Paprika Chicken & Bacon Warmer

I was challenged recently by Knorr to incorporate their fabulous Knorr Stock Pots into a recipe - the challenge was that it had to be gluten-free, much like their Stock Pots. They sent me a big box of lovely fresh ingredients, and left it up to me to decide what I wanted to make.

I decided to adapt this recipe to be gluten free and Weight Watchers friendly, and it worked a treat. This is a super tasty, super hearty, super warming Autumn dish... and it's low fat. Winner!

Paprika Chicken & Bacon Warmer

(adapted from here)

Serves: 4-6

400g chicken breasts (I used a pack of Sainsbury's mini fillets) - 10PP

200g bacon medallions - 6PP

800g baby potatoes, sliced - 15PP

1 tbsp cornflour - 2PP

Knorr chicken stock pot - 1PP

250ml white wine - 6PP

2 tbsp sweet chilli sauce - 2PP

Salt & Pepper

Smoked Paprika

2 cloves of garlic, crushed

1 onion, chopped

6 mushrooms, chopped

1 pepper, chopped

2 carrots, chopped

300ml boiling water, for stock

2-3 stalks of fresh thyme

Frylight

42PP / 11PP - 4 servings, 7PP - 6 servings

1. Boil a pan of water and par-boil your potatoes for 10 minutes. Drain and set aside.
1. Chop up your chicken and bacon (I always use scissors)
2. In a plastic sandwich bag, add 2 teaspons of smoked paprika, 1 teaspoon of salt and 1 of pepper. Mix together (I just shook the bag) and throw the chicken into the bag
3. Massage the bag from the outside until the chicken is well coated. To be honest, I think you could also just throw the chicken, paprika, salt and pepper into a bowl and stir it together too.
4. In a nonstick frying pan or wok, add the chicken and bacon, and cook until cooked through. You will probably need to add some Frylight and maybe a few splashes of water, to stop it sticking.
5. Remove the meat from the pan and leave in a bowl for a bit, then add the garlic and the onion into the pan. Stir for about 2 minutes, then add the mushrooms and cook for another 2 minutes. Again, you may need to add another splash of water to stop it sticking.
6. Add the carrots and peppers, sprinkle with salt and pepper and cook for about 5 minutes, stirring regularly.
7. Combine the cornflour with a splash of water to make a paste, then slowly stir into 175ml of the wine (I used a jug for this).

8. Add the Knorr Stock Pot to a jug of 300ml of boiling water, and stir until it's dissolved.
9. Add the flour and wine mixture to the pan, and then immediately add the stock. If you wait, it'll stick and your vegetables will burn. I speak from experience...
10. Pop the potatoes and the meat back into the pan with all the vegetables, stir to combine and increase the heat to medium-high until it starts to bubble. Add another sprinkling of paprika, your sweet chilli, a further 175ml of wine and some more salt and pepper.
11. Leave to simmer and cook down for about half an hour. If you can, cover the pan, but we didn't have a lid and it was fine - I just checked it regularly and gave it a stir to make sure it wasn't sticking.
12. Just before stirring, strip the stalks of thyme into the mixture and stir them in. Have a taste, add any extra seasoning you wish and then plate that bad boy up.

This is my last post here on Where Are My Knees sadly, but you can catch me at my personal blog, Essbeevee, which is full of lots of yummy recipes and chatter.

Bacon, feta & rocket frittata recipe

I’m back!

I’ve been very quiet here for the past few months, and the reason is that I completely fell off the wagon. I am cross with myself – it took the best part of last year to lost 2.5 stone, and only 6 months to gain most of it back. If only it worked the other way around! I’m not going to beat myself up though – I gained weight because I was in a new relationship and happier than I’ve been in a long time. And I am back on it now, I've switched to doing Weight Watchers online and my first weigh in is tomorrow! Eeep!

I’m going to start posting lots of recipes again, as last year, that’s what really helped me lose the weight. I discovered a love of cooking that I didn’t know I had, and rather than feeling sad about no more takeaways and convenience food, I’m excited to start cooking from scratch again and experimenting with tasty recipes.

With that all said, I might as well come back with a tasty recipe! And before you ask, YES. It does involve cheese. So, I’m definitely guilty of having the same thing for lunch day in, day out – when I find something that works, I stick with it. Throughout school, I was perfectly happy with my peanut butter sandwich and ready salted crisps every day, and now I’m all about my daily soup.

Pink Lining challenged me to come up with a recipe to liven up a kids’ lunchbox – now even though I don’t have any of my own, I spend a lot of time with my sister’s kids so I felt pretty equipped to come up with something. After a lot of thinking, I went for a frittata. Frittatas are super easy to make - unlike omelettes, they require very little skill (my omelettes always fall apart!). They’re a super easy dinner as they’re basically eggs and whatever else you have – but they’re also really good hot or cold. And they’re light, too! This whole recipe is only 19 points, and for lunch a quarter or half would be plenty.

