Even healthier Moussaka

You know it's going to be a good day when your fake dog poo arrives through the post.

I'm very lucky to have a really nice group of friends who accept me for me, despite all of my quirkiness and odd ways. One of my friends lives in Wales - we met at work, when I was an I.T. Consultant and she was a contractor working in the same place as me. We hit it off as she's got the same dirty sense of humour and 7 years later, we're still good friends, despite the 180 miles between us. She moved house in December and has had problems with her cat weeing inside - presumably due to the fact her cat is 19 years old and stressed over the house move. I suggested it was also due to her wanting to mark her territory? I'm heading over to Wales to see her in a couple of weeks and she said 'Oh! your room is nearly ready' (she's decorating her spare room with peacock wallpaper and she knows how much I like peacocks).

I thanked her, said I couldn't wait to see her and her new house and that I'd also want to 'mark my territory' in some random way. She said 'If you pee or crap anywhere, there will be trouble' ... I don't think she thought I was serious, so I'm sure she'll laugh when she sees the present I've left her on my pillow :-) (along with a thank you card and some chocolates for putting up with me for the weekend!).

This morning I woke up and lazed in bed for ages, which was bliss - I didn't feel tired for once and listening to the birds outside the window was just so nice. Breakfast was a very tasty kipper with 2 scrambled eggs and some dry-fried tomatoes with no extra oil in the pan. After breakfast, I went food shopping and bought some ingredients to compliment the vegetables I had delivered in my vegetable box yesterday - The main one being... Aubergine.

Aubergine - The Devils food, or so I have thought my entire life. It's along the same vein as marrows and courgettes: neither of which I have ever particularly liked. However, as it was in my kitchen, I decided I may as well try it for the first time in 20 years, so decided to make a healthy moussaka for dinner. As my friend was arriving at my house just after lunch, I also bought some 'low fat treats' and headed home to make a start on dinner. As I hadn't eaten breakfast until 10:00am, I thought I'd forgo lunch and just eat an early dinner as I was stuffed after my kipper, eggs and tomato.

It was lovely seeing my friend - She's my 'drama' friend. So many things seem to happen to her, most of them being dating / relationship issues. At the moment, she seems to be having issues with yet another man she's met off a dating site who she's slept with, but he announced he just wanted to be friends with her. So she's 'just being friends', (although holding hands and cuddling him apparently) however he's now being quite unresponsive and she recently found out he's dating someone else - Rather than let him go, she seems to be harassing him on text messages and doesn't seem to want to leave him alone :-S

We had a number of cups of tea and I offered her one of the Tescos chocolate and caramel bars I bought - Only 68 calories. I have to say, I was slightly underwhelmed. The actual bar is a good 1.5 inches shorted than the wrapper it's in, and so the box they all come in, is quite deceiving in size. They were... OK, however certainly nothing to write home about. Whilst we were chatting, talking and watching crazy documentaries, I got on with making my dinner and working out how to cut aubergine (which is surprisingly simple and even I was able to do it :-)).

We headed into town for an hour or so for a bit of a mooch - It was an interesting experience, I usually hate catching site of myself in clothing shop mirrors, however when I took a cursory glance, I thought 'OK, not bad... ' and I felt quite proud of the progress I've made over the last 6 weeks. However when we were sat in a show shop, I looked in the mirror and saw massive tyres of fat around my stomach and felt really self concious, immediately sitting up and trying to improve my appearance. Despite feeling self concious, I know that the only way to change what I see in the mirror is to keep focussed on my healthy eating and that's exactly what I plan to do.

My friend headed off just after 6pm and I tried my moussaka - I have to say, it was actually really quite tasty. As I've never cooked it before, I followed the BBC Good Food recipe for a lighter moussaka pretty closely, however I only used 2 aubergine, rather than 3 (and there was still lots left over) and also used fat free Greek yoghurt, rather than 2%. I think I had a pretty average sized portion as there was a lot left over and I've got two portions in the fridge (one for tomorrow and Monday) and I've frozen the others. 

