Good morning all – perhaps you’re wondering why I’ve brought you all here today. The answer is this: what the hell do I call this recipe? I went for summer breakfast hash but that’s an absolutely bobbins title and we need more suggestions. Feel free to help! It’s a combination of shakshuka (spicy tomatoes and egg) and a hash (because it has cubed potatoes) but I also threw some chorizo in there. I was going to pen it as ‘shakshukash’ but that’s the noise my cat makes when she’s licking her tuppence right next to my ear at 4am in the morning. Honestly, I don’t know what she’s trying to mine from down there but she’s bloody determined for a breakthrough any day soon.
Couple of bits of admin before we get to the summer breakfast hash (sigh) – a gentle reminder that our planner launches next month! If you want a diet planner with tonnes of room to record your thoughts, plenty of us pointing at you, 26 recipes…all sorts – you can order it here (it’ll open in a new window), and I heartily promise you’ll love it!
Second, as mentioned before, in the absence of anything to write about (unless you want 2,000 words of me in lockdown, which is essentially eight wanks a day and the occasional row with the neighbours) (must stop wanking in front of the window), I’m continuing with our Canada tales. If you’re not a fan of the writing, simply scroll straight to the summer breakfast hash: I mean, it’s a safe bet a lot of you know exactly how to do that. It’s a funny thing though, looking back over what was the best few weeks of our lives. Drinking from the memory cup is also a poisoned chalice: we want to be out exploring again, ratching like old times, seeing the world. Even if the 🎵coronaVIRUS 🎵buggers off, what is travelling going to look like? Not as though insurance is going to cover going to America and picking up coronavirus now is it? I know, I know. Cry me a river.
But see, saying that doesn’t help, because I want to visit there too. Boom. Anyway, onto the stories – oh, and a wee plea. If you’re enjoying reading this, do let me know in the comments below. I appreciate they’re a bit lengthy but it’s nice to write about something different. Ta!
The first attraction was a laser maze: oooh! The literature outside promised thrills and spills and I went in with half a lob-on and a heart full of excitement, expecting crazy lasers and an obstacle course. What we actually got was a game fresh out of Bid Up TV’s hot-take on The Crystal Maze: a bedroom painted black with a few laser pens pointing around. I’ve had more risk and adventure getting the clothes out of the tumble drier. We pressed on, with the objective being to avoid the lasers and press the button at the other side of the room, and finished it in record time (so at least Paul felt at home). Turns out stepping over four lasers isn’t that taxing even when you have the manoeuvrability of a Resident Evil heroine, and boy was I pleased we’d spent twenty dollars on it. Paul tripped over his shoelaces upon leaving, becoming quite possibly the first tourist to ever faceplant in an entirely empty room.
Next: go-karting. For this to work, you have to realise how incredibly competitive I am at driving and how bad I am at taking criticism about my approach to motoring. You could come to me, tell me you were shagging my husband, killed my mother and taken a shit in my Instant Pot and I’d chortle and say jolly good, you’re welcome to him. My doctor could tell me I had six weeks to live because I had explosive-sphincter and I’d smile cheerily and say at least it wasn’t four. But, know this: if you get into a car with me and so much as suck air over your teeth as I hurtle up the arse of some old dear in a rust-coloured Renault Shitstorm, I’ll crash the car into the nearest tunnel without a second glance. Paul once told me I didn’t have my radio adjusted correctly and I sulked all the way through to our anniversary. So, go-karting is never a good idea: I can’t bear to lose. Nevertheless, we paid our tickets and joined the queue.
Two things riled me before I even sat in the kart: some airy little minge vocal-frying and pretending she was drunk in front of me. She was as drunk as I was straight. I’d rather hear gunshots from my parents’ bedroom than hear one more syllable from her pouting, oh-my-god- so-zaaaaany’ voice. Of course, she was in front, so I was subjected to it all for a good twenty minutes before I was served a final indignation: some spotty kid with a bless-him moustache who looked at my giant, elephantine head and had to go fetch a special 3XL helmet from under the counter. Alright mate, my mother smoked forty car-boot-sale Lambert and Butlers a day whilst carrying me, give me a chance – and mind I suspect she only took that route because she didn’t fancy hurtling herself down the stairs.
We got settled into our karts, me unable to see because my rage was making my visor steam up. Don’t worry, I recorded the whole thing on my phone – only I didn’t, because I selected selfie mode before slipping it into my shirt pocket so all we have is four minutes of revving and the sound of my nipples dancing under a polyester/viscose mix. Stupid ‘drunk’ girl was in front of me, Paul behind. Captain ‘tache waved us off and immediately the walking womb in front of me starts farting about, not ‘lolzzzz I’m not getting how to drive’, turning around and shrieking at me because ‘how do I work the pedals LOL Instagram am-I-right gurrrrrlz’.
