Sweet Potato Curry

Yesterday's dinner wasn't a patch on the Chicken and Mustard Casserole but few things ever would be! Following on from a success like that is rather a big ask! (I was made incredibly smug by one of my boyfriend's colleagues reportedly saying to him, upon having a small taste of my boy's lunchtime pasta salad in the reduced-down bacon & mustard sauce, that he "wishes his missus cooked like that for him!")

All things considered, though, this Sweet Potato Curry was good, if not fantastic to photograph. Sweet potato chunks were cooked in the slow cooker with tinned tomatoes, chilli, garlic, onions, lentils and stock, with peas, broccoli, chopped peppers and hard boiled eggs added 20 minutes before the end of the cooking time to cook through. This is another one adapted to suit Slimming World from the Hamlyn cookbook, though turned out differently than I imagined. The boyfriend wasn't terribly impressed when I said we were going to have at least one 'vegetarian' day per week, but he seemed happy enough with his dinner last night and I haven't heard any complaints so far today!

And yesterday's sadness was helped greatly by the beloved bunny, who is such a mummy's boy that he decided that the place to be was directly under my chair whilst I was eating said curry (also pictured in the low quality iPhone photo: fuzzy slippers.)

It's not even as if he's begging for food - he hasn't learnt yet that (some) human food can be delicious for small rabbits, he just likes to be close to me. He is a darling. 

Tonight is just a simple fritatta made with red onions, potatoes, pepper and a sliced sausage (8.5 syns per sausage) so I doubt there will be anything worth saying about that - but tomorrow is the first weekly weigh in and chance to move our markers along the ribbon chart of progress, so either way, come success or disappointment, I'll have something to say!

Lunch, Plans, Sadness and Goals

I don't feel quite myself today, but I'm trying hard to focus on more positive things and look after 'me' in the best way possible. I think a while longer on the internet and playing with Bunny then I'll crack on with the essay I'm avoiding (and panicking about) and perhaps even reward myself with a bath this evening.

As I'm so blue, I wanted comfort food. I'm a simple girl. Emotions = eating (though of course I know they definitely shouldn't!) But comfort food on Slimming World, not breaking rules? More difficult, not something I've explored too much before!

So I made rice pudding. Syn free rice pudding using my HEa allowance of milk for the day, and then filled it with chopped banana and berries. C'mon, when you're down, rice pudding is going to put a smile on your face. Or maybe that's just me. I don't know. :) Recharging with the magazine, though, I'm sure that's a more mainstream cure for the sads! It's full of motivation and success stories - one of the women in this edition is about my weight and is now even smaller than my target, and stunning. I want the dress she's wearing! I think when I reach target weight I will buy the most glamorous dress I've ever owned (wedding dresses not included!) and hold a party in which I am a princess.

But reading these success stories also made me think that I might need to be at a group, and I'm terrified that I won't get the reductions each week that I'm hoping for. The My Fitness Pal app which I use as a food diary each day, writing syns into the comments and notes sections, keeps telling me I'm not eating enough and might be putting my body into 'starvation mode'. But I'm not starving myself, I'm not particularly hungry most of the time, I feel like we're cooking good quality food. I'm worrying about Monday and weighing ourselves and I've got no need to be worrying about that yet. I'm very good at worrying, though!

Bigger picture, though. We're in this for the long haul. Lifestyle change and all that jazz. So I thought I'd show you what's up on my wall in the kitchen - the boyfriend and I have made one of those ticker/countdown things people have on the internet, but in real life!

Our goals are on blu-tack so can be moved if we reassess where we're at, and I'm worried I'm going to want to lose more than we've got length for! But right now, that's not something I need to be concerned with! I just think it'll be lovely moving along the slider and getting visibly closer to where we want to be.

Chicken Mustard Casserole

Turns out I was wrong, and my brother didn't insist on McDonald's! As we were walking and trying to decide, he volunteered Pizza Hut as his choice, which I politely suggested wasn't a good idea, and then he saw a Subway in the distance. Seeming to be the lesser evil, I thought that would be fine - but as we walked towards it, we saw a lovely little local cafe next door to it! Perfect!

