The Quorn Supremacy

Quorn Bacon & Sweetcorn Chowder

2012-02-19T07:21:00.000-08:00

64/70

Today I have tried another soup from the remaining handful of recipes, this time a chowder style using Quorn smokey bacon strips. I actually really did enjoy it too!

This is a pretty simple soup to make and full of flavour, the smoky bacon strips work really well in it and from start to finish it only takes about half an hour to prepare. To start cut about 4 bacon rashers into thin strips, I used the frozen ones and defrosted them for a minute or so in the microwave, you then fry these off in a tblsp of oil until lightly browned. Chuck in a finely sliced small onion (I used a red onion) and sweat for a couple of minutes until the onion is softened.

Next add one medium potato chopped into 1-2 cm cubes and ml vegetable stock, bring up to the boil and simmer for 5-6 minutes. Next mix 2 tsp cornflour with 2 tblsp milk (taken from the 350ml total you need for the recipe) to form a paste and add this to the pan along with the rest of the milk. The recipe calls for semi-skimmed but I used skimmed and it worked fine.

Now, simmer for another 6 or so minutes - until the potato is tender, then add 175g frozen sweetcorn and stir through until this has warmed. Sprinkle in a handful of chopped parsley and it is ready to serve.

This is what it looked like served up:

You can see this is quite a creamy looking soup and I guess if you used whole or semi-skimmed milk you would get a creamier result, I have stuck with skimmed as it's what we have in the house and in any event will bring down the points total per portion. This recipe makes 4 normal size portions.

The propoints total per portion is 6 broken down as follows: quorn bacon (1), oil (1), sweetcorn (2), potato (1), milk (1). This is of course based on using skimmed milk and the total would need to be adjusted if you choose to use semi or whole milk instead.

This is a very tasty soup and the smoky bacon flavour works really well with the sweetness of the corn and the creamy texture, it is a lovely idea on a cold afternoon and I actually found it quite filling - probably due to the potato. This is definitely my favourite soup from the Quorn book so far.

I would make this again and we give it an 8/10 - definitely one to try!

Hearty Bean and Pasta Soup

2012-01-23T12:04:00.000-08:00

63/70

This is the first soup I have attempted from the Quorn cookbook. It's pretty easy to make but the recipe is not on the Quorn website as yet so I will talk through it in more detail than normal.

The method is the usual one for any soup base, a chopped onion is sweated until soft and then 2 cloves of crushed garlic are added, next 3 tblsp of tomato puree along with a teaspoon each of dried thyme and marjoram and a tbslp of fresh chopped rosemary are added.

Next the wet stuff goes in, a tin of chopped tomatoes, a tin of canellini beans and 1.5litres of veg stock. Give it a good stir, season to taste and bring it to boiling point then turn down the heat and add the quorn pieces (175g) and simmer for 12 minutes (I chucked them in frozen). Lastly add the pasta shells (100g) and simmer for a further 12-14 minutes until the pasta is cooked.

What you end up with is a very hearty and thick stew like soup. The step I have missed out above is that is asks you to remove half of the soup before you add the quorn pieces and blend it until smooth and then add it back to the pan. This seemed like way too much hassle to me so I used a stick blender in the pan itself and just blitzed away until I judged that about half was liquidized.

This is what it looked like during the simmering:

And here it is served:

It was actually very tasty indeed and so thick and substantial that it felt more like a filling meal than a soup usually would. This was a nice way to use the pieces and I would probably use this as a base recipe for creating other soups with whatever I have in the fridge.

In terms of pro-points, if you base this on 4 substantial portions each one works out at 6 - this is broken down as follows: quorn (1), pasta (2), beans (2), oil (1). This is high for a soup but considering how filling this is it makes sense. I do think it is worth 6 points as it leaves you feeling very full!

We would give this a 7 out of 10, it's not the most exciting of recipes but it is easy to make and very tasty. Great on a cold winters day.

Quorn Ceasar Salad

2012-01-16T09:58:00.000-08:00

62/70

I should probably start by saying that I am, in general, not really a fan of salad per se. I have, therefore, pretty much left the salad section to do last and therefore unfortunately I am now faced with the 'salad days' of this experiment....

So, this weekend I attempted the Ceasar Salad - a salad which I am fairly familiar with as I have had it previously in restaurants. My knowledge of it was only that it is a creamy cheese flavoured dressing and that it contains raw egg. I am not overly fond of it but needs must so off we set...

For a start I tweaked the cheese content because 100g of grated parmesan is just EXCEPTIONALLY high. I actually used 75g of cheese of which 25g was my precious (bought back from Lucca) parmesan and 50g was finely grated cheddar, I figured the stronger flavour of the cheddar would make up for the smaller quantity of cheese and I was right, the cheese taste was definitely the strongest.

The dressing is made by blitzing the cheese, egg yolk, clove of garlic, white wine vinegar and lemon juice and then adding the olive oil with the blender still switched on until smooth. The recipe suggests 200ml of olive oil but again I ignored this measurement and just used enough until it was the consistency I wanted (about 125ml).

You end up with a stunningly pretty buttercream yellow dressing which smells quite strongly of the cheese and lemon. To my mind it did indeed smell like a ceasar salad as I remember it.

Effectively you then just toss the fried off quorn pieces with some lettuce leaves and the dressing and top with ciabatta croutons. Simple.

This is the salad as served - you can see I burnt my croutons by trying to do too many things at once....

So, in terms of propoints, this is the points for the version I made with less cheese and oil. Based on using a quarter of the dressing per portion this is a calorie laden nightmare of 14 PROPOINTS!!!! FOR A SALAD!!!!

Yes, I had to recalculate twice just to check. It is because it is still a huge amount of oil and cheese per portion, the points break down as follows: cheese (2), oil (7), quorn pieces (2), croutons (2) egg yolk (1).

To my mind it did taste quite nice (for a salad) but at these points values there is no way in hell I will recreate it! If I am going to spend that many points on a meal it has to be something that feels like it is worth it and for me this just does not do it. If you are a fan of ceasar salad then my guess is that you will like this because it is a great quorn version of the standard chicken dish but if you are trying to eat healthy then it is probably one to avoid!

For me this is a 5/10 - I can see what the recipe is trying to do but for me it is just not that enjoyable for the amount of points in it.

Fruity Quorn Burgers

2012-01-15T10:32:00.000-08:00

61/70

Hello all, hope your January is not proving too bleak and depressing!

I attempted to cheer up our weekend by making Fruity Quorn Burgers which is the second of two recipes within the book for home made burgers. The other recipe (Cheese & Onion Burgers which you can find on this blog here) was a resounding success and I was therefore hoping for a repeat with this one - I was a little less confident about it being so though, based on two things - the amount of ingredients (substantial) and the amount of sweet things on it.

Don't get me wrong, I do like some sweet and sour combinations (pineapple on pizza for instance) but I could see that the balance in these burgers was towards the sweet, not the savoury, elements. A huge amount of grated carrot, apricots and sultanas are the driving force of the sweetness. The quorn mince is minimal in context.

Anyway, it is actually a very straightforward recipe, once the carrots are cooked and mashed literally everything is mixed together in one bowl. Some very pretty colours as you can see here:

In the bowl is the quorn mince (right at the bottom), the mashed carrots, spring onions, breadcrumbs, chopped rosemary and parsley, chopped apricots and sultanas, chilli flakes, seasoning, orange zest and fresh chopped mint. The final thing added next was a beaten egg although to be honest you do not really need this to bind the mixture as the moisture from the mashed carrots is enough to hold it together easily.

I used a cookie cutter to help me shape the burgers, because the mixture is very wet it takes a lot of packing to hold it together tightly and I therefore transferred each burger to the hot frying pan in the cutter with a fish slice underneath to ensure they made it to the pan without incident!

I cooked four at a time in the pan, the recipe states it makes 10-12 burgers but these would be tiny, I made 8 and these were a standard size, comparable to a normal quorn burger. This is them in the pan after an initial 6 minutes and a very careful turning over!

You can see that despite my best efforts one of my burgers has started to dissemble a bit in the pan. This is one of the most annoying things about this recipe - it is a lot of faff!

Anyway, once cooked I served them in the traditional way and I apologise for the less than glam presentation here, I had no salad to hand and this looks rather dull!

I calculated propoints for this recipe as a whole and then deduced that a 'portion' would be a quarter as it is intended to serve 4 - from the burgers I made this meant a portion would be two burgers. Amazingly a portion is only 4 propoints (I note no propoints are up on the Quorn website yet but this is my calculation). As most of the ingredients are zero points it worked out like this per portion: quorn mince (1), breadcrumbs (1), apricots and sultanas (1) and oil for frying (1).

This is amazingly low for a burger but disappointingly for me it did not really taste like a burger or give the same effect. I much prefer the cheese and onion burgers to these ones - both for the simplicity of the recipe and the taste/effect. These are VERY fruity so if you like your sweet/savoury combinations maybe this is one for you - of course the low propoints are handy, even with a roll it makes these acceptable as a main meal. In fact I did not fancy my second burger after I had eaten the first, these were just too sweet for me.

On balance this is not one of my favourite recipes, a lot of prep and faff to make burgers I did not overly enjoy. Notably though the burgers which were chilled in the fridge overnight were easier to cook and held together better the next day so maybe that is the trick as regards keeping them together. Personally I do not think I will be making these again!

We would give these a 4/10.

Quorn Thai Green Curry

2012-01-05T11:40:00.000-08:00

60/70

Happy new year!

I hope you have all had a restful festive period and not overindulged too much on the junk food! (I have a little!) I do apologise for the prolonged absence on this blog, I had a particularly busy run up to Christmas with a couple of business trips away and various things going on, I am now properly back on the horse however and have made this amazeballs Thai curry tonight.

I only have 10 recipes left to the end of the cookbook! Eeek....I wonder if 2012 will be the year of the 2nd Quorn cookbook - that would be lovely! I am also considering carrying on this blog with a different book as the focus so watch this space - it will still be veggie focussed of course.

You will notice if you use the link below to the actual recipe that the Quorn website has changed quite radically! I like the new website and the best thing about the new version is that each recipe has fat and calorie details and....WUHOO!!!! The propoints calculations per portion!! I wonder where they got that idea from....hmmmm...anyway my calculation is different for this recipe as I always try to make it skinnier too so I will still include my calculation and then you have the option.

Tonight I thoroughly enjoyed this Thai green curry which was a nice surprise as this is another dish which I frequently make at home anyway so it was weird to cook it in a different way with a different set of ingredients.

This curry follows the same basic premise as every other Thai curry I have ever made, you cook off the paste in some oil, add chopped shallots, garlic and chilli, the soy-sauce-marinated quorn pieces and then a can of coconut milk (I used reduced fat - hence the point difference between my version and theirs), bring it to a simmer and you effectively have your sauce. At this stage you could add whatever you like (chicken, tofu, veggies etc) but this version calls for blanched asparagus tips, baby corn cobs and green beans plus fresh, thinly sliced courgette and pepper.

It only needs about 4 minutes from here before you add fresh lime juice and chopped coriander, this is what it looked like in the pan before serving:

You can see it is colourful and bursting with veggies - I think this is why we enjoyed it so much, it is incredibly filling and tasty!

This is it served over steamed basmati rice and garnished with chopped spring onions and some more coriander:

Here you can see that this is a typical Thai curry with a very abundant and watery sauce. I actually added half a can of water to the wok after the coconut milk as I know my husband absolutely loves the sauce and this would give us extra.

Although this is a slightly different curry to the one I would normally make because it is more faff (due to more ingredients and therefore prep time) it tastes amazing and is well worth the extra effort. The dish is perfect for a January tea time as it is zinging with flavour and bursting with lots of fresh veg, it was just the ticket for us tonight!

Using reduced fat coconut milk reduces the propoints value by 2 and so a portion works out at 6 propoints (8 with full fat coconut milk as per the Quorn website) the six points is broken down as follows: oil (2), quorn (2), coconut milk (2), soy sauce (1), Thai curry paste (1). This means if you then add a portion of weighed rice for another 6 points you have a blindingly tasty and filling meal for the grand total of 12 propoints - definitely a winner for me!

We give this meal an 8 out of 10 and I will definitely be making it again in the future - another successful Thia meal from Quorn!

Phad Thai Quorn

2011-11-14T11:43:00.000-08:00

59/70

How I wish I had tried this recipe ages ago - I didn't because I have been making my own Phad Thai for years based around a traditional Thai recipe which took much perfecting and tweaking before it was exactly how we like it. I was therefore unconvinced that this version would be any good at all, especially when I saw the minimal ingredients list. I was wrong!

Effectively this tasty phad thai is based around the staples of chilli and garlic and a sauce of lime juice and soy sauce, the fresh garnish of chopped spring onions, coriander and dry roasted peanuts is what really brings the flavours alive and my only negative comment is that it is a very dry version of a phad thai (probably due to the lack of tamarind paste and fish sauce which are key features in my other recipe).

This is a very quick recipe to make and one way in which it beats my other version hands down is that it is speedy and takes a lot less prep - I had this on the table within 20 minutes of starting to cook and considering how good it is that's pretty amazing!

I used some rice noodles as suggested in the recipe but actually this would work as well with any thin 'straight to wok' noodles and this would make the recipe even quicker and more convenient.

This is the dish served:

After stir-frying the red onion (1), chilli (3) and garlic (2 cloves) for a few minutes you simply brown off the quorn pieces before adding the lime juice (1) and soy sauce (4 tblsp), you then add the cooked noodles and tip over 2 beaten eggs, stirring into the noodles until cooked and 'bitty' (how it looks in egg fried rice) then serve and scatter over as much or as little of the fresh garnish as you like.

In terms of weight watchers propoints, each portion (based on a 6 point portion of noodles included) is worth 12 points broken down as follows: quorn (2), peanut garnish (2), oil (1), soy sauce (1), noodles (6). This is a pretty filling meal with some stunningly fresh flavours and I am pleased that it is also pretty healthy too.

This is an impressively easy version of a phad thai dish which works really well with the quorn pieces, I may adapt it with a splash of fish sauce and tamarind paste next time I make it as actually those additions would not affect the speedy convenience of this recipe but might add further depth to the flavour.

As a real fan of Thai food and a frequent and interested sampler of Phad Thai I think this is a clever and impressive recipe, the combination of cooked and raw ingredients works together to give an authentic texture and I know for a fact I will be making this recipe again!

We would give this an 8/10.

Quorn, Leek and Thyme Pate

2011-11-09T11:36:00.000-08:00

58/70

I was dreading making this recipe as I am not really a fan of pate at all, neither the consistency or the taste. But I happened to have a lone leek in my fridge at the weekend which needed using before it turned and everything else was on hand so I figured it was time to bit the bullet and make this.

It was not, in fact, as foul as I was thinking it would be and actually I did manage to enjoy it as a base for a wrap (spread on in place of butter or houmous which I would normally use). It is quite simple and quick to make and I was surprised that the flavours worked so well.

The basis for this recipe is quorn chicken style pieces, these are browned off with a quarter of the cooked leeks (sauteed in butter) and the thyme and then some white wine is added and cooked off before the whole lot is blended and stirred into some soft cheese and the other three quarters of softened leeks. This does mean that there are 'lumps' of leek in the finished dish but actually because they are softened it does not ruin the texture.

The flavours of leek and thyme are definitely prevailant here and to be honest the quorn just seems to fill it out - but I would serve this as a great veggie alternative to pate as it tastes lovely and serves as a convincing substitute. It is nice with slices of pitta bread as a dip and we have also been eating it spead on crusty bread.

This is the pate part way through making and stored ready to chill:

In terms of propoints, it is hard to gauge what a portion size would be as it would depend on what you wanted to do with the finished product, this is not a meal so much as an accompaniment. The whole dish is 16 points so based on an average serving of a quarter of this (although that is quite a lot as you can tell from the photos) it works out at around 4 points per portion based on quorn (1), white wine (1), butter (1) and lighter soft cheese (1).

A pretty healthy alternative to usually fat heavy pates. I have to say I have no overwhelming urge to repeat this for us as it is not the kind of thing we would ever really eat, but it is a useful way of creating a veggie version of a standard pate if you were having a buffet.

An innovative way to use quorn if nothing else, we would give this a 6/10.

Sweet & Sour Quorn Stir Fry

2011-11-06T10:18:00.000-08:00

57/70

I am struggling at the moment to fit in recipes from this experiment, life has been so busy over recent months that remembering to buy in the right ingredients has become a chore! Hopefully things will start to calm down between now and Christmas.

Anyway, last week I had to buy a bottle of sherry for the christmas cake and therefore I happened to have everything in to make the marinade for this particular Quorn recipe. I am not a fan of sweet and sour when it comes to Oriental cuisine but I was ready to give this recipe a go. I have to say I was actually pleasently surprised.

I used steak strips instead of chicken style pieces and personally I really think the steak strips worked better than the pieces would but needless to say it will work with whichever type you happen to have in.

The marinade is fairly simple, consisting of dry sherry, fresh orange juice, oil, rice wine vinegar, soy sauce and chopped garlic. The recipe stated to leave the quorn soaking in this for around 20 minutes, I actually left it for a couple of hours as I always think the longer you can leave these kinds of marinade for the better the effect will be.

The actual cooking is fairly quick and straightforward, one of the things I like best about this recipe. You soften the onion in half the remaining oil, remove from the pan, brown the quorn pieces (removed from the marinade) then take these out of the pan aswell, cook the vegetables in the same wok and then add everything back in, tweak the marinade (with honey and cornflour) and pour it over and bob's your uncle!

This is what the dish looked like finished with noodles:

The next night I served the remainder with boiled rice, personally I think I preferred it with the rice and it was certainly easier to eat (noodles are always a nightmare for me, for some reason).

I thought the stir-fry was tasty and I was surprised that I enjoyed it so much, I think it is because unlike standard sweet and sour sauces, which can be overwhelmingly sweet, this was balanced and although you could certainly taste both the sweetness of the orange juice and the tang of the vinegar and sherry, no particular flavour was overwhelming.

I would make this again, it was easy, quick and very satisfying and best of all, due to using zero point veg, this can be very low points value for the Propoints plan. One portion (based on peppers and carrots as the veg) is only 4 points broken down as follows: quorn pieces/strips (2), oil (1), sherry (1). You can then add noodles or rice for another 6 points (weighed portions) so this is a very tasty and low point main meal.

This makes 4 generous portions and keeps well chilled in the fridge overnight. We would give it a 7/10.

Sticky Sausage Skewers

2011-10-02T08:39:00.000-07:00

56/70

Hello all, apologies for the extended delay - we were on holidays and then have been battling colds and, well, life gets in the way sometimes. Anyway, I am determined to complete this Quorn experiment before christmas so need to get a wriggle on.