I waited patiently for about three seconds before flooring it, hitting her kart and pushing it out of the starting grid. We were off!
I got to the first corner before I span out. Paul hurtled past cackling and did I balls manage to catch up. In my defence, I got stuck behind Tits McGee who kept stopping, making a lot of noise and trying to flirt with the traffic lights. She was being deliberately annoying and I couldn’t get past, with eventually Paul rejoining me from the rear and everyone starting to get pissed off with her.
She ruined a very good session of go-karting, but don’t worry, I’m a vindictive sod at the best of times, and when we all siphoned back into the starting channels, I took my opportunity. She’d stopped and was in the process of removing her helmet when I hurtled into the back of her at top speed. I’ve never seen a neck move like that – it was just like in the Roadrunner cartoons when he’d fall off the cliff and his body would drop but his head stayed in the same place. Whoops.
She turned to have a pop at me and I just gave the fakest laugh ever known to man, shrugged my shoulders and cawed ‘omg, hoooooooow do I work the pedals again?!’. Even Paul looked appalled. No regrets here though: never get in the way of a tight-arse Geordie and his ten dollars of go-karting. Last time I saw her she was being loaded into the back of an ambulance with a neck-brace on to the sounds of Viva Forever from her shattered iPhone*.
*I’m kidding. I think it was a Samsung.
Next door to the go-karts was a giant ferris wheel which promised unrivalled views of the fall and all the stupendous sights of the Niagara strip. I’m all for a sit-down so you best believe we were on this before I had a chance to fret about the oily-faced terror running the ride, who looked as though he’d struggle to check his own name off a list let alone complete a full safety review of a morning. Did you know Newcastle is getting its own ferris wheel like the London Eye at the time of me writing this? And, because of course, we’re calling it the Newcastle Way-Eye. I mean, the only way you could make the experience more Geordie is if Raoul Moat was in one of the pods and you had to take a gamble that you might finish the night having your teeth polished by a sawn-off shotgun.
The first rotation was great – the subsequent EIGHT spins far less so. There’s only so many ‘oooh’ noises (and I say that as a gay man who has perfected the disappointed-but-it’ll-do response to many an underwear reveal) you can make to the sight of a waterfall pitched in inky blackness half a mile away before you have to admit defeat. We must have been on that bloody wheel a good half hour. Even the London Eye loses its attractiveness after ten minutes. I once tugged my ex off inside a fairly busy capsule on the London Eye though, which remains high up on my list of inspired places I’ve had sex. Saying that, he had a tiny knob: it was like trying to fish a Mint Imperial out of your pocket in a darkened cinema.
The waxworks came next, and listen, if you’d told me the waxworks had recently suffered an intense electrical fire causing significant damage, I would well believe you. I’ve seen better takes on Jamie Lee Curtis and Mel Gibson formed from the cellulitis on my thighs than anything on display here. I’m not saying it was rough, but the lovely old biddy on the front desk looked more like Sylvester Stallone than the supposed waxwork did. Mind to her credit she was hanging from a helicopter with a knife in her gob at the time. We wandered around and had a whale of a time – Cher looked like Axl Rose having a shart, One Direction: The Meth Years were a particular highlight, and better yet: animatronics. Animatronics from the There Was An Attempt box – Mike Myers dressed as Frank Butcher cosplaying as Austin Powers shouting YEAH BABY accompanied by the loud hiss of hydraulics and a juddering lunge.
Somewhat inexplicably, amongst the waxworks, they had a full size set of The Simpsons, with them all sat on the sofa. Because I’m a pervert, I immediately climbed over and stuck my face into Homer’s crotch for a photo opportunity. What can I say: at times like this, instinct takes over and when presented with a straight daddy with his legs open, my knees go out from under me like I’ve got rickets (Dickits?) and my lips drip like a sunken sponge. No sooner had I started gagging on the polystyrene and Paul had taken a few photos for above the fireplace than all the lights came on and the primmest voice you’ve ever heard came crackling out of the tannoy to ask me to ‘refrain from posing with the models’. Posing? Bitch. We were ushered out with a face that said ‘don’t come back for a refund’ but I could see from the twinkle in her eye and indeed, the dew on her twinkle that she’d be buttering her muffin over the CCTV footage later.
