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July 26, 2016

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barbecue, burgers, drinks, fakeaways, low syn, lunch, panko, recipe card, salad, sauces, seafood, speciality ingredients, syn free, taster ideas, vegan, vegetarian

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slimming world bbq: zesty salmon burgers and a radish and pea salad

Goodness me, we’re still flogging this dead horse of Slimming World BBQ, are we? You have no idea how many times I’ve trundled the Weber out of the shed only for the skies to immediately blacken, the thunder start-up and the rain to come down so hard that I have to front-crawl past the recycling bins just to get back to the kitchen. Listen, when even God himself doesn’t want you to tearfully chew your way through the taste-explosion that is a Slimming World burger, you know it’s not a good idea.

Now, long time readers may remember I did an article way back in February of last year called james vs paul and it consisted of five things that annoyed him about me and five things that annoyed me about him. If you haven’t committed our various faults to memory – and if not, why not – you can find it here, together with a delicious recipe for chicken chow mein. Yeah, that’s right. Anyway, it’s due a sequel. You’ll be glad to know that we both still do every single thing that previously annoyed the other, but hey, fuck it, that’s marriage. Here’s five more – and, just like before, I’ve got right to reply on Paul’s critiques of me. Why? Because I have no gag reflex, and frankly if he wants to take advantage of that going forward, he has to let me reply…mahaha! Plus, I get the right to expand on my annoyances too. What a cad!

Paul’s five things that rile him about me:

there’s always coat hangers in our bed
- aye, it’s a fair cop this one. See, I get ready for work about ten minutes after Paul, because bless, he has to get up and put the coffee on and turn the shower on for me. My reward for his wonderful kindness is to litter his side of the bed with coat-hangers from where I’m trying to decide what shirt to wear in the morning – the shirts then get put over the top of the door rather than hung up. I think Paul’s getting a complex that I’m trying to do him a mischief when every time he climbs into bed he gets prodded with the coat-hanger, but in my defence, they’re velvet
james never put liners in the tiny kitchen bin
- meh. I can see Paul’s point, no-one wants smears of cat-food and whatnot on the inside of the bin. Fair enough. But Paul insists on buying a) tiny bins and b) massive bin liners. I wanted a lovely massive Brabantia bin but Paul knocked that idea on the head saying that we’d never empty it and we’d have what amounted to a vertical skip in the kitchen. Hmm. But then see he buys bin liners that you could drive a car through, meaning I’ve got to spend ten minutes flapping them out and trying to get them to sit in the tiny bin without just filling up the bloody container in the first place. It’s an ongoing, very middle-class problem, and it threatens to tear us apart at times
everything electrical is going to burst into flames unless it’s unplugged when not in use
- again, I think this is unfair! I grew up on a diet of 999 and with parents who had a very casual attitude to fire safety and thus I think my fears are entirely reasonable. I’m a catastrophic thinker – if I leave a box of matches on the side, I’ll spend the day envisioning various ways that the cats will knock them to the floor, followed by them knocking on the gas-oven in fear, followed by spiders skittering around on the sulphur of the scattered matches, igniting and destroying my home. That sounds fair enough until you realise we don’t have a gas oven
socks, socks everywhere, as far as the eye can see
- not fair: they’re not just my socks. For two tidy, professional men, we don’t half have a habit of leaving our socks scattered about in unusual places, and not just because they’re the wanksocks, we’re not 14 anymore. I don’t think I owned a pair of socks that didn’t crunch and crackle between the age of 12 and 19. But see in my haste to have my feet rubbed and squeezed (despite Paul’s entirely baseless remonstrations that it makes his hands smell like Roquefort), my socks will often just get discarded and forgotten until either Paul or the cleaner finds them
james’ genuine concern and worry whenever I hurt myself in a clumsy, hilarious manner
- I may have reworded that a little. Paul is taking umbrage at the fact that when he hurts himself by a) tumbling over in that way only fat men can, b) burning his mouth because he’s so keen to eat he doesn’t let his food cool down or c) cuts himself on his edgy political analysis, I immediately respond by fussing over him and saying ‘what’s the matter’ eighteen times a second. Hmph. I think that shows only love and concern for my precious, gorgeous husband, frankly.

