Holiday

It's the first day of our holiday to my boyfriend's family for a christening - and in true holiday fashion, today has been a diet disaster.

I have had 40 syns today. :/ !

Over the last few days we've made some lovely Slimming World things - potato moussaka, cottage pie, quark carbonara, imam bayildi, profiteroles - and I'll share some photos as soon as we're home. The profiteroles were amazing. Such an incredible success. Very proud! They're definitely worth a post of their own!

But being on holiday isn't an excuse to really let things go as badly as this, so tomorrow is a new day and we will get back on plan and keep up the good work  ready for Monday weigh in!

Danone 'Danio'

The adverts for the Danone Danio yoghurts are adorable. Seriously adorable. And every time I see them I think "I would love to try that." So today I did. 

They are COMPLETELY worth the hype.

The television told me they were "extra thick" - I was not expecting them to be so thick that the spoon stands up on its own! The fruit at the bottom was lush - I had passionfruit, and the gold syrup and crunchy seeds was delicious.

For the syns they are worth, they are the perfect indulgence - they feel more like a cheesecake than a yoghurt. So so thick. Something that I wouldn't choose every day but when I had a cheesecake craving, this is what I'll buy.

The 0% passionfruit is 1.5 syns. 0% strawberry is just 1 syn.

The blueberry and the peach are 3 syns each but I imagine totally totally worth it. That's not even many. You get so much flavour and 'treat' out of it. I'm am a convert. They are even on special offer at the Co-op at the moment!

Week One Weigh In and Fifty Shades of Fruit Salad

This morning was the proper day for the weekly weigh in (not yesterday: it's just that I forget what day of the week it is because I'm a tool.)

I've lost four pounds! Boyfriend lost five pounds!

I was a bit disheartened yesterday to have thought I'd not done so very well. This has definitely perked me back up! And that's even with a cheeky takeaway last night (although we did choose the lower syn options) because I was feeling terrible and too apathetic to cook. We're on holiday over the bank holiday weekend, which might be a challenge, but hopefully we can continue this momentum. I do hope so!

We had a celebratory 'exotic fruit' salad to treat ourselves (plus a syn's worth each of squirty cream.. it was a celebration after all!) Add that to the fruit salad and natural yoghurt I had for breakfast this morning and I'm pretty sure we've had a good portion of our 5-a-day today!






















We had papaya, sharon fruit and strawberries. The other day we tried dragon fruit and I was really not a fan, but both of these were delicious. I hope we get them again!

Layered Treat Pot (and Tea Solves Everything)

I've realised I really like preparing food for my other half. My long term ambitions are all things which fit around being a home-maker, I see now, but I've never looked at it that way before nor have I ever really indulged in this kind of taking care of somebody. But I love going to his work place at midday to deliver some kind of tasty nutritious lunch, seeing him for 30 seconds, and then later having him come home to the smell of a hot oven and a dinner ready when he is. I know how much some of my old friends would laugh to hear that's what I dream of, though! We've just got to get him a good enough job that he can support his 1950s housewife whilst she cooks delights for him and raises the children!

Hey, a girl can dream of whatever she wants. The 1950s woman I imagine I could be also gets to wear very snazzy aprons, so it's a win-win really!

Today I took him a ham salad (with ham from a shank we slow cooked for cold meat), some syn free rice pudding (which he's been pestering me to make again for a few days now, ever since I tried it and shared it on here) and then a layered pudding, a treat pot if you will, made from a slice of the flourless chocolate cake (2.5 syns), a pot of his favourite low fat gooseberry yoghurt (2 syns), sliced bananas and a handful of strawberries. It looked pretty from the outside of the container, and was a nice little surprise for a Sunday afternoon at the office, bless him.

Unfortunately, I'm still not feeling terribly chipper myself. I'm hungry today like I haven't really been all week, craving cupcakes piled high with buttercream frosting, cookies, meringues and fudgey brownies. I have the most appropriate mug for the situation (a gift a long long time ago) and a lovely selection of teas, and am hoping that some sort of magic will infuse into my drink, warm me up and inspire me to finish (/start) my last essay. I wish I had some other sort of pick me up but there's really nothing here that I want to eat, and I'm too dispirited to want to cook. The internet recommended I knock up some scrambled eggs and beans, or make some SW chips quickly, to sate a hunger before I go on a binge. I don't see that I'm likely to make anything more taxing than a bowl of jelly, at this rate! (Hartley's Sugar Free sachets come in at 1 syn, for the record.)

I hope I cheer up tomorrow, but with the actual weigh-day (!), going to the doctor's, going to therapy and trying to sort out whether we're moving or not, it seems unlikely!

Or maybe all I need is this cup of tea, a few deep breaths and a moment of calm. We'll see.

The Wrong Weigh In

Well, at the end of the first week of living Slimming World style again, I have successfully dropped 1 pound.

Less than I'd hoped for, of course, but it's at least one notch in the right direction. The boyfriend forgot to weigh himself before work, so we'll see how he's done tomorrow.

I thought I'd have a lot more to say about this, but somehow I am quiet. Today will be a busy day and I am a little overwhelmed by the amount that's left to do, so perhaps I'll have more thoughts when my brain slows down again.

For now it's probably enough that it's the first step on a long path, but that first step it most certainly is.

ETA: Well, I'm an idiot. I thought it was Monday today. I'm a real special creature, me. So we'll do this again tomorrow!

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.