roast beef and mustard lentil salad

Now, before we get to the roast beef and mustard lentil salad, I want to discuss something. Serious faces please. Fingers on lips. Not those lips. Not those fingers. Good lord, contain yourself.

After yesterday’s post I received a comment about how tired someone was because of ‘all the advertising’ on our blog. Fair enough: everyone’s entitled to an opinion, of course, and you’ll note that I approved the comment where I could have just deleted it. It’s a discussion worth having, after all. It’s been on my mind a little.

Here’s the thing – take a look at other food blogs – you’ll see tonnes of little adverts all over the page. I could do the same thing and quadruple my blog income in a shot. But on our main page, I’ve got one little google advert at the top. It’s not spread all over the place, it doesn’t slow the page, it doesn’t detract from the content. It could, very easily, but we chose to have a clean blog which is easy to access over something buggy and full of ads. When we email out to subscribers we could send a snippet rather than the full blog meaning that you had to visit the page and thus, drive up our adsense – but we don’t do it, because it would be crap for you. That’s the reason there’s no pop-up whenever you load the page asking you to subscribe, that’s why we don’t send out spam, that’s why there’s no ‘read more’ button which loads more ads. It’s about making it good for the reader not the writer.

How most blogs make money is via affiliate marketing – if I recommend Musclefood, I get a very small commission. Same with Amazon. That’s why, when we do a recipe with mince in it, I’ll stick a link in to Musclefood and if a recipe calls for grated garlic, I’ll mention the mincer. I don’t mean Paul. But this is the thing: we do use Musclefood for meat and we do own the few gadgets and Amazon products that I mention. I’m not just shilling for the tiny bit of money it makes me, I recommend them because I believe in them. I’ve always been totally transparent about the advertising, too – I don’t hide it away. We mention our books occasionally because I’m bloody proud of the fact I have a book – of course I should be! But that’s about the extent of the adverts.

Our blog operates to a very simple template – 1,000 words or so of preamble and nonsense, one decent photograph of the food, a very simple no-fuss breakdown of the recipe and then a couple of links to other posts on the blog. It takes me about 90 minutes to type up the ‘story’ and to try and add the funny bits. Sit and type out 1,000 words, try to make it faintly funny, see how long it takes you. We spend a couple of hours over the weekend researching and planning the recipes. We have to buy new ingredients and unusual ingredients because we like to have different styles of recipes spread out over the year. Paul spends an hour or so cooking the meals, I spend a few minutes photographing, then typing. I then spend 20 minutes or so publishing the blog in our various mediums. That’s a lot of time for two blokes who work full-time in demanding jobs and who, let’s face it, are bone-bloody-idle.

And there’s the cost too – we had to buy a proper server for the blog to sit on – that costs a fair chunk every year. New ingredients cost money. Photography software costs money. As much we don’t struggle for money, I’d much rather spend that money putting my fat arse on a beach somewhere than talking about servers with some chap in Wisconsin.

So why do we do it? Because we fucking love it! We adore all the wonderful, lovely comments we receive. We love hearing from folks who have cooked one of our meals and been pleasantly surprised that slimming food could be so delicious. We eat so well because we’re constantly trying new things. We’ve met amazing folk in our groups, on our facebook page, via here. Everyone’s got a story and we love to hear them. I love to write, so this is a perfect outlet for my verbal diarrhoea – and we’ve got a very unique thing in that we’ve got a perfect diary of our last two years. Paul could barely cook before we started and now he’s confident in the kitchen. It’s great!

We’re not going to stop any time soon despite all the effort it takes. But the balance for that is that in the big blog posts, you might get a couple of text links to ingredients and a mention of Musclefood. It’s easy ignored and I think a decent exchange for the work we do. When we’ve got a Musclefood sale on, you’ll get a paragraph, but it’s always delineated from the post by blank lines. Skip over it. It’s easy to forget that we’ve already done over 350 recipes which are all indexed by syns – you couldn’t buy a cookbook with that many recipes in it, and we give it away for free. Always will be!

I hope that clears things up! I am sorry to moan, but there just something in the wanky, passive-aggressive comment that pushed a button.

