Tasty Tuesday

I'm glad I can keep this post. Even though I've been super busy with other things (but still thinking about blog posts and things to write about when I get a chance... as well as ticking along with goal stuff) I'm stil trying out new recipes (:

Mr Man loved this Parmesan Crusted Chicken Breast.

Leah thought these Cauliflower tots were just tops, and I found like a good mum serving them up.

And absolutely everyone loved this Spaghetti Bake - Me, Damien, Leah and Jake. Thumbs up all round.

Words for Wednesday

I think this is something I just have to accept. Be warned though, if you hurt me again, I'm out for good.

Tasty Tuesday

I have been blogging MIA again. Having a little think about things and severely immersed in doing some work at home days. But this post is always an easy one so can't leave it.

Tonight we had Cheesy BBQ Chicken Bacon Buns. They were yummy and the best part is that they're done in the slow cooker!

This was an easy peasy pasta bake...nothing special though.

My husband will kill me if I don't make these chicken mince lettuce wraps again. I had no soy sauce in the house so used hoisin and he hasn't stopped talking about hoisin sauce since. The man is obsessed.

These Taquitos didn't turn out great, but I really liked them cold the next day - funny how some foods taste better the day after.

What are you eating this week?
xox

Words for Wednesday

Something I need to tell myself all the time.

Tasty Tuesday

Really enjoying trying a lot of new dinner recipes recently. I also had a lovely lunch out at a friends house and was designated to bring sweet treats, so tried a couple of newbies there too! A productive week, here's what we had.

I personally am really digging chicken at the moment, hell, who am I kidding - all the time. With our home made burgers, although we often change up the proteins, we always pile the same stuff on - cheese, bacon, sauce, egg etc. They're great, but fat laden and there's not much wiggle room for diversity. These Jerk chicken sliders were a start at beginning to branch out here. Although Damien and I both gave the chicken a thumbs up, neither of us liked the salsa. Back to the drawing board.


We made an avocado chicken salad croissant last fortnight and really liked it, but as per usual, we thought it could have done with some bacon. And then I came across this Chicken and Bacon Salad recipe. Voila. We enjoyed it a lot more. It's particularly important to note that I (Yes me!) exclaimed how much I liked the celery in the salad. Me, like celery. Holy hell, that's saying something.

These Mini Snickers Cheesecakes were a hit everywhere I palmed them off to. So happy with my bake and palm off regime that's  taken off.

And I must report that I have made Red Velvet Cake many times but the recipe for these Red Velvet Whoopie Pies will be one I use over and over again. Was delish.

Really enjoying my time in the kitchen again.  Looking forward to the coming week.
xox

MIA, but just recharging :)

I decided to chuck my blogging responsibilities at the end of last week. It felt good to be relinquished of them for a wee while, but I also did miss it. I like the series that I've begun but also feel like I need to think about what the purpose of my blog is. So although some of the weekly series might come and go, I don't think I always want them to be the same every week - You can't tell me what to do schedule!

I also thought that with Goal #11 of my 30 before 30: Make more money from my blog, I wonder whether I need to look at the purpose behind my blog too, to ensure it's doing what it should be. Up until now it's been whatever I want to write about... and it might still be that, just in a different way.

Anywho, I wanted to write about how I'm going with....

... as it's been 2 or 3 weeks. I'm currently down 3 kilos. So pretty solid and steady weight loss. I want it to be slow because that means I'm more likely to keep it off. And you know what.... it's been pretty easy. I haven't felt really hungry at all, in fact, I've been so happy with my change in mood and how I'm feeling about myself that I haven't worried too much about what I'm missing.

