Author Archives: chubbycubs

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June 27, 2015

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american, beef, beef mince, fakeaways, fast food restaurants, italian, low syn, lunch, recipe card, sandwiches, savoury snacks, snacks

meatball marinara sub with sweet potato croquettes

Ah croquettes! I haven’t seen that word since I was at school and enjoying all the fruits and deliciousness of school dinners. Of course back then it wasn’t fancy croquettes made with sweet potato and garlic breadcrumbs, they were made with ashen grey potato and rolled in radioactive-orange ‘bread’ crumbs. Wonderful!

I used to love school dinners and I hold no love for those who say they were awful. Perhaps they were, but at least you got your 100% of cigarette ash requirement with your turkey dinosaurs (I went to a posh school, they shaped their turkey arsehole-and-eyelids into stegosauruses instead of non-descript Twizzlers, see).

We did have the stereotypical mean old dinner lady, though – Connie (naturally we called her Ronnie to annoy her), and she ruled the hall with an iron fist. Actually, not quite true, she’d had polio as a youngster and didn’t so much have an iron fist as a few ball-bearings. That’s cruel but true. Perhaps that’s why she was always so bloody mean to the kids, to stop them being mean to her…different perspective when you’re an adult. We just used to push past her, risking serious moustache burns, and get in before all the smelly little kids claimed all the chocolate orange tart.

I do remember once going to get my wallet out of my blazer and a condom that I had gallantly/optimistically (sensibly given what I was up to with my ‘close friend’ at the time, well not literally at the time, I had my eyes on the battered sausage) went flying out of the back of my pocket and into the canteen of baked beans in front of me. I got a strong talking to for that, though again in retrospect they should have advised me against using flavoured condoms. It was grape flavour and lurid purple and my friend and I had to get them from the toilets at Newcastle Airport in case anyone saw us.

I feel I should point out that my school was next to the airport – we didn’t have a day-trip out just to buy battercatchers.

It must have been a fairly posh school looking back, because I definitely remember after the pudding being allowed to go back to the canteen and getting cheese and coffee. Admittedly it was a lump of cheddar and a cup of Mellow Birds Brown Mountain Water but still, cheese and coffee at 13. In sixth form we naturally progressed to cigars, brandy and shooting metal pellets at poor folk. Pfft. I actually left sixth form because they tried to make us wear a suit to school . FIGHT THE POWER. Totally worth it.

Anyway, we’re spending the day emptying the green bedroom and the blue bedroom in preparation for turning them into a games room and utility room respectively. You can tell two fat blokes live in this house for sure. So I thought I’d rattle off this blog post early and give you a chance to gaze upon…THIS BEAUTY.

meatball marinara

I know right? The two syns is actually for the sweet potato croquettes, so if you want, just have this with a salad or chips and make this syn-free. Salad or chips, it’s the curse of every fatty.

so you’ll be needing the following

for the croquettes

  • six sweet potatoes
  • one brown bread bun blitzed into breadcrumbs (6 syns, but you don’t use them all, so as this serves two, that’s two syns each)
  • 1tsp of chopped sage, fresh or dried

for the marinara sauce

  • two tins of chopped tomatoes, decent quality if you can get them – if not, add a pinch of sugar to take the acidity off the cheaper type
  • 6 garlic gloves, peeled and cut into very thin slices
  • pinch of crushed chilli flakes
  • 1 tsp of salt
  • nice sprig of fresh basil or 1/2 tsp dried oregano

for the meatballs – take your pick from previous recipes:

We used turkey and bacon meatballs because we had a bag of them rattling around in the freezer from the other day. ECONOMICAL

make the sweet potato croquettes first

  • dice the sweet potatoes into thirds and put in the oven until the flesh is soft and the spirit is willing
  • scoop out the flesh, add your sage and a bit of salt, mix it well until it’s nice and blended
  • shape into cylinders around the size of 10 pound coins on top of each other, or a really disappointing one-night-stand
  • roll in the breadcrumbs
  • place on a non-stick tray and chuck them in the oven for maybe 20 seconds on 180 degrees, but keep an eye on them – you don’t want them to burn, after all, just dry out a little

Set your meatballs away whilst the potato is cooking – you can keep them to one side for later see

to make the marinara

  • tip the tomatoes into a large bowl and using the back of a spoon (or your fingers, as long as you haven’t been picking your bum) and crush any particularly large lumps of tomato
  • Frylight or lightly oil a pan and when the oil is warm, add the slivers of garlic
  • as soon as that garlic starts sizzling (but not burning) add the tomatoes, herb, chilli and salt with another half tin of water
  • if you’re using basil, place it on the top and let it wilt and drop down into the sauce
  • cook low and slow – you’ll need the sauce to thicken, so it’ll be on a medium heat uncovered, stirring occasionally
  • you want it really thick, so really be patient – add a bit of salt or more oregano if you think it needs it
  • once you’re happy with it, get rid of the basil

Then it’s really just a case of cutting open a breadbun (your HEB), layering your healthy extra of cheese on the bottom, placing the meatballs on top of the cheese and then adding the marinara. Serve with a few croquettes and a dollop of marinara sauce for dipping and I’m telling you now, you’ll have a BLOODY GOOD MEAL.

You’re welcome!

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June 26, 2015

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bacon, fakeaways, italian, low syn, lunch, one-pot, panko, pork, recipe card, speciality ingredients

amazing ham, cheese and pea gnocchi

I know what you’re thinking. James, you promised me a post a day, and here we were yesterday crying into our Margaret Miles-Thingy tea-towels and waiting all night long. Well listen, it’s not the first time I’ve left someone unsatisfied long into the night and it won’t be the last.

