Tag Archives: Smart Points

Drink of the Week: Cosmopolitan – 5 Smart Points

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Filed under Cocktails, Drink of The Week

This week we’re back to one of the gorgeous cocktails I enjoyed on my cruise. This time, it’s the classic Cosmopolitan. As a fan of Sex and the City, this cocktail is always spiked with nostalgia for me. Taste-wise, I love the sharp tang of cranberry set off against the bittersweet tang of the orange rind.

What you’ll need:

  • 50ml mandarin or lemon vodka
  • 30ml cranberry juice
  • squeeze of lime juice
  • orange rind

What to do:

  1. Shake the liquid ingredients over ice then strain into a chilled cocktail glass.
  2. Garnish with a curl of orange rind.

Top tip: For an even tastier cosmo, hold a 3cm round piece of rind about 10cm above your drink. Carefully pass it over a flame, bending the outer side of the rind towards the flame to release the oils before dropping it into the drink.

What’s your favourite cocktail? Let me know in the comments section.

Waldorf Salad with Chicken – 2 Smart Points

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Filed under 2 Smart Points, Chicken, Recipes, Salad

I tried this whilst on my recent cruise, even though I don’t like celery (I thought I’d pick it out but it was actually quite nice), and I enjoyed it so much, I decided to recreate it. It’s so quick and easy to make and it’s ideal to pack up and take to work for lunch.

Servings: 1

Smart Points: 2 per serving

Time to make: 5 mins (+time to cook the chicken breast)

What you need:

  • 1 grilled chicken, thickly sliced
  • 1/2 eating apple, chopped into bitesize chunk
  • handful of grapes, halved
  • 1/2 stick of celery, thinly sliced
  • 3 walnut halves
  • 2tbsp 0% fat Greek yogurt
  • lettuce leaves

What to do:

  1. Put the apple, grapes and celery into a small bowl. Break in the walnut halves and add the yogurt. Stir until everything is coated.
  2. Top the lettuce leave with the yogurt-covered mixture and top with the chicken.

Top Tip: I cook an extra chicken breast when I’m making my dinner then it’s ready to go into this delicious salad.

Drink of the Week: Malty Biscuit Brew – 0 Smart Points

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Filed under Drink of The Week, Hot Drinks

It’s not all about the alcohol here on Drink of the Week!

I’m a BIG fan of tea and enjoy trying all different types and flavours. I also love to dunk biscuits into my tea but I don’t love the Smart Points values that come with them! So imagine my delight when I came across these bad boys whilst doing my weekly shop.

Now, my tea-purist relatives turned their noses up when I mentioned it to them, but, having tried a cup, many have been won over.

So what’s it like? Well, it’s just like tea and Rich Tea biscuits but without the sludge of crumbs that end up at the bottom of your mug when you dunk. Because it’s made by Taylors of Harrogate (the finest purveyors of English Breakfast tea IMHO), you also get a strong brew, which isn’t always the case with flavoured black teas. What’s more, if you make it using milk from an allotted allowance for the day as I do, it costs you 0 Smart Points! What’s not to love?

If you have any tea recommendations, please let me know. Mr FFF says I’ve got far too many varieties in the cupboard as it is, but what does he know?!

Breakfast Cheesecake – 4 Smart Points

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Filed under 4 Smart Points, Breakfast, Recipes

Cheesecake is one of my favourite foods ever. So when I saw a recipe for a breakfast cheesecake, I had to try it, even though it sounded a bit weird. However, with so much soft cheese and sugar, it was pretty high in Smart Points value so here’s my recipe for a slimmed down version.

Servings: 10

Smart Points: 4 per serving

What you need:

  • 75g low fat spread
  • 650g low fat soft cheese
  • 2 eggs
  • 60g oats
  • juice and rind of one orange
  • 4 tablespoons sweetener (I used Stevia)
  • pinch of salt

What to do:

  1. Heat the oven to 170C/Gas Mark 3. Line a 23cm springform tin with baking paper.
  2. Beat the cheese until smooth then stir in the rest of the ingredients using 1tbsp of the orange juice.
  3. Scrape the mixture into the prepared tin and bake for about 25 minutes until it is just set with a hint of wobbliness in the middle.
  4. Serve hot, warm, cold or at room temperature with fruit coulis.

Top Tip: For ease, I line the baking tin roughly by pushing in a rectangular sheet of paper. It gives the cheesecake slices a ‘rustic’ look but saves faffing about cutting out strips and circles of paper.