Cheat meal is somewhat concerning me at the moment. I was worried about having a 'cheat meal' at the start as it seems more of a diety thing to do, I'm strict on myself 6 days a week and then the 7th day I loosen the reigns a weeny bit, but I talked myself into it as I wanted to ensure I didn't give myself too much permission to eat unhealthily all the time (which, if you're doing things in moderation, should be the way to be, if I want to have fish and chips on a Tuesday rather than Saturday (cheat day) then it's OK cuz I can regulate that somewhere else). I wanted to be strict on myself here as I've tried that before and my old habits die very hard. I felt myself creeping into bad habits during the last part of last week and have promptly given myself a slap on the hand for it. I also got an email from Fit Girls Worldwide which I subscribe to both by email and on instagram and pinterest, which talked about cheat meal not being so good when you're starting out because you're setting up making your body want to crave the healthy stuff rather than the naughty stuff. I'm going to monitor it, at the moment I don't want to give it up... and I am losing steadily. I might reevaluate when that isn't happening.

I had the nerdy little task of going through my 'healthy' pinterest board the other day and came across these wonderful things...

...which are great when I can't get out for a walk. It's really hard having a baby that you need to take with you when the weather is so unpredictable. I was all geared up this morning to head out for a walk when I got home from dropping Leah off at daycare and then it began spitting, and now it's beautiful but Willow is asleep in her cot. Timing is a real bitch sometimes. Although this morning it was not to worry because I did one of these types of workouts. I thought they'd be really easy and wouldn't really feel like I was doing much but man were my legs sore!

Super happy to be looking forward to Wednesday weigh in.
See you later kgs!

Tasty Tuesday - A week in recipes

Another week of using recipes off my pinterest boards. Feels good to be using them finally (I had a tonne of recipe magazines to get through first ...I am the queen of consumption!)

Like I've said previously, I will mostly be sharing savoury, dinner type meals for the next while as I'm trying my best not to make too many sweet treats. It's going well at the moment and my healthy lifestyle is taking fight :) In saying that, cheat day this week saw the yummy first recipe made (and most frozen for when I can have a treat). I'm learning how to do this moderation thing!

Here are this week's spoils.

Cream cheese chocolate chip cookies. Now, it could be the fact that my sugar intake is a lot smaller nowadays, but these are delicious! So soft and my husband particularly pointed out that they were already yum and then you get hit with a chocolate chip and it's like heaven!

Sweet BBQ Pork Chops. We usually just fry or bake our pork chops so this was a nice change for us, I think the sauce would be nice for chicken too.

Garlic Chicken Strips. These I really loved. With my smaller portions recently, this was a hard one to stick to. I even stuffed up the ratios of breadcrumbs and cheeses and it was still delicious. Will definitely be making again.

Cilantro Thai Grilled Chicken. A nice easy little sauce to go with chicken breast.

Grilled Chicken Cordon Bleu. I really liked the basting sauce used on these, will definitely be using that again!

Would love to hear about what you're eating this week 

xox

Weeky 10 - Time for a change.

How did I go this week?

1. Look into power companies. Is what we're paying OK or should we change.

I used the What's my Number website and the consumer website that sits alongside it to determine this. Looks like we're not too bad off with our power company. There was a change we could make to save something but it was so minute, I decided it's not worth the hassle as I've found the current company we're with to be quite a good provider to deal with.

2. Take Willow's Month 2 photo.

3. Write a 'month at a glance' blog post.

Here it is. Looking forward to carrying it on!

4. Make jobs board and inside fitness cards for school.

5. Clean showers.

6. De-fruit and prune lemon tree.

7. Finish Cleaning schedule.

8. Complete physical baby books and plunket calendar.

9. Do the first 52 list.

10. Choose 5 cocktails I'm going to learn to make for my 30 before 30 cocktail goal.

I have a huge list... I couldn't pick just 5 lol.

I've decided to retire Weekly 10 for a little while as it's stopped being so helpful and more of a chore now. I'm productive by nature but have found that, at first these lists were helping with that but now they're hindering other things that I might want to do when the fancy takes me. In addition to the Weekly 10 lists I also have another list of smaller tasks on, and I'll be keeping this up of course - I love lists, but at the moment I won't be sharing them.

I really want to focus on some of the 30 before 30 goals and begin to blog about my progress towards them more frequently and I also want to utilise the Mama Kat prompts some more and get some real writing done again. So, Saturday won't be a postless day, it'll just be different. 

Until I need Weekly 10 again. Adieu. xox