Minimalist Baker’s Rhubarb and Strawberry Crumble Bars

This was one that was doing the rounds on Twitter a while back and Anna from Vivannadoesmakeup on YouTube was tweeting about it. After seeing the GORGEOUS picture she posted I couldn’t resist trying these out.

After reading the copywrite notice on the Minimalist Baker’s website I daren’t post the recipe, but I highly recommend you go and check them out here. They’re gluten free too!

Happy healthy cooking.

Around the Corner Fitness.

Chickpea Bolognese

A new discovery from eating healthily has been chickpeas. I’ve gone from not knowing what they are and treating them warily to absolutely loving them. I now buy at least 3 cans in the weekly shop. I’ve seen various different chickpea bolognese recipes online, but have adapted them and squashed them together into this one. The original recipe said to have the bolognese with spiralled carrots and although I did buy them in the weekly shop I really couldn’t be bothered to stand in the kitchen for ages and prepare them. Next time I think I’ll buy some pre-prepared ones (which I know aren’t quite as healthy but for the time I save I really don’t care!) So this recipe calls for brown spaghetti. It was just as delicious!

Ingredients
Chickpeas
400g can of chickpeas, drained, rinsed and patted dry
1 tbsp of olive oil
1 tbsp of died oregano
2 tsp of garlic granules
3 tbsp of breadcrumbs
1 tbsp of parmesan cheese
Pinch of salt

Sauce
1 tsp of olive oil
400g can of chopped tomatoes (you want good quality ones for this)
2 tsp of garlic paste
1/4 cup of finely grated carrot
1 tbsp dried oregano
1 tbsp of parmesan cheese
1/2 teaspoon of sugar (if required)

150g brown spaghetti

Method

1. Heat oven to 200°c
2. Add the rinsed and dried chickpeas to a bowl and add the olive oil, oregano,salt, garlic powder, breadcrumbs and parmesan cheese. Stir to combine and place on a baking sheet (lined with parchment otherwise the cheese and breadcrumbs will fall through the holes!) Bake for 20 minutes or until golden brown.
3. To make the sauce, heat the olive oil in a frying pan and add the garlic and carrots. Stir frequently and cook for a couple of minutes.
4. Add the tomato sauce, oregano and parmesan cheese and stir to combine. Simmer on low until the sauce thickens. Once thickened, you can add 1/2 teaspoon of sugar to sweeten the sauce if required
5. Cook the pasta according to the packet instructions.
6. To serve top the spaghetti with the tomato sauce and serve the chickpeas on top. I find a sprinkling of parmesan at the end doesn’t go a miss either – I’ve normally grated too much in preparation.

 

This one doesn’t take long at all so it’s ideal for a weeknight tea. The portion sizes serve two perfectly.

If you try it, let me know.

Happy healthy cooking.

Around the Corner Fitness

Propercorn

So imagine my excitement when the other day I came home to this:

I’m a MASSIVE fan of PROPERCORN’s Sweet Vanilla and Coconut popcorn (as you can read about here) so I was so excited when I opened it up to see lots more flavours for me to try. Before trying the Sweet Vanilla and Coconut I’d never really been a fan of popcorn. I’ve never had a hankering for popcorn at the cinema and always choose pick and mix as my top snacking choice. In fact the only popcorn I’ve ever liked is the Butterkist toffee popcorn which is heart-attackingly bad for you (and probably why I like it!).

Of course now I have all this popcorn it would be rude of me not to eat it all. Here’s what I think:

Sour Cream and Black Pepper
I chose this one first because I love sour cream crisps and thought that this would be the same. It was similar but it definitely had a spicy peppery aftertaste to it. After I’d finished the packet I was reaching for my pint of water. Having said that, I’ve recently chosen to go up to ‘Lemon and Herb’ from ‘Plain’ at Nandos, so perhaps my spiciness levels aren’t representative of the rest of the population!
Verdict: Definitely a hit. I’m not sharing.

 

Sweet and Salty
I wasn’t sure what I was expecting from this. I think I thought that some bits would be sweet and some would be salty, but it wasn’t like that at all. Every piece was beautifully sweet AND salty. Weird, but bloody delicious. I’ve just finished the packet and already I want some more. (additional note: I’ve now eaten 3 packets and I can’t stop! Someone please take them away.)
Verdict: I hadn’t tried this before, but I’ll definitely be trying this again.

