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.
I’m a huge fan of a comforting, oozy risotto. Not only does it feel like an indulgent meal, its one which is easy to make extra portions of to have the next day for lunch or dinner. Last week, after defrosting a couple of steaks from the freezer, I thought it might be a nice change to serve them with a bit of a different risotto and this lovely little dish sprang into my mind as I had some light mascarpone left over that needed using.
Satay sauce from the Chinese takeaway is one of my favourite treats. Meaty, nutty with a nice little kick, it goes with so many different treats, I always find it irresistible. Last week, after having a serious craving for some, I decided to try and create a healthy version of this sauce and make it into a whole meal. All the flavour and none of the guilt! The result was delicious, a lovely different flavour and a really easy dinner to rustle up.
I love a good pulled meat as well as anything that can be slow cooked in the oven (or slow cooker) so when one of my lovely followers sent me a message about recreating a lovely Crispy Asian Beef Salad she had recently eaten in a restaurant, I knew I would be giving it a whirl fairly quickly. The result was amazing, the beef is absolutely packed with flavour and the smell as its cooking is out of this world.
Batch cooking is a great way to prepare for the week ahead and, now I’m cooking for 4 adults on a daily basis, I’ve also found it’s the quickest way to also ‘prepare’ lunch for the next day. This recipe is a real quick and easy treat which tastes like it has taken a lot more effort to prepare than it has!
Some nights just call for a quick and easy tea which can be whacked together in less than half an hour. This dish is definitely one of those. The stir fry sauce itself is very simple but the finished result is so, so tasty, it really is worth giving a go.
My hubbie and I love a good burger but there are times when I get to the end of the day and fancy something just as indulgent – without the breadyness of a bun. Sometimes I might replace the bun with a trusty thin but my latest obsession are these lovely Burger in a Bowls. Carb free and still lovely and filling, a nice, varied salad makes this dish just as interesting as a regular burger. The burger sauce is a lovely addition as it really makes you feel as if you’ve just popped down to Burger King!
Beef Bulgogi is one of my favourite dishes to eat in a Korean restaurant and it’s been on my list of dishes to make Weight Watchers friendly for a good while now. Since I always have Gochujang paste in my cupboards (as the hubbie and I both love my Korean Bolognaise) I thought it was about time I got around to making it!
The hubbie and I love pasta so I’m always looking for new quick and easy pasta sauces to add to my repertoire. Whilst watching James Martin’s new cooking show this week (he is travelling around American making all sorts of amazing looking dishes), we both watched with our mouths watering as he rustled up a Bloody Mary pasta with prawns. Of course, being James Martin, the dish was loaded with butter and oil and not Weight Watcher friendly in the slightest, but it did give me the inspiration to cook up my own healthy version of the dish.
Much to my family’s disappointment, I’m just not a fan of Shepherd’s or Cottage Pie. Nothing to do with the taste or flavour, I just can’t handle the texture of mince with mashed potato for some reason! Keep to make a nice, wintery and warming meal this weekend, I decided to put a bit of a twist on the regular Cottage pie by replacing the traditional beef mince with some chunky beef stewing steak and turning the whole thing into more of a Steak and Ale pie vibe. The addition of the stilton to the mash is wonderful, it adds a lovely tang to what is a smooth and comforting pie topper. If you aren’t keen on blue cheese, simply leave this out. If you do, the points are 10sp per portion.