Mummy & Moose
clapping, napping and yapping our way through the day

Slimming World friendly meal planning – Our menu 26/04/19

I feel like I am becoming a Slimming World friendly meal planning ninja to be honest. Not to blow my own trumpet (parp) but I haven’t ordered a takeaway in a good few weeks nor do I miss it. Meal planning is becoming something I actually enjoy and even look forward to!

That said, this week I have eaten my own weight in leftover easter eggs. Can’t win em all!

The week ahead should be a pretty good one. We have no big events planned so it should be fairly easy to stick to the Slimming World plan and stick to budgeting too.

This week in food

Friday: Pasta Bolognese and green salad

Saturday: Lamb curry with broccoli and rice.

Sunday: Ham and vegetable gratin with new potatoes and veg

Monday: Simple pea pesto spaghetti with baby spinach salad and roasted red pepper

Tuesday: Chicken skewers with slimming world chips and salad and my vegan syn free coleslaw

Wednesday: Sausages and roasted veg for me. Side of mashed potato for everyone else. Lets face it, I will probably end up with mash too because it’s mash and who can resist it?

Thursday: Chicken Chilli and rice. Sounds a bit grim but the Stagg veg chilli is actually tasty and syn free on Slimming World. Great for a very quick meal.

Breakfast will be mainly oat pancakes or porridge. I love it at the moment and you can add loads of different things to it to change it up. I love frozen cherries and a little almond essence and teaspoon of raspberry jam so it tastes like cherry bakewell.

Lunches will be whatever we have. I am trying to save my pennies to shamelessly blow on the BlogOn raffle next week so I want to use what we have in the cupboards. Lunches could get ..weird.

 

Katykicker

Slimming World – Joining, but not why you think!

Starting Slimming World in January does feel like a bit of a cliche, but sadly needs must. Please don’t misunderstand me though. I am not ashamed of my body. Far from it.

My body has carried me through to the age of 37. It has walked for miles when I couldn’t afford any other kind of transport or just when I fancied a bit of a walk. My body can really move (when it wants to) especially through water. I think maybe on account of my oversized feet which make for effective flippers.

It has carried and fed 3 children. My tummy is covered in stretch marks and my breasts are not as perky as they once were. They aren’t ugly to me. I see them as a map of the pregnancies I have been fortunate enough to have experienced.

I don’t care what anybody else thinks of my body. I have strong legs and capable hands and shoulders which I know can handle some weight. Metaphorically and otherwise.

I want to be clear. I’m not starting this because I dislike my body. I am doing this because I love it. It deserves better than how I have been treating it for the last <cough> few years.

If I am honest I would quite like to be able to buy clothes a bit more easily. It might be nice to queue for a theme park ride without thinking “oh shit, what if I don’t fit”. The thing I really want though is to be healthier, to be stronger and to give my amazing body its best shot at a healthier future.

So, this morning I joined a Slimming World group.

If Mondays on the blog are about the children with my Living Arrows post, Wednesdays will be about me. I will be making an update every Wednesday as that’s the day after weigh in day and I will talk about how I got on and share any meals I liked from the week. I feel really positive about this change in lifestyle. Hopefully it will help me to feel better and look better.

The plan seems relatively simple to follow. My biggest change I think will be just being aware of what I am eating and also trying to drink enough water. I am pretty awful at this really.

I just hope I can stick to it! Either way, I’ll keep you informed.

My Ultimate Roast Potato

Some might say

it matters which potato you use for the perfect roastie. Maybe but any old spud will work fine. I used a whole 20p worth of white potatoes from Aldi for this lot.

The trick is to keep the potatoes to a good size and parboil them until just slightly soft before roughing up the edges by shaking them in a lidded saucepan and freezing (as flat as possible and no touching)

Don’t try to freeze them raw, the texture changes and you will not get a crispy edge. You just won’t. I am not sure what freezing actually does to the starch in the potato (too much science) but I do know that they taste nicer and get crispier.

On the day you want to cook them

pop the frozen potatoes onto a tray and add a bulbs worth of garlic cloves. This is optional but I adore garlic and so that’s what I do. Season with lots of salt and pepper and either spray with oil for a low fat Slimming World friendly dish or if you are not watching your weight use goose fat in the pan and add the potatoes and garlic once hot!

I cook my roast potatoes for 1 hour (the beauty of parboiling) and serve while they are piping hot with lots of gravy!