Pie

It was a glorious day today and so we decided to take a walk into town. We really need something now to boost our weight loss and start toning ourselves up, because this weight loss, over seven stone between us, has all been done sans exercise. We managed a six mile walk anyway, which is quite something for us. Had a nice walk on Bangor Pier. I have now seized up though.

Last night's tea was Pulled pork with salad and Pinch of Nom savoury rice (recipe here). And for tonight... drumroll... I was going to attempt to make my little pie-loving husband a passable, low syn pie. Do I retain my Wife of The Year ™ title? Well. Feast your eyes on this baby.

Oh. My. God.

The 'pastry' recipe, courtesy of the Hairy Bikers cookbook 'Hairy Dieters: How to Love Food and Lose Weight' is actually made from packet mix pizza dough. You can find this recipe online too here. I didn't fancy their pie filling, although I'm sure it's probably nice, it just didn't grab me. So instead, I put some chunks of steak, chestnut mushrooms and onions in the slow cooker. Once they were cooked, I drained the mixture, added a beef stock pot and a red wine stock pot.

My own checks of the syn values of the pack of dough mix came out at 19 syns, but don't take my word for it. I split this amount into three balls of dough, and synned them at 7 syns each, I froze the surplus one for next time.

I used one ball of dough for the top and one for the bottom. I was able to roll it really thin, so it went a long, long way. Once baked, I cut the pie in half. We also synned some oven chips to go with it, because you can't have a pie without chips, right?

Anyway. It looked like pie. It smelled like pie. And the most important factor in this. It tasted like pie. There's nothing worse than the disappointment of a tweak, or a substitution, when it doesn't quite hit the mark. Think... pizza made with a cauliflower crust, or pasties made with Weight Watchers wraps. Yeah, they're ok... possibly better than nothing, but ultimately... meh? It's not something that I will make every week (although Mr G might have other ideas...) but it's really good to know, that if the urge strikes, we can have a pie, that tastes like a pie, and it's on plan. You should have seen Mr G's little face, bless him.

So. With the pie box firmly ticked for this week, we shall press on with curries! I have a huge pan of curry gravy on the hob, syn free and packed full of speed food. With a Pork Vindaloo and a Chicken Saagwalla to go at this week, I can't wait to (hopefully) add some more 'downfall' meals to my SW arsenal.