We love a good Chinese takeaway but they are often one of the worst culprits for being sky high in both points and calories. If you are looking for a good healthy alternative, my twist on this classic Chinese dish tastes just as good without any of the guilt. The recipe actually came about one night when Continue reading
I’ve been meaning to post this recipe for months and something always seems to come before it!! So without further ado….I discovered my favourite restaurant of all time, Sugo Pasta Kitchen, some years back when we lived in Manchester and after I tasted their House Sugo I knew I would never find a better pasta dish. Time after time I went back with my hubbie, family or friends and I thought ‘I must try something else this time’ but on every single occasion I couldn’t turn down the opportunity to have a bowl of this heavenly pasta.
You’ll find a number of different baked oats recipes on my site cos I can’t lie, I love them! They are such a lovely warming and filling breakfast that feel like a real treat for such a low number of points. This little number came about when I was trying to make some space in my cupboards and I needed to use up the last of a giant tub of PB2. Some frozen raspberries already stashed in the freezer meant this could be whipped up with store cupboard and freezer bits really easily. A great option if it’s getting close to big shop day and you don’t have much fresh left in the fridge! I’ve made my ‘jam’ with raspberries here but it would also be lovely with strawberries. Just make sure you use the same quantities, chop them into quarters, mash down once warmed and add the chia seeds to thicken. Lovely!
Whenever we order rice as part of an Indian takeaway my hubbie and I get ‘peas pilau’, largely as he is rather obsessed with peas! It’s a lovely side dish which is a bit more interesting than just plain rice and so this week, when I fancied an Indian style dish, I thought I would try and recreate this rice at home. I had some lean mince in the freezer so I paired some spiced beef kofta’s with the rice and served with the mint yoghurt from my Tandoori Salmon recipe.
As you will have seen in many of the other recipes on my site, I love using sausage meat as a cheap, quick and easy way to make a filling and tasty tea and this recipe is exactly that. Whacking everything into a blender right at the start means both minimal chopping and means that rustling up this dish doesn’t take much longer than cooking the pasta. This is also a great dish to make for little ones as blending everything disguises many of the veggies that you may find hard to get into their meals usually and you end up with a bolognaise type texture for the sauce which always goes down a storm.
At book club last month we had an Italian themed buffet. I whipped up my Mozzarella, Pepparoni and Pesto Boccones and I suggested my friend bring along some mini Polpette (meatballs) to which she delightfully obliged. After whipping them up in the afternoon, she told me she had actually used Quorn meatballs and as an avid meat eater, I have to say I was a little cautious about trying these veggie balls (I hadn’t actually tried Quorn since my university days!). I have to admit however, I was very pleasantly surprised to find that not only were they delicious, they were also low in points and best of all, could be cooked from frozen. I’ve been planning to test my meatball marinara recipe again for a good while now and so I thought to myself, why not incorporate these meatballs into the recipe. Not only are they tasty but the texture is perfect to be sat inside a bun with oozy tomato sauce.
One of my favourite changes brought about by Flex was that salmon, one of my favourite fish, became 0sp. I’d always eaten a lot of salmon anyway but, since the change, I’ve been using it in ways I may have avoided a little before, such as here with pasta and a creamy sauce.
This recipe came about one Saturday night when I wanted to make a quick and easy dinner with the ingredients I had in the fridge/store cupboard. I threw them all into a plastic bag, headed to my sisters and freestyled to see what I could come up with. The result was the delicious pasta dish which we both thoroughly enjoyed (I could have quite happily licked the bowl!).
There is nothing better than a nice light pasta dish in the summer and one of the recent requests from one of my followers was a salmon pasta so…. ask and I shall deliver!!
I decided to make a nice homemade pesto to go with this and included peas to both up the flavour and lower the points (you don’t need to use as much cheese to get a lovely depth of flavour). The pesto recipe as listed below is enough to serve 4 people. If you are only making this for two (like me) you can just pop half of the pesto in a sealed pot in the fridge to be used at a later date.
I’m always being asked for more vegetarian recipes but as such a big meat eater, I often find myself automatically basng my recipes around chicken, pork, beef or lamb. Having gotten a little into Meatless Mondays at the moment however, I though it was time I gave another veggie recipe a go.
There is nothing better than an oozing, bubbling lasagne but the white sauce that it is usually loaded with is usually enough to send us way over our daily allowance. Using a lower point white sauce (such as my homemade recipe below or my alternative jarred suggestion) can bring the points down significantly.