From Masterchef to Slimming World - grilled cod with a lemon butter prawn sauce and gnocchi

Grilled cod with a lemon butter prawn sauce and home made gnocchi and a Parmesan crisp 

So damage limitation before next weigh in continues. We were going to go into Nottingham today for hair cuts, trousers, school shoes and the rest, but in the end I just couldn't face it and Lauren was non too keen either. So I opted for a lie in until 8am and then I read in bed, a real luxury, until 9am, when I got up to a cooked breakfast...spoilt or what?!
Two eggs in fry light, grilled smoked bacon, mushrooms, baked beans, grilled herby tomato - all free and 2 Linda McCartney Vegetarian Sausages 1/2 a syn each, surprisingly tasty they have become a family favourite, no tough skins and a lovely crunch on the outside.

We had this pesky visitor
into our garden, blooming thing!
I don't want to have to stop
feeding the lovely birds.

The morning was for ironing, so I took the opportunity to catch up on my favourite program - Australian Masterchef. You really need to like Masterchef to follow this one 50 contestants down to 24 in the first episode and then around 70 episodes of pressure tests, mystery boxes, team challenges, immunity pins and guest chefs like Heston Blumenthal and Maggie Beer.
Once the ironing was done, we sat down as a family and had a lunch of chopped fruits - apple, banana, sharon fruit, white fleshed nectarines, raspberries, strawberries and red currants, oh and a packet of Sensations Coriander and Lime Poppadoms 3 syns - don't want you thinking I'm being too virtuous!
I can't think how we got on to the subject but we got talking about District 9, one of my favourite films, so as it was available on Netflix we decided to watch it, Lauren took a while to get into it, perhaps the documentary style made her think it was going to be boring, but she soon got the gist and in the end she said she thought it was good but really sad!

As Lauren was off for a sleep over at her grandparents house, we were having an early tea. In the same first episode of Celebrity Masterchef that I wrote about yesterday the boys Jim, Stephen and Henri went to a restaurant called Aster. They cooked several different things including cod loin and gnocchi, which made me want to cook some cod and make some gnocchi!  Sauces and gnocchi are both normally very syn laden so I developed the following recipes to enable them to fit into the plan without too much damage.

I syned my whole dinner at 5 syns as I didn't serve all the butter sauce.

I accompanied the fish and gnocchi with roasted butternut squash, steamed carrots, courgetti with garlic and black pepper and roasted asparagus.

Lemon Butter Prawn Sauce
Serves 3 - 4
Total Syns 9

Notes
Stock - I used vegetable but you could use fish. This is syn free, you could though use 75ml white wine instead and this would add 3 syns to the total.  Butter - I used Lurpack Lighter at 9 syns for 50g, if you use full fat butter this would be 18 syns. Mayonnaise - I used Hellman's Light at 2 syns for a tablespoon, if you use double cream that would be 3.5 syns but you would need more than 1 tablespoon as it is less dense. Prawns are of course optional you could just have butter sauce

Method
Add 3 fl oz stock to a small pan and whisk in 50g light butter and a tablespoon of light mayonnaise, whisk until the butter and mayonnaise are incorporated and then squeeze in the juice of half a lemon, season with salt and pepper and add some prawns to heat through. You must keep stirring and make just before you serve it, do not let it stand or it may separate.

Baked Gnocchi
Serves 3 - adjust accordingly for more or less people
Total Syns - 8 using Parmesan as your Healthy A choice, 24 if not

Method

Boil 525 g of floury potatoes. When they are soft drain and mash or rice. Stir in 90g Parmesan cheese (I held back a little to make my Parmesan crisps) and the yolk of a large egg. Next mix in 50g plain flour (8 syns) to make a potato dough.

Take handfuls of the dough and roll into sausages, cut into small lengths about 2cms and then press a fork into the top to give them their distinctive appearance. Put some grease proof paper or a silicon sheet on a baking tray, spray with fry light, place the gnocchi on the sheet, spray with more fry light and then bake in the oven at 200C for about 30 minutes until golden.

I served these as an accompaniment but you could serve them with a tomato or bolognese sauce. If doing this I would hold back a third of the cheese to top the dish rather than including it in the gnocchi itself.

The dinner was delicious, to it was nice have a buttery sauce. Normally I don't do sauces, it's a running joke in the house to say "could do with a nice sauce" when presented with a steak or some fish bereft of one.

After dinner it was all go to get over to Ma and Danda's to take Lauren for her sleepover. We met our niece Jess for a quick chat and catch up before leaving them all to have chocolate and popcorn in their pyjamas while watching Far from the Madding Crowd!

We watched it too, goodness me, I never read the book as we did The Mayor of Casterbridge at school for O'Level, but those Hardy women go through some stuff!

Instead of having Hi-Fi bars with my evening drink, I decided on a toasted bagel with 1 tsp butter (2 syns) and a couple of teaspoons of jam (1 syn). I loved it, was a real treat to have some toast.

In summary...
Healthy A - Parmesan cheese
Healthy B - Toasted bagel
Syns - 12

Drinks - black coffee, water and a tea
14 types of fruit and vegetables