Vegetable curry

With a glut of courgettes (zucchini) and very cheap aubergines - I thought ...why not add them to a vegetable curry. I've never eaten them in a curry and was curious to see how they would work.
Not quite sure how it would turn out, but we were definitely not disappointed!
What was most interesting was both the courgette and aubergine soaked up more of the curry flavours than the rest of the vegetables. We'll be using them again in a curry.
Very low in calories (see below).
Here's our delicious recipe:

Delicate FISH CURRY

The fragrant FISH CURRY was perfect for a hot day. We made twice as much sauce, saving some for another day, when we can add whatever protein we like to the finished dish.
A very easy dish to make, and one we will be making again. The fish remained lovely and moist. I doubt you could overcook fish cooked this way! Our 'favourite' list has just got longer. Deceptively LOW in CALORIES - using our special recipe tip below.
Use fresh fish if possible. Salmon is particularly good with this recipe, as it really takes on all the flavours and spices.
Here's our EASY recipe:

Spicy potatoes

How to transform your potatoes:  SPICY CHORIZO, a few onions and 20 minutes later, we were devouring this very more-ish rustic dish.
It was the perfect partner for our fish. We had bought two whole sea bass, not realising quite how big they were, so we've ended up with two separate meals. Yesterday, we baked the sea bass, which gave the fish such a lovely soft texture, so we baked the fish again the same way today.
Pair fish with this spicy potato and you'll wonder (like us) why you've never cooked it before. We think - no - we're certain we'll be eating this again very, very soon - probably (tomorrow) with a fried egg.
The dish is so easy to cook, very versatile, and we can see it turning up on daytime television (...again), complete with our tips (see below)!
Thanks to the way we cooked these potatoes, the whole dish (including fish) was surprisingly under 400 calories! Take a look at how we cooked this - here's our recipe:

Spicy baked sea bass

Spicy baked sea bass - a tasty way to cook this fish without fuss. You won't be disappointed.
Did you know you cannot taste coriander if you hold your nose! Coriander is an AROMATIC herb and if you chew it while holding your nose, you won't taste it at all. Try it - pinch your nose while chewing on a bit of coriander then release... you'll soon realise just how pungent coriander is.
Tonight we cooked this wonderful fresh sea-bass, baked with lemon, basil and coriander and a hint of chilli. Our visit to the Severn and Wye smokery  resulted in buying some wonderful fresh and smoked products which we'll be eating over the next few days and weeks.
Sea bass is very low in calories - like most fish at approximately 1 calorie per gram. We served our sea bass with spicy noodles and onion bhajis - the whole dish was under 500 calories! We picked up a bag of onion bhajis from the takeaway on the way back from the pub! We popped them into the oven to reheat while the fish was cooking.
Here's how it looked before going into the oven. Once cooked, just peel off the skin and enjoy the most succulent piece of fish ever.
Here's how we prepared our fish along with our Thai noodle recipe:

Spaghetti bolognese

SPAGHETTI BOLOGNESE - freshened up from the freezer. We spruced up our frozen dish and gave it a fresh twist with an abundance of seasonal tomatoes.
Being prepared has to be our number one tip for successful weight loss. The weeks where we have sat down, written out a list of meals, then bought the ingredients and STUCK to our plan, have often turned out to be the best for weight loss.
Make use of your freezer - and dried ingredients whenever you can. When we make spaghetti bolognese, we like to make double the quantity and freeze in portions. It's a great standby. If you have less time - you could always buy a ready meal and add a few fresh ingredients.
It was nice to know something was defrosting while we were busy getting on with life.
To make the basic mince mixture - which could be used for a lasagne too, we follow this easy recipe which brings our meal (including the pasta) to under 500 calories:

Chinese pork with rice

Dieting? If you love your food and drink, you'll probably find diets a bit of a trial - losing a bit of weight only to regain it later. Well here's the answer! See our METHOD below. Not only have we lost 7 stone in weight, but we've managed to keep it off too! 

Once you've lost the weight, you can adopt the principles of our system and use them to maintain your weight. We believe it's the only weight management tool you'll ever need, and you get to enjoy your food too.

So what were we having during the week? This spicy pork dish was so easy to make, and not as expensive as you may think. It's also quite low in calories too. Take a look at our recipe and start enjoying tasty food.

