Not Meatloaf with Mashed Potato and Braised Cabbage

I've made this before and decided to give it another go. It's described by the Quorn Cook Book as Sweet Potato Loaf, however it only has 100g of sweet potato in it. It also has 100g carrot and 150g of Quorn mince so I think it's just a Quorn meatloaf isn't it?

Anyway it was very nice served with some creamy mash and braised cabbage.

Cherry Clafoutis

I had never even heard of a clafoutis until last year when I was on the phone to my Mum and she had to go and get the one she had just made out of the oven. Then they were everywhere! NQN was making it, My mum was making it and I saw it on a TV show too. It was one of those daytime TV shows 'cook yourself thin'/drop a dress size type cooking programs that I watched one day when I was feeling ill.

I used the recipe that my Mum sent me which is the one from The French Kitchen by Joanne Harris

Butter for greasing
750g of fruit (traditionally cherries)
125g plain flour
50g caster sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
300ml milk
icing sugar for dusting

1. Heat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius/gas mark 4. Butter a shallow oven proof dish. Place fruit in dish.

Only 330grams here I'm afraid

2. Put the flour and sugar in a large bowl and make a well in the middle. Whisk the eggs, add the vanilla and milk to the eggs and whisk. Slowly pour the milk in and mix into the flour, beating constantly until all the liquid has been added and you have a smooth batter. Pour over the fruit.

3. Bake for 40 minutes until the batter is firm to the touch and golden on top. Sprinkle with icing sugar and serve just warm.

It rose beautifully in the oven

...and then sank quite a bit once I took it out.

Served with vanilla ice cream

It was very nice. Batter is batter I suppose and its like a cross between a pancake and a Yorkshire pudding with fruit in. A very satisfying pud indeed.

Roasted Butternut Squash with Goat's Cheese

I love this recipe. It's so easy and delicious and pretty healthy too, 350 calories per half a 'squash with all the cheese and veggies and pine nuts too. I did leave out the breadcrumbs this time and I used cheddar instead of parmesan. I may have been a bit generous with my 'pinch' of chilli flakes too as Mr VST got the sweats almost before he even had a mouthful!

Oil, garlic, salt, chilli flakes and thyme

Perfect Pizza

Ahhh Friday night at last! I have been looking forward to this all week! Not least because I had a massage booked in and by some miracle, even though I am on call, I have managed to have that massage and it was A-MAY-Zing!

Mr VST had proposed a pizza and beer evening down at the local watering hole tonight with it's 16 inch dustbinlid pizzas. As I thought that I probably wouldn't feel like it, am still calorie counting and we are saving I suggested instead that I make the pizzas and he buy himself some beers to bring home.

This pizza recipe was from the Times Online before it went all silly and demanded a paid subscription. The 'archive' is still there for free including this recipe. It really is very simple and delicious and Tesco were obliging yesterday with buy one get one free on balls of half fat mozzarella. I calculated these pizzas to be around 550 calories each. A very satisfying feed indeed.

Cornish Fairings - First attempt

I saw this Cornish Fairings recipe in the Guardian over the weekend and calculated them to have about 100 calories a biscuit which is a good snack size calorie-wise.

So I followed the recipe to the letter, it being my first attempt. You melt the butter, syrup and sugar in a pan and then add it to the dry ingredients. You can't much go wrong with a butter, sugar and syrup base and the spices smelt delicious. I made sure Mr VST gave the mixture a stir as he is Cornish and I figured this made them genuine Cornish Fairings!

Mr VST stirring the mixture 

After combining the wet and dry ingredients you are supposed to roll the mixture into little balls. Well my mixture was far too wet for that and I had to spoon teaspoons of the mixture onto the baking tray. According to Hugh you bake the biscuits at a high temperature for 10 minutes, take them out, bash the tray and then bake them again. Well mine were a bit too crispy after only five minutes!

Gooey, fudge-like mixture

Second batch

They were very thin, crispy on the outside and chewy in the middle but really not what I expected. Here are mine:

If you want to see what they are meant to look like check these out. I think I'm going to try these again....

Veggie Mexican

A nice easy, filling veggie Mexican after my run this evening.

Quorn fillets Provençal

Wednesday saw a new recipe from 'The Quorn Kitchen' cookery book. Quorn fillets Provençal involved defrosting the fillets and coating them in oil and herbs de Provence in the vain hope that they might take on some flavour while cooking some veggies in canned tomatoes. You cook off the fillets and then pop them on top of the veggies for a few minutes.