You know, let me say something here. It’s too easy – and cracking for the word count – to be dismissive about places like this. They’re crap, but by god they’re entertaining crap. I compare it to somewhere like Benidorm – no-one goes to Benidorm to stroke their chins and admire the high culture (and if they do, they’re wankers), but if you go to have a good time, that’s exactly what you’ll have. Too many people walk around with their nose in the air and a stick up their arse in some misguided attempt to look aloof and superior. Please. I might write about things in a sarcastic fashion here but know this: I will always be the first in the queue for a shitty exhibition or a naff house of horrors, with Paul a close second (and third, because he’s so fat). Life is for having fun, not sneering at those who do.
Anyway, enough of that, let me get back to stroking my chin, walking around with my nose in the air and a stick up my arse – it’s hard work being this aloof and superior, you know. We shall continue this post next week!
Right then, to the summer breakfast hash which still absolutely need a better title. If you want to make a lighter version you could leave out the chorizo, but it does add a lovely taste to the whole dish.
summer breakfast hash
Prep
Cook
Total
Yield 4 large portions
This recipe for summer breakfast hash is surprisingly quick to throw together, and is perfect for using up all the veg shite you have cluttering around in the bottom of the fridge. If you're not a fan of spice, leave out the chilli flakes. Similarly, if you want to cut a few calories/syns, ditch the chorizo.
You absolutely can cook the potato in the tomato sauce if you want to make it a one-pot summer breakfast hash, but we recommend following the recipe - the crunchy oven-baked potatoes add a nice contrast to the 'gooey' eggs and sauce. But each to their own.
Oh and of course, you can use Frylight instead of oil on the potatoes and your pan. But you can pleat your own bog roll from dock leaves, doesn't mean you should. Flavour always.
Ingredients
- two tablespoons of oil - one for the potatoes, one for the pan
- swap out for Frylight if you want to save syns, but please, don't
- three fist-sized potatoes, peeled if you prefer, cut into small cubes
- two large red onions
- two large peppers - we went for a yellow pepper and a large sweet red pepper, but it hardly matters
- four fresh large eggs
- 50g of diced chorizo (6 syns) - you can buy frozen diced chorizo in Tesco now, which makes this so much easier
- teaspoon of chilli flakes
- one tin of chopped tomatoes (we use the chopped tomatoes with chilli, again from Tesco) - if you have fresh tomatoes, dice them up and use those instead
- one carton of passata (500g)
A note on the oils. We've been using rapeseed oil from Yorkshire Drizzle for the last few weeks - same amount of syns as regular olive oil but a much higher frying point. That's all well and good but really the most important thing is they're flavoured, and flavoured well. For this recipe, we used the black pepper oil. You can take a look at their range here: it'll open in a new window. We haven't been paid to promote or anything like that, they're just a bloody good company!
Instructions
- preheat the oven to around 190 degrees
- take your cubed potato, put them in a bowl with a tablespoon of oil and give them a right good toss around - you don't need a lot of oil to coat them
- spread them on a baking sheet and cook in the oven for about 15 minutes until they're softened - might do you as well to give them a quick turn halfway through
- if you have an Actifry, you can just chuck them in there to cook and everyone's a winner
- meanwhile, finely slice the onion and peppers and gently fry them off in the oil until softened
- add the tomatoes, chilli flakes and passata and leave to bubble away until your potatoes are done
- when the potatoes are done, chuck them in too - taste the sauce, add a pinch of salt if you like, and then leave to reduce and thicken
- once you're ready to serve, make four wells in the pan and crack your eggs into them - cover the pan with a lid and let the eggs cook through
- serve to the gasps and shrieks of your loved ones
Notes
- remember - our slimming cookbook can be ordered online now - full of 100+ slimming recipes, and bloody amazing, with over 2400 5* reviews: Click here to order
- our new diet planner launches soon: you can order it here (it’ll open in a new window)
- don't forget, Slimming World are running virtual classes for all those struggling with the lack of groups - you can find more information by clicking here
Courses breakfast
Cuisine what the fuck do I write here
Summer breakfast hash all done! I can’t believe you came. Now, are you looking for more breakfast recipes, you insatiable hussy? That’s no problem – here’s a load more!
- spinach, tomato, egg and feta wrap (syn free)
- oaty breakfast omelette with homous and ham (syn free)
- broccoli, egg, pepper, ham and cheese breakfast burrito (syn free)
- spicy scrambled eggs (syn free)
- baked eggs in cheesy toast (syn free)
- six slimming smoothies (syn free)
- cheesy sausage and egg hash browns (syn free)
- overnight oats (syn free)
- bacon and egg breakfast fried rice (syn free)
- perfect poached egg bombs (syn free)
- dirty breakfast bap (syn free)
- cheese and asparagus french toast dippers with soft boiled eggs (syn free)
- poached eggs on toast (syn free)
- breakfast burritos (syn free)
- cafe mocha overnight oats (syn free)
J