Broad Bean and Courgette Pilaf (Syn Free)

This is a lovely recipe I modified from the new Slimming World cook book ‘Free Food Deasts’. The original called for Saffron (am I made of money?) and Quails eggs (Tesco doesn’t do that!). I switched out the Saffron, which was only being used for colouring!! to Tumeric, which has fantastic health benefits, not least it’s anti inflammatory properties. I also switched the quails eggs to standard hens, which work just as well and less fiddly to peel. Bonus: scroll to the bottom for how I cook my boiled eggs for runny yolks everytime!

Hope you try and enjoy it as much as we did, let me know in the comments…

Serves 4

Ingredients:

1 cal cooking spray

2 onions, peeled and finely sliced

4 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped

200 g frozen broad beans

1 tbsp turmeric

1 tsp cardamom seeds, crushed

2 cinnamon stick or 1/2 tsp cinnamon if you don’t have the sticks

200 g baby courgettes, cut into disks. I only had big courgette so cut into bite sized chunks

900 mL vegetable stock, prepared as per instructions

350 g dried long grain rice

Small bunch of fresh corriander

100 g pomegranate seeds (if you have them, I didn’t)

4 eggs, boiled to how you like them*

Method

1. Boil a large pan of water over a high heat. When boiled add the broad beans and turn the heat low and simmer for 3 to 4 minutes. Drain, cool and set aside.
2. Place the turmeric and stock in a small sauce pan and simmer over a medium heat.
3. Spray a sauce pan with 1 cal spray and place over a medium heat. Fry the onions and garlic for 3 to 4 minutes. Add a small splash of stock if the onions and garlic start to stick.
4. Add the cardamom seeds, cinnamon sticks, courgettes and rice. Mix well.
5. Add the turmeric infused stock to the rice, season to taste and bring to the boil over a high heat.
6. Stir in the broadbeans, cover tightly and reduce the heat to low and cook for 15 minutes without lifting the lid.
7. Remove from the heat and leave to stand for a further 15 minutes, still covered.
8. At this point prepare your boiled eggs, I do mine about 5 minutes before the end of the cooling and peel them ready for plating.
9. Remove the lid from the pan and fluff up the rice grains with a fork.
10. Serve immediately with pomegranate scattered on top and halved boiled eggs.

*Okay, so I’m not about to tell you how to cook an egg! But here is what I do for eggs that I like, that is oozy yolks and firm whites.

1. Don’t use eggs from the fridge, always have them at room temparture this stops them cracking horribly.
2. Bring a pan of water to the boil, with 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda (to help with peeling).
3. When the pan is bubbling away nicely, lower your eggs and immediately set the timer for 3.5 minutes.
4. As soon as time is up, quickly take the eggs from the pan and add to cold water to stop them cooking further.
5. Hit them gently with the back of a spoon and start peeling, using the membrane makes the shell come off easier in one big piece and doesn’t  leave you with a scrappy looking egg.

 

Peppercorn Steak with Rainbow Vegetable Medley (Syn Free)

I used to think healthy eating didn’t include steak. How wrong was I? This healthy steak has a wonderful kick of heat from the peppercorns and is accompanied by a a fantastically attractive roasted vegetable medley.

Serves 2

Ingredients:

2 fillet steaks, trimmed of all visible fat

0 cal cooking spray

1 tbsp mixed peppercorns, crushed

1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce

1 res pepper, deseeded and diced (I think a yellow one as well would look great too!)

1 courgette, diced

1/2 aubergine, diced

1 red onion, diced

2 tbsp dried rosemary

Method:

1. Mix the peppercorns and Worcestershire sauce and pour over the steaks, allowing to marinate for at least 2 hours, longer is better!
2. Preheat oven to 200ºC and line a baking tray with parchement.
3. Arrange all the vegetable on the baking tray, spray 0 cal cooking spray over the vegetables, season and sprinkle the dried rosemary over the vegetables. Roast for 20 minutes.
4. About 5 minutes before the vegetable are cooked, spray the steaks with 0 cal cooking spray and heat a non stick fry pan until hot. Cook the steaks to you’re liking, I prefer around 2 minutes per side for quite a bloody steak. Adjust timings to how you like you’re steaks.
5. Allow the steaks to rest for a minute while you heap the vegetable on your plate, then top with steak. Delicous.

Sweet Chilli Dipping Sauce (1.5 syns pet serving)

I made some lovely thai inspired dumplings the other day and needed a sweet chilli dipping sauce, but struggled to find a low syn version.

