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.
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.
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.
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.
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!).
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!
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.