See, I’m trying to be more social. Remember me saying how lazy I am a few posts back? That also applies to social events. I get asked to go to various things and usually decline because I’m a) shy and b) incredibly fond of lying on my sofa with a cat in my back hair and Paul squeezing my feet. It’s what I live for. But see I could die tomorrow and I don’t want people remembering me as the person who was always “washing his hair”, despite having roughly the same amount of hair found on my head as you’d find in a Phil Mitchell tribute annual.

So in the spirit of socialising and trying not to die alone surrounded by cats and a stuffed Paul carcass grinning lopsidedly at me like a boss-eyed Humpty Dumpty, I went along to a pub quiz with a couple of friends from work and two other ladies, who turned out to be lovely. I’m glad I went, not least because it was hilarious.

For a start, it was awash with teams taking it far too seriously. I love this. It’s a fucking pub quiz – you’re answering questions about Miley Cyrus, if you get it wrong you’re not going to be taken outside and shot by the Gestapo. The prize was £47! Even so, there was table after table of people in dire need of a wash and some love furrowing their brows and furiously debating which two countries has the most nuclear reactors. For the record, we got that answer correct – USA and France. I watch a lot of Discovery Channel.

That said, we didn’t win. We came…second from last. We did however win an extra point for having the best team name: Bender and the Jets. I think you’ll agree that is awesome, and I’m allowed to say bender, I’ve earned the right – I’ve quite literally taken one for the team on that front. Or back. It’s certainly better name than We’re The Winners or Quizmasters. Neither of those teams won anyway, so egg on their face. It’ll go well with the cum stains on their trousers.

Oh, I also totally pulled. Now it goes without saying that I wouldn’t anyway, but even if I’d been tempted by the suggestion, his face put me right off. Some drunken arse, easily into his sixties and with a face like a smashed crab, asked me if I wanted to know the answer to who sang ‘The Joker’ and then licked his lips lasciviously at me like he was the best offer I’d get all night. I’d get more aroused getting chatted up by the cigarette machine. Seriously, he looked like that guy from The Fully Monty who was in Corrie with a perm:

steve-huson-the-full-monty (1)

I wouldn’t care, we got the answer wrong, so maybe I should have just succumbed to his greasy wiles. Boke.

Finally, our group got ‘hushed’ and then told to be ‘bloody quiet’ by some gangster granny with a nicotine fringe and a mean look about her because we had the temerity to talk DURING THE INTERLUDE. She was trying to play card bingo like the top prize was a couple of extra month’s on a drip – I’ve never seen playing cards turned over with such ferociousness. She turned around again and said ‘AH’M TRYING TO HEAR THE ANNOUNCER’ (I could barely hear her through all the phlegm in her voice trying to scramble out) and we were kowtowed into silence. I wouldn’t care, it’s not as if we were tuning up a brass band or felling trees, we were just talking normally (perhaps with a slight bit of shrieking from me, I’d had liquor). Mardy cow. Oh! And she was cheating. She had her phone out during the countries round. The temptation for me to lean over and whisper ‘Do you mind not cheating so loudly, I’m trying to hear the announcer’ was almost too much.

Card bingo, by the way – you get given a few playing cards, the Quiz Man has a full deck (unlike some of the audience), he announces them randomly and when you’ve turned over your lot, you win. Well, you don’t win. You lose. EVERYONE loses at bloody card bingo.

In all though, a really good night! 

Oh – we lost 4lb between us at class, but that’s almost an afterthought these days. But let me tell you what ISN’T an afterthought – this recipe. It was amazing – it couldn’t have been better even if it had been served of the bumcheeks of the fatter brother from Prison Break. Easily one of our favourite recipes yet!

ham and cheese gnocchi

It doesn’t look so pretty on the plate, and that cheese top looks like the kind of knee-scab you’d pick off in the bath and secretly eat. I know what you’re like, don’t try and gussy yourself up for me.

you’ll need these:

  • 250g of syn-free ham – we used the thicker cuts you can buy in a pack from the supermarket, but really any old shite will do
  • one chopped onion
  • 250g of quark (taste the flavour!)
  • clove of garlic (minced) (yep: get one of these!)
  • 100g of frozen peas
  • 1 x HEA Mozzarella
  • 1 x HEA strong cheddar
  • 400g of gnocchi (6 syns, and this serves four) 

and you’ll need to do this:

  • gently cook the onion in a large pan over a medium heat in a little oil until soft
  • add garlic and stir until it starts to turn golden
  • add the ham to the pan and cook until warmed through
  • add the frozen peas to the pan and stir
  • add the quark and continue to stir until it loosens and makes a thick, creamy sauce – add a few tablespoons of water if it becomes too thick
  • add the gnocchi and simmer for 2-3 minutes
  • once the gnocchi is soft, remove from the heat and evenly spread out the cheese over the top
  • place under a medium grill until the cheese turns golden
  • serve!

Now, what we did at this point was to put it in the oven, with the oven still warm from the grill but not switched on, and left it to sit for an hour or so whilst Paul came and bundled me into the car. When we came back, the gnocchi was almost broken down and the sauce really sticky – it was delicious. However, that might not tickle your buds as it were, so feel free to stick to the script.

Technically, you should probably serve with a salad full of superfree stuff. But hell if you can’t let your hair down every now and then…

J

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June 24, 2015

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recipe card

my pussy is inflamed

In a major huff. I typed up, designed and published a wonderful article on Buzzfeed in the hope of driving more people to the blog, only to find it was deleted fifteen minutes later because I’d left a watermark from my blog on one of the pictures. BAH. I’ll redo it on the weekend but sadly, it means I don’t have time to cook a recipe tonight – so we just had tomato salad.

