Super Easy & Low Calorie Thai Yellow Curry

I’ve wanted to share one of our go-to recipes for a while and I am finally getting round to it! This is our super easy low calorie Thai Yellow Curry recipe. It really is dead easy to make and as I always seem to be trying to lose a few pounds I love how low calorie it is while also being really yum. We get 9 portions out of this too so it’s also low cost and budget friendly.

P1050929I love Thai food. I first learned how to make a Thai yellow curry while in Thailand about 9 years ago, including making the paste from scratch. I’m afraid time is of the essence these days though and we use a paste. Our favourite brand changed the recipe of their paste, and it now tastes like feet, but we have found an almost as good alternative which is still pretty delicious. It is the Thai Taste Gang Garee Yellow Curry Paste (affiliate link). We buy it on Amazon but you can get it from other places too. It means the curry isn’t as yellow in colour as it was with our previous paste but the taste is the most important!

The other key ingredient, which makes it so low calorie, is the coconut milk we use. Instead of using the typical canned coconut milk we use a uht coconut milk. I bought it by mistake once and found actually it worked so well for this curry. It makes it much lighter and now I MUCH prefer it to regular coconut milk. The one we use is Koko Dairy Free UHT Coconut Milk Alternative (affiliate link) and we just get it from the supermarket, it’s with the uht milks and dairy substitutes but I have found it on amazon too.

So, getting to the recipe for our Thai Yellow Curry

Ingredients

500g Chicken, chopped
1 Onion, peeled and diced
2 Cloves garlic, peeled & crushed
800g Potato, peeled & chopped
2 jars Thai yellow curry paste
300g Carrots, peeled and sliced
1 ltr Low cal coconut milk (uht)
½ tsp Fish sauce (or to taste)
1 tsp Sugar (or to taste)

Method

1. Stir curry paste, chicken, onion and garlic together in large pan or casserole dish (we use a big Le Crueset pan). Heat, stirring continuously until chicken is lightly browned
2. Add coconut milk, carrots, potatoes, fish sauce and sugar. Stir.
3. Cover and bring to the boil then reduce heat and simmer gently for approx. 40 mins, or until potatoes and carrots are softened. Once you are sure the chicken is thoroughly cooked it is worth tasting, if it is a bit too salty, add a little sugar, if it is too sweet, add a little fish sauce. My measurements for these are approximate and can be amended according to taste.20170331_173516
4. Serve with 150g cooked rice.

That is literally it, see what I mean by super easy?

As I mentioned, we get about 9 adult portions from this recipe and teamed with 150g of cooked basmati rice each portion it is about 500 calories in total. We freeze the extra portions so we have an even easier meal that just needs defrosting and heating up on 2 more days (the kids share what I call an adult portion so we get 3 family meals out of the 9 portions). There’s often some sauce left too so we stir in some extra rice to that and hubs has small portions of thai curry flavoured rice for his lunches at work, which he teams with some chicken or ham or something. 20170331_185217

I love this meal, it feels so healthy but has a lovely kick to it too. My kids love it which is even better, though they do need a cup of milk as it is quite spicy. We also get so much out of it in terms of dinner and lunches. Just love it!

Super simple chocolate fudge recipe

I wasn’t sure what on earth to get for Monkey’s Teacher and Teaching Assistants for Christmas this year. It’s our first foray into presents for teachers and to be honest I didn’t want to spend too much money or time on them, but I still wanted to give them something nice. Having seen lots of seemingly simple recipes around for homemade fudge, I decided to give it ago. I’ve typed it up below as mine are a bit of a variation on some others I saw, and ooh they are scrummy.photogrid_1481736987541

I made two, a white chocolate and cranberry fudge and a minty white chocolate fudge. The first part of the recipe is identical then you add flavours later.

