Courgetti Spaghetti!

I found a bargain spiralizer thingy in Lidl yesterday - at £2.99 for a set of three, I couldn't leave it on the shelf, worth a go even its rubbish (I think that's probably Lidl/Aldi's entire business strategy right there, and I'm a sucker for it).

Verdict: not bad for the price. I've never used a proper spiralizer, so I have nothing to compare these to, but they seem to work alright with a bit of trial and error.  The courgetti was lush so I can see me investing in a proper all-singing all-dancing gadget before long.

We're in the middle of a courgette glut at the moment, so I picked one of our home grown monsters to test out the new kit. 

Once I got the hang of it, it was pretty easy. Half my courgette was too fat to fit in the attachments, but I reckon it would work fine with regular sized shop bought produce.  I had bits left over but I used them in the pasta sauce.

We grow courgettes every year, so I have a few courgette recipes in my repertoire (courgette cake anyone?)... One of our favourites is from the River Cottage Cookbook. It uses single cream, but I adapted it yesterday to make it SW, not free but low-syn, and the result was seriously scrummy.

Courgetti Spaghetti (Serves 2-3)

1 monster home grown almost-a-marrow, or 3-4 normal sized courgettes

200g spaghetti

Frylight 

4 smoked bacon medallions

1-2 garlic cloves, crushed

2 level tbsp low fat crème fraîche (syn for the brand you are using - they vary)

Fat free Fromage Frais

Salt and pepper

Grated fresh Parmesan / Grana Padano (syn, or use 30g for your HEA)

1. Spiralize about half your courgette(s). Dice the rest.

2. Cook the spaghetti according to the packet instructions.

3.  Spray a large frying pan with Frylight. Chop the bacon and fry on a medium heat for a couple of minutes. Add the diced courgette and garlic, and cook until the courgette reduces down. Add your crème fraîche, and enough Fromage Frais to make it into a nice creamy sauce.  I also added a splash of the pasta cooking water to loosen the sauce up a bit.

4. When the pasta is cooked, add the courgetti and swirl it around in the water to mix it in with the spaghetti. Drain, and chuck the whole lot in the frying pan with the sauce.  Mix well, and season with salt and pepper to taste.  You can either add your Parmesan now, or after portioning out if you're counting your syns / HEA allowance (the cheesier the better, IMHO, but perhaps not if you're on plan!)

Euro 2016 Food Challenge: Spain: Lamb Albondigas and Patatas Bravas

I used a recipe on the BBC website as the basis for this, but I've made it syn-free and I've baked everything to make it a bit more low maintenance (running around after a three-year-old = much easier to prepare stuff and bung in the oven than watch the hob!)

Ingredients

Meatballs:
500g lean lamb mince
2 garlic cloves
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp hot paprika
2 tbsp. chopped fresh herbs (the original recipe says parsley, I used oregano and mint)
1 egg
salt and pepper
Frylight

Sauce:
1 onion
1 carrot
1 stick of celery
3 garlic cloves
1 tin of chopped tomatoes
1 tbsp. tomato puree
0.5 tsp crushed chillies.
1 tsp sweetener

Patatas:
3/4 large potatoes
Frylight
Season-all seasoning

Preheat the oven to 200C.

Make the sauce.  Finely chop the onion, carrot, celery and garlic.  Spray a frying pan with Frylight and sauté the veg until softened.  Add the tomatoes, tomato puree crushed chillies and sweetener.  Leave the sauce to simmer while you make the meatballs.

In a large bowl, combine the meatball ingredients together with your hands.  Divide into 16 meatballs and place in a casserole dish. 

Pour the tomato sauce over the meatballs and cover the dish with foil.  Place in the oven to bake for about 1 hour.

Chop your potatoes into cubes and par-boil for 3 minutes.  Drain.  Spray a roasting tin with Frylight and tip the potatoes in.  Spray with a bit more frylight and sprinkle with season-all seasoning.  Put in the oven for the last 40 minutes of cooking, turning them once or twice.  Take the foil off the meatballs for the last 15 minutes of cooking.

Euro 2016 Food Challenge: Czech Republic: Chicken Paprika

The Hairy Bikers' version of this dish is actually one of my favourite recipes, super simple and very easily adapted to Slimming World.  This is my interpretation of it, but it is very close to the original.

If not on plan, you can add the soured cream to the finished dish before serving, but I prefer to add it per portion so I can count the syns properly...