I have, however, finally managed to get the search button working on the blog again – so if you’re trying to find a recipe, you can just chuck a keyword into the search box and it’ll come up trumps. Best part is, given I’m probably mentioned every possible swearword at some point on here, you’ll even find recipes if you search for the Big-C-Word…

Finally, because I want to go to bed, I thought I’d share with you a picture of my poor, inflamed pussy. Bowser has been chasing bees around all morning and came in the house with a pet-lip where he’s been stung. He’s fine, eating well, but aaaw now then. I can’t take his cries for food seriously given he’s grinning at me like a court jester.

bowser

Recipe tomorrow! Paul’s writing it, the poor bugger! Be nice to him.

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June 23, 2015

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bacon, fakeaways, italian, low syn, mince, pasta, pork, poultry, recipe card, sauces, taster ideas

200 posts – plus turkey and bacon meatballs with homemade bbq sauce

Well christ almighty, we’ve made it to two hundred posts. 200! To put that into perspective, each post on average is around 1500 words, so that 300,000 words, or Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix combined with Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. AND, unlike JK Rowling, I can still crack a smile or two! Actually, that’s unfair, she seems like a lovely person – she’s just always looks as though she’s seen her arse and doesn’t care for the colour. I bet the words of a fat diet blogger really stings – she’ll be sobbing into her solid-gold handkerchief and dabbing her tears with £50 notes.

But honestly, it’s just incredible to me that we’ve racked up so many recipes, posts, slang words for willies, nonsense and flimflam in just under eight months, and that’s excluding the various interludes where we stuffed ourselves with pizza fixed up the house or the website. Normally we take up a hobby and give it up fairly quickly, but it’s become a proper routine in Cubs Towers – plan the recipes, buy the ingredients, type the blog.

Occasionally it can feel like a slog typing it all out, but listen – we know what it’s like to be on SW and seeing the same old recipes bandied around. There’s lots of nice foods but people limit themselves to the same watery stews, anaemic veg and nonsense chemical concoctions, and it’s just not sustainable. The best ‘recipe’ I’ve seen recently is a ‘jam doughnut’, which was a bloody brown breadbun injected with a bit of jam and rolled in sweetener. That’s no more a jam doughnut than I am a black lesbian. Why do that to yourself? Why not have a jam doughnut and syn it? Or, make a decent attempt at a low-syn pudding and take the edge off? Eh, I don’t know.

Certainly, our weight loss has been slow – but it’s been steady. I haven’t updated that banner in a few weeks but we’re nearly up to 60lb weight loss between us, and cumulatively, we’ve actually lost more than that – but gained a few pounds back on holiday. Our aim has always been 2lb a week for me and 1lb a week for Paul. I’ve seen grown women throwing tantrums because they’ve “only lost 2lb this week” (although actually, it’s usually “OMG onli lst 2lb dis wk :'(“, like there’s some kind of fucking tax on vowel usage) and I just despair – it’s so much better to lose slowly and not feel like you’re on a diet than it is to starve yourself, eat beans all day and shit your way to weight loss which you’ll immediately put on the second you slip into size-16 knickers. We’ve all been there too, losing a stone and then zipping around Tesco like we’re on the final round of Supermarket Sweep, running our arm along the biscuit aisle and emptying the shelves into our trolley. It’s pointless and doesn’t work. 

Look through our recipes and you’ll see many, many different styles of cooking and flavours. We consciously avoid repeating recipes too much, and we’ll normally try and sneak in an unusual flavour or arrangement at least once a week. We’ve learnt so much and, for once, we’re enjoying being on a diet. This blog gives me (James) a mouthpiece for rambling and nonsense but it’s actually kept us on track – having to think up new foods means we’re focused on our diet and the ‘can’t be arsed’ element disappears.

But – and christ, prepare for your teeth to start rotting – the best part about all of this is you. Seriously. Seeing people trying our recipes, sharing links, joining our group (4,000+ members) or facebook page (almost 14,000 likes in two weeks), passing around that FAQ or even stopping us to let us know how much you enjoy it – well it genuinely, whole-heartedly makes our day. I’m actually quite a quiet person at times, and it’s such a lovely feeling to know people are enjoying what I have to say. Please continue to comment, to share, to take part, we love it all, and we promise that in return we’ll keep going. Not least because I want to get to 365 posts…!

Right, you can come back now. I know, feelings much. To celebrate, I’m going to post a recipe that we’ve been keeping back for a special occasion because it was so, so nice. It’s a long one, but you can take it. Just push out and think of England.

turkey meatballs with bacon

How best to do this…let’s go for constituent parts. So…

to make the sauce, you’ll need:

  • one very large white onion, or two smaller ones, I’m not a size queen (that’s a lie, I totally am)
  • 500ml of passata
  • 2 gloves of garlic
  • 1 tbsp of smoked paprika
  • 2 tbsp of honey (5 syns – but this makes – easily – eight servings, so I’m going to say one syn for the dish)
  • 3 tbsp of balsamic vinegar
  • 1 tbsp of worcestershire sauce
  • pinch of salt and a pinch of pepper
  • some chilli flakes if you want to punish your nipsy

This recipe is wonderfully easy. You’ll need a receptacle for your sauce – this makes enough to fill two medium sized ketchup bottles. Ours are Kilner and like everything else, we bought it from Amazon. You can get six for a tenner here. You’ll use about a bottle’s worth in this recipe, so the other bottle you can keep sealed in the fridge. It really does make a wonderful sauce which would be amazing on pulled pork or burgers.

