chilli

Chilli Con Carne

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Haven’t shared a Slimming World friendly recipe for a while, so I thought I might as well post this one as I haven’t made this in such a long time and this is not in my recipe list!

If you follow me on Instagram you’ll know that I have been having some major house building work done since March this year and we have been without a kitchen all this time. Cooking has been extremely difficult! So this is how we have been coping. We have 3 bedrooms and a bathroom on the first floor. We turned the smallest bedroom (hubby’s office) into our kitchen with a table top electric hob, a small fridge (big enough just for the essentials like milk, cheese, butter), a microwave, slow cooker and my trusty Tefal Actifry. My youngest daughter’s bedroom has been turned into our living room. We moved her bed and most of her furniture away so we could put the sofas and TV there. Luckily we had our loft conversion done a couple of years ago so we gained two bedrooms and a bathroom there so all the kids (I have 3 daughters) share that space. Our main bedroom is also hubby’s office for the time being.

I have to admit the work has taken much longer than we anticipated, we did have a few problems along the way which delayed the work but it looks like it will be end of September/ early October before we can start using the downstairs space again and I cannot wait!

I can’t wait to share with you once it is complete, in the meantime, if you are on Instagram please follow me on there for my house renovation updates and other bits and bobs about me on @Rahema_m.

Anyway, back to the recipe! Hope you enjoy this simple chilli recipe. We had it served with boiled rice topped with cheese and jalapenos, but it is lovely on a jacket potato too. As always, if you make this or any other recipes featured on my blog, feel free to tag me in your creations. I love seeing your versions of them x

Serves: 4

Syns: FREE

Time Taken: 60 minutes

Difficulty: Easy

Chilli Con Carne

Chilli Con Carne

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
  • Tin chopped tomatoes
  • 2 tbsp tomato puree
  • Tin red kidney beans
  • Spray oil

Method

Spray a pan with spray oil of your choice 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 mince and brown it off on a high heat. Crumble the stock cube over it and mix well. Add the tin of chopped tomatoes and tomato puree 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 and cook for a further 10 minutes. Add some water to the mince if it is too dry and season to taste.

Serve with plain boiled rice.

Piri Piri Chicken

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This piri piri marinade can be used with fish, meat or even cheeses such as haloumi or paneer. We like to serve this with chips and salad but if you prefer rice instead, have a look through my previous recipe here. I usually leave the chicken pieces to marinade for a few hours before cooking, but if you don’t have much time, leave it to marinade for at least 30 minutes.

Piri Piri Chicken Nibblets

Piri Piri Chicken Nibblets

 

Serves: 4

Time Taken: 25-40 minutes, plus marinade

Syns: FREE

Difficulty: Easy

Ingredients

  • 1.5kg chicken nibblets, skinless
  • 1tbsp Schwartz piri piri seasoning
  • 1/2 tsp chilli flakes
  • 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
  • 1/2 tbsp smoked paprika
  • 1 tbsp ginger/garlic paste
  • 3 tbsp lemon juice
  • Season to taste

Method

Put all ingredients together in a bowl apart from the chicken, and mix well. Add the chicken to the marinade and ensure all the pieces are well coated. Place them in the fridge until you are ready to cook.

If you have an actifry, place the chicken pieces in the actifry (a few batches at a time) and cook for around 25 minutes. Alternatively, spray your chicken pieces with 1cal spray oil and place them in a pre heated oven, gas mark 6 for around 40 minutes, turning halfway.

Spice-N-Tice Meal Kits

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I came across Spice-N-Tice when one of my lovely members and friend gave me a very thoughtful gift – Chilli Rocks! Some of you may know that I absolutely love chillies and spicy food, so when the lovely Halimah (@Halimah_official on Instagram, please check her out and give her a follow) gave me this, I was just over the moon.

The chilli rocks came in a pack of 6 different types of chilli pots ranging from an earthy, sweet and mild heat from Sweet Ancho to the world’s hottest chilli on record – Carolina Reaper! Perfect gift for chilli lovers like me and those who like it hot, hot, hot!

