A quick supper of Feta and Tomato Stuffed Chicken

Hello my lovelies!

This is a super quick, super easy slimming world recipe that I threw together last night for a quick supper. This is for two people so just multiply the ingredients as necessary.

I served this with salad and Mash Direct chilli baby bakes. I’m not too sure how many syns they are, but I don’t think they could be that many. If you are worried at all about using something that you don’t low the syns for then please just use the baby boiled potatoes in the micro bag (the ones from Tesco - I hope you know what Im taking about) or rustle up some SW chips or a baked potato.

I was also going to use up the rest of the asparagus and tenderstem broccoli for some extra super free but they had gone off… oops!

STUFFED CHICKEN

2 chicken fillets

50g feta cheese

Handful of Plum or Cherry tomatoes

1 chopped scallion (green onion)

4 strips of bacon (fat cut off)

LETS COOK!

1. Get your oven heated up to 190oC and chop up your tomatoes and scallion.

2. Place the chicken breasts on a large piece of grease-proof paper and give them a bash until they are about 1.5 cm thick (I cover them with greaseproof paper before bashing so the chicken doesn’t stick to the rolling pin)

3. Top them with the copped tomatoes, scallion and some crumbled feta. Cover with bacon and put in the oven. I just put mine straight onto the rack on the greaseproof paper.

4. Cook the chicken for 30-35 minutes depending on how crispy you like your bacon.

(Sorry, I had already started!)

It was super quick to make and really tasty! I hope you like it. Let me know if you try it or if you have any quick supper ideas like this. Bon Appetit!

Kiki x

Slimming World style Jamie Oliver Cajun Chicken

Hello my lovelies!

I know in my last post I wrote that I would try and make Sundays my outfits of the week post, but to be honest I've been putting them on Instagram daily and I feel like it would just be too repetitive to do a whole post on it, especially since my Intagram feed is linked to this blog in the panel on the left.

So instead I'm dedicating this post to food.. what else, ha!

A lot of you may not know this but I am super interested in cookery books and have amassed a little collection on my kitchen windowsill.

One of my favourite TV chefs is Jamie Oliver. I watch the majority of his cooking programmes and his food always looks soooo good. My lovely husband bought me two of his cookery books for Christmas two years ago, but I never got around to making any recipes from them because it was right around that time that I started Slimming World and just automatically assumed that none of the recipes would be suitable for SW. Oh how wrong I was. I recently got back into watching his 15 minute meal series and realised just how SW friendly his meals are!

The majority of the 15 Minute Meal recipes can be really easily adapted to be SW friendly - and more pocket friendly. Seriously, who buys corn on the cob over a tin of sweetcorn? And who has a griddle pan just laying around the house? Also, Jamie must have a seriously big stove top because trying to fit all these pots and pans onto the stove at the same time was just ridiculous. Rant over. For now.

Anyway, I tried out the Spicy Cajun Chicken with Smashed Sweet Potatoes and Fresh Corn Salad this week and although it took me 30 minutes, not 15 (thanks Jamie!) it was still a beautiful meal, really high quality flavour and a few tweaks made it 100% SW friendly. It was honestly delicious. I divided the ingredients in half because I was only cooking for two, but the below is to serve four.

So here are Jamie’s recommended ingredients and my tweaks:

SALSA:

4 corn on the cob - substituted 2 cans of Tesco Value Sweetcorn

1 small bunch of fresh coriander

1/2 fresh red chilli

4 spring onions

3 ripe tomatoes - substituted a handful of plum tomatoes that were on offer in Tesco

2 limes - didn’t bother with these at all

1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil - left this out

SMASH:

800g sweet potatoes - 3 or 4 sweet potatoes depending on size

2 tbsp sweet chilli sauce - this was syned at 3 syns between 4 people - I counted as 1 syn each to be safe

CHICKEN:

4 x 120g skinless chicken breasts

1 tbsp Cajun seasoning

1 tbsp polenta - did’t use this

olive oil - substituted for Frylight

2 rashers of smoked streaky bacon - make sure the fat is cut off or use the rindless medallions

175g okra - substituted for asparagus and tender stem broccoli (come in a double pack in tesco)

20g feta cheese - used as HEA (or 5 syns - split between 4 I would count that as 1.5 syns per person to be safe)

Jamie says to get the kettle boiled and get a griddle pan on high heat. If you have a griddle pan, great, get it going. I don’t, so I got a non-stick frying pan on the go.

