I know what you mean SJ. I worry that if we go out to dinner, people will watch what I eat and make a judgement. It's ridiculous, because we only go out with people who are really good friends and they love me!
Jackieno - my pork pies are delicious and have no jelly in them. They are just really good sausage meat, combined with chopped chicken, lots of herbs etc. in a delicious cold water pastry crust.
I sometimes make sausage rolls as well. They're so much nicer than bought ones and as I've made them myself, I'm happy for dd to eat them because I know what's in them. You just buy ordinary sausages (I buy organic or local butcher ones because the fat content tends to be lower.
Split the sausage skin open and take out the sausage meat.
Roll out a rectangle of flaky pastry (usually bought as life's just too short to make flaky pastry)!
Put the sausage meat down the middle
Wrap the pastry round and seal by painting a "seam" of beaten egg.
Cook
Delicious! (but only for very special occasions)
I try and buy only really good ingredients and spend time really thinking about what I want to cook. That way, I tend to eat less because I'm not snacking on easy-to-eat pre-prepared foods which can be quite addictive because of the high salt and fat content. It works for me becuase I only have raw ingredients in my house, rather than ready-to-eat stuff so if I want to eat something, it takes a real effort to cook it.
Obviously, my portion sizes are still ridiculous, but my diet is well balanced