Syn Free Pork Egg Fried Rice

Chatting to my friend this evening ended up in a conversation about our favourite Chinese food, mine is egg fried rice -  let me be honest I pretty much like everything on the Chinese menu but I’m partial to fried rice and decided that I wanted to makes some, so I would.  I had some pulled pork in the fridge already so obviously making pork fried rice was the natural choice.  I have to say it couldn’t have been easier plus it had the added benefit of being super quick.  I had slimming class this evening so I cooked the rice before I went which allowed for it to cool while I was out so it was just a case if heating things up which was perfect.

Syn free pork fried rice

I’d read somewhere that when you do the egg it’s better to work it in a side by side movement, but I have no idea, I did it anyway and it tasted good to me.

Clearly, this could be chicken or prawn fried rice or for our vegetarian friends mushroom would be a really tasty option especially if you have oyster or Portobello mushrooms to hand.

Anyway, the recipe I used is here, you don’t have to add red chilli – I like spicy food so I did but feel free to leave it out if you prefer.

Enjoy!
Kathy xx

Low syn chocolatey oaty cookies

This weekend, despite the heat, I was on a mission to find a decent chocolatey cookie.  I admit it, I’ve made some absolute minger disasters on this cookie journey that I decided in my defence to not share.  The porridge oats ones looked (and tasted) like a rehydrated packet – which they pretty much were - with the added insult of being very floppy.  My choco shot cookies were like little sloppy disasters but my faith in the cookie has been restored with these chocolatey oaty cookies.  

Low syn chocolatey oaty banana cookies!

They’re great, as the basic mix is so few ingredients and very versatile you can pretty much do what you want to them or use what’s to hand, upping or lowering the syn value as appropriate.  The oats/Nutella mixture is 9 syns if not using the oats as your heb and 4 if you are – for all six cookies, not bad at all!!!   I added banana and walnuts this time but you could add sultanas, choc chips, marshmallows, all sorts.  These cookies will totally work with it all and are a nice change from hi fi bars.

The recipie is here, I’ll be making more in the future and will let you know how the other flavours turn out!

Enjoy

Kathy xx

The lunch dilemma

Part of the reason I put on weight was lunch; there’s no getting away from the fact that if I eat a big white baguette with butter, chicken and bacon accompanied by a bag of crisps and haribos for lunch every single day I’ll struggle to lose an ounce!  

Over the past few months I’ve basically been having different salads every day instead and yes it’s helped…I’ve lost more than 6 ½ stone so obviously it’s made a massive differenc but that’s become incredibly boring and it’s time to branch out into new things.

Part of my dilemma is that I don’t want to use up all my syns before nighttime in the event I end up having a day that calls for a (huge) glass of wine - so lunch has to leave me with at least 8 syns just in case (I’m not sure if that’s what we mean about forward planning but it’s planning so I say yes).

Today was the first day for leftovers which I always suggest in class and never do for myself, but I’m going to start because it was actually surprisingly good!  I had pulled pork and corn in lettuce cups and it was such a welcome change– even though it could be argued I’m actually still having a salad, the fact that it’s in a different shape is good enough for me to feel like I’m having a treat.  I didn’t add any BBQ sauce to the pork as I didn’t want any today but often I do and I confess that I don’t make my own, I just syn it out at 1 syn per squirt as I don’t think I’d like my own bbq sauce so I just use the bought stuff (that’s about as lazy as I get).

Syn free pulled pork in lettuce cups

 So this was today’s lunch and the sandwich eaters in the office had total food envy, which made my diet lunch seem less like a diet…perfect.

The pulled pork is slow cooked and the recipe is here.  I always make as much as I can because it freezes really well (without sauce).  Great for making you the envy of everyone at work or you want a really tasty syn free lunch that doesn’t seem like a run of the mill salad.

Kathy xx

KFC Style Syn Free Chicken

I’ve been on a bit of a mission to come up with some different party/picnic/finger food ideas for the summer.  Over the winter I tended to make chilli, stews, that type of thing but now the weather’s started to get better I wanted to think about slightly lighter foods that can go on my salads but also be in the fridge for when I get a bit peckish.