I'm now sat on my sofa, looking forward to a nice long bath and a really nice lie in tomorrow as well - My other friend isn't arriving until 11:00am, so I'm thinking I'll have a shower, wash my hair and enjoy a quiet and peaceful morning :-)

Changing recipes to make them more healthy

I've been a culinary genius today

Maybe that's slightly over-egging my abilities, however I made a really nice BBQ chicken salad for lunch. When my Boyfriend and I went on the West Berkshire Brewery Tour, we picked up a couple of bottles of 'Sals' BBQ Sauce' to try as I absolutely adore the stuff and like trying different brands and recipes. I decided I'd marinade the chicken for an hour and then bake in the oven for 25 minutes. Whilst doing that, I got the lettuce and tomatoes that Riverford had delivered in my vegetable box yesterday and added a yellow pepper, cucumber, red onion and a small amount of feta cheese - All topped with the hot chicken and balsamic glaze. Absolutely deeee-licious.

I then decided I'd clean out my sock drawer, which I appreciate isn't exactly the highlight of ones day, however it's been something I've been meaning to do for a while as I have way too many socks and decided to start with socks and move up to clothes in the next few weeks. 3 carrier bags later, I had finally weeded down my 'collection' to about 30 pairs from... 100? I really need to stop buying socks as noone needs that many pairs. Feeling a sense of achievement, I decided to then start on my underwear and managed to throw out at least 15 pairs of knickers I just haven't worn for ages.

However, after 45 minutes of throwing stuff out, I decided I really needed to get out the house so phoned my boyfriend and found out he was going to be doing a BBQ later whilst polishing his car - He said I was welcome to pop along and say hello, so I headed over there for a couple of hours to say Hello to his friends and help him polish his car. The BBQ smelt amazing, so it did take quite a lot of will power not to eat much - I say much, as I did grab a couple of small pieces of chicken from a kebab and there was easily enough food for me as well, however I knew I'd be making meatballs later on, so didn't want to spoil my appetite or eat food if I wasn't hungry.

Getting back home, I started on the meatballs and decided to use this recipe but alter it. As I live on my own, I used a 500g pack of 5% lean beef I bought earlier in Sainsburys and rather than chopping the onion finely, I actually blended it quickly using my handheld blender - I've tried to make meatballs before and I always find that no matter how fine you cut the onion, it still sticks out of the meatballs and they're hard to roll - blitzing it made it finer and despite crying a bit, it worked really well. I also added 1/4 of a tub of fine breadcrumbs to help the mixture stick together and hey presto - they are the best looking meatballs I've ever made!

Onto the sauce - I followed the recipe a bit more thoroughly, however decided I'd only use 1 400g tin of chopped tomatoes (as still halving the recipe) and add some red wine as well - maybe 150ml? I'm not really a red wine drinking (although I've drunk more red wine recently as I've got older), however I found a rather nice bottle I bought from Berry Brothers years ago, so thought I'd try using that. I have to say, I felt like a 'proper Chef' opening and pouring the wine into the sauce and smelling the most amazing aromas - Wow, it's almost as if I can cook :-) I didn't add any olive oil as didn't see the point - plus there's oil in the meatballs so I figured it would be fine

I didn't want to dry the meatballs, so decided to oven bake them as well. Unfortunately my grill has never worked since I moved into my house 4 years ago, otherwise I would have grilled them and allowed the fat to drip off, but I figured baking would certainly be better than frying as they''d turn out less greasy. I baked the meatballs for about 25 minutes until they looked golden and incredibly appetising.

Putting the wholewheat pasta on to the boil only took ten minutes - and then it was time to plate up....

I am dead chuffed with the result. The sauce is absolutely spot on - being totally honest, the meatballs are a little dry, so I guess I shouldn't have added the breadcrumbs, however I was trying to use them up! Also, I think they were a little under seasoned, so I'll make some notes for next time as I'll certainly be making it again. 

I'll be giving my boyfriend the spare meatballs tomorrow before we go to the BBC Good Food Show. He is rather a big fan of meat and I'd rather not have them in the fridge in case I snack on them. I've also got another portion for Monday night after the gym, so when I get back home I can have a shower and pop in the oven to heat up, Bonus :-)

Happy Saturday night!

