Lovely medium raw fillet steak on a bed of spicy veg. Looks like a massive plate. I had no trouble finishing it off.

I feel a little bit guilty, we just discussed this week at work what a burden to environment beef is. Our company has nothing to with food unfortunately, but the topic came up as Barry who looks after our environmental agenda presented some numbers and suggested that we stop serving beef in our canteen. Not entirely unexpectedly to anyone apart from maybe Barry his proposal didn't go down well with the audience mainly consisting of middle-aged Yorkshire men who recognise three food groups: pork, beef and gravy. (I know I'm being prejudiced and unfair, I actually know a vegetarian Yorkshire man, young Adam from work and it is entirely possible there are others.) In the debate I supported Barry perhaps slightly hypocritically considering my secret steak habit and the fact that I don't eat in the canteen because I'm based in our Southern office. But opposition was fierce. The main reason for this tended to be "I like beef". Fair enough.

But stats are very much supporting poor heckled Barry, I hope it's safe for him to return to work soon. According to him 26% of all greenhouse gases come from food production, and about half of that from beef. If you disagree with the numbers talk to Barry, but I had a quick look and although there are lots of estimates out there, whatever numbers you go by the fact remains, beef is quite a culprit.

So I am going to improve my ways and do some vegetarian cooking tomorrow. I am planning to do some chickpea and hummus patties for which I prepared this nice light hummus already.

But I did pop into Waitrose and got two venison steaks so as not to make this move too cold turkey-like. I think deer are less farty than cows, just by looking at their physique you can kind of make this conclusion, so they probably burden the environment less than their more flatulent domesticated cousins. And one can't very well be expected to eat chickpea burgers all the time, can one?

Gorgeous Scottish venison with broccoli, asparagus and a salad.

My Friday night dinner date with Jamie Oliver - unfortunately we disagreed about mackerel.

So today I made this lovely light hummus. This (and the steaks) are all part of my convoluted new lifestyle which aims to invigorate  my sad middle-aged metabolism and get rid of some excess belly blubber. Included is a menu of lots of protein, complex carbs, fibre, controlled amounts of fat and thus sadly very little cheese, apart from cottage cheese which is not really cheese.

And combined with my new HIIT exercise regime I can already see a little change and scales confirm a loss of about 4.5 pounds or 2 kilos. And I can do a set of shitty commando planks without wanting to strangle Emi Wong, one of my youtube trainers.

And back to the hummus. Even compared to my best ever silky-smooth hummus with lots of tahini this lower fat version is really tasty. For this version I didn't peel the chickpeas because I thought this way it probably has more fibre in it. I have no evidence of this. But I have first hand evidence and can testify in court that peeling them is boring as hell. I used good quality chickpeas (a glass jar = good quality in my world), so the hummus was still really smooth and velvety. I didn't add any oil at all and only one not too heaped tablespoon of tahini. One day when I am industrious enough I will do them both and taste test them side by side.

But I can recommend this on it's own. And I will tell you how it works in the hummus and chickpea burgers once I get to them.

Best ever low calorie hummus

Calories in the entire pot 360 kCal, fat 15g

200g of drained chickpeas and some of the liquid
1 level tbsp of tahini
1/2 clove of garlic
Juice of half a lemon
1 tsp cumin
Salt

Grate the garlic and add all ingredients in the mixer. Mix well, check the taste and add more salt or lemon if necessary.

I promise I won't go on about this forever, but I am still in shock about this betrayal by my own body.  I recently uncovered basically by lifting my shirt followed by detailed Google research, that the amazing female body that is able to do such unbelievable things, almost overnight in peri-menopause decides it's a good idea to start storing every bit of fat it can get it progesterone deficient hands on in the belly and then molding ample sidehandles for good measure. 

Why? Why would it do that? After surviving the teenage angst and our 20s and 30s borderline eating disorders we finally enter a kind of a ceasefire only to witness our bodies going on a rampage with no regard for our attempts at a healthy diet and regular exercise or respect to how many things we deny ourselves like vinegar crisps. I LOVE vinegar crisp, but I never eat them due to the 500 kCal / 100g. Or Real Greek Taramasalata, 989 kCal a portion, for years I have wanted it but never ordered. Has this made a difference. Currently my gut says probably not.

This latest development is also very unexpected, since my biggest enemy has always been my bum. Again there is a physiological reason - apparently our bodies store fat in our bums for breastfeeding, in my case not a very useful excerise, and why wouldn't it store it in the breasts, much better place for it I'd say. And I think I can hear a male chorus agreeing. Oh, but then the bum men seem to be booing. Confusing.

