Slimming World Cauliflower Rosti Pie

This recipe makes a nice side dish but is also something you could have as a main course. It's a Slimming World recipe that is syn free; it is quite starchy from the potatoes but not as bland as you might think, thanks to the addition of tomatoes, cheese, herbs and spices. You can find the recipe here.

To serve 4, you need:
for the base:
700g potatoes, peeled and grated
pinch of salt
2 egg whites
1 onion, grated
low-calorie cooking spray
for the filling:
1 onion, chopped
3 garlic cloves chopped
800g cauliflower florets
150ml vegetable stock
1 tsp dried mixed herbs
handful of parsley
120g Red Leicester, grated
200g cherry tomatoes, halved
2 eggs, beaten
1 tsp sweet smoked paprika

 

Preheat the oven to 200C. First, grate the potato using a cheese grater and squeeze out any excess moisture. Mix in the salt, egg white and grated onion. Use to line the bottom of a pie or casserole dish
and spray with oil.

Bake in the pre-heated oven for 15-20 mins, uncovered, then cover with foil and bake for another 20 minutes.

Meanwhile spray a frying pan with oil, and fry the cauliflower, onion and garlic and add the stock. Cook for 10-12 minutes. Allow to cool, then in herbs, half the cheese, and the beaten egg.

Spoon into the pie crust, top with the rest of the cheese and the paprika, and bake for 30 minutes. Best served with green veg; if you wanted this as a side dish instead of a main course (which is how I had it) I think it would go well with sausages or vegetarian sausages if you want to keep the meal veggie.

 

I'm sharing this with Meat Free Monday, hosted by Jacqueline at Tinned Tomatoes.

Sweet Potato Mac and Cheese

I love macaroni cheese and after eating a fairly disappointing one at the Caballo Lounge in Epsom, I decided to make my own. I had a magazine cutting from You magazine (the only thing I like about the Mail on Sunday!) which is from a Nigella Lawson recipe. It can also be found in the book Simply Nigella and you can read the recipe here.

Nigella says this is the best macaroni cheese she's ever eaten and while I might not quite go that far (the way they do it in America is brilliant if calorific), it really is very good- and a bit more healthy than it might be with the addition of some veg.

It uses a combination of feta cheese and Cheddar and the sweet potato gives the dish a lovely colour as well.

This is really easy to make, delicious and the leftovers are good on the second day. Something I will definitely be making again!

I'm sharing this with Meat Free Mondays, hosted by Jacqueline at Tinned Tomatoes.

Slow Cooker Butternut Squash and Goat's Cheese Enchiladas

I've been meaning to post this recipe for ages - it's not really a hot weather dish, but let's face it we haven't had a lot of hot weather recently! It's something you can do in the slow cooker on a weekend or when you are out at work (that being the beauty of slow cookers). I did it on a day when I was working from home so I could put everything in the slow cooker at lunchtime and forget about it until dinner time.

I really like goat's cheese (which is lucky as I once won a year's supply) and love enchiladas but had only made chicken ones before, so thought this recipe for butternut squash and goat's cheese enchiladas looked amazing - and it isn't something I'd have thought to do in the slow cooker but it works brilliantly.

The recipe is from a book called The Slow Cooker. To serve 4, you need:

1 large butternut squash, peeled and diced

4 tbsp. olive oil

1 tsp salt

3 tsp ground cumin

1 large onion, diced

1 tbsp. dried oregano

3 cloves garlic, finely chopped

1 tbsp. chilli powder

450g canned pureed tomatoes or passata

1 tbsp. clear honey

450ml vegetable stock

12 corn tortillas (I used flour tortillas)

225g goat's cheese

Preheat the oven to 200C. Toss the diced butternut squash with 2 tbsp. of the oil, half the salt and 1 tsp cumin. Roast in a baking dish for 30-40 minutes until softened. I sometimes do extra and add the rest to a salad.

Heat the rest of the oil in a frying pan and and the onion and garlic. Fry for a couple of minutes until soft, then add the rest of the cumin, the salt, chilli powder and oregano and cook for a minute. Stir in the tomatoes, honey and stock, bring to the boil and cook for 5 mins. Blend until smooth in a food processor or blender.

Spoon a little sauce into the base of your slow cooker so the tortillas don't stick. Cover the bottom of the slow cooker with a layer of tortillas (one might be enough depending on the size) and top with a layer of butternut squash, some sliced goat's cheese, a layer of sauce, and another tortilla.

Layer again with squash, cheese and sauce and finish with some sauce and some cheese. Cover and cook on the slow cooker's lowest setting for about 2 hours, and enjoy!