Low fat rhubarb pudding

I do have a rather sweet tooth, but don't want to over indulge too often

My Mother has a rather big garden and grows lots of stuff. She then fails to use it all up and gives it to whoever wants it. When I saw her last week, she mentioned she had loads of rhubarb and would I like some? I really like rhubarb (at least, I do in crumbles!) so thought I'd try and do some other things with rhubarb and take it off my Mothers hands.

After scouring the internet for 'low fat rhubarb recipes', I've come to the conclusion, that there doesn't seem to be many - They say they're low fat or low calorie, but I think that's rather subjective - I mean, who things 350 calories or 20g of fat is 'low'???? Anyway, After thinking about it, maybe going back to basics is best? So, I decided to roast it with some sugar.

I also thought I'd find something to accompany it. I could use low fat custard, however that's a bit of a faff as I don't own a microwave, so I thought I'd give this 'low fat yoghurt' a go.... I've never had low fat yoghurt - or if I have, it can't have been a very memorable experience. However finding it in the freezer isle of the Supermarket and seeing it was very low in fat / calories per portion, I thought it would make a perfect friend for my roasted rhubarb.

My recipe? Well, it couldn't be more simple. 

1. Wash rhubarb to ensure there's no dirt or bird poop on it.

2. Cut it into small chunks

3. Arrange on tray, sprinkling some caster sugar over it.

4. Roast for 15 minutes under foil at about 180C (fan) then uncover and cook for a further 5 minutes.

5. Take out, pop on plate and serve with something low fat and yummy.

You might be tempted to make it more healthy by not adding sugar - don't. I tried it.. and it's way too tart for me and quite frankly, not very enjoyable. Each to their own, but for me, it's about genuinely enjoying what I'm putting in my body. Plus, sugar isn't 'evil', it's just a bit silly to eat it in excess.

I only used this bowl as I don't have any small ones - it looks a bit pathetic in this big bowl, but honestly, it was lovely - Approx 94 calories and 1g of fat per portion (plus whatever you're serving it with), it's a rather nice pudding which you don't have to feel guilty about.

Mediterranean vegetables with lamb

The evening has finished really nicely with a culinary success!

This has been a truly awesome day. It continued being awesome this evening as well. I decided to try and get over my aversion to courgettes, despite not liking them my entire life. So I decided to make the BBC Good Food's recipe of 'Mediterranean vegetables with lamb' as it's both low in fat, and calories and serve it with some couscous. Usually I get the whole-wheat couscous from Sainsburys, however unfortunately they seemed to be sold out, so decided to go crazy and buy some random Ainsley Harriot stuff. I thought this might work well, despite the crazy photo of Ainsley on the front of it!

The recipe says it cooks in 30 minutes, however I decided to make the most of the fact I was still on holiday by chucking it all in the slow cooker at 1pm and letting it cook for 5 hours, 30 minutes before I saw my boyfriend in the evening. 

The house smelt amazing and I have to say, it was a total success - it looked a bit odd in the slow cooker, but it smelt and tasted fantastic and I'd certainly do it again. 192 calories and 9g of fat per portion? (more, if you serve with couscous) sounds pretty damn good to me!

After a very nice dinner, we headed to the pub - I had a glass of red wine which much be the first alcohol I've had in over a month. It was actually really nice, however I stopped at one glass as I know that when I'm drunk or even mildly inebriated, my willpower quickly decreases and I eat ANYTHING. I don't mind getting the munchies occasionally, but I don't want to do it on a regular basis, so settled at one glass and headed back after a nice hour, chatting.

One of the crazy things we were talking about was having kids. It honestly feels like our entire relationship is reversed - he's the calm one, not phased about the idea of being a parent and I'm totally freaking out about the idea. It's something I've wanted for the past few years, but actually, now the possibility is here and he's like 'it's cool, let's just go for it if you want', I'm like 'OH MY GOD IT'S LIKE WE'RE GROWN UPS AND I COULD GET PREGNANT AND IT'S COMMITMENT'.

You wouldn't believe I'm 33 and we've been together for a really long time, would you? If I was going to have kids, it would be with him as he's truly the most amazing man I've ever met, however I think I'm going to need a few months just to get used to the idea of actually trying for a child and also taking care of myself and continuing my healthy eating - if we do try for a child, I'd like my body to be as fit and as healthy as possible.

