Snipe cooked to perfection.

Anyone that has been game shooting will know that the snipe is one fast bird, only a few inches tall. As a wading bird it spends it's time wading in marshes and bogs foraging for food. When flushed it corkscrews up into the air at a fair ol' rate and it goes without saying that you have to be pretty damn quick off the mark to get your gun up in time and quick to react to the changes in direction.

Snipe season here in the UK are August 12th to Jan 31st inclusive. So this was the first and last one in the season for me and proudly so. Fortunately another gun also got a snipe on the last drive and as he had not cooked one before he handed his to me and asked for a recipe (thanks for that one jonny) hence the writeup of one tasty meal.

I had snipe three ways and enjoyed every one of them.

So what are the three ways? Well for a start there is roasting, then with another bird I used the breasts and pan fried them. Finally there's the entrails, yes you heard right. Some people I have spoke to tend to roast their birds for 15 mins in a high oven and then remove the entrails and spread them on toast. Not quite how I did it but here's how it all went down.

Preparation
If you haven't already soaked your wild rice then setting it off at the start is a good idea as un-soaked wild rice takes around 40 mins to cook. Fortunately I was prepared and had soaked mine for 4 hours prior so only 20 mins were needed.

The usual prep is needed for a snipe, plucking feathers, removing feet, removing the head, clipping the wings. Obviously you only need to take the feathers off the breast when you only want the breast meat. If you don't want to eat the entrails (internal organs) then you can just draw the bird fully, however if you want the entrails then you need to pop your fingers into the chest cavity and remove the gizzard which is the hard gritty sack.

Roast snipe
Snipe being a small bird takes no cooking at all. To roast a snipe simply put the bird into an oven-proof dish with a little water in the bottom and rub it with butter. Pre-heat the oven to as hot as it will go.

If the legs keep dropping down I find that cutting the beak off works as as a pretty good skewer to thread between the legs as you can see in the picture.

I took the entrails out of mine but it is well known to leave them in the bird and then scrape them out onto toast when removing from the oven.

Pop the bird into the oven for 10 to 15 mins.

Pan fried snipe breasts
Once you have removed the breasts the cooking time for these in a fairly hot pan is about two minutes each side if you like them nice and pink. I did these in a little butter with some salt and pepper.

Pan fried snipe entrails
Fir the entrails I waited until just as the breasts were about to finish, popped the breasts in with the bird for the final minute and put the entrails into the pan and broke them down as they cooked with a fork. When finished remove them from the pan and ensure they are broken down and spread them onto some toast.


To accompany
I prepared a bed of 50/50 wild rice and long grain rice, boiled and then just as the snipe entrails were about to finish I popped some chopped chestnut mushrooms into the pan to soak up the juices, popped in the drained rice  which had been boiling all the time and a little of the water and let that cook while I prepared the snipe.

So with a few blobs of entrails on the toast I popped a breast on top of each, removed the rice from the pan to make a base and placed the toast and breasts on the side. Removed the roasted bird from the oven and placed that on the middle. Finally to finish off as it is such a rich little bird I drizzled a little balsamic reduction over the breasts.

As small as they look it is a rich dish and with the healthy addition of rice it was quite filling.

A very rewarding dish from start to finish!!

Water Fast Day 6 - back to work.

First real day back to work and being in contact with clients finally.

My Day
My day started at 7am, an hour later than I should have got up as I didn't have my alarm clock on. I was at the computer by 7:30 as one of my vivid dreams last night was the solution to some code I was struggling with yesterday so I wanted to get that coded up before I forgot.

My physical and mental being.
I feel much better than yesterday, although it was nice to see new people I felt quite drained at not getting the "How to's" done and didn't have much motivation and went to bed contemplating breaking the fast.

Today however I feel great again, the code didn't take long to do and I already have the day mapped out, mainly calling clients to wish them a happy new year and see if there is anything urgent.

Lunchtime came and went without a hitch, been to the chiro this morning too and still felt great, considering I was on the brink of ending the fast yesterday and although today has been OK I'd like to get back to my normal energy levels and deal with stress a bit better seems as I have client meetings this week.

