About Me

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I'm a working mum of two lovely children who, like all children, go through 'phases', both good and bad. Trying to juggle parenthood, weight loss and life in general.

Tuesday 5 April 2016

Mombie day 2

As I mentioned at the end of my last post Little man's fever returned last night. He finally gave in 2 and a bit hours after his calpol, at around 2.30am! Little miss woke up and climbed into bed with us at half 6. After watching 2 films in bed in an attempt to make myself feel like I'd had a bit of a sleep in, little man woke up and we went downstairs for breakfast/brunch. Little miss had a few sausages left over from yesterday. Little man had 2 'yummy yogurts.' And I promptly started cooking.

 I adapted a recipe from the new slimming world book, syn free meals. In the book it's Louisiana red bean rice. Mine is a sort of chicken jambalaya.

Soften 30g chorizo, 1 shallot, 1 onion, and 2 garlic cloves in fry light. Add Cajun spices, sweet smoked paprika, mixed herbs and 1/2 courgette. Add 2 chicken breasts, diced, and brown off. Add 2 tins mixed beans, 1 tin sweetcorn, frozen peas, frozen green beans and 275g washed long grain basmati rice. Add 500ml boiling chicken stock. Bring to the boil, then turn heat low and cover with a tight lid. Cook for 10 mins. Remove from heat but leave lid on for a further 10 mins. Fluff the rice with a fork and serve. 3 Syns for the whole pot.

I'm estimating 1 serving as 1/2 syn. It was tasty but could have done with a bit more spice (2-3 tsp Cajun spice, rather than 1.) Little miss had the usual delaying tactics (I need the toilet, I don't like onions/peas/chicken! Etc) little man had some but was clearly not feeling up to the effort, he didn't even eat much of his chocolate custard, which madam kindly offered to finish for him. She's so selfless!

We spent the afternoon playing catch, and schools with little miss being teacher obviously. I love that no one can get little man to giggle as much as his big sister. He absolutely idolises her.

For dinner little miss had 'picnic.' The remaining leftover sausages, cheese chunks, tomatoes and cucumber. Little man had half a pouch of Ella's lentil bake with a bit of rice and peas/beans mixed in. Which he wolfed down. Meanwhile I had more of the jambalaya and added 30g cheddar for my healthy extra. Because cheese makes pretty much everything taste better!

I also tried a bag of hula hoops new puft crisps. At 3.5 Syns a bag they're just the savoury snack hit I needed without the high 'syn tag.'

Total Syns today = 4.5.

Monday 4 April 2016

Salad fever

After the higher-Syns-than-planned weekend, I thought I'd best reign it in a bit today. But little man's fever really took hold last night. 3 hours in the middle of the night 'uuuuuhhhing' meant I'm a bit (more than usual)  of a mombie today.

We started the day with what is now becoming the norm for the littlies, Suuuper Hoooops (my autocorrect has now learnt the 'correct' spelling of this!) and fruit puree pot followed by a mini fromage frais, and I grabbed a couple of healthy extra slices of toast. Although I'm not sure they were that 'healthy' after I'd cremated them, forgetting to cancel the toaster after putting them back on to brown some more. I spread a bit of marmite on to hide the blackened state (and save Syns.)

Little man has developed a bit of a Heinz biscotti snack habit. And today he actually ate them, well one,  rather than just squishing them into a mush where they dry like concrete.

   For lunch, I took inspiration from a comment made last night by the mr and made Chorizo, chicken and 'fried' potato salad. Does it still count as lunch when you don't actually eat it until 3pm? 

Dice 50g chorizo (5.5 Syns,) pop it in a frying pan with fry light. Then add some leftover roast chicken (shredded/chopped,) par boil some potatoes (I find it quicker and easier to chop them into pieces before boiling,) turn down low and put a lid on for a few minutes. Serve on a bed (mountain) of salad. In this case, rocket, watercress, lambs leaf, and romaine lettuce with red cabbage, red onion, grated carrot, sweetcorn, and cucumber. Meanwhile little man had the rest of yesterday's Ella pouch, and 3/4 of a pot of rice pudding with chopped strawberries added. He stored the strawberries in his cheeks like a hamster, and spat them out whenever I wasn't looking at him! 

I was sent to bed when little miss and daddy returned from nursery to catch up on some much needed sleep. My 'ok but just an hour' turned into a 3 hour sleep, when I got up little miss was in bed and little man was asleep in a daddy cuddle. Cute. 

