The lazy 15 minute Weight Watcher curry

Don't you just love a lazy, quick recipe? One that means you can justify not having a takeaway when you're tired and tight for time?

I tend to have a few recipes up my sleeve that are quick and easy to cook when it's been a long day. Stir frys, fajitas and paellas all feature often, along with slow cooker meals and those handy roasting joints you can get in Sainsbury's that have just enough for two. But I haven't made a curry from scratch yet.

One of the products Weight Watchers sent me was a trio of curry pastes in handy little pots. Each packet contains two meat pots and one vegetable pot.

So, I gave the vegetable curry paste a try. Here's what I started with:

Ah, aren't camera phones the best? I really need to invest in a proper camera.

Anyway, this is what I started with: frozen veg (best invention ever for fat fighters), and the little pot of veg paste. You can do it with fresh veg but..well, it'll take longer than 15 minutes.

Throw it all in a hot pan sprayed with oil. Keep stirring it until the veg has defrosted. You might want to add a little water to stop it burning. Then throw in the pot of paste and continue to stir. The instructions suggest you might want to add more water if you want more of a sauce, but I found it was the perfect consistency for me.

(I ended up throwing in some wafer thin chicken for a bit of added protein, but it would be lovely if you threw in most leftover meats, or just on its own.)

Throw it in a bowl, and get munching. It's got a kick to it, so you might want to keep a drink at your side.

Overall, this couldn't have been easier - and it really was tasty. It's not the prettiest dish, but the flavours made up for it. The whole thing was about 8 ProPoints (the same as a Weight Watcher frozen chicken curry), and really filling. I think there's probably a lot of potential for versatility with this dish too.

What's your go-to dish for a quick dinner?  

p.s I've added a Disqus comment system, so it should be easier to comment if you want to.

Here we go again - Weight Watchers 2012

Gosh, that last post was very whingy, wasn't it? Let's draw a line under that eh? It's a new year and I'm back on WW.

A lot of things have changed in the last year. I got a part-time job next to my freelance work (at a Student Union, so I'm surrounded by student food...) bought a house with my boyfriend Peter....and then on Christmas Day he proposed.

What better weight loss motivation does a girl need than a wedding dress?

So, since January I've been back on the Weight Watchers plan, and for the first time so is Peter. Which is great, as we're not going out as much (perks of buying a home), being more sensible about cooking choices and encouraging each other.

January was good, and we both lost about half a stone (er, half a stone I'd put on over Christmas. Mince pies are little pastry shells of evil.)

February was a bit of a blip (we both were seriously overworked and had family birthday meals out), so we didn't lose anything.

March so far is going really well, especially as Weight Watchers got in touch to see if I fancy trying out some of their new products, along with their new cookbook. We've got into a habit of cooking certain meals each week, so it's nice to have something to shake things up again.

Here's what they've sent me:

It includes:

• A pack of Weight Watchers Peach and Pear fruit pots (which I'm eating right now).
• A pack of Weight Watchers  Authentic Curry Pastes (Get. In. My. Belly) 
• A pack of Weight Watchers Garlic and Herb Bag 'n' Bake (looking forward to trying that one)
• Weight Watchers Cappuccino Sachets (I don't drink coffee and try to avoid caffeine products, but my mum will love these)
• A box of Weight Watchers Original Breakfast Oats (Lower in points than the porridge pots I've been taking to work - only 3)
• A pack of Weight Watchers Mediterranean Sauce (Lovely for summer!) 
• The latest Weight Watchers magazine
• A Weight Watchers cookbook - Members' Favorites. I really want to try the Mashmallow and Squash brownies, and Peanut Buttery and Banana Bread Pudding in this!

I'll be blogging about how I'm doing, and what I think of these products (and what the fiance thinks) up until our wedding next April.

I'd love to hear how you're all doing though! Is everyone used to the ProPoints plan now? Any tips? Let me know in the comments.

p.s I discovered Sainsbury's do individual bags of frozen fruit, designed especially for smoothies straight from the freezer. Fruit always goes bad in my fridge/kitchen (especially as Peter doesn't eat much fruit or veg), so I'm chuffed with this find. Lazy? Yes. Improve my fruit intake? Yes!

p.p.s Weight Watchers seems to have a YouTube channel with some great videos. Worth having a look for some recipes. 

It's not fair!

Image by Freydís via FlickrI'm pretty sure anyone embarking on a weight loss has uttered the somewhat irrational words: "It's not fair!" 

Maybe we've watched the friend or family member who can eat their body weight in food without putting on a single lb. Or we've worked our asses off all week, only to see no change or a gain on the scales. 

This week, I've been fighting back the words on a daily basis. I'm fed up of always having to watch what I eat. Fed up of seeing friends lose weight easily, simply by cutting out alcohol (I rarely drink these days and it's made bugger all difference.) Fed up of being fed up about my weight. Fed up of being a moany old diet bore :)

But I know those three little words are cowardly and only kick the blame away from my own doorstep. I'm a size 16 because I eat too much. Because I don't exercise enough. Because I've developed a series of unhealthy eating habits that seems hugely difficult to kick. 

I weighed in this morning as I wasn't able to make it to class last weekend. Not a single lb off since 14th January. 

I haven't been perfect for the last two weeks by any means. But I haven't been awful either. Which has led to me pondering "God, I may as well have had seconds of last night's dinner!"

Obviously, I'm doing something wrong, and I think I need to change my whole viewpoint on this losing weight loss thing. I'm hardly going to succeed if I'm always negative about it. And I know the plan works. It's worked in the past, and it'll work again. 

