Let's Taco Bout It

Bonjourno!

I know my posts have been sparse over the past few weeks, but it's really because I've been so busy with work and vaious other things. I work with children so my immune system is so rubbish, and I pick up every disease going. I've been wanting some really bad food to make myself feel better, but I have an amazing partner who makes sure that I stay on track (normally by hiding any chocolate I've bought!). 
I've been really wanting tacos since I started Slimming World, but I could never find something that was syn free so I could cook it. I prefer to make all of my meals syn free so that I can use my syns on snacks, because I love a good bag of crisps or biscuit in the evening with a cup of tea! I know that tacos are not that bad in syns, so I looked for a mince recipe that was free to fill them with, along with swapping other things with syn free things:

Sour Cream - Fromage Frais
Spice Mix - Ground Spices
Fatty Mince - Fat Free Mince
Measured Cheese and Lettuce for some extra taste!

With all of these things togther, I decided to make a syn free chilli to put in my tacos, and the whole meal only comes to 9 syns, which are from the tacos themselves, which are 3 syns each,

You Will Need:
500g Less than 5% fat Mince
Tin Chopped Tomatos
Tin Baked Beans
2 Tsps Cumin
1 Tsp Corriander
1 Tsp Paprika
Garlic Powder
Mixed Herbs
Mushrooms
Peppers
Fry Light

1. Brown the mince in the fry light and add the mushrooms and peppers until everything is cooked.
2. Add the garlic, spices and herbs and mix together for around 2-3 minutes.
3. Add the tins of chopped tomatoes and baked beans and bring to the boil, then simmer for around 15 minutes until the mixture is reduced a little.
4. Season to taste.

As you can see, I added baked beans because I really, really hate kidney beans! Plus the added sauce makes the chilli really saucy and tasty rather than adding extra stock to make up for it.

Serve it with tacos, mixed salad, fromage frais and cheese for a really tasty mexican meal!

Ciao!
x

Spice, Spice, Baby...

Bonjourno!

Wow, I can't believe how much positive support and comments that I get from this blog - I honestly thought that no one would ever read it, let alone talk about it! It's amazing how awesome you guys are, and I love that you guys love this blog as much as I love writing it. I have to admit, yesterday (Saturday 18th April) was a complete write off - it was my brother-in-law's birthday and we all went out for pub grub and cocktails.. too many syns to even keep track of! Either way, I've drawn a massive line under yesterday and started fresh today, and plan to keep VERY low syns from now until weigh day on Tuesday. 
I admit I'm expecting a gain because of Saturday alone, but I hope that I can maintain because of the low syn days that I've had all throughout the week. We shall see!

I thought that I would share with you a Syn Free Chicken Korma recipe with the spice mix that I found in Asda (when I checked the ingredients they were all syn free), along with two of the Muller Light coconut and lime yoghurts. The spice mix alone would be a little too much on it's own I think, and the yoghurts just make it so much more creamy and tasty.

This is the spice mix I found in Asda, you get two sachets in a packet which is so much cheaper than buying the spices separately.

You Will Need:
2 chicken breasts, skinned and diced (I used diced beef a few times, really tasty!)
200ml Passata
100ml Chicken Stock
Asda Spice Mix
2 Muller Light Coconut and Lime Yoghurts
Mushrooms
Peppers
Fry Light

1. First cook the chicken in a pan with fry light, adding the mushrooms and peppers until everything is browned and cooked through,
2. Sprinkle the spice mix over the chicken and veg for around one minute, until the spices have been absorbed into the meat.
3. Add the chicken stock and the passata to the mix and simmer until it has reduced a little (around 10-15 mins).
4. Turn down the heat and add the yoghurts, stirring until they are mixed in thoroughly.

Serve with rice or vegetables - it's not suitable for SP because of the yoghurt, but if you chose to not add it then it would be :)

Ciao!
x

Triple Whammy and Last Minute Tomato Soup

Bonjourno!

I can't believe how much I've achieved since the New Year! My original plan was to lose two stone before Easter, and I managed to achieve that and even more! As it stands, I have currently lost two stone and nine and a half pounds, meaning that I only have four and a half more pounds to reach an incredible three stone. 
At the Tuesday weigh in group, I knew that I had half a pound to lose to get into new numbers, one pound to lose to get my two and a half stone award, and two pounds to lose to get my club 10 award. I smashed all three of those targets and lost an amazing three and a half pounds this week, taking me way beyond my original goal. I know that I have a long way to go to my target, but this has been such the incentive that I need, it just shows what Slimming World can do for anyone, not just me. 
However, I completely forgot that the first weigh in of every month is taster night, and I wasn't reminded of it until monday afternoon. After a panic look around the cupboards (luckily I'd just been to Asda or I would have made a tin of baked beans..) I managed to create this simple but really tasty soup - which tasted so nice that I wanted to share the recipe with all of you.

