Category Archives: classics

Slimming World classics

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

April 7, 2015

Posted under

breast, budget, classics, one-pot, poultry, recipe card, rice, syn free, travel

mushy pea curry

Where to start? Firstly, if you’re here for the recipe, have a good scroll down and you’ll find a recipe for good old mushy pea curry, which although it does look like someone’s already eaten it for you, is tasty, cheap and slimming. Trust me. If you’re here for the long haul, enjoy the first part of my rambling about our recent few days away in Ireland…

11079570_862491037157834_299026318143646437_o

You may remember me mentioning that we had no plans and were planning a last-minute holiday away wherever we could find a cheap deal to a decent place? Well let me tell you – don’t bother. The only available flights were to places which you just know will be full of bald English men with red shoulders reading The Sun and eating full English breakfasts at 4pm. Bleugh. I don’t like flying – the thought of flying somewhere with such little reward just ruled going abroad at last-minute completely out. So, the night before we set off, we booked a holiday cottage in the absolute middle of nowhere in the Ring of Kerry, Ireland, and at 5pm the next day our car was packed, Paul had been picked up and we were on our way in no time at all. I normally hide away the sat-nav for reasons below but intrigue got the better of me as to how far I had to drive and the sat-nav was plugged in and on the dash within ten minutes.

Sat-navs are great in principle but I always end up putting mine sulkily away in the glove box after approximately five minutes. We bought a proper fancydan version in the sales but see, I hate being told what to do when I’m driving and struggle with the authority it commands in the car. I always have good intentions of listening to it and indeed, it’s never failed to guide us where we need to go, but I still have an inherent distrust and because Paul always sides with the sat-nav, it causes arguments. Plus, it only has two male voices, Daniel and Kevin. Kevin is a sarcastic knobhead so he immediately gets turned off but Daniel has been upgraded to this weird breathy version who almost whispers the commands at us like some robotic milk-tray man. I don’t know how appropriate it is to have a semi whilst clumsily navigating around the Bangor ring-road but there you have it.

We arrived in Bangor at around ten and, due to being full of wine gums and other sweets, went straight to bed. We’d elected to stay at a Premier Inn but this is always a mistake – not because they’re uncomfortable, quite the opposite actually – I’ve always had a great night’s sleep at a Premier Inn – but rather I spend all night scheming and plotting about how I might make my money back under their ‘Guaranteed Good Night’s Sleep’ promise.  The problem with that is, I’ve always found the staff so nice and disarming that I immediately become charming and submissive and don’t dare mention any perceived problem with the room. Bah. We sped down towards Holyhead in the morning and we were at the dock in plenty of good time to sit and wait in the gales and mist before it was time to board the ferry.

Oh! Before I carry on with the tale, let me mention Paul’s idea of breakfast. As we didn’t have time to hoover up an all-you-can-eat-breakfast at the Premier Inn, I bustled him into Holyhead ASDA with the direction of getting a breakfast snack for us. This is what he came back with.

2887518520_a8f34768f9_o

Haway. In case you can’t make it out, it was a little packet which contained a cheesestring, a wrap so dry I could have shaved my three-day-stubble with it, a sachet of knock-off tomato ketchup and (unlike in the picture above, which I’ve nicked from somewhere to illustrate my post) some sliced rolled chicken. It was unspeakably vile. I opened the packet and I swear it hissed when I pulled the lid back. The car smelt like someone had shit out a corpse on the back seat. We got fifty yards down the road before I pulled over and Paul, now with a considerable flea in his ear, had to dispose of the ‘meal’ in the nearest bin. Honestly Holyhead, get your act together. I had tears in my eyes as we drove past McDonalds to the ferry port, let me tell you. Anyway…

You know what I love about the English? The very second they perceive anyone to be at any sort of advantage to them, they start bitching – and this is compounded if they’ve paid extra. Let me explain. Paul and I paid an extra £10 each way on the ferry to be given priority boarding, disembarkation (is that a needlessly clumsy word or what) and access to the Stena lounge. It is the ferry equivalent of first class and we only bought it because the seats in the lounge looked moderately comfortable and there was promise of free snacks. Accordingly, when we drove into the port, we were asked to drive into one of two ‘Premium’ lanes. We parked up and had the windows down only to hear the whisker-faced woman, putting the Tena in Stena Line, in the Audi (shock! horror!) to my right immediately start bitching to her husband that ‘they had paid extra’ and ‘why where we in the second premium lane and they weren’t’ blah blah. He looked amazingly henpecked. She went on and on and on about the perceived injustice of people boarding ahead of her and only stopped when I put my window back up and we both started laughing at her. I think her mood soured further when we did indeed board first – a whole lane ahead of her – and I gave her and her watery-eyed husband a dainty handwave as we drove past. Stupid old mare that she was – it’s not as if those in Premium were going to sailing over on the fucking QE2 and the rest of the passengers were sailing on a floating door.

Once we were loaded onto the ferry, we dashed up the stairs to be the first couple into the ‘Stena Plus’ lounge. Part of the ‘premium’ booking is access to this lounge which is controlled by a surly miss and a set of glass doors. We had to give our surname and were ushered in to avail ourselves of the free snacks, which consisted of those little packet of shortbread that you get in cheap hotels and a few cans of Diet Coke. There were some bottles of wine available for those who were already shaking and slurring at 9am in the morning, plus tea and coffee. Once they had allowed all of the steerage passengers onboard and shut them behind the metal gates, we were on our way.