If you want to follow Jamie’s recipe, i.e using corn on the cob then I recommend you get the book or have a wee look online, I’m are it’s on his website. From here on out I’ll be changing the steps to fit how I did it SW style.

START COOKING

1. Drain the corn and cook it with some Frylight in a pan.

  

2. Wash the sweet potatoes, peel, then finely slice. Put the sweet potatoes into a large pot, then just cover with boiling salted water and the lid.

3. On a large sheet of greaseproof paper, toss the chicken with salt and the Cajun seasoning. Fold over the paper, then bash and flatten the chicken to approx 1.5cm thick with a rolling pin. Put the chicken into a frying pan with some Frylight, turning after 3 or 4 minutes, until golden and cooked through.

4. Drain the cooked sweet potatoes, return to the pan and mash with the sweet chilli sauce, pop the lid on and leave on a very low heat. 

  

5. Slice the bacon and add to the frying pan (use the same one as the chicken if you have room, if not get another pan out, or take the chicken out of that pan). As soon as the bacon starts to crisp up, add the tenderstem broccoli and asparagus to the pan.

6. When the corn is slightly charred, put it in a bowl. 

7. Roughly chop the top leafy half of the coriander and add to the corn. Finely slice the chilli and trimmed spring onions, chop the tomatoes, and add to the bowl, then mix well. 

  

8. Serve the sweet potato smash with the chicken and veg, crumble over the feta, and serve with the fresh salsa on the side.

 I also added some rocket salad to the plates just to get a bit more super free food in there.

I’m thinking I might make a bit of a series of this - maybe trying one or two of the recipes from the book per week? What do you think? Would you be interested in that?

I really hope you give this one a try, it is super good. I have never been keen on mashed sweet potato, but with the chill sauce and the corn salsa and the whole combination of flavours, it was just so darn tasty that I actually crave it a bit! 

I reckon you could do this recipe with any meat too, it doesn’t have to be chicken. This is aimed at being an ‘extra easy’ day recipe, but you could easily leave out the chicken (substitute with a Quorn fillet) and the bacon to make it a totally green recipe. For a red day you would have to leave out the corn, and I’m not 100% on the sweet potato, but I’m certain you can use some substations for it, maybe butternut squash? I’ve never done the red days so I’m not too sure about it. If you do red days and you know more about them please let me know.

I hope you enjoy this one and you are all staying motivated and body confident. Remember that you are all fantastic no matter what your size or shape. Your weight does not define you!

Big love,

Kiki x

Slim Rice...

I had read about this no calorie, no carb Slim Rice in the Daily Mail a few days ago, but only got around to getting a bag yesterday. Last night I used up the last of my Oh So Lean sauces, so I can't wait until next week when I can get another delivery! I still have three chicken breasts left though so I think I will make some low syn chicken and stuffing rolls tonight or tomorrow, we'll see how pressed I am for time today as I have an appointment for wedding dress fittings tonight and may not have enough time to cook them when I get home from work. It may just be a case of eating a couple of bananas while I take Turf a walk... multitasking at it's finest!

So last night I wanted to use the Oh So Lean speed curry pot. It was the last sauce pot I had left from the family deal and so decided to make a chicken and veg curry with it and include the slim rice as well to bulk it out without the carbs and cals.

I had frozen the speed curry and left it out overnight and all day while I was at work to defrost... now I really don't think I should have frozen the speed curry as when I tried to take it from the tub last night it had the consistency of a sponge, and I don't mean the cake-y kind, and I couldn't use it. It was my own fault really, but I'll know for next time not to freeze it.

The Slim Rice didn't resemble rice at all, it was more like noodles that had been cut up into little squares, but it really did bulk out my dinner and fill me up.

So without any further preamble, here's my recipe for Chicken and Veg Curry with Slim Rice... this makes a lovely big portion for one person.