I didn’t get a chance to try this out on any children but I put together this as my own lunchbox and very tasty it was too! (Plus, this Pink Lining lunchbox is way too adorable to give to a kid, right?) Along with my frittata portion, I bought a little box of green salad, some cherry tomatoes, a bottle of water and a couple of pieces of fruit. Super tasty!

Bacon, Feta & Rocket Frittata

Half a small red onion - 0PP

2 mushrooms

A couple of handfuls of fresh rocket - 0PP

4 large eggs - 8pp

100g crumbled feta cheese - 7pp

50g bacon lardons - 4pp

19PP / 10PP a half

1. Turn on your grill and let it heat up while you prepare everything else.
2. In an oven-proof frying pan,* thinly chop your mushrooms and onion, then dry fry (add a little water if it starts to stick)
3. Throw in your bacon and let everything cook away while you prepare everything else
4. In a jug or bowl, break your eggs and whisk up with a little salt and pepper until combined
5. Chop up your feta and add that to the bowl, then add your rocket.
6. Stir it all together, and then add to the frying pan.
7. Remove your frying pan from the heat and pop it under the grill for 5-10 minutes until it's cooked through - the egg should be solid, not liquid, all the way through.
8. Chop into quarters and serve, or leave to cool and have it for lunch tomorrow!

*If you don't have an oven-proof frying pan, you'll need to decant this into a baking tin, but it may not work as well.

Post in collaboration with Pink Lining.

Buffalo Chicken Mac 'n' Cheese

When I saw this recipe on The Greedy Girls recently I couldn't stop thinking about it. I was having a batch cooking day recently and decided to give it a shot, but first I modified the recipe so it was a little more Weight Watchers friendly. The key to making a rich sauce lower fat is to spread it across more portions - you still get all the flavour, but you're just making it go a little further. I then just substituted some of the full fat elements for lighter options, and presto... it was awesome.

This is a really, really tasty dish. It's quite time consuming to make, but it's so worth it when you get there. It's also super rich - I haven't been super good lately so my appetite has grown a bit, but every time I eat this I'm surprised at how full I am, considering it's only 40g of pasta per portion. I think I ate the last portion today, and I'm going to have to make it again crazy soon. New favourite recipe, right here.

Full credit for this goes to Amy from The Greedy Girls - I just tweaked it a bit!

Buffalo Chicken Mac 'n' Cheese
500g chicken breasts = 12PP
320g macaroni or pasta = 31PP
1tsp brown sugar = 1PP
4 tsp Lurpak Lighter = 3PP
1 tbsp plain flour = 2PP
240ml semi skimmed milk = 3PP
170g cheddar cheese = 14PP
125g light mozzarella = 6PP
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 red onion, sliced
2 peppers, diced
2 cartons of passata
Two teaspoons of cumin
Chilli flakes
Two tablespoons of paprika

72PP / 9PP (serves 8)
1. Place the chicken breasts (whole) and the pasta in a large saucepan. Cover with boiling water, then add a few inches more water. Add a generous pinch of salt, and cook for around 20 minutes. Drain and set the macaroni aside.
2. Pull out the chicken breasts, shred with a couple of forks and set the meat aside. Keep the saucepan ready for later, too.
3. Meanwhile, fry the garlic and onion on a low heat for five minutes. Add the peppers and fry for five minutes more. Tip in the passata, the cumin, a shake of chilli flakes (depending on how hot you like you food), the paprika and the sugar. Add anything else you think it needs for flavour - I added a splash of balsamic vinegar and a spoonful of artificial sweetener.
4. Stir the sauce through the shredded chicken (FYI - if you struggle with the shredding, chopped is fine. I bought diced breasts so shredding them wasn't the easiest feat!). Season with salt and pepper and leave to bubble on a low heat.
5. That's the buffalo chicken part done - now onto the mac 'n' cheese! In a small saucepan melt the butter.
6. Add the flour to the butter and stir to combine. Then add the milk, a splash at a time, mixing well between each addition. You’ll end up with a thick, gloopy sauce. If it's too thin, add more flour.
7. Add around half the cheddar and stir to melt into the sauce. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
8. Preheat the oven to 200C.
9. Put the pasta back in the big saucepan and tip the cheese sauce over the top. Stir to coat the pasta.
10. In an large, ovenproof dish, layer half of the buffalo chicken on the bottom of the dish. Then add half of the macaroni and cheese on top of that. Top with the remaining half of the buffalo chicken mix and finally the rest of the mac ‘n’ cheese. Don't worry if your layers aren't neat, it's best all mixed up.
11. Tear the mozzarella up and distribute over the top of the dish. Then sprinkle over the remaining cheddar.
12. Bake for around 20 minutes, until the cheese is golden brown. This freezes really well - I might even have added another 2PP worth of cheese onto it when I reheated. SO GOOD.

