Bubble and squeak nests

A good way to get more vegetables in to your diet, kids will also love these and won't realise they are being healthy.
Vary the vegetables for the ones you like and to give extra colour.
Free on a green day ( slimming world)

Serves 2

1 packet instant mash
1/2 tin spaghetti in tomato sauce/baked beans
2 eggs
2 large cabbage leaves chopped
1/2 leak chopped
10 green beans chopped
1 clove garlic
1tbsp chopped dried chives
2 chopped spring onions leave raw
S&P
Fry light spray

• Preheat oven to gas 9.
• Chop up the veg and in a cook with a small amount of water with the lid on the pan to steam, or you could use already cooked vegetables of your choice. 
• Season and cook the veg until all the water is gone and the vegetables sound like they are starting to fry.
• Make up the instant mash, add the chopped garlic, S&P and chives to the water, add a little less water that stated, as the veg will still be moist and the potato could well be too soggy.
• Add the vegetables to the mashed potato and mix together.
• Put half the potato mixture in to a dish (oven proof) that has been sprayed with frylight and make a well in the centre.
• Warm up the tinned spaghetti and place in the well in the centre of the mash.
• Place an egg on top of the spaghetti and back in a hot oven (gas 9) until the egg is set.

You can still eat nice things and help your weight loss and be more healthy!

It's never easy trying to shed excess pounds, no matter how much you have to shed.  However, it doesn't all have to be rabbit food and foods you hate but think you have to eat because they make you healthy.

There are some simple things you can do to help shed those pounds without compromising on taste.  They do say 'necessity is the mother of all invention' and lately I have been trying to reinvent some of our classic most loved classic dishes without comprimising on the taste.

If anyone has any any ideas of recipes they would like to still use but be healthier and less syns, if you follow the slimming world plan then drop me a line and I will see if I can tweak it so that it can still be enjoyed.

I will of course be adding my own tweaks as I make them, so get those recipes in so we can all start sharing.

With pancake day coming up, take a look at my sin free pancake recipe, they taste gorgeous and are so versitile.

Happy cooking folks

TBB x

Green day Sin free pizza base

Use this base just as you would a thin and crispy pizza bread base.

Recipe:

1 packet of instant mashed potato
Half the amount of water stated on the packet
Salt & Pepper
Garlic
Chives (or any other herb)

Method:

Mix potato with garlic, salt and pepper and chives.  Add half the amount of hot water stated on the packet, mix to turn it in to a dough, leave to cool slightly, then roll out to about a 10" round.  Bake for around 30-40 minutes in a hot oven till golden, turning half way though the cooking time.

Assemble as you would any other pizza from then on.

Sweet Sin Free Pancakes with strawberries

Sin Free Strawberry Pancakes.

Makes 12 small pancakes ( serves 4 )
Free on green day

Recipe: 
50g Cous cous
3 eggs
Frylight

2 tbsp Artificial sweetener
1 tsp vanilla or almond extract

Fillings:
Strawberries sliced
Fat free natural yogurt sweetened with artificial sugar to taste.

Method:

1. In a sealable container pour just enough boiling water over 50g couscous to cover,  add flavourings and seal for 10 minutes.
2. Beat 3 eggs then mix in the couscous.
3. Pour small amounts of mixture in to a hot pan sprayed with Fry Light and brown on both sides.
4. Repeat till all mixture is used up.
4. When slightly cooled layer the pancakes with strawberries and sweetened natural yogurt.
5. Serve immediately dusted with artificial sugar.















You could add other flavourings to make them savoury.

Mix in curry powder or other spices and have it with soup instead of bread.
It could be an alternative to Naan bread with curry or other stews.
You could also add chopped chives and use them a little like Blinis.

The trouble with meringues

Problems with meringues

Those of us that have made meringues know what a pain they can be.  They can crack, burn on the outside and be soggy on the inside or just be pale, soggy and uninteresting.

At work we used to make probably 100 at a time and we didn't even use an oven.  We had a large hotplate cupboard and we left them in there to dry out for more than 24 hours.  That is probably the key to a good meringue, low temperature for a long time, if you wnat them powdery and crumbly and not chewy on the inside. If the temperature is too hot the outside will be hard and brown but the inside will still hold too much moisture and so this will make your meringues soggy again by the time they are cooled. The next thing is is once they are dry they need to be kept dry, or again they will go soft.

