Slimming World Ginger Oat Cookies

Fancied a change from my usual Weetabix muffins the other day, so I mixed things up and had a syn free breakfast of fruit and a Muller Light and made some cookies for later.  

 I LOVE flapjack and realized the other day that I would quite like some and I made these ginger oaty cookies.  As I really like ginger I added some finely cut crystalised ginger to really boost the flavor and I have to say they’re really good and an excellent use of my HEB. 

The recipe is here and makes four which is a portion which meant they were a decent size, big enough to still be chewy in the middle rather than crisp which is exactly what I wanted.

These cookies are good to have with a coffee and my Mum, who isn’t on Slimming World but loves ginger said they looked delicious so look like I'm going to make her some to try over the holidays!  I see gossiping over diet cookies and coffee in my future.  Might be worth misisng out the crystalised ginger and swapping that coffee for wine.....

They’ll lend themselves to other flavour combinations too so watch this space!

Kathy xx

Ginger Oasty Cookies (syn free!)

Syn free stuffed mushrooms

I try to have a meat free day at least twice a week, I’ve found for me personally it helps manage my weight loss and am always looking for different things to make.  

Syn free stuffed mushrooms

Stuffed peppers and mushrooms have always been a favourite of mine and I decided to try them but using veggie sausages instead.  The only veg sausages I have are Linda McCartney rosemary and caramelized onion - I find the others a bit megh, these are a really good standby but I have to admit that I cook them far longer than you’re supposed to as I find that it improves the texture slightly.  Anyway, I digress. I don’t cook them for this recipe, defrost and squash but no cooking.  

As you can see, I added cheese which was my Healthy A for the day and I'm glad I did as it protected the rice from the cooking heat and stopped it going a bit crunchy.

Overall this is a very tasty meal.  I’m probably at the wrong time of the year as it’s more a summer dinner but, well I saw the mushrooms in tesco and just decided to give them a try.  I’ll try with peppers next.  The quantities on my recipe are for four but I made two, just put the rice mixture in the fridge overnight and had it again the next day….no problems at all.

So yes, definitely worth having as a big lunch or light dinner.  The recipe is here

Cutting down on red meat overall is a good idea health wise and I often have curried muffins on a week night if I'm in a rush as I can nuke them from frozen if I didn't plan especially well.  Increasing my veg has always worked for me and when others in class try it they seem to find the same, so it's very much worth a try.  I'll keep looking for good veggie recipies and look forward to sharing them.

Kathy xx

Chocolate Jelly Sweets

Yesterday I was at class and one of the awesome ladies brought chocolate jellies for us to try, they were absolutely delicious and really great for those days when you really need chocolate, even better they’re 2 syns for the entire lot!

I was inspired to try make my own...not as good as Sarah's but they'll do.

The ones I tried in class were chocolate, I played slightly and made chocolate orange jellies by using chocolate orange Muller light and a few drops of orange essence - absolutely delicious!  Next I want to try chocolate mint…they’re really decadent and I can’t tell you how well they help with that chocolate craving!

Chocolate jelly sweets recipe here

Kathy xx

Chocolate jelly sweets

Time for something different

Over the past seven months I’ve been fortunate enough to make some awesome friends at my Slimming World class. 

We encourage each other to succeed and have, between us, lost more than 13 stone…an absolutely incredible achievement.  To celebrate I had both my friends over for dinner at the weekend and was excited to make something new and different but still on plan.

In the end I went with a Chinese inspired menu as it allowed for fresh flavours, healthy foods and was something a little different.  The starter was chicken Yuk Sung, followed by baked salmon with spicy noodles and the pudding was a distinctly un-Chinese orange terrine with ginger vodka shots.

The total menu was less than 7 syns (including shot) so less than half a day’s allowance, and after dinner none of us could eat any more.  

It was absolutely awesome to celebrate our joint loss with good food and better company!

Here’s to the next seven months, all of us hitting target and maintaining the incredible losses!

Kathy xx

Chicken Yuk Sung

Salmon with spicy noodles

 

Orange terrine with ginger vodka shots

 

Finally, a pudding I’m not embarrassed to serve!

OK so being on a diet, or living with healthy eating options is straightforward until it comes to puddings.  I really struggle as by their very nature they are usually super sweet, chocolate, pastry cream filled calorie bombs.

That in mind I decided to have a couple of my friends from Slimming World over and challenged myself to come up with something low syn but still fun and interesting.  I’ve used the basic faux-ribo idea and made it into a far more impressive, multi-layer fruit terrine which came in at about 1.5 syns for a huge slice…the accompanying shot was more syns!!!!

Orange Terrine with Ginger Shots

It was a hit, we all really enjoyed the freshness of the mandarins and it was a realy refreshing end to a meal.  I’m definitely going to try it again and next time I think will use raspberries and/or strawberries for an even lower syn option but you can try this orange recipe here.

Kathy xx