Category: Dinners

Beetroot Risotto…

Risotto is one of those dishes you need a good arm for. You can oven bake a risotto and you can literally chuck everything in a pan and let it do its thing, but a proper risotto is best done by slowly adding stock and wine (recipe dependant) and constantly stirring to get a creamy dish at the end of it without the need to add cream or cheese, however adding cheese and cream is totally up to the individual to do, some Parmesan stirred through at the end can really change the dish as well.

Some recommended items from our kitchen to make this dish…

  • Double sided dry and liquid measuring spoons for times when you need to measure both liquid and dry ingredients.
  • A decent set of knives for chopping, with a knife sharpener which is always handy.
  • A big time saver for chopping veg with a veg chopper, from onions to carrots this is a god send to chop quickly.
  • I love our ladle, it has a mini strainer on one side.
  • Garlic crusher, we have had this one for a good while, easy to clean and can crush multiple cloves at once saving time.

**NOTE: just a quick note about the seasoning we use in this dish, we have used a spice kit available from SpiceNTice which have all the spices you need all included in one kit so we don’t need to rummage through the spice cupboard for lots of different ones. Their spice kits and rubs are all Slimming Club friendly (Slimming World, Weight Watchers, Calorie counting etc). For 10% off your order you can use our code HICKMAN10 at the checkout.

Don’t forget to take a pic of your dish and tag us over on Instagram or Facebook @hickmans_slim_kitchen we love to see the recreations.

Also please make sure you credit us when sharing our recipes on social media. You can do this by directly linking back to the blog or tagging our social media pages.

Thank you.

Please note some posts contain affiliate links, you can find out what that means here.

Beetroot Risotto

Serves 4

INGREDIENTS:

  • 1 vegetable stock cube
  • 1 red wine stock pot
  • 1 red bell pepper, deseeded and roughly chopped
  • 150g cherry tomatoes, halved
  • 1 large red onion, diced
  • 2 garlic cloves, crushed
  • 250g arborio risotto rice
  • 2 tablespoons tomato puree
  • 300g cooked beetroot , roughly diced (make sure its un-pickled)
  • 2 teaspoons SpiceNTice ras el hanout rub – (**See note above about this rub)

METHOD:

  1. Preheat the oven to 200°C fan.
  2. In a roasting tin add the cherry tomatoes, bell pepper and 1 teaspoon of the ras el hanout rub and roast for 15 – 20 minutes.
  3. Meanwhile make up the stock using the vegetable stock cube and wine stock pot with 1 litre boiling water and bring the stock to a boil with the other teaspoon of ras el hanout rub and simmer on a low heat to keep hot.
  4. In a heavy bottomed pan fry the onion and garlic with a tablespoon of stock on a medium heat until starting to soften, add a little more stock if the onions are starting to catch.
  5. Reduce the heat and stir in the rice, tomato puree, beetroot and a ladle of stock. Bring to a simmer and keep stirring until the stock is absorbed, add another ladle of stock and keep stirring until absorbed again, repeat this process until you have used all the stock.
  6. At this point taste the rice to check it is cooked, add a little extra water if it needs a little longer.
  7. Once the rice is cooked stir through the roasted vegetables, taste again and check if any salt and pepper is needed.
  8. Serve alongside a salad and some freshly shaved Parmesan if you wish.

Hickmans Slim Kitchen

Cheese topped Sausage & Bean Hotpot…

Winter months calls for comfort food, and you can’t get any more comforting than a hotpot. You can add any vegetables you like into this dish and feel free to swap the sausages for your favourites.

We brown our sausages in a pan first to give them a bit of colour but feel free to just chuck everything into the dish and cook all together. It may not look like there is a lot of liquid before you put it in the oven, don’t be tempted to add any more, when it cooks it will generate its own juices and will leave you with a nice gravy once cooked.

Some recommended items from our kitchen for this dish…

**NOTE: just a quick note about the seasoning we use in this dish, we have used a spice kit available from SpiceNTice which have all the spices you need all included in one kit so we don’t need to rummage through the spice cupboard for lots of different ones. Their spice kits and rubs are all Slimming Club friendly (Slimming World, Weight Watchers, Calorie counting etc). For 10% off your order you can use our code HICKMAN10 at the checkout.

Don’t forget to take a pic of your dish and tag us over on Instagram or Facebook @hickmans_slim_kitchen we love to see the recreations.

Also please make sure you credit us when sharing our recipes on social media. You can do this by directly linking back to the blog or tagging our social media pages.

Thank you.

Please note some posts contain affiliate links, you can find out what that means here.

