what to eat on Non-Fasting Days

Slow Days: Lamb Stew for Saint Patrick’s Day

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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.

Saint Patrick’s Day is an occasion that demands to be celebrated with special foods. No, not green beer. No, it doesn’t have to be Corned Beef & Cabbage. Look in most common cook books [James Beard, Fannie Farmer, Joy of Cooking, et alia] for ‘Irish Stew’ and you will find that it is made of lamb. Thus lamb, even better, lamb stew is appropriate for March 17th. When young Patrick was enslaved in Ireland, he worked as a shepherd — so there’s another reason to celebrate good Patrick with lamb. Most recipes are really plain and basic: cubed raw lamb, cubed potatoes, sliced onions, water, salt. We tried many of those recipes, and although they are surely authentic, they are just plain DULL.

How happy we were to find this recipe in the book Salute to Healthy Cooking by the French Culinary Institute! We prepare a large batch periodically, and serve it twice a year: on St Patrick’s Day in March and also in December during the run-up to Christmas. Lamb has much symbolic significance to Christians, so serving it during Lent and Advent makes sense to us.

Lamb Stew for two can double or triple!Need: saute pan + Dutch oven with lid + non-stick pan 
½ pound boneless lamb shoulder, cubed cooking spray
salt + pepper		Sear lamb cubes on all sides in a heavy pan spritzed with non-stick spray or oil. Cook meat in batches so pan doesn’t cool. Put cooked meat in a Dutch oven, sprinkle with salt and pepper.
½ cup onions, choppedPut onions in saute pan and cook until tranluscent with enough water to make them sizzle .
1 oz dry red wineDeglaze pan with wine, stirring up brown bits.
Heat the oven to 350 F. 
¾ tsp white whole wheat flour
water ½ Tbsp tomato paste		Sprinkle deglazed pan with flour and stir. Add to lamb in Dutch oven.
Add enough cold water to go to top of the lamb but not cover it. Stir in tomato paste.
1 tsp thyme  1 bay leafAdd herbs. Heat to a simmer over medium heat. Cover casserole and put in oven. Bake 1 hour, making sure stew is not boiling. 
¾ c. carrots, cut in 2” batonsAdd carrots, cover pan, bake 15 minutes.
½ cup cubed potatoesAdd potatoes, cover pan, bake 45 minutes. Remove bay leaf. 
Salt + pepperAdd salt and pepper. Take off heat and cover until vegetables are cooked.
6 pearl onions, trimmed and peeled 1 cup/5 oz turnips, in 2” batons
water ½ tsp sugar  1 tsp butter		Put vegetables in a small non-stick pan with sugar and butter. Add enough water to cover the vegetables half-way up.
Simmer 10 minutes, uncovered, shaking pan occasionally. 
Plate stew with the glazed vegetables.
Here is the stew in all its glory, served with an individual Soda Bread from Friend Ann.

And while you are doing your Irish thing, the best item to go with Irish Stew is Irish Soda Bread. I usually prepare a batch in the morning, so we can enjoy them for breakfast. Then the remaining ones are served at dinner with the stew. The recipe that I use is based on the Fannie Farmer Cookbook, with a few tweaks.

Makes 12 individual biscuits or 1 large loafPreheat oven to 400F. Buttered cookie sheet.
1 cup white flour
1 cup white whole wheat flour 1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
1 Tbsp sugar
3 Tbsp butter		Cut the ingredients together, using two knives or a pastry blender.
Purists would do it with their fingers.
Non-purists might blitz this in a food processor.
½ – 1 cup raisins [black or golden] or currants 1 Tbsp caraway seedStir these into the dry mixture.
¾ cup buttermilk or soured milk – all of the milk may not be needed, or you might need moreAdd milk bit by bit, stiring with a fork, until the dough is moistened and forms a ball.
For 12 individual biscuitsRoll/pat out dough on a lightly floured surface. Cut with a 2” or 3” round cutter. Use a knife to mark an ‘X’ on top of each.
For one large loafGather the dough into a single ball, and flatten slightly. Use a knife to incise an ‘X’ on the top.
Bake at 400F 10-15 mins or 20 mins for large loaf
A portion of Irish Stew with a fruited slice of Soda Bread loaf.

Slow Days: Lemon Ricotta Pancakes

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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.