And good lord, what a crossing. We were warned by the captain (via the ship’s loudspeaker, not personally – I mean we’d only paid an extra tenner and that had to cover the forty cans of Pepsi that I’d secreted away into my rucksack) that the crossing was going to be rough due to the strong winds and turbulent seas, and he wasn’t kidding. The Stena Plus lounge is situated at the front of the ferry and the waves were cresting over the top of the prow as it bobbed up and down. It was awful – it was all I could do to eat my cooked breakfast and fret about whether I’d put the handbrake on, envisioning my car rolling around on the car deck and the weight of our car-snacks causing a frightful Herald of Free Enterprise incident. It was a long four hours – I spent most of it snaffling snacks and gambling in the arcades. Oh and another moan! If you have kids, you don’t automatically have the right to use any machine you want or to have people who are altogether more sensible than you to get out of the way just so your crusty-faced little shitmachine can ‘have a go at driving’. I know, awful, but some pompous little knobhead with a bristly-little tache and his child took a look into the arcade, saw Paul and I playing Mario Kart Arcade Edition and said to his child ‘DON’T WORRY DARLING, YOU’LL BE ABLE TO HAVE A TURN ON THESE KIDS MACHINES WHEN THESE FULLY GROWN MEN HAVE FINISHED’. Honest to God, fully grown men. It was all I could do not to pick up his child and toss him into the Irish sea. I wouldn’t mind but we all know that children don’t actually play the machines, they just sit making silly noises and taking up space. Frankly, parents should be made to lock their children in the car and they can spend the ferry crossing on the car-deck, well out of the way. The ferry journey passed, eventually.

Now we managed to get all the way to the Ring of Kerry via Holyhead, a ferry and seemingly eight years of twisty roads absolutely fine and without incident, and we were a mile away from our cottage when it all went wrong. We arrived at the right ‘area’ and that’s where we were told to switch off the sat-nag (typo intended) and open up the owner’s own directions which would guide us merrily to our cottage in enough time to get the hot-tub going and allow us an hour to flick disdainfully through her CD collection and make snide comments about her glassware.

Well, did they fuck. For a start, she had worded the directions as though as we were in Lord of the Rings, all ‘go over the brow of the hill and make a turn (which direction? which hill?)’ and ‘drive on until you feel a chill’. They were crap. You need to understand how remote the area was – imagine in the pitch black trying to find a remote cottage with not so much as a blinking light anywhere to be seen. It took us three hours – THREE HOURS – of steaming around the countryside along farm tracks screaming and swearing at the perceived injustice of it all. I like to think what the poor horse in the field nearby thought of it all when he saw our car appearing over the crest of a hill for the eightieth time and the last few syllables of a swearing tirade against the Irish, Tom Tom, cottages, Citroen, Enya and Guinness as we sped past. No wonder he got his revenge later in the holiday (that’ll be in part 2).

Completely lost and on the verge of driving the car into a peat bog and setting it on fire, we found an isolated little cottage with a light on and knocked on the door. Now imagine that. You’re a lady, alone, cooking your evening meal, when two burly bald blokes come mincing up your track and braying on the door asking for directions to ‘Cum Bag’ (which was our approximate pronunciation of the name of the cottage, which was in Gaelic). The poor lass probably thought she was starring in her own Vera adventure. She took an age to find directions but eventually, helpfully, she sent us on our way. Buoyed with confidence, we shot off and within five minutes we’d taken another wrong turn, driven the car up a forty-five degree incline into a farmer’s field and were left spinning the car around in the mud in the pitch black, with Paul outside of the car bellowing directions on where I should reverse and me unable to hear him as I was revving the engine so hard out of sheer, unadulterated anger. Haha. Just to add a cherry on top of this my reverse sensors were blaring away making out there was an obstacle behind me until we realised it was mud on the sensor.

Aaah. We headed back to the road, sulked for a good fifteen minutes and then decided to go back to the start and try following her directions one final time. We were at the cottage, parked up and steaming, within ten minutes. God knows how, why or what we were doing wrong, but we managed it without a hitch. I was fizzing and it seems like a good point to stop the tale and move onto the recipe…

Mushy pea curry. Yes, I know, it sounds revolting, but most people will eat a chickpea dahl and this is quite like that. I’ve added chicken, somewhat unnecessarily, but that’s me all over. It’s syn free and you’ll be able to get a good few chapters of my book completed as you sit on the thunderbox firing this out for the next two weeks.

Delicious.

11088438_862487127158225_4839102413719293708_o

to make mushy pea curry, you’ll need:

two tins of mushy peas, one tin of baked beans, a few mushrooms, a tin of chopped tomatoes, two onions, three garlic gloves (minced), a chicken breast, a red pepper, 1tsp of hot chilli powder and two tbsp of curry powder, as hot as you like. You’ll also need a decent pan. You’ll also need a drop of oil and some salt.

For the rice, you’ll need long-grain white rice. Duh.

to make mushy pea curry, you should:

  • slice the onions nice and thin – use a mandolin! My mandolin has dropped again in price – now only £10, and it’ll save you hours. Plus, who needs the end of their fingers anyway? EH?
  • do the same with the pepper
  • cut the chicken up into small pieces and the mushrooms into slices
  • put the tiny drop of oil into the pan and chuck the onion, mushroom and peppers in there with a bit of salt, and on a medium heat, leave them to sweat down a little
  • after ten minutes or so, pull maybe a quarter of the onion/pepper out and set it aside in a dish – you’ll use this for your rice;
  • throw the chicken into the hot pan and cook it hard and fast on a high heat;
  • now throw in everything else (bar the rice and the quarter of the onion mix, obviously) and mix well – leave it to simmer for half an hour or so
  • for the rice, add a cup full of rice (literally a cup full – take a cup out of the cupboard, fill it with rice, tip that into a pan with the onion/pepper you set aside, using the same cup add two cups of water into the pan, bring to the boil, turn it down to simmer and leave it for around fourteen minutes – covered with a tight-fitting lid – on a gentle simmer. Tasty, fluffy rice
  • serve when thickened and tasty!

Enjoy!

J

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

March 23, 2015

Posted under

airfryer, british, budget, classics, low syn, recipe card, sausages

slimming world sausages and mash

One thing I want to get off my chest is this weird habit people seem to have of serving up their Slimming World slops in those awful three part plates. I’m not talking about the plates where it looks like someone fresh off the ‘Special Ward’ has been let loose with a bag of Poundland felt-tips, I’m talking about these:

0319374_l

They’re bloody awful and they’re not a plate – they’re a bloody serving platter! The middle bit is for dip and the sides are for the Sprinters crisps and KP Nots. Plus it looks like the imprint that would be left in wet cement if Jordan did the splits above it. If you’re eating one main meal out of this, why not go the whole hog and get yourself a trough? Argh! It really annoys me.

