Relentless_Eating _Machines Munchings

[Relentless_Eating_Machine]

monday 9th nov 09

breakfast - 2 WW danish toast with ham lettuce & tomato
2 x coffee

snacks - fruit & yogurt

lunch - nigerian beans in lettuce leaf wraps with tomatoes and carrot sticks

snacks - hot chocolate - 2 syns

dinner - slow cooker barley, butterbean & butternut squash stew on couscous. 2 syns - chilli sauce

pudding - banana & fromage frais

TOTAL SYNS - 4 (THATS WISHFUL THINKING PROBABLY! )

yes it was - ended up adding a innocent pot beetroot & quinoi to my lunch - 7 syns and a kit-kat - 5.5 syns
However didnt have the hot choc and had 2 corn on the cobs instead of the couscous with my barley & squash stew - recipe posted on Winter Warmers.

Stuffed now!!!!

New syns total 14.5

 

[Honeyoc]

Hiya!! I was just wondering, are you Nigerian?! I love your posts and yummy recipes. I'm from Nigeria as well and I would love to swap ideas with you on how to make fave dishes SW friendly!

 

[lushx]

well done on eating so well.. belive me all im eating is eggs,bacon and chicken.. with a few healthy extras.. im new to this plan only 3 days. really unsure of what to eat as we all like to eat as a family and i can plan for everyone with out knowing my syns or if they are free lets hope this diet lasts longer then a week

 

[Honeyoc]

Oooh Relentless, thanks for the friend request, I've accepted! Though I don't think I can PM anyone yet as I'm still a newbie. Humpf!

 

[Relentless_Eating_Machine]

Your welcome!
In answer to your question - no I am not nigerian but my partner is 1/2 and was born in lagos. I have spent the last 8 years eating and learning to make nigerian food - you live in London, we used to and would eat at D'Den in Cricklewood, Ja in Kilburn and Island Buka in Deptford.....salivating at the thought

Jollof rice is easy to adapt, the brown beans too with rice & plantain.
Egusi is my absolute favourite but not tried it yet. Love chicken stew too. The frying of the sauce in palm oil gives it the authentic taste though so that would be missing....have you tried to adapt anything?
Any recipes you could give me to try?

Nice to talk to you
REM

 

[Honeyoc]

Hiya!! Wow so good to hear that you love Nig food yay!! I was born in Ibadan (about an hour's drive from Lagos but moved to Baltimore when I was 4, lived there for years then moved back to Nig and then here 7 years ago).

I love D'Den too lol, I eat there all the time (I should say used to, now with SW lol). I also love Mama Calabar in Hendon but they've moved so now I get my mum's friend who's a caterer to make all the time consuming dishes and I just batch and freeze heh heh... Its hard to make authentic Nig food SW friendly because of all the oil in it. My husband is Australian and LOVES Nigerian food so I cook it at least once a week and if I'm going to stick to SW I'll need to make them SW friendly somehow! So far I make;

Roasted plantain - Just slice diagonally, spray with spray oil (I used real olive oil spray not fry light) and roast, I can have this with chicken stew or "fried" eggs.

I also made some ox tail stew and efo riro (basically egusi soup without the egusi, which is soooo fattening) a few weeks before I started SW. I used 2 tbsp of olive oil for the whole recipe which isn't bad as it served 6 so only 2 syns per serve. I made it with pounded yam (made the old fashioned way with a mortar and pestle! Burned a few calories doing that phew!!) should be free as its in the same family as mashed potatoes The ox tail was a bit fatty though, even though I trimmed it to within an inch of its life! So in future I'll probably use fresh fish or chicken.

Pic!

I was wondering, do you know if dried crayfish, dried fish etc are free foods or need to be synned?

And to get around the palm oil issue maybe we could try making it with spray oil and then heating up say a tablespoon of palm oil and stirring it through at the end? Just to give it that yummy taste...?

Moinmoin is also an easy one to adapt to SW as its steamed. I usually add some oil into the mixture but I could easily skip it. And of course like you said, the beans! Yum. I like to add some plantain in it while its cooking so when it all breaks down it'll have a delicious sweetness. MMmmmmm!

Might stop by Brixton market later today!

Gosh I do go on don't I? So good to meet you here!!

