Cooking Matters!

Great for the hard times ahead!

I love my cooking and might I be allowed to toot my own horn I would say that I am darn good at it. I am also very good at eating my food but that is another story for another day. There is nothing I like more than the smell of baking wafting in the house on a cold and dismal rainy day. Onion soup with melted cheese and baguette is enough to cure any Seasonal Affective Disorder symptom. Chocolate mousse, bliss! a cottage pie with butternut squash, divine! Hell, butternut squash with anything is divine.

Saying this and judging by the praise I receive on the dishes I make, you'd never guess that my first few attempts at cooking at the age of 28 were so shockingly horribly bad that the end result was chucking away the food whilst inside the casserole. Nothing could be saved. Luckily we lived close to a pound shop at the time and I became their best customer. Perseverance paid off and voila; an amateur cook is born!

Great for when at home alone!

In a previous article, I mentioned that I have signed up for Weight Watchers, so it has become a challenge to try and cook up recipes that follow the pro-points system and that will also taste palatable (a key ingredient that will ensure I stick to this program). I could easily live off their canned soups and frozen ready meals but really, seriously it isn't an ideal situation is it?

I had previously purchased the Weight Watchers cookbooks last year when my husband was on the program but I just thought a bit of a change would do us all good. They are the first choice you would have to go to as the recipes have a pro-point already assigned to them and no calculation needed but with other recipes unless the recipe states the protein, carbs, fat and fibre content then it becomes a matter of guessing the pro-points and too tricky.

On a visit to my local discount bookshop the other day, I happened upon these fantastic books from The Australian Women's Weekly and each recipe clearly states the nutritional value components and all you have to do is calculate the pro-points using the Weight Watchers pro-points calculator which you can buy from their website. These recipes are not from low-fat recipe books so their pro-points value is quite high at times but they are good for those days when you have a few points to spare and would like a change. Thought I'd share for those on the same path as myself.

Just Great!

The RRP for each book is set at £6.99 but they were on sale for £2 each. Needless to say I bought the lot!