Ingredients

4-6 chicken thighs, bone in but skin removed
1 onion, chopped
2-3 cloves of garlic, chopped
2 tbsp paprika (I use smoked paprika - 1 tbsp of hot / 1 tbsp of sweet)
Half a pint of chicken stock
A handful of chopped flat leaf parsley
2 red peppers, deseeded and cut into strips
1 tin of chopped tomatoes
250ml soured cream / 1-2 tbsp. per portion (if counting syns)

Fry the onion until translucent. Add the chicken thighs and brown them on each side.  Stir in the garlic, paprika, peppers, stock, parsley and chopped tomatoes.  Simmer on the hob for about an hour.

Stir in the soured cream before serving (portion by portion if you're counting!)

We usually have this with rice, but this time we tried it with Orzo pasta stirred through it. Very nice indeed.

Euro 2016 Food Challenge: Republic of Ireland: Colcannon

Proper comfort food is this! Just the thing for a rainy day like today.  Back in the day I would make mash with half a pack of butter - this is a nice way of getting flavour in without the calories, as well as packing in some sneaky speed foods...

Ingredients

1kg potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks

1 small head of Spring greens / cabbage, finely shredded

3 spring onions and some chives, finely chopped

White wine vinegar

2 tbsp reduced fat soured cream (2 syns)

Salt and white pepper

Frylight

Boil the potatoes in salted water until cooked through. Drain. Add the 2 tbsp soured cream and mash well (I like a really fine mash, so start it off with a masher and finish it with an electric whisk).

Spray a large frying pan with Frylight, and stir fry the cabbage / greens. When they have wilted, stir in the spring onion and chives, and a splash of white wine vinegar, and fry for another minute to heat through.  Add to the mash and mix thoroughly, seasoning with white pepper and plenty of salt.

Serve with baked gammon and a big pile of veg.

Euro 2016 Food Challenge: Poland: Golabki

Big thanks to my gorgeous Polish friends for help with this one - all the Polish recipes I found in researching this looked lovely, but heavily based in pastry and other naughty things!  So they sent me a couple of ideas and I ended up making this. I used this recipe as a basis, but changed the sauce to use free foods instead.  Very scrummy it was too.  A bit of effort in the making, but incredibly filling and very tasty.

I served ours with SW roasted new potatoes.

Ingredients

1 large cabbage, cored

1 large onion, chopped

500g lean beef mince

250g lean pork mince

1.5 cups cooked brown rice

1 garlic clove, finely chopped

1 tsp salt

0.5 tsp black pepper

800g passata

Half a tube of tomato puree

2 tsp sweetener

2 tsp Worcestershire sauce

Put the cabbage head into a large pan of salted boiling water.  Cook until the cabbage leaves are softened enough to remove from the head (about 3 minutes).  Remove from the pot and let the cabbage sit until it's cool enough to handle.

Separate off the cabbage leaves, you will need about 16-18.  Cut out any tough centre ribs.  Set the whole leaves aside.  Chop the rest of the cabbage and scatter it in the bottom of a casserole dish.

Cook the onion in frylight until softened.  When cooled, mix the onion with the mince, rice, garlic, salt and pepper. 

Preheat the oven to 180C.

Take a small handful of the stuffing mixture, place in the centre of a cabbage leaf and wrap the leaf around it, tucking in the sides and then laying in the casserole dish.  Repeat until all the mix and leaves are used up.

Mix the passata, tomato puree, sweetener and Worcestershire sauce.  Pour over the top of the cabbage rolls and cover the dish with foil.

Bake in the oven for about an hour, until the cabbage is tender and the meat is cooked through.

Euro 2016 Food Challenge: Germany: Frikadellen

As written in one recipe I read, "the original hamburger". Another variation on a meatball theme, but why change a winning formula.

The recipes I looked at all required breadcrumbs, but I had some cooked rice leftover so thought I'd try that instead.  Worked a treat.

Ingredients

350g lean minced pork

350g lean minced beef

1 cup of cooked brown rice

1 onion, finely chopped / grated

A handful of chopped parsley

1 tsp smoked paprika

1 egg

Plenty of salt and pepper

In a large bowl, mix all the ingredients together with your hands.  Take handfuls of the mixture and form into small hamburger like patties.  Spray a large frying pan with Frylight and fry the Frikadellen, about 5 minutes each side, until cooked through.

Serve with potato salad and some veggies / a garden salad.