Hmm. Seems fair. Now it’s my turn. Because I’m the writer, I get to say what annoys me about Paul AND expand on it too. What annoys me about Paul?

WELL.

he can’t hoover to save his life
- let me explain, as that seems a trifle extreme – we’ve got one of those fancy-dan digital Dyson vacuums that sit on the wall charging up until it’s needed, then you have exactly six minutes to flounce around the house shrieking whilst it vacuums at full power. That in itself is a mere inconvenience. No, it only becomes a problem because Paul vacuums up every single fucking thing on the floor rather than picking up the bigger bits – whole pasta twists, cable ties, shoes, you name it Paul’s tried to suck it up into the tiny drum and then spent 5 minutes gawping and swearing at the vacuum whilst it chugs and splutters because the tube is blocked. I swear, I spend more time poking around in the drum with a chopstick trying to dislodge errant nonsense than I do breathing in and out. I half expect to walk into our utility room to find our full-sized tom cat squeezed into the tiny plastic drum of the vacuum, mewing pitifully through a mouthful of dust and ped-egged-foot-skin
he always wants his back scratched
- doesn’t matter where we are, I can blink and when I open my eyes, his shirt will be hoisted up over his tits and his back will be looming towards me with his plaintive cries of ‘up a bit down a bit go mad NO NOT THAT HARD’ filling the air – if I had the money, I’d get a HappyCow machine installed

Actually, balls to the list, let me just show you a HappyCow machine and tell me it doesn’t fill your heart with joy!

Look at that happy cow! It’s a video, so click play to see those eyes light up with life and joy.

That reminds me, don’t forget we’ve got a meat sale on:

What can I say, I’m an opportunistic bugger.

he can’t handle Sky Digital
- we’ve been together nine years and still whenever we’re recording and watching ~~Jeremy Kyle~~ The Today Show and recording ~~The Man With The 10 Stone Testicles~~ Panorama, he’ll attempt to turn the telly over onto a third channel and then act perplexed when the TV says no. He also can’t fast-forward through breaks – it’s like he has a tremor when he presses the button during Hotel Inspector and suddenly everything is 30x the speed and unpaused just as Alex Polizzi’s giant smile is filling the screen and she’s climbing back into her Audi
he maintains that his Smart car is a sensible choice despite massive evidence to the contrary
- I go to this well a lot and I don’t care. Going to buy anything bigger than a Rubik’s cube? Paul will spend ten minutes assuring me it’ll fit despite me advising him that the rules of physics still apply even if his car is the colour of a baked bean. Of course, once we’ve bought the BBQ / new SONOS soundbar / sack of potatoes and made our way back to the car park, he’ll realise that, whilst it does fit – just – there’s no space for me, leaving me standing in the car park cursing his name whilst he races home in the car at its top speed of 32mph before returning to pick me up not even a little bit contrite. We’ve had many a terse conversation whilst making our way slowly and uncomfortably back home, I can assure you
he wakes me up by farting, but not in the way you might expect
- we both find farting absolutely hilarious – there’s few things funnier to our juvenile minds than a good taint-stainer, plea for help from Sir Knobbly-Brown, misguided burp, creeping hisser, floorboard troubler or an extended moment of steam-pressing your knickers, so that doesn’t trouble me in the slightest. No, if I’m woken up by a loud fart, I’ll spend the day chuckling. It only becomes a problem because we tend to spoon when we’re asleep in the morning and Paul manages to turn whatever food he’s had the night before – no matter how fine the ingredients, no matter how dainty the amounts – into concentrated pure death. I can’t tell you the amount of times I’ve been woken up in the morning by what smells like concentrated hate not so much filling my nostrils as filing them, peeling off skin and various bits of my olfactory system. It’s a bad job when you wake up gagging and reminiscing with longing for the smell of burning cows from the Foot and Mouth days. I grew up right next door to the farm that started it all and they said it could never happen again. Well it is – in Paul’s arse at 5.45am.

That reminds me, don’t forget we’ve got a meat sale on:

Mahaha. Hey, listen, those are his faults. But for all of those minor things, he’s still the man who I’ve only spent 6 nights away from and who makes me laugh right from the get-go as soon as I come through the door. There’s no regrets here and there’s not many couples who can say that!

Right, let’s get to the BBQ recipes before I well up like the big old pansy that I am.

