Week Three Weigh In: Slimmer Of The Week!

SO PROUD!

I am Slimmer of the Week! I lost 4.5lb! I got my half stone award and sticker on my book! 

Look at the haul I got for being slimmer of the week:

Every group member brings a piece of fruit or something and the person that's lost the most weight that week wins the basket full. There was an extra banana but I ate that before taking the photo.. but it still shows how much I've got! Very happy :)

Here's to doing the same thing next week! This week is mostly going to be sponsored by 'finding nice things to make with scan bran' (which I detest) - favourite idea so far is a spiced cake recipe, I'll keep you updated!

YAY!

Steak!

On our anniversary, we decided the best thing we could have would be a beautiful steak dinner. Homemade peppercorn sauce (free), butternut squash cubes (free, though didn't work out as planned - not crispy enough), salad - and the main event, the biggest piece of meat you have ever seen.

I left half of mine and had it with salad for lunch the next day!

Never let it be said that SW isn't full of possibilities for having all the things you love!

:D

Cape Cod Chowder

Well this is a true thing of beauty. One of the recent SW magazines had this recipe in there and we decided to try it, given that we had fish in the freezer from a clearance shelf at Tesco and decided we fancied sea food.

Smoked river cobbler, prawns, mussel meat, and bacon cooked in milk with leeks, parsley and probably coriander (the boyfriend made it, and he got himself some plants this week and loves the coriander) -  it was so good we had it two days in a row.

This is probably one of my new favourite SW recipes. It's also 'fancy' enough that if we had people over for dinner, I could serve it and be proud of it and no one would know it was on plan!

Fake-Take-Away: Indian - Heart Dopiaza!

We were looking for cheap meat and I (perhaps foolishly) picked up a pack of sheep hearts. "Hey, shall we go for it? Live on the edge?" I said, knowing full well that it'd be me that cooked them. "Yes!" was the resounding answer I got back. I then proceeded to scowl at them in the trolley all the way around the supermarket, as I wondered what kind of ridiculous idea it was for me to point them out and how was I going to cook them and what if they still had blood in the cavities and and and ick.

They were delicious. So tender and beautiful!

I made a Dopiaza curry in the slow cooker - literally dopiaza is double onion, so there is a spicy onion sauce and plenty of onions chopped into it. We should have had more vegetables with it, I know that, but we wanted a 'takeaway' experience. I also made a SW raita which was absolutely beautiful - and I've since made it again to have as a salad dressing. The boy reckons he could just eat it on its own with a spoon!

Success!

Beef Olives

Look at these:

I have never had these in my life and my other half is trying to convince me that they're a common thing and it's me that's odd for not knowing what they were!

Beef Olives are (apparently) minced beef and onion formed into balls and wrapped in bacon, then baked. And usually served with gravy, but we didn't fancy it.

They were nice, don't get me wrong! But I've never heard of them!

A Catch Up: Goals and Challenges

I've been remiss on updating the blog because I have a new job and it has utterly zapped me of time and energy. In fact I have two new jobs, but the point is still the same. I am exhausted.

Because of work, I couldn't go to my regular SW group (9.30am) and had to go later (5.30pm) and I was terrified it was going to affect my losses. I text my consultant and asked her about it and she agreed that maybe 1/2 a pound - 1 pound, but it'd show the week after as a bigger loss.

Come the evening of the weigh in, I crept onto the scales rather scared. I lost half a pound. That was it. I was devastated. We'd had a really good week, I was excited, I thought I'd get my certificate for half a stone. All I can say is that I hope it does show up this week at the next weigh in otherwise I will be losing faith in this plan a little, heh. The consultant of the evening said he would tell my consultant how upset I was, and I think I thought she'd get in touch - but to be honest I've been so busy I probably wouldn't have been able to talk to her anyway. I was really down, though. Eventually I convinced myself to use it as motivational, and inspire me to make sure this week is a huge one and maybe even get Slimmer of the Week (maybe? it's good to have goals!) so we've tried really hard, and my new job (1) is 1000000 times more active so that will be good too!