I’ve had a genuinely quite lovely today at work – great fun. You remember that part of my job is being on a committee whose job it is to plan fun events and little surprises for everyone? When a colleague and I had to parcel up 160 pick-and-mixes for people? Well, I came up with the idea of a giant Easter Egg hunt, so naturally, Paul and I were in my office last night at midnight hiding 200 caramel, Lindt and créme eggs all over the place. Yes, I’ve had 200 or so eggs rolling around in the back of my car for almost two weeks. They were originally in the house but, no kidding, we had to put the eggs into the boot of the car and then put the car in the bloody garage to remove the temptation. So weakwilled and even then, we did a fair few mad dashes to the garage in our tatty boxers to grab a handful. I actually had to top up the eggs out of my own pocket. GASP. So yeah, imagine this greeting you every time you opened the boot:

15815_855038937903044_4712081090304812921_n

Seriously, we hid them all over. We had them buried in people’s muesli, parcel-taped under desks, hidden down the tube of a roll of wrapping paper, in vending machines…there were even gold and silver eggs hidden for an extra bonus. The silver egg I managed to hide in the peel of a tangerine which I then wrapped up and put back in the communal fruit bowl. The lucky finder won the booby prize of a jar of pickled eggs. The golden eggs – individually wrapped Lindt eggs in gold foil – were hidden in especially difficult places, including sellotaped to the blind mechanism so it would only appear when the blind was pulled down, another in a carrier bag dispenser, one hidden in our rolling rack system with the clue ‘I’ve hidden it in Baghdad’ (In Iraq, see?) and my favourite, a gold egg in the form of a gold helium star, attached to the balcony on the sixth floor with a 40m piece of garish pink parcel ribbon. The idea being it would float serenely above the building (“Find an egg with a view”) but no, no it sank and smeared along the side of the client meeting rooms. Oops, what-am-I-like. Had to cut the ribbon and pull it back a bit.

photo

The golden eggs were swapped for fancy-pants Easter eggs, see, hence the difficulty! Finally, we had nipped to Poundland (I still can’t get the smell of chip-pan out of my coat) on the Sunday and bought five ‘nests’ which we filled with several little eggs and they were stuck all over the place too. Aaah it was great fun! It’s genuinely one of the best parts about my job because I love shit like this, and being able to indulge it does cheer my soul.

Actually, I love treasure hunts full stop. For our first anniversary, I set up a massive treasure hunt all across Newcastle which started off in our flat – the first clue being frozen in a block of ice that could have sunk the Titanic. The second clue was hidden on the living room wall in giant letters – only I’d done it with UV paint, so it only showed up when Paul used the UV light on his keyring. Once we’d done the treasure hunt, we took great delight in writing all over the wall in the windowless hallway with UV paint – if the new tenants in Ouseburn Wharf somehow decide to rig up a UV light, they’re going to be mortified at what they find. I mean, swearing is so much more fun when no-one can see it…

…mind, that’s not the worst thing I’ve splashed on a wall. Not sure why me and my flatmate thought this was a good idea to do when we’d been on the pop one New Years Eve…

paint

The worst part about this was that, although we painted over it several times with Wilko’s own brand shitty beige paint, it was like painting with milk, and we could never quite get rid of his evil staring eyes. Probably why we lost our deposit. That and the iron-print burn in the kitchen lino when someone tried to straighten my then-long hair with an iron. Oops.

Anyway, this was only supposed to be a quick post but I’ve ended up chuntering on, so here’s a recipe. Well not really a recipe, given it’s pretty self-explanatory…

11080709_855089317898006_9018595797714785866_o (1)

Mushy peas are free, as is mashed potato (with added cauliflower just in case the peas don’t turn your arse into a mustard-gas factory) and indeed, so are the Slimming World sausages from Iceland. How are they? Alright. They look like someone’s pooed into a condom in some people’s photos but we seem to have cooking them down exactly right – chuck them in the Actifry and watch Judge Rinder for fifteen minutes. By the time you’ve heard him bitching and sassing and flouncing around his pretend courtroom in his black cape like a haunted toilet-roll cover, the sausages are just right. Gravy is synned at 1 syn per 50ml made up gravy and unless you’re one of those people who drown your food in gravy, that’ll be way more than enough.

Anyway christ, this was only meant to be a quick post…!

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

February 18, 2015

Posted under

classics, fakeaways, kebab shop, lamb, lamb mince, recipe card, syn free

doner kebab

Warning: this post is miserable as syn. Pun intended.

I woke up in a proper huff today. No particular reason, just I wanted everyone I saw outside of my immediate circle of friends to be immediately blinked out of all existence. Humanity seemed to be doing its bit to bring me to my knees – if I’d had a shotgun and could carry off a leather knee-length coat with any sort of panache then there could have been genuine trouble. Things got off to a sour note as soon as I checked my facebook over my morning banana – which isn’t as filthy as it sounds – and saw…

…people queueing up outside of Iceland to get a ready meal. I mean for heaven’s sake. You need to understand that I wouldn’t queue up outside of a shop if they were giving away free blowjobs and pug-faced kittens, but I can just about see the point of it if you’re desperate for a bargain. But for a fucking ready meal? I’ve seen trolleys awash with them like each one contains a mini Margaret who will come and jiggle your fat-shelf up and done to tone it whilst you watch Eastenders. I apologise profusely if there are any readers out there who queued and enjoyed themselves but I find it despairing – like Black Friday but sweatier. Plus the sausages look like an old poo in a condom, though admittedly I’m basing that on a photo that Ray Charles himself seemingly took using a potato. Nevertheless, each to their own and all that. So…

Every song on the radio into work was the wrong one. My iPod wouldn’t bluetooth up to the car music system meaning I couldn’t have my music on. Every person in every single other car on the road was driving like an arsehole – either too slow, reading their phones, or swerving all over the road trying to get their iPod to bluetooth up to their car music system. Well, honestly. I nearly ran someone over who thought stepping out in front of the bus was the best way to continue their life and then I got stuck behind a bin-lorry who had parked up in a single-lane street so the driver could have a cigarette. And you can’t remonstrate with a binman, everyone knows that. That was just the journey in.