Purely by chance I had got everything in to make the 'Sticky Sausage Skewers' before the weather went all bbq-tastic this weekend so it was a bonus when the in-laws invited us for a bbq on Saturday afternoon, I quickly put together this great, simple recipe and took them with us to cook on the barbie (I had intended to griddle mine, not expecting the indian summer!).

This is what they looked like raw and ready to be cooked:

These literally take minutes to put together. The marinade is very simple - fresh lemon juice, olive oil, whole grain mustard and mango chutney - which the sausage pieces are coated in before being threaded onto the skewers with cherry tomatoes, chunks of pepper and button mushrooms (the recipe called for red onion too but I had none in and did not miss it).

The excess marinade I took with me and used as a dip once the kebabs were cooked, they only took a couple of minutes on each side over a hot bbq. This is them cooked and plated:

These were a welcome veggie addition to the bbq and it works very well with the quorn sausages. I really liked the flavours of the marinade although my husband was not too keen on the mustard element.

These are pretty healthy as only the sausage and marinade contains points. Based on each skewer containing one whole sausage, the propoints value per kebab is 4 as follows: sausage (1), mango chutney (2), oil (1).

I think these work really well, look and taste great and offer something a bit different for the bbq, as a bonus they are very low in fat compared to a meat version. I will definitely be making these again next summer! Simple to prepare and also pretty flexible as you could change the veg to suit whatever you have in the fridge without upping the points value.

We give these a 9/10.

Butternut Squash Tart

2011-08-22T07:29:00.000-07:00

55/70

So, a savoury tart was the latest recipe to get an airing from the quorn cookbook. I have to admit that although the recipe included making my own shortcrust pastry case I cheated and bought one ready made. Why? Because I made this on a school night and faffing about with pastry is not something I wanted to be doing when I am short on time.

I bought an Asda savoury pastry case and despite looking at it empty and thinking it would never be big enough it turned out to be almost exactly the right size, this is a photo of it before I put it in the oven:

I REALLY liked this tart, the flavour of the butternut squash and the goat's cheese worked surprisingly well together and we really enjoyed it. We ate the second half the next evening and the flavours had intensified some more, it was even tastier which was a nice surprise.

This is pretty simple to male, the key is to cut the butternut squash into small (about 1cm) and very even cubes so that they are pretty much softened after being sauteed with the onions. The goat's cheese is stirred through off the heat but melts into the filling nicely and a small amount of milk is added to turn the consistency to more like cream. This is a thick filling though and needs spooning rather than pouring into the pastry base.

After 20 minutes in the oven it was perfectly bubbling and golden brown as you can see here:

And here it is served:

The only downside to this tart is the points values. The pastry case on its own was 28 points (!! nearly an entire days worth) so that bumps it up a bit, there is no real way of skimping on the points with this one and each portion comes out at 12 points, it tastes indulgent though so this is probably a recipe to save as a treat and depending what you serve it with you can try to control what it will cost you as a full meal.

The 12 points (with the tart making 4 portions) works out as follows: pastry (7), goats cheese (3), quorn pieces (1), oil (1).

We really liked this although my husband is not usually a fan of this kind of pastry. It is a filling meal and a nice way to use butternut squash which can be a bit bland sometimes. I would certainly make this again.

We gave it 7/10.

Quorn Fillets in Vermouth

2011-08-16T11:46:00.000-07:00

54/70

This is a recipe I have been meaning to try for a while but due to the fact I never have any vermouth in the house it has taken ages to get round to!

Basically the method here is that you fry off the fillets until browned then stir fry leeks and chestnut mushrooms until softened, you then put the fillets back in the pan before adding the vermouth and cooking it off until half the alcohol has evaporated. Next you add stock, simmer and season to taste.

Once everything is cooked you stir through some creme fraiche (I used half fat) and fresh parsley, the sauce thickens a little once the creme fraiche is added and this is what it looks like in the pan:

And here it is served:

You can see from the pictures that the sauce is pretty thin and watery (despite the creme friache thickening it slightly), I do wonder if less stock would work better, the recipe calls for 300ml but I reckon if I made this again I would only use about 200ml which would likely produce a better effect.

The sauce is quite tasty with the vermouth producing a white wine edge to the flavour. I did not know until I bought a bottle but vermouth is effectively a very dry blend of wine, herbs and spices. This sauce would work equally well with a dry white wine instead of the vermouth if you do not have any in.

The chestnut mushrooms and leeks work very well in this sauce with the creme fraiche and it suits the fillets in this dish.

In terms of weight watchers points, I based the portion sizes on this recipe serving 3 with each portion containing two fillets. Because half of the ingredients here are zero points (leeks, mushrooms, stock granules) this recipe does very well for being low points with each portion coming in at 8 points as follows: quorn fillets (2), vermouth (1), oil (1), half fat creme fraiche (4).

I did not use the full tablespoon of oil to saute the mushrooms and leeks, a teaspoon and then a few sprays of oil as it was cooking was sufficient and keeps the points lower.

I might make this again as it is something quite different to do with fillets, the sauce could have done with being thicker but it went very well with new potatoes and would also be nice with mashed potato.

We would give this recipe a solid 7/10.

Brunch Fritatta

2011-08-09T11:09:00.000-07:00

53/70

As this dish is effectively an omlette I knew that my husband would not touch it with a barge pole (he has a deep rooted hatred of eggs). I therefore needed to cook it when I knew I could have it two days in a row without a fuss, I cooked it for Saturday lunch and then had the leftover portion on Sunday.

I really enjoyed this. It was simple, pretty quick and easy, plus it is VERY filling and low on points. It looks good on the plate too, quite impressive I thought! Here it is in the pan:

And served:

The sausages work really well in this, especially now that Quorn have improved their sausage recipe (and I think they taste much more authentic now). I added a few more cherry tomatoes than the recipe called for as I love them and I also used chestnut rather than button mushrooms as this was what I had in the fridge. I get the impression that you could pretty much use any type of quorn for this recipe but it does go very nicely with the sausage flavour.

So, I actually baked off my sausages rather than frying them to save on points, I used spray oil rather than olive oil to fry the onions and as I have a very good Prestige non-stick pan I had no problems. I only split this into two portions and I found this very filling indeed, it could easily do three portions as a light lunch and would be lovely with a side salad.

You do need a pan which you can put under the grill for a couple of minutes but thankfully mine has a metal handle so that was no problem. You also need to cook off your potato first, as I was cooking my sausages in advance I did this all at the same time and the timings were easy enough.

In terms of propoints, based on this serving two portions, each is worth 7 points as follows: eggs (3), sausages (2), potato (2). Obviously if you use a tablespoon of olive oil as the recipe suggests you will need to add a further 2 points per portion but this is still a fairly good meal at 9 points as it is so filling.

I will definitely make this again and may well tweak it to include more zero points veggies that need using up, I give this a 9/10.

Singapore Quorn Noodles

2011-08-01T12:21:00.000-07:00

52/70

Tonight I have made Singapore Noodles with Quorn mince from the cookbook. My first time using pak choi in a recipe and unusual, I thought, to put mince in what is effectively a stir fry, but we have really enjoyed it.

This recipe is bursting with flavours and the method of cooking means the vegetables (mange tout, spring onions and pak choi) remain lovely and crunchy. The mince is marinaded in hoisin sauce, rice wine, soy sauce, fresh garlic and chilli before being flash fried for a few minutes over a high heat, the spring onions and mange tout are then added before lastly the pak choi and beansprouts are thrown in, purely to heat through and wilt.

Noodles are added last and need to be pre-cooked, I always skim read the recipe to look for the fateful word 'meanwhile' and here you ideally need to start your noodles before you start the mince to ensure they are cooked and drained ready for the point at which you need them.

Here is the stir fry while still in the pan:

There is not a whole lot of sauce in this recipe, as you can see, but the mince does get nicely coated in all the flavours and it works well regardless of it being quite a 'dry' stir fry.

This is the dish served:

I love how quick this recipe is and how fresh it all tastes, this is probably my favourite oriental style quorn dish from the recipe book to date.

This is also pretty good in terms of weight watchers points, we actually made this recipe do 3 instead of 4 portions as it looked like 4 would have been stretching it, so I have calculated points based on this serving 3. On this basis each portion is still only 12 points including the noodles, broken down as follows: quorn (2), noodles (5), hoi sin sauce (3), soy sauce (1), oil (1). If you do make it stretch to 4 portions, each portion would be 9 points but I felt satisfied - not overly full with the size of portion I had here.

So, overall a lovely, tasty, quick and fairly healthy dish, something a bit different with the use of mince but an interesting concept and a nice change, we will definitely be making this one again and give it an 8/10.

Quorn Risotto

2011-07-25T12:07:00.000-07:00

51/70

I absolutely adore risotto and find it quite enjoyable to cook so I was looking forward to trying out this recipe. My husband, on the other hand, detests the texture of risotto - he is not too keen on many rice based dishes to be honest but in particular he was apparently fed liver risotto frequently as a child and came to hate it. I can't say I blame him, it sounds foul.

But anyway, this risotto uses quorn pieces and is also quite a 'bulky' risotto, containing asparagus and peas. The method was different to other risottos I have made in that the quorn and veg were cooked in a seperate pan and only stirred into the finished rice at the end. This did work but meant two large pans on the hob and simultaneous cooking.

The knack with risotto, in my opinion, is patience and resisting the urge to stir constantly. I also have a special risotto stirrer which is like a wooden spoon with a hole in it and which apparently helps to evenly cook the rice and not break up the starches too much (making it thick and sticky). Here the basic steps are to sweat the onions and garlic in oil before stirring in the rice to coat it in the oil, then a small glass of wine is added and simmered off before the stock is added, a small amount at a time and simmered off in the same way.

I have been cooking risotto for years but have never made one with so much veg in it, I really enjoyed it though and the cooking the veg off in a second pan means it does not require much more than heating through once it is added to the rice.

This is a picture of the finished risotto in the pan, after the pesto and parmesan have been stirred through at the end:

And this is what it looks like served, although the portions are not huge, like with all risottos this much is more than enough!

The flavours were really strong from the sweet peas and the al dente asparagus and this worked really well. Start to finish this did take around the 25 minutes that the recipe claimed, although, as I mentioned before, this involves cooking two lots of ingredients at the same time. Even my risotto hating husband thought it tasted pretty good and I think the fact it is such a 'busy' dish broke up the texture quite a lot and detracted from the amount of rice involved.

In terms of weight watchers points, each portion, based on the recipe serving 4 , is 12 points broken down as follows: rice (5), quorn (2), butter/oil (2), parmesan (1), pesto (1), wine (1). This is actually pretty low for what tastes like a much richer dish and a substantial portion. I would definitely make it again.

A nice touch, in my opinion, is adding the pesto right at the end as this gave depth to the flavour but was not too heavy. You could make this recipe lighter on points by using a reduced fat spread instead of butter and a reduced fat pesto, but given the full fat version still only comes in at 12 points I do not think making these changes is necessary.

I would give this an 8/10 (he says 6/10 but even this is quite positive considering his risotto phobia!).

Quorn Balls in Blue Cheese Sauce

2011-07-19T11:50:00.000-07:00

50/70

I will be honest, the thought of making Quorn Balls in Blue Cheese Sauce did not fill me full of excitement but of apprehension. I do not like blue cheese and this recipe uses this as the key ingredient, but having been pleasantly surprised by the blue cheese stuffed mushrooms made a while back I was prepared to be surprised.

I have to say that yet again this recipe was far nicer than I was expecting it to be. It is also a pretty simple and quick recipe and my blue cheese loving husband really liked it.

So, effectively you make a roux sauce with butter, flour, milk and stock and then stir in the blue cheese (I used gorgonzola), a pinch of nutmeg and the zest of half a lemon and stir it until thickened (and stinking).

You then pour the sauce over the quorn balls (which have been browned off in a pan) and bake the whole thing for about 20 minutes. This is what it looked like when it came out of the oven, I was very pleased it had not bubbled over and left me with a nasty mess!

I served it with penne pasta tonight and it worked quite well, the creamy sauce sticks to the pasta really well and I imagine this would be very suited to spaghetti or tagliatelle even more so. This is what it looked like served with some fresh parsley on the top:

With this being quite a 'creamy' looking sauce you would expect it to be fairly heavy on weight watchers points. However, using spray oil to fry off the quorn balls and skimmed milk and low fat spread in the roux (both of which worked perfectly) this actually comes in at 12 points for the sauce with a weighed out 6 points portion of pasta. The sauce is only 6 points.

So, the 6 points is made up of: quorn balls (2), gorgonzola (1), milk (1), butter (1), flour (1). I think it helps that the cheese has such a strong flavour because you do not use a huge amount of it in this sauce but it provides a vivid effect on the taste.

Considering I am not a fan of blue cheese I actually would make this again, I quite liked it. I also think it tastes like it should be far more points than it actually is and there is enough sauce to give decent portions from the recipe.

Overall we give this recipe 7/10 and if you really like blue cheese there is no doubt in my mind that you will ADORE this recipe!

Quorn Pieces in Black Bean Sauce

2011-07-18T12:56:00.000-07:00

49/70

Apologies for the gap in posts, I was off on a mini tour of Northern Italy, getting eaten alive by mozzies in Milan, wandering the beautiful streets of Verona, falling in love with Bologna (such an overlooked gem of a city) and stocking up at deli's all over Sienna.

And now I am back in the rainy, chilly UK. But only 8 weeks til our next overseas adventure - that thought is keeping me going. Ideally I would like to have finished this project by then. The intention is that I will still keep this blog going as an outlet for my cooking and baking and vegetarian adventures anyway.

So, last week, on our return, I made the Quorn Pieces in Black Bean Sauce and we did very much enjoy it although it does rely on a jar sauce and therefore is a little bit of a cheat in my opinion. The recipe calls for a 425g jar of the black bean sauce and I used Sharwoods for no other reason than the jar was exactly that size and therefore it helped me with calculating points.

The method is very simple, you just fry off the pieces with onion, garlic and ginger, whack in the (blanched) broccoli and red pepper (I also added some baby corn for a bit of extra colour and to bulk it out without adding points), add the sauce and then serve with noodles or rice. I tried it with both on seperate nights. I have to say the warmed up leftovers tasted even better on the second night as the flavours had evidently matured overnight in the fridge.

This is what the dish looked like served:

In terms of points values this is a pretty good recipe. The quorn based sauce is only 5 points per portion as follows: quorn (2), oil (1), sauce (2). This means that you can add it to a portion of rice for 11 points all in or to noodles for around about the same depending on the type and portion size.

I thought this was very tasty and I also really liked the method of blanching the broccoli for literally 2 minutes first, it meant that even with the very quick stir frying time it was cooked through but still with a lovely, fresh crunch to it.

This is a very adaptable dish and you could just as easily use up any leftover veg from your fridge to bulk it out. The pieces responded really well to the sauce and it was a satisfying and supremely easy and quick meal to assemble.

Although I would generally not use jar sauces this actually was so tasty and enjoyable that I will definitely make it again, it is one of those 'standby' meals where you can put it together with what you have available.

We gave it an 8/10.

Quorn Carbonara with Mince

2011-06-28T10:21:00.000-07:00

48/70

I was a bit baffled by even the concept of this recipe when I first looked at it. This was not helped by the fact that this is one of few recipes in the book which does not have an illustrative photograph of the completed recipe. Mince!? With carbonara!? It just did not sound right.

As I mentioned fairly recently when I made the standard quorn carbonara, this pasta dish is not one of our favourites anyway - but we were actually pleasantly surprised by this and so I was ready to be convinced that a version with mince (as absurd as this seemed) could also be impressive.

Unfortunately it was not.

It is a very simple recipe where basically you just cook off the quorn mince with some sauteed onion and garlic, cook the spaghetti and drain then whisk together a couple of eggs and a tblsp of parmasan and mix the whole lot together. The heat of the pasta and mince cooks the egg mixture and it coats the pasta. And it is DRY. Very dry.

To be fair, the first few mouthfulls were pretty ok, garnished with fresh parsley and some freshly grated black pepper...but halfway through I started to feel like I was eating straw...and I was just LONGING for some kind of sexy sauce with pizazz and flavour and heat...and this is not it.

Here is a photo of the pasta served:

Personally I just do not think carbonara with mince is a good idea. The mince and spaghetti soak up any moisture out of the eggs (which is really the only place any moisture is) and the whole thing is really rather bland. H (husband, getting bored of typing it so H will suffice) summed it up by saying 'it's not very exciting is it?' which was very diplomatic to be honest.

I do not think I will make this one again.

Points wise it is a very low dish for pasta, mainly because it is so simple, each portion works out at 10 points as follows: pasta (6), eggs (2), parmasan (1). I got round the oil by using a spray version to saute the onions and garlic.

Thanks but no thanks for this one, we gave it an uninspiring 5/10.

Quorn Fajitas

2011-06-28T10:05:00.000-07:00

47/70

We eat a lot of fajitas in our house, it is one of our favourite meals and I have been making them with quorn pieces for years so this was an interesting recipe to try. The main difference was that this recipe creates the seasoning from scratch whereas I would normally just use a packet mix to save time.

However, I have to say that the seasoning was very simple to make and tasty and due to the marinading it could easily be done in a morning for a quick meal later in the day. The marinade consists of lime juice and zest, cayenne pepper, sugar, cinnamon, cumin and oregano and I left mine soaking in for a couple of hours although the recipe suggests 30 minutes is sufficient.

The making of the fajitas is very simple, you just fry off some onion and peppers and then add the marinaded pieces, fry it all together for a few minutes and serve in the usual way with fresh salsa and sour cream to accompany them.

These are some photos of the process and the finished product:

I really enjoyed these and liked the citrus zing that the lime juice and zest had given to the marinade. My husband was not so convinced and almost immediately declared that he prefers the standard packet mix. He really is not a fan of citrus in savoury dishes though so I was not incredibly surprised.

I felt that it gave a fresh, balanced flavour which worked really well with the salsa, I very much enjoyed these fajitas and I also think this would work very well with steak strips instead of normal chicken style pieces.

In terms of ww propoints, these work out at 10 points per portion based on having 2 fajitas each with around a table spoon of reduced fat sour cream (I honestly cannot tell the difference between the full fat version and this) and fresh salsa.

The 10 points is broken down as follows: flour tortillas x 2 (5), quorn pieces (2), sour cream (2), oil (1). This is pretty good considering how filling and tasty they are and to be honest you could even get away with an extra tortilla for another 3 points and it would still be within a good points value for a main meal.