Salmon burgers, eh? You know people say if it swims, it slims? Well pffft. Load of crap. I’ve been swallowing swimmers for years and I still chaff when I run. But we do need more fish recipes, so…

We found the recipe for the below from this blog and we’ve made it Slimming World friendly. I know, we’re heroes.

to make zesty salmon burgers you will need:

this is enough to make one – if you want more, just multiply the recipe

1 wholemeal roll (HeB)
15g panko (or use breadcrumbs, but panko is nicer) (4.5 syns for 25g, so we’ll say about 2.5 syns for 15g, just before I get angry letters and panko covered turds pushed through my letterbox from the more fervent of you)
1 spring onion, sliced
1 tsp soy sauce
1 tsp lime zest
140g salmon fillet (skinless and boneless)
4 slices picked gherkins

to make the sriracha mayonnaise:

1 tbsp Morrisons NuMe mayonnaise (or use any low-fat mayo – just check the syns) (1 syn)
1 tsp hoisin sauce (½ syn)
1 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp sriracha (if you can’t find sriracha, any ‘hot sauce’ will do – Cholula is a good alternative!)

to make zesty salmon burgers you should:

add all of the sriracha mayonnaise ingredients into a bowl and mix well – plonk in the fridge whilst you do the rest
next, add all of the burger ingredients into a food processor and blend until smooth, except for the bun and gherkins – if you haven’t got a food processor, chop everything up and mix by hand – extra body magic!
shape into a burger shape – it only needs to be about 1½cm thick to cook evenly
add onto the hot grill of the BBQ and cook for about four minutes a side, or until it’s how you like it
spread half of the mayonnaise mixture onto each half of the bun and lay on the pickled gherkins
add the burger on top, and enjoy!

Before you start up – remember:

This is panko. Dried, crunchy breadcrumbs.

This is not panko. This is pan k.o.

Easy!

Right, here’s a side suggestion. Because we’re super jolly hockey-sticks and what-ho, we’ve grown so many wonderful things in our garden this year, including a tonne of radishes and peas. If you’re not keeping up with the Jones, feel free to buy these items in a shop. I present our radish and pea salad! It’s really basic, but full of crunch and taste and hell, that’s probably a lot of speed food. This makes enough for four.

slimming world bbq

to make radish and pea salad, you’ll need:

a big handful of radishes – there’s no need to be precise, use as many or as much as you need
a big handful of fresh peas in their pods – you don’t want giant peas but rather baby peas
3 tablespoons of white wine vinegar – or apple vinegar, or raspberry vinegar, or vinegar-tits
four or five spring onions
a tablespoon of rapeseed or olive oil (6 syns)
a nice sprig of fresh mint, chopped finely
a pinch of salt
a pinch of pepper

to make radish and pea salad, you should:

get a pan of boiling water, throw your peas (in their pods) into the water for a minute, then take them out and put them in iced water to stop them cooking through
the boring bit, sorry – julienne your radishes and pea pods – basically, cut the radishes into slices, and then the slices into matchsticks – this isn’t an exact science, so don’t sweat it – if there are big peas, pop them out into the serving bowl as you chop
you can use a mandoline slicer for your radishes, it’ll speed things up – and the one we use is only £7.99 – but BE CAREFUL, they’re dangerous bloody things if you don’t use the guard
very finely chop your mint and spring onions, including the green stalk
mix the oil and vinegar, pepper, salt and mint together – add maybe a pinch of sugar if you really want (neglible syns given this serves four)
put everything into a dish, mix with the ‘sauce’ and serve immediately

It’s a really easy salad but worth the time spent making it, trust me.

Finally, let’s go for a cocktail in the form of a Blue Hawaiian. I had a blue Hawaiian. This one is from Jamie Oliver, a man I rather enjoy despite his best efforts.

slimming world bbq

to make a blue hawaiian, you’ll need:

35ml of decent white rum (3.5 syns)
35ml blue curaçao (5.5 syns)
a couple of drops of coconut essence
100ml pineapple juice (2.5 syns – Del Monte)

to make a blue hawaiian, you should:

get a cocktail shaker, throw everything in with a load of ice and shake it, shake it good
serve up on a load of crushed ice
serve it in a hollowed-out pineapple for that true access-day-visit-to-TGI-Fridays feel

Enjoy! I know it’s a lot of syns, but hey, it’s summer. If you can’t let your hair down and your boobs cool in this heat, when can you?