Pasta with tomatoes

A very easy and simple recipe - PASTA with fresh tomato sauce.
Does your pasta fill you up? We found the fresh pasta we were making actually filled us up for a lot longer than the dried pasta we've been using. That makes fresh pasta great for weight loss.
We wanted to know why we felt much fuller after eating our home made pasta. After a little research, we found the reason our fresh pasta was so filling is because our fresh pasta is made with EGG which provides more protein. Some things are simple once you know!
We now realise some dried pasta is made with semolina flour and water and no egg. So the next time you're buying dried pasta, take a look at the ingredients. I'll be looking out for dried pasta with egg! Last time we made this delicious (and VERY easy tomato sauce) we used this spicy recipe. But today, we opted for something even more simple.... fresh egg pasta and fresh tomatoes.
Here's our pasta and tomato sauce recipe (making use of our glut of home grown tomatoes) you will be amazed at how low in calories this actually is:

Classic chicken Caesar salad

This was our first CHICKEN CAESAR salad and it was very, very tasty.
In my old 'dieting' days, a creamy salad dressing was a no no and I believed they were wicked, contained too many calories were to be avoided at all costs. Now I think differently.
Low-fat processed dressings just never tasted that good either. So perhaps that's why I never bothered with this salad. Until now. I would say the effort to make this is well worth it and I wish I'd made double the quantity to store in the fridge for another day.
After weighing out all the ingredients I found myself pleasantly surprised at the amount of fat, protein and carbohydrate in this meal. It all seems perfectly balanced too.
I've worked out an approximate calorie count for this lunch and you might just be surprised. Here's our recipe:

Courgette (zucchini) soup - 200 calories

We were pleasantly surprised at just how delicate and fresh this COURGETTE (ZUCCHINI) SOUP tasted. The goat's cheese helped create the velvety texture.
I wondered what to do with the crop of round courgettes making their way across our garden. We planted a few seeds in the border, next to the roses, and can't quite believe the result. If you're looking to grow just one vegetable without too much bother - this is the one.
If buying fresh, then any vegetable - in season - is so much tastier and cheaper too.
Apart from anything else, the courgette is very low in calories at just 17 calories per 100g.
I was going to make a pasta dish and use grated courgette, but thought I would give this soup a try.
We were both really impressed and will be making it again. I would imagine it's also very tasty served cold on a very hot day.
If you would like to try this low calorie recipe, then here it is:

Steak and onion rings

It's been a while since we ate STEAK and CHIPS. A couple of huge home cooked onion rings replaced half the portion of our mighty chips. The hot balsamic tomatoes were deliciously sweet and sticky.
We like to eat a balance of foods - and if you take a look through our recipes/diary, you'll notice we eat everything. Our weight management system does not dictate WHAT you should eat. You get to choose your own food. Hopefully, in the end, you'll learn enough about the food you eat, to make simple lifestyle choices that will help you to lose and maintain weight loss forever. Interestingly, according to some weight loss theories, you tend to eat more the more varied your diet and therefore gain weight. However, we've found the opposite to be true. Why?

Cheesy mushrooms

These CHEESY MUSHROOMS are simple to make and add a delicious low-calorie dimension to your meal. Quite often you concentrate so much on the main part of the meal and pay less attention to the side dishes.
But these are very more-ish and deserve their own blog post. We think you will be surprised at how little cheese you actually use. I've pepped mine up with a bit of spice too.
We ate these with our gammon and egg muffin, cooking them slowly in a frying pan. But they would go with lots of different meals.
We've also cooked them on the BBQ and they've gone down well with our guests.
Why not experiment with your favourite cheese? See how we made ours below.

Gammon & egg muffin

GAMMON & EGG MUFFIN. Breakfast or lunch. It's been a long time since we ate an English muffin as part of a meal.
They make a perfect base for many combinations of ingredients.
We chose to cook some off cuts of gammon with a poached egg and mustard dressing. I cooked some cheesy mushrooms and served with a green salad. The whole meal came to around 450 calories.
The muffins were slightly chewy - like a bagel I suppose, but much lighter.
We served ours with a side salad and cheesy mushrooms. I made a mustard dressing too, which was perfect. Here's the recipe for that mustard dressing.

GAMMON STEAK

GAMMON STEAK, egg, beans and chips makes for a simple mid-week dinner. At around 600 calories it's very satisfying and filling. Our chips were home baked with the skin on.
We used a slightly waxier potato (Harmony) than normal because that's all we had available. They still work well, with a lot of flavour, but the outside doesn't crisp up as much. If you're after a crispier result, then use a more floury potato, which we recommend.
We've got some tips worth thinking about (below) when buying gammon. I wouldn't be surprised if these tips end up on some cookery programme or other very soon. Some things are obvious to some people, and not to others. So please give us a 'shout out' if you pass any of our tips on to others, and help spread the word.

Duck with cherry sauce

Dieting can often be a bland experience especially if you have developed a great palate for food and drink (like us).
If you've only ever thought weight loss was possible through dieting, then why not take a look at how we lost all our weight.
This CRISPY DUCK WITH CHERRY SAUCE was served with fondant potato, savoy cabbage and bacon. Take a look at how we cooked our fondant potato too!
Some dishes, like this one, look more complicated than they actually are so why not try this recipe.
Don't be put off by those TV chefs (we know who you are) who often use an endless list of costly and fancy ingredients. We like to suggest alternative ingredients and tips, as with this recipe. This delicious cherry sauce was used in our