MPM: 16th July 2018

Back from the smoke, and ready to do my first Weight Watchers sponsored* MPM for a while.

*NB – Weight Watchers do not sponsor me. Which is a shame, because I could really do with the extra cash. I would also take payment in low point fizzy cola bottles, which is probably all that I am worth to them.

The current tactic is to plan a week’s worth of dinners first, point these up in advance and then build the rest of the week around the evening meals. That way, they get to stay as “normal” as possible – which, for me, is a priority. I’m hoping, therefore, that there shouldn’t be too much noticeable change to the weekly meal plans, but it will be interesting to see how that pans out over the following weeks and I may find that I need to start modifying things slightly if getting through the day proves tricky. Once the weather cools a little, I’d be quite keen to re-introduce a weekly soup night which would allow us both to have a day a week where we could build in a more decadent lunch or a few evening treats, but there is not a chance that I’m attempting to eat any soup other than gazpacho at the moment.

This week – D is out with friends on Friday which means prick and ping for me. I currently find myself with a raging sweet tooth, so I may get something really low point and then have a nice pudding afterwards. I saw Rachel Allen make a chocolate chip croissant bread and butter pudding on TV last night and almost swooned. Although I suspect that I would have to eat dust for a day in order to fit that particular pudding into a daily points allocation. Then, on Saturday we are seeing my Mum and Dad for dinner which should be lovely. Elsewhere:

Monday: fish tacos, inspired by Felicity Cloake’s recent column. I’ll be shallow frying / baking the fish to keep points down and replacing sour cream with fat free yoghurt. Sigh.

Tuesday: sweet potato cakes with coriander yoghurt dressing and salad. A lovely Ottolenghi recipe made much less virtuous than it sounds by frying said cakes in butter.

Wednesday: spaghetti carbonara. This is post WI. I am not promising that there won’t be some garlic bread on the side as well since, officially, points don’t reset until Thursday morning. Mwah hah hah.

Thursday: chicken Caesar salad. Am going to dust off my old WW version of the dressing and see how it fares. I plan do to little cubes of paprika dusted roast potato in lieu of croutons.

Sunday: we have a pot of delicious Bolognese sauce in the freezer. I can’t decide whether just to have it with a mound of spaghetti and courgette ribbons, or to make a gnocchi bake (we have some gnocchi in the fridge) with a gooey Mozzarella topping. I have yet to point up the sauce from the original recipe so that might tip the scales one way or the other.