Manhattan Cheeseburger

In one of the recent SW magazines there was a feature of American inspired recipes, and we really liked the look of this cheeseburger. A wholemeal roll as our HEb option, with the cheese from HEa - with loads of salad bits and sweet potato fries, yum yum yum!

And even better (probably) - the fact that we buried cheese into the middle of the beef burger so that when you cut it open, gooey melted cheese escaped out! Divine! With a trimmed bacon rasher and a good spoonful of our syn free barbecue sauce, this was a nicer burger than you'd ever get in a restaurant and we were thrilled we'd made it ourselves!

We <3 Slimming World!

Fish Fingers and Chips

After not being too happy with the Chinese take away imitation, I decided I wanted another treat. Fish fingers and chips!

I saw a piece of coley fillet on the clearance at the end of the day at the supermarket, and it was only £1.36! With delicious sweet potato chips (spiced with cayenne pepper), SW coleslaw and a green salad. Delicious! I used HEb wholemeal bread for the crust on the fish fingers (which I admit are more like fish nuggets?) after dipping them in egg. The coleslaw was the nicest we've made it - probably because this time we grated the cabbage as well as the carrot so it was finer - and the only difference for next time will be that I want to make the fries thinner! There will be a next time for sure!

I apologise for the dodgy photo, we just wanted to dive in!

Butternut Cottage Pie

The other night, instead of making the traditional cottage pie I decided I wanted to use the squash I had sat looking at me. I had planned to make a risotto - it was on the menu plan and everything! - and then at the last minute decided I didn't fancy that. I am fickle! Some brief Googling later and I came across the idea of using butternut squash as the topping for a cottage pie.

So I made my usual recipe cottage pie - extra lean mince, onion, chopped vegetables (frozen - I am also lazy!), stock, herbs - but instead of topping with mashed potato, I steamed cubed butternut squash for 25 minutes until soft enough to mash and used that instead! Finally put it in the oven for 20 minutes to brown the top - and I was really impressed!

A nice spinach side salad and it was lovely, and the butternut squash topping snuck an extra superfree vegetable in there over and above potatoes! 

And it got another thumbs up from the boy. Success!

Carbonara and Imam Bayildi

Savoury things are something I can easily neglect - my problem has always been the cakes, doughnuts, pastries, sweets of the world.

These are two of our most successful slimming world dinners of recent times - not perhaps beating the 'KFC' (of which there is a batch for 'nibbles' in my fridge 99% of the time!) but nonetheless, things we loved and were relatively easy.

Firstly, a friend recommended that carbonara made with Quark fat free soft cheese was indistinguishable from the full fat version, so we had to put this to the test. And since then we've had it several times - it's so quick to knock together after a full day at work and, more importantly, delicious! I'm sure there are recipes out there on the internet, but for ours I boiled pasta/spaghetti for however long stated on the packet, and whilst that was cooking fried off some extra trimmed bacon with an onion or two. I also mixed together in a jug a good heaped tablespoon of quark with two eggs, salt and pepper. When the pasta was done, I stirred the bacon into it with the creamy sauce mix, gave it a minute to warm through and served over some fresh spinach leaves. So good. Last time we had a more generic lettuce salad, and the sauce soaked into the leaves like a beautiful dressing. Perfect for that quick supper that doesn't leave you just making beans on toast!



Our second recent success is an Imam Bayildi. I have made this dish for years, ever since I had to present a dinner party at which several guests were vegetarian. I only remember that the cook book I used in the first place was full of garish photos - ever since then I've worked from memory (or experimentation, depending on who you've asked). This recipe is perhaps the most similar, though not Slimming World converted. For this dish, I also added a sausage for each of us, cut into pieces and served on top for 8.5syns each - which is a lot, but they're really delicious pork and leek ones from a local butcher! Worth it!
Aubergine are halved and then the soft inside flesh removed, leaving a shell about 1cm thick. Some prefer to cook the shells first - drop them into boiling water for about 5 minutes, and turn upside down to cool to help them retain their shape. The other way is to bake them with an amount of liquid in the bottom of the dish, which does mean baking them for longer but is generally a nicer result. In my opinion. Anyway. Make the stuffing sauce with fried onion, chopped tomatoes, plenty of herbs, any other vegetables you particularly enjoy (grated courgette can be nice, as can grated carrot), and add the chopped aubergine flesh, cooking down to make a thick rich sauce. Put it back into the shells and put them in a medium warm oven for about half an hour if you've pre-cooked the shells, an hour if you're putting some liquid in the basin with them in the oven. About half way through you will need to cover them to stop the tops burning, but remember to leave a little hole in the foil for the steam to escape.

Profiteroles

A long overdue post! With going up north for a family event, and other Life Stresses getting in the way, there's been a bit of radio silence over here - that needs stopping!

So two posts today, to make up for lost time!

Firstly, profiteroles. Adapted from this recipe for 1 Syn Cupcakes, which came out of the oven looking rather impressive. They rose like 'normal' cakes - I was rather dubious they might not get to that point.