I was planning on having a jacket potato with beans, but after ordering, the lady came back to the table and said "we've been so busy.. we've run out of beans... what else would you like?" and after a minor fluster, decided I could use cheese as my Healthy Extra 'A' and that'd be okay. I'm glad I did; I haven't had cheese in so long and it was delicious!

Dinner, though, was a whole new level of amazing. Boyfriend sounded like he was having a religious experience eating it! He said it was the best thing I've made from the Hamlyn All Colour Cookbooks: 200 Slow Cooker Recipes (though of course I Slimming World enhanced it) and I have to admit it was pretty special even if I say so myself!

Chicken drumsticks and thighs (skinless) were browned in a frying pan before going into the slow cooker. I then dropped half a leek in to the frying pan with some chopped bacon, added stock and three tablespoons of wholegrain mustard, brought to the boil then put that into the slow cooker too. I added baby new potatoes and cooked the whole thing on low for about 9 hours. When we got home from work, I added the other half of the leek and gave it 20 minutes to soften, then served with salad. The other half used his Healthy Extra 'B' wholemeal bread to mop up the sauce, too. The meat just falls off the bone, no effort involved, and it was sweet, sticky, om nom nom.

Later I boiled up the remaining sauce into a much thicker one, cooked some pasta and that's the basis of lunch today as a cold pasta salad. So it's frugal, too, in a way! We're not exactly on a high budget at the moment so most of what we're making is fairly cost efficient, budget brand, so I'm very proud that we're still eating such nice things. And, yesterday I treated myself to the Slimming World magazine which has a good 40 recipes in it, so we've plenty of ideas to be playing with!

ETA! Forgot to mention the Syns! The casserole would be just 0.5 syns per level tablespoon of mustard!

More Cake (and other stories)

..because why the hell not?!

I've realised that whilst it definitely still will be a dark chocolate flavour, someone (me) may possibly have used too much cocoa powder and that might possibly be why it's so bitter - the proportion of sweetener to chocolate is wrong. Oops? But at least we liked it enough to make it again anyway, and it wasn't a recipe written off for no fault of its own!





















The trifles I was making the other day were rather good indeed. The already-moist chocolate cake absorbed the custard and became akin to a chocolate sponge finger - delicious with the berries. And with an (artistic!) squirt of cream, almost like a real trifle and satisfied my cravings. For a low syn dessert, I don't think you'd get more 'decadent' feeling.

And then last night we had it with custard again to show the boyfriend my discovery, and....

So good. So very very good. Syn free custard is my new favourite dessert - you could have that with all kinds of fresh fruit, or chill it down and have it with frozen berries as a cold ice cream substitute, and it's so easy to make. Perfect for us. The first time I made it I used approximately 20g of sweetener - this time I used just 10g and it was still fantastic. Given that the recipe advised me to use 50g... I can't imagine it would need that much!

Today is a breakfast-on-the-go kind of day so, unfortunately, there might not be anything worth writing about - I'm going out today with my brother, who will inevitably want to go to McDonald's since we'll be in a town that has such luxuries, and so tonight will either feature a post about how virtuous I feel or the syn value in relation to the quality of Happy Meal toy I've received!

I am putting a chicken and bacon hotpot in the slow cooker, though, so if that turns out nicely there'll be another savoury recipe to make up for all these posts about cake!

SW Chocolate Cake (Part 2)

After giving it a night in the fridge (which every recipe assured me was the right thing to do lest I be traumatised by the lingering flavour of kidney beans), we're now ready to present the Chocolate Cake!

One of my Facebook friends posted the recipe to this Healthy Chocolate Cake as a gluten free, low carb idea. From there, I ended up using this recipe from Eating Well Living Thin, and I worked out the Slimming World syn value for the ingredients given. By my reckoning, it's 31 for the whole cake - mine has cut into 12 generous slices but as it's so rich, you could easily serve smaller pieces. That made it a chocolate cake which looked very promising, for just 2.5 syns a slice! We couldn't resist trying it out.

