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.

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