Chicken & Chorizo Jambalaya

This recipe is amazing. It is such a great autumn/winter recipe to warm you up on a cold evening but would also be great in the summer too. This recipe convinced my boyfriend, sister and parents (in that order) that I was able to cook (I don't have a great track record). My parents even want me to make it for their friends when they come down! IMAGINE THE PRESTIGE! So yes, I honestly can't recommend it enough.

I discovered this when Luke who is one of my best friends cooked it for me at his house. Luke is really good with the whole Weight Watchers thing (by the way - dieting - it will show you a lot about who your best friends are, maybe not so much as checking into rehab or something but honestly it will) but didn't purposefully choose this recipe because it is low in points, it's just naturally great! It originates from the Sorted site, and go over there and watch the video for a good overview if reading this is too much effort, but Luke changed it a bit, and I've adapted it quite a lot to make it lower in points. 

Chicken & Chorizo Jambalaya

Laziness rating: This involves quite a lot of chopping and about 6 or 7 minutes of constantly being on the go, but then you can just walk off for ages so pretty lazy I guess.
Time: About 35 minutes including chopping, but for a good 15-20 of those you can be doing something else so all's good.

Ingredients (to make 4 servings. I wouldn't recommend making this recipe any smaller if you're cooking for less than 4 - just make 4 portions and freeze the others. This can be timesed by 1.5, 2, etc to make more easily enough but you might need more than 1 pan.)
1. 300g rice. 
2. 130g of chicken breast. I actually used 132g below because I did a properly Lazy Girl thing and bought ready diced chicken breast... but I used my recipe builder app and it was still 10 points. 
3. 120g of chorizo.
4. 2 sticks of celery.
5. 1 pepper.
6. 3 cloves of garlic.
7. A chilli.
8. Some mushrooms. I used 8 but it depends on how big they are I guess. I never weigh zero point foods, maybe I should if I am going to be writing this blog...hmm.
9. A carton of passata.
10. An OXO chicken cube mixed up with 500ml of boiling water. You could use proper chicken stock, but why duplicate work OXO have done for you?
11. A teaspoon of turmeric.
12. A teaspoon of mild curry powder.

Method
1. Chop everything up. It will look like this

You want the veg fairly chunky, except for the chilli and garlic. Chop the chorizo quite small so each of the 4 portions get a lot (look I know how small you chop it doesn't actually make a difference but so much of weight loss is PSYCHOLOGICAL okay?)

2. Fry the vegetables in some fry light for about 3-4 minutes over a medium high heat. If I were you I'd use this time to weigh out your rice and make your stock, as in a minute it will be GO GO GO honestly. 

3. Add the meat and fry for about another 3-4 minutes. Your kitchen will begin to smell AMAZING and chorizo-ey,

4. This is the go go go bit! Add the turmeric and curry powder, and then add the rice and stir it all in to make sure everything's nice and coated. You will be baffled as the rice will remain dry. GO GO GO, make sure it doesn't stick to the pan! STIR!!!!!!!

This looks really unappetising. I can only apologise.

5. Pour in the chicken stock and passata. At this point you will probably be convinced that is ruined as it just looks like soup, but it will sort itself out, honest. 

6. Turn the heat right down, put the lid on and leave to simmer for about 15-20 minutes. Stir a couple of times to stop the rice sticking to the pan, but you can do something else, or just sit and watch TV, like a true Lazy Dieter. I imagine you know what a pan with a lid on looks like but I will show you anyway.

7. It's done when the rice is cooked, which will be roughly 15-20 minutes later. The liquidity would have reduced but it will still be fairly liquidy, but in a good way. You would be able to eat it off a plate if you were sat at the table, but if you eat on the sofa like me you will need a bowl. (You don't get info like this from watching Gordon Ramsey).

8. Ready to serve! Here's what a portion looks like if you weigh it out properly (Which you always should do, by the way) for future reference.

I realise that these photos aren't the world's most appetising, but this is honestly BEYOND delicious.

TOTAL WEIGHT WATCHERS PRO POINTS: 10PP. 

This is so tasty and filling. I really recommend you give it a go! 

This dinner would be great for: Entertaining - it's something a bit different and it's difficult to get wrong, if you've got a cold, if you're cooking for someone not on a diet (it doesn't taste like diet food AT ALL), if you're cooking for someone who is gluten and dairy free (I plan to cook this for a GFDF friend this weekend), or if you're just generally properly hungry.

This dinner wouldn't be so great for: If you need to cook it quickly - it does take a while, if you don't like spicy food.

