Last night’s dinner

The fish week continues, this time with a Slimming World recipe.

I discovered Slimming World earlier this year and think it’s fab:  common sense cooking from scratch which, when followed properly, really does result in easy weight loss. 

To me, Friday and Saturdays have always been about food – enjoying it with friends, family or on my own – but always (over) indulging.  So when I’m doing my best not to overeat and still want to feel I’m enjoying a weekend meal, what better place to look than a Slimming World magazine.

I made their king prawn and spinach biryani which was so easy and so tasty.I’ve just found the full recipe online here:  prawn-and-spinach-biryani

Start by chopping up fresh chilli, ginger, onion and fry in a large pan with cardamoms, cinnamon stick, bayleaf and cloves for a few minutes, then add a mix of ground spices (cumin, coriander, turmeric and nutmeg)  and continue to fry till the onion is soft.

The kitchen will smell amazing with so many fresh spices!

Then add basmati rice (I always pre-soak the rice to rinse away as much of the excess starch as possible) and chopped pepper….  So I don’t eat pepper and seeing as it’s me cooking – I leave it out!  We’re so over-run with mushrooms in the fridge that I added those instead.  Then drained the juice from a tin of tomatoes into a measuring jug, added the chopped tomatoes into the pan, and topped the juice up with boiling water.

Added all to the pan, covered tightly and simmer for 20mins.

After 20mins, just throw in spinach and king prawns and cover for another ten mins, off the heat.  This brillant one-pot, healthy, low-fat dish (can I sell it to you any more?!) just cooks down to look like this:

 

Delicious!

The meal doesn’t quite end there – the adolescents ate it too and loved it, but don’t eat prawns, so to boost their meal I cooked up my special nuggets-style-chicken.  Now, I’m taking a chance here sharing the photo as it looks pretty awful – but that’s because I used this awful thick soy-sauce stuff.  Just use normal supermarket soy sauce and that way, the flour will stay on the chicken and give it a coating.

Chicken mini-fillets, marinated in soy sauce and brown sugar.  Coated in plain flour and shallow fried till cooked through. 

They actually tasted fab and caramelised, not at all burnt!  And remember, I cook for the harshest critics 😉

 

Fish – 2nd night

Originally posted September 3, 2013

So I’m sticking with it.  Eating fruit all day and a meal of veg and fish in the evening.  My halo is shining and my waist will be svelte like…..

It’s not without its challenges.
The “adolescents” as they’re affectionately known had a tantrum at last night’s dinner (even though I cooked them rainbow trout instead of tilapia) so tonight they have pork chops.  Dinner itself wasn’t quite the back to school last supper I’d planned either as adolescent two had another hissy fit and took her dinner inside rather than joining the rest of us outside in the garden.  Hey ho.  In my mind I continue to dance like nobody’s watching and bugger the rest of them.

Onto food.  The purpose of this blog after all.

Skate wings (or ray wings as Tesco calls them.  And yes I will aim to buy from a far more respectable source as time goes on as I hate the place, I really do, and rarely shop there.  But we’d run out of dog food and the only place that sells it round here is that godforsaken supermarket).

I poached them in water with peppercorns, onion and bayleaf for about 15mins and that was that.  Twist of salt to bring out the flavour.

One disaster – served with seasonal pointy green cabbage, stir fried with onion and fennel seeds.  Except I’m a messy cook and I picked up the wrong spice jar from the side….

Once I’d picked out all the peppercorns I sauted the onions and fennel and added the cabbage till it sweated down.

Was really good and extra healthy.  The fennel gives a great flavour.

Potatoes I did as Slimming World style chips:

New potatoes, quartered, in the oven 180c for 45 mins with fry-light, salt to taste and smoked paprika.

Really tasty and again healthy.  Everyone likes them so win-win.

One healthy tasty dinner – something different and now wondering why I don’t have fish more often 🙂