Christmas Challenge, day 4, a couple of recipe ideas and about buckwheat flour

Good evening, everyone, and welcome to my Christmas Challenge, 2024 where I try to give as much festive vibe to my everyday food as I can with the aim of staying on my healthy Mediterranean focused meals so that weight gain is minimal and I remain healthy.

What I ate today:

Cranberry and cinnamon pancakes for breakfast.  I use buckwheat flour for the first time and they were delicious.  There's definitely a difference between flour and oat based pancakes.  The former cook faster for a start!

I think I have found my Christmas morning breakfast!

I am calling the 20g buckwheat flour I used as half a healthy extra B.  See the Extra Bit below for details of why.

The cranberries were the dried kind so three syns for what I had - bit of a shock, that!  I'll try the frozen kind next time and see if that works OK.

The recipe for the pancakes is:

20g buckwheat flour

1/4 tsp baking powder

one medium egg

50g Greek yogurt

1/2 tsp sweetener

cinnamon to taste

splash of water

20g dried cranberries

Mix it all together and give it a good old whisk.

Cook as one normally cooks pancakes. Today I used spray oil.

I changed from a bagel to a slice of toast and it was lovely.

I had some grapes for dessert.  

Half a healthy extra B for the toast, two syns for the avocado and one syn for the salad cream.

Later on,. I had an apple.

Dinner was delicious.

The roasties and veg were same as usual and this is how I did the chicken.
I used half a breast fillet (I always halve them now before freezing them) and hammered it out a bit with my steak hammer.  I sprinkled over some Montreal steak spice (quite chilli-ish) and then spray fried it in a pan.  Then I put it in an oven dish, spread a tbsp cranberry sauce over and then covered it with 30g grated cheddar and popped it in the air fryer top keep warm and melt the cheese.

It was so delicious.
I'll try it again but with stilton instead of cheddar.

One healthy extra A and one and a half syns for the cranberry sauce.

Summary:

one healthy extra A

one healthy extra B

seven and a half syns

Tomorrow's meal plans:

B:  breakfast wrap

(ringing the changes just a bit)

L:  soup, seeds, bread; fruit

I have a friend round, a SW friend so all good.

D:  steak, stilton and salad

A treat!  Stilton isn't a healthy extra A but I am going to call it so.

Exercise:  none

The Extra Bit:

About buckwheat and buckwheat flour.
(Mostly copied and pasted from various places as it says it much better than I could)

When I started eating more in the Mediterranean way, I kept coming across buckwheat and buckwheat flour praised as a super healthy product.
I bought a bag of flour (Dove does it) but never used it so it is about time I did, isn't it?

So I did a bit of Googling and found put that . . .
Buckwheat is grain-free, gluten-free and adds nutty flavors, tender textures and darker shades to dishes, such as noodles, cookies and bread.

 
It is packed with fiber, protein and other minerals. Not only can buckwheat add an earthy flavor infusion and darker hue to your recipes, but it can be a healthier alternative to regular flour or wheat flour.

Buckwheat flour can be made by milling or grinding buckwheat groats  and you can do it yourself if you have the right equipment.

As it is gluten free, it can result in a heavier texture and it's best to use it with other flour if you want lightness.

Gluten- and grain-free, organic buckwheat flour has more protein, dietary fiber, and B vitamins than an equal weight of oat or whole wheat flour, and is an excellent source of potassium and essential amino acids.

This last caught my attention so I looked up calories and fibre for 20g buckwheat flour and 20g oats.  Guess what - there's not a lot of difference.

As far as the quality of the fibre is concerned, buckwheat contains a decent amount , which your body cannot digest. This nutrient is good for colon health.

By weight, fiber makes up 2.7% of boiled groats and is mainly composed of cellulose and lignin (2).

Fibre is concentrated in the husk, which coats the groat. The husk is kept in dark buckwheat flour, giving it a unique flavour. (This is the flour I have)

All in all, it is a Jolly Good Thing to include in a healthy diet. and I would really like to get some buckwheat groats and blend them to flour as needed.  Must look around for some.

As far as Slimming World is concerned, buckwheat is a free food but buckwheat flour is not.

However . . .

Healthy extra Bs are all about fibre.

Buckwheat flour contains as much fibre, possibly a little more, than oats.  The calories are pretty much identical.

Therefore . . .

As with wholemeal/wholewheat flour, I am perfectly happy to use buckwheat flour as a healthy extra B

. . . because I can't see why not.

It's definitely not SW canon though, so be careful and, if you do what I do, use it mindfully and sensibly!