family dinners

[Twotinygirls]

Hi.
I'm doing reasonably well and enjoying slimming world but I'm struggling with dinners.
I have to feed two adults and two children. I don't get very long to prepare. I've been following some of the recipes, pastas moussaka for example but everything seems so tasteless.

I'm desperate for some tasty easy meals that suit a family.

Any recommendations?

What did you enjoy as a family before slimming world?

Our favorites are pasta and sauce, lasagne, jacket potatos with various fillings, chicken stuffed with garlic and quark with bacon medallions and grated cheese on top, spicy bean casserole (can mixed beans, onion, garlic, chilli, chopped tomatos) with wedges, steak and chips with salad, masses of currys with rice, i like tandori chicken biryani with a chickpea/ veg curry sauce. Oh and roast dinners, i just don't have the yorkshire puds and have a small amount of gravy rather than a platefull.

It sounds obvious when you day it like that. I just need to adapt usual meals. Perhaps I'm over thinking it.

The slimming world website does have masses of menu ideas. I try to consciously do a new one each week so I've slowly upped my meal repertoire. It doesn't quite work out every week but its got us out the routine of the same half dozen foods on cycle.

I tend to double up with most my cooking so we've always got portioned home made ready meals in the freezer.

Everything I make seems to be tasteless and bland. And I can't master using Nat yog or quark without it curdling. I seem to use a million ingredients and always end up with bland slop.

I use yogurt with spice to marinade meat then cook the meat on a tray loosely covered in foil.

The quark i find is fine cooked so long as its not directly exposed to the heat source. So inside a chicken breast thats wrapped in bacon and then covered in grated cheese. I've had some failures too.

I'm using quark on top of lasagne tomorrow then loosely covering in cheese. It wasn't bad last time I tried it.

I know what you mean about loads of ingredients. I felt a bit overwhelmed by my shopping list when i was getting into it. So many things I'd never thought to try. I've got some things that were probably a waste of money like juniper berries I brought to make the terrine from the christmas recipe book. It was lovely but i used about 4 berries. The remaining 1000 or so will probably reach their expiration date before being used. The curry spices have been worth while as have lots of garlic, chilli and ginger.

Have you tried overnight oat pancakes? Soak 35g oats. (Healthy B) in a muller light or approx 165g yogurt over night. When ready to cook add an egg and a spoon of sweetener and flavouring like lemon juice if its plain yogurt. Heat a heavy based frying pan spray with oil/ frylight add blobs of the pancake mix cook for a couple of minutes on a lowish heat then flip and cook other side. Lovely as they are (they don't taste of porridge or oats) or served with something like a banana and 1 syn spoon of honey. 1 batch makes about 12 pancakes enough for DH and I leaving me half my healthy B for a hifi light bar later in the day.

Mum, those pancakes sound lovely

I made Hunters Chicken from a blog/ website called She Cooks, She Eats last night, it was blooming lovely and the whole family (fussy kids age 7&10) enjoyed it. I'd make the sauce less sweet next time and haven't yet worked out how to get the rest of the family to eat a plate thats 1/3 veg but I'm working on it!!

I find a lot of the SW recipes hideous tbh. I don't really like using so much yoghurt or quark to make sauces, although it's ok for some recipes. Not as a lasagne topping, IMO.

The Fakeaway book is good though, lots of tasty ideas in there and some of the curries are nice. I also have the Taste of Asia book and that has some tasty recipes.

Mostly I just adapt what I'd usually make though. I do pulled pork quite a lot in the slow cooker and just syn shop bought bbq sauce as I don't like the slimming works one. I make coleslaw to go with it using half extra light mayo and half fat free Greek yoghurt and it's not too bad. Everyone else just has mayo. There's also a thing called 'campfire stew' you can do in the slow cooker using gammon or pork and that's really nice, but I prefer to use pork in it. I always add extra spices though.