I'm sending this to Meat Free Mondays, hosted by Jacqueline at Tinned Tomatoes.

Spiralized Vegetables with Broccoli Pesto

The lengths I go to for dieting… I wasn’t looking forward to my dinner recently as I’d decided to make pesto out of broccoli and serve it over spiralized veg, while my fiancé was tucking in to a pizza. Though as he correctly pointed out, it was a frozen pizza and he could have ordered Domino’s but didn’t as he knew it would make it harder for me - and I was the one who cooked him the pizza!

 

But when I actually started to eat my dinner I was surprised at how good it actually tasted, and I really enjoyed it. Which is not to say I wouldn’t rather have had a pizza but I have a wedding dress to get in to!

 

The recipe comes from I Quit Sugar by Sarah Wilson which has become a book I turn to a lot at the moment!

  

To serve one, you need:

Spiralized veg: I used half a tub of spiralized carrot from Tesco (it’s hard to put a carrot through a spiralizer unless it’s a really thick one), and I spiralized half a butternut squash to go with it.

For the pesto:

1 cup broccoli florets, steamed until tender

1 spring onion, peeled

1 clove garlic, peeled and crushed

2 tbsp olive oil

Juice of ½ lemon

15g grated parmesan or 30g cashews, soaked in water for 1-4 hours and drained – but I didn’t have time to do this and used them without soaking and it worked pretty much fine I think. I also cheated and used both the parmesan and the cashews which made the pesto more substantial and gave it a lovely flavour.

Salt and pepper to taste

Basically I put all the ingredients in a food processor

 

Pulse until you have a thick green paste

Serve over spiralized veg, which I find best gently steamed or stir fried so it isn't raw but it doesn't take much cooking:

I'm sending this to Meat Free Mondays, hosted by Jacqueline at Tinned Tomatoes. Also this recipe would be vegan if you left out the parmesan.

 

Quinoa Cheese Tartlets

I’ve been following a low sugar diet for the last few weeks and bought the book I Quit Sugar by Sarah Wilson, which is full of healthy recipes. Weekend lunches are probably the meals where I struggle most to come up with dishes – my fiancé would have a bacon sandwich every Saturday and every Sunday if he could, but I prefer to cook different things and at the moment I’m not really eating bread so that doesn’t work for me at all.

 

I found a recipe in I Quit Sugar for quinoa and pumpkin tarts which I knew my fiancé would never eat, so I decided to do him a cheese and bacon tart on a pastry base to use up some shortcrust pastry I had in the freezer. For myself, I followed the recipe but scaled it down as I didn’t need it to serve 4. I also used butternut squash instead of pumpkin, and agave nectar instead of rice malt syrup. I also realised I didn’t have any parmesan so used a little gruyere instead, along with the blue cheese and ricotta.

 

It was a bit fiddly to make as you have to rinse the quinoa first then cook it, then let it cool and form a ‘pie crust’ and then bake it blind, while cooking the butternut squash at the same time. The quinoa created a surprisingly good base for the tart and it was really tasty – butternut squash and blue cheese is a nice flavour combination and the creaminess of the ricotta was a lovely addition. I don’t know whether I’d go to the lengths of making these again but I think if I was soaking and cooking quinoa for a couple of recipes at the same time, eg a salad for lunch at work and then these tarts the next day, then it would be well worth the effort.

Mixing the quinoa with the cheese and egg:

I used a mixture of loose-bottomed tart tins and, because I couldn't find where my cleaner had put the bottoms to the other ones, some mini foil pie dishes. Here they are about to go in the oven.

The base is baked, so adding the topping

Just out of the oven

Serve with lots of green salad

 

I'm sharing this with Meat Free Mondays, hosted by Jacqueline at Tinned Tomatoes

 

 

 

Butternut Squash Quinoa Risotto

 

My pre-wedding diet has consisted of cutting out sugars, including the hidden sugars in everyday processed foods (like sliced bread) and even the starch in potatoes which converts to glucose when it's digested. The advisor I saw recommended 5 days of no sugar and 2 days allowing myself a small amount of sugar - in other words, not scoffing a bar of Dairy Milk in front of the TV but being allowed to eat carbs with something sweet if I do really want it.

 

So I've been experimenting with all sorts of new recipes and eating a fair bit of quinoa (pronounced keen-wa). The health benefits of quinoa are explained thoroughly on this BBC Good Food site

; it’s full of protein, wheat free, a good source of vitamins and fibre – the list goes on.