Ingredients:

One Chicken Breast (chopped)
Two cups of Mixed Veg (I use Tesco Value)
Speed Curry Sauce (mine went funny when I froze it so I had to resort to my usual Goldfish Curry Concentrate)
1 large onion
1 packet of Slim Rice

First chop the chicken....

Spray a pan or wok with frylight and brown off the chicken....

Chop an onion (I used red as I had run out of white)...

Add it to the pan with the chicken and let it soften...

Measure out two cups of frozen mixed veg and place in a microwavable dish. Add boiling water and cook on high for 3-4 minutes...

Drain and add to the pan...

Open the packet of Slim Rice and tip it into a sieve... rinse it well under cold water until the smell has gone - it has a bit of a fishy smell, but this is just the smell of the water preserving it, it washes off really quick and it doesn't smell strongly in the first place...

Add to the pan and cook on a medium heat until everything is cooked and the Slim Rice is heated through...

Add the speed curry sauce... I had to use the Goldfish Curry concentrate as my speed curry had gone a bit strange in the freezer... do not freeze your speed curry sauce, lol!

Cook until everything is heated through and the Slim Rice has gone a bit mushy - this means it's absorbed the flavour!

Serve and enjoy!

This really was very tasty and filling. I would use the Slim Rice again in curries, but also maybe in soups instead of lentils and as a thickener in stews instead of potatoes. It would also be handy to add to a shepherds pie or a chilli as it really does fill you up! I don't know whether it would count as a free food, but at 15 calories for the whole pack and 0g of everything else, I would count it as 1 syn. It's a filling food with no carbs. A true little diet helper!

Slimming World Chicken Curry with Vegetable Rice...

I count this as six syns because a normal chip shop/chinese curry sauce is classed as six syns, although it could be less than this. To be on the safe side though, count it as six!

This makes three servings - dinner for me and J plus lunch for me the day after!

Ingredients:

2 chicken thighs (skin, fat and bones removed) - I buy these in Tesco for £3.50 for approx. 5/6

value mixed veg OR value stirfry veg

value broccoli (optional)

Goldfish Curry concentrate (check out my Chicken Veg Curry with Noodles for a photo of this)

value long grain rice - 40p in tesco

4 small onions

First get your wok out, your kettle boiled and your rice cooker on (If you don't have a rice cooker read the rice to water ratio on the back of the pack and use a large pot)

Next put your veg in with your rice. I used the value stirfry mix, value mixed veg and value broccoli - put an handful of each (or the veg you are using) in the rice cooker/large pot -

I used about a cup of curry concentrate... put it in a pot with some water...

Simmer until dissolved... you can always add more water to dilute it if its too thick....

Chop your chicken and onion and simmer together in the wok on a low heat... once chicken is cooked add the curry sauce and leave to simmer until the rice is cooked... you can see in the picture below that J sneekily added some peas to the chicken and onion, naughty naughty!

When the rice and veg is cooked, use a spoons to mix it all together...

Dish up the rice and veg into a bowl and put a couple of big spoonfuls of the chicken curry on top...

I gave J most of the curry sauce to try and save on some syns.

I'm not too great at writing out recipes and stuff, so I hope this is not to much of a jumble to follow. I am not too sure what is on the menu tonight in Casa del Wilkie/Johnston, but I will post a recipe shortly of the Butter Fish and Rice dish when I next make it. I will also be trying out some Oh So Lean goodies next week when they are delivering around the Bangor area and will review them on here.

Before the week is out I will do a super quick review of Governor Rocks in Donaghadee - sister restaurant to Coco in Belfast. I went there last Friday night with a girlfriend and had a wonderful dinner... but more on that later! Unfortunately we were having such a good time I forgot to take any photos of the food, so a quick recommendation will have to do!

This is quite a busy week for us, with house viewings tonight, bridesmaid dress fittings in Dublin tomorrow, a special Valentine's dinner in Pier 36 on Thursday night, cupcake baking on Friday/Saturday and a bridal fair in the Clandeboye Lodge on Sunday. I'll try my very best to squeeze in a few quick slimming world recipes that I've been cooking up - you don't have to be bad just because you're busy - and to also do the restaurant review before the weekend, and also show you all my new shoes, lol!