 

Lightly Sea Salted
I wasn’t a big fan of these, although they went down well with the girls at work. They were too salty for me and caused a dry mouth, dry tongue issue that I couldn’t shake for a few hours. I think it might be that I prefer sweet things to salty things in general.
Verdict: I won’t be reaching for these again in a hurry.

 

 

Fiery Worcester Sauce & Sun-Dried Tomato
This was a surprise hit with the girls at work. They likened the flavour to ‘those Walkers’ purple packet crisps’. I wasn’t expecting to like these, and I’m not sure I could eat a whole packet, but I thoroughly enjoyed the taste I had. They weren’t as spicy as I was expecting either – perhaps those hotter Nandos have paid off!
Verdict: Surprisingly yummy but definitely a packet to share.

 

Smooth Peanut & Almond
These didn’t taste of almond, but were very peanutty. In the office they were compared to those ‘continental peanut crisps’ if that means anything to anyone. The packets that I took into work were lapped up with slightly orgasmic noises coming from those tasting it.
Verdict: If you like the taste of peanut, you’re going to love it.

 

The girls at work have numerous allergies and it makes it quite difficult to bring in a sharing snack that’s suitable for everyone. This popcorn fitted the bill perfectly as it’s gluten and wheat free and suitable for vegans too. Healthy and yummy – what more could you ask for?

Having eaten a whole box (not by myself I hasten to add) my bond with popcorn has strengthened immeasurably. After the sweet coconut and vanilla fail  I still don’t think I’ll be able to recreate any as good as the PROPERCORN ones, but I remain on a mission to try. I think I could manage the sweet and salty ones. How hard could it be?! …
Happy healthy cooking (and nibbling)

Around the Corner Fitness

Tandoori Spiced Quinoa

This recipe is bloody delicious and is baby Rose’s top choice for leftovers the next day. When he takes it to his grandparents’ house for lunch my mum (I hope affectionately) refers to it as ‘that curry thing that he wolfs down’. Actually, it’s not curry at all, but a deliciously fragrant and spicy Moroccan inspired dish. It goes really well with some flatbread and hummus for a Moroccan feast. Originally the recipe is from yup it’s vegan a website run by a vegan from Baltimore, MD. As usual I’ve altered it slightly to suit our tastes and what was in our fridge at the time. Yup it’s vegan is an amazing website and updates and new recipes get posted 1-2 times a week. I’m always going over there for a nosy to see what tasty treats to rustle up for tea. My carbonara recipe originated from one of Shannon’s recipes too.

If you like things spicy you can up the garam masala or add more/different coloured chillies. Be careful about which brand of garam masala you use. I’ve found that some are more spicy than others. M&S is blow your head off spicy! Just to clarify I don’t do my weekly shop in M&S; it was a last minute ‘oh rubbish, I haven’t got any left’ dash to the nearest shop.

Ingredients
1 teaspoon of coconut oil
1 sweet potato
1 red onion
2 teaspoons of garlic paste
1 green chili
1 tablespoon ginger paste
1 1/2 tablespoons of garam masala
1/4 teaspoon of cayenne pepper
1 cup of quinoa (rinsed to remove the bitter outer coating)
1 1/4 cup of vegetable stock
400g cooked chickpeas (1 can)
400g chopped tomatoes (1 can)
1 teaspoon light brown sugar

Lime juice and chopped fresh coriander for serving

Method

1. Melt the coconut oil in a large saucepan
2. Peel the sweet potato and dice into small cubes. Add the sweet potato and garlic paste to the saucepan and cook for 6-8 minutes until softening.
3. Chop the red onion into small pieces and add to the saucepan. Leave for 2-3 minutes to soften.
4. Add the ginger and chopped green chili to the saucepan and cook for another minute.
5. Add the garam masala and cayenne pepper to the saucepan and stir until the sweet potato and onion are coated in the spices.
6. Add the quinoa, vegetable stock, chickpeas, chopped tomatoes and sugar. Stir to combine and place the lid on the saucepan.
7. Bring to a boil and then reduce to a simmer. Cook for approximately 20 minutes until the sweet potatoes are cooked through and the liquid has evaporated. You can always add more liquid if the liquid has evaporated before the quinoa has cooked.
8. Serve with a squeeze of fresh lime and a sprinkle of fresh coriander

 

We have this one at least once a week. If you’re short on time I suggest cutting up the sweet potato, onion and chili in advance. Cutting up the sweet potato alone can take 10 minutes and every time we have it I realise that we need a new potato peeler and sharper knives for our kitchen.