Cheese Topped Sausage & Bean Hotpot

Serves 4

INGREDIENTS:

  • 8 x Aldi skinny pork sausages
  • 1 large red onion, sliced
  • 1 garlic clove, crushed
  • 2 carrots, diced
  • 2 stick celery, diced
  • 1 bell pepper, deseeded and diced
  • Handful french green beans, top, tailed and chopped
  • 1 400g tin baked beans
  • 1 400g tin Tesco taco beans
  • 1 400g tin chopped tomatoes
  • 1 red wine stock pot, dissolved in 50ml boiling water.
  • 1 x SpiceNTice sausage and bean kit (**See note above about this kit)
  • 3 or 4 potatoes
  • 80g light mature cheddar cheese

METHOD:

  1. Preheat oven 180°C fan.
  2. In a frying pan fry the sausages for a couple of minutes just to give them a little colour.
  3. Add the sausages and all the other ingredients (apart from the potato and cheese) to a casserole dish and give a good stir.
  4. Cut the potatoes into even slices (we use this mandolin to get even slices), lay over the top and cover with tin foil (shiny side down).
  5. Cook in the oven for 2½ – 3 hours or until a knife easily goes through the thickest part of the potato slices. Put back in the oven for a little longer if the potatoes are still hard. **Please note different potatoes and thicknesses of potato will vary in cooking time so please use your own judgement on cooking times.
  6. If a knife goes in easily then sprinkle over the cheese and put under the grill to melt and go golden.
  7. Serve with vegetables of your choice.

Hickmans Slim Kitchen

Cauliflower & Potato Coconut Curry…

It’s no surprise we love a good curry. We often have a curry night and do a range of dishes that we all tuck into bits of each and then sit in a food coma for the rest of the day.

We enjoy this with some sticky jasmine rice and naan bread for a tasty midweek meal. It also freezes well too so this recipe makes a nice big batch ideal for batch cooking and having plenty for lunches/dinners another day.

Some recommended items from our kitchen for making this dish…

  • Family size multi function cooker.
  • A decent set of knives for chopping, with a knife sharpener which is always handy.
  • Double sided dry and liquid measuring spoons for times when you need to measure both liquid and dry ingredients.
  • Garlic crusher, we have had this one for a good while, easy to clean and can crush multiple cloves at once saving time.
  • We use a NUTRiBULLET to blend and mix a lot of our recipes, its easy to clean and store and affordable. Also great if you are into health and fitness and have lots of shakes and smoothies. Also great for making iced tea/coffee so is widely used and not just a kitchen ornament like a lot of appliances.

Don’t forget to take a pic of your dish and tag us over on Instagram or Facebook @hickmans_slim_kitchen we love to see the recreations.

Also please make sure you credit us when sharing our recipes on social media. You can do this by directly linking back to the blog or tagging our social media pages.

Thank you.

Please note some posts contain affiliate links, you can find out what that means here.

Cauliflower & Potato Coconut Curry

Serves 6

INGREDIENTS:

  • 1 large cauliflower, cut into bite sized florets
  • 4 medium potatoes, diced (we leave the skin on but you can peel if you prefer)
  • 1 tin of chickpeas, drained and dried
  • 2 medium onions, finely diced
  • 2 cloves garlic, crushed
  • 2cm piece of ginger, grated
  • 1 large tomato
  • 5 cherry tomatoes
  • 2 tablespoons tomato puree
  • 250ml vegetable stock
  • 200ml Tesco light coconut milk
  • 1 – 2 tablespoons mild curry powder
  • 2 tablespoons tikka curry powder
  • Half a small bag of baby spinach
  • 100g frozen peas

METHOD:

  1. Preheat the oven 200°C fan.
  2. Add the chickpeas to a roasting tin and sprinkle over 1 tablespoon of the tikka spice and give a little shake to coat, roast for 15 minutes, add the cauliflower and roast for a further 10 – 15 minutes. Keep an eye the cauliflower doesn’t burn.
  3. Meanwhile bring the potatoes to the boil in lightly salted water, bring down to a simmer and cook for around 10 – 15 minutes (don’t over cook them you want them al dente).
  4. Start making the sauce by gently frying the onion with a little water until translucent.
  5. In a blender add the large tomato, cherry tomatoes, tomato puree, ginger, garlic and rest of the tikka spice and make a paste.
  6. Stir the paste into the onions and fry on a low heat.
  7. Drain the cooked potatoes and add into the pan with the roasted cauliflower, chickpeas, frozen peas, mild curry powder and stock and simmer on a low heat for 5 – 10 minutes.
  8. Stir in the coconut milk and spinach and heat through. Taste and add extra spice or salt and pepper if needed.
  9. Serve alongside some jasmine rice, steamed tenderstem broccoli and a naan bread for a tasty meal.

NOTES:

  • This makes a large batch ideal for freezing or storing in the fridge for up to 2 days for meals during the week. If freezing defrost fully before reheating.

