Crumble for breakfast!

Anyone that knows me or my weight loss journey knows that I’m a stickler for my Weetabix Muffin and fruit breakfast, but there comes a time (normally on a weekend) when I want to mix it up a bit.

The Slimming World website has warm oats as a suggested breakfast choice so I thought why not.  If they were nasty I could always bit them…I started off by making my cherry bakewell muffins just in case.  If the oats were bad I had breakfast and if they were good I was all set for my Monday morning commute (smart!).

Warm breakfast oats with mixed fruit

When they were cooking away I decided to give the oats a shot and it couldn’t really have been any easier.  When the recipe is basically ‘throw everything in the bowl, stir and cook’ I know it’s a Sunday morning I can deal with!!

What I wasn’t prepared for was how absolutely delicious they were…and I mean really, really good in fact it’s like having a crumble for breakfast, or a warm fruit flapjack which, in my book, can only be a good thing!

Give them a try, the recipe is here and very much worth a go!

Kathy xx

Slimming World Potato Poppers

With the party season almost here, I’ve been thinking about little nibbles I can serve to my guests that won’t push me off track and the first one I’ve come up with is potato poppers.

Basically is an adaptation of my sausage rolls with mashpastry and it’s Smash, rolled out and cut into rounds that are filled with whatever you want.  The recipe and a bit of a how to guide if you want to see what I mean is here.

I made mine with a few different fillings:  slimming world meatballs, laughing cow cubes (1/4 syn each), the cheese cubes with bacon.  You can stuff them with whatever you like including caramelized onion, peppers, sausage – pretty much anything but I tried these three flavours first.  The laughing cow cubes work really well because they don’t melt and disappear, you still have a gooey cheese filing when they’re cooked.

As you can see, I heated some passata and just added some chopped fresh basil to serve.  It’s incredibly easy and perfect for party finger foods.

Slimming World Potato Poppers

I’m sure there are loads of different potential fillings, I’ll keep trying new ones but for now these are most definitely a hit!

Kathy xx

Syn Free Pizza

I miss pizza, my Mum used to tell me it was all the food groups – that might answer where my weight issues started!  
 

Anyway, I’ve really wanted pizza recently and have been thinking about what I can do to incorporate it into my Slimming World diet and have made a pizza omelet (or as my friend calls it a pomlette!!).

Bear with me, I know it sounds disgusting but it isn’t!  It’s an omelet with passata, cheese (healthy extra a) and whatever toppings you like.  Today I made cheats meat feast with SW meatballs, 

 sausage, bacon medallions, onions and peppers.  It was really, really good!  Plus it tasted like pizza.

I tried two different ways to get the toppings done, under the grill on a tray and leaving it in the pan under the grill.  Leaving it in the pan worked slightly better to slide onto the plate but the actual taste was no different.  

Syn free pizza

No, this is not exactly like having Dominos deliver you a delicious pizza to your door but that comes in at a whopping 8 ½ syns a slice while the ponlette is syn free which works for me.

If you fancy trying it the recipe is here.  

Kathy xx

Cherry Bakewell Weetabix Muffins

Last week I went to Costa Coffee and while I was in the queue for my coffee I couldn’t help but look at the cakes - they all looked really good.  Don’t know about anyone else but I often play the ‘before my diet what would I have eaten/done’ which entertains me still so I looked at the cakes and tried to decide what ‘old me’ would have had.  The Bakewell Tart won, although flapjack was a very close runner up and so was….ooopsie, I digress.  

As you know, I’m all about making this diet not a diet so I decided that if I really wanted a Bakewell Tart then I could have one but maybe I could make it something that didn’t use a lifetimes worth of syns.

Every morning I have blueberry and apple Weetabix muffins, so I’ve tweaked them to be Cherry Bakewell Weetabix Muffins and I have to say they’re really, really yummy.  I’ve shared this morning’s debut batch to a chorus of thumbs ups so I guess I’m on to a winner.  

By the way, a portion is four muffins but I'd already eaten one when I took the photo!!!!

Cherry Bakewell Weetabix Muffins

Note of caution, whilst relatively low for a big serving, unlike the plain muffins they are not syn free.

As I’ve a few different types of them now so a summary and links to their recipes would be:

Orange and ginger – syn free

Apple and blueberry vanilla – 1 syn for four muffins

Chocolate orange – 2 syns for five muffins

Cherry Bakewell – 3 syns for four muffins

I hope you enjoy them!

Kathy xx

Being weighed by someone else works!