Chilli Rocks

Chilli Rocks

The fab people at Spice-N-Tice got in touch with me and kindly sent me some of their Meal Kits to try out . I was hoping to have tried a few of the kits by now but have been super busy with the summer break and have only tried one so far and it did not disappoint!

Spice-N-Tice Meal Kits

Spice-N-Tice Meal Kits

 

I tried the shawarma style Turkish Doner Kebab and even my fussy younger children loved that. All of the spice kits came with a shopping list and a very easy to follow cooking instructions. All of the meal kits I was sent were gluten free, vegan friendly and Slimming World friendly.

Shawarma Style Doner Kebab

Shawarma Style Doner Kebab

 

Keep an eye out for more about these spice kits on my instagram page – @Rahema_m

For a 20% discount code you can use the code RM20. Let me know in the comments which of the spice kits you have tried and is your favourite. Feel free to share the code with friends x

Black Eye Bean & Coconut Curry

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This is one of my favourite curries I loved eating when I was younger. The version I used to have would be a lot higher in syns so this is a SW friendly version I’ve adapted. The way my mum used to make this was a lot more complicated and she used some more spices but I find this way works well too.

I had a few people messaging me saying this is an odd combo but I don’t see how it is odd. Maybe because of my background I’m used to having a variety of different foods from different parts of the world that this is just another meal for me. I don’t know where it originates from but I am sure this type of curry is eaten a lot!

It is easy and very economical to make too. We have this served with boiled rice and masala fish.

Black Eye Bean Curry with Coconut

Black Eye Bean Curry with Coconut

 

Serves: 4

Syns: 2.5 syns per serving

Time Taken: 30 minutes

Difficulty: Easy

Ingredients

  • 2 medium onions, finely chopped
  • Pinch of cumin seeds and chilli flakes (optional)
  • 1 tbsp. ginger/garlic paste
  • 1 tbsp. curry powder (or more if you prefer spicy)
  • Salt to taste
  • 2-3 tbsp. tomato puree
  • 2 tins of black eye beans, drained
  • 200ml reduced fat coconut milk
  • 5g desiccated coconut
  • fresh coriander, to garnish

Method

Fry the onions with the cumin seeds and chilli flakes (if using) and the ginger/garlic till the onions have softened and are lightly golden.

Add the curry powder and salt to taste and fry for a further 5 minutes stirring constantly. If the spices start to stick to the pan, add a little hot water and keep stirring.

Add the tomato puree and the beans with the coconut milk and cook on a low heat for about 10 minutes.

Once the curry is done, you can garnish it with fresh, chopped coriander and serve it with boiled rice.

Mozzarella & Chilli Pasta Bake

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This is such an easy and simple dish to put together and it tastes amazing! It is one of my daughter’s favourite dish. I have adapted the recipe slightly from the SW Veggie Deluxe recipe book and have made this quite cheesy (just the way we like it!). You can have 70g of reduced fat mozzarella cheese as healthy extra A choice but you can use less if you prefer or put a mixture of mozzarella and cheddar cheese, but remember to count the syns depending on how much you use. All the other ingredients in this recipe are Free.

Serves: 3

Syns: FREE (if using the cheese as healthy extra A choice)

Time Taken: 30-45 minutes

Difficulty: Easy

Mozzarella & Chilli Pasta

Mozzarella & Chilli Pasta

 

Ingredients

  • 300g dried pasta
  • 1 onion, finely chopped
  • 1 tbsp. Very Lazy garlic
  • 1/2 tbsp. Very Lazy chilli
  • 500g carton passata
  • 2 x Maggie seasoning cubes
  • 100g frozen peas
  • 210g reduced fat mozarella

Method

Pre heat the oven to gas mark 4.

Cook the pasta according to the packet instructions, drain well and run the pasta under cold water to stop it sticking together. Set aside till needed.

Whilst the pasta is cooking, make the sauce. Fry the onion, garlic and chilli in a pan with low cal spray for about 5 minutes or until softened. If you find the onion is starting to stick to the pan, add some of the water that the pasta is cooking in (around a tbsp. at a time if needed).

