Batch cook FAIL

[Ricecrispies16]

I'm 4 days into slimming world, I'm doing it from home. I have two young children so thought I would do some batch cooking to save me some time. It failed miserably. My beef casserole is basically meat potatoes and veg floating around in brown water, didn't want to add too much gravy due to syns. My chicken curry failed miserably! Doesn't even taste like curry, more of a tomato mush.

Prior to slimming world I was able to cook but since trying to make things slimming world friendly it all seems to have become a flop!

Any words of wisdom?

Bovril is your friend gravy wise. Also the spice rack is a saviour. You get a lot more adventurous when you can't rely on fat and sugar for flavour (mmmm fat and sugar.. sorry)

Ooooh bovril, I've never had it... is it subbed? I do have a fairly decent spice rack but will be adding to it here and there

It's like a very thin gravy buy will add some flavour to stews and is fine with stuff like sausage and smash (smash and bovril are both free and you can get sw sausages from iceland)

If you're going to follow any SW recipes my advice is err on the side of caution with adding liquid. It won't add calories if you don't add as much liquid but it will make a richer sauce - I find they often ask you to add too much water/stock and it is too runny / bland. Measure the water out and add it gradually - tasting as you go til you have the consistency you like. Also I don't find the SW recipes all that good - try pinchofnom or two chubby cubs - both great sites

If it makes you feel better, I can admit to the same result when I made the beef casserole. I have better luck with curries though. When the ingredients list stock, I always use Knorr stock pots, rather than stock cubes. The chicken stock and rich beef stock are good. I made the chilli con carne recently and cooked it for longer to reduce the amount of liquid and make it thicker. I served it to 8 people (doubled the quantities!) only 2 of us were on SW, but everyone said it tasted delicious. Hope this helps!

If you can cook already I find it better to play with what you like to make to make it free rather than following their recipes.