We shall see in the morning .....

Water Fast Day 5

I forgot to do this entry yesterday as I am now at the morning of day six, however I shall just skim over the memories of yesterday.

I felt much the same in that I still ached a bit in my legs, my thoughts were clear and food was a nice thought but no hunger was present. Also still damn cold!

The morning I had planned on starting work as I was wanting to write some "How to's" for the systems I develop to help customers understand the importance of nurturing the systems which I was hoping to start on at 10am. As it was we had visitors at 11 so the morning was made up of cleaning and moving things around and training the dogs. No sooner had I sat down than It was time to put the pooches in the van and go back in the house, which at the time I felt quite happy about but by the time I had actually sat down to start work it was 1pm and I just felt complete frustration. Usually I would have overcome that and ploughed through my work but just couldn't. I ended up doing a total of 2 hours constructive work and packing it in at 5pm in exchange for doing some research.

I learnt that it is quite true what the blogs I have seen say about fasting, I certainly don't cope well with emotions when on a fast, giving into frustration and also when I couldn't figure some sections of code out I felt pretty stressed and couldn't shake it.

So I went back into the house and carried on studying about running a smallholding. It still makes me smile now how you crave food so much when not fasting just because it is a channel for emotions. Whereas you really should be getting the emotion from something else and not making an attachment to that emotion through food.

In the end I went to bed at 8pm and had a relatively good night sleep, other than some mad vivid dreams and one lucid one which was a first for me. Shame the subjects were not good ones.

Water Fast Day 4 - Ketosis Central

Today has been nothing short of awesome and I feel great and mentally alert, still damn cold but as mother dear always says "Stick some more clothes on"

My day

I started with an appointment with the bank at 9am, being a little early we sat in a coffee shop, surrounded by lovely brownies and chocolates and the inviting smell of freshly ground coffee. The smells were amazing, I feel that my smell is much better, either that or I am noticing the smell of food and drink more. The walk to the bank was just as wonderful, with the smells of bacon sandwiches, fresh roast chickens from delis along the high street. One thing I did notice was that although it smelt wonderful, I had stopped craving the food but just thought that it would taste lovely.

While I was in town I did a bit of shopping, went to get the new smallholding magazine along with some books and a ketone testing kit. I figured at this point my body must have used all it's glycogen stores and gone into ketosis or at least be on the way. As you can see from the test above I have already reached it, which explains the reduced cravings.

When I was leaving a shop I let a nice lady through a door, tipped my hat to her and wished her good morning.

20 minutes later while looking at some books she appeared with her husband in the same shop as I. Whilst contemplating which books I should choose she opened her wallet, smiled, and passed me over a £5 voucher for the store which was valid until the 10th but insisted I take it. I found that bit of karma really set my day up and felt really good all day.

The rest of the day was just walking and training the dogs and about 5 hours of programming.

My general physical feeling

I am still cold but becoming used to it now, this morning I walked the dogs with just a jumper and t-shirt on, the temperature is about 7C. My hands are constantly cold, although I have done a lot of typing this afternoon so my arms haven't moved.

Detox is still happening, white tongue and some achy limbs. The Ketosis test kit tested high this morning as you can see from the photo and is now at the top of the scale. Being in nutritional Ketosis theoretically should reduce hunger and that has definitely happened as I haven't had the usual argument with myself, trying to justify eating a grape or one small spoon of yogurt  It's amazing how you try to convince yourself that it will be OK, fortunately I never gave in to the strange wrangles.

I am definitely moving slower than usual, perhaps 10% slower, plus getting up from being sat down needs to take a touch longer, otherwise the low blood pressure sends me a bit dizzy. Did that once when shopping for books, first and last time I forget that rule!

Mentally I am clearer than usual and am not taking modalert through this fast so can definitely confirm that you do have clarity of mind, which is great seems as I have been programming this afternoon.

It's evening time now and I am probably going to get through 3 litres of water today, I feel so much more thirsty today.

Well, that's all for now folks, catch you on the flip side.....

Water Fast Day 3 - The cake climax

Another day, another bottle of water.

