St Clair

How this Fast Diet Lifestyle works: Eat these meals tomorrow, for a calorie total of less than 600. On another day this week, eat the meals from a different post, another day of eating 600 calories or less. Eat sensibly the other days of the week. That’s it. Simple way to lose weight and be healthier.

On a recent trip to Normandy, France, we stayed in a cottage in the village of Banneville-sur-Ajon. One of the local sights of which we were told was the chapel of Saint Clair. Naturally I thought this was Saint Clare, the friend of Francis of Assisi. Nope. This is Saint Clair of Epte, France. He was originally from England — Manchester, perhaps — and he lived in the 800s. The man was devout and wanted to be a religious hermit. But he was pursued by a wealthy woman who wanted him for her husband. To avoid her sexual harassment, Clair fled to France. Landing at the Seine estuary, he worked his way up the Epte River, leaving a string of miracles in his wake. [This was not a great way to hide from anybody, much less a vengeful woman.] Clair made a solitary life for himself near a spring and lived there happily until the arrival of henchmen from the spurned Englishwoman. Since they couldn’t convince Clair to go back and marry her, they cut off his head. Clair’s body picked it up and walked to the spring to wash it off. Ever after that, the spring had miraculous healing powers. The admirers of Clair declared him a saint and built chapels to him in Normandy, always near a water source. In Banneville, the Ajon River flows prettily through a precipitous valley near-by. Perhaps because of [or in spite of??] Clare’s unhappiness in love, local engaged couples leave offerings of eggs at the chapel prior to their weddings to gain Saint Clare’s blessing on their life together. We were charmed to see a generous basket left at the chapel door by a betrothed pair. I hope they will be a happy married couple.

Breakfast involves eggs, of course, with some salmon from a prior dinner. Dinner features fish, since good St Clare is associated with water. These are examples of how we can continue the Fasting Lifestyle even on vacation.

A simple omelette with salmon folded into in makes a great travel breakfast, served with locally purchased fruit.
Sole fillets from the Farmers’ Market stuffed with a bread/herb/egg mixture. Served with roasted haricot beans, this meal was easily prepared in the kitchen of our cottage. The food shown served two of us.

Ingredients for next week: Breakfast, single portion for Monday ……… single portion for Thursday:

1.5 two-oz egg1.5 two-oz eggs 
haggis [Spicy 18-Sept-2018
smoked chicken sausage
applesauce
oregano + parsley
Parmesan cheese
applesauce
Optional smoothieoptional smoothie
optional hot beverageoptional hot beverage

Dinner, single portion for Monday: …….. single portion for Thursday:

Martin’s whole wheat potato sliders
or 100 calorie slider rolls
Herring marinated in wine
+ lettuce
3.5 oz beef BBQ in sauce
<60 calories/oz
onion + apple + vinegar + dill pickle
cherry tomatoes
beets, canned or cooked fresh
carrots
white beans + hard-boiled egg
Sparkling waterSparkling water

Acores 2

How this Fast Diet Lifestyle works: Eat these meals tomorrow. On Thursday, eat the meals that will be posted on Wednesday.  Eat sensibly the other days of the week.  That’s it.  Simple way to lose weight and be healthier.                                                                       Welcome to Reshma B who is now Following.

We will remain on the beautiful island of Sao Miguel, Açores for another day to point out more about how we Fast whilst traveling.  We enjoy cooking and eating our own food at a self-catering accommodation [such as Pico do Refugio], but we do like to dine out too.  At any restaurant on Sao Miguel, the first thing you are offered is local cheese as a starter. The most simple version of this is “Queijo Fresco” [aka Queso Fresco or Queso Blanco or ‘farmer’s cheese’] which is always served with the hot sauce “Pimenta do Queijo.” Spicy “Choriço Paste” is also popular and available at the meat section of the supermarket. Those flavors together made for a fine dish of eggs for a Fast Day breakfast, along with the locally-grown pineapple.  Dinner at a favorite restaurant on a Slow Day would usually involve seafood, and then left-overs would make a another appearance on a Fast Day at home.  On Slow Days, we ‘went native’ and sampled local restaurants and wines and enjoyed ourselves thoroughly. “And does this work?” you ask. “Can one enjoy a vacation and without a huge weight gain?” Yes. After 11 days of vacation, my weight was still at my Target Level. Travel should broaden the mind but it doesn’t have to broaden the waistline.

Azorean Queso Egg:  249 calories   10 g fat   0.8 g fiber   15.7 g protein   16.4 g carbs  [8 g Complex]  271.5 mg Calcium   PB GF  Two of the favorite flavors of the Azores combine for this egg dish, and the pineapple ices the cake.Azorean-flavor Eggs w: pineapple          1 two-oz egg                                                                                                                                                              1.5 tsp Queso Fresco                                                                                                                                                 1 tsp Chorizo Paste                                                                                                                                                               2 oz pineapple                                                                                                                                                 blackish coffee or tea or lemon in hot water

Whisk the egg, cheese, and chorizo paste, then bake in an oven-proof dish or cook in a saute pan. Slice the pineapple and sip some Brazilian coffee for a delicious, low-calorie meal.

