Since followers of the Slim-Fast diet only get to eat one real meal per day, it is essential that this one meal per day is appealing and appetising. Otherwise, we suspect that most people wouldn't last long!
In this first in a new series of articles we review one of these 31 recipes - Red Bean and Pepper Chilli. We hope that these articles will form a useful resource that could help people in two main ways:
- Firstly, to help you decide whether or not the Slim-Fast diet may be a good diet for you and, if so, to help you decide which meals to eat;
- Secondly, to help anyone looking for inspiration for healthy, tasty recipe ideas.
Note that this recipe serves 2 people.
I have adjusted the recipe description to make it easier to follow, and to make it clear in which order the different tasks should be undertaken.
- Firstly, put the kettle on to boil.
- Next, assuming that you want to eat rice with the chilli, weigh 25g (un-cooked weight) of rice per person. Once your water has boiled, put the rice on to cook.
- Then peel 1 onion and 1 clove of garlic and de-seed 1 red pepper. Now, finely chop all of them.
- Heat a medium frying pan along with a dash of oil. When hot, add the chopped vegetables. Cook gently for a few minutes, stirring occasionally.
- Whilst the vegetables are cooking, drain and rinse one 400g tin of kidney beans and one 200g tin of sweetcorn. Use the remainder of the boiled water to make 100ml of vegetable stock. Then open one 200g tin of chopped tomatoes.
- When the onion and pepper are starting to colour, add the kidney beans, sweetcorn, stock and chopped tomatoes, together with one tablespoon of tomato puree, one teaspoon of sugar and 1 teaspoon of sweet-chilli sauce.
- Bring everything to the boil then reduce the heat and simmer until the rice is ready.
- Drain the rice and serve topped with the bean chilli, together with a spoonful of low-fat natural yoghurt and chopped fresh chilli to taste.
I found this recipe surprisingly good, especially for such an un-inspiring list of ingredients. The taste was good, although I found the textures all too similar. For this reason I would suggest adding something with a bit of crunch - a few crushed low-fat tortilla chips would be ideal.
I found the meal to be satisfying - in fact it succeeded in filling me up even though I had just returned from an hour-long run. I would certainly cook this recipe again, and would give it the "thumbs-up."
The cost of the Slim-Fast recipe for Red Bean and Pepper Chilli.
I worked out the cost for the entire recipe at approximately £2.60. Since the recipe is sufficient for 2 portions, that works out at around £1.30 per portion.
Note that this cost calculation is based on prices on 9 June 2012 at my local supermarket. The cost of cooking this recipe is likely to vary depending on location and date.
