What I ate and Quinoa Edamame Salad recipe

So here's what I ate one day last week, including calorie breakdown and a recipe for the quinoa salad!

I started with a cup of the Califia Farms Almond cold brew coffee. It was actually the unsweetened one I had that day, but forgot to take a pic so here's a pic of the sweetened one. I added some agave to the unsweetened one.

I've mentioned before, I don't really eat breakfast that often during the week. So my coffee and a couple of litres of water was all I had in the morning. It was like 32°C that day! SO HOT. It was too hot to even go for a lunchtime walk so I had to go to the gym early and walk on the treadmill instead.

Lunch was (I know, I'm predictable) tofu scramble. I added some veggies (courgette and red peppers) into this one though. Served on some seeded toast with ketchup. (If you want to see my recipe for my go to scramble, check out this video.)

At dinner time I put on some quinoa to cook, because it was really hot, I didn't want to have to turn on the oven when I got home from the gym. I turned it into this yummy salad which I had with a couple of vegan Quorn fillets, that I just cooked in the microwave and then rubbed with some spices. Recipe for the salad is at the end of the post.

For dessert I had this Tesco Toffee vegan cornetto (so good!)

For snacks throughout the day, I had some of the M&S pea snacks and a Nakd strawberry crunch bar that I forgot to take a pic of!

And here's my MFP breakdown for the day; just under on calorie goal (I aim for 1400 during the week) and slightly over on protein (I aim for 70g a day).

And for anyone interested in the salad, it's so easy and if you're doing slimming world, it would be syn free! So here is the recipe:

Ingredients:
100g (dry) Quinoa
100g Frozen Soya Beans
150g Sweetcorn
2 tablespoons soy sauce or tamari
2 tablespoons lime juice or rice vinegar
handful of cherry tomatoes, quartered or one regular tomato, chopped (I used about 85g)
1/2 a red or orange pepper

Method
Cook the quinoa according to package instructions and, if necessary drain off any excess water when cooked.

Defrost the soya beans by running under hot water then refresh with cold water. Mix all the ingredients together and taste for seasoning. I added some black pepper but some sriracha is a nice addition too if you like a bit of spice.

And that's it.

Hope you're having an awesome day
Sal xXx

Ps: hey, have you seen my latest vlog and subscribed to my youtube channel yet? No? Whaddya mean no? It's HERE!

Recipe: Baked Tofu Bowl With Miso-Tahini Sauce

So I didn't gain! I actually lost half a pound, which I was pretty pleased with.

In my last post I mentioned eating more mindfully to try and hit things like my protein, calcium, iron etc goals and so I've been tracking in Cronometer.

I must admit I've been going over syns as sort of an experiment and I'm not expecting a loss this week as I was not tracking or on plan at the weekend (we were celebrating!).

Anyway what I am leading up to it's that it's been super interesting seeing where I'm short on nutrient goals and where I'm winning.

I always hit my protein goal and stay under my fat goal, but I was finding myself low on the Omega 3 (I do supplement that anyway as I have dry skin and creaky knees!), Iron is a bit low (again I supplement as I have a history of iron deficiency/anaemia. I was finding calcium a bit low but not too bad, but am keeping an eye on that to make sure I'm getting enough. The one thing I am always getting almost zero of is Vitamin D! So although my soy milk is fortified, I'm obviously not having anywhere near enough to cover that. So may have to look into a supplement. I'm not an expert on nutrition, so I'm going by what Cronometer tells me mostly but have upped the suggested protein goal a bit.

Last night I made this yummy bowl for dinner that is packed full of protein, has a tonne of calcium thanks to the tofu and also, the nooch in the sauce is almost your RDA of B12 (my fortified soy milk made up the rest and I do supplement B12, as it's advised by RDs that everyone do this, not just vegans!)

The sauce from this recipe is inspired by a couple of recipes from Isa Chandra, who has a tonne of awesome recipes on her website: HERE.

Baked Tofu Bowl With Miso-Tahini Sauce
Serves: 1
Syns: 3

Ingredients (the purple ingredients have syns, the rest are free foods):
1/2 a pack of Cauldron original tofu
Chinese 5 Spice Powder
Soy Sauce
Frylight

Cooked basmati rice (mine was about 50g or 1/4 cup dry, but use as much as you like)

1/2 a cup of frozen edamame/soy beans, thawed
Stir fry veggies of choice - I used:
Onion
Pepper
Carrot
Asparagus
1 tsp tahini 
2 tsp white miso
1 tbsp (scant) nutritional yeast (with B12)
Sriracha (technically has syns but the amount used is so small it is negligable)
Hot Water

Method
Cut the tofu into pieces, the size/shape is your choice. Place on a baking tray, sprinkle with 5 spice powder and spray with frylight. Bake at 200°C for 20 minutes. Flip, sprinkle the other side with 5 spice, spray with frylight and bake for another 15 minutes. When you remove from the oven, splash some soy sauce over them to season.

