Category Archives: american

American fakeaway recipes

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

November 25, 2015

Posted under

american, breast, fakeaways, low syn, lunch, pasta, poultry, quark, recipe card, speciality ingredients

rosemary and goat cheese macaroni cheese

That awkward moment when you’re about to start a blog post, you open your blinds for inspiration and just over the road is the sight of a neighbour getting changed with his curtains open. I hope he doesn’t think I was peeking – I’d get more sexual gratification from reading the ingredients list on a Rustlers burger. It’s only fair, they’ve seen Paul and I in the altogether enough time to draw a timelapse of our bodies from memory, like a particularly gruesome version of the Take on Me video. They’d certainly need a big pencil. Fnar fnar.

I’m somewhat tetchy as sleep hasn’t been especially forthcoming lately. No dramatic reason – Monday night I was awoken by Paul farting so loudly I thought someone had been shot. I couldn’t decide whether my heart was beating so quickly due to the shock or because my body was trying desperately to dilate my nostrils as quick as possible in the hope of getting some fresh air. I appreciate that’s crass but honestly, I couldn’t drift off for another four hours. I had to get up and wash the dishes.

Last night was the worst, though. Went to bed full of good intentions and Chinese food at an entirely appropriate midnight. The blinds were drawn, our ceiling awash with stars from the little projector we have. All very serene. I was asleep before you could say ‘Oh I wouldn’t love, it’s like a ploughed field back there’.

Woke up at 1am by the heating. Yes, the heating. Our house is now controlled by a tiny Nest thermostat which is apparently learning when we’d like the house to be warm and when we want it colder than a mother in law’s kiss. For whatever reason, it decided that at 1am on a Wednesday morning I’d like to be cremated, because, not kidding, I woke up so hot I almost set off the smoke alarm. If Paul had hurled a pan of boiling sugar in my face I’d have been refreshed. I didn’t even know our house could get to that temperature but somehow it managed it. I went to shake Paul awake because well, I wasn’t going to get up, but touching him was like trying to catch a fish in a barrel full of lube, he was so slick with sweat. He’s lucky, he could sleep through a plane crash. I wandered into the hallway to be bathed in light from our ‘reassuring’ smoke alarm (seriously, it lights up the hallway when you go for a piss so you don’t stub your toe, how thoughtful), clocked the cat having a Solero to cool down, and adjusted the heating from ‘Magma’. Perhaps it’s trying to kill us.

I retired back to bed, after bailing all of Paul’s sweat out of the bed and onto the floor, and drifted back off, comforted by the sound of my skin blistering as I slept.

At 1.45am, the cat, clearly refreshed, thought it was altogether too unfair that I had briefly teased him an hour ago, and proceeded to climb onto my pillow and start doing that ‘knead-knead-purr’ thing that cats do when they want your attention / want feeding. He was immediately (delicately) shot-putted out of the window (we live in a bungalow, it’s fine, he bounces) and I tried to return to the Land of Nod.

Nope.

At around 2.30am, the cat came back through the cat-flap with such ferocity that he must have nudged the sensor on the back door just enough to set the house alarm caterwauling. Paul slept on, I stumbled out of bed calling the world a c*nt, turned the alarm off and then furiously made myself a cup of tea. It’s amazing how much rage you can funnel into boiling a kettle, honestly. At this point, after my tea, there was little chance of sleeping, not least because I wasn’t entirely unconvinced I wasn’t being pranked by the Big Man Upstairs (God, not some gimp we keep in the attic – though I don’t believe in either). I had the impression that had I gone to sleep, the bed would have burst ‘hilariously’ into flames or someone would have driven a car through the window. I lay in bed, reached for my iPad, clicked it on and was immediately castigated by Paul who claimed the tiny ‘tick’ noise had woken him up ‘AND IT’S NO BLOODY WONDER YOU DON’T SLEEP WITH THAT THING BLARING AWAY’. Blaring away! This from a man who would cheerfully sleep through someone cutting off his leg with a fucking butter knife. So naturally I stabbed him to death and buried him in the garden. 

I lay in bed some more, contemplating death and/or sleep. Neither came. I read somewhere that masturbation is nature’s sedative but given Paul was on HIGH ALERT from the sound of one finger hitting a glass screen, ten minutes of my wrist fwapping away wouldn’t have helped. It might have been worth it just to get revenge of Paul and give him a face mask for the morning, but no.  I got my headphones, put on a podcast about funfairs in the vain hope that the polite chatter would lull me away, but no, ten minutes in and I was awaken by the sound of screaming kids on a rollercoaster channeled directly into my ear. At this point, I gave up entirely, had a bath for two hours, stared at Paul in the darkness and watched Jeremy Kyle with the subtitles on and someone gurning away in the corner. A signer, not Graham. I’ve never been so sick of my life as I was this morning, with dawn creeping in.

Still, other people have it worse, don’t they?

Tonight’s recipe is simple enough to make – it’s macaroni cheese, but poshed up a bit with the addition of roasted garlic and a sauce made from goat cheese and Quark. Oh and there’s rosemary, for that ostentatious-bastard look.

IMG_2277

Look, it’s really hard to make a white dish on a white plate look attractive. It did taste good though! This serves four. There’s a lot of garlic in there but it adds so much flavour, and garlic cooked slowly loses a lot of potency, You could leave it out if you don’t want to be Stinky McGee though.

so to make rosemary and goat cheese macaroni cheese, you’ll need:

  • 400g pasta
  • 100g soft goats cheese (14 syns between four)
  • 4 chicken breasts, cut into small chunks
  • 115g quark
  • 3 tbs dried rosemary
  • a head of garlic

so to make rosemary and goat cheese macaroni cheese, you should:

  • cut a head of garlic in half horizontally, rub on a bit of oil, put on a tray and put in the oven on a low heat for an hour or so, then scoop out all the sugary, sticky garlic and put to one side
  • heat a large pan of boiling water and cook the pasta according to instructions – reserving about 200ml of the pasta water, and drain and set aside
  • heat a large frying pan over a medium-high heat and add the chicken, cooking until golden
  • reduce the heat to low and add the cheese, quark and rosemary and stir well to combine, adding in the soft sticky garlic flesh from earlier
  • add the mixture to the drained pasta, adding a little pasta water as necessary to loosen the sauce and serve

 

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

November 14, 2015

Posted under

american, burgers, fakeaways, low syn, lunch, pork, pork joints, recipe card, slow cooker

slow cooker: sticky fruity pulled pork burger

Have to be quick tonight, as we’re going out to a drive-in to watch Inside Out. I’m not going to lie, it’ll be unusual for Paul and I to be parked by the seafront at night without a lorry driver poking his knob through the passenger side window, but we’ll give it a go. I’m kidding, we don’t do that. We found a deal for said drive-in on LivingSocial and thought, well why not. We wanted to see Grease but apparently the good people in South Shields beat us to it, which is surprising as I genuinely didn’t think you could drive a car with webbed fingers.

My facebook woes continue – I’ve just been deleted from the Newcastle ‘Pick Up My Tat’ (swapping) page for pointing out that someone’s light-up, flashing, disco headboard is one of the tackiest things I’ve ever seen. Someone with a name that sounds like a company that manufactures t-shirts for a market stall (Demi-Marie?) kicked off, said I had no right ‘dissing her bed’ and blocked me. You can just imagine how devastated I am.

Seriously mind, who orders a bed with a flashing headboard? Humans do two things in bed – sleep and shag. Neither of those activities are helped by a bed that looks like the world’s shittest nightclub. Either you’re going to be kept awake by a bed that resembles the back of a lorry making a three-point-turn on a country lane or you’re going to be held off your vinegar strokes by a seizure. 

Let’s quickly discuss that John Lewis advert, shall we? This one?

Yeah yeah. I’m sure your facebook walls have been awash with emoticons of crying faces and people posting statuses like ‘OMG!!!Q1 TEURS STREEMING DOWN MY ARSE SO SAD’ and the noise of thousands upon thousands of mooing cattle trying to outdo themselves with sentimental guff and tearful reactions. Well honestly. Have a Mars Bar and man the fuck up. I don’t understand the fuss and frothing over the various John Lewis adverts, truly I don’t, and I’m not just saying that to be wicked-cool. They’re pretty to look at, yes, but so is a rainbow, and that doesn’t mawkishly yank on my heartstrings like a coked up campanologist. This advert, featuring a dirty old bugger sitting on the moon lamenting his bail conditions and spying on a wee lass in her pyjamas…well, it doesn’t scream Christmas, does it? Aside from that bit where Alexis and Alexander sit down in their Farrow & Ball coated dining room for a split-second of sprout-eating before letting their child get back to hurling paper out of the window, it’s about as Christmassy as an Easter egg. And that bloody song – is there a piece of software that takes any decent piece of music and runs it through a filter so it sounds like the dying gasp of a sparrow? Pfft. 

Mind, I’m a massive hypocrite, because I love the Sainsbury’s Christmas advert. I do! But there is a giant cat in it, so you know, I can be excused. I laugh at the sentiment though – I can tell you now that if we had a house fire, some of our neighbours wouldn’t be coming around with plates of food and beaming faces. No, we’d get them traipsing across our lawn moaning that there was ash blowing on their washing and could we please do something about the smoke because poor Colin’s asthmatic and he’s two puffs from running out of Ventolin. 

Anyway, tonight’s recipes makes enough for eight. I know we said we’d try and stay away from pulled pork, but well, we had to do it once, and put into burgers…well, it’s amazing.  Plus, if you have any meat left over, you can cook it down with pasta and tomatoes and make a very quick lunch. So there.