It was nice to try something new and it is difficult to find things to do with Quorn fillets. These were fairly simple to make and made for a low calorie simple supper. They needed a bit more of a kick though as they were quite bland.

Dahl with wholemeal pitta bread

I was really hungry after my run this evening and this dahl did the trick in filling me up.

Linguine bolognese

Another meat-free Monday, another easy, tasty meal with plenty left over for lunch tomorrow.

Chocolate pear crisp

This recipe is the result of another search of the BBC Good Food website with the vegetarian, dessert and low calorie boxes ticked. It was closer in calories in real life to what was stated in the recipe than the chocolate tart but still 184 rather than 140, it all adds up!

It had mixed reviews on the website but I thought I'd give it a go. I put the pears on with lemon juice from a bottle rather than a lemon as I didn't have any and the sugar and let it all bubble away while I prepared the other ingredients. I must have been destined to whisk this weekend. I didn't have any idea how long it would take to whisk an egg white and stupidly decided to try doing it by hand. After quite some effort I gave up and used the electric whisk instead.

Pears with lemon juice and sugar

I sifted the icing sugar and cocoa powder together and added the ground almonds. I did my best impression of folding the egg white into the ingredients but there didn't seem to be an awful lot to go between the ramekins.

After baking them for about 30 minutes altogether I served them with ice cream. The pears were very tasty but I wasn't that impressed with the topping. I'm not sure I'd bother making them again, especially as I could have a slice of Mr VST's chocolate tart for only a few calories more.

Veggie stew and dumplings

A lovely Sunday night supper using all the veg in the fridge. Quick, easy and tasty too with plenty left over for lunch.

Avocado cheese on toast

I'm pretty sure this is a strange invention all of my own. I came up with it while I was a post graduate student. It's a great way to eat avocado without salad. Unfortunately these avocados didn't taste of very much. I don't know why I expected more from Tesco's. Anyway so I toast two slices of bread and while they're toasting cut and avocado in half, remove the stone and mash the flesh in the skin with a fork. When the toast it done I spread the mashed avocado onto the toast and grate some cheese on top and sprinkle a little ground pepper - mmm delicious although Mr VST says it makes him feel queasy :(

Pavlova

I went to a house-warming party yesterday evening at a lovely little Devon thatched cottage. There was a great spread put on including some delicious home made mushroom and blue cheese quiche which I was surprised I liked due to not being a blue cheese fan. The party was 12pm until whenever it finished and we arrived at about 4pm just when the afternoon guests were leaving and the evening guests were yet to arrive. This meant that we were there at the time when a new batch of food was being put out. This included pudding which was pavlova. Our lovely host had made the meringue and chopped the strawberries but the cream needed whipping. This task she gave to her husband who didn't listen to her (!) and put the whole 600ml cream into a GLASS bowl instead of small amounts of cream at a time into a metal one. Now I always whip cream in a metal bowl too but I have no idea why. Anyway much hand whipping by Mr Host, Mrs Host, a lot by me and a tiny bit by Mr VST (but only because I wouldn't let him do more, it had become my mission) and the cream was ready. Having tucked into the quiche, crudités, crisps, little breadcrumb coated mozzarella thingies etc it was time for pudding. The meringue was perfect, crunchy on the outside, chewy in the middle and the cream was whipped to perfection!

Bangers, Mash, Onion Gravy and Braised Cabbage

I love, love, love this gravy and the braised cabbage. Real hearty comfort food at the end of a long week.

Cottage pie with sweet potato mash

Thursday night saw the return of the cottage pie with sweet potato mash, very tasty and filling for only about 235 calories a portion. Served with carrots and broccoli.

Dragon Fruit

Watching Baking Made Easy this week Lorraine Pascale made some delicious looking fruit tarts with dragon fruit in them. When I went to the market stall the next day they had some for sale. They're SO pretty, unfortunately it didn't taste of very much but it had probably travelled thousands of miles. Never mind here it is...

Aubergine, mushroom and green lentil curry

I had a curry planned for Wednesday night's supper anyway and had planned the usual mix of veggies but when I came to make it I realised that I had done nothing with the bonus bag of cheap mushrooms I had bought last week and they weren't looking great. I also had managed to buy two aubergines and had no specific auberginey plans meal wise and I had mistakenly opened a can of green lentils instead of chickpeas for my chickpea stirfry. I made my curry in the usual way with some rogan josh curry paste and a can of coconut milk. It was good, a few more calories per portion than the usual but mush bulkier and more filling.

