Hi kipkatzz, nice to meet a fellow foodie :).
I’m with you, a big plate of steamed vegetables or a salad with nothing but lemon juice doesn’t sound tasty or tempting.
I think the problem with counting calories in home cooking is that most of the ingredients are not precisely meassured – as you write: “a dollop of butter or creme fraiche”. So, while I still cook with abandon and without counting calories on 5 days a week, on our fast days we keep it extremely simple – mostly grilled chicken breast or fish, vegetables sauteed with garlic and seasonings in a spoonful of oil (most oils have about 40 cals in a tsp. or 120 cals in a tbsp). It works, in 5 months I lost 10kg.
Your red cabbage sounds delicious, haven’t tried it with orange, my “secret ingredient” is red currant jelly.
Good luck and keep us posted on your progress!

The only way to calculate the cals in home-cooked food is to use a calorie counter (online or book) to calculate the individual ingredients – I use fitday but it’s American so no good putting in aubergine or courgette unless you know it’s egg plant and zucchini!

Hi Kipkatzz,

If you use “myfitnesspal” app, you can put all your food recipies in and it will calculate for you and also save them for you.

I don’t always think it is spot on but gives you a good idea. Then you can have your smaller portions!

hi kipkatzz

“I will choose quality over quantity every time. ”

so so tru

i cook everything

& fresh versus cooked big difference in it

adding garlic butter creme fresh or

if it’s a pat a teaspoon or 1/2

or broth etc

now i use https://www.supertracker.usda.gov

because it is very specific it also lets u add combinations

so u can have ur whole meal counted & saved

i personally do not count the spices but that site does ugh

example

Cream, heavy (whipping cream) (known as creme fresh)

Choose an amount:
1/2 a tablespoon

Total Calories: 26

example on ur cabbage alone

& there’s more

1
Cabbage, Chinese (Bok Choy), raw
2
Cabbage, green, raw
3
Cabbage, red, raw
4
Cabbage, Chinese, cooked (no salt or fat added)
5
Cabbage, green, cooked (no salt or fat added)
6
Cabbage, red, cooked (no salt or fat added)
7
Cabbage, Chinese (Bok Choy), cooked (with salt, no fat added)
8
Cabbage, green, cooked (with salt, no fat added)
9
Cabbage, red, cooked (with salt, no fat added)
10
Cabbage, Chinese (Bok Choy), cooked (with salt and butter)
11
Cabbage, Chinese (Bok Choy), cooked (with salt and margarine)
12
Cabbage, Chinese (Bok Choy), cooked (with salt and vegetable oil)
13
Cabbage, Chinese (Won Bok, Pe-tsai), cooked (no salt or fat added)
14
Cabbage, Chinese (Won Bok, Pe-tsai), raw
15
Cabbage, creamed
16
Cabbage, fresh, pickled, Japanese style
17
Cabbage, green, cooked (with salt and butter)
18
Cabbage, green, cooked (with salt and margarine)
19
Cabbage, green, cooked (with salt and pork fat)
20
Cabbage, green, cooked (with salt and vegetable oil)

what i also like is u can instantaneously look @ ur nutrition of the day/weeks/months or the year

it really help choose things that r miissing maybe not enough b12 food or whatever

u can also copy ur great meal 2 other days so u don’t have 2 keep inputting

like ur great lamb meal w/ cabbage now u copy it because months
from now or weeks from now ur like hmmmmm i think i’ll make that

again

hope it helps

happy gourmetfastdays & gourmetnonfastdays ♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪

ps

they did not have bone marrow but i use neck-bones
& changed the cals
it lets u personalize if they don’t have it

If you’re good with a computer you can use a spreadsheet to calculate what goes into your home cooked food.

This might sound complicated, but bear with me.

I have a list of all the ingredients I have used cooking to date on one sheet along with nutritional information per 100g; calories, fat, saturated fat, fibre and protein in separate columns. In the case of things like eggs, the data is for one egg with different rows for small, medium and large eggs.

The first column of the spreadsheet is ingredient name and the second quantity. I enter the weight (divided by 100g) or number of units (things like eggs) for a particular recipe into column 2.

Columns further to the right contain the quantity multiplied by each nutritional variable so I know how much total of each category I am adding to a recipe.

I then copy the row containing the calculated information for each ingredient I am going to be cooking with into a new spreadsheet.

At the top of each column in the new spreadsheet I have a sum formula which adds all calories, fat, etc together for a grand total.

Once the basic spreadsheet is set up it’s pretty easy to use. If I cook with a new ingredient I haven’t used before I add the nutritional information to the first spreadsheet for future reference.

For recipes I do regularly I work out how much of each nutritional variable 100g of the finished product contains and add the finished dish to my list of ingredients.

If folks are interested I’ll make a copy of the basic spreadsheets (with some example calculations) online so they can use it.

I’ll also put together some instructions for it.

Sarah

Thank you Kippkatzzip for bringing up a subject that’s been on my mind since I discovered the 5:2 diet a week ago and have just finished reading the book. I too don’t have much weight to loose (although I would benefit enormously from a little exercise and muscle toning!). I love cooking, and being of Indian extraction just cannot stand bland, boiled, uninteresting food. I’ve been wondering how to embark on this diet without having to resort to a slice of (processed) ham and a boiled egg for breakfast!

Is there anywhere on this site that readers have shared interesting home cooked recipes?

Hi Kipkatzz.

I am intrigued by your comments about following a diet which allows for much more tasty foods. No food is forbidden on 5:2, you can have whatever you wish but in smaller quantities.
I love cooking, and my meals are all made in my kitchen from scratch. I eat a wide variety of food from various cuisines. My FD meals at the moment consist of vegetable curry made with a proper paste of onion garlic and ginger etc, sweet and sour chicken, pasta with a chicken and mushroom sauce. I make up batches and freeze them in 300 calorie portions, and as I save most of my calories for dinner, that allows for extra veg, or some rice or fruit and yoghurt. This can easily be adapted for feeding a family, as they could have either as a larger portion or extra rice, potatoes or pasta.
I weigh each ingredient as it goes into whatever I’m making which doesn’t take much time or effort.
I eat plenty of lean meat and fish. I prefer milk in my coffee, and I eat cheese butter and eggs regularly too.
I keep the carbs low as I find it helps with weight loss, but I still eat cake and bread although I have given up bread for Lent.
I also eat home made granola with fruit and yoghurt on non fast days.

I have used a few “healthy” recipes, but as someone who loves to cook, I’ve had no problem in adapting recipes to reduce the calorie content without an appreciable difference to the flavour of the finished dish.
I would never have stuck to this way of eating if my food was bland or boring, and I’ve lost 4 stones so far without feeling deprived.

Stumble on that thread today.
What a great idea to use a spreadsheet as a calorie counter tool. 🙂