In the depths of winter, when snow is deep on the ground in the North, lemons are ripening in warmer climes. How cheery they look! How fresh they taste! Lemon-growing spread around the Mediterranean Sea by 1000 CE. Berbers brought their cultivation to Spain, then when Spain took over the Netherlands in the 1500s, lemons went with them to Northern Europe. Eventually, lemons and limes were prized as sources of Vitamin C to prevent scurvy in the winter, when fresh vegetables were scarce. Have you tried Lemon Ricotta Pancakes? They are bright and light in flavor, and are perfect for a February breakfast. If you have left-over pancakes, freeze them. The recipe is from Geneveve Ko, writing in the New York Times.

8-10 pancakesHeat a griddle or large nonstick pan or well-seasoned cast-iron skillet over medium-low.
33 g/3 Tbsp sugar
zest ½ lemon or 1 tsp Lemon Juice
1 tsp vanilla		Put these in a large bowl and whisk to combine.
2 eggsAdd eggs and whisk until foamy.
½ c lower-fat ricotta
3 Tbsp yogurt/buttermilk
20 g butter		Melt butter. Add these to the bowl, and whisk until well blended.
½ c/52 g white whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt		Add dry ingredients and gently stir until no traces of flour remain.
Optional: drop blueberries on the batter as pancakes cookButter griddle. Use a ¼ cup measure to portion batter onto it. Cook 3 mins on each side until golden brown.
Blueberry Maple Syrup or other toppings
chicken breakfast sausage		Serve warm, with blueberry syrup and chicken sausages.

Slow Days: Peach Wine DIY, Bottling

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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.

Bet you thought I’d forgotten about that peach wine that we started a year ago! Mine has taken a l-o-n-g time to clear and maybe your’s did too. We have to wait until all the particles — the ‘lees’ — have settled, lest the wine be cloudy. This can take anywhere from 5 months to more than a year! It does not harm the wine to wait that long. You might have seen these words on a bottle of grape wine: ‘aged on the lees for 12 months’ or ‘sur lie.’ That is the wine-maker telling you that he/she left the wine in a barrel, settling, and in contact with the lees, for a long time. Some say that this adds more flavor to the wine. There is a quicker way to settle the lees, and that is by adding a chemical substance with various trade names. For me, the fewer chemicals I add to the wine, the better.

Equipment: several large [4-6 cup capacity] jars with lids. 5 wine bottles. 1 Liter measuring cup or equivalent. 5-7 corks, size #9. jar large enough to hold all the corks. Camden Solution. sugar + water hydrometer and cylinder. corking device.

Let’s get down to bottling now that the wine is crystal clear. First, we decant the wine off the lees. I like to sterilize [with Camden Solution, remember?] large jars, holding 4-6 cups, and pour the wine off the lees into the jars. Have a few jars available so you can pour from the fermenting bottle without stopping. If you pour some wine out, then put the bottle down, some of the lees will kick up and cloud the wine again. Cloudy wine at the bottom can be poured into an appropriately sized bottle and topped with an air lock. It will settle again, yielding some more wine in a month or two. The remaining lees can be poured down the sink. Wash 5 wine bottles and give them a sterilizing rinse.

Wine is crystal clear.
Wine poured from larger fermenting jar into jars with lids. Always cover the wine to exclude bacteria which will make it go bad.
Hot water and soap and a bottle brush for clean bottles. The give it a sterile wash.

Next, prepare a Simple Syrup. That’s 1/2 cup of granulated white sugar dissolved in a 1/2 cup of water — heating gently will help to dissolve the sugar. Pour boiling water in to a jar and add 5 corks. The corks will float so to submerge them fully, I put a smaller diameter jar on top of them to hold them down. Soak the corks for 10 minutes — not longer. After 10 minutes, drain the corks and keep covered.

Simple Syrup before the sugar all dissolves.
Corks soak submerged in hot water, weighted down by a smaller jar.

You now need the hydrometer and the cylinder that goes with it. Sterilize them both. Take a good look at the hydrometer. See the line labeled 1.000? If you take the Specific Gravity [SG] of the wine and it floats at the 1.000 line [or closer to the 0.990 mark], then all the sugar that you initially put into the mixture has ‘fermented out’ and turned to alcohol. This produces a very dry wine, but with less flavor. Taste it and see how you like it. If you love it, go ahead and bottle it as is.