I gave this 8/10. Husband says 7/10 so somewhere around there!

Quorn Teriyaki

2011-06-22T12:56:00.000-07:00

46/70

I do apologise for the slow progress currently being made with this project, life has been incredibly busy of late and for some reason the manic activity (both at work and at home) looks set to continue until at least September. We have weddings, deadlines, family events, various application processes and professional hurdles to accomodate. 2011 looks set to be a demanding year all round.

Anyway, I made this Quorn Teriyaki over the weekend as I happened to have everything in to make it with. The recipe suggests marinading the quorn steak strips for around 30 minutes but as with all marinades I always believe that the longer the better. I prepped mine mid afternoon and allowed it to soak for a good few hours and I do believe this intensified the flavours.

The other good thing about doing this early is that when you come to cook the dish it is incredibly quick and easy, most of the ingredients go in the marinade so you are only left with stir-frying the lot and cooking the noodles, making this a speedy dish to produce.

Here is a pic of the steak strips marinading - the marinade consists of oil, grated fresh ginger, chopped garlic, rice wine vinegar, soy sauce, fresh orange juice and zest:

And this is a photo of the finished dish:

I actually 'cheated' and used some 'straight to wok' noodles so the whole thing was rather effortless at the end! I thought that the taste was pretty good and quite distinctive although as you also add fresh lemon juice whilst stir-frying this was yet another strangely citrus flavour (seems to be a favourite of the Quorn cook book in general). I liked the fresh coriander burst but then I do love the taste of coriander in anything, it is pretty strong here as it is added in at the last minute.

Points wise this is a pretty healthy dish with a portion coming in at 10 points including noodles. This is based on the recipe serving 3 portions though as personally we did not think 4 portions would have made very generous or filling meals. Here I have used 2 x 150g packets of straight to wok noodles intended to provide 3 servings so this should be factored in.

The 10 points is broken down as follows: quorn (2), noodles (6), oil (2). Everything else in this recipe has zero points values because it is all fresh veg and seasoning elements.

I would certainly make this again as I enjoyed it and it is so low in points. My husband was not overly keen on it but thought it was 'ok' - for him the citrus flavour made him less keen. This could be balanced out though in a future attempt and I would be tempted to increase the soy and rice wine instead to bring those flavours through.

Overall I would give this a 7/10.

I will endeavour to get more on here sooner rather than later but we are off to Italy next week on a fly drive foodie adventure (hoping to bring back some fresh parmasan and balsamic vinegar). Have fun in the meantime!

Quorn Schnitzel Parmi

2011-06-13T12:33:00.000-07:00

This is not from the book, it is a recipe I have adapted to recreate a dish which we saw a lot of in Australia and which my husband desperately wanted to try. It features on pretty much every pub menu across Australia as Chicken or Beef Schnitzel, the parmi bit is the option to have the dish Parmigiana style - but the ozzies all just refer to it as a 'parmi'.

I, of course, tried the chicken version a couple of times while we were out there and watched my veggie husband's face as he plainly coveted my tea. I immediately realised that by using quorn escalopes this dish would be fairly easy to recreate and therefore I tried it the minute we got home (literally less than 24 hours after we got off the plane).

It is safe to say it was a roaring success and as good as he imagined it was going to be - accordingly it has now become one of our 'treats' (due to the amount of cheese). I have adapted elements of some of the best parmi's I had out there, although not all contained either the ham or the tomato sauce. This recipe would also be very easy to adapt and you could also add sliced and griddled aubergine instead of (or in addition to) the ham layer.

To create the 'parmi' I take a quorn escalope (it does not matter which one, I have used both lemon & black pepper and the goat's cheese & broccoli and both work well although I prefer the former) and oven cook it as normal. Once it is cooked through I switch the grill on and apply a layer of pizza topper tomato sauce, a slice of quorn ham and about 20g of grated mature cheddar.

This is what it looks like about to go under the grill:

And here it is served with the perfect accompaniment - chunky oven chips!

We really enjoy this, the crunchy escalope really works with this addition and to be honest, it is hard to tell its not the real thing (in my humble opinion) because the texture is pretty much bang on.

The weight watchers points are not too bad considering - each parmi portion is 10 pro points, split out as follows (and based on lemon and black pepper version): quorn escalope (7), cheese (2), pizza topper (1). As only one ham slice is used my tracker does not bother counting this (one of the eccentricities of the pro points system).

This is not too bad a points value, with low fat oven chips it means a very filling and tasty meal for around 18 points and is well worth it.

I am quite pleased with how this experiment turned out and I will definitely be making these again, maybe Quorn should include it in the 2nd edition of the Recipe book!

Greek Style Quorn Salad

2011-06-06T10:54:00.000-07:00

45/70

After the indulgence of the bank holiday weekend and a week where I ended up eating out three times (purely by chance!) I decided to make one of the salads from the cookbook. This is despite me not being the biggest salad as a meal fan (can't stand cucumbers or raw tomatoes) but we do get through a lot of it on sandwiches and the such like.

I had the added incentive that my lovely friends the Haywards had provided me with some of their excess lettuce, fresh from the greenhouse (many thanks Mike!). I therefore picked the greek salad as I happened to have everything in that I needed and off we went.

The quorn in this recipe is pieces which are marinaded in lemon juice and olive oil before being browned off and put to one side. I prepped everything else while these were browning and the whole thing took less than 10 minutes to put together.

The 'dressing' for the salad is made of more lemon juice and olive oil combined with salt, pepper, oregano and fresh mint. This is then tossed with crumbled chunks of feta cheese, thinly sliced spring onions and avacado. You then layer the salad leaves and quorn pieces before tipping the dressing over and adding sliced tomatoes and black olives as garnish.

This is what it looked like:

This was actually a lovely dish, very light and with a zingy and very mediterranean tasting dressing. The spring onions came through as a stronger flavour than I thought and I would possibly use less of them next time and more feta - but overall this was thoroughly enjoyable.

Fantastic in terms of weight watchers points as most of the ingredients are free - I took it easy with the olive oil too and used less than the 5 tblsp recommended (I used 4). Each portion is therefore 6 points as follows: quorn (2), oil (2) avacado (1), feta (1).

I do think I would make this again and would seriously consider it as a lunch option for work although that would mean storing the dressing seperately for the freshest possible result.

It seems there are a number of light dishes to work through now so expect more of these kind of recipes which hopefully will be ideal for summer eating!

Veggie Brunch - St Kilda Style!

2011-05-30T06:14:00.000-07:00

This is actually a 'bonus' post and completely unrelated to my ongoing Quorn Cookbook shenanigans...

On a recent trip to Melbourne we had the most AMAZING veggie brunch in fabulous St Kilda and it inspired me to recreate it at home. The nice thing is that this is actually so amazeballs I think even meat lovers would not particularly notice that it is distinctly meat free!

As it is a bank holiday in the UK today I decided this was the ideal day to try this brunch recipe out, brunch is massively underrated in this country in our opinion and I love the fact that the Aussies just embrace this whole culture of going out for breakfast / brunch and make a big thing of it.

Anyway, this is what the finished brunch looked like:

And here is my husbands version without the egg and with extra beans:

On this second photo you can also better see the mushroom and spinach dish which is something we picked up in St Kilda, I have recreated this by spraying a frying pan with low cal oil, frying off one clove of crushed garlic and then adding sliced chestnut mushroom and slowly frying before adding a couple of handfuls of spinach and a small amount of salt. The result is this lovely veggie side dish which fills out a meat free breakfast.

You will notice I have used quorn sausages and bacon slices here but in the main this was to appease my husband and they are not really needed. For me the key to this breakfast is excellent scrambled egg (olive oil is the secret apparently), griddled halloumi, toasted slices of ciabatta, the mushroom/spinach combination and the beans, what more do you need!?

Very enjoyable and proof positive that meat is not actually necessary to enjoy a hearty brunch.

Quorn Vegetable Mince Curry

2011-05-30T05:47:00.000-07:00

44/70

Time for another curry from the cookbook, this one (Vegetable Mince Curry) I have to admit I kept flicking past in the book and pausing for a second to consider before dismissing it out of hand due to the 'mince' element. Mince?! In a curry!? I was not convinced....

But, I decided it was high time to give it a bash and as we are now around two thirds through the book I am having to stop discounting recipes which did not immediately appeal and start just cooking them!

So, this one is very quick and easy and, dare I say it, a bit of a cheat as it involves a jar of curry sauce. The recipe suggests that madras works well and accordingly I had chucked a jar of the same into my shopping trolley a few weeks ago in order to attempt this.

There is a certain amount of actual 'cooking' involved despite the jar but on the whole this is a convenience meal. And actually a pretty darn nice one! All you do is cook off some chopped potato and cauliflower in a pan of water for 8-10 minutes until virtually cooked, heat the curry sauce in another pan (I used a wok and was glad for it, there is way too much sauce to successfully use a frying pan) and then add the cooked potato/cauliflower and 300g quorn mince and simmer for 10 mins (I had to add a half jar of water in order to do this).

After this has simmered you chuck in 175g of frozen veg - the recipe specifies peas but I had none and therefore used mixed veg which worked perfectly well - and fresh spinach. Once this has heated through enough to cook the veg and wilt the spinach it is good to go.

Here it is cooking off towards the end:

And here it is served:

We actually really enjoyed this recipe - although I do think a jar sauce is a bit of a cheat. Also, the points total of this dish will depend on the points within the jar sauce so you will need to amend your points total as necessary - for info I used Aldi's Bilash Madras sauce.

Based on this sauce the points values per portion (based on it serving 4) is 7 broken down as follows: quorn mince (2), potato (2), sauce (3). Obviously serving with rice/naan then adds points but this still makes it a fairly low point choice overall.

It actually makes massive portions too as you can probably see above, you could easily get 5 rather than 4 portions out of this recipe. The curry itself is lovely and I agree that madras strength works well with it, I have never tried a mince curry before but I definitely will again based on the success of this one.

We gave it 8/10.

Quorn Sausage & Crushed Potato Pie

2011-05-23T09:55:00.000-07:00

43/70

This is the final recipe from the 'Little Chefs' section right at the back of the recipe book and as such it is a pretty simple recipe designed to appeal to cooking with kids. Right up my street when I am knackered and hungry then!

This is a brilliant recipe which also gives plenty of scope for tweaking. Effectively you just cook off the sausages (which I oven baked with a spray of low cal oil rather than frying) then saute the onions, tip in a tin of beans and some seasoning (ketchup, brown sauce - I added a splash of balsamic vinegar in lieu of the brown sauce) whack it in a casserole dish and top it with some cheesy mashed potato.

What you end up with is a satisfying, tasty sort of sausage casserole. The added bonus is that it is also pretty low in weight watchers points so all round this definitely gets the thumbs up from me. Here it is as it came out the oven:

And this is it plated. The portions don't look huge here but they were actually very filling.

I really liked the cheesy mash topping and by using extra mature cheddar I managed to get a pretty cheese-tastic flavour without using too much of it. I would also add in leftover mushrooms or other veggies if I made this again, it would work really well with roasted peppers in it or leftover courgettes. I love the adaptability of it.

In terms of propoints, each portion (based on the recipe serving 4) is 11 points, which considering this is a complete meal is pretty good. This is broken down as follows: quorn sausages (3), mashed potato (4), butter/oil spray (1), cheese (2), baked beans (1).

This is definitely a recipe I will be making again, it is simple, tasty and filling and definitely a winner for us, we gave it a 9/10.

Quorn Egg Fried Rice

2011-05-16T11:13:00.000-07:00

42/70

Hello all!

Finally back on board with the blog after time in Australia and then getting over the horrific jet log and over the obligatory 'post holiday blues'. Also after the awfulness that was the sweet potato loaf I feel like it was right and proper to back away from the experiment for a small time and then come back with a bang!

So here we have it....this recipe is from the 'Taste of Takeaway' section of the cook book and it worked very well indeed.

This recipe uses quorn fillets but would actually work perfectly well with pieces too - these are marinated in rice wine vinegar and grated fresh ginger (I suggest for as long as possible, overnight ideally - book only suggests they marinade while you cook).

I cook a LOT of South East Asian food anyway so used my wok for this and also used my previous experience to ignore the recipe when it suggested that the first thing to do was cook off the eggs in oil until they are 'set but not coloured' like an omlette and then cut it into small pieces. I ignored this for 2 reasons - firstly to avoid the excess oil and secondly because it is entirely unnecessary and you can simply do it later (without needing to cut it up) and it saves time/washing up...as I will explain...

So - really the first thing you need to do is cook the rice so it is ready when you need it in the recipe (sometimes I find the recipes in this book are a bit muddled about effective timings). Then you fry off the marinaded pieces/fillets in a wok or large frying pan with the garlic, spring onion, remaining ginger and the peppers until the pieces are heated through and the veg is stir-fried sufficiently (recipe says 6 minutes).

Finally you toss in the cooked rice and fresh coriander and stir fry until it is all the same temperature and then you do the egg bit (technical terms!) like so - push all the cooked rice/quorn to one side of the pan and crack the eggs into the space (trust me on this), break the yolks immediately but resist the urge to stir for around 20 seconds then quickly mix back in the quorn and rice and stir fry for around 2-3 minutes.

This is what it will look like - you can see that the egg has made the rice start clumping together.

After this you will have perfect cooked and shredded egg mixed through the recipe. Doing it this way also means that the egg is completely integrated with the other ingredients and will be stuck to the rice like genuine egg-fried rice. This is just the asian way of doing it and believe me, it works and the egg cooks through very quickly indeed.

Here it is served:

In terms of weight watchers points, this is a pretty healthy dish and accordingly scores more points from me in this respect! The recipe serves 4 portions and each portion is 10 propoints, broken down as follows: quorn (2) eggs (1), rice 6, oil (1).

We really enjoyed this dish although it is neither very spicy or intense in terms of the flavour, it is, however, tasty and easy to make and as seen above, it is pretty healthy too.

This dish feels more filling than you expect it to be and it should also be noted that although the recipe calls for 300g of rice (raw weight) I only used 240g as I wanted each portion to be 60g for points purposes. I also knew that this was plenty per person in terms of portion size and I can confirm that it works perfectly well for 4 with this weight. If you are not dieting of course, feel free to use 300g for a more substantial meal.

We gave it 8/10 and I will definitely be making this again (maybe with some tweaks to the marinade for a more intense flavour). It is another example of how quorn works so well with marinades.

Enjoy!

Gday

2011-05-11T09:13:00.001-07:00

Hello all

Just wanted to say hi as I have been away for 3 weeks in Australia having a whale of a time and accordingly am very behind with this blog.

I will be getting back up to speed asap, I have one recipe to put on already (Quorn Egg Fried Rice) and am hoping to do another later this week (Sausage and Potato Pie).

Hope you are all well and enjoyed the good weather which we apparently missed, how come we are home and now it's raining again!? Sod's law!

Sweet Potato Loaf

2011-04-11T12:11:00.000-07:00

41/70

Hmmm.

This is most definitely not one of my favourites from the book. In fact, what happened with this recipe was me going hungry because I could not face eating more than half of my portion for tea and then the other half of the loaf getting ditched because neither of us wanted to contemplate it again.

Also, this is a rather complicated recipe in relation to the others in the book, there are a lot of ingredients in it and a lot of 'faff'. Like pre-soaking the bulgur wheat and grating the sweet potato/carrot/onion.

I thought that once mixed it actually looked and smelled like it was going to be very tasty. This is what it looked like once cooked (I had intended to take a picture of it before I put the mix in the tin but I forgot):

In theory it should be very nice, containing the aforementioned grated veg, oats, bulgur wheat, quorn mince (a minimal amount) and bound together with egg and yeast extract. In reality it is not (in our opinion) particularly enjoyable on any level. In fact it reminded me of my first foray into vegetarianism in the early 90s when all nut roasts looked and tasted like this - dry, bland and uninspiring.

It also takes a LONG time to cook. 45 minutes in the oven had my husband crying out for food after he had run home from work, unfortunately thanks to all the faff involved it took about an hour and a half from start to finish.

The final instruction was to let it stand in the tin for 5 minutes before turning out and serving but I was beyond patience by and left it for about a minute. Perhaps that is why mine crumbled when I tried to carve it into slices, as illustrated in the below picture of the dish served:

It looks like a pile of veggie stuffing and to be honest that's exactly what it tastes like.

I just did not like or enjoy any aspect of this meal and I won't be making it again. I guess every cookbook is going to have some recipes which just do not appeal and for us this is definitely one of them.

I do think if you increased the volume of quorn mince, added some chopped dried fruit and maybe used cous cous instead of the (very bloating) bulgur wheat this might be more appealing - but I am still not sure I would want to eat a whole quarter as a portion.

In terms of weight watchers points this is pretty low at 6 points a portion based on the loaf containing 4 portions. This is made up as follows: quorn (1), egg (1), wheat (1), oats (1), oil (1), sweet potato (1).

Despite the low rating and health appeal I do not think I will enforce this on my husband or myself again! We gave it a 1/10 which may seem harsh but reflects how little we enjoyed it.

Quorn & Gnocchi Bake

2011-04-05T10:55:00.000-07:00

40/70

This recipe was another pleasant surprise - one which we were not particularly relishing the prospect of trying but which turned out to actually be very nice. I do quite like gnocchi although it can be stodgy and I have had very good and very bad variations in the past. As this again involved a creamy cheese sauce I was also concerned about the calorie content, but it turned out lower in points values than I was expecting.

The quorn in this recipe is fairly minimal and for the first time seems to be more of an additional ingredient than the star of the dish. You can use either bacon or ham (as in the carbonara) and I chose to use ham here, cut into long strips. The sauce is a basic roux/bechamel base which you tip over the cooked gnocchi and wilted spinach before baking for around 25 minutes.

This is what it looked like when I put it in the oven:

And here it is once cooked:

I was a little worried that I ended up making the recipe with large gnocchi, about the size of a quails egg each, rather than with the smaller ones I had intended to. The recipe does not specify either way, just stating 400-500g in weight, but I felt that the smaller version would have worked best. As it happened my online grocery shop substituted the ones I had ordered for these giant ones but actually it worked very well.

I used stork to make the roux sauce (butter, flour, milk and cheese) as I had no butter in, this meant that it actually came in at slightly lower points values but the sauce worked perfectly well with this substitution so I would do this again next time to save points.

This recipe is very filling and although this served portion may look small it is actually a substantial amount:

One great tip from this recipe was to drain the gnocchi through the spinach (in a colander) thereby wilting the spinach quickly and effectively ready to whack it in the baking dish. I will definitely use that tip again, I am all for minimising washing up!

