Wednesday evening, 18-09-24 and apple and raspberry chia jam

Good evening, everyone!  

What a generous guy Jamie Oliver is.
It looks as if all the recipes from his new book, Five Ingredients Mediterranean,are openly available on his web site - well, all the recipes I have tried so far are anyway.  Bless him.  I don't regret buying the book for one second though.  It's lovely and substantial and beautiful.

On a totally different subject, it obviously doesn't take much to make me happy.  Yesterday, I discovered that the plastic lids from the large Fage yogurt pots clips beautifully onto my small pyrex bowls, the half litre sized ones.  I do like discovering things like that and it is just like the Gu pots and the Pringle lids only better because these clip on.  Not totally airtight, I am sure, but can't be knocked off.

It just makes me happy . . .

What I ate today

Earlier in the morning, I nibbled on some mixed nuts which pretty much came to two healthy extra Bs

The fruit was pineapple, kiwi and an apple and I mixed raspberry and apple chia jam (see below) with the yogurt.  Really nice.

Half a syn for the chia seeds.

A great success, this, despite the frittata not coming cleanly out of the dish.  

The salad is bulgur wheat with chopped cucumber, pepper, tomatoes, red onion, some capers and a splash of my salad dressing.

No dessert

Five syns in total.

I had an apple after personal training

Dinner was another Jamie meal, very simple and very delicious.  The cheese is grated halloumi and there's some already melted in tbe orzo mixture.

I had a lovely, juicy orange for afters.

One healthy extra A and three syns for evoo.

Summary:

one healthy extra A

two healthy extra Bs

eight and a half syns

My meal plans for tomorrow:

B:  fruit, yogurt and seeds

L: tabbouleh with salmon; fruit

D:  roasted vegetable pasta; fruit

Exercise:   SET class online

The Extra Bit

In my mission to incorporate more healthy stuff into my diet. specifically nuts and seeds that contain heart-healthy stuff, I have started exploring how to make chia jam and chia pudding - starting with jam because that's easier.

So, this morning, I got some apple and some raspberries out of the freezer (about 150g in total) and popped them in a suitable saucepan over a low heat, lid on, and just left it for a while until it was all thawed and softened, juices running and nice and hot.

(I had intended to use the last of the strawberries but, when I looked, they were too over and, sadly, needed chucking.  Oh, dear)

I mashed it all up so the apple was in small, soft chunks, added a bit of sweetener (about half a tsp) and one and a half tsp chia seeds, mixed them in well, took the pan off the heat and just left it.

Within fifteen minutes, the chia seeds had gone all soft and gooey, as they do, thickening the mixture - but not like jam as there's no sugar to make a set.

And

It

Was

Delicious.

The seeds were soft - you cold feel their texture but not in a bad way and it was seeded anyway from the raspberries - and the flavour was so fresh and fruity.

It's about 50 to 60g fruit to a scant half tsp seeds and one could use honey or maple syrup instead of sweetener - or even sugar as it doesn't require much sweetening, if any, depending on the fruit.

I reckon I will be making a small batch very regularly, using different fruits.  Apple and cranberry, strawberry and vanilla, plum and five spice . . .  Yum!

And healthy!

Chia seeds are half a syn per tsp (you need to work it out to what you used) and I don't syn cooked fruit.