Dinner at a Restaurant: Seafood is usually a safe choice  Azores Cod w: Veg @ Restaurant                                                                                     for a low-calorie meal in a restaurant, unless it is drowned in a fatty sauce. And since  the Açores are in the middle of the Atlantic, it wasn’t hard to find top-notch seafood.  Here, at the Restaurant of the Agricultural Association, cod was grilled and served with boiled vegetables. If you skip the potatoes, you are more virtuous.  [You can see the Queijo Fresco with Pimenta in the upper right corner.]

Cod w: Veg Left-over For another meal, what could be more easy than this food a second time around?  There is an ample amount of both the fish and the vegetables to be very satisfying on a Fast Day.  We liked the food at the Agricultural Association so well that we dined there twice. Their speciality is beef and it is not for a Fast Day!                                                                                                                                                              .

 

 

Acores I

How this Fast Diet Lifestyle works: Eat these meals tomorrow. On Monday, eat the meals that will be posted on Sunday.  Eat sensibly the other days of the week.  That’s it.  Simple way to lose weight and be healthier.

The first time I ever heard about the Azores [‘Açores’ in Portuguese] was in a poem by Joaquin Miller which praised the glories of Christopher Columbus and begins, “Behind him lay the gray Azores…”  Miller was a good-enough poet, but he was wrong about several things: Columbus was no saint; Columbus would never have heard of the Azores, since they had not yet been discovered; and the Azores are definitely NOT ‘grey.’  We visited the island of Sao Miguel in early May and found a riot of flowers covering steep, verdant volcanic mountains, herds of placid cows, and fruits of all sorts, surrounded by a thundering ocean.  It was marvelous, which means ‘a thing of marvels.’  When we travel, we like a self-catering accommodation, so we can have some say about what we eat and so we can cook with local foods. We did a lot of touring, some hiking, and enjoyed some very satisfactory dinners.  Portions were large, so there were leftovers and we enjoyed them too. The cheeses, the native wines, and specialties like ‘chorizo paste‘ and Pimenta da Queijo were great.  Want to go to a beautiful location that is off the beaten track?  The Açores are for you!

Azorean Omelette:  250 calories   10.7 g fat   0.9 g fiber   17 g protein   13.5 g carbs [6 g Complex] 276 mg Calcium PB GF  When on vacation in the Azores, these local ingredients made for a wonderful breakfast.Azorean Cheese ScrOmelette

1-1/2 two-oz eggs  HINT: If you are serving one person, crack three 2-oz eggs into a small bowl or glass measuring cup. Whip up those eggs and pour half of their volume into a jar with a lid and put it in the ‘fridge for next week.                                                                                    1/2 oz Azorean cheese OR Gouda                                                                                                                       1/2 oz Pimenta da Queijo                                                                               2 oz kiwi fruit                                                                                                                                                     blackish coffee [Portugese or Brazilian] or blackish tea [from the Gorreana Tea Plantation] or lemon in hot water

Grate/shred the cheese. Whisk the eggs with the pepper sauce and turn into a lightly-oiled nonstick pan. Sprinkle the eggs with the cheese and cook as you would an omelette. Plate with the fruit and serve one of those delicious beverages. Excellent.

Cozido Soup: Cozido do Furnas is a specialty of the Azores island of Sao Miguel. Some of the dormant volcanoes still have warm magma and send steam out through vents and fissures. Locals lower cauldrons of meats and vegetables into steaming wells, then serve the cooked meal at restaurants. The serving for two at O Miroma in Furnas consists of vast quantities of: beef, pork knuckles, blood sausage, carrots, potatoes, collards, cabbage, and turnips. Like a New England Boiled Dinner, but cooked in a volcano! We took the remainders from our meal home.Cozido Soup

The next day, I put the bones, sausage, and juices in a pot with water and Piment da Queijo. While that simmered, I cut up the vegetables and meat into bite-sized pieces [discarding the blood sausage to which I have an aversion]. Combined, it provided a hearty, nourishing, and low-calorie soup for a Fast Day.

Ingredients for next week: breakfast, single portion

1 two-oz egg 1.5 two-oz eggs
 queso fresco  mushrooms
 chorico paste  bleu cheese
 pineapple  leeks
Whatever you need for your smoothie Whatever you need for your hot beverage
Whatever you need for your hot beverage Whatever you need for your smoothie

Dinner, single portion:

 cod  cooked pork tenderloin
 carrots  lettuce   +   tomatoes
 broccoli  fresh cranberries
 cauliflower  zucchini  + red bell peppers
 green + black olivesÇ  balsamic vinegar + olive oil
 excellent mustard
Sparkling water Sparkling water