In terms of weight watchers points, based on the recipe providing 4 portions (which it does), each portion is worth 11 points as follows: gnocchi (6), cheese (2), flour (1), quorn ham (1), butter (1). This is surprisingly low in points for a main meal like this and tastes like it should be more - always a good sign!

We really liked this recipe and I will make it again, I will probably try it with smaller gnocchi to see how it compares. We gave this a 7/10.

Quorn Carbonara

2011-04-02T09:37:00.000-07:00

39/70

And so, this classic pasta dish has never been one of my favourites, nor one of my husbands. For some reason creamy pasta sauces are not really too appealing to me and I also tend to avoid them because of the fat content, but in the name of this experiment I this week decided the time was nigh to confront the carbonara.

The quorn in this recipe can be either ham or bacon cut into strips. I chose to use the bacon and it was the first time I had used this particular quorn product, I have to say we were mighty impressed with it and it managed to eradicate a very bad memory from years ago of the last time we tried any kind of veggie bacon (think pink cardboard). It stays a nice texture even when fried off and tastes of a lovely smoky bacon flavour - it worked really well in this dish.

I have to say the pair of us were very pleasantly surprised by this pasta dish and enjoyed it way more than we were expecting to. I loved the fact that this is a very quick dish to create and from start to finish it took me around the predicted 20 minutes. I opted to use low fat creme fraiche and that also cut the fat - it came out lower in points than I was expecting too - so all round a success!

This is the carbonara in the pan as I was stirring through the sauce at the end:

And this is the dish served:

You can see that I used tagliatelle rather than the suggested spaghetti, this was simply because I had a packet of fresh tagliatelle in the fridge but I think it works well with this creamy sauce as there is more surface area for it to stick to.

The recipe is simple although I did not follow the suggested timings due to using fresh rather than dried pasta. Firstly you saute off the bacon/ham strips until they are slightly coloured (I did this using low fat oil spray to avoid extra points while boiling water for the pasta), then you make the sauce by combining the creme fraiche, grated hard cheese (I used grana padano), eggs, nutmeg and some black pepper. Once the pasta is cooked you simply drain it, put it back in the hot pan and stir through both the bacon and the sauce.

The heat of the pan and the pasta cooks the raw egg in the sauce so you do not need to worry about this, it leaves you with a silky, creamy sauce and with the quorn bacon it really does capture the classic carbonara flavours.

In terms of weight watchers points, each portion is worth only 13 points which is pretty low considering the style of dish and the creamy sauce. This is broken down as follows: pasta (6), creme fraiche (2), quorn (2), cheese (2), egg (1).

We gave this dish 7/10 which is higher than I was expecting it to score, I will likely make it again aswell because it was actually very tasty and lower in points than I thought. Nice one quorn!

Sweet Potato Curry

2011-03-25T05:17:00.000-07:00

38/70

This thai style curry is again from the 'Little Chefs' section at the back of the cookbook - recipes designed to be easy for kids to help with. It is indeed a very simple curry recipe but it works very nicely and the sweet potato gives it a lovely flavour.

Essentially, this curry is just red thai curry paste and coconut milk with a bag of quorn pieces and 300g of sweet potato chunks in it. Very simple indeed. The fresh coriander stirred in at the end gives it an authentic flavour and works very well. We felt that the quorn was not overly strong in flavour in this recipe but the sweet potato worked very well. The recipe calls for only half a tblsp of the thai paste but we used 2 tbslp knowing our preference for spicy food.

This recipe could benefit from the addition of some lemongrass and fresh garlic, but for a quick and simply curry it is perfectly adequate and quite enjoyable.

This is the curry served with basmati rice:

In terms of weight watchers points, this is quite a good recipe considering the coconut milk (I used a light version anyway). Based on this recipe making 4 portions, each serving is 13 points including a standard portion of rice. This is broken down as follows: rice (6), quorn (2), coconut milk (3), curry paste (2).

We quite enjoyed this and as a quick and healthy meal we would probably make it again, all be it with some tweaks to add intensity to the flavours. We gave it a 7/10.

Quorn Moussaka

2011-03-15T02:35:00.000-07:00

37/70

This dish is my nemesis.

About 5 years ago we had an absolutely delicious roasted vegetable moussaka at a friend's for dinner. It was so good in fact that being a lovely person she allowed us to take what was left home for tea the next day. We enjoyed it immensely and it spurred me on to create a version myself (how hard could it be? right?).

What followed was a couple of years where I recreated this dish every 6 months or so and every single time (different recipes/methods) it was BAD. The veg would go soggy. It would be abominably bland. It would have the consistency of gruel. My husband began to FEAR the moussaka. I began to hate it.

About a year ago I tried again with a quorn based recipe I found online....the results led to my husband pleading with me never to ever make moussaka again. I was inclined to agree with him because on that occasion it was just downright unpleasant and neither of us finished it.

So....when I saw that there was a moussaka in this book its fair to say I freaked out a little....and this weekend just gone I finally tackled the beast!

Unfortunately, I still seem to be jinxed - this is the first recipe in the book where there are two glaring errors in the text which left me confused. I also managed to buy the wrong kind of milk (condensed instead of evaporated) which caused a panic halfway through cooking and rapid googling for a solution. But overall, as far as moussakas go in this house, this was a massive improvement.

This is the moussaka as it came out the oven, it looks pretty good (or at least I thought so):

The recipe is one of the most technically complicated in the book so far and has a pretty extensive ingredients list. This is where my first issue with the recipe arose as in the list of ingredients is a tin of puy lentils with the word (optional) in brackets. I happened to have a tin in the cupboard so intended on adding this....however, the lentils are then never referred to in the recipe text. Rather than taking a flyer on when to add them therefore, I simply left them out. This is clearly an omission of the recipe writers though.

I grilled my aubergine slices first, rather than after starting the mince mixture as is suggested in the recipe text. I wanted to be able to just get on with mixing everything else together so I simply put the aubergine to one side before ploughing on with the base sauce.

The base sauce is pretty straightforward, onion, garlic and carrots are gently fried until soft, the mince and seasonings are added along with the tomatoes and bob's your uncle. The recipe states to bring this to the boil - I found there was not enough fluid to do so and added half the tomato tin of boiled water and this did the trick. Easy enough.

Now for the sauce....

It was at this point that I realised I had bought the wrong type of milk. The tins are all the same for the carnation brand and I had therefore picked up condensed milk (which is heavily sweetened and intended for desserts) rather than evaporated. I googled and discovered this was not going to be a suitable exchange and then realised I would need to create a basic bechemel to substitute for it.

While I was doing this I spotted the 2nd error (or lack of clarity) in the recipe. Had I had the necessary evaporated milk the recipe tells me to make up the 410g tin to a litre by adding water. Ok - that's fine. Except that a little further down it states to add the 40g of cornflour to '6 tblsp of the milk'. Does it mean normal milk which is not listed in the ingredients? (which is a method used in other recipes in this book with cornflour). Or does it mean 6 tblsp of the evaporated milk and water mixture?

Anyway, this milk confusion was, for me, beside the point as I had had to abandon the sauce mix from the book and create a bechemel from scratch. Thankfully this sauce turned out to be absolutely fine and worked well.

This is the moussaka as served:

The recipe suggests it makes 4-6 portions. I would say it is 4 portions as a main meal without accompaniment, 6 portions if you are serving with bread or a salad on the side. The portion shown above is a quarter of the entire dish.

Amazingly we actually did enjoy this dish although after years of my terrible attempts my husband was a bit jaded about it and said it is 'like lasagne but not as nice'. I sort of see what he is saying. This is a nice dish, it tastes ok (and compared to my previous attempts its a vast improvement!) but it is not so great I will make it again and neither is it particularly inspiring to me.

In terms of weight watchers points, one portion (based on the recipe serving 4) contains 13 points as follows (I have based this on the actual sauce from the recipe not the one I ended up making): quorn mince (2), evaporated milk (3), flour (2), butter (2), oil (2), cornflour (2).

We decided that for us this recipe was a 6/10. Not a high scorer from the book for us but in terms of a moussaka in this household quite an achievement. If you are a big fan of this dish then you may enjoy it more than we did. It is a pretty healthy version considering the rich sauce so do give it a go.

Cheese & Onion Quorn Burgers

2011-03-14T12:21:00.000-07:00

36/70

This recipe comes from the 'Little Chefs' section of the book, right at the back, containing 3 recipes you can make with the kids. I can see why this one would appeal as it involves getting your hands mucky and shaping the burgers which is quite good fun (although I did it without any help from any children!).

We were really impressed with these burgers and despite the fact you can pick up pretty good quorn burgers fresh or frozen and cook them so conveniently quickly, I would consider making these again if we were having a veggie friendly barbeque. This is because they are so fab tasting and feel like a gourmet burger.

When we were in Berlin last year we visited a couple of their specialist veggie fast food shops (I so wish we had more of these in the UK), two which are worthy of a specific mention were Yellow Sunshine in trendy Kreuzberg and Vego Foodworld in Prenzlauer Berg. Both serve fantastic vegan burgers, wraps, kebabs, pizzas and all sorts of other tasty junk food (!) which can be eaten on site or taken away.....these quorn burgers reminded us of meals we ate in these places, veggie - but a little bit special!

Firstly, here is a picture of the burger mix once everything was together in one bowl and I was about to start shaping:

The burger mix is essentially quorn mince, breadcrumbs (the recipe calls for wholemeal but I used ciabatta as I had some in the freezer), softened onion and rosemary, marmite dissolved in boiling water, egg, soft cheese and grated cheddar. It makes, as you can see, a very sticky and quite wet mixture although it does take a lot of stirring to get it to this point and it is essential that the soft cheese is distributed evenly all the way through it.

The recipe states that this mix makes approximately 8 burgers of a 2cm depth each. I used a round metal cookie cutter to shape mine, pushing a handful of mix into it quite firmly so that my burgers looked like this:

The mix made 5 substantial burgers for me but obviously you could have smaller and more if you shaped them differently. I was impressed at how the mix held its shape at this stage - although you do have to be a little careful with them.

You then fry them in a little oil for around 4 minutes on each side. Make sure the pan is hot before you start as they seal very well if you do this and you lessen the risk of them falling apart (we had very little problem with this). Here is what they look like once flipped, you can see that they brown quite noticably, keep an eye on them and watch the time, the 4 mins per side seems to be bang on to me.

So, once they have had the necessary cooking time you can transfer them to your bread rolls or pittas. This is what they look like served in baps and then as I ate them (thinking of weight watchers) with half a bap each.

Verdict? Absolutely delicous and well worth the faff. The texture is pretty amazing and so much more like a meat burger than the pre-made standard veggie burgers you can buy. The cheese in them really stands out and gives these a really deep and rich flavour which is also juicy and intense. The seasoning could be easily adapted in the recipe, I added a pinch of chilli to ours and it worked really well so feel free to tinker when you cook off the onion with the herbs at the beginning of the recipe.

In terms of weight watchers points, the entire recipe works out as 22 points based on the following: quorn mince (4), oil (4), breadcrumbs (4), grated cheddar (5), low fat soft cheese (2), egg (2), marmite (1). The reason I have given you the full recipe points is that you may make more or less burgers than I did, divide the 22 by the number of burgers so that it is right for you.

My husband was determined these got a 10/10 and I have to say I am in agreement with him on this occasion. A clever, enjoyable recipe to make and a delightful end result to make a burger which could deservedly and proudly compete with meat products - but with the added benefit of containing considerably less fat!

This is definitely one I will make again and has been one of the best recipes to date from the book.

Coconut Curry with Chilli Rice

2011-03-04T10:47:00.000-08:00

35/70

Another curry from the cookbook as we hit halfway in the project. This one has a thai feel to it and uses red curry paste as well as coconut milk to produce a very tasty curry indeed. We really liked the rice in this recipe too and having made more of an effort with it really made a difference.

This is the curry and rice cooking - you need to be able to multi-task for this recipe to be effective:

This is a close up of the rice which is cooked as per packet instructions before being added to stir fried spring onions, fresh chilli and frozen peas in olive oil:

And finally this is a picture of the rice and curry served together:

This curry uses steak strips which gives a hearty beef curry feel to the dish. The flavours are fantastic and the heat was just right for me (with 2 tablespoons of paste and a whole red chilli in the rice) although Mr O would have preferred a little more. I would say it is medium heat but do use less paste if you prefer your curry milder.

I really liked the cherry tomatoes, dessicated coconut and coriander added in right at the end, they kept their fresh flavours by adding so late in the cooking process and the sweetness of the tomatoes worked very well with the heat of the sauce.

This is a fairly simple curry, onion and garlic are softened before the paste is added, the steak strips are then stir fried into the mixture before the coconut milk is added and the whole thing is simmered. The trick is then cooking the rice alongside the curry. I ignored the recipe's instructions to start the rice once the curry is simmering and actually started it at the same time as I browned off the onion/garlic. This meant that the rice was cooked by the time the simmering stage was reached and I simply left it in the pan keeping hot until I needed it.

The rice itself was very nice, just enough bite and flavour from the spring onions, chilli and peas to make it more interesting than plain steamed rice and it worked very well to enhance the flavours in the curry.

In terms of weight watchers points, this works out at 14 propoints per portion including the rice which is pretty good. I should point out though that the recipe calls for 300g of rice for 4 people but I used 240g as I know that a 60g portion is plenty per person and accounts for 6 propoints. I also used reduced fat coconut milk to shave some further points off.

The 14 points per portion are broken down as follows: rice (6), quorn (2), coconut milk (3), dessicated coconut (1), oil (1), curry paste (1).

This is a very satisfying and flavoursome meal which we really enjoyed, it is slightly more complex to make than other recipes within this book but well worth the effort. At 14 points per portion it is definitely one which we will be making again.

We give this a 9/10.

Ciabatta Pizza

2011-03-03T12:06:00.000-08:00

34/70

This is the final pizza-esque recipe from the Quorn cookbook and actually it is a blinder! Simply, tasty and very filling, this makes use of ciabatta as the base and contains quorn sausages in the topping. Mr O made this for our tea the other night after I had had a particularly long and tiring day and it was just the ticket.

Basically you slice a whole ciabatta loaf in half and then split each half in two so that you have four half depth slabs of bread to act as your bases. Each one is then spread with bruscetta topping (ready made as per the recipe - I picked mine up from Asda where it is kept with the ketchup, olives and condiments) and pre-cooked and sliced sausages and chopped black olives are scattered across the top. This is then topped with some grated mozzarella cheese and baked for around 15 minutes.

This is what the end result looks like:

The taste is very nice indeed and it works well with the olives and the sausages, both quite distinct flavours. The bruscetta topping is also very nice although it does feel like a bit of a cheat. I would normally make tomato sauce for pizzas. However - this bruscetta topping has quite an intense sun dried tomato flavour and it works well with this particular pizza. All the flavours here are strong and I think that is why I really enjoyed it.

I think it could work with less cheese and that would cut down on the calories / weight watchers points. But it is lovely with the full amount of mozzarella on it. Unfortunately this recipe is always going to be much nicer without tweaking and that makes it quite a high value recipe in terms of points - definitely worth it as a treat though.

Based on the recipe serving 4 the point value per serving is 11 which works out as follows: ciabatta (5), sausages (2), mozarella (3), bruscetta topping (1). If you serve it as 4 portions then you ideally need to put something with the pizza as it is not very big. I was absolutely ravenous when we ate ours and I am ashamed to say I therefore ate 2 of these size portions and blew a whole 22 points of my daily allowance on it (thank goodness for the weekly extra pot).

I really did enjoy this recipe though and I felt it was worth the amount of points allocated to it. We will definitely make this again. It is also worth noting that this recipe sits in the 'snacks for sharing' section of the book and the recipe suggests that you cut it into small finger portions for parties - it would work exceptionally well if you did this. A very versatile recipe.

We give this lovely pizza dish a 9/10.

Steak Wraps

2011-03-02T11:38:00.000-08:00

33/70

This recipe is from the 'snacks for sharing' section of the quorn cookbook and I made it for our lunch over the weekend. It was actually a very enjoyable lunch and a serving of two wraps is substantial and a good portion.

This is a photo of one wrap 'undone' and one wrapped. I cannot fathom how they make the ones in the book stick with the seal on the top but I can't do it so this is the best way I can show them:

The method is pretty simple; each wrap is spread with onion relish and some fresh rocket leaves then the stir fried steak strips and mushrooms are mixed with roasted peppers, chopped up olives and sun blush tomatoes and spread between the wraps which are then folded up ready to eat.

The onion relish adds a lovely sweetness to the filling and I liked the roasted peppers and sun blush tomatoes too. The filling is very flavoursome and not over heavy on the steak strips either. Only 150g is needed for 6 wraps, it is plenty however, given the amount of other elements within the fillings.

On a health basis, these are not ideal but then it could be worse. Each portion of 2 wraps is 10 propoints worked out as follows: wraps (6), steak strips (1), onion relish (1), sun blush tomatoes (1), oil (1). You will notice that most of the points are from the wraps, I used a smaller version from asda (not the large deli wraps) and this was the lowest pointed wraps I could locate. The larger ones are 4 points each.

This is therefore a substantial chunk of points for a lunch but it is very enjoyable and is a recipe I am likely to make (or roughly follow) again in the future. I have never tried an onion based relish before and that was definitely a plus point.

Overall we gave this recipe 7/10.

Roasted Pepper, Sausage & Rocket Salad

2011-02-26T10:35:00.000-08:00

32/70

This recipe comes from the salads section of the Quorn cookbook and is the first one I have attempted. As it contains pasta and quorn sausages I figured it would be substantial enough to have as a main meal. The recipe suggests it served 2-3 but I simply split it into two good portions for our tea and personally I was satisfied with it as a full meal.

In any event this is a salad designed to be served warm rather than cold and I have to say we did enjoy it very much, it is something quite different with Quorn and in the summer this would be a delightful midweek supper.

This is the salad as served, I think it looks pretty nice:

The method is, in theory, very simple. You simply toss together the cooked pasta, cooked and sliced sausages, sliced grilled peppers, pesto and rocket and there you have it. In practice, I had a nightmare with the peppers and although I will definitely make this salad again I will definitely roast the peppers rather than grilling them although this will undoubtedly take more time.

The problem I had with an electric grill was that it was difficult to gauge the point between the peppers appearing not to be cooked at all and then suddenly being completely black. Also they need constant turning and it's all a bit labour intensive. I also found the skins were a nightmare to remove although I know when I have roasted them previously the skins come off in large pieces, not the bitty small sections that happened here.

