Slimming World Chinese Spring Rolls...

I work very close to Camseng, the Chinese superstore in Belfast, so it is really easy for me to get hold of lots of super low syn Chinese food. The wrappers I used for these Spring Rolls are 1.5 syns each, I would normally buy the Wonton Wrappers, which are slightly smaller, but only 1 syns each, but they didn't have any left. They are very cheap, around £1.50 for a packet of approx. 50 wrappers. With the big ones, you can stuff these with any ingredient you want... they are also really handy to layer in a tart dish and make goats cheese and roast tomato tartlets, yum! I also like to cook up some apples with sweetener and some nutmeg then fill the pastry and bake... you can use any fruit though, sometimes I use pear and apricot, which is delicious! I also want to mention the Tesco Value Raspberry Ripple Mousse... this is only 4 syns and tastes great with the fruit puffs I mentioned above.

You find all the wrappers in the freezer section and need to leave them out to defrost before use. They don't keep very well when they aren't cooked as you need to keep them moist, so I would normally make up as many spring rolls (or whatever I'm making with them) as I can, then throw out the leftover wrappers. There usually isn't many left.

So here is the recipe for the Spring Rolls, each one is 1.5 syns each. I was in a bit of a hurry making these as I was on my second glass of wine and was feeling the need to munch, so these are not the neatest ones I've made and look more like little parcels than rolls, but they taste great all the same.

Ingredients:

Chinese Wonton/Spring Roll Wrappers
Bag of Vale Mixed Stirfry Veg
Frylight
Soy Sauce
Lazy Garlic
Lazy Chilli
Curry Powder

First thing first... open your wrappers and separate them, they are quite thin, so be gentle or they will tear. Dampen a clean tea-towel and open it out flat. Layer the separated wrappers on the tea-towel and then fold the tea-towel in on itself to cover the wrappers. This will keep them moist while you use them.

For handiness, I always keep a bag of Tesco Value Stirfry Veg in the freezer as you can cook it straight from frozen. You can add many other things to these wrappers - shredded duck, chicken and beansprouts, minced prawns or pork etc...

Get your wok on and add the frylight, lazy chilli and lazy garlic... then empty in the whole bag of veg...

Once the veg has started to cook, add the curry powder (as much as you want) and a splash of soy sauce...

Once the veggies are cooked it's time to wrap... lay out one wrapper....

Place a spoonful of veggies in the corner of the wrapper... I've used a bit too much here, about half of that would have been better...

Wrap the spring rolls like this...

Lay them on a baking tray sprayed with frylight and put in the oven for approx. 15 minutes or until crispy...

I used too much filling in each of these which is why they didn't wrap properly, it's much easier to roll them with less filling. It's also a good idea to drain off any excess liquid from the wok as the dried the veggies, the crispier the wrapper! Tuck in!

If you do make the sweet filled ones, serve them with some of the Tesco Value Raspberry Ripple Mousse.... it's only 4 syns per tub and very tasty - I usually put one filled sweet pastry wrapper in a bowl and top with half of a tub of mousse - it's only 3.5 syns (if you use one of the big wrappers)! You could even have second helpings!

Neglect...

I have been neglecting this blog rather badly over the past two weeks... I've just been so busy with life that the blog has taken a back seat... well it's in the boot really!

But, the good news is I have been taking photos of the Slimming World food I've been cooking and I also had a really good spring clean of the house... a tidy house makes for a tidy mind. I cannot live in chaos... am I the only one? So this week I will hopefully be getting a post up each day (maybe two).

Tomorrow I will be posting some great little snacks I made - Slimming World Spring Rolls... yes, they do exist, and they were very tasty! I will also be posting my Peppered Mince and Veg recipe - sometimes I use this dish on its own with some slimming world chips and a big handful of salad or I top it with mashed butternut squash and cauliflower to make a quick Cottage Pie.

I will also be sharing my Super Slim Lasagne recipe, the quick noodle snacks that are low in syns and my recipe for Syn Free Rolls... these are a super substitute for bread! They don't taste bready or have the same texture, but they are fab for filling with thick cut bacon and Oh So Lean sausage for a tasty breakfast.

