Hairy Dieters Week 13

This week I didn’t cook an awful lot from the Hairy Dieters book as I’ve been really busy and had a fair bit of stuff to use from the freezer. I did however make the Chicken Korma for the first time, which was really tasty although being a chilli head I preferred the jalfrezi. I also re made the beef in ale stew that I cooked in week 10 but used Truefitt’s Holgate Red as the beer as I had a cask of it. As a bit of a treat I cooked the famous Teesside Parmo (recipe here) but in a nod to the Hairy Dieters I used the bechamel sauce from their Lasagne recipe that I cooked all the way back in week 2, I also baked the chicken instead of frying it as well as using smaller chicken and less cheese…still not exactly healthy but nice as a treat. Oh I...

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Hairy Dieters Week 12

11 weeks in and I’m now running out of main meals to cook so I’m going to start re visiting and tweaking some of the ones i’ve already cooked as well as trying to make some more recipes up of my own. Week 11 was 3 new meals from the Hairy Dieters plus some pasta and some felafel, the felafel was Simon Rimmer’s packet mix, it’s pretty tasty and goes great with hot sauce. First up was the pork and prawn noodle broth, I almost didn’t cook this one because I thought the dumplings looked a bit insipid and grey in the book, but I am so glad I did now as it was absolutely delicious. I couldn’t get any really thin rice noodles so ended up using thin rice ribbons instead which soaked up a bit more of the sauce the flavours were...

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Hairy Dieters Week 11

This week has been quite a hectic Hairy Dieters week, I’ve cooked loads of new stuff and also used the last of the meat and potato pies that I froze. First up was the Paprika chicken, I couldn’t get any skinless and boneless chicken thighs so I skinned and boned some, although next time i’d probably use chicken breast instead. The flavour of the stew was nice enough but it did lack a bit of heat so I added a few dashes of Tabasco and a sprinkling of hot paprika, I served it with a little bit of rice and it would have been a little odd just on its own. Next up were the Mediterranean inspired burgers, these were fantastic, the burgers them selves were simple in terms of making and flavouring but all the excitement comes in the toppings, the gooey,...

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Hairy Dieters Week 10

I honestly can’t believe I’ve now been cooking recipes from the Hairy Dieters book for 10 weeks and there are still recipes I’ve not cooked and want to cook, granted I’ve cooked a couple of things more than once and frozen some bits and cooked them later but I’ve tried to cook a new recipe or two every week. This week saw the return of the deliciously simple Harissa Chicken plus two new recipes. First up was the beef in ale casserole, I pretty much followed the recipe for this one although I did add some mushrooms and cooked it in the slow cooker instead of cooking it on the hob as per the instructions. It worked really well and the gravy was thick and full of flavour, I couldn’t decide which ale to use so went for Guinness...

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Hairy Dieters Week 3

I only cooked 2 meals from the Hairy Dieters book as i’ve been experimenting with my own low calorie meals, including this lovely baked frittata and was a bit naughty and went for a curry on Thursday. So this week’s recipes were the spicy vegetable stew and the crispy baked chicken. I served the spicy veg stew with some rice so that added some extra calories to the one in the book, I also replaced the aubergine with a couple of mushrooms as the shop didn’t have any aubergine. It was really nice but could have done with a bit more spice, so next time I’ll be adding extra chilli of some sort, maybe freshly sliced. The crispy chicken was ok, but not my favourite recipe from the book so far, the inside was juicy and moist but i just felt the...

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