To make the dinner better for points: I'm struggling here, but you could probably cut a point if you had less rice - I think it's the perfect amount though. However this dinner is well worth 10 points, honestly.

To make the dinner more interesting: When cooking for others before I've added more meat to make it 12PP but I don't think this is really necessary if you don't have the points. This is also good reheated for lunch the next day, if a bit pointy for a lunch.

Bacon Pasta

On Tuesdays I eat dinner at work. This is for various reasons which I am sure I will come to in another post one day (Big Tuesday = a real day of the week to be proud of.) I struggle to find things to eat and most of the time I just end up having leftovers, but today I didn't make enough food to have leftovers tomorrow so I cooked something especially.

'Bacon pasta' is an old family recipe except not really. Basically when I was a child my favourite dinner was bacon pasta, but it's not quite the same as I mainly loved it as it had about 1kg of cheese per portion (I stress again, I honestly wasn't even a fat child). Basically what I am trying to say is that there is no source for this recipe as it's so simple that a monkey could invent it if set free in the aisles of any given Costcutter. I hope you didn't come to this blog expecting brilliance.

Bacon Pasta

Laziness rating: Well you have to chop a few bits up and put the stove on, but it is really dead easy if you've ever prepared food in your life, or probably even if you've ever eaten it. So you'll be fine.
Time: About 15 minutes inc. chopping.

Ingredients (To make 1 serving - just double/triple/quadruple as necessary)
1. However much pasta you want. I had 70g and it looked like this before I cooked it:

In hindsight 60g would probably have been enough, but I was trying to take into account the fact I will be hungry when I eat it.  As a general rule pasta portion-wise I will have 70g for a veg sauce, 60g for a meat sauce and 50g for a pasta salad. I had 20g of pasta once as part of a salad and found it so depressing I almost cried into it. Well not literally, but it was a bloody depressing salad. I LOVE PASTA.

2. 3 bacon medallions.
3. Half of a pepper.
4. About 6 or 7 cherry tomatoes.
5. A clove of garlic. 
6. About 4 or 5 chestnut mushrooms (or mushroom of your choice, whatever. God writing ingredient lists are boring, how does Nigella cope?)
7. Halfish a carton of passata, roughly 250ml. I don't measure things out that are zero points, but it was roughly half a carton.
8. Dried basil.

Method:
1. Chop everything up. Mine looked like this afterwards:

If I had an onion I'd have added half of it, for future reference, and add whatever other veg you like if you want. But the contents of my fridge will have to do.
2. MEANWHILE.... boil some water and put your pasta in it and cook it for the recommended time. (Instruction included in case you are a monkey)
3. Cook the bacon medallions in some Frylight on a medium high heat for about 5 minutes ish. You can move onto the next step when you feel vaguely confident that if you ate it you wouldn't get food poisoning, although it doesn't have to be strictly 'ready' yet. 
4. Add your veg and cook for about another 3-4 minutes.

5. Add the half a carton of passata and cook through for about 2-3 minutes to warm it up, don't let it boil though. I don't know what would happen if you did let it boil but I've seen on cooking programs that you shouldn't really. 

It might look like a bit much passata but then put in less if you want. I don't control you. Add a little bit of dried basil. If I was cooking this for my boyfriend I'd have added a few chilli flakes but it was just for me and I couldn't be bothered to find them in the cupboard so there you go.

6. The pasta should be done right about now, drain it and then mix it all up in the sauce. 

7. Done! Serve, or in my case put it in a lunchbox ready to heat up in the microwave tomorrow.

Total Weight Watchers Pro Points: 2PP for sauce + however much pasta you want with it.

So, for 9PP I have that whole massive portion of food, and it is really nice and bacony, honest. Looking forward to it already. 

This dinner would be great for: If you don't have much ingredients around and can't be bothered to go shopping, if you don't have much time or are too tired to cook a proper dinner, if you are really hungry, if you love bacon, if you crave carbs, if you are cooking dinner for a date but are playing hard to get. 

This dinner wouldn't be so great for: If you're trying to impress someone with your culinary genius. 

To make the dinner better for points: As I said, I probably didn't need quite as much pasta and could have cut a point and made it 8PP. Alternatively, if you're a vegetarian or are really cutting back, just leave out the bacon and add a few extra veg instead. Without the bacon the sauce is zero points.  I would however never do this as I love bacon. 

To make the dinner more exciting: Add 20g of reduced fat cheddar grated cheese for 1PP, or better yet 40g for 2PP. God I love cheese.