Work was work.

Lunchtime came and by this point, all I wanted to do was eat my lunch and doze for half an hour in peace so I picked up my Thermos of bloody awful watery vegetable soup (I had nowt in last night to make something fancy) (Paul calls it care home broth) and made my way over my car in the multi-storey in Newcastle’s Chinatown. No sooner had I poured my soup when some piss-eyed old bugger tapped on my window and told me to move my car as they were doing electric works on the lamppost behind. I duly obliged, working my way through my entire bank of swearwords as I moved around to find a space whilst all the while holding a cup of soup in one hand. Having done so, I finished my ‘delicious’ dinner and was about to nod off for twenty minutes when what sounded like the entire country of China paraded through the street below, banging drums and making noise. They were practising the Chinese New Year march and it was like being under attack. I would have had a more restful half hour if I’d managed to set my face on fire with the car lighter. Dejected and tired, with a fetching orange stain on my shirt from where I’d jumped the first time around, I headed back in.

But no! The joy didn’t end there. Work continued being work. Over the rest of the day I managed to drop my pass into the toilet when I went for a piss and then drop it again down the stairs on the way out of the building. I also managed to leave my car parking ticket on my desk at work, meaning I had to go back for it, and then, the final insult, I got stuck behind the only AUDI driver in existence who DOESN’T think they need to go 150mph in their shite company car who was tootling merrily along the 60mph road at 30mph where the bends and hills precluded any overtaking. I like to think she at least heard the sound ‘UUUUUUUUUUUUNNNNNNNNNT’ as I finally overtook. 

Anyway, I’m home now. Deep breath. I appreciate that this entry is one long moan but I needed it, and now I feel better. Here’s a recipe for doner kebab. Normally I’d shy away from a doner kebab, believing it’s only really suitable for soaking up bile and half-digested carrot before promptly being upchucked in a technicolour yawn by some drunken trollop in the Bigg Market before she settle downs in an alleyway for a foamy piss and regretful sex. A tortuous example. But you get my drift, it’s not exactly classy fare.

10974427_838032809603657_8143722105898714892_o

to make doner kebab you will need:

500g of extra lean lamb mince, 1 tsp of oregano, 1/2tsp of thyme, onion powder, garlic powder respectively, 1/4tsp of cayenne pepper, 1tsp of salt and some black pepper. Listen, if you don’t have onion or garlic powder, no need to shit the bed, just use fresh onion and garlic chopped fine. You can use a tiny bit of flour to dry it out if your lamb is particularly wet. Syn that though – 25g is four and a half syns but a) you’ll not use that much and b) you’re not eating the whole lot, so don’t worry about it too much. Eat it in a pitta bread – weightwatchers wholemeal pitta (x1) is a HEB. You’ll need whatever salad you want in there.

to make doner kebab you should:

preheat the oven to 180degrees. Chuck absolutely everything into a big old bowl and mash mash mash with your fists. Imagine you’re punching the face of someone you hate, or you’re trying to birth a cow against the clock. You want that mixture smooth, not lumpy because you couldn’t be arsed. No excuses. Think of the body magic. If you sweat and it drops in, just reduce the amount of salt you add. When you’ve got it so smooth and well-mixed that you want to take a picture and show it to the neighbours, stick it in a parchment-lined loaf tin and cook in the oven for around 90 minutes. After 45 minutes, turn it over and skim off any shite that has oozed out. Once cooked, take it out, let it cool, slice it thin. 

Now, stuff it into your pitta with as much salad as you want. Because I’m not very exciting, I just went for spinach and tomato and onion with a raita made from fat free yoghurt, mint and a bit of garlic. Whoo, right? You could have an extra pitta for five syns more and who is going to know? I’m not telling anyone, I’m still in a bad mood!

Enjoy. Goodnight.

J

Oh: before I forget! Thank you all for your comments, we really do appreciate and love each one. Don’t be discouraged if we don’t reply (we always try to) – I sit in front of a computer all day and once I’ve typed this up, I normally turn off the computer and concentrate on relaxing or teasing the cat. But we thank you all 🙂

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

January 25, 2015

Posted under

classics, desserts, low syn, quark, recipe card, snacks, speciality ingredients, sweet snacks, taster ideas

chocolate orange cheesecake

Do you know, I post these recipes every day in a Facebook group full of lovely ladies and get plenty of nice comments – but today I posted a comment asking how many syns were in man-jam and it’s like my phone has turned into a rampant rabbit – it’s never stopped buzzing. Negligible amount of syns, if you were wondering. Some say it’s great for a diet and it is in my case, my jaw hurts so much I can barely eat a grape for an hour afterwards. Haha.

So, today’s ‘thing’ was geocaching, combined with taking another rescue dog out for a walk from Bryson’s Cat and Dog Shelter. Geocaching is one of those activities which is incredibly hard to explain and sounds terminally dull until you get out there and try it yourself. Put succinctly, it’s a treasure hunt where no-one wins, but everyone has a good time trying. It’s completely free to play and is an interesting way of seeing new sights in your local area or injecting some fun into a routine walk. I can almost guarantee there will be a fair few caches near you right now.

What is a cache, then? Members of the public from around the world hide containers – some of them tiny little tubes, some proper Tupperware boxes, some massive chests – all over the place. The idea is that you’d never find them unless you were looking for them, but by searching for them you’ll often be taken to interesting places you didn’t know, or pretty views, or just cool spots. The containers will hold a log-book and you sign your name to say you’ve found it – and that’s it! There’s no prize, although some of the containers will hold little trinkets like bouncing balls. How do you find them? Using the GPS on your phone, which most smartphones these days will have. Log onto geocaching.com, see if there are any nearby. Download the geocaching app onto your phone (£6.99 for the full version, but there’s a free ‘intro’ app which does the same thing). Then go out to your chosen place, and follow the compass and clues to your cache! Done!