But now for a small window of time my bum will apparently be my best asset, while my body without asking my opinion moves these fat deposits from my bottom to my belly. But of course my body will overdo this transportation job and I will end up looking like tweedledum.

I have started my offensive supported by US fitness gurus who really just want to sell you a DVD-set or a monthly subscription of some kind, but thanks to YouTube a lot of good exercise programmes are available there free of charge. I'm doing a lot of high intensity interval training, which is supposed to work for this kind of thing. It's pretty much as awful as it sounds. But no pain no gain as my YouTube trainers keep telling me! I nearly threw something at the TV today at the 10th set of a variation of the plank. I hate the plank and I particularly hate the stupid commando, which has nothing to do with taking off your knickers unfortunately, but is this stupid move from elbow plank to full plank one arm at a time.

Cooking-wise the transition is much more fun because I like experimenting substitutions in recipes and find that I can make lots of food still very tasty just being more careful with calories and fat, even healthy fats.

In terms of Caesar Salad the secret to lightness is obviously in the dressing. Apart from the dressing this is a very healthy salad. Although I health hacked the croutons as well, by using whole wheat loaf and baking it with a very tiny amount of oil.

I made this as part of a Italian / Sicialian inspired lunch I prepared for a friend on Saturday. We made a successful trip to IKEA, which we sometimes do when we are desperately lacking in house plants, napkins, plastic containers or candles. And usually I get a tube of this amazing Swedish super salty roe paste, which I squeeze straight to my mouth as a light little salty snack. I will maybe do slightly fewer squirts in the near future as I'm trying to recover my normal body shape. I'm not sure 37% fat Kalle's Kaviar is really helping.

Super light Classic Caesar Salad 

(serves 4 as a side salad)

Dressing

2 anchovy fillets
1 small glove of garlic
1/3 cup of low fat Greek yoghurt
1 tbsp low fat mayonnaise
2 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
2 tsp worchestershire sauce
1 tbsp grated pecorino
Salt (if needed)
Black pepper

Croutons
2-3 slices of wholewheat bread with crusts on
Olive oil spray
Salt
Blackpepper
2 tsp dried oregano

Salad

2 hearts of romaine
1 cup of home made croutons
Dressing
(Anjovy fillets optional)

To make the sauce place all ingredients apart from salt into a mixer and mix until smooth. Check the taste and add salt if necessary, the anchovies, worchestershire sauce and pecorino may have been enough. You can use parmesan, but I find with pecorino you get more flavour from a smaller amount.

To make the croutons either cut the slices of wholemeal bread into cubes or tear into chunks for a more rustic feel. Place on a baking sheet and spray with olive oil spray to keep the amount of oil down. Season with salt and pepper, add the oregano and mix well. Bake in a 180C oven for 10-15 minutes.

To assemble the salad, wash the romaine and cut the leaves into rough chunks. Add in the croutons and as much of the sauce as you like. I like to add enough to lightly coat most of the salad and then have the rest of the sauce on the side for everyone to add more if they wish.

This salad would of course be lovely topped with some baked or grilled chicken.

Husband has again left me on my own to visit his family. I took him to Heathrow earlier today and despite all my efforts to stay strong, I did burst into tears just a little bit as I watched him walk through to the security. And then I fairly hysterically bawled my eyes out in the ladies toilets where I always go to hysterically bawl my eyes out when he goes. This is the price we pay for the multicultural extra spice in our marriage. We visit our families together a lot also, but it just doesn't work every time. I know in the end the month will fly by, but now it seems like an eternity.

The other piece of upsetting news this week was that I'm not as fit as in my deluded mind I thought I was. We had these free health checks available at work evilly arranged by HR as a revenge to anyone who had dared to enjoy Christmas. I did mention to my HR business partner that I thought this was a particularly cruel thing to do to people right after Christmas. But since it wasn't mandatory, I can only blame myself.

So just to warn you good people, who actually are interested in the chicken recipe, this whole post is a completely self-absorbed piece of navel gazing. Literally. So feel free to just scroll directly to the recipe or bounce away to cheerier web content if hormone fluctuation induced belly fat production is not your thing.

I actually wasn't planning to do the stupid health check. On the day, we were in an all day meeting and just having our lunch. I was happily and succesfully ploughing my way through the delightful cheese and crackers platter. I think it's an awesome idea to have cheese and crackers in meetings. I also had a couple of breaded deep fried prawns and a mini pizza or two just to make sure that I kept my diet varied. Then my boss decided to "encourage" us all to go and get ourselves checked. He'd had his health check done in the morning and was bragging about his metabolic age (one of the results you got from the check) which was almost 10 years lower than his real age. He doesn't have a particularly streamlined contour, every time I see him eating lunch there is a pack of crisps and with the amount of cakes and biscuits he gets through in most of our meetings I don't see how he is not metabolically 85. Whereas I have had one biscuit in the entire time I have worked for this company. Nine months and one slim little chocolate finger. But there you go, life's not fair. So off I shuffled with a couple of equally or even more reluctant colleagues to get our healths checked.

