1 Dish Lemon infused Roast 3pp

This yummy low pro point roast is an amazing and easy way to enjoy a roast mid-week and a great way too to use up bits and bobs in the fridge!

 

 

Ingredients...

 

Chicken breasts

1 lemon

Veg - I used butternut squash, red peppers, tomatoes & cauliflower

 

 

1. Set the oven to 200*C / 180*C (fan) / gas mark 6 & chop the veg up

2. Steam the veg for about 10 minutes or until soft.

 

3. Whilst they are steaming away, chop up the red pepper and finely slice the lemon.

 

4. Place the tomatoes and the peppers on the bottom and then the lemon on top (you can put this on the top of the chicken but I wanted to get everything all nice and crispy)

 

5. Put the steamed veg on top and then the chicken on top of that.

 

6. Put in the oven for 30mins or until cooked.

  

 7. Serve & Enjoy!

 

 

Love, Mrs O x

go go go!!

This week I had to have a very good telling off to myself! As you may have read I keep on saying that I have 'started again' or that I need to up my game, well, in all honesty I haven't. One week I will loose a bit, the next gain some and I feel like a yo yo on a piece of weight loss string!

 

So on Thursday night I told myself off - I openly admitted it on the WW UK support group page on face book and the support I got from people was amazing - told you I love that group and this made me love it even more! Since February the pounds have been slowly creaping back on and i've gained a sickening 7lbs - and then reality hit me and realised why I am doing this all in the first place.

 

I worked out that I would eat really well and healthy and then I would have a few days binging on naughty pizza or naughty amounts of chocolate! But to loose weight you must be consisitant and yes, although those odd few days you CAN treat yourself but not every week and definately not EVERY day!!!

 

You may remember that I bought the propoints pack a few weeks ago... Well this has been my weight-loss-life-saver! And I can now say that those horrible 7lbs are slowly but surely coming off.... So just like my run up to Christmas, I thought I would start back up again on my weekly losses - that too is a great push as it's a written public chart!

 

Week 1 - 0lbs

Week 2 - 2lbs

Week 3 - 1lb

 

So when I sit down for lunch it now looks like this, with my journal stuck to the side of me! ....

 

 

So back to life in general.... What have I been upto? Hummmm well I've been busy as always - I had an amazing time singing with The Sydney Staff Songsters - we (The International Staff Songsters) did a joint concert with them in Staines on Wednesday 23rd April

 

On the Friday (25th) evening and all day on the Saturday (26th) we (The ISS) were recording

 

On the Saturday evening I was then the guest soloist of the Enfield Citadel Band of The Salvation Army (and as you can tell my voice was then shattered). I sung two contrasting peices - Ave Maria by Caccini and I also sung 'I feel like singing all the time' by Keith Prynn.

 

I'm just glad that day I started my day like this....

 

 

One of the great things about Weight Watchers is that you can use up your left overs and things in the cupboards and fridge like this...

 

 

I made a lovely chicken curry-esk thing with left over veg from the fridge.

 

And who knew how easy it was to make a small amount of jam to serve on crumpets for a lovely warm breakfast....

I just used up some left over blue berries (and 2 raspberries I think) popped them in the microwave for literally 20 seconds and put them on my toasted crumpets - you don't even need to use the butter - brilliant extra point saving tip!!

 

I have also made an amazing 3pp roast dinner - you can check out how and the recipe here....

 

 

I have also been loving my julienne peeler more and more - it saves so much time and makes your food look really posh with little effort!!

Ohhh.... Raddishes - totally fogot about these little gems until I found some reduced in Lidls!!

 

And talking about Lidls and bargains..... You can get a whole bag of mixed seeds from there for ONLY 99p... perfect for sprinkling on your salad to add a bit of crunch!!

 

 

Easter - remember back then?! Seems ages ago now but to stop myself going over-board on eating away on the chocolate I smashed my eggs up and pointed them all up into bags....

 

 

Ummm.... lunch!

 

Again, lovely low pp dinners - This was Cous cous and asparagus salad with fish and a corn on the cob - 9pp

 

You may have seen that I am in training at the moment for Race for Life - out running I have the opportunity to see some amazing views.....

 

I've also in these last 2 weeks found my love for pesto.... What better way to make pasta yummy than to add a bit of pesto to it ... for only 1pp for 1 tbsp it's not too bad on the points.

Dinner - Salad with 10x olives(1pp), 3pp chicken, pasta & pesto.

 

I spoilt myself and bought myself a Bobble - I try and drink a whole 1ltr at work a day and this bottle is 1ltr. If you haven't seen them before, it's basically a water bottle with a filter on it.

Oh, and then Mr O treated me to these Kofte kebabs... But they were so high in propoints I gave one to Mr O - so he ended up having 3!

 

 

So, back to normality - I have some amazing events planned for this weekend which I can't wait to share with you all....

 

Have a lovely week and enjoy the sun that is supposed to come....

 

Love, Mrs O x

Jam - ummmmm 0pp

... Hope you just read that like Homer Simpson would with 'ummmmm Doughnuts!' as I so just did!!

 

So one of my lovely little recipes for you all and to be honest it contains just one or two ingredients...

 

JAM :)

 

Perfect little accompaniment for putting on warm crumpets, on toast or even in a Victoria sponge!

 

I didn't realise how easy it would be until I did a little experimenting one day....