Hickmans Slim Kitchen

Bubble & Squeak topped Veg Pie…

So we have just completed 7 days of being meat free. We are not becoming vegetarians, but we just want to start incorporating more plant based meals into our diet so we thought we would do a full week meat free coming up with some new tasty recipes that we can come back to on our meat free days.

We didn’t feel like we were missing meat in this dish, using lentils instead made this just delicious. Now you can add meat into this dish if you wish, you can also use a plant based mince too if you prefer, but we don’t think it needs it.

Some recommended items from our kitchen to make this dish…

  • A big time saver for chopping veg with a veg chopper, from onions to carrots this is a god send to chop quickly.
  • Double sided dry and liquid measuring spoons for times when you need to measure both liquid and dry ingredients.
  • Cheese grater with varying grater sizes.
  • A decent set of knives for chopping, with a knife sharpener which is always handy.
  • A lot of our dishes are pyrex, great for cooking. Perfect for roasters too and easy to clean.
  • Garlic crusher, we have had this one for a good while, easy to clean and can crush multiple cloves at once saving time.

**NOTE: just a quick note about the seasoning we use in this dish, we have used a spice kit available from SpiceNTice which have all the spices you need all included in one kit so we don’t need to rummage through the spice cupboard for lots of different ones. Their spice kits and rubs are all Slimming Club friendly (Slimming World, Weight Watchers, Calorie counting etc). For 10% off your order you can use our code HICKMAN10 at the checkout.

Don’t forget to take a pic of your dish and tag us over on Instagram or Facebook @hickmans_slim_kitchen we love to see the recreations.

Also please make sure you credit us when sharing our recipes on social media. You can do this by directly linking back to the blog or tagging our social media pages.

Thank you.

Please note some posts contain affiliate links, you can find out what that means here.

Bubble & Squeak topped Veg Pie

Serves 4 – 6

INGREDIENTS:

  • 75g dried red lentils, rinsed under cold water
  • 1 tin green lentils, drained
  • 4 carrots, diced
  • 2 onions, peeled and diced
  • 2 stick celery, diced
  • 1 red bell pepper, deseeded and diced
  • 1 tin chopped tomatoes
  • 2 garlic cloves, crushed
  • 2 teaspoons SpiceNTice Italian rub (**See note above about this rub)
  • 1 teaspoon celery seeds
  • 1 red wine stock pot
  • 1 vegetable stock cube
  • 3 tablespoons tomato puree
  • 100g frozen sweetcorn
  • 100g frozen peas
  • 1 large sweet potato, 4 large white potatoes, peeled and roughly chopped (you may have to use your own judgement on these as sizing varys so much you want enough mash to cover the top of your pie)
  • Half a bag of curly kale or any cabbage you prefer
  • 2 teaspoons mustard (Optional)

METHOD:

  1. Preheat the oven to 200°C fan.
  2. In a large pan saute the onion, garlic, celery, celery seeds and carrots for 5 minutes.
  3. Make your stock using the red wine stock pot and vegetable stock cube with 500ml boiling water.
  4. Add the red lentils, bell pepper, Italian seasoning, tinned tomatoes, tomato puree and the stock, pop on a lid and simmer for 10 – 15 minutes, giving a stir every so often.
  5. Leave to cool slightly, this will allow the lentils to soak some of the stock up and prevent the mash from sinking when you put it on the top when it goes in the oven. The red lentils will still be a little hard at this point, this is fine as they will continue to cook in the oven.
  6. Boil the potatoes in lightly salted water, add the kale/cabbage for the last 5 minutes of cooking.
  7. Place the vegetable mixture in an oven proof dish (if its dry add a little extra water, not too much though, just enough to allow the lentils to finish cooking).
  8. Stir in the peas, green lentils and sweetcorn and season to taste.
  9. Mash the potatoes, mustard (if using) and kale/cabbage and roughly spoon on top of the vegetables.
  10. You can add cheese on top if you wish like we have done in the photo.
  11. Place in the oven and cook for 20 – 25 minutes or until the potatoes are golden.
  12. Serve with a side of steamed vegetables and some vegetable gravy.

Hickmans Slim Kitchen

Harissa Squash Pasta…

This delicious Moroccan spiced pasta dish makes a great lunch idea, making the night before intensifies the flavour even more so we recommend making this in advance although it still tastes amazing eaten the same day.

You can add meat to this dish if you wish, lamb would work extremely well but we have kept this one vegetarian which is just as yummy.

Some recommended items from our kitchen to make this dish…

  • Double sided dry and liquid measuring spoons for times when you need to measure both liquid and dry ingredients.
  • A decent set of knives for chopping, with a knife sharpener which is always handy.
  • Baking trays, we have separate ones for cake items and others for things like veg and meat etc so we have more than one set floating around in our house.

