Recipe- Roasted Sweet Potato Hummus, a taster night fave

Every now and then at most Slimming World groups they have what they call a taster night (or morning if you go to a morning group. Who doesn't love a bit of diet coke chicken at 10am?) Everyone (or those who can be bothered) makes a Slimming World friendly dish and brings it along for everyone to try, along with the recipe. Everyone is so hungry after starving themselves in anticipation of weigh in the food gets inhaled within seconds, and everyone declares how good it was. You then go home and try to recreate it, but find out it was only nice because you were so hungry and actually you'd rather have a ryvita. I don't always bring something along but since the biggest two offspring were staying at their Nan's a few days this week I had time to whip up some hummus in between sitting up the baby umpteen times because she gets onto her tummy and can't get back up again. Oh, my life is just go go go. Anyway, this hummus was actually bloody lovely, nothing like proper hummus but a good substitution and syn free so good to have in the fridge for when you just neeeed something. I've been looking for a good hummus recipe, and kind of mashed a couple together here and I was pretty happy with the result. I used cottage cheese because I've found in the past that yogurt or fromage frais it a little bit tart, cottage cheese gives the creaminess without the sourness. If you are of the opinion that hummus is just mashed chickpeas without tahini, I respect your opinion. Add a tablespoon of tahini paste for 4 1/2 syns.

To make Roasted Sweet Potato Hummus you will need:

• 1 medium/large sweet potato
• 400g tin of chickpeas
• juice of 1 lemon
• 1tsp paprika
• 1 tsp cumin
• 2 cloves of garlic (or more if you're single)
• 2 tablespoons of cottage cheese
• salt and pepper

Roast the sweet potato in it's skin for about an hour and then leave to cool. Drain the chickpeas, but keep the water. Crush the garlic. Once it's cool enough the sweet potato skin should just slide off and you'll be left with the mushy flesh. Chuck everything except chickpea water in a blender and blend to a smooth paste. If you find the hummus is too thick, add a bit of the chickpea water until you get the consistency you like. I think I added about 6 tablespoons to mine. You can also add some fresh coriander if you like it, but I think it's foul so have a word with yourself. Serve with crudites (raw veg dear) or toast/pitta from your HEB. It also makes a great topping for a jacket spud, or is lovely in a sarnie with some warm roast veg.

I dished this up at a taster morning on Tuesday and everyone lapped it up (not literally, that would be a little bit inappropriate. I know us fatties can't control ourselves but we're usually ok in public) and said it was lovely. Maybe they were just being polite, but I liked it.

Hx

Recipe- Go-with-anything Roasted Veg

Hello!

Roasted veg may be a bit of a no brainer but it's something I often over look in favour of yet another salad. I know Slimming World say you should have 1/3 of your plate with speed food, but sometimes you just want to chuck something in the oven and forget about it until the smoke alarm goes off (just me?) and not faff about with ricing a cauliflower or spiralising the contents of your veg rack. This is perfect for that. You can use pretty much any veg you like, cook a massive tray of it and save what you don't eat in the fridge, reheat or eat it cold and even use it in other dishes. Easy.

To make Go-with-anything Roasted Veg you will need:

• Vegetables - I would suggest onion and peppers as a minimum but then you can add anything you like. I used a red onion, a big courgette, couple of handfuls of frozen peppers, half a butternut squash, and a few baby leeks because that was what I had sat wilting miserably in the bottom of the fridge but you could add aubergine, cherry tomatoes, sweet potato, carrot, cauliflower, parsnip, asparagus, baby corn, celeriac, fennel, marrow, mushrooms - if it's a vegetable throw it in and see what happens. 
• Fry light or spray oil, or syn some olive oil.
• Balsamic vinegar.
• Dried oregano, basil, rosemary or thyme - or any other hard herb you like.
• Salt and pepper

You can also chuck a few cloves of garlic in, but I find it makes it bitter. Not sure why, but I just can't get garlic right so I leave it out. 

Just chop all your veg so they're roughly all the same size. It's going to be impossible to get a cauliflower floret the same size as an asparagus spear so don't go whittling them down, just get them roughly similar. Chuck it all into an oven dish and add a splash of balsamic, a sprinkle of your herb of choice and salt and pepper. Then spray it all with fry light until your finger hurts. Give it a mix around and bung it in the oven for about half an hour-45 minutes, giving it a wiggle around halfway through.

I chucked a frozen fish filet on top about 10 minutes before the end for a light lunch (perfect for SP if you've not used sweet potato or parsnip), but you can serve it with whatever you like - chicken, pork chops, sausages, or mix it into some cous cous, chuck it in a crustless quiche or add some passata for a quick speed-packed pasta sauce.

Hx