When making meringues you need to make sure that all equipment is squeaky clean, any trace of fat and the egg whites will not whip up to stiff peaks.  To make sure the bowl is clean you can wipe everything with lemong juice to make extra sure all traces of fat have gone.

When whipping egg whites you need to take them to a point where the peaks will stay up when the whisk is taken out of the bowl and the bowl can be turned upside down over your head without you getting covered in egg whites!

To be perfectly honest there are loads of recipes for meringues out there, and even I use websites to find ones that work the best, so here's my tip for a wbsite with a decent recipe.

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/2445/ultimate-meringue

The BBC good food site is a good source of inspriation for a lot of the basic recipes you will need and I am a member and I save my recipes in the recipe binder on there.  If something works, why not use it I say!

Let me know what you think :o)

Happy cooking x

Easy Fat Free Basic Tomato Sauce

This is a basic tomato sauce you can use as it is for pasta or transform with additions, but best of all it's tasty and fat free.  Everyone has different tastes so you may need to adjust to your own taste.

Can be frozen in batches.

Recipe

1  400g tin chopped tomatoes
1 tin of water
500g passata (1 carton)
1 medium onion chopped
1 crushed clove garlic
1 stock cube
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1tbsp tomato puree (optional)
1tsp sugar or artificial sugar
Salt & Pepper to taste
Method

1.Put all the ingredients except for the sugar in to a large pan, bring to the boil and simmer until onion is soft and desired thickness is reached.
2. When cooked add the sugar.  The sugar just takes away from the acidity of the tomatoes and balances the sauce.
3. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Note: If it becomes too thick during the cooking process then just add more water.

Additions added at the beginning of the cooking process

1/2 - 1 teaspoon of chilli powder or to taste
1tsp of dried herbs of your choice.
1 chopped pepper
8 chopped mushrooms
2tbsp Balsamic vinegar.
You can add any vegetable of your choice to the mixture, up to approx 500g.
You could also replace some of the water with your favourite wine for a more luxurious sauce.

Use the basic sauce for the following.

Sweet and sour sauce - add 50ml vinegar and 4 tablespoons of sugar.
Bolognaise sauce just add to lean minced meat or quorn.

Easy Gingerbread biscuit recipe

This is the recipe I used to make my gingerbread house, but it can be just as easily used to make biscuits of any size or shape, including the traditional gingerbread men/women.

Recipe

100g caster sugar
125g butter/marg
25g Golden syrup
325g plain flour
4tsp ground ginger
1/2tsp ground cinnamon
1tsp bicarbonate of soda
2 eggs beaten

Baking trays lined with non stick silicone paper
Pan

Method

1. Preheat your oven to 160^oC, Gas mark 3, 140^oC fan oven.
2. In the pan put the caster sugar, butter, and golden syrup and heat until all the sugar has dissolved.  Only heat it until the sugar has melted, don't allow to boil.
3. Sift the bicarbonate of soda, ground cinnamon, grounf ginger and plain flour in to a bowl and add the melted butter mixture and the beaten eggs to it.  Mix until you make a stiff dough.  cover the bowl and leave to cool for 20 minutes.
4. Roll out the dough on a floured surface, to about 4mm thick, cut in to what ever shape you want to make it, place on the lined baking trays and bake for 10 minutes.
5.  Leave to cool on the trays for 5 minutes so that the gingerbread becomes more solid.  Then place on a cooling racj to fully cool and hard.
6. Decorate with icing or melted chocolate and any other decorations you fancy adding.

Enjoy!

Tip

For funky gingerbread men ideas, I purchased a book "Dress your gingerbread men" by Joanna Farrow.  ISBN:978-1-84601-369-0
Lots of cool fun ideas and some more recipes.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year folks

What will you be cooking this year?  Mine has started off like a lot of you I guess, trying to find interesting recipes that will help me lose the Christmas pounds and yet still not leave me reaching for the post Christmas horde of chocolate.

There are some simple things you can do that don't actually mean you have to alter your recipes.  The first thing is actually making the food yourself, not buying it.  Those jars of sauce you can buy are packed full fat and sugar and the sauces are so easy to make yourself at home and once you have made them you won't go back, especially when you find out they are much kinder on the pocket, as are most home cooked food.  You also have total control on amounts of fat, salt, sugar and nasty preservatives, which can't be bad can it!

I'm going to add recipes of some of the things we have to eat over the coming weeks and I would really like to hear about what you are cooking or requests for recipes you would like to try.

Happy cooking.