If you’re looking for more recipes for fish then you’re shit out of luck. There’s no many. But look, as a compromise, here’s a link to all of our beef and chicken recipes too.

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chubbycubs

Posted on

March 18, 2016

Posted under

american, bacon, beef, budget, burgers, diced beef, fakeaways, fast food restaurants, pork, recipe card, savoury snacks, snacks, steak, syn free, taster ideas

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loaded wedges and philly cheese steak sliders

Yep, you’re getting two recipes for the price of one with this post for loaded bacon and cheese wedges and philly cheese steak sliders. We’re really spoiling you lately. Least you could do is show willing and buy my ruddy book or a meat-box! Haha.

I’m in a bit of a huff tonight, if I’m honest. Came home to find a big bill waiting for me on the doormat. Normally I never say no to bending down for a Big Bill but this one was our council tax and it’s fucking £1700! What the hell for? They’ve turned off our street lights, driving on the roads feels like I’m playing Moon Patrol and they only pick up the bins when there is a full solar eclipse. There’s more chance of me getting pregnant than getting a book that doesn’t have Katie Price on the front cover out of our local library and if you fancy a stroll in the park, best get used to the dogshit and litter billowing around your feet like the shittiest version of the Crystal Dome. I don’t know why they don’t push all the dog-sausages into the fucking potholes in the road, at least that way I wouldn’t get out of the car with my neck canted a forty-five degree angle from being clattered off the roof of my car.

MOAN MOAN MOAN. But seriously, it would be a bloody welcome change if they said oh James, you work hard, here, enjoy your wage to do whatever you want with it, instead of grasping it out of my cold, cruel hands. I’m paying into a pension and being sensible by saving, but what’s the use? So when I get to seventy the Government can take away my house and stick me in a care home? Fuck that. We’ve already decided that when we get to seventy, if we’re both alive and capable of getting lob-ons, the house is getting sold and we’re getting two lithe twenty year olds to rub our bunions and change our oxygen tanks. BAH.

I might start a go-fund-me accompanied by a picture of Paul looking sadly into middle-distance and footage of me looking through photo albums. Maybe.

Can I just take a second to remind you of something? We have a list of every recipe we’ve EVER done right here. I worry that some people don’t know where it is. Use it, it’ll serve you well!

Anyway look, let’s get to the real reason you’re here. These recipes make enough for four. Each recipe is syn free if you use the appropriate HEAs and HEBs. If you have both of them at the same time, syn the cheese on the wedges – 40g is one HEA or 6 syns, so at most it’ll be 1.5 syns per portion. It’s syn free if you don’t combine the burgers and wedges. I’m just being a slut.

This recipe has had a makeover and a new calorie count – click here to be taken to the new version!

loaded bacon and cheese wedges

to make loaded bacon and cheese wedges, you’re going to need:

‘wet’ potatoes, like Maris Piper, as many as you dare
a few squirts of olive oil spray (0.5 syn for 7 squirts)
one beef oxo cube
packet of bacon medallions (we used half a pack from our Musclefood freezer filler, because it doesn’t disappear to nowt – proper tasty bacon)
spring onions
lighter mature cheese (40g or one HEA)
optional: hot sauce if you want it

to make loaded bacon and cheese wedges, you should:

cut each potato in half, then cut into each half in a ‘v’ shape, so you’re dividing each half into three triangular wedges – or you know, don’t fuck about and just cut them how you like
tip them into a bowl, sprinkle over the oxo cube and oil, and shake the buggers so they’re coated in a bit of stock cube and oil
put them into an oven for 30 minutes or so to colour and soften
meanwhile, fry off the bacon in small chunks, slice the spring onion and grate the cheese (remember, one of these makes that cheese allowance stretch further)
check your wedges – if they’re nearly done, take them out, scatter the bacon and cheese and spring onion over the top, and put back into the oven until the wedges are done and the cheese is crispy and delicious
serve
best get a defibrillator ready, just saying

If you’re looking for something to serve it with, these tiny sliders (fancy word for little ‘burgers’) will do the trick. There’s no speed food on your plate, but fuck it. If you don’t tell Mags, nor will I. This was our treat night after all. Jeez.

