BBC 5:2 Recipes

[StokeySue]

Just recording a link to the recipes suggested for Intermittent Fasting following the Horizon Programmes on dieting

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/collections/intermittent_dieting_recipes

[ianinfrance]

Thanks very much Sue. I'm back home now, so will soon be able to have a good look.

[StokeySue]

Thanks very much Sue. I'm back home now, so will soon be able to have a good look.

Some of them will look very familiar

[ianinfrance]

Yup! The Moroccan egg, to name but one! I was also interested to note that the it was suggested that the slimming days SHOULD be contiguous, which is the opposite of what I've read elsewhere.

[Suelle]

Yup! The Moroccan egg, to name but one! I was also interested to note that the it was suggested that the slimming days SHOULD be contiguous, which is the opposite of what I've read elsewhere.

I tried two consecutive days last week, and although the fasts went OK, the rest of the week was disastrous and I didn't lose any weight overall!

[ianinfrance]

Interesting, Suelle. I wonder why that should have been the case.

I don't intend to try them contiguous anyway.

[Suelle]

Interesting, Suelle. I wonder why that should have been the case.

I expect my body reacted to make me crave food even more than usual. The Horizon programmes last week put me in the Constant Craver category (just a few points more than the Feaster in me) and this is a genetic fault which interferes with the mechanisms by which your brain tells your body is has eaten enough. Having fasted for two consecutive days, I couldn't overcome the desire for food, so ate too much on my 'normal days'

Anyway - back to normal this week.

[ianinfrance]

this is a genetic fault which interferes with the mechanisms by which your brain tells your body is has eaten enough

Yup, I'm in the same category. I simply don't possess the "satiety switch".

[StokeySue]

Made the lamb and flageolet stew

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/lamb_and_flageolet_bean_62432

Nice but a few observations

1) It looks nothing like the picture, as the volume of beans is about three times the volume of meat
2) The amount of stock is far too much, just add enough to cover
3) No idea why you'd cook it on the hob, I put it in a low oven
4) The pickling onions are nice but you could get away with wedges of ordinary ones I think

The end result was both tasty and filling though

[StokeySue]

Interesting, Suelle. I wonder why that should have been the case.

I don't intend to try them contiguous anyway.

I guess you didn't see the Horizon mini-series on The Right Diet foro You

The plan they suggest and call Intermittent Fasting is slightly different to the one previously suggest by Michael Mosley and called the 5:2 or Fast Diet

On the "new" Intermittent Fasting diet the suggest two consecutive days of fasting at up to 800 calories per day

As opposed to the Fast Diet, which suggests 2 individual days at 500/600 calories each

No science behind the difference was explained, it just seems that for whatever reason the IF diest is what was in the study the programmes followed, don't know why they picked it.

I shall stick with Dr Mosley, apart from anything else individual days are easier to schedule for me.

[Suelle]

Nice but a few observations

3) No idea why you'd cook it on the hob, I put it in a low oven

Cooking something on the hob is a cheaper and more efficient use of energy. I often cook stews on the hob, unless long slow cooking is required.

[StokeySue]

Nice but a few observations

3) No idea why you'd cook it on the hob, I put it in a low oven

Cooking something on the hob is a cheaper and more efficient use of energy. I often cook stews on the hob, unless long slow cooking is required.

I suppose so - in this case I needed to put it in the oven as it could stay there while I went to Pilates, wouldn't leave anything on the hob, and I do find dishes with pulses in catch very easily on a burner

I do find stews/casseroles cook better in the oven but suppose now I have a relatively new hob with a better simmer control I should probably try the hob again

[ianinfrance]

Hi Sue,

Nice but a few observations

We like it too. Agree about the quantity of liquid, we also modified it. As we didn't get the recipe from the beeb, I'd not seen the photo, so had nothing really to compare it with.

When we next make it, I think it's likely we'll be making it in our new cooker, on the slow cook function, searing first. But in fact we did cook it on top of the stove up to now as we have an electric ring and that lets us simmer very slowly. Another modification we made was that, because we use beans we've grown ourselves and sterilised, we tend to add them only towards the end of the cooking time, otherwise they tend to fall to a mush. Finally, although the recipe calls for pickling onions, we tend to use shallots, because w prefer the taste of them, and they seem to cook up better. Functionally, there's no reason not to use wedged ordinary onions, except that the pickling ones (and shallots) tend to keep their shape better, as long as one doesn't take too much of the rot end off. But that's cosmetic, of course.

Your comment about the Horizon program is spot on, we didn't see it. Like you, we'll be sticking with the Mosley pattern and for the same reasons, though it's interesting that Suelle found the Horizon pattern less successful.

[suffolk]

Cooking something on the hob will require more liquid that something cooked in the oven - even with a lid on the evaporation is greater when cooking on the hob.

[StokeySue]

Cooking something on the hob will require more liquid that something cooked in the oven - even with a lid on the evaporation is greater when cooking on the hob.

Agreed - but a pint of stock in that stew would drown it

Having said which it is one of the few 5:2 dishes that you could feed to non-dieters, IMO - if you gave them mash & broccoli and/or carrots they'd never know