Some of this week's Slimming World recipes

This week I decided to share some pictures and, more importantly, the recipes to some of my meals to show you what and how much I eat, and how it really isn't the typical 'diet food' you would imagine.

Before I started Slimming World I thought I'd be eating tiny portions of the good stuff and living on leaves.  How wrong was I!

So I decided to show you that you can lose weight by eating all your favourite meals.  You don't need to drink any strange tasting shakes as a meal replacement or take any tablets or drink a tea that makes you poo.  You can literally eat your way slim, and eat all your favourite meals, too!  

When I did the Seven Day Shred by ActiDerm it was okay, but it was so hard working out which meal to replace with a shake because, like most people, I wanted to eat breakfast, dinner and tea!  But with the Slimming World eating plan there's no worry.  Literally all your favourite meals are there whether it be fish and chips, curry, lasagne, cottage pie, casserole, macaroni cheese, pizza, chips...

I've acknowledged before that I've tried all the fad diets and weight loss tips going, spending silly money on wraps, shakes, teas and pills.  Sure, they all gave me really good short-term results, but nothing that was going to ever stick.  Following these easy Slimming World recipes is a complete foodie overhaul and something that, I think, will be a change forever now.

I know a few people like to follow my food diary for the week, or get inspiration for meals, so this way you can see how to actually make them rather than me being really vague and just saying it's a SW recipe.  So I've taken the recipes from the SW website (most of them are on Google on other people's blogs but this saves you searching)

Here are some of my favourites from this week so far (with photo evidence)...

So, Friday night's tea was pizza-topped chicken with homemade chips:

This is so simple and really, really tasty!

Here is the SW recipe:

Ingredients

• ½ small red onion, chopped
• ½ red pepper, chopped 
• 1 small clove of garlic, crushed
• 1 tbsp stock
• 2 vine tomatoes, skinned and chopped
• 1 tbsp tinned tomatoes
• 1 tsp tomato purée
• 1 tsp oregano
• 1 chicken fillet
• Low calorie cooking spray
• 40g low fat hard cheese, grated
• 1 cherry tomato, halved
• Fresh basil, roughly chopped

Method

1. Place the onion, pepper and garlic in a small saucepan with the stock and simmer for a few minutes.
2. Add the vine tomatoes to the pan, then the tinned tomatoes, tomato purée and oregano. Cut the chicken fillet in half horizontally, being careful not to cut it the whole way through. Fold open to make a butterfly shape. Spray a non-stick frying pan lightly with low calorie cooking spray then fry the chicken to give colour on both sides. Place the chicken on a baking tray and place in the oven, 220ºC/200°C Fan/Gas 7 for 15-20 minutes. 
3. When cooked, place the tomato mixture on top of the chicken. Add the cheese and sprinkle with basil. Place the cherry tomato on the top, then put back in the oven for 5 minutes. 

I always tweak it slightly from this.  My tomato sauce base had extra garlic and some fresh chillies added.  I also used low fat mozzarella instead of the hard cheese they recommend.  And, when it comes to toppings, you can essentially have what you like.  I used lean bacon, peppers and onion.

A little tip for doing the chicken which I did this time (and was far more successful than the first!)  When you slice the breast open to be a butterfly, put some baking parchment on a baking tray, spray it with fry light and then put the breast on top.  Spray the top of the chicken with fry light and put another piece of parchment on top and flatten it with a rolling pin.  This makes it bigger, thinner and easier to pile high with toppings.  I then took the top piece of baking parchment off and put it in the oven for 10 minutes on 200 before adding the toppings and cooking for a further 20 to 25 minutes on 180.

To do my chips, I (obviously) peeled and chopped the potatoes into chip shapes then put them in some lightly salted cold water to remove the starch.  Then made sure they were as dry as possible before putting in the Actifry and spraying with Fry light.  I cooked them for about 30-35 minutes (basically until they looked done!)

Saturday night, we had chicken sofrito:

Here's the SW recipe:

Ingredients

• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 400g can chopped tomatoes
• 25g lean cooked ham, cut into strips
• ¼ level tsp salt
• 75g green pepper, deseeded & chopped
• 175ml chicken stock
• 85g/3oz onion, chopped
• 40g mushrooms, sliced
• 1 level tsp oregano
• Pinch paprika pepper
• 250g chicken breasts, skinned, boned & cut into 1½ cm strips

Method

1. Place all the ingredients, except the chicken, in a pan. Mix well and cook gently for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally
2. Add the chicken and continue to cook until the chicken is cooked thoroughly and the sauce thickens. Serve with a selection of Free vegetables.

It's ridiculously easy, as you can see, and was seriously tasty.  If you're wondering where the mushrooms are on my plate, I left them out because I don't like them!

Saturday's breakfast was poached eggs, lean bacon, baked beans and a stack of spinach:

No real recipe for this, just poach your eggs to your desired runny-ness, fry the bacon in some fry light, heat up the beans and bang.

Sunday's breakfast was syn free Slimming World sweet pancakes:

My willpower on Sunday morning was at its peak as I sat there and ate them with fat free natural yoghurt while Tom tucked into original pancakes and Nutella. 