philly cheese steak sliders

to make philly cheese steak sliders, you’ll need:

a big white onion
a big green pepper
one slice of Swiss Gruyere (we buy ours from Waitrose) – 5 syns for a 25g slice, or a HEA
a suitable breadbun for your healthy extra allowance
120ml of beef stock
packet of beef strips (I promise I’m not deliberately over-advertising but we genuinely used our beef strips from our Musclefood freezer filler, and they were tasty as all outdoors)
lots of black pepper

to make philly cheese steak sliders, you should:

cut your onion into decent slices, same with the pepper
soften them in a dot of oil, a few sprays of olive oil or even better, a few drops of Worcestershire sauce, or if you’re an imbecile, use Frylight and wreck your pans
once they’re softened, set them aside and throw in the beef, cooking it off and giving it a bit of colour – I use Worcestershire sauce instead of oil because it adds taste
once the meat is browned off, put the stock in plus lots of pepper and whack the heat up, stirring until the stock has cooked off and thickened – give the bottom of the pan a good scrub with your spoon to get all those juices up
assemble your slider – breadbun cut in half, cheese slice, beef strips, peppers and onions
easy!

It doesn’t look terribly exciting but my word these were fantastic.

Now if you’ll excuse me I’m off to perform oral sex in exchange for money. By the time I’ve paid off the council tax I’ll be permanently yawning. 🙁

Posted by

chubbycubs

Posted on

February 22, 2016

Posted under

burgers, fakeaways, low syn, panko, recipe card, speciality ingredients, vegetarian

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veggie ploughman’s burgers plus mojito water

Super quick post tonight of two recipes – a veggie ploughman’s burger made from all sorts of speed food plus mojito water, which is rather a grand name for some fancy water with lime and mint added. No alcohol sadly, sorry, you’ll have to go back to that bottle of schnapps you keep hidden in your handbag. We all know.

Part of the reason for such a short post, aside from the fact that you’ve had rather a long run from us lately, is because I want to do some research into laser eye surgery. I hate wearing glasses, I truly do, and you know I went about four years thinking the world was going slightly quicker than I was due to all the blurring. I thought Paul was Puerto-Rican until that first fateful visit to Vision Express. It’s such an expensive habit, and don’t tell me I can buy glasses cheaply online – I did it once, and it went very wrong. See, I put in all the measurements that I had on my prescription, accounted for my weird astigmatism and chose a delicate black frame. The pair that turned up were exactly as I ordered, bar the fact they were about 50% too small for my elephantine head. It looked like I was wearing a pair of pince nez or fancy-dressing as Harry Potter looking into one of those concave mirrors that posh folk have at their end of their drives to check for tractors.

Of course, being a tight fucker, I wore those glasses for a good six months before Paul stopped going anywhere with me and made me change them, and the expense (and discomfort during eye-tests) has never stopped since. That in itself wouldn’t be so bad if I wasn’t forever cleaning the fucking things – it seemed I just need to blink three times before the lenses look like someone has rubbed a block of Trex onto them and swept a chimney. I spend more time making sure I can see clearly than actually looking where I’m going.

Laser eye surgery though…I’m on the fence, because although the benefits would be clear vision and no need to pay for glasses, I know for an absolute concrete fact that it’ll go wrong. I’m a catastrophic thinker – I can’t open a christmas gift from a beloved relative without worrying I’m going to papercut through my jugular with the gift-tag or have a massive cardiac arrest from the surprise of a Radox gift set. So yes, it’s bound to go wrong Final Destination style, with my eyeballs being turned into burnt cornflakes and me destined to spend my life alone in the blackness listening to All By Myself and wailing. Bah. Suppose I could get a nice dog out of it though…

Anyway, enough of me. Let’s start with the veggie ploughman’s burger. This recipe makes enough for four burgers, so where I’ve put HexA, that’s for one slice of reduced-fat cheese. Don’t be a piggy. I’m not normally a fan of vegetarian burgers but this not only held its shape but also tasted decent, unlike the usual farts and sadness.

veggie ploughman's burgers

to make veggie ploughman’s burgers, you’ll need:

