What you eating this week?

5^th February 2018

You’ll never change your life until you change something you do daily.  The secret of your success is found in your daily routine.

It’s hard to blog when you spent the day doing nothing!  Yeah, my knee went first thing, not sure how, I got to the bottom of the stair case and it just went and hurt like hell, then went okay then throughout the day kept seizing then being not as bad.   Seems okay this morning (fingers crossed), but I saw it as the universe reminding me I needed to rest.  I managed to clean the kitchen, the French windows and the floor and walk the dog, but that was my lot, the rest of the day was spent in front of the tv with my my crochet.  We watched NCIS all day and ate the cheese and potato pie. 

This week can’t go fast enough, it’s cold in this house, it isn’t until you don’t have the central heating on that you realise how cold a house can get, even with a gas fire on, you notice the drafts coming from places you hadn’t realised they came.  Alfie likes to sit in the porch so the main doors open, more draft.  Oh and of course, I’ve not had a menopausal flush for days – plain hormonal sarcasm that is right there!  Mom refuses to put a cardigan on still so she’s sat there in her top and trousers, I’m sat there in my fluffy layers.  It really makes me appreciate having a roof over my head, I can’t imagine what it’s like to sleep on the streets, because then it’s not just the cold you have to think about, it’s the fear too.

I really need to go shopping or do it online, we’ve barely got any fresh veggies, I keep putting it off, I could just buy a few things from the Co-op I guess.  Need to get my meal plan head on and eat some good healthy meals.

Honey and mustard salmon – I bought some wholegrain mustard that has honey in it so that would go lush on top of the salmon and cooked in the oven, serve with puy lentils and some veg.

Cod with a herb crust – I have some stale bread I could whizz up and add some herbs too (I have lots left after last weeks cooking demo, thinking the lemon one.   I could even add some parmesan cheese to it, mmm nice.  That’ll be lush, I might even try and give butter bean mash a go again, add some fried onions, maybe a bit of chorizo too.  Have it with roasted tomatoes.

I have a cooked chicken breast leftover, might cook some noodles and do a chicken chow mein style thing.

I have tuna steaks in the freezer too, so there’s easily a weeks worth of food in my house without having to do a big shop, I’ll just buy a few bits from Co-op save me the trip and think about doing an online shop for the weekend.

I also want to do a corned beef hash this week too, especially as it’s lower in Smart Points not eggs and sweetcorn are zero.  I was considering messing about and adding a bit of butternut squash with the potato to lower the points even more or bulk out the portions.  Of couse you can use spray light and leave the butter out of this recipe, depends how much taste you want in it and how much you’re willing to compromise.  Corned beef and chorizo hash would be epic!

Corned Beef Hash

Serves 4, 12 Smart Points per portion

Replace the tinned sweetcorn with frozen peas, if you like.

2½ tbsp olive oil (12sp)
1 large red onion, sliced into thin wedges
Knob of butter (2sp per teaspoon)
400g waxy potatoes (such as charlotte), cut into 2cm chunks (i used the small ones, left skin on and cut in half) (10sp)
1 tsp chilli flakes
2 tsp dried thyme or 2 or 3 sprigs of fresh
300g tin corned beef, cut into chunks (Princes is 22SP)
120g tin sweetcorn, drained and rinsed
4 large free-range eggs

Parboil potatoes for about 6-8 minutes. At the same time, add 1 tbsp of the oil to a large frying pan and gently fry the onion over a low heat for 6 minutes to soften. Remove to a bowl and set aside.

Add another splash of oil and the butter to the pan, increase the heat to medium-high and fry the potatoes for 10 minutes until beginning to crisp and turn golden. Stir in the chilli flakes and dried thyme, fry for another minute or so, then add the corned beef. Season

Continue frying the corned beef, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes until starting to crisp. Stir in the sweetcorn and return the cooked onion to the pan. Cook for a couple more minutes to warm through.

Meanwhile, heat the remaining olive oil in another large frying pan, crack the eggs into the pan and fry until the white has just set. Serve the corned beef and sweetcorn hash on warmed plates and top each serving with a fried egg.

Right I’m off to sit in the living room because I’m freezing my bits off here in my office, I’ll take my ipads down there and do what I need to do, the computer can wait till the sun rises and it warms up a little.  Or maybe I’ll do a bit of housework and warm myself up, I have a pile of ironing I could tackle, or I could turn the telly on again and grab my crocheting, isn’t that what winters all about, hibernating till Spring.

Have a magic Monday people, I’ll enjoy whatever I decide to do – promise.