KUMPULAN MASTER BLOG

Slow Cooker Smoky Cauliflower Cheese Soup- Cauliflower soup made in the slow cooker with smoked cheese and Dijon mustard. A delicious winter lunch option. Jump to Recipe I have tended to avoid cauliflower in the past, because I find it a bit of a bland vegetable. The only way I really enjoyed it was when it's slathered in cheese sauce on the side of a roast dinner! So, I thought, why not make a cauliflower cheese soup? It was still a little on the dull side until I used smoked cheese and then, and here's the magic, Dijon mustard. I can't tell you what a huge difference the zing of the Dijon makes. It transforms the whole soup from meh to wow. Gorgeous.

Cheesy Mashed Potato and Bean Bake- this dinner recipe is the ultimate filling, vegetarian, comfort food. Smoky beans in a tomato and thyme sauce, topped with cheesy mash. Jump to Recipe We've developed a real taste for different types of beans since we started 'Meat-Free Mondays' last year. Probably my favourite 'full of beans' meal is Slow Cooker Vegan Chilli but I can't eat that every week, though I could be tempted! This Cheesy Mashed Potato and Bean Bake, uses some of the same ingredients but it's much more of a comfort food dinner, a bit of a vegetarian twist on Shepherd's Pie. I use cannellini beans and kidney beans for the bean part of the bake. You could easily switch them for your own favourite- haricot, borlotti, your choice.

Courgette and Mushroom Pesto Pasta- a quick and easy pasta dinner with sauteed mushrooms, courgette and pesto. Perfect for 'Meat Free Monday' or a quick weeknight meal. While I make most meals from scratch myself, these days, there are still staple convenience items that are 'must buys' for me. A jar of pesto is absolutely one of them. Fresh home-made pesto is absolutely delicious, but when you need a quick dinner, a jar can't be beaten for speed. Unfortunately, shop-bought pesto tends to be made, as is tradition, with parmesan, so doesn't fit the vegetarian bill, if you are vegetarian for ethical reasons. There are now brands available such as Sacla Organic Vegetarian Pesto, which would make it truly vegetarian though. This pasta dish is about as quick and easy as they come. You simply need to pan fry the courgette and mushroom with some onion and garlic, cook the tagliatelle and then mix it all together along with some classic pesto. Quick, delicious and easy....

Slow Cooker Tomato Sauce made with Roma Tomatoes- a simple, no fuss, slow cooker recipe to make a delicious tomato and basil sauce with your crop of home-grown Roma tomatoes. We had a bit of a family competition this year to grow Roma tomatoes; one plant each, first to get a red one. It went a bit awry thanks to the UK heatwave though... Plenty of tomatoes all stubbornly staying green! They were hibernating, essentially, due to the very high temperatures. Once it cooled off into normal British temps for August, they finally all started to turn red. I didn't win unfortunately but I'm laying the blame for that firmly at the door of my suntrap, back garden! What to do with a big crop of Roma Tomatoes? Well, Roma are the perfect tomato for making sauces and chutneys because they are 'paste tomatoes' which are quite robust and have fewer seeds than other varieties, helping to make a nice, thick texture. This slow cooker tomato sauce is incredibly easy to make and is a perfec...

Aubergine and Potato Curry- a spicy, tomato-based, vegan curry with aubergine, peppers and potato, very low in calories and syn free on Slimming World. It's my mission to find as many different ways to use aubergine as possible. Pretty much anything tastes better with aubergine in it, in my opinion! My other Aubergine recipes Warm Mediterranean Couscous salad with Roasted Aubergine and Feta Mediterranean Pasta Bake We are still going strong with our attempt to do a full year of Meat Free Mondays and aubergine has been a key ingredient for getting us as far as September successfully. This recipe for Aubergine and Potato Curry, is up there with my favourite spicy meals. It's absolutely packed with flavour and deliciously spicy. Of course, if you're more of a mild spice fan, just adjust the heat of the chilli powder and/or reduce the amount of fresh chilli that you use.