Chocolate Fudge ingredients

397g Tin of Condensed Milk
550g White chocolate, broken into small pieces
40g Icing Sugar (sieved)
For the minty version
1/2 teaspoon peppermint extract
Handful milk chocolate chips (to sprinkle on top)
For the cranberry version
1/2 cup of dried cranberries

Method

Line a baking tray (deep ones work best) with greaseproof paper.

Melt the chocolate and condensed milk. I did this on the hob in a Pyrex dish over boiling water, but you can do it in a microwave, if you do it in 10-20s bursts. With both methods stir well throughout.

Once melted take off the hob and add the sieved icing sugar. Mix well (you can use an electric mixer).

Add other ingredients of your choosing (peppermint extract, or cranberries, or nuts etc) and again stir well.

Pour the mixture into your lined tray and spread evenly. For the minty version this is where I added chocolate chips and gently pressed them in for the topping.

Refrigerate for 3-4 hours at least.

Take out and cut as desired. Our tray was quite long which meant the fudge wasn’t very deep but I got at least 30 bite sized chunks from each, though it would depend on the size of baking tray you use and how big you cut them up!

So easy and so tasty!

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Lots of cooking and baking

My word of the week this week is “cooking” as I seem to have spent a lot of time cooking and baking lately! Mainly food for LM as we continue her weaning journey and I am looking for easy freezable finger foods I can take out and about with us or just have readily availble at home so there is not a huge amount of prep at every mealtime.

So, in the last week or so I have tried the following new recipes: salmon croquettes, cheesy flapjacks, carrot muffins (which I made correctly this time after forgetting to add the butter the first time, d’oh!), meatloaf, and an apple oat cake plus the usual things for us to eat like a big batch of carrot and honey soup, sausage carbonara, sweetcorn fritters etc etc. (I have intended to share these recipes on here for some time but never get round to writing the posts!)

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Carrot muffins, cheesy flapjacks and carrot soup, the fruits of one morning’s labours!

 

Most of the new recipes have come from the baby-led weaning cookbook and I am afraid to say that so far I have not been that impressed with them. The exception to this is the salmon croquettes as even I don’t mind those and I am not a big fish fan. The carrot muffins aren’t terrible but the cheesy flapjacks are just odd and I’m not that keen on the oat cake either (Icooked it for 15 mins longer than it says but still is soggy in the middle, is it supposed to be like that?). I suppose the meatloaf wasn’t terrible either but it wasn’t exactly delicious.

Difficult as of course recipes for babies do tend to be a little more bland as they contain much less salt or sugar than we would usually use. Having said that though, the sweetcorn fritters are based on an Annabel Karmel recipe (just with the addition of a few more veggies) and they are lovely, as are many of the other things we have tried from her cookbook so I don’t think that recipes suitable for babies necessarily have to be bland.

It’s a shame to be spending so much time and effort in the kitchen and being disappointed with the results to be honest! Thankfully because at least 50% of the food I have made this week are tried and trusted recipes, they are lovely but it’s a shame none but one (the salmon croquettes) of the new recipes from the weaning book are going to be added to our repertoire I don’t think… I’m not even sure how to tweak them to improve them… as I’m not sure they are worth the effort!

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the slightly soggy centred oat cake

Monkey has enjoyed helping me cook and bake though so it is always nice to have him in the kitchen with me helping weigh out and mix ingredients. The low point though was when trying to do some with LM awake and eating/playing in her high chair in the kitchen with us. She wasn’t having any of it so I ended up holding her in one arm & balancing her on my hip, while hastily whizzing some fruit, greasing a pan, stirring the mixture (with Monkey’s help), filling the pan and putting it in the oven. It is blimmin amazing the things you can accomplish with one hand when you have to, but my goodness it makes it hard work!!

The kids are enjoying the oat cake and it is full of goodness so I may not like it but at least they are!

WP_20150603_001The over-riding success of the week actually comes in the form of not a recipe exactly, but more of a cheat. I love Paprika Chicken at restaurants but we have never been able to recretae it at home, none of the recipes I have tried seem to have the right balance of seasoning. So when I saw some funky new pre-seasoned papers that you wrap the chicken in, I thought they had to be worth a try. And they were great!

