Challah-la-la-la!

This week's Weight Watchers meeting talk is all about taking control of leftovers. Because most of the tips and recipes provided by WW are focused on turkey and other Christmassy fare, I wanted something to give out to my Jewish ladies that might be more appropriate for the dangerous leftovers lurking in our kitchens. This is what I came up with - a delicious recipe for low fat french toast using leftover challah; I'll be handing out copies in my Hendon meeting tomorrow, and having just trialed the recipe for my melave malka, I can confirm that it's delicious - real comfort food!

INGREDIENTS

2 slices slightly stale challah (approximately 80g)
1 egg white
4fld oz skimmed milk
Splenda, nutmeg, cinnamon to taste
Frylite
10g honey

Mix the egg white and milk in a shallow dish and soak the challah pieces for about one minute. Grease a baking dish with spray oil and place the slices inside, spraying the tops of the bread too. Sprinkle with a mix of splenda, cinnamon and nutmeg. Bake in an oven preheated to 160' for 45 minutes. Drizzle with the honey and enjoy!

This serves 1 person and is 8pp.

Little lemony pies

I was in the mood to bake something a bit different this week and came up with the idea of trying to do low in pro points lemon meringue pies. After a bit of research I came up with a recipe - I wasn't sure if it would work but they came out better than I could have imagined!! Amazingly, these are only 1pp each (or 2pp for 2, 4pp for 3). They were quick and easy to make and look fantastic.

INGREDIENTS

BASE:
12 x wonton wrappers, defrosted

FILLING:
2 tblspn sugar
2 tblspn splenda
2 tblspn lemon juice
1 egg yolk
20g cornflour
1/3 cup water
1 tsp low fat spread, melted

TOPPING:
1 egg white
2 tblspns splenda
5g cornflour

Preheat the oven to 180'. Prepare the wonton wraps by spraying both sides with frylite, and pressing each one into the base of a muffin tin. Bake for 5 minutes on 180'c.

To make the filling - mix the cornflour with the water, add the remaining ingredients and blend well with a handblender. Cook in the microwave until thickened, for 1 minute at a time on 'low'. This took me about 3 minutes. Stir after every minute.

To make the topping - whisk the egg white until it begins to thicken. Add the splenda and cornflour and whisk until it forms stiff peaks.

Remove the wonton baskets from the muffin tray and place each one into a paper muffin case on a baking tray. Put a dollop of lemon curd filling into each basket, and top with a spoonful of the meringue. Bake for a further 5 minutes until the meringue starts to brown.

Enjoy!!

Latkele, latkele hop on the .... baking tray

This Shabbos I will be serving my Grandma's famous potato latkes for lunch. They are super-yummy and melt in the mouth but she certainly doesn't cut corners when it comes to her ingredients, so I dread to think how many propoints they would each contain.

Weight Watchers is all about making it easy for yourself to stick to your guns, so I knew that if I was serving latkes I better have a darned good alternative waiting for myself! These baked courgette latkes fit the bill, and even better they are 0pp for 1, 1pp for 5 and 2pp for 9!!

INGREDIENTS
1 medium onion
2 medium courgettes (zucchini)
2 egg whites
40g wholemeal flour
1 tsp salt
pepper to taste

Grate the onion and courgette in a food processor and mix with the remaining ingredients. Drop by tablespoons onto a baking tray lined with silicone paper and bake for 15 minutes on 200'c. Then carefully turn with a spatula and bake for a further 12 to 15 minutes.

Makes 15 small latkes.

Short and sweet... X 2

Hello everyone!

I don't have time this evening to post a full blog but I cooked/baked two different things today that I wanted to share with you at least in part.

The first was a chicken mince shepherd's pie (no photo, was too hungry - sorry!!). I cooked the mince in my usual way - dry frying it, then simmering in passata with herbs. But at the last minute I had a brainwave and added a splash of teriyaki sauce to the pan. It really gave the chicken a more 'meaty' edge - I know it worked because I was scraping my spoon round the edge of the pan after dinner, trying to get the last bits out, and I haven't had the urge to do that since I stopped cooking with beef mince :-)!! I made the mash for the pie out of swede with a drop of low fat spread and about 20g of egg white. The whole dish came to 4pp (for 150g chicken mince) and was a beautifully warming, filling meal.

The second thing I made today was inspired by a recipe I saw in one of the Jewish magazines last weekend - either Binah, Family First or Ami Living, but I can't remember which one, sorry. It was for chanukah gelt (money) cookies - I thought it was such a novel idea that I made them myself; I used the recipe posted on here a while back for chocolate chip cookies, only I left out the chocolate chips and the dried cranberries. As soon as the cookies came out of the oven I pressed a parev chocolate coin (small size) onto the surface and then left them to cool and harden. The recipe made 20 cookies of 2pp each (that includes the chocolate). Lovely chanukah treat!

A very happy WW chanukah!

We've been talking so much at Weight Watchers about the Pro Points values of festive foods over the past few weeks, that I've become super-aware of just how pointy those Chanukah delicacies really are... I think last year, because I still had so much weight to lose, I could get away with underestimating the odd doughnut or latke, but not anymore. I mean, 7 pro points for a small Grodz doughnut is outrageous! 3 bites and it's gone!

Fortunately though, over the last 18 months I've also been honing my 'enlitening' cooking skills and I think the version of baked doughnuts I've come up with here is really as close as you're going to get to the real deal without so much as a hint of oil. They are 4pp each, and really very tasty!

JUDY'S BAKED DOUGHNUTS
(this method works with the dough cycle of a breadmaker, and ingredients should be added in the given order. I'm sure it would work by hand too - but I haven't tried it so can't say for sure)



5.5 fld oz hand-hot water
1 tblspn melted low fat spread            
1 egg
6 dessert spoons sugar
0.5 tsp salt
2.5 cups strong white bread flour flour
1 packet instant dry yeast

Once the dough has come through the dough cycle, punch it down, roll it out and cut into rounds with a biscuit cutter (I actually used a plastic drinking cup). I made 13 doughnuts. Leave to rise in a warm place on a tray oiled with frylite, until nicely puffed up. Bake for 15 minutes in an oven pre-heated to 180'c. I then injected each doughnut with 2.5ml of sugar-free strawberry jam (using an old medicine syringe). Just before serving I sprayed each doughnut with frylite and rolled in granulated sugar.