Suburban Mum

Made some delicious lemon meringue cupcakes to take to work tomorrow.  The cupcakes are lemon flavoured and have a dollop of lemon curd in the middle and the topping is just caster sugar and egg whites beaten together over a pan of boiling water and then piped on top.  I’m going to leave it to set for a few hours and it will harden like a meringue.  Can’t wait to eat them now!

This is my staple lunch at the moment.  It tastes so strong you really don’t believe it can be a diet recipe but it is from the Weight Watchers Time to Eat Cookbook published in 2002.  So quick and easy to make.

Ingredients

• 450g (1 lb) broccoli, broken into florets
• 225g (8 oz) leeks, sliced
• 225g (8 oz) potatoes, peeled and diced
• 1.2 litres (2 pints) vegetable stock
• 50g (1¾ oz) blue Stilton, crumbled
• salt and freshly ground black pepper

Instructions

1. Place the broccoli in a large saucepan with the leeks and potatoes.  Add the stock and bring to the boil.  Reduce the heat, cover and simmer for 20 minutes.
2. Blend the soup in a food processor or liquidiser in batches, and return the soup to a clean saucepan.  Reheat gently.
3. Add the Stilton and heat, stirring, until the cheese dissolves.  Season to taste.

Makes 4 portions.  Suitable for freezing.  2 points (155 calories) per serving.

Picture by Townie on Flickr

A couple of people requested this recipe so I thought I’d post it here.  It’s from the Weight Watchers Pure Points 2002 Cookbook.

Ingredients

• Low fat cooking spray
• 100g (3½ oz) polyunsaturated margarine
• 100g (3½ oz) caster sugar
• 2 medium eggs
• 4 tbsp skimmed milk
• 1 tsp baking powder
• grated zest and juice of 2 medium lemons
• 175g (6 oz) self-raising flour
• 2 tbsp caster sugar for the topping

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to Gas Mark 5/190°C/375°F.  Spray and 18cm (7 inch) round tin with the low-fat cooking spray, line with baking paper and spray again (or use a bun tin and cake cases to make fairy cakes).
2. Cream together the margarine and sugar until light and fluffy.  Add the eggs one at a time and beat well between each addition.  Add the milk, baking powder and lemon zest and beat well.
3. Sift the flour into the mixture and fold in lightly.  Spoon into the prepared tin and bake for 30-40 minutes (or 10-12 minutes if fairy cakes) or until golden brown and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
4. Meanwhile, to make the topping heat together the sugar and lemon juice until the sugar is dissolved.  When the cake is cooked place on a wire cooling rack.  Pour the lemon syrup over the hot cake and leave to cool.

Makes 8 slices (or 16 fairy cakes).  One slice is 4 points (260 calories) or one fairy cake is 2 points (130 calories).

Photo by hoobygroovy on Flickr.

If you read mumof4’s blog, you’d know that recently her postcards, sent during her March holiday in Mexico, have only just turned up.

When I first read it, I admit I was a little bit disappointed. I didn’t get one, I thought, with a pout. I reached back into the recesses of my mind to try and remember when exactly we became good friends and sent each other things in the post and I couldn’t remember, so I consoled myself with the thought that, perhaps, it was after her holiday (even though I know it was a lot earlier than that). I didn’t want to say anything at the time for fear of embarrassing my friend into admitting she hadn’t actually sent me one, ha ha.

Then, look what turned up today!!!

Why mine took a week longer than everyone else’s is anyone’s guess, but I don’t care. I got a postcard from mumof4 after all! I *am* popular! And ever so slightly paranoid.

Not only that, but yesterday morning, following on from the two packages that she sent me containing birthday presents last week, I received these:

It also came with Reece’s peanut butter and chocolate sauce for ice cream (the sort that goes hard, my favourite!), but I forgot to photograph it. And, yes, I may have already opened the top packet. Well, I had to make sure they were OK, didn’t I!

Mumof4, you may be single-handedly ruining my diet, but you’re a diamond, you are.

So, those of you who follow me on Twitter might wonder what the hell I was going on about this morning with all my questions about toast and sandwiches.

Well, SH and I have been together for 9 years, 8 of which we’ve lived together and 4.5 of which we’ve been married. Yet he chose today to ask me why I cut his toast in half when he prefers it whole.

I’ve been serving him cut-in-half toast for the entire time I’ve known him! I have always cut mine in half, I cut ST’s into quarters. We both eat Marmite so there’s a reason to cut it – if you don’t, you end up with Marmite at the corners of your mouth and all over your cheeks – trust me on that. SH, however, hates Marmite to the point that it makes him gag* so I guess it’s easier to eat buttered toast whole. Having said that, he has been known to serve me toast on occasion and he has always cut it in half.

So that was my question – are you a cutter or are you a whole? Most of my fellow tweeters immediately said “whole”. Which then led me to the question, do you do the same with a sandwich then? SH would moan like hell if I served him a peanut butter sandwich without cutting it into triangles! Seriously.

* Although he has yet to realise that I always cut his toast with the knife that I used to spread Marmite on ST’s and my toast!

As would seem fitting for the founder member of a weight loss support forum [/irony], yesterday I served up home made chocolate pistachio fudge and rocky road crunch bars, both recipes courtesy of Nigella Express, when Katya came round with her boys.

Of course I didn’t eat it… well, maybe just a little. But I only ate fresh pineapple for lunch yesterday in anticipation of our afternoon treat. The fudge is quite rich and you seriously couldn’t eat much of it at one time, but the rocky road, although using the same (Divine – thanks for the recommendation Helen!) chocolate, was easier on the palate thanks to the crushed rich tea biscuits and I fear it will become a regular feature around Suburban Mansions. Especially when chilled in the fridge overnight (it was still a bit on the gooey side yesterday afternoon after the minimum two hours’ chilling. Oh damn, I think I’ve just admitted that I’ve had some this morning already). In my defence, I used reduced fat rich tea biscuits and reduced fat butter, so they’re not quite as bad as they could have been. I have yet to calculate their WW points value but I will do later!

Both items could have done with being a bit deeper but I didn’t have disposable foil trays available to me in the size Nigella dictated, so used a swiss roll tin lined with foil. Next time (oh yes, there’ll be a next time) I will endeavour to purchase said items. Anyone know where you can get 23 cm square disposable foil trays?

Thanks to Laputain (and Nigella!) for this yummy recipe.

I have to admit I have already eaten three and they’re not even cooled yet. I even caught ST trying to sneak one the moment they were out of the oven!

Like Laputain, I used dark chocolate chips rather than the butterscotch morsels that the recipe calls for (where the hell do you buy those from anyway?!), and I have to say that the bitterness of the dark chocolate definitely complements the sweetness of the bananas. They are unbelievably delicious. ST and I made them together.

Our conversation went something like this:

Me: You stand there and mash the bananas.
ST: Oh cool! I love bashing blanas!
Me: When I’m ready you can tip all the bananas into the big bowl.
ST: Can I tickle the blanas in the big bowl now?
Me: Only mummies can get hot things out of ovens.
ST: I’m a big boy now though, I had my birthday and now I’m three!
Me: And how old will you be on your next birthday?
ST: Twenty six.

The kiddo,  not one for trying new foods usually, deigned to try one of SH’s legendary pancakes tonight.   Unfortunately, giving him chocolate sauce just before bedtime probably wasn’t the most sensible thing I’ve done this week and he’s now jacked up on sugar. The kid has been hyper for the past hour. At least I can add another food to his menu now – though maybe without the sauce next time.