FRUITY BUNS

Come on, admit it. You want to push your face into that and shake it all about. Before anyone asks, the chips are from our perfect roasties recipe, found here.

to make fruity pulled pork burgers, you’ll need:

to make fruity pulled pork burgers, you should:

  • mince your garlic, chop your onion, tip everything bar the coleslaw and bun into a slow cooker and cook for nine hours on low
  • remove the pork, put on a plate and pull apart with two forks
  • tip the sauce into a frying pan and heat it on high to reduce it right down
  • tip in the pork and stir, getting everything nice and sticky and thick
  • serve!

The breadbun is your HEB – if you have two, don’t forget to syn the extra bun.

Any leftover pork can be turned into this:

IMG_2238

Just make a sauce of tomatoes, chopped artichoke, onion and garlic and add the meat in. Heat through and serve with pasta! 

DONE.

J

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

November 11, 2015

Posted under

american, beef, beef mince, fakeaways, low syn, lunch, recipe card, savoury snacks, snacks, soup, taster ideas

slow cooker: cheeseburger soup (really)

I’m in a bit of a huff, so if you’re old-fashioned about swearing, skip to the recipe. Swearing follows.

Yes, cheeseburger soup. I’m putting this up on here as a rare example of when our food doesn’t look very good! As it was bubbling away in the slow cooker all I could think was that it looked like someone had already eaten it, half-digested it and then brought it back up. It looks vile. But, just to be contrary, it tasted pretty good. So: perhaps give it a go.

Can we talk about this stupid voice that young ladies seem to have decided is just right-and-dandy for this modern world? I know it’s been discussed to death but it drives me so far up the wall I have to stop and fill up at Vertical Petrol on the way. I’ll give you an example. Tonight in Tesco I was in that unhappy situation where everywhere I went, the same shopper and her melt of a boyfriend went. I had to buy peas, there she was, I had to buy KY jelly, there she was again, speaking like thiiiiiiiiisssss and draaaaaawing out raaaaaandaaaam syllaaaaables for god knows why. I just can’t bear it. Things came to a head, as they so often do, in the reduced vegetables bit, where she picked up every fucking item and croaked what she thought was a witty rejoinder to everything – ‘OMG who even (EVAN) needs a baaaaaaay-bee sweet potaaaaahto‘ ‘OMG look at these taaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaangerines they’re like 8p‘ ‘jeeeeesus what’s a squaaash LOL’ (and she SAID LOL) – to which I threw down the peas that had been turning into puree in my hands and stalked off with a loud OH FOR FUCK’S SAKE.

I know, not big nor clever, and probably made me look like an arse on reflection, but I think I’d genuinely rather have my ears pissed in by a horse than have to deal with that. Not everything needs schtick. Why do people pretend so? You’re from Kingston Park lover, not Sweet Valley fucking High. It did cross my mind that her cotton-bud shaped boyfriend might have caught up with me to rough me up in the yoghurt aisle but frankly he looked the sort who couldn’t direct a shit into a toilet bowl, so my fears were groundless.

To be honest, I was just in a huff because yet again it took me an interminable amount of time getting home for the third night in a row. At least tonight I got a bit of satisfaction from sending some douchebag in an Audi down onto the Central Motorway rather than letting him cut in at the lights. I was late yesterday due to someone breaking down right in front of me and blocking the way (fair enough, not like I could help, I know less about mechanics than I do about the female orgasm) and I was late getting home on Monday due to being caught up in a protest by our local taxi drivers. They had decided to go on a ‘go-slow’ protest of driving their cars very carefully around Newcastle, blocking the roads and delaying people in protest of Newcastle City Council scrapping the ‘knowledge’ test that’s usually mandatory for taxi drivers up here. I hadn’t realised anything was different with cars going around Newcastle at 3mph until I heard Carol on Look North explain it whilst I scraped yesterday’s dinner out of the slow cooker. They’ve got a point, though. I hate taxis at the best of time because I like driving and don’t enjoy strained conversation about football and tits, but I can tolerate them if the driver is decent and they know where they’re going. But, more often than not, they don’t – and it’s not like I live in some far-off utopia, I’m just off the A1. I recently had a taxi driver who not only wanted me to instruct him, he also made me sit in the front because he was a ‘bit muff and jeff’. I almost asked if he didn’t just want to go the whole hog and have us switch seats and for me to drive him home, bit was dark and there are a lot of country fields that I could be rolled into a carpet and dumped into, so I didn’t.

There was a taxi driver in Orlando who comes to mind – he took us from Disney to Orlando International Airport. All very pleasant, bar for the fact he was a) off his face and b) on the game. He kept turning around to talk to us, letting his car veer across the road whilst he did so, and went from gentle conversation about Cher to offering us hardcore gay sex and free crystal meth. You don’t get that offer with Blueline Taxis. I remember him tossing us a cigar tube and telling us to take a sniff, which naively I did, before realising it was weed, which pretty much guaranteed me getting fingered for drugs by a swarthy security guard later at the airport. Ah fun times. He did tell us he was going to take his mother to see Cher before she died (his mother, not Cher, I♫ BE-LEE-IEVE ♫ she died many years ago and is just a corpse on strings now) (ah that’s mean, I like Cher)…I wonder if he ever got there. Probably not. 

I’d love to be a taxi driver, although I reckon most of my passengers would be putting in claims for tinnitus because I’m always shouting and bawling away inside my car. It’s stress relief. I can talk to people quite freely when I’m in control of the situation so the social side of things would be fine – essentially if they ever started a sentence with ‘I’M NOT RACIST BUT‘ I could just speed round a corner, open their door and tumble them out under a passing lorry. I’d struggle with people who smell like sour milk or those people who put out their cigarette and stick the remainder back in the packet because you have no idea how bad that makes you smell, but generally, I’d be good.  

I’d definitely be good. ANYWAY look, The Apprentice is on soon and I’m still hooked. So here’s the recipe, which serves 6:

cheeseburger soup

to make cheeseburger soup you will need:

to make cheeseburger soup you will need to:

  • heat a large saucepan over a medium-high heat and cook the onions and mince until no pink remains
  • add the all of the ingredients except for the milk and cheese into the slow cooker and cook over a low heat for six hours
  • when cooked, add the milk and cheese to the slow cooker and stir well to combine – allow to cook for another five minutes or so
  • serve – reassure your guests that this isn’t vomit and enjoy! Decorate with a few bits of cheese, a couple of chunks of carrot maybe…
Standard

Posted by

Posted on

November 7, 2015

Posted under

american, breast, burgers, fakeaways, fast food restaurants, low syn, panko, poultry, recipe card, speciality ingredients

2CC zinger tower burger

Tonight’s recipe is a Slimming World friendly version of the Zinger Tower Burger from KFC. The original weighs in at 33 syns. And I’m sorry, look at the clip of it. We ordered one so we knew what to make, and it looks awful. Scroll past all of the chat below if you just need the recipe!

IMG_2212

We were supposed to be going to Hexham to see the fireworks but see it’s been raining like a pissing cow, so we didn’t bother. I can tolerate sliding around in the mud with a group of men waiting for a banger to explode behind me and a large rocket to go off in my face – hell, that’s 3am on a Sunday morning for Paul and I – but the thought of having to drive along the country roads in this weather, invariably stuck behind Arthur and Martha Pissknickers in their 40mph-at-all-costs Astra…well that was just too much to bear.

We didn’t get a chance to lie in this morning, saying as Paul had helpfully booked his little Micra in to have a tyre changed at 9am in the bloody morning. On a Saturday! I was calm and collected when he told me the news and then asked me to take the car – I left him with two working teeth, so all was well. Paul goes through car tyres like most of us go through excuses as to why we’ve put on weight. I swear Paul’s car spends more time up on the ramp than it does on our drive, blocking the neighbour’s view of the road (eee, no wonder she struggles so much). Nevertheless, I forced myself out of bed at 8am, had a half-hearted shower and a twenty minute morning piss, and I was on my way. I said goodbye to Paul the only way I could, by silently creeping into our bedroom, pulling down my trousers and letting out a particularly noxious fart out a millimetre away from his face. Still didn’t wake him mind, though his tongue died.

I drove to Ashington (oh the glamour) in the pissing rain, eyes full of sleep and mind full of cotton-wool. I don’t wake up in the morning until I’ve had at least three cups of coffee and a Double Decker. The trip was as uneventful as driving with about 5% of your brain awake normally is – red lights missed, cyclists to prise off the bonnet, the usual (OK, I really AM joking on that one). At one point I felt a rumble in my nethers and, forgetting my destination, I let rip with a fart that could have parted the sea. Even the car sped up of its own accord. Of course, I hadn’t remembered where I was going – a garage where doubtless some fancy-dan in overalls would want to clamber around in my car – and as it turned out, I was only 600 yards from arriving. This led to me having to do several extra laps of the estate with the windows down and me tilting my bulk to one side each time I went around a corner to try and displace any remaining air-pockets of stink. Paul’s Yankee Candle air-freshener did nothing, though I’d genuinely rather smell what billows out of my arse of a morning than the insipid sickliness of ‘A Child’s Wish’.

Realising that I’d done all I can to dissipate the smell other than calling in an exorcist, I confidently turned into the garage, and ignoring the street-long garage forecourt, promptly drove down someone’s drive just to the left. Realising my mistake and forgetting how shit the gearbox was on the Micra, I spent a minute or so doing a tiny 533-point-turn and turning around, the mechanics in the garage giving me eye as I did so. Having parked, the mistakes continued to pile up – I walked into the back office and announced myself as the Micra driver only to be told to go to the reception and that ‘this was a staff room’ (which is a rather extravagant thing to call somewhere consisting of a settee and copies of the Daily Sport). Signing the car over, I was told to take a seat – I demurred, saying I’d never fit it in the boot* – and went to get myself a coffee from the machine.

