Look, here’s the deal. Come hell or high water, by the end of today we are going to have new curtains installed in our bedroom. It needs to happen. See a while ago I took our blinds apart so that I could paint the little bit of wall behind them, then promptly lost the chain that holds them together so that now, every tiny gust of wind and they splay around in all directions, rattling and bumping into each other. That wouldn’t be so bad, except we have to leave our windows open in our bedroom at night – how else could the cats deliberately go outside, get wet and then get under our duvet at 3am and press their tiny wet noses against our bumcheeks? We can’t build a cat-flap into our doors as they’re the wrong type. So given how windy and cold it is, our bedroom at night is always a) freezing and b) like sleeping through a particularly budget production of Stomp. It’s lucky that we’re both the type of person who likes to be entangled up in each other when we’re asleep – I reckon one morning we’ll just wake up as one person, melded together like the wax in a lava lamp. Fuck me, that would make typing this blog difficult.
Plus, god knows what our neighbours must think – our windows being open all night and us being in a bungalow means every fart, mumble, snore and sleep-cough echoes around the street. No kidding, I once finished an overtime shift at work and upon getting out the car at 3am I couldn’t understand what the strange rattling noise coming from the engine was until I realised it was Paul’s snoring from over 100 yards away. Worse still is that I’m forever talking and laughing in my sleep – Paul’s recorded me merrily singing Cerys Matthew’s bits from The Ballad of Tom Jones whilst deep in slumber. Plus, we’re always talking incoherently to each other, normally burbling away merrily about being too hot, too cold or ‘don’t fart, the cat’s in the bed and you’ll gas the fucker’.
So, whilst the neighbours would still be treated to the cacophony of noise from our bedroom, we can solve the blinds rattling – and that’s today’s project. You may recall that we’re both equally shit at DIY (remember our current bathroom situation?) so I can only assume this will end up with one of us in A&E and our home left a burnt out shell. We have to be the only couple out there who has a £200 drill and exactly 0 clues about how to use it. Ah well, wish us luck.
Today’s recipe – posted nice and early because then you can go out and get the ingredients, is sweet and sour pork – and for once, this is a recipe we’ve dug out from a Slimming World book instead of either making up ourselves or adapting another recipe. So if it’s shit, blame Margaret. Ahaha no, it’s tasty, trust me.
to make one syn sweet and sour pork, you’ll need:
ingredients: 500g of pork, fat off, cut into chunks. One large onion and one large red pepper, deseeded and cut into strips. Two large carrots, peeled and cut into matchsticks. Sugarsnap peas, just cut into chunks. Garlic cloves, finely chopped. You’ll also need 1/4tsp of chinese five-spice, 1 level tbsp of cornflour, 4tbsp of tomato puree, 1 tbsp of white wine vinegar, 4tbsp light soy sauce, 150ml of chicken stock and some dried egg noodles. You’ll also need a pineapple (RETCH), cut into smallish chunks.
I absolutely fucking detest pineapple (BOKE), can I just make that clear. Whenever I’m prescribed anything at the doctors and the allergy notice comes up, mine actually says pineapple (OOH NASTY). Which is a bitch when it comes to my fruit-punch flavoured suppositories, I have to say.
I know that’s quite the list of ingredients, but you’ll use only a small amount of each of those, and the rest can be put away in the cupboard and used for different recipes, or to feed the weevils, whichever is more appropriate.
to make one syn sweet and sour pork, you should:
recipe: sear the pork in a hot pan. SW say spray it with Frylight, but urgh, don’t, use a bit of olive oil. You’ll not die. Hot pan, nice crust on the pork – chuck in a bit of salt and pepper. Take the pork out and replace it with all the chopped veg. Stir fry for a few minutes, chuck in the pork, and keep it all stirring. Hot and fast, just the way you like it. Meanwhile in a bowl mix 2 tbsp water with the chinese 5 spice, garlic, cornflour, tomato purée, white wine vinegar, soy sauce and stock. Add the mixture to the pan, stir and reduce the heat to low. Cook for 3-4 minutes until thickened. Whilst this is taking place, you’ll want to use your other two arms to cook and drain your noodles. Pop the pineapple (BLEURGH) into the pork and veg and stir. Serve.
top tip: as I always, always say on this blog – if you’re wanting uniform matchsticks, or you’re just too lazy to fanny about cutting up carrots with a knife, buy a julienne peeler. It’ll do the job in seconds. You can buy them from Lakeland or on Amazon – and here’s a handy link. You don’t need one, mind, a knife will do the same thing.
extra-easy – only one syn per serving, and that comes from the cornflour. You’ll need it to thicken the sauce off, but really, think how many syns this would be from the local takeaway. Best part? If you cook too many noodles, you can use them to make noodle cups to go with my cheese and meatballs recipe from yesterday? What, you don’t remember it? IT’S RIGHT HERE AND BLOODY DELICIOUS. Oh me oh my.
OK. I’m off to try and figure out the curtains. £20 that we’ll both give up after ten minutes of looking online and end up playing on the Wii U instead.
Don’t forget to share and tell everyone about this blog – it’s really growing!
J
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