I also have a fab recipe for Syn Free French Toast (or Eggy Bread as we call it) which I will be making at the weekend, so I will share that with you too! As you will probably have noticed by now, all the Slimming World friendly food I make is super fast to do and very versatile... as I am sure many of you are in the same boat - working full-time with a house to keep and bills to pay - and some of you have children too! I try to keep things really quick and simple, I don't believe you need a massive list of ingredients to make a tasty dish, just one or two ingredients go a long way!

So check back tomorrow for my Slimming World Spring Rolls - I love making these up for a snack along with a glass (*bottle) of wine!

Oh so Lean and Ramen...

So sorry for the lack of posting last week... things have been so hectic in the Johnston/Wilkie household that any spare moment we get we just flake out on the sofa for half an hour and try to catch up on reading and/or TV. I am currently reading the last book in Jennifer Worth's Call the Midwife trilogy - and caught up with the last of Season 2 of the TV series late on Sunday evening... thank goodness for the BBC iplayer! I am also addicted to the Lightfields TV series! I love anything to do with the early 1900's! I've also recently decided that I will have to invest in the Downton Abbey box set sometime over the summer because I hate missing episodes of things, it totally puts me off. I also still have to buy the last two series of Doctor Who... I am determined to watch the whole of the new series without missing episodes!

I haven't photographed any food/recipes at all, I've been cooking up Oh so Lean sausage casseroles, shepherd's pies and the Oh so Lean pies before bed, which we ate for two nights in a row - it saved a lot of time when we were both always on the go! This week we had the Chicken and Leek pie... it was delicious! I'm putting in an order today for delivery tomorrow. I'll be getting a couple of the pies, some sausages, lunch pots and sauce pots.

I've also been having Ramen for lunch most days - it's really cheap and filling. I'm not too sure of syn values as I can't use the calculator, but I'll see if someone who does the class can lend me the password to check it. I am definitely going to go back to the Slimming World Class too, although not tonight as I can't pay the joining fee right now... we just paid our gas bill... damn Calor!

Also I've started eating at different times, which has made a big difference to how I fell overall - now bear with me - I have a dirnk first thing in the morning, then breakfast at the normal time, then a coffee mid-morning. Then I'll have lunch, before having another coffee mid-afternoon. Then when I get home I'll rustle up a quick tea, then later we will have supper, then a cup of tea before bed. I feel a lot more full eating this way, I have lots of energy to keep me going even on my busiest days. Night-time eating is always my downfall, but by splitting it into two meals - tea and supper, I don't snack. Both meals are always quite small - I usually use a bowl for reference. Tea is always something savoury, but supper can be sweet or savoury - sometimes its scrambled egg and some leftover sausage or sometimes its a bit of fruit sponge pudding and custard (if I have the syns left).

Here's an example of a day's eating plan -

Just woken up @ 7.15am - Glass of water
Breakfast @ 10am - 2 slice of nimble wholemeal with banana or two weetabix with skimmed milk + coffee with dash skimmed milk
Mid-morning @ 11.30 - coffee with dash skimmed milk
Lunch @ 1pm - Big bowl of Ramen with veg + glass of water
Afternoon @ 3pm - coffee with dash skimmed milk
Dinner @ 6.30pm - 1/4 Oh So Lean Chicken and Leek pie with rocket salad
Supper @ 8.30pm - 1/4 Oh So Lean Chicken and Leek pie with rocket salad
Then a cup of tea at bout 10pm

HEa - 350ml Skimmed Milk
HEb - 2 slice nimble wholemeal
Syns - 6

Before I started doing this I would have just ate 1/2 of the pie with the rocket salad then been 'bored hungry' at about 8.30pm and snacked on something very naughty... so now I just split my dinner.

My wedding dress is major inspiration to eat right. It fits me beautifully, so I don't want to gain any weight, otherwise I'll be spilling out - never attractive! But on the other hand, I don't want to loose too much either as the seamstress said she could only take it down about a dress size and a half (which would be just a bit bigger than the standard UK size 10 - or just a bit smaller than the standard UK 12, whichever way you want to look at it, lol), so I have to get the balance right. I was really happy with myself last year when I was a size 12, and although I'm fine with myself now, I know I had more energy when I was just that little bit lighter.