Irma Grese behind the reception counter looked at me like I was muck on her shoe and waited until I’d upended all the Splenda and taken a stirrer to tell me that ‘coffee was a pound’. I looked down at the watery brown liquid I had in my hand and had to bite my tongue not to reply ‘how much for this stool sample?’. I explained I didn’t carry cash (I really don’t) and she, after quickly checking with Google as to the legality of having me taken out and shot behind the tyres, ‘let me off’. By god though, did she let me know she’d done me a favour – she spent the next forty minutes sighing and snorting so much that I almost called for oxygen.

Aside from her theatrics, the time passed quickly enough, with me alternating between cursing myself for leaving my phone at home and finally catching up on Jordan’s love life via the various Heat magazines littered around. I did half expect to see at least one mechanic being taken away on a stretcher after venturing into the car’s Cloud of Death’, but no, all was well, and the mechanic ushered me over to ‘take a look’. Take a look? At what? Unless he’d accidentally fitted a Domino’s pizza or a ship’s wheel instead of a tyre, what could I say? Nevertheless, because he was manly and I’m not, I pointed at the tyre and made appropriately straight-man remarks, like ‘cracking job’ and ‘ah yes it looks so much better now’, until he pointed out that it was the back tyre on the other side of the car.

For fuck’s sake. If I can find a way to make a tit of myself, I’ll do it, I really will. I paid up, left with a flounce of my coat, and promptly climbed into the passenger side of the car. I wish I could say I’m exaggerating, but I’m genuinely not. When I realised my mistake I tried to make it look like I was just getting something but they knew – you don’t put your foot in when reaching for the glove compartment, do you? And so with all that over I finally managed to get myself into the right seat – and then stalled it, because I’m not used to Paul’s car.

SO, I won’t be going back there.

Tonight’s recipe then is KFC chicken DONE WELL. Our local KFC is a hovel, no fibbing. We went through the drive-through (I’m sorry, but I’m not putting thru, I’m just not) once and had to wait by the intercom whilst the chickenkicker finished her rollie in front of us before lumbering back into the shop (I’m sorry, but I’m not putting restaurant, I’m just not) and phlegming her way through our order.

In the photo below we’ve used a white bread bun instead of a wholemeal bun – but that’s because wholemeal buns look so boring. You must use your HEB to keep it low in syns. We’ve used panko to coat the chicken, panko being a dried breadcrumb you’ll find in most larger supermarkets, but you can just use a whizzed up breadbun if you prefer. The key is – although we’ve synned the full amount, you’ll not use it all to coat your chicken, so it’s actually less than three syns for the whole thing! I’m going to give you the recipe to make hash browns and the chicken, and then you assemble it however you want – ours is breadbun, bit of ketchup (up to you if you syn it, but we use a tiny amount so don’t bother), chicken, slice of cheese (Tesco Edam slice used here as a HEA) (there are others!) (or grate some cheese), hash brown, lettuce, bit of reduced fat mayo (again, syn or not syn, up to you) and top the breadbun. I’m giving the recipe as enough for one, so just double or triple the ingredients if you want more. SO…

IMG_2213 IMG_2214 (1)

to make twochubbycubs’ zinger tower burger, you’ll need:

  • 1 large chicken breast (remember folks, if you like big, pouting breasts, you’ll find an awful lot of them in our £40 box of meat through Musclefood – along with mince, bacon, sausages, steak…click HERE for that deal)
  • 1 wholemeal roll (HEB)
  • 1 egg
  • 1/2 tsp garlic powder
  • 1/4 tsp dried basil (not essential, but nice)
  • pinch of salt and black pepper
  • 1/4 tsp chilli powder
  • 1/8 tsp sage (again, not essential, but nice – substitute in a pinch of mixed herbs)
  • 1/4 tsp onion powder
  • 1/2 lamb or beef stock cube, crumbled
  • 12g panko (2.5 syns)
  • 1 medium-size potato
  • pinch of salt and pepper
  • bit of tomato ketchup or mayo (I’ve counted half a syn here, because we use so little)
  • we served with chips and beans because we’re so common, but you could have a bit of sweetcorn if you’re feeling fruity)

to make twochubbycubs’ zinger tower burger, you should:

  • an hour or so before you want to eat, make the hash-browns by grating the potato into a bowl and fill with cold water to cover it – this step is necessary to stop them going grey
  • allow to sit for about an hour before draining the water
  • squeeze as much liquid out of the potato as you can – it helps if you tip it into a dry, clean tea towel, bundle it up and squeeze – or, what we do, pile the potato on a chopping board, put another chopping board on top and then press down as hard as you can – the drier the potato the better the hash brown
  • press the potato into round moulds (we use one of these, makes things so much easier – and look, that’s two recipes I’ve used it in lately, this and the bubble and squeak) and cook in a frying pan (don’t use oil if you’ve got a good frying pan, but if you haven’t, a bit of Frylight or similar should be used) over a medium-high heat until golden, turning once
  • in a large, shallow dish mix together all of the breadcrumb ingredients
  • beat the egg in another bowl, dip your breasts in the egg mixture and roll in the breadcrumb mixture until well coated – you might need to press some of it on to make it stick
  • bake in the oven at 190 degrees for about 25-30 minutes, until golden
  • assemble your burger!

Easy! 

J

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

October 14, 2015

Posted under

american, budget, fakeaways, italian, lunch, recipe card, savoury snacks, snacks, syn free, taster ideas, vegan, vegetarian

syn-free pizza

I’m in a huff. I left work at 5pm and it took me two hours to get home, saying as every single person in the world decided in unison to drive towards Alnwick on the A1. Bumper to bumper traffic and even though I took a diversion seemingly via Northern Ireland, it was still all very stressful. I’ve mentioned so many times about poor drivers that this barely needs a mention but a big FUCK YOU to the tagnut in the Audi behind me all the down the A1, who despite being stuck in EXACTLY the same traffic-jam as I was, spent most of the time bellowing at me in the mirror like he was trying to put out a fire with swearwords. Apologies that my DS3 doesn’t come with a fucking flight pack, you stupid sunset-coloured packet of shit. Oh and whaddya know, when he DID manage to get past, did he indicate? Did he buggery! Audi drivers: you DO have indicators in your car – there’s a big knob in the car to operate them. 

AND BREATHE.

At least when I managed to turn off and the traffic calmed down I was able to take in a bit of scenery and stop for one of those fantastically freeing extravagant pisses that only men can have by the side of a road or tucked down a layby. Admittedly my knowledge of foofs isn’t exactly shit-hot but it’s my understanding that it’s far more difficult for ladies to have a quick tinkle without having to take everything off or risking falling into a nettle patch with a froth of piss around your ankles. Here’s a fun fact for you though – it doesn’t matter how discreet a bloke is, no matter how carefully he parks his car and how far into a bush he goes to have a wee, the very second urine leaves his helmet a car will promptly appear full of children and nuns, leaving him with the unenviable choice of carrying on and causing offence or having to reverse the flow, which let me tell you now, BLOODY HURTS. It’s like trying to fit a washer to a gushing tap. I bet even Neil Armstrong up on the moon nipped behind the lander for a quick Jimmy Riddle only to be met with a rocket full of Russians gazing balefully at him the moment he ‘pulled the cord’. Anyway, it seems fair that men have the upper hand when it comes to weeing, given ladies can have so much fun with their bajingo. If I was a lady, anything I owned that was even slightly cylindrical would have a very glossy patina to it, let me tell you.

I had to go for an x-ray this morning on my shoulder. Nothing exciting I assure you – I’ve got a trapped nerve or something which is making my neck ache and my fingers tingle unnecessarily. Explain to me this – how comes I arrived at 9am for a 9.30am drop-in session only to be met with a veritable sea of lightly shaking old ladies all ahead of me. How? What time did they turn up for that to happen? I mean I appreciate getting an x-ray might be a day out but if they were anything like my nana, you could hold her up to a bright light and see Mint Imperials through her papery skin rattling around her body at the best of times. Ah nana. I tutted and moaned and then remembered they’d fought in the war for me. So I upped the volume of my tutting knowing the shellshocked amongst them wouldn’t be able to hear for their ringing ears.

Actually, it was a very pleasant experience – pulled into a room, told to remove my shirt, complimented on my beard and then blasted with radiation, which before I met Paul was pretty much my average night out. They did give me two heavy bags to hold to ‘pull my shoulder into the correct position’ which, judging by the fucking weight of the bags, was somewhere in Aberdeen. Of course because it was a big brute of a bloke talking to me, I didn’t want to lose face and drop the bags so I had to stand still, grimacing and squinching my eyes together in pain. I bet he told everyone when I left that I was absolutely dying for a shite. Can’t fault the NHS though – doctor told me I needed an x-ray yesterday and it was done by this morning. That’s almost as good as when I went for a private MRI a few years back, where I paid a billion pounds just to leaf through a copy of Home & Country in the waiting room and be called Sir by the receptionist. Actually, thinking about it, two MRIs and two x-rays in however many years…that surely means I’m overdue a superpower or something? I’d be a crap superhero. Captain Mince. The Anal Intruder. Barry Beige. All possible names.

I’ve got to be careful when I’m visiting the doctors or having anything done, because invariably my anxious mind tries to default to the worst case scenario. I was sitting cross-legged watching the TV before and when I got up to discover my left leg had gone to sleep, well, that was it, I’d diagnosed myself with motor neurone disease (and please, I know it’s an awful disease, that’s why I’m scared of it). I’ve already resigned myself to the fact I’ve probably got a spine like a packet of Ritz crackers that someone’s kicked up a flight of stairs, but really, realistically, I’ll have just pinched a nerve swimming and my body is acting accordingly. Oh it is awful being neurotic.

