Well I have been good today, all on plan.  Had a yummy “fry-up” for breakfast and some free soup for lunch, which I will post the recipe for tomorrow probably.  And then oh my word I had the most AMAZING burger ever, I’m drooling thinking about it and I just ate it!

It was very similar to the burger here but I didn’t add egg, breadcrumbs or herbs but instead added some pickled jalapeno’s when mixing it all together in the food processor and probably a little bit more liquid beef stock but it was soooo tasty!  I then added cheese (HEA), fried onion and a bacon medallion.  This was all on a warburtons thins bun which is about 4 syns but I cheated and called it my HEB since I had a bite of my daughters toast this morning(cheating I know before anyone says it but I am not that strict!)  I also added a teaspoon of sweet chilli sauce at about 1 syn.  This was all served with garlic and herb wedges and some coleslaw to make up my 1/3 superfree.  You can find the recipe for that here

You HAVE to make this, just have to!

Oh and I normally make this with garlic philli but I decided to try the sweet chilli this time and it was just as good!

Recipe (Serves 2):

I haven’t given measurements for the veggies as I tend to see how much I can fit on the foil and take it from there.  These veggies plus some extra steamed veg will more than make up your 1/3 super free.

• Mangetout
• Baby sweetcorn
• Green beans
• 2 Chicken breasts
• 150g light philli – whatever flavour you want
• Salt and pepper

Method:

• Tear off 2 large pieces of tin foil, enough to hold all your veggies and the chicken.
• Cut the mangetout in half down the middle and split between the foil
• Cut the baby sweetcorn into 4 and also split between the foil
• Place the green beans onto the foil also
• Split the chicken breasts horizontally so you can place the philli between the 2 slices
• Spread the philli between the 2 chicken breasts and place the other piece of chicken on top
• Season the chicken with salt and pepper and place a breast on top of the veggies on each piece of foil
• Cover the chicken by making the foil into a parcel and place into a pre-heated oven at 200 degrees C for about 30 mins

Once the chicken is cooked slide the entire dish onto a plate from the foil and serve with whatever you like.

I hope you like this, it is one of my favorite meals.

Please forgive the cheesy Take That lyric but I figured it was a pretty good description of what is happening right now.  Scarily I realised today that is is almost 2 years (minus a week) since I last posted on this blog.  A lot has happened since then and I am now finally ready to get back on this weight loss journey and finally get to a place where I feel happier in myself!

Well let me see what have I done since I have been away??? Hmmm well I had a baby who is now growing up to be a gorgeous and precocious little girl, I have finished my graduate program and am now a fully fledged geek and have finally decided that now is the time I am going to make changes to my life.

There are a few changes that I want to make but the main and most important one at this time is to start eating healthier and start living a bit healthier.  I already cook lots of lovely and healthy meals for my daughter so now it is time for me to extend that a bit more and take a closer look at what I have been/am going to eat.

I have decided to go back to Slimming World as I love the program and it is ridiculously easy to follow and I will start posting up new recipes, with pictures of course, of all the wonderful food I am going to be eating.

I seriously doubt that anyone that used to check this blog still does but that doesn’t matter, this is a record for me and I just hope that it can be of some use to other people!

Well that’s it for just now but I will post another blog later with details of the fabulousness that will be my dinner tonight – philli chicken.

I apologise for the lack of posts lately, I have a good reason honest, but I know how annoying it can be to keep checking a blog and they can’t be bothered updating!

Anyway I haven’t been cooking at all for the past couple of months.  That is due to the fact that I fell pregnant and the morning sickness made it impossible to be around food let alone even think about cooking it!  I am now getting better and can now even look at pictures of food without wanting to run away to the toilet!

As I am now starting to get better I most certainly don’t want to start piling on the weight by eating for 2 so I am going to force myself to get back to cooking healthy meals again!  Plus due to the morning sickness I am now at my lightest for a long time and certainly don’t want to ruin that.

Sooooo tonight is the second time I am going to cook since I stopped feeling so sick and it is going to be a nice new recipe for the blog.  I love this recipe but my partner doesn’t so since I have the house to myself I am going to try and make it and see how I get on.  So expect another post either tonight or tomorrow and I fully intend to start posting again regularly.

