Tuesday was tremendous!

11th January 2017

Dear 2017, I know we just met but I have a feeling you and I are going to have a healthy & happy year! Love me xx

It's windy out there this morning and I've had a restless night, lots of dreaming and waking up hourly after midnight, I'm not feeling tired this morning though so all is good. 

Had an amazing day at the scales yesterday, ten stone lost by my members - BOOM!  Some cracking results, so proud of them and of course those that returned this week to add to those totals next week.  

My cooking didn't go to plan, I didn't have the spinach or medallions for my recipe, then once I'd take the food bank stuff to the hostel I was running out of time, so I added a tablespoon of mustard to the leftover lentil bolognese and topped it with garlic mash, very nice it was too.  For tea I wasn't up for spending long in the kitchen so I had heck sausage, leftover mash and veg with a big of onion gravy.  I can't wait to place my next online order to get more tins of Weight Watcher soup, then I'll have that at night so I haven't got to cook at all.

I've already planned a recipe I'm going to cook when my next delivery comes, on the Sainsbury's website if you choose one of their recipes you can click add ingredients to basket, that's so useful.  I want to try these butternut squash lasagne sheets so the next recipe on my order is;

Butternut squash lasagne

Made with butternut squash sheets instead of pasta, this pork lasagne is a tasty alternative to the classic

Ready in 1 hour 35 minutes

Cooking time 1 hour 10 minutes

Prep time 25 minutes

Serves 6, 6sp per serving

1 tbsp olive oil (4sp)

2 onions, diced

500g 5% pork mince (14sp)

250g chestnut mushrooms, sliced

350g tomato and mascarpone sauce (14sp Napolina)

6 leaves of sage, roughly chopped

100g baby leaf spinach

1 pack butternut squash lasagne sheets

25g parmesan cheese (4sp)

1 pack salad leaves, to serve

Preheat the oven to 200°C/gas mark 6. Heat the oil in a large frying pan and cook the diced onions for 5 minutes until softened. Add the pork mince and fry for a further 5 minutes, until browned all over.  Stir in the mushrooms and cook for 3-4 minutes or until softened.

Pour ¾ of the tomato and mascarpone sauce into the frying pan, followed by the browned pork mince and the sage. Add the spinach and cook until wilted. Mix well to ensure it is covered with sauce.

Begin to layer the lasagne in an ovenproof baking dish. Start with a layer of the pork mixture then cover with a layer of butternut squash lasagne sheets. Repeat this until the mix is used up, ensuring the butternut squash is the final layer.

Top with the remaining tomato and mascarpone sauce and a generous topping of parmesan cheese. Bake in the oven for 45-50 minutes until a golden brown crust has formed. Take out of the oven and allow to sit loosely covered with foil for 15 minutes. Serve alongside the salad leaves.

Readymade sauce to make life easy, I'm liking that idea a lot!  I also like the look of all the other similar things they've got along this line like butternut squaffles, cruckle cut butternut chips, courgette lasagne sheets, cauliflower rice - it all helps save points over the meal, I'm going to attempt making my own cauliflower rice today as they were out of stock when I placed my order.  Did you know cauliflower is high in vitamins K & C, and is antioxidant rich, over 9g fibre per serving and omega 3 fats - with all that going on, it's worth eating!  I will let you know if how it works out.

I plan to make the recipe card from this week's meeting today, it's a prawn rogan josh but I'll use the quorn piece because I'm allergic, I'm going to do it live in my group also, so that should be amusing!

Before then though, I need a mug of tea, a crispy bacon sarnie, followed by a shower, because I may be focusing on the healthy & happy and BeYOUtiful but if I don't wake up and wash, I'm be a smelly mess '-)

Here's to another awesome day - you in?