The sweetness of the roasted peppers is a big part of the flavours and is very tasty - so you do need to do this bit, but for me I will definitely ignore the recipe and roast then blanche in cold water next time.

Overall this is a very tasty salad, you get a lovely balancing from the sweet peppers, tangy pesto, vivid rocket and the herby sausages (I used the lincolnshire ones). I did not use the recommended 4 tblsp of red pesto as I felt this was too much and it added a lot to the points/fat content. I used 2 tblsp instead and it was fine.

In terms of weight watchers points this was more than I was expecting (probably because of the word 'salad' being in the title). Serving 2 each portion contains 10 points which is split as follows: pasta (5), sausages (5). This is based on 6 sausages being sliced up so around 3 each and I got around using oil to brush on the peppers by spraying them with fry light instead (which is zero points) which worked perfectly well.

A pretty healthy and very enjoyable meal here then, the flavours work well and it is very tasty. I think my husband was left a bit hungry but then he exercises a lot so needs more calories than I do, as a light main meal this was perfectly sufficient for me.

We give this salad an 8/10.

Moroccan Quorn Tagine

2011-02-24T10:41:00.000-08:00

31/70

This week I have trialled quite possibly my favourite recipe EVER from Quorn. It was for a Moroccan Tagine and my goodness me it was tasty.

This is the tagine while it was cooking:

And here it is served on a bed of cous cous:

In order to make this recipe I did have to go out and hunt down some Harissa paste which I have never used before. Thankfully my local Sainsbury's stock it and a small jar is only 99p. The recipe actually calls for 'Rose Harissa' which you can buy online and is a specialist version but I think the standard version more than sufficed in what was a spectacularly tasty meal for us.

Harissa is a chilli based paste but this recipe is not overly spicy, the base sauce is chopped tomatoes, red onion and garlic, peppers and cherry tomatoes are added along with cumin and the harissa - to which quorn pieces are added at an early stage to soak in lots of flavour.

The sauce is then thinned out with vegetable stock and allowed to simmer for around half an hour, the result is a spicy, tangy, sweet sauce with a thick consistency that is bulked out by chick peas and absolutely bursting with flavour. Coriander is stirred in late in the cooking process, before serving, and this again enhances the flavours and is very distinctive.

This recipe makes 4 good sized portions and we ate the second lot on the following night - 24 hours maturing in the fridge actually improved and enhanced the flavours even more. Served with cous cous this is an incredibly filling and enjoyable meal. A bonus is that it is also very low in fat/weight watchers points.

One portion of this tagine works out at only 8 propoints broken down as follows: quorn (2), chick peas (3), oil (2), apricots (1). With a standard portion of cous cous for another 2 points this equates to a very filling meal for an amazing value of 10 points.

I will most definitely be making this again and am very pleased to have been introduced to Harissa as such a fab ingredient. We enjoyed this very much and I would be inclined to give it a 10/10 - the husband thinks it is very good but not quite worthy of that accolade so overall we have agreed on a 9/10.

Absolutely delicious!

Spicy Mexican Pizza

2011-02-22T10:24:00.000-08:00

30/70

The final of the 3 pizzas featured in the Quorn cookbook graced our table on Sunday night and in keeping with what is fast becoming tradition in our house, Mr O did the cooking.

For me, this is definitely my favourite of the three pizzas by far. It tasted less greasy and heavy and the flavours were really distinctive and enjoyable. This is what the pizza looked like - I also think it is the most aesthetically pleasing of the three:

The method for this one is in keeping with a traditional pizza (and in contrast to the Bolognese version from the book). The sauce is applied cold to the base and cooked on top of the pizza. I really was impressed with the sauce here though which was the tastiest by far; chopped tomatoes, tomatoe puree, garlic and - the sepecial ingredient - coriander, are mixed together before being spread on the base. Monteray Jack cheese is used instead of mozzarella and green peppers, quorn fajita pieces and sweetcorn are scattered across the top.

Mr O tweaked it by adding some chilli flakes to the sauce as he knows we like a bit of spice in our food and it worked really well. The recipe actually makes two smaller pizzas rather than one big one although a portion size is based on half a pizza still so makes for a much smaller portions. I actually ate about 2/3 of this pizza before I was full but I have based the points values on the portion sizes as if you served it with a side salad it would be a perfectly adequate meal.

So, why was this my favourite? I think because it had more chunky veg on it than the others did, it is much more like a pizza I would choose to buy or order and lighter on the cheese. But the coriander is a star player for me - you can really taste it through the sauce and it adds a really interesting flavour which cuts through the others. I love coriander so for me it was the icing on the cake. This is definitely one I will be making again.

This was also the first time I had bought or used the Quorn Fajita Strips and as a product these will definitely be appearing on my shopping list again, the fact they are ready seasoned is very convenient and it was the flavouring of these which added to the overall effect on this pizza. They are spicy but not overly so.

Points wise, each portion (1/2 pizza) is 9 points based on the following: base (6), quorn (1), cheese (2). Still heavy if you do in fact eat more than half the pizza but not too bad for such an enjoyable meal. Well worth the points spend in my opinion.

We gave this a 9/10.

Quorn Steak Supper in a Flash

2011-02-19T09:58:00.000-08:00

29/70

Last night I made Quorn Steak Supper in a Flash from the cookbook. I actually really liked it but the making of it was hardly as quick, simple and effective as I hoped and the recipe in the book did not overly help either.

Firstly, the recipe does not state defrosted or frozen for the steak strips in this recipe but as it usually points you to the defrost instructions if it intends you to cook them from defrosted, I assumed it was from frozen. Having used the strips from frozen I am now convinced that this recipe means for you to use them from defrosted as it would surely work so much better. This is why.

The first thing you do here is create a seasoned flour by mixing flour, paprika, salt and pepper to taste. You then shake the seasoning and strips in a bowl together until they are 'coated'. With frozen pieces/strips they don't really get coated. Sure, some of the flower sticks to them but more of it stays in a massive pile at the bottom of the bowl. If they were defrosted this would work ten times better.

The knock on effect of this is that when you then add the strips/flour to the oil in the pan there is still so much loose flour that it simply soaks up all the oil in claggy lumps and is not particularly conducive to frying off the strips (and then browning the onions and potatoes) at all.

Anyway, I did manage to negotiate this but it took more time than I was expecting. And my second niggle is also to do with the time. This recipe being called 'in a flash' implies it is very quick to make - but then when you look at the ingredients it calls for already cooked new potatoes - so really you also have to add in the cooking time for them. I cheated and zapped mine in the microwave but that still added 11 minutes cooking time to the recipe. It is not as speedy as you think!

Here is the steak supper as it came towards the end of cooking:

And here it is plated:

I have to say it is very tasty and is definitely something I will make again. I wrongly decided to add half a chilli to mine to ensure it wasn't bland (as I am fast realising my palate is more accustomed to spicy things than some of the quorn recipes allow for) but actually this recipe did not need it. The balance of the paprika and garlic gave it a strong enough flavour on its own.

The other bonus of this recipe is the points values, each portion (based on the recipe serving 4) equates to 5 propoints broken down as follows: quorn steak strips (1), oil (1), flour (1), potatoes (1), stock (1). This is amazingly low and makes it a great choice if served with a low point side, I chose to use sweet potato chips for another 5 points.

We gave this recipe an 8 out of 10 and I did really enjoy it. Next time I will definitely use defrosted strips though and allow extra time to cook the potatoes.

Coming up over the next week will be the final pizza from the book (spicy mexican), Moroccan Tagine and a sausage and pasta salad. Hope you all have a really good weekend.

Quorn Bolognese Pizza

2011-02-16T12:47:00.000-08:00

28/70

The second pizza we have trialled from the Quorn cookbook and Mr O took the reins again on this one (I think he secretly likes cooking from time to time, he used to work as a chef in his local pub in the holidays).

So, this recipe is much more complicated than the quorn balls pizza and requires a bolognese sauce to be made first in a pan then spread across the base before adding the cheese. In the interests of this blog I insisted Mr O followed the recipe (much to his annoyance) and I watched him make it.

I have to say I think I prefer the quorn balls pizza in terms of flavour - but the method here could certainly be adapted to improve on this.

Here is the pizza when cooked:

You will notice that the sauce looks almost burnt here - but it isn't, in effect the sauce gets cooked twice and takes on a dark hue, but it certainly does not taste burnt.

The bolognese sauce is a fairly standard combination of onions, garlic, quorn mince, chopped tomatoes, tomato puree, vegetable stock and seasoning. The recipe calls for both mozzarella and cheddar on the top which unfortunately bulks out the fat content.

Points wise this is even higher for half a pizza than the quorn balls version, this is 18 propoints per portion made up as follows: base (7), quorn mince (2), oil (1), mozzarella (5), cheddar (3). This is a pretty high point count even though I used a lower fat version of the mozzarella. I would suggest this does not actually need both types of cheese and could work with smaller pizza bases to decrease the portion size.

Overall, this was quite enjoyable but I think I preferred the quorn balls pizza. I would give this a 7/10, I would add a bit of spice to the bolognese sauce if we made it again but it is a good way of making an interesting meal with quorn mince.

Quorn Blue Cheese Mushrooms

2011-02-14T09:49:00.000-08:00

27/70

I made this recipe for our lunch yesterday and was not entirely convinced it was my kind of meal as I am not a fan of blue cheese at all. I had bought Dolcelatte as the wrapper promised that it was 'mild' and I could not have faced using stilton or shropshire blue. I have to say I think I did right because it was still slightly too intense for me but I enjoyed it more than I thought I would.

Basically the premise here is simply to cook off some chicken or steak style quorn pieces (I used chicken style), put them onto some upturned large flat mushrooms (I used portobellos as they are lovely and meaty in texture) then crumble over the cheese and some breadcrumbs and bake in the oven for about 8 minutes.

It does have some major plus points because it is one of those magic recipes which is incredibly quick and simple but looks pretty impressive and fancy on the plate, like this:

I think this dish would make an ideal starter for a nice meal, I served it on a bed of rocket as was suggested in the recipe and it was lovely as a light lunch dish.

I was surprised how much I did like it (although I am certain I would not have felt the same if I had used a stronger blue cheese). I am still not overly keen on the distinctive blue cheese flavour but it does work with the quorn and the mushroom.

Points wise this is not too bad. It works out at 7 propoints per portion, broken down as follows, quorn (2), blue cheese (3), oil (1), breadcrumbs (1).

Something a bit different here and my husband really liked it, we give it an 8 out of 10.

Quorn Spaghetti Bolognese

2011-02-11T05:57:00.000-08:00

26/70

Hello people, hope you have all had a good week. Just as a heads up, planned recipes coming up over the next week or so include the bolognese pizza, blue cheese mushrooms and steak supper in a flash. I have just ordered my groceries online for next week and so for once have been organised enough to decide ahead of time which ones to attempt and make sure I have everything in!

On to Spaghetti Bolognese - again, as with the cottage pie, this is a meal I frequently make but not to this specific recipe. To be honest I do not actually have a 'formal' recipe for spaghetti bolognese I just ad lib it with whatever is to hand and my husband loves it. The recipe for this was interesting because it seemed an unusual method of cooking off the sauce before adding the quorn.

Basically the base sauce is as you would expect, carrot, onion and celery softened with garlic, tinned tomatoes, puree and a splash of red wine plus some stock and herbs. Oh and unusually a tablespoon of tomato ketchup as well. The sauce actually smelled amazing while cooking and then once it has simmered for a while you bung in the quorn mince at the end (I used frozen).

The texture of the sauce was exactly as you might expect and tasted good while I was cooking and testing the seasoning. I followed the recipe's suggestion of cooking the pasta once the mince had been added and the timings worked well.

Here is a picture of the served dish:

So, what did it taste like? Well, I have to say we were both a bit disappointed that the flavour was no where near as exciting or vivid as we were expecting. It was *nice* but just not anything more than that. I almost felt like I must have screwed up the seasoning but I think it has more to do with the fact that I generally always add a pinch of chilli flakes to my own version and had not done so here. I could not really taste the red wine either and if I made it again I might increase that from 100ml to 150ml to see if it made a difference.

I would not go so far as to say this was bland, it was perfectly edible but just did not particularly inspire me. My favourite thing about this is the method of cooking which I will adapt in to my own recipe for the future.

Points wise, each portion of this has 12 propoints which includes allowing for a 60g portion of pasta and half a tablespoon of grated parmesan. This is therefore a pretty good deal in terms of points. They are broken down fully as follows: pasta (6), quorn mince (2), oil (2), red wine (1) and grated parmesan (1).

We gave this a 6/10, it is nice enough but we prefer my version - although the method of cooking is interesting and gives me a new way to try. If I made it again I think I would tinker with the seasoning and quantities in this one, but if you like your food less spicy then this may well be ideal for you.

Quorn Cottage Pie

2011-02-10T04:49:00.000-08:00

25/70

So here we are, one third of the way through the Quorn Cookbook. I have to say I am really enjoying this project and finding that it is teaching me new and interesting ways of cooking with Quorn; this is not to say that every recipe is amazing but every recipe certainly seems to be providing new creative ideas. And some of the recipes are absolutely brilliant and will no doubt become regular features in our lives.

I was interested in this cottage pie recipe because I already make my own version of this dish which we really enjoy. The main differences between my version and this recipe are that I tend to use half sweet potato mash (instead of half parsnip) and I do not add soy sauce to the mix. Other than this it is basically quite similar.

We really enjoyed this, although I was keener on the parsnip mash than my husband who says he prefers my version (looking for brownie points maybe!?). This is what it looks like when served:

You will see I have added sweetcorn to mine. This was for two reasons, firstly the recipe says 100g of frozen peas or other frozen veg so I decided to do half and half because I like sweetcorn. Secondly, the recipe asks for 350g of mince but I only had the frozen 300g portion, I therefore chucked in an extra handful of sweetcorn to make up for this shortfall.

I have to say it makes four portions but they are not the biggest. I would generally eat cottage pie on its own although this recipe suggests you serve it with fresh veg. I can see why it might benefit from a side portion of veg because the portions are not exactly generous. My husband was still hungry after finishing his.

It is great on the points front though, only 9 points per portion, split as follows: quorn mince (2), oil (1), sweetcorn (1), frozen peas (1), mashed potato and parsnip (4). Pretty healthy and yet enjoyable, this does not feel like a low fat recipe and does not taste like it either (in my opinion). This is pretty much a classic where the use of quorn mince works very well.

I like the addition of soy sauce to the cottage pie and felt that it gave it a bit more 'zing', because of the use of stock granules and soy sauce in the recipe I did not add further salt when seasoning and it did not require it either.

We liked this recipe and I would give it an 8/10, I would, in future serve it with some veg on the side though to make sure it provides a filling meal.

Pizza with Quorn Italian Balls

2011-02-06T11:40:00.000-08:00

24/70

Good evening Quorn fans! Tonight marked a complete change from the normal routine as my husband insisted on cooking the next recipe - Pizza with Quorn Italian Balls.

He had inferred that he intended on doing so when I mentioned this was one of the next recipes I fancied trying. I had duly bought all the ingredients in the weekly shop and low and behold, tonight he actually followed the recipe and narrated through it so I could still blog about it for you all. It is safe to say that our first quorn pizza has indeed been a success!

One of the great things about this recipe is that it is quick and easy. I have never attempted to put quorn on a pizza before, although we do frequently create our own at home. I think it has just never occurred to me. But we will definitely be doing this again. This is what the finished pizza looked like, quite impressive I think you will agree:

I bought a fresh stonebaked pizza base from the pizza counter in my local Asda and it was just right for this recipe. I tweaked it a little by buying low fat mozzarella to cut the points down but other than that Mr O followed the recipe, spreading the base with tomato pizza topper, quartering the microwaved quorn balls and scattering along with the combined mozzarella and grated cheddar, adding a dash of oregano and shoving in the oven for 15 minutes, eh voila!

Taste wise it was indeed very enjoyable, the quorn balls work surprisingly well in the topping (I used Swedish rather than Italian as that was the only choice in my local supermarket).

Points wise this is a bit of a big hitter, even with the lower fat mozzarella. Half of a pizza with a large base is 16 points broken down as follows: base (7), mozzarella (3), tomato sauce (2), quorn balls (2) grated cheddar (2).

This is therefore a meal you would need to factor into your daily points or save/earn some extra for. But it is tasty and feels quite indulgent, you could even omit the cheddar and I reckon it would still be pretty good.

Lovely for me to have a night off from the cooking too, I give this an 8/10. Husband gives it a 9/10 but I think he might be just a tiny bit biased.

Steak Strips with Creamy Mustard Pasta

2011-02-05T06:08:00.000-08:00

23/70

First of all I will point you to this page on the Quorn website where the full recipe details for this are.

This is a pasta dish using Quorn steak strips (which I do think are one of the best quorn products available). Unfortunately, I am not particularly enamoured with this recipe and I think (much like with the Lemon Chilli Linguine) that part of the reason is that it uses lemon in a savoury dish again and I am just not that keen on it.

Basically, the steak strips are fried off with onion, garlic and then the green beans and sweetcorn are added. The pasta is cooked alongside this so it is a fairly speedy dish to make. The 'sauce' as it were is a combination of creme fraiche (I used half fat), wholegrain mustard and lemon zest.

This is what the dish looks like when served:

You can probably tell from this photo that the dish is fairly dry (another similarity with the Lemon Chilli Linguine). But the flavours are quite strong. Unfortunately I found them a bit overwhelming and not in a particularly good way.

The recipe advises 1-2tbsp of mustard should be stirred into the creme fraiche, I generally quite like wholegrain mustard to I bunged in 2tbsp. Mistake. It was simply too strong. If I ever did make it again I would definitely err on the side of caution.

The lemon zest shines through as another very vivid element. I think I just do not really like lemon flavouring in anything other than cakes, puddings and pancakes. My husband likes it even less and proclaimed that he scored this dish 3/10. I was not that harsh, I give it a 4/10.

Points wise this is a fairly good bet. Based on the recipe serving 4, each portion contains 8 propoints, made up as follows: quorn steak (2), pasta (4), half fat creme fraiche (1), oil (1).

This is a nice simple recipe and the premise is good - I like the idea of using the creme fraiche as a base for a creamy sauce but for me the overwhelming lemon flavour stopped it from being particularly enjoyable. Oh well, you can't like them all!

Quorn Fillets Provencale

2011-02-03T06:37:00.000-08:00

22/70

I tried this recipe midweek and have to say I quite liked it although the premise is very simple. Yet again it reinforced my newfound abilities with fillets and I do think the Quorn Cookbook has been particularly strong with this particular product, I wish I had been more imaginative with them long ago!