Or, to explain in it an overly twee but rather nice way, here is the official video:

[youtube=http://youtu.be/1YTqitVK-Ts]

Urgh, do your teeth hurt like mine do? But no – it’s genuinely really fun!

So, we looked online, and there was a lovely trail of eight geocaches near the cat and dog shelter. We immediately acquired number one, which was a tiny magnetic cache stuck behind one of the exchange boxes in the street. Then we picked up this little beauty:

10928935_825360167537588_1653193362771439149_o

She was a staffie cross, and boy was she strong – the path was icy and I swear to God, I skated half the way around the walk. Like the other week though, she was so excited to be out and about! How people can just ditch these dogs is beyond me. We were warned that she was nervous around dogs so when someone approached me on the path with a big fuck-off Alsatian, I went and hid in the bushes to the side of the path. Only the stupid old duffer then stood directly in front of my way out with the dog, checking his phone, oblivious to the fact I was ankle-deep in freezing mud. Mind he sharp shifted when I shouted ‘I’M NOT BLOODY STANDING HERE HOPING TO GROW ROOTS, FOR FUCK’S SAKE’. Oops.

It was a lovely two hour walk, with a good mix of caches – one stuck under an old deserted railway platform, one under a postbox, one disguised as a branch of a tree and my personal favourite, a camouflaged lunchbox hidden in a rotten tree-trunk covered in hay with the only clue being ‘Part My Hair’. We found five of the eight and some pics are below:

10644368_825362580870680_8736658342342877349_o

You can see in the top pictures the little magnetic cache with just enough room to hide a logbook and pencil, the second set of pictures shows the ‘wig’ cache and the third was the hardest, just a tiny bit of wood hidden in an old tree.

Geocaching is great fun, free and perfect for body magic. Give it a go. More on this next week.

Finally, a recipe for you:

chocolate orange cheesecake

This makes four cheesecakes or two big ones for us fatties.

to make chocolate orange cheesecake, you’ll need:

ingredients: two chocolate orange options (1.5 syns each), 500g quark and four lighter lemon alpen bars, little sugar stars to decorate (optional, one syn per tsp I reckon).

to make chocolate orange cheesecake, you should:

recipe: microwave your alpen bar for five seconds just to loosen it up, chop it up and press to the bottom of a glass. Mix together the quark and options and place on top. Chill for a couple of hours and decorate with stars.

extra easy: it’s a dessert, so it’s all about syns, but really, not much at all. Two light alpen bars is your HEB, and you only need one each here so you can have another one another time. Let’s call the options one syn and the stars another, so in total – two syns each, but if you swap the stars out for tangerine pieces, it’ll be a syn each. Delicious and simple!

J

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

January 23, 2015

Posted under

airfryer, beef, beef joints, classics, lamb, lamb joints, low syn, pork, pork joints, poultry, recipe card, syn free, whole

the sunday roast

Right – a heads up, which may be a bad choice of words for the little bit of explaining that I’m going to be doing – this blog post might be a little saucy. Oh my! Skip the next lot of paragraphs if you’d rather just get to the good bit.

You have to be super careful typing our blog name into google. Why? Because it can bring up a lot of filthy results if it is incorrectly spelled, just like one slip of the keys can make a weekend in Scunthorpe altogether less palatable. Thanks to the traffic we receive to the blog, we’re number one if you search for ‘chubby cubs’ but if you look down, there’s a fair few blogs that aren’t quite for vanilla eyes!

So let me explain the name of the blog – the two and the chubby bit is obvious, we’re a couple of gentleman of generous scale. But the cubs bit might be less obvious. See, in the gay world, aside from all the rainbows, magic dust and blistering fisting sessions, there’s a tendency to group male types by an animal name. Breaking them down, very very loosely, and tongue completely in (bum)cheek:

bear: a bear is a more masculine looking bloke – bearded, hairy, generally stocky or fat, normally has a wardrobe full of plaid shirts, fan of Kate Bush;

cub: a younger version of a bear, generally equally hairy, more stereotypically masculine in traits, might order a Guinness in a pub rather than a blue WKD and a fingering;

otter: more difficult – because not all bears are fat, stocky and of course you get people in all different shades, a thin hairy bear might be described as an otter. Presumably because he is generally ‘otter than most people under all that hirsuteness;

chicken – which became twink, I think – a young, attractive, usually slender or physically fit slip of a man. Again, very generally speaking, perhaps camper than most, more effeminate.

Of course, all boundaries are meaningless and it’s also a rather outdated way of looking at things – being able to grow a beard and light a cigar without coughing your lungs up doesn’t make you more masculine, whereas knowing the lyrics to every Alcazar song in Swedish and English doesn’t necessarily make you less of a man. Well…

Our problem is – we’re almost at the tipping point where we’d probably be classed as ‘bears’ rather than ‘cubs’ because we’re getting on, but frankly two chubby bears doesn’t scan right. Two Busomesque Bears? Two Beefy Butterballs? Actually, I quite like that one, but fuck me our porn warnings would skyrocket.

Oh, as an aside, those girls who seem to only have gay men as friends? Like my ex-flatmate who exclaimed we could go shopping together and sort each other’s hair out? She got short shrift. But they have many sarcastic terms too – fruit flies, fag hags, queer dears…

That’s enough of that, anyway. Speaking of beef, here’s dinner this evening – a proper roast dinner!

10321597_824478984292373_8805796571333583561_o

to make the sunday roast, you should…

I don’t really need to break down a recipe, because it’s all a sum of its parts, but this is more to show you can have a big bloody dinner on SW and not lose out. Broken down:

  • roast beef – syn free joint from Tesco’s reduced bin – reduced from £9 to £2, and bloody lovely!
  • broccoli – steamed
  • peas – tinned
  • carrots and parsnips – done in the Actifry with a tiny tiny bit of oil
  • mash – sweet potato and normal potato mashed together
  • turnip – it’s the singing turnip from this recipe
  • roasties – we tried to do the Oxo roasties that everyone bangs on about and got it wrong, so we’re going to do them another time and post a recipe!