Work tomorrow, which is a shame.. but thankfully it's only 3 days!

Healthy 'KFC' wrap

One of the best healthy 'makeover' recipes I've ever done

If you love fried chicken and are partial to a KFC but less partial to the calories and fat that it contains, look no further. This recipe is easy, relatively quick and incredibly tasty - Did I mention it was also rather healthy? :-)

Ingredients - serves 4

150 ml (1/4 of a pint) buttermilk

2 garlic cloves, crushed

4 x skinless, boneless chicken breasts

1 bag of salad or suitable salad bits

80g of cheese

4 large tortilla wraps

100g Panko breadcrumbs

2 tbsp self raising flour

1 tbsp paprika

1/2 tsp English mustard powder

1/2 tsp Thyme

1/2 tsp hot chilli powder

1/2 tsp ground black pepper

3 tbsp rapeseed oil

                                             Method

1. Pour buttermilk into a bowl and stir in the garlic. Slice the chicken into slices and lay chicken into buttermilk. If possible, marinade over night, but at least for one hour in the fridge.

2. In another bowl, add the breadcrumbs, flour, mustard powder, thyme, chilli powder and black pepper and mix.

3. Heat a large non-stick frying pan with the rapeseed oil and then add the breadcrumb mix. Toast for about 3-4 minutes until they start to go golden.

4. Tip the crumb mix back into the bowl it came from. Take the chicken from the fridge and coat the chicken in the breadcrumb mix. Place on a baking sheet.

5. Heat the oven to 210 C for a fan oven / 230 C for a non fan oven (Gas 8) and bake for 15 minutes.

6. Prepare the wraps - place one on each plate, add some salad and grate 20g of cheese over each.

7. Once the chicken is done, divide chicken equally between the wraps and hey presto - the most amazing and tasty KFC wrap!

Chicken Saag made healthier

I love curries, but I don't like the calories

However, I don't want to cook and eat things I don't really enjoy as there's no way I'd stick to healthy eating if I was stuffing my face with lettuce or weird diet shakes and just drinking water.

So, Sunday was Chicken Saag night. 

It turned out rather well to be honest. The original recipe I followed said to put all the things in the food processor, however I thought it looked a bit more appetising to keep the spinach and tomatoes whole.. More colourful and less 'green sludge'. 

Per serving (not including rice)- 203 Kcals, protein 35g, carbs 8g, fat 4.5g, sat. fat 1g, fibre 3g, salt 0.5g

Ingredients - SERVES 4

200g Young Spinach (make sure it's washed, it's revolting if you get  a mouthful of dirt!)

1 large onion, grated

2 cloves of garlic, crushed

Groundnut oil for frying

4 Cardamon pods - Seeds should be crushed

1 tsp tumeric

3 tsp ground cumin

2 tsp ground coriander

4 tomatoes, chopped

200ml chicken stock

4 chicken breasts (about 500g), chopped into chunks

TIPS: 

a. When you're grating the onion, it's quite strong so be prepared and try and set it aside somewhere far away from where you're cooking until you're ready to fry it.

b. Also, get the cardamon pod seeds crushed BEFORE you start as getting them out of the pods and crushing them (I chopped with a sharp knife) is a pain.

 Method

1. Put spinach into colander and pour a kettle of boiling water over the spinach to wilt, let it drain and then chop it up

2. Cook the onion and the garlic in a non-stick pan with 2 tsp of oil. Add the spices and cook for 2-3 minutes. Add the tomatoes and chicken stock and simmer for 15 minutes.

3. Add the spinach and cook for a further 5 minutes

4. Take the blended ingredients and pop back in the same pan, add the chicken and cook gently until chicken is cooked. 

5. Serve with whatever you want - rice, naan bread, poppadoms, or have 2 portions rather than one - just make sure you add those additional calories in!

6. Stuff in face and enjoy :-)

Singapore Noodles made healthier

Saturday night is 'Try a new recipe night'

I got a spice subscription from 'The Spicery' for Christmas from one of my sisters. It was a really thoughtful gift as I'm really hard to buy presents for apparently (I can believe it.. as if I want something, I tend to buy it). However I've not really tried any of the recipes or the spice kits they send me every month as they're not really that healthy!

