Low in fat, not low in taste..

I was chatting with someone at the gym last week about my weight loss and was hugely inspired when she told me that she had been overweight as a teenager and kept her weight off for over 30 years! But she mentioned that she cooked very healthily at home, "except for desserts of course", because otherwise her children would complain and be upset...

I felt that this was a bit of a shame and a missed opportunity; since starting this journey myself I must admit that I HAVE changed the kinds of desserts I cook for everyone on Shabbos and Yom Tov, and I don't think that anyone has been worse off for it! Occasionally I'll make a full fat apple crumble, and serve myself a portion with just fruit, but in general we all eat the same and nothing has more than 4pp in it... My Succos dessert menu includes baked apples with sultanas and parev custard; the poached pears in pomegranate juice I described in an earlier blog; and lots of different baked goods served up with sugar-free compotes.

This recipe, for summer fruit mini muffins, is a new one I developed for our pre-Yom Kippur meal, and judging by the oohs and aahs I got, and pleas for seconds, no-one felt deprived by the lack of oil or margarine! I hope your family will enjoy them too.

INGREDIENTS

100g low fat spread (eg Smartbalance)
10g splenda
2 large eggs, beaten
0.5 tsp almond essence
125g flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
Frozen summer fruits

Preheat the oven to 160'c (fan-assisted) and prepare 18 fairy-cake cases in appropriate trays. Combine all the ingredients except the fruit into a smooth batter and drop by heaped teaspoons into the cake cases. Drop about a teaspoon of frozen fruits on top of the batter in each case. Bake for approximately 20 minutes or until cooked through and starting to brown on top.

These are excellent served warm. Less than 2pp each!

Fishing for Compliments

Sometimes I just get bored of making gefilte fish every Shabbos. Not least because my dear husband won't touch the stuff that comes in the freezer ready rolled, and there is a dearth of fishmongers in the area with sensible opening hours.

At times like these, I have a great standby - vegetable fishcakes. Just as low in points as gefilte fish, and actually much less of a palaver to make - no standing over a smelly pot for ages! These are equally nice served hot or cold, and would make an excellent light meal as well as a Friday night starter. They work out at between 1 and 2pp each, depending on how large you make them.

INGREDIENTS

200g potatoes, peeled
150g butternut squash, peeled and chopped
450g frozen plaice fillets - defrosted
1 onion
Salt and pepper to taste
4fld oz matzo meal or fine dried breadcrumbs
0.5 tsp paprika
2 medium eggs
0.5tsp baking powder

Boil the potatoes, onion and butternut squash in a pan of water for about 15 minutes. Add the plaice fillets and continue to cook for another 10 minutes. Drain and cool slightly. Blend the potatoes, vegetables and fish in a food processor and add the remaining ingredients. Roll into balls with damp hands and place on a greased baking tray. Spray the tops with frylight. Bake for 30 minutes on 160'c.

Makes approximately 20 - 24 fishcakes. Can be frozen.

A Lesson in Leftovers - it's a wrap!

Like many people, I'm struggling to finish up the yom tov leftovers in my fridge before it's too late! One of the really successful dishes I turned out over Rosh Hashanah was my smoked salmon salad with avocado salsa - unfortunately I can't show you a picture of my beautiful plating efforts (masterchef eat your heart out) but I can give you the recipe for the salsa and show you what I did with it this evening...

TANGY AVOCADO SALSA

2 medium avocados
Half a cucumber
1 large tomato
2 limes
1 tsp dried dill
2/3 tsp dried mint
1 tsp splenda or other granular sweetener

Peel and chop the avocados and the cucumbers. Place in a bowl and squeeze the limes over them quickly, before the avocado has a chance to turn brown. Stir in the dill, mint and splenda. Add the chopped tomato and mix well. Serve on a bed of smoked salmon as an elegant starter!

Alternatively - spread a tortilla wrap with a teaspoon of low fat mayonnaise and sprinkle some chilli flakes on top. Lay 40g of salmon and 2 tablespoons of the salsa in the centre of the wrap and fold up takeaway-style.