Now you could have gravy – 100ml is 1.5syns, which is bugger all, but don’t drown your dinner in gravy, it’s terribly common. Paul puts mint sauce on his beef and I end up wincing my way through the meal. But he cooked tonight’s tea so he’s let off with love.

J

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

January 18, 2015

Posted under

budget, classics, lunch, recipe card, savoury snacks, snacks, syn free, taster ideas, vegetarian

rainbow quiche and octogenarian shenanigans

Well, that was an exciting afternoon. The parents have decided to spend a bit more of my inheritance and have buggered off to the Gambia for a week or two, leaving Nana Dearest in the care of me and my sister. She’s very independent but it’s good to check in on her every day just to make sure she hasn’t rolled a seven and shuffled off the mortal coil. So, fatty and I piled into the car today at half one and drove the thirty miles over to her house – in the ice and snow – to see that she was up and about and dutifully forgetting to take her tablets. Got there to find her curtains still shut in the bedroom and the door locked. At 2pm, and us without a key. The dog was scratching on the other side of the door. No amount of knocking and shouting got a reply. Naturally, we raised the alarm buggered off to do our weekly shop at Tesco with a view to coming back and trying again at half three. Still no reply. I had no key, remember. How do you attract the attentions of an eighty eight year old woman whose hearing aid would merely register a muffled bump if a plane crashed in her garden?

Well, here’s how – you get a clothes prop from the garden. For those of you who aren’t living in the 1940s, a clothes prop is a very long, very thin bit of wood that Geordies use to hoist their clothes line high up in the air so that villagers in another parish altogether can cast disdainful looks at the skidders on your knickers. It looks like this:

clothes prop

Of course, it would be altogether too easy for my gran’s prop to be a strong, metal affair like the one pictures – no, hers was a manky old bit of wood that had been sitting in the snowy mud since the Battle of the Somme and was dangerously rotten. Nevertheless I pressed on and hoisting the bendy, rotten, 14ft prop into the air like a fucking pole vaulter and standing on the tops of my boots, I rapped it smartly against her window, tap tap tap, whilst Paul brayed on the front door, with each ‘tap’ of the stick leading another muddy print against her window. After ten bloody minutes, a wispy bit of white hair appears followed by a bemused face, then the window opens and she tells me off for leaving mud all over her window frame. Turns out she had gone to bed the night before and only just woken up at 4pm, which frankly sounds like my idea of heaven. Pills dispensed and a cup of tea later, she turns to me sagely and says ‘You could have just rang the doorbell, you know’. I almost turned the one hobnob (well, Aldi equivalent of a hobnob – a notnob?) (3.5syns) I’d allowed myself to dust in my balled up fists. She’s a dear, an absolute dear, but unless I had rung the doorbell with the front of my fucking car she really, really wouldn’t have heard.

Still, how Paul and I laughed as we made our way back home, our shopping defrosting merrily in the boot. I’d do it all again though.

The shopping I just mentioned will be turned into the following meals for the week ahead:

  • pulled pork, leek and mature cheese pizza;
  • spinach, basil, broccoli and kale soup;
  • macaroni cheese – with a twist;
  • roast beef dinner;
  • beef and broccoli;
  • spaghetti and hotdogs; and
  • chicken, beans and rice.

All healthy, all tasty. All low syns. I’m going to make a bit more of an effort to create rollover recipes – recipes which use the leftovers from another one I’ve done in the week. I thought it might help those trying to keep costs down. So in that vein, tonight’s recipe is a very quick one using up the remainder of the veg that we didn’t use on our Judy Garland Special Pizza (thank you Ms Savage!). The joy of a slimming world quiche is that you can chuck any old shite in it and it’ll taste good. Here it is – I left it in the oven ten minutes too long because I was too busy outside scratching my foot on the brick wall of my herb garden. It’s so satisfying!

slimming world rainbow quiche

No need for a full recipe for this rainbow quiche – this really is just all the leftover veg we chopped up, combined with four eggs and 300g of cottage cheese, lots of salt and pepper and chucked in the oven. Syn free of course and absolutely stuffed with superfree food, so it would be perfect for a work snack. Well, a slice or two – you don’t need to eat the whole bloody thing at once for goodness sake.

Finally, as a special treat, here’s a picture of Bowser a split second before he yawns. He looks so…speshul.

10915123_821472997926305_3456828610847258986_o

Goodnight!

J

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

January 15, 2015

Posted under

bacon, budget, classics, lunch, one-pot, pork, recipe card, savoury snacks, snacks, soup, syn free, taster ideas

syn free pea and ham soup

I swear to God – Old Man River put my bin back for the second time today! Why did he think I’d put it again? Does he think I’m giving him a cardio workout or something? Ah he’s so bloody nice it’s impossible to be mad but I fear that the rough-hewn men at the council will be foaming – three times now they’ve had that bin lorry backed up our street and three times the bin hasn’t been out. Oops. That’ll be them putting Bowser into the rubbish compacter tomorrow.

So, today. I was unlucky enough to be caught behind a cluster of office workers waiting to cross the road today, all puffing away on their e-cigarettes. That said, it did afford me the opportunity to mince through the strawberry-scented fog like I was coming out of the doors on Stars In Their Eyes when the light changed. I’m not keen on those e-cigarette thingies – I’m of the belief that if you want to smoke, then man up and bloody smoke – it should be Capston Full Strength tabs or bust. Admittedly it’s far nicer seeing someone misting away like a boiling kettle than it is seeing them bent double chucking their lungbutter all over the pavement but still. Plus the e-cigarettes always look so ungainly, like you’re sucking nicotine from a nosehair trimmer, and it does attract a lot of quite smug people who say they are harmless – perhaps, but society thought thalidomide was ‘armless once.