If you try it, let me know.

Happy healthy cooking.

Around the Corner Fitness.

 

One Pot Spicy Chicken Pasta

This is another one of the favourites at the Rose Residence. Like my one pot courgette pasta, I really love this because it’s one of those ‘shove it all in’ recipes that you can leave to meander together whilst you get other things done. The title of ‘spicy chicken’ might be misplaced because although it’s peppery and does have a tang to it, it’s more of a flavour rather than a spice. Originally this recipe came from Yellow Bliss Road, but I’ve made some changes to it and adapted it a bit to make it suit our family. Kristin from Yellow Bliss Road has some excellent recipes on her website and it’s a real good read, full of information and ideas not just food related. Her ‘about me’ section makes for an inspiring read too; she seems like a wonderful lady.

I find that this recipe is enough to serve 2 greedies with enough left over for the baby. It works out (according to My Fitness Pal) to around 611 calories.

Ingredients 
1 teaspoon of coconut oil
1 onion
2 teaspoons of garlic paste
1 red pepper
225g brown pasta
16 cherry tomatoes
2 cups of chicken stock
1/2 cup of water
2 tablespoons of lemon juice
1 teaspoon of oregano
1/4 teaspoon of red pepper flakes
Salt and pepper to taste
2 tablespoons of parmesan cheese
Handful of spinach

Method

1. Melt the coconut oil in a pan, add the onion and stir until softened. Add the garlic paste.
2. Add the chicken and stir until the chicken has browned.
3. Add the red pepper and stir until coated in the garlic and coconut oil.
4. Add the pasta, chicken stock, water, lemon juice, oregano, red pepper flakes, cherry tomatoes and salt and pepper.
5. Bring the mixture to a boil and cook on a medium-high heat until the pasta has cooked through. I find this to be around 12 minutes. If the liquid is evaporating too quickly and the pasta is not cooking, add more water. If there is lots of liquid and the pasta is cooked, turn the heat higher to evaporate the liquid. I find that this step is trial and error and it changes every time I make it!
6. When the pasta is cooked, add in the parmesan cheese. This thickens the sauce slightly and adds a real cheesy flavour without too many extra calories. If I have any leftover spinach in the fridge I throw this in at the end too. Just place a handful on the top and let the heat of the pasta wilt it down for a minute or two.

Mr Rose is a big fan of this one. He very discreetly mentioned that a lot of our new recipes seem to be vegetarian or vegan and he doesn’t tend to find them as filling. This one he laps up and he never sneaks back into the kitchen for pudding!

If you try it, let me know.

Happy healthy cooking.

Around the Corner Fitness.

Sweet Coconut & Vanilla Popcorn – Hit or Miss?

I first bought this popcorn on a whim whilst buying food for a Eurovision party in May. I thought it sounded interesting, but pretty disgusting and although I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to like it, I thought that someone in the crowd would lap it up. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Everyone else turned their noses up whilst I, after that first glorious taste, sat in the corner with a protective arm wrapped around the bowl.

I’ve always had a thing for sweets. I mainly go to the cinema just as an excuse to eat pick and mix and I’m really quite surprised that I’m not diabetic already. However, as part of the post January health kick I’ve been really trying to cut down on the amount of refined sugar that I eat. It’s mainly worked and I’ve been surprised and impressed by my determination (read stubbornness), but I’ve missed that sugar kick and tongue fizziness that you just can’t replace with bowl after bowl of strawberries.

Step in the popcorn. I realise it’s a bit of a fad at the moment and popcorn seems to be everywhere as the new healthy snack but I bloody love the stuff. Especially this flavour, which is just the right amount of sweetness with a buttery vanillery aftertaste. At only 121 calories a pack I just can’t say no…but it’s getting to the point where my bank balance needs me to. At approaching £1 a (small) packet I thought the cheap solution would be to make my own version. How hard could it be?

Turns out, very! After three failed attempts I gave up.

Attempt 1:
1 teaspoon of coconut oil and 1/4 teaspoon of vanilla extract in with the popcorn in the pan. 1 tablespoon of coconut sugar sprinkled on afterwards.

Verdict: Tasted nice, but of nothing. I might as well have been snacking on air.

Attempt 2:
2 teaspoons of coconut oil, 2 tablespoons of coconut sugar and 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract in with the popcorn.

