Catching Points - a food blog

Sunday, February 26, 2006

The best Roastbeef

This is the recipe for the juciest roastbeef.

Roastbeef 1kg
1 clove of garlic
salt
peppar
chilliflakes

Preheat the oven to 90 C. Poke little holes in the roastbeef and stuff little pieces of garlic in. Rub the roastbeef with salt, peppar and chilliflakes. Heat oil in a pan and brown the roastbeef in high heat. Then put a thermometer in the thickest part and out it into the oven until it reads 60 C. If you prefer the meat to be a bit more red then take out the roastbeef at 55 C. When it´s done in the oven wrap it in aluminumfoil and let it rest for a good 30 minutes. That way it will keep all of it´s natural juices inside.
The whole roastbeef is 26 points and can easily serve 6-8 people.

You can variy what you rub on the roastbeef and you don´t have to put garlic in it. I variy mine everytime i make it, the original recipe hade fennelseeds rubbed on it but i am not a fennel fan so i changed it.

Saturday, February 25, 2006

Peas Doodles

This time I don't have a menu to blog. I'm moving this weekend and that means alot of fast foods and low on time.
But the other day I felt like taking the time to take the dog for a long walk, and along the walk, visit all asian stores I could find (addicted). Two came along and on the first I found a snack that seemed healthy and intruiging...



I thought that it'd look like peas fried in something but after opening the package I found that it looked more like cheese doodles turned green...



But they were tasty. A gentler taste than the regular doodles, but a sweeter one. Very yummy and they are now going to be my party snacks. Only 10 SEK a bag (1 Euro, or about $1,25), dead cheap by other words, even though they have a funny look... sorry about the open bag I had opened it before I got my camera back from lending it out..
A whole bag is 7 points and worth it!!

Friday, February 24, 2006

Marthas Orange Chicken

So I was surfing Martha Stewarts homepage and it had a recipe on the front page that looked appetizing, problem was that I didn't have sesame oil and I didn't like oranges in food or salad, so I tweeked it to fit my own taste...



Orange Chicken serves two, 4p each

2 chicken breasts
1 large orange
1 tbsp dijon mustard
1 tbsp white-wine vinegar
freshly ground peppar
1 tbsp olive oil
salt


get the juice of the orange and some zest, mix it with dijon mustard and vinegar. Add salt and peppar by taste.
Cut the chicken breasts in halves and then pound them to make larger and thinner. Put the chicken in a plastic bag and add about half the orange marinade. Let it lie in it for about 1-2 hours in the fridge.
After that time fry it in a pan until both sides are nice and golden.

I used the rest of the marinade and mixed it with low fat creme fraishe as a sauce. The I fried some rice and onion in tumeric to get some nice yellow colour
and then let it boil. I also boiled some asparagus and broccoli to serve with. It was quite delicious, although I didn't think the mariande give much taste. Maybe I'll go by the recipe next time.

Thursday, February 23, 2006

Comfort food

There are some things that just is basic comfort food. This sandwich is one of them.


Grilled parmaham and mozzarella sandwich

2 ciabatta breads

1 big buffalo mozzarella (about 250grams)

200 gram parmaham thinly sliced

3-4 tomatoes

Slice the ciabattas in two. Cut the tomatoes in small pieces and place ontop of the bread. Rip the parmaham into smaller pieces and drape over the tomatoes. Slice the mozzarella and put it on top of the parmaham. Then into the oven, 225 C until the mozzarella has melted and has turned the color you prefer. Serves 2 or if you want to use as an first course it could serve 4-6. When it serves 2 like it did this day it´s 12 points.

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

Sallad Caprese

First of, I've got to tell you about the tastiest Buffalo Mozzarella you can buy here in Sweden. You can't find it everywhere but luckily for me, my local grocery store has it. It's tastier than most and you should spend the extra pennies it'll cost you to buy it. Bonta' di Bufala is yummie. There.



INSALATA CAPRESE serves 2, 5points each
1 package (125g) of Buffalo Mozzarella
1 cup of coctail tomatoes
1 tbsp wine vinegar
1 tbsp olive oil
10 basil leaves
salt and peppar


Cut all the coctail tomatoes in halves or quarters depending on your taste. Tear up all the buffalo mozzarella on top. Tear the basil leaves into pieces and spread on the tomatoes and mozzarella. Mix everything up.
Salt and peppar by taste, pour vinegar and oil over it all and serve!

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

Biscotti

I saw this recipe on a vegansite, I just switched the ingredients back into animalistic ingredients, not because I have to, or despise vegan products, but simply to use what I had home. This was a spur of the moment idea to try to make biscottis and not only was it easy, it was very successful!