Avocado Salad Pittas- pitta breads stuffed with creamy avocado salad and fresh coriander- a quick and easy vegetarian lunch option, ready in 10 minutes. Jump to Recipe We have just had a very brief respite from this year's heatwave and now it's back with a vengeance. When it's hot like this, I really struggle to think of anything that appeals to me food-wise. These quick, avocado salad pittas did the trick though. I could have eaten double the amount, easily! To make Avocado Salad Pittas, you just need avocado, cherry tomatoes, spring onions, cucumber, mayo, fresh coriander and lime juice. There's very little prep- just a bit of chopping, mix it all together and then you've got a refreshing filling for a summer lunch. Put it in pitta bread like I do or pop it on crackers, use as a crumpet topping- it's very versatile. On a cooler day, it makes a nice topping for a jacket potato too. I prefer my pitta breads lightly toasted. Two reasons- 1) it gives them a bit of...

Bruschetta Brunch Crumpets- an easy brunch recipe for summer, using some classic bruschetta flavours, and it takes less than 10 minutes to make. Now that's a quick meal! Jump to Recipe I don't often get the chance to have brunch but it's always a treat. That perfect mix of breakfast and lunch foods- yum. This is such an easy brunch recipe, but it looks just a little but fancy, as though you've made lots of effort. So, if you serve it up to others they should be impressed! To make Bruschetta Brunch Crumpets, you simply toast your crumpets, spread a good layer of cream cheese on them, top with cherry tomatoes and red onion and finally drizzle with some pesto. See- such an easy recipe! Serve it with some fruit and you've got brunch in just a few minutes. It's so quick that you can decide to make it on a whim, no need to plan ahead. If you want it to be truly vegetarian, you'll need to get a special pesto as most are not vegetarian due to the parmesan content.

Warm Mediterranean Couscous Salad with Roasted Aubergine and Feta- a warm, vegetarian salad, perfect for summer lunches. Warm Mediterranean Couscous Salad with Roasted Aubergine and Feta is a new recipe that we have eaten regularly in the last few weeks. It is a light, summery (and vegetarian) recipe that I created to solve two problems 1) I just can't get enough of roasted aubergine and different ways to eat it 2) Britain's hottest weather since 1976 means I just can't face cooking anything heavy. I have used my favourite giant couscous yet again for this recipe, rather than the more conventional kind. It's more substantial and mixes much better with a sauce due to being naturally slippery, rather than having a rough texture. The Mediterranean Couscous Salad is rich with tomato sauce, garlic, onion and peppers and is perfectly topped off with nutty roasted aubergine and some creamy feta cheese. Fresh coriander makes the perfect finishing touch. We have eaten it warm f...

Creamy Leek Pasta- a quick creamy vegetarian pasta dish with leeks, courgettes and peas. Can be syn-free on Slimming World if you use Quark. Dinner ready in 20 minutes. It's been a while since we had anything new for our Meat Free Monday dinner, so this Vegetarian Creamy Leek Pasta was a real treat. Creamy Leek Pasta is not only creamy and deliciously tasty, but also bright and colourful with green veg amongst the pasta. Pan-fried leeks, and courgettes, plus some peas, give the creamy leek pasta its colour and fresh flavours. If you're fan of other green veg, like spring greens, you could throw that in too. The trick to making sure that the vegetables don't end up as green mush, is to fry the veg for just enough time and to cook the peas briefly so they all have enough bite to them to add interest to the pasta. I like to use spirali pasta because the leeks wind around it and it just looks pretty! You can use whatever you have in the cupboard though. For the creamy sauce to...

Mediterranean Pasta Bake- a vegetarian pasta bake, packed with veg- aubergine, pepper and courgette and then topped with cheese. Great for weeknight dinners and feeding a crowd. Jump to recipe I am so in love with aubergines right now. I can't get enough of them, especially when they're roasted. I love the way they caramelise and get that creamy texture and nutty flavour. I just want to put them in everything! It's this obsession with trying to get aubergine into lots of meals, and our commitment to Meat-free Mondays, that got me thinking about making a Mediterranean Vegetable Pasta Bake. The most recent pasta bake I have posted on the blog is a rather delicious Chicken and Sweetcorn version.That has a lovely rich cheesy sauce, so it's a little on the naughty side. Whereas, this Mediterranean Vegetable Pasta Bake is jam packed full of veggies and has a tomato based sauce for days when you want to eat a little lighter. Aubergine, courgette, yellow pepper, tomatoes, on...

