Week 3 - Sweet and Sour Pork and Chocolate Biscuits

So after the challenge of week 2 - when I really did go crazy on the savoury food I thought that Mr Gem and I needed a treat. 

Ordinarily a treat would be a takeaway or something but due to the Jan Health Kick I didn't really want to start ordering food in, so I hit the recipe books, and found a recipe for Cantonese Style Sweet and Sour Pork - which looked like this in the recipe, admittedly it wasn't as pretty on my plate...! 

It was a bit daunting to read that I had to make a batter and deep fry the pork as it was something I haven't tried before. However the recipe was easy to follow and the result was better than anything I've ever had from my local Chinese! Mr Gem's only comment was that it needed more sauce which is quite an easy tweak to make really.

I would definitely make this again, it was tasty and quite healthy really, only 432 calories each (plus rice or noodles) but perfect for a treat when you fancy something.  I've found a link online to the recipe here but so far I'd say I'm loving Ching's work so I'd just buy one of her books if you like Chinese food!

As well as cooking, I do like to bake, its much more fun and so much messier. Mr Gem goes mad when I'm baking because I always end up with flour all over the place - but nevertheless this week I was really craving something sweet, so figured if I put the effort in to make my own it would at least burn some calories before I ate the sweet! So I found a recipe for some chocolate cookies - which I can't find again unfortunately but this one is quite similar (you'll need an American Measurements conversion if you want to try it - I recommend Delia's as its easy to follow and understand!

The resultant cookies look a bit like this (but again still nicking pics from the internet until we get to Mid Feb!) 

The cookies are surprisingly tasty given that they work out at about 95 calories each and they are a real craving satisfyer (if that's a real word?!) if like me you're on a healthy diet but can't resist the allure of chocolate. Oh and they freeze really well so you don't have to eat them all in one go! 

Anyway - I'd love to hear if you've tried any of the recipes I've recommended and how you thought they worked out.