Mind you I could of murdered a cake last night. I have a weakness for Christmas cake and shortly after posting yesterdays blog a little voice from the kitchen asks "I've finished tea, can I come and sit on the sofa and eat my cake" closely followed by the wonderful vision of a plate of Christmas cake and a glass of Baileys. MMMMmmmm. That for me was the climax of my hunger!

Although it came close this morning while walking the dogs and a fellow dog walker turned the conversation onto bread and butter pudding. Needless to say I was very hungry this morning.

Not to mention our groceries were delivered this morning! They came while my other half was at work so I had to endure 6 bags of glorious food stashing . I then remembering the order from this morning "Feed the dogs the ham as it's only got a couple of days on the use by and I don't want it"... Now they know how it feels to have a 3rd party sit and salivate while you are eating. Needless to say neither of them offered me any and I tucked into another cup of tea.

All the usual detox signs are there especially last night. Every muscle in my body seemed to ache, the bed felt colder than usual to the point where I had to wear some clothes in bed. Fortunately I don't feel dizzy like previous fasts. My tongue is the usual white so there are still things making their way out of me at the moment.

I've tried something I read online the other day and done some exercise  just some sit ups and some push ups. What a difference that made! As tiring as it was (only 20 of each) I did feel a huge rush of energy and felt much better after them, so maybe I will do that a few times a day.

The rest of the day has been rather uneventful, spent most of it working on my own projects ready for the return to work next week and avoiding Facebook  just seems these days people use it to whine and talk to dead relatives, very strange. I have found one really awesome feelgood thing today which is  watching an fantastic 24 hour film online that constantly made me smile and gave me that warm happy feeling inside. http://24hoursofhappy.com/

Well that's nearly the end of day 3, nite all.....

Water fast day 2 - careful where you park!

It's a lovely day outside but my god it's cold (8 degrees C), not colder than normal but I am certainly feeling it more now my body temperature has dropped. I have done the usual couple of miles walk and some training with the dogs in the morning.

The rest of the day consisted of a few phone calls from the surveyors about the new house, some messing around on the internet and about half the day I spent working.

One question I keep asking of others that are fasting, is how their lifestyle differs, if at all from their normal one. There is no hard and fast rule about how you should live your life when on a fast but the more relaxed the better. Over the past few weeks I have spoke to many who have carried on working, although it may be worth pointing out that their work is much like mine, very little in the way of traveling and mainly sitting at a computer all day. Although there is a lot to be said doing a fast in a warmer climate, the days maybe longer but the warmth would be welcome.

Hunger has come over me in waves today. Parking outside a fish and chip shop this afternoon whilst taking some items to the Post Office wasn't the best idea I had, but it wasn't long before I was back home and treated myself to some ginger tea.

To sum up today i've been a touch hungry, a bit tired, aching legs and generally peaceful and calm.

Long Water Fast - Day 1

This is my personal diary into a long water fast, how long is yet to be seen although it will not last more than 22 days as I have to shoot on the 25th of the month and will need to be reasonably active that day. It is always best to pick a time where you are least stressed and considering that I will be moving to a new house in February I thought it best to do a fast now so I would be on top form for moving day.

I am not a religious person as someone asked today, my reason is simply one of detox. Previously fasts have proved to be beneficial with the best one curing me of urticaria which at the time I was taking 3 1-a-day hayfever tablets to keep it under control.

The Christmas break has certainly been one of indulgence and I'm not looking forward to the initial detox seems as yesterday's meals consisted of duck and noodles for lunch and a 1/2 pound cheeseburger with chips and a bottle of champagne. I hasten to add that yesterday bears no resemblance to my daily food and drink intake and anyone reading this should be aware that it is best to start a fast by earing healthy and less calorific meals on a run up to the fast.

It has been 24 hours since I have had any food, today has consisted of two cups of white tea and 1.5l of mineral water. Considering the amount I ate yesterday I would assume at this point I am burning the glycogen stored in my liver so should finish that store at some point in the night.

Feeling fine so far although i'm picking up on the smell of food more which is giving me pangs of hunger, hopefully by the time I return to work on Monday I should have overcome the tiredness and brain fog.

Happy New Year to one and all. x