The other thing I’m going to push here is our Kenwood Mini Chopper. Normally we chop our onions by hand but because the recipe calls for it to be very finely chopped, we used this. It makes very quick work of cutting up onions and various other things and is excellent for making breadcrumbs too. It’s £14 on Amazon. Not essential but I will say this – as people who use a lot of gadgets, this is probably one of our favourites. Right, so…

you’ll need to do this:

  • if you’re using a chopper, finely pulse the onion and garlic until you get a finely chopped paste – don’t make it too mushy mind
  • if you’re using a knife, you want it cut very fine
  • tip into a pan with a drop of oil and the salt and, on a medium heat, allow to soften
  • add everything else into the pan after five minutes or so (make sure the onion doesn’t catch, although, a bit of smokiness is no bad thing)
  • simmer gently for five minutes or so
  • allow to cool, and then blend it – again, we just tipped it into the Mini Chopper, whizzed it up and then poured it into the ketchup bottles – no need for extra dishes or gadgets

Keep those bottles to one side. Don’t put the lids on until they’re nice and cool mind. On we go…

to make the spinach, you’ll need:

  • a big family bag of spinach – not a pissy little few leaves, because it’s a scientific fact that spinach reduces in volume by 10,000% if someone so much as breathes near it
  • two garlic cloves – cut into the finest of slivers
  • a couple of squirts of oil or Frylight

and then you:

  • squirt the bottom of the pan with a drop of oil or frylight
  • add in the garlic
  • apply a gentle heat and allow the garlic to take on a bit of colour and flavour the oil
  • add spinach, lower the heat, cover and allow to wilt right down
  • serve (note: this spinach takes about five minutes, so make it at the end of your meal)

to make the meatballs, you’ll need:

  • 500g of turkey mince – a lot of people ask me where they can find this – Tesco is my answer, and here’s another tip, it’s forever being reduced. If you spot it in the reduced meats bit, check to see whether it has a £3 for £10 sticker on it still – if it has, SCORE. Buy three packs and although it’s reduced in price, it still discounts the lot as though they were full price, which means you end up paying about £4 for three packets of mince. Damn, I shouldn’t give that away…
  • 6 bacon medallions, or normal bacon with the best bit cut off
  • 4 spring onions, chopped fine, white and green bits used please
  • one small breadbun made into breadcrumbs (HEB) – you’ll may not need them all
  • 1 small egg
  • 2 tsp of ground pepper
  • 2 tbsp of dried parsley or even better, fresh parsley, but double up if it’s fresh

you’ll then need to:

  • put the oven up to 200ºC or 180ºC fan – do you know, I really loathe how Mary Berry says ‘fan’, fact-fans
  • cook your bacon – nice and crispy mind, then allow it to cool and cut it up (or use your chopper) into nice small bits
  • put your turkey mince into a bowl, add everything else, and mash it all together. Really take out your frustrations here. Lady in Primark gave you a shitty look? Someone cut you up in a company-lease BMW? Sat behind someone with dickies on the bus? Imagine that’s their face and PUMMEL
  • once you’ve got all that anger out and your tears have dried on your cheeks, you want to set to work dividing up the meatballs – keep them small – perhaps the size of a child’s bouncy ball* – and place onto a baking tray sprayed with one spurt of oil or Frylight
  • at this point, you might find you’ve got too many to eat in one go – that’s fine – set aside any leftover balls on a plate and put into the freezer, and once they’re frozen, take them off the plate and put into a bag (that way they don’t stick together whilst they freeze, genius right?)
  • brown your balls in the oven for 10 or 15 minutes until they’ve firmed up and taken on a bit of colour
  • finish them off in a frying pan – get it fairly hot, drop in your balls and then tip in maybe a quarter or half of your sauce, and cook them through, letting the sauce glaze your balls
  • serve on top of your noodles and spinach with carrots on the side if you want them

* know this. I spent about fifteen minutes, I shit you not, trying to think of something comparable in size to a meatball, and all I could think about was testicles. It’s hard being me. 

to make the carrots, you’ll need:

  • six or seven carrots, spiralised
  • 1 tbsp of honey (2.5 syns)
  • a squirt or two of oil
  • caraway seeds

Just a note about the spiraliser – you don’t need one. Look you really don’t. But they’re good fun and a piece of piss to use. We’ve only just got one and if you’re interested, you can buy one for £27 here. They make courgettes into spaghetti and various other things, but you can do the same thing with a knife, so don’t get your bajingo frothing if you can’t find one. 

and then you’ll need to do this:

  • spiralise or cut up your carrots
  • put into a bowl and add the oil and honey
  • chuck in the caraway seeds and a pinch of salt
  • mix, mix, mix, mix – get everything nicely coated (it helps to use runny honey) 
  • chuck in the oven until they’re soft – or crunchy, if you prefer it, up to you!

We cooked up some syn-free noodles and layered our plate with noodles, spinach and meatballs, with extra BBQ sauce on the top and those carrots on the side. You don’t need the carrots, but they’re a nice addition – we just had a surplus rattling around in the bottom of the fridge, so why not?

 

 

 

 

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June 22, 2015

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breast, low syn, poultry, recipe card

chicken stuffed with spinach, sundried tomato and cheese

We’ve bought a new bed on a whim! That’s two incredibly impulsive things we’ve done in so many days – a big deal when you’re like us and the idea of being cute and spontaneous is buying a different scented candle at the garden centre, and even then only if it’s included in the BOGOF offer.

