Sunday's Sermon

I'm not looking forward to today because... the tree has to come down. Although, I'm not superstitious in the least, it's just that it's Mr G's last proper day off. Tomorrow is Slimming World, so that takes our day up to noon, and then he will need to sleep in preparation for work. I'm not navigating that shed alone, it's like a Krypton Factor assault course. Keep expecting Gordon Burns to pop up every time I unlock the door. So it's today or it's staying up until next Friday. And it feels wrong too, it's 2020, it's January, a new year, a new decade ffs. I'll finish this coffee and then I'll tentatively suggest going to the shed for the boxes. And by that, I mean, he goes to the shed for the empty storage boxes, and I stay here in the warm.

Mr G cooked tea last night! A two course meal too, so that's his cooking done for the year *eyeroll*

Rump steak, onions and mushrooms, SW chips and mushy peas, preceded by...

King Prawn Cocktail. The sauce was a lighter version made with low fat mayo and fat free greek yogurt, squirt of tomato ketchup, lime juice, Tabasco sauce, salt and pepper and sprinkled with paprika. Bloody lush it was, and even nicer not to have to cook on a Saturday (I hate hate hate cooking on a Saturday!)

This arrived in the post yesterday morning...

I'm looking forward to getting stuck into that. Mr G has already chosen a recipe from the book that he is making (so maybe all is not lost on him cooking again this year). The Tandoori Chicken Burger on page 180, and he's promised to have a crack at it next Saturday (yay!). Between that, new Pinch of Nom and another new SW book that my bestie bought me for Christmas, I have plenty of new recipes to keep me amused and (hopefully) on plan now til I reach my target.

Friday night we had the RecipeTin Eats Chilli recipe and honestly - it is just the best chilli ever. I used to pride myself on having a pretty decent homemade chilli con carne recipe down pat. I now know I will never use it again. Ever. Not even for old times sake. Because this blows everything out of the water. Do check it out here.

The last few times we have used pork shoulder steaks to make this - for the simple reason that they're cheaper than using beef when buying from a supermarket. I can get a huge tray of pork shoulder steaks from Morrisons cheaper than the price of a small piece of braising steak (which won't even fill me up let alone make six or eight portions). When we go to the local meat wholesaler, though, they have big trays of lovely thick braising steak, and we take advantage of those. So, although it is lush with pork, it is just a tad nicer made with steak. I look for the leanest shoulder steaks, leave them whole to cook, and then when I remove the meat to shred it on a plate, I can easily pull off any fat that might be on them.

Lunch yesterday, I'd been fancying pizza, so knowing that we wouldn't be using our HexB that evening, I decided to make us one each. Bacon, pineapple, jalapeno and mushroom, topped with a HexA of mozzarella cheese. These are delicious, and for someone who was a total pizza fiend, I don't understand why I don't make these more often. Pizza is a food that I usually struggle with when I can't have it. The only explanation that I have is that because these actually do taste like pizza (you can shove your meatzza and cauliflower bases up your bum) I know I can eat one every day if need be, and therefore I'm ok? It's surprising how much of this losing weight caper is all in the head.

That said, I haven't been a good girl this week, either. And I think a lot of it may be down to a lot of what I've just said above.

I've had goodies in the house for weeks now, bought for Christmas, and in true Mum form, nobody touches them, because they're for Christmas. And I've been fine with them. My Star Bar was there, Mr G's box of Maltesers. Pringles for the kids (1 syn each, I shit you not, and I could do a tube. Myself. In one sitting). Mince pies. And they all remained untouched and unopened until Christmas Eve.  I was reasonably good at Christmas, my weight gain was wine gain, it was a choice I made. Mr G's weight gain was in pastry and malted balls. That was his choice. I gave myself three days, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day. If I hadn't eaten it on those three days, I wasn't having it. So now, we're back on plan, and there's still these... bits here. Huge boxes of biscuits that I keep telling the kids to eat. So, one layer gets opened and I'm looking at them and thinking, just one. So I have just one. The tin of Heroes that my Mum insisted we have to share between us (usually a tin each) because it's Christmas and you can have a treat, yeah... that's getting dipped into here and there. And then I'm eating my fifteen syns on top.

But my meals are on point. Which I can only hope is doing some damage limitation inside me this week, because I cannot face two weight gains on two consecutive weeks. So, today, I'm going to go through the last of the goodies and distribute them to the children to keep in their rooms. I know my eldest is a Pringles fiend, he'll clear them in no time. The biscuits. I'll share out the remainder of the tub of chocolates between the children's tubs. Then I know that the only things available to us are the things we relied on before Christmas.

Tonight's tea is salad, although it's not really salad-y weather, it's brisk, crisp and windy, we've started having a salad on a Sunday night most weeks now. Mr G loves salad anyway, I can take it or leave it, but since I found that peashoot faff in Morrisons a couple of weeks ago, and seeing how lush it was with salmon, I'm hooked. So tonight is fresh salmon salad for me, and king prawn salad for Mr G. I'll bang a couple of jacket spuds in the oven too to fill us up.

Fingers crossed that I take at least a step back towards my five and a half stone loss tomorrow, and not another step away from it. Our consultant said that we are all having the new members talk, and I know from previous experience once I've been refreshed, I'm like a woman on a mission that week, weighing, measuring out my milk allowance into those teeny tiny milk bottles that are a mo-fo to clean afterwards. But the weight loss the week after is more than worth it. I'd really have liked 6 stone off for our wedding anniversary, but with eleven pounds and four weigh ins before it's looking unlikely right now. But still I'll crack on, I've come too far this time to mess it up. Target by New Year's Eve 2020.