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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