Low calorie chocolate tart

I have been calorie counting lately and I regularly search the BBC Good Food website for low calorie meals and it is usually great. As everyone counts calories differently and uses different brands of ingredients I then put the list into the myfitnesspal.com recipe tool and check before making whatever it is.

Being a sweet tooth I searched for low calorie puddings on the site and it came up with this chocolate tart. Awesome I thought! A whole decent sized chocolate tart full of chocolatey goodness with only 184 calories per portion.

So I popped the ingredients list into the recipe tool and it was coming out with something a lot higher. It was more like 250 calories a portion even when I split it into eight rather than four portions. I know that doesn't seem like a big difference but when you're on 1200 (net of exercise) calories a day believe me it makes all the difference.  I was quite disappointed. I have no idea how they came up with that calorie count unless the portions are a quarter of one of the four tarts. I had already drooled over this recipe and became obsessed with making it closer to the calorie count I was originally expecting. I couldn't mess with the main chocolatey ingredients of course but I thought I'd play with the pastry. Using eight sheets of filo pastry instead of the shortcrust I managed to get it down to 190 calories for a portion 1/8th of a whole big tart. That was more acceptable so on Tuesday evening, having returned home briefly I set about putting the filo pastry in layers in a tin and gathering all the ingredients for the middle. I knew I was going to be called out again but did not anticipate it being for quite so long. I returned home just after 10pm to find that Mr VST had made the filling and finished it off. A piece of chocolate tart was music to my weary soul when I returned home.

It is good and chocolatey, as you would expect when it has two bars of dark chocolate in it! You don't really need eight sheets of filo pastry and in fact you could probably make it without the pastry at all and it would make lovely chocolatey brownie-type things.

It's amazing how resourceful you become when you are calorie counting. I enjoy succeeding in the challenge of eating like a (vegetarian) king on such a low calorie budget. Maybe I'm just sad but it is rewarding to see the scales tipping back towards their pre-Christmas marker.

Chocolate Filo Tart - maybe a bit OTT with the filo?!

Mushroom and rice one-pot

Tuesday I had planned on running in the evening and so had arranged for Mr VST to make us some mushroom and rice one pot to eat on my return. Instead I got called out, got back at about 6.15pm, waited for the one pot to cook, went back to my call out and didn't return until 10pm. Not the evening I had planned but the food sustained me.

Spiced chickpea and potato fry up

Another meat-free Monday and another new recipe. I tried this easy to make one-pot recipe this evening with some success. It was tasty, full of flavour and I think it will probably be even more flavoursome for lunch tomorrow. I served it with low fat naan breads.

Real Hot Chocolate

For Christmas as part of my goodie pack I received a bar of Hotel Chocolat Organic Hacienda Iara 100% Chocolate. I followed the tasting instructions carefully but just couldn't get a taste for it. I love my dark chocolate but this was a bit too dry and bitter for my taste buds (and Mr VST's too and he loves the 85% stuff!). Anyway as neither of us was enjoying eating it straight up I decided that I would make hot chocolate out of it. I looked up hot chocolate recipes and found this old article in the Guardian by Nigel Slater. I love his food writing. It makes my mouth water!

I used what was left of the 100g bar of chocolate as well as a bag of milk chocolate buttons that I hadn't got around to making Christmas tree decorations with. I heated two mugs full of oat milk with a cinnamon stick in and then melted in the chocolate bar and buttons and added a sprinkle of mild chilli powder and a grating of nutmeg. I also but in about three teaspoons of dark brown sugar to counter the bitterness of the chocolate.

I brought it all up to a gentle boil, whisking it all the way and poured it out into two mugs for drinking. It was incredibly thick, the flavours of the spices didn't really come through, it was a completely different experience from the sweet hot chocolates you buy in cafés. It was very thick, chocolatey and filling. I think next time I'd like to make it with Green and Black's Maya Gold.

Weekend catch up

I left off on Friday having eating my veggie sausage pizza at the in-laws looking forward to an action packed Saturday and my first barbeque of the year. We set off from Lelant Saltings train station and made our way along the coastline towards St Ives. We stopped at Porthminster Beach where Mr VST's parents had set up a barbeque in anticipation of our arrival and cooked a vast quantity of sausages for the meat eaters. We were very lucky with the mild January weather which was very accommodating! Mr VST and I had a Quorn burger and Linda McCartney sausage each.