However - that got me thinking, why don't I just modify the recipe? Cut out the oil, change how things are done and hey presto, I'm using my sisters thoughtful gift but still eating healthy :-)

If you have things in the cupboard that you haven't used for ages as they're 'bad for you', have a think, can you change things around? Maybe not follow the recipe or change how to prepare things?

Tonight, I tried the Singapore Noodle spice kit.

I made sure I had prepared everything beforehand as I had to chuck things in the Wok quickly. One of the good things about this recipe is that I only needed a Wok really - I used it to make the omelette, washed it out quickly and then used it for the main dish.

Ingredients - SERVES 4 (easily)
250g of diced pork loin
100g of cooked prawns
1 red pepper - seeded and thinly sliced
200g of beansprouts
1 bunch of spring onions thinly sliced (even the green bit that sometimes people don't like!)
2 cloves of thinly chopped garlic
1 small piece of ginger, finely chopped
1 onion, thinly sliced
450g ready cooked vermicelli noodles
3 tbsp soy sauce
3 tbsp runny honey
1 tbsp vinegar
2 eggs - beaten
1 tsp five spice
2 tbsp medium curry powder (if you're not a total coward, you can make it hotter.. I just can't handle spice!)
2 thinly chopped red chillies


Method
1. Mix 2 tbsp of soy sauce, the honey, vinegar and 1 tsp of five spice together.
2. Marinade the pork in 1/2 of the sauce (keep the other half, don't throw it away!)
3. Finely chop 2 fresh red chillies and set aside.
4. Beat eggs into a cup with pinch of salt
5. Heat wok and spray with spray oil (I used 8 sprays - 8 calories) add the eggs, stirring a little to make thick, lumpy omelette, remove from pan and set aside.
6. Fry the pork with its marinade on a high heat until caramelised. Remove from heat and set aside.
7. Fry the onion in 12 sprays of oil (12 calories) until they soften and then add the red pepper, ginger, garlic, 1/2 tsp of salt and 2 tsbp of medium curry powder (Keep the heat high!)
8. Add the chopped red chilli, bean sprouts, prawns and spring onions and fry for a minute.
9. Add the fried pork, shredded egg noodles and 1 tbsp of soy sauce and stir fry for a few more minutes until all the ingredients are heated through.
10. Serve the noodles with the reserve sauce on the side.
11. Stuff in face :-)

It was really nice, however a little too spicy for me! Also, Sainsburys had run out of ready cooked Vermicelli noodles so I had to get dried ones instead and cook them - which was fine, however I cooked them at the beginning and by the time I went to put them into the wok and re-heat them, they'd stuck together in 2-3 big 'clumps' which were quite hard to break up and stir in. So, lesson to be learnt, if you have to cook the noodles, make sure you do it right at the end and add them STRAIGHT to the wok, don't let them dry! 

I'd certainly make it again, however make a few subtle alterations - Either way, I'm really glad I tried something new and feel really full. 

It was also nice that it was a 'proper meal', not a lettuce leaf, nor some weird 'slimming soup'. Definitely the way forward.

Monday wasn't too bad....

I survived work and made an awesome dinner

So despite having the usual stomach aches about going to work today, it wasn't too bad - I swear I'm turning into Garfield and hating Mondays, which proves I should get a new job! My Manager was actually pretty decent in our meeting and despite my colleague being on holiday (she was in Madrid, visiting a Shamen apparently....You drink weird tea made of bark and find yourself or something?) I was happily busy but not totally manic. 

Breakfast today was the obligatory porridge with blueberries and lunch was the leftover tamarind fish curry. I think I still struggle with portion control, so one of the good things about the tubs I have for food is that they're pretty 'normal' size, so I can't overfill and thus, overeat.

After work, I started cooking early as my boyfriend was coming over and we were going on a Monday jaunt to IKEA... Hardly the most exciting place in the world, however I found lots of weird insect things, living in my sugar - I don't actually use sugar very often at all, as I don't use it in my tea.. I also found them in the flour bag! They're apparently called 'flour / dust mites' (cunning name, huh?) Anyway, rather than accepting that this happens every few months, I thought it might be more sensible to buy a lot of kilner jars and keep them in air tight containers, rather than have weird little creepy crawlies all over the place.