Verdict: The sugar didn’t melt properly and stuck to the bottom of the pan with the un-popped kernels. I only realised this when it smelt decidedly burny and a dodgy looking grey smoke was wafting around the kitchen. It looked and tasted burnt.

 

Attempt 3:
On attempt three I decided to take advice from the professionals and had a look on YouTube for coconut sugar popcorn recipes. The first hit was this: a Deliciously Ella cinnamon coconut sugar popcorn recipe. I thought I’d hit the jackpot. Wrong again.

Verdict: The recipe didn’t include much detail, such as the temperature you should put the popcorn at or melt the sauce at. Perhaps it’s my naivety in the popcorn department but I was crying out for the missing instructions. My sauce turned out lumpy (which I thought was quite impressive since I was only melting sugar, cinnamon and oil together) and again it tasted burnt and looked like black tar and popcorn had collided in an unfortunate accident.

 

So sweet coconut and vanilla popcorn is a hit, but only if you buy it from the shop at an over inflated price. The homemade version is definitely a miss!

If you have any suggestions for popcorn recipes that might be more successful I’m all ears.  Please leave your suggestions in the comment boxes below. I need help!
Happy healthy cooking.

Around the Corner Fitness

What I Eat In A Week – food tracking Week 1

Weight at the beginning of the week: 10st 9 1/2lbs

Since my operation (and a little bit before if I’m honest with myself) I’ve been slipping back into old habits with eating and I’m determined to put a stop to it. This week I’ve been tracking my food with My Fitness Pal (an app on my phone) and it’s made me much more aware of what exactly I’m consuming in a day. It’s all too easy for me to think ‘oh I’ll just have this, I’ve not been too bad today’, when actually I’ve been really bad I’ve just forgotten. Writing everything down and scanning things into the app has made me pause and consider whether those extra calories now are worth cutting something out later. Usually they aren’t.

Monday (1754 calories)
Breakfast: homemade muesli with almond milk
Lunch: Santini tomato side salad from M&S, harissa chicken with couscous salad from M&S, packet of sweet coconut and vanilla popcorn
Dinner: Deliciously Ella’s vegetable paella, red pepper bread from M&S, mango sorbet and a sneaky bit of chocolate cake for pudding.

Monday went ok up until dinner time. We had family round and I felt rude not saying no to cake (which is perhaps just an excuse).

 

Tuesday (1656 calories)
Breakfast: homemade muesli with almond milk
Lunch: leftover risotto from the night before, strawberries
Afternoon snack: 2 nectarines
Dinner: chicken tikka masala with rice (and a sneaky bit of plain naan) at an Indian restaurant

Mr Rose’s brother has been home for a couple of days and we went out for a surprise birthday meal for him to an Indian.

 

 

Wednesday (1454 calories)
Breakfast: homemade muesli with almond milk
Lunch: coronation chicken jacket potato with side salad
Afternoon snack: a bowl of strawberries
Dinner: homemade muesli with almond milk and a chocolate bar

Mr Rose was out at a work do tonight and after a day of baby I didn’t want to make a nice dinner for me. I settled for muesli as a quick and easy option and then couldn’t resist some chocolate because I’m tired, in pain and hormonal!

 

Thursday (1265 calories)
Breakfast: homemade muesli with almond milk
Lunch: Santini tomato side salad from M&S, harissa chicken with couscous salad from M&S, pineapple
Dinner: king prawn lime coriander pesto pasta

I wasn’t particularly hungry today, so didn’t eat very much. I’m still really tired after my operation so spent some time snoozing on the sofa today.

 

 

Friday (1739 calories)
Breakfast: homemade muesli with almond milk
Lunch: a ham and mustard sandwich and a packet of salt and vinegar crisps (shamefully)
Dinner: health spaghetti carbonara (with added olives which I wouldn’t recommend!) and pineapple for pudding

I had a follow up appointment at the hospital today and realised I hadn’t had any lunch and by 3pm I was starving. I just grabbed a sandwich and crisps from the hospital canteen in the 10 minutes I had. Not the healthiest option, but I tried to choose a low-calorie one.

 

Saturday (I didn’t count calories today)
Breakfast: homemade muesli with almond milk
Morning snack: strawberries with a few squares of chocolate
Lunch: half a baguette, a banana
Dinner: one pot spiced chicken (recipe to follow soon)
Pudding: oat and raisin cookie (recipe to follow soon) and some raspberries

The reins came off a little today and I enjoyed a few tasty treats. Everything in moderation.

