Meal Planning Monday

Monday - jackets, beans and steamed veg / sausages, beans and egg for D & P.

Tuesday - tomato soup, bread for D & P

Wednesday - gammon, hasselback potatoes and veg

Thursday - creamy bacon and mushroom pasta

Friday - salmon stir fry for me

Saturday - cottage pie and veg

Sunday - pork loin and veg

Quite a conservative week for us, a bit too much meat and veg for me, but I can't make everyone like what I do.

You can join in the meal planning at www.athomewithmrsm.com

Slimming world friendly tomato soup

 Ingredients

5 tomatoes
1 tin of plum tomatoes
1 carton of passata
2 sticks of celery
Half large brown onion
1 carrot
200mls vegetable stock
Garlic
Squeeze of tomato purée

Method

When I decided to make this soup I was my trying to make it the most tomatoey thing known to man, I just got a wee bit carried away adding them in.  I liked how strong the tomato flavour is, but I guess it won't be to everyone's taste.

As you'd expect - chopped all the veg, peeling the carrot too. I sweated the onion, celery and carrot off in some fry light with a splash of water, and a little bit of garlic paste. The fresh tomatoes got chucked in next, then once they'd softened in went the liquid elements of the stock, tinned tomatoes and passata, then lastly added a little squeeze of tomato purée.

I let the soup simmer until all the vegetables were cooked then blended and served.

You'll notice from my posts that I don't list salt and pepper - I'm committing sacrilege I know, but our daughter eats with us and I don't like to add salt to what she's having.

In a turn up for the books she actually liked this soup - she's been in a difficult fussy phase for months now. I always offer her what we're having but she would often impolitely decline it. Occasionally demonstrating her displeasure with my cooking by removing it from her vicinity, and acquainting the food with the floor. Very frustrating when done with dishes she ate happily before.

I got coerced into doing leafleting for my slimming world group, this soup was lovely to have a cup of to warm up with when we got back.

Back at fat club

I've been back at Slimming World about 6 weeks now, but I've only lost 4ib. I've really sruggled to stay on plan - meals are fine, but the snacking is ruining me.

I've joined a few slimming world groups on Facebook and saw the 777 challenge on there.

7 glasses of water
7 superspeed foods
7 syns a day

You do this over 7 days and are meant to see great results.

I started today full of positivity - then I read my book - super speed not super free! Oops, i'd not understood why it was such a challenge  when I first looked at it.

Super free foods are most fruit and veg, super speed form a tiny amount of those - I didn't have a single superspeed fruit in the house, so had to send phil to Tesco for berries and melon on the way home from work.

Today I've had:

Breakfast - two weetabix, kiwifruit and grapes. 1 pint of water.

Lunch - beans on 1 slice of best of both bread (4.5 syns). 1 pint of water.

Snack - banana. Half pint of water.

Tea - 2 quorn sausages (2 syns) jacket potato with cottage cheese, peas. 1 pint water.

Then I went and ruined things and had two low fat sausages (4 syns).

I'm taking my pints of water as counting as two normal glasses, so had the 7. Plus 2 decaf teas and 2 coffees - so that's one achieved.

Superspeed foods, I've managed 2. I should have had melon and berries to bring me up to 7, but I'm just not hungry.

Syns - 10.5, because I'm greedy and ate the low fat sausages just because they were there.

Not a great start! I'll be over with syns tomorrow because I'm going out for tea. Same with Saturday, having a Christmas dinner and drinks, but that leaves sunday-weds to try and do this challenge!

spicy red onion marmalade

Ingredients
5 red onions
Garlic
1 red chili (or 2 if you have a mild variety)
150ml balsamic vinegar
250ml red wine
100ml boiling water
Fresh thyme
120g light muscovado sugar

Method
Steralise 3 or 4 jars, depending on their size. I get jars donated through the year to use so I always have a good stock to choose from.

I used one red chilli, from our homegrown batch - they are very spicy. I used it straight from the freezer, which makes it easier to chop.

Peel and slice the onions, my slices weren't especially thin, I like my chutney/marmalade to be quite chunky.

Chop the chilli, seeds included, then add to a large pan with olive oil, and a generous amount of garlic. Add the sliced onions and the boiling water.  Put the lid on the pan and leave to cook for 20 mins, stirring every 5 mins.

Add the sugar, wine and vinegar to the pan then bring to the boil.  Turn down the heat to summer and then summer the marmalade until it reaches a sticky consistency, with the liquid evaporated.

You'll know its done if you run your spoon through the mixture and a trail of liquid isn't left.

Spoon into your sterilised jars and pop the lids on.

chocolate orange buns

We're having a relaxed weekend of baking, Christmas crafts and watching films.  Both baby and toddler are under the weather, so keeping warm and cosy is essential.