I wonder if it’s just me, but when it comes to weigh day I can’t seem to stop thinking about those dreaded scales…being weighed in public is a huge deal for me and I think one of the reasons Slimming World works.

The first time I went to class I went on my own.  I didn’t know anyone and I was really nervous.  Being new to the area meant that I needed my sat nav to get the 2 miles to class and even the accents were weird, Brummie being very different to the Yorkshire accents I was used to.  I felt out of place, alone, frumpy and downright scared.

I sat through the new person talk with a few other people and liked the consultant, she was really friendly and easy going and made the diet seem pretty straightforward.  Then it came to being weighed and I was horrified.  I saw shock and pity in the eyes of the person weighing me and I was devastated.

The truth of the matter is that I didn’t see shock or pity in anyone’s eyes, it was me.  The person who weighs us is wonderful, helpful, kind, funny and absolutely non-judgmental – it was all how I felt about myself and my weight.  I was so upset when I got home but that was the first step, I’d done something about it and it was just a matter of putting it into practice.

So I did.  I started with my food journal and stuck to the plan.  I didn’t cheat and after a week I went back, I’d lost 5 pounds.  Insanely encouraging so I kept going, sometimes it was easy, sometimes it was the hardest thing ever, but every day I made the decisions to stay on track and not least in part because I knew I was being weighed on Tuesday and I couldn’t fudge it, postpone it, move the scales or hold on to the sink.  The best I could do was take my shoes off!

Every week I’d go back and I’d lost a little more, then a little more, then suddenly it was a lot.  At a stone people still couldn’t tell, at two stone they started to notice and by three it was obvious even to the most disinterested of colleagues but I kept going to class and I got on those scales.

Fast forward to 28 weeks later and I’ve lost 76 pounds.  That’s a lot of standing on the scales and breathing out (I really do!) but every week it was another little loss and every week I got closer to my goal.  Now I’m at target but still every Tuesday I get weighed and by Sunday I start thinking I should watch it as it’s weigh day soon!!!

Tonight will be scary weigh in number 29 and I know if I’ve lost, stayed the same or gained I’ll get encouragement and chat to my friends in class and whatever I have to do for my next target I’ll do.

So here’s to no shoes, no cardy and breathing out as I try to think thin and no pity in anywhere as I did think thin(ner) and 5 ½ stone later I’m ok with those scales.

Kathy xx

Sausage Rolls but not as we know them!

Our Slimming World group has a Facebook support page where the groups run by our consultant trade ideas and offer support to each other.  At a recent taster one of the other groups had Slimming World sausage rolls which looked great.  They were made with bread and I decided to try them with Smash potato as that would be sausage and mash on one bite – sounded like a good idea at the time!

I cut them when serving and they were more like sausage and mash poppers but I have to be really honest and say they’re not bad.  OK, it’s not like having a Greggs sausage roll but it’s syn free and just another thing I can eat.  Now the weather’s getting colder I’ve been looking for ideas as I think my salad’s will get cut back and these see like a really nice idea for lunch.  I think I can try tweaking the recipe and adding bits like caramelized onion or herbs, maybe even incorporate bacon medallions or swap for the Heck chicken sausages at some point but for now it was good enough to see if the idea worked and was it any good.....yes and yes!

It’s easy and reasonably quick…my friend from class was over while I made them and we both agree that they’ll be something we make again.

So another hit in Kat’s Diet Kitchen…now it’s time to fiddle with the ingredients and make it really tasty!

If you want to try the Slimming World Sausage Rolls with mash pastry the recipe is here

Enjoy!

Kathy xx

A coffee a day

I think a lot of people will agree with me that dieting is hard.  For me, every day I have to say no to things I enjoy like wine, Haribos, wine, cheese, wine, bread…oh, did I mention wine?  That sounds really bad…anyway, moving on.  There are some things I have that I’d have even if I wasn’t trying to lose weight.  I’d have my Weetabix muffins, baked salmon and faux-ribos no matter what as I really enjoy them but also I love my coffee.

Anyone that knows me knows I lived in New York for more than a decade.  It was an incredible experience and I thoroughly recommend everyone go if they can.  The people, the City, everything is wonderful but while I was there I developed a taste for Dunkin Donuts coffee.  Not the plan stuff, that would be too simple.  I like the flavoured coffee and love hazelnut and French vanilla, I think theyhave more now but I’m not sure.   