The only thing you need to point in the entire salsa recipe is the avocado itself  - my wrap this evening cost me 6pp in total.

Winning ways with pomegranate juice!

OK so Rosh Hashanah has just ended and ostensibly I'm a bit too late with this pomegranate post. But some of the pomegranate-inspired dishes I came up with this yomtov will definitely bear repeating over Succos, so I thought I'd share them with you!

The base I started with for each recipe was a bottle of Pompure juice - any pomegranate juice will do but try and make sure it is pure juice and not a 'pomegranate juice drink' as this will be much more watery as well as not as good for you, and the resulting flavours won't be anywhere near as intense.

JUDY'S POMEGRANATE MARINADE AND DRESSING

1 bottle pomegranate juice
2 tablespoons splenda or other granular sweetener
3 tablespoons honey
2 teaspoons cornflour

Boil up the pomegranate juice until it is about 50% reduced. Add the sugar and splenda. Take out about a tablespoon of the juice and mix it with the cornflour to form a paste, then stir this back in. Simmer for a few more minutes to thicken and remove from the heat to cool.

POMEGRANATE CHICKEN

Pour the pomegranate marinade over the chicken pieces and leave for about 6 hours. Bake covered on 160' for 90 minutes, then uncover for a further 30 minutes. Scatter with pomegranate seeds before serving.

WARM SALMON SALAD

Bake cubes of salmon in a sauce of equal parts honey and soy sauce with a sprinkling of garlic powder. Serve on a bed of spinach leaves with grilled cherry tomatoes, and pour over some of the warmed pomegranate dressing.

The pomegranate dressing is also excellent served cold as a regular salad dressing with the veggies of your choosing!

POACHED PEARS IN POMEGRANATE JUICE

1 bottle pomegranate juice
2 cinnamon sticks
6 conference pears

Peel the pears and sliced a little off the bottom so they are able to stand upright. Place in a pan and cover completely with the pomegranate juice. Add the cinnamon sticks to the pan as well. Bring to the boil and simmer until the pears are a deep pink colour and the flesh is tender.

Serve warm in a dish with a little juice. Goes beautifully with meringues.

Bolognese Light - Dare to be Different!

Before I started Weight Watchers my family used to eat quite a lot of red meat; probably twice during the week and then again on Shabbos. Apart from the fact that it's not very healthy , red meat is quite expensive, so switching us over from the cow to the chicken was probably one of the best things I've done. These days, I barely ever need to buy any beef - one packet of goulash meat stretches to about a month's worth of cholent (for which my fat-free recipe will no doubt be appearing one day soon...)

In fact, nearly every recipe that calls for beef or lamb will work just as well with chicken or turkey instead, particularly when it comes to mince.

This recipe for chicken bolognese is so much lighter than the traditional ragu sauce in every way - less calories, less fat, but just as much taste. It's softer and stickier to work with than minced beef, and obviously paler in colour - but besides that, you can barely tell the difference.

MOCK BOLOGNESE SAUCE

Ingredients

2lb minced chicken
1 tin chopped tomatoes
1 carton passata
1 large white onion
1/2 punnet of small closed cap mushrooms
1 tsp bisto gravy original powder
Mixed dried herbs
2 garlic cloves
Salt and pepper to taste

Finely chop the onion, garlic and mushrooms and fry in spray oil until starting to soften. Then add the meat and break up with a fork until well mixed with the vegetables and about 80-90% of it has cooked through.
Add the chopped tomatoes and passata, followed by the bisto and herbs. Mix well and lower flame to a steady simmer. Cover and leave to cook for about 45 minutes. Can be served immediately or refrigerated/frozen and reheated (once defrosted) for 45 minutes on 160'c.

Serves 6 at around 4pp per very large portion!