We had a pack of sausages that had to be used up today so I roasted them and had 3 sausages with salad as before but with the addition of cherry toms, and a slice of bread so I could make my once renowned (for being a bit odd) sausage salad sarnie. It's no weirder than a BLT in my opinion and much tastier. 

Finished on 12.5 Syns. Not as low as I'd planned, but very tasty!

As I write this, it's accompanied by the 'uuuuhhing' of a little man, with a high temperature waiting for calpol to kick in. He's been fine all afternoon. Silly me for thinking he'd kicked it hopefully the magic of calpol will mean we both get a good sleep....but I suspect I'm in for (another) long night.

Mostly planned weekend

Friday I kept food Syns low so I could indulge a bit on beer. The mr and I had a rare treat trip to the pub thanks to Nanna babysitting. So I stuck to shape yogurt for breakfast (Suuuper Hoooops and fruit puree pot for the little ones.) For lunch we shared some of the syn free bacon, bean and tomato soup I'd made earlier in the week. With 2 slices of 400g wholemeal bread for my healthy extra, with 2 Syns of low fat marge. 


For dinner I made my thai curry, but even more slimming world friendly. I defrosted the rest of the curry sauce from the last batch I made (see earlier post for recipe), and then realised I was missing most of my usual veg, so I went with what I had. 

1 shallot, 1 onion, 1/2 courgette, 1 orange pepper, 1 red pepper, 1 small tin of water chestnut and 2 chicken breasts with all fat removed. I fried all of these in fry light, added the sauce and brought it to the boil. Then transferred it to the oven on a low heat for an hour. I stirred some Fage Total 0% Greek yogurt through just before serving (make sure it's room temp before adding to stop it splitting) and served with boiled rice. Whole thing was 1/2 a syn. So 2.5 Syns before the several pints of beer. 

Saturday I had a sleep in (hoorah for the mr) and so missed breakfast. For lunch we had KFC! I tried to resist but I just couldn't do it so opted for a boneless box and shared it with little miss. 3syns per mini breast fillet, and 4.5 Syns for the portion of popcorn chicken. 10.5 Syns for regular fries and 6 Syns for a small gravy. 17 Syns in total for my share. But as I usually would have had a zinger tower meal and gravy at a whopping 47.5 Syns I was feeling rather proud of myself. Little man had some chicken (no coating) and a few fries to suck and then distribute around the floor.  I had the rest of yesterday's Thai curry for my dinner, 1/5 syn. Total 17.5 Syns. 

Sunday I was out for lunch with the girls. Once we got back from our obscenely-early-for-a-Sunday-morning swimming lessons, I made me and the kids scrambled eggs on toast (no butter for me) and I added a tin of tomatoes to mine. Little miss found every reason possible to not eat (I need a wee, I need a poo etc) and finally finished the egg. Little man scoffed the lot and squished some into his hair, face, clothes, highchair etc as usual.

I did a little research online at the menu for the pub we were meeting at and was down to 2 options;  the angelic but dull 'jacket potato with beans' or blackened Cajun chicken burger (I figured I could swap fries for salad and not eat the bun!, yeah right.) when I got there they had a Sunday roast on the menu so I opted for roast beef. I removed all the fat, and loaded up with veg (mange tout, green beans and broccoli.) I reckon it'll have been about 9 Syns erring on the side of caution, allowing for oils/butter etc.  I had a lime and soda, 1 syn as I assume it wasn't sugar free cordial. And then this happened: 


Everyone was getting deserts, sticky toffee pudding, chocolate brownies with cream and ice cream, fruit crumble with custard, so in my wisdom thought Eton mess would be the safest option,  if I tried to focus on the fruit and meringue. I hadn't counted on there being an actual mountain of cream to go with it (as you can tell by my face!!) I thought I ought to take an after shot to prove that I didn't eat the lot. And frankly what I left would have been enough to keep a small family going for a day. I have no idea where to even start with the Syns but after a bit of rough calculating I'd guess maybe 12-16 Syns (more like 30+ if I'd eaten the lot) So much for being good. 

When I got home the mr had roasted a chicken for the little ones which was served with oven chips (which she didn't eat) for little miss and, after another epic battle, was followed with custard. Little man was starting to get a fever (teething and cold related we think) so was off it a bit and just had half an Ella pouch a nibble of chicken and a bit of custard. I picked at chicken but was still pretty full from my mammoth lunch. 22 - 26 Syns in total! 

I really need to pull it back in the next few days!