Cheeseburger Casserole

Someone linked to this recipe on Twitter recently from the American blog SkinnyTaste (originally from a Bobby Deen cookbook) and I was intrigued by it. Cheeseburgers? In a casserole? With pasta? And not full of fat? DOES NOT COMPUTE.

Obviously I had to try it though, and try it I did. I am usually pretty faithful when it comes to following recipes, but I looked at all the weird American measurements and totally improvised this one. So not like me. I kind of based it on the quantities from other recipes I’ve done like a Spag Bol and a cheesy bake, and it was super yummy! It’s not QUITE as good as a cheeseburger (come on, NOTHING is) but it’s really hearty and filling and there’s cheese involved, and you know that I’m all about involving the cheese. I’ve modified it a bit, adding some extra flavouring and stuff, and a few more veggies.

Cheeseburger Casserole (originally from here)

500g extra lean mince 16pp

300g pasta 29pp

150g light cheddar cheese 12pp

3 tbsp Dijon Mustard 2pp

1 onion, finely chopped 0pp

1 red pepper, chopped 0pp

1 tsp salt 0pp

1 tsp black pepper 0pp

2 tbsp tomato puree 1pp

1 tsp oregano

1 tsp smoked paprika

2 garlic cloves, chopped or crushed 0pp

1 carton/can chopped tomatoes 0pp

1 jar pickled gherkins 0pp*

60PP / 10PP

Serves 6.

To reduce points: drop the amount of cheese, make into 8 portions instead of 6, drop the amount of pasta (40g per person instead of 50g per person would be enough).

1. Preheat the oven to 150c.
2. Cook the pasta according to package instructions and drain.
3. In a large frying pan or wok, add the onions and cook until soft, about 5 minutes. Add oil if you need to (but remember to account for it if you’re counting) or FryLight, but a smidge of water will also work to stop it sticking.
4. Stir in the garlic and the mince, and cook until browned.
5. Add the pepper, and any other vegetables you fancy.
6. Stir in the tomato puree, then add the salt, pepper, oregano, paprika, chopped tomatoes and the mustard. Let the mixture bubble slightly until it’s slightly thickened – a few minutes. Stir frequently to make sure it doesn’t stick.
7. Give it a taste and add any extra seasoning you think it needs, but if you’re happy, chuck the pasta in with the sauce and stir it together
8. Spread the meat and pasta mixture into the prepared dish, and top with your grated 150g of cheese.
9. Bake for 15-20 minutes until the cheese is melted and brown.
10. Sprinkle the chopped pickles over the top and serve – but if you’ve batch cooked this and are planning to freeze it, hold back on the pickles and only add them when the mixture is heated up and ready to eat.

*I’ve put 0pp on the pickles but it depends on what you buy. I bought a jar of pickled sweet gherkins and if I’d eaten the whole jar, it would have been a few points because of the sugar that was used to preserve them. However, allowing for a sixth of the jar was 0pp. So just make sure you check this – it’s not going to add a lot to the dish though. Also, if you’re not a fan of them, just leave them out!

SkinnyTaste also suggested adding sautéed mushrooms to the top which I did – I sautéed a whole punnet of chopped mushrooms in about 30g of Lurpak Lighter (5pp), a bit of salt and a couple of chopped garlic cloves which added an extra point per portion. I then put them on top of the bake when it was out of the oven so they retained their flavour. They were yummy, but I felt like the taste of the bake kind of drowned their buttery garlicky awesomeness. Next time, I’d just have them as a side.

Mexican Lasagne

I’ve spoken before about my love for Food Network, but if you have a similar addiction, you’ll know that most recipes on there don’t really fit on a website with a diet/fitness focus. So prepare to be even more shocked when I bring up Nigella – oh yes, I have a Nigella recipe for you today, and it’s really not naughty. AND I barely tinkered with it at all. I know, I know – I was surprised too. I kind of expected more of Nigella.

This Mexican Lasagne is vegetarian and super filling. I actually messed up my layers slightly as I forgot how to count, so I’m going to talk you through how I SHOULD have done it. It’s a really easy recipe though and very hearty. I must confess – even if it’s a touch TMI – I felt like it made me a little bloated, but it is quite carb heavy with the wraps and the beans. If I made it again, I’d cut down on the tortillas used (due to messing up the layers, I ended up using 12 in the whole dish which was overkill), decrease the beans and up the sweetcorn (and maybe the cheese). It’s a good, stodgy meal though – great for winter – and it freezes really well, so yay for that!

