Saturday, 28-09-19

Good morning.

No photos (and there won't be for a few days) because I have a visitor and in never seems very polite to old-fashioned me to whip out a camera and make people wait while I take photos!

I had a go at making SW friendly crunchy sweet potato fries yesterday.  Usually, when I'm with Dad, on Friday evenings we are out at the Millstream and he does love his sweet potato fries there.  They coat them with something that makes them crunchy and they're jolly nice.
So I did a bit of research, ignoring the loadsa-oil/ten step process type recipes and, out of what I found, did this . . .
First of all I soaked the peeled and chipped sweet potato in water for an hour or so.  After draining them and roughly drying them on a clean tea towel, I popped them in a poly bag, added a tbsp of cornflour (just one syn per tbsp) and shook it all together.
Then I popped them in the actifry (but the oven would have worked too) at 200 for 25 mins, added one tbsp oil and set them off, stopping now and again to give them a quick spray and once to add salt and garlic granules.

They really were nice and definitely on the crunchy side and were all scoffed with pleasure.

However, next time and cooking for one, I will try less flour (maybe one tsp) and when they are floured, I will lay them out on a board and spray them before they go into the actifry, making sure they are completely coated as it was really hard to do this once they were in the actifry bowl.  Adding the salt and seasonings half way through is recommended and does stop things like garlic from over-cooking. 

As sweet potato is a free food, half a tbsp cornflour is half a syn and the spray oil is free, this will make a delicious addition to my regular SW repertoire!  And when I've got it properly sorted, I will write it up as a recipe.

Today's food:
B:  fruit and yogurt
I've just made a batch of yogurt and this batch tastes really good so I shall enjoy this.
SW:  free

L:  bean and veg soup
The usual recipe, packed with lovely veg, both speed and non-speed, with protein from the pulses and some orzo for a bit of carb.  It's a complete meal in a bowl.
SW:  free

D:  chicken quesadillas with chips (SW made, of course) and peas
Not the usual accompaniment to quesadillas, I think, but I don't think Dad has ever had them before and I want to keep some familiar things in place.
SW:  One healthy extra B for the wrap and up to two As for the cheese.  If I have mayo to dunk the chips, that will be no more than one more syn.

Ss:  tomatoes

Body Magic:  A tricky one today.  I shall take the scenic route to Morrison's at eight o'clock to get the paper for Dad (and a few more bits and bobs) and I think I might take my newly aquired stopwatch and try a bit of timed jogging (as long as no-one is around!) as I'm not going to be able to do my next week 1 session of C-5K today.  I might be able to fit one in tomorrow late afternoon.

This stopwatch is a pretty simple (and cheap) affair; even I had no problems with understanding the very minimalistic instructions.  It seems to me that if I'm going to have even half a go at a bit of C-5K without the podcasts, I need more than just a wristwatch really.