Proving… if something looks too good to be true it probably is!

Have had “Sarah Raven’s Chicken Puttanesca” in the official Fast Diet Recipe Book bookmarked for ages and started cooking it today in advance of my fast breaking this evening. There is no way I’m going to eat that on a fast day!

Firstly, the recipe doesn’t ‘work’ in the way it suggests, I had to add a splash of water to the casserole to get the juices going.

Secondly, I thought I’d better double check the calorie count at another source as I felt like anchovies, olive oil and chicken thighs were dubiously calorie rich for a dish that claims to be only 247 cal per portion… lo and behold the calories seem to add up to more than double the calories suggested, wherever I looked!

Thirdly, I just took the casserole out of the oven to give it a stir. It looks nothing like the picture in thr book (which has a rich, tomato sauce) and is swimming in oil!!! Eeek! Considering a tablespoon of olive oil equals approximately 120 calories there is no way this dish can come in at frankly, a too good to be true, virtuous 247 calories!

What a shame as I’d been looking forward to this. I don’t want to risk over eating calories on a hard and long fast day so will look for another recipe. At least I have dinner for tomorrow ready I suppose?!

Pretty bad though… I’ve made a few things from the rwcipe book and have trusted the calorie counts (obviously with a bit of leeway for portion size etc) but this seems like a massive errata to me, not sure how it has even made its way into the book?!

Please tell me I’m doing something wrong…!

Yeah half the amount would work out to be around 247 I guess, so that solves the errata, it should be 6 chicken thighs not 12, i.e. 1 per serving rather than 2.

However, even if I’d served less it still would have been quite oily – anchovies are hard to drain if the oil they come packed in and chicken thigh meat is a fatty cut. Perhaps I’d look for anchovies in brine and use breast meat instead.

Anyhow the recipe – although delicious – seems ‘out’ to me! I’ll have it for lunch tomorrow instead.

And I’ll report back too that the cauliflower crust pizza was horrible! Save the real thing for non-fast days and enjoy it properly!

All in all a disastrous culinary fast day but nearly over!

Ooh ouch well thanks for the kindly advice, I was only trying to warn others…!

Still think the recipe is out, not my methods of cooking!

Nevermind – I have lost 8lb in 2 weeks and am feeling good. The fast days, though tough, are worth it and I really appreciate being able to eat normally yhe rest of the week. I imagine other ‘diets’ make you feel as despairing/hungry as fast days do but every single day. No wonder they rarely work long term!

Hi Applepie, thanks and yes, good tip, I have before and it is yummy! There is a few recipes in the Fast Diet Recipe book for tortilla pizzetta (although re calorie count… sorry to go on, hace struggled yo find a tortilla lo cal enough to come within the recipe’s count!)

I was bewitched by how much the cauliflower looked like an actual pizza crust though! It definitely doesn’t taste like it! Cauliflower is great as a veg but should not be mistaken for pizza haha!