As mentioned before, squirty cream is to me like a very legal drug. Low syn, makes everything feel like a proper treat. So it wasn't a long stretch to slice these babies open and squirt a little filling in, making them 1.5 syns each! Two on a plate with a couple of strawberries, yummy. And so easy!

Chicken Mustard Casserole

Turns out I was wrong, and my brother didn't insist on McDonald's! As we were walking and trying to decide, he volunteered Pizza Hut as his choice, which I politely suggested wasn't a good idea, and then he saw a Subway in the distance. Seeming to be the lesser evil, I thought that would be fine - but as we walked towards it, we saw a lovely little local cafe next door to it! Perfect!

I was planning on having a jacket potato with beans, but after ordering, the lady came back to the table and said "we've been so busy.. we've run out of beans... what else would you like?" and after a minor fluster, decided I could use cheese as my Healthy Extra 'A' and that'd be okay. I'm glad I did; I haven't had cheese in so long and it was delicious!

Dinner, though, was a whole new level of amazing. Boyfriend sounded like he was having a religious experience eating it! He said it was the best thing I've made from the Hamlyn All Colour Cookbooks: 200 Slow Cooker Recipes (though of course I Slimming World enhanced it) and I have to admit it was pretty special even if I say so myself!

Chicken drumsticks and thighs (skinless) were browned in a frying pan before going into the slow cooker. I then dropped half a leek in to the frying pan with some chopped bacon, added stock and three tablespoons of wholegrain mustard, brought to the boil then put that into the slow cooker too. I added baby new potatoes and cooked the whole thing on low for about 9 hours. When we got home from work, I added the other half of the leek and gave it 20 minutes to soften, then served with salad. The other half used his Healthy Extra 'B' wholemeal bread to mop up the sauce, too. The meat just falls off the bone, no effort involved, and it was sweet, sticky, om nom nom.

Later I boiled up the remaining sauce into a much thicker one, cooked some pasta and that's the basis of lunch today as a cold pasta salad. So it's frugal, too, in a way! We're not exactly on a high budget at the moment so most of what we're making is fairly cost efficient, budget brand, so I'm very proud that we're still eating such nice things. And, yesterday I treated myself to the Slimming World magazine which has a good 40 recipes in it, so we've plenty of ideas to be playing with!

ETA! Forgot to mention the Syns! The casserole would be just 0.5 syns per level tablespoon of mustard!

SW Chocolate Cake (Part 2)

After giving it a night in the fridge (which every recipe assured me was the right thing to do lest I be traumatised by the lingering flavour of kidney beans), we're now ready to present the Chocolate Cake!

One of my Facebook friends posted the recipe to this Healthy Chocolate Cake as a gluten free, low carb idea. From there, I ended up using this recipe from Eating Well Living Thin, and I worked out the Slimming World syn value for the ingredients given. By my reckoning, it's 31 for the whole cake - mine has cut into 12 generous slices but as it's so rich, you could easily serve smaller pieces. That made it a chocolate cake which looked very promising, for just 2.5 syns a slice! We couldn't resist trying it out.

Last night you saw the food processor full of gooey chocolatey goodness. Those of you lucky enough to be twitter friends of mine also got the bonus picture of my boyfriend - and this picture too, the product as it came out of the oven looking - much to my surprise, if I'm totally honest - like a real, normal, full fat chocolate cake! Risen tall, unexpectedly tall - with a cracked shell like a brownie. The whole flat smelt delicious. Our hopes were very high as I wrapped it in cling film, put it in the fridge and went to bed for the night, dreaming of soft, moist, creamy chocolatey cake crumbs!

It still smells good today, it definitely does have that going for it, though I can't say I'm 100% happy with the overall result. Have you ever had a bitter chocolate torte? It's reminding me of something I tasted in Austria, though I can't at all remember the name. It's got a beautiful moist texture, it's just very 'dark chocolate' when my palette is of course used to MILK and SUGAR and FAT and all the things we're trying to avoid at the moment! I think with a little more sweetener it would be magnificent, and we will be trying it again for sure - but I've already made some improvisations with what we've got.

Yesterday I was talking to the boyfriend about a craving for trifle, so I went hunting for syn free custard recipes (with custard being sugar, egg yolks and milk, I couldn't see that there would be syns involved - but I like to check these things against the greater knowledge of the Google masses!) - it turns out that my boyfriend doesn't actually like trifle, which put paid to that idea. (Next time he's on a conference I'm getting my sugar free jellies, SW custard, fresh berries, and making a trifle that will last all week. Probably. Unless I eat it in one night for dinner.) However! Not to be perturbed by his lack of enthusiasm, I made SW custard today and  had my slice of this cake with lashings of hot custard and a handful of soft raspberries. The sweetness of the custard and the fruit made this cake absolutely amazing. In my opinion, it just needed that little bit of extra sugar (or sugar substitute) to make it really sing - and boy am I glad I went with my instinct on that one. It was incredible. I'm now upset that I took a slice to my mother for her to try ("yes mum, I've made a cake with kidney beans in... no, it won't taste like kidney beans!") when it would have impressed her one hundred times more as a warm dessert with custard and fruit.

