Courgette, Bacon and Cheddar Slice aka Zucchini Slice (Gluten Free)

A tasty, treat that's good hot or cold, as a dinner or a lunchbox snack.

Fairly quick and easy to prepare, you just need to mix all the ingredients together, pour into a tray and pop in the oven then go and put your feet up while it cooks! This is my low carb take on the Aussie favourite - 'Zucchini slice'.

Or, of course, you could make a nice big salad to go with it while it's cooking, and pop some jacket potatoes in the oven before you start - on a cold day, good with chips and baked beans too (especially for the kids!), or be more sophisticated with Jersey Royals and green beans.

It's so versatile, you can eat it hot or cold, and if you pop the leftovers into the fridge, it's perfect cut into squares for lunchboxes the next day, or as a snack when you get in from work and need something to eat NOW (or even freeze it in portions).

Serves four to six as a main. more as snacks / light lunches.

Calories: From 254 calories for a sixth, or 336 calories for a quarter portion, using fat free yoghurt. Using full fat yoghurt only makes 13 to 20 calories difference per serving.. For a smaller portion (lunch), it's 168 calories for an eighth.

Slimming World - Syn free for up to a quarter (if using the cheddar as a healthy extra, and 0% fat Greek yoghurt. Full fat Greek yoghurt for a creamier taste is 1.5 syns for a quarter).

Stuffed Baby Peppers with Spinach and Ricotta

These little gems are a surprisingly healthy treat that are very more-ish and great for sharing (or NOT sharing if you want them all to yourself!).

I must firstly thank a friend, the lovely Audra, for the inspiration for this recipe. She shared a lovely recipe for roasted  piquillo peppers stuffed with goats cheese and spinach, which I changed around a bit (because that's what I do quite often) to suit my own purposes.

I think they're pretty easy to make - certainly not as fiddly as you might think! And they're definitely worth the effort for such a tasty morsel that's full of healthy yumminess - I ate half a quantity for my dinner last night!

The filling makes enough for two batches (as I prefer to use up certain things when I open them where possible, such as ricotta, so that the remains don't waste away in the fridge!), and will keep in the fridge for a couple of days so you can make a second batch fresh when you've eaten the first one! (Or just double up on peppers and make two trays - they are nicest eaten freshly cooked though).

Also delicious served with a selection of mouthwatering antipasti!

This quantity of peppers serves two, if eating as a light lunch type of thing (nice with some dressed Italian leaves on the side) or as a large side dish. It's also great as party food, and compatible with calorie-counted diets, 5:2, LCHF (all green list food, and you can use extra parmesan and a good drizzle of EVOO to top it off if you like) as well as being Syn free for the Slimming World diet (if you use up your healthy extra A choice for the ricotta cheese and up to 9g finely grated parmesan cheese per portion (this is a lot more than you think, especially if you use a microplane grater!).

207 calories per serving (with weights as below, calories in square brackets).

If making one quantity (with 300g baby peppers and a half quantity of ricotta/spinach mix), then it is 414 calories for the quantity, hence if using 12 baby peppers it is approximately 17 calories per stuffed pepper half.

Sri Lankan Beef Curry - Harak Mas Curry

A delicious, simple-to-make braised Sri Lankan beef curry.

I am going through a real phase of loving Sri Lankan food at the moment, and this beef curry, adapted from a Charmaine Solomon recipe is so simple to make, and incredibly tasty, that I had to share it.

It's also naturally low in fat, as it contains no coconut and only a small amount of oil, so it's pretty guilt-free too!

This serves four people as part of a meal served with a vegetable side dish and rice (or cauliflower rice - although if you're a complete meat head and want it on its own, it would probably make two or three servings), but it is very easily doubled. Even better the next day, and freezes beautifully.

199 calories per serving (between four people). Slimming World Syn free.

Easy Cold-Smoked Mackerel Fillets

Got the cold smoker going? Why not pop on some quick-cured mackerel while you're at it!