Here is the initial reading I took from my Peach Wine: ~0.904 Too dry. If, like me, you want to make a less dry wine, then you will want to add some of the Simple Syrup. Sterilize a 1 Liter measuring cup and pour 750 ml wine into it. Add a little bit — 1 Tablespoon? — of the syrup and pour the wine into the cylinder and test it again. Taste as you go — in little sips! If you get tipsy at this point, your judgement and small-motor skills will be impaired!

Close-up of hydrometer.
The hydrometer tells us that this wine is very dry.
Hydrometer and cylinder for testing the SG, wine measured into a 1 L cup, shot glass for tasting.

If you expect me to give you exact amounts, dream on — this is the ‘art’ of wine-making. Continue to taste and pour and test until it suits you. This time [it varies from batch to batch], the SG that tasted good to me was between the ’10’ and the ’20’ — about 1.015. When you find an SG level that appeals your taste, bottle it. To do that, pour the contents of the 1 Liter measuring cup into the clean bottle until the wine level is just a little way up the neck — 2- 3″ below the top of the bottle. The empty space between the bottom of the cork and the top of the wine is called “ullage.” Continue to adjust the SG for each bottle of wine and to fill the bottles to a good ullage. IMPORTANT: Since you have added more sugar, there is the risk that the sugar will start fermentation again. Then pressure builds up in the bottle and the cork explodes out of the bottle! You do not want your wine to go to waste, so add either 1/2 or a full Camden tablet to each bottle to stabilize it. This adds a little Sulfite to the wine which kills the bacteria.

SG of adjusted wine.
Corking device with a cork in the tube.
Bottled and corked wine — note the ullage.

Now you can cork the bottles. Take a cork [I use #9] and dip one end into Camden solution. Put that end into the corker [pictured above, center] and push it down to the lower end of the tube. Place the bottles on a surface lower than a counter: on the door of an open oven or the door of an open dishwasher or into a sink or on the floor. Stand near and above the bottle so you can get good leverage. Put the corker on the mouth of the bottle and, while keeping the corker upright, push down on the handles to move the cork into the bottle. Takes some getting used to… Put a label on the bottle [there are websites for that], telling the type of wine and the date of bottling.

And now you have a country wine of your own making. Resist the urge to drink a bottle tonight. The wine will improve if you ‘lay it down’ [put it on its side in a cool, dark place] for a month or so. Then you can cook with it or drink it with meals. Dear Husband, who knows a bit about wine, suggests that country wines are better chilled. Remember that the recommended amount of daily wine for women is 5 oz and for men it is 8 oz. Be responsible with alcohol — your health depends on it.

Slow Days: Ossobuco

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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.

Italian cuisine runs the gamut from plain to complex, from North to South, from pasta dishes to pasta-less dishes. In the North, the Piedmont Region has foods that one never finds in the southern part of the country: beef in plenty, cheese from water buffaloes, rice, butter, corn, and fewer tomatoes. One famous dish from Milano in the Piedmont is Ossobuco. The word means ‘bone with a mouth’ since the meat in the meal is slices of veal shank with a hollow bone in the center — the bone with a mouth. As we get into the cooler weather and past Saint Martin’s Day [when the farm animals were slaughtered], our thoughts turn to eating rich, flavorful stews or heavier pasta dishes. Enter Ossobuco. Perhaps the most difficult part of the recipe is finding the veal, since veal has justly fallen into disrepute due to the sad way that the veal calves have been raised. Our veal comes from D’artagnan, an online source of many meats, and it is raised humanely in France. That solved, preparing Ossobuco is not a complex process. Our recipe is adapted from Marcella Hazen’s excellent Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking.