I'm making a peppered mince and veg dish tonight and serving it with boiled rice and a poached egg! Sounds a bit gross, but its delicious.. it's a bit like eggs in purgatory! I'll take photos and make it a post :)

Last week we were very naughty and ordered in lunch from Rocket and Relish on the Lisburn Road... I love Rocket and Relish and would eat in it every day if I could! I really wanted to do a post about it as it is one of my favourite places to eat, but of course, I just scoffed it and went back to work! But please, please, please check it out - Rocket and Relish - you will not be dissapointed! They also do kids portions of all the burgers on their menu, so the kids aren't relegated to the traditional 'with or without cheese'. My personal favourite is the Brie and Cranberry Burger with Sweet Potato Chips... ooooooh it's making my mouth water thinking about it!

Mock mash and a furnace...

I've been trying to eat as much superfree food as possible these last few weeks, staying away from heavy carb laden foods such as rice, pasta and potatoes - substituting them for a mock version.

I scoured the web for mock mash recipes,which a lot of people on the Atkins diet use, but I found these to be actually quite fatty! I decided to change it a bit to be more Slimming World friendly and is extremely handy to dollop on a plate as it's completely made of superfree foods.

I particularly like to use it as a topping for my peppered shepherd's pie or as a side dish with the Sunday roast.

The mock mash is really simple so I don't have any pictures. All you will need is a fresh whole cauliflower (or four cups of frozen), a butternut squash and a tub of Tesco healthy living cottage cheese with chives.

If you are using fresh cauliflower, chop it into chunks. If you are using frozen, this will have already been done for you. Place the cauliflower chunks in a casserole dish. Add one tablespoon of water and cover. Bake in the oven on a low heat for 40 minutes until the cauliflower is cooked and soft.

Peel and chop the butternut squash. Place in a pot of boiling water, cover and cook on a medium heat until soft.

Drain the butternut squash and return to pot.

Use a handheld blender to smooth the cottage cheese.

When the cauliflower is ready, add it to the pot with the butternut squash. Add the cottage cheese and mash until smooth. If there are any lumps you can smooth them with the handheld blender or put the mash through a potato press to make it really smooth. You can get these in Ikea for £8.

This is my Peppered Shepherd's Pie topped with the mock mash... which as you can see I've also covered in white pepper, even though it's made with Oh So Lean Low Fat Pepper Sauce - I like it really peppery!

Also J has been working on a new project with his dad. They are building a furnace! This is very exciting as once it is finished, they are going to be melting down aluminum cans and making them into ingots, which in turn will be melted down again and made into some very cool things - the first project is very exciting, but I am not allowed to reveal it!

 This is J putting the fire clay mixed with vermiculite into the lid to heat proof it

 This is the main body of the furnace. The bottom of it is filled with concrete which is still in the process of drying

This is J finishing off the lid, making sure it's level and that the heat proofing is hard-packed

I'm excited to see the finished product, although I think it will take another month or so, but I'll post a photo here once it's completed and put into action!

Monday Quickie...

This is just a really quick update of the weekend....

Sooooooooo..... I GOT MY WEDDING DRESS!!! Yay! I am so excited by this... I had been to a few bridal shops and tried on about 25 or more dresses, but on Saturday I found THE ONE. It was a moment of revelation, seriously! I was waiting for the moment all brides talk about when they say they found their perfect dress... personally I thought they were all nuts and talking nonsense, but really it does exist, that total moment of total clarity when you can see yourself walking up the aisle in THE wedding dress, and even better news was that I fit into the sample size (even though they are generally a size or two smaller than your normal dress size) which made me soooo happy too! The lady in the bridal shop was so good to us as well, she opened up an hour earlier than usual at 9am so we could come in.

The rest of Saturday was a bit of a blur of eating breakfast at the excellent Studio Cafe in Bangor - Poached Eggs and Boar Sausage with Granary Toast - I dared not eat before the fittings for fear of gaining any weight! Then shopping at the Bloomfield Shopping Center where I picked up a beautiful cake topper that will be gracing the top tier of my wedding cake. We also spent quite a long time in various other shops and looking around the stalls at the monthly Bloomfield Shopping Center Crafters Fair. My mum picked up a beautiful chunky solid wood heart for the bargain price of £8 - it was inscribed with 'love' and is oh so beautiful. I refrained for buying a box of cupcakes... too afraid that scoffing them would mean I wouldn't fit into my wedding dress! We did however have lunch in Hanna and Browne (I love the cafe in their) and it was delicious!