I gave up smoking two years ago using Allen Carr’s Easy Way to Stop Smoking (clicking takes you to his book), and it was a revelation. I was panicked thinking the cravings would be hell on Earth but I finished his book, put out my cigarette and hardly even thought about smoking again. He teaches you to examine what exactly you’re doing when you smoke, and explains why you want to keep smoking, and then breaks down each reason/excuse that you use to rationalise your smoking. It’s great – cost £6 and never looked back, and I was on a good 20 smokes a day.

Mind you, that’s not to say I’ve become one of those fervent anti-smokers who cough that tinkly little cough if someone has the temerity to light up near them. That I absolutely can’t stand, it’s such an oddly British passive action to take – either ask them to put it out or fuck off – you wouldn’t sit in a burning building sneezing at the fire, you’d take immediate action! Fair enough you might end up with a Richmond Blue smouldering in your eye-socket but you would have the comfort of not being a passive-aggressive tosser to soothe it.

Speaking of soothing, here’s the soup recipe for this week – and fuck me, look at that, I definitely need to get a trim on my worktop.

PEAHAM

to make syn free pea and ham soup, you’ll need:

ingredients: tiny drop of olive oil, or some frylight, 200g chopped bacon medallions, an onion, one leek, 2 cloves of garlic, 500g frozen peas, 700ml chicken stock, 1tsp dried thyme and salt.

to make syn free pea and ham soup, you should:

recipe: I made this in my soup-maker, but to cook in a pan is just as easy – fry the bacon and onion off so there’s a bit of colour, add the sliced leek, sweat a bit more (the onion, not you, but I understand it’s a hot kitchen). Crush the garlic and add, together with the frozen peas, chicken stock, thyme and salt. Simmer for forty minutes and blend.

extra easy: yes, easily- all those peas, you’re really cooking on gas. It’s a lovely soup on its own but I added a poached egg, a couple of tiny drops of truffle oil (syn those) (1 syn) and some chilli flakes to pep it up. Make some, have it as a starter, take the rest to work in the morning! Done!

Oh and before I forget, my mate Phillipa challenged me to use the word enunciate in my blog today.

J

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

January 10, 2015

Posted under

beef, beef mince, burgers, chinese, classics, fakeaways, low syn, recipe card, syn free, taster ideas, vegetarian

slimming world spring rolls

Firstly, a big hello and welcome to all our new readers!

We’re spring-cleaning this weekend (hence the savings article is taking a while to write) and amongst other things, a good amount of time has been spent hoovering the cats, both of whom really quite enjoy having the nozzle from the hoover ran over them. When we first got them they were typical cats who reacted to us having the temerity to hoover by exploding into giant cat-form, clawing off our faces and shitting on the carpet, but two years of having a roomba trundling around during the day has desensitised them both to the point where they enjoy a good vacuum. Sola has picked up an annoying habit though – every time you go into the bathroom to use the netty, she climbs onto the sink and meows until you turn the tap on for her to drink from. Clearly the fact she has her own filtered water dispenser isn’t quite good enough, she’s got to ruin my ten minutes a day doing the puzzles in Take a Break surrounded by my own miasma.

Speaking of Take a Break – here’s a promise. I’m going to get a really naff tip published in Take a Break or one of the other housewife-bothering shitrags. I love those magazines – Chat, Pick Me Up, That’s Life – it’s like I’ve parked outside the smoking section at Mecca Bingo and I’m listening to all the gossip. I’m sure they used to be decent though – I quite enjoyed reading my mother’s Take a Break in the bath on a Thursday evening. I’m not sure of the tip I’m going to use, but it’ll have to work hard to beat my favourite scene where someone whose name on facebook invariably had ‘MUMMYOFTHREE’ sandwiched in the middle of it took an old beer fridge and affixed to it her bathroom wall. A fridge! In the fucking bathroom, acting as a medicine/toiletries cabinet! Because nothing says class like getting your tampons out of a glass cupboard with STELLA ARTOIS emblazoned on the front.

Whilst we’re on the subject of trashy literature (that’s two smooth segues in my writing today, I’m rather proud), I’m knocking together a food diary and plan to have it bound in February. I see all those food diaries people have where they dutifully write down everything they don’t mind the consultant seeing and they’re always the same, very cutesy-poo with inspirational quotes and fucking cupcakes (fucking not used as a verb, mind, I’d probably buy that book…) so I’m trying to build an antithesis of those. Let’s see how we get on. They’ll be nicely bound and printed mind, I don’t do half measures!

Now, we were going to have baked cod for tea tonight but frankly, we wanted something a bit more substantial, so we’re having burgers instead.

fatabstard

RETRO RECIPE TIME. Click here – it’s one of our very first recipes, way back when…

Oh young James! You were so innocent, so young those many, many…weeks ago. Actually give those burgers a try, they’re delicious. We added a fried egg with a soft yolk onto this burger and a bacon medallion under the burger. Heart attack in a bun but as long as you HEA your cheese and HEB your bread, it’ll be syn free apart from any sauces you add!

But in the spirit of a) being fat and b) being generous, here’s a second recipe for you lot. Syn free spring rolls!

SPRINGROLLS

to make slimming world spring rolls, you’ll need:

ingredients: eight lasagne sheets, one pack of Sainbury’s red pepper stir fry mix (or any other stir fry veg mix, but I like the crunchy peppers!), soy sauce plus any old bobbins that you have left over – in my case, I added a couple of cut up rashers of bacon and some mushrooms.

to make slimming world spring rolls, you should:

recipe: do your stir fry first – biggest pan you have, plus a tiny bit of oil (or boo hiss, Frylight) and a few drops of soy sauce. Get that pan hot! Chuck in your veg, meat if you have any, mushrooms and stir stir stir. Cook fast and cook hot. Once cooked through, put in a bowl by the side. Now, boil up a big pan of water, and when boiling excitedly, chuck in your lasagne sheets. Space them out by dropping them in one at a time otherwise I find they clump. After five minutes, they should be soft.

Work quickly here. Take one sheet out at a time, otherwise the others will harden up whilst you roll your first roll. Pop the first sheet on a flat surface, add a bit of the stir fry, roll up and place ‘join’ down on a baking tray. Repeat seven more times. Little spritz of olive oil/Frylight over the top, stick in the oven for 20 mins on 180degrees or until they look cooked through.