Judy's Fudgy Chocolate Brownie Squares

My little girl turned 3 today and I couldn't decide whether or not to carve out a sizeable chunk of my propoints allowance for what would probably be a miniscule slither of her bakery-bought birthday cake.

Fortunately, I did some baking of my own this morning, and it occurred to me that one of my fudgy chocolate brownie squares would make a very satisfactory alternative while everyone else tucked into the 'proper cake' - all for a very respectable 2pp... (though in the end of course I did a fair amount of fondant-icing picking and cream-filling swiping, so it was lucky I had some extra propoints floating about as emergency cover!).

This chocolate brownie cake is lovely and moist and very quick and easy to make. It goes extremely well with ice cream, a bit of squirty cream, or lightly warmed with some 0pp fruit compote.

JUDY'S FUDGY CHOCOLATE BROWNIE SQUARES

Ingredients

2 large eggs
1 egg white
1/3 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/2 cup plain flour
3/4 cup splenda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
Pinch of salt
4 tablespoons ground almonds
1 heaped teaspoon coffee granules dissolved in 4fld oz hot water
8 tablespoons cocoa powder
1 tsp vanilla essence

Beat the eggs, egg white and applesauce till smooth and add in the dry ingredients. Mix well. Stir in the coffee and vanilla essence and beat again till no lumps remain. The mixture will be extremely runny - don't panic. Pour into a greased 8 x 6" tin and bake for 30 minutes in an oven preheated to 160'c. Leave for 5 minutes then turn out onto a wire rack. Cool and cut into 18 small squares of 2pp each.

Serve warm or at room temperature.

A bit of a squash in here!

I haven't made any soup other than the obligatory chicken for ages. After a winter of having it for lunch every single day, enough was enough!

But now that yom tov is on the horizon, it's time to get a bit more adventurous with my soup flavours - there are only so many nights in a row you can eat chicken soup with kneidlach without turning into a giblet...

Butternut squash has already come up once in this blog and it'll probably come up again before too long - it's such a versatile veggie, I can't really get enough of it! I have to confess I am lazy though - after a bad experience trying to peel and chop an entire squash, I now buy them ready prepared. It's one of those things I like to pass off as a 'necessary expense'.

When I put this soup on my Rosh Hashanah menu I planned to prepare it as a straightforward Butternut Squash Soup - but when I took out my saucepan this morning I was overcome with the urge to zing it up a bit. The result was surprisingly different and delicious!

GINGER AND ORANGE BNS SOUP

Ingredients

1kg chopped and peeled BNS cubes
1 large onion, roughly chopped
2 sticks of celery, sliced  
5 cups of water
3 teaspoons chicken stock
0.5 teaspoons dried ginger
2 garlic cloves, crushed
3 dessert spoons freshly squeezed orange juice
2 cubes frozen coriander
Salt and pepper to taste
Spring onion to garnish

Put all the ingredients in a pan and bring to the boil. Simmer for about 30 minutes until all the vegetables are soft. Blend and add more water if it's too thick for your tastes. Serve garnished with spring onions and some onion and garlic croutons.

This soup serves 6 and works out as 0pp a bowl (though it may come to 1pp for more than a bowlful!)

Freezes well.

Honey and spice and all things nice...

During my first year on Weight Watchers when the weather turned colder, I found I started to get hungrier in the evenings and crave warm, comforting food. Because my propoints allowance didn't automatically increase as the temperature dropped though, I had to find ways to 'make do', and that's when I first discovered the joys of baked fruit. A baked apple with some raisins and a splodge of custard is heavenly for only 2pp, for example. But why stop there? There are so many fruits that taste amazing after spending some time in the oven, particularly, I've found, those with stones at their centre.

This evening I was looking for a dessert idea to follow my curry, and this is what I came up with. It was just the right blend of spicy but refreshing, filling but light, and tasted absolutely delicious for 0pp (or 1pp if you decide to use the meringues).