Dinner was awesome - It's a recipe I've made a number of times before and never fails to taste lovely. Moroccan chicken curry from the BBC Good Food Magazine:

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/2468641/moroccan-chicken-onepot 

I love it! It's amazing. I made it with giant wholewheat couscous and made enough so there were 3 portions, so something to look forward to at lunch time :-) 

Eating healthy has really changed how I feel about myself - I know I have such a long way to go, but I'm feeling really positive and definitely have more energy in the mornings. Even random things like, taking the bin out... hoovering... it's like, I don't ever think 'I can't be bothered', I just get on and do it. I guess it's the little things? 

Swan Sunday

Really nice to get out and about even if it's not sunny

Sadly despite it being mid May, it doesn't appear to be inching towards summer yet - Despite this, my boyfriend and I decided to go to the Abbotsbury Swannery near Dorchester. It's 2 hours from where we are, however he doesn't mind driving and it's somewhere we have wanted to go for ages as I love animals / nature etc, so we set off pretty early so we could enjoy the day.

It's an amazing place, apparently it's the only place in the world that has a nesting colony of mute swans and was established by Benedictine Monks who built a monastery at Abbotsbury during the 1040′s.

There are loads and loads of swans and it was lovely, walking around, seeing them all nesting and also seeing a few of the cygnets as they apparently hatched a few days ago and were so cute!

To get to the swannery, it was a good 5-10 minute walk and then we walked around the place for at least an hour before stopping off in the cafe for a cup of tea. 

Since I started healthy eating, this was the first time my will power was really tested - My boyfriend ordered a large caramel shortbread, topped with what looked to be amazing chocolate. He asked if I wanted something and I was so tempted so say yes - after all, I'd been walking for at least an hour, right?

However, I managed to actually ask myself - do I need it? Does my body need it? and the answer was no - I didn't. That's not to say I didn't watch him eat every single mouthful, wishing I was slimmer so I could eat it and not worry as much, however no - I am genuinely committed to changing my shape and eating healthier, so I just had a cup of tea (I don't drink coffee). I felt quite proud of myself :-)

After a nice sit down, we headed back home and watched a couple of episodes of the BBC 'How food is made in a factory' - It's a 3 parter with Greg Wallace (bloke off Masterchef) investigating how chocolate / bread and milk are manufactured.

It was interesting - however when we were watching the chocolate one, I was getting so hungry and all I really fancied was chocolate, so I thought the best thing I could do was start cooking dinner.

Dinner was a healthy 'tamarind fish curry' - something I had meal planned a few days ago. For the first time ever, I tried to pay attention to the portion guidance on the rice packet and did 3.5 portions - 1 for me, 1 for my lunch tomorrow and 1.5 for my boyfriend. It's the first time ever that I've not done too much rice! It wasn't too bad - I can't say it was amazing in all honesty, it didn't seem to be as aromatic as I expected and was also quite watery, even though I used the recommended 400ml of light coconut milk.

I'm hoping that the flavours will mature overnight and at the end of the day, I know it's good for me as it was cooked from scratch and has less than 450 calories and 12g of fat. 

Already the stomach ache of worry is starting over going to work tomorrow - I really need to try and find a new job ASAP! However until then, I need to continue my healthy eating and not revert back to eating rubbish.

I'm quite proud of the fact that after 2.5 months of eating utter rubbish day after day, I've been able to stick to my healthy eating for 5 days. It doesn't sound a lot, and hopefully this time next week, next month (and who knows, next year?) I'll be saying the same... I certainly feel better within myself though :-)

Prawn pad Thai omelette

Recipes don't always go to plan

I'm trying to keep motivated and be healthy by only eating things I actually want to eat and rather than depriving myself - just making better choices. As it's a weekend, it means I can actually cook something for lunch, rather than buy a sandwich or bring something to work that I'd prepared beforehand.

Today was 'prawn pad Thai omelette' a recipe I found in a BBC Good Food Magazine a while ago - It looks amazing, no?