To make things worse, here’s a salad! It’s syn free, full of taste and made up of only a few ingredients – it’s an excellent way to use up any roast beef you have kicking about, but you can also throw sliced beef in there for no syns. We’re talking proper roast beef though, not the processed stuff as that sometimes does have syns. Before I do, though, I’m obliged to mention – because it’s possibly the last day we’re running this, our current Musclefood deal. If you’re already frothing at the gash at the thought of ONE advert, just scroll on by.


Remember: our Musclefood deal is running with 10% off but ending soon. Canny deal – even if you don’t want it, share it with a friend!

FREEZER FILLER: 5kg (24/26) of big fat chicken breasts, 2kg (5 portions of 400g) less than 5% fat mince, 700g of bacon, 800g of extra lean diced beef and free standard delivery – use TCCFREEZER at checkout – £45 delivered!

BBQ BOX: 5kg (24/26) of big fat chicken breasts, two Irish rump steaks, 350g of bacon, 6 half-syn sausages, twelve giant half-syn meatballs, 400g diced turkeys, two juicy one syn burgers, two bbq chicken steaks, free delivery, season and 400g seasoned drumsticks (syn-free when skin removed) – use TCCSUMMER at checkout – £45 delivered!

Remember, you can choose the day you want it delivered and order well in advance – place an order now for a couple of weeks time and they’ll only take the payment once the meat is dispatched! Right, that’s enough of that. TO THE RECIPE.


roast beef and mustard lentil salad

to make a roast beef and mustard lentil salad, you’ll need:

  • lots of leftover roast beef
  • a can of green lentils
  • a handful of cherry tomatoes
  • a wee bunch of spring onions
  • a lemon
  • a spoonful of wholegrain mustard (this might have syns from recollection – 1 syn – but shared between four)
  • a bag of bistro salad leaves – the ones that have the little strips of beetroot in that make your poo an alarming red – or use any other salad leaves

to make a roast beef and mustard lentil salad, you should:

  • nice and simple this one – chop your tomatoes into quarters, thinly slice your spring onions and put a nice bunch of salad leaves on your plate
  • empty your tinned lentils into a microwavable bowl and cook for about three minutes in enough water to cover them, then drain
  • stir the mustard through the lentils while they are warm and then allow to cool
  • time to assemble – leaves on the bottom, mix of beef, lentils, spring onions and tomatoes on the top
  • dress with the juice of a lemon and some of the zest – no oil needed, perhaps a pinch of salt!

You know, I wasn’t going to do this but hell. You can use one of these to grate the lemons – it creates a nice fine zest and then you can use it for every other recipe we do! You can even see the zest in the photo. HARRUMPH.

Anyway, enjoy!

If you’re looking for more beef recipes, you could do no better than having a look on the links below! I’ve also thrown in some vegetarian recipes because, although this isn’t a veggie recipe, there’s lots more salads in there!

beefsmallvegetariansmall

J

Comments

comments

30 thoughts on “roast beef and mustard lentil salad

  1. Frothing at the gash, has to be one of my favourite Chubbyisms so far (hope you’re not offended by that), fell off the chair in work laughing at that one

  2. This is such a nice blog and so easy to scroll through without the constant slowing down on most other sites caused by a plethora of spurious ads about the “one trick to reduce belly fat”. It’s refreshing to be able to read a blog so easily, and your preambles are my favourite bit. I just felt the need to say this as I can’t believe that anyone would complain about a relatively tiny advert – for a genuine bargain might I add, rather than a load of old shite!

  3. Ignore the moaners, I don’t even see ads unless I want to. You do a fantastic job & 99.99% of us love what you do.

  4. Fair play to you guys!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
    Some people are never happy!!!! Tell the person who complained to go and get stuffed!!! I for one love your blog, your wit, your humour and the bloody brilliant recipes you take the time and trouble to put out there for us every day!!!!!!! I have been going to “Fat Club” (Slimming world) for 6 weeks and lost 1 stone 4 1/2 LB and a lot of that is down to you both so thank you very much!!!
    I’m a bit of an old fart (58) but feel years younger due to the weight loss and the laughter you provide. Keep it up boys (OOh Errr Missus) I know you will.
    All my best,
    Simon.

