Healthy version of Sausages, beans and mash................

So last night for tea we had sausages, beans and mash, yummy traditional moorish food which would normally set you back around 600 calories!  So how can we still enjoy this meal and cut calories at the same time?  Here's a few tips;

The Sausages

I try and buy sausages that have more than 70% meat in them either from my butchers or Tesco Finest Range, a little more expensive but Tesco are always doing deals on these, so I can buy several packs and freeze, more economical. 

Now sausages by rights are a very fatty food, and most of the fat is held in by the sausage casing which is made from animal intestines or manufactured artificial casings made from cellulose or collagen.  Therefore if we take the meat from the casing hopefully during the cooking process we'll lose some of the extra fat as well.  So snip the ends of the sausages then squeeze all the meat out into a bowl (alternatively just buy sausagemeat).  Take a bit of the sausagemeat with floured hands and roll into a ball then squash slightly into a pattie.  Grill or oven cook sausages for 10 -15 minutes, turn them once.  If you are cooking them in the oven sit the patties off the bottom of the baking sheet so any excess fat will drain away from them (there will still be some). 

The Mash

Yum the mash, the best bit in my view, but again we can knock a few calories of this also.  As we know potatoes are a starchy carbohydrate, which should be eaten moderately if your goal is losing weight.  We could slow down the overall Gi of the mash by combining it with another slow to medium sugar release root vegetable such as cauliflower, sweet potato, onions, or garlic.  Experiment with combinations of the vegetables stated or make up your own version.  If you want to turn your mash into more of a pureed state add a little coconut milk, (read my previous blogs to find out why I like coconut milk) omit the butter, sorry.  Also by adding herbs fresh or dried like parsley, thyme and chives you won't miss the butter.

The Beans

Sausage and mash wouldn't be sausage and mash without the beans, now would it?  You could try some reduced sugar and salt beans, but personally I don't like the flavour, so we had a 420g tin of Tesco beans between four of us.  Something I don't have that often so I wasn't going to skimp on my beans!

So don't feel guilty next time you fancy sausages, beans and mash just follow my suggestions and tuck in :)

www.mw-pt.co.uk