The main changes I made was cutting out the oil (honestly, you hardly ever need to cook with oil), upping the vegetables in the salsa (the salsa is almost entirely point-free, so next time I’d even be tempted to up the tomato!) and swapping the cheese. I think it would work with just low fat cheddar, though. I also changed the beans – the original recipe calls for black beans, but I couldn’t find them!

You can see Nigella’s original recipe here.

Mexican Lasagne
9 Weight Watchers wraps - 25PP
1 tbsp Tomato Ketchup - 1PP
3 cans Pinto Beans - 17PP
2 165g cans Sweetcorn - 6PP
200g feta - 15PP
225g mozzarella - 10PP
50g low fat cheddar - 4PP
2 onions
1 punnet mushrooms
2 peppers (any colour)
2 green or red chillies, chopped and deseeded (or not, depending on how spicy you like it)
3 cloves fresh garlic
Fresh coriander
800g chopped tomatoes (2 cans)
400ml water (swilled in empty cans)

Serves 8
78PP / 10PP

1. Preheat the oven to 200c.
2. Finely chop all your veggies
3. In a wok or non-stick frying pan fry the onion, pepper, mushrooms, chillies and crushed garlic cloves until soft
4. Add the canned tomatoes, then swill the cans out with water and add this too. Spoon in the ketchup and let the sauce come to a simmer, leaving it to cook with the lid off for about 10 mins. It should thicken considerably, but if it still looks watery turn the heat up and leave it a little longer.
5. Meanwhile, in a large bowl mix the drained beans and sweetcorn. Add the chopped mozzarella and feta, and mix together until well combined.
6. When the sauce is done (make sure to season to taste with salt/pepper and any other spices) you can start assembling. I just used my lasagne dish.
7. Smear a bit of the salsa on the bottom of your dish – enough to just cover it.
8. Add a layer of tortilla. To fit the space I used 2 overlapping wraps, then chopped a third in half and put it on either end (see the photo)
9. Add half the remaining salsa, then add another layer of tortillas over them
10. Add all of your sweetcorn/bean/cheese mix then add another layer of tortillas
11. Add the remaining salsa over the top, then sprinkle your cheddar over that.
12. Bake in the oven for 20-30 minutes, then let rest for a good 10-15 minutes before slicing.
13. As much as you may not want to, leaving it to rest DOES make a difference. I ate it straight out of the oven and it fell apart – I had to use a spoon to get it out! When I portioned up the rest, it sliced incredibly neatly and I could use a fishslice to lift it out.

To reduce points – you could easily leave out a tortilla layer, and I doubt you’d miss it. You could also cut down on the beans, or switch the type of cheese. Next time, I’m probably going to do all three of these things and I think it’ll taste better for it! I also think the ketchup added nothing to the flavour – I’d use sweet chilli instead.

Blue Cheese & Pesto Pasta

Picture the scene a couple of Fridays ago. It was pouring with rain the whole way home, it was cold, and all I wanted to do was get in my house, in my pyjamas and eat some stodge. Because I batch cook a lot, I generally have ready-made meals in my freezer, so I figured I'd have something like my mushroom lasagne, maybe a bit of extra cheese, and then flop.

Anyway. I got home, and discovered a problem - I'd worked my way through all of my freezer meals. Nothing left except a rubbish pasta dish that was entirely tasteless. So I was left with a choice - eat the boring pasta dish and be hungry all evening (don't you find disappointing food never really fills you up?), go out in the rain and buy food, or get a takeaway. And I... went out in the rain. I WAS IMPRESSED TOO. But it wasn't actually that bad in the end, and it meant that whilst I walked to Tesco, I could think about what I fancied to eat and work out the points on my phone. By the time I got there, I knew that I wanted pesto, I wanted cheese and I wanted broccoli.

See, this is what happens when you eat healthily for a while. You start craving things like broccoli. Bloomin' love broccoli.

Blue Cheese Pesto Pasta

240g Pasta - 23PP

500g Chicken Breasts - 12PP

150g Danish Blue - 14PP

3 tbsp Pesto - 4PP

100g Philadelphia Light - 4PP

4 cloves garlic

2 red onions

1 punnet mushrooms

200g spinach

Big bunch of Broccoli

=57PP / 10PP per person

To reduce points: Reduce the chicken (it really wasn't needed), less cheese, less pesto

Serves 6

1. Put your pasta on to boil as per the package instructions.
2. Chop up your broccoli and boil in a separate pan for 7-10 minutes until tender (if you're super organised you could use the same pan as your pasta, just do the broccoli first and then use the same water to do the pasta).
3. Chop up your chicken and cook in your pan or wok with a little water to prevent sticking.
4. Add half your garlic as the chicken is cooking so it absorbs the flavour
5. While these are cooking, chop up your onions and mushrooms and set aside for a moment.
6. When your chicken is cooked through, add 1 tablespoon of pesto to it and stir until the chicken is covered.
7. Add the veg, stir well and pop the lid on for 5-10 minutes while the veg softens.