The results were not great. The only positive result was my height which had stayed the same. My metabolic age was the same as my biological age, which was disappointing, I would have loved it to be 28 for instance. My blood pressure was within the limits, but a bit higher than I thought it was, because I have always had low blood pressure. But I blame that on the boss, who had engaged us all in "healthy" debates all morning which he does all the time and then forced me to undergo these experiments against my wishes. Which were to stay with the cheese platter.


Most upsettingly I was heavier than I thought I was. And no, it wasn't muscle because my fat percentage was up there with the Arizona Quadruple Bypass Burger.  I must say I have been eyeing my midriff for the past 8-10 months wondering what exactly is going on there. I have never had a washboard stomach exactly, but not a proper muffin top either. I have been running like a maniac, or at least 3 decent runs a week for pretty much all of 2019, plus doing some gym work and the occasional slightly stiff and awkward yoga move. So I am pretty pissed off at this unwelcome buoyancy belt that has all of a sudden decided to materialise around my midsection.

I told husband about these unexpected results, obviously not scaring him with any actual numbers, but just generally sharing the unwelcome news that his wife actually was fatter than anyone would have thought.

Although maybe they do think. The last time I met with my ex-colleagues they were all wondering how my husband manages to stay so slim with my cooking (they see a lot of my culinary goings on on my FB page) but no one was particularity dumbfounded by my physique.

So anyway, loving and loyal as ever husband told me I have an amazing body and that he loves it. God bless him forever for that, because it was genuine and I know he absolutely means it.

So as always in a crisis situation I did a lot of research and found out that in peri-menopause because of the hormonal changes the female body inexplicably and not at all helpfully all of a sudden decides it's a good idea to form a bit of a Fleischkuechle underneath ze bellybutton. Why doesn't anyone warn us about this, we just smugly go about with our reasonably collaborative tummies, stupidly worrying about our bums, until one day, whoosh, hello, the menopause belly or the menopot as it's affectionately known arrives.


Now that I know what is going on I have told my uninvited little paunch and the accompanying free-of-charge side handles to start packing.  I have read a lot about diet, not dieting, but things that I can tweak in my daily food habits to particularly target the pot. And also what I can change in my exercise regime since my running doesn't seem to work anymore as well as it used to. I started yesterday with a gruelling but shortish high intensity interval exercise session, did another slightly longer one today and I mean to go on this way. Even though my thighs and buttocks are burning and I can barely sit down or get up and the fleischkuechle is snug and comfortable as ever.

Food-wise there will be no massive changes, I will continue to eat lots of high fibre veg, but I will make sure to eat more protein and maybe not just cheese, but fatty fish, eggs, lean meat and tofu. And then let's see who is the winner, me or the menopot.

Our Friday dinner was a good example of a healthy menopot busting meal, but the main reason I did it was because husband loves chicken and this was our last meal together until he returns. This is an easy Greek inspired chicken and veg tray bake. Feel free to add other veg or cut down the amount of potatoes or leave them out completely if you want to further limit your carbs.


Greek chicken and vegetable tray bake

8 pieces of chicken, thighs and drumsticks with bones and skin on
2 cloves of garlic
2 small red onions
Small bag of baby or new potatoes
Juice and zest of a lemon
4 tsp of dried greek herb mix (or 2 tsp dried thyme and 2 tsp of dried oregano)
Salt
Pepper
Olive oil
Asparagus spears
Small vine tomatoes
Olives
70 g feta (optional)
Fresh herbs and lemon slices to for garnish

Place the chicken pieces or a large oven tray. Grate the garlic and quarter the onions and add to the tray. Add the potatoes, juice and zest of a lemon, herbs, salt, pepper and a good splash of olive oil. Mix everything, rubbing the herbs and seasoning well into the chicken pieces. Make sure everything in spread evenly on the tray and bake in 200C oven for 30 minutes

Add the asparagus, tomatoes, olives and cubed feta and bake another 10-15 minutes until the asparagus is done but still a bit al dente and the chicken is done. Check by cutting into a piece of chicken at the thickest part. If the juices run clear the meat is done. If you want you can sprinkle some fresh herbs on top and add a few lemon slices or wedges onto the tray.