BAKED SPICED FRUIT BLEND (serves 2)

INGREDIENTS

1 apple
2 yellow plums
2 apricots
0.5tsp mixed allspice
0.25tsp ground ginger
1 cinnamon stick
Seeds from 5 dried cardamom pods
10g honey
Frylight

Chop the fruit and place in a baking dish. Sprinkle the spices over the top and spray with a little frylight. Drizzle the honey on top. Cover and bake for 40 minutes on 150'c.

I served these with three Walkers meringue stars per person and a small amount of Gefen sugar-free chocolate syrup.

Currying favour...

The beauty of a takeaway lies mainly in its 'instantaneousness' and the lack of effort involved - you phone in the order, answer the door to the delivery guy, bung it on a plate (or not...) and you're all set.

Making a 'fakeaway' is always going to involve some effort on the part of the cook. But all the fakeaway recipes I've tried out from the Weight Watchers Community Swap can be made in advance and frozen, which does create a helpful sense of immediacy on the day you want to eat them! Some of the recipes, the curries in particular, taste even better when given some time to mature.

As I know I won't have time to cook tomorrow evening, I made this fakeaway in advance, right after Shabbos ended. My 'chicken jalfrezi' curry, prepared using the fabulous recipe Kuli80 posted on Weight Watchers some months ago, is now sitting neatly in the fridge in a takeaway-style foil container - all I have left to do before Sunday night's dinner is to cook some rice to go with it, and heat it up.

FAKEAWAY CHICKEN JALFREZI

Serves 2

INGREDIENTS

355g chicken breast, cut into strips
1 onion
1 green pepper
1 chilli pepper
1 tsp dried ginger or 1" fresh ginger root, chopped
1 garlic clove finely chopped
225ml chicken stock
2 tspns lemon juice
0.5 tspn salt
1 tin of tomatoes
1 tblspn tomato puree
1 tsp splenda or sugar
2 tspns garam masala
2 tspns ground coriander
2 cubes frozen, chopped coriander leaves

Fry the onion in some frylight in your actifry or wok. Meanwhile mix together the tinned tomatoes, chicken stock, tomato puree, chilli pepper, ginger root, lemon juice, salt, splenda, garam masala and ground coriander. When the onions are softened, add the sauce to the pan and simmer until bubbling and slightly thickened. Add the chicken pieces, chopped pepper and frozen coriander leaves and continue to simmer until cooked through (about 15 to 20 minutes in an actifry). Serve with rice (or miracle rice); you can also use a wrap in place of the more authentic chapati or naan bread (having never seen either those in a kosher store unfortunately...yet!)

The only ingredient that needs 'pointing' here is the chicken, so it comes in at a very low 5pp per person.

Showing "wonton" disregard for fat content....

With Rosh Hashanah and Succos looming I have been thinking lots about my yom tov menus. I recently posted on the Weight Watchers boards, asking for suggestions of low fat alternatives for vol au vents as a starter. Someone came back to me with the idea of 'filo baskets' - placing sheets of filo pastry in muffin cases and baking them to use as a little container for my filling of choice (mushrooms). As filo pastry is very thin though, I realised I'd need to use quite a few sheets to achieve a solid basket, and the points value wouldn't differ very much from a pastry vol au vent case.

Eventually, I came up with the idea of using wonton wraps to make the baskets instead (thanks mum, for that inspiration!). Each wonton wrap is only 1pp and you only need one per basket so it's a fantastic low points alternative. These look great and I think they'll make a perfect hors d'oevres for a Yom Tov meal.

MUSHROOM BASKETS

INGREDIENTS

1 packet of Gefen wonton wraps
2 punnets of closed cup mushrooms
1 large onion
Chicken soup powder
Frylight
Pepper, garlic powder to taste

To make the mushrooms: wash and slice the mushrooms and finely chop the onion. Place in a roasting dish and spray with frylight. Mix in 2 teaspoons of chicken soup powder, cover and bake for 40 minutes on 160'. Add garlic powder and pepper to taste if required. Set aside to cool completely.