 

I decided to make a risotto using quinoa as the base instead of rice. You need to rinse quinoa (unless you buy it as part of a ready-made product), to remove something called saponin which can make the quinoa taste bitter. I wasn’t sure how I was going to do this as the seeds were so small they would go through my sieve, so I put the quinoa in bowl, filled it with water and swished it around. I carefully poured the water out of the bowl and found the density of the quinoa meant it stayed at the back of the bowl while I poured the water out so I didn’t lose any – but the water had turned very cloudy! So I did this a couple of times until I was happy the water was clear.

 

To cook quinoa the basic ratio is 1 cup of uncooked quinoa to two cups of liquid, so I used vegetable stock. Bring to a boil then simmer for 15-20 minutes until the liquid has been absorbed and fluff up with a fork.

 

I roasted some cubes of butternut squash in the oven, to use partly in this and partly in a salad the next day, so added the squash, some sliced spring onion and some fresh herbs on top. Finally I added some cubes of feta cheese. It made a filling, tasty and healthy meal which would also be good served cold as a salad.

 

 

 

I’m sharing this with Meat Free Mondays, hosted by Jacqueline at Tinned Tomatoes

 

And with No croutons required, a challenge for vegetarian soups or salads, hosted this month by Lisa's Kitchen as well as Jacqueline at Tinned Tomatoes.

 

 

Oxo Butternut Squash and Coconut Milk Soup

Oxo is pretty much a store cupboard staple for me – I always have Oxo cubes and use them in all sorts of recipes. Recently I’ve come across Knorr stock pots and branched out a bit, so was pleased to be sent a selection of Oxo stock pots to try recently – and they even threw in an Oxo cookery book!

Oxo is an iconic brand in the UK and has been around pretty much forever. Did you know that Oxo was invented in the 1840s after a German chemist developed meat extract? And as official sponsor of the 1908 London Olympics, Oxo supplied marathon runners with fortifying drinks of Oxo (I can’t quite imagine drinking beef broth while running a marathon but never mind!). In the First World War, soldiers were given Oxo cubes in their ration kits.

The company has now launched three flavours of stock pots, which I would describe as a sort of concentrated gel. They are: garden vegetables with parsley and bay; beef with onion and rosemary; and chicken with garlic and thyme. They also do a range called ‘herbs and more’ of flavours like lemon and thyme, which are not stock but ‘flavour pots’, which I’d also like to try. The stock pots sell for around £1 for 4 from major supermarkets.

My only criticism is that once you open the pot, you have to use the whole thing – you could probably refrigerate the rest for a day or two, but as I only cook for one or two people, I often cut a traditional stock cube in half, wrap the other half back up and put it back in the box, and you can’t really do that with the stock pots. They do however add a real depth of flavour; you don’t have to boil a kettle and wait for the stock cube to resolve, as you can add them straight to a pan to melt. You do still need to add water or some other liquid (tinned tomatoes perhaps) as the flavour is quite concentrated.

They are really easy to use though and definitely gave a nice flavour to my recipe.

I was working from home one day just after they arrived so flicked through the Oxo cookery book and found something I could make from store cupboard ingredients: a spicy butternut squash soup with coconut milk. Be warned, it does have quite a kick from the coconut milk alone (so you could perhaps miss out the chilli).

To serve 4, you need:

1 tbsp olive oil

1 onion, chopped

1 small piece fresh ginger, peeled and chopped

½ red chilli, finely chopped

900g butternut squash, peeled and diced (seeds discarded)

1 Oxo Garden Vegetables with Parsley and Bay stock pot, made up with 500ml boiling water

400ml coconut milk, reserving 2 tbsp to serve

1 tbsp chopped fresh coriander to serve

Heat the oil in a large saucepan, add the onion, ginger, chilli and garlic, and fry for five minutes until softened. Add the butternut squash, stock and all but the 2 tbsp of coconut milk you are reserving.

Bring to the boil, reduce the heat and simmer for 15 minutes or until the squash is cooked.

Blend in a blender until smooth (you may need to do this in batches). Serve in bowls with half a tbsp. of coconut milk swirled on the top and sprinkle with the chopped coriander.

I'm sharing this recipe with various blog challenges: Meat Free Monday, hosted by Jacqueline at Tinned Tomatoes (who also runs the Food Blog Diary where you can find out about these challenges); Extra Veg, hosted by Helen at Fuss Free Flavours, and No Croutons Required, hosted this month by Lisa's Kitchen.

Spiralized Vegetable Pad Thai

I love the idea of adding spiralized vegetables to a ‘normal’ recipe – they work really well in stir-fries particularly if you don’t like a lot of the veg that you get in stir-fry packet mixes or would normally add to the pan, like beansprouts, mange tout or mini corn on the cob. You can spiralize all sorts of veg you wouldn’t normally add to a stir fry to add some bulk and make sure you get an extra portion of your 5 a day!