Biscotti
½ cup (1,1 dl) butter or margarine
3/4 cup (1,7 dl) sugar
1 tbsp vanillasugar
1/3 cup (0,8 dl) milk
1 ½ tsp bakingpowder
1/4 tsp salt
2 1/4 cups (5,3 dl) flour

20 pieces of chocolate
½ cup of walnuts


Put oven on 325 F or 175 C.
Cream butter, vanillasugar and sugar. Beat in milk, baking powder and salt. Add the flour and in the end add squashed chocolate and squashed nuts.
On a greased bakingsheet shape the dough to a loaf, about 3/4 inch high and 3 inches wide. Bake in the bottom of the oven for 35 minutes.
Let the loaf cool, then cut ½ inch pieces. Put the pieces laying down (one of the wide sides up) with space between them and put them back intot he oven for atleast 5 minutes, take them out and turn them over to do the same on the other side.
Store in airtight container.
I got the whole dough to be 52 points and I got 27 LARGE pieces, so each is 2p

Monday, February 20, 2006

Prawns

During the weekend when you´re supposed to be all relaxed for some strange reason that is not always the case. I always want a bit more luxuerious food during the weekend since i have the time but this weekend i didn´t have the stamina for it due to an evil cold. But this recipe was easy and luxuerious!


Asian minute prawns

500 gram prawns with shells (i used about 400 gram of tiger prawns)

1 union

1 medium sized cucumber

2 tbsp cooking oil

2 cloves of garlic

100 gram of water (1dl)

100 gram of sweet chilli sauce

½ tsp salt

Peell the prawns. Peel and slice the union. Peel the cucumber. Split the cucumber into two lengthways and cut into ½ cm thick slices.

Heat the cooking oil and fry the union and pressed garlic. Add the cucumber and fry for a little while. Add the water, sweet chilli sauce and salt. Let it boil for about 2 mins. Then add the prawns and give it a quick stir.

Serve with rice although i served it with wholemeal noodles since that is what my son wanted.

serves 2 (but i think that it serves 4 and that is what i have counted the points on)

This meal contains if you have it with the wholemeal noodles 8 points per serving. Although the recepy says that it serves 2 i really think that it serves 4 since it´s alot of sauce!

Saturday, February 18, 2006

Pizza madness

For some reason, ever since i started WeightWatching, I've wanted a pizza more than anything, but before I never used to give them a thought. So when me and my boy finally started to overcome our bad flu we decided to make homemade pizzas.
Here's an easy and lowfat recipe for you...



Pizza dough 2 large, thin crusted pizzas. 6p each

15-18g yeast (i used a third of a swedish yeast bar and I've never tried dried yeast so do as you will)
1 dl (0,4 cups) of low fat milk
3/4 dl (0,3 cups) of water
approx 4 dl (1,7 cups) all purpose flour
a pinch of salt
1 tsp oil

Heat up the water and the milk to 37 degrees celsius (98 degrees F).
shred the yeast into a big bowl and dissolve it with a part of the liquid. mix in a pinch of salt and some of the flour. Pour in the rest of the liquid and then work in parts of the flour small parts at a time, be careful not to use to much flour, you'd rather want the dough sticky than dry. When you feel that the dough is good enough, take it out of the bowl, clean the bowl out and spread the oil on the sides of the bowl, place the dough in it (and oil the top of the dough aswell so it wont dry up). Let the dough rest under a blanket for about and hour, press it down once during that time and try to avoid any draft.
After an hour roll out two large pizzas. Add your own toppings and bake in the oven for approximetly 10 minutes.
To make sure that your pizza crust isn't all doughy underneath, heat the plate your baking it on in the oven, that way it's hot both on top and underneath. Enjoy!!!

Friday, February 17, 2006

Request for fish again

My boyfriend requested fish, so fish it is.



Parmawrapped hoki with an artichokecream

400 gram Hoki
½ a pot of basil
1 tsp salt
1 pinch of peppar
8 big slices of parmaham
1 tbsp oil

The artichokecream

1 tin (400gram) of artichokehearts
1 clove of garlic
1 tbsp juice of a lemon
50 grams (½dl) oliveoil (i didn´t add the oil and it was yummy)
1 tsp salt
1 pinch of cayennepeppar
½ a pot of basil

Halfthaw the fish. Cut the block of fish in two and then into four squares. Scratch the leaves from the basil. Put the basil leaves on the fish and then season with salt and peppar. Wrap two slices of parma ham around each of squares of fish. Brush some oil on the packages.

Fry the fish packages for about 5 minutes on each side.

Drain the water from the artichokes. Mix them with the garlic, lemonjuice and oliveoil with a handblender or a small foodprocessor. Taste off with salt and peppar. Shred the basil and mix into the cream.

serves 4.
Each serving with pasta is 5,5 points. The dish was VERY good and especielly the artichoke cream which surprised me since i usually don´t like artichokes and since i didn´t use any oliveoil in it it was 0 points!!. This recepy is a keeper!!

Thursday, February 16, 2006

When ill, it's better to not cook at all

I'm quite sick, and due to that and the fact that we had no water for several hours I just didn't cook much today. All I did was boil some pasta in some chickenstock and ate that. Which was good because I can't taste anything anyway with this cold.




Daniel surprised me after valentines with a rose that I almost killed, and on valentines we had some russian sparkling wine. Sweet.


