Curry Night!

We're having an Indian fakeaway extravaganza for tea tonight! On the menu is Tandoori Chicken Strips, Tikka Chicken Masala, Onion Bhajis, Mint Raita, Pilau Rice, Slimming World Chips and Salad! I told you it was an extravaganza!

The underlined dishes are the ones that follow below. It's a little time consuming, but absolutely worth the effort; I hope you enjoy it as much as we will!

Tandoori Chicken Strips


This one's fairly straight forward; I did some cheeky prawns in there too...

Pack chicken mini breast fillets
5 tblsp fat free natural yogurt
3 tblsp Tandoori Spice Mix
Juice 1 lime
2cm piece root ginger
1 chilli
2 cloves garlic
Few sprigs fresh coriander


1. Whizz the ginger, chilli, garlic and coriander until you have a paste.
2. Mix this paste with the garlic, tandoori spice mix and lime: I always use a resealable freezer bag for this.
3. Add the chicken fillets and scrunch them into the marinade.


4. Leave in the fridge for 2-3 hours.
5. When needed, take the chicken fillets out if the freezer bag and place on a baking tray covered in foil.
6. Cook in the oven for approximately 20 mins until the chicken is cooked through and the marinade has gone browned and sort of crumbly.

Chicken Tikka Masala


If you can marinade your chicken breasts overnight, it really does make a difference. If not, just get them in the marinade first for as long as you can.

For the marinade:
1 chicken breast per person, diced
5 tblsp fat free natural yogurt
2cm piece ginger, grated
3 tblsp Tikka Spice Mix
Juice 1 lime

Put all ingredients into a freezer bag and smush together.


Place in fridge until needed.

For the masala sauce:
2 onions, finely sliced
3cm piece root ginger
4 garlic cloves
1 chilli
2 tblsp tikka spice mix
2 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp onion (nigella) seeds
1 tsp mustard seeds
Half tube tomato purée
Small tub tomato passata (or whizz a tin of plum toms)
100ml water
1 tsp sweetener
Handful fresh coriander and 3 tblsp fat free natural yogurt to add before serving.
1. Whizz the ginger, garlic and chilli into a paste.
2. Brown onions in pan sprayed with fry light before reducing heat and softening onions (about 6 minutes)
3. Add the paste, tikka spice mix, cinnamon, cumin and onion and mustard seeds to the onions. Fry gently for 2-3 minutes.


4. Add the tomato purée to the pan and cook off for 2-3 minutes.
5. Add the tomato passata, water and sweetener. Season if required.


6. Simmer gently.

To serve:
1. Cook chicken pieces on a baking tray in oven or under grill until cooked through.
2. Warm sauce and add yogurt and chopped fresh coriander.
3. Stir cooked chicken pieces into sauce and serve with pilau rice.

Onion Bhajis


1 large/ 2 medium onions, thinly sliced
75g gram (chickpea) flour
2 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp coriander seeds, crushed
1 chilli, finely chopped
1 tblsp garam masala
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp black onion seeds
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp lemon juice
Salt and coarse ground black pepper to taste
Handful chopped fresh coriander

1. Place all dry ingredients in a bowl and combine well.


2. Add all other ingredients, including onions, and combine.


3. Add water a tablespoon at a time until a thick batter coats the onion.


4. Leave mixture to rest for at least 15 mins. Mix thoroughly again before forming individual Bhajis.
5. Preheat oven to 220c and line a baking tray with greaseproof paper.
6. Drop small mounds of mixture onto baking tray to give approx 12 bhajis (approx 1 syn each) and spray with fry light.


7. Bake for 15-20 mins til golden.

Serve immediately.

Mint Raita
This is my Dad's recipe, with a little Emma addition. Admittedly it's nicer with creamy full fat yogurt, but is still blooming delicious in a fat free version.

You will need:
1 small-ish red onion
1/2 cucumber
Handful fresh coriander
1/2 a big pot fat free natural yogurt
Tsp sweetener
Few sprigs fresh mint


Dead simple, just chop everything and mix it together!



Just eaten our 'feast' and I can confirm that it was absolutely outstanding! :-D
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Christmas Eve Treat: Healthier Salmon en Croute

Salmon en Croute

Stuff wrapped in pastry's always good, right? Not great for slimmers, though, unfortunately. As a treat for Christmas Eve I wanted to make us salmon en croute, so adapted a recipe to make it not quite Syn free, but an awful lot healthier than it would have been!

