Friday, 01-05-26

Good evening, everyone.  Welcome to May!  Weigh in was shocking - not that I was actually shocked, I expected it after a foody and drinky holiday - but you know what I mean.

So it's even more important to eat healthily and very well now, combining the best way of eating in the world with Slimming World principles.

And NO ALCOHOL!!

😇😇😇

As planned, I didn't have any breakfast and I really didn't miss it.   I think that as long as I can keep myself busy I won't think about food and when I don't think about food, I don't feel hungry until later.

Lunch was lovely.  I did a Cretan 'feast' for me and Diane and she said it was lovely.

We started with some bread, some evoo and balsamic vinegar and some hummus (I had some hm hummus in the freezer)

One fibre choice for the bread, half a fats choice for the evoo and two swips for the hummus (I always write swips on the freezer bag or pot).

Then we moved on to Cretan dakos.  I made the barley rusks yesterday and, while not exactly like the ones we had on holiday, they were still pretty good.

They are twice baked and very hard so you sprinkle a bit of water over the top and that slightly softens them.  On top you spread simple chopped tomato with maybe a bit of seasoning but you need the contrast between the sweetness of the tomato and the saltiness of the crumbled feta on top as well as the textural contrasts.

A bit of ground pepper and a spray or two of evoo and you're done.  Very simple.
Instead of barley rusks, you could bake any slice of bread to crunchiness.  It would still work.

Four swips for the rusk, half a calcium choice for the feta and the spray oil is negligible.
(I sprayed and weighed ages ago to find how many sprays to a swip using my spray bottle and it is twelve and a half)

Then I made these stuffed tomatoes.  I halved two san marzano plum tomatoes and scooped out the flesh (there's very few seeds in a plum tomato), a bit of finely chopped mushroom and ditto onion, a squeeze of lemon juice, a bit of salt and pepper and half a tsp evoo (one swip).

I mixed the chopped flesh with three or four chopped olives, a little bit from a pouch of wholegrain rice, quinoa, pumpkin and sunflower seeds (from Aldi).

I put the half tomato shells in an oven proof dish and spooned in the filling.  I roasted it, covered, in the air fryer for fifteen minutes.  Then I topped each half with a small round of goat's cheese and air fried, uncovered, for about seven minutes.

I was so pleased with this.
The cheese was the other half of my calcium and the pouch contents, the olives and the evoo together came to one swip (per portion, two halves)

After that we had a very simple salad of mixed leaves, pepper, tomato and cucumber with half a swip's worth of of M&S low fat French dressing (which is actually quite nice.

Last of all we had chicken and bean orzo.  I made it yesterday but didn't take any notes.  However I remember that it had four swips (each) for evoo; all the other ingredients were speed or free.

However, there are leftovers so I am calling it six swips for me altogether.

There were leftovers of the chicken and bean orzo so I enjoyed that with a simple salad.  Swips already counted!

Summary:

One each of the healthy extras
Thirteen swips

L:  spicy cheese dip with carrot and pepper batons; spanakopita triangle (from M&S) with salad

D:  chicken gyros

And fruit