A little home baking

There's something incredibly comforting about a bit of home baking. And the real joy of it is that, if you're keeping track of your sugar/fat/salt intakes, you can find or adapt recipes to suit. Yesterday, whilst making dinner, I made a few scones using my late mum's recipe - and it always seems to work pretty well!

You can "tweak" this to your own tastes, and I'm doing a rough translate from the original recipe that's written in imperial measures! 

225g self raising flour 

30g butter, softened

30g caster sugar

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1 egg, beaten

Enough milk to make the egg up to 1/4 pint

A handful of either glace cherry halves, sultanas or fresh blueberries!

Rub the butter into the sugar, flour and baking powder. 

Gently mix in the fruit choice. Gradually add the egg/milk mixture (reserving a tablespoon) and stir to bring dry ingredients together into a dough. 

Gently roll out onto a lightly floured surface (although I usually press it out), leaving it a good 1-2cm thick. Use a fluted cutter (I use a 3 or 4cm one) to cut out the scones - this should make 8-10 scones (keep using up the surplus and re-rolling!).  Place on a baking tray lined with nonstick baking paper and brush with the reserved egg mix. 

Bake in a preheated oven at 220C/gas 7 for 8-10 minutes

Delicious served warm - and you can always treat yourself by adding fresh butter, jam or even some clotted cream! 

Let me know if you try these or what your favourite scone recipe is! I'm always keen to try new recipes! 

Back soon,

Kim x 

More fish please!

We've gradually gone from a couple who ate virtually no fish (except me occasionally, as I love it!), to eating it 3 or 4 times a week, with very little meat in the diet, and lots of vegetables. It can only be for the good!
Last night's dinner was a delish plateful of yummy goodness! We had a pan-fried cod fillet, on minted pea puree,  with spiced potatoes and steamed asparagus. So tasty! All very low fat but high on taste and protein.

We find recipes from all over the internet, and usually adapt them according to what's in the fridge/cupboard/freezer and to make them user friendly for us - so often reducing the fat content, etc. I'll start adding recipes or links to where we've found them if you're interested! 

Kim x 

Delicious Waffles!

Now eating waffles when trying to lose weight might seem like a bit of a problem! But we bought a great little electric waffle maker from Aldi last summer and it's brilliant for a relaxed weekend brunch of waffles with fruit. My favourite recipe came from several instagram blogs, but is basically :-

25g self raising flour
1 egg
2 dessert spoons of fat free yogurt
1 tablespoon granulated sweetener
Vanilla (or coconut or almond!) flavouring

Beat all the above together well and then either cook in an electric waffle maker (according to instruction), or use a silicon waffle mould in the oven.

We love ours with plenty of fresh fruit, some fat free Greek yogurt and a drizzle of Sweet Freedom fruit syrup - yum. They're also delicious with flavoured yogurt (I particularly like fat free coconut flavour yogurt!).

Do you like waffles? How do you like yours? 

Kim x 

Moroccan style couscous

I love food that has a Middle Eastern style and flavour to it. So after seeing various recipes online for couscous, I made this one!
I oven-roasted peppers, courgette and red onion (after spraying with a little oil). The couscous was prepared with vegetable stock, some spices and then, when ready, I added the roast vegetables, peas, sweetcorn, some soaked raisins, spring onions, chopped coriander and mint, and grated lemon zest. Then to serve, added a few pomegranate seeds and flaked almonds. Yum!
Very low fat, vegetarian/vegan and delicious. It was lovely on it's own, or we had some the following day with a little feta cheese!

Back soon,
Kim

Loving Food...!

Hi 

I'm using this little corner of Blogland to keep track of the food we're eating, the weight loss journey and how well we're doing!  More details of our food and dieting journey will emerge as time goes on, but I hope you'll enjoy seeing some of our food and recipe trials - and perhaps share some of your ideas and journey too. 
I realised at the beginning of 2018 that I really needed to take charge of myself and do something about the weight. It was really starting to impact on my health and when I saw some awful photos after Christmas there were no more excuses. I could try using the non-working thyroid as an excuse, or the post-baby weight - but being as my youngest is now 20, I don't think that'll work. So I braved the scales and joined Slimming World. My husband gamely said he would join me on the journey, and between us, over 2018, we lost 108lbs! Thank you Slimming World. 
But I've got a bit stressed about weigh ins, that I keep maintaining, etc., so I'm just taking a little break from SW, but keeping up with the good eating habits that we've learnt and focusing on healthy eating. One really good thing was starting an Instagram account to track my progress and food, and lots of people have liked our food photos! Hence, now trying the blog! (But if you prefer Instagram, please click on the link on the side to find me!)

Anyway, I'll share more food pics and ideas as I go along. But tonight's dinner was a lovely smoked haddock risotto, packed with leeks, peas and spinach and served with steamed carrots and asparagus. Yum! The actual recipe was a 'mish-mash' of several that you can find online.  

Back soon,

Kim ☺