Easy Slimming World Friendly Spring Rolls

Well I made these as I had leftover filo pastry from when I made my beef stew and pastry and I also had leftover stirfry veg as I had made chow mein the previous night so decided I would make spring rolls, and they were actually really tasty.  Now these are just rough guidelines, you could make them bigger or smaller depending on how much filo you wanted to use, I only made 6 as that was all the filling I had but you could make as many as you want and just syn them accordingly.  Also make sure you check what size your filo pastry is as my sheets were jumbo, you could probably have gotten away with making 6 rolls from one sheet and reduce the syns but it was my first attempt so wanted to err on the side of caution.  Would be great to have with the chicken chow mein recipe

Makes – 6 Spring rolls

Syns – 2 syns each

Ingredients:

• 2 sheets of filo pastry – each sheet cut into 4 squares and covered with a damp cloth 11 syns (my sheets were jumbo)

• 1 egg – whisked

• 1 carrot cut into matchsticks

• 2 handfuls of beansprouts

• 1 onion chopped finely

• 1 handful of mangetout sliced in half

• 2 mushrooms chopped

• 1 clove of garlic – grated

• Soy sauce

• pepper

Method:

• Fry the onions and garlic in frylight until starting to soften.

• Add the rest of the veg and stirfry for a few minutes

• Add about a tablespoon of soy sauce and mix

• Taste and see if you need to add any more soy sauce (I didn’t measure properly, just judged by eye)

• Stirfry for another minute and then season and set aside

• Take one sheet of filo and brush the egg around each side

• Take a spoonful of the filling and place at one end of the pastry then fold in the sides

• Roll the end will the filling up and make sure you have enough egg at the end to seal the roll

• Brush the top of the finished spring roll with egg and place on a baking sheet sprayed with fry light

• Make the rest of the rolls in the same way and place into a pre-heated oven (about 200 c) for about 7 minutes, they won’t take long to cook

I served mine with Jack Daniels hot chilli sauce at 1/2 syn per tbsp

 

Weigh in 4

Well peeps I lost another pound this week which makes the total 4 pounds in 4 weeks.  Now I have to say I am quite disappointed in this, especially since my friend has been going for 6 weeks and has lost 13 pounds!!!!!!

However I MUST remind myself that I haven’t been an angel and I have went out for dinner and drinks etc and still managed to lose.  I also think that the gym isn’t doing my any favours on the scales, obviously I am getting fitter and am enjoying it so will continue to go but I think for some reason it is causing me to not show a loss on the scales.

BUT I am still losing and it might just be that in order for me to get to where I want to be now I will just have to be patient, and wait for my pound loss every week.  Unfortunately I have lots planned this weekend, but I think I have nothing on next weekend so I will try and be as good as gold and see if I can possibly go for 2 instead of 1 pound.  But we will see

Anyway I know I haven’t posted any recipes for a while, I added one this morning though, so I thought I would share a couple of pictures I have taken recently and I will eventually post the recipes for.  But if you like the look of them and would like the recipe sooner, please just let me know and I will kick my lazy bum into gear

Oh and I am working on a few cakes for some friends for a party tonight, and if they turn out really want to share them with you.  I will warn you now, you don’t want to make these if you are on a diet but I have to say I have found a passion for baking and making everyone else fat

Soooooooo here are my pictures:

Spring rolls with filo pastry:

Vegetable chilli with a baked potato and cheese:

Vegetable Curry:

 

Easy Vegetable Curry

Well this has been my staple curry for about a year now, it is really easy, filling and delicious.  It does have a syn value as I use shop bought curry paste but you could always make your own or just use curry powder but I think you would miss alot of the flavour.  Oh and M&S curry pastes are really nice and the madras one only has 1 syn per tbsp as opposed to 4 syns I think for the Pataks one

Serves – 3 I usually get three large portions out of this

Syns per serving – 2

Ingredients:

• 2 Onions chopped

• 2 cloves of garlic chopped

• 1 cauliflower, separated into florets

• 1 Courgette, sliced

• 250g chestnut mushrooms, quartered

• 1 Potato, chopped

• 1/2 a litre boiling water

• 1 Veg stock cube

• 1 tin of chopped tomato’s

• 3 tbsp M&S Madras curry paste ( I like my curry hot) 3 Syns

• 2 tbsp Tikka Masala curry paste – 3 Syns

• Salt and pepper

Method:

• Fry the onion and garlic in frylight until starting to soften.

