Shepherd's pie

Shepherd's pie on one of the hottest days we've experienced so far this year! And… very welcome it was too after a long, long day. This is a great budget recipe.

For a 'shepherd's pie' you will need lamb mince (look for lean mince). Swap to beef if you prefer, and you'll be making a 'cottage pie'.

After an extremely busy day, we arrived home to reheat this gorgeous, satisfying shepherd's pie within half an hour. 

It certainly made a nice change from a cold salad. With approximately 600 calories per large portion, this was extremely filling and well within our calorie allowance. As we have always said, if you eat something that really hits the spot and fills you up, you'll be less inclined to pick on something later as it will take a while to digest. Here's our recipe:

Chicken satay skewers

Chicken satay is one of our favourite takeaway dishes. As we already had chicken breast in the fridge - we thought we would try making our own satay sauce. The results were surprisingly satisfying - and as you can see, the chicken went perfectly with the egg fried rice.
We certainly saved a lot of money and I'm sure we saved many calories too. We would estimate this plateful at around 600 calories.
If you are going to make your own egg fried rice, you'll need to think about this earlier in the day. Take a look at our egg fried rice recipe here to find out why.
After looking at a number of different recipes, we had some idea of the basic ingredients - some of which we didn't have available. So we used what we had, as like most people, we don't own every ingredient.
Despite deviating from all recipes, we loved the taste of this dish. Here's our 'store cupboard' recipe:

THAI RED chicken curry

Another quick and easy recipe - THAI RED CURRY - with chicken and vegetables. This meal is under 500 calories and very quick to make.
If you are time-poor and don't want to resort to takeaways or ready meals, this authentic tasting home made dish is a great alternative. It was ready in no time.
After buying the Thai green curry paste and making this delicious chicken curry a few days ago, we were so impressed, we just had to buy the red curry paste.
We made enough to feed four - and just followed the directions on the tub. By adding extra vegetables this time, we stretched the meal to make four very good helpings. Our ingredients included two chicken breasts and a pack of stir fry vegetables - baby corn, green beans, and broccoli plus a few mange tout and sweet red pepper. We added a big red chilli, seeds and all, for a bit of extra heat. We thickened the sauce at the very end with a little cornflour. The flavours developed overnight, and the whole thing was thoroughly reheated, giving a very economical and tasty second helping!

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REMEMBER: We all have a calorie allowance - do you know yours?

We began our weight loss journey in January 2011 - and began our blog in June 2011. Here's a link to the first post. (here's the link).

Read about our UNIQUE METHOD of weight loss and find out how you can lose weight eating the food you love.

Copyright © forget dieting forever, all rights reserved

Chorizo salad with Manchego

Brunch was a warm and slightly spicy Chorizo salad with Manchego cheese. This bold salad recipe, infused with the flavours of Spain, went down a storm.
Undecided about what to eat - hot or cold - we ended up with this delicious combination.
The result was a very colourful, tasty and filling salad around 450 calories.
Here's how we made it.
Boil 120g potatoes (per person) and dress with some of the Chorizo oil. Allow five minutes for the flavours to mingle. Lightly boil the egg(s) - I used two left over quail's eggs here, although one normal egg would suffice. Cook 30g of sliced fresh Chorizo - which should be more than enough. Combine with your favourite salad vegetables, we used spinach, courgette and tomato - and sprinkle with 15g grated Manchego.

*

REMEMBER: We all have a calorie allowance - do you know yours?

We began our weight loss journey in January 2011 - and began our blog in June 2011. Here's a link to the first post. (here's the link).

Read about our UNIQUE METHOD of weight loss and find out how you can lose weight eating the food you love.

Copyright © forget dieting forever, all rights reserved

THAI GREEN CURRY

This THAI GREEN CURRY was very quick to make - perfect if you are time poor, and looking for something you can rustle up in no time.
Rather than buy a ready made curry, we wanted to see how easy it was to make our own.
We bought this Thai green curry paste - by Thai Taste - and followed the recipe on the pot. It was less expensive than some other brands, and the 200g pot makes 10-12 servings. Not bad. But that's not all, I was very surprised at how few calories the paste contained.
I haven't been asked to write a review about this product. It's just that when I find something that really 'works' for us, I love to spread the word.
For this recipe - which serves two hungry people, but will spread to three, I picked up 2 chicken breasts and a pack of baby sweetcorn/sugar snap peas. We used 80g of dried basmati rice between us. A rough calorie count (using 60g of the Thai paste) works out at under 500 calories each if sharing between two people, or 360 calories if sharing between three people for a light lunch perhaps.
And the flavour - well, we were quite taken aback at just how good this was. The authentic Thai flavours with its gentle heat soon had us emptying our plates. I'm sure we'll be eating this again very soon, and trying it with chicken thighs or prawns.

***

REMEMBER: We all have a calorie allowance - do you know yours?

We began our weight loss journey in January 2011 - and began our blog in June 2011. Here's a link to the first post. (here's the link).

Read about our UNIQUE METHOD of weight loss and find out how you can lose weight eating the food you love.

Copyright © forget dieting forever, all rights reserved

Savoury cheesecake

This SAVOURY CHEESECAKE recipe with honey and thyme, turned out to be very light and fluffy.
At around 275 calories per portion - it's not as calorific as you may think, and certainly has less than many shop bought varieties. 

A citrus side salad and pickled beetroot completed a very satisfying lunch. 

I used a 20cm loose based sandwich tin for this recipe and cut a long strip of greaseproof paper about 3cm taller than the sides to line the tin. I wasn't sure how much it was going to rise… and rise it did.
The cheesecake resurrected very well the following day; withstanding 20 minutes reheating in the oven. It was also very nice served cold - slicing was easier and you could cut very small slices - especially when no one was looking ;o).

Everyone loved this as much as we did. Take a look at our recipe:

Cheese & pasta salad

A warm green salad with pasta and cheese, can be ready to eat within half an hour.
For this type of salad we tend to use Pecorino - but we came across an interesting looking cheese in the supermarket called YORKSHIRE FETTLE. We thought we would give this a try, as it's a crumbly, feta style cheese. We weren't disappointed - and a little went a long way.
You can buy a ready made dressing, or make your own. We tend to make a few servings of our favourite (lemon & mustard) dressing and store in the fridge.
Here's how we made it.