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Think you know Cottage Cheese? Think again! This NoBooksBlog has NOTHING to do with books...

COTTAGE CHEESE
I'm a big fan!
Recently, I realised just how much cottage cheese I actually eat.  I'd done a monthly shop, and ordered 24 tubs of cottage cheese, expecting it to last me for at least the first three weeks.  I used it all in 15 days haha Which I happened to mention during my weekly Slimming World group.  I'm a target member, but I attend weekly sessions at 7.30am on Wednesdays, as I am determined that I will NOT regain the weight I've lost, and view this as a lifelong dance now.  The consultant and other group members are all just fab, and I love our crack of dawn check in each week! 
So, after this revelation, a couple of folk joked that I should write a blog about my cottage cheese consumption, and I thought "why the fuck not?!", so here it is! 
For 20 odd years, I've regularly snacked on hard boiled eggs, chopped up through a tub of cottage cheese. Not a 'diet' thing, just something I like.  Mostly I nom it straight from the bowl, but I also use it as a baked tattie topping, or have with a big plate of salad. 
I pretty much always/only buy plain cottage cheese.  The flavoured ones are nice enough, but I can't make, like, ice cream, with chive flavoured cottage cheese haha So I keep a good stock of the plain stuff in, as it so readily takes on whatever flavours and seasonings you want it to. Also, I prefer Asda's own cottage cheese, but I more often shop at Tesco, so this week, it's all been Tesco's.  If you think you hate cottage cheese, I would urge you to a) try a different brand and b) try blending it until smooth.  If you still, really don't like it after trying that, then, yeah, fair enough, life's too short to keep trying a food you know you don't enjoy! But it's such a versatile ingredient to have in the fridge, it really is worth trying again, just to be sure you REALLY don't like it...
When I embarked on what was to become a rather epic fitness and weight loss journey, I made a point of trying to consistently up my protein intake.  I work out a lot.  I walk 8-10 miles most days, and do 10-15 pretty intense cardio classes a week, as well as a wee bit of weights and am generally just a very active person.  Almost none of us get enough protein, unless we're really trying, and even when tracking protein intake, it can still be quite difficult to hit the daily intake.  I don't eat meat, so my main sources of protein are eggs and dairy.  I've always preferred skimmed milk, not a fan of yogurt, and because I spent a couple of years shedding 10s 7lbs, I don't often eat cheese. I do use meat replacement products occasionally, but not enough to rely on those for protein. 
It varies person to person, based on weight and dietary aims, but I personally shoot for, at the very least, 50g protein a day. Not so much for 'diety' reasons, more just because that's a good minimum amount, for my body to stay strong and perform well - protein is the building block of pretty much everything, it is what repairs muscle tears, stokes your immune system and helps your body stay strong and perform well.
This is not a recipe page, or diet blog.  I've not done anything fancy or out of the ordinary in the last few days, and there's other things I use CC for that I haven't made this week, so it's not even close to a comprehensive list, but, just for shits & giggles, here's every time I've eaten it, in the last 7 days....enjoy!

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Straight home from group, just before 9am, and time for something to eat, before I headed to my desk.  This is the most basic, absolute staple way that I eat cottage cheese.  Simply 3 hard boiled eggs, chopped up and stirred through a tub of cc, with a wee bit of black pepper. I'll do the maths here, cos I cba doing it all the way through. One tub of cc gives me 26.7g of protein, and three eggs is around 18g, so this one snack gives me 44.7g, almost my daily target. 

This, and variations of this, is almost a daily eat for me. 

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As an aside, I don't know the last time I actually 'boiled' an egg, and I eat eggs every day.  Actually, as a further aside, here's how many eggs I've eaten since Christmas - I only know, because I keep the egg boxes for a pal who has hens, plus Mr No Books hates eggs, so these are genuinely all in ma belly :P 

Anyway, yeah, if I'm having 'boiled' eggs, I almost always airfry them. I have a very basic air fryer, no buttons, just a timer type dial. I place the eggs straight in to the air fryer, and turn the dial to 135° and roughly 13 minutes, which gives me a hard boiled egg.  About 11 minutes usually gives me a slightly jammy hard boiled egg.  No faffing with watching a saucepan and tripping over dogs with boiling water in my hand. I've done this pretty much daily for about 18 months, and I've only ever had one egg split in that time.  Well, it exploded, tbf, but literally only 1 egg out of thousands. Total game changer for me.  And they often seem easier to peel, than when boiled in water, but that might just be fluke. 

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For my evening meal that night, I had tatties to use up, so I parboiled and sliced them, and used a tub of cottage cheese, blended smooth, with a couple of eggs.  Added lots of garlic, bit of salt, bit of mustard powder, shoved it in the oven and made something vaguely potato dauphinoise. Another staple. 

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Next day, a pasta salad was what I was fancying. I often use blended cottage cheese as a salad dressing (literally just blitz a tub of cc with your stick blender, adding whatever flavours you want), but today I still had tatties needing used, so I made a tattie salad to go with my pasta salad - yup, no such thing as cutting carbs in my life! So I blitzed cc with a good splash of lemon juice, more garlic, dried basil, touch of Worcestershire and mustard. Gorgeous tattie salad. 