Special working at home treat of Dunkin Donuts coffee

Sadly there isn’t a Dunkin Donuts nearby where I can get my beloved coffee and in between using what I have in store and while I’m at work I always have Douwe Egberts flavoured coffees.  I never have syrup as I don’t take sugar and don’t like anything that sweet but these are really, really good plus they’re syn free.  

Flavoured coffees

So whilst this isn’t exactly food, I do drink a lot of coffee and apart from the fact it makes me very excitable it’s a really good way to have something I love that doesn’t make me feel like I’m on a diet, which in my humble opinion is the key to sticking with it and one of the reasons I didn’t give up.

Kathy xx

Slimming World Chocolate Brownie Muffins

This week it was the Christmas countdown in class and we had a taster.  As I’m always going on about the virtues of Weetabix muffins it was, of course, my job to make and deliver some and I decided in addition to orange and ginger muffins I’d try something new, chocolate brownie muffins.

I’m not a huge chocolate fan but recently I’ve had the chocolate munchies and have worked on a new version to my Weetabix muffins.  Unlike the other flavours, these are more like brownies and are not syn free, but a portion is FIVE muffins HEB and only 2 syns so I can live with that!  Warning though, they are bitter, as they would be using cocoa powder so if you don’t like dark chocolate you won’t like them, but if you do, well you’re all set!

The reaction in class was mixed, overall everyone liked them although there were a few faces pulled at first!!

So here is my slimming world chocolate brownie muffin recipe, I’m going to make them with a choc shot and see if they’re more of a milk chocolate flavor so watch this space!

Orange and ginger, chocolate brownie and blueberry vanilla muffins!

Kathy xx

One Pot Salmon and Roasted Mediterranean Veg

I love salmon and fresh veg but seem to have gotten into a rut of baking the salmon and serving with stir fry veg so decided to try something new.  It’s baby new potatoes, the veg I had in the fridge and added salmon.  It’s a one pot meal, it was really tasty and incredibly simple.

OK, it takes a little more time than I’d hoped but that’s balanced by a lack of washing up so I’m still happy.  Basically the meal is made in three steps:

1. Cooking the potatoes
2. Adding the veg and cooking again
3. Adding the salmon and cooking again

Clearly it’s not rocket science and I got on with other things as this meal needs no watching and no real effort.  Chop put in pot, chop put in pot and put in pot.  That’s pretty much it and having to wait an hour wasn’t the end of the world.  I liked the fact that it was all bite sized and I could sit on the sofa and watch NCIS as I ate it.  Not very sophisticated but I enjoyed it!

We’ve been talking in class about mixing meals up and how that seems to boost weight loss.  I think it’s worth thinking about.  I know it’s not a technical argument but I think new foods keeps our bodies guessing (as well as providing the variety or vitamins and minerals we need) and whilst I acknowledge that it’s not super different, it did give me some carbs which I don’t have often and was a welcome change for my taste buds as much as anything else.

I’ve a few friends that have been on diets for a while and have become so bored of eating the same things that they’ve given up and the weight is creeping back on, so in an effort to not do that I’ll continue to mix it up and share the successes and disasters along the way!

If you want to try the one pot salmon it’s super easy and the recipe is here.

Kathy xx

One pot salmon & roasted veg

Curry in a Hurry

As you know, I am absolutely not a fan of processed food but every so often I’m tempted to the dark side.  Over the weekend I found myself in Iceland (as you do) and decided to give their new Spicy Chicken Tikka sauce a try.  We’ve been talking about the new Slimming World range in class and, well I was there and it seemed like a good idea at the time.

To make it even more processed I decided to use Iceland pre done chicken tikka strips, they’re fat free (and syn free for my SW friends) and ready in 3 minutes.  

 

Doesn’t get much easier right?

OK, I’m still me and I did make it slightly more complicated, I added onions, garlic, chilli and peppers first to give the sauce a base.  Then I added some Tikka dry spices and before throwing in the defrosted sauce and the defrosted chicken.  While I was doing that I boiled some baby new potatoes and drained, cooked them with the same spices but added mustard seeds and black onion seeds plus boiled some basmati rice which I also sprinkled with black onion seeds to make the flavours cohesive.

This is the result:

Slimming World Tikka Masala with Bombay style potatoes and Basmati rice

I have to say it was really good!  The entire meal took me about 20 minutes including making the Bombay style potatoes from scratch and there was more than enough for a few portions for the freezer.

OK, I will never be a processed food fan but this was a good emergency find and we’ll see if the scales like it this week!

Kathy xx