Drink of the Week: Pear Blossom – 5 Smart Points

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Filed under Cocktails, Drink of The Week

On my recent cruise, I took advantage of the opportunity to sample a (wide) variety of the different cocktails they were handcrafting on board. One of the first I tried was the delightfully refreshing ‘Pear Blossom’. The combination of pear and elderflower meant that it was sweet, but not sickly, whilst the mint and lime added a freshness that made it perfect for recharging my batteries after long, hot days in port.

What you’ll need:

  • 25ml pear vodka
  • 25ml elderflower liqueur
  • diet lemonade
  • spring of mint
  • slice of lime

What to do:

  1. Fill a tall glass with ice and top with the mint and lime.
  2. Shake the vodka and liqueur over ice.
  3. Strain into the glass.
  4. Top with the lemonade and enjoy!

Tuna, Avocado & Sundried Tomato Salad

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Filed under Fast Food, Recipes, Salad

In this week’s WW, we spoke about the usefulness of having a range of ‘fast food’ recipes to fall back on when we’re busy with work/kids/life.

With this in mind, today for lunch I had this super quick yet tasty and healthy salad.

Servings: 1

Smart Points: 7

  • Mixed salad leaves
  • sundried tomatoes, chopped into small pieces
  • 1/2 avocado, chopped
  • tin of tuna drained

Scatter the rest of the ingredients over the salad leaves & enjoy!

Shaksuka

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Filed under 8 Smart Points, Brunch, Recipes, Uncategorized, Vegetarian

A flavoursome dish that works for any time of the shaksukaday.

Serves: 2

Smart Points: 8

No Count (substitute the flatbread for Weight Watchers pitta bread)

Cooking time: 2 mins prep

10 mins cooking

Ingredients

  • 1tsp rapeseed oil
  • 1 medium onion, roughly chopped
  • 1/4tsp ground cumin
  • 1/2 tsp smoked paprika
  • 1 pinch chilli flakes
  • 1tbsp tomato puree
  • 400g tinned, chopped tomatoes
  • 4 handfuls of spinach
  • 4 medium eggs
  • 2 individual seeded flatbread

 

Method

  1. Heat the oil in a large non-stick frying pan over a medium heat.  Add the onions and cook for 2-3mins until softened and beginning to brown.
  2. Add the cumin, smoked paprika, chilli flakes and tomato purree.  Stir and cook for another 1 minute.
  3. Add the tinned tomatoes and spinach and stir well until the spinach has wilted.
  4. Make 4 holes in the mixture and tip an egg into each one.
  5. Cover and cook for approximately 3 minutes until the whites of the eggs are cooked but the yolks are still runny.
  6. Serve with the toasted flatbread.

 

Let’s Get This Party Started!

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Filed under All Things Weight Loss, My Progress

The results of my first weigh-in of 2017 and what I’m going to do about it.personal-record-cover

Start Weight: 13st 12.5lbs

Goal Weight: 10st 12.5lbs

Pounds to get rid of: 42

Mini-goal: Lose weight this week!

So I had the ‘dreaded’ first post-Christmas weigh-in.  I say, dreaded, but actually, I was looking forward to it.  As I explained in my earlier post, this year, I’ve been really excited to get back to focusing on where I want my body to be.

Despite that, I must admit I was still a bit apprehensive about stepping on to the scales to find out what I’m currently weighing in at.  I can’t say I’m happy with my weight, but, importantly, I’ve decided not to give myself a hard time about it.  There’s no point.  What’s done is done.  I can’t go back and change it.  But what I can do, is change what I do from now on.

I’d like to lose about 3st.  As it’s been a long time since I was down near this kind of weight, this is only a loose target at this stage.  As I get closer to it, I’ll reassess my goal.  I’ve decided to think about it in terms of ‘pounds to get rid of’ rather than ‘stones to lose’ for 2 reasons:

1) I don’t want to lose weight – psychologically, I might try to find it again! (as my good friend Darren at Team Achieve explained in one of his blogs some time ago)

2) I don’t know why but 3st seems to be a lot more unwieldy to me that its equivalent in pounds.

As I restart my weight loss journey, I’m going to be focusing on 3 main areas each week to help me lose weight: eating healthily, moving more and developing a positive mindset.

In the past, I’ve usually only focused on the eating and moving side of things but I’ve been ww-weekly-card-week-1doing a lot of work around mindset during the past 8 months or so and I’ve come to realise just how important it is to take care of this aspect of ourselves.  As I’d already decided to work on these three areas, I was pleased to find out at my meeting last night that Weight Watchers will also be focusing on all three of these areas during the coming months.