Add the passata and the seasoning cubes, stir and simmer for 3 minutes. Add seasoning if needed. Add the frozen peas and cook for a further 2 minutes then remove from the heat.

Mix the cooked pasta into the sauce, ensuring the pasta is well coated. Tip the pasta into a medium sized baking dish sprayed with low cal spray. Top with the mozzarella and bake in the pre heated oven for around 12-15 minutes till all the cheese is melted.

Egg Fried Rice

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This recipe took me less than 10 minutes to prepare using leftover rice! It is a delicious way of using up leftover rice. You can serve it with any meat or fish or have it on its own too. We had it with grilled salmon. You can add any veg to this as it is such a versatile dish, I was pressed for time when I made this so kept it really simple. But veg like peas, sweetcorn, grated carrots, peppers, mushrooms etc work really well with this.

Serves: 2

Syns: FREE

Time Taken: 10 minutes

Difficulty: Easy

Egg Fried Rice with Salmon

Egg Fried Rice with Salmon

Ingredients

  • 3 spring onions, chopped
  • 1 green chilli, chopped (remove seeds if prefer less spicy)
  • 1 tsp garlic powder
  • 1 tsp Chinese 5 Spice
  • 3 tbsp dark soya sauce
  • 3 eggs
  • 1.5-2 cups cooked rice

Method

In a hot wok fry the spring onions with the chilli for a couple of minutes with spray oil. Add the garlic powder.

Add the cooked rice to the wok and stir to mix everything together. Add the Chinese 5 spice powder (available in most large supermarkets) and soya sauce. Stir again.

Move the rice to one side of the wok and spray more spray oil to the wok and crack the eggs to it. Stir the eggs till cooked and mix with the rice.

Kheema Pilau

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Another extremely easy recipe to make, courtesy of Laziza spices! It makes life so much easier when you don’t have the time to measure out individual spices! You can replace the keema (mince meat) with any other type of meat or if you are vegetarian you can use chickpeas instead.

If you don’t want to use Fry Light you can use any other type of spray oil, just remember to count the number of sprays you use so you can work out the syn values. If you prefer, you can use 1 tbsp of oil (6 syns) and divide the syns by the number of portions you make. For instance, this should feed 4 people, so if you divide 6 (syns) by the number of portions, 4 you get 1.5 syns per portion which is still well within your daily allowance.

Pilau ingredients

Pilau ingredients

Serves: 4

Syns: FREE

Time Taken: 60-75 minutes

Difficulty: Easy

Ingredients

  • 500g lean mince
  • 4 small onions, finely chopped
  • 2 small potatoes, peeled and cubed
  • handful of frozen peas
  • 2 tablespoons Laziza Yakhni Pilau Spice mix
  • 1 tsp cumin seeds
  • 4 tablespoons fat free natural yogurt
  • 1 tablespoon garam masala
  • 2 stock cubes
  • 2 cups rice
  • low calorie cooking spray

Method

Wash and soak the rice and keep it aside till needed.

Spray a pan with lots of Fry light and fry the onions in medium/high heat till they are a dark brown colour. Keep stirring your onions so they don’t burn and stick to the bottom of the pan! If you find they are starting to stick, you can add a little boiling water at a time. The browning of onions should take around 10-15 minutes.

Add the cumin seeds and fry for another couple of minutes before adding the meat and the potatoes. Fry for 5 minutes and then add the yogurt and the Laziza spice.

Let that cook on a low heat, covered for about 15 minutes or longer depending on the size of your potatoes.

Use double the amount of boiling water to the rice and add it to the meat and crumble your stock cubes in and add the garam masala. Check for seasoning, add chilli if needed.

Drain the water off the rice and place it in the pan. Once the water starts boiling again replace the lid and let it cook on low heat for about 15-20 minutes without stirring/mixing. After that time you can pick your pan up (with oven gloves!) and give the rice a good ‘shake’ while making sure the lid stays firmly on. All the water should be evaporated and it is ready to eat!

Keema Pilau

Keema Pilau