Recipe - King Prawn Carbonara

You know the saying, if it swims it slims (just don't tell Mr MGAMT or he'll get ideas) so I like to have fish a couple of times a week. Prawns are a great source of protein, very low fat and so handy to have in the freezer, and I was planning to have these with a ratatouille type sauce and pasta, until I dropped the passata and the carton exploded all over me, the kitchen and the baby. That was fun to clean up. So I had to think quick and came up with this instead, creamy yummy spaghetti and prawns all for 1 syn per serving.

 To make King Prawn Carbonara for 2 people you will need:

• 200g raw king prawns, defrosted if frozen
• 1 big clove garlic, crushed
• 200g spaghetti
• 2 eggs
• 1 tbsp grated parmesan (2 syns)
• 2 tbsp fat free fromage frais or quark
• black pepper

Cook the spaghetti for 10 minutes in boiling salted water. When the pasta's about halfway done, fry the prawns with the garlic until they're pink. Mix together the eggs, fromage frais or quark and parmesan until smooth and season with plenty of pepper. Drain the spaghetti, reserving a little of the cooking water and return to the pan but make sure the heat is off. Add the prawns to the spaghetti and then the egg mixture, stirring until cooked. The heat of the pasta will cook the egg and you'll be left with a smooth silky sauce - don't be tempted to turn the heat back on or you'll get scrambled egg. If you like the sauce a little looser add a splash of the pasta water. Serve with extra parmesan to sprinkle on top - 1 syn per 1/2 tablespoon.

Although I'm still finding orange splashes of passata in unusual places, I'm calling it a fortuitous accident because discovering this sauce works with prawns has been a revelation. You could also add peppers, courgette, onion or mushrooms when cooking the prawns to get your speed food in. I was too fed up by then thanks to the explosion!

Hx

Recipe- Syn Free Butternut Squash Macaroni Cheese

Good morning! I'm full of the joys today as I actually got a full night's sleep! Well 11.30pm-5.50am but that counts as a full night when you have a 10 month old! I'm coffee'd up and ready to go so I thought I'd crack on with posting what we had for dinner last night because it was yummy. I've seen recipes and videos on Buzzfeed etc where people used butternut squash or cauliflower to make a creamy sauce, but as seems usual with Buzzfeed recipes they were usually packed full of cream and cheese and oil so any health benefits of taking out the flour and butter in a cheese sauce were immediately wiped out by whacking in a load of fat instead. I googled a couple of recipes and kind of bodged some together to come up with my own version suitable for slimming. It uses your HEA of cheese, or 6 syns if you don't want to use your healthy extra. But come on, a Healthy A is meant for cheese and anyone who tells you otherwise is wrong.

To make Syn Free Butternut Squash Macaroni Cheese for four you will need:

• half a butternut squash (cut one lengthways, and save the other half for my Moroccan chickpea tagine, coming soon!)
• 320g macaroni pasta (I used penne because I'm a rebel and that's all I had, but use what you like)
• 400ml chicken or veg stock, from a cube is fine
• half an onion
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1.2 tsp paprika
• 4 lean bacon medallions
• 160g grated reduced fat cheddar, or 120g full fat cheddar - pick and nice strong one (4 x HEA)

Scrape out the seeds from your butternut squash and spray the cut side with frylight/spray oil, before roasting for about 45 minutes. You can do this earlier in the day to save time, or you can chop it up and boil it but roasting saves you having to wrestle it get it peeled. When you're ready to cook get the pasta going in a large pan of salted boiling water. Soften the onion and garlic in a large frylighted pan for a few minutes before scooping out the flesh from the squash and adding it to the pan. Break up a little with the back of your spoon before adding your stock and bringing to the boil for a few minutes. Pop your bacon under the grill to go nice and crispy while you blend the sauce. You can either use a stick blender (so so cheap if you don't have one, and they're a kitchen essential!) or a food processor like mine (which I love). Get it nice and smooth and creamy before returning to the pan and adding the paprika. Throw in your cheese, reserving one HEA's worth (30g if full fat or 40g if reduced fat) to sprinkle on top. Stir until melted and when your pasta is cooked to your liking drain and add it to the sauce. Reserve a little of the pasta water if the sauce is too thick, and add a splash to thin it down a little. Divide between 4 plates and sprinkle with the reserved cheese, before crumbling your crispy bacon over the top. Delicious!

Mr MGAMT said the sauce tasted like cheesy soup, but I don't think that's a bad thing. He's a veggie dodger though, so I didn't tell him it was made of butternut squash, or I'd have got scalped. The little ones ate it without complaint too. And butternut squash is a great speed food, so you don't even have to add salad on the side to get your 1/3 in. Leave the bacon off if you want it veggie. I love anything cheesy, and while this is nothing like the creamy, gooey, drool worthy mac and cheese I'm dreaming of, it does the job!

