Slimming World Nacho-Style Feast

I’ve cooked a fair bit of Mexican food recently and had been meaning to make this dish for a long time, ever since I saw it in a Primula cheese ad in a Slimming World magazine.

 

For anyone who hasn’t come across Primula before – it was a staple of my childhood in the 80s, but is still around – it’s a soft cheese that comes in a tube like toothpaste. It has a much stronger flavour than cream cheeses like Philadelphia, and they make various versions flavoured with chives, shrimp and so on. It’s made from Gouda and Cheddar apparently – I discovered a fun animation on the company’s website about how it’s made.
 

The thing I like best about Primula though – aside from the fun of squeezing the tube – is that a large part of the company’s profits go to charity. You can read more about that on their website (note – this is not a sponsored post or written at the company’s request).

 

Primula is the suggested ingredient in this particular Slimming World recipe, I think partly because Primula is low in “syns”, though you could actually use any cheese for it. You can view the full recipe here, so I won’t repeat it.

 

I wanted to make my own potato wedges but my fiancé only likes the shop-bought kind for some reason so I used those, and left out the optional jalapenos.

The meal turned out pretty well - there was a tiny bit too much liquid in the bottom, but it's a good way to serve mince if you are looking for something different.

Green Chilli Chicken Chilaquiles

This weekend's Formula 1 Grand Prix took place in Mexico but was declared by my fiancé to be "boring" because Louis Hamilton has already won the overall championship. I was hoping our Mexican dinner would be a little more exciting but in fact it also turned out to be rather bland. Though that may have been my overcaution with the chilli!

I've had a Mexican recipe book called, um, Mexican Recipes, for many years (it came from Woolworths so that gives you a clue). I haven't made much from it but am getting bolder now with food, particularly after a trip to Mexico earlier this year. I chose a recipe called Green Chilli Chicken Chilaquiles as something that my fussy fiancé might enjoy. I adapted the recipe a bit so here's what I did.

You can either bake tortilla strips until they are crispy or use ready-made nachos, which is what I did.

To serve 2, you need:
salsa cruda - see below
3 large handfuls nachos
2 chicken breasts
1 tbsp. fresh coriander
1 tsp chopped dried oregano
1 clove garlic, crushed
200ml chicken stock
150g Cheddar, grated plus more to sprinkle over the top (which I forgot to add at the last minute!)
sour cream to serve; I also served this with a few potato wedges and some green veg (broccoli)

Salsa Cruda
3 tomatoes, chopped
1 clove garlic, crushed
handful of fresh coriander, chopped
pinch of sugar
1 green chilli, finely chopped (I only used half, which is perhaps where I went wrong)
2 spring onions, chopped

Place all the ingredients for the salsa in a food processor and blend until you have a smooth texture. Add a little oil if necessary.

To prepare the meal, fry the chicken breasts in a pan with a little oil. Meanwhile preheat the oven to 190C.

When the chicken is cooked, shred it and place half in a greased casserole dish or lined oven proof pan. Spoon over half the salsa cruda, half the coriander, oregano, garlic and cheese.

Repeat with the remaining chicken, salsa and spices then top with the nachos.

Pour over the chicken stock and sprinkle with grated cheese (I forgot to add the cheese at this stage). Bake in the oven for 30 minutes and serve.

This was an unusual and interesting dish - which I don't mean in a bad way - but I didn't make it spicy enough and I don't think leaving the cheese off the top really helped!

I'm sharing this with Formula 1 Foods, the blog challenge I host as the current theme is Mexico.