Serve with soy sauce for dipping!

extra-easy: yep! and perfectly cheap too – just some old sheets and any old gubbins you have in the veg drawer. They actually taste decent too, as opposed to most ‘snacks’ based on tasty things turned into Slimming World joys…

Enjoy!

J

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

January 9, 2015

Posted under

breast, classics, fakeaways, indian, low syn, poultry, recipe card, rice

simple chicken curry and rice

Just a wee post tonight for tonight’s dinner, a chicken curry with rice. I’m posting a big article about the cost of Slimming World tomorrow, so I’m working on that tonight. Plus, Paul has Judge Rinder on, and he’s distracting me…

10914838_817324781674460_4645332591634865224_o

to make chicken curry and rice, you’ll need:

ingredients: two chicken breasts (decent size!), tin of chopped tomatoes, one large chopped onion, three tablespoons of curry powder, 100ml of light coconut milk, 250g of broccoli, bog standard white rice, chicken stock cube.

and to make chicken curry and rice, you should:

recipe: the curry is the easiest ever – sweat the onion for a few minutes, add the diced chicken, curry powder, chopped tomatoes, coconut milk and cook for ten minutes. Then chuck in the broccoli and simmer for another fifteen minutes on a medium heat with the lid off. Fifteen minutes before that is done, measure out a cup of rice, follow it up with two cups of chicken stock, throw it in a pan, cover and cook on a medium heat for 15 minutes. Don’t peek at it. The cups rule is spot on – use any old mug as long as you keep the ratio the same.

extra-easy: yep! The syns come from the coconut milk – I used Blue Dragon Light, and it works out (with this serving four) as 1.25 syns each – or 1.5syns for the sake of argument. It’s not a flavour explosion, but if you want a quick, hot meal – and a cheap one at that, you can knock this out quickly.

top tip: rather than piling your rice all over the plate like one of those obscene people at a chinese buffet, get a small bowl, oil it ever so lightly with a drop of olive oil, fill it with cooked rice, press down hard to pack it together, and then tip out onto the plate. It looks pretty and it controls your portion size too. Don’t worry, you can always go back, jeez…

J

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

January 5, 2015

Posted under

budget, classics, lunch, pork, recipe card, salad, savoury snacks, snacks, taster ideas

syn free stuffed omelette

Now that we’ve got Christmas out of the way (and our anniversary, and Paul’s birthday…well no that’s Thursday, but ssh) we’re back on it.

Had a proper road rage moment driving home from some absolutely tiny man (seriously, I could just see the top of his male-pattern baldness peeking out over his steering wheel) in a BMW, who decided that because I was in front of him and doing the speed limit (actually, a shade over) that he had the right to get right up my arse and swear at me in the mirror. I have to admit, I love it, I can’t fathom why people get so apocalyptically angry when driving, especially when he had nowhere to go but maybe 100 yards in front of me. I put it down to the fact he was driving a BMW and was sick of always being the last person to realise when it’s raining. Actually, there seems to be a proper surfeit of arsehole drivers on the road at the moment – predominately those wankers who drive along on a clear night with their fog lights on and, in some cases, their side lights, full beam and the light off their phone lighting up the inside of the car. That’s quite possibly my biggest bugbear. The fact that your 0.8l shitwagon is illuminated like a dressing room mirror doesn’t add any points to your driving! I’m not irrational, but I can’t help but feel it would be best to find them on fire in a ditch somewhere later down the road.

Anyway enough whingeing, I’m pushed for time tonight, so here is tonight’s meal:

Omelette

to make a syn free stuffed omelette, you’ll need:

ingredients: for the omelette, three eggs, sliced ham, sliced onion, sliced peppers, sliced tomatoes, sliced mushrooms if you want them and crumble 45g of feta as your healthy extra if you want it cheesy! Salad is just any old bobbins you have in the fridge (for me, peppers, sweetcorn, carrot, rocket and lettuce) and the wedges are just a couple of sweet potatoes cut into thin wedges and put in the actifry (or do them on a tray in the oven – I don’t add any fat or oil, they cook nicely without).

to make a syn free stuffed omelette, you should:

recipe: prepare your salad and wedges and about ten minutes before the wedges are done, start your omelette.

There’s no real secret to this other than I use a big frying pan as opposed to those little omelette pans, because I like the egg to be thin and more like a wrap to contain the masses of stuff I stick in my omelette. A squirt of Frylight (I actually use olive oil, a tiny teaspoon – and I don’t syn it, never have, I don’t like frylight – but if you want to keep your syns down, strictly speaking, use frylight). Get it nice and hot. Whisk three eggs in a bowl – add some onion powder, or chilli, or in my case, peri-peri seasoning if you have some. I’m not a fan of ‘eggy’ omelette so flavour it!

Tip the egg into the pan and let it spread, and then as soon as it has a bit of a ‘skin’ on it, chuck your contents in the middle in a nice block. Let it sit for a minute or so, and then fold one side of the omelette over the top, followed by the other third. This should cover your filling easily.

Now listen – if it breaks, so what – it’ll still taste nice, so don’t be put off! I usually let it sit for another minute, and then slide it out onto the plate. It’s that easy! It really is just an omelette. Serve hot and enjoy!

extra-easy: definitely, everything on here fits the bill, and your salad and some of the contents of the omelette make up your superfree. If you’re doing EE-SP, as long as you omit the sweet potato and change the feta cheese to low-fat cottage cheese/quark – both of which work well – this would be a decent meal. I’m very new to EE-SP and I’ll talk about it more tomorrow, but I think this is right!

top tips: an omelette can be boring unless you absolutely stuff it full of bits and pieces you like. It’s a great way to sneak in some superfree too, and can be tweaked into an EE-SP meal. I think a lot of people are put off by the eggy taste, but just add any old shite you can find in the cupboard to make it taste decent!

Tomorrow’s chilli is already in the slow-cooker…

Goodnight!