Thanks for being so patient….

K.

********Update**********

Sorry guys, due to the worst headache that I couldn’t shake I had to go straight to bed when I got in from work yesterday therefore no new post.  I will cook over the weekend though and will post that.  Sorry.

Serves 2

Syns per serving:  1 1/2 syns to be safe on EE

Ingredients:

150g beansprouts

150g dried noodles

2 Chicken breasts

1 tsp teriyaki sauce – 0.5 syns

1 litre chicken stock

2 spring onions – chopped

1 red chilli – deseeded and sliced

1/2 red onion sliced

1/2 lime – quartered

1/4 tsp sugar – minimal

1 tbsp malt vinegar

1 1/2 tbsp hot sweet chilli sauce – 2 syns

1 1/2 tbsp soy sauce

So here are the ingredients I used:

Okay so first make the ramen sauce. Dissolve the sugar in the vinegar over a low heat. Allow to cool and combine with the chilli and soy sauce.

Cook the noodles in the boiling water for 2-3 minutes or until tender.

Heat a griddle pan until hot and almost smoking. Spray the chicken with frylight and cook for 3 minutes each side or until cooked through. Remove from the griddle and brush with teriyaki sauce. Cut into thin slices.

Heat the chicken stock and add the ramen sauce once hot.

Divide the noodles between two bowls and add the beansprouts, red onion, spring onions and chilli slices.  Place the chicken on the top and spoon the stock over the chicken until the bowl is nearly full.

I hope you make this, it is wonderful and I definately recommend it!

Now I am not sure where I could put this recipe as it could easily be a good and a bad recipe, I guess it depends on what you would use it in (mine went into an exceptionally calorific curry).  I am not going to give syn values at the moment because I can’t be bothered but if anyone wants me to please just let me know and I will update it.

Now this is not my recipe but was added by Blade1212 on a fantastic website called crO which you can find here, and the recipe can be found here also.  I am going to add the recipe this time though because I have taken about a million pictures to show the steps involved. Silly me though, forgot to take pictures of the finished article but I can assure you they were absolutely fabulous!

Serves: 4-6 people

Ingredients:

600g Chicken  – 4 or 5 breasts
1 heaped tbsp Pataks tandoori curry paste (the KEY ingredient as it includes lots of tamarind)
1 tsp mint sauce (Could use reduced sugar one to make it free)
1 heaped tsp garlic paste
1 tsp ginger paste
2+2 tbsp lemon juice (Jiff is ok)
1/2 tsp chilli powder
1 dsp spice mixture (equal parts ground coriander, turmeric, garamasala, curry powder).
1/4 tsp red food colouring
1 lvl tsp methi
1 lvl tsp salt
2 tbl veg oil – Could leave out also
3 tbl water

You can see the ingredients below

Chop the chicken breasts into bite size pieces and place in a bowl.  Then mix in 2 tbsp of lemon juice to the chopped chicken and leave for 15 mins

Meanwhile mix the rest of the ingredients in a bowl (including the additional 2 tbl lemon juice)

As you can see I pretty much buggered up this montage, my first time and I didn’t realised it was saving all the changes.  Oh well you live and learn.

Add the chicken to the spice mixture , cover and leave in fridge for 2 hours minimum.  I went for 24 hours.

Thread the chicken onto skewers making sure to leave a small gap between each piece

Place the skewers onto a tray, preferably one that is deep so the chicken is suspended.

Please the tray with the chicken into a pre-heated oven at 200 degrees celcius, and turn after about 10 mins

Cook for a further 5 mins and remove a piece to check it is cooked.  Once the chicken is cooked remove from the skewers and serve as is or add to any curry that you like.

Syns per recipe: 7.5

Serves: 3

Syns per serving:  2.5

Ingredients:

• 50g Parma Ham chopped – 1 syn

• 2 medium carrots finely chopped

• 2 celery sticks finely chopped

• 1 large onion chopped

• 100g extra lean minced beef

• 100g extra lean minced pork

• 125ml red wine – 4.5 syns

• 300ml beef stock

• 4 tbsp tomato puree – 2 syns

• salt and pepper

Method:

• Heat a pan sprayed with fry light and add parma ham, carrot, celery and onion.  Fry gently for 10 mins.

