Spicy chicken casserole

I can normally cook reasonably well. Until that it, it comes to spices... I never know how much to put in! What i really want is a little book of spice recipes to tell me how much of what to how much meat...

But in the meantime, Al'fez spices do very nicely.

I cooked this casserole on the hob, it has chicken with the Al'fez "Ras el hanout" spice mix rubbed on. That and a tin of tomatoes, tomato puree, shallots, carrots, mushrooms, flaked almonds and dried apricots.

I fried the spiced chicken first using fry lite (yes the diet continues), removed it and fried the carrots, shallots and then mushrooms.

After that all the ingredients went in together for a low heat cook of 40 minutes or so.

R and I had it with roast potatoes (yep, more fry light). I used Red Duke of York potatoes, which were fabulous!

all in all this meal got a rating of: subzero from us.

Scones - fat and sugar free

The diet continues. And in an attempt to have yumminess on a calorific budget, enter the fat and sugar free raisin scone. Now I admit, that's not what they were intended to be. I found a recipe for fat free sponge cake at Mamta's Kitchen.

I think because I tried to put sultanas in it, and use Splenda rather than sugar, it deflated the mixture. But I have to say, what came out was some rather nice scones, which if you are on Slimming World, come out as 4 of there "syns". Fabulous.

So, for the original cake recipe you can go HERE. My recipe is  4 eggs, 8 oz flour, 14 level tablespoons of flour, 2oz sultanas and make it in the same way as the cake recipe.

I obviously think they are great as its not a carrot (although come to think of it i like carrots too) and R liked them so they get a rating of cool from us.

Goulash Meatballs

Another recipe from Slimming World (and sadly still on the camera phone). These meat balls were really nice and easy to make.

 They had red pepper, onion, garlic, mice beef and turkey, egg, paprika, stock, chooped tomatoes and fromage frais (again if you are dairy free I suggest soya cream instead). I also added about ten mushrooms to it.

As my diet continues we had it with baked potato but to be honest it would have been nicer with a big dollop of  mash. All the same this recipe got a cool rating from us.

Chicken Satay

I'm on a diet. Its going really well actually, thanks to the help of a slimming club. It means the recipies for a while, are going to be in the loosing weight vein. and staring us off is, surprisingly Chicken Satay. (Please excuse the quality of picture, my camera was out of battery so this is via my phone...)

Its a Slimming World recipe, and their web site is well worth a look for recipies. Anyway, this one  had soy sauce, sweetener, garlic, and cumin wiht the chicken and fat reduced peanut butter, garlic, sweetener, soy sauce and fromage frais for the sauce. I reckon you could use soya cream if you are going dairy free.

It was actually, really nice. As R said "it actually tastes like proper satay" high praise indeed. So high in fact, this recipe gets a subzero from us.

Walnut and coffee cupcakes and coconut cupcakes

I have been baking again today. the excuse was that I need to take something to tonights church bring and share harvest meal...

Eggs

Sugar

Flour

pure marg

dessicated coconut

instant coffee

chopped walnuts

weigh the eggs with their shells on,  (i used four for about 30 cupcakes) and then weigh everything else except the coconut and coffee, to the same weight.

Cream the marg and sugar

beat the egg in a bit at a time

seperate the mix into two:

for the coconut cupcakes, soak some dessicated coconut in warm water, drain and add to the mix.

For the walnut and coffee cupcakes, finely chop some walnuts, melt some instant coffee in hot water - add these to the mix.

Put mix in cake cases

Cook in an oven at 200C for 15 to 20 minutes.

The icing is either plain "butter"  icing or "butter" icing with a little instant coffee that has been melted with hot water.
I use half pure marg to icing sugar.

Once I have iced the buns, I put coconut or a piece of walnut on top of the appropriate cupcakes. This is especially important as I am taking some of them for others to eat - nobody wants "nut surprise" when they are allergic to them!

The ones I have kept are all with caps on as its easier to keep them in the tin than the pretty iced ones Im taking with me tonight.

Both R and I love these kind of cakes and they get a rating of subzero from us.

Chocolate biscuits

Having been away with work and on holiday with R, then what with the beginning of term... its been a long time since I foodie blogged!

In honour of next weeks UK chocolate week I thought I would make some chocolate covered biscuits.

The biscuit:

7oz self raising flour

4oz pure marg

30oz sugar

1 egg yolk

mix the sugar and butter, then the egg, then the flour.

Roll out and use pastry cutters. Cook for about 15 mins on 200C

 The chocolate:

I used fairtrade coop dark with spices and fair trade cadburys, but if you want milk free there are loads of places on the net to look, for example: Uk organics and Plamil.

I melted the chocolate in a bowl over hot water and dipped the bisuits, some half chocolate ones and some full chocolate ones.

 

R and I love chocolate and bisuits so these get a solid cool rating from us.

Pizza

I'm always looking for ways to make pizza interesting, seeing as we can't have cheese on it. I have been inspired by Ashley Skabar - she has a lovely recipe for vegan pesto flatbread, and I thought mm, pesto, that might be good on a Pizza.

So, some leftover pizza dough from making Jamie Oliver's Calzone, aubergine pesto (from Sainsbury's, I confess) mushrooms, olives, peppers and half a pig in bacon and hey presto:

It was really yummy . I think next time no olives as the olives and bacon made it a bit salty, but R and I love eating pizza so this got a rating of cool.