Homemade, Dairy Free, No Churn Icecream

I made something which I'm actually posting (briefly!).

Mix by hand - one cup of peanut butter (I used reduced fat smooth, because it's just not as nice as the normal stuff) with one cup of soya milk.

Keep mixing until it combines

Add a spoonful of honey, to taste

Freeze

It's scoopable and tasty! You could add cinnamon if you wanted, or even not put honey in. But I am v pleased.

Parsley Pesto... ish

Pesto is simply basil leaves with olive oil, parmesan and pinenuts. I've heard of parsley pesto, so when my housemate brought loads home and had a fair bit left after cooking a wonderful meal, I ended up using it in a parsley pesto type dip.

Ingredients
Parsley
Small amount of Apetina Light Feta cheese
Sunflower seeds
Small amount of olive/vegetable oil

Method
1) Put all ingredients in food processor (we used a mini chopper)
2) Blend.
3) Serve.

Tasty and simple, but not something to call pesto to an Italian!! As we used so little oil, ours was quite solid, but healthier.

Chocolate Crispie Balls

So for our housewarming I wanted to make something special. I did a chocolate mousse cake (I have a picture and will publish at a later date) and also these simple (and cheap!) crispie balls. Blame Nigella for these bad boys.

Ingredients
50g margarine
400g marshmallows
350g ish (or one bag!) Tesco Value Chocolate Crispies

MEthod
1) Melt the margarine
2) Add marshmallows. Melt them too.
3) Take off heat. Add rice crispies.
4) Put into tray (such as a ceramic dish, fairly large). Allow to cool.
5) Cut into squares, or if you prefer, small squares of approx. 2.5cm by 2.5cm.

Chinese-Style Pork Balls

Dinner today was definitely Chinese in flavour, with stir fried vegetables, eggfried rice, chilli and soy sauce marinaded tofu and pork balls. The eggfried rice was bland and boring so no mention of recipe here! Everything was fried in Frylight, so it's not that unhealthy!! The pork balls, however, were really really good. I saved half of mine for lunch tomorrow.

Ingredients (makes 10)
125g pork mince
CHinese 5 spice powder
Soy sauce

Method
1) Put mince into bowl. Add 1tsp fivespice powder and a fair few dashes of soy sauce.
2) Mix using hands. Squelch it up.
3) When mixed, shape into squashed balls, approx 1.5cm in diameter.
4) Fry using Frylight, for approx 5 minutes.
5) Approx calories - per ball = 26

Scales

I dropped a can of (ironically Shockwaves) mousse onto my weighing scales and it shattered the plastic screen which measures the weight. So I bought some new ones, but I've gone for digital this time... no cheating at all!!

My aim is to be sub 60kg. At the moment, I'm around 60-61, and I've yet to start the gym membership. Hopefully I'll be able to join it next week sometime. Particularly given the desserts I made for our party tomorrow!

Redefining flavours

One of my housemates and his gf cooked for us tonight. I'm not a huge garlic fan but the lemon and garlic lamb was AMAZING. It's a Delia "How To Cheat" one, linked here. We had roast vegetables and lightly sauteed leeks with it, followed by a beautiful coconutty white chocolate mousse. Again, I'm not a huge fan of white chocolate but again it was amazing! I'd like to put up the recipe here, but I haven't pilfered it yet.

Just goes to show that even ingredients you wouldn't necessarily use yourself can make FAB meals.

Healthy Bolognese

Yumyumyum, finally the end of the week of "not buying food" and I went to Tesco's (and Uhuru the health food shop over the road) and bought loads of vegetables!! Also, 500g of pork mince was £1.50, bargain, given it'll make approx 5 meals.

I used half of the meat to make bolognese, my friend came over for dinner and we left enough for me to have for dinner one night (probably one week when I've yet again bought something I shouldn't have and can't afford to buy more food). Per serving (assuming it serves 2, not 3, depends on how hungry you are!) this has 330 calories.

Ingredients
200g pork mince
1 can chopped tomatoes
1 tablespoon tomato puree
1 medium sized carrot, diced
1 small-medium onion (we used red, white would also work)
Fresh basil
Dried herbs and other seasonings

Method
1) Fry onion (ideally using about 5 sprays of FryLIght oil. Uses much less oil and at far fewer calories!).
2) When coloured, add pork mince and fry until browned.
3) Add can of tomatoes, carrot, and tomato puree. You may want to add some hot water so that it's got something to simmer against. Also, chop up the basil and add into pot, with seasonings.
4) Simmer for at least 15 minutes, but it's better if you leave it until it's a bit less liquid.
5) Serve with the pasta of your choice. Also v. good with jacket potatoes.