Recipe: Nilagang Baka

Craving for something to slurp on? This recipe may take 45 minutes to cook but only 10 minutes to prepare! 

Nilagang Baka 

(makes 1 serving if eaten alone, 2 if paired with red rice)

250gm beef kenchi (I buy mine at CJ Low, Tekka Market)

1 onion, quartered

2 cups water

1 1/2 beef buillon cube

2 bunches pechay

fish sauce to taste

Cut beef kenchi to cubes and place in a pressure cooker together with the onion, salt and pepper. Cover with water and simmer for 40 minutes. Add beef buillon cube and pechay and simmer for 5 minutes more. Add fish sauce to taste.

Cheat Breakfast

I am now in a maintenance phase for my low carb diet which means I can indulge myself once in a while and when that happens, I either eat a very good brunch or have this:

Scrambled eggs, maling, croissant with butter and lemon curd

Croissants are just one of those things that cannot be replaced with low carb. That is why I consider it my valid cheat. If you look at this plate, it is the only non low-carb item. Even the lemon curd is sugar-free. So I feel less guilty :) The croissant is from Tiong Bahru bakery and they are really good. Thanks to my housemate who keeps a weekend's supply!

Review: Table Manners (Changi City Point)

Fridays lunches are often reserved for dining out and discovering new restaurants along this area but if I wanted to be a healthier option, I always head on over to Table Manners because they have really resonably priced lunch sets. I usually choose set B which costs 18.50 sgd nett.

I ordered Tomato & Mozzarella Salad, Grilled Asparagus Bacon with Shredded Parmesan and Olive Oil and Striploin Steak.

Review: Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf Brek O' Day

The most important meal of the day when you go on a low carb diet (or maybe even if not) is breakfast. But sometimes you just don't have the time to make your own at home when you'd rather use those precious minutes to get more sleep. At times like this I usually head on over to CBTL to grab their Brek O' Day. And to make it low carb friendly, you can ask them to exchange the bread & jam for either more sausage, egg or salad. Price is 9 sgd.

Review: Torani Sugar Free Hazelnut Syrup

When I first started going low carb, I thought one of the things that I will miss is sweets. But with the myriad of sugar free things out in the market, you will not even notice that you are substituting sugar with something else. For my coffee, I like this one by Torani. It is sweetened using Splenda. It costs 24 sgd at Tangs.

Bento: Grilled Chicken & Vegetables on a low carb Sandwich

I didn't have a lot of stuff in my fridge at the moment so I had to make do and come up with something substantial for lunch tomorrow. I usually go to the gym during my lunch break (Tue - Thu) so I can only take a quick lunch at my desk afterwards. I recently discovered this low carb sandwich recipe that uses minimal amount of ingredients. What's better is that it only takes less than 5 minutes to prepare AND cook. Recipe for the bread is here.

Instead of using a ramekin, I used a slightly larger square glass container that you can buy at Daiso which resulted to a thinner "sandwich". In order to make the bread a bit sturdier, I toasted it which gave it a darker brown hue.

For the sandwich contents, I pan-fried some chicken boneless leg seasoned with salt, pepper, rosemary in olive oil. After the chicken is done, I used the same pan to sauté some baby asparagus, red bell pepper, brown mushrooms and white onions.

This is what it looks like ala open face sandwich:

And now with the top on:

Net carbs is less than 5 gm.

Why I started this blog...

I have been on a low carb diet for the past two years. I started eating low carb on February 2012 together with my sister and brother-in-law. I am 5'6 and weighed 94.5 kg (208lbs) at that time and reached my supposed goal weight of 72kg nine months after. I thought that was the end of it but I still kept on losing weight. The lightest that I got is 65kg on June 2013. However, I think I have been very lenient with my diet and combined with the amount of travelling I've done since August, that got me out of my diet and exercise routine. I am now back to 73kg. 

The goal of this blog is to make me accountable for getting back on track. It will also force me to be more mindful of what I eat since I know I will be recording it in this blog. It also will be more creative in making the lunchboxes that I eat in the office so that I could have more variety and content in this blog. It will also keep me in check when eating out so that anyone who reads this can use this as a guide if they are on a low carb diet here in Singapore as well.

People say that they will start their diet tomorrow. I a m starting now, at 10:23 in the evening.

Wish me luck!!!