These KFC style chicken nuggets are perfect really.  They’re slightly spicy and really good hot but you can have them cold just as easily and they don’t taste any different really.  I’d suggest a SW BBQ sauce as a dip or some passata and put some chilli flakes and mixed herbs in before warming through. 

KFC style chicken nuggets - syn free!!

I had veggies and a few actifry chips with mine as I didn’t have the dips to hand, it wasn’t as dry as maybe it looks.  Oh, and let me be super honest, I had wayyy more chicken than this photo shows, I just had to make room on my plate first!!!!

Syn free KFC Style chicken with veg

Give them a try, the recipie is here - I think these syn free chicken nuggets are really great for a quick, fakeaway meal and the extras don’t hang around for long!

Kathy xx

Syn free Weetabix cookies

Today it’s all about the cookies.  As anyone that knows me can attest to, I pretty much always eat Weetabix muffins for breakfast (unless I’m at my parents when only my Mum’s bacon butty is happening) so it was a big deal for me to decide to try using my Weetabix for something else - but I could be tempted for cookies!!  

Weetabix cookies

 These Weetabix cookies are syn free if you use as your heb, bear in mind that if you’ve already had it they’re 6 syns per batch and if you add anything not syn free you need to syn that too but a portion makes 6-8 cookies and they’re still low enough to have more than one!!!

So they couldn’t really be more simple, Weetabix, sweetener, milk and an egg with whatever flavourings you like.  I made a few different types to try; the orange and ginger are really good and syn free but for two syns the chocolate are yummy.  I added coconut essence to one batch and salted caramel to another but orange would’ve worked too.  If you want to give them a go the recipe is here

There wasn’t one cookie flavor I made that I didn’t like (yup, I ate them all!!!).  If I had to pick I’d say the chocolate were the best but there’s not a lot in it and as with these things it depends on your personal taste.  I’ll see what other combinations come to mind and add them as I try them out.

Two portions, four flavours...perfect to go with a coffee!

Enjoy!
Kathy xx

Smoked ham wrapped crustless quiches

I have to own up, I absolutely did not want to try the crustless quiche, all I could think when it was mentioned in class was that it was a nasty, eggy bomb and missing pastry which was the best bit of the quiche anyway.  That was until one of the ladies at work, who is also on slimming world, brought one in for me to try.  
 

Yes, I waited until she left my office to eat it in case it was nasty and I had to throw it away and fake enjoying it…but after all that whining I really, really enjoyed it.  Helped massively by the fact she wrapped it in smoked ham which made them like little yummy omelet pockets.

Smoked ham wrapped crustless quiches

I’ve made them a couple of times now and everyone likes them, they’re great for a quick lunch as pretty much any leftover meat or veggies can be thrown in and you can make them to cater for different tastes, personally I add ham, cheese, onion and pepper but it’s whatever you want.

My recipe is here – let me know if there’s any really great flavor combinations I should try!

Enjoy

Kathy xx

It's tapas time!

Recently I was chatting to a friend about afternoon tea and how I’ve never done that and wasn’t really sure I’d want to, they’re not very Slimming World friendly and I don’t like mayo so I’m kinda in trouble really but we decided there was a gap in the market for savory afternoon teas.  This lead into a more in depth discussion as to what we could have and to cut a long story short I wanted to make some savory bites that would work for afternoon nibbles, parties and that type of thing.  

Obviously I wanted these treats to be little flavor bombs so they’re going to need marinating in some cases – I’ve found that removing the fat can remove flavor so it’s got to be replaced with herbs and spices.  Yes, this is more faffing about than opening a box of starters from Tesco but that’s ok, sticking to the diet whilst having tasty food that non diet friends can enjoy is very, very worth it.

So I have a few to share with you to try, I’ve yet to have anyone say they’re disgusting but that could be my friends are too polite!  Anyway, give them a try and see what you think, I’ll keep adding to them and combine them all on a tapas/party nibbles page to make it easier.  So far we have:

• Falafel 
• Seekh Kebabs
• Koftas
• Potato poppers
• Sausage rolls with mash pastry
• Slow cooked pulled pork

Enjoy!

Kathy xx