While the tofu is cooking, cook your rice and stir fry the veggies (you could do the edamame along with the other veg, but I wanted them separate) until soft. About 30 seconds before you take off the heat, splash some soy sauce over the veg and stir through.

To make the sauce, mix together the tahini, miso, nooch and a squirt of sriracha to taste (optional). Then add hot water a tbsp at a time and mix until you have the consistency you like.

Arrange everything in a bowl and drizzle the sauce over. I added a sprinkling of black sesame seeds as well but you can leave those off if you don't want the extra syns.

And here is the nutritional info from Cronometer for this dish (the protein is actually not quite that high, but they didn't have Cauldron brand listed, so I went with the nearest one).

Sal xXx

Easy Weeknight Meal - Mushroom 'Risotto' Recipe

I put the 'risotto' in quotes because I used basmati and so I guess it's really more of a mushroom savoury rice. But .... pahtayto pahtahto! or something.

There's no potatoes in this. OK I'm rambling....

For this simple weeknight meal you'll need:

1/2 a cup of dried mushrooms
1/2 a tsp of marmite (optional)
1 small onion, diced
Frylight of choice
3 large Portobello etc mushrooms, chopped
a pinch each of dried thyme and sage (or whatever fresh or dried herbs you like and feel free to up the amount!)
1/4 tsp (or more to taste) dried garlic
1/2 a cup of basmati
1/2 a cup of frozen peas

Method
Cover the dried mushrooms with about 1.5 cups of hot water and leave to soak. Add in the marmite too so that it dissolves easier later.

Fry the onions in frylight for a few minutes. Add the mushroom and a pinch of salt (in batches if need-be) and cook until they start to sweat down.  Add the herbs, basmati and the dried mushrooms and stock (making sure you get all the marmite out too).

Add the stock cubes and a good grinding of black pepper. Once boiling, turn to a medium heat, cover and cook, stirring occasionally for 15 minutes; if you need to add more water, do so. Turn off the heat.

Stir in the peas and leave off the heat, but covered for 5 minutes.

Before serving if you want to, go ahead and add in about a heaped teaspoon of Alpro plain Go-On yogurt (not enough to syn it) but you don't have to, I just like the extra creaminess. You can also stir through a couple of tablespoons of nooch* - 1 tablespoon is 1 syn.

Then stuff it in yer gin hole!

I served mine with some broccoli on the side and about 2 syns worth of baba ganoush on the brocc to make it extra yummy!

*nutritional yeast :)

What's your favourite quick weeknight meal?

Sal xXx

Recipe: Mushroom Soup

Someone at work the other was heating up something for lunch that smelt delightfully mushroomy (sod off spellcheck, it's totally a word!). So I then spent the rest of the day fantasising about mushroom soup. I'm a sad bugger I know.

It's ugly. In fact it was so ugly I couldn't get a decent photo so I decided not to include one.
Here's what I came up with. Ugly... but tasty!

Mushroom Soup
Serves: (depends on how much soup you want but mine made about 4 servings)
Syns: 0.5 for the whole pot

Ingredients:
1/4 cup of dried mushrooms, any will do

1 Small onion, chopped

1/2 a cup (a couple of stalks) of celery, chopped
350g ish of mushrooms, stalks and all, chopped (I used a pack of chestnut mushrooms and half a pack of shiitake mushrooms that I had left to use up)
1 medium potato, chopped (I don't bother peeling, just give it a scrub)
Veggie stock
Marmite
2 bay leaves
A Pinch of dried thyme
1/3 of a pot (about 125-130g) of plain Alpro Go On Yogurt, optional
Salt & pepper to taste

Method: 
Pour boiling water over the dried mushrooms and leave to soak.

Hack up the onions and celery and fry in Frylight for a few mins until start to soften. Clean any mud off the mushrooms and hack them up - stalks'n'all. Throw in pan and cook until the water starts to release and they've cooked down a bit.

Chop up the potato and add to the pan with the soaked mushrooms and their soaking water. Add a couple of stock cubes and enough water to just cover the veggies (I added about 3-4 cups, including the mushroom liquid). Add a teaspoon or so of marmite (even if you're a hater like me, trust me!). Add the herbs and bring to the boil.

Turn to a simmer and simmer for 20 minutes, until potatoes are soft. Leave to cool a bit and then remove the bay leaves and blend.