To make the baskets, defrost the wonton wraps and spray a muffin baking tray with frylight. Push one wrap into each hole in the baking tray, then spray again. Bake for around 7 to 8 minutes on 200' but keep an eye on them as they burn quickly.

Once they turn golden brown, remove from the oven and leave them to cool.

And that's it! Once both the filling and the cases have cooled completely, put a teaspoon of filling in each basket. You can freeze them like this if you prefer to make them in advance.

In search of the perfect chocolate chip cookie

The title of this blog is a little misleading because I already discovered the perfect chocolate chip cookie about 19 years ago when I was in seminary in Israel. Every erev Shabbos I used to go to the (now sadly defunct) "Croissanterie" bakery in Jerusalem and buy a bag of their white chocolate chip and double chocolate chip varieties. They were meant to last the whole weekend but were inevitably all gone by the end of the evening - I dread to think how many propoints I must've been consuming in one fell swoop there!

Since then I have had an abiding love for chocolate chip cookies (who doesn't?!) and was pleased to see a recipe for a propoints friendly version on the Weight Watchers website. Always keen to get more for less though, I've adapted the recipe quite a bit - my cookies are bigger, for less points, and I use white chocolate chips and cranberries (because that's the sort of thing the Croissanterie would have done).

These are super easy to make and they store beautifully in a tupperware container. I'm sure they can be frozen as well, but I've never tried because they just don't last long enough...

WHITE CHOCOLATE CHIP AND CRANBERRY COOKIES

INGREDIENTS

50g low fat spread
4 tablespoons sugar-free applesauce
2 teaspoons vanilla essence
A good pinch of salt
200g plain flour
0.5 tsp baking powder
20g splenda
2 medium eggs
70g white chocolate chips
80g dried cranberries

Cream the spread, applesauce and splenda and stir in the vanilla, salt and beaten egg. Sift in the flour and baking powder. Finish by folding in the cranberries and chocolate chips.

Drop heaped teaspoons onto baking trays covered with baking parchment, leaving space between each cookie. Bake in an oven preheated to 170' (or 190' for non-fan assisted ovens). Cool on the trays for about 2 minutes and then remove with a spatula.

Makes 24 cookies (2pp each).

Fat-free potato kugel - a contradiction in terms? Erm - no actually!

This recipe for fat-free potato kugel was first introduced to me by my friend and colleague Leah. I soon realised that I had the cookbook it comes from - Nechama Cohen's 'Enlitened Kosher Cooking' - sitting idly on my bookshelf from a time I reviewed it for The Jewish Chronicle many moons ago. I guarantee you that no-one eating it will be able to tell  it contains no oil whatsoever - it's just as fluffy, golden and delicious as the next potato kugel!

I've made a few minor adaptations to the recipe which mean I can turn it out even more quickly, and I often serve it as mini 'kugelettes' rather than one big kugel, as you'll see from the image below.

FAT FREE POTATO KUGEL

INGREDIENTS

5 to 6 medium white potatoes, peeled        
1 large onion
2 egg whites
2 large eggs
1 tablespoon chicken stock powder
2fld oz boiling water
Salt and pepper to taste
2 tablespoons white flour (the original recipe called for wholemeal or soy flour but that was a step too far for my shabbos table!)

Preheat the oven to 160'c (or 180' if not fan-assisted).

Chop the onion in a food processor then immediately switch to the grating attachment and grate the potatoes. Quickly add the eggs and egg whites to prevent the raw potatoes from going grey. Dissolve the stock powder in the water and stir in to the mixture along with the rest of the ingredients. Turn into a tin sprayed with frylight and spray the top of the kugel with frylight to help it crisp up.

Bake for 70 minutes for one large kugel, 55 minutes for 3 loaf tin kugels, or 45 to 50 minutes for 'kugelettes' (makes around 16 to 20 in fairy cake cases, of 1pp each).

Can be frozen.

A Fishy Story...

Today's recipe is one I've been making for years; a version of my Grandma's 'salmon kakletten', (or salmon patties for the non-Yiddish speakers among you).