This isn’t a sponsored post and I didn’t get them free to review, but we thought they were lovely, and so so easy.You wrap the chicken in the paper, and fry it in the pan. It’s that straightforward. The chicken was juicy and the flavour was yummy. So hooray for a success, I needed one!

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Making Pizzas with Hidden Vegetables

Monkey is a fussy eater. He wasn’t until he was about  13 months old then almost overnight everything changed. I’ve talked at length about it before and we have ups and downs with how fussy he is. We have been going through a very fussy patch lately. As he has been so poorly over the recent weeks he really hasn’t had as much of an appetite so we have been happy when he has eaten anything really. I am planning a seperate post about this but it is so difficult to be strict with them when they are poorly, especially with food as he needed to keep his strength up and things can taste really funny when you are poorly.

I’ve been watching “Junk Food Children who’s to blame?” on TV too recently, and well I think it is pretty obvious the documentary makers are laying the blame squarely on the parents. I think they are probably right, as they are the ones who buy the food for their children, but I can also see how it is a slippery slope and none of these parents do it with intentions of harming their children. Far from it, they are probably too soft on them and that isn’t always good for them.

Anyway it has made me think a lot about Monkey. He has a pretty good diet anyway, hardly ever has crisps, chocolate etc, BUT we could do better. He doesn’t really eat any fresh fruits (we get him eating dried, cooked, frozen pureed but no joy with fresh really) and we struggle with lots of vegetables too, and most things actually. Pasta, sausages, chicken, pretty much everything depends on his mood. Most dinner times are spent with Mummy and Daddy pretending to be the voice of a toy (postman pat, a bus, an owl, any toy really) as he is much more likely to eat something when a toy suggests it! Not ideal but we go with what works.

One great way to get kids interested in food is to get them to help with preparing and cooking food. Monkey does love cooking but after catching himself with the peeler a few months ago he has been more reluctant to get in the kitchen. He has expressed more of an interest though lately, and with poorliness and chicken pox meaning we have spent a lot of time at home, rather than out and about, I have grabbed the opportunity to get him back in the kitchen. We do a lot of baking, which is great, but there is no reason cooking can’t be fun too.

We love Annabel Karmel’s recipes, her veggie burgers are a firm fave and we make them regularly in big batches so there is always some in the freezer. Another regular is her hidden veggie pizza sauce, which again we make in big batches and freeze. I know not everyone is into hidden veggies and I would prefer Monkey ate vegetables without having to hide them, but while we work on that I don’t think there is anything wrong with getting them into him any way that we can.

Hidden Veggie Pizza Sauce

Ingredients

WP_20150304_09_28_57_Pro1/2 onion – finely chopped
1/2 leek – thinly sliced

1 small carrot, peeled and grated

1/4 courgette, grated

1 clove crushed garlic

1 tbsp olive oil

1 400g tin chopped tomatoes

2 tbsp tomato puree

1 tbsp tomato pesto (we use sacla sundried tomato pesto)

2 tbsp tomato ketchup

1 1/2 tsp sugar

We tend to double this and make a big batch (because so many of the ingredients are halved etc.) which gives enough sauce for 20 pizzas, so this would do about 10 pizzas.

Monkey helped me prepare the veggies, washing them and grating which is good as at least he knows there are veggies. He even announces that he loves leeks and courgettes – without tasting them. I love his enthusiasm though even if I don’t believe him for a second!

Heat the oil in a saucepan, add the onion, leek, carrot and courgette and saute for 8-10 mins until soft but not coloured. Add the garlic for one minute than remove from the heat. We have hard anodised pans and a hand blender so I add the remaining ingredients in the pan and blend in there, but if you have non stick pans, or if you prefer, you should move the veg to a blender or bowl at this point.