This is quite a basic dish really but the seasoning works well. I had never used Herbes de Provence before but duly purchased a jar for this recipe. The quorn fillets are then rubbed in a mixture of the herbs and oil and left to marinade until needed. The rest of the recipe is basically a pepper ratatouille which is virtually free on weight watchers apart from the oil.

This is what it looks like at the end when the fillets (which have been browned off in a separate pan) are added to the cooked veg and allowed to simmer for a couple of minutes:

You can see the herbs have stayed attached to the fillets and this is because they have been cooked separately. I quite liked the flavour of this seasoning which is heavily thyme and rosemary based to my nose.

The colours of this dish are bright and appealing and it looks quite mouthwatering on the plate, this is it when served (I chose to serve it with crusty bread as per the recipe suggestion):

The recipe makes 3 portions at 2 fillets and plenty of veg each. Based on 3 portions the points are quite low at 6, made up of only two elements - the oil (4) and the fillets (2). There is a lot of oil in this recipe because the herbs are mixed with it to use as a marinade and then both pans (for the veg and browning the fillets) require an extra tablespoon.

Although it is a lot of oil to use, it is still a low point recipe and so I did not attempt to slice anymore off it. You could, I suppose, use fry light for the veg and browning if needs be.

Healthy and very tasty, full of great flavour and very simple to make, this is a dish I will be repeating. It is not fantastically exciting but it is enjoyable and satisfying and yet again does something interesting with quorn fillets.

We gave it a 7/10.

Quorn Pieces with Broccoli & Sweetcorn

2011-01-29T09:48:00.000-08:00

21/70

Hope you all had a great week. I am so glad it is the weekend, I have had a particularly busy few days so am very glad of the break.

I made this recipe midweek and served it two ways, once with garlic mashed potato and once with pasta. In the book it suggests that it goes well with potatoes, pasta or noodles, we thought it was ok (but nothing special) with the pasta and slightly more appealing with the mashed potato. The recipe works and is fairly low fat (made my way) but it just is not one I will rush to make again.

Basically you cook the quorn pieces, broccoli and sweetcorn in a milk based creamy sauce with mustard for flavouring, thickened with cornflour. It is fairly quick and easy to make and produces a sauce which is fairly tasty. This is what it looks like while cooking:

You can see the mustard seeds because I used wholegrain mustard (which I prefer) rather than the dijon mustard that the recipe suggests.

The other tweak I made was using skimmed milk which cut down the points somewhat and worked just fine. I guess the sauce would have been creamier if you used the semi skimmed suggested but you would need to amend the points balance.

This is the dish served with pasta:

I found it quite bland with the pasta, whereas when we had it with the mashed potato it just seemed to be more enjoyable and less stodgy.

Points wise, it is a fairly good bet with each portion (the recipe makes 4) being 7 points. This equates to quorn pieces (2), milk (1), sweetcorn (1), oil (1), cornflour (1) and cheese (1). This means that served with two scoops of mashed potato with margerine you have a complete meal for 11 points or with pasta it is 13 points.

I was not particularly excited by this recipe and although I like the method and it has made me consider creating sauces for quorn pieces, I will not rush to make this again. My husband really did not enjoy it with the pasta at all.

We give it a 6/10.

Pizza Topped Quorn Burgers

2011-01-24T07:42:00.000-08:00

20/70

Hello all, over the weekend I made this recipe with Quorn Burgers, a product we eat quite a lot of but with no variations whatsoever. We really like Quorn burgers in all their varieties, in particular the sweet pepper and red onion ones are very nice, perfect for barbeques in the summer and jazzed up in a bun with cheese, ketchup and maybe some onions. I was intrigued therefore, by this recipe which does something quite different with them.

Basically you split an English muffin in half and use each half as a base for your 'pizza', you then toast it lightly before spreading it with pesto and topping with a (pre-cooked) burger - I used normal, plain frozen ones for this recipe, a slice of beef tomato, some basil and mozzarella cheese and then grilling until the cheese melts and bubbles.

Simples as the meerkat would say.

Simple - yes , but delicious! This is such a lovely way to eat the burgers and works really well, its also quick. I cooked my burgers in the microwave while I toasted the muffins - this has the added benefit of using no fat to cook them and meant that the grill was still hot when I needed to put them back under. I used lower fat mozzarella to keep the points values down and do not think you can tell the difference.

This is what they looked like when finished:

In terms of points values, the recipe serves 2 with a portion being 2 burgers each. This is quite substantial and I would probably serve it with a salad or something for a lighter option. Each portion of 2 burgers is 11 propoints broken down as follows: burgers (4), muffin (4), pesto (2), mozzarella (1). Obviously if you use full fat mozzarella the value will be higher and you could probably shave it down a little using low fat pesto.

My husband absolutely loved these and actually made himself another two once he had finished his own (he does run marathons so can annoyingly get away with putting away a lot of food!). Both of us thoroughly enjoyed this recipe and it is definitely one I will make again.

We gave it a 9/10 for innovativity and being so enjoyable - nice one Quorn for giving me something different to do with quorn burgers!

Win the Quorn Cookbook!

2011-01-10T11:47:00.000-08:00

Hello all

Just a quick post to point you in the direction of a competition which Morrisons are running with the chance to win 1 of 50 copies of the Quorn Cookbook. Enter here if you do not have a copy and good luck!

Quorn Paella

2011-01-09T07:11:00.000-08:00

19/70

And so back to the Quorn Cookbook experiment for 2011....

I decided to cook the Paella for our saturday night tea as I had everything in I needed and it looked like the kind of recipe that should not be rushed (cooking time in the book says 40 mins but I always find with prep and everything else it tends to take longer).

There are a lot of ingredients in this recipe and so I tried to be organised and have everything prepped and chopped and to hand before I started, this proved to be a clever thing to do and made the actual cooking time pretty much bang on the 40 minutes stated. Also, I did the prep while I cooked off the sausages - in the recipe it says to fry them in 1tbsp of oil but to save on fat (and WW points) I simply cooked them dry in the oven for 20 minutes (I had defrosted them first) and they were fine, this 20 minute slot was when I prepped everything ready to go.

So, this is my paella at the second stage of cooking as I am about to add the spices:

It does not look much like paella here as the rice has not yet been added but all the beans and veggies are in at this point and the spices about to go in are saffron, turmeric, chilli powder, smoked paprika and lemon zest.

I used easy cook rice instead of the standard long grain stated in the recipe and I also used tinned tomatoes instead of fresh because again it was what I had in. It worked perfectly well with these amendments though and this is what the finished product looked like when served.

We really enjoyed the finished product and I thought it was incredibly tasty. The fresh lemon juice and zest really cuts through and makes the dish fragrant and light but the heat from the spices balances this out. It is one of those dishes where each mouthful explodes with flavour in your mouth - very tasty and enjoyable and also incredibly satisfying. The recipe makes 4 very generous portions which is nice, especially given how low fat this dish is (omitting 1tbsp of oil as I did).

In terms of weight watchers pro-points, this recipe contains 12 points per portion which is made up as follows: sausages (2), oil (1), rice (7), peas (1), stock (1). This is pretty good really for such a substantial and filling meal and it is one which I will definitely be making again as part of my healthy eating plan - especially because it is so packed with flavour and we enjoyed it so much, to be honest it felt like it should have been more points than this and really that sums up what a great recipe should be!

We gave it an 8/10 and to date it is one of my favourites from the Quorn cookbook. I would happily serve this to friends and family, veggie and non-veggie alike.

2011 - A New Year and A Bonus Recipe!

2011-01-05T07:52:00.000-08:00

Hello my fellow food fanatics and a Happy New Year to you all!

I never intended to be away from this blog as long as I have been but with one thing and another the days have quickly run into weeks and now I realise it has been 3 weeks since my last post. I have missed it!

The run up to the christmas break was quite frantic for me with a huge amount going on at work, I worked right up to and including christmas eve and then my husband was ill with flu which I subsequently came down with between christmas and new year (along with most of the UK it seems!) and I am only just getting back to normal now.

I was positively craving 'normal' (non buffet or massive family meal) food by the start of this week and on Monday I cooked a slow cooker Quorn Stifado which I will give the recipe for here as a bonus - this is not one from the Quorn cookbook but is one I adapted from a meat version and which works very well with the quorn steak pieces. It is also very simple and incredibly hearty and satisfying because you literally just chuck it all in the slow cooker and let it go!

Apologies - I forgot to take a photo of the stifado as I didn't think about it til it was too late!

Onwards and upwards for 2011, I expect this year to be challenging (financially and mentally at work) but also exciting with some big holidays and adventures planned. I look forward to completing the Quorn cookbook and sharing it with you on this blog, I really hope you will continue to enjoy reading about it and sharing your thoughts too.

Quorn Stifado
300g Quorn steak strips or beef pieces
250ml red wine (big flavours like rioja work best)
2 tblsp cornflour
2 onions chopped
1 400g tin chopped tomatoes
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon allspice
2 tblsp red wine or cider vinegar
2 tsp clear honey

Right, first chuck the frozen or fresh steak/beef pieces in the slow cooker and then put the cornflour in and mix around until all the pieces are coated.

Now put all the other ingredients except for the wine in and give it a good stir til everything is well mixed together.

Finally tip the wine over, it should just about cover everything in the bowl, add a bit of water if it doesn't. Switch your slow cooker to high for around 5 hours or leave on low all day for the same result. Stir every few hours if you get the chance but don't worry if you don't.

Serve with garlic mash, rice, pasta or just some crusty bread. Delicious!

Meat eaters can use 600g of casserole steak instead of the quorn for an equally tasty carniverous version.

Quorn Lasagne

2010-12-14T12:38:00.000-08:00

18/70

As I frequently make my own Quorn Lasagne anyway, I was intrigued to find out how this recipe would compare. I tend to just ad lib with quorn mince, tinned tomatoes and whatever veg I have lying round in the fridge and generally it's pretty tasty, it is one of my husband's favourites - this had a lot to live up to therefore.

Actually we were very, VERY impressed with this lasagne. The richness of the sauce is phenomenal and for the first time ever I also made my own white sauce (a skill I will definitely be using again in the future) which also got the thumbs up. We both thoroughly enjoyed this and it definitely was better than my own versions - but the only downer for me is the points content, which is high.

This is a picture of the finished lasagne before serving, textbook apart from the cheese dribbling down the side of the dish!

I think I actually needed a slightly bigger lasagne dish for this - or even an actual lasagne dish would probably help, this is just a ceramic roaster which I normally use but which struggled with the quantities of this recipe.

Anyway, once served this was what it looked like, it is making me want to eat it again actually looking at these images, that is testament to how nice it was:

I think that the secret to why the sauce is so good and tastes so rich is down to two elements, firstly the addition of red pesto and secondly the 3 tbsp of red wine. Neither of these are items which I generally add to my lasagne sauce but here they seemed to make a real difference and add a tasty depth to the flavour. This recipe uses passata where I would usually use chopped tomatoes and again I think I preferred this in the sauce, which seemed less dry as a result.

The white sauce was actually surprisingly easy to make and in retrospect I don't really know why I have never made this myself before as it is much nicer than the synthetic versions you can buy in jars and which I generally end up scraping off the top of my portion of lasagne anyway. Flour, butter, milk and some grated cheese turned into a silky, thick and smooth rue.

So, this ticked every box in terms of flavour, simplicity and satisfaction - but what about the points?

It is important to clarify that due to the shape of my lasagne dish and the sizes, I made this recipe into 3 portions although in the book it is down as serving 4. I only served this with a salad and no other carbs and to me this was a generous and filling portion.

Based on this recipe serving 3, on propoints, a portion of this lasagne costs 18 points which, I am sure you will agree, is quite high. This is broken down as follows: lasagne sheets (4), quorn mince (2), pesto (2), oil (2), milk in white sauce (1), butter in white sauce (2), cheese in white sauce and on top (3) flour and red wine (2).

Despite this being a high points scorer I actually think it is worth the splurge (and anyway, if I know I am having it again I will do some exercise to earn extra points for the day). It certainly tastes so good that even at 18 points it seems pretty good value for such a rich dish.

The pesto and red wine in the sauce clearly help with this and personally I feel like this recipe has given me new inspiration where lasagne is concerned, a dish I frequently cook has been injected with a whole new range of possibilities.

This gets a 9/10 from us, definitely one of my favourites so far from the Quorn Cookbook.

Fillets in a Creamy Pesto Sauce

2010-12-07T13:28:00.000-08:00

17/70

This is yet another interesting idea for what to do with Quorn fillets (although the recipe says to use either fillets or pieces). I do like it in theory but to be honest I do not think this is one I will rush to make again.

The sauce that these are simmered in is ok, not remarkably tasty but quite edible. The thing that bugged me about it, I think, is that it is high fat and also simmers away quite easily.

I found that after simmering the fillets in the sauce for the suggested 20 minutes there was literally about a tablespoon of actual sauce left which you are then supposed to stir the creme fraiche into - I had to thin the sauce back out with extra vegetable stock which I had deliberately kept to one side predicting that this would happen when I saw the quantity of the sauce to begin with.

This is the dish once finished, it does look quite appealing on the plate and the sauce goes very nicely with some mash as served here:

The sauce is quite rich, being made of red pesto, creme fraiche, stock, tomato puree and thyme. I did really like the use of fresh thyme here and you could really taste it in the finished sauce.

Although the recipe calls for half fat creme fraiche, this is still quite a high WW point count. The recipe says this serves 2/3 and that I think, is because you get 6 quorn fillets in a pack so a moderate size serving would be 2 fillets. Because there are 2 of us and a spare one portion would be pointless, I split this between the two of us and accordingly it works out at 11 points per portion.

This is 3 for the pesto, 4 for the quorn, 2 for the creme fraiche and 2 for the oil which is needed to brown the fillets in. I guess you could cut out the oil by pre-cooking the fillets and if you split the recipe by 3 it would be 7 points per portion but not particularly generous sizes. The problem with keeping it at 11 points is that you then have to also take into account whatever you serve it with and that bumps it up.

The method here is quite good, simmering the fillets in sauce before removing them and creaming up the sauce itself to serve. I felt the whole way through cooking though that this was quite a fatty recipe and I did think the sauce tasted rich and a little bit oily (although it was quite nice).

We gave this a 6/10, it is simple and a good idea for jazzing up fillets but not interesting or tasty enough to be one I would make again in a hurry. I may well experiment with the method though and it is useful to cook this way with fillets.

Tortilla Stack

2010-12-05T09:47:00.000-08:00

16/70

I feel the need to put the picture of this recipe near the top of the blog today because I was so pleased with how it turned out - both in terms of the taste and the closeness to the picture in the actual cookbook, so here you go:

This recipe was a total success in our household and although it makes four portions, my husband put away not 1 but 3 during the course of the evening, he really was that impressed (mind you he does run marathons so burns off an awful lot of calories.)

The theory is so simple I do not know why I never thought of it myself. Basically you use flour tortillas here, stacked on a baking tray with layers of a bolognese style Quorn mince sauce and grated cheese. It is sort of like a cheat's lasagne because it is fantastically simple and quick to assemble.

Personally I tweaked the recipe somewhat to keep it lower in fat (and those all important WW points) but even so it was delicious and very fulfilling. The quorn mince is fried off with onion and garlic, tinned tomatoes, paprika, chilli powder and tomato puree and then some fresh coriander is strirred through right at the end. I also kept adding water to the sauce because the recipe calls for 20 minutes of simmering but the sauce is actually too dry to sustain this without adding extra fluid. This did not affect the taste though.

Once you have your mince mixture you spoon it onto the first tortilla, spread it evenly out to the sides, sprinkle with grated cheese and then add another tortilla and continue until you run out of mixture.

The recipe uses 200g of grated cheese but this is incredibly high fat and points, I used about 75g, enough for a scattering in each layer and enough to melt over the top and this was adequate. I am sure it would taste richer and more indulgent with the full 200g but for me I would rather make this dish healthier.

This is it before going in the oven:

And this is what it looked like afterwards, before I cut it into quarters:

You can see that it had gone slightly crisp around the edges but this made for a nice variance in the texture and was not a problem. I think if you used the full amount of cheese this would maybe not happen but personally I liked the crispy bits.

In terms of points, I made this as low as possible, frying off my onions and garlic in fry light spray oil and using sainsbury's Be Good To Yourself lower fat tortillas (of which I used 5), because of that the points values for my version were as follows:

9 pro-points per portion -3 for the quorn, 3 for the tortillas and 3 for the cheese. Very simple to work out because everything else is zero points for this recipe.

We gave it a 9/10 and both really enjoyed it. I served it with some oven chips and rocket leaves, as a light lunch it would be lovely just served with a salad. I will definitely be making this recipe again and will experiment with the method too as I like this easy version of producing a lasagne style dish. Another success!

Quorn Korma

2010-12-01T11:28:00.000-08:00

15/70

So, recipe number 15, the first this week due to one thing and another - and its another curry! It sort of highlights how much we love curry that of the 15 recipes trialled so far, this is the third indian style dish I have opted for.

I think of the three this is actually my favourite. A stunning curry paste is blitzed in the blender first and smells absolutely amazing, this is then fried off with the quorn before cream, butter and coconut are added. The result is a creamy, aromatic delight of a dish.

This is the paste after I had blitzed it, you can see it is a pale brown colour.

This is the most complicated bit of the recipe, once this is done it is very straightforward, simply cooking this off with the pieces in a wok, simmering for 20 minutes until reduced and then adding in the rich stuff (including the cream) for a final 5 minutes.

This is the dish once finished:

Because of how rich the sauce is, I was worried that the points count would be high, but the amounts of butter and cream are not too bad given this recipe makes four portions. It works out as 8 pro points per portion which is broken down as follows; cream 3, butter 1, quorn 2, coconut milk 1, oil 1. Everything else in the recipe is 0 points (spices, garlic, ginger and tomato puree).

This means that a portion of rice alongside for 6 points puts the dish at 14 points which, although half of my daily allowance, is actually pretty good for such a rich and tasty dish. It certainly feels like it should be more points than it is.

(I have not calculated the old points values as it is becoming quite a chore to do so! Apologies for this - but it makes more sense to continue with the new system which I am actually following).

I used frozen quorn pieces and only realized as I was cooking it that the recipe calls for 350g of quorn and the frozen bags only contain 300g. I assume therefore that fresh pieces would have been the better idea because I believe they come in 350g chilled packs - this made no difference to the end result however.

So, the verdict from us was overwhelmingly positive, the husband gave it a 9/10 and its one of my favourite dishes from the recipe book so far. Although it is more complicated than some of the recipes and requires a blender (although a hand blender would be adequate), it is actually easy once the paste is made and this could be done in advance and chilled if you were in a rush.

