Homemade taboulé (Syn free)

It has been a very hot day today, reminding me how I miss a good taboulé. In France, it's one of the most popular salad in summer.

So tonight, I decided to try to come with a recipe which would be as close as possible.

 

Taboulé recipe:

400gr couscous

500ml boilingwater

300gr tomato passata 

1/3 of a jar of syn free Colemans concentrated mint sauce 

Cherry tomatoes cut in quarters

Orange pepper bell

Weight your couscous in a plastic container, add your water, cover. Once ready fluff the couscous with a fork. Add the rest of the ingredients in the couscous and mix well. Refrigerate for a few hours. Taboulé is served very chilled.

If the taboulé is too dry for you, more passata and mint sauce can be added.

Tangtastic sweet Syn free

Tangtastic dandelion & burdock sweet

Syn free

 

Ingredients:

3 cup dandelion & burdock soda no added sugar

1/2 cup gelatine powder

2Tbsp Sukrin:1

3 tsp citric acid (I like my sweets to be very tart, if you want them to be less measure less acid)

1/ Pour the soda in a stainless steel pan and let it go flat.

2/ Add the gelatine powder and mix until the gelatine is dissolved.

3/Put pan on low heat and stir until the mix is at 60 degres Celsius.

4/ Take pan off the heat and let it cool down slightly.

5/ Once cooled, pour mixture in mold (I used two silicone round molds)

6/ Set in fridge, it took 1 hour for my two moods to be set properly.

7/ Cut sweets in the shape you want. In a plastic tub, mix the sweetener and the citric acid. add the cut sweets to it and shake until all the sweets are covered.

8/ keep in fridge up to a week.

Struggling

Been struggling a lot with snacking recently. It was not a major problem until last week, but it is one now.

Did some microwave crisps last night. I know it is a tweak but it's still better to have homemade ones than opening a pack of very fatty one. 

I had some salt and pepper mix left over from when I did Chinese. I sprinkled it on top of mandolined protatoes with fry light. 4.5 minutes for each plate in the microwave, checking at 2 minutes to make sure they were not burning.

 

Butternut squash and Bacon Soup

 

Butternut Squash and Bacon Soup

Syn free

Ingredients:

1 Medium Butternut Squash diced

1 Red onion diced

2 Garlic gloves crushed

2 carrots diced

1 Pak Choi diced

2 Chicken Stock Pot

1 litre of water

4 Smoked Bacon Medallions diced

Salt and pepper to taste

Add all the ingredients together, bring to the boil. Once boiling, reduce the heat and simmer for 30 minutes. Don't forget to stir time to time, and check the water level, if needed add a bit more water.

Take off the heat and blend until the soup is smooth. 

Serve a a swirl of fat free Greek yogurt or fromage blanc.

This soup is ideal for SP days and can be reheated.

Celebration the year of the Rooster

As yesterday we were celebrating Burn's night, we did Chinese New Year tonight.

I literally slaved in the kitchen all day to have a Chinese feast tonight. So much washing to do, even if I did it as I was going along, I have still two sinks full of it. Ah how I long for the good old days when I did not have to worry about getting a takeaway. Except than now when I see how many syns are in one I can feel my hips getting bigger.

On the menu tonight was:

Lemon chicken

 

Salt and pepper chicken

 

Vegetable stir fry

 

Fried rice 

All the recipes can be found on Pinch of Nom website 

Luxurious courgette lasagne

So tonight we are trying the new courgettes lasagne sheets from Sainsbury's.

The recipe is for 4 persons 

2.5 syns per portion if using the cheese as a Healthy Extra A

You need:

500gr 5% or less mince beef

1 red onion chopped

1 red pepper choppped

4 mushrooms sliced (I did not use the stalks)

4 garlic cloves crushed 

1 tin of chopped tomatoes

1 pack of passata 

2tsp of mixed herbs 

1 pack of 400gr courgettes lasagne sheets

250ml of  bisto white sauce (made with water and I added a bit of Xantham gum to thicken it a bit more)

160gr reduced fat cheddar

Salt and black pepper to taste

Frylight 

Fry the onion until soft in frylight.

Add the the mushrooms, red pepper and garlic, I cooked until the mushrooms were soft.

Add the mince beef and cook until browned. 

Add the tin of tomatoes, passata, herbs and seasoning to the pan. Simmer until the sauce is thick (remember that the courgettes lasagne sheets will release water in the sauce when cooking)

 

Prepare the white sauce as indicated on the bisto tin, add some xantham gum (sparingly) if you want it to be thicker.

Spray some frylight in an oven dish, layer the courgettes lasagne sheets, pour some mince beef mixture on top, I did add a thin layer of white sauce ( 4 Tbsp of it). 

 

Repeat until you have used all the courgettes sheets. Pour the left over white sauce on top of the courgettes lasagne sheets and cover with grated reduced fat cheddar.

 

 

Cook in a preheated oven at 180 degrees Celsius for 45 minutes.

 

Enjoy 😊 

Double sausage egg fake Mcmuffin

Really fancied a Mcmuffin today, but at more than 20 syns it's a big no no.

So I did one myself for 3 syns.

I used:

a Kingsmill whole meal roll (they are 68gr so used my healthy B and added 2 syns)

2 slices of Dairylea light

2 Quorn sausage patties (1 Syns for both)

2 eggs (I used egg mold to fry the eggs in shape)

1 sliver of ketchup (not synning this)

 

I'm not going to lie and say that it tasted exactly like a Mcmuffin because it did not. But saying that I loved it and i felt a bit fuller than after I ate a real Mcmuffin.

Loaded pizza

Did not feel like cooking today, so I did a loaded pizza.

I used my healthy B and A which means that it was syn free.

Yummy

1 Bfree Foods whole grain wrap healthy extra b

40gr of reduced fat cheddar healthy extra a

1x Yellow pepper

Half an onion

1Tbspoon sweet corn

A few mushroom sliced

Tomato purée for the base

And some ham

I cooked it in the oven at 180 between 5-10 minutes

Yummy toad

Pinch of Nom has a very nice recipe for toad in the hole. It was my first time ever cooking it.

I'm proud of how it turned out and it tasted lovely. Served 3 for 3 Syns per person

http://pinchofnom.com/recipes/low-syn-toad-in-the-hole-slimming-world/

Turkey stir fry

I gave my new spiralizer a good go and made ribbon out of courgettes, carrots and butternut squash. I had some turkey to be used in the freezer. I like stir fry but I found that most stir fry sauce have loads of syns and let's face it I'm more prepared to use them for treats than everyday food.
So I went to my favourite website at all he moment Pinch of Nom, and found one 2 syns for 4 people or 0.5 syn per person woohoo!!!
They call it the half syn hoisin chicken or in my case turkey
http://pinchofnom.com/recipes/half-syn-hoi-sin-chicken-slimming-world/
I used the very yummy PB2 (powdered peanut). It's so lush, made me realised how much I missed peanut butter. 1.5 tablespoons of the stuff is only 1.5 syns, mix it with water and it forms a peanut  paste.

Slimming World Lemon Curd

Free on Extra Easy

Ingredients:

• Lemon juice of 1 lemon or 50ml
• 2 Eggs
• 3 Tablespoons sweetner 
• 2 oz quark

1. In a glass bowl, whisk the lemon juice and the eggs together. Add the sweetener and whisk again (until the mix is foamy on top).
2. Put the bowl on top of a pan of boiling water (make sure the bottom of the bowl does not touch the water). Whisk the mix all the time until thickened (do not stop stirring otherwise the mix will scramble). Keep an eye on the water if it's too hot reduce the heat.
3. Take the bowl off the heat and stir in the quark.

The lemon curd keeps 5 days in the fridge, although with me it only lasted a day. 

Note: I tested the lemon curd before I added the quark and I liked it better. So next time I will not bother with it.

Yummy Dessert

Tonight, I had a nice treat for dessert, a lemon curd (syn free) roulade with raspberries. I did plan to have it as I cooked both the sponge and the lemon this morning.

It was absolutely lovely, so fresh and the lemon did cut the sweetness of the artificial sweetener.

I'll put the recipes for the syn free lemon curd and the 1/2 syn sponge on soon.

Savoury Mince

Serves 4

Free on Extra Easy

Ingredients:

• 500g Mince beef 5%
• 200g courgettes grated
• 500g Mixed vegetables frozen (I used carrots, green beans, peas and sweetcorn)
• 2 Large onions cut in small chunk
• 300ml Vegetable stock
• Herbes de Provence (I like them a lot so I put 1 teaspoon)
• Salt & Pepper

1. Heat a pan and spray it with Fry light. When the pan is hot throw the onion in and cook them until brown.
2. Add the mince, increase heat to high and quickly brown the meat (do not forget to stir frequently otherwise it will burn).
3. Pour in the stock, add the vegetables, the herbes and season. Bring to the boil and simmer until the stock reduces to a thick sauce.
4. Serve.

Marbled Mug Cake

Serves 1.5 Syns 

Free on Extra Easy

Ingredients:

• 2 Eggs medium
• 3 Tablespoons sweetener 
• 1 Teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 Teaspoons Choc Shot liquid chocolate

1. To do the first mix, add in a bowl 1 egg and 1.5 tablespoons of sweetner. Whisk until the egg mix is fluffy. Pour in the liquid chocolate, and whisk well
   
2. For the second mix, do the same but with vanilla instead of the chocolate.
3. In a mug pour the chocolate mixture first and then add the vanilla one slowly so you can see both colours in. 
   
   
   
4. Cook in the microwave until it's cooked. My microwave is a 800W and I timed it for 1.30 minutes. Serve on its own or with a mini pot of custard (don't forget to Syn it if you do).

Slimming World Heinz Like Tomato Soup

Serves 4 

Free on Extra Easy 

Ingredients:

• 2 Tins of chopped tomatoes
• 1 Tin carrots drained
• 1 Tin baked beans
• 1 Cube of Knorr chicken stock (I used low fat as it was the only ones I had in cupboard)
• 1/2 Pint water
• 1 Pickled onion cut in chunk

1. Add all ingredients together in soup maker, otherwise in pan. If you are using a soup maker I will suggest to blend the ingredients first as the beans have tendency to burn at the bottom.
2. Use the smooth cycle on the soup maker.
3. I blended a little bit more at the end to make sure the soup was very smooth.
4. Serve it as you like. If I'm fancy, I add a dollop of fat free fromage frais or some basil.

Chicken Tikka Masala

Serves 4 

Free on Extra Easy 

Ingredients:

• 2 Large onions cut in small chunks
• 750g Skinless chicken breast cut in chunks
• 3 Mixed pepper sliced
• 200g Courgette spaghetti
• 1 Tub of Slimming World spicy tikka masala sauce defrosted
• 1/2 Tub of water

1. Heat up a wok on high heat, spray some Fry light in it and throw the onions in. reduce heat to medium and stir frequently to avoid the onions to burn, if necessary add some more Fry light.
2. Increase the heat under the pan and add the chicken, stir until chicken is browned. reduce heat to medium and cook for 5 more minutes.
3. Pour the sauce and water in wok, stir in and bring to the boil. Once boiling throw in the vegetables and reduce heat to a simmer. Cook until chicken is cooked and sauce has thickened.
4. Serve with jasmine rice.