Add the remaining ingredients and blend until smooth.  Return to the pan and simmer for 20-25 minutes. Allow to cool and then it can be frozen in batches. I usually spoon off a couple of ladles full into a tupperware which can then be got out to use with 2 pizza bases as and when. I would love to make our own pizza bases, but don’t have the time or energy at the mo – hopefully we will one day though!

Pizza toppings

The pizza sauce is great, but with the small amount of veg in there I doubt it would count as one of your 5 a day, and we really want to work on getting other veg into Monkey. Homemade pizzas are a great way of doing that, as cheese can help mask the veg, and you obviously get control of the ingredients. We use a half fat cheese, because it happens to be our fave and does help with our diets.

This is the fun bit that kids can really get involved with. We bought Monkey a child safe knife – which has a rounded tip and a fairly blunt serrated edge. It still cuts veg so you still have to be very careful around it, but the thought of Monkey cutting with it terrifies me a heck of a lot less than helping him use our big scary kitchen knives would! It means he can join in with the chopping safely and without giving me heart failure. (Yes he is wearing his PJs in these pics, I indulged him with a PJ day when he was poorly :))

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So he helped me chop up the mushrooms and yellow pepper and had great fun doing it. The amounts and size of the bits I guess depends on your kid and their fussiness level. We are going for not too much, and fairly small at the moment as if they are big he will either eat round them or refuse to eat them at all. Even some of these size bits have been a challenge to get him to eat! Monkey is seriously stubborn and often goes to bed without eating any tea when he doesn’t like what is on offer (or at least he has decided he doesn’t like it even when we know it is something he does actually like!).

So anyway, yes our chunks are quite small. We also use some flavoured turkey meat for the most part, though do use other meats too sometimes to shake things up a little :). Monkey helped spread the sauce onto the pizza bases and then sprinkle the meat, veg and of course cheese on top. Yummy pizzas made :). WP_20150304_11_35_57_Pro WP_20150304_11_37_51_Pro Now I won’t say it was plain sailing. We make variations of this quite often and it depends on his mood and like I say at the moment he really is quite fussy. He did eat some though and moaned more about the chunks of meat than the veg and with him it really is all about seeing something he doesn’t like. If a mushroom or pepper is hidden under cheese he eats it no problem. If he can see them he doesn’t want it. So it is a work in progress but for my part, I thought they were blimming lovely and it is a good way to get him involved with cooking and vegetables so got to look at the positives! Tasty Tuesdays on HonestMum.com

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Yummy Turkey Bolognese Recipe

This is one of our favourite family meals, as it is delicious and so simple. It started at life as one of Annabel Karmel’s recipes (as regular readers will know, I love her) which we have adapted to make enough for the whole family, and we use Turkey whereas she uses chicken in her version. It’s great to get a bit of hidden veggie goodness into picky eaters too

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Ingredients
1 tbsp Olive Oil
1 Onion, peeled and finely chopped
2 Carrots, peeled and grated
1 large Garlic Clove, peeled and crushed
500g Turkey Mince (we use thigh mince)
1/2 tsp dried thyme
600ml Passata (sieved tomatoes)
300ml Pure Apple Juice
2 tbsp Tomato Puree
Lots of Worcester Sauce (I think about 3 tbsps but I don’t really measure it!)
1 tbsp Italian mixed herbs
2 tsps sugar

To Serve
Pasta. We use wholewheat as it goes nicely but normal pasta is lovely too. We tend to use weight watchers portion sizes so have about 50g of dried pasta per person, it’s not a lot though so make as much as you would normally use for your family. There is plenty of mince in the recipe, we tend to get 4 adult portions plus two kiddy portions from the bolognese, and they’re quite generous.

Method
1 – Heat the oil in a fairly large saucepan and gently fry the onion and carrot over a low-medium heat, stirring often, for 3 minutes or until soft.