• Add all the curry paste and stir until mixed and starting to fry again

• Add all the vegetables and stir well

• Once the veg and curry paste is well mixed, add the boiling water, stock cube and tinned tomato’s

• Bring back to the boil and simmer for about 20 mins (Depends on how big your cauliflower is and how soft you like it)

• Season with salt and pepper and serve with either a baked potato or rice

(I also added a Food Doctor Multi Seed & Cereal Pitta Bread for 8 syns as I was really hungry )

 

Sooooooo excited

Okay now I have been trying to contain myself since yesterday but I haven’t been very sucessful at all.  I am proud that I have been able to manage about a day and a half before posting on here though.

Well here it goes………………………….. I GOT TICKETS TO MICHAEL BUBLE IN MAY – woooooooooooooo hoooooooooooo

OMG I think than man is sex on legs, this will be my third time going to see him and I am taking my best friend with me this time, it is going to be soooo good.  And the best bit???  I will only be 6 rows away from the man himself.

Sooooooooooo now I have a goal!!!  I would love to wear something lovely to the concert ( we will be going out afterwards) and I think this will now be my goal.  Apart from my holiday in January but that doesn’t really count as it is family and I have pretty realistic expectations around christmas and stuff so I figured if I can be extra good and based on my losses I can have realistically moved about 20 – 25 pounds (maybe more with me going to the gym but don’t want to be disappointed) which is just under 2 stone.  Which would probably make me a comfortable size 12-14.  I would prefer to be slimmer but I can’t complain because I am getting to eat and socialise on this diet and I think that if I aim for this then I won’t be disappointed.  If I lose more then it will be an added bonus

So what do you think peeps, doable???????

Oh and here is a couple of pictures of the man himself that I took the last time I saw him

 

Getting there

Well as I said before I think I am back on track.  This was the planner for yesterday and today.

Yesterday -

Breakfast:

Fruit Salad

Mullerlight yogurt

Snack:

Tomato mugshot

Lunch:

Lentil and bacon homemade soup

Snack:

Lentil and bacon soup

Dinner:

Britmum’s lasagne – 2 Syns

2 slices garlic bread – 5 Syns

Salad

Syns for the day 7

Today

Breakfast:

Fruit Salad

Mullerlight yoghurt

Snack:

Alpen light – HEB

Lunch:

Tomato and herb pasta n sauce

Diet coke

Snack:

Alpen light – HEB

Dinner:

Vegetable Curry – Will post recipe later (probably about 4 syns for this)

Rice

Syns for the day – not sure yet

 

Homemade burgers

Well it would appear that I am back on track finally this week.  I had my homemade burgers on Tuesday night and they were yummy.  I don’t normally like burgers because of the texture but these were great.  I didn’t take a picture as they looked messy as hell but this is roughly what I did.

Ingredients:

• 1 pack (400g) extra lean mince

• 1 onion finely chopped

• 1 tsp mixed herbs

• Pepper

• 1 tbsp of liquid beef stock

• a dash or two of worcestershire sauce

• a good grinding of dried garlic and chilli

• 1 slice of 400g wholemeal bread – whizzed into breadcrumbs

• 1 egg

Method:

• Using a large knife chop up mince on a chopping board until all mushed (you don’t have to do this but I find if you do this the mince turns out really tender without having to be cooked for hours!)

• Place into a bowl with all the other ingredients and mix with you hands until it all comes together and is mixed well

• Shape into burger shapes, I made 6 pretty generous burgers from this, and if you wish place a laughing cow into the middle and shape the mince around it to seal it.  (Some people like this, I didn’t really but you could try it.  I had one with and one without)

• Fry in a non stick frying pan with fry light until cooked – I removed them from the pan and placed into the oven for an extra 5 mins while I was waiting on the chips just to make sure they were really cooked

Serve with a wholemeal roll, onions, cheese and tomato.  I also used Britmum’s BBQ sauce which went really well, you can find the recipe here.  Plus her picture looked much better than mine

 

 

Todays planner

A little late I know but it has taken me forever to think about what to have for dinner tonight

Breakfast:

Fruit salad

Mullerlight vanilla and choc yogurt

Snack:

Sweet and sour mugshot – not that great

Lunch:

Baked potato with baked beans

Snack:

Alpen light choc orange bar – 3 Syns

Dinner:

Homemade beef burgers with cheese, bacon and bbq sauce and slimming world chips – 1 HEB(wholemeal roll), 1 HEA(cheese)

Syns today – 3 (Trying to make up for all the badness this weekend!)  This might also change as may need some breadcrumbs for burgers.  Will update if need be.