I think I could be near my goal by my birthday next March. I've decided that's the big picture aim. We're going to a Masquerade Ball in November, and I'd like to be in a slinky costume for that night (as I should theoretically be half way to my goal, no?) And we've decided to go on a big holiday in the February, which means I would like to be looking fantastic for all of our photos. So again, I say, it's good to have goals.

We've tried really hard again this week, reprieving the Chicken and Mustard Casserole from last month (yummy again, though not quite as mindblowingly good). We made a macaroni cheese dish, which you're not going to see because it was revolting. We've had healthy fruity breakfasts, I've been taking salads to work and snacking on fruit and syn free yoghurts, drinking plenty of water. Hopefully, when this weigh in comes around, I'll be happier. I've resisted all of the cravings I've had (and there have been many, in my new workplace, and lots of things I would LOVE to indulge in) and have been 100% honest about what I've eaten. It needs to go well and I want to be happy when I get to group.

Eggs Cooked In Things!

After seeing this article on Buzzfeed about eggs cooked inside things, I decided to make a SW version and had a tasty brunch: eggs baked into my wholemeal bread and served with baked beans! Because it's a bit unusual as well, it felt like a real treat. And the boyfriend was impressed too! I used Martha Stewart's bacon and egg cup recipe but made it a bit more SW friendly and they were really very tasty!

Brunch is an underrated meal. The boy wants to reinstate Brinner (a la Scrubs) and I'm 99% certain he'll convince me to do a full fry up one night next week to sate his cravings, but for me, brunch is the best. Lazy lying in bed until 9am (or, shock horror, even later!) then a late breakfast/early lunch combo on one plate. Win.

Sweets and Pride

I've had another rough day so wanted to share the rather tasty sweeties we made in a bid to cheer me up.

Penguins! (Okay, okay, so the most exciting ice cube tray we own is penguin shaped. All the fun stuff will come like penguins.) Made a Hartley's sugar free jelly sachet up to half a pint with boiling water, and added two gelatine sheets. I let it cool for a minute or so then stirred in a yoghurt (in this instance a peach one, but a friend on Twitter suggested that a combination of raspberry jelly and Turkish Delight Muller light would be her choice and that sounds amazing). I put berries into the sections of the ice cube tray but I probably won't do that next time, the blancmange type jelly-ness was excellent on its own and I can always have fruit on the side. 

Sweeties!

And in other news, the pulled pork I slow cooked earlier in the week has been so cost-effective! We had it as a meal in itself, with BBQ sauce and mashed potatoes. We diced it into macaroni cheese (which I did not post here as it was not very nice at all!). We used it as pizza topping (and were quite generous with it!). I have had it twice through the week as a snack, cutting a few slices and nibbling them when I've been peckish. And today it finally disappeared into a pasta salad I made for the boy's lunch tomorrow. The joint only cost £3.50 in the first place! And it was beautiful. I am proud of myself on that one!

Fake-Take-Away: Pizza!

This week's takeaway was to be pizza, and I'm not going to lie, I was very skeptical about the idea of smash potato pizza bases!

However! They were fab! Topped with all manner of things - peppers, onion, sweetcorn, pork, even some spicy 'sausage' we made especially to imitate real pizzas - and smothered in fabulous melty cheese - happy tummies!

Unlike lots of people on the internet, we managed to get crispy bases on our first attempt - you can even pick up a slice and eat it from your hand like a 'real' pizza!

And there's some left for the boy's lunch tomorrow, so everyone is happy!

Sushi

I made my boyfriend this sushi selection for his work lunch, and when I worked it out the sushi nori (seaweed sheets) are only 1.5 syns. So it's a healthy lunch too! (I was going to make some with avocado, but it turns out that it's ridiculously high syn! So I'll not be bothering with that!)

Little cucumber and carrot maki, smoked salmon in the bigger ones and a nice rice ball with a little heart on top. I do spoil him!

Walking, Weigh In and Treats

This week we've tried to incorporate a bit more exercise into our days, and we went on a lovely walk in some local hills and actually worked quite hard at it!