I bought a whole salmon and used one full side (skinned and boned), but you could always use smaller pieces and put them together, or make individual portions.

This is really simple - I promise - but super tasty.

Ingredients
Salmon Fillet
Filo pastry
Bag baby spinach
Bag watercress
Bag rocket
Sprig of dill
Tub low fat mascarpone
Small chilli (optional)
Few capers (optional)
Fry light
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

1. Place salmon on a sheet of greaseproof paper on a baking tray.

2. Spray with fry light and rub capers into top of salmon.

3. Pre cook in oven for about 10 minutes (you want the salmon to be about half cooked; this is because filo takes less time to cook than the traditional puff or shortcrust pastry)

4. Remove the salmon from the oven and allow to cool completely.



5. Place the mascarpone, rocket, watercress and spinach leaves, chilli, salt and pepper in a bowl and blend until you get a smooth green paste. Obviously you could do this in a mixer, but I don't have one!



6. Layer the filo on to a sheet of greaseproof paper, spraying with fry light in between each layer.

7. Place the cooled salmon carefully on top of the filo layers and pour half of the green mixture over the top.


8. Carefully fold each layer of filo over the salmon to create a neat, secure parcel.


9. Carefully cut a couple of slits in the top to allow steam to escape and stop your pastry going soggy. Give a final spray of fry light and bake in centre of oven for about 15 mins until pastry is golden.

10. Warm remaining green sauce and pour over salmon en croute to serve.
I'm serving with small potatoes, asparagus, channtenay carrots and roasted tomatoes. Yum!!!

N.B I've pre prepared mine ready for tomorrow night so I'll post the final picture after baking!

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Veggie Lasagne

This delicious lasagne is absolutely packed with superfree vegetables and features a free white sauce (provided cheese is used as healthy extra)

I LOVE lasagne, but struggled to see how it would be just as delicious without that creamy béchamel sauce and heaps of mozzarella. After a bit of internet searching and some experimenting, I stumbled upon this white sauce mixture. I was amazed at how creamy the ricotta makes it.

Add to this the fact that I've absolutely packed the red sauce with superfree vegetables, and used Quorn mince, this is a truly delicious but healthy lasagne recipe.

Serves 4 huge portions.




Ingredients

For Red Sauce
2 red onions
1 white onion
Fry light
1 courgette
1 aubergine
2 carrots
1 pepper
Punnet Mushrooms
Garlic to taste
1 chilli
Couple sprigs of rosemary
Tomato purée
2 tins chopped tomatoes
Stock cube
Bag of Quorn mince
Bag of spinach
Bunch fresh basil
Salt and pepper
Red wine (optional)

For the White Sauce
Small tub fat free cottage cheese
Tub fat free natural yogurt
Half tub ricotta (healthy extra)
1 egg
Fresh Nutmeg
Salt and pepper

Lasagne Sheets
Other half tub of ricotta
Parmesan Cheese for top

Method

To Make Red Sauce

Chop two red onions and one white. Fry off in a large pan sprayed with fry light until slightly brown.

Turn heat right down and sweat onions for five minutes until soft and translucent.


Chop a courgette into small pieces and add to softened onions.


Finely chop or grate a couple of carrots and add them to the pan, along with a finely chopped chilli.



Finely chop an aubergine and a yellow or red pepper - I wouldn't use a green one as they're quite bitter. Add these to veg in pan.



Slice as many mushrooms as you like - I use a whole punnet - and add these to the pan, along with some garlic (to your own taste: we like lots) and some fresh chopped rosemary leaves.



Give it all a good old stir and add salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste.



Once everything's nice and soft, I like to add a glug of red wine, but this step is optional. If you do add it, stir it in well and turn the heat up until the alcohol disappears.



Add about a third of a tube of tomato purée and cook it off for about 3 minutes. (This stops it from tasting bitter)



Add a bag of frozen quorn mince and two tins of tomatoes. Full one if the tomato tins about two thirds full with water and swirl around to get all tomatoey goodness. Pour into other tin and do same, then into pan and stir.

Chuck in a stock cube or stock pot and give it another stir.



Now for the magic part: slowly add a whole bag of spinach. You don't need to chop it or anything, just put it in a handful at a time and wait for it to disappear.



Magic!



Lastly add a good handful of chopped fresh basil and stir.



Put the lid on the pan and turn down as low as it'll go. Leave it for at least an hour simmering away, stirring every now and again.