Last night you saw the food processor full of gooey chocolatey goodness. Those of you lucky enough to be twitter friends of mine also got the bonus picture of my boyfriend - and this picture too, the product as it came out of the oven looking - much to my surprise, if I'm totally honest - like a real, normal, full fat chocolate cake! Risen tall, unexpectedly tall - with a cracked shell like a brownie. The whole flat smelt delicious. Our hopes were very high as I wrapped it in cling film, put it in the fridge and went to bed for the night, dreaming of soft, moist, creamy chocolatey cake crumbs!

It still smells good today, it definitely does have that going for it, though I can't say I'm 100% happy with the overall result. Have you ever had a bitter chocolate torte? It's reminding me of something I tasted in Austria, though I can't at all remember the name. It's got a beautiful moist texture, it's just very 'dark chocolate' when my palette is of course used to MILK and SUGAR and FAT and all the things we're trying to avoid at the moment! I think with a little more sweetener it would be magnificent, and we will be trying it again for sure - but I've already made some improvisations with what we've got.

Yesterday I was talking to the boyfriend about a craving for trifle, so I went hunting for syn free custard recipes (with custard being sugar, egg yolks and milk, I couldn't see that there would be syns involved - but I like to check these things against the greater knowledge of the Google masses!) - it turns out that my boyfriend doesn't actually like trifle, which put paid to that idea. (Next time he's on a conference I'm getting my sugar free jellies, SW custard, fresh berries, and making a trifle that will last all week. Probably. Unless I eat it in one night for dinner.) However! Not to be perturbed by his lack of enthusiasm, I made SW custard today and  had my slice of this cake with lashings of hot custard and a handful of soft raspberries. The sweetness of the custard and the fruit made this cake absolutely amazing. In my opinion, it just needed that little bit of extra sugar (or sugar substitute) to make it really sing - and boy am I glad I went with my instinct on that one. It was incredible. I'm now upset that I took a slice to my mother for her to try ("yes mum, I've made a cake with kidney beans in... no, it won't taste like kidney beans!") when it would have impressed her one hundred times more as a warm dessert with custard and fruit.

But you know me, so we're taking it one step further and trying another approach to getting my own way in the Menu War with my beloved boy - tonight's dessert is going to be chocolate cake and raspberry 'trifles' and the custard is setting as we speak. I hope it turns out as nicely as the hot dish! Plus, one slice of my cake created these two small trifle bowls - which makes this a 1 syn dessert! If you wanted to make it even more special, a bit of non branded low fat squirty cream on top would be but half a syn for 2 level tablespoonfuls making this into a really luscious party treat that you can 'afford' to have every day on Extra Easy!

I also treated myself to those little glass dishes from a charity shop recently and think they're delightful, so I imagine that when pudding is finished I will make us both wait to dive in whilst I take a series of artistic photographs. I'm sure you can't wait to see those tomorrow :P 

So far today has been a really good day - delicious fruit breakfast, a second batch of the 'KFC' chicken made for lunch (and totally demolished, given that I then had to make a special trip to his workplace to deliver it to him still-warm) and a dinner that I've not made in a long time - Imam Bayildi, made 'my' way, with a sneaky sausage in there too using a few more of our syns and getting things out of the freezer ready to be replaced with bags of frozen vegetables and other SW staples. Tuesday is a neglected day, I think, so I hope yours is shaping up as nicely as mine has.

Chocolate Cake?!

Yes indeed, my friends! We are making chocolate cake whilst on a healthy eating plan. It can be done (...we think..!)

In the terrible little teaser photo, you can see two things of note:

1. Our blender is older than we are. And yellow.
2. It looks just like 'real' chocolate cake mix (ie yummy)

Stay tuned! Full reveal - including the all important tasting! - and recipe tomorrow! :)

And for the record, that's not my hand!

SW Rice Pudding

Rice pudding! Syn free! Yum!