I woke up this morning full of piss and vinegar about the state of our pillows – I’d get more neck support if I rested my head on the jet of air from a hairdyer. I have a neck like a fucking Tetris piece and I’m forever clicking and cracking it, much to the chagrin of Paul. If I shake my head furiously I sound like one of those clacker toys. Plus our bed is awful. We bought it from ASDA or somewhere because we got a ‘great deal’ but a) it’s too small (we had a Caesar bed previously, that’s 8ft by 7ft) and b) the mattress is awful. It provides all the orthopaedic comfort of being mugged for your mobile in a backalley. We’re fat lads and every time we turn over the springs pop and ‘boing’ with increasing malice – I know at some point I’m going to turn over to snooze the alarm clock and be impaled right up my hoop. Imagine that – cause of death: ‘anal trauma caused by cheapskate John Lewis mattress’. I’d certainly be a wailing ghost.

Not only that, but because the bed is one of those awful ones with the drawers underneath, we spend the night being tormented by our cat constantly pulling at it, trying to get inside. That’s vexing enough, hearing the drawer roll forward an inch and roll back over and over again, but when she does get inside, you’re so highly-tuned to the slightest noise that you’re treated to ten minutes of her tongue rasping over her mary for ten minutes before she goes to sleep. Bag.

So we did what any normal couple would do, and rang the Premier Inn to find out how to buy one of the beds they use in their hotel rooms. We ❤ Premier Inn and we just don’t care. We sleep so well in a Premier Inn bed, and now we get to enjoy the experience at home without worrying about how many pockets of Gentleman’s Hot Vanilla has soaked into the mattress. Our new bed arrives in four weeks and it’s exactly the same beds they use in the hotel. Mind, I hope we don’t wake up with Lenny Henry in the bed…though he is a fan of the larger form…so who know. I might book into one of their rooms and steal the purple Premier Inn comforter just to complete the look, together with a menu of fried breakfast items to sit on my bedside table.

We did have an amazing period last year where we had a bed which was comprised of two superking sized beds pushed together. It took up the entire bedroom and was necessary because I needed to sleep apart from Paul for a few weeks whilst I recovered from an operation. Of course, being lazy, we just kept it for almost a year and with two quilts, eight pillows and enough room to literally somersault* (which I’d do if I didn’t think my neck would be turned to dust thanks to my corpulence), it was brilliant. It was a sad day indeed in Cubs Towers when we dismantled poor old Megabed and Paul dragged the mattress – which resembled a Jackson Pollock painting at this point – into the garage. Sniff.

But let’s cheer up, and look forward to the new bed. Tonight’s recipe is simple, elegant and tasty. Give it a whirl!

chicken stuffed with tomato and spinach

you’ll need these:

  • two good chicken breasts – not the water-filled cheap ones
  • sundried tomatoes in oil – six syns for 100g but you’ll be lucky to use 10g in each breast, hence the one syn on the recipe
  • your HEA of whatever cheese you like – a good strong cheddar works best, so 40g of light mature cheddar is tasty
  • make up a side salad of whatever you want – here I used rocket, spinach, tomatoes and spiralised cucumber, and served that with a dressing of yoghurt and fresh mint

and it’s as easy as this:

  • cut the side of your chicken – you’ll need a fairly small gash
  • you might think at first that you’ll never get everything in there and it’ll be too tight, but just do your best – try using your fingers to loosen it up
  • the cheesy bit goes in first, because you don’t want that oozing when things heat up
  • cram it full of spinach and a couple of tomatoes – really pack it in
  • now things get steamy – get a griddle pan and heat it up – you might want to rub a little oil on it if it’s a dry old thing, because you don’t want to have to peel your meat off the sides
  • sear the chicken on both sides
  • you’ll want to finish it off by putting it in the oven for ten or fifteen minutes – you want clear juices dribbling out when you prick it
  • serve with a bit on the side

Eee, get me a job at The Sun.

J

 

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June 21, 2015

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breakfast, desserts, low syn, overnight oats, recipe card, snacks, sweet snacks, taster ideas, vegetarian

rocky road overnight oats – the best yet!

Before I start – Paul sat bolt upright in bed this morning (well as bolt upright as someone with a waterfall of fat on their front can do) and announced ‘I just had a dream that I won the Eurovision Song Contest…representing Lebanon!’ and went back to sleep. I couldn’t sleep after that particularly gay announcement. Cheers Paul.

 The title of this post comes from my father, who on entering any room, always say ‘EH’ like he’s missed out on some juicy titbit of gossip. I endured this for eighteen years before I moved out (not because of the eh-ing I hasten to add) and he still does it even to this day. Brilliant.

I’m going to quickly post this recipe below and then head off to see The Unmentionables – well you have to, it’s Father’s Day. My dad is brilliant – he’s like the antithesis of me in every single way. Where some people might call me quite fey, he’s super-butch. I’m fat, he’s thin. He has a Screwfix catalogue next to his bed, I had a copy of Salza: For Lover of Latino Inches hidden under my mattress. He can quite cheerfully throw up a set of shelves, remodel a kitchen and mend a broken car, whereas I can quite cheerfully call a handyman, joiner and mechanic in on my mobile. 

He’s always been one of those dads who knows how to do everything – and although he always walks into my house and says it smells of something, which irks me no end – he can always be relied upon if I ever need anything done. He was great with me growing up, despite having to endure the veritable collection of freaks that I brought home…the ginger one, the scabby one, the one with the discus-shaped lip, the one with the question-mark spine, the one who looked like Richard Osman from Pointless, Silent Bob, the chap whose voice sounded like a bee caught behind a radiator…he made small talk and polite conversation with them all. I never once felt awkward, pressured or unsupported and that’s testament to what a great father he is. I never tell him that, obviously. That would be far too awkward and non-manly. Feelings, right?

