Wednesday 25^th April

There are many reasons why I decided to do a food blog – partly because so many people ask me for copies of my recipes, partly to keep me on the straight and narrow throughout my journey to a slimmer me, and partly because I thought it would be a good way of showcasing my love of cooking and photography.

I love going to local food stores and market when I travel, to see the different ingredients available, and maybe, if I'm lucky, try something new. We are very fortunately here in Bristol in that we have a fantastic ethnic supermarket with all sorts of unusual goodies (Bristol Sweetmart). Yesterday I bought some green bananas and for lunch today I adapted a recipe to fit in with the Slimming World plan.


Check out the Slimming World Website for details of the plan.

Generally speaking my cooking is far from an exact science, I usually add a little bit of this and a little bit of that until it tastes right. If you want a more detailed description of your recipes you are reading the wrong blog. As far as I can I will try and give the syn value (it will mean something to those of you following the Slimming World plan, the rest of you feel free to basically just ignore that information)

Back to the green bananas. Trying to peel them proved harder than I expected and when I sliced off a small piece to taste I can't say I was impressed. It tasted a bit like, well, unripe bananas. Not a pleasant taste at all. The finished product, however, was delicious!

Spicy Green Banana Salad with Sweet Ginger Chicken

Serves 2

Syn Free on Extra Easy

3 green bananas, julienned or grated

small handful of grapes, halved

bunch of spring onions, thinly sliced lengthways

about ¼ of fennel, thinly sliced

small handful of mange tout, thinly sliced lengthways

juice of ½ lemon

small chilli, finely chopped

2 tsp sweetener

2 chicken breasts

knob of fresh ginger

juice of ½ lemon

1 tsp soy sauce

1 ½ tbsp sweetener

Cube the chicken. Whizz together the lemon juice and fresh ginger in a lisuidiser until a smooth and thick liquid. Add soy sauce and sweetener and coat the chicken well. Leave to marinade while you make the salad.

First make the salad dressing so that this is ready when you cut the bananas to stop them going brown. Mix together the chopped chilli, sweetener and lemon juice and stir well with the julienned bananas, making sure they are well coated. Add all the other salad ingredients and toss the salad well.

Thread the chicken cubes onto skewers and cook at 220°C for 10 minutes or so until the chicken is cooked through and nicely browned on top. Serve with the salad. 

I was very apprehensive when i first started to eat the salad, although my husband assured me it was 'very tasty' (I was still busy taking photos of the dish as he was tucking in). He was right, it tasted nothing like the initial flavour and the combination mix was indeed very nice. Phew.