Family Meal: Risotto Recipe

This is such an easy recipe to throw together (and throw together is pretty much how I make it), as well as being healthy and one that we often make in our house. I first started making this as a simple mushroom risotto with sliced mushrooms and peas. It's quick and easy and apart from the mushrooms we often have all the ingredients available to hand. Now that we have kids we are always looking for ways of getting them to eat vegetables. Our now 2 year old was so good at eating just about anything, including my mushroom risotto, but like a lot of kids, has become more selective the older he's got. So I've changed the way I make the risotto so we can still keep it on our list of meals he'll eat that include vegetables (which isn't many).

The Secrets Of Gym-Haters To Stay In Shape

Even though it has become a popular meeting venue for everyone and their dog, it doesn’t mean that you have to love the gym. In fact, for a lot of people, the gym is nothing else than an unhygienic waste of time. It’s easy to understand why. After all, not all gyms are kept as spotless as they should, and there is no joy in holding the sweaty hand bar on the treadmill while wondering how many hands have held it before you today. Not every gym member brings a towel to keep the equipment clean and dry, so it can be really unpleasant to use a machine right after them. Additionally, when you’re trying to get back in shape, there’s nothing more frustrating than jogging next to super fit individuals which make you feel bad about yourself just by looking at them. Naturally, it would be unfair to forget the membership fees, which can be extortionately high with some gym studios. In other words, you shouldn’t feel awkward about hating the gym. The right gym can be great depending on your personality, but there are a lot of bad gym facilities that give a terrible rep to the venue. Don’t worry, though. You don’t have to sign up to your local gym to stay fit. There are plenty of alternatives for gym-haters.

counting calories

Batch Cooking - Week 2

Our 2nd week of batch cooking was going to be the real test as that was when I returned to work. This week wasn't as successful as the first, mainly because we forgot to take things out of the freezer the night before. But I will share with you what I found to work and not work as far as I remember.

Here are my results of the 2nd week. Again there are a few tweaks needed, but we did have success in general. Mainly we need to remember in the evening to look to see what is for dinner the next day. It may be as simple as taking something out of the freezer and nothing more. I don't have a full week of meals as we were away for the weekend. But here are the results I have.

Batch Cooking - Week 1

If you saw my post about batch cooking you'll know that we made/prepared enough meals for 2 weeks. This was to save time when I was back at work and it meant we'd still eat good home cooked meals that were tasty, without the time and effort on the day. We made enough for dinner and lunch the next day. So the only meal we had to think about in a day was our breakfast.

Here are my results of the 1st week. There are a few tweaks needed, but mostly it turned out really well.

Monday dinner - Chicken, bacon & veg pasta

For this meal all the meat and veg were chopped and in the fridge ready to be cooked. We placed the chopped veg into a freezer bag and added herbs and passata (or whatever sauce we were having). So all that was needed to make dinner Monday night was to cook the meat, add the veg, then cook pasta enough for both dinner and lunch the next day. This was so quick and easy. I didn't have to think about what we were having or spend time chopping anything. So there were less dishes and within around 15 - 20 mins we had a really delicious and healthy meal. This is also 0 syns on Slimming World.

I will definitely do this again.

Food Prep and Batch Cooking

Sorry for the poor quality of photo, but by time I got to photograph everything it was late.

I'm heading back to work in just over a week after 11 months off on maternity leave. And in order to get organised and not let being back at work seem too much of an ordeal we had a productive weekend batch cooking and prepping food. We made roughly enough food for dinner and lunches for 2 weeks. There's some spare as we made extra mince bolognese, but that will just go towards the next batch cooking.

Hubby's Weight Loss

I've shared quite a bit about my weight loss since having my baby and mentioned that my husband (Keith) has been following the Slimming World plan with me. I know people can tell how much weight I've lost since I've lost around 1.5 (9.5 kilos) stone now, but it's not extremely obvious as I have just gone back to what I was. Well since we started recording our weight, Keith has lost 2.3 stone in weight (14.3 kilos). It's the first time he's been this weight in YEARS!!! I don't think he remembers when he was last this weight.

Baby Naming blessing Part 2 - Weight Loss - What I Wore

If you want to see part 1 of these posts click this link:

Baby Naming blessing Part 1 - New Jamberry Wraps

So it's been around a month since my last update on my weight loss. Since that time I've only lost around 4 pounds, but I'm getting to a weight that's been really hard for me to maintain in the past. I've been lower than this, but only when I didn't have a car and walked everywhere because I didn't want to pay for a bus. So I'm really pleased that I've managed to loose those few pounds.

Weight Loss Update

What I wore today

I wanted to give you an update on how I'm doing with my weight loss plan as today was weigh day.

Around a month ago I wrote a blog post about dealing with my post pregnancy weight. I've added the link at the bottom of this page. I had a goal in mind to loose some weight by my babies naming blessing which is a month from now. My main goal is to feel a lot more confident in what I'm wearing.

I'll give you a little background on what weight I had to loose. Before I fell pregnant I'd put on around half a stone since I'd got married. Not because I wanted to, but because it's just one of those things, watching my weight wasn't on top of the list at the time and it's easy to put on a bit of weight. While I was pregnant I put on between 2 and 2.5 stones. I don't know the exact figures as I don't religiously weigh myself, but I know approximately my weights.

Jelly Mousse - Slimming World

This has become our favourite Slimming World sweet treat. It's so quick and easy to make and you can make a few potions that sit in the fridge. Making it a quick dessert after dinner to just grab and eat.

Rice Pudding - Slimming World Syn Free

This was a really easy recipe to make and tasted great. Often when you're trying to find alternatives for recipes you have the memory of what you know something should taste like. So then get disappointed when the alternative doesn't quite match up. 

Slimming World Roulade

I made this Roulade recently which is only 1/2 a syn on Slimming World for the whole cake. I had a quarter serving, which is only 0.125 of a syn. I thought it tasted lovely and it was so easy to make. I had a spare 15 - 20 mins while my baby slept, then finished it off with the fruit later once it had cooled down. I added strawberries and blueberries, but you could add any combo of fruit.

Dealing With My Post Pregnancy Baby Weight

39 Weeks Pregnant

My baby is now 4 months, 3 weeks old and in reality it's not all that long since I had my baby, but part of me feels I should have done more about the extra weight I gained by now. I got rather big while I was pregnant as you can see in the photo, but it was all belly. From what I could tell I hadn't put much weight on elsewhere. For the 9 months of being pregnant I had very little chocolate or sweet things as it made me feel sick. But I did have a packet of crisps daily, the salt helped neutralise the nausea. After I'd had my baby I liked all things sweet again, so it was like I was trying to make up for lost time.

Allow yourself time to eat what you want.
I'm glad I allowed myself time to just eat what I wanted without thought. I'd had 9 months of nausea, heart burn and being sick. The last thing I needed to do was start worrying about what I was eating when I had a new born baby. Although saying that eating healthy was important, especially at first when I was feeding my baby breast milk. The meals I had frozen before he was born really helped with having good, nutritious meals. But I wasn't counting calories and if I wanted bread with the soup or stew I had in the freezer I did.