I'm calling it a success, at least, anyway. A combination of this Scottish Mum recipe and iVillage ideas for SW rice pudding recipes but with, as ever, a few ideas of my own thrown into the mix!

It's not as creamy as I might have liked, but I only had long grain rice in the cupboard - pudding rice is shorter and starchier, I believe, and that's part of what contributes to the creamy texture. Next time I'll use the right kind of rice and mess around with the sweetening - there are two kinds of artificial sweetener, I'm told, and one of them doesn't heat very well! So even with putting 7tbsps of sweetener into the mix, by the time it cooks to completion it's got very little sweetness at all. I added another tablespoonful when I served it, which was nice. I also followed the advice of one of the iVillage posts and added a spoonful of yoghurt to help the creaminess - definitely would like to try it in the future with some flavoured Mullerlights, or frozen fruit... but today, for now, the traditional: nutmeg and a dash of ginger, with a little lemon to complement the yoghurt creamy-smooth-sour-ness!

300g of long grain rice, 3/4pint of milk, 3/4 pint water, and sweetener, in the slow cooker on high for 3 hours. The recipes using pudding rice called for 4 oz, which I believe is about 100g. I would ordinarily add the nutmeg and some cinnamon into the cooking mix so the flavour really permeates, and will do that next time - today I wanted a blank canvas so I could experiment at the end.

And it was not bad at all. This Slimming World thing isn't so hard, eh? (Unless you're me, and forgot the last time you tried to make rice in the slow cooker, and how it sticks something chronic. Washing that is going to be FUN.)

Slimming World 'KFC'

Several Good Things happened today! Or rather, some 'things' (neutral) happened but we make the positive spin ;P

One genuine real good thing! I had another three hours work on my tattoo - we were going to finish it today as it doesn't need a lot more (some final shading to the mandala and the birds) but I had a funny low sugar turn and got very faint, causing an unplanned break, and my wonderful artist was himself exhausted and suggested we finish it off when he's refreshed rather than just power through. So stopping suited both of us. 

There's a whole story attached to it, but I'll save that for another time. The short hair is also new this week, and I love it! I feel cute and feisty and a bit more like myself again. My previous growing-out style was doing nothing for me; this definitely is. I love it. 

But as to the topic of this post, and the more relevant information for this blog!

Tonight we made SW 'KFC' - and believe me when I say it is incredible. I possibly even liked it more than actual KFC - made all the better by knowing it's almost free! The only countable elements are the breadcrumbs - made from your HE-B it's your fibre choice for the day, or if not then I believe you just need to syn the bread. 

We googled of a recipe then made adjustments based on what we had in the cupboards. Cut chicken into goujons (or use drumsticks as per your preference). Mix one beaten egg with some chicken Bovril paste (or Marmite!) and a selection of spices, then dip your chicken first into this gloopy sludge then into breadcrumbs. Bake in a hot oven (225^ ish) for 15-20minutes, until golden and crispy. 

SO GOOD. We had ours with SW chips, green salad and a low fat coleslaw - SW coleslaw is also rather good. 

Yum yum yum! This is definitely going into our regular recipes!

Fancy Feasts for This Kitten

Well, it's certainly been awhile!

Sadly my mental health did not improve between the previous post and now, but with some delicious medication and the support of my fantastic boy and a network of friends across the country, we're hopefully back on the right path. I don't have much confidence, I'll be honest, but we're making small steps in that direction. It's not something I want to get into too much again on here, though suffice to say the happy sunshiney blog post from October last year is now only half true (boyfriend is still amazing, the flat is still cute, and we've got a baby bunny now to look after as well).

A few things have changed. Once more, we're back on the Slimming World Wagon - though again, not in at the groups but on our own. The other big thing I'm doing is using My Fitness Pal - the app and website - to keep a diary of food and exercise. I'm happy to have more friends on there, too, if anyone wants to add me! My username is laila_kitt. I find it really useful to be able to chart what I'm eating - I know that if I tried to reflect at the end of the day I had a tendency to forget. Not consciously, or maliciously, but 'snacks' whilst out and about didn't register as 'eating' whereas now, it all goes into my smartphone straight away. There is also a very handy barcode scanner, which in my experience of the last few months hasn't missed much at all. The search option is also very broad, so homemade meals come up on there as well - I know that the chilli con carne I make, for example, might not be exactly the same number of calories as the one on the app but I'm fairly sure it's not going to be different enough for it to make that big a difference.