8. Add your Philadelphia and stir well - the liquid in the pan will help turn the cheese into a sauce, but if it's lumpy, add a splash of milk.
9. Chop up your blue cheese and toss it into the pan. Stir well. It's a soft cheese, so it will merge into the sauce easily.
10. Let this simmer away for a while. Your pasta should be done by now, so drain it, then pop it back in the same pan. Add a tablespoon of pesto to the pasta alone and stir until totally covered.
11. Chop up your broccoli and add to the sauce, then throw your pesto pasta in too.
12. Add the spinach to the pan and cover for about 3 minutes until wilted. Make sure you stir the sauce at regular intervals so it doesn't stick.
13. When the spinach has wilted, stir well until combined with the sauce. Add your third tbsp of pesto to the pan and stir through.
14. And you're done! If you fancy, you could then pour all of this into a lasagne dish, cover with a little cheddar, and bake for 15 mins or so to let those flavours all really combine. I served it as it was though with a little extra cheese on top instead... NOM. Exactly what I fancied.

Plus, the benefits of batch cooking - I had five more portions of this to add to my freezer stash. Hooray! If I made this again, I'd definitely bake it, and I'd cut out the chicken as although it was nice, it really didn't add anything. I think bacon could be good though!

As always, let us know in the comments or on Twitter if you make this - we love to see your recipe pics!

Aubergine & Halloumi Parmigiana

Welcome to day 2 of my VoucherCodes challenge! (Day one is here) I had various plans with this meal, and then totally changed my mind and went for something entirely different. But it’s really nice, and really low fat. Amazeballs.

I’m calling this Aubergine Parmigiana, but it doesn’t actually have parmesan in it, so the name is totally misleading. I personally feel that parmesan completely disintegrates when used in a bake, and other, more robust cheeses are a better bet. Plus, I had some halloumi in the fridge, and I don’t need much of an excuse to use halloumi. This recipe is incredibly low fat. Weight Watchers-wise, the only pointed thing is the cheese, and it would be tasty without. But, as you know, everything is a little better with cheese.

Okay, a LOT better.

Aubergine & Halloumi Parmigiana
3 x Aubergines - 0PP / 175cal
1 carton Passata - 0PP / 160cal
1 can of carton chopped tomatoes - 0PP / 88cal
1 onion - 0PP / 46cal
1 courgette - 0PP / 18cal
6 mushrooms - 0PP / 20cal
5 garlic cloves - 0PP / 26cal
225g light halloumi - 16PP / 549
75g low fat cheddar - 6PP / 236 cals
100g spinach - 0PP / 23cal
2 tsp artificial sweetener - 0PP / 2cal
Herbs e.g. basil, paprika
20PP / 5PP per person

Serves 4.

Calories: 578cal / 145cal per portion
WW Points: 20PP / 5PP per portion

Total cost: £9.05 (£2.26/portion)
To reduce points - Use less or no cheese.

1. Preheat the oven to 200c
2. Slice the aubergines lengthwise and then griddle a few at a time with a bit of frylight (or dry) until charred both sides. When done, place on a plate.
3. Slice the halloumi and using the same pan, griddle until browned. Set aside.
4. Cook your mushrooms, onions and courgette in a frying pan or wok with the garlic until soft.
5. Add the tomatoes, passata and sweetener and stir well.
6. Add the spinach, and put the lid on for a minute or so until it begins to wilt. Then stir into the sauce.
7. Add a healthy pinch of dried basil and of smoked paprika, if you have any and stir.
8. Leave the sauce to bubble with the lid off on a medium-high heat for 10 minutes or so. The sauce will thicken and reduce.
9. Time to assemble. Spread some of the tomato sauce into an ovenproof dish, then lay some of the aubergine slices over the top.
10. Repeat with a layer of tomato, a layer of aubergines, until everything is in the sauce (I managed three layers of tomatoes, two of aubergines)
11. Scatter the halloumi over the top and then grate the 75g of low fat cheddar over that.
12. Bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes until the cheese is brown and bubbling.

This is so low that I took it into work for lunch! So tasty, and it reheats beautifully.

Mango Chicken Stirfry

Recently I was challenged by the nice people at VoucherCodes to come up with two recipes that were both low cost and low fat for their £5 under 500 calories project. I’ve again fallen into the habit of making the same things over and over, so it was good to push me out of my comfort zone and force me to try some new things!

