Author: roeliaschoeman

Mini Chocolate and Coffee Muffins

| roeliaschoeman

A legal Valentine’s Day treat!  Based on a Weigh-Less recipe!  🙂

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Chocolate and Coffee Mini-Muffins

1 Serve = 1½ CC + ½ Fat

Serves 12 –Good Choice recipe (Step 5 and above)

90g extra lite margarine

375g self raising flour

50g cocoa powder

165g castor sugar (to make this less sweet and lighter in sugar I used 100g Xylitol – please be careful, don’t give your pets any of these muffins, Xylitol is extremely dangerous to them – and 10 sachets Canderal.)

1 egg

330ml skim milk (I added 50ml very strong black coffee to the milk for some added goodness!)

Weigh-Less Non-Stick Spray

Spray a 12 hole muffin tin with non-stick spray and set aside. (Again I made some changes, I made mini-muffins – and got a VERY large batch of muffins out of this batch.  Seriously, I one stage I was close to just giving up and freezing the rest of the batter!  LOL!  But I’m not a quitter ;).  The mini-muffins baked for 4 t0 5 minutes) Place all ingredients in a large bowl and stir until just combined. Spoon mixture into muffin tinand bake in a 180°C oven for 25 minutes. Remove from oven and turn onto a wire rack and leave to cool

 

Shortcut Pork Meatballs with Zucchini Pasta

Image | | roeliaschoeman

Serves 1

2 Pork Sausages

100g cooked angel hair pasta

1/2 onion, sliced

A handful cherry tomatoes, halved

200g zucchini noodles – pre-made available from Woolies, but it is super easy to make your own using a spiraliser or simply grating baby marrow/zucchini with a cheese grater

5ml olive oil

2ml Chipotle Spice (Woolies) or you can make your own version with smoked paprika and chillies

Remove pork meat out of sausage casings and form/roll little meatballs.  Oven-bake at 180 for about 1o minutes.

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Fry onion in olive oil until soft, add a few drops of water.  Add seasoning.  Stir in cherry tomatoes and cook for a minute or two.   Stir in zucchini noodles and angel hair pasta.  Add some more water if needed.  Stir-fry for a few minutes.  Stir in meatballs and heat through

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1 Serve = 1 Prot, 3 Veg (if you count free veg), 2 CC, 1 Fat

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2 Potato Salad

| roeliaschoeman

20160127_133844.jpg100g baby potatoes, quartered

100g sweet potatoes, cubed (small to medium cubes – if the cubes are too large it may not cook through properly)

Smoked paprika (2 ml – can be quite strong, so be careful)

Cayenne pepper (to taste)

Salt and Pepper to taste

1 boiled egg, quartered

1 small spring onion, chopped

3 small gherkins, sliced

a handful (or two) lettuce and fresh herbs (mix)

30ml low fat mayonnaise

15ml lite chutney

Place baby potatoes and sweet potatoes in an oven bag, mix with spices and seasoning and bake in the oven at 180C for about 30 minutes until soft.  Set aside to cool.

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Once cool, assemble salad.  Make a bed of lettuce first.  Mix gherkins, spring onions and potatoes gently (so that potatoes doesn’t break).  Spoon on top of lettuce.  Place egg quarters on top.  And serve dressing(mayo and chutney mix) on the side.

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Serves 1:  2 CC, 1 Prot, 1 Fat, 2 Veg

Haddock “Paella”

| roeliaschoeman

480g raw Haddock

250ml fat free milk

100g chopped onions

100g chopped yellow pepper

10ml olive oil

280g cooked brown rice

140g blanched peas (cover frozen peas with boiling water and leave to stand for 10 minutes, then drain)

100g cherry tomatoes, halved

2ml chopped garlic

5ml turmeric

2ml smoked paprika

Salt and Pepper to taste

Fresh Coriander to serve

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Poach hadddock in milk on low to medium heat until the fish flakes easily.  Remove from milk, flake and set aside.