I absolutely love smoked mackerel, although sometimes I find hot-smoked shop bought fillets a little chewy on top - if you cold smoke your own, you can avoid this part and have delicious, juicy smoked mackerel fillets ready to cook under the grill whenever you fancy! 

Just look how juicy it is inside when you flake some of the flesh away!

You can generally pick up fresh mackerel for very low prices, and once cured and smoked they will keep well in the fridge for several days if you vacuum pack them, or you can freeze them either raw or cooked. If you're using your cold smoker for something else (e.g. bacon... home made smoked bacon, mmm! See here for my home made bacon recipes) it makes perfect sense to utilise what space you have available in the smoker to smoke other things at the same time. Conveniently hard cheese (e.g. cheddar, gouda) and butter cold-smoke perfectly in 4-6 hours too (and you could also pop things like garlic, salt, paprika et. in there as well if you have any more space). 

You can of course just hot smoke or BBQ the mackerel once you've cured them, as it is quicker and then they're ready to eat; but I quite like the versatility of having them cold smoked, so I can cook them in whichever way I choose.

Easy Home Made Bacon - Plain, Old Fashioned, or Sweet Maple Cure.

Who doesn't love bacon? OK, apart from the obvious... but bacon just makes everything better, right?

Have you ever thought about having a go at making it yourself?

Then looked around and felt a bit overawed by the different recipes and methods?

Me too. So, after seeing someone I knew making some rather mouth-watering bacon and egg muffins from their own home made bacon, I was inspired to make the leap, do plenty of research (as is my wont) and have a go at making my own. It's actually surprisingly easy to make your own delicious bacon, and you don't need any special equipment to be able to make it - although there is the odd gadget that makes life easier, such as a meat slicer! So don't be afraid to give it a go - my step-by-step guide is further below!

My friend kindly shared the recipe they'd used with me, which was an American one using cup measurements. I'm happy using those in general, but when using things like salt, sugar and sodium nitrate, the mathematician in me feels much happier using weights (as crystals can vary in size, therefore one kind of salt is not of an equal weight to another by volume), and of course using something like sodium nitrate you need to weigh it out extremely accurately, as it can be toxic if too much is used, and if you don't use enough, you negate its powers of preventing pathogens occurring in your bacon. I strongly recommend using digital scales to ensure accuracy.

My bacon and tomato buttie... for bacony heaven, add some tomato wedges to the pan
at the end until a little camarelised, and put a smear of ketchup on the bread. Mmmm!!

It is your choice whether you choose to use a sodium nitrate product - using it ensures a higher level of food safety by preventing things like botulism, and maintains the pink colour of meat in the bacon which most of us are used to. If you don't use it, your bacon will have the normal grey colour of pork when cooked, which is purely an aesthetic detail, but you will not have quite the same bacteria killing properties in your cure. However, this blog is purely about making bacon, rather than further debating whether to use sodium nitrate or not and I can only vouch for the safety of preparing bacon using my method if you use the core ingredients as suggested in the appropriate measures.

Marinated Mushrooms with Garlic, Lemon and Herbs, and other Summer Grilled / Marinated Vegetables

Delicious appetiser / antipasti, side dishes, or even starters. Makes for great vegetarian mezze / tapas dishes to share.

I really love mushrooms, and remember making Mushrooms a la Grecque many, many years ago. I thought I'd add my own spin to it, by charring the mushrooms a little first, as a nod to the char-grilled marinated artichokes we enjoy, and a few of my favourite flavours.

             

Scroll down for a couple of other recipes / suggestions for side dishes to go alongside the mushrooms (as pictured). 

These dishes will collectively serve 4-6 people as sides for lunch, and keep well in the fridge for a few days (see notes).

Calories per serving for those counting: Mushrooms - 70, Asparagus - 50, Peppers and Tomatoes - 61. Total calories for all three dishes as sides - 181.

If you're not counting calories, feel free to slug in extra oil and serve with Parmesan shavings, torn mozzarella, goats' cheese, feta cheese, pine nuts, and / or whatever else you fancy scattered on top or along side!