I'm off to bake breakfast bars!

28^th January 2014

Knowing what you want makes it easier to achieve – decide your goals and put plans in place to achieve them. 

It’s quite amusing how good cold toast made from low calories bread with Weight Watcher spread tastes after a 12 hour fast!  That was me yesterday in my car after having a fasting blood test at 10am, the toast was washed down with a luke warm coffee and it was delicious ;0), and hopefully the blood test will show I’m a healthy 44 year old having her mid-life health check.  Mmm midlife, yeah I don’t really wanna live any longer than 88 to be fair, that’ll do me.

We had split pea and ham soup for lunch, the recipe out of the new F&H cookbook, I’d got some out of the freezer to save me time as after the blood test, we had dentists appointments, everything’s okay with the teeth too, it just cost me £60 for the two of us to find that out and get them scraped and polished, hey ho I do like clean teeth even if I don’t like the scraping, it’s worth it in the end.

I was going to cook savoury rice yesterday but I found a cauliflower and some broccoli that needed using so instead we had cauli & broccoli cheese, using the easiest white sauce recipe in the world;

White Sauce

Serves 4, at 3pp each

40g low fat spread (4pp)

40g plain flour (4pp)

450ml skimmed milk (4pp)

1 bay leaf

Throw it all in a pan, it won’t look good, place over a medium heat and cook, stirring all the time until the sauce thickens and comes to the boil, reduce heat and simmer for 2 minutes.  Remove bay leaf.

To make it cheese sauce add, 40g strong cheddar cheese, then pour over cooked veg and top with 25g cheese and grill.  (65g cheddar = 7pp)

Looked like this;

Really easy and delicious and using frozen veg, it works out at roughly 65 pence a portion, cheap and easy.

I actually used Weight Watchers spread to make it and saved 3pp on the recipe, it still tasted just fine.

I’m definitely on a mission to cut my shopping bill, I’ve always spent too much in supermarkets and never made a secret of the fact because I like food, it’s one of my hobbies cooking and eating, it’s just done in a more controlled manner now that doesn’t cause me to continue to gain weight!  I want to spend less though, so I’m starting to plan more and think about using things up and not over buying on things that go off quickly, I will start buying more frozen vegetables I think, that’s one good way of ensuring they don’t go off and it’s cheaper.

My sister bought me a rice cooker yesterday, can’t wait to give that a go, according to the font of knowledge that is my brother “It's a cup of rice to two cups of water. How hard can it be” mmm good question, yet I still haven’t successfully managed to cook brown rice in a pan on the hob, so I shall take the rice cooker and enjoy playing with my new gadget and my brother can continue to be the next Gordon Ramsey!

If I get time, which I probably won’t today, I’m going to make these breakfast bars (45pp) total or completely F&H,

400g porridge oats.  (39pp)
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt. (Optional)
200 grams skimmed milk (2pp)
2 beaten eggs (4pp)
2 grated apples
4 tablespoon sweetener
200g or more frozen blueberries
1 tsp vanilla essence.
Preheated oven 200c
8 x 8 square tin

Combine all wet ingredients then add to all the dry.  Bake for 35 - 45 minutes.

One of my members made it yesterday, she didn’t have enough blueberries so added strawberries and her effort looks tasty enough.  

Actually I might go throw it together today now, despite not having the time :) Yeah I will, I’m off to make breakfast bars, take care, Have a good day, Eat Gorgeous & BeYOUtiful. Xx