. The only thing I think is even worse is reading about them in blogs. So, I'm really sorry to say, but I have those post pregnancy kilos that really have to go now. And I'm afraid that I'll be blogging about it here...

But, if anyone is still reading, I think it will be fun. I've picked the GI-inspired diet from Timothy Ferriss book, "The 4-hour Body". It doesn't feel like the most sensible or in the long run health promoting one, but it promises great result and I really admire that guys way of using himself as a lab rat. So I'm giving it a try.

Since I'm on antibiotics now I won't be starting until next week, but stay tuned and I'll let you know all about it.