The afternoon continued with games on the beach, a visit to a spa and then a rock and roll dancing lesson. In the evening we went to the Zen Noodle Bar in Truro where Mr VST and I had some vegetable tempura to start followed by a bowl of soup, noodles, tofu and vegetables for Mr VST and vegetables, tofu and noodles that were supposed to be in a black bean sauce for me but there wasn't much black bean sauce.

Both the barbeque and the noodles were followed by birthday cake - mmm! The cake that followed the barbeque had been especially made by a friend of the birthday girl to be lactose free so that she could eat it. It was a delicious lactose free carrot cake that could only have been bettered by an accompaniment of tea!

We drove home after the meal and after breakfast this morning headed off to the supermarket to refill our empty cupboards and had our lunch plans scuppered as the bakery had run out of fresh cheese and onion pasties. I felt like some comfort food so we bought a fresh loaf of bread and a tin of soup each instead. I went for the ultimate comfort soup - Heinz Cream of Tomato and it was delicious.

After that we grazed on quite a lot of chocolate (diet went out of the window) including a proper home made hot chocolate and I didn't feel like eating supper after that. Mr VST made himself some fried eggs on toast.

Sausage pizza

Veggie sausage pizza at the in laws tonight with salad. Followed by a trio of desserts - trifle, flapjack and millionaires' shortbread. Just what the sweet tooth ordered.


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Veggies and pasta

Another great meal from Mr VST this evening. Loads of good veggies, quorn pieces and pasta.

Root vegetable stew and dumplings

Bought another bargain stew bag yesterday and made us a root vegetable stew which has carrots, swede and parsnip in it. On the calorie counting front this came out at less than 100calories a portion for the stew and the dumplings are 85 each so a very filling, tasty and low calorie meal.

Carrot, parsnip and cumin soup

Mr VST did a grand job of making us soup for dinner as I was called out and didn't get home til 8pm.




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Another Monday another curry

It's just so easy to make that I made it again this evening.

New recipe books arrived finally. The postman kindly left them on the doorstep in the rain but they seem to have survived in tact apart from a few wobbly pages.

Quorn tortilla stack (Low-calorie version) with baked potato wedges

Mr VST and I really enjoyed the Quorn tortilla stack last time but it was a bit hefty on the calories at 525 per portion. I decided to make it again with fewer calories this time. The recipe says between 4-6 tortillas so I used 4 this time and it says to grate cheese between each layer so I just put some on the top and it still tasted great and nearly 200 calories less per portion at 330 per quarter of the stack.

The potato wedges are from Kurma Dasa's 'Quick Vegetarian Meals'. I love this book. I found it when we were travelling in Australia and staying with Mr VST's cousins who had a copy. It is such a lovely book even if his idea of quick isn't quite the same as everyone else's. The wedges are covered with spray oil and then a mixture of cumin, tumeric, paprika, salt and pepper and baked in the oven for 20 mins.

Spinach and sweetcorn pancakes with cheese sauce

We are home this weekend so I have had the luxury of spending as much time as I like in the kitchen. Having embarked on a mission to remind myself how to be healthy I did some Wii yoga this morning followed by a 30 minute run which meant that I had enough calories left to enjoy this classic 80s recipe. It's one my Mum used to make us as kids so that we would eat something green!

It's not very complicated but takes a bit of time as you have to make cheese sauce, pancakes and the filling almost all at once.

You make the pancakes and cheese sauce and wilt the spinach with garlic cloves and sweetcorn and then fill each of the pancakes with some of the spinach mixture, roll them all up and cover them with the cheese sauce. I serve mine with a baked potato. It makes great, filling, Winter comfort food.

Quorn mince linguine bolognese

Back to an easy old favourite this evening, linguine bolognese.

I was hoping that my new recipe books would have arrived when I got home this evening. I've ordered the Miss Dahl's Voluptuous Delights and the Moomin Cook book too (having seen it on NQN's blog over Christmas). I'm really looking forward to testing out some new recipes and hoping that there are lots of healthy-ish veggie recipes in there too.

Calories in Christmas Chocolates

I've just done a VERY brave thing! I had rather a lot of chocolate and other goodies for Christmas (my nearest and dearest know how sweet my sweet tooth is!) and have quite a lot of it still left to eat. As I have started calorie counting again today I decided to go through said sweeties and write on the packets in black marker pen the amount of calories and fat in each. Everything in moderation...