**NOTE: just a quick note about the seasoning we use in this dish, we have used a spice kit available from SpiceNTice which have all the spices you need all included in one kit so we don’t need to rummage through the spice cupboard for lots of different ones. Their spice kits and rubs are all Slimming Club friendly (Slimming World, Weight Watchers, Calorie counting etc). For 10% off your order you can use our code HICKMAN10 at the checkout.

Don’t forget to take a pic of your dish and tag us over on Instagram or Facebook @hickmans_slim_kitchen we love to see the recreations.

Also please make sure you credit us when sharing our recipes on social media. You can do this by directly linking back to the blog or tagging our social media pages.

Thank you.

Please note some posts contain affiliate links, you can find out what that means here.

Harissa Squash Pasta

Serves 4

INGREDIENTS:

  • 300g penne pasta
  • 1 Very Lazy Harissa tagine paste pot (Available in Tesco)
  • 1 small butternut squash, peeled, deseeded and cubed
  • 1 tin of chickpeas, drained and dried
  • Half a small bag of curly kale
  • 300g cherry tomatoes
  • 2 teaspoons SpiceNTice Italian rub (**See note above about this rub)
  • 3 tablespoons tomato puree

METHOD:

  1. Pre heat the oven to 200°C fan.
  2. On a baking tray add the butternut squash and chickpeas and sprinkle over the Italian rub, give a little shake to evenly coat and roast for 20 minutes, add the cherry tomatoes and roast for a further 10 minutes or until the chickpeas are golden and squash is soft.
  3. Meanwhile boil the pasta and kale until al dente, drain the water and tip the pasta back into the pan.
  4. Mix the harissa paste pot with 100ml boiling water and then stir into the pasta along with the tomato puree and heat through until all water is absorbed and the pasta is fully cooked (add a little extra water if needed).
  5. Stir through the roasted squash, tomatoes and chickpeas.
  6. Serve along side a simple salad.

Hickmans Slim Kitchen

Hoisin Vegetable Stir Fry…

Stir fry is one of those quick throw together meals, you can add any vegetables you like and then it is a case of adding rice or noodles either as a side dish or tossed in with the vegetables.

You can add meat or Quorn products to this dish too if you wish, wild mushrooms, mangetout, beansprouts, beanshoots, sugar snap peas and many more vegetables can be added too. Stir fries are great for adding in what ever you like.

Some recommended items from our kitchen to make this dish…

  • Silicone whisks in varying sizes, much prefer silicone to metal as it rusts.
  • A decent set of knives for chopping, with a knife sharpener which is always handy.
  • Double sided dry and liquid measuring spoons for times when you need to measure both liquid and dry ingredients.
  • Garlic crusher, we have had this one for a good while, easy to clean and can crush multiple cloves at once saving time.
  • A good sized wok.

Don’t forget to take a pic of your dish and tag us over on Instagram or Facebook @hickmans_slim_kitchen we love to see the recreations.

Also please make sure you credit us when sharing our recipes on social media. You can do this by directly linking back to the blog or tagging our social media pages.

Thank you.

Please note some posts contain affiliate links, you can find out what that means here.

Hoisin Vegetable Stir Fry

Serves 4

INGREDIENTS:

  • 1 large onion, sliced
  • 10 radishes, sliced
  • Baby sweetcorn, sliced lengthways
  • Large handful of kale or sliced cabbage
  • 2 large carrots, cut into matchsticks
  • 1 tin chickpeas, drained and dried
  • 1 teaspoon sweetener
  • 1 teaspoon Chinese 5 spice
  • 1 red bell pepper, seeds removed and diced
  • 1 green bell pepper, seeds removed and diced
  • Handful french green beans, topped and tailed and diced
  • Half head broccoli, diced
  • 6 tablespoons Lee Kum Kee hoisin sauce (available in Tesco)
  • 1 tablespoon dark soy sauce
  • 2 tablespoons light soy sauce
  • 1 tablespoon finely diced fresh ginger
  • 1 clove garlic, crushed

METHOD:

  1. Pre heat the oven to 200°C fan.
  2. Toss the chickpeas in the sweetener and Chinese 5 spice and roast for 20 – 25 minutes or until crisp and golden.
  3. Meanwhile in a hot wok stir fry the vegetables with the garlic and ginger until cooked to your liking.
  4. Stir in the dark soy sauce, light soy sauce and hoisin sauce and stir fry until all the liquid has evaporated, ensuring all the vegetables are well coated in the delicious sauce.
  5. Before serving stir through the roasted chickpeas and serve along side some noodles or rice, we like wild red rice with this dish.

Hickmans Slim Kitchen
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