Meal ideas for a single person on a diet

[ik9000]

One of my fav's is a dish I found by complete accident in a fit of student laziness: Vegetable Plum Chicken

(I'm keeping copywrite on this one - if i see it elsewhere there'll be trouble.)

Pasta - penne or fusili
1 x carrot sliced
some clumps of fresh brocolli
1x parsnip sliced
chopped/diced onion
chicken breast
sharwoods plum sauce.

Fry the chicken breast, add the onion and keep frying.
While that's doing fry the parsnip slices (not too thin or they burn) on another ring in a little frying pan, a highish heat and moderate (ie sensible) amount of olive oil is good for this
Cook pasta, add carrot and brocolli in with it for the last 2-3 mins or else steam ontop if you have a steamer.
Drain pasta, and at this point you have a choice:
1) add everything together in a pan and a stir in a little plum sauce (not too much or it will overpower the dish - think pesto, it's always easier to add more if you don't add enough first time)
or 2) just add the sauce to either the meat or the pasta and then serve everything

Goes great with prawn crackers.

Enjoy!

ps The plum sauce keeps for ages - it does not seem to go off, so no need to worry about only using a bit at a time.

[Noggin]

We're on a diet at the moment, as a treat meal we had a "fry up" but got it down to pretty low calorie.

2 Poached Eggs. (180c)
2 Tescos healthy living cumberland sausages. (150c)
Half a Tin of heinz low sugar low salt beans (146c)
Load of fried mushrooms and a couple of fried tomatos.

Do it all in the 1 cal frying spray and the meal is well under 600c

Obviously you can add more to get between 600-800c. 2 slices of grilled turkey bacon is 50c but that stuff is lame. You can do 2 slices of proper back bacon for about 150c grilled. Or a Tesco venison burger at 120c makes a nice and filling addition. Good ammount of protein too especially with the vension burger.

[Noggin]

Do you have a decent freezer? only cooking 2 meals at a time can work out quite expensive... I find cooking for 4 and freezing 3 is a good bet (if you're having it for lunch, take it out in the morning and it'll keep nicely cool till lunch)

I find the fajita mixes and things like that are good - or try your own... Spices aren't fattening as far as I know.

Curries can be made with reduced fat coconut milk and watered down a bit with skimmed milk etc. or leave out the sauce and have dry meat in spices.

I like chilli con carne (v proteiny)

tortilla's for fajitas have quite alot of calories. 3 flour tortillas with nothing in them come to 420c, can still be a healthy meal of course but I was surprised how bad they are and can think of many better ways to spend 420c.

[COMRADPOPLIN]

Poached/tinfoiled and ovend chicken breast, wholemeal pasta and sweetcorn with garlic and herb dressing on.

leave pasta and chicken in fridge over night and in the morning bang in a pot with some more dressing, alternatively use tune instead of the chicken or do away with the pasta and stick in salad for chicken salad, very tasty and protein rich.