But when the view ends up like this...

...it's hard to complain! It was a really lovely hour spent walking along the stream, admiring the baby ducklings and then climbing a horrible hill and walking back. I wish we lived closer to scenery like this (this park is a 40 minute drive away) so we could do that more regularly, and walking in the streets of the town doesn't have quite the same appeal!

At group this week I lost 3.5lb and am pleased with that. Next week I want to do the same again and get my 1/2 a stone certificate. And I know it could have been more, as I've now looked up the Lidl brand muller lights we've been having (muller lights have got so expensive!) and they're not at all syn free. Which would have been fine if I was aware of that and accounting for it, but to have an extra 4.5 syns every day that I didn't know about, not so good.

As a post weigh in treat, we had jelly and ice cream! Mixed a yoghurt in the freezer to create our own 'fro-yo' and served with jelly penguins! We're big kids at heart.

Birthday BBQ

At group last week it was all about BBQs and doing them whilst still on plan. It was also my mum's birthday, so we offered to do her a BBQ and try out some of the ideas!

I marinated skinless chicken legs in a variety of different spices and natural yoghurt - I made some with chinese five spice, some with tandoori spice, and some in balsamic vinegar. I also made skewers of vegetables and turkey, a big salad, a load of coleslaw and took bread rolls too - and everyone was satisfied!

Unfortunately the cake I made was not exactly on plan but it's only a birthday once a year, hey!

Manhattan Cheeseburger

In one of the recent SW magazines there was a feature of American inspired recipes, and we really liked the look of this cheeseburger. A wholemeal roll as our HEb option, with the cheese from HEa - with loads of salad bits and sweet potato fries, yum yum yum!

And even better (probably) - the fact that we buried cheese into the middle of the beef burger so that when you cut it open, gooey melted cheese escaped out! Divine! With a trimmed bacon rasher and a good spoonful of our syn free barbecue sauce, this was a nicer burger than you'd ever get in a restaurant and we were thrilled we'd made it ourselves!

We <3 Slimming World!

Fish Fingers and Chips

After not being too happy with the Chinese take away imitation, I decided I wanted another treat. Fish fingers and chips!

I saw a piece of coley fillet on the clearance at the end of the day at the supermarket, and it was only £1.36! With delicious sweet potato chips (spiced with cayenne pepper), SW coleslaw and a green salad. Delicious! I used HEb wholemeal bread for the crust on the fish fingers (which I admit are more like fish nuggets?) after dipping them in egg. The coleslaw was the nicest we've made it - probably because this time we grated the cabbage as well as the carrot so it was finer - and the only difference for next time will be that I want to make the fries thinner! There will be a next time for sure!

I apologise for the dodgy photo, we just wanted to dive in!

Fake Take-Away: Chinese!

Another Friday, another fake take away!

This week we had diet-coke chicken with water chestnuts and onion, egg fried rice, stir fried soy sauce vegetables and home made SW spring rolls!

My major disappointment was that I over cooked the chicken and all of the sauce was gone. It was too wet and not thickening so I cranked up the heat... and then got involved in something else and came back to it too late. Alas.

The spring rolls are made of lasagne sheets cooked for 5 minutes then rolled with the filling and baked for 20mins in a warm oven. Not quite the same as the real thing, but close enough for me!

Slimming World Group

I went to Slimming World Group today because I decided it would be good to have the group element again, and because I like the community aspect and the friends!

Unfortunately, her scales are a lot more accurate? depressing? unflattering? than mine, and I got a bit disappointed. The other consultant, her partner, and I had a chat about it. He was nice, and put me at ease about the whole thing, but obviously it still hurt.

We're going to have a good week - tonight we're having a slow cooker special made up from my cook book and Slimming World adapted. And as long as the number goes down, I guess it doesn't matter where we start?

I'm just looking forward to fake-take-away night! Bring on Friday. And bring on next Wednesday and next group, and we'll keep on going.

A Cookery Afternoon!

Yesterday I needed to make lots of things to last us through the week, as it's going to be a busy one!

