An easy pilau recipe that is syn free if you are following Slimming World.
Serves: 4
Syns: FREE
Time Taken: 30-45 minutes
Difficulty: Easy
Ingredients
2 onions, chopped
1 tbsp cumin seeds
Salt to taste
3 black cardamoms
3 cloves
1 green chilli, whole
1 tbsp ginger/garlic paste
1 tbsp garam masala
1/2 tsp black pepper
2 cups vegetable stock
1 tin chickpeas, drained
Method
Spray a pan with plenty of spray oil. Add onions, salt and cumin seeds. Cook until onions are browned (this may take a while, be patient), add hot water as needed to the pan to stop onions from sticking to the pan. Add the ginger/garlic paste.
Add the chilli, cardamoms and cloves, followed by the garam masala and black pepper. Cook the spices for a few minutes before adding the stock.
Remove the whole spices (cardamoms and cloves) and add the chickpeas. Let most of the water evaporate before closing the lid and cook on a low heat for around 15 minutes.
A vegetarian alternative to making chilli, using Quorn mince.
Serves: 4
Syns: FREE
Time Taken: 40 minutes
Difficulty: Easy
Ingredients
2 medium onion, finely chopped
1 tbsp garlic paste
1 tbsp chilli flakes
1/2 tbsp paprika
1/2 tbsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp mixed herbs
1 tsp cumin seeds
500g lean beef mince
1 beef stock cube
Passata
Tin red kidney beans, drained
Spray oil
Quorn Chilli Ingredients
Method
Spray a pan with spray oil and fry the onions until soft with the cumin seeds. Add hot water to the pan if needed to stop the onions from sticking to the pan.
Add the garlic, chilli flakes, paprika, ground cumin and mixed herbs. Stir well and cook for around 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Add the Quorn mince. Crumble the stock cube over it and mix well. Add passata and cook the mince on a low heat for around 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Drain and rinse the red kidney beans and stir them into the mince in the last 10 minutes of cooking. Add some water to the mince if it is too dry and season to taste.
Serve with plain boiled rice, fat free yogurt and cheese.
This is one of the kid’s favourite meal at the moment, it is not SW friendly but it can easily be adapted. Instead of frying, this can be baked in the oven. Most ingredients are free food, apart from the breadcrumbs and the cornflour so just remember to syn that and use a fat free natural yogurt. Serve with SW chips.
NB: Ensure all your chicken pieces are similar in size so they all cook at the same time.
Ingredients
750g chicken, cubed
1 tbsp onion granules
1 tbsp garlic granules
1 tbsp cayenne pepper
1 tbsp garam masala
1 tsp black pepper
2 tbsp cornflour
Salt to taste
To dip
Natural yogurt
Breadcrumbs
Fried Chicken Bites
Method
Marinade the chicken in all the spices and the cornflour for a couple of hours.
Place some yogurt (if the yogurt is too thick, thin it down with either lemon juice or some milk) in a bowl and the breadcrumbs in another.
Dip each piece of marinated chicken cube into the yogurt first then the breadcrumbs. Repeat a second coat of yogurt and breadcrumbs for a crunchier crumb.
Heat up oil in a frying pan and fry the chicken.
This is one of my all time favourite bakes, it is so easy to make and it is perfect on its own or with some custard as a dessert. I do have a Slimming World friendly version of this here.
Ingredients
225g margarine
225g caster sugar
4 eggs
250g self raising flour
50g dessicated coconut
1tsp vanilla extract
1tsp baking powder
To decorate
Jam
Dessicated coconut
Method
Preheat oven at 170c.
Grease and flour a baking tin, I use 9×11 inches tray. Set aside.
Cream the margarine and sugar together till it is light and creamy.
Add the eggs, one at a time, followed by a spoonful of the flour.
Once all eggs have been added, add the vanilla extract, followed by the rest of the flour, baking powder and dessicated coconut. Mix all ingredients well together and transfer into prepared tin.
Bake in the preheated oven for 30 minutes.
Once the cake baked, let it cool slightly before removing from the tin.
Melt some jam in the microwave and spread all over the cake. Sprinkle with coconut and cut into slices.
I haven’t posted a SW friendly recipe in what seems like a very long time, but I do have plenty of recipes on the blog. I have been exploring baking a lot more lately, as we are all at home due to the current situation, but I still cook mostly SW friendly meals for us. This is just one of our favourite meals we enjoy eating so I thought I’d record it for my YouTube channel and post it on here too as I don’t have this one on here yet. There are lots of other pasta dishes you can find on my blog but not this one.
