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!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

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