Anyway, only a little entry tonight because it’s time for The Apprentice. I know, I know. I don’t know why I watch it either. I don’t like Karen Brady, I don’t like Alan Sugar and Charles Littner may as well come out in a cape twiddling a moustache to complete the ‘villian’ role. At least Nick was gentle in his absolutely devastating, soul-destroying cutdowns. Charlie Brooker said it best when he described Alan Sugar as looking like a water-buffalo straining to shit in a lake. I still watch it though, so really, who’s the mug?

Tonight’s recipe is a nice simple idea for pizza without the syns. It’s also without the crust and using a giant mushroom – but at least you’re not having to let your trousers out after. We seem to have had quite the run of vegetarian recipes lately. That said, don’t forget our deal with Musclefood – you can buy 2.5kg of chicken for £9 (click here, you’ll need code SMALLCHICKEN) or 5kg for chicken for £19 (click here, you’ll need code BIGCHICKEN). Then there’s also our giant box of meat for only £40 which is enough for so many meals I could weep. You’ll find details of that right here and I very much encourage you to give a go!

syn free pizza

to make a syn-free pizza, you’ll need:

  • four BIG portobello mushrooms – the bigger the better
  • some tomato based sauce that you’ve made – I just sweat (NOT swear) down tomatoes, onion and a bit of garlic and blitz
  • whatever cheese you want
  • whatever veg you want
  • whatever toppings you want
  • whatever you want
  • whatever you like
  • whatever you say you take your money you make your choice

Remember to weigh your cheese etc for HEA and if you’re adding things like chorizo or olives, syn them!

and to make your syn-free pizza, you should:

  • take the stalks out of the mushrooms and scrape out the gills (the little tiny labia like bits around the outside)
  • put in the oven for 5 minutes on 190 degrees to dry out a bit
  • get rid of any excess moisture
  • top however you want
  • bake for twenty five minutes or until it’s golden brown, texture like summer

Of course, if you fancy more pizza, we’ve done a couple:

If you don’t like mushrooms, you could make it with a base of Smash, but for goodness sake don’t let the tweak police know, they’ll pap themselves.

Enjoy!

J

PS: I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but if you’re a fan of the recipe or the post, there are share buttons below – just hit them to share the recipe with your friends and fellow fatties.

 

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

October 8, 2015

Posted under

american, budget, lunch, mince, poultry, recipe card, syn free, taster ideas

courgette and turkey meatloaf balls

Well, howdy. Just a quick post tonight as we’re both feeling pretty lousy for a myriad of different reasons – all rather banal and a bit wimpy but will be solved easily with some trash telly and a cup of tea on the new sofa. Which, I have to say, is divine. I don’t know how we existed before we had a reclining sofa. My ankles have never been so unswollen!

This recipe comes courtesy of the latest ASDA magazine and tweaked a little bit to make it Slimming World friendly. I hate those magazines, I really do. They’re always full of gap-toothed kids doing something cutesy-poo whilst some yummy-mummy type looks on. Blechh. So, anyways, here it is – courgette and turkey meatloaf balls. This is a great recipe to make from whatever’s left in the cupboards at home – turkey mince can always be found in our local supermarket reduced so we’ve got a freezer full of it, and all the other bits are probably floating around in your kitchen. And now you’ve finally got a recipe for that softening courgette you’ve all got in your fridges…

IMG_2092

Here’s what to do:

to make courgette and turkey meatloaf balls, you’ll need:

  • 1 courgette, grated
  • 500g lean turkey mince
  • 2 spring onions, sliced
  • 1 clove garlic, crushed
  • 1 egg
  • 1 tbsp worcestershire sauce
  • 1 wholemeal roll, made into breadcrumbs (HEA)
  • 2 tsp mixed herbs

and then to make the courgette and turkey meatloaf balls, you should:

  • preheat the oven to 200°c
  • squeeze as much liquid as you can from the grated courgette and then place in a bowl with the spring onions, garlic, egg, worcestershire sauce, breadcrumbs and herbs
  • line eight muffin tins holes with greaseproof paper (or spray with frylight)
  • divide the mixture into eight, roll into neat balls and plop into the holes
  • bake for 25 minutes

and that’s all there really is to it. Easy! We served ours with some mashed potato and baby turnips but you do whatever you like. The only uses 1/4 of a healthy extra so go to town, why not throw in some syns as well?

Enjoy!

P

 

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

October 1, 2015

Posted under

american, beef, beef mince, burgers, fakeaways, low syn, recipe card

let’s all go down the strand – have a cheeseburger sloppy joe bake

Paul’s done his back in thanks to a bit of adventurous moving around of our giant new sofa last night, so I’m free to type away with gay abandon tonight. We’re fretting that the new sofa is a smidge too big, given you could perfectly easily get a whole rugby team spread akimbo on there. Maybe that’s our plan, thank fuck we bought the leather guard. I’m going to tell you – the recipe tonight looks so dreadful but it tastes amazing. I say it looks dreadful – it looked BLOODY AMAZING, but so bad for you…

So, what to talk about? How about our trip to Corsica? You know I love a good tale and well, with Paul off his tits on tramadol and a bit of Murray Gold playing, now is the time. Oh, about that – we’ve kitted the house out in SONOS speakers and it is absolutely fucking amazing. They’re essentially very loud, very good, very connected speakers that allow you to play music in any room, all controlled by the iPad. The advertising shows a sophisticated couple listening to a spot of Debussy in their study before retiring to bed accompanied by Radio 4. The reality, in our house at least, is that Paul has to endure me caterwauling my way through Now That’s What I Call Period Pain 85 whilst sitting on the shitter. Mind, the flipside of that is that we get woken up by Meat Loaf blasting away inches from my face first thing in the morning. A boy can dream, though I mean, no, Meat Loaf is amazing but he has a face like a chewed toffee, so perhaps not. Bloody sidetracked again!

Why Corsica? The answer I’d like to give is that I saw it once in a Guardian travel section and fell in love with the beautiful scenery and tasteful architecture, but actually, the real reason was that a good friend of mine at work, who always travels to impeccably smart places, raved about it – and I’m incredibly easily led. Wherever she goes I end up perusing and following. I hope she doesn’t tell me when her next smear test is otherwise I’ll find myself at Wansbeck Hospital with my legs in the air and a Magic Tree hanging on my willy before you can say ‘I hardly think that’s appropriate’. Listen I don’t know how it all works. I honestly thought Corsica was a Greece island but no, it turns out that it’s a wee island off the coast of France, full of mountains, white sandy beaches and men who drive their cars like they’re in a video game. Take a moment to have a look. We booked it through Simpson Travel, another first for us because we normally like to plan and book the flights, villa and car hire ourselves. They were faultless – expensive, but you get what you pay for.

We decided to get the train down to London the day before our flight so we could “see the sights” and as a result, we found ourselves in a taxi at 5.30am trying awkwardly to make conversation with a man whose entire conversational skillset amounted to ‘money now’, ‘where you go’ and, presumably, ‘don’t scream and it’ll be quick’. I’ve mentioned before that I worry that as soon as we’ve minced off into the sunset with our tasteful matching Calvin Klein suitcases the taxi will nip back to the house and the driver will steal all our silver. So, to that end, I spent a good ten minutes airily declaring that I hoped the neighbours ‘didn’t set off our alarm’ and that ‘our flatmate would be back early’. I can’t act a jot, so god knows how we didn’t return to an empty shell of a house. I’m such a ham.

The train journey was exactly what you’d expect from a three hour early morning jaunt into London – full of people coughing gently, snoring and farting. Certainly Paul kept his side of the bargain up within ten minutes of boarding. We were in first class but really, what does that mean in the UK? You get a seat that reclines an extra inch and the steward throws you a croissant ten minutes after boarding. Clearly they decided that any decent person wouldn’t want more than one snack because the trolley never appeared again, despite me trying to catch the eye of the bustling steward who did nothing more than purse his lips at me. We did get several free cups of hot brown water from a kettle marked ‘coffee’ but as this tasted like enema run-off, I didn’t bother. Time passed slowly – I couldn’t very well fall asleep because I might have missed something free, plus I didn’t want my unattractive sleep face to end up on Buzzfeed as part of a ‘Sleep face or Cum face’ quiz. Such is life. 

We arrived into Kings Cross exactly on time and immediately headed over to Left Luggage to hand over our holiday belongings and give the woman behind the counter plenty of time to rifle through our medications and hold our boxer shorts up to the light. I asked how much it would be to leave them for a few hours and when she replied, I honestly thought she’d misheard me and thought I’d requested that she buys them outright. Fucking hell London, you so expensive. Now we all know London is expensive and busy so I’ll try to avoid moaning about that too much, but rest assured dear readers that I spent a lot of time saying ‘HOW MUCH’ and ‘COME AGAIN’ and making jibes about needing to get out a mortgage just to pay the tube fare. Paul, to his credit, only rolled his eyes to the back of his head eighty seven times.

Our first stop was a quick ride on the cable car over the Thames. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, if I’m honest, but although it was fun being high up, I was too distracted by thoughts of tumbling into the murky brown Thames below to really enjoy it. I did enjoy the fact they market it as a round trip to ‘savour all the sights’ – presumably for those who can’t crane their necks in both directions. We nipped off and into the A380 experience, which was a tiny museum dedicated to Airbus planes. There was a chance to pose inside a cockpit but we had to wait fifteen minutes whilst someone who’d clearly been cultivating his body odour for seven months took a photo of himself from every direction. I noted his unkempt hair and dirty trousers and genuinely thought – for the first time in my life – that poor bloke needs someone to love him and tidy him up. That, and his internet activity carefully monitored. As soon as I was able to sit down in the captain’s chair (and remember I had to wait for his BO to disperse – I genuinely thought the oxygen masks might have dropped down, and this was a fake fucking plane) we started taking photos – Paul posing with the ‘FLAPS’ handle, me wearing a Captain’s hat and straddling the chair like a slutty stewardess. Thankfully none of these photos will be making their way onto here, though I don’t doubt we’re on a ‘Don’t Let These People Into The Exhibition’ poster in the staffroom, along with ole Vinegarpits.

