Overnight Oats

Everyone at class has been telling me how great overnight oats are, how they love them and that they’re the best thing literally since sliced bread.  Clearly nothing is better than sliced bread and I’ve steadfastly refused to give up my Weetabix muffins for anyone, but I decided that it’s about time I took one for the team and gave them a go.

There’s loads of different flavor options but poking around the kitchen I decided to try making an apple strudel version as that worked with what I had in the fruit bowl and sounded quite nice.  Also I didn’t want to use red fruits as I thought they’d bleed overnight and make my breakfast look nasty.

It’s really very straightforward, weigh out your 35g dry oats (a heb) and layer them with your yogurt of choice and fruit/other stuff.  

For the apple strudel I used a Muller Light vanilla with chocolate sprinkles, grated granny smith apple, a dusting of mixed spice and a couple of sultanas.  If you don’t want to add the sultanas as they’re high in syns at 3.5 for 25g then you don’t have to, but I hardly used any and it did make a difference to the taste/texture of the finished dish.  I layered like this: oats, yogurt, grated apple, dusting of mixed spice, sultanas and repeated making sure the oat layers weren’t too think so they would soak up the yogurt and not be dry.  Popped in the fridge overnight ready for breakfast the next day.

Apple Strudle Overnight Oats

My verdict is that they’re good.  They’re a little claggy I’d say and for my taste really need to be cold, if they weren’t straight from the fridge I don’t think I would’ve liked them.  I added some chopped strawberries and raspberries just before eating to up my fruit intake and have to admit it was a refreshing change.  Not enough to persuade me to forfeit the Weetabix muffins but certainly something I’d have again.

There’s so many flavor options to try so I might give them a whirl every weekend and see what I like the best but apple strudel is absolutely a great start!

Kathy xx

Jaffa Cake & Strawberries and Cream Syn Free Jellies

It was a syn free taster night at class this week and I couldn’t decide whether to make Faux-ribos or chocolate jellies.  Clearly I don’t have enough to think about as I was pondering this dilemma as I was driving about at the weekend and decided to try a combination of the two!  Mentally going through my cupboards at home I realized that I had orange jelly and orange yoghurt as well as chocolate orange options so clearly I had to make jaffa cake jellies.  But of course.

Jaffa cake jellies

Now I admit that I love jaffa cakes and had very high hopes for these sweeties and they didn’t disappoint – yay!  The taste was absolutely spot on and whilst clearly the texture isn’t the same as a biscuit (or cake, whatever they are) the flavor is absolutely there.  

It makes me smile to share them at class and see someone’s face light up as the taste hits them.  Very, very satisfying.

Clearly making one batch wasn’t enough and it was suggested that I also try strawberries and cream, so I did and yup, these taste absolutely awesome too.  

Strawberries and Cream Jellies

I can’t decide which I prefer, today the jaffa cake flavor wins but strawberries and cream is so refreshing and sweet that it’s a super close second.  Maybe try both and see which you prefer?  I’ll keep having a think and let you know what other flavor combinations hit me.

Kathy xx

Syn free slow cooked kofta curry

I love my slow cooker!  I’ve always been a huge slow cooking fan, partly because it saves me a lot of faffing about and always makes perfect meals but since I’ve been on this diet I’ve found it’s possibly the single best kitchen aid for adding flavor to diet food.  

Anyone on a diet knows that removing fat removes at least part of the flavor from a meal and the only real way to replace that is with a well-seasoned, flavor infused dish.  Indian food uses a myriad of spices which naturally lends itself especially well, in my opinion, to slow cooking.    

With that in mind I’ve tried a couple of different curries recently and this weekend did a kofta curry taste off.  I have a divided pot for my slow cooker and in one side did beef (using 5% mince) and in the other I made lamb koftas.  I don’t use lamb mince from the supermarket as it’s too high in fat, instead I went to the butcher who very kindly deboned and removed the visible fat from a couple of lamb joints then minced the lot for me.  I had enough to make the koftas and more in the freezer to make a shepherd’s pie later in the month – bonus!

To go with the meatballs I did plain rice and also sautéed some onions to make an onion and saffron rice as a completely syn free meal.  Clearly I could add veggies and oher speed food but apart from the onion in the lamb koftas I didn’t have any as, well to be honest I’m a little bored of fruit and veg and had the day off!