Eating Healthily

I know from my past successes that meal planning is a vital aspect of making healthy eating choices.  As I’ve been off work for two and a half weeks for Christmas, I thought this would be the ideal time to get back in to planning my meals.

However, unexpected things came up and I found that every time I scheduled some time to plan my meals for week 1, something happened that meant it got pushed down the list of priorities.  By 30th December, I was starting to panic about this slightly.  I’d decided that I wanted to shop on New Year’s Eve, so that I was ready to make healthier choices straightaway on January 1st, and I still hadn’t had chance to sit down and plan my meals.

Then I noticed an email in my inbox telling me about the BBC Good Food Healthy Diet Plan for January.  I had a quick look and, although I didn’t have time to sit and work out the Smart Points values for each of the meals, it was clearly all fresh, healthy food options with all recipes and even a shopping list provided.  Winner, winner, healthy dinner! And breakfast and lunch too!  So I printed the shopping list off and dragged Mr FFF round Asda feeling rather smug with my trolley full of curly kale as everyone else was stocking up with party food.

I didn’t fully stick to the plan on January 1st or yesterday – that had never been my bbc-good-food-amended-plannerintention – and I only got round to working out all the Smart Points values today.  What I’ve done is to work out the Smart Points values for each meal.  I then actually cut the meals out and rearranged them to better suit our schedule for the week.  As I didn’t use the lunches on day 1 or 2, I’ve also ‘bumped’ them to next week, so I’m already ahead of the game there.  Get in!

So far, all of the meals I’ve tried have been delicious.  I’ll definitely be making them again.  The only thing that tripped me up a bit is that I’ve had to work out the Smart Points using the recipe builder on the Weight Watchers website rather than using the nutritional information provided with the recipes.  This is to take account of those foods which are ‘zero’ pointed (hence the scribbled out and re-written points values on my planner!).

 

Moving More

Now, I’m not the biggest fan of exercise.  I know it’s really important and really good for you both physically and mentally.  And I know that when I get into it, I do enjoy it.  But I’m definitely not a natural gym bunny.  I’ve had several periods in my life when the only contribution to my weight loss efforts that has been made by my gym membership is that I’ve had less money to spend on chocolate and wine!  However, I’m determined to move more.

I’ve learnt from experience, and the words of others much wiser than I, that, if I say I’m going to exercise every day, or even every other day, it ain’t gonna happen.  Not for much longer than the first week or so anyway!  So instead, I’m making a much smaller, easier to achieve commitment: I’m going to exercise twice a week.

I’m going to go to a yoga class and I’m going to go swimming.  I’ve chosen these activities because they are activities that I enjoy and I’m actually looking forward to going to.  I haven’t arranged to go with anyone as I know that the first time they can’t make it, I’ll use that as an excuse not to go myself.  I have mentioned my plans to a couple of friends who’ve said they want to exercise more but it’s a case of if they decide to tag along, great.  I’ve treated myself to a gorgeous new swimming costume and a new hoodless zip-up top.  Believe it or not, one of the things that has put me off going to yoga in the colder weather before is that all of my long-sleeved exercise tops had hoods which are extremely irritating when you’re trying to concentrate on your downward dog let me tell you!  So now I’ve got no excuses.

 

Positive Mindset

I’m going to continue reading a book I’ve begun using to help me to develop a more positive attitude to my weight loss efforts.  So far I’ve found it very enlightening but I’ll review it fully once I’ve finished it.

I’m also going to take time to interact with others on social media to share tips, experiences and motivation.  If you want to join in, please like me on Facebook or follow me on Twitter using the links on the right.

I think I’ve rambled on more than enough for one post.  Sorry if it has been a bit long-winded today, but I’m honestly brimming with enthusiasm for getting back on track.

Thanks for reading,

FFF

What are you planning on doing to help you on your weight loss journey this week?

 

KISS: Banana Protein Pancake

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Filed under Breakfast, KISS Meal Ideas

7 Smart Pointsbanana-protein-pancake

  • Heat a drop of oil in a frying pan on a very low heat.
  • Mash 2/3 of a banana in a bowl.
  • Mix in 1/2 tbsp of chocolate flavour protein powder.
  • Beat in 1 egg.
  • Pour mixture into frying pan and cover the pan.
  • Fry for about 3 minutes until just set.
  • Carefully turn over and fry, covered, for another 1-2minutes.
  • Serve scattered with 3 chopped pecans, the rest of the banana and drizzled with 1 tsp of maple syrup.