Challenge? Lunch (& dinner if poss) meals for those watching that weight...

liz545

what about couscous, it's cheap, healthy, and surprisingly filling. It works well with most veggies, and you can add stuff like chopped up ham/chicken, mackerel (tesco value mackerel's great!), nuts and seeds, olives, dried fruit, feta, pesto... the possibilities are endless!

Penny-Pincher!!

Eat less and exercise more

PP
xx

mirry

Eat sweet potatoes instead of normal potatoes , they are low carb.

Nicki

I've been trying to lose weight for a few months now. 2 stone down, about 10 pounds still to go. I decided the easiest way to do it would be to work out menus which still taste good and can be cooked in similar ways to ones I've used before. I also do the old favourite thing of making extra, freezing it in measured parcels (labelled with the calorie count) so if I come in starving I can having something ready in a few minutes which stops me snacking.

Here are two of my current favourite recipies

Chimichangas (323 calories)

Ingredients

250g lean minced beef
1 can fat-free refried beans
1 tub salsa
1 small green chilli
4 cloves garlic, crushed
1 teaspoons chili powder
3 tablespoons diced onion
8 tortillas
1 cup shredded low fat cheese
1/2 cup creme fraiche

Additional salsa

Preheat oven to GM 6. Coat a baking dish with vegetable oil spray. In a large frying pan over medium heat, brown beef; add refried beans, salsa, chile peppers, chili powder, and onion; cook until heated through. Stir in cheese.
Wrap tortillas in paper towel and warm in microwave. Spoon 1/2 cup of beef mixture onto each tortillas. Fold in sides and roll up. Place in prepared baking dish. Bake, uncovered, approximately 20 minutes or until crisp and golden. Remove from oven and serve with additional salsa and creme fraiche.

Makes 8 servings. Freezes well and can be cooked from frozen (add another 10 minutes or so to cooking time)

Slowcooker Chicken Parmesan
+ 28g (raw weight) rice + salad per person( 400 calories)

Ingredients

4 Chicken breasts
Salt and pepper
Italian seasoning
1 can low fat condensed tomato soup
½ cup of water
1 bay leaf
1 garlic clove
1 ball mozzarella
2 tbsp grated parmesan

Brown chicken with garlic, salt, pepper and Italian seasoning in a little olive oil. Mix tomato soup, water, and bay leaf in slowcooker, add chicken and cook for 3 to 4 hours until tender. Remove chicken and sauce to casserole dish, (remove bay leaf) sprinkle with mozzarella and Parmesan cheese. Heat GM 5 until cheese is melted.

Serves 4

What also works for me is to google the name of the dish I fancy plus the words low calorie and "crockpot" or "slowcooker" if this is how I want to cook it. This then throws up lots of recipies to use or adapt as you wish. Often you can cut calories and fat down further than the recipie suggests if you brown the food without oil, or with a spray of oil, or choose a lower fat alternative ingredient. HTH.

tiff

Where do you get fat free refried beans Nicki?

linzibean

I would point out that if you are exercising, don't cut out all your carbs as they provide the slow burn energy you need to keep up an exercise regime

Nicki

tiff wrote:

Where do you get fat free refried beans Nicki?

I got them in Tesco's in the Mexican food aisle. Having said that, I'm not sure how much fat there would actually be in the ordinary refried beans (despite the name!) so if you couldn't find them, could just check out the nutritional info on the side and slightly adjust the calculation of the calorie/fat content of the recipie (maybe use a bit less if there is a lot of difference)

tiff

Ok thanks Nicki, the only refried beans I've seen in our tesco are the discovery ones I think, will check the label. Thanks.

calleyw

lynzpower wrote:

Just one of those plant spray bottles will do, you can get packs of three in my local poundshop

They will not be made of food safe plastic so might not be such a good idea.


Yours


Calley