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I fancied something sweet, just before bed, so out came the cc, and I blended it with some sweetener and some strawberry protein powder. Not a million miles away from Angel Delight. And I remembered I had pomegranate in the freezer, so chucked some of that on top. I ate this just as is, but you can also freeze for a couple of hours, for quite a decedent version of ice cream. 

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Another staple. This isn't low carb, low syn or low calorie - I really meant it when I said this isn't a diet blog, so don't come at me, I'm genuinely just sharing how I've used cc this week!  This is one of my faves.  It's kind of a pizza, but I don't really like pizza, and this, to me, is WAY tastier than any pizza. But if you're in to pizza, you'll probably like this too.  I make a super simple dough, which I use as this pizza type base, but also can be used like a flat bread, or a naan, I've even filled it and steamed it like little boa buns.  I did this one all in a dry frying pan, but you can oven it, and stuff the crusts with cheese, if you wish. Tub of cc, blended until smooth, and roughly the same weight of flour worked in until it comes together in a ball. You can add garlic, almond, coconut, whatever will go with your meal. Knead until smooth and roll out to your desired thickness.  Then bake or fry, turnover and add your toppings.  This one was spread with cream cheese and the topping was a whole bag of frozen red onion, which I'd slowly caramalised down earlier in the day, with a good glug of balsamic vinegar and tablespoon of sugar. Absolutely divine! 

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Back to the ol' faithful, just eggs and cc, and today I added less than a tablespooon of sweet chilli sauce.  Straight from bowl to belly, nom. A few months ago, I was out for lunch and 'healthy' options were limited.  I thought, ahh, I'll have an egg mayo sarnie, that'll be a lovely treat, haven't had real egg mayo for a couple of years. Yeah, nah, it was a real let down, I far prefer this 'not egg mayo' concoction, to real egg mayo! I thought I'd picked this up from when I first did SW, many years ago, but recent conversations haven't rung any bells with fellow members or my consultant, so maybe it was never anything to do with a 'diet' and just something I stumbled upon and adopted as my go-to! 

•••

Fancied a wee sweet something late last night. Ice cream in bed? yes please! 
So I blitzed a tub of cottage cheese with 22gm of instant hot chocolate powder and a wee bit of sweetener.  Shoved it in the freezer for a wee while, maybe about 90mins, and took it up to bed to eat whilst watching Family Guy :) 

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After the gym this morning, I was fancying something quick to make and eat, but with a good bit of sustenance.  Cottage Cheese Things it was!  I don't know when or where I first came upon this recipe, and, I must admit it's quite random, even for me, but these are another thing I make variations of. Sometimes sweet, sometimes savoury, sometimes more like muffins, sometimes more like scones.  It's another 'base' mix that you can adapt in loads of ways. I know this list of ingredients seems weird, but it works, OK! haha
125g porridge oats, blitzed until almost a flour consistency
125g cottage cheese, blitzed until smooth
1 teaspoon baking powder
a splash of diet Irn Bru, just to let it down to a doughy consistency.
You can use lemonade, water, whatever you've got. I was drinking bru at the time, so that did fine. 
Shove in the oven on 180 until they seem done. Leave to cool (I prefer them almost cold). A satisfying bite on the outside and a lovely, fluffy inside. today, I spread them with cream cheese, as I ate the lot over the sink haha

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Whilst the oven was on, I chucked together a crustless quiche for tonight's dinner.  I fried off a whole bag of frozen mushroom and about half an onion, and then blitzed...can you guess...a tub of cottage cheese, with three eggs and a generous spoon of lazy garlic, to make a savoury custard, poured it over and chucked it in for about 20 mins at 180. I might reheat it later, or I might have it cold, depends what time I eventually surface from the office!

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And so concludes my week in cottage cheese! 
I do loads of other things with it too, but this blog came about after a couple of tongue in cheek requests during last week's Slimming World session! 
I'm just a normal person.  Some of these uses are very low fat, low syn, low sugar, low carb. Others are high in one or all of those things!  If you want to know calories and macros, ask Google.  If you want to know a few different ways to use this King of ingredients in your repertoire - I hope I've helped! 
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Are you a cottage cheese fan?
What are your go to uses for it?  I'd love to know!
Or does the mere thought of cottage cheese give you the boke?! 

6 comments

  • Hey Marion, congrats, fellow Target member! Definitely helps to keep things fresh, I think, so glad you’ve got a few ideas from here! Blueberry ice cream sounds scrummy!!! ~ Jo

    Jo from NoBooksWereHarmed.co.uk
  • Ahh thanks Fiona! Very kind of you ♥ ~ Jo

    Jo from NoBooksWereHarmed.co.uk
  • Hi Jo,
    I’m a target member in buckie class and Dawn has mentioned you re.cottage cheese in meetings a few times.I loved this blog and will experiment more.Yesterday I made blueberry ice cream with cottage cheese ,it was more like sorbet but lovely.Keep the blogs coming your inspirational when we’re all at the f… it im bored plateu kinda bit of journey.Off to buy more cottage cheese now I’m salivating ( no change there) 😅 Have a nice day at office x

    Marion Marshall
  • I go to the 9.30 group in Fochabers and your name has been mentioned a few times with regard to the amazing things you make with cottage cheese! Can’t wait to have a go at some of your recipes!
    Btw your books are beautiful! X

    Fiona Bruce
  • Ahhh Kirsty, thank you so much! I hope you have fun experimenting ♥ ~ Jo

    Jo from NoBooksWereHarmed.co.uk

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