We then furiously minced down to get a riverboat back into ‘central’ London, which was charming until the smell of the churned riverbanks hit me. Was London going to leave me with permanent wrinkles from all the time I spent trying not to gag? I’ve visited many, many times before and love the city, but I don’t know whether it was the heat or something but it stank. We alighted at Tower Bridge and made our way to The Shard, which was something I almost did in my boxers when they told me the price for two blokes to get in a lift and wander around high in the sky – £60! They sneakily hide the price until you get to the register so you can’t back out else you’d look like a tight-arse, but jesus, I can get the same feeling at work and I get bloody paid for the privilege. The lift was lovely but they let far too many people onto the viewing floor at once including a coach tour of elderly Welsh ladies – I feel like I spent £60 to glimpse tiny London through a mist of Steradent and blue-rinsed hair. We, sadly, left rather quickly. I always feel like this when I’m supposed to experience things – I know that I am supposed to be astonished by how wonderful the view is or high up we were, but I just end up angry by everyone else existing and how much the windows needed a bit of vinegar and newspaper. Bah.

We decided at this point to collect the luggage and head to our hotel instead for holiday bumfun and room service. I wish I could say that we chose a wonderful boutique hotel somewhere charming, but we actually spent the night at the Thistle Hotel at Heathrow Airport, which is very much a place where middle-aged stationery salesmen go to badly fuck their secretaries in a mist of regret and Joop. I’ve never been so underwhelmed by the exterior of a building, and you must remember that I spent a summer in Southend once. We chose this hotel for a reason, though, and it certainly wasn’t the architecture. No, see, it’s connected to Terminal 5 via the ‘Pod’ system, and that is AMAZING to us as two very geeky lads. It’s essentially a little taxi service but you get your own ‘Pod’ and it drives itself! GASP. Press a button, and a tiny robotic chamber comes beetling down the track and you climb inside. They’re sleek, purple and spacious, although it does feel a bit like you’re wheeling your suitcase into a portable toilet. Then it silently trundles along a track by itself and drops you off wherever you need to be. It’s the future! Of course, being the UK, we were immediately charged £5 each for having the temerity to take a driverless car to the hotel. What’s that charge for? I certainly didn’t see anyone behind the thing pushing it and humming. Bastards. 

We were shown to our room, and of course, it was very conveniently placed only a short flight away from the reception desk, and it was…perfunctory. It had a bed, it was clean, the TV boasted colour and at least six channels, so we went to sleep, woke only to order room service (£17 for a burger that I could have planed my feet with) and watch Doctor Who, and suddenly it was time to depart for our flight. That’s where we can leave it for now.

Tonight’s recipe is a perfect recipe for a family or a large group, but if you want to scale it down, feel free – just make less, or, as we do, make enough for six and eat it all greedily, using your shame tears to salt your chips. We know how you tick. You need to healthy extra your cheese and bun and it looks messy, but just go for it. You’ll use 4.5 syns for the whole dish, but serving six, it’s up to you if you count it. You could use less oil or not bother with the sesame seeds!

cheeseburger sloppy joe bake

to make cheeseburger sloppy joe bake, you’ll need:

  • 500g 5% minced beef (struggling to find cheap beef? BUY OUR BOX OF MEAT AND NEVER LOOK BACK)
  • 1 tsp each of salt, pepper, cumin and mustard powder
  • 1/2 tsp smoked papika
  • 1 onion, chopped
  • 3 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 tin of chopped tomatoes, drained
  • 6 slices of cheese
  • 6 wholemeal buns (one being a HEB, mind)
  • one egg
  • 1/2 tsp honey (0.5 syns)
  •  1.5 tbsp worcestershire sauce
  • 1 tbsp mustard (1 syn for dijon)
  • 1 tbsp sesame seeds (3 syns)

and to make cheeseburger sloppy joe bake, you should:

  • throw the oven up to 180 degrees, yeah I said throw, I’m cool and with it
  • fry the onion gently in a little oil or frylight (fools!) with your minced garlic
  • add the mince and get your meat brown, chuck the salt, pepper, cumin, mustard and paprika in, because why not
  • cooked through? add the tomatoes and simmer down until it’s thickened nicely
  • spray your little oven dish (big enough to hold six ‘burgers’ pressed together) with a drop of oil or frylight (why would you? WHY?) (YOU’RE A HEATHEN, HARRY)
  • slice the rolls into half and put the bottom halves into the dish, making sure they’re as snug as a bug in a rug
  • pour the beef mixture on top of the buns and top each ‘roll’ with a slice of cheese
  • put the tops on
  • mix together the egg, worcestershire sauce, honey and mustard and brush over the top of the buns (you’ll not use all of it, so reduce the syn value even more!)
  • sprinkle on the sesame seeds
  • bake in the oven for twenty minutes, making sure it doesn’t catch, then serve!

GOODNESS ME.

Don’t forget to serve it with speed food. Obviously.

J

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

July 8, 2015

Posted under

american, bacon, fakeaways, fast food restaurants, low syn, lunch, pasta, pork, quark, recipe card, sausages, speciality ingredients

pimped macaroni cheese

Boo! I had to work late and do overtime tonight so it’s a very quick post from me – just to put today’s American entry where we went to Discovery Cove and we swam with dolphins. Poor bastards. There’s also a wonderful recipe for seriously loaded mac and cheese – nice and American! Of course we had to jazz it up by adding chives, sausages and bacon. Just scroll down.

Hilariously, my book has climbed to #1 in the Amazon’s Gay & Lesbian Travel section. I can’t imagine the competition is especially stiff but still! I KNEW I should have called it ‘Cruising with Gays’. If you haven’t bought it yet, give it a go, it’s a couple of quid and it pays for Paul and I to buy ridiculous nonsense like Thwomp cushions and giant spoons. If you want it, you can buy it here. If not, scroll to get the recipe!

 

day ten – Discovery Cove and swimming with dolphins

Ah, Discovery Cove day. Booked a long time ago, was I looking forward to it? Not really. I know this is almost blasphemy, but dolphins leave me cold. I think it’s because my sister went through a dolphin phase during the 90s, like most girls, and everything was covered in dolphins. I continued the theme in my teenage bedroom, where everything was covered in seamen. Kaboomtish. That, coupled with having to get my baps out, meant I was a little apprehensive. Nevertheless, we got a taxi and were there in good time, turning up a good half hour early. We had read online that it was worth getting there early to get a good dolphin swim slot in the morning, meaning you could relax for the rest of the day. This done, we were booked for the swim at 10.45.

Breakfast first, then. A good choice, but my buffet-shyness prevented me from getting the full amount I wanted. There’s a cooked breakfast option available but the lady behind the counter looked pretty stern, so I didn’t dare ask for me. There’s also the requisite pastries and cereal if you prefer. We took our time before heading over to the lockers. You are given a little net bag which includes a snorkel, good goggles and suncream – as you’re not allowed to use your own suncream lest it pollutes the water. Then, the tough bit. The wetsuit. Men can either choose from a full wet-suit or a lycra ‘top’, which clings to everything. We did try on the top but it pushed my moobs up in such a fashion that I could no longer see my feet. Ditto Paul. We decided to change into a wetsuit. Jesus. Have you ever tried getting into one of these things, particularly if you’re somewhat rubenesque like Paul and I? It’s like to push water through a cheese-grater. However, ten minutes later, once they had greased us up, we were fine, and dare I say it, the wetsuit was actually the far better choice as it compresses everything in. Clearly the fat was being squeezed somewhere else but I didn’t have any especially big lumps appearing, so it was all good!

Now – time for a serious thought. I read a lot of posts on here about people feeling shy about being fat and not wanting to plod about with it all on show. I’m the same, despite my cool and sexy exterior – quite shy about my jiggly bits. But if you take anything from my trip reports aside from a slight queasiness, know this – you don’t need to worry. I have seen some proper gargantuan heifers over here and no-one ever comments. People might think things in their head but let’s be honest, we all do it. Just remember that you’re never going to see these people again and let it all swing out. Life, and your holiday, is too short to worry about what you look like. But – that said – don’t be setting up a chip pan on the beach, that’s just common.

We spent an hour just drifting around in the lazy river, using our snorkels. The river itself gets to about 8ft in places, but as long as you make sure you can snorkel, you’ll be fine even if you’re a weak swimmer. Paul got the hang of it fairly quickly, but I can’t say I helped him out by sticking my finger in his snorkel-hole. Well, it is a honeymoon. The worst part about being able to breathe and see underwater? Well, you know in programmes like Fat Families or other diet shows, they always show the fat person swimming and all their fat is rippling underwater like an epileptic lava-lamp? That was Paul and I. People didn’t need to throw fish at us whilst we basked, mind.

The river is lovely, full of…stones. Yep, I do think they could gee it up a bit by sticking some little nooks and crannies and things to look at under the water, but it was still a wonderful way to relax. Then – it was time for the dolphin swim. You’re taken into a little tent with your other swimmers, made to sign a disclaimer form to say that any damage or penetration is not Discovery Cove’s problem and then, oh my, the cheesiest video about dolphins ever. It was in this tent that we realised that we were getting proper stink-eye from a woman. She would not let up. I can only assume one of two things:

  • she was jealous because her short, bald husband was not nearly as attractive as mine; or
  • she had finally realised that she was the absolute double of the lampshade-haired cow from those insufferably smug BT adverts – and I really hate those adverts.