Hx

Recipe- Syn Free Lasagne

Usually whenever I come across a recipe for a favourite meal that says syn-free I scroll right past that mofo faster than a rat up a drain pipe. They're not usually any good, most of them contain the dreaded quark or mullerlight in place of the good stuff and I'd rather use my syns and have the real thing. Maybe it's just me, but trying to fake something with eggs and sweetener just exacerbates my craving for the real thing. But there are some notable exceptions and this lasagne is one of them. It uses cottage cheese in place of the white sauce and half a HEA of cheese per portion (or if you don't want to use your HEA it's 3 syns) and is so yummy you won't even know you're dieting. Until the rest of the family have giant chunks of garlic bread with it and you don't. Bitter, moi?

To make Syn Free Lasagne for four people you will need:

• 500g extra lean beef mince
• 6 lasagne sheets
• 1 large onion, diced
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• 1 large carrot, finely diced
• 1 stick celery, finely diced
• 1 500g carton passata
• 1 beef stock cube
• 8-10 mushrooms, sliced
• Mixed Italian herbs
• Garlic powder
• A shake of Worcestershire sauce
• A small 300g tub of fat free plain cottage cheese
• 80g reduced fat mature cheddar (2 x HEA - so 1/2 a HEA per portion)
• Pepper
• F-f-f-frylight

In a large pan saute the onion, garlic, carrot and celery in some frylight until softened (5ish minutes). Add the mince and break up with your spoon, continuing to cook until browned. Add your passata, then half fill the tub with water from a recently boiled kettle and add that too along with the stock cube. Stir in the mushrooms, herbs, garlic powder and Worcestershire sauce and simmer it all together for as long as you can - 45 minutes is ideal but if you've only got 30, or forget about it for an hour, it wont hurt. Now it's time to layer it up! Start with a layer of mince - I only do 2 layers so use half but that will depend on your dish (I use one like this). After the mince add half the lasagne sheets then spread half of the cottage cheese on that and season with pepper. Add the rest of the mince, lasagne and cottage cheese for your second layer, then top with the grated cheddar. Pop in the oven for 30-40 minutes and serve with a big salad to get the speed foods in. Proper lasagne, no syns. What's even better is that my fussy family ate celery without complaint. #mumwin

I snapchatted the making of this, which was a lot of fun, so if you'd like to see more of my messy kitchen via the power of snap follow me @hellyboobear!

Any other syn-free version recipe haters? Or syn free recipes that you simply love? Let me know :)

Hx

Recipe- 5-a-day Turkey Bolognese

Now while this recipe alone wont give you your five a day in one meal, it contains 6 different veg so it'll get you on your way. It's healthy, tasty, something the whole family can eat, and it's cheap. I quite often think that Slimming World think we're made of money - if you were to follow one of their weekly eating plans from the mag or website you'd either need to remortgage or sell a kidney. And I'm quite fond of my kidneys. It makes a big old pan of hearty bolognese for around a fiver, can't say fairer than that. Ok, so it doesn't contain the 3 tins of caviar, 17 lobsters and half a lamb that you may be accustomed to if you like a SW recipe, but I guarantee it's a lot more tasty. And I couldn't get my kids to eat lobster anyway...

To make Recipe- 5-a-day Turkey Bolognese for 6-8 people (depending on how much you eat yourself while it's cooking...) you will need (count the veggies with me! Can you tell I'm a mum?!):

• 500g turkey mince (less than 5% fat)
• 1 large onion (1)
• 2 gloves garlic
• 2 tbsp tomato puree
• 1 courgette (2)
• a big pepper, or couple of handfulls of frozen peppers (3)
• 1 big carrot or a couple of small ones (4)
• around 8 mushrooms (5)
• 500g carton of passata (6)
• 1 beef stock cube
• dash of worcestershire sauce
• dash of balsamic vinegar
• dried Italian herbs - I used basil and oregano
• salt and pepper

Throw your mince into a large pan and break up with a wooden spoon. While the mince is browning chop your onion, garlic, peppers and mushrooms. Add the onion and garlic to the pan and soften, before adding the tomato puree and cooking a few minutes more. Grate your courgette and carrot straight into the pan and combine it all together. At this point chuck everything else in - and fill the passata carton half full with water, swill it around to get every last bit, and add that too. Season with plenty of pepper, but check the salt - you might not need it as the stock cube and worcestershire sauce are quite salty. Let it all simmer for around half an hour and serve with your choice of pasta or, if you must, courgetti *shudders*

This makes a huge pan - plenty to feed my brood plus enough for 2 adult lunches the next day. It's a good job too because I came downstairs after settling the baby for the twelfth time this evening to find the cat helping herself to my plate. I'm not fussy usually, but she licks her arse and I've seen what comes out of it. Anyway, you can use the bolognese for lasagne too - use fat free cottage cheese for the white sauce and your healthy a of what ever cheese you like on top. Yum!

Hx