Ingredients:

Fry Light
Tin of Chopped Tomatoes
Tin of Baked Beans
Peppers (Mixed)
Garlic Powder
Paprika
Mixed Herbs
2 Tbsp Fromage Frais

1. In a big pan, fry the peppers until they are soft.
2. Add the tins of chopped tomatoes and baked beans, and stir until cooked.
3. Add the garlic powder, as much paprika as you like and some mixed herbs to taste. Simmer for a few minutes until the spices have blended with the tomatoes.
4. Take off the heat and blend the mixture to your desired thickness. I blended it until it was smooth, but that's just the way that I like it.
5. When the soup is blended, add the fromage frais and stir until the soup is creamy. Feel free to add salt and pepper to tast, and some parsley on the top to garnish.

It literally takes less than 10 minutes to cook, and everyone at the group agreed that it was extremely tasty!

I hope you enjoy.

Ciao!
x

Synful Pub Grub

Bonjourno!

I've had a very weird week this week, at the very last moment my partner and I decided to have a trip up north to Newcastle to see my family, so at the weekend I have to say I was very much off plan. It's helpful that my mum is also doing Slimming World up there, so in the evenings we were eating pretty syn free meals. However, it didn't help that it was my step-dad's birthday so he wanted to have a meal out. I tried my hardest to have something relatively syn free, but the menu was just so amazing to not have something bad! I ended up having a massive (and I mean MASSIVE) mixed grill, complete wit steak, chicken breast, gammon, sausage, chips, mushroom, tomato and a fried egg. It was so huge that I couldn't finish it, but I can imagine that the meat was fairly healthy so I left the chips and the egg. 

This inspired me to write a post about some of the more healthy food from pubs, JD Wetherspoon being the prime example. I haven't been to a city where there hasn't been at least one Wetherpsoons available, and I can imagine that most people have eaten there. The menu is pretty diverse, from chicken to steak, to burritos and burgers. All of which sound amazing on the menu but are really hefty in the syns department!

So here's a low down on the basic syns from Wetherspoons, you might be surprised!

Low Syn Options:

Peri Peri Chicken and Pepper Skewers
These are my go-to food as the SW website confirmed that they are free. Have them with a salad, and the sauce comes in a little pot, so you can choose how much to have. The sauce is 1 1/2 syns per tbsp.

Skinny Steak
Add 1 or 2 syns for the oil, a totally free salad and a syn free jacket potato for a really delicious and filling meal.

Freedom Salad
As the name suggests, this salad is full of speed foods and a free balsamic dressing. Adding chicken or salmon adds 1 or 2 syns, but makes it really tasty!

Jacket Potato with Beans and Cheese
We all know jackets and beans are free, and the butter for the potato comes on the side so you can choose to have it. Save your healthy A for the cheese and you're all set!

Sweet Chilli Noodles
At just 1 syn for the whole dish, you can't go wrong! It's a little spicy for my taste, and adding chicken makes the dish quite high syn, but overall a good eat.

Mini Corn on the Cob
An awesome free food choice, as it doesn't come with butter!

Side Salad
With no dressing, completely syn free!

Five Bean Chilli
On a jacket potato or with rice, it's only 1 1/2 syns per serving. Beware that the chilli con carne is 7 1/2 syns, so make sure you order the beans!

*

Beware of the really high syn foods that you may mistake for being healthy, burgers and sandwiches can vary from 20 syns to a shocking 42 syns! That's not even with chips or sides!

I hope this helps :)

Ciao!

x

Holy Macaroni!

Bonjourno!

After having a bad week last week and having a gain, I decided that this week all my main meals would be syn free so I could use my syns for snacks. I don't know what it is but lately I've just been in the mood to eat everything in sight - which doesn't help when there is Easter Eggs all around the shops! I haven't given in to temptation yet, but when Easter does roll around, I'll be sure to save all my syns and enjoy a delicious Easter Egg.

As most of you know, I'm a big fan of cooking syn free meals, it's easy to plan meals ahead of time and use ingredients that are completely syn free. Check out my previous recipes, all of the meals that I have posted are free. 
Anyway, I don't know about you, but I always feel like mac and cheese is the ultimate comfort food. There's just something about it that just makes you feel all warm and comfy inside, probably the high fat content! I've been looking and looking for something that tastes just as good with a low syn value, and I've found it. So I've decided to share it with all of you.

You will need:

Dried macaroni

2 skinless boneless chicken breasts chopped

Garlic Powder

Mushrooms 

400ml vegetable stock

4 tbsp tomato puree

200g quark

2 eggs beaten

100g Mozzarella

Cook the macaroni as per packet instructions.

Brown the chicken in a pan with frylight, then add the mushrooms and garlic. Fry until it's done.

Mix the cooked macaroni into the chicken mixture.

Mix together the stock, tomato puree, quark, and eggs, pour into the pasta, add half the cheese and mix together.