This is my first recipe, and my second one will be up tomorrow. This recipe is something I’ve been meaning to try for ages – my best friend makes the sauce a lot and absolutely raves about it, and I found it kind of unbelievable that I’ve been doing Weight Watchers since January and haven’t made one stirfry yet – it was always my diet staple dinner!

Chicken Mango Stirfry

340g bag Lakeland frozen cooked chicken strips - 9PP / 394cal

600g Amoy Medium Straight to Wok Noodles 22PP / 828cal

Soy sauce - 1PP / 10cal

1 onion - 0PP / 46cal

1 pepper - 0PP / 16cal

6 mushrooms - 0PP / 20cal

200g spinach - 0PP / 46cal

1 knob ginger - 0PP / 5cal

5 garlic cloves - 0PP / 26cal

1-2 ripe mangoes - 0PP / 150cal

1 lime - 0PP / 16cal

Fresh coriander - 0PP / 15cal

1 small red chilli, deseeded - 0PP / 18cal

Serves 4.

Calories: 1545cal / 386cal per portion

WW Points: 32PP / 8PP per portion

Total cost: £12.67 (£3.17/portion)

To reduce points/calories - Use less noodles, less chicken.

1. Add your chicken strips to the wok along with a little water or FryLight to thaw and cook through
2. I chose to chop the strips in half with a pair of scissors to make go further, but this is optional
3. Chop up your onion, pepper and mushrooms and throw in. Pop the lid on so everything softens quickly.
4. Whilst these are cooking, prepare your sauce, Chop up your mango/mangoes into small pieces and add to a bowl
5. Grate in your ginger and crush in your garlic cloves
6. Cut the lime in half and squeeze into the bowl too
7. Add a small slug of soy sauce then chop up a healthy bunch of coriander and add
8. Chop up your chilli, ensuring all seeds are removed, and add to the bowl
9. Stir until well combined. You can also blitz this in a food processor if you’d rather.
10. Add your spinach and bean sprouts to your vegetables until the spinach wilts, then stir in the noodles.
11. When everything is well combined and soft, pour in the mango mixture and stir well.
12. Add anything you choose to taste, such as more soy sauce, sweet chilli, etc.
13. Serve with a bunch of fresh coriander!

What I Ate Wednesday: (A Day In The Life of Weight Watchers by Gemma) #7

I'm always really surprised when I do these kinds of posts about the amount I get to eat on the Weight Watchers plan. I'm eating more protein at the moment because I've started to work out most evenings at the gym so I'm trying to fit in more eggs, cheese, chicken, bean and beef. This is what I ate on a typical working day:

Breakfast
Weight Watchers Sausages - 3 ProPoints
Egg - 2 Pro Points
Flora Light - 1 ProPoint
Weight Watchers bread  - 1 ProPoint
Banana - O ProPoints

Break time snack

Skimmed milk for tea (x3 cups) - 1 ProPoint
Bar - 2 ProPoints

Lunch
Weight Watchers Bagel - 4 points

ASDA Lighter cream cheese - 1 point

Smoked Salmon  -  2 points

  Orange - 0 points

Monster Munch  - 3 points

Dinner

M&S Steak and Sauce - 6 ProPoints

M&S wedges - 4 ProPoints

Roasted Peppers and onions, tender stem broccoli - O ProPoints
FryLight - 1 ProPoint

Evening snack
Muller Light Greek style lemon yogurt 1ProPoint


Total -32/32 ProPoints

You can see all my other food diary posts here.

P.S. you can also follow us on twitter and bloglovin

Butternut Squash & Feta Lasagne

I had this plan last weekend to make a big lasagne, as I had extra lean mince in the freezer to use up. So I went to Lidl to get ingredients, whereby I remembered that I had forgotten to get said mince out of the freezer. So... vegetarian lasagne it is!

I found various recipes online (there's even an old one on this blog!) and sort of combined them all to create some kind of SUPER LASAGNE. It was pretty hard to mess up, to be honest, because all the ingredients are really tasty by themselves, so together they are AWESOME. This was so tasty, and because butternut squash is the basis and it's crazy filling, it was ridiculously low in points. Unbelievably, if you did all the things I've listed below to reduce points, you could get it down to 5PP a portion. It's a bit impossible, really.

Serves 4 to 6, depending on how hungry you are. It's pretty filling though!

Butternut Squash & Feta Lasagne

8 x Dry Lasagne sheets - 15pp

125g Lidl Light Mozzarella - 5pp

200g Feta Cheese - 15pp

1 x can Campbell's Mushroom Soup - 4pp

15g Parmesan Cheese - 2pp

1 x Butternut squash

200g Spinach

2 x Leeks

1 x Pepper

4 x Portobello Mushrooms

4 x Garlic Cloves

Rosemary

=41PP / 7PP per portion

To reduce points - Use less lasagne, or less cheese. You wouldn't miss 2 of the lasagne sheets (having 6 rather than 8), half the feta, or the parmesan. But it's nicer with them all, obviously.



