Sunday, 02-03-25 and what's in my freezer

Hi, everyone!  Welcome to my blog where I talk about my ongoing Slimming World and associated health journeys.  At present, I am working to reduce my 'bad' cholesterol through diet, particularly using the Mediterranean way of eating.

I know I waffle on about using up stuff and thought I would list what I actually do have in my freezer.  

My freezer really is my Best Friend as far as eating healthily and easily goes.  It's quite organised nowadays after years of playing lucky dip and wasting stuff.
It is organised into bags - I have five bags, two metal baskets that came with it and a fast freeze compartment and it's out in the shed part of the garden room which seems to suit it just perfectly.  I've got used to running through the raindrops when I need something and even keep some cheap clogs by the back door to make it easier.

Bag 1 - meat and fish.
This consists of raw stuff - various fish and varied meats - chicken, mince, sausages, that sort of thing.  Nothing cooked.  It's all either individually wrapped or open frozen and then bagged.

Bag 2:  Specials
I keep stuff for specials in here so it was pretty full before Christmas.  I also keep roasting joints in this bag - let's face it, nowadays a roasting joint is a special!

Bag 3:  home produced ready meals, etc
The 'etc' includes things like stock, pastry, home made butter, passata, garden tomatoes, etc, etc.  There isn't much in the way of ready stuff at the moment apart from soup.

They are along the bottom.  Then, sitting on top , , ,

Bag 4:  frozen fruit

Just what it says, bought or home frozen, it all goes in this bag

Bag 5:  bread products

Pittas, wraps, bread crumbs, sliced loaves, bagels, muffins, etc.

Basket 1:  veg

This is crammed full of veg - peas, corn, broccoli, avocado (not a veg, I know), peppers, etc, etc, etc

Basket 2:  ready meals

This is where the Cook's ready meals go

Fast freeze:

Apart from the obvious, this always has a bags of ice, the ice blocks and some flour (keeps well and kills those flour bugs) as well as acting as an overspill, if really needed.

Organising it like this keeps things really, really easy for me and, when it is defrost time, I just lift out those bags, cover them up while the freezer is defrosting and then just lift them back in again.  So, so easy!

Works for me!

What I ate today:

After the Let's Dance class, I didn't want that much so had this fruit.  Grapes are free and the other two are speed.
No syns.

A very nice roast dinner.  One and a half syns for the chutney.

Any ideas for using up cabbage - I seem to have made way too much?  Not bubble and squeak though!

And then I nibbled and picked my way through the afternoon, darn it!

As a result, I wasn't hungry so just had the toastie.

One and a half As, one B and one and a half syns

Summary:

one and a half healthy extra As

one healthy extra B

Unknown syns.

Not the best day ever.  :-(

Tomorrow's plans:

B:  fruit, yogurt and seeds

L:  turkey and chickpea salad; fruit

. . . to use up the leftover turkey, leftover chickpeas and left over lemon-Dijon dressing.  😇😇

D:  cheesy mince pasta bake, side veg or salad; fruit

Exercise:   circuits

Saturday, 01-03-25

Hi, everyone!  Welcome to my blog where I talk about my ongoing Slimming World and associated health journeys.  At present, I am working to reduce my 'bad' cholesterol through diet, particularly using the Mediterranean way of eating.

Doesn't this look nice?

It's not a sourdough loaf, It's far to early in the starter's life for that, but I wanted to practise the sourdough style loaf.  I think it's called a boule.  Anyway, it worked, the house smelled wonderful and I wasn't remotely tempted because I'm giving it to Beth tomorrow.

Win win!

What I ate today:

Breakfast - raspberries, blueberries and grapes with the yogurt and chia seeds under the fruit.

One syn for the chia seeds.

This was the cheesy white bean sauce used to make a macaroni cheese with cauliflower under.

This time, the sauce came out of the freezer and the only difference I noticed was that the cheesy flavour was a bit diminished.  I sprinkled another half As worth of hard Italian cheese over the top and that helped but I will remember - more cheese next time.

Half a healthy A and two and a half syns for the sauce plus another half A of grated cheese.  Also, two syns for dressing on the salad.

Later, I measured out some nuts for my healthy extra B

I found a recipe, downloaded it and now can't remember where I found it, so sorry.   It is chickpea and avocado salad with lemon-Dijon dressing.

The dressing had the usual things with lemon juice as the acid and sumac as well as the usual seasonings.  Nothing sweet though - no honey or maple syrup.

The salad consisted of chickpeas, tomatoes, roasted red peppers, cucumber, red onion, avocado and parsley and mint.  I added some shredded lettuce to the mix too.  I had no parsley but the mint is starting to send up mini leaves so I nipped out a few of them - it won't hurt, even I can't kill mint once it is properly established.
The avocado was two and  half syns, four syns for the dressing and I think that was it.

Summary:  

one healthy extra A

one healthy extra B

twelve syns.

Tomorrow's plans:

B:  fruit, yogurt and seeds

L:  roast turkey dinner; fruit

Beth and Alex are round for lunch so it has to be a good old roast.

D:  cheese, turkey and chutney toastie, quesadilla or pitta - I will decode later - plus a side salad.  Then fruit

Exercise:  a dance/groove online thing.  As Lindsey has said:

"FREE live online Groove taster for “Let’s Dance”. Join me for a 30 minute energy boost as part of this national event hosted by Angela Rippon.