Slimming World Chicken, Veg and Pasta - eat your heart out Nigella!

I don't really like posting recipes and things, I prefer to just cook, eat and go! But since everyone I know is on Slimming World at the minute trying to shift those extra Christmas pounds, I thought I would post some recipes which I like to cook - maybe one a week - and hopefully you will share your recipes too! Nigella Lawson, eat your heart out!

This is a great way to make a big pot of slimming world friendly food for very little money. It's handy to have a big pot of something you know you can just grab a bowl off when your hungry without having to tot up syns/divide into thirds (superfree, green and red) etc. It's also a great way to use some superfree cottage cheese! I'm not a fan of it and have kept away from it, but I know a lot of people at my old Slimming World class found it really helpful to their weight-loss, so I've tried to use it in a lot of my cooking, especially as the base for cheese sauces - I do a mean free Italian Tagliatelle dish using cottage cheese. I'll post the recipe and pics for that next time I make it! 

Today's post is a really quick, simple and filling dish that I find makes 6-8 portions. When I get home from work at night I don't want to stand in the kitchen making a healthy meal that takes FOREVER... this one is really quick and simple and takes about 20 minutes MAX - and that includes my 5 min shower while the veggies are cooking!

You will need:

1 bag frozen Value Mixed Veg

1 bag frozen Value Broccoli

Frylight

2 packets of Tesco Chicken, Garlic and Wine Pasta

1 tub of Light Choices Cottage Cheese with onion and chive

4 chicken breasts

4 small onions

1 large pot with lid

1 frying pan or wok

1 colander 

Blender - handheld or other

This recipe has a total of 1 syn for the whole pot on extra easy, which should make 6-8 servings! Eat up!

This is the stuff you will need - as you can see I shop at Tesco, but any brand will do! I have here one bag of Value Mixed Veg, one bag of Value broccoli, Frylight, two packets of Tesco Chicken, Garlic and Wine Sauce Pasta (1/2 syn each), Light Choices Cottage Cheese with Onion and Chive and a four pack of chicken (which was on offer for £4). I also used four small onions (Tesco Value), but these aren't pictured

First thing first - boil your kettle!

Put the frozen mixed veg and frozen broccoli in the large pot, the frozen mixed veg has peas in it, which are classed as a 'green day' food so remember these are not superfree like the carrot and cauliflower in the mix. This is why I make sure to add the same amount of broccoli as I do mixed veg - approx three cups.

 

Pour boiling water over the veg and bring to the boil... this is where I popped off for a quick shower, and when I returned...

The veg was cooked! Tip it into your colander.

Boil your kettle again and tip both packets of pasta into the now empty pot.

Cut up your chicken - I like to cut mine into strips as they cook faster - and add them to a wok/frying pan with some frylight. Put it on a very low heat and let them cook (doing it this way means you will get tender chicken that's not dry)

Empty you cottage cheese into a dish - as you can see it doesn't look good at all!

Get your blender - I have a handheld one, but any one will do...

And give the cottage cheese and good whizz... it will turn out lovely and smooth and creamy!

Pop a lid over your wok/frying pan and let the chicken steam in it's own juices for a few minutes

Tip the chicken into the same colander as the veg, give it a shake and leave to drain

Meanwhile add 900ml of water to your pasta and bring to a simmer

Chop your onions...

And add them to your pasta pot...

The onions will soften as they cook with the pasta

Once most (not all) of the water has evaporated the the pasta is cooked add the colander of mixed veg, brocolli and chicken to the pot and stir

Cook for a couple of minutes then add the cottage cheese - you can use more than this to make it really saucy, but I found that the pasta packets have enough flavour in them that you don't need to much

Give it a stir and leave to cook for a couple of minutes until there is only about 3cm of juice in the bottom of the pot

You can eat it on it's own or bake some superfree butternut squash in the oven as a side dish with some mixed leaves.

NOTE: You can also add spinach to this dish (I just didn't have any in my fridge) - cook it in the pan with the chicken until wilted.

I hope you enjoy this! We certainly did!