Wednesday, 15-03-23: more-low-spend March

 Morning, everyone!

Shopping this morning, two weeks since the last shop.  It feels quite exciting.  
Also, there are definitely spaces in the freezers and I'm now thinking I can amalgamate the contents of two of the lower bags and move some stuff over from the upright freezer before long.  More exciting!

Yesterday's meals:

Having one waffle for breakfast rather than both was much better 

I added a level tsp of mixed seeds (one syn) to the waffle mixture and it was lovely.  So now, to make two, the recipe is:
40g wholemeal SR flour
one egg

about half a pot of Mullerlight

one level tsp mixed seeds

water 

any flavourings/sweetener to own taste

I had an apple before Groove and the waffle, fruit and yogurt afterwards.

I just chopped up a 'red' salad (tomatoes, pepper, radishes and pickled beetroot) to go with the Korean-style beef noodles for lunch.

By the way, I found the recipe elsewhere than just on the SW site:

https://bestslimmingworld.com/slimming-world-recipe-korean-beef-noodles/

Later on, I had an orange and enjoyed the second waffle.   Nice!

I know this looks very 'orange' but it was absolutely delicious and easier than it sounds.
I roasted tomatoes, pepper and onion in Nellie, then blended them all with some water before pushing it through a sieve and discarding the bits that were left.
To that, I added chicken stock powder, garlic and tomato purees, chilli flakes, salt and pepper.

I made the meatballs as per my burger recipe, shaped it into five meatballs, each with a chunk of babybel light inside and air fried them in Nellie, 15 mins at 200.  They were bigger than I usually make meatballs because of the cheese in the middle.

I boiled 40g spaghetti.

Then I spray fried some skinned and chopped tomatoes, orange pepper, sugar snaps and baby corn, added the sauce and let it simmer to thicken, then added the meatballs and let it summer a bit longer.
I removed two of the meatballs and half the sauce before adding the rest to the spaghetti and plating it up.  Really gorgeous and I'm looking forward to the rest today.

Today's plans

B:  fruit and yogurt

SW:  half a syn for yogurt

L:  pasta and meatballs, side salad; fruit

I'll boil up some fusilli to go with the meatballs, just a 30g portion.

SW:  half a healthy extra A

D:  Tracy Mouse's cheesy chicken and ham pie, assorted veg; yogurt

Tracy Mouse is a YouTuber who I have followed for ages and she made this recently.  It looked dead easy and I have some nice chunks of gammon from he weekend.  It should make more than one portion.

Details tomorrow, if it works as well as I think it will.

Here's the link to Tracy's channel
https://www.youtube.com/@tracymouse

SW:  half a syn and one healthy extra A plus another half syn for yogurt

Ex:  the shopping will involve some walking and it's personal training this afternoon.

Summary:

one and a half healthy extra As

no healthy extra Bs

one syn

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 - hey 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.