Sprinkle the rest of the cheese over the top and bake for 20-30 minutes, till golden and cooked through.

The whole thing is 12 syns if you don't use the cheese as a healthy A. The whole thing can be split into as many portions as you like, I had half! 

Hope you all enjoy.

Ciao!

x

A Saucy Affair

Bonjourno!

I'm so sorry that I haven't been posting that often, but I'm so happy that my blog has reached over 1000 views! It really makes me happy to know that people are keeping up with my progress, and hopefully trying out some of the recipes that I post on here.
Now I'll admit that I haven't had the greatest of weeks - I managed to get food poisoing last week, which meant that although I had a brilliant weight loss (6lbs!) that week, I ate literally ANYTHING I could get my hands on the week after and suffered a gain. It was only small, but since it's the first gain I've had on Slimming World so far, and I know exactly why it's happened, it's still a little disheartening. I know that I can be really good this week and have it off by next week, I guess I was hoping that since I was ill that eating bad food wouldn't count!

Anyway, since I've had literally no time to cook this week, the other half thought it would be nice to treat me with some syn free burgers to celebrate the end of a long-ass week. I'd already used my syns for the week by this point, and didn't want to waste syns on sauces like ketchup and mayonnaise. I know that really light mayo (the purple one from Asda) has about 1 syn per tablespoon, but still I wanted to make something that I didn't have to measure. So, I took some fat free natural yoghurt and mixed it with some garlic granules, and honestly what came out was amazing! It tastes like the garlic mayo you get from takeaways, and it's completely syn free. Made my burger taste AMAZING! 
As for ketchup, I find that simply adding a little bit of sweetener to some tomato passata tastes exactly like a good ketchup! 

Finally, a bit of natural yoghurt, mint, lemon juice and cucumber makes the most delicious tzatziki, and it's also completely syn free. Perfect for dipping chopped up veg in, as well as with a toasted pitta bread. My favourite is dipping some ryvita in it!

Hope you all enjoy some syn free sauce this week. :)

Ciao!

x

Low Syn Cookies and Questionable Sausages

Bonjourno!

I'm sorry that I haven't been updating this blog as much as I'd like to, unfortunately life takes over sometimes! However, I'm very pleased to share with you all that in just 8 weigh ins, I've managed to lose an amazing 1 stone and 12lb! My original goal was to lose 2 stone before Easter, which with 4 weeks left and only 2lb to lose seems like a very attainable target.
So this week hasn't been the greatest one for me, as you all know Slimming World very recently brought out some frozen ready meals that you can buy in Iceland - a very amazing idea. However, after trying the sausages, I don't think I'll be having them again. There must be something in them that just disagrees with me, I managed to get food poisoning from them :(
Don't let this put you off trying them! A lot of people have tried them and been absolutely fine, I don't know whether I just didn't cook them enough or there was something in them that I just didn't like, but either way, I won't be having them again just in case! I think I'll stick to Linda McCartney red onion and sage sausages.

On a slightly lighter note, it was taster week once more in the Lancaster class, so I scoured long and hard over recipes that I wanted to take with me, something that I thought everyone would enjoy. I finally decided on Salted Caramel and Vanilla Cookies.

I know what you're thinking... Surely these cookies are high syn, high sugar, high badness??
I kid you not, they are only 1.5 syns each - compared to the Nutella Cookie that Starbucks sell, a staggering 19 syns per portion!

Here is the recipe for these tasty treats.

Makes 6(ish) cookies

1.5 Syns and 1 HEXB

or 2 syns each.

Ingredients:

50g Porridge Oats

4 tbsp Sweetener

1 Sachet Salted Caramel Chocolate Options

Vanilla Muller Light (with Sprinkled Chocolate if you like!)

Butter Flavour Fry Light

1 Egg

1. Preheat the oven at 220° / Gas Mark 7 and prepare a large baking tray lined with foil or non-stick baking paper – Spray with Fry Light.

2. Add the porridge oats, sweetener and 1 tsp of yoghurt to a large mixing bowl and crack the egg into the centre of the bowl and immediately whisk.

3. Add a little more of the yogurt as you’re whisking until the mixture is firm and thick. Literally add a drop at a time, it's easier to add more yoghurt to a thick mix than more oats to a runny one!

4. Empty the Chocolate Options sachet into a mug and add 1 tbsp of water, stirring well into a thick and creamy chocolate sauce.

5. Add the chocolate into the oats.

6. Stir well until the chocolate has blended into the the oats

7. Using a spoon, arrange 6 cookies onto the tray.

8. Transfer the tray to the oven and bake for 15 minutes or until golden brown, turning them over if you need to.

Definitely worth the syns, I'm not much of a sweet tooth but these definitely did the trick! You can change the flavour of the chocolate options to make any flavour cookie you like. I'll be trying the white chocolate one next! I hope you all enjoy :)

Ciao!

x