Autumn walks are awesome

11th October 2016

Live less out of habit and more out of intent.

It would've been easy to sit around doing nothing yesterday but instead we got in the car and went for a drive to Attingham Park where we clocked up 10,000 steps on the fitbit whilst enjoying a lovely walk around the grounds, through the woods and watching the deer in the deer park, amazing, so much better than sitting watching tv all day.  The weather was perfect and the views were stunning, moms cake looked good too!

I really enjoyed watching the deer, especially the majestic stags all proud, we didn't get to see any rutting but I'm tempted, actually I'm going to book to go on their Rut Walk in a couple of weeks, just got to decide whether to do the Saturday or the Sunday, the Sunday makes more sense I think as I'm already busy on a Saturday morning.  Yeah sounds like a plan to me!   I'm excited now, better dig my camera out too.

See there's more to life than food, having said that... I do love my food, I was supposed to have tuna steaks yesterday but realised they were out of date, cooked them anyway but they tasted a bit funky so I didn't risk it, my dinner turned out to be a very quick dish of rice, veg and a fried egg on the top.  

This is my new favourite cooking device, I cooked the veg and the fried egg on it, it's double sided, the other side has those lines that make steak look good ;)

Yesterday's meals;

 breakfast was a chicken toastie to use up the leftover chicken. (5sp)

                                                    dinner was rice, veg and egg (12sp)

 Tea was a ham sandwich but I have to confess to indulging in Salted Caramel liqueur that I bought from the NT shop - oops!    My FitPoints won't have counteracted that but at least they helped.

Plenty of walking now this week to balance out the damage and not more alcohol till weigh day I reckon too. 

Today's curry is a Jamie Oliver one, from his Comfort Food book that a friend bought me at the weekend, I've had to guess the Smart Points for the ground almonds as I don't know the weight of a tablespoon of grown almonds and I haven't got any to weigh.  I might have to make this recipe though to see if it's any good, especially as it has coconut milk in. 

Right I'm off, the recipes below, I need to get into work mode, I enjoyed yesterday so much, I'd love to do it again today, but I know as soon as I get going, I'll have a cracking good day at my meetings with my mega members, here's to another great day.  No idea what's on my menu but I'll be on track, I do know that, focus on the healthy & happy BeYOUtiful.

Chicken Tikka Masala

For how many? Serves 6-8, approximately 65 Smart Points total recipe.   

Serving 6, 11sp per serving

Serving 8, 8sp per serving

Ingredients

1 level tsp ground cloves

1 level tsp ground cumin

2 heaped tsp each sweet smoked paprika, garam masala

3 lemons

6 cloves of garlic

1 thumb-sized piece of ginger

6 heaped tbsp natural yoghurt (6sp)

800g skinless boneless higher welfare chicken breasts (8sp)

3 fresh green or yellow chillies

For the sauce:

2 onions

4 cloves of garlic

1-2 fresh red chillies

1 bunch of fresh coriander (30g)

olive oil (2tbsp = 9sp)

1 level tbsp ground coriander

2 level tsp turmeric

6 tbsp ground almonds (60g = 11sp)

2 x 400g tins of plum tomatoes

1 organic chicken stock cube

2 x 400g tins of light coconut milk (depends on brand, waitrose reduced is 13sp a can,  Blue Dragon is 16sp a can, so check the label)

Instructions

Total time: 1 hour 20 minutes, plus marinating / 415 calories

Put the cloves, cumin and 1 heaped teaspoon each of paprika and garam masala into a small pan and toast for 1 minute to bring them back to life, then tip into a large bowl. Finely grate in the zest of 1 lemon, squeeze in all its juice, crush in the garlic, peel and finely grate in the ginger, and add the yoghurt and 1 teaspoon of sea salt.  Cut the chicken breasts into 5cm chunks, then massage all that flavour into the meat. Skewer up the chicken chunks, interspersing them with lemon wedges and chunks of green or yellow chilli, but don’t squash them together too much. Place on a tray, cover with clingfilm and marinate in the fridge for at least 2 hours, but preferably overnight.

For the sauce, peel the onions and garlic, then finely slice with the red chillies and coriander stalks (reserving the leaves for later). Put it all into a large casserole pan on a medium-high heat with a lug of oil and cook for around 20 minutes, or until golden, stirring regularly. Add the ground coriander, turmeric and remaining 1 heaped teaspoon each of paprika and garam masala. Cook for 2 minutes, then add and toast the almonds. Pour in the tomatoes, crumble in the stock cube and add 300ml of boiling water. Simmer for 5 minutes, then stir in the coconut milk. Simmer for a final 20 minutes, stirring occasionally, then season to perfection.

When you’re ready to cook the chicken, drizzle it with a little oil, then grill on a hot barbecue, in a screaming hot griddle pan or under a hot grill, turning until it’s very golden and gnarly on all sides. Slice the chicken off the skewers straight into the sauce reserving the lemons. Simmer for 2 minutes while you use tongs to squeeze some jammy lemons over the curry, to taste. Swirl through some more yoghurt, sprinkle with the coriander leaves, and serve with fluffy basmati rice for extra Smart Points.