A Slimming World Disaster

Last night I spent hours in the kitchen lovingly making home made Vegetable Soup & Vegetable Samosas, which were followed by Lemon Meringue Puddings.

It was such a disappointment when my vegetable soup didn't turn out quite right.

I started the soup by chopping up some onions and frying them in fry light.  I kept pouring in a splash of vegetable stock  (1 pint used in total)  until all of the stock had been soaked up into the onions.  I then added some herbs and spices, some Worcestershire sauce and some Marmite to the pan.  Tomato and Basil Passata was then added along with some water and a load of veggies (Carrots, Leeks, Swede etc).  I left all this to boil on the stove for about 30 minutes.

I think the mistake that I made was to add a cinnamon stick to the soup, which I later forgot to take out before putting the soup in the blender....... disaster, the soup had such a strong & unpleasant taste to it that I could only manage to eat a very small bowl of it before deciding enough was enough! Plus I kept finding little bits of wood .....yuk!

At the same time as making the soup I also made some little Samosa bites.  These were made with mashed potato, peas and Indian spices.  I then cut some filo pastry into squares and tried to fill them with the spicy mash and peas.  The triangles were a bit of a mess and very fiddly so I decided instead to roll them a little like a spring roll.  They were then brushed with egg wash and baked in the oven until they started to brown (about 15 minutes).  Meanwhile I made a mint yoghurt dip with (no fat) plain yoghurt, a little mint sauce and some Canderel.

The result was pretty good, obviously not as authentic as the real thing but a good low fat alternative at 1 syn each on Extra Easy or Green.  I will definitely try these again.

Vegetable Samosas

Vegetable Samosas with a  Mint Yoghurt Dip

On to my puddings.  Well after so much effort to get to the end result and when they came out of the oven they looked so so good....(for low fat meringues anyway), I thought fantastic....but alas they were awful, really bitter with an un-meringue like texture.  I wont bother putting up the recipe that I followed as I wouldn't wish that dessert on my worst enemy. 

Lemon Meringue Puddings

I am very glad to say that tonight's dinner has been much more of a success, very basic, tasty and filling (Photo below).  I followed the meal off with sugar free jelly, a Muller light yoghurt and some fresh fruit.

Peppered Steak, Corn on the Cob & Home Made Potato Salad

The potato salad was made with extra light mayonnaise (1 table spoon - which I believe is about 1 syn), spring onions and salt and pepper.  I usually make this with half a spoon of mayonnaise and half salad cream, but I didn't have any salad cream in the house.  No butter on the Corn....but hey we are on a diet here folks! :-)