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

Update - 2nd Weigh in of the year

After gaining 8.5 lbs (well 10.5 really if you take into account the 2 I'd already gained) over Christmas, I was down 5.5 lbs at weigh in on Thursday! YAY So in total from my start weight last year, I've lost 7.5 lbs. Disappointed in myself but also, glad that I'm still over the half stone mark.

So now I'm doing weekly meal plans and trying to come up with some fun ideas to keep me and the fiance interested.

So far, this week, he has said he wants to me to try and make toad in the hole, so I'm attempting that Friday, with Linda McCartney Red Onion sausages. So far, this is my week:

Monday - Mushroom Risotto, plus extra green veg (use up what's in fridge)
Tuesday - SW Glamorgan sausages with SW chips (sausage recipe HERE)
Wednesday - Not cooking**
Thursday - WEIGH DAY Savoury Rice
Friday - Toad in the Hole
Saturday - Homemade Pizza (thinking I'll do mine with the small wholemeal bases I have in the freezer and use it as my HEB / + a couple of syns!) and maybe some SW Chips.
Sunday - Roast Dinner

** Wednesday is our tasting evening with our Wedding caterers. Pretty sure I'll be eating a LOT that night and I'm away for the day with work too, so lunch will be something trashy I expect! So I'm not hopeful for a loss on Thursday :/

What's on your menu this week??

Sal xXx

Happy New Year!

Oh dear oh dear oh dear! 8.5 lb gain over Christmas and I'd already put on 2 the week before! 9 months til my wedding so I'm more determined than ever to get back on plan.

So wish me luck for Thursday and this week, I'm meal planning for the week and going back to basics to shift some of that ridiculous gain.

How did you all do over chrimbo?

Sal xXx

A loss - woohoo!

YAY! 3.5 lbs off last night, so excited. I am not under any illusions that that'll continue next week as I'm away for the weekend, but I'm hoping I can manage a maintain before the craziness of Christmas starts next weekend!

Also, I came home from group and we ordered pizza! Which I'm regretting today because my acid reflux is now getting its revenge. But it was good at the time.

Fought every urge in me today to have the lovely, soft, white, uncut bread we have in the kitchen for breakfast and had some SW friendly porridge instead.

Have an awesome weekend everyone!

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

Food Diary - Sunday 04.12.16

Here is a recent food diary (from Sunday):

Breakfast

Dee's sausages, potato farls (1 syn*), heinz spaghetti (not hoops - hoops are not vegan, pesky vit D grr!), Mushrooms. I also had my daily latte made with 200ml hazelnut milk for half my HEA.

*these are shown as about 5.5 syns each on the app but on checking the ingredients, they are mostly made from dehydrated potato - smash! So if smash is free, no way I'm counting these as 5.5 syns. So I put them through the syn calculator with a free food allowance and they came out as 0.5 each. That's what I go with - obviously if you're not happy to do this count them as per the app.

Lunch

25g of granovita pate (3 syns), 2 ryvita dark rye (1/2 HEB), cuppa.

Dinner

Sainsbury's meatfree balls (hehe) (0.5 syn) in speedy mushroom/hidden veg sauce. I added a little bit of alpro go on plain to the sauce and a sprinkle of nooch, so I called that half a syn. I had the other half of my HEB too with dinner, one slice of bread.

I also had one of these chocolate covered gingerbread cookies with jam i the middle that I found in the Polish section in my local Tesco (or possibly Sainsbury's). They're 2 syns each.

Snack

I got a bit peckish later on so I had 21 grams of these Snapea crisps for 4.5 syns.

Not pictured, I also had a tall soya latte in Starbucks. They're 5.5 syns each so I counted it as the other half of my HEA plus 2.5 syns.

Ended the day on 14.5 syns.

Sal xXx