Mexican Comfort Food

Day 3  


Then: 220 pounds (15 stone 10 pounds) 
Now: 216 pounds (15 stone 6 pounds) 
Lost: 4 pounds 

Well, this is even better. 

Despite the frugal diet, about a thousand calories less than I normally consume, I don't feel particularly hungry. Though I do feel rather tired. All the time. 

Jo is basing her menus on one of the fad American diets of the noughties that talks about "good carbs" and "good fats". Except that she doesn't mention this when she gives me one of her delightful concoctions. 

We have a light breakfast of either eggs or fruyo yoghurt, we lunch on fish or chicken, with either salad or a crunchy vegetable like broccoli, and in the evening we try to do imaginative things with anything that doesn't have butter, or flour, or any derivatives thereof. 

We eat early now and, because we can eat as much as we like (and I do), I don't have any cravings at all, unlike both of my previous diets. 

Tonight's supper she called Mexican comfort food: 

Mexican Comfort Food

She put little pieces of chicken breast in a bowl with a marinade of 1 tablespoon of ground cumin and just under a tablespoon of freshly grated ginger, together with 3 fresh chopped-up green chillies from Waitrose (medium to mild heat) and a load of fresh coriander, mixed up with peanut oil. 

While that was marinating away, she found a can of big Mexican Poblano chilli peppers in the larder, and whizzed 2 of them in a blender with 1 shallot, about 3 cloves of garlic, another handful of coriander and a thumber of ginger. She also added 2 teaspoons of Total Sweet, which is a 100% natural sugar substitute. It's xylitol, a natural extract which is found in birchwood, and can be used exactly like sugar both in coffee and in cooking, except it has 75% less available carbohydrates and 40% fewer calories. Unlike aspartame, it tastes of sugar, not chemicals. 

Jo also added a little white balsamic to this sauce (to balance the bitterness of the poblano chillies), and she put a little peanut oil in the blender. Afterwards she added a little water to loosen it. 

She preheated the oven to high, then browned the chicken in a pan, added the sauce and reduced it, then bunged in a can of pinto beans and carried on cooking until the chicken was cooked through. Then she added a heaped tablespoon of Greek yoghurt (to replace the sour cream used in normal Mexican cooking). She poured the lot into a casserole dish, and put lots of reduced fat cheese on top. this baked for 20 minutes till it was brown on top, like a big lasagne. 

It was absolutely delicious and completely filling. 

The poblano chillies gave it a green tinge, but made it a wonderfully spicy