Euro 2016 Food Challenge: Switzerland: Rösti

This recipe was borrowed extensively from the oven-baked rosti cake recipe on the BBC Good Food site.

Very tasty, but if I did it again I'd probably use a bigger dish, to increase the surface area / crispyness.  Proper comfort food, pair it with meat of your choice and a big heap of veggies to keep with the food optimising...

Ingredients

1.5 kg Maris Piper potatoes, peeled

6 bacon medallions / equivalent fat-trimmed bacon

1 onion

Frylight

Heat oven to 190C / 170C fan / GM5.

Chop the bacon into short strips and dry fry until cooked through.

Boil the potatoes for 5 minutes, drain and plunge into cold water.

When they are cool enough to handle, pat the potatoes dry and grate into a large bowl.  Spray each layer with Frylight as you go, to stop the potato sticking together too much (the original recipe uses oil for this purpose - my mixture was quite sticky so I also used my hands to separate it out as much as possible). 

Peel and grate the onion (or cheat and blitz in the food processor like I did!).  Add this to the potato with the cooked bacon and use your hands to gently mix it all together.

Put a large baking tray in the oven for 5 minutes to warm through. 

Spray your chosen cooking dish liberally with frylight.  I used my silicon cake tin, which is great for not sticking.  If you're worried about the mixture sticking to your dish, line it with greaseproof paper first.

Scatter the potato in your cooking dish, being careful not to pack it down.  Spray the top with Frylight.  Place on the hot baking tray and bake in the oven for 1 hour 20 minutes, until the potatoes are cooked through and crisp on the top.

Euro 2016 Food Challenge: Austria: Wiener Schnitzel

The Austrian classic.  I'll admit, this isn't quite as moorish as the butter-fried original, but it's a pretty good substitute. Sadly Asda were all out of veal, so this recipe uses pork steaks.

4 pork steaks, trimmed of visible fat

4 slices wholemeal bread (synned as necessary - I used mine as HEB)

Season-all seasoning

1 egg, beaten

Frylight

Meat hammer

Cling film 

Lay some cling film over a chopping board and put one of the pork steaks on it.  Put another layer of cling film over the top, and use the meat hammer to flatten out the meat. Get it as thin as you can without bashing holes in it.  I got mine to about double the size, and about half a centimetre thick.

Make the breadcrumbs - this recipe needs a fine crumb, so I toasted and blitzed by bread, then put the crumbs in the oven for 10 minutes to crisp up before crushing them in a pestle and mortar.

Mix the breadcrumbs with 1 tbsp. season-all seasoning.  Dip each steak in egg then coat in the crumbs.  Place the steaks on a rack over a roasting tray (or a baking sheet lined with baking parchment).  Spray both sides of the steaks with Frylight to help the crumb crisp up.

Bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes at 200C / 180C fan.  Rest for 5 minutes before serving.

I served mine with SW potatoes and a salad.

Euro 2016 Food Challenge: Sweden: Köttbullar

Sweden = meatballs, obviously. What better excuse to try an SW version of my favourite IKEA dinner.

The taste on the meatballs was good, but they ended up a bit dry so I mixed them with the gravy and let them soak up a bit of moisture before serving.  Next time I make them I think I'll try braising them in the oven with the gravy.  I served mine with roasted new potatoes, as a healthy alternative to chips.

There are syns in this, soured cream in the gravy and I served it with redcurrant jelly (use lingonberry jam for the real authentic taste, but redcurrant is a decent substitute). Check syns for the brands you're using as they vary.  Mine came out at 3 syns per portion.

Ingredients: 

Meatballs:

250g beef mince

250g pork mince

1 egg

0.5 medium onion, very finely chopped 

0.5 tsp ground allspice 

Salt and pepper

Gravy:

1.5 medium onions, sliced

1 beef stock pot

2-3 tbsp reduced fat soured cream (check syns)

New potatoes

Frylight

Season-all seasoning

Mixed veg 

Lingonberry jam / redcurrant jelly (check syns)

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 200C.

2. Spray a roasting tray with Frylight. Add the sliced onions, spray with a bit more Frylight and toss to coat. Season with salt and pepper and roast in the oven for 10 minutes. 

3. Par boil your new potatoes in salted boiling water for 5 minutes. When you drain them, reserve the cooking water in a jug or another pan.

4. Now the potatoes and onions do a swap - put the roasted onions in the empty pan you used for the spuds. Spray the now-empty onion roasting tin with more Frylight, add the potatoes, spray with some more Frylight and sprinkle over some season-all seasoning.  Toss to coat, and roast in the oven for about 30 minutes, turning occasionally.

