Hotcakes with berry and plum syrup

Recently I've decided that I've wanted to try a few new recipes so that we can broaden our food horizons as we seem to be eating the same old things for what seems like forever. I've told you all before how I like to mix things up sometimes and the kids seem to enjoy eating dessert for dinner so when I found this recipe I knew we just to try it. In Australia we call hotcakes pancakes, so I called these pancakes when I served them up to the children.

The other good thing about trying this recipe was that because of the dairy and sugar content Quinlan might actually gain some weight instead of losing it this month instead. We have been battling with his weight for the last few months and its getting to the point that I need him to gain weight every few weeks. So with this in mind I just knew that he would love this meal and if I added yogurt I'd be ticking all the boxes to make him happy.

The great thing about this recipe is it's adaptable and it can be eaten year round. I'm thinking I'm going to try using mixed berry and vanilla bean cream when winter comes or maybe I can make them for Mr Opoes to celebrate Valentines Day.

Hotcakes with berry and plum syrup.

Sauce Ingredients

5 plums, halved, pitted and cut into 1 cm thick slices

1/2 cup caster sugar

1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 vanilla bean, split length ways

1 cup fresh blueberries

2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice

Hotcake Ingredients

1 cup fresh ricotta cheese

3/4 cup buttermilk

4 large eggs, separated

1 cup plain flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 cup caster sugar

100 grams unsalted butter

icing sugar for dusting

Method:

1. Heat a large heavy frying pan over a medium heat. Add plums, sugar and cinnamon. Scrape the seeds from the vanilla bean into the plum mixture then add the beans too. Cook, gently stirring the fruit occasionally for 2 minutes or until the sugar melts and the plums release their juice.

2. Gently fold in the blueberries and cook for a further 2 minutes or until the blue berries begin to release their juice. Don't let the berries cook too long or they'll become mushy and lose their shape. Stir in the lemon juice. Remove from the heat and keep warm.

3. To make the hotcakes, whisk the ricotta, buttermilk and egg yolks in a large bowl to blend. Sift the flour and baking powder into the ricotta mixture, whisking until blended.

4. In another bowl, using an electric mixer on medium speed, beat the egg whites and sugar until stiff peaks form. Using a large silicone spatula, gently fold the egg whites through the batter.

5. Pre-heat a large non-stick frying pan over medium-low. Melt about a teaspoon of butter in the pan or alternatively spray your pan with cooking spray. Ladle the batter into the pan and cook each hotcake for 3 minutes each side or until they puff up. Each side should be golden brown and just cooked through. Transfer the hotcakes onto plates.

6. Immediately after coming out of the pan, spoon the warm fruit and syrup over the hotcakes. Dust with icing sugar, to serve. Alternatively, place the syrup in a bowl and have your diners spoon their own topping over their hotcakes.

7. Repeat to make and serve more hotcakes, wiping the pan with paper towels before cooking each batch.

NOTE: if wanting to make these gluten free I just substituted 1 cup of plain flour for 1 cup of gluten free plain flour and I made sure that the baking powder was also gluten free.

When I served these up to the children I allowed the fruit and syrup to cool down a little so that the kids wouldn't burn their tongues. Alternatively, you could also serve these hotcakes with a scoop of vanilla ice cream or a bit of cream on the side. Either way, these hotcakes are now my go to recipe, especially when after a while trying my three year old is eating them with her siblings.

Megan

Thermomix

Let me started by saying that I'm not a Thermomix consultant, this isn't a sponsored post in any way shape or form,all opinions are mine and I haven't been compensated in any way. Last week I purchased a Thermomix and it arrived in my kitchen yesterday morning. My consultant ran through things with me, showed me how to make a stock and then she left me to play with my machine.

I spent about ten minutes looking through the cookbook that comes with your machine and there were a few things that caught my eye. One thing I loved straight away was the number of Gluten Free recipes that were included in the cookbook, so menu planning should now be somewhat easier. When my machine arrived I hadn't planned on making anything in it for are few days as I was a little scared that I'd make a huge mistake and the recipe would be ruined. However, I lasted about five hours before I cracked and I make the kids something for afternoon tea. I had a bit of leftover berry sorbet from my demonstration and I wanted to give it to the kids before it got freezer burn so I refreshed it a bit and added two apples to make it like a Slushie. This was a hit with all the kids which was a good start.

As many of you know I'm presently doing Weight Watchers so I've been getting all our meals from various cookbooks so that I can plan and track my points for the entire week. I planned on having '5 Spice Chicken with Noodles' for dinner last night. I'd had a couple of glasses of cordial during the day because my blood sugar level had dropped so our planned meal was going to need adjusting because the meal was 10 points per serve. After a quick look through the Thermomix cookbook I choose Apricot Chicken Risotto as it had a few vegetables in it that I could hide from the children and they were more likely to eat it. Twenty minutes after turning the Thermomix on I was serving dinner to the children and I'd even included five vegetables that they couldn't see and they ate it up without too many hassles. In our house that's a win because I usually always have ONE child who refuses to eat what I've made.