Paul has a similar relationship with his dad, although it’s slightly more difficult for him as there’s over 250 miles between them. However, we seem to have settled into a pattern of genial giving of gifts on special occasions – Paul’s dad gets a cookbook or an atlas at Christmas, Paul gets money a week after his birthday. I’ve met him and can gladly say the old ‘in-laws are horrible’ stereotype doesn’t apply, which is great. He’s a thoroughly pleasant chap. Paul often tells me of how he came out to his parents – his mum reacted in a very ‘mum’ way, by making retching noises and almost-but-not-quite putting down her Puzzler in shock, whereas his dad said ‘SO YOUR MUM TELLS ME YOU’RE GAY, SON’ and went back to fussing around his Renault 19.  Parents are fun.

As for us, being fathers is the last thing we’d ever want to do. The mechanics of it are bad enough – we’re not going to stand around popping our yop into a plastic cup and finding some suitable receptacle to carry our child, that’s too stressful. But even if we got past that point, the idea of having a child to look after is my idea of genuine hell. I can barely remember to clip my own toenails and go to the toilet, having some screaming hellchild demanding regular food and access to my bank account fills me with dread. So: you’ll never be reading the tearful account of us adopting and raising a child, though you can know that if we ever DID, it would have a proper bloody name. I’ve heard of a kid being called Lil’star and it makes my eyes shake with fury.

ANYWAY, here we go. Today’s recipe: rocky road overnight oats. I know I said no more overnights oats but I had this photo kicking around in the archives and in the spirit of Father’s Day, I thought I’d post something a bit more…fun. Well I say fun…

rocky road overnight oats

to make rocky road overnight oats, you’ll need:

  • 40g of Quaker or store-brand oats – we use Quaker because we like the texture
  • 1 vanilla and chocolate Mullerlight (syn-free)
  • sliced banana

to make rocky road overnight oats, you should:

  • place your oats in the bottom of your jar
  • cover with sliced banana
  • cover with the yoghurt

and then you’ll use your syns to add the following:

  • 10 mini marshmallows (0.5 syns)
  • 5g of chocolate chips (1.5 syns)
  • 5g of dried cranberries (0.5 syns)
  • two smashed up sugar-free Werthers Originals (0.5 syns each)

I know 5g doesn’t sound like a lot, but weighed out and mixed in, it is. Jeez, calm down.

or you could add:

  • 1 tsp of chocolate sprinkles (1 syn)
  • segments from a tangerine
  • fresh berries
  • smashed up Crunchie fun size (4 syns)

The world is your oyster. Yes, you have to use syns (NURSE! NURSE! GET THE SALTS) but for goodness sake, for a sweet indulgence at the start of the day, why not go mad and let your hair down? I mean give it a wash first obviously.

If you want more overnight oats, you’ll find them here:

Happy father’s day!

J

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June 20, 2015

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bacon, low syn, lunch, pasta, pork, recipe card, seafood

spicy tuna and bacon pasta

Just a recipe today folks, as we’re having a lazy day in front of Netflix. We literally could not have done less today – we stayed in bed until 10am, got up, took the duvet with us and got under it on the sofa and have barely moved since.  Paul went for a piss sometime after noon and I’ve made a few cups of tea, but put it this way, if we had a pedometer attached to one of our flabrolls, it would read ‘ERR’ right now. Ah well. We work hard, we can rest! It’s lucky that neither of us are the type to look with jealous eyes at other people on Facebook who are out protesting, or burning in the sun, or rolling down hills in plastic balls. I mean, yes, that’s fun, but it’s so energetic. We like to rest before we get tired.

Tell you what though, we have had a minor bout of decisiveness – we’ve only gone and booked our Christmas holiday! Yes, we’re shuffling our jellyforms onto a plane bound for Iceland. Iceland! Not the shop – the idea of spending my holiday surrounded by a herd of woman with moustaches buying horse-arse burgers and a suitcase of ice-pops holds no appeal. Thinking about it, Iceland really is the perfect holiday destination for two plus-sized puffs:

  • they’re super gay-friendly, which is a bonus as it means I can hold Paul’s hand without having my teeth kicked out through my arse;
  • a lot of their food seems repellant to me, and christ, I’ll put any old shite in my mouth, but ‘singed and boiled sheep head’ and ‘shark fermented in piss’ seems a bit much even for me. I might get old Magsy on the blower tonight and see if she’ll do a piss-shark special in the next magazine;
  • it’s cold – very cold – which means we don’t need to be walking around fanning our faces like frisky debutantes and worrying about the sweat patches forming under our bitch-titties; and
  • it’s not going to be full of awful people who think a SKOL ashtray and a STELLA umbrella is the sign of a fine establishment, although, the other side of that coin is that it’s bound to be full of hipsters photographing the Northern Lights and saying yah-but-really-though all the time.

So: if you’re a fan of our previous travels to Ireland or Germany, you’ll enjoy hearing us battle our way through the customs and traditions of Iceland. Anyway: tonight’s recipe, before I pass out through sheer exhaustion, is a spicy tuna and bacon pasta.

spicy sw pasta

I know what you’re thinking. Bacon and tuna is an odd mix, but it works. I’m not a big fan of fish, but I found this tasty. If you don’t have any fancy-dan pasta like us, just use any old guff that you find rattling around in the back of the cupboard. This is a recipe that you could tart-up by adding lots of other vegetables, but actually, the simplicity works for us. We know our limits. So…

you’ll need this to make spicy tuna and bacon pasta:

