Am I a foodie or do I just love to eat???

I would like to believe I am a foodie, but I don't think I am creative enough to be considered as such!  I love my food and I love trying new things but I don't do it very often, I am very set in my ways when it comes to food (I get this from my Dad who is exactly the same!!).  So, I have intentions of trying a new food every week, whether it be in a recipe or just on it's own!!  Last week it was Mackrel, really good for you, high in protein and Omega 3 so perfect for my diet, however not good for my taste buds!!  Disgusting!! I won't be trying that again!! So this wasn't the best start to my 'try new things kick!'


However, with my attempts to increase my protein increase while keeping my calories down, I have been a little bit creative.  I made protein pancakes, which were really good with maple syrup, not too high in calories and satisfy that sweet craving that I get after dinner.  These are definitely an improvement on what I usually use to curb my sweet craving after dinner - GU!!  These are my Achilles heel when it comes to dieting, although their cheesecakes and soufflés are lovely, these melt in the middle chocolate cakes are to die for!  I recommend everyone try them at least once...

On the same night, I decided to make my own Protein bars to take to work, which were a success.  I included ground Flaxseed, Chia seed and blueberries to make sure they filled me up.  I also added cinnamon so they tastes a lot like gingerbread which made them much nicer - I wouldn't definitely recommend making your own as you can add whatever you want so they suit you perfectly.  I added white chocolate chips to this to make them a little sweeter but to reduce calories next time I may just add sweetner instead.







Over the last 12 months or so I have become a lot more daring with my food choices and I have tried foods I never would have tried a few years ago.  The main one being curry, which I have now grown to love (and crave!). I started easy with Chicken Tikka Massala and ate that religiously at curry houses, but in the last few months I have tried Curried Seabass, Paneer Saag, Mixed kebab meat (lamb and chicken), I even had a Chickpea curry from a street stall in Shoreditch which was possibly the nicest curry I have ever tasted!!  I think I am going to continue on my mission to love all Indian food, slowly but surely!!

I still love desserts as I always have, but i'm never very creative in my ordering! I'm too scared to order something new because dessert is a sacred thing and you only get one chance (and usually due to diets this is a once in a blue moon opportunity) it can't be wasted on something that isn't amazing!! Hence, my desired to head for something made with chocolate, drowned in custard (which is usually rare as everything chocolatey comes with ice cream and everything fruity comes with custard!) I always have to be the picky one 'Can I have the chocolate something or other but can I have custard instead of ice cream' I think they go so much better together!! And don't get me started on fruit, I am not a fan of fruit at the best of times but baked fruit is even worse, soggy, warm mush with some sort of pastry or crumb covering the horror that awaits beneath!  It's horrific and awful and that is one way I will never go when trying new desserts.  Fruit is for snacking (at a push) and making into smoothies, dessert is for chocolate and vanilla and other rich, sweet flavours.  So I think this is where I draw the line as a foodie because I do have some hang ups about certain food (which you may have noticed) that are so set in my thought process that the mere mention of them when ordering food makes my insides boil!!

However, where I will accept fruit (or fruit juice) is with my alcohol!  I have recently taken a liking to Pina Coladas and have found supermarkets now do Pineapple and Coconut juice which I can mix with Rum and avoid the higher sugar contents of Malibu and mixing this with crushed ice makes the most amazing adult slush puppy :-) Downside is when drunk, I want to be on a beach somewhere being fanned with a giant leaf and fed grapes!! (when I say grapes I mean burgers ;-))

 

My next attempt at 'expanding my foodie horizons' was prawns - I actually really liked them.  Not too fishy, although I do prefer them well done (I enjoyed the smaller chewier ones over the larger ones).  So I was feeling very proud of myself thinking I had a new food like that was something different and I could order it in restaurants and use them in stirfrys, it was all very exciting....until my throat started feeling abit scratchy, and it became a little bit harder to breath and I went all hot and sticky and I needed an anti-histamine to put me right.  Turns out i'm allergic to prawns - so that's that!!










This to the right, is a recipe that no self respecting foodie would be proud of, unless that foodie was me!!  This, my friends, is a Big Mac in a Bowl and it smells, looks and tastes 100% like the genuine thing.  This is my godsend when I am craving junk food (although it's fair to say that it's easier to go through the drive through!) but with a bit of patience this will do the job!! 

Finally, my latest creation! I eat a lot of stirfry and I usually use chicken and as I can no longer spread my wings and eat prawns I wanted to try something different.  So I baked a fillet of salmon with garlic and soy and stir fried some vegetable and rice noodles and this was the outcome - AMAZING!!  It was beautiful and a definite repeater (however, this may be me getting back into food rut habits!!)

So the real question is, am I a foodie or do I just love to eat? I personally think it's the latter but who knows where these plans to try new things will lead!