Now because they had eaten all their dinner without complaining I made decided to make them Chocolate Custard while they had their bath. This also allowed me to surprise them and instead of having to drink their nighttime milk in a cup I was able to give them the custard and a spoon so that they could still get their daily serve of calcium. So far I've used my machine three times today and I know that is unusual but so far I'm happy with the way things have gone. I was able to make dinner and dessert within thirty minutes and everyone ate it.

So when it comes to planning next weeks menu I know I'll be consulting my new cookbook and Pinterest to see what other great Thermomix recipes I can find on the Internet. I thought I'd share a few pictures I took of our dinner, now keep in mind that these photo's were taken quickly and moments before the children got their hands on their bowls. So I apologise for the bad photographs but like I said I had to hurry to get them taken so staging wasn't an option.

I'm going to continue to have a play around the the Thermomix for a few more months before I review it and I'll give you the pro's and con's as I see it. So do you have a favourite appliance so do you enjoy chopping and dicing things yourself.

Megan

Mushrooms with Spinach, Ham and Cottage Cheese on Toast.

For the last two years I have been eating the same thing for breakfast day in and day out. Sometimes I add something extra like yoghurt or almonds but generally I'll have thirty-five grams of muesli and a splash of skim milk. The other day I decided that I wanted something different, something that the children wouldn't want to steal but also something that was low in Propoints. I purchased a Weight Watchers cookbook some months ago and I'm afraid to say that I looked through the book and then I hid it away on the shelf in the kitchen.

 

Most mornings I don't have much time to eat my breakfast BUT today I was going to take the time to not only eat my breakfast but enjoy it. I opened up the book to the breakfast section, found the Mushrooms with Spinach, Ham and Cottage Cheese recipe that went with a slice of toast. While I was getting organised, my eight year old asked if he could have it too because he also wanted something different. As he eats a Toasted English Muffin with nothing on it every morning I jumped at the chance to have him eat something tastier and more nutritional. I have to say that the most difficult part was getting a good photograph because it was raining outside and we both wanted to taste our breakfast BUT I made him wait and it was well worth it.

 

 

Mushrooms with Spinach, Ham and Cottage Cheese on Toast.

Serves 2

Ingredients:200g Swiss brown mushrooms, quartered

80g fat-free ham, chopped

2 cups baby spinach leaves

1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar

2 40g slices of soy and linseed bread, toasted

1/4 cup Weight Watchers Cottage Cheese

Method:

1. Lightly spray a large non-stick frying pan with oil and heat over a medium heat. Add mushrooms and cook, stirring for 3-4 minutes or until tender. Add ham and spinach and cook, stirring, for 2 minutes or until the spinach has just wilted. Add vinegar and stir to combine. Season with salt and pepper.

2. Meanwhile, toast your bread and spread with cottage cheese. Top toast with the mushroom mixture and enjoy with a glass of juice or a hot drink.

 

Now if you're not a fan of cottage cheese you can swap the cottage cheese for the same amount of ricotta cheese. If you follow this recipe you'll only be using 4 Propoints for this tasty breakfast. I'm pleased to say that I'm going to be adding this to my breakfast menu and when the rest of the family is enjoying a breakfast of bacon and eggs I'll be having a healthier alternative.

 

So are you like me and have the same thing every morning or do you change your breakfast depending on the mood you're in?

 

Megan

Weight Watchers Mushroom Quiche

Over the weekend I cooked up a storm so I thought I'd share with you this week a few of the recipes that I tried. In January of this year I joined Weight Watchers to lose some of the baby weight that I've been charging around for the last few years. Now during the last eleven months I've struggled to lose 4 kilograms so after this weeks meeting I decided it was time to put more effort into my weight lose journey.

 

When I arrived home I grabbed one of my Weight Watchers cookbooks, after enjoying a quick coffee at our local shopping centre my weekly menu was completed. Now I alternate between meat and vegetable based meals each week, this allows me to keep the grocery bill down and have the children eat vegetable especially when they're fussy eaters. I decided to start the week off with a vegetable based meal and to make it more special for the children I made individual quiches for them. When it came time to make dinner I realised I had a piece of roast pork leftover from a previous meal so I cheated and I added it to the quiche. The beauty of this recipe is that it allows you to simply add other ingredients that you may have and then you've created a quiche that's unique and personalised to your family's likes and dislikes.

 

Mushroom Quiche

Ingredients:

2 sheet of puff pastry

200g button mushrooms, halved

200g Swiss brown mushrooms, sliced

2 garlic cloves, crushed

6 eggs

3/4 cup skim milk

2 tablespoons chopped fresh chives

1/4 cup Parmesan cheese, grated

1/3 cup Weight Watchers cottage cheese

 

Method:

1. Pre-heat oven to 200°C or 180°C for a fan forced. Lightly spray a 20cm round container.

2. Defrost your puff pastry and when it's soft cut out a circle to fit the base of your baking container. With the remaining pastry cut it into stripes and use these to form the sides of your quiche. Place tin onto a baking tray.

