Being able to maintain a healthy weight is no easy task, especially on the Christmas season , with so many tempting traditional tastes! Thinking about you, here are some advice and suggestions for less caloric Christmas recipes (*), but with all the flavor. Advice to avoid overeating this season When shopping, don’t go hungry! The tendency is to buy more caloric foods and more than you had in mind. Make a list of Christmas menus and associate the corresponding ingredients. This way, you will only buy what you need and not other food you can dispense. Cook the quantities strictly necessary for supper and Christmas day; prevent food waste! Avoid snacking while preparing meals, as you will easily lose track of how much food you eat. In recipes that have milk, prefer skimmed milk. For those with cream, replace them with their light counterpart or natural low-fat yoghurts. The fat retained in fried foods varies according to its size: the bigger the less fat accumulates. It’s all a matter of proportion. Don’t let food absorb too much oil! To achieve this just pay attention to the frying temperature (do not exceed 180º C). Halve the amount of sugar in your recipes or replace sugar with sweeteners. Don’t forget about intermediate healthy meals, drink a lot of water and exercise! Rabanadas (French toasts) in the oven Ingredients 1 loaf of bread (or Portuguese traditional bread ‘ pão cacete ’) 3 dL of skimmed milk 4 eggs 100 g of sugar Cinnamon stick Lemon peel Sugar and cinnamon for sprinkling Preparation Mix skimmed milk, lemon peel, cinnamon stick and sugar in a bowl – and heat until it’s hot; Apart, slightly stir the whole egg; Cut the bread into slices (each slice about 1.5 cm thick); Soak each slice in hot milk, drain and then dip in the beaten egg; Place the slices in a tray with parchment paper (previously brushed with olive oil), preheat the oven (180 ºC) and then bake for approximately 10 minutes; Midway through this period, turn the slices to brown on both sides. Nutritional composition Per slice Energy (kcal) 173,6 Proteins (g) 5,5 Carbohydrates (g) 54,7 Lipids (g) 2,4 Tip: if you enjoy wetter slices, you can make a syrup and water them after taking them out of the oven. Syrup ingredients and preparation 1dL of water 50 g of sugar 1 cinnamon stick 1 small glass of port wine 1 orange juice 50 g of pine-nuts Bring to a boil water, orange juice, port wine and sugar; Add the cinnamon stick and boil for 15 minutes; Let cool, add the pine-nuts and pour the syrup onto the slices; In the end, you can sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon. Aletria Ingredients (4 servings) 100 g of vermicelli noodles 4dL of skimmed milk 75 g of sugar 2 egg yolks Lemon peel Cinnamon Preparation Cook the vermicelli noodles in water for 5 minutes and drain; Heat the skimmed milk along with the lemon peel, sugar, cooked noodles and let it cook; After the noodles are cooked and out of the heat, mix the previously whipped yolks; Cook again, only so that the egg yolks cook slightly; Serve the aletria sprinkled with cinnamon. Nutritional composition Per person Energy (kcal) 88,3 Proteins (g) 5,5 Carbohydrates (g) 4 Lipids (g) 3 Crème brûlée Ingredients (4 servings) 500 mL of skimmed milk 1 lemon peel 1 cinnamon stick 75 g of sugar 3 egg yolks 20 g of maize starch Cinnamon Preparation Place the 400 mL of milk, lemon peel and cinnamon stick in a saucepan and heat. Leave to boil; Mix the remaining milk with the sugar, egg yolks and maize starch until you get a homogeneous mixture; Add a trickle of boiling milk and whisk; Simmer slowly for 2 minutes without boiling so as not to curdle; Pour the custard in a platter or on an individual plate and let to cool; Sprinkle with sugar and burn with a very hot iron; Let cool and serve. Nutritional composition Per person Energy (kcal) 160 Proteins (g) 7 Carbohydrates (g) 23,5 Lipids (g) 4,3 * Source : Associação Portuguesa de Nutrição (Portuguese Nutrition Association) Author : Dília Soares Meet the Nutrition team of Hospital da Luz network .