  • 200g of any pasta – we used fusilli lunghi from Tesco, but just use what you have
  • one tin of tuna – look, I never use this blog to tubthump, what you buy is your own business, but if you can afford it, buy decent tinned tuna, at the very least stuff that is caught ‘pole and line’ rather than the cheap stuff (actually, some of the cheap stuff is alright and the known brands are crap, like John West and Princes, but just do some research). Tuna caught in massive nets is bad because the same nets suck in all sorts of other sealife, such as sharks and turtles. Terrible when you think that turtle could have made someone a lovely ashtray)
  • 6 bacon medallions, or you know, you could be normal and just trim the fat off proper bacon
  • 1 yellow onion 
  • 3 garlic cloves, finely grated, and yes, I’ll plug the microplane grater again for this: click here if you want one – at least your fingers won’t reek of garlic
  • 8 cherry tomatoes, halved
  • 1/4tsp of cumin powder and 1/4tsp of chilli powder (which you can leave out if you’ve got a sensitive balloon-knot
  • 1 tsp of oregano
  • 125ml of milk (1% is 2.5 syns, this serves two)
  • drop of two of oil, or Frylight, for all your pan-ruining needs!

and to make spicy tuna and bacon pasta, you should:

  • cook your pasta in salty water until it’s cooked – fling it off a tile to see if it sticks, though you’ll look like a monkey throwing its shit around in a zoo;
  • let your chopped onions and minced garlic gently cook in a drop of oil until they go as see-through as a whore’s knickers
  • in goes the chopped bacon, which you’ll cook unil it’s golden brown (texture like sun)
  • then in go the chopped tomatoes, which you’ll cook until they soften
  • once that’s done, in go the spices, tuna, chilli powder and oregano, which you’ll mix up nicely
  • ready for the milk now – chuck it in, bring to the boil and reduce to a simmer until it thickens up
  • in goes the cooked pasta, swirl it and mix it all up
  • serve with a sprinkling of parmesan (30g is a HEA)

Enjoy. Like I said, it’s not the most amazing thing to look at, but it’s tasty and quick

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June 19, 2015

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fakeaways, indian, recipe card, syn free, taster ideas, vegetarian

don’t light a match, it’s egg curry time!

Yep.

Egg curry. Curry, boiled eggs and sweated-down onions and garlic.

You can rather guess the effect it’s had on the both of us, can’t you? Yep. A colossal, vile, dramatic rise in the amount, pungency and volume of our after-dinner hints.

Every time I field a benchwarmer, I’m taking another layer of skin off my buttocks. I’m raw, I’m not kidding, and each time Paul steams his knickers I feel my face tighten. It’s awful – quite genuinely the worst smell that’s ever barrelled out of us. Now I’m no prude, I love a good taint-stainer, and other people’s seam-splitters make me howl, but this is too much, even for me. We can barely type for gagging and even the cat has been licking his own chutney-locker for twenty minutes just to give his nose a break. I’ve never seen a cat cry until tonight.

Listen, I’ve talked about puckered-chuckles before and I’m not going to go into too much depth here, but everyone – I don’t care how hoity-toity and prim you are – has been proud of one of their farts before. My favourite? I once broke wind on the London Eye, in the height of summer, in a full capsule. Imagine that, the heat blaring down, everyone panicking but being terribly polite about the whole affair. In my defence, I didn’t think it would smell and I was more preoccupied with making sure it wasn’t a full-on cheek-rattler that I didn’t think about the consequences. I bet there’s still fingernails scratched into the emergency exit of capsule 19. 

Paul disagrees though, stating that my best pump was early on morning as I dozed in bed and he got ready for work. He asked me a question and in my slumber I let loose the loudest, squeakiest arse-moo he’d ever heard, to the point where I woke myself up thinking it was the bedside alarm. He had to get back into bed for laughing so hard and he still chuckles about it now. We’re a classy pair.

Here, my favourite old fart joke. It probably only makes sense if you’re of an era when Emmerdale used to be Emmerdale Farm and Jimmy Saville was just a cheeky tinker.

 A bloke goes into a bar and asks for a pint of bitter with a head on it. He gets one from the barman, and then asks him to keep an eye on the pint whilst he nips to the bog. Barman agrees.

Bloke comes back from the netty only to find the pint is still there but the head is missing.

“What happened to the head on my pint?!” he asks the barman, to which the barman replies, “well, see that large athletic looking lady over there? While you were in the gents she came over and farted on your pint and blew the head off it“.

“Right” says the angry customer, “I’m going to have a word with her!”.

He storms over to the lady and asks, “Excuse me, fart in my Whitbread?“

and she says…wait for it wait for it…

…..

….

…

..

.

“No I’m Tessa Sanderson”

Tessa Sanderson right?!

 

 

Oh screw you. Here’s your stinking recipe!

syn free sw egg curry

This serves four.

We served it with saag aloo from a previous recipe (opens in a new window) and boring old rice. This is a great way of getting a load of superfree into your mush. So…

to make egg curry, you’ll need:

  • 6 hard boiled eggs (shell removed)
  • 2 medium onions 
  • 3 medium tomatoes
  • 1 tsp grated ginger
  • 1 tsp crushed garlic
  • 1 green chilli (sliced)
  • handful of coriander leaves (chopped)
  • 2½ tsp ground coriander
  • ½ tsp tumeric
  • ½ tsp paprika
  • ½ tsp garam masala
  • ½ ground cumin
  • salt

For the love of God, buy one of these. YES IT’S A MICROPLANE GRATER but you can do your garlic and ginger so quick. Plus Parmesan and lemon. Hell you could even try getting your feet sorted out with it, which is handy if your feet look like a drought relief map. 

to make egg curry, you’ll need to do this:

  • finely chop the onions
  • spray a large saucepan with Frylight OR a drop or two of oil and place over a medium heat
  • gently fry the onions for about 5 minutes or until translucent and golden
  • add the crushed garlic, ginger and sliced chili to the pan and stir it like a piece of playground gossip
  • chop the tomatoes roughly, add to the pan and stir well
  • cook for about five minutes, until the mixture is quite mushy
  • meanwhile, in a small bowl mix together the corianer, turmeric, paprika, garam masala and cumin powder with two tablespoons of water until smooth, you want it looking like an Orlistat side-effect
  • add the spice mixture to the pan and mix well
  • add the chopped coriander leaves to the pan and continue to cook the mixture for another three minutes or so 
  • add 325ml water to the pan, cover and cook for fifteen minutes, or until it’s really thickened up
  • meanwhile, boil six eggs for 10 minutes. peel under running water
  • remove the curry from the heat and stir well 
  • slice the eggs in half and place in the curry.

