The Great Katie Bake Off

First full week back at Weight Watchers and I’ve lost a pound. Secretly I was hoping it would be more, but hey a pound off is a pound gone and it puts me back on the weight loss road! I've also managed to fit in two zumba classes, one Just Jhoom class and I even turned down a bit of caramel shortcake one  particularly stressful!

Now as much as I love cake, I hate watching programmes where people cook, I just don’t get the attraction. The fact people get so wound up about TV shows like “The Great British Bake Off” amazes me. However the headline “Baked Alaska Scandal”, which apparently was worthy enough to make the front of most British newspapers and “Heat” magazine (step aside alleged Beyoncé / Kim K feud,  dissing someone's baked goods is where it's at) 

   From what I can gather some bloke with a beard made a Baked Alaska and some woman with grey hair could have possibly left the fridge door open and ruined it. He threw it in the bin and she left because she wasn’t very well. The beardy man has since said it was nothing to do with the lady, he just made a crap Baked Alaska. CONTROVERSIAL! And if I'm honest I have no idea what a baked Alaska even is!

  I decided it was time to create a bit of controversy in my own kitchen this week by actually using it for something other than making a cup of coffee!

  So on Saturday afternoon as the mighty Stags took on Burton Albion and the commentary blared out, I decided to get my bake on.

  Having trawled my Weight Watchers cookbooks, I decided to give sausage rolls a go. Now let me say if you’ve never made sausage rolls, they’re quite hard to do, the difficulty rating of "1" on the recipe was in my opinion a blatant lie! I bought some low fat sausages and for the first time ever filo pastry graced my shopping bag. I have learnt that I have a look at the recipe, get a vague idea of what should be happening and then do it my way (I blame my love of Frank Sinatra for this)

  I squeezed the sausage meat out of the sausages into a bowl, added some chives, some black pepper and a chopped onion. I then put it into some filo pastry and rolled them up. If I do say so myself they looked OK.

 

There are actual sausage rolls under what looks like a mess of crispy pastry!

 I bunged them in the oven and waited. It soon became apparent that one sheet of filo pastry was not going to be enough, so I kept adding more and more layers, until eventually I think I’d used about 4 on each one. By the time they were done, I’m pretty sure Greggs weren’t having a re-think of their sausage roll strategy!

The sausage roll aftermath (which sounds like a good title for a horror film!)

  I think points wise, the sausage rolls were probably about 5 points each, but they tasted OK and everyone that ate them is still alive and didn’t end up in hospital with a crippling stomach condition, so that in book makes them a success!

  Maybe I should sign myself up for “Master Chef” afterall!

Any Excuse for a Cheap Tossing Gag

Anyone who works or has ever worked in radio will tell you that Pancake Day is one of their favourite days of the year. Why? Is it because it’s an excuse to eat yummy pancakes live on air, when eating in the studio is normally banned in case you drop a crumb into an important bit of equipment? No it’s because legitimately you can say the word “tosser” repeatedly on air and even ask listeners if “they’ll be tossing tonight” and no one will phone OFCOM to complain!

  This blog will probably just prove that you can take the girl out of radio, but not radio out of the girl, so there’ll probably be a few cheap tossing gags!

  I really feel like I’m back on track now and even though I stayed the same this week, I am focused and really trying. I’ve been to the gym, walked miles with the dog and started wearing my pedometer everyday. Yesterday at work I earned 7 points just walking around a classroom!

  I’ve also been experimenting with different Weight Watchers recipes, because I felt I was getting into a bit of a food rut. I have inherited many good qualities from my Mum, however I also inherited her inability to cook! 

  At Christmas having seen a picture on Pinterest of a wreath made out of cupcakes, I felt inspired to give it a go. I didn’t intend to eat the cakes, Lucy was going to take them into work, but I felt a Sunday afternoon of baking would be fun and relaxing. Now the cupcakes themselves were perfectly edible, however cake decorating really isn’t a talent and my kitchen looked as though the Incredible Hulk had broken in and had an accident all over the work surface.

  Even 3 months on, this picture still makes me giggle!

mmmmm, yummy Christmas cupcakes, which are meant to resemble a wreath!

  Anyway undeterred this week I decided that rather than buying cooking sauces I would make them! They'd be delicious and point free! With the aid of chopped tomatoes, garlic and a herb rack that's sat unused in the corner of my kitchen for 10 months I got to work.  The sauce itself was successful and I left my dinner happily cooking in my slow cooker so that when I returned from the gym, it was a case of dishing  it up. It however turns out my slow cooker had other ideas.

R.I.P slow cooker

  Despite intensive research, I am yet to discover another person who has burnt off the bottom of their slow cooker!

  You’d think I would have given up, but not me! Every year I promise myself I’ll cook pancakes on Shrove Tuesday and every year I forget and decide I’ll do it next year! Not this year, this year I tossed with the rest of the population! We got off to a slightly shaky start because the Weight Watchers recipe specified blueberries and I had strawberries and I don’t own a frying pan so I had to use my wok. I like to consider myself a problem solver.

  My pancake got off to a winning start.

Looking good!

And then it didn’t.

Are they meant to look like this?

Making pancakes is hard, anyone says differently is a naughty little teller of fibs and warts will grow on their tongues

  Still you didn’t grow up in the Trinder household with chef Pamela without having a cast iron tummy so I ate them anyway and although they looked horrible, they tasted pretty good, but that could have been the strawberries and golden syrup.

It's normal to eat a pancake out of a bowl right?

  You’d think it would deter me from cooking altogether, but I’ve found that my dishes make me laugh so much that I actually enjoy cooking! But a word to the wise, just for now if I invite you round for dinner, suggest we go out instead!

  Oh and instead of giving something up for Lent, I’ve taken something up instead. For the next 40 days I’m doing my own version of the plank challenge, I did start this last year, but on day 20 I went on holiday and it fell by the wayside, so I’m trying again!