1 - Peel and chop up the butternut squash.
2 - This is harder than it sounds! If you can get a pre-cut butternut squash, do. Chopping butternut squash is the worst. It's easier to cut if it's cooked first, which is what I did, but it was also kind of a bugger to peel that way. In short, butternut squash is difficult. But so tasty!
3 - Put the chopped butternut squash in a roasting tin and spray liberally with FryLight. Sprinkle with dried rosemary, salt and pepper and chuck some crushed garlic on, too. Roast in a 200c oven for about 25mins.
4 - Whilst the butternut squash is cooking, prepare everything else.
5 - Wash your leeks, mushrooms and pepper and chop them up into nice chunky chunks. Dry-fry in a frying pan or wok with the rest of the crushed garlic cloves until softened - 10 mins or so should do it.
6 - Remove the vegetables from the pan and put in your spinach. Cook with the lid on for about 5 minutes until it wilts.
7 - When your squash is done, you're ready to assemble. Make sure to leave the oven on as you'll need it to cook the lasagne! You can assemble your lasagne any way you want, but this is how I did it:
8 - Put about half of it into the bottom of your lasagne dish and over that, put about half of the leek/mushroom/pepper mixture.
9 - Lay 3 or 4 lasagne sheets over that and then put all the spinach over them, making sure they are evenly spread and more or less cover the surface of the lasagne sheets.
10 - Over the spinach spoon the remainder of the vegetable mix, then the remainder of the squash.

11 - Chop up your feta and sprinkle the lot over the top of your squash.
12 - Cover with 3 or 4 lasagne sheets.
13 - Over them spoon the can of mushroom soup and make sure the lasagne sheets are all covered.
NB: You can use any white sauce here. Mushroom soup is really easy and low fat, and I love the flavour. If you use something different just account for it in your points.
14 - Tear up your mozzarella and sprinkle over the lasagne sheets, then sprinkle the parmesan over that.
15 - Pop your pan in the oven - heavy, ain't it - and cook for 20-30 mins at 200c.
16 - Get it out, serve it quickly, eat it all up. I've eaten it four days running this week and I'm not even remotely sick of it because it's AWESOME.
17 - NB: This freezes really well.


EDIT: I made this again for the second time and I changed a few things:
1 - Used 6 lasagne sheets instead of 8. This cut it to 6PP a portion and it was just as filling. And I didn't have to compromise on cheese! Also it made it easier to cut into 6 as I had dividers!
2 - I found a great tip online to cut butternut squash easily. Pop it on a microwavable plate, pierce it a few times all over and microwave for 3 minutes. It will be much easier to peel and cut after this - genius! It meant I could chop it all up before roasting it.
3 - I roasted the squash in the lasagne pan rather than an oven tray. Saves washing up!
4 - I added a little water to the bottom of the lasagne pan after adding the first layer of veg. Just enough to give a thin covering - half a glass, maybe quarter of a glass? This was just to ensure it wasn't dry and it really wasn't.
5 - I shared it! I gave a portion to Sha and she (and her other half) loved it. Hooray!

If you want to make this or any of my recipes and have any questions, the quickest way to get a response is to tweet me @essbeevee :)  

P.S. you can also follow us on twitter and bloglovin

Four Cheese Gnocchi Bake

Three of the four cheeses

Over Easter, I slipped on Weight Watchers a bit. I went out for a few meals, I missed my meeting (as it was on the bank holiday Monday) and generally slacked. After being in the habit of being good, I reset myself slightly and getting back into the WW mindset was kind of hard. Somehow I managed to get away with it and stayed the same after Easter, but I knew I needed to do something to snap myself back to being on-plan.

What really helped me when I started WW was to make lots of new recipes – I love trying new things and it was actually a good way of learning the basic rules of the plan quite quickly. Sharing them on here is a good way of forcing myself to keep things fresh, rather than going back to the same recipes again and again. I do repeat them, but I’ll always try something new at least every fortnight.

This recipe is actually perfect for when you’re feeling a bit fed up with following a diet plan, because it’s rich and luxurious and downright naughty. It has four different types of cheese in it! FOUR! I got this off the WW app, but then doctored it a bit to make it more exciting. The original recipe has more gnocchi, but I find gnocchi really filling so I cut it down (also it's 400g in a pack). It also does not have the low fat cheese on top, but if I can find a way to shoehorn more cheese into a recipe, you’d better believe I will do it. You are looking at the girl who adds cheese to reheated lasagne. Hey – as long as you point it, it’s fine!