But you know me, so we're taking it one step further and trying another approach to getting my own way in the Menu War with my beloved boy - tonight's dessert is going to be chocolate cake and raspberry 'trifles' and the custard is setting as we speak. I hope it turns out as nicely as the hot dish! Plus, one slice of my cake created these two small trifle bowls - which makes this a 1 syn dessert! If you wanted to make it even more special, a bit of non branded low fat squirty cream on top would be but half a syn for 2 level tablespoonfuls making this into a really luscious party treat that you can 'afford' to have every day on Extra Easy!

I also treated myself to those little glass dishes from a charity shop recently and think they're delightful, so I imagine that when pudding is finished I will make us both wait to dive in whilst I take a series of artistic photographs. I'm sure you can't wait to see those tomorrow :P 

So far today has been a really good day - delicious fruit breakfast, a second batch of the 'KFC' chicken made for lunch (and totally demolished, given that I then had to make a special trip to his workplace to deliver it to him still-warm) and a dinner that I've not made in a long time - Imam Bayildi, made 'my' way, with a sneaky sausage in there too using a few more of our syns and getting things out of the freezer ready to be replaced with bags of frozen vegetables and other SW staples. Tuesday is a neglected day, I think, so I hope yours is shaping up as nicely as mine has.

Chocolate Cake?!

Yes indeed, my friends! We are making chocolate cake whilst on a healthy eating plan. It can be done (...we think..!)

In the terrible little teaser photo, you can see two things of note:

1. Our blender is older than we are. And yellow.
2. It looks just like 'real' chocolate cake mix (ie yummy)

Stay tuned! Full reveal - including the all important tasting! - and recipe tomorrow! :)

And for the record, that's not my hand!

SW Rice Pudding

Rice pudding! Syn free! Yum!

I'm calling it a success, at least, anyway. A combination of this Scottish Mum recipe and iVillage ideas for SW rice pudding recipes but with, as ever, a few ideas of my own thrown into the mix!

It's not as creamy as I might have liked, but I only had long grain rice in the cupboard - pudding rice is shorter and starchier, I believe, and that's part of what contributes to the creamy texture. Next time I'll use the right kind of rice and mess around with the sweetening - there are two kinds of artificial sweetener, I'm told, and one of them doesn't heat very well! So even with putting 7tbsps of sweetener into the mix, by the time it cooks to completion it's got very little sweetness at all. I added another tablespoonful when I served it, which was nice. I also followed the advice of one of the iVillage posts and added a spoonful of yoghurt to help the creaminess - definitely would like to try it in the future with some flavoured Mullerlights, or frozen fruit... but today, for now, the traditional: nutmeg and a dash of ginger, with a little lemon to complement the yoghurt creamy-smooth-sour-ness!

300g of long grain rice, 3/4pint of milk, 3/4 pint water, and sweetener, in the slow cooker on high for 3 hours. The recipes using pudding rice called for 4 oz, which I believe is about 100g. I would ordinarily add the nutmeg and some cinnamon into the cooking mix so the flavour really permeates, and will do that next time - today I wanted a blank canvas so I could experiment at the end.

And it was not bad at all. This Slimming World thing isn't so hard, eh? (Unless you're me, and forgot the last time you tried to make rice in the slow cooker, and how it sticks something chronic. Washing that is going to be FUN.)

Slimming World 'KFC'

Several Good Things happened today! Or rather, some 'things' (neutral) happened but we make the positive spin ;P

One genuine real good thing! I had another three hours work on my tattoo - we were going to finish it today as it doesn't need a lot more (some final shading to the mandala and the birds) but I had a funny low sugar turn and got very faint, causing an unplanned break, and my wonderful artist was himself exhausted and suggested we finish it off when he's refreshed rather than just power through. So stopping suited both of us. 

There's a whole story attached to it, but I'll save that for another time. The short hair is also new this week, and I love it! I feel cute and feisty and a bit more like myself again. My previous growing-out style was doing nothing for me; this definitely is. I love it. 

But as to the topic of this post, and the more relevant information for this blog!

Tonight we made SW 'KFC' - and believe me when I say it is incredible. I possibly even liked it more than actual KFC - made all the better by knowing it's almost free! The only countable elements are the breadcrumbs - made from your HE-B it's your fibre choice for the day, or if not then I believe you just need to syn the bread. 

We googled of a recipe then made adjustments based on what we had in the cupboards. Cut chicken into goujons (or use drumsticks as per your preference). Mix one beaten egg with some chicken Bovril paste (or Marmite!) and a selection of spices, then dip your chicken first into this gloopy sludge then into breadcrumbs. Bake in a hot oven (225^ ish) for 15-20minutes, until golden and crispy. 

SO GOOD. We had ours with SW chips, green salad and a low fat coleslaw - SW coleslaw is also rather good. 

Yum yum yum! This is definitely going into our regular recipes!