Oven-baked Chicory in cream for a Sparky Person

I've turned over a new leaf with regards to my diet.  On the spur of the moment, I decided to join SparkPeople, which is FREE and offers a calorie counter, gazillions of products that you can choose to track the number of calories you consume, advice, success stories and the like.
 
In short:  A modern-day virtual miracle for someone like me.  

Gives me the idea that I'm semi-in-charge of my life and diet.  I get to choose foods heavy on the calorie-side, or not.

Before you get excited, I should add that this is only Day 4 of my new improved diet.  So far so fantastic though, I've already lost 1.7kg in 3 days (inspiration!).  I also tracked what I eat on a typical day, and that amounted to more than 3000 calories, which is TWICE what I should eat if I want to lose weight.  Eye-opener!!!

This brings me back to my oven-baked chicory in cream.  Chicory has only 12 calories per 100g, fills you up and happens to be quite tasty!

Oven-Baked Chicory in Cream

You will need:

About 500g Chicory

About 100ml low-fat soy cream

Bit of grated cheese

Salt & pepper

Method:

Heat the oven to 200 degrees

In an upside down V-shape, cut out the bottom heart of the chicory.

Remove the outer leaves

Bring some salted water to the boil

Boil the chicory for 8 minutes

Drain well

Place the chicory in a shallow oven dish

Pour the cream on top

Add the grated cheese

Place in the middle of the hot oven for 20 minutes, until the cheese has browned.
Season to taste

Yum yum yummm!

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I nicked this recipe from Yvette van Boven's beautiful cookery book: Homemade.  Glorious and easy.

Simple Sorbet

Ingredients:

500 g frozen raspberries/fruits of the forest/strawberries etc.

100ml water

150 ml sugar

Optional:  whipped cream

Method:

Blend the frozen berries with a hand blender.

Heat the 100ml of water in a saucepan and add the sugar.

Stir until dissolved.

Remove from the stove and mix with the berries.

You can try to squish it through a sieve to remove the pips 

but we actually prefer the pips.

Pour into a freezer container.

Every hour, take out the sorbet and stir it around a bit.

Do this 4 times.

After the fourth time, you will have sorbet.

We eat it with some whipped cream – makes an easy ice cream.

Also delicious on its own!

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Am a butter-making genius

I know it's not a good thing to boast about one's skills, but I am so proud of myself right now it's not even funny. 

I just took some left-over full fat cream straight from the fridge, whizzed it with my trusty hand-held blender until it magically started to separate and turn into butter.  BUTTER!  Butter one can actually EAT!  Feel like Martha Stewart/Betty Crocker/Pioneer Woman all rolled into one!

This is how I did it:

Take some Full fat cream and blend it with a blender until it turns into whipped cream. 
Keep whipping.
Pretty soon, a milky substance starts forming (this is the buttermilk).  You can drain this off and use it for something, not sure what yet, but I will investigate.  
Keep blending it until your blender stops working (butter gets stuck to blades).
You can now press out the remaining buttermilk with a spoon.  
Apparently, pressing out the buttermilk preserves the butter for longer, but I don't plan on keeping it for very long as I'm going to scoff it all tonight.
Now you can add some salt or spices or herbs.


BUTTER!!