Saturday night was spent at our friends house - they have just moved into a new place and it is HUGE - they are expecting their little baba in July so the new place has plenty of space for him or her to run around and play!

To be honest I didn't keep track of what I ate this weekend at all - I know I had my naughty half portion Chinese takeaway and glass of wine on Friday night, but since we were out from 8.30am - 5pm on Saturday we ate out and although I picked relatively healthy choices I'm not 100% sure of my syn to free food ratio - and I had another half portion Chinese takeaway on Saturday night... naughty naughty!!

Sunday was spent visiting my nan and preparing a Slimming World roast chicken dinner and a huge pot of super-free veg soup. It was lovely. I had planned for a red day, so made up some Atkins diet mock mash, which is baked cauliflower mashed with cream cheese or cottage cheese - I opted for the healthy living cottage cheese with chives as it is super-free, and the more super-free the better for weight-loss and maintenance. It was actually a pretty good substitute for mashed potato and I will be making it again. I think I'll mash it up with some broccoli next time too!

I've got my order in with the Oh So Lean guys for collection in Dundonald tomorrow. I'm going for the curry sausages, pork and leek sausages, chicken ham and stuffing pie, chicken and leek pie and three pots of pepper sauce. Can't wait!

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!

Oh So Lean update and longer days!

I am loving the longer days right now! Waking up to daylight and getting home while it's still light AND still having daylight to walk the dog before dinner... beautiful! I love this time of year... there's still the nip of winter in the air, but the sun is shining.

Turf on his very cold walkies last night

I also want to share with you two of the Oh So Lean dinners J and I had recently. The first one we had last week (I think we had it on Thursday) and the second one we had last night...

So last Thursday J and I decided to try the Oh So Lean burgers. Two steak burgers and two chicken burgers are included in the family pack. I tried the chicken and J tried the steak. Both were lovely! Very filling! Another quick thing I want to mention is the importance of plate size when eating. J and I have some quite big plates which came in a set we bought when we first moved in together. We try to keep the portion sizes down by only filling the plate to the first rim. I find this helps prevent us from over filling plates and wasting food - any leftover food goes straight from the pot to a tupperware box to cool before being put in the fridge.

Okay so we had beans, onions and eggs with our burgers. I'll not do a recipe for this as it's pretty straight forward. If you like mushrooms why not add some of those in to! The more superfree foods the better!

I peeled and chopped the onions. I've used 4 small onions here

Beans in a microwavable bowl

We had two eggs each. I know eggs are a superfree food, but they can also be quite bad for your cholesterol, so typically we would only eat eggs one or two days a week

Fry off the onions in frylight until softened

I fried the burgers in some frylight first (slowly on a low heat) before putting them on an oven-tray and oven cooking them to make sure they were cooked through

Eggs cooking...

This was my meal (J also had some nimble toast with his. You can actually see the rims on our plates in this photo. this plate is slightly too full - some times our eyes are bigger than our bellies!

Last night we tried the Chicken, Stuffing and Ham Pie from Oh So Lean. I had heard great things about this pie and couldn't wait to try it. It is quite a big pie and you get a lot for your syns. There are 15 syns in the whole pie or 636 calories. That is quite low! As I hadn't had any syns at all yesterday I decided that I would just simply split the pie between J and myself with some free and superfree veg.

This is what the pie looks like in the carton...

It's very easy to cook, you simply open the carton, put it on a baking tray and place it in a pre-heated oven for 30-35 minutes. It does say to give it an egg wash first, although to save on time (and eggs) I just sprayed mine with frylight. It was ready after 30 minutes.

You have chicken and ham in the pie which are both free foods on EE (a red day food), then you have your syns in the stuffing and pastry. So to balance out the plate I added parsnips, free on EE (but classed as a green day food) and then the brussell sprouts are superfree, which means they are free on all plans - I hope that makes sense! I added some onion gravy over mine which was an extra 1.5 syns. All in all it was 9 syns for the whole meal (or 458 calories). Not bad at all for half a pie with gravy and veg!

This is just a wee look inside the pie, you can see the filling is layered, meaning you get a mouthful of tastiness every time!