Very tasty and fragrant, rich and creamy and a recipe which works particularly well with the quorn pieces, this is a brilliant option for a cracking curry.

Spanish Sausage Casserole

2010-11-22T12:12:00.000-08:00

14/70

I was absolutely starving when I got home from work tonight and fancied something both warming and filling after a day freezing to death at my desk and starving due to the new diet (actually I wasn't starving just felt like I was doing without as snacks are now banned). I therefore decided that this spanish sausage casserole was exactly what was needed.

I actually really enjoyed this meal, it was pretty simple to make, despite having quite a few ingredients in it - I prepped everything else while the sausages cooked so that it was very quick and easy once I was ready to start the casserole itself. I should point out that to make the recipe more diet friendly I actually oven cooked the sausages with a few squirts of low cal spray oil instead of frying them as the recipe suggests.

I used paprika we had bought back from Budapest again and it was pretty spicy, I really do need to be more careful with that stuff because it is more potent than the paprika you buy in supermarkets here, the end result was a dish with a real kick to it.

Although we actually prefer Cauldron sausages to Quorn ones as a rule, I actually used quorn ones in this dish and they worked pretty well. However, I do still think they are more bland than the Cauldron ones and probably, if I make this again I will see whether they work any better.

This is the dish once served, I put it with mashed potato tonight but for the other half (leftovers, currently in the fridge) I will serve it with some pasta.

As you can see, this recipe makes four very generous and filling portions. I was utterly and absolutely stuffed when I had eaten this which is probably because it is full of beans and chunky vegetables.

The best thing of all is that because the sauce is basically just veggies, tomatoes and stock, the points values are incredibly low for such a substantial dish (provided you do as I did and bake rather than fry the sausages off first).

On propoints the casserole is 7 points (with mashed potato it makes it 11 points) with the points coming from the sausages (3), beans (2), sweetcorn (1) and oil (1). On the old plan this would strangely be quite close at 6 points (plus whatever you serve it with) based on 2 for the sausages, 2 for the beans, 1 for the sweetcorn and 1 for the oil. Either way this is fab against your daily allowance and I cannot stress enough how filling and enjoyable it is.

We both really enjoyed this meal, it is a great winter warmer which tastes spicy and full of character and is very adaptable, I served it with mash tonight but it would work equally with rice, pasta or even just with some chunky bread.

Overall we give this an 8/10, another great one to try.

Mushroom Stroganof

2010-11-19T07:25:00.000-08:00

13/70

I was very keen to try this recipe as stroganof is one of my favourite meals. The recipe can be used with either quorn chicken style pieces or the steak strips, I used the latter because I would usually associate this dish with beef. I was very pleased with it in terms of taste and ease of recipe.

I used chestnut mushrooms and they were very suitable for this recipe, holding their shape well and soaking in the flavour. I loved the fact that this recipe uses low fat creme fraiche, to be honest, the taste was as creamy as I would expect from a full fat version so that was brilliant in terms of lowering the calorie count without compromising on taste.

This is the dish while cooking, at this stage I have just added the creme fraiche:

I was a bit worried that the creme fraiche might split and it seemed odd to stir it into the hot stock already in the pan - but it worked as you can see and only took a little stirring to evolve into the more familiar colour and texture of the final product.

I am afraid to say that I actually overseasoned this dish by making the fatal error of not tasting before adding some black pepper towards the end. This is because I used paprika we had bought back from Budapest earlier in the year and which was much stronger than I gave it credit for, this could have done without any further seasoning - so do make sure you taste before adjusting.

Despite the pepper kick being a little on the strong side, this was a very enjoyable and hearty meal. I served it with rice and it was delicious and substantial, certainly a meal I will be making again. Here it is served:

In terms of weight watchers points, on the new propoints plan this is 9 points per portion (including rice) which is very good indeed. On the old points system it is 1.5 for the quorn, 1 for the creme fraiche and 3 for the rice which makes 5.5 - all in all a great option for a low fat meal. The recipe makes 4 portions and we had it two nights in a row, the second night after being kept in the fridge once cooled, the flavours were actually even better and had developed further.

We really liked this and again it seems the steak strips are a very handy and enjoyable type of quorn to use, we give this meal an 8/10.

Tomato & Feta Ciabatta

2010-11-14T09:50:00.000-08:00

12/70

And so we continue...

This is the first recipe from the light lunches section of the book which I have attempted. I decided to give this a whirl for a Saturday lunchtime and actually we were both pretty impressed with it.

I have to say it is quick, simple and very tasty indeed, this is a picture of the finished dish:

Because it was so easy to make it was right up my street as I am just about getting back into cooking mode following a nasty cold. This is literally a recipe where you chuck everything into one dish at different times and then tip it over the warmed and sliced bread.

I used half olive oil and half balsamic vinegar to roast off the quorn pieces, tomatoes and mushrooms as this cut the fat down and worked just as well as only the oil would have done. You then chuck in the garlic, give it another 5 minutes and finally the feta. This means although the cheese is warm and crumbly it is not melting everywhere.

It is literally impossible to eat this with your hands, I gave up and used a knife and fork. Oh - and I had no fresh basil so I substituted with dried and although the fresh would be better it was ok without.

WW points wise - well, over the last week I have received all the info to switch over to the new pro-points plan which is rather different to the old plan. Wherever I can I will give both sets of points going forward, the new points are according to their actual website calculator, the old points I will calculate manually.

On the Pro-points plan which allows (me) 29 points a day, this dish is 11 points - 6 for the 2 slices of ciabatta, 2 for the quorn and 3 for the feta. On the old plan it works out at 5 for the bread, 1 for the quorn and 1.5 for the feta so a lower score of 7.5 (against 19 for the day). Either way you can see it is a pretty balanced and reasonable score for a lunch time dish.

We both really enjoyed this, even though my husband hates tomatoes when they are still whole like this (and I am not a big fan either), it was something a bit different for a lunchtime, tasty, quick and convenient and I will no doubt make it again.

Overall we gave this a 7/10, good work quorn!

Feeling Blue

2010-11-12T06:28:00.000-08:00

Hello all,

I haven't blogged for about a week and I feel a bit lost without it to be honest but this was not my plan. A number of things have stopped me in my tracks over the last 7 days and hence I felt I should update on where I have been and why.

Last weekend we went to Amsterdam for a city break and had an excellent time, however, I had been feeling a bit unwell before we went and while we were there developed a pretty nasty cough that prevented both of us from sleeping (is there any guilt worse than that of knowing you are robbing your partner of sleep while you splutter and suffer!?). By the time I got back late on Monday I was coughing so much I was being sick and struggling to breathe, it was really quite frightening.

Anyway, on Tuesday I went to the doctors and was diagnosed with acute viral laryngitis, given anti-biotics for the associated chest infection and told to go home and rest - both myself and my voice. I did just that and was pretty much on the brink of losing my voice completely when I got a call to say that our family dog, Jonty, whom I adored, had suddenly passed away.

This was devastating news. I had only had him for the weekend a couple of weeks before and although he was clearly getting old he seemed ok. It turned out he had a tumour in his stomach that none of us knew about until it burst and was too late. My mom was very brave indeed and stayed with him to the end, I didn't know until it was all over which was no doubt for the best, but it came as a bit of a shock.

I cried so much I lost what little of my voice I had left. It is so awful losing a much loved family pet, he truly is irreplaceable.

Beautiful Jonty on my car seat a few weeks ago.

Anyway, because of this and my illness this week, I just have not got around to blogging. Today is the first day I have even felt capable of typing but it is fair to say that my voice is coming back to normal and the anti-biotics have kicked in. The grief will probably take a bit longer to navigate.

But fear not! The Quorn Supremacy will indeed be back up and blogging by the end of this weekend, of that I have no doubt.

Quorn Biryani

2010-11-03T10:55:00.000-07:00

11/70

So, the second curry style dish from the Quorn recipe book - and I have to say i was a little cynical when I first saw the recipe because this is cooked in the microwave. I have nothing against microwaves for reheating, defrosting and melting things but I generally do not consider them a method of 'cooking'. Here is a link to the recipe from the Quorn website.

Anyway, I was prepared to be proven wrong and so I gave it a whirl last night when I was pushed for time as we were going out to a pub quiz. The first stage of the recipe coats the quorn pieces in tikka paste mixed with boiling water and as I know quorn marinades well, I actually did the marinade bit in the morning and left them to soak all day.

Once I embarked on the rest of the recipe that night, it was all very quick, literally all the ingredients apart from the quorn (frozen veg, a chopped red onion, chopped apricots and a load of rice with stock and boiling water) get chucked in a microwavable bowl and cooked for 6 minutes, stirred and then the quorn is added, then another 6 minutes plus 5 minutes standing, and voila!

This is at the halfway mark just after adding the quorn pieces (note my spirtle - one of the things I have learned to love from Scottish in laws!):

I hit a slight stumbling block at the end when the biryani should have been ready - timings are only given for an 800 watt microwave, but mine is only 700 watts (ancient I know, but it works!). I had already added on a couple of minutes to each 6 minute burst of cooking, so it had actually had 16 minutes in total rather than 12, plus the 5 minutes standing. But when I removed it from the microwave the rice was clearly still raw and there was still a lot of liquid.

I put it back in for another 3 minute burst and this seemed to do the trick. I would therefore suggest for a 700 watt microwave that you put it in for 9.5 minutes twice, rather than the suggested 6. I would also add here that it does smell amazing while cooking!

I toasted my almonds for the garnish and this is it plated.

The taste of this was pretty impressive. I do think marinading the quorn had added an intensity to the flavour of the quorn itself, but the rice was delicious and fragrant and even the apricots (which I was dubious about as I hate that 70s fruit in curries vibe) really worked and gave it a lovely sweetness.

In terms of weight watchers points, this is pretty good, the quorn is 1.5 per portion, the rice is another 3, the only other points culprit is then the tikka paste and based on the amount I used this adds 1.5 per portion so a total of 6 points per portion which is darn good for such a tasty curry. It also means that you can serve it with a low fat naan for around 9 points, well worth it!

My husband loved this, despite it not being overly spicy, he thought the quorn was particularly nice and said he would give it a 7/10. I think that's a pretty fair score.

Convenient to cook (if you have the right timings), quick and easy and actually very tasty - plus very low fat. A success despite my initial doubts and one I will definitely make again.

Pesto Crusted Fillets

2010-11-01T12:26:00.000-07:00

10/70

I tried this recipe over the weekend as a light tea, again we were pretty impressed with how it jazzed up the sometimes dull fillets. The texture of these was lovely and we really enjoyed them, they went very well with a salad but would work equally well with pasta or a more traditional accompaniment.

My one downer on this recipe is the inescapable mess that it makes due to the difficultly of sprinkling both breadcrumbs and parmesan on top of the fillets on a baking tray, this is what mine looked like as they were about to go in the oven:

Fortunately, I took the decision to just leave the mess on the tray and sort it out later - this proved a good call as actually the breadcrumbs on the tray went lovely and crispy and mixed with the cheese were pretty tasty sprinkled over the salad and fillets once they were on the plate.

I did follow the recipe to the letter and used ciabatta breadcrumbs, as I didn't want to waste a whole loaf of ciabatta I picked up a small loose individual ciabatta roll from Sainsburys which was pretty convenient and still made more than the 40g I needed.

Astoundingly, I had never actually made breadcrumbs before (one of a number of skills I am picking up from making all these recipes!), I literally just left the ciabatta to go stale for 3 days and then dropped it in the food processor and let it do the hard work, easy, even sized breadcrumbs in less than a minute! I have frozen the majority which were excess to requirements as Nigella informs me they work perfectly well either used from frozen or defrosted first.

I must admit I was a little cautious about this recipe as neither my husband or I am massive fans of pesto flavours, however, because the pesto is not overwhelming and is literally brushed onto the fillets under the breadcrumb/cheese mix, it just lends a tasty, subtle flavour to the quorn. The basil is about the only bit of the pesto that you can taste.

We loved the way the texture of the topping was so crunchy and well combined. The recipe states you can either use italian hard cheese or normal cheddar, I used some parmesan and felt that this suited the recipe really well as it was light but full of flavour, cheddar, I think, may have gone soggy and matted over the breadcrumbs - but each to their own.

In terms of weight watchers points this is also a winner, 2 fillets equals 1.5 points but the breadcrumbs, pesto and cheese only add another 2 because it is very small portions of each, therefore the points value is only 3.5 (I also used reduced fat pesto so have been quite generous with the points really!). Served with a salad this is a great, healthy, low fat meal.

Here are my fillets once plated:

We give these fillets a 9/10 because we really enjoyed them and actually they were so quick and simple to make I know I will make them again. The spare portion we sliced up and used on lunch wraps the next day and these too were a success, a great recipe which shows how versatile boring old fillets can be.

Lemon Chilli Linguine

2010-10-29T09:53:00.000-07:00

9/70

Cards on the table - we really did not enjoy this meal. Be warned that the overriding flavour is very much LEMON. I have no particular issue with lemon but just found it overpowering in this dish, which is also very dry. I guess there are always going to be recipes in every book which just do not float your boat.

Strangely I notice the Quorn website feedback has been particularly positive for this recipe, maybe there are a lot of quorn loving citrus fanatics out there.

My poor husband didn't even have seconds and that says it all really. In fact he actually said this was the second worst thing I have ever cooked (in first place is an utterly monstrous vegetarian moussaka which could have been used as a weapon of mass destruction, but the less said about that the better). I did not think it deserved to be bracketed with the Moussaka of doom but I really did not like it as a dish.

To be fair, it started badly when I accidentally grated my thumb while zesting the lemon, dinner was slightly less vegetarian from that point on I am afraid. I also learnt the true pain of lemon juice in a fresh wound. The air in my kitchen went a rather electric blue.

So...the plus points for this dish (because I hate to just completely slate it) are that its pretty quick and easy to cook and in terms of weight watchers points its a very low scorer, 1.5 for the quorn, 3 for the pasta, 1 for the oil and that literally is it - a total of 5.5.

I also think that the process of frying off the quorn pieces in the lemon juice is pretty clever and really does inject a strong flavour into them. As a starting point when cooking with pieces I will no doubt use this method again, but personally I think the dish needs another strong flavour to balance against the strength of the lemon.

This is the finished dish in my wok (which I pretty much cook everything in!):

The idea of lemon and chilli together I do quite like, but the chilli I used was not hot enough to even be detected against the lemon. Once the linguine is in the pan you really have to quickly move it round because due to the lack of sauce it will stick to the pan and burn if left alone.

Personally I found it very odd to be eating such dry, sauceless, pasta. The idea of cooking the linguine with stock in the pan instead of water is clever, but again the stock flavour was lost to the lemon.

Some of the elements of this recipe have given me inspiration for other dishes and I am sure I will indeed use the citrus idea again but in moderation. I will not, however, be making this particular recipe again.

Sorry Quorn, but this one gets a 1/10 from us.

Teriyaki Quorn

2010-10-25T11:30:00.000-07:00

8/70

Over the weekend I made Teriyaki Quorn pieces with some steak strips, I was not overawed by it, it has to be said but the steak pieces were quite tasty, there just wasn't enough sauce for my liking.

This is the finished product:

The marinading of the quorn pieces worked pretty well and the ginger and garlic were evident even when it had been cooked, I liked the citrus flavours from the orange and lemon juices too and the flavour was pretty distinct, it just made for quite a dry dish.

The recipe gives an option of 2 tablespoons of soy sauce or teriyaki, I used one of each and in future would probably use 2 of each to try and make it more moist. I am not a big fan of egg noodles either as they can be stodgy and dry and having spent time in Thailand and Vietnam, I prefer glass or rice noodles which are much thinner. I think I will use glass noodles if I make this dish again.

In terms of weight watchers points this is a pretty good dish, 1.5 for the Quorn, 3 for the noodles and 1.5 for the oil and sauce so only 6 for the portion. Because this recipe serves 4 I cooked the whole amounts but then removed half of the steak pieces and veg before adding the noodles for 2 portions, I then reheated the pieces with fresh noodles for a second meal on another night.

So, 5 out of 10 from the other half on this one and I think I agree with that. It is ok and if I tweak it to our tastes it will probably be better, good marinade and flavours but not for us with the egg noodles and lack of sauce.

Leek Pie With Quorn Pieces - Proper Pukka Pie

2010-10-21T12:05:00.000-07:00

7/70

*****NEWS*****

EXCITED! I got home from work today to find a letter from Quorn giving this blog the thumbs up and saying "it looks fantastic". I am over the moon to get that feedback. Rather brilliantly they have also sent me a load of money off vouchers which will certainly help with completing all the recipes.

Today just keeps on getting better - I have just passed 300 visits to the blog from across the UK, USA, Australia and Canada. I never thought it would get so much support and positive feedback so quickly so thank you everyone that has been in touch and visited the pages.

Also, today's recipe, Leek Pie with Quorn Pieces marks one tenth of the recipes completed, so a milestone of sorts. So far all have been good to very good. Tonight's pie got a 9/10 from the other half and I have to say I would give it a 10 as it is utterly delicious.

I must admit that whilst the recipe in the book includes home made pastry, I had half a block of puff pastry in the freezer left over from making the steak pie the other week, on a week night I just don't have the time to make the pastry too so I used this ready to use block and it worked marvellously and cut half an hour off the cooking time.

The filling was simple and delicious. I had a slight problem in that the recipe calls for mustard powder. Now maybe Shropshire is just not a massive fan of it but I could not find any, anywhere. I have checked Asda in both Telford and Wolverhampton and Sainsburys in Telford, I also checked the large Co-Op in my hometown of Shifnal. None of them had mustard powder!

I therefore had to ad lib a bit and decided to substitute mustard powder for fresh wholegrain mustard which I had in the fridge. This worked really well, you can see the seeds in this picture of the filling towards the end of cooking:

The use of milk and stock with the flour seemed to work really well at producing a very tasty and wonderfully thickened sauce. By the time it came out of the oven the filling was a great, creamy consistency and for me the mustard worked perfectly with the leeks and quorn pieces. I switched the milk from semi-skimmed to skimmed and the sauce worked fine with this substitution.

Here it is cooked:

and plated:

Weight watchers points are higher for this recipe than any other so far, but then the leeks are sauteed in butter and oil for 2 points and the pastry is also an immediate 5 points. The quorn adds another 1.5 and the milk and stock another 1. This makes it 9.5 points per portion, based on the pie serving 4.

Although it is high(ish) in points, as long as you serve with zero points veg it can still be part of a healthy meal.

