People who are new to Fasting often pose the questions: “Can I really eat ‘anything I want’ on a Slow Day?” and “What should I eat on Slow Days?” To answer those questions, I have decided to add some blog posts to show some of the foods we eat on what the world calls NFDs [non-fast days] but which, in our house, we call ‘Slow Days.’ This feature will appear sporadically.
Now for the answers. Can you really eat ANYTHING you want on a Slow Day? Not really. If you eat too many calories every Slow Day, you will not lose weight. There are many questions asked on the Fast Diet Forum which attest to that. Once in a while you can splurge, as long as it isn’t everyday. For what to eat on Slow Days, Dr. Mosley recommends a Mediterranean Diet. As for how we eat, an example follows.
We love rhubarb. We’d better — our rhubarb patch has 16 clumps, each with multiple crowns, each crown producing five stalks at a time. We share crowns with friends and neighbors. For the town’s Rhubarb Festival, much is harvested for pies to sell. The town’s Library sells crowns from our patch. And still there is more! Pies and coffee cakes go into the freezer, to last into the winter. This is one of our favorite coffee cakes, adapted from a recipe in the New York Times. Dear Husband is a big help: he prepares the crumb, and we both assemble it for baking.
| 12-16 slices | Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Butter a 9” springform pan. | |
| FRUIT | 16 oz [1#] pound rhubarb ¼ cup sugar 2 tsp cornstarch ¾ tsp ground ginger | Slice rhubarb ½-inch thick and toss with other ingredients.Set aside THE FRUIT. |
| CRUMB | 1/3 cup dark brown sugar 1/3 cup granulated sugar 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon ½ teaspoon ground ginger 1/8 teaspoon salt ½ cup/1 stick butter, melted ¾ cup all-purpose 1 cup White whole wheat flour | In a large bowl, whisk sugars, spices and salt into melted butter until smooth. Add flour and stir with a wooden spoon. It will look and feel like a solid dough. Leave it pressed together in the bottom of the bowl and set aside THE CRUMB. |
| WET | 1/3 cup plain yogurt /sour cream 1 large/2 oz egg 1 large egg yolk OR 3 oz egg total 2 tsp vanilla extract | In a small bowl, stir these ingredients together to form the ‘Wet Mixture.’ Set aside THE WET MIXTURE |
B A | ½ cup all-purpose flour ½ cup white whole wheat flour 1/3 cup sugar ½ tsp baking soda ½ tsp baking powder ¼ tsp salt | Using a mixer fitted with paddle attachment, mix these ingredients together.. |
| T T | 6 Tbsp softened butter 1 Tbsp of above Wet Mixture | Cut butter into 12 pieces. Add these to above. Mix on medium speed ’til flour is moistened. Increase speed, beat 30 seconds |
| E R | ½ of Wet Mixture = 3 oz other ½ of Wet Mixture = 3 oz | Add Wet Mixture in 2 batches, beating 20 secs after each addition, scraping down sides of bowl. Pour batter into pan. |
| Spoon rhubarb over batter. | ||
| With your fingers, break/squeeze crumb mixture into big crumbs, ~½” -¾” in size. Sprinkle over rhubarb and cake. | ||
| Bake 45-55 min until a toothpick inserted into center comes out clean (it might be moist from rhubarb). Cool ~10 mins,then remove collar of pan. Cool completely before serving. |
Eating well, with creative recipes, to follow the Fasting Lifestyle according to Michael Mosley's "Fast Diet." 