J loved this pie and said I had to get two in the order next week, so I will add a chicken a leek to the next order. Out of the family pack, we only have the pack of five chicken breasts left along with one tub of superfree curry, so I'll be making up a curry tonight!

You can freeze any of the products (including the sauces) but the only things I froze were the superfree curry pot and the pack of chicken fillets. A wee thing to note with the pie that I have heard from other people is that if you are going to freeze it, cook it first, then freeze it, don't freeze it while it's uncooked.

Has anyone else been trying the Oh So Lean range? Please let me know how it has helped your weight-loss.

Who knew picking a wedding dress would be so difficult!

So I took last Friday off work so J and I could get the guys suits sorted out for the wedding - a big thank you to Danielle who suggested Balmoral Dress Hire - they had the perfect suit, just what we had in mind, plus they were a fabulous price! Focus Formal in Bangor had given me a quote of £100 per suit, which would have been £600 total for suit hire! Balmoral have a great deal on all their suits - £59 for a three piece suit of your choice plus shirt and cuffs, and you get an extra 10% off when you pay in full! It's a wee bit further to travel for fittings and collection than Focus is, but worth it for the brilliant value. They were also really fast and we had our suits sorted and deposit paid within 40 minutes.

After that it was on to mortgages... and an appointment with a mortgage adviser at our bank - Ulster Bank. They are totally useless for mortgages! I would avoid them at all costs and we will be changing both our accounts! Definitely wish we would have taken that free £100 per account with Halifax last summer when Ulster Bank caused all that trouble!

The consultation was a total shambles... firstly we were running late because of the traffic coming out of Belfast, so phoned to let them know we would be around 10 minutes late... we phoned the branch but were put through to a call centre who then said they would send the message to the branch... apparently they never did that, so we were left to wait for another 15 minutes after arriving while the consultant finished some other work that she had started doing! Then the whole thing really went into shambles... and we still think she was calculating wrongly... she kept using J's gross income but my net income... apparently that's how its done if you are self employed? It all seemed a bit odd and unorganised. We are planning to speak with an independent adviser we know through a family member, so hopefully that will sort things out, as at least we know they know what they are doing!

After all that I was too tired and annoyed to cook, so we had a chippy... very bad for the wedding diet! Luckily I still had 1/4 of the peppered shepherds pie in the fridge, so I heated it up and had it with a handful of chippy chips, while Turf had a sausage and J had a hot dog.

Saturday was Wedding Dress shopping day! We had booked an appointment with Pronuptia Bridal in Belfast and I was hoping that protests wouldn't disrupt my wedding dress shopping! Luckily they didn't. I had brought my mum and my aunt along and we made a bit of a day of it. The consultation started with me picking out 6 dresses I liked and trying them on, I then explained to the consultant what I liked about each one and what I didn't, she then suggested different dresses based on this and we came up with three beautiful ones that I liked. I loved the bodice of one in particular and the skirt of another... now just to find a dress that has them both in the one dress!

I phoned J on the way home from the bridal consultation and asked him to put the Oh So Lean chicken, ham and stuffing pie in the oven because I was starving! Of course, when I arrived home it was still sitting uncooked in the fridge, so it was a chinese takeaway that night, which is definitely not on the wedding diet - it was delicious though!

Sunday was another busy day for us... we went wedding band shopping! I have already picked mine out, as it was quite difficult to get a band thin enough to fit under my engagement ring, but J hadn't had a proper look yet. It was a bit disastrous (but totally hilarious) at first as J got the ring sizer stuck on his finger and he had to use hand sanitizer gel to help remove it... I laughed... a lot :)

In the end he opted to have two different metals and designs ordered into the store and we will go try them again when they arrive.

We had a lovely, and very synful, dinner at my mum and dads last night - roast chicken, stuffing, sprouts, colcannon, roast parsnips and gravy - a big Sunday splurge, but oh so worth it! My dad sure can cook!

