I Don't Want to Quark About It

I saw a fellow Weight Watcher post the other day that after being back off her holiday a week she’d now undone some of the damage and had “only put 8 pounds on” After getting back from my holiday I fully sympathise I appeared to ignore all the fruit, salad and healthy options and instead tuck right into fried breakfasts, pasta and then there was the chocolate fountain. Man those things are fun, what’s not to love about sticking a piece of marshmallow on a piece of wood and then shoving it into vat of melted chocolate? I’ll tell you what’s not to love about it getting on the scales when you get home!

  So since my return, I’ve really gone back to basics and have even started cooking things from scratch! Now if you read my blog regularly, you will know I’m not one of those people that posts pictures of how lovely their meals are and boasts about what a great cook they are!

  To recap, this was actually a crock-pot after an “over enthusiastic” casserole.

No one was injured in the damaging of this crock pot

  This was my attempt at a pancake

No really it's a pancake

And this was my popcorn effort.

mmmmm tasty 

 Although I’ve since bought a healthy popcorn maker so my corn now looks more like this (hurrah)

When in doubt buy a machine to make it for you!

  I’ve had my cookbooks out and decided to give the Weight Watchers “Filling and Healthy” a go; basically it encourages you to eat foods that keep you well … full and healthy. So this week some weird shit has been going down in my kitchen, (not in a Walter White fashion I hastened to add!) I’ve made my own tomato sauce using Passata. I’ll be honest I had to Google what passata was, I had a vague idea it would be something to do with tomatoes, but wasn’t sure.

Passata...posh word for tomatoes in a jar!

  I’ve also started using Quark. Again a product I’d never heard of,  but once you get used to the slight bitter taste it’s OK and I have crafted this into a make shift mayo to go with tuna and also into a nice red pepper dip.

  It makes me laugh that I’m using these ingredients in my cooking, when I didn’t know what Ciabatta was until I went to university. I remember a friend ordering a bacon and Brie Ciabatta and I shyly asked for the same, thinking well I know what bacon and Brie are, so it will probably be OK. When it came it turns out Ciabatta is Italian for “really hard bread”

  After just a few days back on the straight and narrow and my culinary efforts are paying off because I’ve already lost a couple of pounds, so hopefully by my next weigh in I’ll be back on track.

  At the weekend I’ve been persuaded to try a roast beetroot and trout salad, I’m still reeling from the news you can roast a beetroot and not just buy them pickled in a jar!

  Any healthy recipe (Katie friendly) ideas you have feel free to post them!

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!