Naturally, as Paul and I can’t get through a day without making an enemy, she became ours, and we spent the rest of the day pulling faces at her whenever she passed. Cow. We were led to our dolphin – Calypso – and our trainer. We stroked the dolphin’s belly, avoided her bajingo which was clearly on show, had flapped at and learnt all about the dolphin. It was a fun half-hour, but as we were alongside a family, most of the attention was spent on the little girls getting to stroke the dolphin and what have you. Which is fair enough, I guess. It didn’t help that their father was a proper knob though, he kept asking really smart-arse questions of the trainer and then correcting her! I can’t bear that kind of attitude, there’s no need for it. Thankfully, our British reserve won through, and we were exceptionally polite. My only lament – I didn’t get to throw a fish in its mouth. But to be honest, I get enough of that at home throwing Skittles at Paul to get him to move. After 20 minutes of tricks and chat, it was time for Calypso to pull us back to shore. You swim out about 50ft into deep water, and the dolphin pulls you back in. It was good fun, and Calypso managed valiantly with both Paul and I, though she did have to be put on oxygen afterwards.

After the swim, you’re ushered into another tent to view photos of the happy day. It’s not hard sell as such, but I do feel it could have been done more subtly, especially given the price of the photos. If you have kids, perhaps it would be best to leave them outside at this point so you don’t feel pressured – as I was with Paul, I had no such luck, and we ended up buying four photos. They’re really good as it happens, so it’s fair enough. After our swim, an early lunch. The food is terrific mind, very healthy and fresh. I had a Cobb salad, purely so I could say to Paul that I had a cob on, little realising the size and scale of the salad. In England, I remember when a salad was thick sliced tomato, cucumber, iceberg lettuce and loads of vinegar. Over here, you need to set aside forty minutes just to plow your way through. Delicious mind.

The other two draws for Discovery Cove are the snorkelling bay, where you can swim around with loads of tropical fish and spotted rays underneath you, and the ray pool, where rays swim around your feet. They’re both excellent, save for the fact that Paul got slapped across the arm by an angry ray, which apparently really hurt. Whilst I was laughing, the ray got me too – and it DOES hurt! We got out of there because we could see it was kicking off. There’s plenty of photos we took with an underwater camera, but I can’t stick them online. They’re all very blurry and blue anyway. I did notice some show-offs with fancy underwater cameras. I admit to being jealous of their superior technology, so next time I’m going to navigate the fish pool in an underwater sub. Might mince a few fish whilst I’m doing it, but ah well.

That is how the remainder of the day passed – swimming, sunbathing, getting lots of free ice-cream and beer, and snorkelling about. There isn’t too much to write about because it was just all relaxing, no being dramas or the like. The only notable event was at the end of the day, when we were getting changed – when I pulled the wetsuit from my body it made a massive, loud, wet fart sound, to which Paul – to his credit, stealing a Phoenix Nights joke, shouted ‘And I’ll name that tune in one’ from the shower cubicle next door. Good lad. Shuttle to Seaworld and then onto the I-Ride trolley back to the Four Points, where the night was spent watching Unstoppable on the PPV TV. Good film that. Day over! 

Over and out.

pimped macaroni cheese

serves 4 (generously)

to make pimped macaroni cheese, you’ll need:

  • 250g macaroni (or any type of pasta – we used spirali)
  • 1 brown onion
  • 6 Slimming World sausages, defrosted, skins removed
  • 5 rashers of back bacon, fat removed and chopped into small chunks
  • 1 tsp oregano
  • 1 tsp paprika
  • 2 garlic cloves, minced
  • 400ml skimmed milk (6 syns)
  • 200ml chicken stock
  • 160g reduced fat cheddar cheese, grated (4x HexA)
  • 125g quark
  • 1 wholemeal brown roll, blitzed into breadcrumbs
  • bunch of chives
  • salt and pepper

and when you’ve got all that, you’d better

  • cook the pasta according to instructions, drain and set aside
  • heat a large pan over a medium high heat and cook the onion until softened
  • add the bacon and sausage meat, stirring frequently to stop the sausage meat from clumping – I used a potato masher to keep the mixture loose
  • add the oregano, paprika and garlic, stir well and remove from the heat
  • in a separate pan add the milk, stock cheese and quark and cook over a medium-low heat, whisking continuously until the mixture is smooth – don’t be tempted to increase the heat – it needs to be quite low
  • add salt and pepper to taste
  • combine all of the ingredients together, mix well and pour into a large baking dish
  • sprinkle the top with breadcrumbs and chopped chives
  • cook at 190 degrees for about 20-30 minutes

Serve! 

If you want to save syns, we made a macaroni cheese where the creamy sauce came from butternut squash which was equally as delicious – you can find it here!

J

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

July 5, 2015

Posted under

airfryer, american, beef, beef mince, fakeaways, recipe card, syn free, taster ideas

syn free dippy cheesy sloppy tater tots

 

The recipe tonight is a mix-up of two American junk foods – the sloppy joe and tater tots. Tater tots are traditionally mashed potato shaped into little cylinders and deep-fried and they taste amazing, but Margaret would be choking on her Blue Nun if she thought I was deep-frying. So naturally we’ve made a few switches and tweaks and let me tell you, this is genuinely one of the best recipes we’ve done so far. Scroll down and enjoy! OH and it’s syn-free!

Anyway, today’s American diary entry, from our book available here, is from the day we went to Wet and Wild, which isn’t some kind of golden-showers den of sin, but rather a scrappy but beloved waterpark at the arse-end of International Drive. I’ve since heard it’s shutting down, which is a shame, but given we probably left indelible skidmarks on some of the scarier rides it’s probably for the best.

 

Day 26 – Jaymes needs a Chute (Wet and Wild)

Finally – Wet ‘n’ Wild. The concrete and fag-end cuckolded sibling of the rather more salubrious Aquatica, held out of our reach for so long by either weather-based closures or burrito-based bum trouble. A prompt early morning call revealed the park to be open, so after fitting a good eight hundred pastries down our chops, we taxied over to have some splish-splash fun. Before entering, we paid our respects to the Metropolitan Express (the very first hotel we ever stayed in when visiting Orlando back in 2008) by nipping over the road and well, wandering past the reception and down into the corridors.

A little bit about the Metropolitan Express before I come to the meat of the day. It’s grim. Proper grim. We chose the hotel because we were on a budget and didn’t know any better – those were the days when we went to Orlando for ten days, didn’t stay at Disney and had a budget of $1000 for the entire holiday, seems unreal now. The staff are well-meaning and very helpful, but security left a lot to be desired – and this clearly hadn’t improved by the fact that we just sauntered into the hotel past reception and helped ourselves to the free coffee laid out for hotel guests. Sorry, but you shouldn’t be able to do that considering it’s at the rougher end of International Drive. If anyone has the place booked, reconsider. Always pay what you can afford rather than trying to save a few pounds here and there. You may think that we were only able to get back into the hotel because we had made such a fabulous impression on the reception staff that they considered us old friends – but this can’t be the case. I’ll tell you why. On the last day of our first stay back in 2008, we decided to er…make whoopy (we were young then) before leaving. What we hadn’t realised was that I had stashed an open packet of Cheesits under the duvet of the ‘spare’ bed in the room, and we proceeded, entirely by accident, to squash the entire packet, and its radioactive orange contents, into the blankets, under the duvet and up the pillowcases. After we had er…finished, we realised our error, and left hastily, the orange stain refusing to shift from the sheets. Heaven knows what Monique thought when she came to clean the room, but considering we had strategically left a Pringle right in the middle of the carpet for four days to see whether housekeeping were doing their job and it remained there right until the last day, I don’t think the housekeeping was up to much anyway. Oh, and the place stank of cheap weed, too. Not that I know what expensive weed smells like, I hasten to add. I did think I had inhaled rather too much second-hand toke once I had seen the carpets in the hallway mind. It was like someone had trodden a quiche into the carpet. Anyway! Back to 2011, back to Wet and Wild.

Remember our snappy fat/wet suits from earlier in the holiday, purchased in Aquatica in a pique of self-consciousness? Well, we were soon back in those, our jiggly bits cocooned safely in bulging lycra, meaning that we looked to all the world rather like two extra large condoms stuffed with cottage cheese. No matter – as long as no-one laughed at me, I didn’t care. We were straight into the lazy river to ‘acclimatise’ to the water temperature. I got sassed by a lifeguard for not diving in, but to be fair, I practically had to smash my way through the ice-crust it was that bloody cold. The lazy river here leaves a lot to be desired, doesn’t it? Admittedly, it doesn’t have the ped-egg flooring that Disney prefers, but still, give us something to look at other than impossibly sculpted lifeguard bodies.

Most of the day was spent doing slide after slide, and incurring injury after injury. The Storm – the natty slide that shoots you down a steep drop and deposits you like many a poo into what looks like a giant toilet bowl was awesome, as ever, even if I did have to sacrifice my Robin Williams back-hair, which was lightly flayed off under my lycra by the rivets on the slide. Brain Wash is as good as ever, and thankfully they’ve set up an automatic lift so you don’t have to carry those colossal rubber-rings up the winding staircase. Paul and I aren’t especially fit, and anything that reduces the need to break a sweat is good for us. Still, it’s a steep climb, and we’re clearly fitter than last time as we didn’t have to set up base-camp halfway up the tower. I love Brain Wash – try and take a second whilst you’re shooting up and down the tube to look up – they play a nifty ‘subliminal message’ video on the ceiling. All good fun. I banged my head – my own fault – on the side as I was too busy pulling a stupid face at Paul as we were flushed out. So that’s injury two.