It's a great example of how you can lighten the calorie load of so many different types of foods - I switch the salmon for tuna, cut down on the eggs, and bake instead of fry and - hey presto! - less than 1pp each!

As an accompaniment I've started making 'cauliflower mash' - a concoction I discovered on the Weight Watchers boards that is surprisingly close to mashed potatoes in both taste and texture...it doesn't even smell like cauliflower.  The original recipe calls for Light Philadelphia which I believe has an OU(D) hechsher - I use J&J reduced fat whipping cream cheese, which is very light on the points. For those whose minhag (Jewish custom) is not to eat dairy and fish at the same meal, you could try replacing the cream cheese with tofutti, or just low fat spread (but you do lose out on the potato-like texture without the cheese).

TUNA AND RED ONION MINI BURGERS

INGREDIENTS

390g drained tuna in brine (about 3 cans)
70g dried breadcrumbs
20g low fat mayonnaise
1 large egg
2 egg whites
Tablespoon mixed herbs
1 red onion finely chopped
1 tsp chilli flakes (optional)
Salt and pepper to taste

Mix all the ingredients well and shape into small patties. Place on a baking sheet greased with frylight and spray the top of each patty as well to help them crisp up. Bake for 30 mins in an oven preheated to 160' (fan assisted). Makes between 22 and 26 mini patties of just under 1pp each (today I made 26 in total and ate 6 of them for 5pp).

CAULIFLOWER MASH

INGREDIENTS

8 to 10oz frozen cauliflower florets
30g light cream cheese
Paprika, pepper, salt

Boil the cauliflower until very soft, then drain and stir in the cream cheese. Blitz with a hand blender until smooth and creamy. Add salt and pepper to taste, then top with a little paprika and bake alongside the tuna burgers until ready to eat! As far as I'm concerned, this makes enough for one person, and it's just 1pp.

Simple doesn't have to mean boring!

Monday night is always chicken night in my house - I'm a bit predictable like that!

In the winter months I prefer to do something hearty and warming with chicken pieces in the crockpot, but in summer, some form of joint that you can potentially eat with your fingers seems more appropriate: Here are two ridiculously simple ways of preparing chicken drumsticks, along with an idea for making 'low fat' roast potatoes.


CORNFLAKES CHICKEN

INGREDIENTS

4 skinless chicken drumsticks (approximately 400g)
40g cornflakes crumbs
1 teaspoon hot paprika or chilli flakes (optional)
2 egg whites

Coat the chicken in the egg whites then place in a pan. Mix the paprika or chilli flakes into the cornflake crumbs and sprinkle over the chicken until covered. If you prefer, you could put the crumbs into a plastic bag and give the chicken pieces a good shake in there, to ensure they're coated on both sides.

Then bake uncovered for 90 minutes on 160' (fan assisted).

This serves 2 adults or older children, and is 6-7pp per person, depending on the weight of the chicken.

LEMON CHICKEN PROVENCAL

INGREDIENTS

4 skinless chicken drumsticks (approximately 400g)
Juice of 2 lemons
2 teaspoons mixed dried herbs
1 teaspoon dried parsley
2 cubes of frozen coriander (Dorot style)
0.5 teaspoons garlic powder
0.5 teaspoons paprika

Mix the herbs and spices with the lemon juice and place with the chicken in a plastic freezer bag. Rub the marinade into the chicken well and leave for about 6 to 8 hours in the fridge. Then bake for 90 minutes covered, in a preheated 160' fan-assisted oven, and an additional 15 to 20 minutes uncovered, until nicely browned.

LOW FAT ROAST POTATO CHUNKS

INGREDIENTS

3 or 4 medium white potatoes, cut into sixths but not peeled  
3 tablespoons light mayonnaise
2 tablespoons onion powder

Spray a roasting pan with frylight and add the potato chunks in a single layer. Mix the mayonnaise with the onion soup powder and coat the potatoes thoroughly with the mixture. Roast for 90 minutes at 160'.