• Add the minced meat, stir and break up with a spoon until browned

• Add the wine and a ladle of the stock  and cook for a couple of minutes to allow the wine to reduce slightly

• Stir in the tomato puree and reduce the heat to low.  Cover and simmer for an hour, stirring every so often.  Add more stock if the mixture starts to dry out.

• After an hour season to taste and if required add a little more stock to thin the sauce out slightly.

Serve with spaghetti or tagliatelle and a sprinkling of parmesan, making sure to add the syns accordingly.

So I had a look about in the blogosphere and came across a recipe for Anne Bramley’s Triple Chocolate Stuffed Mocha Cupcakes on Design Sponge’s blog.  Now I have to say these looked fantastic so I just had to make them and they didn’t disappoint.  Again I am not going to post the recipe as I followed it word for word and you can find it here.  I urge you to make these, they are fantastic!  Oh and obviously mine don’t look as good as Annes…..

Now I ALWAYS seem to make chocolate cake and I think it might be because I don’t really like sponge so I tend to look for cake recipes which turn out cakes which are dense like brownies. I thought I would try something different other than my usual tried and tested chocolate cake recipe and I was browsing a blog which I like to check every so often to have a look at the wonderfully fattening cakes that she makes. When I was having a look I came across the recipes for Deep Dark Chocolate Truffle Cake, you can find the recipe here (Not going to re-post it as I followed it word for word).

I have to say, I didn’t like it and only a couple of members of my very greedy family liked it too. It was lovely and dense and fudgy, I just didn’t like the taste. I felt it was a little bit powdery which is unusal since there is no flour in this cake??? But rather than just posting the recipes that I felt worked well I thought I would share the good and the not so good with you, because I am nice like that!

So here is a picture of the cake, I think it looks good. Just a case of not tasting as good as it looks. If anyone decides to make this, please let me know how you found it. I may have done something wrong, stranger things have happened….

I have been meaning to post for ages but you know what this time of year is like, it is so busy just now and when I do have a spare minute I am normally vegging in front of the TV!

Now this recipe wasn’t created by me, don’t think I have ever created a recipe????  But anyway I have tweaked it slightly to make it more Slimming World friendly and I urge you to try it.  It is so light and fresh, the last time we make it we couldn’t help but eat it right out of the bowl like the pigs that we are…….

Anyway here it goes and it makes alot and is best used straight away so just adjust the ingredients to suit the amount you need.  I also make this using the shred blade on my food processor so it literally takes about 2 mins to put it all together.

You will find the original recipe here, and the picture at the bottom of the page is also from that website (Which I love by the way, their food is always great.  Just a shame most of it isn’t SW friendly).  I will update with my own when I make it next.  I can promise you though that mine won’t look as pretty!

Syns per recipe: 4 1/2

Servings: 4-6 generous portions

Syns per serving: 1 to be safe

Ingredients:

• 180g finely shredded cabbage

• 180g  finely shredded red cabbage

• 1 medium carrot, peeled and grated

• 1 small onion, shredded

• 24g  finely chopped spring onions

• 9 tbsp extra light mayonnaise

• 2 tablespoons (40ml) white vinegar

• 1-3 teaspoons sweetner – I would add a little and taste and add more if you need it

• Salt

Method:

• Stir mayonnaise, white vinegar, sweetner together in a small bowl. Cover bowl and refrigerate until required.  Once needed taste and season accordingly.

• Mix all the shredded/grated vegetables together in a large bowl and add the dressing when about to serve.  If you mix the vegetables and dressing a while before serving it can make the vegetables go limp so only dress the coleslaw as you are going to serve it.

I urge you to make this, it is really worth it.  Would be excellent with homemade burgers……

Now this isn’t my picture as you will notice straight away, my camera certainly isn’t good enough to take a picture like this.  Come to think of it neither am I….