Sliced Beef

Lots of shops and supermarkets offer frozen meat and one of the most common is ready cooked, sliced beef in gravy, which is generally boiled in water in it's own bag (or microwaved) until it's defrosted, warmed through and ready to eat.

There are many different varieties of this sliced beef, from supermarket own brands to big name brands, all with differing quantities of calories and ProPoints.

One of the lowest we've found is this 'Sliced Beef & Gravy' from the Morrisons Savers range. At only 87 calories per pack (working out at 2 ProPoints) and costing only £1 (at time of writing), you get the chance to have beef with your Sunday Lunch instead of chicken.  In fact, if you have two packs (4 ProPoints) per person/serving, that would be the same as having a medium sized chicken breast!

Don't expect top quality roast beef; it does, however, make a nice change to chicken! You could also use it in a casserole, sliced up a bit finer.

Corned Beef Hash

A rustic style, corned beef hash made with lean slices of corned beef, butternut squash mash and finely chopped vegetables, served with home made barbeque beans.

A satisfying meal on a cold, wet evening that is easy to make and great value for money, as well as being low in fat, carbs and ProPoints.

Serves 4 | 4 ProPoints/210 Calories per portion (approx)

Ingredients
To make the hash:
2 butternut squash
1 onion (large)
2 carrots (medium)
2-3 sticks celery
6-8 slices corned beef

To make the beans:
2 cans Haricot beans (300g cans) 
1 large onion
Garlic (2-3 cloves)
1-2 tspns smoked paprika
2 tspns tomato purée
2-3 tspns malt vinegar
1 tspn Worcestershire Sauce
1 tspn dark soy sauce (optional)
1 can tomatoes (400g can)
Salt and pepper

Method
1) Make a batch of barbeque beans according to our recipe (ingredients also listed above).

2) Peel, deseed and chop the butternut squash into 1-2cm cubes. Place on a baking tray and squirt on a few sprays of 1Cal oil. Sprinkle on a pinch of salt and black pepper then mix thoroughly so all the cubes are coated. Bake in a preheated 180 Celsius oven for around 30 minutes, or until the squash is soft and beginning to crisp at the edges. Turn the cubes at least once during cooking.

3) About 5-10 minutes before the squash finishes cooking, finely chop the onion, carrot, celery and chopped garlic and gently fry in a large pan or wok with a couple of squirts of 1Cal spray oil, until soft.  Add a dash of water if the vegetables start to stick to the bottom of the pan.

4) Remove the warm butternut squash from the oven and transfer onto a chopping board. Chop roughly with a large knife, using the side of the blade to occasionally mash down any bigger chunks. Don't chop/mash too much - the squash needs to be quite chunky and rustic.

5) Add the mashed squash to the pan of onion, carrots and celery and mix thoroughly. Break up the slices of corned beef, add to the pan and stir through the mash.

6) Serve each person with a quarter of the mash and a quarter of the beans.

Notes/Ideas
Different brands of sliced corned beef contain different amounts of calories. Check the brand you buy. We used Asda 'Chosen by You' Lean Sliced Corned Beef, which contains 5 slices and equates to 7 ProPoints.

When making the beans, leave out the paprika for non-barbeque tasting beans!

If you don't fancy the mash so chunky and rustic like us, mash it further or use a hand blender to purée it into a smoother mash, before adding the corned beef.

Use swede instead of butternut squash, or a mixture of the two! No change to the calories/ProPoints.

 

Corned Beef

After a recent spell of good weather, it's turned horrible again so we've been thinking of healthier ways to make some of our 'cold and rainy outside, winter-almost-spring' type dishes and after rooting around the different supermarkets, came up with corned beef slices!

One of our favourite cold weather dishes used to be corned beef hash, but with a pan of mashed potato with butter, a couple of cans of corned beef and a few cans of beans as a side, this belly buster would rack up the calories and fat content quite quickly.

These pre-packed corned beef slices (we've pictured a product from Tesco here, but all major supermarkets do a version of them) come with around 5-6 slices of corned beef in the packet and generally weigh in at around 70-80 calories (2 ProPoints) a slice. They seem to be lower in fat, protein and carbs than the tinned variety too, as long as 'value' versions are avoided - more fat than meat in them, it seems, than the 'mid-range' variety.

We used these slices, along with some onions and a rustic style butternut squash mash to make a lower fat/carbs corned beef hash, with a side serving of home-made barbeque beans or maybe some spicy tomatoes.

See our recipe here...

 

Pasties

Our low fat version of the traditional pasty, made with chicken, butternut squash, mushroom and onion, wrapped in a calorie controlled tortilla wrap.

Fantastic for lunch and a great way of using up the bottom half of the butternut squash after making the roasties in a Sunday Lunch or Chicken, Ham and Leek Pie.

Makes 4 Pasties | 4 ProPoints/200 Calories per pasty (approx)

Ingredients
4 calorie controlled wraps
1 chicken breast (medium size, skinless)
1/2 butternut squash
1 onion
4 mushrooms (diced)(optional)
2-3 cloves garlic
Mixed herbs
Salt and pepper

Method
1) Place the chicken on foil (or into a roasting bag) and top with a pinch of mixed herbs and some salt and pepper.  Wrap the foil around the chicken into a parcel (or seal the roasting bag) and bake in a 180 Celsius oven for around 30-35 minutes.

2) Peel, deseed and chop the butternut squash into small cubes. Finely dice the onion and garlic and slice the mushrooms into desired sized pieces. Use 1Cal spray oil and gently fry the squash, onion, garlic and mushrooms in a large pan or wok until the squash is soft. Allow to cool.

3) Once the chicken is cooked, dice into small cubes and add to the squash, onion and mushroom mixture, along with plenty of pepper and a pinch of salt. Stir gently to mix thoroughly. Divide into 4 equal portions.

4) Soak the wraps in water for at least 2-3 minutes to make them soft and pliable.

5) For each pasty, place a quarter of the chicken/squash mixture in the centre of each wrap, fold the wrap over in half and crimp the outer edge to seal the pasty (watch a video of how to do the crimping on the BBC Food site here). Stab the top of each pasty with a knife and brush on some skimmed milk to help them brown.

6) Place the pasties on a non-stick sheet on a baking tray and bake in a 180 Celsius oven until golden brown. Either eat straight away or allow to cool before storing in the fridge. Eat within 2 days.

Notes/Ideas
We used Weight Watchers wraps here for 3 ProPoints each.

For similar calories/ProPoints, it is possible to use filo pastry, instead of tortilla wraps. This will give a thinner, lighter and crispier casing, albeit less 'substantial'.

Instead of a chicken breast, use between 50-100g of lean turkey breast mince for the filling. The calories/ProPoints should be about the same.

Use carrots in the filling also!

For some extra flavour and spice, add 1/2 a teaspoon of both coriander and cumin powder to the chicken, squash and onion mix.

Use 150g of potato instead of butternut squash, but this will add another 120 calories/3ProPoints across the 4 pasties.