5. Add the beef stock pot to the onion pan with about 1 pint of the reserved cooking water (topping it up with boiling water if needed).  Bring to the boil and simmer gently for about 10 minutes.

6. Meanwhile, make the meatballs.  Chuck all the ingredients in a bowl and mix well with your hands. Roll into small balls, about an inch diameter.

7. Spray a large frying pan with Frylight, and brown the meatballs in batches.  Place in a roasting / baking tray and cook in the oven for 10 minutes while you finish the gravy.

8.  Put the gravy in a blender and liquidise.  Put back in the pan, and stir through the soured cream.  Simmer to thicken it up.

9. Remove the meatballs from the oven, and add to the gravy pan, including any meat juices from the baking tray.

10. Serve the meatballs and gravy with the roasted new potatoes, 1-2 tbsp lingonberry jam / redcurrant jelly (synned but worth it!) and your choice of veg.

Euro 2016 Food Challenge: Italy: Linguine Picchi-Pacchi

We eat A LOT of Italian food, so for my Italian challenge recipe I wanted to do something a bit different and seasonal.  There's a version of this dish in our Cucina Siciliana book; not only does it have a brilliant name (pronounced pic-key pac-key) but it's very tasty too.

Its basically a really easy fresh tomato sauce.  I think this is everything I love about good Italian food - simple, fresh, and packed with flavour. 

The recipe I used as a base included prawns in the dish, but I kept it veggie this time.  I think bacon would probably work well too.  This sauce is usually served with spaghetti, but we had linguine in (and I prefer it to spag).  And usually parsley is the herb used, but we have an abundance of oregano in the garden.   I used a mix of cherry and salad tomatoes to vary the texture, but any will do.

Serves 2

Ingredients 

400g fresh tomatoes, peeled and chopped

1 medium onion, finely chopped

1 large garlic clove, crushed 

200g linguine

A large handful of oregano, chopped

Frylight 

Salt and pepper

To peel the tomatoes: use a sharp knife to score a cross in the bottom of each tomato. Plunge them into a bowl of boiling water for 30-60 seconds. Fish them out with a slotted spoon and plunge them into cold water.  Peel the tomatoes and chop them up.

Spray a pan with Frylight. Sauté the onion over a low heat until softened but not browned. Add the garlic and tomatoes and cook for about 10-15 minutes, using a wooden spoon to break down the tomato flesh.  Season with salt to taste.

Cook the pasta according to the packet instructions.

Reserving some for garnish at the end, add the majority of the oregano to the sauce and heat through.  

Stir the sauce through the cooked pasta. Serve immediately, topped with the rest of the oregano, and seasoned with salt and pepper.

Euro 2016 Food Challenge: Albania: Mocarela Mbushur Qofte Mish Gengji

Mozzarella stuffed meatballs! Albanian food, where have you been hiding all my life??

Day two of the challenge, and I thought I'd get one of the trickier ones out of the way. I know nothing about Albanian cuisine, but a quick google search gave me lots of recipes to choose from, incorporating some classic Mediterranean flavours.

When I found a recipe for Mozzarella meatballs on myalbanianfood.com I had to give it a try.  Here's my SW take on it. The original recipe calls for lamb mince, but I used beef, as that's what I had in. It also uses shop bought pasta sauce, but I made my own.

Mine didn't quite work out, as I forgot to cover the dish before baking so it was a tad overcooked... The flavours were good though, I'll definitely be trying this again.

Albanian Mozzarella-Stuffed Meatballs 

350g lean beef / lamb mince (less than 5% fat)

1 egg

1 medium onion

2 garlic cloves

A handful of parsley

A handful of other fresh herbs (I used oregano and thyme)

1 ball of reduced fat mozzarella

800g chopped tomatoes / passata

Frylight 

1. Peel the onion and cut it in half. Peel the garlic cloves. 

2. Roughly chop half the onion, and put it in a food processor with one of the garlic cloves, a sprig of the parsley and a handful of other mixed herbs. Pulse until fairly finely chopped. 

3. Spray a frying pan with Frylight. Cook the onion mix over a low heat until the onions are softened but not browned. Add the chopped tomatoes and some salt and pepper. Stir together, heat through, and set aside while you make the meatballs.

