Last Updated on March 10, 2024
5:2 Diet Recipes – One Pot Seabass with Fennel – More Intermittent Than Intended Fasting:
My 5:2 diet plans have become rather more 6:1 than 5:2 (sometimes even 7:0). Despite limiting my ability to diet or to cook 5:2 diet recipes I do love my current lifestyle. The travel writing I am doing is helping me to explore as I never have done before. And, I enjoy cooking, eating out and generally learning more about what is going on around me. The catch is, finding a day when I am not out drinking, eating out or going to some cookery event and being fed on cakes and chocolate to follow the 5:2 diet and have a fast day. When I am too busy to manage two days a week of fasting, I do what I can. Whether that is avoiding alcohol, doing what some of my friends call 16:8 (where you don’t eat for 16 hours and then eat sensibly during the remaining part of the day) or just fasting for one day of the week. It seems to work in that I haven’t yet put BACK the weight I lost. But sadly, the scales don’t magically move down if I am eating out a lot or even if I am making coffee walnut clotted cream fudge!
Anyway, today has been a fast day. I’ve actually made a new tomato soup recipe that works rather well with tinned tomatoes (which I will share later). I wanted something that was creamy and soft rather than spicy but that I could make in the winter. I won’t bother sharing my supper menu recipe though – roast chicken with steamed veggies is hardly worthy of a blog post, though it was very nice. So, this recipe is an old favourite of mine, whether I am doing the 5:2 diet or not. I’ve made it with Sea Bass here but it works perfectly well with most firm fish. You could use cod or even salmon if you prefer. The trick is to add the fish around half way through the cooking time, so that it doesn’t overcook and dry out. The thinner the cut of fish, the shorter the time it will need to cook. You can use dill, fennel fronds or the herb of your choice instead of the parsley if you prefer and of course you can play around by adding in a little ham or chorizo, skipping the tomatoes and olives or even by adding small new potatoes if you are not dieting.
- 150 g Sea Bass Fillets one or two fillets depending on size
- 1 Small Tomato cut into quarters
- 4-6 Black Olives
- 1 Shallot finely sliced
- 150 g Fennel finely sliced
- 1 Lemon
- 50 ml Dry white wine
- 1 handful Flat leaf parsley
- 1 drizzle Olive oil
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Pre heat an oven to 200c
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Put the sliced fennel and shallot into a heavy based pan. Drizzle over the olive oil and gently sweat to soften for 3-4 minutes over a low heat.
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Pour over the wine and season the mixture with salt and pepper
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Cover and place in the oven for 10-15 minutes making sure the fennel still has some bite.
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Add the olives, tomatoes and seabass fillets (skin side up) and a little more water if necessary. Return to the oven for 8-10 minutes until the sea bass is cooked.
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Serve by removing the seabass fillets, dishing out the vegetables and then replacing the seabass, skin down. Season with lemon and garnish with finely chopped parsley.
This recipe has around 330 calories per (generous) serving. If you need to cut the calories further then consider dry frying the fennel and shallot and halving the quantity of white wine.
Meanwhile, if you want to lose weight, I’d suggest NOT starting a blog. Not only will you be challenged by reading the posts of your blogging friends, but you’ll also find yourself at all sorts of events where food and drink is de facto amazing.
What’s your favourite one-pot dinner? As someone who does a lot of cooking just for myself, I really do like dishes that can be cooked in one pan.
Stevie Wilson says
Yum!! Yum!! this looks amazing!! sounds so good!
Pamela Morse says
Even those of us who are not so extravagantly entertained all the time would benefit from this plan..and ll your recipes are healthful and quick to prepare..you just go.