3. Spray frying pan with cooking spray and turn it up to medium heat. Add mushrooms, stirring, for 4 to 5 minutes or until golden brown. Add garlic and cook, stirring, for 30 seconds. Cool slightly.

4. Whisk eggs, milk, chives and Parmesan in a large bowl. Season with salt and pepper. Spoon cooled mushroom mixture into the pastry case. Pour egg mixture over filling and dollop with tablespoons of cottage cheese.

5. Bake for 40-45 minutes or until pastry is golden and filing is set. Remove from oven and set aside for 10 minutes before cutting into wedges. Serve with a garden salad.

 

Now when I added the pork to our quiche I cooked it with the mushrooms. If you're going to add any additional vegetables or meats I'd fry them off with the mushrooms and garlic. This will allow you time to cool the vegetables/meats so that they're ready for the egg mixture.

 

The above recipe is only 4 points on the Weight Watchers program here in Australia however with the few additional changes I made it worked out to be 6 points. So what's you're favourite quiche I'd love to here what you and your family enjoy eating.

 

I have a little bit of housekeeping for you, remember to entry the Santa Giveaway for your chance to win a $150 dollar Amazon gift card as entries close very soon. Click the on image below to be taken to the competition page and good luck.

 

Megan

Weight Watchers Journey

Source

I came to the realisation last night that I've known My Opoes for a little over eleven years, we'll celebrate nine years of marriage in July and I've also been a full-time mummy for eight years. Early on in our relationship I spent time organising what I was going to wear out, what shoes would work best and should I wear a little bit of make up or nothing at all. We got engaged a year after our first date and from that moment on my focus shifted to other more important things e.g. organising a wedding, babies, kindy, planning holidays, school, errands etc I have spent the last ten years putting myself last, getting on with things so that everyone else is taken care of. Now I know I'm not alone in thinking like this (putting myself last) but I've decided 2013 is going to be the year I start taking care of myself.

It's funny but when you write it down, saying that you are going to start looking after yourself sounds selfish. I believe that if I don't start looking after myself then the outcome could become dire. There are a few reasons for wanting to look after myself and at the end of the day the longer mummy is around the better it is for my family. Some of the things I do regularly is always eating last, I put off going places especially if one of the children are tired, I tend to fit in a shower when I get a chance instead of first thing in the morning, I can't remember the last time I went to the hairdresser on my own let alone to have something done others than a quick trim, I tend to grab clothes or shoes at the shop and bring them home to see if they fit because it's just too difficult to drag three kids and a pram into the change room with me and if I do purchase something it's always on the cheap.

Some of the things I do are easy to change but my weight is something that I can't magically change over night. Although it's not an excuse I've had three babies in thirty-eight months and I never really took the time to start loosing the weight after number two or three were born. So I've decided that the first thing I'm going to concentrate on is loosing weight and I've decided that I'm going to get a little bit of help. This isn't a sponsored post, all the opinions expressed are hundred percent mine and I'm only sharing this with you so that I can hold myself accountable while I'm on this weight loss journey.

Source

When deciding I wanted to loose weight I was shocked to discover that I had more than twenty kilograms (more than 50 lbs) that I had to shift from my frame. This twenty plus kilograms seemed huge, very scary and to loose this amount of weight wasn't just going to happen overnight. Being a Celiac (Coeliac) means that I can't do most of the meal replacement diets, Jenny Craig is out of my price range, joining a gym involved daily child minding fees for each child and the weekly membership fee and having meals delivered to our house would have to be added to our weekly grocery bill. So when you added it all up joining Weight Watchers was the best decision for me and our families budget.

At my first meeting I had to sit up front so that the leader could find me after the meeting to get my weight recorded, to give me all the items I'd need to start and then to talk me through the additionally items that I could need to start the program successfully. I enjoyed being out of the house on my own for that hour so much that I don't think I focused to much on what was being said. One thing I took away from the meeting was that 'any loss, small or large was better than a gain'. Being told this on my first visit was really helpful especially when a new member lost 2.4 kilograms (5.29 lbs) and I only managed to lose 0.4 grams (0.88 lbs).



Source

So at this stage I'm looking at doing Weight Watchers for a minimum of a year at the rate I'm travelling BUT at least I'm losing weight safely and not to dramatically as I don't think I could afford having any surgery to fit me up after the weight has disappeared. One thing I'm learning is that I need to be better prepared. Meal  planning needs to be done for the entire day instead of just planning dinner, having snacks prepared and in my bag will make my life easier and having my weight watchers 'eating out' book on hand will allow me to make healthier options when eating out.

I am still learning and making mistakes BUT I'm getting there very slowly and hopefully I'll reach my first goal of losing 4.2 kilograms (9.25 lbs) which is 5 percent of the weight I need to lose. Now I'm off to have my breakfast and to organise some more snacks. Hopefully I'll get better at working the program into my daily life, I'll find a way to introduce exercise into my routine and soon the benefits will start playing off with a wardrobe that fits better. I hope to share my progress with you as I progress and maybe soon I'll be able to announce that I've reached my 5 percent goal.

Megan