Chicken Jambalya

 Serves 1

Syns per portion: Extra Easy 1 syn

Ingredients

• 1 chicken breast, chopped
• 2 Tesco lighter choice cumberland sausages (1 syn), sliced
• 65g long grain rice
• 1/2 small onion, chopped
• 1/2 red bell pepper, thinly sliced
• 1/2 green bell pepper, thinly sliced
• 1/2 tsp chopped garlic
• 200ml chicken stock
• 100g passata
• 1/2 teaspoon cajun seasoning
•  Frylight

Method

1. Add a few spray of frylight to a large pan. Add the chicken and sausages and leave to brown for 5 min.
2. Add the peppers, onion, cajun seasoning and garlic and brown for 5 more minutes. Stir often but don't worry if it sticks a little as this will help to add flavour to the dish.
3. Add the passata, stock and rice. Give the ingredients a good stir and scrap of any browned parts from the bottom of the pan. Cover and leave to simmer on a low heat for 20-25 min.
4. Give the pot a good stir and make sure the water has been absorbed and rice is cooked. Serve.

 I have never had Jambalaya before but I always wanted to try it as I love a good one pot dish. It tasted superb and was so filling, it's really hard to believe this is 'diet' food. I used tesco lighter choice sausages but if you have syn free sausages then it would make this whole meal free.  I was a bit worried about using 'easy cook' rice as most basic recipes I seen just had long grain rice stated as an ingredient, but my dish worked out perfectly and the rice was nice and tender and not soggy. Enjoy.

Mariners Pie

Serves 1

Syns per portion*: Extra Easy 1, Red 1 (potatoes as heathy extras), Green 1 (fish as healthy extras)
*Syn milk if not using as part of healthy extra


Ingredients

• 1 fillet of white fish (cod haddock etc.)
• 200ml semi-skimmed milk
• 1 level tsp arrowroot powder (1 syn)
• 2 tblspn garden peas
• 2 tbspn sweetcorn
• 200g white potatoes
• 1 tbspn chopped parsley, fresh or dried
• salt and pepper

Method

1.  Peel the potatoes, quarter and place onto boils for 20 min. Heat the oven to 180c.
2. Meanwhile place 150ml of milk in a pan, once it reaches a boil set heat until milk simmers. Add the fish fillet and  poach for 5 min until cooked.
3. Remove fish from pan, leaving milk remaining. Flake the fish.
4. Add the arrowroot to the milk and stir.
5. Add the flaked fish, peas, sweetcorn and parsley to the milk. Leave to reduce to desired consistency. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
6. Place the fish sauce into a miniature casserole dish and set aside to cool.
7. Once potatoes are ready, drain and return to pan. Add the remaining 50ml of milk and mash to desired consistency.
8. Layer the mashed potatoes on top of fish sauce in casserole dish.
9. Place in oven for 10-15min or until the top turns slightly brown. Serve.

During my first stint of following the slimming world plan I tried experimenting with alternatives to white sauce which didn't consist of a roux or cornflour as both are quite high in syns. One of my 'experiments' was using quark as an alternative.  Whilst this was delicious for dishes such as lasagna, it did not work so well for my first attempt at a slimming world fish pie. I ended up with a curdled mess which tasted disgusting. So I recently found out about a sauce thickener called arrowroot. To my surprise it's a lot lower in syns than cornflour (1 level tsp = 1syn) and doesn't have the same aftertaste or cloudy affect that cornflour does. So again I attempted to make my fish pie, and much to my delight it was a success. I'm not a big lover of fish but I do like to be try a fish dish every now and then, so please let me know if you make it and what you think.

Here are a few notes I made about this recipe:

• You can vary the types of fish you use within the recipe and make it a bit more luxury by adding salmon or prawns.
• This would also be lovely with some cheese added to the top but remember to count as a HeA or syn it.
• If you replace the white fish with salmon you can vary the flavour by replacing the parsley with dill.

Oat and Yoghurt Layer

Serves 1

Syns per portion: Extra Easy 1, Red 1, Green 1
(using oats as a Healthy extra B)

Ingredients

• 35g porridge oats (not the instant kind)
• 1 large banana
• 150g pot of fat free natural yoghurt
• 1 level tsp sugar (1 syn)

Method

1. Mix the porridge oats with the sugar and place under a medium grill for 3-4 min until toasted, turning occasionally as they brown. (keep an eye on them as they start to burn quickly!)
2. Meanwhile chop the banana into small chunks. Add the yoghurt, stir to mix.
3. Take a glass pot or small drinking glass and alternate layers of yoghurt mixture and oats, finishing with a sprinkling of oats on top.

I highly recommend this as a breakfast or even just a tasty pudding. It needs a little attention to make sure the oats don't burn (can you tell I didn't pay attention the first time I cooked them, my house was stinking of burnt oats for a good few hours!) it's actually a rather quick dish. I was pleasantly surprised by how tasty the dish was, and it certainly hit a spot with my sweet tooth.

Here are a few notes I made about this recipe:

• Do not mash the banana during step two as it would need to be counted as 4 syns according to the slimming world rules.
• You can replace with sugar with sweetener to make this dish syn free. Personally I try not to use sweeteners and just limit how much natural sugar I use instead.