Hope you enjoy it, remember to tag me or share with me any of the creations you make from the blog. I love seeing them all and like to share your creations on my social media too.
Serves: 5
Syns: FREE (count cheese as healthy extra A choice)
Time Taken: 45 minutes
Difficulty: Easy
Spaghetti Bolognaise
Ingredients
500 chicken mince
2 small red onions, chopped
1 small carrot, peeled and grated
5 garlic cloves, crushed
1 chicken stock cube, crumbled
1tbsp Italian herbs or mixed herbs
Chilli flakes to taste
Salt and pepper to taste
1 cal spray oil
Spaghetti
Cheese to serve (40g light cheddar cheese is a healthy extra A choice)
Method
Spray a pan with plenty of 1 cal spray oil. Add chopped onions and fry till lightly golden. Add some boiling water if the onions start to stick to the pan.
Add crushed garlic, followed by the carrot and stock cube. Mix well.
Add the herbs, chilli flakes and seasoning.
Add mince and brown it all over before adding the passata.
Lower the heat, pop the lid on the pan and cook the mince for 30 minutes. Cook the pasta as per packet instructions towards the end of the cooking of the mince.
Once pasta is cooked, drain and mix with the cooked mince. Sprinkle with cheese and serve with a side salad.
Chocolate concrete is one of my fondest memories from my time in school. I came to the UK when I was 15 and had never come across this delicious treat back in Portugal. Once I was introduced to them, there was no stopping me eating them! I remember having them nearly every day, mostly plain but sometimes with pink custard. Happy memories!
I like mine to be slightly soft and not rock hard so add an egg to my mix. Do check out my video below on how I made this! And whilst you are there, please subscribe to my channel too. It would mean so much to me. Let me know what kind of videos you’d like to see on my channel.
NB: Please note that the tin I used in the video was too big, and I only realised after I had greased the tin that I was using a cake tin instead of a swiss roll tin which is much smaller. The recipe below is for a swiss roll tin and it makes 12 slices. If you have a bigger tin like the one in the video, then double the recipe and cook it for slightly longer.
Chocolate Concrete
Ingredients
225g plain flour
170g margarine, melted
30g cocoa powder, sifted
170g granulated sugar
1 egg, beaten
Method
Pre heat oven 160c.
Grease a swiss roll tin and set aside till needed.
Weigh out the flour, cocoa and sugar in a bowl and mix.
Pour melted margarine onto dry ingredients.
Add beaten egg and mix all the ingredients together.
Pour the mix into the prepared greased tin, flatten into tin and corners.
Sprinkle a little water to the mix and bake for around 15-20 minutes.
Once baked, sprinkle with sugar and cut into slices. Let it cool completely in the tin to harden.
These biscuits are actually called Melting Moments but they are affectively known as Nani’s Bisuits in our family. My mum used to make these all the time when we used to get together, they were the kid’s (and our) favourite. So buttery and moreish, perfect with a cup of chai.
They are super easy to make, even Mufti Menk made them the other day! The recipe I used is not the same as his though. The one I used is one that has been passed down to me from family.
Nani’s Biscuits
Ingredients
250g butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup icing sugar
1tsp vanilla extract
1 cup cornflour
1 cup plain flour
Method
Pre heat the oven to 160c.
Cream the butter and icing sugar together. Add the vanilla extract.
Add the cornflour and plain flour and mix it by hand until you have a dough.
Place the dough mixture in a piping bag with a large nozzle attached.
Pipe each biscuit onto a baking tray (make them as long or as short as you want). Make sure there is some space in between the biscuits.
Bake them in the oven for around 10-12 minutes till they’re lightly golden.
Once you remove the biscuits from the oven, let them cool down on the tray for another 10 minutes.
Once the biscuits are cooled, you can dip them in some melted chocolate to make them even more indulging or leave them as they are as they’re equally tasty.
The recipe below makes 2 cups of karak chai using evaporated milk, but any milk will do. I don’t use evaporated milk all the time, but sometimes I like to treat myself. Normally I just use semi skimmed milk. This recipe can be made SW friendly, make sure you measure the amount of milk used as part of your healthy extra A choice and use sweetener instead of sugar (or syn the sugar used accordingly).
