Kicked that plateau to the curb

SOOOOOO close to my wedding goal! I even did a few star jumps in the bathroom this morning - which, FYI, is not a pretty look when you're doing them naked! So today I weighed in at 75.1kgs. A whopping great loss of 1.7kg this week! I can't remember the last time I lost that sort of number in one week without it relating to TTOM. To  be honest I haven't been doing anything massively different except for that Couch to 5k program and also last weekend I was REALLY restricted. I even did this loss still eating my chocolate and drinking my light iced coffee!

I made an awesome and super easy salad last night for dinner out of the Woman's Weekly Salad book. Here's the recipe:

Goats Cheese, Fig & Proscuitto salad

150g Goats Cheese
4-6 large figs
6 slices of proscuitto
180g rocket

Grill the proscuitto till crispy and drain off excess oil, roughly chop.
quarter the Figs
crumble the goats cheese (put it in the freezer for 10mins to make it easier to crumble)
Combine and toss!

Dressing:
1 tblsp wholegrain mustard
1/4 cup cider vinegar
1 tblsp olive oil
1 tblsp honey

Yummo! This served 4 of us as a side salad (a main for me) comfortably.

Was going to post some more gratutious pics of Baxter but for some reason I'm having huge issues uploading pics from work so may have to try a different way. Baxter is a great little dog, going outside to do his "business" most of the time and he's sleeping through the night. We have come home to a few messes though. On Wednesday it was drizzling rain all day which made our mulch wet which meant we could tell exactly where he'd been all day! Also the same day he decided to eat the bottom of the bin out (we just hang a plastic bag to the pantry door) so there was rubbish across the house and backyard! And he's enjoying eating the agapantha plant out the back too! oh well!

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="277" caption="Puppy footsteps"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="277" caption="Rubbish!"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="277" caption="Baxter"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="277" caption="Another Bax pic!"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="277" caption="Westie, Baxter and their Dad"][/caption]

Recipe - Spicy Chicken Thighs Noodle Salad

Hey kids,

Thought I might share one of my fave recipes from Bill Granger. This makes 4 "normal people" serves. I usually make it with one chicken thigh each, and use EVOO (instead of vegetable oil) and don't add the sugar. But even if you had it as is, one serve would be about 380 calories.

SPICY CHICKEN THIGHS WITH CUCUMBER AND CASHEW SALAD

SERVES 4

3 TABLESPOONS FISH SAUCE

FRESHLY GROUND BLACK PEPPER

3 GARLIC CLOVES, CRUSHED

2 LARGE RED CHILLIES, FINELY MINCED

2 TEASPOONS SUGAR

8 BONELESS SKINLESS CHICKEN THIGHS

2 TABLESPOONS VEGETABLE OIL

 CUCUMBER AND CASHEW SALAD

3 TABLESPOONS LIME JUICE

3 TABLESPOONS CASTER (SUPERFINE) SUGAR

200G VERMICELLI NOODLES

2 CUCUMBERS, HALVED AND THINLY SLICED (I use lebonese)

SMALL HANDFUL FRESH MINT LEAVES

4 SPRING ONIONS THINLY SLICED

2 TABLESPOONS CASHEW NUTS, CRUSHED

 Whisk the fish sauce, pepper, garlic, chillies and sugar in bowl.  Put the chicken in a separate bowl and pour over half the marinade.  Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 20 minutes (keep the rest of the marinade on one side).

Heat the oil in a large frying pan over medium-high heat.  Add the chicken, in two batches, and cook for 3 minutes on each side, or until it is cooked through (Note from Bill -"Sometimes, I put another frying pan on top and weight it down with a couple of tins to make the chicken really thin and crispy" - This actually does work!).

While the chicken is cooking, add the lime juice & castor sugar to the marinade that you set aside.  Stir until the sugar has dissolved to make the dressing.

Pour boiling water over the vermicelli and leave for a minute or so until soft.  Drain under cold water, place in a large bowl and add the cucumber, mint, spring onions and cashews.  Add the dressing, toss well and serve with the sliced chicken.

Yum!