Nearly giving up, I decided instead to modify a recipe from the Slimming World website for sweet and sour by removing the pineapple (Suzanne says pineapple has no reason being in authentic sweet and sour anyway, being Chinese I trust her judgement) and also swapping the red pepper for fresh chilli.

One portion is 1.5 syns, but who has just 1 portion?

Serves 4

Ingredients

5 tbsp vegetable stock, prepared as per instructions
2 tbsp light soy sauce
1 tbsp rice wine vinegar (use white wine vinegar if you don’t have it)
Just from 2 large oranges
1 tbsp tomato puree
1 red chilli, finely chopped (if you really can’t stand the heat, remove the seeds… but I will judge you 😝)
1 level tsp cornflour

Method

1. Place the juice into a pan with the stock, soy sauce, vinegar, sweetener, tomato purée and chilli. Bring to the boil and simmer gently.
2. Mix the cornflour with 2 teaspoons of water until smooth and stir into sauce.
3. Leave to cool and dip anything and everything in this sticky, sweet delicious sauce.

Thai Pork and Prawn Dumplings (Syn Free)

These dumplings have all the flavour of traditional Thai dumplings but are much healthier as they are baked and not deep fried. I ate these with rice and stir fried veggies, but I can imagine they would work equally well on a party buffet.

Makes 20 individual dumplings

Ingredients

250g lean minced pork ( less than 5% fat)

250g raw tiger prawns, roughly chopped

8 spring onions, trimmed and finely chopped

A handful of chopped chives

4 cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed

4 cm stick of ginger, peeled and finely chopped

1 tbsp light soy sauce

1/2 a stick of lemon grass, finely chopped

1 small chilli, de seeded and finely chopped

0 cal cooking spray

 

Method:

1. Place the pork, prawns, spring onions, chives, garlic, ginger, soy sauce, lemon grass and green chillis in a food processor and process until fairly smooth. Transfer to a bowl and leave to chill for a few hour to firm up.
2. Preheat an oven to 200ºC and line a baking sheet.
3. Divide and roll the mixture into equal dumpling sized balls (approximately 20 individual dumplings) and transfer to the baking sheet.
4. Spray the dumplings lightly with 0% cal cooking spray and bake in the oven for 20 minutes or until thoroughly cooked.
5. Pairing with this sweet chilli sauce is a must.

 

 

Roasted Yellow Pepper Soup (Syn free)

This is a suprisingly complex soup, using basil, roasted tomatoes and roasted garlic. The roasted garlic and soy sauce darken the soup, so it isn’t as vibrant but is very tasty all the same. Totally syn free too, so enjoy to your hearts content.

 

Serves 4

Ingredients:

6 large yellow peppers, halved and deseeded
10 plum tomatoes, halved
6 garlic cloves
2 tbsp light soy sauce
A small bunch of fresh basil
300 mL vegetable stock, made up as per instructions

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C.
2. Place the halved cut down on a baking tray and roast for 15 minutes.
3. To the roasting tray add the tomatoes and garlic cloves and roast for an additional 30 minutes.
4. Remove the baking tray and place the still hot peppers in a sandwich/ zip lock back for 5 minutes. This will make removing the skin from the peppers really easy as the condesation will have loosened the skin.
5. Place the skinless peppers, basil, spy sauce and roasted tomatoes in a large pan with the stock and carefully pop the garlic cloves from the skins into the soup.
6. Bring to boil, then remove from the heat.
7. Blend the soup using a stick blender and season to taste. Serve immediately.

Courgette and Mint Soup (Syn Free)

Another Hulk green soup. This tastes amazing, is soup-er quick and is totally syn free. Perfection in a bowl!

Serves 4

Ingredients:

1 large onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, smashed
4 large courgette, roughly grated (I spiralised mine because I bought a spiraliser and I’m in love with it!)
1L vegetable stock, made up as per instructions
Large bunch of fresh mint, roughly chopped
2 Tbsp 0% fat natural yogurt

Method:

1. Place the onion, courgette, garlic and stock in a large sauce pan over a high heat and bring to the boil.
2. Reduce the heat and simmer for 10 minutes.
3. Using a stick blender process to your desired consistency  (I like some courgette to reman intact).
4. Season to taste and serve in bowls with a good dollop of natural yoghurt.