These are really easy and were an amazing substitute for the real thing.  I found this recipe on Slimming World Survival after a little Google for a recipe.

So, to make two pancakes (or one in my case because my pan is huge) you need:

2 eggs
2 tbsp sweetener

1 tsp vanilla essence

Fry light

And all you need to do is:

Whisk the egg and sweetener in a bowl until soft peaks begin to form

Stir in the vanilla essence and mix well

Spray a pan with Fry light

Pour half the mixture in and fry for about 3 minutes each side

Serve with a topping of your choice

And enjoy!

So easy!  And such a good recipe to have to hand, especially with pancake day looming!  I didn't have any vanilla essence in the cupboard so did them without and I didn't think they tasted like it was missing, so don't worry if you don't have any - you don't need to make a special trip.

Sunday's tea was cottage pie with swede mash topping:

 Here's the SW recipe:

Ingredients

• 1kg swede, peeled and chopped 
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• Low calorie cooking spray
• 1 red onion, finely chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• 2 celery sticks, finely chopped
• 2 carrots, peeled and finely chopped
• 500g lean beef mince (5% fat or less)
• 400g can chopped tomatoes
• 1 tbsp vegetable stock
• 1 tsp sweetener
• 2 tsp dried oregano
• 1 egg, lightly beaten

Method

1. Cook the swede in a saucepan of lightly salted boiling water for 12-15 minutes or until tender. Drain, return to the pan and mash until smooth. Season well and set aside.
2. Meanwhile, spray a large non-stick frying pan with low calorie cooking spray and place over a high heat. Add the onion, garlic, celery and carrots and stir-fry for 5 minutes. Add the mince and stir-fry for 5 minutes, then add the tomatoes, stock, sweetener and oregano and stir well. Bring to the boil and remove from the heat
3. Preheat the oven to 200°C/180°C Fan/Gas 6. 
4. Transfer the beef mixture to a casserole dish and spread the mashed swede over the top, smoothing the surface with a fork (adding a pattern if you like). Brush with the beaten egg and bake for 25-30 minutes or until lightly golden and bubbling. 

The great thing about this one is that, because it's to serve four, I make one for us for tea and one for the freezer for those nights where we're in late and can't be bothered to start making things from scratch.

Again, I tweaked this recipe slightly and added the leftover tomato sauce from the pizza-topped chicken that we had on Friday night.  It was just chopped tomatoes, tomato puree, mixed herbs, chopped fresh chilli and chopped garlic.  I'm not sure whether it was the addition of this, or just the general taste, but it was absolutely beautiful.  The taste of the cottage part of the pie was amazing, I can't even describe it.  It was just beaut.

I wasn't sure how the swede mash would taste, being a huge potato lover, but it was lovely!  You could hardly tell it was anything different.

Monday night we had speedy chicken jambalaya:

Here's the SW recipe:

Ingredients

• Low calorie cooking spray
• 1 onion, chopped
• 3 garlic cloves, crushed
• 1 red pepper, 1 green pepper and 1 yellow pepper, deseeded and chopped into chunks
• 2 courgettes, chopped into chunks
• 4 skinless chicken breasts, chopped into chunks
• 1 x 400g tin chopped tomatoes
• 2 tbsp dried thyme
• 2 tbsp fresh parsley
• 1 tsp smoked paprika
• 1 bay leaf
• Splash of tabasco
• 350g long grain rice, dried
• 1 litre of chicken stock
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• Fresh chopped parsley, to serve

Method

1. Spray a large, deep non-stick frying pan with low calorie cooking spray and place over a high heat. Add the onion, garlic and chicken and stir-fry for 2-3 minutes.
2. Add all the remaining ingredients to the pan and season well. Bring to
   the boil then cover the pan and simmer gently for 15-20 minutes or until the stock is almost absorbed and the rice is tender.
3. Serve scattered with parsley.

The only difference to my version was I forgot to buy courgette, so put extra peppers in.  And chopped some fresh chillies and added them in.

I love this one because it's all done in one pan, so is less mess and cleaning up, and there's always loads left for dinner/quick teas later in the week.

And there you have it! Apart from the side salad, I bet you wouldn't guess from looking at the pictures that those meals (or portion sizes) could help you lose weight, would you?

If you read my Slimming World blogs regularly, you'll know that last week I was really disappointed with 'just' losing 1lb (yes, I feel like an idiot now).  But this week, as you'll see from my food diary when I post it after I've been weighed, I've been on it 110% again so hopefully will see a bigger loss.

On Sunday, as Tom was tucking into his Nutella-drenched, original pancakes, and I was eating my Slimming World ones (which were still beaut), I said to him that if I don't lose more than 2.5lb this week that I am quitting.  I will be so disappointed, though, if I don't get a bigger loss this week.

I can notice it when I look in the mirror that I have visibly lost weight, and people are starting to notice and comment on it too.  I know it's always how you feel in yourself and how your clothes fit (which a lot of mine don't now!) but it would be nice if the scales read with smaller numbers as well.

All will be revealed tomorrow, eek!

You may also like: Why I've ditched the quick fixes and joined Slimming World