To Make White Sauce
Mix all ingredients together in a bowl. Simple as that!




To Assemble
Assemble layers as follows:
red sauce,
lasagne,
white sauce,
lasagne etc
in a dish.


Finish with a white sauce layer and sprinkle with grated Parmesan and dollops of remaining ricotta.

Grate a little nutmeg on top.



Bake in middle of oven at 180* for about 25 minutes.

Serve with Slimming World chips and salad.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

New Directions

I'm having another bash at this blogging thing as changes in my lifestyle have meant that I've started to look at food and recipes in a new way.

I've always loved cooking - and I'm not too bad at it, if I do say so myself. Recently, however, I reached a turning point and knew something needed to be done about my weight. I'm not sharing numbers with you here...yet; I may share when I reach the end of my journey, I don't know.

It started when my size 20 clothes were starting to feel tight. Old, already stretched clothes. New size 20 clothes weren't fitting and I walked away from the shop rather than move up to size 22 clothes. I tried to rationalise it by saying it was the style, the shop, the cut... It wasn't, though, it was me.

Something else happened around that time: a girl I went to school with posted a picture on Facebook. It was a diptych showing her 'bSW' (before Slimming World) and a year on. She'd lost stacks of weight and she looked fantastic: years younger. I sent her a message and asked her what her 'secret' was.

That's me all over, though. I've always thought of weight loss as some sort of miracle and wondered why the latest gimmick hasn't worked for me. I was looking for some sort of secret nobody was sharing with me; some magic potion that makes me wake up thin. Until I discovered it, however, I'd just keep eating and eating. And growing and growing. Size 22.

Turns out it wasn't a secret. It was Slimming World. It hadn't happened overnight, but it had happened. She hadn't been able to eat whatever she liked whenever she liked, but she hadn't starved.

I could do this.

I joined Slimming World Online that night.

That was in May this year: 7 months ago. You know how else you could measure that time...? 4st 5lbs ago.

Insert big grin here.

It's been fantastic. I hesitate to use the word 'easy' - I think that would be driven by bravado. It hasn't been difficult, though.
I've had to rethink my favourite recipes - not by too much - and this is what this blog is about. I'll talk about the food I make and post pictures and recipes in the hope that someone else sees them and realises that losing weight really is about making changes to what you eat; to the way you think about food.

I still have about 3-4 stones to lose. I hope you'll join me on the rest of my journey!

Location:United Kingdom

Hospital Corridors

21.09.2009 Hospital Corridors
Originally uploaded by emilylemsip

Alan and I went for my appointment with a consultant at South Tyneside Hospital this afternoon.

I was really lucky to get such a quick appointment - I was only referred 2 weeks ago, after my 3rd early miscarriage in 5 months (added to the ectopic pregnancy last March).

I was really nervous about going and didn't have any idea what to expect, but it wasn't too bad. I had an examination, and some swabs taken, and Alan and I had to give blood for various tests. I'll also get an appointment for a womb scan in the next few weeks. The consultant recommended that I lose 10% of my weight, and seemed fairly sure that that would help us to have a successful pregnancy; diet and exercise it is, then!

A friend at work told me that I was a very strong woman yesterday, the trouble is, with each unsuccessful pregnancy, my shoulders sink a little bit lower from the weight on them. The positive thing is that this last miscarriage led me to a referral, which is hopefully a step in the right direction.

If it wasn't for the worry of time ticking away, it wouldn't be so bad.

So, my photo for today was to sum up the feelings of worry and hope, and different paths. Since I posted it, I can't get 'Wires' by Athlete out of my head! Ironic that that song was written about his poorly new baby...

em X

The Yard

19.01.2009 The Yard
Originally uploaded by emilylemsip

Back to school today: yak!

Most of the students looked pleased to see me, and the lovely teacher who'd had to set my work for the supply certainly did! Well, it's nice to feel wanted.

This is the view out of my classroom window towards the end of lunchtime. The year 10 are out on work placements this week, or there would have been a line of them sitting on the benches near the middle of the shot, throwing things at girls who duly scream in a rather tiresome fashion.

Why do they scream? I sometimes feel like shouting at them out of my window, but then I'd be screaming too. A vicious circle.

Oh, in other news...we bought the MGB GT today. Booked flightsthis evening for Saturday morning to Southampton to pick it up. How exciting!

Car Mosaic

Car Mosaic
Originally uploaded by emilylemsip

For visual learners, proof in picture form of points made in the previous entry...too many vehicles already!