We make a large batch so we will have leftovers. Four veal shanks will serve many using this recipe
The ingredients are simple and so is the preparation.
6-8 ServingsLarge covered Dutch oven or 16” cast iron pan with cover.Preheat oven to 350F
1 Tbsp vegetable oil + 1 Tbsp oil 4 veal shank slices, each 1½” thick white whole wheat flour, pepper, saltHeat oil in casserole over medium high heat until quite hot. Dry meat with paper towels and dredge in seasoned flour. Cook meat on both sides until ‘deeply browned.’  Depending on size of the casserole, you might do this in stages. Add more oil as needed. Put meat aside on a plate.
The wine is simmering and the brown bits are being scraped off the pan.
The soffritto adds a depth of flavor to the stew.
Now the veal is returned to the pot.
½ cup dry white wineAdd wine, cook down by half while scraping up brown bits. Pour it off and save it. 
1 Tbsp butter
½ c onion, chopped finely
½ c celery, chopped finely
½ c carrot, chopped finely 		Put butter into casserole over medium heat on stove top. When melted, add vegetables. Cook, stirring a bit, 6-7 minutes to form the soffritto. In Italy, they call it soffritto, in France it is mirepoix.
1 tsp garlic, finely chopped
1 strip of lemon peel, no white pith 		Add these, cook and stir ~1 minute, until vegetables are wilted but not brown.
Put veal atop the soffritto, laying the pieces flat if possible, or overlapping them slightly.
Ready for the oven, all ingredients in the pot.
Stew is cooked, meat is mixed into the sauce with marrow bones in center.
½-1 cup homemade meat broth
1 c canned Italian plum tomatoes with juice 3-4 sprigs of thyme
2-3 sprigs parsley, chopped 2 bay leaves freshly ground pepper + salt 		Chop tomatoes and parsley. Put all of these into the casserole, along with remaining deglazing liquid. Liquids should come up to top of the veal slices, but not cover them. Bring to a simmer and cover. Put casserole in the heated oven and set a timer for 2 hours.
Every 20 mins, check the cassserole. Turn and baste shanks, adding more liquid, 2 Tbsp at a time, if needed.
When meat is very tender, take casserole from oven. Remove bay leaves and thyme sprigs. If sauce is too thin, cook it down on the stove-top.
Now for the heresy! Remove meat shanks and slice meat, saving the marrow bone. Add slices back to the sauce, stirring them in. Nestle marrow bones in the center of the pot, standing on end.

For a vegetable course, we prepared an antipasto plate of vegetables marinated in Italian Vinaigrette. For bread, no-knead focaccia, sliced for ease of serving.

Fresh, hand-cut pasta, 5 oz per person drizzle olive oilCook pasta 1-3 minutes until al dente. Drain, adding some water to sauce. Drizzle pasta with a bit of oil.
focacciaPresent casserole and pasta separately, allowing diners to serve themselves and to take one of the marrow bones if they like. Serve with slices of focaccia loaf.

One could serve risotto or polenta, to be in keeping with Northern Italian cuisine, but we opted for fresh pasta which is more typical in the North than the South. For dessert, panna cotta with fruit coulis.

Slow Days: Cranberry Corn Sticks

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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.

Autumn in New England means foliage in stunning colors, apple cider, the last of the sweet corn, apples, cranberries, and Thanksgving. In our family, Thanksgiving is not just a feast on a particular day, rather it is an unfolding process of celebrating local foods. Cornmeal was introduced to the early European settlers here [the Puritans at Plymouth, Massachusetts] by the First Nations people who had grown corn for centuries. Dried, it could last the winter, providing vitamins and carbohydrates all year long. The Puritans thought they would be growing wheat, but the climate was unsuitable. Cornmeal filled in for flour in many foods of the era. In old recipes, the word “Indian” in the title [Indian Pudding, Indian Bread] meant that the dish contained cornmeal. Cornbread caught on all over the Eastern seaboard and people now tend to think of it as a Southern thing, despite its deep roots in New England. For breakfast on Thanksgiving, we get out the old corn-stick molds for a history-soaked breakfast. These cast-iron pans allow you to bake corn-bread in the shape of little corn cobs. Mine were from my mother’s kitchen, though I don’t remember her ever using them. The design goes back to 1919, so I guess they were my grandmother’s pans. Bottom Line: corn bread + cranberries + cute cast-iron pans = Fun Fall Breakfast.

Here are two recipes that I have used, Fannie Farmer and Hayden Pearson, both as New England as you can get:

