Monthly Archives: September 2011

September 30, 2011

Fill your boots…with chorizo lasagne

With all the fantastic meal ideas currently flying around the web I thought I’d start a new feature called (drum roll please) Fill your boots.. Each week I’ll blog a meal that I’ve cooked with details on how you can recreate the magic at home. (I’m no Nigella or Delia but I’ll have a go!) Then at the end of the post I would absolutely love it, if you’d take part and share a link to a post on your blog showcasing the fantastic meals you’ve had. We can all learn something new and pick up some tasty ideas for fabulous family meals.

To start off the feature, please let me introduce you to one of my own personal favourites, Chorizo Lasagne.

Ingredients:

1 Butternut Squash, 1 Onion , 1 Pepper, 1 Courgette, Cherry Tomatoes
Low fat cooking spray, 50g Chorizo Sausage, Small carton of Passata
6 dried Lasagne sheets, Cheddar Cheese Sauce Mix, 300ml Skimmed Milk

1. Heat the oven to Gas Mark 6
2. Chop all the vegetables, spritz with cooking spray, season well and roast in a large roasting tin for 15 minutes.

3. Add chopped chorizo, stir and cook for another 10 minutes
4. Add the passata to the roasted vegetables
5. Using a large baking dish, pour half of the mixture into dish
6. Place 3 lasagne sheets on top of the roasted vegetables and pour on the remainder of the vegetables
7. Top with the remaining lasagne sheets

7. Tip cheese sauce mix (hey, can’t make everything from scratch!) into a saucepan and mix with the milk, bring to the boil and simmer for 2 minutes. You will have incredibly thick, creamy cheese sauce
8. Pour cheese sauce mix over the lasagne
9. Bake for 35 minutes or until gorgeously golden brown

This recipe will easily serve 4 people and is best served with a crisp green salad. Enjoy!

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Filed under: Fill Your Boots |

September 29, 2011

Heatwave

The weather here in the UK is incredibly fab at the moment and us Brit’s love to have an opinion on the weather. Well we’re currently experiencing a late Indian Summer heatwave which is expected to last a few more days (hopefully well into the weekend) so I took advantage of the amazing cloudless skies and beautifully warm evening temperature and took Mikey out over Sandwell Valley last night with my friend Amy. I also managed to tot up an amazing 11 activity points with all the walking so thats a brucey too!

How stunning does this sunset look?

Hope you’re all enjoying the weather too!

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Filed under: Home life, Photographs |

September 27, 2011

Week 38: weigh in update

Woohoo!! I lost 1.5lb this week taking me to 50lb total loss since January 5th 2011. I’m quite chuffed as that’s all my holiday weight gone and i’m back to the lowest weight i’ve been at in at least 4 years. I’m so determined now to hit that 4 stone target hit before the end of October. I’ve got 6lb to get there and hopefully I’ll do it before I go to ‘the’ hospital appointment which is less than 4 weeks away.

At the weekend, both hubby and I joined a gym as we both want to up our game with our exercise and thought we would benefit from the minimal costs that PureGym offer. We didn’t have to pay a joining fee and we can cancel the contract at any time. We’ll be paying £16.99 per month and even if we use the gym once or twice a week we will have our monies worth. The gym is just down the road from my workplace so I can go straight from work for an hour and still be home before 6pm = result! Hubby will have to make the effort to go but the bonus is, we can choose a second gym and use the facilities there too for free so our second gym is a ten minute drive away from home so I can use both!

Looking to the week ahead exercise wise, i’ll be trying the gym out tomorrow night for the first time, Thursday will probably be either Wii Zumba or another visit to the gym, Friday night will be a good walk with the dog over the Park or down the Valley and the weekend will again be gym or Wii Zumba with dog walkies thrown in. I’m tempted to start a new aqua class which is local to me on a Wednesday night but I’m still a bit of a wuss when it comes to trying new things. Maybe I’ll see how the gym goes and then try Aqua if I need to do something different.

Hope you’ve all had a good weigh in and here’s to week 39

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Filed under: Weightloss |

September 26, 2011

#Fuff Week 2..

So Week 1 of the Fire Up for Fall (FUFF) Challenge has been and gone and we’re onto Week 2 already. Time flies when you’re having fun.

What have you done this week to help you achieve your goals?

I’ve had a good week. I’ve stuck to my WW plan religiously (tracking and sticking to my points allowance) and cooked some excellent meals. I love that we use all the ingredients up that we plan to use so there’s no waste at the end of the week. This time a couple of years ago we wouldn’t have thought twice about wasting the fresh mince in the fridge and ordered a takeaway, how wasteful is that!