Look, this isn’t the most razzmatazz of recipes, but it’s fun and unusual. That’s what Slimming Would should be about. SHOULD.

Now excuse me, I have to go FART LIKE A BREWERY HORSE.

PRAY FOR JAMES

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June 18, 2015

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fakeaways, italian, low syn, lunch, pasta, recipe card, sausages

spicy Slimming World sausage rigatoni

Very quick post tonight as we’re at class and then off to see San Andreas, which will really set my phobia of dams at ease. This recipe came about because we think the Slimming World sausages taste like someone has emptied their Dyson into a condom and sealed it up. They’ve got as much kick as a dead horse. Least they’re syn free though…right? So, to liven them up, we’ve released the meat from the skin, made it into a spicy sauce and served it with rigatoni. NATCH.

You could make this syn free, just omit the wine and replace with beef stock. But like you’re going to do that eh, beetroot-nose?

spicy slimming world sausage rigatoni

This serves four, so it does.

to make spicy sausage rigatoni, you’ll need:

  • a few drops of oil, or, spit, Frylight
  • an onion the size of a clenched fist (normal, feminine hands – not like a Russian shot-putter)
  • 4 carrots 
  • a pack of SW sausages, circumcised (skin removed)
  • 1tsp of oregano
  • 1/2 chilli flakes
  • 1tsp of salt
  • 1tsp of black pepper
  • a few drops of balsamic vinegar
  • 100ml of wine (just the cheap stuff you use for cooking, or when ‘she’ comes around) (this is where the syns come in – 175ml of red wine is 6 syns, I’m only use about 60% of that, and this serves four, so let’s call it 4. I’m not Carol Vorderman!)
  • can of chopped tomatoes
  • 500g of rigatoni pasta, or more if you like
  • Parmesan and finely chopped basil to serve (30g of Parmesan being your healthy extra)

to make spicy sausage rigatoni, you should:

  • furiously mince, like Paul at a reduced counter, the carrots and onion – we used our fancydan blender but you could just finely grate them – cook them in the oil/Frylight until they’re soft on a medium heat;
  • add the ‘meat’ from the Slimming World sausages, together with the oregano, chilli flakes, salt and pepper
  • keep stirring until the sausage is cooked through and then whack the heat up for a moment and chuck the wine in – make a point of scraping around the pan to get any sticky good bits off the bottom, then reduce the heat
  • add the chopped tomatoes, drop the heat, add the vinegar and leave to simmer whilst you cook the pasta
  • cook the pasta, drain it, add the sauce and a few tablespoons of the water you cooked the pasta in
  • dish up, adoring it with shreds of basil and finely grated Parmesan.

Rejoice! A recipe that makes the SW sausages even tastier! Somehow, by adding flavour, they become delicious! I have to say, this was one of my favourite meals in a long time. Good for taking into work the next day too.

J

 

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June 17, 2015

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recipe card

COMPETITION: win two Slimming World books!

Remember me prattling on a month or so ago about a competition – that I’d hide several people in my food photos and when there were 10 or so, I’d launch a competition? Well, like I say to Paul when he’s been an especially good lad (made my tea, rubbed my feet, put the hoover away with the cord wrapped up properly), it’s time for you to enter. There are eleven (I counted!) faces hidden in various blog posts going back to the beginning of April – all you need to do is find them and submit their names using the form below. I’ve also asked that you join our Facebook page but the little gizmo below makes it easy! Please DON’T leave the answers in the comments below, or I’ll smack yer arse quicker than Mags herself would if she saw you mashing a banana.

Now listen – I’ve said this in the terms and conditions but I wanted to reiterate it here. I write this blog for two reasons – because I’m an incredibly vain person who loves nothing more than talking about himself and inserting coarse, crude sayings (see below) into otherwise vanilla text, and because I actually like to think that people out there who are trying to slim may find some inspiration in my recipes and waffle. We don’t do it for the money, thank god, and we don’t do it just so we can show off our various Le Creuset bits and bobs.

That’s a TOTAL LIE. I’ll bloody shoe-horn in my Le Creuset cookware everywhere I can. Listen, I’ve known the horror of trying to cook an omelette on a pan that’s stickier than the front of a trainspotter’s Y-fronts, let me have my moment in the sun. 

So, to that end, I’d be happier than a dog with two dicks if these little books went to a regular reader or someone who would get the benefit out of them. We used to enter competitions all the time – it’s great fun if you’ve got a lot of time on your hands. We had some great successes (I was particularly good at winning the caption contents) – we won a set of business class tickets anywhere around the world, an Xbox, £400…my favourite prize though was the horse shampoo. We don’t own a horse, and even if we did, I think I’d struggle getting the fucker into our shower. We also won a year’s worth of dishwasher tablets and a year’s supply of tampons. Not in the same competition I hasten to add, imagine getting those mixed up. You’d have a lemon-smelling fur burger and a bone-dry dishwasher.  Aaah.

Anyway, get entering! Tomorrow’s meal is a delicious sausage rigatoni.

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