Corn Bread by Fannie Farmer8×8” baking pan or cast-iron cornstick pans. Preheat oven to 375F
¾ c cornmeal
½ c white whole wheat flour
½ cup white flour
¼ cup sugar 3 Tsp baking powder
¾ tsp salt		Sift together into a large bowl.
1 cup milk
1 egg, well beaten 4 Tbsp butter, melted		Add these to dry ingredients and mix well.
For Corn Sticks, one 7-stick pan is filled using 1 cup batter. The pan must be greased in all its crannies with melted butter. For Corn Bread, butter the baking pan.
½ – ¾ cup cranberriesAfter batter is in the pan, poke cranberries into the Corn Sticks, using 4-5 per Corn Stick. For Corn Bread, sprinkle the berries on top and gently swirl them into the batter.
Bake 15 minutes for Corn Sticks; 25 minutes for Corn Bread.Since I have left-over batter from the Corn Sticks, I bake it and use it in the turkey stuffing.
Sunny Acres Corn Bread by Hayden Pearson8×8” baking pan or cast-iron Corn Stick pans. Preheat oven to 425F
¾ cup yellow corn meal
2/3 cup white whole wheat flour
2/3 cup white flour
3 ¼ tsp baking powder
¾ tsp salt
1/3 c white sugar
¼ tsp allspice		Sift these into a large bowl.
2 eggs, beaten
1 stick/8 Tbsp butter, melted
¼ c milk 1 Tbsp brown sugar		Add these to dry ingredients and mix well.
For Corn Sticks, one 7-stick pan is filled using 1 cup batter. The pan must be greased in all its crannies with melted butter. For Corn Bread, butter the baking pan.
½ – ¾ cup cranberriesAfter batter is in the pan, poke cranberries into the Corn Sticks, using 4-5 per Corn Stick. For Corn Bread, sprinkle the berries on top and gently stir them into the batter.
Bake 15 minutes for Corn Sticks; 25 minutes for Corn Bread. Since I have left-over batter from the Corn Sticks, I bake it and use it in the turkey stuffing.

Slow Days: Summer Vegetable Pizza

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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.

Since Dear Husband and I enjoy pizza for dinner every Saturday night, I am often on the lookout for a new way to top the pie. Thus, I was delighted to find a recipe at thekitchn.com for a pizza from the famous Berkeley Cheeseboard Collective. The corn and fresh vegetables remind me of a pizza which I enjoyed in Rome. This is a delicious way to use Summer’s bounty. Of course, I use a dough prepared with mostly white whole wheat flour, instead of all-purpose flour. It gives the pie a hearty, rustic flavour which we enjoy.

Mise en Place with all those luscious vegetables.
Sv 2
5½ -6 oz white whole wheat pizza dough/personIf dough is cold, let sit at room temp 2+ hours. The dough is ready when it does not bounce back when stretched.
1 c mozzarella 1/3 c feta cheeseGrate mozzarella cheese on the large holes of a box grater. Crumble feta cheese.
1½ tsp basil 1 clove garlic 2½ Tbsp olive oil
pinch salt
¼ tsp pepper flakes		GARLIC OIL: Chop basil finely. Chop the garlic.
Place everything in a small bowl and stir to combine.
NB: can be done hours before
¼ packed c. red onion
½ c grape or larger tomatoes
½ c kernels fresh corn ½ c summer squash ribbons 		Thinly slice onion. Cut grape tomatoes in halves or fourths. [If using whole tomato, cut in 1/2″ dice.] Cut ribbons of squash with a vegetable peeler. 
Prepare the vegetables and combine in a bowl. If any liquid accumulates in the bowl, pour it off.
1½ tsp garlic oil l¼ tsp kosher saltAdd garlic oil to the vegetables, season with the salt, and toss to combine. If preparing two pizzas, divide the vegetables equally into two bowls.
2 tsp Garlic Oil per crust prepared cheesesRoll out dough balls, and brush garlic oil onto each crust, all the way to the edges. Sprinkle evenly with mozzarella. Arrange vegetables on top in an even layer, without any liquid. Sprinkle with feta.
Bake at 500F until bubbly. Take from oven.
garlic oil
8 fresh basil leaves		Drizzle with garlic oil, then tear basil into bite-sized pieces and scatter over top. Serve right away.
Can be cooked on a gas grill. Pre-grill the untopped crusts for 2-3 mins, until grill marks form. Bake covered.
The salad greens were added after the pies came from the oven to provide Pizza with Salad without any plates or forks. Truly a treat for a late Summer meal.

Slow Days: Granola

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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.

Granola is a cereal made of whole grains, nuts, and dried fruit. It differs from muesli in that granola is sweetened and baked. Good Friend Ann wanted to make some granola. She had a recipe from the box of Quaker Oats, then sent out a call to her circle of friends to solicit recipes, receiving two responses. Reading the three recipes got me curious about the history and nutrition values of granola.

