Things have gotten a bit off track with my eating recently. We seem to have had a flurry of morning and afternoon teas at work for farewells, welcomes, birthdays and any other type of occasion you can think of for celebrating. On top of that we have had a family birthdays and lunches out where eating has been the order of the day. It does make me think why so many of our celebrations focus on food rather than other activities.
When I was losing weight and had a goal it seemed much easier to say no to that piece of cake (or maybe I should say that second piece of cake….) Now that I am just maintaining it is just that little bit harder to keep that focus. I must admit that in the past I haven’t really gotten on board with the whole goal thing but I am now rethinking that and looking and where else I could use some good clear goal setting to tidy up my life.
Beside the weight on the scales going up ever so slightly, I have also noticed that I have become tired again and my skin is not looking as good as it did a few months ago. I didn’t notice an increase in energy when I was losing weight, but that may have been because it was such a gradual thing – like the weight loss itself. I suspect that eating too much sugar is the culprit. It is highly unlikely that I will ever cut sugar completely out of my diet and I don’t really believe in completely cutting something out of a diet unless it is for medical reasons or ethical reasons. But I am now working on getting back to reasonable levels and eating healthier again.
When I am looking for great low calorie meals that are still filling, mushrooms are often my go to ingredient. I find mushrooms fill me up in a similar way to protein but don’t have the same number of calories. One of my absolute favourite mushroom recipes is this one for mushrooms baked with parmesan, thyme and lemon. Not only is it low calorie (about 150 calories) but it is just scrumptious and so easy to make. It feels quite substantial when you eat it but the lemon makes sure the taste isn’t too heavy.
To make this recipe for one I used the following ingredients:
- 200g swiss brown mushrooms, thinly sliced
- 2 tsp of olive oil
- 1 tsp of lemon zest
- 1 tbs of freshly squeezed lemon juice
- 1 tsp of minced garlic (equivalent to one clove of garlic)
- ½ tsp of dried thyme
- 1 tbs grated parmesan cheese (I have also used pecorino when I had leftovers from another recipe and it was equally delicious)
- Salt and pepper to taste
- Flat leaf parsley to garnish
I followed the recipe as given but I mixed everything in a bowl before putting it on the baking tray rather than on the baking tray. The first time I made this I tried tossing on the tray but I couldn’t get everything nicely mixed. Using a bowl was much easier.
I had mine on some toast but the mushrooms would also go well on top of a baked potato or can even just be eaten by themselves. Even if you doubled the recipe it would only be 300 calories.