4 wholemeal rolls (1 HexB each)
1 large tin of chickpeas, drained thoroughly
150g broccoli florets
1 large carrot
1 egg
3 medium mushrooms
25g panko (5 syns) (or use ordinary breadcrumbs, maybe blitz a small bun, but syn accordingly)
handful of chopped coriander (not a fan? You can’t taste it)
1 apple, sliced
lettuce
4 slices of reduced-fat cheese (HexA)
2 tbsp pickle (Branston is 1 syn per tbsp) (so half a tablespoon per burger, or leave it out)

These actually come to 1.7 syns, but for goodness sake. 1.5 syn each.

to make veggie ploughman’s burgers, you should:

preheat the oven to 200ºc
grate the broccoli and carrot together into a large bowl (this is a great gadget for the job)
making sure your chickpeas are thoroughly drained – and listen, I mean this, get them bloody dry), pour them into a food processor along with the mushrooms and pulse until you get a smooth paste
scrape the chickpea mixture into the bowl with the carrot and broccoli, add the coriander, panko and egg and stir well to mix until you can form a large ball
spray a baking sheet with a little frylight and divide the mixture into 4 and press into a burger shape
spray with a bit more frylight and bake for about 15-20 minutes each side
when cooked, serve in the bun with whatever other toppings you’d like – we used sliced apple, pickle, lettuce and cheese, hence the ploughman’s link, see. Just out of shot on that photo is some little pickles in a bowl which, just like rocket on any dinner ever, got put straight in the bin.

Tasty!

BONUS RECIPE IDEA

It’s not a food recipe, no, but remember when we did those flavoured waters back in the summer? Well, I thought we could pick that up and based on the amount of Slimming World folk putting on facebook that they, er, how to put this delicately…are having trouble negotiating the release of the hostages (i.e. they can’t shit), I thought I’d find a natural remedy. Well, apparently fresh mint helps with the digestive transit so with this delicious water, you’ll be back to plopping in no time.

mojito water

Pretty simple! Combine a load of ice, fresh chopped mint and fresh chopped limes in one of those fancy drink dispensers. Pick any one you like from this page, they’re all good, but mind the cheaper ones are prone to leaking. Want some more ideas for flavoured waters? Have a look back over the following links and laugh yourself silly – plus, lucky for you, you’ll find three SP week food recipes on each of these links too! WOW RIGHT OMG.

Enjoy!

Posted by

chubbycubs

Posted on

November 14, 2015

Posted under

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

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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.

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:

a slow cooker, obviously – we use the Crockpot Red, which is currently reduced on Amazon from £36 to £23 – decent saving!)
one decent sized rolled pork shoulder joint, with all the fat removed (we bought ours from Musclefood – £6 for 1kg – and it made enough to feed eight, easily – click here to do the same)
one big fat onion
three garlic cloves
6 tbsp of honey (15 syns)
4 tbsp of reduced-sugar blackcurrant jam (6 syns)
60g of Blue Dragon hoi-syn stir fry sauce (4 syns)
125ml of balsamic vinegar
125ml of chicken stock
breadbun to serve
syn-free coleslaw (recipe here) mixed with a little pickled red cabbage

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:

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

DONE.

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chubbycubs

Posted on

November 7, 2015

Posted under

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

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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!

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…

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!

Posted by

chubbycubs

Posted on

October 1, 2015

Posted under

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

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4 Comments

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!

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.

Posted by

chubbycubs

Posted on

August 16, 2015

Posted under

budget, burgers, fakeaways, lunch, pulses and grains, recipe card, syn free, vegetarian

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black bean and quinoa burgers

I managed to make a tit of myself today in a garden centre, and not just because I’m a 30 year old lad who’ll actively choose to go to a garden centre on a Sunday afternoon. What can I say, I like the variety – where else can you go and buy a new connector for a hosepipe, a double DVD box set of Das Boot and Last of the Summer Wine and a white chocolate florentine? Years ago I would have rather ran a power-sander over the tip of my cock than schlep around sniffing flowers and Yankee Candles, but I’m getting old now.

