What to make for girly night in, friend on a diet?

[Stillwearingskinnys]

Hi all,

My friend is coming over tomorrow night for a girly night, food and drinks 😁.

She is on a diet and I would love to serve something healthy for us.

I won’t have much time to do anything to fancy I am afraid - and nothing to costly please.

Any ideas?

Bake 2 pieces of salmon (marinade in teriyaki sauce) and stir fry some veg - v quick and easy!

Have a Google for clean recipes. If you have a slow cooker you could do something in there.

I have a friend that often has us over and her go to is a clean slow cooked chilli. She makes garlic bread, rice and salad. We help ourselves to what we want. It takes the pressure off her and we're never disappointed

Thank you both, they both sound lovely!

The chilli idea sounds easy, I may try that out…

Pizza. Dieting is stupid.

Genuine question, what does 'clean' mean here? Is it just home cooked from scratch, not relying on a bought sauce?

I’ve had a huge lifestyle change and being served rice and garlic bread ‘family’ style would have been a huge struggle for me as I would just want to eat more and more. It would do the opposite of taking the pressure off if i was on a strict diet and making good progress.

what diet is she following? Can you google for some recipes?

my suggestion would be to grill some salmon or chicken breast and do a lovely salad with dressing on the side, or stir fry lots of rainbow veg. Maybe buy some mini brownies that you can plate one up with berries and a coffee, so you can offer dessert.

Right, everyone off their diets and go and order a pizza right now because one poster thinks dieting is stupid!

🙄

This would take about 20 mins if you have a food processor...

I bake some wraps in the oven sprayed with oil spray to crisp them up or use Warburton thins for fewer cals. I'd serve that with fresh pico de gallo dip (or any nice salsa) and/or make a bean dip (kidney beans in chilli sauce, coriander garlic, squeeze of lemon and a bit of cheddar blitzed but leave some texture.)

Then I'd make a Thai beef salad with a lovely Thai dressing. Lots of recipes available. You can do the beef in an airfryer to cut down on cals.

'diet' and 'healthy' are quite vague. Do you know what she means by this?

For example, clean as mentioned above, is basically code for made from scratch from whole ingredients, my hummus fits this and is delicious, but is jam packed with tahini and olive oil, so some people dieting might find it too high in fat.

Thank you all, there are some great ideas - might struggle with pizza though 😂.

She is desperately trying to loose weight, I met up with her recently and she got quite upset about it. I really want to help her have a lovely evening.

The chicken breast idea sounds like a plan. What sort of salad could I make? I am rubbish with salads, only ever make lettuce, cucumber, spring onion, tomatoes, peppers EVERY TIME 😂. Or would that be okay?

What dressings?

Chicken Caesar salad

Dishoom chilli broccoli salad - this is a staple in my house, I've made this a few times for guests and every time I get asked for the recipe. It's crunchy and vibrant.

I also love the green goddess dressing in this link, I hate mayo so use all greek yogurt. The whole salad is great to be honest and very adaptable.

I’d do chicken thighs, not breast - tastier. Can get skinless and boneless ones. Chuck in the oven for 30 mins with a little melted butter drizzled over.

Or salmon fillets spread with pesto - 20 mins in oven.

Serve with rice/quinoa and salad - lettuce and choose 3/4 colours from cucumber, tomato, grated carrot, sweetcorn, red pepper or whatever you like. Drizzle of vinaigrette or low cal ceasar dressing.

https://healthygirlkitchen.com/category/recipes/

Chilli sounds a good shout. Made with 5% fat mince & lots of beans/peppers/tomato. Serve with crispy tacos, shredded lettuce, chopped baby tomatoes, chopped cucumber, sliced avocado with fresh lime juice, jalapenos & low fat grated cheese/sour cream. You can customise your own.
A couple of tacos isn't too bad & all the veg is filling.

What kind of diet is she doing though? If she's calorie counting that's very different from if she's doing low carb!

Depends on diet but chicken fajitas with salad is nice. Leave dips so she can choose.

Weightwatchers have good lasagne recipes either meat or veggie with lentil pasta sheets paired with salad that’s filling but slimming. I’ve also tried their tender stem broccoli with Philadelphia light (plus nutmeg and Lemon) and potato gnocchi which is lovely and you add pan fried spinach to serve.

No suggestions here - but just to say what a lovely, thoughtful friend you are 😊

Oooh thanks for this!! I’m doing an Indian dinner party next week and I’m going to add this as a side.

sorry to hijack.

Salmon with stir fry veg and maybe noodles if you want some sounds good if you both like fish. Or fajitas with big lettuce leaves as wraps.

Diet tonic/mixers for drinks or sparkling water to add to white wine. Salted popcorn and some cut up veggies for nibbles. Berries for pud. Move on to tea/herbal later in the evening to cut down drinking.

Maybe you could paint nails/do a face mask which make it hard to snack at the same time.

Tonight is the night 😁.

I have settled on chicken, undressed salad, baby potatoes, French stick and dips/coleslaw/beetroot salad.

I will put it out buffet style so she can help herself to whatever she does or doesn’t want to eat.

Do you think that will be okay?

Drinks will be vodka with diet cloudy lemonade (we both like it).

I'd do some marinated chicken skewers with roasted Mediterranean veg, garlic and lemon roasted baby potatoes, a big Greek salad, toasted pitta and some dips/pickles etc.

Re salads, someone on here mentioned chopped salad a while ago. I may be misinterpreting it, but I take it to mean you chop everything small and mix it up so that you get a bit of everything per mouthful. I've done this and it is a game changer for me. Although it's the same ingredients it tastes so much better.

@AMuser this is a great mushroom bhaji recipe if you don't already have one. here

Apologies for the hijack too!

If there was ever a time for the MN Massive Salad this is it.

You won't go wrong with chicken, fresh bread and salad and a fruit type dessert maybe berries and Greek yogurt?

Maybe go online and find a recipe for a super food type salad they tend to have interesting ingredients. Or get one from M&S.