  5. I am new to your blog, I love it and have emailed my friends to read for a good laugh and of course your yummy food! Keep them coming and btw I have bought the mandolin slicer you recommend ? x

  6. I love to read your stories as much as your recipes my partner says is that you reading the two guys as I sit and laugh out loud now I have to read the stories out loud in fact we make a cuppa tea and sit with my fags you really make my day do not change xxxxx

  7. I got my second musclefood order earlier this week and we all love it. whoever moans about your blogs needs to try using Chinese websites. You need sunglasses just to be able to read some of them and advertising? You can’t glance away from your tablet without the corneal recognition software kicking in and ordering you to remain on the site or have your entrails removed quicker than you can say ” banzai” by a swift and stealthy pair or cyber chopsticks.
    Keep up the good work. I look forward to my daily bedtime read 🙂

  8. Who gives a shit wether you plug Musclefood, Amazon or bloody butts lol. If Readers don’t bloody like the content, don’t bloody read it.

  9. your blog cheers me up don’t care about the adds..it would be too much food for me anyway. and i:m not on sw but still use try your recipe. so please carry on

  10. Love the blog and there are some fantastic recipes too! Keep up the good work ?
    I’m not taking the “pith” but did u mean the zest? Isn’t the pith the bitter white membrane under the zest? Just making sure ?

  11. It is so nice of you to explain the ‘hows’ and ‘whys’ of the advertising in the blog but….we don’t care!! We love the recipes, the stories, the filth and the advertising. I have bought a grater thingy and have no fingerprints – I still love every little piece of your blog and it brightens up my day.

  12. Thank you, thank you, thank you! When you don’t post I feel cheated as I love reading your blog. Until you mentioned adverts today I had honestly never noticed them as such. Ignore the idiots. They don’t have to hang around!

  13. Thank you, thank you, thank you! When you don’t post I feel cheated as I love reading your blog. Until you mentioned adverts today I had honestly never noticed them as such. Ignore the idiots. They don’t have to hang around!

  14. I love your blog, gives me a laugh every time & love the recipes. Wish muscle food delivered to Ireland, fuck the moanyholes!

  15. Please continue exactly as you are, I look forward to peeping in to your lives, love your naughty humour woven with warm threads about your family. The advertising is there, read it or leave it and of course thank you for the recipes. Thanks lads!

  16. I’m with you all the way… Your blogs are brilliant, I love your recipes and have done loads, all great. As for your “advertising”… (two fingers on each hand doing the wiggly movement) – all you are doing is recommending what you use yourselves and like – nowt wrong with that.
    Oh, and have I mentioned how many times I laugh out loud when I’m reading your blogs?
    You two are just ace.
    That’s it… Just felt I had to say something to support the two wonderful chubby cubs. You make my day xx

  17. I’m relatively new to this blog, but I’ve been recommending it left, right and centre! A couple of tiny ads are nothing, especially by other bloggers standards – I personally enjoy the sometimes inventive ways you mention the deals, and anyway it’s only an option, no one has to buy these things! Keep up the good work lads, I’m loving it 🙂

  18. Great recipe, great blog as always. You can’t please everyone all of the time, but you certainly please 99% of us readers! Love what you write and how you write it and ads are a part of life nowadays – most of us don’t mind them in the slightest. Just an aside (and this is not a criticism) the pith is the bitter white bit under the lemon skin. It’s the yummy zest that’s microplaned on the salad. Just wanted to mention it in case some of your readers use lemon pith and wonder why their salad doesn’t taste nice!

  19. Please forgive me but i never even noticed the fact that there is advertising on this blog…. Just thought you were trying to save us some dosh while filling our fridges n freezers! Note to self: must pay more attention :-). Keep up the good work guys you make me piss ?

  20. Ah, there are some whingers about aren’t there! Love your blog just the way it is and I also love my new mandolin ?

  21. wow!!! well bloody said. I love your blog, you make me smile every time I read it. you make one middle aged over weight lady very happy and you are the only “slimming” blog I read. I don’t mind the small amount of adverts. I’ve even had a bit of muscle food myself. if people don’t like what they read, it’s so easy DO NOT read it, there are plenty of other stuff out there!! for goodness sake. AND ( you’ve got me going off on one now) with lots more frigging adverts!! that’s it, i’ll shut up now.
    love to you both xxx

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