Cook Yourself Thin

This is a TV series that is running currently on Channel 4. It’s about 4 girls who all love food passing on their tips and recipes for losing weight. ‘Drop a Dress Size in 6 Weeks’ is their sort of slogan. I bought this book because I’m terrible at thinking of skinny meals, so it was with a positive attitude that I began cooking from this book, which is half the battle really!

I’ve made 4 main courses, a couple of veggie sides and a quick pudding from the book so far - Cook Yourself Thin by Harry Eastwood, Gizzi Erskine, Sal Hanley and Sophie Michell. Here are the main dishes, we liked them all, but my favourite was the Chicken Tikka, it was really so good.
Here they are:

Ceasar Salad with Chicken
Here the dressing is made with zero fat Greek yoghurt, and it works - the Parmesan cheese comes through more strongly than in the regular dressing, and made a delicious skinny dressing. The croutons should have been done as melba toast, but I lost calories from not using all the anchovies, so added back in a little oil and reinstated the croutons.

Egg Fried Rice with Chicken and Prawns
This was good, a little difficult to stir fry with so little oil, but worth it all the same. I liked it with a splodge of sweet chilli sauce. Mmmm.

Carbonara
This was good too, although I think I’d make a soup to have with it next time, as we felt a little under fed. Mind you this is probably because we over eat our pasta portions normally!

Chicken Tikka
This is a lovely curry with plenty of sauce, and the rice is very fragrant and full of flavour. This is the kind of dish that you might first off make with good intentions, but continue to make because it’s really delicious. I used full fat coconut milk, because ½ fat was no where to be seen. There isn’t much of it in the recipe though, so even so it’s still light. I also used parsley as a garnish as no fresh coriander in the house.

Click here to be linked to Channel 4's website and the recipes for Ceaser Salad, Egg Fried Rice and Carbonara.

Chicken Tikka Masala with Fragrant Rice

For the marinade
1 tablespoon tikka masala Curry paste

150g 0% fat Greek yoghurt

2 free-range chicken breasts each cut into 5-6 large chunks

Salt

For the sauce
1 rounded tablespoon tikka masala curry paste

1 onion, finely chopped

200g passatta

200ml tin reduced-fat or light coconut milk

1 tablespoon 0% fat Greek yoghurt

A handful of coriander, chopped

For the fragrant rice
100g basmati rice

Salt

5 curry leaves

1/2 teaspoon black mustard seeds

1 cinnamon stick

A pinch of saffron (optional)

How to make low-fat chicken tikka masala with fragrant rice
To make the marinade, mix the curry paste, yoghurt, chicken and salt together, cover and leave overnight in the fridge to absorb all the delicious flavours.
Preheat a conventional oven to 220ºC or a fan-assisted one to 200ºC.
Wipe the marinade off the chicken and place, piece by piece, onto a baking tray. Bake for 10 minutes or until slightly charred, but not cooked through.
You are just trying to get some colour here because the chicken will finish cooking in the curry sauce. Set the tikka chicken aside while you make the sauce.
Heat the curry paste in a saucepan. Add the onion and sweat slowly over a low heat for five to eight minutes or until the onion is translucent and soft.
It is important to take the time to do this slowly because the onion will then release its natural sugars, producing a sweeter dish, but be careful not to do this over too high a heat because the curry paste will burn.
Add the passatta and coconut milk and bring to the boil. Turn down the heat and add the tikka chicken.
Cook over a low heat for five minutes or until the chicken is cooked through. Finish by stirring through the yoghurt and coriander.
To make the fragrant rice, add the rice, a pinch of salt and the aromatics to a pan and cover with enough water to come 1cm over the top of the rice.
Bring to the boil and simmer for eight minutes, covered.
The rice should have absorbed almost all of the water, but still be a bit wet.
Remove from the heat and leave to absorb the remaining water for 10 minutes, covered. Remove the cinnamon stick before serving with the curry. Serves 2.