Teriyaki Chicken with Egg Fried Rice and Veggies

I love this meal, it seems really decadent with the sticky sauce and sesame seeds plus the egg fried rice makes me feel like I’m having a treat when actually this is absolutely all on plan.

At 2 syns a portion for the teriyaki sauce and sesame seeds everything else is syn free and it’s so incredibly quick to make, in fact when I did this it took me longer tow ash and chop the veg than cook the meal!

Teriyaki chicken with egg fried rice and stir fry veg

I love the slightly more professional look of a timbale of rice with spring onions on top and had I thought about it I would’ve added a little red chilli for the colour too but regardless it was a great tasting and looking meal which I think is really important when you’re on a diet. 

If you’d like to give it a try the recipe is here

Enjoy!

Kathy xx

Syn free cheese and bacon scones

I love cheese and I love cheese scones.  Recently I had a cheese scone bigger than my head as part of an afternoon tea which, whilst very yummy, did contribute to a not tiny gain!  So it was time to get my tweaky hat on and make some from Smash. 

That middle plate could hardly hold the cheese scone - I ate it to help out!!

Let me get this out of the way - yes, I know they are a tweak but I’m not going to get hung up on that, I did not eat all nine at once, and whilst I did used the smash in a different way to the intention I still managed portion control so nope, I’m not counting it.  Smash is syn free…smash scones are syn free.The cheese is part of my hea and is Pilgrim low fat mature cheddar as I think it's really tasty for a low fat cheese option (a lot of low fat cheeses taste like licking a plastic chair and personally I 'd rather not, so I go with the Pilgrim one).

As some of you know, I’ve made syn free cheese scones before but I didn’t have a hand blender.  They tasted very good but the cottage cheese gave them a slightly lumpy consistency – which is ok, don’t get me wrong but this time I blended it all into a smooth paste/dough and shaped them in cookie cutters and the end result was a much smoother, more evenly blended scone without the cottage cheese bombs.    I preferred them although it could just as easily have been the introduction of bacon I liked!

Syn free cheese and bacon scones

Anyway, I made and shared them and apparently they’re delicious!  I didn’t try them cold, not sure how they would be but warm from the oven is great…really worth a try and they’re perfect to take if you’re visiting friends too…my non slimming friends love them! 

Much smoother with the blender although the bacon is a winner!!

Next I think I’m going to add some caramelized onions, see how that works but for now if you want to make them the recipe is here

Enjoy

Kat xx

Syn free cheese stuffed bacon burgers

I don’t think there’s much more I want to hear in a sentence than ‘cheese stuffed burgers’ and ‘syn free’ so when I saw a battered, deep friend version of this burger I decided to use the concept to create a slimming world friendly burger that didn’t compromise on taste but wasn’t a million syns a portion.

Instead of making inside an onion ring, battering and deep frying (as delicious as that sounds) I’ve opted to create hearty burgers stuffed with cheesy yumminess and whatever else you fancy.  I kept the onion ring but I could just as easily have put that in the meat mix, maybe adding roasted peppers, jalapenos, olives, a squirt of ketchup – anything really inside the burger.  

Syn free cheese stuffed bacon burgers

As long as you’re careful to seal them tightly the filings will warm through, the cheese will melt inside and be gooey and perfect when you cut into the burger.  Give them a go, they’re super simple to do and incredibly filling.  My recipe for syn free cheese stuffed bacon burgers is here

Enjoy!

Kathy xx

Pulled Pork – the Quick Version!

I usually make pulled pork from scratch using a dry rub and slow cooking in stock on a bed of onions and garlic for hours to do its thing, the result is a syn free, absolutely delicious shoulder of pork but I acknowledge that it takes about 7 hours to do and not everyone has time (or the dry rub ingredients) to faff about with that so I was interested to try a pork loin potential alternative recommended in class.  

As you know, I very rarely use prepackaged food but off to Aldi I went to buy this pork loin (and the wine that fell into my basket!).  It was only £2.99 and is an almost ignore-able 2.5 syns for it all, got to be worth a try right?  

Anyway, I decide in my infinite wisdom that I would not read the instructions and would in fact do my own thing and cook in the slow cooker after work and while I’m at class that way I could deal with it when I get home, which sounded like an excellent plan until I learned at class that you’re only supposed to bake it for about 45 minutes.  Oooopsie... too late by now, it was sat in two cups of chicken stock having been somewhat unceremoniously plopped into the slow cooker, I did add the extra BBQ sauce from the vacuum sealed bag but I did nothing else to it, just switched the cooker on low and left it.  

When I got back from class I turned it over (that’d be about 3 hours later) and left for another hour just hoping for the best…..  The result?  Pulled pork and I have to say it’d really quite good.  No, it’s not as flavorsome as when you leave overnight in a dry rub and slow cook for hours but as a quick and cheap, down and dirty way to get a lot of pulled pork for your syns I’d highly recommend giving it a go.  

Quick, low syn pulled pork - 2.5 syns for all this!

If you want to do the syn free, super tasty one the recipe is here.  Alternatively, a couple of squirts of BBQ sauce and you have a huge portion for under 4 syns, another really good way to do it.

Enjoy

Kathy xx

Breakfast in a (big) jar

I love breakfast, yes I agree that they’re commonly accepted as the most important meal of the day but I’m always hungry first thing and want something filling to get me through the morning at work.  
 

I’ve been having Weetabix muffins for months but recently seem to have Weetabix muffin fatigue and swapped to baked oats.  Even better I get six per portion but after a gain this week I fear my baked oats are stretching the jam/Nutella syns too much (either that or those two bottles of wine hit me!) and I’ve dialed them back slightly.  

So this week I started having overnight oats which were really good and super filling, almost like flapjacks but I’ve been missing ‘crunchy’ food if that makes sense?  I’m not a crunching on a carrot stick kind of a girl so I tried something new – a crunchy bran layer which is like overnight oats but without the oats, and well without the overnight as well if we’re honest.  So I guess I made something up and put it in my overnight oats jar…anyway….I layered lemon tart yogurts (weight watchers – no syns) with Weetabix crunchy bran and blueberries.  You can have 40g of the bran as your heb which is more than other cereals.  It was good, a bit weird as it’s basically having cereal without milk, using yogurt instead but really filling.  If I’m honest it wasn’t my favourite breakfast ever but next time I’m going to squish the Weetabix into crumbs and add some ground ginger/mixed spice and use that in the layers as I think it’ll make a cheesecake style treat.

Crunchy Weetabix bran with lemon and blueberry layers

It looks good, is filling and gave a great crunch so in that way it’s a yes.  It was a faff to assemble at my desk and a bit dry so that wasn’t so much of a yes but I’ll have it again and see how I feel…if you have a better idea for layers let me know and I’ll give it a try.

Enjoy
Kathy xx