With a sore head and a flayed back, we took some time to people-watch, milkshake in hand, under the nice umbrellas by the wavepool. And good lord, we didn’t half see some sights. I know I’m a judgemental sod and hypocritical as I don’t like people taking the mick out of me, but I’ll make no apologies for biting my bottom lip and going ‘Ooooh, look at ‘er’ to Paul for a good half hour. Wet ‘n’ Wild seems to attract a more…hmm…Brighthouse crowd, if you see what I mean. For example, one of the sun-loungers was occupied by someone reading Inside Soap. Now who on Earth goes to the trouble of packing a magazine about English bloody soap operas as reading material on a holiday? Bet she orders Egg and Chips in every restaurant. Also – surprising amount of bad tattoos, especially on necks. I can’t abide it. Frankly, if you have to have the name of your child inked onto your lobster-red neck just so you don’t forget their name and birthday then you shouldn’t be bloody breeding in the first place. Still, it doesn’t beat the worst tattoo I’ve ever seen (some years back, in a rough pub in Newcastle) (Raffertys, if anyone is wondering) – the poor bloke had ‘ENGLUND FOREVER’ inked on his hand. See, if that had been me, I would have asked the tattooist to tattoo a wavy red line under ENGLUND and make out like I was being terribly hip and ironic.

So yes, with my head better and my back crisping up nicely, we decided to do Mach 5. I’m not a huge fan of this ride, because I always manage to lose my dignity somehow – either I come off the mat halfway down or, right at the start, mis-time my bellyflop onto the mat so that I whizz down the slide on my belly whilst the mat cheerfully leads the way ahead of me, just out of reach. Paul’s a genius at stuff like this and never misses, so to humour him, I went on. I didn’t miss the mat. I didn’t come off the mat. Nope, I managed to stay on but, having jumped eagerly, managed to land almost squarely on my clackers, which became pretty much sandwiched between the mat and my lycra-clad body. So – the entire ride was spent having my fertility smacked out of me and I was a very, very interesting shade of puce at the end. Not good. Thank Christ I don’t have to worry about my sperm quality. Paul was sympathetic in that he only guffawed at my predicament rather than fell into hysteria. The tinker. Mind you – he didn’t seem too well either.

Yep, turned out that his ear was playing up again. Ever the trooper, we spent another couple of hours barrelling down the slides and splashing in the water before retreating to the Room of Shame to get changed. We decided to head down to Walgreens to visit their instore doctor, all the while I was silently mouthing my words so Paul felt even more deaf. Mind you, clearly his ear wasn’t too bad – he decided that the sensible thing to do whilst suffering from a balance problem was to have a go on the Slingshot. Yes – that giant tower that you see at the top of International Drive, where those who have been dropped on their heads as children strap themselves into a ball and get slung 200ft into the air, stopped only by two elastic bands. Well, I’m sorry, I’ll do any rides, but I wasn’t going to do that. I don’t trust any ride that looks as though it’s been pieced together by whatever was left over at the Meccano factory. However, being a proper black widow, I ushered Paul onto the ride, and bravely took photos. I wish they had come out well, but it just looks like someone has smeared a blur onto the photo he was going that fast.

 

Apparently, it was brilliant, ear problems or not. Having got that out of his system, we arrived at Walgreens with a minute to spare.

Now, the doctor was fantastic. She performed all sorts of little tests on Paul, and after 40 minutes of clucking her tongue and checking her charts, she diagnosed that the poor bugger had a perforated ear-drum. Of course, I immediately start hyperventilating knowing that we were flying in a few days time, but she reassured us that he would be OK to fly as long as he took the drops she was about to prescribe.

Then, she told us the price. $245 (nearabouts) – $180 of which was for one tiny dropper bottle of antibiotics. Luckily, I managed to floor her with the first punch and Paul ran out with the bottle. I wish. No, we paid up, and I almost perforated his other eardrum whinging about having to pay for something I seem to get routinely prescribed at home like Smarties. Seriously – I could go into my doctors with a missing face and he’d send me on my way with a crate of amoxicillin and a flea in my ear. Thank Christ for travel insurance. We made a tonne of calls later that evening and actually ended up getting nowhere, just one big circle of call centres and idiots who couldn’t tell us what to do. Worst yet – that ended up costing us about $400 in phone call charges from the Hard Rock! Bah. Next time he damages his ear, I’ll just fill it full of cotton wool and use sign language. Only really need to know ‘Feed Me’ ‘Have you douched?’ and ‘Go to sleep’ to get by.

Before turning in for the night, we wandered down to Olive Garden for our evening meal. Absolutely delicious. I don’t remember an awful lot of it save for three facts. First – I was getting eyed up by a splinter-thin River-Island-clad pipe-cleaner of a man who followed me to the loo, only to turn around and leave in disgust when I went into a cubicle and deliberately trumpeted as loudly as possible. Second – the food was scrummy, and the cocktails even better. Third – we gave our server a $100 tip on a $60 meal, because she dealt with us with such aplomb whilst having to serve a table of twelve boorish Americans all waving their hands in the air. See – I’m flying the flag for Britain!

All in all then, a mixed day. We love Wet and Wild – yeah it’s rough and it needs polishing up, and it has nowhere near the level of class that the likes of Aquatica or Typhoon Lagoon have, but if you want fast rides and easy living, it’s the one to go for. Plus – remember my tip for an early morning pick-me-up: free coffee at the Metropolitan Express. But stay there…not on my experience.

So here we go…!

tater tots slimming world friendly

serves 4

you’ll need these:

  • 900g potatoes, cut into cubes
  • 750g lean beef mince
  • 1 onion, finely chopped
  • 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
  • 1 medium carrot, finely diced
  • 1 red pepper, finely diced
  • 2 celery sticks, finely diced
  • 500g passata
  • 1 tsp mustard powder
  • ¾ tbsp cider vinegar
  • ¾ tsp chilli powder
  • salt and pepper
  • 1 tbsp Frank’s Red Hot Buffalo Sauce (optional)
  • 40g reduced fat mozarella, grated (one HEA choice, this serves four!0
  • 4 spring onions, sliced

and you’ll need to do this:

  • cook the cubed potatoes in a spoonful of worcestershire sauce in your Actifry, or alternatively place on a baking sheet and bake at 190 degrees until browned, remembering to turn frequently
  • meanwhile, heat a little oil in a pan over a medium high heat and add the onions, stirring frequently until they start to turn translucent
  • add the mince and cook until brown
  • next add the passata, carrots, garlic, red pepper and celery and stir well
  • mix together the mustard powder, chilli powder, cider vinegar and a tablespoon of water and add to the mixture
  • stir again, cover the pan over a medium-low heat and cook for 20-30 minutes until nicely thickened
  • in a grill-safe pan (or baking dish) layer the mince mixture with potatoes, add the grated cheese and spring onions (just slice up the green part) and grill until the cheese has turned golden brown
  • drizzle over with the buffalo sauce and serve

It’s up to you what sides you serve this with to make up the third-speed-food-rule on your plate, but I’m not going to pretend that we didn’t just eat our quarter and immediately go back for more, with the roasted broccoli still in the oven…oops!

I’ll say this – if you cook only one of our recipes, ever, cook this. It makes a pan full of absolute bloody wonder!

TOP TIP: don’t chuck away the white part of the spring onions, put them root-first into a glass of water, and they’ll grow again! Easy.

J

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

July 4, 2015

Posted under

american, bacon, fakeaways, fast food restaurants, low syn, pork, quark, recipe card, sausages, savoury snacks, snacks, speciality ingredients, syn free

american week: bacon wrapped hotdogs

I feel I should warn you – this is a long one. But if you relax, grit your teeth and just persevere, you’ll enjoy it all the way to the end.

Wah-hey! It’s American week, we’ve got our fancy new banner, and you’re actually getting two recipes today, both of which are easy to make. Before we get started though, just something quick. I found a vest in the reduced bin at Tesco today for £2. I don’t wear vests because I don’t have fabulous arms and I feel the world can do without seeing my milky white, hairy shoulders catching the sun. Nevertheless, it’s good for dossing around the house, but the very moment Paul saw me in it he said I looked like Onslow from Keeping up Appearances. So that’s nice, bearing Onslow was a man in his late fifties who had yellow teeth and a very ‘lived in’ face.

The recipes are at the bottom of this page!

American week means I get to step back from writing and rest my fingers for a bit – so in the meantime, I’m going to post seven days from my honeymoon book. We travelled to Florida for four weeks and it was amazing, and I kept a diary because I didn’t want to forget any of it. I know, mushy. If you enjoy it, please do consider buying it – it means a few extra pennies for our Iceland jar see. And it’s only £2. Click here! So, this is day zero…

 

Day 0 – our wedding and travelling to Florida

Given I’m going to prattle on about Paul and I for oooh…about 50000 words, it seems prudent to introduce us properly, and what better way to illustrate who we are then to talk you through the day I accepted Paul’s ring. Yes, the wedding. We’re not exactly Wills and Kate, though I do have a fabulous arse, but it was a lovely day full of smiles and the perfect start to our honeymoon full of sin, sarcasm and blue sunscreen.

Way back in 2009, also at Disney, I proposed to my stout little barrel of a man and he gleefully accepted. I think it was the fact we were in the middle of a lake and I’d be watching an awful lot of Dead Calm recently that hastened his positive reply. We got honked at by a passing Disney ferry whose inhabitants thought I was down on my knees doing something other than proposing. The nerve. I mean, it wasn’t Christmas! Zip forward to 3 January 2011 and the day before our wedding. Well, the glamour started right from the off with one of the cats deciding to do a dirty protest in the car whilst we ferried him over to my sister to look after. You’ve never seen someone wind a window down quicker than us that day, and because the cat is fearless and would have jumped, he stayed in his messy box all the way to my sisters. It was with tears in our eyes (and Vicks under our nose) to see our pooey little furball depart, but there you have it.