If you've got any tips of how to get in the right mindset, or how to get through this weight wall I seem to have hit, please do leave them in the comments. There's a bridesmaid dress at stake here :)

Fashion: Walking the walk

Yesterday, I popped into London for a meeting and catch up with the editors of a couple of fashion blogs I write for. The ladies I met up with are lovely, super-friendly and very, very trendy. The kind of ladies that can actually pull off tough ankle boots with floaty dresses.

Now, London often makes me feel a little 'country bumpkin' (which, I should mention, is nothing to do with the people I meet who are usually lovely.) It's more of a self-concious thing I've always had, particularly when I'm heavier. If I'm honest, I always felt more fashionable and confident when I was a size 12. I was more likely to take risks with fashion and everything sat better when I was slimmer. Even heels were easier to walk in.

In London, where everyone seems to have jumped off the catwalk, that feeling is pushed under a microscope.

I know I'm supposed to 'embrace my curves.' But there's a difference between curves and...well, too much belly. As a size 16, 5ft 4in apple shape, I fall into the latter category. I know there are plenty of ladies that look gorgeous as a size 16, but I'm sadly not one of them (otherwise I'd continue my ongoing relationship with weekly curries)

And being fashionable is important to me (there, I said it!) After all, if I'm writing about fashion, shouldn't I actually be wearing some of the stuff I write about?

Potentially, I'm going to be visiting and working in their office a couple of times a month soon. Which has given me even more of an incentive to get back into my size 12 jeans. Building my confidence on fashion might seem shallow, but it's a great motivator for me!

Ah Chinese food, my old foe

Image by Yelp.com via FlickrI love Chinese food. Even the slightly-rubbish-but-on-a-cheap-deal type you get in ASDA/Sainsburys/Your nearest supermarket.

But you can't beat a Chinese buffet. In particularly the rather spectacular The Real China in Camberley.

This place has three trolleys packed full of food, plus a teppanyaki bar (which I never quite get round to using despite loving teppanyaki food.) The food range is so wide that you can find sushi, dim sum, chips, chicken nuggets and fish fingers.

So it'll probably come as no surprise to hear that this place has contributed to my growing weight over the last two years. But seeing as I'm on track again this week and I've still got plenty of weekly points left, the boyfriend and I took a little trip to our favourite deep-fried heaven.

It wasn't that bad. I stuck to protein-rich foods and avoided the dessert cart (10 different mini puddings! Ice cream! Fritters!) I'd been fairly good that day too. More importantly though, I ate slowly and mindfully. I have a habit of wolfing down my food so fast that people often comment on it, so it's something I'm trying to work on.

Not entirely sure how many points it added up to, so I'm going to just write off the rest of my weekly points and be good for the rest of the week.

Totally worth it for the duck and pancake roll though.

Do you continue to go to your favourite restaurants when you're on Weight Watchers, or avoid at all costs?

Lazy Chef: One pan ham 'n' egg on toast

Hi, I'm Lazy Chef.

If there's a corner I can cut, a simpler way of cooking something or a microwave I can zap food in, I'll do it.

There's no excuse really. I spent years at school doing home economics and food technology (incidentally, the exact same thing at my school. Two years of which was spent making pastry) I even took an AS Level in it.

But being back on WW means I should probably re-learn how to cook things from *gulp* scratch. My challenge is to try out a new recipe each week from one of the WW cookbooks.

Kicking off with an easy one: one pan ham 'n'eggs on toast (pg 8 of the Seriously Satisfying book)

You will need:
A frying pan. Big enough to fit bread, bacon and egg in.
An egg
Bacon medallions
WW bread
Oil, preferably a spray one.

What to do:
Spray the hot frying pan with oil, and add the slice of bread, turning occasionally.
Add the bacon medallions, and fry for several minutes on each side.
Add the egg into the spare place, and fry until cooked.
Pour it all on a plate and add your favourite sauce.
Eat, smile, rub tummy in happy contentment.

It works out as around 5PP for me, plus you only have to clean up one pan. Win!

Back in control

Image via Wikipedia

Breakfast

Smoothie, made up of strawberries, blueberries, bananas and pourable yoghurt: 4PP

Snack

Mixed berries: 0PP

Lunch

Bacon sandwich, made up of three bacon medallions, 2 slices of ww bread and flora light: 6PP

Snack

Banana: 0PP

Dinner

Mr Brains Pork Faggots x 2: 7PP

Oven baked chips: 7 PP

Sweetcorn: 3PP

4 remaining (in case that banana snack isn't enough!)

Exercise: Play on the Kinnect for several hours, no idea on PP.

This weekend, my family kept commenting on how happy I seemed. And I was. Really happy. But I couldn't put my finger on why. It wasn't until the evening that I realised what it was.

I wasn't going to bed feeling guilty and bloated after what I'd eaten. And I wasn't waking up making empty promises to stick to the plan. Because I'm sticking to the plan. I've been back on it for a few days now and I'm feeling comfortable again with counting points and being in control and not having that horrible feeling like I've gone a bit crazy and consumed far too many pork pies.

I don't understand why sometimes I've got the will power to start the plan and stay on track, and why sometimes when I try and start eating on the plan again, I struggle and end up eating mindlessly. I guess it shows that I just can't jump on and off the plan as I like, because it's so hard to start again. Which, considering how flexible the new plan is, isn't such a bad thing.

I know that all might sound a bit control-freaky to some. But knowing I'm putting good stuff into my body (ok, and the odd naughty chocolate treat) and feeling the effects makes me happy.

Am I alone in thinking like that?