Parsnip and Rosemary Risotto- a sweet and nutty, vegetarian risotto with roasted parsnip and rosemary, topped off with crunchy parsnip crisps. I made parsnip risotto this week, something I have been meaning to do again for quite some time. The very first time I made it, I was inspired by a Christmas meal I had in a restaurant. I didn't really like anything else that was on the menu so I ordered the parsnip risotto. I was wowed when I tried it. It had a delicious, nutty, sweet taste and was topped with parsnip crisps. Honestly the nicest risotto I had ever eaten. With our 2018 commitment to Meat Free Mondays, it seemed the perfect excuse to update the recipe. The parsnip and rosemary risotto I am sharing today, has a base of garlic and rosemary with roasted parsnip stirred through. Roasting the parsnip gives it more of a nutty taste. Ideally, you want it golden and well-softened so that it breaks up a little when it's stirred through the rice. I use cheddar because my husband is...

Quick and Easy Garlic Mushroom Linguine- a quick, vegetarian pasta dish using a selection of different mushrooms, perfect for quick weeknight meals. Jump to recipe So here we are with another Meat free Monday recipe- Garlic Mushroom Linguine. If you're looking for vegetarian recipe inspiration, pasta is always a good place to start. Creamy, garlicky pasta is an even better place to start! I'm quite a fan of mushrooms. They are so quick and easy to cook and there are so many tasty types to try- Button, Chestnut, Porcini, Shitake, Oyster, Portabello, even woodland varieties. The best thing about mushrooms for me though is how perfectly they are complemented by garlic. They just belong together! This recipe for Garlic Mushroom Linguine ticks so many boxes for me. It's quick and there's very little prep and absolutely no fancy cooking skills, so it's super easy as well. I prefer to make it with a few different varieties of mushroom for more flavour and texture, but if...

Vegan Chickpea Burgers- a vegan chickpea burger recipe with plenty of spices, perfect for a summer dinner. If you had told me a few months ago that I would be making chickpea burgers and putting them on the blog, I would have laughed! But here I am, sharing an easy recipe for chickpea burgers with you now. In my effort to eat one vegetarian meal a week (Meat-Free Monday) I have been looking at ideas for protein-packed, filling meals. Chickpea burgers fit that bill perfectly. We weren't entirely sure whether we would love them, but they were absolutely delicious and we were definitely full afterwards. Once again, my Meat F ree Monday recipe is not just vegetarian, it's accidentally vegan too! The key thing to get right with chickpea burgers, is flavour. Don't get me wrong, I love chickpeas. I'd happily drown myself in a vat of houmous any day, but where they really work is when they are complemented by the right flavours. For these Vegan Chickpea Burgers, I use a combina...

Slow Cooker Vegan Chilli- a vegan, gluten free slow cooker chilli with chickpeas, kidney beans, peppers and more. Healthy and full of flavour. Syn free on Slimming World and under 300 calories. Jump to recipe We are still in New Year's Resolutions territory, as it's early January, and our household has decided to reduce our meat consumption a little and see if we can make Meat Free Mondays work for us. I'm happy to eat vegetarian food; there are lots of delicious options and once a week seems achievable, especially as I will need to come up with some new recipes. My first Meat Free Monday vegetarian recipe is Slow Cooker Vegan Chilli. Mondays are often very full on, so quite a few of these recipes might end up being slow cooker ones! This Vegan Chilli is almost identical to a traditional chilli but with chickpeas to replace the beef mince and smoked paprika to really give it a smokey flavour. It's packed full of kidney beans, red pepper, onion and butternut squash, alo...

8 Syn Free Slimming World Recipes- winter comfort food recipes that are either syn free or can be adapted to be syn free. Each recipe is also under 400 calories. We're several steps into the new year now, the kids are back at school, and inevitably a lot of us are thinking about how to get back on track with a healthy diet. New year, new you and all that. The trouble that I have with this, is simple. It's winter and it's dark and it's cold! I want to eat warming, filling, comforting food. Luckily, there are loads of amazingly creative, healthy recipes out there which are exactly that. No need to be eating sad-looking out-of-season lettuce leaves- there's plenty of yummy to go around. I have rounded up eight delicious, filling dinner recipes from fellow food bloggers that are perfect for anyone looking to balance out the Christmas indulgence with some healthy meals. All the meals in this healthy recipe round-up are syn-free on Slimming World, if that's the method...