2 – Add the garlic and fry for another 30 seconds

3 – Add the turkey and fry, stirring frequently until cooked.

Boil and reduce the sauce

Boil and reduce the sauce

4 – Add the thyme, passata and apple juice, bring to the boil.

5 – Stir in the tomato puree, worcestershire sauce, sugar and italian mixed herbs.

6. Bring to the boil, reduce slightly but then leave to boil and reduce for 15 minutes (stirring occasionally).

7. Meanwhile cook the pasta according to packet instructions.

8. Taste test the sauce, adding more worcestershire sauce if needed.

Serve/ You can either mix the sauce and pasta together, or serve separate, whatever your preference.

Including the prep time I find it takes 40-45 mins to make but a big chunk of that time is just on the hob.

So simple and tasty, and being Turkey it is a really healthy, low calorie meal too, packed full of flavour. Why not give it a go?

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Annabel Karmel’s Amazing Veggie Burgers

I am a huge fan of Annabel Karmel’s recipes. I had no idea whatsoever what to do when it came to weaning Monkey so we got her book and it made it all seem so much easier. There are many of her recipes that we have now converted into family meals because she is really good at getting those veggies in and still having the food taste amazing.

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I actually saw these burgers on her website when Monkey was at one of his fussiest times and decided to give them a go. They have become a regular in our house since then as they are seriously delicious and they get all of us to eat a lot of lovely vegetables. Initially Monkey loved to eat them in a Pitta Bread, then during the worst fussy stage he refused to eat them, but now he loves them and tends to open the Pitta bread and just pick out the burger – with all the vegetables and goodness in there that is fine by me! 🙂

The original recipe was for a smaller batch (halve all of the ingredients below if you’d prefer to make less) but we make a whole load of burgers, which we then freeze and reheat as and when as they are a bit of a faff to make – but so worth it!! It doesn’t feel as much of a faff now as I’ve got a bit more efficient at it!

We also made these for one of my best friends who is a notoriously fussy vegetarian (she doesn’t like many vegetables!?!) and both her and her veggie boyfriend loved them too so that is definitely a good endorsement for you.

Ingredients
100g Roasted Unsalted Cashew Nuts finely chopped  
(we whizz them in the food processor)
WP_20140208_13_34_03_Pro100g White Breadcrumbs ( or toast a few slices of white bread then whizz in the food processor)
4tsp Thyme (Fresh or Dried – I use dried)
100g Grated Cheddar Cheese
300g Sweet Potato (approx. 2 medium sweet potatoes) peeled and cubed.
2 Red Onions, finely chopped
2 Carrots, Peeled and Grated
2 Small Leeks, finely chopped (see below *)
200g Chestnut Mushrooms, finely chopped (we aren’t fans of mushrooms so we whizz them in the food processor, they go a bit mushy but it works well in the burgers!)
2 Cloves Garlic, Crushed
2 tsp Runny Honey
Flour
Oil for frying

The cashew nuts, whizzed

The cashew nuts, whizzed

The mushrooms, whizzed

The mushrooms, whizzed

*This may not be helpful at all, but we don’t like big bits of leek, so I have found that if you slice  along the length of 3/4 of the leek so it is in halves, then turn and slice again so it is in quarters (and again so it’s smaller if you can) while still attached at one end, it makes it easy to chop it into very small bits. (If that makes sense at all??? If not just ignore and chop how you like!)

PicMonkey Collage

Method

Put  the breadcrumbs, cheese, thyme and nuts into a bowl

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Boil some water in a pan, add the Sweet Potato and cook until soft. Drain and put to one side.

Heat a little oil in a large frying pan. Fry the Leek, Onion, Carrot and Mushrooms for 10 minutes or until soft.

Add the garlic and fry for 1 more minute

Tip the vegetables into a large bowl. Add the breadcrumb mixture, the Sweet Potato and the honey.

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Mash together and season to taste, I don’t find it needs much seasoning, if any.