It was easy to do... I had to make the sauce which was (for 2 people):

1 tsp tamarind paste
1 tbsp fish sauce
1 tbsp caster / palm sugar (either is fine)
1/4 tsp shrimp paste

I then grated an inch of ginger, half a red chilli and a garlic clove and left them on the side.

I then cut up a raw carrot, 1/4 of a cucumber, 3 spring onions length ways, half a pepper and got some frozen prawns out of the freezer.

So...got a pan and some spray oil.... chucked in the pepper and the ginger / chilli and garlic and fried it for about 3 minutes. I then chucked in the prawns and the sauce and once I'd fried them for another 2 minutes, added 50 grams of beansprouts and merrily tossed everything about for another 2 minutes.

Once done, I popped it all on a plate, then got 2 eggs, whisked them around and put them in the same frying pan to make the pancake - once it was cooked, I took the pancake out, popped it on a plate and put the cooked mixture on top and sprinkled with peanuts.

Yeeeeaaaaah.

Not exactly the same as the picture!

Where did I go wrong? Well... I thought I had halved the recipe as it was for 2 people and there's just me - However I think I overdid it on the raw veg. 

Secondly - I didn't whisk the eggs enough, which meant there were patches of yellow and patches of white - this proved very tricky to actually lift it from the pan!

Despite this - I have to be honest - It actually tasted really nice and the sauce was lovely - I won't give up on this recipe, I'll just need to try and get the amounts correct and try again - either way, it was pretty healthy so better than buying a sandwich :-)

Everyone loves 'fat pants', right?

Considering how I thought Tuesday would go, it actually went pretty darn well. I was dreading work after the Bank Holiday as I was convinced my Manager would give me another massive bollocking for how one of my areas was performing, however despite being in a meeting with him for 1.5 hours, he actually seemed OK...

So once I had got up and got dressed.... except, it's not that simple at the moment - I mean, it should be: you get up, have a shower, stick some clothes on and out you go, however due to how I currently look, there are certain clothes I won't wear as I think I look really bad in them.

One piece of 'clothing' (if you can call it that.. I think on some level, it's a torture device) I don't leave the house without is my trusty 'fat pants' commonly referred to as 'tummy control' pants or 'Spanx' if you buy a particular make... These aren't Spanx as I bought them from the local Marks and Spencers, however come rain or shine.. whether it's winter or summer, if I am not feeling confident in how I look, I will always wear a pair of these before putting on the rest of my clothes.

This is hardly a fun task - I mean, in the winter, it's hard enough to pull them over my thighs and stomach, but in the summer, it's an additional layer of clothing which makes me even more sweaty - Why? Why do I feel the need to wear them every day? As I'm not happy with how I feel my flab bulges over the top of my jeans, or the fact my stomach isn't flat. So whilst I could potentially wear them for the rest of my life, I can't say it's a particularly attractive prospect and as such, I'll try to continue to eat more healthy until I can happily wear clothes and go out the door feeling confident that I don't look like a lumpy-bumpy 30-something woman.

So.. on the healthy eating front, today was a good day. Porridge and blueberries for breakfast, home made spinach, sweet potato, cauliflower and lentil dhal for lunch and a very colourful plate of sweet potato chips, red cabbage and apple, peas and steamed cod fish for dinner.

Admittedly, my lunch may not look overly appetising, however I promise, it was absolutely gorgeous - not only that, it's vegetarian and if you use the right stock cubes, you can make it Vegan really, really easily (I have a good friend who is Vegan, so I am always on the look out for things to cook for her or recipes I can modify). I have the Covent Garden Soup Book, which is where I got the recipe, however you can also find it here:

http://newcoventgardensoup.com/recipes-grouping/sweet-potato-spinach-dhal/

I don't know how many calories I had today - it's not about that for me, one of the reasons I don't think I'd be any good at either Weight Watchers or Slimming World is because underneath, I am fundamentally quite lazy and having to calculate points, or work out how many 'Syns' I have per day is not something I want to spend effort doing - Maybe this means I won't succeed or that I will succeed but more slowly? I don't know... However if this is to work, it can't be a quick fix and I need to eat things I actually like....

.. which means that I will never, EVER eat celery... not ever.