On the exercise front, I’ve been active pretty much every day. Wednesday was a bit of a crap day for me, I came home from work and really couldn’t be bothered to do anything (which is very unlike me these days) I was just so tired. I forced myself to haul Mikey out for a good half hours walk then came back and settled in front of the TV with a Sweet and Sour Chicken ready meal. Over the weekend, we drove to the Shropshire Hills and had a good trek into Carding Mill Valley to see the Waterfall. It is incredible up there; beautiful scenery and so peaceful. I’ve also joined a gym so no excuses not to go when I have a free night (lol!)

What have you done to make yourself feel fabulous?

To make myself feel fabulous I’ve made positive choices this week. On Friday night I was home alone and was craving take away pizza. I think it’s the taste of the dough that gets me, it’s delicious but extremely pointy. But I’d already planned oven baked fish and chips for my dinner so made sure I stuck to my plan. The mantra in my head that keeps me going is “I can either be naughty now and enjoy it knowing full well that after I’ve eaten it I’ll feel guilty or give the idea up and enjoy the feeling on Tuesday stepping on the scales and losing a pound or two”

What is your talent? What are you good at?

Oh good question. I’m very passionate about being creative and luckily enough I’m not so bad at sewing. I would just love more time to dedicate to it at the weekends. I took up quilting at the end of last year and really enjoyed putting in the hours to creative a beautiful quilt whilst learning lots of new skills. I didn’t have a clue how to bind the quilt but with thanks to YouTube and friends on Twitter I managed to do it.

What’s been the highlight of your week, toot your horn, what are you proud of?

The highlight of my week has to be at Zumba last Monday evening. It was a fab class as all my friends were there. A couple of them hadn’t been for a while and it was nice to see them back getting back into their Zumba groove. Towards the end of the class we do two routines that are intended to cool us down but it involves a lot of spinning around and it makes me feel incredibly dizzy. When I first learnt the routine I got a mad head rush and felt really giddy so ever since then I’ve been missing out the spinning and doing my own thing. One of my friends said I was ‘freestyling’ which made us laugh but on a serious note I’m quite proud that I’ve only missed one Zumba class since I started back in February and it shows as I know the routines pretty well now.

Fun Question: What’s your guilty pleasure TV?

My guilty pleasure on TV used to be Ugly Betty. I loved that show. I loved how Betty had the balls to be her own person in a world where if you’re wearing anything non-designer over a size 8 you were nothing. I loved that she had her own sense of style and didn’t care what other people thought about her and I loved that she succeeded in getting her job of her dreams at the end of the series.

Recently I’ve not been watching much TV of late but when I have had 5 minutes to sit down, I’ve been watching the Great British Bake Off and Australian Masterchef. I love watching the contestants make amazing dishes and would love to try out a couple of their recipes at some point. I just wish I could look at the recipe without thinking how many flippin’ Propoints were in it.

Finally here’s my positive piccy of the week:

Three simple words that make a whole world of difference

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Filed under: Fired Up for Fall |

September 26, 2011

Meal Planning Monday 26.09.2011

I’ve really been enjoying planning our meals for the past few weeks, it’s now a regular routine that on a Sunday we plan what meals we would like throughout the week and then hubby goes off shopping getting all the ingredients in ready for the week ahead. It’s a bit like hunter gatherer with a debit card! So here’s our week ahead in meals..

Monday: Toad in the hole (WW recipe from Hearty Home Cookbook)
Tuesday: Post weigh in meal of Turkey & Apple Burgers (WW recipe from Weekday cookbook)
Wednesday: Chorizo Lasagne
Thursday: Oven baked fish in bubbly batter, oven chips and mushy peas
Friday: Slow cooker Chicken Curry using a new Schwartz packet mix recipe
Saturday: Steak and Guinness Pie (WW recipe from last weeks ‘Your Week’ booklet)

We do use a lot of WW recipes but they are really tasty, so varied and they help me to budget my daily points allowance effectively. They really help me to stay on track with my diet and I don’t feel like I’m missing out on anything. By the way, this post isn’t sponsored by WW, I’m just pleased that their recipes are so easy to use and hubby and I like them, enjoy preparing and eating them.

I’ve been baking a lot of Banana bread lately too and it is delicious. The loaf is divided into 12 slices and it works out at 4 Propoints per slice which is fab when you’re craving cake because it’s a decent sized portion so you don’t feel like you’re depriving yourself!

What are you eating this week? I’d love to hear from you and don’t forget to check out the other meal ideas on Mrs M’s blog

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Filed under: Meal Planning Monday |

The not-so-secret diary of a late 20-something wife, sister, daughter and aunty. I live in the West Midlands, UK with my hubby & our 6 year old westie, Mikey!