Euro 2016 Food Challenge: Wales: Welsh Rarebit

How have I managed to live in Wales for all of my adult life without ever eating Welsh Rarebit?? Oh well, there's a first time for everything. 

There's a recipe on the Slimming World website, but I improvised mine a bit. I used quark to make it extra cheesy - it adds a bit of a sour taste, but I liked it. 

Ingredients

2 slices wholemeal bread from a 400g loaf (HEB)

45g reduced fat cheddar (HEA)

1 tsp mustard powder

1 Spring onion, sliced

1 egg yolk

1 heaped tbsp quark

Smoked paprika, black pepper and salad, to serve

In a bowl, mix the cheese, mustard powder, spring onion, egg yolk and quark.

Toast the bread under the grill on one side. Turn over and divide the cheese mix between the two slices. Grill until the cheese is starting to brown.

Season the rarebit with smoked paprika and black pepper. Serve with a side salad.

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. 

Dry-Roasted Broad Beans

I joined Slimming World after Christmas (finally accepting that it's time to lose the baby weight, now that said baby has started school...)

So far so good, turns out we ate pretty healthily already, just a bit heavy handed with the olive oil and butter... I am now best friends with Frylight and the pounds are dropping off.

One thing I've really missed so far is crisps (which you can still have on SW, but I'd rather save my syns for booze...) so I've been on a mission to find a "free" crunchy snack to cure my munchy cravings of an evening. 

After a number of mediocre attempts, and some almost broken fillings, today I think I've cracked it (the recipe, not my teeth). Inspired by the classic Spanish snack of Habas Fritas, here is my syn free version. These are dry roasted flavour, using "Season-All" seasoning. Just add different spices to change the flavour.

After trying out a number of different recipes online, I found this one to be the best - http://www.thedailyspud.com/2009/03/04/posh-spicy-beans/

- if you follow the link, there are a few flavour variations too. The recipe below is heavily based on this, but made SW friendly with a liberal spraying of Frylight.

The recipe requires dried split Fava beans - I ordered mine online from http://hodmedods.co.uk/ - 

You can do it with normal broad beans, but they are far better made with the dried version. If you can't get hold of any, buy tinned broad beans, drain and pop the beans out of their shells. No need to soak or pre-cook then, just spray, spice and bung in the oven.

These do come with a bit of a health warning - they are VERY moreish, so if you are on SW be careful not to overeat on them!  Some SW purists might say it's cheating, but I think it's worth it to keep me off the crisps!

Recipe: Low Fat Dry Roasted Broad Beans

125g dried split broad beans

Frylight (I use the Olive Oil one)

2-3 tsp "Season-All" seasoning

1. Soak the beans in plenty of water overnight.

2.  Drain the beans, rinse well, and put in a pan with about a pint of fresh water.  Bring to the boil and simmer over a medium heat for about 7 minutes. The beans should be softened but not mushy.  Drain, and set aside to cool a little.

 (If you are using tinned beans, you come in here...)

3.  Preheat oven to 180C

4.  Spread the beans on a baking tray in a single layer. Use two trays if necessary - if they're too crowded they won't crisp up properly. Spray liberally with Frylight and sprinkle with the seasoning, then toss it all together in the tray to ensure an even coating.

5. Bake for about 30 minutes, until the beans are golden and crisping up.

6. Leave the beans in the trays to cool (I left them in the oven with just the fan on, this seems to dry them out a bit more and makes them extra crispy)