Prawn & Mushroom Stroganoff

Serves: 2
Calories: 271 Calories

Another Fast Day was upon us and I had started to get a bit bored of the delicious, but frequently consumed, stir fries and curries and fancied something different. Then I was reminded how ‘healthy’ stroganoff was for you. I didn’t have enough mushrooms to do mushrooms alone but we did have a bag of prawns in the freezer (another 5:2 staple!) and a bag of spinach in the fridge.

Rice uses up too many calories for us (we prefer quantity as we have big appetites). We have been substituting normal rice with cauliflower rice which works really well with a curry but worried it might over-power the stroganoff too much if used here so I just went with butternut squash chips instead!

It was a delicious and filling meal and all for much less than 300 kcal. I did say, if I was to do it again, I’d perhaps use either less spinach (and more mushrooms if I had them) or perhaps I’d use asparagus instead. Stuart said he’d prefer more squash. I’ll leave it to you to play with it.

Ingredients:

110g of Raw Jumbo King Prawns
150g of Spinach
1 Medium Onion (finely chopped)
300g Butternut Squash (314g)
150g Button Mushrooms (148g)
1 Tbsp Smoked Paprika
2 Garlic Cloves
3 Tbsp Sour Cream
150ml Knorr Chicken Stock (Gel Pot)
Salt & Pepper
13 Sprays of Sunflower Oil Spray

Pre-heat oven to 200 degrees. Peel and chop the butternut squash into large chips (discarding the seeds and fibres). Spray a baking tray with oil spray (I used 4 sprays spread across the tray), place the chips on top spread out and spray the chips with the oil (again I used 4 sprays). I forgot but would recommend seasoning with salt & pepper before then baking for 25 minutes turning once.

Meanwhile, in a non-stick frying pan or wok, spray the pan with 4 sprays of oil and heat gently. Fry the onion for about 5 minutes until starting to soften, add the garlic and paprika and fry for a minute more. Add the Mushrooms with another oil spray and fry on a high heat for about 5 minutes stirring frequently. Add the prawns, fry for 1 minute stirring then add the stock. Bring to boil then cook for 5 minutes or until sauce thickens. Stir in spinach and wilt. Take off the heat and stir in the sour cream.

Serve with the butternut squash chips.

Keralan Style Fish & Butternut Squash Curry

Serves: 2
Calories: 319 per serving (with my exact food weights)

(sorry, not a great photo)

This dish is like a fish chowder but with a good kick of spice and very aromatic. I love Keralan dishes, especially with fish.

As with my previous recipe, I have rounded up or down the measurements but have also included in brackets, if different, the exact measurements I used for the calorie account above.

If I was to award this dish a number of chillies out of 3 to indicate spiciness, I’d probably go with 2 but you can easily adjust the level of spice to suit your own tastes.

I also used frozen haddock but you can use any firm white fish (skinned & boned), frozen or fresh. King prawns would also be nice. If you use fresh fish, just hold off adding it to the dish for a further 5 minutes and for prawns, I’d recommend using raw and adding 5 minutes before the end.

Ingredients:

250g Frozen haddock (not smoked) cut into inch size chunks
200ml reduced fat/light coconut milk (we used Kingfisher – different makes have different calorie count)
330g Butternut squash, peeled & cut into bite size chunks (328g)
6 cherry tomatoes, halved
1 shallot, finely chopped
1 green chilli, seeds removed & finely chopped
1 flat tsp/10g of easy ginger paste (can use fresh ginger)
1 clove of garlic
1 tbsp dried curry leaves
1/2 tsp chilli powder
flat tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp black mustard seeds
8 sprays of sunflower fry-light
Cup of spinach (sorry I forgot to weigh it)
10 spears of asparagus

Spray a saucepan with the fry-light and, when hot, add the mustard seeds. When they start to pop add in the curry leaves, shallot, garlic, ginger and chillies. Fry while stirring until shallot is soft then add the butternut squash.