Put some flour into a small bowl, shape the mixture into approximately 16 burgers and coat each burger in flour.

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(No my arms haven’t suddenly got hairy, hubby helped with this bit :))

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It can help to rest the burgers on a pre-floured surface before cooking so they don’t stick!

 

 

Heat some more oil in the frying pan (we tend to use Rapeseed Oil or Extra Virgin Olive Oil but it’s up to you which you use) and fry on a medium-high heat for 2-3 mins on one side, until browned, then flip (they are still quite soft so it helps to use a spoon in one hand and spatula in the other, you have to be a bit gentle though!) and cook for a further 2-3 mins on the other side. Hubby likes them quite well cooked so ours end up quite a dark brown!

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Leave to cool on some kitchen towel to remove excess oil.

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Serve! We often serve in toasted Wholemeal Pitta Bread, and I love them with a dash of chilli and tomato chutney, but Hubby and Monkey love them just as they are.

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You can serve in bread rolls of course but because they are quite a soft texture we find the pitta breads work really well, and they help hold it together, we made bigger burgers for my friends and they were delicious but they all squished out of the sides of the roll when you bit into them!

To Freeze, I layer in parchment paper (to prevent them sticking together) and freeze in freezer bags. Then I just reheat them in the microwave. I’m not sure what the recommendations are but I just take them straight from the freezer and microwave for a minute or 2 (to make sure they are piping hot) leave them to cool a little bit for Monkey then serve.
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Spicy Sweet Potato and Butternut Squash Soup

I made this for the first time last week and was amazed how well it turned out – I have never made soup before so if I can do it anyone can! Monkey has been a fussy eater for months now but after a few tries he loves soup! Wahoo! So I need to learn to make some, great way of getting some more veg into him!

Hubby is 1/4 Malaysian (I know, he doesn’t look it) so we like quite a lot of spice in our house. I added a bit more spice than was in the original recipe I found and Hubby, Monkey and I all love it, which is great.

If you are unsure about how spicy you would like it, I recommend adding half the spices mentioned below, then have a quick taste after it’s blended and add the remaining if you feel you need to. It’s easier to add the spice than take it away!

I found it took about 40 -45 minutes including prep time.

The ingredients below is enough to make about 6 servings, though it is worth mentioning that I was making a double batch when I was taking the photos so they are to give you an idea but there is a lot more of everything than you will need to make the amount described!

Ingredients
WP_20140203_11_03_55_Pro25g Butter
1 Onion – Finely chopped
1 clove of Garlic, crushed
1 Butternut Squash, cubed to 2-3cm
1 Sweet Potato, cubed 2-3cm
1 tsp Paprika
2 tsp Mild Chilli Powder
2 tsp Ground Coriander
2 tsp Ground Cumin
Salt & Pepper
100ml Double Cream (I used Elmlea Double Light)
1 Litre Vegetable stock. (The first time I did it I used a couple of knorr stock pots and it tasted amazing, but I forgot to buy them the second time and only had a low salt vegetable stock – it tasted ok but nowhere near as much flavour being low salt.)

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Method

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In a large saucepan melt the butter on a low heat

Add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally. Add the crushed garlic to the pan.

 

Once the onion is soft, add all of the spices and a shake of salt and pepper and fry for a few minutes.

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Add the Butternut Squash and Sweet Potato and stir to coat in the spice mix.

Pour in the stock and make sure everything is covered. Give it a good stir, making sure you get to the bottom of the pan.

 

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Bring to the boil and simmer until the vegetables are soft.

WP_20140203_11_58_01_ProBlend to the desired texture (I use a hand blender in the pan because I either use a big Le Crueset pan or our saucepans which are hard anodised – I wouldn’t recommend doing this if your pans are non-stick, you could pour into a food processor instead).

Stir in the cream and serve.

Easy Peasy and so yummy – is delicious with some crusty bread.

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Enjoy!
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