In 1847, James Caleb Jackson set up a sanatarium in Dansville, New York. Like Maximilian Bircher in Switzerland [see Dr Bircher, August 21], Jackson thought that eating a better diet would improve physical health. One of the key ingredients was whole grains. Toward that end, he developed a dry cereal which he called ‘granula’ which was made of granules of dried Graham flour paste. John Kellogg, who had a health spa in Battle Creek, Michigan, ‘appropriated’ the recipe and marketed it for his own profit. A law suit caused Kellogg to change the name to ‘granola.’ In the 1970s, granola was rediscovered by the counterculture. Then it was commercialized and turned into a sweet, fatty product that neither Jackson nor Kellogg would neither recognize nor serve.

As you can see from this chart, granola packs a wallop when it comes to calories and fat per cup. But if you read the ‘suggested serving guide,’ one serving is usually 1/2 to 3/4 cup. Very few people think that 3/4 cup of cereal is sufficient, since they eat with their eyes rather than their brain, so sitting down to a big [read: 2 cups] bowl of granola for breakfast will give one lots of fiber and some protein, but a TON of calories, fat, carbs, and sugar. Then they add full-fat yogurt and chocolate chips and think how healthy it is. Good Grief.

Per batch# cupsCaloriesFat g Fiber gProtein gCarbs gCalcium mgSugar gr
MFE’s recipe7 cups3206106.75458543.5166240
Per cup45815.27.78.277.623.734.3
AHM’s recipe6 cups3152196.53449.5343.6193132.5
Per cup525325.68.2573222
DCP’s recipe~11 cups8074415.6140178.5944327.5377
Per cup73437.712.71685.829.734

Our family enjoys a recipe from the Peter Rabbit Cookbook, which our son was given as a toddler. This is easy to prepare and delicious. I find a 1/2 cup serving with milk to be quite satisfying.

Johnny Town-Mouse Granola from the Peter Rabbit Cookbook by Arnold Dobrin.

Makes 7 cupsPreheat oven to 250F.
4 Tbsp canola oil
½ c honey		Stir oil and honey together and warm in the microwave until they are liquid.
4-5 cups rolled oatsPut oats in a 9×13” pan and pour in the warm honey-oil. Stir until oats are all coated with the honey-oil. Bake 30 mins.
1½ cups total of any of the following: 
chopped nuts
chopped dried apples
chopped dried apricots 		Take pan from oven and stir in these add-ins.
Distribute the granola evenly over the surface of the pan. Return to oven and bake 15 minutes.
½ cup raisins +/or dried cranberriesRemove pan from oven, stir in raisins/cranberries.
Let cool in the pan, then store in glass jars.

Slow Days: Gateau aux Fruits Frais

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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.

In Summer, there is an abundance of fresh fruit. Heaven! And there are many ways to eat it, besides eating it fresh, of course. For a few years, I worked in a restaurant owned and run by a Frenchman. [He would have insisted that he was a Breton, but we will let that go.] Although I did not work in the kitchen, I was happy to glean as many tips as I could about cooking. Chef did not give out his recipes. However, I managed to get enough clues to produce a reasonable version of Gateau aux Fruits Frais — a simple cake made special by a topping of fresh fruits.

The simple slab of cake.
Cover the cake with pureed rhubarb sauce, slightly sweetened.
Pipe the ‘vanilla cream’ around the edge.

The base of the Gateau is a simple yellow cake — you could use sponge cake or pound cake as well. It was baked in a 4×8″ loaf pan, then cut lengthwise into two slabs, each about 1-inch thick. If you are serving a large gathering, put the cake slabs end to end on the serving board to create one 16″ long gateau. I freeze the other half for a dessert in the future. Next, the top of the cake is slathered with pureed rhubarb or thick applesauce. The sauce should be lightly sweetened, but not too sweet at all.

Then you need a cream mixture, the sort that could be the filling of a cake or the piping at the edge. It could be an Italian meringue, or a butter cream icing, or whipped cream. I stirred together vanilla yogurt, almond meal from unpeeled almonds and let it sit for a bit to thicken. Spoon or pipe the ‘vanilla cream’ around the edge, on top of the pureed fruit. Rake the cream with a fork to pattern it or get creative with your piping bag.

Arrange any fruit on top in a pleasing pattern.
Glaze the fruit with melted jelly.

Arrange any sort of fresh fruit over the cake: whole strawberries, kiwi slices, raspberries. Since we had blueberries and red currants ripe in the garden, I arranged them in stripes. For the final touch, melted jelly was brushed over the top of the fruit to give it a gloss. Voila! Gateau aux Fruits Frais.

Slow Days: Porcini Pasta

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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.

