Losing weight with vegetarian food

Cutting up vegetables

Cutting up vegetables

We had a very pleasant Canadian vegetarian visitor to stay for 3 weeks, her name is Hannah. As an experiment we decided to be vegetarian for the time of her stay. Sarah made a 21 day recipe plan with as many vegetarian dishes as she could think of. 

Rather than feeling deprived for the 3 weeks we actually thought that vegetarian food was really tasty.  One of the most interesting aspects was that we started to lose weight with no effort. Steve, another visitor lost 3 kilos and I lost 2 kilos. We drank wine most nights and ate to almost bursting point several times. 

So after this experiment we have decided to become flexitarians. That is vegetarians who only eat meat occasionally. If you actually investigate the facts it is a wonder why most of us are not vegetarians.

Click here for a page of interesting facts about vegetarianism

 

 

Sag aloo – potato and spinach curry

sag aloo, potato and spinach curryINGREDIENTS:
4 medium potatoes, peeled and cut into 2cm cubes or cut/broken into pieces
mustard or sunflower oil
1 medium onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon chilli powder
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin seeds
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
300g spinach leaves
salt and pepper.

When preparing the potatoes I like to insert the knife and then break off so that you get different-shaped pieces.
Cook the potato in boiling water until tender. Drain.

Heat some oil in a deep-sided frying pan and fry the potatoes until crispy golden. Transfer to a plate.

Heat some more oil in the pan and sauté the onion until soft. Add the garlic and fry for another couple of minutes.

Stir in the spices and fry for a couple of seconds before adding the potatoes. Season with salt and pepper.

Add a splash of water and stir-fry for a minute or so. Add the spinach, cover and leaver for a minute or so until all the spinach has wilted. Serve.

Curry meal 1

curry1

The idea of this vegetarian meal was to prepare 3 vegetarian curry side dishes to eat as a main course with some rice on the side.

The three dishes were:

  1. sag aloo – potato and spinach curry
  2. creamy egg curry
  3. aubergine and yoghurt curry