After a tiring night squashed between little man (I'm not tired raspberry blower) and little miss (the shadows are too scary) we got up a bit too late for breakfast. So I appeased them both with mini fromage frais and fruit puree (for little man) whilst I started making a syn free soup.
Bacon, vegetable and mixed bean soup
Chop 1 shallot, 1 onion, 1 leek and 2 cloves of garlic. Soften in a pot with a few sprays of fry light a sprinkle of mixed herbs and Cajun spice mix. Remove all visible fat from a pack of bacon and chop into pot, add tomato puree, and cook for approx. 5 mins (if it starts to stick add a dash of water and keep stirring.) Chop 3 carrots and 1 courgette and add to the pot. Cook for a few minutes.
Add chicken stock (I make fresh stock when we have a roast and freeze it down into little pots, but a stock cube would work), 1 tin of tomatoes, 1 carton of passatta, a bay leaf a teaspoon of mustard powder and 2 tins of mixed beans. Bring to the boil and then simmer for 20 mins. I love that this soup is so chunky it doesn't need bread with it. However I chose to use my healthy extra bread allowance. Little miss didn't want any until little man and I had finished then she decided she did 'want some actually mummy, with bread.' She ate about 3 mouthfuls and then decided she'd had enough!
For dinner I made my version of a cottage pie. I estimate 1 syn per serving. (It's probably less but it's best to over estimate)
Chop 1 shallot, 1 onion, 3 cloves of garlic and soften in fry light with mixed herbs and a sprinkle of mustard powder. Add tomato puree and cook for approx 5 mins. Add in thinly chopped carrots, and a splash of red wine and fry a little longer before adding the minced beef (less than 5% fat.) Cook until mince is browned off. Add beef stock pot (or cube), and stir in. Then add tin of baked beans and tin of tomatoes. Mix together and add a hearty sprinkle of frozen peas. Bring to a rolling boil then reduce to a simmer. Meanwhile peel and cook potatoes for mash. Once potatoes are cooked mash with splash of milk (from healthy extra allowance, or use 2 tsp low fat marge for 2 Syns.) remove 'filling' from the heat and smooth mash on top. Place into a preheated oven at 180, and leave for 10-20 mins.
I served it with broccoli, cauliflower and kale.
As tasty as all that was and as good as I'd been up to that point I did not manage to resist the temptation of the Easter eggs and ate the majority of one! Then hid the evidence so little miss doesn't notice in the morning. Oops.
Started late this morning, as the little man decided to sleep nicely last night, hoorah! And little miss was a bit under the weather this morning. So I didn't bother with breakfast (oops!), but madam had SOOOPER HOOOPS!
I decided to cook a stew today, a firm favourite in our house.
2 onions, 1 bag of carrots, 2 cloves of garlic, 1 pack of shin beef (removing visible fat much to my husband's disgust), 1 piece of oxtail (fat removed), 3/4 pack of knorr thick veg soup powder, and 1 bag of spuds. Chuck it all in a big pan (except the spuds) and cook for ages. Once it's basically all boiled and simmered for hours and you're fed up of waiting, add the potatoes. Boil again and then simmer as long as you can without chewing your arm off (and once the spuds are soft) and serve. Ideally with loads of buttered bread, but in this case with 2 x 400g wholemeal bread (healthy extra) thinly coated with low fat spread. The whole pan is 10 syns, so I count 1 syn per serving.
The fussy preschooler demanded "no potatoes mummy, just carrots" (and then had 3 extra helpings of carrot, on top of the raw one we shared whilst cooking) and 3 slices of bread. Baby had a potato, 3 bits of carrot and some 'juice' squished together with a fork, and 3 buttered soldiers. He wolfed the lot down.
We had the same again for dinner. But I added a piece of meat to the baby's bowl and a bit of extra juice to help soften the mulch. He wolfed that too (whilst wrestling to get the spoon and do it himself!)
Daddy brought an Easter egg home tonight. Cadbury buttons, yum! I worked out that 5 buttons is 1.5 syns (30g bag = 8 Syns / 37 buttons in the bag = 0.21 per button.) so that's what I stole from my preschooler, who didn't care as she had THE EGG!!! And was ever so slightly covered in a thin layer of chocolate.
I also pinched a smidge of the remaining egg once she'd gone to bed!
Total syns: 6