Syn free lamb kofta curry with rice

The results was that both were absolutely delicious however the lamb slightly more so, but that may have been because I’ve not had lamb for ages and it is one of my all-time favourites.  

The recipe for the koftas is here but you may want to look at the pulled chicken tikka masala in the slow cooker, I thought it was delicious too and my friends at fat class who made it agree that it’s well worth a go!

Kathy xx

Chocolate Nutella Brownie Bites

These were not my idea, one of the lovely ladies in my SW class posted the recipe and by the end of the day several of us had made them as they really can’t be any more tasty or easier.  I did mine a little before group and took them for a post weigh-in treat while they were still warm. 

Chocolate brownie bites

Let me just say this picture doesn't do them justice, they were much nicer looking than they seem here although a couple were a bit wonky! 

They’re 2 syns each for a small cookie but they taste absolutely delicious.  These would be great to make when surprise visitors pop by as it’s only four ingredients and 6 minutes in the oven…doesn’t get much better than that!!!

I only had a couple left after class but I put them in an airtight container and they were still really good the next day.  At breakfast (ooopsie).

If you want to give them a try the recipe is here

Enjoy!

Kathy xx

When the cravings hit!

The longer I’m on my diet, 9 months now and counting, the more I find I’m missing the oddest things.  Recently it’s been chocolate and the other day it was flapjack.  It’s a case of either having a little bit of what I want or a lot more of a ‘diet’ version and as I like my food (a lot!!) I’ve been creating new recipes to have more of the fake foods.

Chocolate has been straightforward.  I’ve been making my chocolate jelly sweets every few days in different flavours but at the moment the chocolate mint version are by far the best, they’re chocolate-y and refreshing so really good after dinner.  I had a couple of After Eights the other day after a curry (ok, so I’m not always managing to stay on it!) and of course they’re better but these are only 2 syns for the whole lot vs 2 syns per chocolate so to me it's totally worth it.  The taste is there, it’s the crunch that’s missing….I could cover them in a little chocolate but that kinda defeats the object!

Choc mint jellies

For my flapjack craving I made Cherry Bakewell Oaty Muffins.  They’re good but they’re not a flapjack.  I made them quite deep, had I done the same ingredients as a thinner cake I think it would’ve been more flapjack like but they are still really good and quite filling.  Two is a HEB and whilst I’m not swapping my Weetabix muffins for them yet I think they’re a nice alternative.

Oaty Cherry Bakewell Muffins

I’m continuing with the diet swaps as I’ve lowered my target again, this time it’s 6 ½ stone and I’m only a pound off.  The weight loss has slowed down but as it’s been the holiday and party season I’m encouraged that I haven’t gained at all, a couple of maintains and a couple of small losses see me at 90 pounds lost in 41 weeks and now it’s time to focus and get that final pound, shiny sticker and certificate…

Kathy xx

Slow cooked syn free shredded chicken tikka masala

I’ve lowered my target and have a couple more pounds to lose in order to get to my new, 6 ½ stone weight loss goal.  One of the things I wanted to do to help was look at old food diaries and see what contributed to the bigger weight loss weeks (I always keep a food diary and at the end of the week record the weight loss/gain that week’s menu saw).

One of the things I noticed was that I seem to lose more weight when I mix up my food, a good balance of meat/fish/chicken and a couple of veggie days if possible.  Seems to keep my body on it’s toes and stops me getting bored too!

So this weekend I decided to try something different with chicken, I have a lot of mince meals in the freezer and fancied a change.  I batch cook to make my life easy in the week and I decided to play with the SW recipe and see what I came up with.  I have a pot in my slow cooker that divides the whole thing in half so I also tried the chicken fajita. 

Pulled chicken fajita (left) and tikka masala (right) in the slow cooker

Both are shredded recipes and I have to say that the chicken tikka was delicious, really tender and tasty.  The chicken fajita one not so much, it was ok but not even close to as good as the curry.  Also, there’s not onions or peppers in the recipe, it’s just chicken and I’ve subsequently found out that it’s just as good cold, it’s going to make a great salad option and even something I can take and pick at when we have picnics in the summer.

Pulled chicken tikka masala - syn free

The slow cooker pulled chicken tikka masala recipe is here.  It might need marinating but trust me, it’s worth the effort and planning!

Kathy xx

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!)