 

Sunday (I didn’t count calories today)
Breakfast: homemade muesli with almond milk
Lunch: Cheese and ham panini
Afternoon snack: strawberry ice-cream in a waffle cone
Dinner: tandoori spiced quinoa (recipe to follow soon)

 

 

 

Summary of the week: everything goes really well and then goes tits up at the weekend! It’s been an unusual week with people coming over for dinner and going out (we hardly ever do that anymore!) so I’m hoping next week will be a little more balanced and I’m back at work which will help with the lunch situation.

I don’t know if other parents find this, but we often go out with baby Rose at the weekend to places and I find it’s much harder to get something healthy to eat there. I need the weather to get a bit warmer and then we can start taking picnics.

Overall I’m quite pleased, especially with how things went in the week. One more on-track week and I’ll be rewarding myself with something from the shops!

Have a healthy week.

Around the Corner Fitness.

Birch Water – Hit or Miss?

Today I bought a bottle of water. Nothing unusual in that, I do it quite regularly – every other day maybe. However, today’s bottle of water cost me £2.65 for 250ml. Much more pricey than a bottle of Buxton! I’ve been hearing about birch water for a while now; it seems to have overtaken chia seeds as the ‘next big fitness thing’. Some of these food crazes I can see the benefit of (avocado anyone?), but this one I wasn’t convinced by. Now I’m no expert in nutrition, but even I know that water is supposed to be really good for us; it has no calories and makes our hair, skin and nails look like a supermodel’s (supposedly). So, how can someone have improved a zero calorie, good-for-you drink?

One day, when I was fourteen, I practically ran all the way to school dying to tell my friends about a new craze in water that I’d seen on breakfast television that morning. Someone would come to your house and install a ‘diet water’ tap and when you drank this miracle water it would make you lose weight. My friends very quickly pointed out to me that it was April the 1st and this had in fact been a GMTV April Fools (they still bring the story up quite regularly and I’ve been mocked for it since). So, perhaps understandably, I’m quite wary of any water that claims to be better than, well…water.

The label made for interesting reading. Apparently, this bottle of water isn’t water at all; it’s birch tree sap.  I also like how the label claims that birch water contains 4 times less sugar than coconut water – but surely not less sugar than water, which contains no sugar at all! I know a little about how birch tree sap is collected, so I can sort of understand the hefty price tag and expected all that painstaking collection to produce a flavour that was out of this world.

I was disappointed. Having purchased what felt like the world’s most expensive water, I couldn’t wait until I got home to experience its surely wonderful flavour. I stood outside the shop, opened it and poured a big glug into my mouth. The look on my face must have been priceless, because it was not great. I wouldn’t even go so far as to say it was good. I don’t think I’d even go so far as to say it was nice. It does indeed taste ‘clean’ as the packaging promised. I know it sounds bizarre, but it feels very light in your mouth. I actually think I’d quite like it if it wasn’t for the weird sweet, melony, off-tasting aftertaste that you’re left with. I wanted to have a drink of water to get rid of the taste of my drink of ‘water’.

I think it’s definitely a flavour that can grow on you, but at £2.65 for 250ml I’m not going to try to like it. I thought I was fairly middle class for having Evian as my bottled water of choice! I’d glad I tried it; I was curious after seeing so much about it in the media, but I’m not going to try it again.

This one is a miss!

Around the Corner Fitness.

Mozzarella, Tomato and Cucumber Quinoa Salad (with tasty naughty bread)

I’m now big into quinoa and I’ve had this salad saved on my healthy eating Pinterest board for months and months. It was the first recipe I pinned when I got into healthy eating in January and although I always thought it looked delicious, it got overlooked because it looked more like a lunch than an evening meal. To bulk it out a little bit (and to use up the rest of the french bread stick I had in the cupboard) I decided to freestyle some tomato and herb bread to go with.

The original recipe comes from Averie Cooks, a food blog written by the beautifully named Averie Sunshine. I’ve changed the original recipe by adding some cucumber for bulk and lemon juice to the dressing for a bit of extra tanginess (lime juice would work equally well I think; I’m going to try it next time) and I couldn’t find mozzarella balls in our local supermarket, so I just got a mozzarella ball and cut it up – same taste!