Quorn Goulash (Syn Free)

I spent a wonderful time with my fiancée in Prague over New Year and was surrounded by delicious food at their huge Christmas market. One of my favourites was goulash served in a hollowed out loaf of bread, which was extremely ‘syn-ful’.

Recently I started craving the deliciously warm and comforting goulash, but decided to give it a syn free and vegetarian twist.

Makes enough for 4

Ingredients:

1 x 300 g bag of Quorn steak strips

1 x large onion, peeled and finely chopped

1 x 400g can of chopped tomatoes

250 g mushrooms, thickly sliced

2 red peppers, diced

3 tbsp of smoked paprika

0.5 tsp caraway seeds

1 tbsp mixed herbs

100 g 0% fat fromage frais

Salt and pepper to taste

Method:

1. Place tomatoes, onions and herbs and spices into a large sauce pan over a high heat and bring to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for 10 minutes.
2. Add the mushrooms, peppers and Quorn steak strips and cook for a further 20 minutes.
3. Beat the fromage frais and pour over the goulash and serve immediately with boiled rice or your choice of free veggies if following SP.

KFCish Baked Chicken (3 Syns or 0.5 HexB)

Ah, Valentines day! A romantic day to say how much you love your partner or a money making scam, where the only winners are the card shops? Suzanne and I are more in the first category, but ultimately we are massive romantics, which is why each year we celebrate Valentines day in our own special way. Usually by making each other cards, watching non-romantic films (last year we did the entire Hobbit trilogy and the year before a Thai horror film called Shutter!) and eating a bucket of fried chicken.

This year, we decided early on we wanted to do the same as previous years, but with us both trying to eat healthy we looked for an alternative. Luckily I saw in a Slimming World cook book, ‘Fake Aways’ an interesting idea for KFC styled chicken that was baked and not fried. I decided to go one step further and hunt out the Colonel secret recipe. You’ve got to try this, it tasted as good as the real thing but without the grease, sticky hands and self loathing that comes from visiting the real KFC!

Serves 2, especially with syn free baked beans and skinny fries.

Ingredients:

2 chicken breasts, cut lengthways into  4 strips

2 slices of wholemeal bread (400g loaf)

1 Egg, beaten

2 tbsp paprika

1 tbsp onion salt

1 tsp celery salt

1 tsp dried sage

1 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp allspice

1 tsp ground oregano

1 tsp chili powder

1 tsp black pepper

1 tsp dried basil

1 tsp dried marjoram

Method

1. Pre heat the oven to 200°C
2. Tear the bread into strips and place in a food processor and pulse until it becomes fine crumbs.
3. Add the spices and pulse until combined, transfer the seasoned breadcrumbs to a dish.
4. Dip the chicken strips into the egg to coat followed by the breadcrumbs, ensuring an even coating.
5. Bake for 15 minutes, then turn and bake for 15 minutes more. Keep turning until the breadcrumbs are nice and dry and forming a delicious crust.
6. Serve with Slimming World fries and baked beans

You can mix and match the herbs and spices to your own taste. Please let me know if you’ve tried this and how it is was.

 

 

Courgette and Fish Curry (Syn Free)

I love to cook curry, but this one is by far the quickest I’ve ever done. It uses frozen fish, so it doesn’t even require much preparation.

I use this special curry powder from Malaysia that my Fiancée gets sent from her mom, but absolutely any curry powder will do.

Serves 4, if served with rice or 2 on its own

Ingredients:

Ingredients

1 large onion, peeled and finely diced

4 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed

Thumb sized piece if ginger, peeled and finely chopped

1 chilli, deseeded and finely sliced

2 tbsp curry powder

200 ml vegetable stock, made up as per instructions

250 g baby courgettes, cut into quarters lengthways

6 cherry tomatoes, halved

400 ml passata

200 g 0% fromage frais

Small bunch of fresh coriander, finely chopped

2 fresh mint leaves, finely chopped

2 large frozen fish fillets

Method:

1. Place the onion, garlic, ginger, chilli, curry powder and stock in wok or large non stick sauce pan.
2. Bring to the boil over a high heat, then reduce the heat to low and simmer for 5 minutes.
3. Add the courgettes, tomatoes and passata and bring back to the boil, then reduce the heat to low and simmer for 5 minutes.
4. Add the frozen fish fillets, bring back to the boil and simmer for another 15 minutes, until the fish is cooked through. If using fresh fish reduce the cooking time accordingly.
5. Stir in the chopped herbs and fromage frais, season with salt and pepper and serve immediately.