This was a recipe made for me by my lovely best mate’s OH and it was so nice I bought the recipe book to make myself a smart point friendly version. It’s from Jaime’s Ministry of Food (original recipe here) and comes in at a very reasonable 12sp each. It’s a nice change to have a different stir fry sauce like black bean and the addition of rice instead of noodles makes another welcome change!
This delight of a dish involves hardly any cooking and the sauce is so quick and easy (it takes around the same length of time to prepare as the pasta takes to cook). This is one of my favourite recipes as usually when you are trying to find low point pasta meals, you would stick to tomato based pastas as they are lower in points. This recipe however, is a nice low point tomato free alternative. Depending on how hungry I am I sometimes add an extra handful of spinach leaves whole at the end and let it wilt in the heat.
Me and the OH were planning on having a lovely pork stew the other night but, as they do, plans change quickly and I ended up having to cook something up fairly quickly so we could head out earlier than anticipated! I’ve been wanting to try out this stir fry combo for a while so took the opportunity that night and my oh my was it a treat!! The addition of the five spice made for a nice change and I loved it as it took no times at all and was all in the one pan, less dishes!! You can pop any stir fry vegetables with it that you like and even add some bean sprouts to bulk it out if you fancy but I got a fairly hefty bowlful for only 10sp!
I love lasagne but there are times when I’ve had a particularly carby few days when I just can’t hack more pasta/carbs. This recipe is therefore a perfect way of having a gorgeous, filling meal with no carbs and for hardly any points. The aubergines add such a nice flavour to the dish and make a really nice change to pasta.
When I made this I made a (very!!) big batch of bolognaise sauce (enough to serve 8). I only use 500g of extra lean mincemeat but I pad it out with lots of veg (onion, mushrooms, peppers, courgette see my recipe for Bolognaise sauce here, this serve 4 as a bolognaise but padded out serves 8 in a lasagne or aubergine bake). This gave me enough bolognaise sauce to make a lasagne to serve 6 and two separate Aubergine bakes. If you are going to give this a whirl, your points may change if you use more or less of the sauce so point accordingly.
I make this in individual lasagne dishes as I think they keep everything nice and combined and it means you have just enough Aubergine. If making for more than 2 people you could use a large lasagne dish but if so I would say use at least 1 aubergine per person and they are deeper and take more filling.
The recipe below is therefore written for making in individual lasagne dishes. I served mine with a big green side salad.
I got a giant portion of lean pork mince from Morrison’s with my meat vouchers so I split it into three. Now usually I make my Sweet Chilli Chorizo Burgers or some meatballs with pork mince but I really wanted to make something with it last night that didn’t require any fuss (i.e blending or getting my hands dirty). I’ve had lettuce cups a few times in both Thai and Korean restaurants so I thought why not try and recreate them at home myself!
This is a really easy recipe and a proper winter warmer. It tastes lovely and creamy without being as naughty and its really filling. It’s really good to cook for just two people and as you use tomato puree rather than chopped tomatoes so the quantities can be easily halved to make for one, or doubled to make for four!
Whenever I have steak in a restaurant, I always opt for a lovely Diane sauce but it’s not something I’ve ever tried at home before. This week, after purchasing a couple of rump steaks, I decided to give it a go. At first I thought some major adaptation would be required to make it Weight Watchers friendly but once I started to look into it I realised that in actual fact, the sauce itself isn’t too points heavy. The recipe I decided to adapt was an Anthony Worral Thompson recipe that I found on the BBC Food website and the only adaptation required was leaving out the butter and swapping double for single cream. The sauce was lovely and ideal paired with the steak and hassleback sweet potatoes!! You could also serve this with wild rice if you fancy making the whole dish a bit quicker. Using a 40g dried portion per person would keep the points for the meal to 13pp.
We often buy beef for a change and I’m always stuck for something a bit different to do with it, so, as it was all defrosted and ready yesterday, we decided to try out one of my mam’s favourite recipes. She has made this as part of a three course meal as well as just a Sunday Lunch and it always goes down a storm so I was more than pleased when I worked out the points at only 12sp for the whole meal. You get a huge portion and it tastes amazing! It might take a while in the oven, but once its in there you can almost forget about it and come back when its ready!
I love a Thai curry and whenever we go out to a Thai restaurant, I always look at those having a Massaman curry with envy knowing how high in points they are. To quell my craving for this Thai delight, I decided that this week I would try and adapt a low point version. I researched different ingredients common in Massaman curry’s and ended up adapting this little beauty. It turned out beautifully and was only 10sp so paired with 40g of dry basmati rice per person. This made the whole meal only 14sp, bargain!
I’ve included some instructions for making this curry with chicken too for those who aren’t the biggest beef fans. If you want to reduce the points even further you could omit the potatoes but I think they add a lovely additional texture and bulk to the dish. Next time I make this I’m also going to whack in a carrot or two!
We often take some meat out of the freezer in the morning and then I come home and see what I can create with it. One evening a few months back, having taken two chicken breasts out the freezer, I arrived home from work and thought ‘I really can’t be bothered to faff around’ so I looked into my fridge to see what else I could throw in with the chicken to make something quick, easy and tasty. This was result and I have to say it’s one of mine (and a lot of my friends) favourites. It’s all cooked within one pan so limited washing up is required. The pan needs to be covered while simmering however if you don’t have a lid, just use a bit of tin foil, that’s what I do!