Monday, 10-05-21

 Good morning!
I've discovered a new ingredient.  It's called ketjap manis and I'd never come across it before Hewllo Fresh.  Have you heard of it / used it?

The BBC Good Food site says:
"Ketjap manis is a thick, sweet, rich, syrupy Indonesian version of soy sauce containing sugar and spices"
and
"Look for ketjap manis in specialist oriental stores. Chinese and Japanese soy sauces are not in themselves suitable substitutes; if they were used to replace ketjap manis, the dish would need additional sweetening."
so now I know.

It's rather good and definitely added a deeper flavour to the chicken noodles dish.
I've looked it up and the SW site tells me that it's between one and a half and two syns per level tbsp and, as a side, that M&S sell it so guess where I am going to be looking.  If that fails, Amazon sells it too - is there anything that Amazon doesn't sell?

What I ate yesterday.

Oh, my, this was so good.  The base is lo dough, the sauce was spray fried tomatoes with garlic puree, tomato puree and a tbsp bbq sauce plus a splash of water.  
So delicious!

Lunch was mushroom risotto.  No butter, no wine, but it was so good.
I'm really pleased that it made loads so I have two more portions to freeze and to have another time, maybe with added veg, chicken, ham, whatever.   So not only free, also plentiful!

The only problem was too much spinach.  I might do a bit of picking out at some point.

Later on in the afternoon, I had an apple and some grapes.

Dinner - the second portion of chicken noodles - was also very tasty.  In fact, it's been a great day's food and I've really enjoyed everything.

Today's plans:

B:  tomatoes, scrambled eggs and mushroom
SW:  all speed and protein

L:  roasted butternut squash and tomato soup; fruit

Because of the four portion mistake, I have a butternut squash and a red onion going a-begging so I thought I would combine it with a can of chopped tomatoes and some stock to make a soup for me and Beth for lunch today.
I'm making it now as we may have lunch at different times.  I've chopped up the squash, removing the seeds but not the outside, peeled and wedged the onion, added some thyme and a bay leaf with spray oil and seasonings and that's roasting as I type.  Once that's done, it will all go in Thermione with chopped tomatoes and stock for a bubble and a zizz.
I might make croutons, I'll see what Beth wants, and I will grate some cheese
SW:  the soup is, I think all speed/free, the cheese will be a healthy A and the croutons, if we have them, will be a B choice

D:  H F veggie tostadas with roasted peppers and zesty crema; yogurt

This is the third of the current Hello Fresh box and, as Beth is staying overnight tonight, it works in very well indeed.  It is basically like a flat taco, a flat baked taco with toppings of roasted peppers, a mush of dried kidney beans, Mexican spice, grated carrot, chopped tomatoes and stock plus a 'zesty crema' which is soured cream, lime zest and seasonings.  You take a crispy taco with a dollop of the bean mixture, the roasted peppers, a dollop of the zesty crema a sprinkling of coriander (might omit that as neither of us like coriander) and lime juice.
Doesn't it sound nice - I think so, definitely.

SW:  The soured cream is going to be around three and a half syns and SW says that each taco will be about three and a half syns and, as a portion is three shells, that's ten and a half syns so seventeen and a half syns for the dish (ouch!).  Half a syn for the dessert.

593 calories which is a lot more reasonable and is why sometimes SW misses the bigger picture, just as purely counting calories does also - I shudder at some of the unbalanced higher fat/sugar and low f&v days some of the YouTubers who have gone over to calorie counting have. 
One day using felxi-syns won't hurt.

Body Magic:  Gym and swim

Summary:
one healthy extra A
one healthy extra B (probably)
eighteen syns - instead of, not as well as.  :-)