Cheese, cheese is good for your heart...oh, wait...

Cheese. Much like biscuits and bread, cheese is one of the things I miss the most on the Weight Watchers plan. I quite often sit with a bunch of grapes, an apple, or a glass of water and think, you know what would go good with this? Cheese.

The problem is, cheese is high in Pro Points and isn't very filling. Tasty, yes but filling, no. Fatty too. And the low fat stuff, despite being only 1PP per 20g for half fat cheddar, just isn't the same. It doesn't melt as well, is a bit plasticky and grows penicillin quicker than normal cheese, meaning that if you eat tiny portions and don't use it quickly your fridge will soon be rivalling that of Alexander Fleming.


So how do you get your cheese fix? Here are a few suggestions:

• use strong cheese, in smaller amounts. You'll get more flavour than from mild cheese so you wont need as much.
• use the small side of the grater when grating cheese - you'll be amazed at how much further it goes!
• grate your cheese and store it in a ziplock bag in the fridge, as often if you cut a chunk off then weigh it and it's more than you should have you'll be tempted to eat the extra (I know I am!). If it's ready grated you can just pop it back in the bag. You can freeze it once it's grated too, and use it straight from the freezer for most things. This solves the problem of it going off before you can use it all.
• cottage cheese makes a good dip for vegetable crudities and apple or grapes. 60g of low fat cottage cheese equals 1PP
• extra light cream cheese (such as Philadelphia) makes a good pasta sauce (like my Cheats Carbonara), base for risotto, and makes soup lovely and creamy if you stir a spoonful through. 50g of extra light is 1PP, or light is 30g per PP. You can get different flavours such as garlic and herb and roasted pepper. Stuff a medium chicken breast with some before baking for a diet friendly kiev for 5 PP.
• adding a bit of mustard to a cheese sauce really enhances the cheese flavour, meaning you don't need as much cheese. 1tsp of mustard is free (any more than that and it has a points value) and can also be stirred into mash to make it taste creamier.
• Have some cheese and biccies instead of a desert. Weight Watchers do crackers which are 1PP for a pack of three. They taste like cardboard but it's the cheese that counts!

I'll hold my hands up and admit it, cheese is a weakness of mine. But I can still enjoy it on this plan. 

What are your weaknesses?

Hx