3 bicolors, 1 cep

Neither Dear Husband nor I grew up eating mushrooms, but we have come to relish them. Foraging is one of my favorite pastimes and when it yields a bounty of wild mushrooms, it makes my day. Imagine our surprise when we found mushrooms coming up in the moss under a Red Oak tree on our lawn. NB: One must approach wild mushrooms with caution: many species look slightly alike and correctly identifying the fungus is very important. In this case, the identification was unmistakable: dome-like cap the color of a well-baked bun; no gills under the cap, but a mosaic of tiny pores; bulbous stem, unlike any other species. These were Boletus edilus, the prized cep/cepe/porchini mushroom! Then, another edible Bolete showed up: the Bicolor, Boletus bicolor. We were in hog heaven!!

A search for mushroom recipes yielded this excellent dish from skinnyspatula.com and we are eternally grateful to her for it. The original calls for fresh shiitake and dried porcini, but we had lots of fresh ‘shrooms, so I changed the recipe a bit. Because the sauce is cream-based, we know that the recipe is from Northern Italy. To stay true to the region of origin, fresh pasta is preferred to dry pasta for the meal. I have found that my recipe for pasta made of white whole wheat and semolina flours works very well. For the record: this is NOT a recipe for weight loss!

Serves 2
105 g FRESH pasta nb: pasta made with white whole wheat flour is good here.Boil pasta in salted water until almost al dente – 1 minute. Reserve ¾ c water (~ 120 ml) before draining. Rinse pasta.
8 g/ 0.28 oz butter or more
80 g/ 2.82 oz Bicolor Boletes, sliced  90 g/ 3 oz King Boletes, sliced 170 g total = 3.8 oz fresh		Slice the mushrooms.
In a cast iron skillet, melt butter + add mushrooms. Cook for 4-5 mins until tender and lightly browned.
Take skillet off heat. Very IMPORTANT
20 ml double [or heavy] creamAdd cream + continue to stir, about 2 mins, until it evaporates. Scrape the bits on the bottom often.
60 g mascarpone
40 ml pasta water
40 ml pasta water		Add mascarpone and 1/3 of the pasta water. Cook until sauce is creamy. Add more water if needed, but keep it creamy, not watery.
Salt as neededAdd drained pasta + toss over moderate heat, until it’s cooked through (~ 2-3 minutes). Add more pasta water if needed.

Serve with zucchini or a green salad, and a Tuscan red wine of your choice*. Oh! So good!

from peterspicksblog.com Wines That Pair Well with Pasta and Wild Mushrooms:  Barbera d’Asti (Italy), Pinot Noir (Oregon), Pomerol (Bordeaux, France), Barolo (Italy), Rioja (Spain)

Slow Days: New England 4th of July  

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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.

Hot dogs. Hamburgers. Potato Salad. Macaroni Salad. Rich desserts that are Red, White, & Blue. These are typical 4th of July fare all across the country, so it must be all-American, right? No, actually. Hot dogs, hamburgers, and potato salad came to us from German immigrants in the 1800s. Macaroni salad is a combination of Italian and German culinary traditions. Where do you go for an ‘authentic American’ meal for Independence Day? New England, of course. Salmon was very common in New England during the 1600s and 1700s, before the Industrial Revolution dammed the rivers. If you wanted inexpensive protein, salmon was the thing. In early Summer, salmon would return to the rivers, swimming far up-stream to spawn. At the same time, the first peas were available in the gardens. By coincidence, the first new potatoes could be found in the fields. [Potatoes originated in South America, were taken to Spain by Columbus, then to Ireland by Walter Raleigh, then to New Hampshire by Scottish settlers.] Thus, by early July, a fine dinner was available to all and sundry: cooked salmon served with peas and new potatoes.

Coat the salmon fillets with olive oil on a plate, then strew with salt and pepper. Put the shelled peas into cold water, ready to cook. In a bowl, put small new potatoes — preferably with flesh of different colors — salt, pepper, and olive oil to coat. Stir well to cover the potatoes all over with oil. Put the potatoes on a glass pie plate into a 400F. oven and set the timer for 25 minutes. By now the grill is hot. Cook the salmon, undisturbed, for 5 minutes on each side. Turn on the heat under the peas and simmer them uncovered. The peas will be done first, so keep and eye on them. Drain and salt them, cover the pan and let them wait.

And there you have it: a fine meal for early Summer. For a delightful wine paring go to peterspicks.com.