We spent the evening before the wedding in our first treat, a room at the Hotel du Vin in Newcastle. You may think Newcastle is purely the land of bust noses, bare flesh and broken hymens, but we’re more than capable of bringing the class, and this is one of the nicest hotels in the area. I mean, it has a cigar bar attached, for heaven’s sake. Our very first surprise of the honeymoon? We were upgraded to the best suite in the hotel, the Dom Pérignon suite. It was bloody beautiful. It’s the honeymoon suite and I was overjoyed, especially as I had only paid £68 for the room through my shrewd discount plans. A massive thank you to the staff of the beautiful Hotel du Vin, that’s for sure. The room had two bathtubs in the living room, and I think we were in the room for a grand total of two minutes before they were full of bubbles and we were laid in them watching Deal or no Deal on the giant TV and feeling like kings. The bed was wonderful too – it felt like it was 9ft wide – I could lie in it, stretch myself out and STILL not touch the sides. Sometimes I wonder why Paul married me.

After a meal on the Quayside and a romantic stroll back to our room, we settled down to sleep – our last night as bachelors! Here’s a sweet fact for you – in all the time we’ve been together, we’ve never had a night apart. A good start to the marriage methinks! And so…to the wedding!

We had decided a couple of months previously not to have a big do at all, and just a small registry office affair followed by a good dinner. I wish I could say it was for any other reason than the fact we’re both terribly selfish and Northern and thus the idea of spending money to facilitate other people having a good time appals us. Plus, I wanted to avoid the three horrid old clichés of a civil partnership:

  1. non-Scottish men wearing kilts. We know you’re a Mary but let’s not wear a skirt, eh;
  2. rainbow decorations absolutely anywhere. Paul may be the height of a leprechaun but he doesn’t have the cheeky disposition; and
  3. bloody cupcake towers. Nothing cloys my blood faster than this fad for cupcakes. I’m not Polly bloody Pocket. If I had my way, there would only be two cakes allowed – fruit and urinal.

Bah! I’m not casting aspersions on anyone else’s wedding but it suited us to have a small, tidy, manly do. So we did. Well, we did toy with the idea of dressing up like the sisters from Shakespeare’s Sister’ Stay video but we were talked out of it. We became Husband and Husband in Newcastle Registry Office, presided over by an official who was the spit of Annie Lennox, and watched over by our immediate family and good friends. As an aside, my gran was there, and she’s brilliant – despite being 87, she’s thoroughly accepting of our relationship and is always asking after Paul when I call up. I mean, there are limits to her acceptance – I didn’t dare explain what fisting was when she asked me one day after seeing the word on my phone (I might add, someone had texted it in a joke to me, I’m not that FILTHY). It still felt a little bit too formal for me, as I’m not used to someone addressing a suit-clad Paul without adding ‘the defendant’ afterwards. We decamped to SIX, the faffy little restaurant on top of the Baltic. It’s very posh. NOW, we’re not a posh lot, and class McCains as a ‘fancy potato style’ but you have to let your hair down once and a while, even if (as is the case in all the males at the table) you don’t have any.

So, a suitably lovely meal was had, only enhanced by the snotty waiter looking down his nose at us and rolling his eyes when I ordered a couple of bottles of reasonably-priced champagne. Well, reasonably priced for them – paying £65 for a bottle of fizzy cat pee gave me such a cold sweat that I had to excuse myself to the bathroom to calm my shakes. My nana, bless her, didn’t really fancy anything on the menu (I can’t blame her, I’ve never heard two bits of chard, a sliced tomato and a bloody drizzle of balsamic vinegar described as a French Salad before) but they were very good and cooked her up her own individual meal. I stopped short of asking them to put a glass of Banana Complan on ice, though.

After the meal, we went to the pub for an hour, then everyone dearly departed, and our honeymoon officially started. Yes! Back to the flat to really put the bed through its paces by er…putting the suitcases on it and tipping our wardrobe into them. I have to say, it wasn’t the first type of packing that I had planned for the wedding night. We slept, butterflies in our stomach (SIX would call them an amuse bouché) and in no time at all, we were in a taxi being bellowed at by a rather brusque taxi driver who wanted to know the far end of a fart and when it came from. Honestly. I spent the entire trip to the train station trying to hide the fact I was attempting to take a photo of his face on my phone so I would be able to identify who had burgled our house when we were away. Thankfully, that didn’t arise.

Straight onto the train, into the first class carriage (where you too can travel in style with an extra doily and a few crappy biscuits) and we were disappearing over the Queen Elizabeth bridge, saying goodbye to Newcastle from the bridge. Now here’s a tip for you. If you’re coming into Newcastle (or indeed leaving) from the South on the train, don’t look slackjawed to the right and admire all the bridges, but instead, look on the other side of the river, up the Tyne. As you cross the bridge, there’s a little wasteground, and it’s always full of men out ‘badger-hunting’. Yep – whereas most people are taken by the beauty of the moment, Paul and I spent the first minute of our honeymoon journey playing ‘Count the Cruiser’. What larks!

In no time at all, we were in London, our seedy capital. Kings Cross is lovely, yes, but in no time at all we had tubed our way to Victoria and onto the Gatwick Express, heading for the giddy heights of the Gatwick Hilton. What a place! After spending seven years navigating to the hotel from the train station (seriously, we spent so much time walking there that I almost gave up and set up base for the night), we were checked in by a clearly-couldn’t-care-less-customer-divvy and in our room. Grim. I’m not a hotel snob but after spending the night in the Hotel du Vin only two nights ago, the Hilton’s tired brown sheets and tiny bathroom didn’t exactly enamour the soul. After spending only a moment admiring the view (car-parks are just SO fantastic to gaze at), we trekked back to the airport and checked in super-early (is it still Twilight Check-in if it is during the day?) with Virgin Atlantic. We had pre-booked our seats in the bubble but no sooner had we dumped our bags than the lady behind the counter told us we had been moved. Argh! I was too busy trying to work out the best way to hide her body to take in what she was saying, but when I was back at the hotel I checked online and we were RIGHT at the front of the bubble. Get in! Not only do I get to look down at the cattle-class, but I was going to be on first-name terms with the pilot. OK, maybe not THAT close. And we don’t look down our noses at anyone…well…not much.

We spent the evening in the hotel, watching a home movie entitled ‘Britain’s Fattest Man’ starring Timothy Spall. It was very good, even if we didn’t feel a shred of shame stuffing a pork-pie into our gob the very moment he had his fat chopped off. A good nights sleep was had, and we were ready for day 1…introduction over!

 

Oh how we laughed! So the first recipe is for a berry medley breakfast – we were served something very similar at the Polynesian at Disney, so why not replicate it here?

berry medley

There doesn’t really need to be a guide on what to do, really – I just scooped out a giant watermelon and put all that disgusting, rancid watermelon into the bin. That’s really the most important part, because no-one in their right mind can enjoy watermelon – it’s like sucking on a dishcloth. I’ve had farts with more structure, seriously. Then, fill up the hollow with a selection of berries – in this case I used strawberries, raspeberries, blackberries, a Mary Berry, pomegranate seeds, melon balls and blueberries. I then whizzed some raspberries together with the juice of one lime, mixed the whole lot together, and served with chopped mint. This EASILY serves four and is so rammed with superfree food it brings a tear to my eye. Next…

hotdogs

We had loaded hotdogs at Universal Studios – here we have wrapped the hotdog in bacon but you could easily load it with chilli or tonnes of softened onion. Just do it!

to make bacon wrapped hotdogs, you’ll need:

  • a hotdog bun (now look – dig out wholemeal hotdog rolls, ASDA sell them, but we used a white bun because it looked better for the photo – GASP. The hotdog bun was 38g so I’m calling it a HEB. If you don’t want to do that, that’s OK, just swap out the hotdog bun for a normal HEB breadbun and you’ll be laughing)
  • wasn’t that a lot of bold text? Well I’m a bold guy
  • some cocktail sticks
  • 6 rashers of bacon – now you’ll want decent bacon here, not something that looks like the bottom of a flipflop – you want plenty of meat, fat removed
  • an onion
  • hotdogs or sausages – we used Ye Olde Oake hotdogs jumbo, which work out at 2 syns each, but you could use Slimming World sausages instead, think of ALL THAT FLAVOUR
  • 100g of quark
  • your Heathly Extra allowance of strong cheese (we used Red Leicester and only 35g)
  • whatever side you want, we just did ours with chips because we had so much speed food earlier)

then just do this:

  • cut the bacon into inch long strips and wrap gently around the hotdog or sausage (if you’re using sausages, cook them first – don’t incinerate them but get them to ‘almost done’) – secure the bacon with cocktail sticks
  • pop under the grill for ten minutes or so until bacon is lovely and cooked
  • meanwhile, cut your onion up into small bits and gently saute in a drop of oil or Frylight
  • add chopped bacon from your scrappy bits left over, don’t be adding chunks of fat mind or I’ll slap your legs
  • to make the cheese sauce, carefully heat the Quark through and stir in your cheese – you might need to thin it with a drop or two of milk
  • assemble!

Easy. We had two – an extra finger roll being 6.5 syns, but really it was heavy going, so just have one and fill up on sides! If you use ketchup and mustard, you’re looking at a syn extra per tablespoon or so.

Enjoy! WE’RE OFF!

J