4. Roughly chop the other half of the onion, and put it in the food processor with the other garlic clove and the rest of the parsley. Whizz it up until it's finely chopped. 

5.  Add the mince and egg to the food processor with some salt and pepper, and pulse until it's all mixed together. 

6. Divide your mozzarella ball into eight equal parts. Weigh them so you know how many syns will be in each meatball (I was using the mozzarella as my HEA, so made sure four meatballs-worth added up to 70g).

7. Tip the meatball mix out onto a chopping board and work it into a ball with your hands.  Split the meatball mix into eight equal parts and roll into balls. 

8. Take a meatball, and push a piece of mozzarella into it. Work the meat mixture around with your hands to completely enclose the cheese.

9. In a baking dish or slow cooker, tip some of the sauce into the bottom, and place the meatballs on top.  Cover the meatballs with the rest of the sauce.

10. If slow cooking, cook on high for 6 hours. If baking, cover the dish with foil, and cook in the oven for 2-3 hours at 180C / 160C fan.

Serve with whatever you fancy - we had our slightly-over-baked ones with linguine.

Euro 2016 Food Challenge: Belgium: Flammekueche

Day one of the food challenge! And on tonight's menu, Belgian Flammekueche / Tarte Flambée. 

Basically pizza with crème fraîche, onions and bacon.  I actually first ate this in Alsace, and it's one of my favourite things.  You can buy them in Costco, and pre-diet they were a regular post-shop treat!

Here's my attempt at a Slimming World version.  If you're not on SW, you can easily convert this to a full fat version - just follow the recipe here but use a standard pizza base recipe, smoked streaky bacon and full fat crème fraîche.

In looking for a low-syn pizza base I found the great healthy extras pizza recipe from The Slimming Foodie: http://www.theslimmingfoodie.com/healthy-extras-pizza/ 

I never knew you could use bread mix as a healthy B!  What a discovery. Only certain ones mind... I used the Asda wholemeal bread mix:

I did a few experimental ones first, trying quark and fat free Fromage Frais for the sauce (as they're syn-free).  Crème fraîche is far nicer, and worth using a syn, I think it needs the slight acidity that you don't quite get with the other two.

Flammekueche / Tarte Flambée 

Syns per tarte:
0.5-1 syn for the crème fraîche (check syn values carefully, the different brands vary a lot!)

6 syns for the base if not using as HEB

Ingredients 

1 x wholemeal bread mix (at the moment Aldi or Asda count as HEB)

Frylight

And for each tarte you will need:

1 smoked bacon medallion (or a rasher of back bacon with the fat trimmed off)

1 small onion
1-2 tbsp low fat / fat free Crème Fraîche

Prepare the dough

Make up the dough according to the packet instructions.

60g of the made up dough counts as your HEB choice.  When the dough is ready, weigh it out into 60g portions - I got 14 out of the Asda packet.  Dough can be frozen, so wrap up any portions you don't need and put them in the freezer for another time.

NB. If you are short on time / can't be faffed making dough, this recipe would probably work on a different base, e.g. using one of the wraps or sandwich thins that count as your HEB.  

Prepare the toppings

Cut the bacon into short strips.

 
Spray a frying pan with Frylight and cook the bacon strips.  This should take about 4-5 minutes on a medium heat.  

Remove the cooked bacon from the pan into a bowl and set aside.

Peel and thinly slice the onion, and add it to the frying pan.  Cook on a low heat until softened (about 10-15 minutes).

Assemble and bake

Preheat your oven to 240C/220C fan. 

If you've got a pizza stone, put it in the oven to heat up (if you haven't got one, I'd recommend investing - brilliant for getting a crisp base on homemade or shop bought pizzas).  If you haven't got a pizza stone, use a large baking tray.

Make the base by rolling out your dough, and/or hand-stretching it (like they do in proper pizza places!).  I did a mixture of both - I rolled the dough out fairly thinly with a rolling pin, then carefully stretched it out by hand, as thin as it would go without breaking.  I like a super thin base anyway, but for SW purposes more surface area = more pizza, more toppings and less of the wholemeal taste!

If you're using a baking tray, put your base onto a piece of greaseproof paper.  

Get your heated baking tray / pizza stone out of the oven, and put the base onto it, carefully stretching out the base a bit more if necessary.

Spoon on and spread out 1-2 level tbsps. of crème fraîche, leaving a small border around the edge.  Top with the cooked onion and bacon.

Bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes until the base is crisped up and lightly browned.

Serve with a big pile of salad.