Presto pasta, marquis chocolate pudding and 4 surprising fat-burning foods

Chicken rice with chilli sauce

Today's Food Diary 

Breakfast: Scrambled egg with sourdough flaxseed toast

Lunch: Chicken rice with chilli sauce

Dinner: Sourdough flaxseed bread with lentils, pickled carrots

Baking/sweets: Carrot cake

I made a cheats version of chicken rice, Singapore’s national dish. Chicken rice is such a simple complicated dish! The chicken is boiled and the rice is cooked in chicken broth. It’s as simple as that, yet out of the hundreds or thousands of restaurants selling chicken rice very few serve really good chicken rice. Boiling chicken and cooking rice is not as easy as it may seem.

I made rice in chicken broth and had it with boiled shredded chicken which I cooked about a week ago and froze it. The chilli sauce had chili flakes, paprika, mustard, oil and apple cider vinegar. I did not follow the proper recipe and procedures for making either chicken rice or the chilli sauce. Perhaps I will get into trouble when I visit Singapore next!

The chicken is normally served at room temperature and the rice grains are usually coated in chicken fat. Room temperature in Singapore is higher than in many other countries!

Its pasta time, I am hosting the presto pasta night. Please send me your pasta dishes. If delivery will be inconvenient for you, then alternatively send a photo, recipe and a story about you and your dish. Deadline for entries is Thursday April 21. You can read more about this great initiative here:  http://www.prestopastanights.com/

Today's Favourite Photo

Source: everyday food I love

Baked Marquis Chocolate Pudding

Today’s Favourite Blog

Source: Care2

The title of the article attracted my attention - "4 Surprising Fat-Burning Foods". I didn’t expect to be surprised but I was truly surprised. First on the list is nuts.  According to Harvard research, eating 3 ounces of nuts daily helps people lose one inch of fat from their waist per month.  And I thought eating nuts would contribute to weight gain due to fats, hence calories. 

Next on the list is fish and seafood. When you eat fish or seafood, you’ll stay full for two hours longer than you normally would.  Fish and seafood increase the body’s production of a hormone called leptin that shuts down hunger pangs between meals.  I will make note next time I eat fish and see if this is really true.

Next is avocado. The omega 9 fatty acids speed the conversion of fat into energy and boost the rate of metabolism. So while there is more fat it burns faster. Makes sense.

The final item is coconut. Coconut is rich with medium chain triglycerides and this increases the liver’s rate of metabolism by up to 30%.  Coconut also helps keep you full. And coconut oil frequently aids the functioning of the thyroid gland.  I eat desiccated coconut almost every morning with my oats and the meal keeps me full. I did not realize that coconuts played a big role in keeping me full.