Week Eleven – Day Four – Dinner (Tomato and Bacon Pasta)

The yummy kedgeree this morning was so filling that I didn’t need any lunch. I had a couple of Babybel Light half way through the afternoon and then I didn’t need anything more until this evening.

For dinner, I decided on pasta as I love it and hadn’t had any for a while. It was very much a ‘throw it all in’ kinda sauce, using what I had in the fridge. It worked incredibly well and ended up delicious. I made enough for at least two meals (probably three if I’m not being greedy) and it was completely syn free.

I set 200g pasta to boil in some salted water. As this was cooking, I chopped one small onion, one yellow pepper, half a large courgette and three bacon medallions. All this was bunged in a pan with some FryLight to soften off. As it was cooking, I added some garlic powder, dried mixed herbs, salt and pepper. Once the veg and bacon was cooked through, I added a large splash of balsamic vinegar and reduced it down to remove the acidity of the vinegar. Once the mixture was glazed in the reduced vinegar, I added a tin of chopped tomatoes and simmered for a few minutes.

As soon as the pasta was cooked but still had a little bite to it, I drained it and added it to the tomato mixture. This was combined thoroughly and left to simmer for another couple of minutes.

All done and plated up, saving at least half for another day. It only took about 20mins to make and was very filling and satisfying.

Week Eleven – Day Three – Breakfast (Cooked Breakfast)

As is my usual ritual on a weekend, I treated myself to a cooked breakfast this morning. It was probably more like brunch really as I waited until after I had done my weekly shop, so it was around 11am. I really need to come up with some more ideas for my cooked breakfast, as I always end up having the same thing! I really enjoy it, but when I’m sharing my meals like this, I realise just how easy it is to become stuck eating the same things day in and day out. Not only is that actually quite bad for my weight loss, it also means I’m more likely to ‘give up’ and binge on something I shouldn’t have out of boredom. So, although I have stuck to the same things this weekend, I will do some research and find something new and exciting to have next week! Promise!

I chopped some onions and softened them in FryLight, I then added some baked beans with a splash of Worcestershire sauce and a pinch of paprika. I grilled my last bubble and squeak cake (Bubble and Squeak cakes) from frozen alongside a couple of bacon medallions. Finally, I fried an egg in FryLight and served it all up with a sprinkle of salt and pepper. Delicious!

Week Five – Day Four – Brunch

Another lie in this morning (it is a Sunday 🙂 ), so it was brunch again rather than proper breakfast and lunch.

I took one of the bubble and squeak cakes I had in the freezer and threw it into the oven covered in plenty of FryLight. From frozen this would take about 45mins ish to get it browned and crispy. Once the bubble and squeak was nearly cooked, I softened some chopped onions, grilled some bacon medallions and put some baked beans onto simmer.

Very yummy and will keep me going until much later.

Week Three – Day Four – Breakfast (Roasted butternut squash, sautéed spinach and poached eggs)

I feel bad that I haven’t blogged at all this week 😦 In my defence it has been a stupidly busy week!

For breakfast (well, brunch, it was Sunday I wasn’t getting up at the crack of sparrows!) yesterday I decided to try something a little different. I read a recipe years ago that sounded yummy and brunch worthy but it was full of oil and other high syn ingredients which put me off. I can’t remember where the original is anymore and this probably isn’t even close to the original but here we go!

I took about 100g butternut squash and roasted it in the oven with some frylight, salt and pepper until it was soft and slightly coloured. While that was cooking, I softened a chopped onion in some more frylight and threw in 3 chopped bacon medallions. Once the butternut squash was pretty much there and the bacon and onion were all but ready, I threw some cherry tomatoes into the oven with the squash and I added 100g spinach to the bacon and onion to sauté and wilt down. I then added a tbsp of white wine vinegar to a pan of boiling water, swirled it around a bit and careful broke two eggs into the water. While the eggs were cooking, I added the butternut squash to the bacon and spinach mixture and combined thoroughly. Once the eggs were cooked, no more than 3 minutes in the pan, I removed them with a slotted spoon and placed them on a plate with some kitchen paper to soak up the remaining water. Then I plated it all up to look pretty with some extra salt and pepper on top of the eggs.

It was super yummy and I think this might now be a firm weekend favourite. Also, you could just leave out the bacon for those vegetarian minded of you 🙂

Week Two – Day Three – Breakfast (Spanish Omelet)

Saturday morning and I fancied something a bit different. I had all the ingredients in for a full english but I had that twice last weekend and so (partly for the sake of this blog!) I wanted to try something else. I still had potatoes left from the potato salad the other day so I thought a Spanish Omelet would be good.

I parboiled some thickly sliced new potatoes. While they were cooking, I fried off some chopped bacon, onions, peppers and courgette in some FryLight. Once the potatoes were done, I added them to bacon mixture and fried them off a bit too to get some colour. Then, I poured over some beaten egg and seasoned with salt and pepper. I moved it around a bit so that the egg covered all the mixture and then let it sit to set. I chucked it under the grill as a last step just to make sure the top was cooked.

As I turned it out onto the board to chop into slices, I realised the non stick on my pan wasn’t as good as I had thought 😦 It broke up as it came out so it doesn’t look as nice as it could but it tasted fab!

Week One – Day Six – Dinner (Creamy Bacon Pasta)

Tonight was food shopping night and so I went to Tesco straight from work (even though I was hungry, not ideal, I know) and I very proudly avoided anything naughty.

Not a syn in sight 🙂

I was doing a million things at once in the kitchen tonight, cooking dinner, preparing breakfast and lunch for tomorrow and making treats for Group tomorrow night. We’re having a tasting session.

So because of this I forgot to take a picture of my meal until I’d eaten half – sorry! So this is a picture of half my dinner!!

It was made in a very similar way to last night. I chopped two bacon medallions (making sure there was no fat) and fried them off in Frylight then I added some chopped onion, pepper and courgette; softening it all off while 100g pasta cooked in salted water. Once they were both done, I mixed them together with 75g light cream cheese (HEA), salt and lots of ground black pepper.

Very very yummy even if I did eat it while cooking three other things at once! More on that tomorrow!

Week One – Day Four – Breakfast (Cooked breakfast)

After my success yesterday with the Iceland meatballs, I decided to add the syn free sausages to my breakfast this morning. Everything else was the same as yesterday – bacon (no fat), scrambled eggs, onions, mushrooms and baked beans.

The sausages were nice, I ate them all up. But, if I were going to use them again, I think I might prefer them in a sausage casserole or tomato sauce for pasta. They weren’t quite as nice as they could be on their own. That being said, however, they were much better than the quorn option which is also syn free.

This breakfast was a huge amount of food and I probably shouldn’t have eaten it all as I am now stuffed but it should keep me going for a while and I’ll only have a light snack for my lunch.

Week One – Day Three – Breakfast (Cooked breakfast)

Lazy day planned today. I’m not sure I even intend to get out of my pjs! To celebrate this rare day of downtime I went for a proper cooked breakfast.

Plenty of bacon (all fat removed), scrambled eggs, onions, mushrooms and baked beans.

I gently softened the onions and mushrooms in a pan and added the baked beans so it all cooked up nicely together. A splash of worcestershire sauce added a nice kick.

Yummy, filling and just what I needed for my lazy day 🙂