Saturday, 04-03-23: more low-spend March

 Morning, everyone!

One and a half pounds off yesterday.  I was so very pleased with that!  

As I've bought a countdown (basically, paying for several sessions up front), I have another new recipe book.  This one is called Cook, Slim, Save and is supposed to focus of frugal SW meals.  I'm looking forward to having a good nosey through it.

And then I won the raffle - woo hoo!

Yesterday's meals:

I had a banana at group and then got this fruit plate ready.  However, I only had one of the easy peelers.  No room for the rest and no yogurt either.

This was the leftovers of the Korean style noodles (without beef!).  I spray stir fried half a sliced chicken breast, some onion, pepper and mushroom, added the leftovers plus a bit of soy sauce and heated it to bubbling.
You know what - it was absolutely delicious.  One up for that particular Slimming World ready meal.

Later on, I had a pear and some grapes.

Now - dinner.

I made the burgers with 100g lean beef mince, one red onion and rosemary sausage, some softened onion, 15g grated cheddar, salt, pepper and garlic granules, all mixed together and formed into burgers using dampened hand so they didn't stick.  

Using one pitta instead of two rolls worked a real treat and I added one cheese slice and one medallion of bacon to each burger.

This cropped photo shows them better.  I liked the pitta better than a bread roll so will do that again.

They were so yummy but I only had room for one of them (which cuts the calories/healthy extras a fair bit) and the other is currently wrapped in foil and in the fridge.  I will warm it up in Nellie at lunch time.

Today's plans

B:  waffles with fruit and yogurt

I haven't had waffles for a while and I do love them.

I'll be doing my 'tweak' of using 40g SR wholemeal as a B choice for this.  I know it isn't strictly SW canon but B is about fibre and 40g SR wholemeal has fewer calories and more fibre than 40g oats - so there!   😉

SW:  one healthy extra B.  I will use 0% Greek yogurt so that's syn free.

L:  the other pitta burger with salad; fruit

I'm looking forward to this - it will be interesting how it comes out after reheating.

SW:  three syns for half a pitta (I've already had my healthy extra B) and half an A for the cheese slice.  Also, if I make coleslaw, one syn for salad cream.

D:  spaghetti alla puttanesca, maybe a side salad; yogurt

This is a recipe from the SW Fast Feasts recipe book.  I have so many marked to try - see . . .

Should keep me going with new recipes for a while and I also have the new book too.

Anyway, this is meat free and I will probably increase the olives as I do love them.

SW:  the book says this is one and a half syns but, with the amounts I am using, it will be more like two-ish as I will go for more olives.  One healthy extra A for up to 30g hard Italian cheese.  Also half a syn for yogurt

Ex:   A Lindsey session

Summary:

one and a half healthy extra As

one healthy extra B

three and a half syns

What do I mean by low spend?

At the beginning of this year, as part of a de-cluttering thing, I did a detailed audit of all the food I had in cupboards, fridge and freezer and was somewhat horrified at how much stuff I had.
So I determined to make a huge effort to reduce it down and use it up with minimal waste.

January and February were no spend and low spend months respectively.  March is going to be another low spend month with just a few exceptions and, of course, all the essentials.  It has got to work with Slimming World.

'Essential' means  food such as fresh fruit, veg and dairy/eggs and other essentials including things like cleaning products and toiletries as needed.  A few other things will come up through the month but generally it is just real essentials as I see 'essential'.
Of course, all regular bills, direct debits, etc, will still be paid as usual - they are essential.

It's really helping in these difficult times.  I am still able to save a wodge of my income (which is all pensions now) as I have done since I retired, plus a bit more.  After all, at some point, I will have to start replacing things - just not yet.