Add the yogurt if using and blend again. Check seasoning and serve.

If you wanted to make this SP friendly you could replace the potato with cauliflower! :)

Sal xXx

Savoury Rice Recipe

It's less than 3 weeks til Christmas! I'm pretty excited, just put up a few decorations at work as my boss is out for the week. No more bah humbug for him! haha

Saw this yesterday on Facebook and laughed!

Anyway, I thought I'd share a super easy, regular weekday dinner of ours. This recipe has evolved over the years from something I used to make, with some additions my mum made... and this is the most regularly used version, but tweak it to what you have.

This made 4 decent sized portions and worked out at 3 syns for the entire pan. I counted it as 1 syn per portion, rounded up and had I not been feeding 4 of us, I would've had a third of it and kept a third for lunch today. You could also use curry powder instead of paste, if you want to keep this free, or leave it out altogether and add some herbs and spices instead. But here's how I made this version.

The beans etc are approximates, if you want to chuck in a whole can do it. If you want to add more or less peas/sweetcorn or any other veg, do it!

Savoury Rice
Serves: 3-4
Syns: 3 in the whole recipe; omit or swap the curry paste with powder to make this syn-free

Ingredients
Frylight
1 onion, diced as finely as you can be bothered
1 pepper, colour of your choice or a bit of both, diced as above
1/2 a tin of kidney beans
1/2 a cup or so of sweetcorn
1+1/4 cups of basmati rice, dry
Veggie stock
2 tablespoons of korma (or other curry) paste (I used Pataks)
1/2 a cup or so of peas
Salt & Pepper to taste

Method
In a non-stick frying pan (the non-stick bit is important!), fry the onion in frylight for a few minutes, then add the peppers and fry a few more minutes. Place basmati rice into a sieve and rinse under cold water. Add to the pan. Add 3 cups of stock (or in my case 3 cups of water and two vegetable oxo cubes) and the curry paste. Stir well.

Add the beans and sweetcorn and mix through. Turn to a simmer, cover* and leave to simmer for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

After 15 minutes, add the peas, stir through and switch off the heat. Replace the lid and leave to sit for around 5 minutes. Fluff with a fork, taste to see if it needs salt and/or pepper and then serve.

I love the leftovers cold the next day but if you are going to do this, make sure you keep refrigerated until you eat it or if you're going to reheat, make sure you do so until it's super mega boiling hot. Like liquid hot magma-hot! Reheating cold rice is when it becomes a danger zone, so either eat really cold or piping hot!!

*If your pan doesn't have a tight fitting lid, use foil.

What's your favourite easy weekenight meal?

Sal xXx

Easy (SP Friendly) Syn Free Vegan Chilli Recipe

First things first, results of this week's weigh-in:

I lost 1.5 lbs this week! YAY.

Here is a super easy recipe for the SP day friendly vegan chilli I mentioned in the yesterday's food diary that I posted this afternoon.

I actually had it with rice the other night (and the leftovers on a baked potato for lunch yesterday) but this makes for a yummy SP day meal, either alone or with cauli-rice.

Ingredients:
1 small onion, diced
Frylight Spray
1 red pepper, diced finely
1 tin of kidney beans in chilli sauce
1 tin of cooked lentils
2 tomatoes, chopped
a pinch of sweetener
2 tsps of marmite
Chilli flakes or chilli powder (optional) to taste

This makes 3-4 servings but on SP days I often eat half of it as I have it without rice.

Method:
Fry the onion in frylight until it starts to soften and colour a bit then add the pepper and cook for a little more time. You could also throw in a clove or 2 of garlic if you want.

Add all the other ingredients (I add chilli flakes as the chilli sauce on the beans isn't that hot, but only add if you like it spicier) and bring to the boil. Turn down to a simmer and cook for at least 15 minutes, but anywhere up to 30-40 will be fine too. I pretty much just put my rice on once it's simmering and cook it til the rice is done.

Re the marmite - even if you're a hater, add it in. It adds a lovely savoury note to the chilli. If you hate it so much you can't bear to be around it, just add a bit of extra salt.

I added 3.5 syns worth of avocado mashed with a bit of salt and lime juice.

Have an awesome weekend.
Sal xXx

A Recipe - Easy Vegan Lentil Curry (SP Friendly)

Remember the curry I posted about recently? No probably not, but either way, it looked like this...

And here is link to the recipe video for it. 

Linky Link!

Hope you enjoy and if you do, please subscribe to my youtube channel, as I have lots of ideas for videos to go on there.

Hope you're having a fabulous weekend.

Sal xXx