Smoked Paprika Roasted New Potatoes- the perfect way to jazz up your next dinner. Crispy, golden, roasted new potatoes with a kick of smoked paprika. I made a big batch of my Very Garlicky Slow Cooker Lemon and Rosemary Chicken this week and was looking for something different to serve with it. I tend to stick to the same old potatoes and veg side dishes with dinner, especially during the week, and I just get very bored of them. I had new potatoes in the cupboard- the perfect summery accompaniment, but I wanted to add more flavour. The smoked paprika roasted new potatoes that I ended up making were just perfect; crispy on the outside and gorgeously fluffy on the inside, with a bang of flavour from the smoked paprika and the chilli. The best thing is that they are very easy to make, with just 5 basic ingredients and virtually no prep, so you could easily do them on weeknights to jazz up any meal. If you love easy dishes that you just throw on a baking tray- these are for you!

Feta Cheese Salad with Balsamic Dressing- a simple feta cheese salad, quick and easy to make for lunch or a starter, with a home-made balsamic dressing. Jump to recipe With the warmer weather over the last few weeks (and the heatwave that I really wasn't a fan of), all I have wanted to eat is salad. That has encouraged me into looking for a bit more variety in my ingredients. Lettuce, tomato and cucumber on their own gets old fast, and there's really no excuse for a boring salad! This weekend, I was in the mood for something Greek-style and I had a block of feta cheese in the fridge. I added a few delicious salady bits to contrast with the soft saltiness of the feta, whipped up a garlicky balsamic dressing and hey presto- a simple feta salad. The feta really is the star of the dish. If you can't be bothered to roast the peppers you can either put them in raw, or buy roasted peppers in a jar. It's absolutely delicious served as a starter, or with some crackers for lunch...

Mediterranean Summer Salad with lemon and garlic dressing- a bulgar wheat and lentil based salad with beetroot, roasted red peppers and home-made lemon and garlic dressing. I am SO excited about this Summer Mediterranean Salad recipe! It's fresh and so full of summery flavours, I could eat it all day and not get bored. The inspiration for this salad came from a recent visit to a brasserie ( The March Hare, Guildford ) with my parents. It was a really hot day, and their 'Summer Salad' was the only thing that appealed as a starter in that sort of heat. When it came, I couldn't believe what I was eating because it was so delicious. How excited can you really get about a salad? Pretty excited as it turns out! I left determined to create my own twist on the idea. After a week of tossing ideas around in my head, I came up with the Mediterranean Salad recipe I wanted to use. It uses the base idea from The March Hare salad of starting with bulgar wheat and lentils and topping t...

I tend not to be very imaginative when I order starters in an Italian restaurant. I go for the Bruschetta almost every time. I'm so predictable on this front that I could even rank all the chain restaurants by how good their Bruschettas are (Pizza Express- excellent, Zizzi- terrible). Bruschetta is a beautifully simple dish- some type of bread, chopped, sweet, fresh tomatoes, red onion, fresh basil and away you go. I like to use different colours of tomato, like the red and yellow cherry tomatoes, because it looks so pretty when it's served. Some people like the bruschetta topping to be warm, almost like pizza, but traditionally it's cold, with the warm bread underneath. That's the way I like it- it makes me think of summer! Making your own bruschetta is very easy. Take any good bread like French stick or ciabatta and drizzle it with garlic oil or spread it with garlic butter and grill until crisped a little. Then serve straight away with the tomato salad topping and a ...

Slow Cooker Vegan Curry- a low calorie,vegan and gluten free curry packed with veg for a filling meal- butternut squash, potato, peppers and chickpeas. It makes a really healthy meal. Low syn on Slimming World and 217 calories. Jump to recipe This week I have been making vegetable curry in my slow cooker. I love everything about having a curry- all the trimmings that are involved. Naan bread in particular is a hot favourite for me. I would rather have curry and Naan than have curry and rice. If you like a really fiery curry, often a vegetable curry is the way to go. The veg absorbs a lot of the heat from the spices and really packs a punch! The advantage of using the slow cooker (apart from the usual bonus of leaving it to do its thing) is that it keeps the curry lower in calories because no curry paste or oil is needed. Add that to the fact that veg and pulses in themselves are packed full of nutrients and protein, and you're on to a winner all round. It's also accidentally...