Monday 16 January 2023

Monday, 16-01-23: low spend/no spend January

Good morning, everyone.

The start of another week and I'm quite pleased that I have meal tentative plans in place for the week.  Usually I plan the day or a couple of days in advance but I know when I plan for the week, I am better at sticking to the SW guidelines.
It's not tablets of stone, things will probably change, but it really helps to have a starting point.

Yesterday's meals:
I ended up not having much of a breakfast.  I started into defrosting the chest freezer after getting it all sorted out and tidied up a few days ago.  The idea was to get it emptied, do the necessary (very necessary) scraping, etc, put some bowls of boiling water in, close the lid and let the heat do the other necessary.
I came in and did Lindsey's Shimmy Snippet (a six minute stretch) and then played games on the PC, went out to check, saw all the remaining frost had gone, started mopping up (very easy), etc and it wasn't until I had come back in, having set the freezer to fast freeze that I realised I hadn't eaten.
There was no point starting to cook then as I needed to start dinner so I just grabbed a nice, juicy pear and that was fine.


I really enjoyed this roast turkey dinner.  So delicious.


I had an apple later on in the afternoon, then an orange and then, rather naughty but still within syns, a hot chocolate.


Not the best photos, sorry.  This was dinner/tea - chicken cooked in Nellie the Ninja with a big old simple salad and coleslaw.  It was nice and very filling.

I didn't have any room for the planned yogurt so that would help to 'pay back' the hot chocolate calories - and if it hadn't, it wouldn't have been a problem anyway.



Today's plans:

B:  poached egg on toast with tomatoes and mushrooms
One slice of toast done the spray way and I'll give the Ninja method of poaching an egg another airing
SW:  half a healthy extra B

L:  soup from freezer, grated cheese; fruit
I'm not sure which soup I will get out yet but they are all syn free/SW friendly.
SW:  one healthy extra A for the cheese

D:  SW friendly cassoulet, side salad; yogurt
 Cassoulet is basically sausages, beans (such as cannellini beans), pancetta, onion and tomato; it tends to be fatty/oily and it's very flavoursome - just a fancy sausage casserole, really.  St Delia adapted it to make what she calls her 'Poor Man's Cassoulet' and I am adapting that to make a more SW friendly version, using chipolata sausages, lean bacon, maybe chorizo too, onion, veg and some tinned cannellini beans (or other beans, if I don't have cannellini beans) plus the usual seasonings.  The chorizo should add flavour.
Delia also sprinkles breadcrumbs over the top; I will ponder doing that as I do have breadcrumbs in the freezer and haven't planned all my healthy extra B today.
It won't need to be the long, slow cook the recipe demands because the beans are already cooked, but I'll start it off on the hob and then pop it all in the slow cooker for a couple of hours rather than use the oven.
I won't use all the cannellini (or whatever) beans but I have a bag of mixed beans in the freezer so I can open freeze the leftover beans and add them to the bag.
Here's the link to Delia's recipe, if you're interested. 
SW:  two sausages will be four syns, the bacon is protein, as are the beans, the chorizo is three and a half syns, if I add breadcrumbs, they will be half a healthy extra B and the yogurt will be half a syn

E:  Shimmy Snippet of a fifteen minute energise clip and circuits later on.

Summary:
one healthy extra A
one healthy extra B
eight syns

What is low spend, no spend?

All I will buy through January is essentials - and by that I mean food such as fresh fruit, veg and dairy/eggs.  All other foods will come out of my existing supplies and, to be honest, that may not be much of a challenge.  Also included in any low spend essentials are cleaning products and toiletries although I think I am fine for the latter.  
Also anything else essential that I won't think of until it lands!
That is the low spend part.

Everything else, unless it is either a regular bill/payment/commitment, will not happen.  No sneaky little Amazon purchases, no 'bargains' from the supermarket, certainly no clothes . . .
That's the no spend part.


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