Hello Dear Reader,

If I could afford it, I would buy local, seasonal fish. I would wander around Looe fish market when the boats came in and in the spirit of Rick Stein, I would buy boxes of mixed fish from the local day boats. I would pay around £40 a kilo and all would be fine and dandy! Instead, I bought some frozen smoked haddock and a bag of frozen fish pie fish both from Asda! Still, by my budget both are really expensive and my weekend treat as fish is my favourite food. The haddock was £3.60 a bag and the frozen fish pie mix was £3.00. A cheaper way to do this is to buy frozen pollock and frozen prawns to use in a fish pie. However, I’ve waited all week for my fishy treat and I still stand by the fact that as I don’t eat out, go to the cinema or theatre, don’t have a holiday every year and I’m careful and thrifty that I can treat myself every now and then to £6.60 worth of fish at the weekend!

Above is my haddock cooking in a roasting bag, nothing was added and I cooked them from frozen at 180 for twenty minutes. I like my fish to be only just cooked.

I cooked half a bag of Jersey royals, some frozen green beans and sliced two little gem lettuce. My salad dressing one one tablespoon of olive oil and one tablespoon of balsamic vinegar. I always buy both of those in Aldi, they are much cheaper there. Lunch was three syns each for the olive oil.

Another treat, new season English tomatoes, they are divine! The fish was plonked on top and the fish skin was a treat for the dogs who sat by their bowls from the moment they smelled the fish!

Onto my fishy supper. I emptied the pack of frozen fish pie mix into a pie dish and mixed with a tub of virtually fat free soft cheese and a sprinkle of dried parsley.

I baked two large sweet potatoes in the microwave for eight minutes.

I cut them open and allowed them to cook slightly.

I also cooked a small swede, mashed it and combined it with the mashed sweet potato. I never cook sweet potato in water and always use the microwave then it doesn’t lose any of its sweet flavour.

More of those delicious English tomatoes.

Finally, I topped with 50g of half fat grated cheddar and baked it all at 200 for forty minutes.

The finished pie and we had half each! I made the silly mistake last night of not totally filling myself up with my meal and then felt picky and hungry for the rest of the night and used my syns on gluten free crackers and cheese, which is not the healthiest option.

I served it all with cauliflower and broccoli.

I pulled it apart slightly to show you how the cream cheese forms a sort of sauce. Normally, when we’re being neither careful or sensible, full fat cheddar is used to make a cheese sauce which although heavenly certainly doesn’t help the waistline. The fish pie had 3.5 syns each for the cheese topping and (25g each) and 5.5 syns each for the 125g of low fat cream cheese in each serving.

Today shows that if I stick to the slimming world plan totally, I don’t get hungry at all and then don’t pick. I’m also able to feed DB exactly what I’m eating and he’s really enjoying it too.

I hope you’re enjoying the recipes.

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxx