Cookfest

7 days into the new year and I have lost 2 pounds!  Woohoo! Not sure how I achieved that because I fell off the wagon rather a lot in the second half of the week when I found a huge bag of Christmas spiced biscuits in the cupboard that were too delicious not to eat and of course once the bag was open it had to be finished off before the biscuits went soggy, right? And I kind of accidentally ate a few other things that were a bit naughty too BUT overall there was a lot less junk than I have been inhaling the last few months, so YAY.  I actually did pretty well with meals and MOST of what I ate was healthy food from the Happy Herbivore plan.

Today I spent a lot of time cooking. 5 hours cooking! I think I racked up a week's worth of Fitbit steps just walking between the cooker and the fridge. It wouldn't normally take so long (the HH recipes are generally quick and easy) but I was being good and inputting every ingredient and weight into MyFitnessPal which made it take quite a lot longer, but it's OK. It kept me off social media at least ;-p

I cooked up 12 meals, 6 lunches and 6 dinners. I also ate one of them - 'Oh My Greens! noodles' and had it with a cup of Lady Grey tea.

Maybe I'm just being a bit British but the only thing I don't like about the HH meals is the overly amusing names.  I'm sure it's probably necessary as a selling point to make things more fun but ugh. The food is usually decent and tasty but I like a name to describe what I'm eating, not make me laugh. Mr O asks me what I'm eating and when I say 'Bodacious Butteritos' or 'Broccoli Poppers' I just get laughed at and asked 'yeah but what the hell is that?') Anyway, I digress. Amusing name aside,The noodle soup was massively filling and tasted really nice. So filling, I didn't want my dinner until really late in the evening: Taco Poppers.

They're meant to be eaten with Queso Sauce, which I don't like - not any fault of the recipe, but it's basically a type of vegan cheese sauce, and I never liked cheese sauce even when I did eat cheese. So I made vegan ranch dressing instead. There's not much food that doesn't taste better with a drizzle of some sort of cool yoghurty thing on top.

In other news: the No Buy continues. I have been very good with money the last 7 days and not spent anything I didn't absolutely have to spend. I kept in budget for the weekly grocery shop for the first time in a bazillion years. And I somehow resisted buying anything in the January sales even when people all around me are squealing about how they bought some shoes for £4 or some such amazing price. 7 days down, 93 to go...

Diet Coke Quorn

Another food post for you today!

Something I cook quite often is Diet Coke Quorn. The first time I heard about cooking with Diet Coke, I thought it sounded a) gross and b) insane. Coke's a drink, right? Why would you put it in your food? But I was intrigued enough to try it, and surprised when it tasted amazing. It's kind of like sweet and sour.

 This dish is vegetarian. It's not technically vegan since Quorn contains a small amount of egg white, but I'm putting it up anyway because the Quorn could easily be replaced with tofu, extra vegetables, soya pieces, tempeh, chick peas/garbanzo beans, chunks of vegan sausage, or whatever else you fancy. (It could also be replaced with chicken).

It's also probably not the most attractive thing to look at, but trust me. It tastes awesome and is stupidly easy to cook.

Recipe:
Throw one large, chopped up onion into a pan with 1tsp oil, or if you're low fat, a few sprays of Frylight and a splash of water. Fry for a minute or two until soft.
Dump 225g of rice into the pan (I used long grain, brown basmati, but it doesn't really matter what you use). Add one can of diet cola (I am far too cheap to buy actual Coke - I use cheapie own brand supermarket stuff and it works just fine), and watch the cool fizzing effect.
Add 240ml of water and a vegetable stock cube. Toss in some Quorn pieces (or whatever you want to use instead) and some vegetables (whatever you have hanging around is fine. I used carrots and red peppers here).
Simmer until the rice is cooked (time will vary depending on the type of rice you chose but it'll be somewhere between 10 and 25 minutes) and has absorbed all the liquid. You will need to keep an eye on it, stir it every so often, and probably top up the pan with a bit of extra water here and there, unless you really want half cooked rice welded to the bottom of the pan.
Eat. This made enough for three very filling portions, and cost very little. My husband (meat eater) ate two out of those three portions. He is always happy to eat vegetarian food as long as it fills him up and tastes good, so that's a great recommendation right there. Oh, and if you follow the Slimming World Green/EE Plan and use FryLight instead of oil, this dish is Syn Free!

Super Soup!

Everybody loves a bargain, and I have a great one for you today!

Browsing the shelves at Asda last weekend I came across these little treasures: ready prepared bags of ingredients for making soup. 

I don't normally buy many ready-prepared vegetables (except frozen or tinned ones), because it's nearly always cheaper to buy the unprepared veggies and peel and chop them myself. But seriously. Look how cheap these are! Normally just £1, I got them on special offer for 85p a bag. Each one contains almost everything you need to make a litre of soup, no chopping or peeling required. All you need to add is water and two stock cubes. Bargain!

Here's Leek and Potato (which also contains onion and parsley), all ready for cooking. The instructions say you can whizz this soup up in a saucepan in about half an hour, so it already ticks the 'quick' box as well as 'easy' and 'cheap'. However, I was feeling especially lazy today, so I slung the whole lot in the slow cooker (which took all of 10 seconds - that's my kinda cooking, y'all) and left it for 8 hours while I went to work. 

Here's the end result, after a quick blitz with a stick blender. My 85p packet made enough soup for four people. It was also delicious and full of win. 

Next up was carrot and coriander (again there is onion in this too). I was feeling a bit experimental by this point, so I only added half a litre of water, so it would be super thick and chunky.

Another quick blast with the stick blender, and presto! Chunky carrot and coriander goodness that tasted every bit as delicious as the leek and potato, and so thick it was practically a stew. 

I was already feeling smug about the yumminess I'd created, so imagine my delight when I totted up the overall cost. I made 6 bowls of delicious and healthy soup for £1.70 (large ones, mind - I don't do small portions. I was stuffed after one bowl and two slices of bread) That's less than 30p a bowl. There was no added fat whatsoever, and if you're following the Slimming World green plan, you'll be pleased to learn that this is completely syn free. Even better, I spent less than 5 minutes actually making it all. Cheap AND lazy :)