Both me and the other half loved it, the sauce is delicious, the pie is substantial, filling and delicious. I will most definitely be making this again.

Red Velvet Cupcakes - No Quorn Involved!

2010-10-19T07:41:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I know this is not from the Quorn Cookbook but hey - this is my blog and I will always bow to requests because it's really nice to be asked actually.

So, for my friend Kelly who gave birth to beautiful baby Maya last week and asked for this recipe, here it is. I found this after trialling about 4 different recipes for the same cakes, I wanted to make red velvets for a friend's wedding and set about perfecting them and this is the final version, an amalgamation of two recipes actually but it works the best.

I have since made these for birthdays, christenings and one emigration party, they are constantly in demand and always seem to be well received. They look pretty dramatic which I think is what draws people to them, here are some pictures of the wedding ones on the stand and then the ones I made with an Australian flag theme for my friend Claire who is moving to Melbourne in December.

Red velvet with vanilla buttercream and heart shaped sugar sprinkles.

Red velvet with blue coloured and normal vanilla buttercream and silver balls.

The box full of Australia Themed Cupcakes.

Now, I know these cupcakes do not particularly fit with the whole healthy eating thing - but everything in moderation I say. Just eat one instead of 3 and every so often it's really not so bad. Anyway, here is the recipe.

Makes 10 large cupcakes or 12 slightly flatter ones.

60g unsalted butter, at room temperature
150g caster sugar
1 egg
20g cocoa powder
40ml red food colouring
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
120ml buttermilk
150g plain flour
½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1½ teaspoons white vinegar
1) Before you do anything else, put the oven on 170/325 Gas Mark 3 (I have a fan oven and put it on about 150) and line your tin with cupcake cases ready to fill.

2) Make a paste by adding the cocoa and vanilla extract to the red food colouring. I find that using a fork and whisking it together in a jug works best for me, make sure you burst all the little rocks of cocoa that you will get. Put this to one side.

3) Cream the butter and sugar together until smooth, the secret with this recipe is the amount of beating and whisking you do, your arms get a proper workout but for some reason it makes a difference.

4) Slowly add the egg, I beat it first and then tip it in in three goes, beating each time until its completely combined and smooth.

5) Now get your whisk out because you are going to need it, tip the red colouring and cocoa mixture in and whisk for about 2 minutes straight until the whole thing is a very consistent and well mixed colour. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and re-whisk if necessary.

6) Put your whisk on the lowest speed possible and slowly pour in half the buttermilk, whisk in for a minute. Then add half the flour and repeat (dont sieve the flour first) repeat with the other half of the buttermilk and flour and whisk again. It should by now be looking like a very smooth and airy mixture.

7) Sprinkle the bicarb of soda across the top of the mixture covering as much area as possible. Now sprinkle the vinegar across the same area and watch it fizz! Grab your trusty whisk and go for it, whisking like a demonised whisking machine until the whole thing is smooth.

8) Now, just when you thought you were done, turn your whisk up as fast as you can bear and whisk for another two minutes.

9) Spoon into the cases so that they are about two thirds full and place in the oven. It sounds utterly mental I know, but my oven cooks them perfectly in exactly 23 minutes although the recipes say 25ish. Experiment with your oven until you know the right time for yours but base it round this.

Buttercream:

80g butter (unsalted and room temperature)
250g icing sugar
3 teaspoons of plain/greek yoghurt or milk

The method here is something that has taken years of experimentation and trials and failures to make. I believe there is a god of buttercream and sometimes, if you have pissed them off (how, I do not know) they will make sure your buttercream WILL NOT work.

It will split. It will curdle. It WILL NOT SET. In these cases I find a glass of wine, a deep breath and (in worst case scenarios) a trip to the co-op for Better Crocker are a good solution. But Betty will never taste as good as the real deal. So be calm and try again.

But for me, this set of ingredients and this method does work and generally sets. The first secret is to use proper butter rather than stork as this is thicker and more stable at room temperature.

1) Place the butter in as big a bowl as you have (trust me on this). Tip in ALL of the icing sugar.

2) Take a fork and mash the icing sugar into the butter as much as your arm muscles can bear whilst chanting a prayer to the God of Buttercream (if you like).

3) Once the icing sugar is loosely stuck to the butter, get your whisk back out (no, I am not joking).

4) This is where you will be thankful for a big bowl. Add the yoghurt/milk and then whisk like crazy. Icing sugar will spray up the sides of the bowl but this is why you have done some preparatory mashing, most of it will not. Keep whisking and whisking and after a minute or so, just when you think all is lost, it will come together and go gorgeous and glossy and look like proper buttercream. Which it is. Unless today is not your day as per the God of Buttercream as explained above.

Just a tip, if while whisking it seems to turn to sand, worry not, this is normal and for some reason just seems to happen right before the consistency shifts into a thick creamy texture.

Ta da!

It is at this point you can tint it with colours, if it starts to look too wet and runny add more icing sugar. The dairy element seems to stabilise this version and for me, 9 times out of 10 I get perfect buttercream which will hold its shape when piped onto the top of cupcakes.

Enjoy and please let me know if you have a go at this, it is my favourite and much laboured over recipe.

Chilli Con Quorn

2010-10-18T12:11:00.000-07:00

6/70

Just made Chilli Con Quorn and I have to say I really enjoyed it - although I did add more chilli than the recipe called for as we have quickly realised that our spice tolerance is considerably higher than the Quorn Cookbook generally accommodates (too much travelling in S.E. Asia eating chilli flakes on everything!).

So, chilli con carne is actually one of my favourite meals and NOBODY makes as good a chilli as my mom, who always cooks it if she knows I am going to be around. This, therefore was quite a test of both quorn and the cookbook as it had a lot to live up to before I had even begun.

Things I tweaked from the recipe were only minor, it called for 1/2 a teaspoon of chilli powder, I added 1 teaspoon of hot chilli flakes (bought back from Thailand - the real deal) and also seasoned it to taste with a bit more cumin than the recipe called for. I also used a yellow instead of a green pepper (purely as that was what I had in the fridge) and chucked in some mushrooms that needed using up too.

This is it as it was simmering towards the end:

I did like the fact that this recipe includes adding cornflour and water as a paste at the end, it thickened the sauce up nicely and also lightened the colour a bit so it looked pretty nice too.

In terms of weight watchers points, this is a really good deal, 1.5 for the quorn, 1 for the oil used to brown the onions and garlic and 2 for the kidney beans. Therefore a portion of this (based on it serving 4) is only 4.5 points. Ideal if you serve it with a 3 point portion of rice for a substantial and tasty meal.

To me this doesn't taste like diet food and I think a meat eater would be hard pushed to know the difference as the quorn mince soaks in the sauce in the same way as beef mince would, the texture is so close that it is not easy to see or taste much difference.

My other half gives this 6/10 (but then he hates kidney beans anyway) and I would give it a 7/10. It is tasty and filling but doesn't hit the spot quite like my mom's does. Then again its probably got less calories so that's the trade off I guess.

One other thing - I always add (raw and unsalted) cashew nuts to the rice when eating chilli as it's something that Mom does and I just totally associate it with the dish nowadays, try it! It also adds some extra and appreciated protein for veggies.

Toad in the Hole With Red Onion and Thyme

2010-10-17T11:52:00.000-07:00

5/70

Oh my goodness - this is PROPER veggie comfort food heaven. I am currently so utterly stuffed I am virtually unable to move. This recipe gets a 10/10 from me because it feels absolutely indulgent, tasty and downright bloody enjoyable!

But....

I do have a *small* admission to make regarding the sausages - I actually used Cauldron Lincolnshire because these are our favourites and personally (much as we love Quorn) I just think they are packed with more flavour and have a meatier texture. This does add more in the way of weight watchers points (Quorn sausages have 1 versus 1.5 per Cauldron counterpart) but I do think it makes a positive adjustment in this recipe which is worth it for the extra calories.

So, this recipe is pretty straightforward but it does take longer than I was expecting, 20 mins in the oven first for the sausages and red onion wedges with some olive oil drizzled over and then another 40 minutes with the batter on. The result though is beautifully soft, caramelised onions in the finished product so it is well worth it.

This is it in the oven during cooking, I was quite impressed with how it rises (despite containing plain flour?!) and turns golden:

I actually did worry that I should have used a bigger roasting tin - the book was vague about the size and just states a 'small shallow' sized one. Actually this size worked fine.

I had used frozen fresh thyme (I always freeze bunches of fresh herbs and find they work perfectly well in most dishes) in the batter and the smell from my oven was amazing while this cooked.

On removing from the oven it looked pretty impressive too:

Like a proper grown up toad in the hole! This is definitely one of those recipes where you have a picture in your head of what it should look like and then, when it comes out looking just like it you feel incredibly proud of it!

Weight watchers points here are based on this serving three (and based on how utterly stuffed I am this is more than enough - even my other half didn't want seconds!). So each portion contains 2 sausages. This means 3 points from sausages, 3 from the flour in the batter, 1 from the eggs, 1 for the oil and half a point for the milk used (I substituted the semi skimmed in the recipe for skimmed and it worked perfectly well).

All in all that makes 8.5 points for a portion which may seem quite high, however, as I learned tonight, you really do not need to serve it with any other carbs (I did some mashed potato, totally underestimating how filling this is) and therefore if you serve with just some veg the 8.5 points is pretty good for a main meal.

Here it is served up with some gravy, mash and green beans:

You can see that even just serving a third of it with the two sausages, this is a substantial portion.

Double thumbs up from me to the Quorn people for this recipe, a tasty, easy to make and rewarding recipe which produces seriously tasty and satisfying comfort food which doesn't cost too much in terms of calories and fat.

Husband gives this an 8/10 and I would give it 10/10, overall then a 9/10 and personally my favourite recipe so far, I will definitely be making this again and would serve it to friends and family, both veggie and carnivorous.

Salsa & Nacho Crusted Fillets

2010-10-13T12:57:00.000-07:00

4/70

Mmmmm. Very tasty this one!

Usually we find fillets pretty bland and only use them chopped up in other dishes like jambalaya, but tonight I made the Salsa & Nacho Crusted Fillets and they were actually not just tasty but quite a welcome and interesting change.

This is them during cooking, before the nachos and cheese were added:

The bag of fillets contains 6 and the recipe suggests that this serves 2 or 3, personally I find quorn quite filling so I only had two, I served them with some mashed sweet potato and they went very well with this but would equally work with a salad or wedges to make them part of a more or less substantial meal.

A couple of picky things about the book so far which were particularly noticeable on this recipe relate to the missing bits of information which basically mean you have to guess, assume and just wing it really.

For instance, on this recipe it does not clarify whether you are cooking these from frozen for this recipe or defrost first (in the back of the book it vaguely suggests that recipes work better from frozen unless there is a marinade - but the salsa here could be considered that). Also, no guidance is given on how best to crush the nachos or to what size, I went by the picture and ad libbed by putting them in a freezer bag and whacking them with a spoon. It also does not state which type of nachos to use, I chose lightly salted as they are my favourite but actually this recipe may benefit from a cheesy flavour.

Weight watchers points per portion (based on a portion being 2 fillets) are incredibly low again, the quorn equates to 1.5, the weighed out portion of cheese and nachos adds 2.5 points so provided you use a fresh salsa with no nasties in it (which is therefore zero points) overall the quorn fillets are 4 points for a portion.

When they came out the oven they smelled amazing and looked pretty good too:

The texture is really interesting and works surprisingly well with the cheese and salsa heated up, like proper nachos like you see on the TV. My other half adored them and actually ate the remaining four that I had cooked. Very tasty and certainly it jazzes up the fillets which soak in some of the salsa flavours.

I will definitely be making these again and will potentially try them with the suggested Monteray Jack cheese (I used mature cheddar today) and cheese flavoured nachos.

9/10 for this one from both of us, which was a surprise as I was not expecting to be that impressed!

Quorn Balls in Tomato Sauce

2010-10-11T12:24:00.000-07:00

3/70

I have just cooked Quorn Balls in Tomato Sauce for our tea. I was very impressed with the flavour of the sauce, I have to say, but am a bit miffed about portion sizes....

Here is the sauce as it finished cooking:

Now I used a whole pack of the swedish style balls for this and when I counted them there was 18 in the pack, this is meant to serve 4 people....but 18 does not divide neatly into 4 for a start, I guess maybe there is meant to be an average of 20 in a bag and therefore 5 per person which would be about right.

This sauce is very tasty although my other half thought it was a bit bland (but then he would put chilli flakes in everything given half the chance). It is a great base sauce which would be brilliant for adapting - I chucked in a handful of chestnut mushrooms, sliced up, which needed using and it worked fine.

The sweetness of the tomatoes works well with the chopped up carrots, which are not something I would generally put in this kind of sauce, they also gave it a nice and varied texture. I ad libbed with a bit of balsamic at the end where the recipe just said 'season to taste' and I think that suited the flavours well.

Weight watchers points wise this is an excellent choice, because most of the ingredients are zero points (tomatoes, carrots, herbs) the quorn balls are 1.5 and then you need to account for the small amount of oil and the stock, this makes the sauce an amazingly low 3 points per serving, added to a weighed out portion of pasta it makes for a tasty and very filling meal for around 7 points (more if you sprinkle on some parmesan).

I would definitely make this again as a base sauce but will probably always ad lib with what I have to hand, it is simple and tasty and very low fat so it gets the thumbs up from me.

6/10 from the husband, who thinks it lacks a bit of heat. I would personally give it 7/10. Much better than out of a jar containing god knows what.

Quorn Tikka Masala

2010-10-08T12:16:00.000-07:00

I have just made and eaten Quorn Tikka Masala from the Taste of Takeaway section of the cookbook.

Mixed feelings but on the whole pretty positive. It is tasty but for us it could have done with a bit more sauce and a bit more spice. Here is a photo of it once cooked, it did not look too far off the picture in the actual book:

In terms of weight watchers points, it is pretty low which is great. The main points are from the pieces, I made it with low fat greek yoghurt (the recipe did not specify either way) so that bought the points in lower and there is a small amount of oil and stock which also needs counting along with the tikka paste, this means the points total, based on the curry making four portions is 4 points per portion.

If you then serve with a weighed out portion of rice for 3 points you have a pretty darn good curry for 7 points.

Taste wise, I would have liked it to have a bit more 'oomph' and therefore when I make this again I will use hot chilli powder instead of mild and use more of it. I may also use even more water to thin down and expand the sauce - although I did already add extra water at the end with this version. It is not a particularly saucy curry, so to speak.

This is pretty easy to make and I chose to defrost the Quorn pieces before marinading which I think makes the quorn soak in the sauce much better than from frozen. This saw me defrost a bag of pieces in the microwave for the first time, two bursts of 3 minutes with a shake in the middle and they were indeed defrosted perfectly, as per the guidance in the back of the book.

Husband gave this 7/10 as a dish so not bad at all.

Craving a Curry

2010-10-08T06:47:00.000-07:00

Hello!

Sorry, its been a week of birthday meals and social events which has meant not much cooking at home, but this weekend we have decided we are craving a curry so Quorn Tikka Masala is going to be the next recipe sampled.

On another note, I have been asked by my good friend Kelly (currently in hospital being induced with her first born - good luck Kells!) to share my red velvet cupcake recipe which is one I have been making for friends and family and various occasions for about a year now.

Whilst this is not a quorn thing, I reckon I may well post it on here rather than setting up another blog for baking. Hope nobody minds this! I will upload it over the weekend and also add the results of the Quorn Tikka Masala. Also intending to do the Quorn Balls in Tomato Sauce recipe during the next week or so, ingredients are on the shopping list for tonight (I must be insane to be doing my grocery shopping after work on a Friday but it's just the way it's fallen this week).

Back later with updates, ciao!

Steak, Ale & Mushroom Pie

2010-09-30T12:09:00.000-07:00

No 1/70

Just finished the Steak, Ale and Mushroom pie and it was VERY tasty indeed.

I had to make it in my small le creuset ceramic casserole but it turned out fine. Based on the ingredients this makes 4 portions of pie at 7 Weight Watchers points per portion. Please note this is based on my own calculations, most of the ingredients are zero points, only the steak pieces (1.5 points per quarter bag) and the puff pastry (5 points per portion) have a value. The other half point I have added is for the small amount of olive oil and pale ale in the recipe.

From start to finish this took about 40 minutes, half of which was in the oven. The end result was way more impressive than I was expecting, I served it with mashed potato and it worked well, see below:

The only things I will change if I cook this again will be to add more ale than the recipe suggests as personally we like more 'gravy' than this pie produced. Also, despite having longer than the recipe suggested the carrots were still a little on the crunchy side, I would consider cutting them into smaller chunks.

But - on the whole this is a tasty, filling and very healthy alternative to a steak pie, the seasoning works well and it is very appealing on a cold autumn night.

Monkey rating: 8/10 (from Veggie husband)

Bon appetit!

Steaking My Claim

2010-09-30T04:04:00.000-07:00

Ok!

Tonight I am going to make the Steak, Ale and Mushroom pie. I was very pleased to find that my local Asda had the steak strips in the frozen section so I did not have to traipse elsewhere to get them.

I have all the ingredients in to make this for tea and serve it with mashed potato. I also am going to make the crunchy salsa fillets over the weekend which I think is in the snack section, I reckon I will do this with a salad for saturday lunch.

Anyway, I will be back later with review of the steak pie recipe and points values.

A New Day is Quorn!

2010-09-29T03:07:00.000-07:00

Hurrah!

The book has arrived and I have had a chance to have a look through it - on the whole I am very excited about it and there are some great recipes to try, not as many as I was expecting but plenty enough to be going on with. The sections and recipe totals are broken down here:

Simple sharing snacks: 8
Light bites:                 7
Super soups:               4
Midweek winners:        11
Comfort classics:         7
Lazy weekend:            13
Food with friends:        8
A taste of takeaway:    9
Little chefs:                3
                            ---------

Total =                     70

So, we have 70 recipes to go at. I intend on completing all 70 by the end of March which works out at roughly 3 a week. I figure based on my shopping and our eating habits this is doable. Some weeks I guess I may do more and some weeks less - but I will tackle all of them.

One slight disappointment I notice, is that there is no nutritional guidance alongside each recipe, I will be attempting to figure out the weight watchers points for each recipe as I follow this plan anyway so it should be easy enough - it is a shame that Quorn did not include this information as standard though, especially given that so many people choose Quorn as a healthy option in the first place.

So, this week I am going to attempt the Steak, Ale and Mushroom pie - provided I can find the steak strips needed, going shopping tonight so fingers crossed! Looks good in the book though. Will be back to blog after or during the completion of this dish and once I have figured out the points value!