The Oh So Lean sausages and bacon have been devoured, both the curry flavoured sausages and the pork and leek ones were eaten for breakfast on Saturday and Sunday along with a slice of thick bacon! Tonight we will be having the Oh So Lean burgers with fried eggs, onions, beans and nimble bread and I will cook up the pie to have it for lunches for the rest of the week. We split a tub of the carbonara on Sunday for lunch - delicious! I still have the speed curry left, which will do another dinner during the week. Hopefully that will last us through to the weekend again and I'll put another order in with Oh So Lean to collect in Bangor next week. I think I will add an extra three pots to the order though as the sauces are so handy to make up a quick dinner without starting to make a free one from scratch - the pepper sauce is my favourite! I think I'll also order the mixed meat pack for £6.99 and freeze it, as the sausages don't last long with J around!

Delicious!

This morning Turf decided he would eat the top of J's lighter... the little metal u-shaped bit that easily pops off when he gets his paws on it. J threatened him with the slipper... so of course he ran in to me and jumped on my knee... the cheeky scamp! I had a look to make sure he didn't have it in his mouth while J hunted the living room floor for it... but there was no sign... we think he may have swallowed it, the little devil! J is off work today, so he will be keeping an eye on him to see if he passes it, or if he's hidden it somewhere in the living room for chewing later! If neither happens, no doubt I'll be bringing the scamp into the office tomorrow and if nothing happens then, then it'll be off to the vet! What a cheeky boy!

First Recipe using Oh So Lean...

So I picked up my very first order from the Oh So Lean delivery van last night. I ordered the family deal for £25 which includes -

1 pie - I chose the chicken ham and stuffing (15 syns for entire pie)
1 two pack of beef burgers (syn free)
1 two pack of chicken burgers (syn free)
2 packs  of sausages - I chose the chicken curry and the pork and leek (both syn free)
1 pack of 5 chicken fillets
1 pack of rindless bacon
3 pots - I chose 1 pepper (2.5 syns for pot), 1carbonara (syn free) and 1 speed curry (syn free)

I thought this was a brilliant price for all that! All I need to buy in in my normal shopping this week is some fruit, bread, diet coke and frozen veg, which I can get for under £10! A total of £35 for a weeks grocery shopping is really excellent!

The first thing I used out of the Oh So Lean order was the Pepper Sauce. I made a Shepherd's Pie with it last night - it had a total of 2.5 syns for the whole thing (as long as you use the cheese as a HEa), or 684 calories. You could easily split this into four and serve it the sweet potato wedges or slimming world chips and a big heap of free salad. I had half of it with my HEb of nimble bread - yummy!

Ingredients -

150g Quorn Mince
2 cups Value Mixed Veg
4 Value Onions
1 small butternut squash
25g Light cheddar cheese
1 pot Oh So Lean Pepper sauce - only 52 cals / 2.5 syns for the entire pot!
frylight

I was so hungry buy the time I got home last night that I whizzed round the kitchen and had most of this recipe done before I had thought to take a photo....

So first I measured out 2 cups value mixed veg into a microwavable bowl and added boiling water. Put in the microwave for 3 minutes.

While that is in the microwave, peel and chop the butternut squash and chop the four value onions.

Tip the onions into a large pot coated in frylight and cook for a few minuted until softened.

Put the butternut squash in a pot with boiling water and cook.

Tip the veg into a colander to drain when it's finished in the microwave.

Add the quorn mince to the onions. I used frozen so I let this cook for a little longer than I would if it was chilled.

Add the drained veg to the pot, then add the pot of peppered sauce (this is where I started taking photos!)...

Mix everything together in the pot and let the sauce heat for a few minutes before tipping it into a casserole dish...

Check that the butternut squash is cooked before draining and mashing...

Gently spread the mashed butternut squash on top of the mince mix and sprinkle with the cheese...

Put in the oven for 20-30 minutes until the cheese melts...

 Serve, eat and enjoy!

It was really very tasty! I ate half of it as soon as it came out of the oven, and it was very peppery. I split the other half into half again for today's lunches, and when I heated it up some of the peppery spice had gone out of it, still delicious though! So if you prefer less pepper spice, cook it the night before or in the morning to reheat later. I wish I had ordered more of the peppered sauce and frozen it as I would use it quite a lot, it's so tasty!

You can of course top the pie with potato (or sweet potato) mashed with parsnips and some healthy living cottage cheese with chives, this would made it a proper comfort dish... I just didn't happen to have any of those in the house, so used up the butternut squash I did have - a bonus being that butternut squash is a superfree food.