This was inspired by a Tom Kerridge recipe for Turkey sausage.  I've adapted it for chicken and made it with Cauliflower coated with curry powder and garam masala and low fat oven chips.  Who'd have thought it was a low fat recipe for slimmers?  Don't throw the left over cauliflower stalks out by the way, they can be blanched and frozen and used for soups.

Ingredients

For the chicken sausage

1 finely chopped onion

2 crushed garlic cloves
Fry light

1 large chicken breast

6 sage leaves, thinly sliced
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
Chilli flakes to taste
1 egg

For the roasted cauliflower florets
1 Cauliflower, take the florets only cut into bite size chunks
1 teaspoon medium curry powder
1 teaspoon garam masala spice mix

For the chips
2 decent sized King Edward potatoes peeled and cut into chips
Fry light

Method

Fry the onion and garlic in fry light until browned and leave to cool fully.  First make the chicken mince in a food processor.  Trim the chicken breast and cut into rough chunks, add it to the food processor and pulse until you have mince.  Add the onion and garlic, the sage, fennel seed, chilli flakes and egg to the chicken and lightly blitz to mix them together.

Wrap the mixture in cling film and roll out to make sausages, I got eight sausages out of the mix.  Wrap them tightly and seal the ends by wrapping twisting them tightly together.  Now put them in the fridge for at least and hour to firm up.

Preheat the oven to 200C, take the sausages out of the fridge and cook them, covered, in simmering water for 10 minutes. then leave to cool while you prep the chips and cauliflower. 

Par boil the chips for 6 minutes and drain.  Mix together the garam masala and curry powder then spay the cauliflower florets with fry light and shake the spice mixture over them to coat evenly.

Put the chips on one baking sheet, spray with fry light, add a little salt and put them on the top shelf of the oven.   Put the cauliflower on another baking sheet and put them in the middle of the oven.  Bake for around 20 minutes until the chips and cauliflower are nicely browned.

About 10 minutes before the chips and cauliflower are done, carefully unwrap the chicken sausage and fry them in a non stick pan to brown them all over.

Serve and enjoy!

Mushroom pappardelle with kale crisps

 We had a lovely box of wild muchrooms with our veg box so I made a nice pasta dish that turned out well.  We also had a large bag of Kale, now I quite like Kale but there was too much of it for the week, we'd have to eat it every day, so I thought about cooking it in a really hot oven with some fry light and a little salt until it was nice and crispy, what a treat!

Ingredients

A good selection of wild mushrooms, any will do

20g dried porcini mushroom just covered in boiling water and soaked for about 10 minutes

1 onion finely chopped

4 cloves garlic, crushed

20ml single cream substitute - we use soya cream

1 tablespoon zero fat plain quark

a good handful of kale, stalks cut out and torn into roughly 4cm pieces

fry light - I used the olive oil flavoured one

100g Tagliatelle

Method

Preheat the oven to it's top temperature (250C for mine).

Make mushroom sauce in a sauté pan.  Wipe the mushrooms clean - don't wash them as this adds too much water, a damp cloth will get rid of any stray bits of dirt on them, then trim the stalks to get rid of the dried bottoms.  Slice them roughly.

Take the onion and garlic and fry gently in fry light over a medium to low heat until soft but not coloured. 

Add the fresh mushrooms and mix with the onion and garlic. Drain the porcini mushrooms keeping the liquid for later, roughly chop them and add to the pan, stirring well.  Once the mushrooms are cooked, stir through the soya cream and quark and stir to combine.  Add enough mushroom water to get the sauce consistency you want, then keep warm.

Cook the Tagliatelle as per the instructions, drain and add to the pan, mix together to coat the pasta in the mushrooms mix and keep warm.

Add the prepared kale to a non stick baking sheet, add a little salt and spray with fry light,  Put them in the top of the oven for a couple of minutes - no more - until they crisp up and start to brown a little.

Serve the pasta and top with the kale crisps and enjoy :-)