Fry onions and peppers in olive oil until soft.  Add garlic and fry for another minute or so.  Stir in cooked rice, add rest of spices.  Add a bit of water or chicken stock if needed.  Add rest of ingredients, stir through and simmer on medium heat, covered from a few minutes.

 

Serves 2:  1 Serve = 2 Protein, 2 Veg, 1 Fat, 2 Carbs

Pimento Peppers stuffed with Herby Brown Rice and Feta

| roeliaschoeman

As South Africans we ‘braai’ a lot!  So that often leads to eating way too much meat – especially red meat!  So, one Friday evening when Hubby had to satisfy his craving for lamb riblets, I decided to improvise a bit!  Didn’t feel like meat, so I tried this dish – it will make a great braai side dish as well!

2 Pimento Peppers (you can use bell peppers or paprika peppers as well)

 

Garlic and Herb Brown Rice

140g cooked brown rice

5ml Basil-infused olive oil

50g chopped onions

Garlic and Herb Seasoning to taste

Salt and pepper to taste

 

60g low fat feta, crumbed

 

Prepare Peppers by making a slit on top and removing the pips and core.  Roast/braai on grill until the peppers start to blister.

 

Fry onions in olive oil until soft.  Stir in cooked brown rice and add Garlic and Herb Seasoning.  Season with salt and pepper.

 

When ready to serve, stuff peppers with brown rice and top with feta.

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Serves 1 – 2 Veg, 2 CC, 2 Protein

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When serving it as a side dish at a braai, you can omit the feta and have the peppers with your favourite braaied meat 🙂

Meatball Stir-fry

| roeliaschoeman

I am always looking for healthier (beef) mince options!  I saw a picture of a ‘meatball stir-fry’ dish online or in a magazine recently (can’t remember where – expose myself to wayyyy too much info on a daily basis!).  I like the idea of mini meatballs, because it makes it easier to establish portion sizes etc.

So, here goes!

Serves 4

Meatballs

480g beef mince

1 tablespoon raw oats

5ml smoked paprika

2ml garlic salt

black pepper to taste

1ml black sesame seeds

Mix all together and form mini-meatballs – weighing about 20g each.  I found this cool little gadget at Westpack, works like a charm 🙂

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Place on a baking sheet, lined with foil and treated with non-stick spray.  Bake at 180C for about 7 minutes. Put aside.

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Stir-fry

50g spring onions, chopped

100g onions, sliced

100g baby corn, sliced lenghtwise in ‘quarters’ to make it easier to stir-fry

100g mange tout

10ml olive oil

5ml crushed garlic

red pepper flakes to taste (if you want to add some ‘spicyness’

100ml chicken stock

10ml soy sauce

Heat olive oil in a pan and at medium to high heat, fry onions, corn and mange tout for about 3 minutes.  Add garlic and red pepper flakes.

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Lower heat and add meatballs, chicken stock and soy sauce.  Gently stir not to break the meatballs. Cover and leave to simmer for about 5 minutes.

Serve with angelhair pasta, brown rice, cauliflower rice or zoodles (zucchini noodles).

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This will work well with ostrich, pork and chicken mince!

WL breakdown – 6 meatballs = 2 Protein, 1 Veg per person.

 

 

Eggs in Hell! (eggs in spicy tomato sauce)

| roeliaschoeman

Always looking for quick and easy weeknight dinner ideas because on most evenings I only get home between 18.00 and 19.00.

Came across this recipe and just loved the name!  LOL!  Recipe found on “The Cooking Jar” and tweaked and prepared with love by Hubby 🙂

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10ml olive oil

1 medium onion, chopped

1 tin chopped tomatoes

1 teaspoon minced garlic

2 jalapeno peppers, seeded and diced

1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika

1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

Salt and Pepper to taste

6 large eggs (recipe serves 6 if 1 egg each, or 3 if 2 eggs each)

 

fresh coriander and fresh bread to serve (I had mine on a slice of toast)

 

Saute onions, garlic and jalapenos and cook until soft.

