Weekend Breakfast

Believe it or not, this is a 5pp breakfast! Instead of regular pancakes, I tried a recipe from a Pin that boasted paleo pancakes from two ingredients. I don't eat paleo, but I do find a lot of overlap between the kind of recipes that are tagged as paleo and the kind of thing that is good on Weight Watchers. In this case, the recipe claims that one banana and two eggs combined would make pancakes. You know what, it ain't half bad. Above you see half a banana and one egg, for 2pp, and Al Fresco brand garlic chicken sausage at 3pp. Half of one of those sausages is 1pp, so you could have a decent 3pp breakfast going on.

My cauliflower "fried rice"

If you haven't come across this on Pinterest yet, I'd be very surprised. Cauliflower seems to be the wonder veg of 2014, being used in place of rice for many dishes and even the main component of a paleo-type pizza base. We'll save the pizza base for another day, but today let's do some rice.

The great thing about this recipe is the base is all veggie and very filling, so you're not throwing 5pp away on a guilty cup of rice. You can include a decent amount of protein and I find it very satisfying. The photo above is just all my chopped veggies ready to go, and the big white bowl is about half a head of cauli whizzed in my mini food processor till it is in pieces all about the size of rice grains. From there on it's just like any other stir fry. Cook the veggies how you want, and when your mix is about 80% cooked, throw in the cauliflower and turn up the heat. I used soy sauce and teriyaki sparingly, with garlic and some ginger and a few other spices it already tastes pretty good. I use low-sodium as well as regular soy sauce so you can get a nice flavour punch without the super saltiness you can get with soy sauce. I add the liquids when the pan is super hot and keep tossing the cauliflower with all the veg. Taste test to make sure you have the flavour to your preference and then let the mixture sit in the hot pan a little longer between stirs, to get rid of any liquid and to crisp up the cauliflower.

As you can see I used frozen shrimp and a couple of eggs for protein. This mix above made two full meal portions, which I estimate to be 5-6pp only.

Weekend Breakfast

I usually spend a few more points on breakfast on the weekend than I would during the week, only because I will usually sleep in and breakfast will merge into lunch. Still, this deliciousness above was only 6 points plus! 2 pt low-carb wrap, 2 pts for the egg, 1 pt for the thin sliced pepper jack and 1 pt for the chicken sausage. Grapes for filler and the fruit/veg portion that is one of my "routines" in the app.

Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner

After maintaining this week I have decided to change my weigh day to Friday. That way if I want to imbibe on Friday or Saturday, my weigh in is not all jacked up from cake weight, or retained water because I inhaled a plate of fried wontons.

I got a late start to the office Monday so I packed a late breakfast and lunch together. I made a neat discovery that the two small compartments in one lunch box are half a cup each with a little room, so what you see there is half a cup of regular cottage cheese and half a cup of pineapple. I really dislike low fat and non-fat cottage cheese, the texture just grosses me out, so I am happy to just eat less of the regular. As it turns out, not a filling breakfast for me. I ate my lunch shortly after and was still hungry. The pear made me hungrier. Stupid fruit.

Still, I got "breakfast" and "lunch" here for about 8pts - the wrap contains ham, lite mayo and a bunch of alfalfa. I was so hungry though that I grabbed some lite string cheese at the store for a 1pt snack and had a couple chicken sausages an hour later to sustain me through an appointment I had 9.30-10.30. I had enough forethought to use my tiny new slow cooker and came home to this:

One chicken breast, a small can of El Pato red sauce with jalapenos, and one tomatillo - easiest supper ever. I put it over a very little bit of rice and was able to eat and be in bed a couple hours later. 6 pts for what you see here, 3 pts for the half I ate. Yum.

A Lunch to Satisfy

This is basically what I have been taking to the office most days. On days I am going to skate in the evening, I have been making my lunches and packed snacks fairly substantial, on the understanding that I need the energy and also that I shouldn't be eating heavy late at night when I get home anyway.

The wrap is a whole wheat tortilla (2pp), 2oz ham (3pp) a tbsp of lite mayo (1pp) and then shredded cabbage, cucumber and scallion for free fillers. I also have bagel thins which are 3pp and add some variation. Those chips are Special K brand and are very points light, I think that serving up there is 13 chips and comes out to 1pp - 14 chips is 2pp so I was an adult and did the 2pp. The string cheese is Vons brand Lucerne and is a 1pp piece of cheese and is actually tasty.

I will generally have another small snack between work and skating. I get to come home and relax for an hour before going out again, so I will eat a banana or if I have spare points, a cup of tea and a cookie or something small. It's a nice routine and it's working for me.

Speedy Stir Fry for One

This is definitely a meal I feel is unfairly counted by the Recipe Builder, but is undoubtedly healthy and a good way to spend points. It's 3pp worth of ingredients tracked simple style,  Recipe Builder insists it is 5pp. Go figure.

Ingredients
Cooking spray
3 cloves garlic
1 medium scallion
3 mushrooms
3 radishes
Couple slices eggplant
1/8lb firm tofu
1/4 cup Teryiaki sauce/marinade/type stuff

Method: stir fry and season, enjoy. I used salt and pepper, ginger powder and my go-to ancho chile pepper seasoning.

Quick Tomatillo Chicken Soup - 2 cups = 2 Points Plus

I've discovered that the more effort I put into my food, generally the more ok I am with "dieting." As it's the weekend I was able to make a nice soup for lunch.

There are a few things I always have around - garlic, onions, canned tomatoes, some kind of chicken and/or vegetable stock, and a well stocked herb and spice cabinet. This makes it easy to come up with something that won't make you stop eating out of boredom before you're full.

Ingredients
3 oz chicken breast, chopped
14.5oz can of chopped tomatoes
3 tomatillos
Half an onion
Half a zucchini
5 cloves of garlic
Fat free chicken stock
Salt, pepper, ancho chile spice, paprika, onion powder
Cooking spray

So here's a thing that's new to me, as new as I am to Weight Watchers and the Points Plus (pp) system - the Recipe Builder is a dick. If I put all these ingredients separately into my tracker, I would be charged 2pp for the chicken and 1 for the broth, and theoretically eat the entire pot (I guesstimate some 6 cups) for 3 points. Seems to good to be true, and it is. As much as it makes me roll my eyes, I'll be using the recipe builder's points here. You can read more here about why the Recipe Builder dings you for more points than basic tracking. In the case of this recipe, it's actually very clean so it is still a super light soup, with a filling two cups costing 2pp.

I'm a pretty intuitive cook - I can follow a recipe but I like to just see what happens a lot of the time. Soup is always the same basic formula for me - add oil to a hot pan, brown whatever meat you're using with garlic (there's always garlic) then slowly add the rest of the ingredients and broth and simmer for as long as possible. In this case I simmered for 30 minutes, because I was hungry! This soup gooooood.

I ate mine before I could take a decent picture, but it's a tomato based soup with stuff in it so you can use your imagination. Or you know, your eyes when you make it yourself.