Tuna Melt & Potato Wedges

Yummy! Could have ate it twice over!  Wedges made in actifry and tuna melt was warburtons sandwich thin (5 syns), tuna mayo (1 syn) - with tablespoon of fat free fromage frais added, red onion and grated cheese (Hex A).  Yummy, yummy, yummy!

Red Lentil, chickpea & chilli soup

Another lovely soup and another recipe from my mum. It's a nice thick soup with a pit of a punch,

2tsp cumin seeds

large pinch chilli flakes

1 onion, chopped

140g red lentils

850ml veg stock

200g canned chickpeas (drained)

400g chopped tomatoes

fat free fromage frais or fat free natural yogurt

frylight

salt/pepper to season

Blitz the chickpeas in a food processor until it's like a rough puree

In a large saucepan, dryfry the cumin seeds and chilli flakes for 1 min, or until they start to jump around the pan.

Spray pan with frylight and add onion and cook for 5 mins

Add stock, tomatoes and lentils and bring to the boil.

Simmer for 15 mins until the lentils have softened.

Add the chickpeas and heat through for 5 minutes.

Whizz the soup with a hand blender until it is soup and season with salt and pepper.  I add Shwartz black & red pepper for an extra kick.

Serve with a dollop of fat free fromage frais or natural yogurt.

Hash Brown

One great big massive hash brown...all for me! 

I ❤ potatoes and I ❤ Slimming World!

This takes 15 mins either side on medium-low setting on your hob - if you aint got 30 minutes to let it cook - don't make it.

Grate 1 large potato, squeeze out all the water and season well with salt/pepper - you could add a little grated onion if you like.  Then cook in a frying pan sprayed with frylight.  Spread it all out and flatten it all down and push in the edges to form it all together - and then leave it! 15 minutes - then after 15 minutes, spray the top with frylight again and then flip it over - then leave it for 15 minutes. Turns out nice and crispy on the outside and nice and soft on the inside.  

I had mine with some scrambled egg and beans - but there was no room to add it on the plate! :)

All syn free :)

Chicken & sweetcorn soup

Another quick and simple dish!  It's only 1 syn per portion and that's because cornstarch is added to thicken it.

Pint of chicken stock, 2-3 chicken breasts, spring onions, egg, garlic powder, salt/pepper

Cook the chicken in the stock, then shred the chicken.  Add creamed sweetcorn, spring onions and shredded chicken. Mix in the cornflour.  Drizzle in a beaten egg and mix.  I also mixed in about 1 teaspoon of garlic powder and some salt and pepper to season.

I drizzled some dark soy sauce on top and it was as simple as that! A really tasty bowl of soup!!

Chicken Fajita Cous Cous

I made this with last night's fajita leftovers - but you could add anything you like to it.

It makes a quick and easy lunch!  I based this recipe on one from youtube by a great girl called swjunky - she has a great channel and lots of recipe ideas. Go check her out :)

Add your cous cous to a bowl and sprinkle in half oxo cube (I used chicken).  Add boiling water (just enough to cover it), mix through and cover for 5 mins.

Once all the water has been absorbed, fluff up your cous cous and mix in a bowl with chopped tomatoes, cucumber, spring onions, crushed garlic or garlic powder, black pepper and some dried chilli flakes.

Voila :)

Tuna Pasta in Chilli Garlic Sauce

This was so simple, quick and easy to make and really tasty!  It was nice actually to have something tuna based that wasn't in mayonnaise either.

I fried some chopped onion in frylight until it was soft then added a tablespoon of Chilli Garlic sauce, added 1/2 can tuna and mixed through for a couple of mins.  Then added it to some cooked pasta.

It was that simple!!  The sauce I used was from the 'ethnic' aisle in Tesco, it's just a little jar.  I worked the syns out online and for the tablespoon that I used (10g) it was only 1/2 syn!  I did add a tiny sprinkling of grated parmesan once I had plated it up but to be honest it really didn't need that added as it is tasty enough without it.  It had a wee bit of a kick in it - not much but just enough!  So I wouldn't bother adding the parmesan again.

I had this warm but I think I will definitely make some up ready to have at lunchtime when I'm at work.

Tomato & Lentil Soup

I love tomato soup!  Heinz Tomato soup is my all time favourite - it is a cure for everything - even hangovers!! haha

So I was keen to try and make a Slimming World friendly version.  I found various recipes online - all similar with variations and decided on this one. 

I wasn't sure if I was going to like it as one of the ingredients is celery which I can't stand, but it was chopped up so small in the food processor then blitzed at the end, you could barely tell it was in there.

I kept tasting it along the way and felt it needed a lot of seasoning, so I added Worcester Sauce, Tabasco and some Swartz red & black pepper (one of my cupboard staples!)

I am a great bread lover and that is one of my downfalls as I could just live off sandwiches, toast, bagels etc...so I'm trying to cut out as much bread as I can.  Normally I would have a great big hunk of bread with soup, so I added some croutons just for the crunch effect which were only 1 syn for the 5g that I had, but the soup itself is syn free.

So this was how I made it:

1 carton chopped tomatoes in garlic, 1 large onion, 1-2 cloves garlic, 2 sticks celery, 2 teaspoons ground cumin, pinch of cayenne pepper, 140g red lentils (rinsed),  pint of vegetable stock, salt and pepper, worcester sauce, couple of splashes of tabasco, a shake of black & red pepper.

The onions & celery were chopped in the food processor then fried off for a few minutes with Frylight.  Then added the tomatoes, lentils, stock, spices and brought to the boil. Simmered for about 30 minutes until the lentils are soft . Then blitzed in a blender.

I just seasoned as I went along till I found a taste that was right for me.

Turned out really nice and would get about 4 servings.  You end up with quite a thick soup so I watered mine down just a bit.  It's not quite up to my Heinz Tomato soup standard but will carry on with my quest.  It did have a slight kick in it though which I liked.

The only downside was the nice white t-shirt I had on was splattered - will I ever learn?!

Potato & Tuna Salad

I was struggling to make anything for lunch as I needed to get shopping in - I love potatoes and tuna and so just cooked some baby potatoes (about 16 potatoes cut in half), mixed in 2 tablespoons of light mayo (5 syns), 1 can of tuna in spring water, added the only veg that I had in which was tomatoes, red onion and carrot - and voila! 

Normally I would add cucumber and peppers but I didn't have any!

Quite basic, but was nice enough - and it was served warm.

This gave me 2 servings - so 2.5 syns per serving