The Knitting Fiend/ Diet Diary

Ingredients

• 1 fennel bulb (aka anise) with fronds
• 2 tsp olive oil
• dash black pepper
• 6 Tbsp chicken broth

Preparation

Cut off fennel stalks and discard but reserve fronds. Chop 2 tsp fronds; discard remainder. Cut bulbs lengthwise into 1/2-inch-thick slices. Heat oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat until hot. Brown fennel slices, turning over once, 3 to 4 minutes. Reduce heat to low. Sprinkle fennel with salt and pepper, then add broth and water. Simmer, covered, until fennel is tender, 10 to 12 minutes. Sprinkle with fennel fronds.

Nutrition:
Calories: 79 cal, 42 cal from fat. 9g carb • 2g protein • 5g fat. Four grams of fiber. Glycemic load: 3

Click to enlarge.

This tasty highly nutritious 59 calorie, low carb side dish is, has tons of vitamin A, and a decent amount of iron and calcium. It’s also moderately anti-inflammatory. My diet plan calls for 2 low calorie veggie side dishes at dinner; I’m plan to cycle this in at least once a week.

If, like me, you are sharing dinner with a husband whose body mass index is 19 (i.e. borderline underweight), sprinkle 2T of crumbled feta cheese and chopped olives on his serving.

Ingredients:

• 4 cups fresh spinach leaves, washed thoroughly, stems removed
• 2 tsp lemon juice
• 2 tsp red wine vinegar
• 2 tsp olive oil
• 1 clove garlic
• 2 tsp. fresh mint, chopped finely.
• 1 tsp fresh oregano, chopped finely.
• salt and pepper to taste.

Place spinach leaves in a steamer and steam, tossing occasionally. Steam until just wilted. Place in serving bowl. Whisk together remaining ingredients, pour over spinach and toss.

Nutrition:
This was computed without feta cheese or olives. Calories: 59 cal, 42 cal from fat: 3 g carb • 2 g protein • 5 g fat. Fiber: 2g.

Terry Franko ask for my current “standard” recipe for fruit sorbet. To make the sorbet, you will need a blender, measuring spoons, an ice cream maker and measuring spoons.

Recipe

This makes about a pint and a half to a quart of ice cream of sorbet. The sorbet pictured is cherry. Serves two people who want to make hogs of themselves of four who consume more moderately. Calories are provided based on 2 servings.

• 3/4 c water total.
• 1/2 package of unflavored gelatin (e.g. Knox brand.)
• 1/3 – 1/2 cup Erythritol sugar substitute.
• 9 oz. unsweetened frozen fruit. (This 2/3s of the 12 oz bags stocked at my grocery store. )
• 1 T heavy cream.
• Alcohol free Vanilla 1/8 tsp.
• 1/4 t konjac powder. (Optional, but it does make the sorbet a little creamier.)

Pour 1/4 C water into a microwave safe measuring cup; sprinkle gelatin into water and let sit for 5 minutes to soften. Meanwhile, stir the konjac/glucomannan into the sugar substitute to blend. Add remaining 1/2 cup water and sugar substitute, to the gelatin. Place in microwave and heat until nearly boiling; stir to make sure all sugar substitute is dissolved. Optional: Allow to cool to room temperature.

Set your ice cream maker up to make ice cream. (With my maker, this means freeze the freezer bowl for 12 hours to make sure it’s cold. Place it on the machine stand and insert the paddle.)

Place frozen fruit and cream in a blender. Pour sugar-water mixture into blender. Blend until fruit is pureed then allow to run another minute.

Pour the mixture into the ice cream maker bowl, and blend until firm. (Approximately 10-30 minute depending on how cold both the frozen fruit and freezer bowl were.)

Serve immediately or scoop into a covered container to firm further in the freezer. I find the texture is excellent if I allow to firm up to 1 hour. Experiments without the cream, glucomannan and gelatin indicate a serious degradation of quality if frozen 24 hours. (The sorbet becomes rock hard, and you can see ice crystals. Allowing it to stand on the counter and stirring can remedy this, but it’s an issue.) I haven’t had any “gelatine/glucomannan/cream” sorbet left over particular recipe left over to test for degradation of consistency after freezing 24 hours.

Nutrition

I entered the ingredients using frozen cherries at Nutrition Data to create a nutrition analysis based on dividing the recipe into 2 servings. The short story is 100 calories: 15 g carb * 3 g fat * 3 g protein. The medium story is given in the chart below. The long story involves even more charts, but I don’t know how to share my recipes on Nutrition Data.

If you have an ice cream maker, and can find the ingredients and are on a diet, give this a try. Unless your doctor has you on a very severe low calorie or low carb diet, or you have an aversion to sugar substitutes or weird ingredients, you’ll love this. If you do have an aversion to weird ingredients, use real sugar and leave out the konjac. That probably tastes great too– though the calorie count per serving will increase to roughly 300 calories all from sugar.