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.