 

[Relentless_Eating_Machine]

WOW - THOSE PICTURES ARE AMAZING - IT LOOKS DELICIOUS!!!!! I CANT COOK LIKE TRUE NIGERIANS!

MOINMOIN ALWAYS GOES WRONG FOR ME...DONT KNOW WHY.

Jollof is real easy to adapt, I can make the chicken stew using a teaspoon of palm oil.

I use dried crayfish and they only contain the crayfish and salt so they are free as far as i know. I also use SHITO shrimp in oil but try to just get the shrimp and not the oil...hahaha
I also use a jollof seasoning mix that they sell in tesco which i think may be synned but not sure.

I have amala at home - do you think this is synned as it is a flour?

How do you make your egusi soup?

Roasted plaintains is a brilliant idea - never thought of that - boiled just isnt the same! Do you par boil first though or just chuck them on a baking sheet?

D'Den is by far the best place for me! They now have their shop over the road too selling ingredients - it smells though!

 

[Honeyoc]

PMSL!! All Nigerian shops have such a strong fishy smell LOL! Okay down to business;

For the moinmoin, do you add a beaten egg to yours? I find that it holds its shape a lot better and I steam them in old baked bean tins (small ones) and seal with foil. So to take it out I just scrape the edges with a knife just like you do with cake. I don't bother using moinmoin leaves, they're tricky to use and hard to find.

Hmmmm I'm not sure about amala, it is a flour and they're not a free food. But then again amala is the lightest of the stodgies (what I call em lol) and what a lot of Nigerians opt for when they're trying to lose weight so dunno... Maybe have some but just occassionally? Seems silly as its less than half the calories of pounded yam!

For the efo riro here's what I do

Heat up 2 tbsp oil (olive or palm oil) and fry the tomato mixture (I blend about 8 large tomatoes, 4 scotch bonnet, 1 red pepper, 1 small onion, 2 cloves garlic and a small piece of ginger. After blending I boil the mix until most of the moisture has evaporated and it's nice and thick. I do all this before frying in the oil). I fry the mix for about 15 minutes stirring well so it doesn't burn. Then season with salt and chicken stock cube, add 2 heaped tbsp dried ground crayfish, dried fish and some whole dried crayfish. Stir well. Then add your fresh fish (I love adding jumbo prawns) and blanched wild spinach. SImmer for 10 minutes and serve! So its basically the same as egusi sou, just without the egusi itself. I prefer this to egusi anyway so it wasn't much of a sacrifice.

For the plantain I don't bother parboiling, it'll get too mushy otherwise. Just bung straight into the oven. Have you ever been to Nigeria? There's a street food called Boli which is just plain roasted whole plantain on an open barbecue (usually served with peanuts) so I knew straightaway that I could do that for SW purposes. You could roast the plantain whole too, so yummy to just eat as a snack

 

[Relentless_Eating_Machine]

Thats interesting about the amala. I love it with egusi.
Will definately try your efo riro 4 scotch bonnets????? 3 is just about as much as i can handle! - the egusi would be heavy on syns as it is seeds and very oily. Thanks
I use boiler chicken in mine with the dried crayfish.

No not been to Nigeria yet but have heard of boli.

I am going to make some more beans in my slow cooker this week and will have with rice and roasted plantain.

Thanks you have been a real inspiration

Do you miss puff-puff??? hahaha

 

[Honeyoc]

LOL I like my stews hawt! Good idea about the boiler chicken, nice and lean compared to roasters. Beans with rice and roasted plantain sounds absolutely divine! My mouth is seriously watering at that... Yum! I think I'll have to make some and post pics!

I do miss puff puff! I used to make it all the time but my goodness, they're so moorish and so bad! lol
Here's a pic of a batch I made!

I love taking food pics lol, playing with the idea of a recipe blog

 

[Relentless_Eating_Machine]

You should for sure! I use Motherland website for recipes.
Your stuff looks great!!

I'm so up for some nigerian cooking now - I have tomorrow off work so will cook something up, maybe try the efo riro.
My son is 4 and loves eating HOT food....he has eaten stew and rice Ja on many an occasion, usually starts crying when his plate is clean that his mouth is burning!! LOL

 

[Honeyoc]

Awww how sweet! Your son sounds like me when I was a kid lol. Okay I better leave and stop trespassing in your diary, good luck and enjoy all your Nig dishes!