And that meant there wasn't much time (or in fact desire) to make anything too special for my own lunch, in the middle of cooking madness... but the Fancy Beans On Toast I ended up having was pretty delicious for saying it was an instant quick fix!

I'd made light-sausage and bean casserole the night before, using the last of the BBQ sauce we had from the pork, chickpeas, butter beans and baked beans. Co-op Light Range Sausages are low enough syns to make them okay in something like this! I couldn't find any of the syn free Quorn ones in local supermarkets so couldn't pick them even if I'd wanted to. It was delicious in the end!

I also made another batch of 'KFC' chicken for the boy for his lunches (which keeps him happy!) and so far haven't snacked on any of them! I've been getting my bread/fibre choice in other places, so to have these as well would be wrong.

Finally, I made something that I was very sceptical about! Cream Soda Rice Pudding from the Slimming World Recipe Share Group. I've been happily using my milk allowance to make rice pudding and then adding sweetener at the end. This cuts out the middleman, plus whatever E numbers they add to make cream soda taste like cream soda linger into the rice pudding and it came out just like Ambrosia! Half the batch disappeared at dinner, the rest went with fruit at breakfast. Yum. We'll definitely do another run of this!

Butternut Cottage Pie

The other night, instead of making the traditional cottage pie I decided I wanted to use the squash I had sat looking at me. I had planned to make a risotto - it was on the menu plan and everything! - and then at the last minute decided I didn't fancy that. I am fickle! Some brief Googling later and I came across the idea of using butternut squash as the topping for a cottage pie.

So I made my usual recipe cottage pie - extra lean mince, onion, chopped vegetables (frozen - I am also lazy!), stock, herbs - but instead of topping with mashed potato, I steamed cubed butternut squash for 25 minutes until soft enough to mash and used that instead! Finally put it in the oven for 20 minutes to brown the top - and I was really impressed!

A nice spinach side salad and it was lovely, and the butternut squash topping snuck an extra superfree vegetable in there over and above potatoes! 

And it got another thumbs up from the boy. Success!

Fake-Take-Away: Doner Kebabs!

It sounds like a cruel joke but I assure you it is not! And best of all? It's syn free!!

These were incredible. I would prefer them over kebab-shop kebabs. I don't even know how to be begin to describe how satisfying they were - and how filling! By the time I was starting to feel like I'd had enough dinner, my plate looked barely touched.

Homemade syn free kebab meat, wholemeal pitta (HEb), spinach salad, homemade SW chips and coleslaw, with some of that syn free bbq ketchup from the pork dish to add a bit of spice to the kebabs.

I can't adequately explain how proud I was of this. Fake-take-away night is going to become a regular thing each friday evening, and next week we're having Chinese themed delights. I can't wait!

BBQ Slow Cooked Pork

OM NOM NOM.

A few days ago we made BBQ pulled pork (although I got lazy with the 'pulling' so it was quite chunky!) with potato rosti, spinach salad and homemade coleslaw.

Boyfriend says he's never letting me get away.

That pork is to die for. I also made some of the sauce as a syn free 'ketchup' alternative which I then served with the fake-take-away the following night (photos to follow, because it was incredible!) and will keep making as our condiment to go with practically everything.

Shoulder of pork went into the slow cooker and then was covered in the BBQ sauce and cooked on low for about 8 hours. I suspect the recipe originally came from Vicki Kitchen but I can't find it at the moment, sorry! A carton of passata was boiled with 5 tsp worcestershire sauce, 3 tsp of lemon juice, 3 tsp of lemon juice, 1 tsp of mustard powder... and probably some other stuff too. >.< Then into the slow cooker!

Slimming World coleslaw is the easiest thing - simply chop or grate carrots and white cabbage and mix together with a good tablespoon of fat free yoghurt, salt and pepper.

And the potato rostis that survived this feast made a lovely brunch the next morning! I feel like I haven't stopped eating in the past couple of days - I hope it pays off on weigh in!

The most recent issue of SW magazine has yet more lovely recipes, and also mentions a voucher in Bella for free joining fee. I think I'm going to start going to group again. I think I would like that.