Serves around 4 adults as a small side dish, approximately 4pp per person.

Make it AND fake it..

Once upon a time, long long ago, in the days before Weight Watchers, when Marcus still sat on his deckchair outside his infamous kosher Chinese Takeaway on Finchley Road, Sunday night was takeaway night. All I had to decide on was a number 25 (sweet and sour chicken) or a number 42 (beef chow mein) and I was set.

I don't remember what I ate for dinner on my first Sunday on Propoints, but I have a feeling it was fairly miserable. Luckily, it wasn't too long before I stumbled on the 'Fakeaway' concept, courtesy of two ladies on the WW boards (known only as 'GreenBronte1' and 'Kuli80'). Armed with their incredible recipes for Chinese and Indian fakeaways, and my trusty actifry, Sunday nights were transformed once again into a cornucopia of culinary delights.

I started off serving these 'fakeaway' dishes with either noodles or rice, but recently stumbled across the amazing 'miracle' rice and noodle products (on sale via Amazon or for slightly fewer £££ in Kosher Kingdom). If you can get over them looking and feeling a little bit like worms, and focus on the fact that each bag contains only 5 calories, then they're a really incredible way of bulking up your dish and allowing you more points to spend on the good stuff.

Tonight's 'Fakeaway' is my own invented 'Hot n Sour soup' recipe followed by Lemon Chicken (thank you once again to GreenBronte1). I really do think it's better than anything even Marcus could rustle up - with far less oil and not even a hint of MSG. The entire recipe comes to 2pp for the soup and just over 14pp for the chicken (for a 328g packet of chicken breast), so assuming you're cooking for 2 adults, it's an 8pp meal (more if you use rice or noodles).

LEMON CHICKEN

I make this in my actifry, which is great for thickening the sauce and cultivating that 'gloopy' takeaway consistency, but it can just as easily be made in a wok or even a frying pan.

INGREDIENTS

1 egg white
1 packet of chicken breast cut in strips (I buy the chicken stir-fry packets from 'Menachems')
3 tspns cornflour
Salt
2 tspns sesame oil
3 tablespoons lemon juice
Lemon zest (I'm often lazy about this and miss it out)                          
100ml chicken stock
1 heaped teaspoon splenda
2 tblspns Heinz reduced sugar and salt ketchup
1 tblspn soy sauce
2 tblspns sherry
1 clove garlic
1 red chilli pepper
4 spring onions

Combine the egg white, 2 tspns of cornflour, salt, sesame oil and chicken in a bowl. Coat chicken well and leave for 20 minutes to marinade.

Spray the actifry (or wok) with frylight. Fry the chicken for a few minutes and stir to prevent it sticking.

When the chicken is cooked through, remove it from the pan. Add the stock, lemon juice and zest, splenda, soy sauce, ketchup and sherry. Mix and add chopped garlic clove and chilli pepper. Bring to the boil, and add a paste made of the remaining cornflour with a little water. Simmer till thickened, then add the chicken back in, along with the spring onions, shredded or chopped, and cook until warmed through.

Lovely served with rice or 'miracle rice'.

HOT n SOUR SOUP

I literally threw this together at the last minute from ingredients I had in the kitchen; it's probably not even vaguely authentic but it tastes great and is extremely low in points, so why not?!

INGREDIENTS

500ml leftover Shabbos chicken soup
1 tin of bamboo shoots
Handful of sliced mushrooms
1 tablespoon of soy sauce
1 tablespoon rice vinegar
1/3 cup water
2 spring onions
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1 slice chicken breast deli meat
Pepper and garlic powder to taste

Bring the chicken soup to the boil, add soy sauce, vinegar, sesame oil and water, followed by the bamboo shoots and mushrooms. Bring back to the boil and simmer till mushrooms begin to soften. Add in spring onions and deli meat (cut into strips), season to taste and simmer till fully cooked. Serves 2.