 

I just used up some left over blue berries (and 2 raspberries I think) popped them in the microwave for literally 20 seconds and put them on my toasted crumpets - you don't even need to use the butter - brilliant extra point saving tip!!

 

 

I guess you could do this with other fruits too, although to me there is nothing better than this jam as the fruits were in season and were so cheap to buy...

 

Love, Mrs O x

Another one gone....

Wow - so the last time I wrote was for Mother's Day and my, what adventures I've had since then!! To help you all not get 'Mrs O' withdrawal symptoms I have been trying to share some of these moments with you all through Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

However, I can now do a little catch up session for you all. As always feel free to just skip to the pictures or have a good read - the choice is yours!!

So, let's back track to the beginning of April - ouch 19 days ago!....

On the Wednesday before my sister's wedding I went back home and stayed with my lovely Nana - however, with Nanas being Nanas, this can be a spell for weight loss disaster! Nana has always loved to feed us - one of my reasons I always think that I put so much weight on as an older child / young teen as Nana used to look after us and knew nothing about portion size and just wanted to feed us lovely Irish home cooked dinners. So, when I was given this lovely breakfast below you could see why I had to be cruel to be kind with her and say no. I decided to bring with me my own red milk and my own porridge and fruit - but she would still insist on me eating lots extra - I finally gave in and scraped all the butter off the bread and ate it.....

I knew also that I wouldn't be able to point properly so I decided to just try and stick to healthier options when eating.

Thursday was a day of getting things done - like running around getting last minute forgotten things for the bride (I even managed to get a run in - get me! But as you may have seen from Facebook, my running trousers were now too big so I had to buy some new ones!)

And as any girl should be, we got pampered and got our hair done!

My lovely friend Courtney did it for us again and she even bought this special hood for Nana to set her hair! 

The Friday before the wedding was a day of decorating and hard work! I lost count the amount of times I went to Tesco to get things such as lunch for everyone, tea light holders and even a wedding pressie!

This was the venue as we were decorating it and by the Saturday it looked like a different venue! There was organza up on the walls and behind the top table was an arch of balloons. 

THE WEDDING.... 

Well, my little sister looked beautiful 

...and the rest of us didn't scrub up too badly either!

And all the hard work for not being the 'fat bridesmaid'? I think it paid off!! The amount of comments I got was amazing! People saying how well I looked and how well I had done :)

This is me and my youngest sister - you could even see my collar bone! :) 

Look at the beautiful favours - hope you all appreciate the bows - they took me forever to flipping do and then Victoria told me that they were all the wrong way!! 

On the Sunday after the wedding Mr O and I went for a full on fried breakfast - I can't remember the last time I had one of these..... Actually I've never had the bubble and squeak before so that was a first!

In the afternoon - which was pretty much all afternoon - we had a lovely family meal before everyone travelled back to their homes - check out all the Irish Brophy chins!!

The next week was just as full on as those 4 full days. I did however, finally manage to buy my WeightWatchers Propoints pack - which is amazing!! More about that later....

Unfortunately on the Thursday night we lost our beloved Ben who had to be put down - we (including Jerry) were all very upset and still trying to adjust to him not being with us anymore :(

So back to the pack I bought... 

It prepared me to get back on track last Saturday - everything all ready - lots of planning - food for the week planned - everything ... I even bought these little pots (another Sistema purchase!) that are the perfect size for putting small amounts in - so far I have used mine to put coleslaw in to add a bit of excitement to salads - I have also gone back to salads for lunch as now it is sunnier!

Even at Messy Church last Sunday I controlled myself whilst decorating cakes with everyone!

One of my ways of making sure that I have controlled my food intake is to share my meals on Instagram (you can follow me @ Missemm4 )

I have been feeling great about myself this week - I even tracked my food on my date night with Mr O on Wednesday to Pizza Express

Until Friday happened.... Ok, so I did a naughty weigh in on Friday morning - 3lbs lost :) Major happy and shows that if you plan and track nothing can go wrong.... 

But then Mr O and I had a planned day up in town on the Friday - he even coordinated his shoes to my nail varnish!!

I knew we would be having a lovely meal out but I didn't plan on going here....

Where we would then buy these....

These if anyone doesn't know are where you will find THE BEST macaroons in the world! I love this shop (Fortnum and Mason) - it's also where the Queen shops! But the macaroons are the best and are to die for. 

Now, not forgetting it being Good Friday we also went along and met up with some friends in this beautiful church...

But before we got there, Mr O and I stopped off for a cup of tea and cake....

Now, the cake was lovely, but even for me it was too sweet and sickly, I had to scrape half of the icing off!!

The afternoon then followed more eating at Flat Iron....

And to finish the night off nicely we had to have some ice cream...

I had mint choc (which was amazing - tasted like it had just come out off the plant) and hazelnut (which made me wish I had only had the hazelnut!)

So, as you can accept, when I stood on the scales for my weigh in this morning and I had gained those 3lbs back I was really annoyed with myself - but as Mr O said to me - look at all the fun we had and what we ate. We had such a great time and great experiences and memories created. He spurred me on and reminded me that my exercise in take will be a lot higher this next week too. 

So what? I have gained some pounds but look at the experiences I have had to go with it! Back on it now... How will I ever cope with Easter and all the chocolate I will be around?!!.... 

Love, Mrs O x

(Photo of my sister and I & the parents sourced from Facebook)