 

My future mother-in-law came round for dinner this week and whenever we eat at hers we have a Thai takeaway, and we both always order a Pad Thai - chicken and prawn for me, and vegetable for her.

 

As I made a really good Pad Thai not long before I decided to use the same recipe again. This time however I left out the beansprouts (which are a key ingredient I know!) as my MIL doesn't like them, and put in some mange tout that she does like. I then got out my spiralizer and spiralized some carrot, butternut squash and mooli (a veg from the radish family I discovered recently).

 

 

I cooked the butternut squash first as I thought it would take longer, then the mooli and the carrot. I cooked some chicken pieces separately for me and some tofu for my MIL and added these into the plates at the end. With the delicious Pad Thai sauce, some noodles and a sprinkling of chopped peanut over the top it made a delicious meal.

 

 

I'm entering this into the Spiralizer Saturday challenge I an running each month. Link up your own Spiralizer recipes!

 

 

I'm also sending this to Meat Free Mondays hosted by Jacqueline at Tinned Tomatoes, and to Extra Veg, hosted by Michelle at Utterly Scrummy and Helen at Fuss Free Flavours.

 

 

 

Meat Free Monday: Fettuccine Alfredo (sort of) with Cheddar and Stilton

For the second Meat Free Monday in January I decided to make a pasta dish, but wanted something more interesting than just pasta and Dolmio sauce - and something that my fiancé would still consider a 'proper meal'.

Fettuccine Alfredo is a pasta dish tossed with Parmesan cheese and butter - one of those simple dishes that needs to be done really well. I didn't have any Parmesan but did have other cheese in the fridge that needed using so I decided to make my own take on this, with Cheddar and Stilton! So it isn't really Fettuccine Alfredo at all, more of a cheesy pasta!

 

I'd seen a few recipes for Fettuccine Alfredo online that used double cream but I wanted to make a healthier version (I've lost 5 pounds in the first two weeks of this year - who needs Slimming World when you've got a wedding dress to get into?!) so substituted Quark instead (an almost-flavourless curd cheese you can get in most supermarkets).

So my recipe was:
Bring a pan of salted water to the boil and cook some tagliatelle.

In a separate pan, melt a little butter and stir in 2 tbsp. plain flour to make a roux. Gradually add milk, stirring, until you have a smooth sauce.

Bring to a simmer and add grated cheddar and stilton to taste. Add a tub of Quark (this made enough for three portions).

 Stir until you have a lovely thick cheesy sauce and pour over the pasta.

I served this with some broccoli and some garlic bread for my fiancé; I knew I'd have more luck persuading him to eat a vegetarian pasta dish if there was garlic bread too!

I'm sending this to the Meat Free Monday challenge, hosted by Jacqueline at Tinned Tomatoes. Jacqueline also runs the Food Blog Diary which is the place to go to find out about all these blog challenges!

Roasted Cauliflower Steak with Stilton

 

Inspired by the meal I had at the Coin Laundry and making a real effort to do Meat Free Mondays (and make them a bit more interesting than just pasta and pesto) I decided to make my own roasted cauliflower steak. It was very straightforward so I’m not going to bother writing a whole recipe, but if this is a dish that you’ve never come across before then you might find it a nice change.

 

Take a cauliflower and slice through the middle to cut in half. If you want you can try slicing it into three to make flatter ‘steaks’, but my cauliflower was quite small and I didn’t think this was going to work.

 

Line a roasting pan with foil, and either rub the cauliflower with olive oil or spray with Fry Light if you are being really healthy. You can add any herbs and spices you like – sumac (commonly used in Middle Eastern cooking, available in supermarkets) works really well with cauliflower, as does coriander and cumin. A light sprinkling of salt also helps bring out the flavour.

 

Roast in a preheated oven at 175C for about 25-30 minutes until the cauliflower is tender and browned.

 

To serve, I simply crumbled up some stilton cheese and sprinkled it over the top. This is a good way of using up leftover cheese from Christmas on a healthier dish!

 

  

I served it with quinoa – serving it with another vegetable on the side seemed odd but it needed something. I’d also recommend trying couscous, especially if you go with a more Middle Eastern seasoning.

 

 

 

I'm sending this to Extra Veg, hosted by Helen at Fuss Free Flavours and Michelle at Utterly Scrummy. 

 

I'm also sending this to Meat Free Mondays, hosted by Jacqueline at Tinned Tomatoes.