Ingredients for the mozzarella, tomato and cucumber quinoa salad
1 cup of quinoa
1 cup of cherry tomatoes
1/2 a cucumber
1 mozzarella ball
A handful of torn basil leaves
3 tablespoons of rice wine vinegar
3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon of lemon juice
Pinch of salt
1/2 teaspoon of black pepper

Method for the mozzarella, tomato and cucumber quinoa salad

1. Cook the quinoa according to the instructions on the packet. Rinse it first to get rid of the bitter taste. It’s usually one cup of quinoa to two cups of water.
2. Add all the remaining ingredients into a bowl and stir to combine.
3. When the quinoa is cooked, add it to the bowl and combine.

Ingredients for the tomato and herb bread
1/2 french stick
2 tablespoons of tomato puree
2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon basil
1 teaspoon oregano
1 teaspoon garlic puree

Method for the tomato and herb bread

1. Cut the french stick up into whatever sized pieces you would like.
2. Spread on the tomato puree to cover each piece.
3. Add the olive oil, basil, oregano and garlic to a bowl and stir to combine.
4. Brush the olive oil mixture over the bread with a pastry brush.
5. Put in the oven at 150º celsius for 10 minutes (or until browned).

We had this for dinner on the hottest day of the year so far and it was absolutely delicious. It’ll definitely be cropping up on the rotation list.

If you try it, let me know.

Happy healthily cooking.

Around the Corner Fitness.

Meal Planning

Chez Rose has always been a bit hectic. Both Mr Rose and I have always been workaholics and working often took priority above eating healthily. It was all too easy to have a pizza in the evening that would take 10 minutes to cook, rather than take the time out of our schedules to cook properly. Then baby Rose came along at the end of 2014 and we were far too knackered to cook anything! All we wanted to do after baby Rose had gone to sleep was collapse into a heap and as long as our stomachs were full we didn’t really have the energy to care what filled them.

However, since baby Rose is a bit older and sleeping A LOT better, we’ve shifted our priorities and I now spend far more time cooking meals from scratch. Of course this has helped us both lose weight, but more importantly it’s helped me feel healthier and have far more energy to run around looking after a toddler!

Now the schedule of a hectic lifestyle hasn’t really gone away. Yes, I work fewer hours than I did previously, but also do some freelance work and have a very active toddler to keep me busy. The way we’ve been able to keep on top of eating meals cooked from scratch every night and to eat healthier is through meal planning (that sounds like too fancy a term for what it actually is, which is just planning in advance what you’re going to eat).

On Sunday evening I sit down and plan out what we’re going to have for the week. I have all my healthy/clean eating recipes saved on my Pinterest board and that makes it much easier to decide what to have. Occasionally, when I get bored of the same ones, I’ll branch out and try a few from a recipe book. The latest Deliciously Ella has been a great source of recipes recently (mushroom risotto with basil cream blog post here) and I always come back to the old favourite WeightWatchers ones seasonally for some fresh ideas. When I’ve found the seven recipes that we want over the course of the week, I’ll then plan out which evenings we’ll have them on. This is important to us because I work in the evenings quite frequently so on those nights I plan dinners that are less preparation for Mr Rose and take a shorter time to cook so we’re not eating too late. By the time it’s all planned out it looks something like this:

I couldn’t resist buying the stickers to accompany the meal planning. What can I say? I’m a very visual person!

When I’ve planned out what we’re going to have on each day, that’s when I’ll do the food shop. I always do the food shopping online on a Sunday evening and have it delivered on Monday evening. I remember when delivery food shopping first came about and how I sneered at the people too lazy to go to the shop. I’m now eating my words! It’s so convenient to have everything brought to the door and baby Rose loves unpacking everything and taking each item one by one into the kitchen. When it’s all unpacked I then have a look at the sell-by-dates on the packaging and see what needs freezing for later on in the week.

And then it’s done. I don’t have to think about it until next Sunday. It’s really handy to have a look in the morning and see what needs prepping or taking out the freezer for that night’s tea and it takes the thinking about it out of the equation when you’re shattered at the end of the day.

I know it’s not for everyone; I’m sure most people would think this is overkill, but it’s slotted into our lives, become a habit and made eating healthily and staying on track much easier.

The next thing to conquer for me is lunches. We have the same thing for breakfast every day, dinners are meticulously planned out but lunches stray into falling off the wagon territory. Any suggestions are more than welcome.
Happy healthy cooking.

Around the Corner Fitness.