Wednesday, February 15, 2006

Soup again :)

Soup...yes i seem to have a thing about soup right now. Maybe it is beacause of how cold it is now and you really need something that will keep you warm and snug :)

Potato and leek soup

300 gram potato (i used about 8)
½ leek
1 chicken stock cube
½ liter water
3dl cooking cream (i used 1 minimat)
salt, peppar

Peel and slice the potatos & leek thinly. Let them boil until soft in water and the stock cube. Add the cream and boil an additonal 5-7mins.

Blitz until you get a smooth soup with a hand held blender. Taste and see if it needs more salt & peppar. If the soup is too thick just add some water.
Serves 4.

The soup was delicious! Only 2 points for this soup so you can do what i did and fry some bacon crispy and eat with the soup. 2 strips of crispy bacon is 3 points and totally worth aduldging in.

Tuesday, February 14, 2006

PankoLamb

This recipe was made by Nigella in one of the Episodes of one of her shows. I instantly grew curious off it and wanted to try it, even though frying things isn't healthy or anything I've done, which is why I failed miserably. I think this would have been delicious if I'd only fried them long enough, but learn from my mistake, fry each lambchop for a couple of minutes, I'd suggest around five. I didn't even know they weren't done until after serving them to a boyfriend with big, amazed eyes and drooling mouth.
I should also say that Nigella used a dried pitabread and not panko but I had heard so many praises about Panko that I acctually went out and bought some just for this occation.



PankoLamb

8 Lambchops
3/4 cups of Panko
2 eggs
1 tbsp parmesan

Mix parmesan and Panko together on a flat plate. Whisk the egg. Then dip the chops one at the time in the eggs and then Pankomix, before frying them in oil. Don't use olive oil, I used rapsolja (maiseoil? cornoil? couldn't find any translation for it).
Without the oil this whole combination comes to a total of 14 points, and no one would tell me what it'd would give to fry something so I doubled the points after drying out all the chops on a piece of paper.
I then served it with salad and tzaziki.

Monday, February 13, 2006

Fish

Hoki is one of my favorite fishes, since cod is fished too much and i´ve heard contains evil stuff from us humans, hoki is my new fish of choice. Also since i don´t always have alot of time to make dinner it´s nice to have hoki in the freezer.

Hoki with a Bulgur salad

4 bits of hoki (i used a frozen block of hoki which is 400grams)
1 tbsp butter
1 tsp oliveoil
salt and peppar
300 grams (3dl) Bulgur
½ stockcube
1 lemon

For the salad:

1 peppar of your choice
1 red union
200 grams (2dl) of kidney beans, cooked
150 grams of suger snap peas
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp oliveoil
salt and peppar
2 tbsp parsley, chopped

Cook the bulgur according to the package. Cut the peppar and union into chunks. Mix the bulgur with the kidneybeans, the vegetables, the parsley, the lemon juice and the oliveoil. Taste off with salt and peppar.

Fry the fish goldenbrown on both sides. Season with salt and peppar. Serve the Bulgur salad with fish and a wedge of lemon.
Serves 4.

Each portion of meal is 7 points. It was very good, fresh tasting dinner and the best of all: very easy to make.


Sunday, February 12, 2006

Chicken in Pita

I don't usually tend to lean on food in bread. I don't like bread, but I have a boyfriend who's mad about it. So I decided to give him a nice surprise, while it was not so fattening to me.

Chicken in Pita / Chicken Kebab serves 2
2 chickenbreasts
chilipowder
salt and peppar
1 tsp oil
6 tbsp yogurt (max 8% fat
2 garlic clove
ginger
coriander
2 pitas (á 65 g)
lettuce
tomato

fefferoni

Cut the chicken into smaller pieces and season with chili, salt and peppar. Fry it in a pan with the oil.
Mix yogurt, salt, peppar, pressed garlic and ginger to a cold sauce.Cut the pita open and spread the sauce on both insides, spread the cut lettuce on the bottom, top with some tomato slices and coriander. Put the warm chicken on top and choose weather you want the fefferoni inside or on the side.

This meal is 8 weightwatchers points and it's mighty tasty enjoy!

Saturday, February 11, 2006

Soup

I love soup but ever since my son came into the picture about 2½ years ago i haven´t made that much soup. This morning when watching my beloved BBCfood some chef made a soup which made me decide that i would to.

Nigella´s Noodle Soup

500ml chicken stock (good quality instant or canned fine) (i used a stock cube)
1 chicken breast 150g cut into strips across
1 tablespoon soy sauce
30g baby corn, cut into 2.5cm pieces
250g fresh or ready-cooked udon noodles
50g sugar snap peas
50g Fine beans

Heat the chicken stock in a saucepan.

In a frying pan, cook the strips of chicken without any oil until they have lost their rawness, and then add the soy sauce to the hot pan of chicken letting it bubble down a little before tipping into the hot stock.

Bring the pan to the boil and add the baby corn, noodles, sugar snaps and fine beans cut in half.

Let the pan come back up to boiling point and let it cook for a minute or so, so that the noodles are warmed through and the vegetables tender.
Serves 2


I doubled the recepy since we are 3 people eating at home. According to my calculations one portion of the soup is 3,5 points or if you want more noodles 5 points. Sorry for the bad lighting in the picture, new to the world of digital cameras :)