This salad was the perfect solution. It’s absolutely delicious, so filling and tasty and incredibly cheap to make. I bought the smoked mackerel from Tesco and it was only £2.00 for three fillets. Even though this was a ‘salad’, it felt like a nice fulfilling evening meal and its one I will be making on a regular occasion from now on!

Ingredients

Serves 2 = 10sp each (Flex)

300g new/salad potatoes, halved or quartered depending on their size

Handful of cherry tomatoes, halved

Half a red onion, sliced

Handful of green beans, trimmed and sliced into 3 cm lengths

Bag of mixed salad leaves

2 x 75g smoked mackerel fillet

Four or five slices of pickled beetroot

For the dressing

2 tablespoons of extra light mayonnaise

½ tsp wholegrain mustard

Splash of balsamic vinegar

1 garlic clove, peeled and crushed

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method

Pop your potatoes on to boil in salted water for around 15-20 minutes (until nice and soft).

Meanwhile pop all your dressing ingredients into a large bowl and mix up. Season well with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Chop the rest of your ingredients then take the green beans and pop in a microwaveable bowl. Cover with a 3 tbsp water and pop in the microwave for two and a half minutes so they steam nicely.

Once your potatoes are cooked, drain and pop into the bowl with the dressing and toss everything together. Add your tomatoes, green beans, onion and beetroot and flake in the smoked mackerel. Toss again.

Pop a bed of leaves in the bottom of a bowl and toss a few handfuls through your salad mixture and then pile into your bowls.

Enjoy!

The post Smoked Mackerel and Potato Salad in a Creamy Mustard Dressing – 10sp first appeared on Slimming Kitchen Secrets.

Cue me wracking my brain trying to think of easy but impressive restaurant dishes I could make tasty but low in points.

This idea popped into my head in the middle of the fish mongers as he told me there were no mussels left (this is usually my ultimate go to low sp starter recipe)! Not only is it exceptionally quick and easy to make but it’s also really low in points. It looks amazing on the plate too. Whilst I would usually think scallops were a bit pricey, I managed to get 12 decent sized scallops in their shells for £10. That’s only £2.50 a head, FAR less than what you would pay in a restaurant.

The result was lovely, the flavours work together beautifully and it really does look and feel like something you would order when out. If you want to reduce the price further you could do 2 scallops per person.

Scallops and Chorizo with a Minted Pea Puree

Serves 4 = 3sp per serving (Flex)

Ingredients

12 x scallops (large), raw and seasoned to taste with black pepper

65g chorizo, sliced (I got 4 slices per person, if you like them thicker, do 3pp)

80g peas, frozen

Handful of mint leaves, stalks removed and roughly shredded

1 tsp butter

2 spring onions, finely sliced

1 lemon, zested and then cut into quarters

Rocket leaves

Method

Pop your peas into some salted boiling water with a few sprigs of mint, cook for 5 minutes, drain and pop back into the pan. Add the butter to the peas and blitz with a hand blender (or food processor) until pureed. Add a little skimmed milk to achieve your desired consistency (I added about 25ml), a little more mint and a good pinch of lemon zest. Taste, season with salt and pepper and add more mint/lemon to your personal taste. Pop to one side.

In a large frying pan add the chorizo and fry for a few minutes until the oils release. Remove the chorizo from the pan (leaving the oil behind) and pop to one side on a plate. With the pan still hot, add the scallops and fry for 2 minutes on one side. Turn and fry for 2 minutes on the other side. Remove from the pan.

Now you have all your elements ready to plate up.

I put my pea puree into a piping bag but if you don’t have one, just use a tea spoon to arrange some little dollops around the plate. Add the chorizo and scallops onto the plate, scatter over the spring onions and finish with some more dollops of pea puree. Add a little rocket to each plate and then pour the remaining oil from the pan over the finished plates and serve each with a slice of lemon.

n.b you can also add some crushed chillies to the oil in the pan as the scallops are cooking. This will give the dish just a little kick.

The post Scallops and Chorizo with a Minted Pea Puree – 3sp first appeared on Slimming Kitchen Secrets.

Ingredients

Serves 2 – 9sp per serving (Flex)

For the cod

2 x 100g cod fillets, skin removed

Freshly squeezed juice and finely grated zest of ½ large lime

40g chorizo sausage, skinned chunks

1 slice of day-old bread (or lighted toasted bread if you don’t have old bread!)

1 garlic clove, finely chopped

½ tbsp fresh Parmesan cheese, finely grated

¼ tsp sea salt

Pinch of crushed chillies

To accompany

400g new potatoes, halved

Pack of green beans, trimmed

Half a bag of spinach

1 tsp light butter

2 large tomatoes

1 garlic clove

Splash of balsamic vinergar

Salt and pepper

Lime wedges, to serve

Freshly ground black pepper

Method

Pop the fish in a bowl and squeeze the lime juice over it. Make sure it is coated in the lime juice and then cover and chill in the fridge while you make the crust.

Boil the kettle and pop a pan of boiling water on a simmer.

To make the crust, spray a frying pan with 1kal and fry the chorizo for a minute or two until the fat starts to ooze out of the chorizo. Tear the bread into pieces and add it to the pan mixing with the chorizo. Fry for a few minutes until the bread has absorbed some of the fat from the chorizo. Pop onto a plate and leave to cool for a few minutes.

Pre heat the oven to 180c.

Put the bread and chorizo into a food processor and whizz into crumbs. Then add the garlic, lime zest, Parmesan, salt and crushed chillies with a good twist of freshly ground black pepper. Whizz again to combine the ingredients.

Take a baking tray/dish, spray with 1kal and lay the fish on the tray with the marinating juices. Spoon the chorizo mixture on top of the fish and pressing it on firmly. Pop in the oven for 15 minutes until the fish is cooked and the crust is crisp.

(If you are having the balsamic roasted tomatoes, pop them in the oven at the same time in a baking dish covered with a crushed garlic clove, seasoning and a glug of balsamic vinegar).

While the fish is cooking, boil the new potatoes for 12-13 minutes (mine were small so didn’t need long). For the last 3 minutes add the green beans to the same pan and for the last minute pop a colander over the pan and steam the spinach to wilt.

Drain everything and pop the spinach and green beans to one side.

In the same frying pan you did the chorizo in, turn the heat up high, spray 1 kal and add the potatoes. Crush lightly with a potato masher to roughen the edges, season and then fry until the edges are nicely browned. Pop onto the plate.

In the same pan, add the butter and once melted add the spinach and coat. Pop on the plate. Then fry the green beans for a few minutes in the same pan to add a little colour. Top the spinach with the green beans. (If you are having the tomatoes, pop face down into the frying pan to brown and finish).

Remove the fish from the oven and sit on top of the spinach/green beans.

Serve with some extra lime wedges.

Enjoy!

The post Baked Cod in a Chorizo Lime Crust with Crushed New Potatoes and Balsamic Roasted Tomatoes – 9sp first appeared on Slimming Kitchen Secrets.