{"id":6670,"date":"2025-04-29T08:41:14","date_gmt":"2025-04-29T07:41:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/slimmingworld.wpenginepowered.com\/blog\/?p=6670"},"modified":"2025-05-01T16:37:18","modified_gmt":"2025-05-01T15:37:18","slug":"eat-our-free-food-festival-winner-is","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.slimmingworld.co.uk\/blog\/eat-our-free-food-festival-winner-is\/","title":{"rendered":"Free Food Festival 2025: Our winner dinner \u2013 revealed!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>As part of our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.slimmingworld.co.uk\/blog\/discover-free-food-festival-fun\/\">Free Food Festival<\/a> in February, we invited Slimming World members to create their own original Free Food feasts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After much taste-testing by members in groups and by our expert judging panel, we have a winner. Drum roll, please\u2026<a id=\"_msocom_1\"><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.slimmingworld.co.uk\/offers\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"500\" height=\"115\" src=\"https:\/\/www.slimmingworld.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Group-CTA-EasterCampaign-MembershipOffer25_SlimmingWorldBlog.jpg\" alt=\"Find your nearest Slimming World group easter campaign 2025 - save \u00a35*\" class=\"wp-image-12195\"\/><\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Free Food Festival 2025 winner: Indian meatballs<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Congratulations to Mandy Eames, whose flavour-packed combo of Indian spices and tender beef wowed our judges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mandy\u2019s meatball recipe will be turned into a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.slimmingworld.co.uk\/food-range\">Slimming World food range meal<\/a> and she\u2019ll receive \u00a31,000 in prize money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>More on the blog: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.slimmingworld.co.uk\/blog\/your-5-favourite-free-food-recipes\/\"><strong>Your 5 favourite Free Food recipes<\/strong><\/a><a id=\"_msocom_1\"><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Try Mandy\u2019s winning recipe<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>serves 4<br>Free<br>ready in 55 minutes<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>What you need:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>500g lean beef mince (5% fat or less)<br>\u00bd onion, finely chopped<br>1 tsp chopped garlic<br>1 tsp each of onion granules, ground turmeric, ground cumin, garam masala and ground coriander<br>1 tsp tomato pur\u00e9e<br>boiled dried basmati rice, to serve<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>For the sauce:<\/strong><br>1 large onion, diced<br>2 small carrots, peeled and diced<br>400g can chopped tomatoes<br>1 tsp chopped garlic<br>1 tsp grated fresh ginger<br>2 tbsp each of garam masala and paprika<br>1 tbsp each of ground cumin, ground coriander, ground turmeric and ground fenugreek<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>What you do:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>1. Mix together all the meatball ingredients in a bowl, divide the mixture into 16 pieces and use your hands to form them into meatballs. Chill until needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>2. Add all the sauce ingredients to a large saucepan, along with 300ml water. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for 15 minutes. Blend with a stick blender until fairly smooth (or use your food processor and return the sauce to the pan).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>3. Spray a non-stick frying pan with low-calorie cooking spray and put it over a medium heat. Cook the meatballs for 5 minutes or until browned all over. Add them to the pan containing the sauce and simmer for 10 minutes, or until the meatballs are cooked through. Divide everything between 4 plates and serve with the rice.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/slimmingworldkitchen.co.uk\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"500\" height=\"124\" src=\"https:\/\/www.slimmingworld.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/SWKitchen-Small-CTA-Opt2.jpg\" alt=\"Slimming World Kitchen - From our kitchen to yours\" class=\"wp-image-8817\"\/><\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n<p><strong>More Free Food feasts to try<\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.slimmingworld.co.uk\/blog\/slimming-world-slow-cooker-chicken-curry\/\">Slow-cooker chicken curry<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.slimmingworld.co.uk\/blog\/salt-and-pepper-chips\/\">Salt and pepper chips<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.slimmingworld.co.uk\/blog\/diet-cola-gammon\/\">Diet cola gammon<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.slimmingworld.co.uk\/blog\/new-two-step-slimming-world-tomato-soup\/\">Two-step tomato soup<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Unlock exclusive Slimming World recipes<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Whether you\u2019re a pasta master, a noodle ninja or you want to take things rice \u2019n\u2019 easy, you\u2019ll have access to more than 2,200 slimming-friendly recipes as a Slimming World member \u2013 and that\u2019s on top of all the weight loss support and recipe-swapping action you\u2019ll find in your local group and within our Community at Slimming World Online.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons is-content-justification-center is-layout-flex wp-container-core-buttons-is-layout-1 wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-button\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link has-text-align-center wp-element-button\" href=\"https:\/\/www.slimmingworld.co.uk\/group-or-online-membership\">Join Slimming 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Look out for emails from us packed full of recipe inspiration.<\/p><p class=\"message-error message-error-default\">Something went wrong.<\/p>                <\/div>\n\t\t    <\/div>\n\n\t\t\t<\/section>\t\n    <\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The wait is over\u2026 discover which delicious dish took this year\u2019s crown!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":12366,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[29,12,34,16],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slimmingworld.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6670"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slimmingworld.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slimmingworld.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slimmingworld.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slimmingworld.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6670"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.slimmingworld.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6670\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12501,"href":"https:\/\/www.slimmingworld.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6670\/revisions\/12501"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slimmingworld.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slimmingworld.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slimmingworld.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slimmingworld.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}