My top tips to a good cup of karak chai is to always use good quality loose black tea (I am lucky my sister always supplies me with a huge batch from India, so I haven’t ever had to buy the tea myself, yet!); and secondly, make sure you keep stirring the tea whilst cooking. I know lots of people don’t, but I always stir.
If you don’t have loose tea, use a couple of tea bags instead. We like to have Yorkshire Gold tea bags.
Adjust the amount of loose tea depending on how strong you want your chai. Do note that as the tea is brewing the colour will get darker so take that into account when adding your loose tea. Add less to begin with and if you think that once it has boiled a few times it is still not strong, then add more tea.
You could also make karak coffee this way with evaporated milk, replacing the tea with coffee granules obviously!
Karak Chai Ingredients
Ingredients
1.5 cup of water
2 tbsp black loose tea
1 small cinnamon stick
2 cloves
5 green cardamoms, lightly crushed
1 tin of evaporated milk
sugar to taste
Method
Bring the water to boil. Add the loose tea, spices and sugar. Let it boil a couple of times before adding the milk.
Once you’ve added the milk, keep stirring the tea on a medium heat, taking care it doesn’t boil over. Make sure you keep a close eye on the tea and lower the tea (or remove the pan from the heat) once it start to boil to the top of the pan.
Do that a few times (around 5 times is enough) and strain the tea into cups.
I absolutely love bananas, they’re one of my favourite fruit. I am pretty sure I eat them once a day! But once they start going a bit brown, they are no longer edible for me personally but they are perfect for baking. For best results in any banana cake/loaf recipe, make sure your bananas are as ripe as possible for a sweeter, richer cake. The darker they are the better your cake will taste.
With Ramadan just around the corner, most muslim homes will have plenty of dates around so this is a great way of using them up differently. If you can, use Medjool dates. They’re so good for baking (as well as eating them on its own!). And bananas and dates go perfectly well together, making this a great recipe for a lovely Suhoor treat. I love toasting a slice of the loaf when it is a day or two old and add butter to it before eating. It is soooo good! Give it a try! I am the only one that eats bananas in my household so this always lasts a good few days stored in the fridge once cooled.
I like using dark muscovado sugar for a richer bake, but light brown soft sugar will work just as good. Try not to use granulated sugar or even caster sugar for this. You need to get soft brown sugar for better results. Hope you enjoy this recipe, this is a good accompaniment to a whipped coffee.
If you don’t like dates, you can replace them with chopped walnuts or try this recipe here instead.
I used a small loaf tin and it makes around 10 good slices.
Ingredients
250g dark muscovado sugar
2 large eggs
250g plain flour
1 tsp bicarbonate soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon powder
1 tsp ginger powder
140g unsalted butter, melted
2 bananas, mashed
100g chopped dates
Date & Banana Loaf, ready for oven
Method
Pre heat the oven to 170c. Grease and line a loaf tin and set aside.
Beat the sugar and eggs together till light in colour.
In a separate bowl, sieve together all the dry ingredients and set aside till needed.
Add the mashed bananas and chopped dates to the egg mix, mixing it all well together. Slowly add the dry ingredients, followed by the melted butter and ensure all the ingredients are well incorporated.
Pour the mixture into the prepared loaf tin and bake in the oven for 1 hour, or until firm to the touch and a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean.
Leave the loaf to cool slightly in the tin before removing it from the tin.
After seeing all the craze about whipped coffee (also known as Dalgona coffee), I had to make it! With all the coffee shops closed right now, this is a good alternative to have if you’re missing your caffeine fix or don’t own a coffee machine.
You can enjoy this hot or cold and add any flavourings of your choice such as salted caramel or chocolate to make it even more indulging.
Do use an electric whisk if you own one as this will be much quicker than whisking by hand. If you are whisking by hand, expect to do it for around 20 minutes or more to get the coffee whipped properly.
Have you made this yet? What did you think of it?
Whipped Coffee
Ingredients
2 tbsp coffee granules
2 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp boiling water
Pinch of cinnamon (optional)
Method
Put all ingredients together and whisk until pale and thick.
If having it hot – add some of the whipped coffee into a mug and top with boiling water or milk of your choice.
If having it cold – fill a glass with ice cubes, pour cold milk of your choice and top it with the whipped coffee. Stir with a straw or spoon.