 

[Relentless_Eating_Machine]

tuesday 10 nov 09

Breakfast - 2 ww danish with ham & tomato. 1 activia yogurt & banana
2 x coffee

Snacks - 1 mikado - 0.5 syn

Lunch - autumn barley stew with brussels & cabbage chilli sauce - 1 syn

Pud - be-light fromage frais - 0.5 syn
with apple, melon & pineapple
1 x fruit tea

dinner - chicken tikka mini fillet salad with sweet potato & laughing cow light chilli sauce - 1 syn

pudding - fromage frais toffee muller & banana

syns - 3

 

[Relentless_Eating_Machine]

WED 11 NOV 09

Breakfast - chopped banana and apple with activia yogurt and handful of allbran
2 x coffee

Snacks - hot chocolate - 2 syns
Forgot to bring some fruit today:cry:

Lunch - huge plate of couscous with chicken tikka mini fillets, mushy peas and chopped tomatoes and courgette.

Snacks - left overs from lunch - eyes were bigger than my belly

Dinner - slowcooked keema curry (with mushypeas added to mix thought I'd try out this new fangled idea!) with saffron basmati rice - this is syn free!!!!!

Pudding - fruit and yogurt

Syns total - 2!!!!!!!!!!!!!! what need to add some extras in here!

4 mikados - 2 syns
Vodka & diet coke - 3 syns

New total - 7

 

[Relentless_Eating_Machine]

thurs 12 nov 09

breakfast - Alpen light crumbled on toffee muller with banana & apple - THANX HONEYOC 2 x coffee

Snacks - banana, apple, 1/2 alpen light bar (son stole the rest!) 1 x coffee

Lunch - autumn barley stew with tons of swede, butternut & cabbage. Chilli sauce - 2 syns

melon slices & natural yogurt

Cuppa with the neighbour
2 x mikado - 1 syn

Dinner - large sweet pot jacket with tuna mixed with tin of ratatouille - 2 syns
large salad with heaps of light mayo - 3 syns (the odd over-indulgence never hurt anyone! )

Pud - melon

Snacks - hot chocolate - 2 syns
melon wedges apple and raspberry yog

Total syns - 10

 

[Relentless_Eating_Machine]

friday 13 nov 09

breakfast - 2 ww danish with ham & dairylea & tomato. Chopped apple
2 x coffee

snack - alpen light crumbled on natural yog with banana

lunch - couscous salad with tikka chicken & 7 olives - 2 syns

snacks - hot choc - 2 syns
melon wedges

dinner - turkey stirfry with basmati rice
and vegetables. chilli sauce - 2 syns

Pudding - yogurt and banana
2 x mikado - 1 syn

Syns - 7

 

[Relentless_Eating_Machine]

saturday 14 nov 09

breakfast - activia peach yogurt, natural yogurt, apple, melon, banana & muesli with some dried papaya & pineapple - HEB X 2
Coffee x 2

Snacks - satsuma & apple

Lunch - wholewheat penne with 1/2 can ratatouille - 1 syn, mixed veg & tuna chilli sauce - 1 syn

Snacks - apple, banana, vanilla yogurt & 2 mikados - 1 syn

Dinner - chicken breast stuffed with quark garlic & chilli (forgot to wrap in ham ) with jacket spud and loads of salad. 3 syns for various sauces

Pudding - fruit and quark with hot chocolate - 2 syns

Syn total - 8

 

[Relentless_Eating_Machine]

sunday 15 nov 09

breakfast - allbran, activia, chopped fruit
2 x coffee

snacks - orange apple
Coffee

lunch - asda sushi box, apple - 5 syns

snacks - apple orange dipped in quark (mixed with marmalade & options - like jaffa cakes) - 2 syns

Dinner - salad - mayo EXL - 1 syn, jacket potatoes and chicken breast stuffed with quark garlic & chilli sauce - 1 syn

Pudding - Jaffa quark with carrots????? - 1 syn

Total syns - 10

 

[zarafa]

Awesomeness. I just got a whole bunch of ideas for low fat food
Thank you
xx

 

[Relentless_Eating_Machine]

Thanks Zarafa - if you want any more ideas/tips just let me know.
I'm not a fan of fried/junk food so I guess my menus are pretty healthy, I definately eat more than ever now and maintain without gain so I must be doing something right!

Cheers
REM