I had to pop out to the post office to send a Christmas card abroad, so called into our local supermarket for baking supplies. I came home with cocoa powder, vanilla essence, chocolate chips and chocolate orange segments.  I decided to whip up some buns for us, and Phil iced them for me.


Ingredients
2 large eggs
Self raising flour
Caster sugar
Cocoa powder
Stork
Juice of a satsuma

To decorate:
Chocolate orange segments
Stork
Cocoa powder
Icing sugar


Method
Place bun cases in your bun tin, ready for the mixture. Set the oven to 180.

Weigh your eggs - whatever they weigh (in my case 150g) then use the same amount of stork and caster sugar. Use 2/3 of the weight self raising flour and 1/3 cocoa powder
 (So 100g self raising and 50g cocoa powder).

Cream the sugar and stork then add the eggs one at a time, with a little flour with each egg addition. Combine the remaining flour, add the cocoa and the juice of one satsuma. Stir to bring it all together, but not too much.

Spoon dollops of the mixture into your bun cases until all are filled. Bake for 22 mins until the buns are firm and springy to touch.  Cool on a wire wrack.

To decorate make up some buttercream, phil usually just does this by adding icing sugar and cocoa powder to stork until it reaches the right consistency, ensuring it isn't too stiff.  Place the mixture in a piping bag with a star nozzle and pipe onto your buns. Finish with a chocolate orange segment.

Pinche Pinche review

Disclaimer: this meal was free
I don't often do reviews nowadays, I've turned down that many over the last two years that I've stopped getting invitations. But when an invite popped into my inbox from Pinche Pinche I had to come out of hibernation. If anyone asks me for recommendations of where to eat in Chapel Allerton Pinche Pinche is always where I point them.
My friend Fi and I went along on Wednesday this week to try their new menu. They've moved away from the safety of fajitas and are introducing the diners of Leeds to Antojitos - Mexican tapas.
We opted to put our trust in the chef be sent out a selection of what he wanted to showcase to us.
Please excuse my terrible photos, my phone is great taking pics outside, but useless indoors - and there's no way I'm taking a camera to a restaurant.
We had the guacamole:

Esquites  (stripped corn on the cob):

Plantain Empanada:

Prawn and cod ceviche:

Slow cooked lamb Sope:

Tacos - we got sent a selection of cod, pork, spicy beef and surf & turf

Pomegranate salad:

We were stuffed after eating all those - sadly no room for Churros. I enjoyed trying each of the dishes, the only one I wasn't so keen on was the esquites, it got a bit samey after a while, we both decided if we were making it at home that we'd add a little lime to freshen it up.
My favourite dish was the slow cooked lamb Sope. The stew was delicious, and I loved the sweet potato basket.  I might have to try and replicate them at home. The tacos were great too, my photo doesn't do their size justice. I enjoyed the beef one the most.
I really enjoyed the pomegranate salad too, I would never have ordered it myself so it was a great one to try.
I love the new concept, but I'm a massive tapas fan so I would. I'll definitely be going back to try the spicy cheese balls and cactus. If you aren't a tapas fan then there's still Enchiladas and Burritos to be had, we were nosying at other tables that had ordered these and they looked fantastic too - and very big!
I was pleased to see how busy the restaurant was too, it being a Wednesday I was expecting it to be quiet - it was when we arrived at 7, but when we left at 8:30 it was absolutely packed, with a mix of clientele - families with young children, older families, couples and a few tables of friends catching up. A lively, happy atmosphere.
I hope the new menu is a great success, it certainly deserves to be. Thank you for inviting me.

creamy chicken and broccoli pasta

Ingredients
3 chicken breasts
Half a head of broccoli
100g light soft cheese
Milk
Fresh thyme

Method
I chopped the chicken into chunks then started to fry on a low heat, in a fry lite'd pan.

While the chicken was cooking I chopped some florets from a head of broccoli, using about half the broccoli.

I popped the broccoli in boiling water and cooked until tender, drained then set aside.

Once that was done I popped on a pan of pasta.

When the chicken was almost cooked I added some torn fresh thyme then the soft cheese into the pan to melt. I managed to smash my pyrex measuring jug the other day (glass everywhere, hours to clean) so I just guessed with the amount of milk - adding enough to create a small amount of sauce, enough to coat the pasta.

I added the cooked broccoli to the pan, then drained the pasta and added that, giving a good stir to coat the pasta in the sauce.

I served mine with roasted veg to get my super free.

I think this would be 2.5 syns for the soft cheese, with this serving 4, if the milk was from your healthy extra milk allowance.

I'm loving using this sauce, cheese sauces are one of my downfalls, I really missed them last time I did slimming world. Thankfully this seems to be a work around that the family will all eat - phew!