***update***

Well I added a slice of wholemeal bread as breadcrumbs to the burgers with an egg to bind it so that is 2 1/2 syns but since I made 6 burgers out of the mixture I will add 1/2 a syn for that.  Also I had an extra roll as I was starving and stuffed a laughing cow extra light into one of them so I will add 8 1/2 to be safe so total for the day was – 12 syns

 

Update

Well peeps, I have been slacking big time.  Not sticking to plan, eating what I wanted, drinking what I wanted and generally not giving a damn.

Now I am not happy at myself but I just can’t seem to muster enough enthusiasm to care enough.  I don’t want to be like this and I certainly don’t want to keep eating and drinking like this.  I just have to figure out why I am in such a funk.  If I can figure that out then I will be part of the way to making things better, or so I hope!!!!

I know for definate that work is mainly the reason for me feeling so down, I am trying to make that better but it is all pretty much out of my hands.  I can only persevere and hope that things start to pick up.  But I have made the decision that it will not get me down!!!!!  If I don’t let it then it can’t can it???

Positive mental attitude, I always hear people spouting on about it.  Does it actually work?? Well I am about to find out, if I can’t change the things that are bringing me down at the moment then I just won’t let them get me down.  I can focus on the positive aspects of my life and hopefully it will help.

So I am now going to sit and try and figure out my meal plan for the rest of the week, if I plan what I am going to have I tend to do better.  I will starting making new recipes and will post them and pics for you to look at as I know you come here for the food and not for me

Wish me luck people

 

3rd Weigh in

Well peeps I braved the weigh in last night after having a gluttony fuelled week, didn’t count my syns which was probably just as well since I had a Mexican on Saturday washed down with copious amounts of white wine, Sunday I was good food wise, but the bottle of wine I used to wash down dinner wasn’t so good and neither was the bottle I had on Wednesday night either.

Now I did enjoy the wine and the food but it has been THAT week and I have been feeling a little blue.  Just wanted to come home from work, put on my jammies and veg in front on the TV.  I only managed 2 visits to the gym as well so it hasn’t been a sucessful week.  Saying that though I still managed to lose 0.5lbs. Don’t ask me how because I have no bloody idea, I think it may be to do with the fact that I wore my gym clothes to weigh in, was late so had to just rush from the gym to fat class.  Gross I know but I at least sprayed some deoderant before I subjected the class to my smell

I also made myself stay for class this week, although I’m not sure really what I got out of it except that I didn’t get to have dinner until 9pm last night

So this week I will be on my best behaviour, unfortunately have dinner out tonight at a chinese restaurant but I will stick to chow mein and if I fancy a drink it will be vodka and diet coke but probably won’t bother.  Not going to have any syns today as I am saving them for tonight.  I am also back on the fruit for breakfast, my plan to not have any resulted in me eating more ryvita which I had to syn and also toast for breakfast so will go back to the yogurt and fruit as my plan last week went completely went off the rails

Well here is hoping for a better loss next week and to my feeling a wee bit happier   Oh and I will post the recipes that I made last weekend and anything I make this weekend will be updated, promise

 

Weekend food

Well I had a very productive food weekend, made loads of lovely food.  Recipes will follow, most of them were from my new Extra Easy Cookbook

Britmums shepherds pie

I have to say this recipe was extremely easy to follow and was very very tasty.  The only criticism would be that it was far too dry for my liking.  I will definately make this again but I will double the amount of liquid so I still have a gravy and will also not use egg for the mashed potato’s but will instead just use a little bit of milk to make it wetter.  Would definately recommend you make this though!  The recipe can be found here.

Britmums shepherds pie

Next up was some lovely and very comforting chicken noodle soup.  I ended up buying glass noodles for this by mistake so you can barely see them but it was definately tasty and would make again with the right noodles.  Will add the recipe when I get home later.

Chicken Noodle Soup

And for the finale was a gorgeous beef and ale stew with fresh corn, new potato’s and filo pastry.  It was lovely but the pastry was a bit floury for my liking and to be honest didn’t add that much to the dish.  Next time think I will make the stew and not bother to waste the syns on the pastry.  I will post the recipe for the stew later tonight

Beef Stew with pastry