Pancakes!

YUM.

My SW consultant posted a recipe for pancakes on our Facebook group and I decided to make it. I've had a bit of a shocking week foodwise as I've been really emotional and angry at the world, but today we decided that instead of indulging in syn-heavy ways we would try out this recipe.

I am so glad we did. They were scrumptious!

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!

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.

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!

Profiteroles

A long overdue post! With going up north for a family event, and other Life Stresses getting in the way, there's been a bit of radio silence over here - that needs stopping!

So two posts today, to make up for lost time!

Firstly, profiteroles. Adapted from this recipe for 1 Syn Cupcakes, which came out of the oven looking rather impressive. They rose like 'normal' cakes - I was rather dubious they might not get to that point.

As mentioned before, squirty cream is to me like a very legal drug. Low syn, makes everything feel like a proper treat. So it wasn't a long stretch to slice these babies open and squirt a little filling in, making them 1.5 syns each! Two on a plate with a couple of strawberries, yummy. And so easy!

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.

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.)