The other thing that's nice about that app is that it expects you to list exercise as well, which has been really helpful in making me really 'see' the connection between input and output. If I want that cake for 300cal, what can I do in return? I do more walking now than I previously have, though with my mental health that's not always easy, and I'm hoping once my interactive treatment starts next week I'll be brave enough to start jogging again. It's too nice weather to stay inside, even if that's what I desperately want to do. My tattoo is getting finished tomorrow (finally!) and I've got lots of dress making fabric to make things that really show it off. I've lost the desire to be 'thin' but just to be happy with myself, and right now my fitness level is a big concern to me. So hopefully we're taking steps to get into the right mindset and make some more changes, and hopefully my silly little brain doesn't interfere again.

Yesterday I had a really rough day and the hangover of that into today hasn't been great, so I decided that this little kitten deserved a fancy feast of a lunch to cheer me back up again. (Also, the idea of a Fancy Feast amused me greatly because of the branded cat food of the same name, and I am behaving more like a mischievous feline than ever at the moment!)

All free food on Slimming World, and somewhere in the region of 400 calories for the whole lot if on any other system. I've got a homemade stock and green vegetable risotto planned for this evening, and maybe even a square or two of luxury dark chocolate after that!

Here's to baby steps and getting back on track.

Things I Think (which aren't about weight loss)

I'm having a really rough time. It might only be rough in my head, with minimal external factors, but it's still not going well for me.

Today at work I was treated rather badly and got horribly angry (went with a genuine question and request for guidance on an issue which was rather stressful, not my usual field, and ever so slightly urgent; got "you're a bright girl, you'll figure it out" from my direct manager quickly followed by "you go away and find a solution, then come back and we'll rip it to shreds!" from his manager/the GM) and I am generally exhausted.

I've been lamenting that there aren't enough hours in the day to do all the things I want to, that'd make me feel accomplished and productive and like I'm using my time in a worthwhile way. I hate my job at the moment, but I hope that won't last - though then I find myself thinking, surely liking your job is not essential, as long as you earn enough to live comfortably and do the things that provide happiness in other spheres? You work to live, not live to work, as the old adage goes?

Since I've been home I've read There's More to Life Than Being Happy - The Atlantic - a very interesting article on finding meaning in one's existence. It's definitely got me thinking. What are the things that are important to me? What is my meaning and purpose? What am I supposed to be doing?

Recently a certain amount of the suicidal ideology has crept back into the back of my thoughts - my (medical) hormonal situation always has had a disproportionately large impact on the state of my mental health, and the past 6 weeks have been no exception. On top of which, 32 days of constant and often debilitating pain do not lend themselves to positivity! The pain appears to have subsided now (thankfully) but the blues have not yet entirely cleared. It's a good time to assess putting into place the structures I want to try and follow in the near future to create happiness on my own terms, particularly if circumstances are against me. But are the things that make me happy meaningful ones?

I want to spend at least one night a week practising music, because later in the year I want to join an orchestra again. I got back in touch with an old music master, with a view to enquiring about local choirs, and he's actually setting up a chamber group himself and would love me to participate. My boyfriend and I are going tap dancing classes as of next week (as long as our shoes arrive in time!) and once the weather is warmer I want to start horse riding again. I'm getting my tattoo finished on February 5th. We're going on a holiday (short break) early March. Last week I bought a car. I'd like to plan to do more sewing, though not sure when. My OU course is going well enough. All of these are Good Things.

But perhaps it is the lack of meaning and purpose which is making everything still so feel so bleak. Or maybe it's that I hate my job and that my hormones still aren't settled. I just want to cheer up soon.