Fast Diet recipes – day 14

Breakfast: Gooseberry breakfast pots (196 calories)

Lunch: Asian omelette rolls (193 calories)

Dinner: Konnyaku ‘spaghetti’ with chorizo sauce (151 calories)

= 540 calories

Due to some bad diary scheduling, this is our third fast day in a row, but it’s not quite as bad as expected (I think yesterday’s fake pho made it feel like we were taking a break!). On the plus side, we have at least 5 feast days to look forward to now…

As much as I enjoy devising new low calorie recipes, it’s nice to return to some tried and tested favourites. It’s especially handy when time is short, so today we had another helping of gooseberry breakfast pots and the lovely Asian omelette rolls for lunch.

Konnyaku ‘spaghetti’ with chorizo sauce

I was so pleasantly surprised by the Konnyaku pho noodles last night that I was keen to see if the spaghetti style noodles would work as well in a more western recipe. We’ve also had a packet of very tempting mini cooking chorizo sat in the fridge over the last 2 fast days and I’ve been dying to let them out! It does take a few mouthfuls to get used to the more toothsome, bouncy texture, but it’s not such a bad substitute. It is, however, far more convincing as a rice noodle replacement, so back to the Asian recipe drawing board. Konnyaku bun cha perhaps…?!

Serves 2

151 calories per serving

4 mini cooking chorizo (I used Waitrose Cooks’ Ingredients), diced (250 cal)

2 garlic cloves, crushed (16 cal)

½ red chilli, finely chopped (4 cal)

150 g (4 medium) tomatoes, diced (25 cal)

456 g (2 packets) konnyaku spaghetti-style noodles (< 1 cal)

20 g capers in brine, drained (6 cal)

1 tbsp basil leaves, shredded (< 1 cal)

1 tbsp flat leaf parsley, chopped (< 1 cal)

• Fry the chorizo pieces for 2 minutes or until they start to let out some of their oil.
• Add the garlic and chilli to the pan and for 1 minute, then add the diced tomatoes and a sprinkle of salt.
• Drain the noodles through a sieve and rinse them really with cold water.
• Once the tomatoes have cooked down a little bit into a fairly wet sauce, add the noodles to the pan with the capers and simmer for 4 minutes, stirring occasionally.
• Stir in the herbs, then divide the noodles and sauce between 2 warm bowls.