Add tinned tomatoes and spices and bring to a gentle simmer

Lower heat and crack eggs one at a time and simmer until cooked – for runny yolks about 5 – 6 minutes, a little longer for harder egg yolks.

Remove from heat and serve with fresh breadrolls or toast, with fresh coriander.

 

 

 

 

Barley, Mushroom and Green Bean Salad

| roeliaschoeman

Yesterday’s lunch! The last of my pre-cooked batch of pearl barley used! Managed to get 3 full meals out of it, so planning does save you lots of time and effort! 🙂

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Adapted from “Closet Cooking”

100g cooked pearl barley

100g green fresh green beans (I just poured some boiling water on it, and left it to stand for about 10 minutes – no cooking needed)

150g mushrooms (I marinated a batch of mushrooms – ovenroasted it for about 30 minutes, put it in a glass bottle and poured some white vinegar (about 150ml) over it, leaving it to stand in the fridge for a couple of hours)

1/2 small red onion, thinly sliced

A sprinkling of thyme and rosemary (I used dried herbs)

30g low fat feta

Salt and Pepper to taste

10ml white vinegar

5ml olive oil (lemon infused, but you can use normal olive oil with maybe a dash of lemon juice instead)

Lettuce to serve

 

This salad is very tasty if made in advance – to give the flavours of the olive oil, vinegar and marinated mushrooms to develop a bit.  So try to make it the night before.

Mix all the ingredients except the feta and lettuce together.  Once ready to serve, stir in the feta and serve on a bed of lettuce.

 

 

Mediterranean Barley Salad

| roeliaschoeman

This was yesterday’s lunch!  I’m sure you figured out that pearl barley is my newest obsession!  😉  I cooked a large batch a few days ago and froze it into portions – specifically to have it on hand to ‘experiment’ with.  That is my challenge for the week – to make 3 x brand new barley recipes!  Maybe you can try it – find a healthy ingredient that you don’t use THAT often, and see if you can get a few recipe ideas of how to cook/prepare it?

100g cooked barley
25g sliced red onion
50g cherry tomatoes, halved
150g chopped red, yellow and green pepper
30g low fat feta
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parley
8 pitted olives

Dressing: 25ml lemon juice & 25ml red wine vinegar

Mix all the ingredients together and serve!

Serves 1 – 2CC, 1 Protein, 1 Fat, 2.5 Veg

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3-Layer Strawberry Delight

| roeliaschoeman

I saw this “3-layer” idea on the internet and just had to try it myself. Created my own healthy “Panna Cotta” as the white layer and the rest just feel into place! 🙂

A lovely, light dessert that looks impressive and is actually quite easy to make! 

Layer 1: Fatfree Vanilla Panna Cotta

10g gelatine powder
350ml plain fatfree yogurt
2 x Vanillla Canderel Sachets

Dissolve gelatine in 100ml cold water over low heat. Keep stirring until dissolved – do not bring to boil!  Add to yogurt with Vanilla Canderel added. Stir until mixed. Use a muffin tin to keep dessert containers in place – and pour into containers placed at an angle to form 1st layer as per picture. Put in fridge to set.

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Once set, prepare 1 packet of Weigh-Less strawberry jelly as per directions on packet. Turn the dessert containers 180 degrees and pour in jelly layer as shown in the photo. Put in fridge to set.

While 2nd layer is setting, prepare 3rd layer, the strawberry compote. Cut 450g strawberries up and heat on a low to medium heat setting with 100ml water until soft and mushy. Take off heat and put in fridge to chill until needed.

Pour 3rd layer on top of 2 set layers and decorate with a fresh strawberry and fresh mint.

Beautiful, delicious and healthy!  Voila!

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Serves 3: 1 fruit, approx 3/4 milk serve each.