Four Cheese Gnocchi Bake

400 g Broccoli, raw, broken into small florets

1/2 pack of Mushrooms

3 cloves Garlic

2 Leeks

200 g Cheese, soft, low fat 8pp

100 ml Milk, Semi Skimmed 1pp

50 g Cheese, Stilton, chopped 6pp

1 g Black pepper

400 g Gnocchi, Fresh 16pp

20 g Cheese, Parmesan 2pp

100g Low Fat Cheese - 8PP

= 41PP / 10PP per person

To reduce points: You do not need all this cheese. Of course you do not need all this cheese. But do you want all this cheese? I bet you do.

Top tip: To avoid having lots of different types of cheese in the fridge to 'use up' (uh oh), go to the cheese counter and ask the nice man to give you a small quantity of cheese. 

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C
2. Bring a large saucepan of water to the boil. Add the broccoli and cook for 4-5 minutes until just tender. Lift the broccoli from the saucepan with a draining spoon into a colander, saving the water in the saucepan.
3. Meanwhile, fry the mushrooms and leeks in a non-stick pan or wok with FryLight or a little water and the garlic cloves (crushed).
4. Stir in the soft cheese and add the milk. Stir until both are combined and smooth.
5. Add the Stilton and stir through - it should melt pretty quickly as it's only a small amount. Season the sauce with black pepper and any other spices you fancy.
6. Cook the gnocchi in the same water as the broccoli, according to pack instructions. Drain well.
5. Mix the gnocchi and broccoli with the cheese mixture and transfer to an ovenproof dish. Scatter the Parmesan cheese and low fat cheese over the surface and bake for 15-20 minutes until bubbling and golden.

Melting Middle Pork & Apple burgers

Sorry, my WW recipes have slipped over the past couple of weeks. I had a huge backlog when I started posting them so scheduled loads and it took me by surprise when they ran out! I'm back now, promise. With loads more!

Anyway, I've been really fancying two things since starting Weight Watchers - chips, and burgers. Not necessarily together, but definitely both. The thing is that when I'm eating out, I know that neither option is going to be WW-friendly and it's rare for me to have either at home. In the end though, that was how I gave in - I found out a few weeks ago that the fresh chips from M&S are just 4PP per 1/2 pack. They were SO tasty and completely satisfied my craving for PROPER chips! But this post isn't about the chips, it's about the burger.

It's a Saturday night tradition now for my best friend Sha and I to experiment with a Weight Watchers recipe (whilst gossiping in front of the telly, of course). We found this pork burger recipe on the Weight Watchers website here, but ended up changing it into something entirely different - including adding a melting cheese centre for only 1 extra propoint!

This recipe makes 4 servings - we actually only made 3 burgers with the ingredients as there were only 3 of us there. But they were HUGE, as you can see. We didn't even need a side course!

Melting Middle Pork & Apple burgers

500g Extra Lean Pork Mince (5% fat), raw - 19PP

1 tbsp Sweet Chilli Sauce - 1PP

1 egg - 2PP

4 Ciabatta Rolls - 24PP

4 Babybel Light - 4PP

120g Low Fat Cheese - 8PP

4 tbsp Caramelised Onion Chutney - 4PP

4 tsp Mayonnaise - 4PP

1 tsp Mixed Herbs - 0PP

1 tsp Cumin - 0PP

1/2 Onion - 0PP

1 Cooking Apple - 0PP

Salt & Pepper to season - 0PP

Salad, to serve

= 42PP (11PP per Serving - 14PP if you make 3)

To reduce points: Use lower PP bread or miss out the bread, leave out the mayo or onion chutney, don't have cheese on top.

1 - Finely chop or grate the onion and cooking apple into a large bowl
2 - Add the minced pork, egg, cumin, herbs, sweet chilli and salt & pepper, and mix together (using your hands is the most effective way, messy!). Use plenty of seasoning - you can't test these obviously until they are cooked, but as they are quite thick they risk being under salt so be relatively liberal.
3 - Split the mince mixture equally into 4.
4 - Unwrap the Babybels and shape each portion of the mince mixture into a burger around each Babybel
5 - Oven cook the burgers on a baking tray at 190c for about 30 minutes or until you're satisfied they're done. Warning - they're quite oozy, so you might not want to use a flat baking tray!
6 - Add 30g of low fat cheese to the top of each burger and pop back in the oven until melted.
7 - Serve in your Ciabatta rolls with the mayo, caramelised onion and salad. SO TASTY.

Babybel in the middle of burgers was genius! It holds together really well, but still melts in the middle. We really enjoyed these, but we feel like we could fine tune them and improve them in the future. I've also found a recipe for 0PP caramelised onion chutney so am definitely going to cook up a batch of that soon! I also think these would be amazing with apple sauce. Watch this space for more burger attempts!