Tip: you need to keep stirring if you are using fry-light and on a lowish heat otherwise the oil evaporates and the ingredients burn

Mix the chilli powder & turmeric with a little water to form a paste then add to the pan. Stir for another 3-5 minutes then add the cherry tomatoes, the coconut milk then the fish.

Tip: I poured the coconut milk into the vessel I used to mix up the paste to not waste any of the spices

If the sauce is a little shallow add some water, I added approx.. 100mls.

Bring to the boil then simmer for 15 minutes or until the squash is soft.

Stir in the spinach then serve.

I served with the steamed asparagus (included in the calorie count), mainly because it was in the fridge and needed using but it worked together quite nicely. Feel free to substitute for your own preferred veg if you wish but remember to check the calorie count. If not keeping to a calorie controlled diet, you could probably share this between 3 and add rice.

If you try this dish (whether dieting or not, I’d love to hear how it went so please comment).

Smokey Vegetable Pot / Bake

The ‘Pot’ version of this will be the low calorie version. The Bake is what I would add to this meal if I was making it and calories were not being counted.

I didn’t know how this was going to turn out when I made it so I didn’t take much note of timings, therefore what I’ve written are guestimates and you will have to use your own intuition a bit if you think things need longer or less time.

Also, I do not profess to be any kind of chef/cook or recipe writer so sorry in advance.

The calories are based on our exact weights of vegetables so where I have rounded up/down, I’ve put our exact weight in brackets)

Vegetable Pot

Ingredients:

• 450g cauliflower (452g), chopped into small florets
• 400g tin of peeled plum tomatoes, whizzed slightly in a food processor to chop, not liquidise
• 100g fresh baby leaf spinach
• 90g green beans (92g), cut into 1” sticks
• tbsp smoked paprika
• 50g black olives (54g), halved
• 1/2 pt of water
• 300g sweet potato (313g), boiled, drained then mashed (nothing added)

With the sweet potato as a side, our meal came to 300 calories per generous serving exactly. If you chose to do the dish with another side then the vegetable pot came to 172 calories per generous serving. In our opinion, the sweet potato was a really pleasant accompaniment as the sweetness cut through the nutty taste of the cauliflower really nicely.

To avoid using oil, I steamed the cauliflower first. We have a hob steamer so I boiled the sweet potato in the bottom pan while I steamed the cauliflower in a pan above the sweet potato. I made the mistake of not cooking the green beans first expecting they would cook quickly enough in the sauce but in hindsight, it would have been better to steam them a little first.

So, while the sweet potato and cauliflower were cooking, I poured the tomatoes into another large saucepan and added the green beans (see point above) and smoked paprika while bringing it to a simmer.

When the cauliflower was partly cooked but still ‘al dente’ I added it to the sauce with half of the water and stirred it all around ensuring the cauliflower was coated in the sauce. I then continued to simmer for another 5 minutes before adding the black olives (if getting quite dry, add some more water). I continued to simmer for a further 5 minutes, ensuring the cauliflower and beans were cooked. I didn’t at the time but next time I would season here. Finally, I stirred in the spinach and once wilted, took it off the heat and served it with the mashed sweet potato.

Here it is (presentation could do with some work but it looked lovely and colourful on the plate):

 

 

Vegetable Bake

Ingredients:

As above but with the following extra:

• oil for frying
• 1 small onion diced
• 400g tin of plum tomatoes (so a total of 2)
• 1 Tbsp of tomato purée
• 50g grated cheese
• 2 Tbsp of breadcrumbs

I would fry the onions until soft, add the cauliflower and green beans and fry for about 5 mins. Then add the tomatos, purée, smoked paprika and simmer until veg nearly cooked through. Stir in the olives and cook for another few minutes. Pour into a casserole or pyrex dish. Sprinkle with grated cheese and breadcrumbs and put it under the grill until cheese is melted and there is a golden brown top.

You could also add a splash of wine while cooking above and, if you aren’t vegetarian, I bet chorizo would be lovely in this too.