Can we take a moment to discuss Yankee Candles? Now, and this will come as no surprise to anyone, I don’t mind a scented candle, but can someone explain to me how they come up with the names for their ‘scents’? Red Raspberry I can understand, but who decides what a ‘Wedding Day’ smells like (disappointing sausage rolls and regretful sex?) or indeed, what the hell ‘New Born’ is? To me a ‘New Born’ candle should smell like placenta, chyme and the crushing realisation you’ll never have your life to yourself again, but the good folk at Yankee Candle seem to think it smells like a urinal cake. Ah well.

We were there trying to find some suitable garden furniture for the new patio we’ve had built in the back garden. This is proving tricky in itself. All we want is a decent hardwood table and chairs. There’s no point in getting anything that needs to be brought in over the winter because we’re simply far too lazy and it’ll just to be left to rot. We had three pairs of boxer shorts hanging on our rotary drier all though Christmas last year because we kept meaning to bring them in. It was only when a particularly strong January wind blew one pair onto next door’s greenhouse roof that we took action.

There’s no point in getting anything plastic either, because it looks absolutely awful, and you just know the very second our arse touches the seat it’ll splinter into individual atoms with a loud enough crack to blow the windows in over the road and rattan isn’t going to work either because it’ll give too much under our weight and end up looking like a knackered shopping bag after three or four lazy Sundays.

So yes: hardwood, oak preferably. The garden centre didn’t cater for such a ridiculous notion as decent garden furniture but it did have a very comfortable little fabric sun-lounger on show. Of course, me being me, I had to have a go, and I poured myself in like one might tip a jelly out of a mould. It was grand, save for the fact that, thanks to my weight, the fabric pretty much ensconced me like a venus-fly-trap and it soon became clear that I wasn’t going to be able to get back out unassisted. Bearing in mind it was fairly busy and Paul was busy in the candles bit trying to figure out what the fuck ‘A Child’s Wish’ smells like, I had to free myself using only my own steam, especially as I couldn’t swing my legs out as the crotch on the jeans I was wearing had split a few weeks ago and I wasn’t entirely confident I was wearing underwear that wouldn’t have shown my balls to the world.

So – turns out the easiest way is simply to swing to one side and tip the whole lounger over until I was wearing it on my back like a turtle and then throw it off. The whole process was over in less than ten seconds but my face was burning so brightly that I’m surprised Paul’s ‘Felching Remains’ Yankle Candle didn’t set itself away and take out his nosehair. We left immediately, hurtling out of the entrance hiding our faces like a disgraced politician entering court. So that was that.

I’ll need to crack on with the recipe now as the rest of the evening is going to be spent pulling up the god-awful carpet that haunts this house in anticipation of our fabulous new carpet that arrives tomorrow. I genuinely can’t wait. Words cannot describe how god-awful the current one is, it’s no wonder the previous occupant chose to die on the toilet in the bathroom rather than face-down in this shag, you’d never find a body.

So, black bean and quinoa burgers then…

to make the black bean and quinoa burgers you need (makes six burgers):

1 tin of black eyed beans (drained) (Tesco, 55p)
65g quinoa (£2.35 for 300g in Tesco, so I’m calling 50p)
½ red onion (7p)
½ wholemeal roll, made into breadcrumbs (use one from a pack of six and the remainder of the six to put your burgers (65p)
2 cloves of garlic, minced (10p from the bulb you’ve been using for the rest of the recipes)
50ml of lime juice (you can buy a 250ml bottle for 85 – 17p used)
1 egg, whisked
½ tsp cumin (if you’ve got it)
½ tsp chilli flakes (if you’ve got it)
¼ tsp black pepper (if you’ve got it)

34p a burger!

to make the black bean and quinoa burgers , you should:

add the quinoa and 250ml water to a small saucepan and cook over a medium heat for about fifteen minutes (or until nearly all the water is absorbed)
meanwhile, add a tsp of oil to a frying pan over a medium heat and gently sweat the chopped onion until softened
in a large bowl, mix together the quinoa, onion and black beans, egg, breadcrumbs, garlic, lime juice and seasonings
mix by hand, gently mashing the beans with your hands slightly
when mixed, divide the portion into six and shape into burgers – if it feels a little wet you can add more breadcrumbs (though watch the syns!)
heat a large pan over a medium-high heat and add one tbsp of olive oil or squirt your frylight like a boss
cook the burgers for about 4 minutes each side
assemble!

Syn-free as long as you HEB the breadbun. Up to you if you think half a bun between six for the breadcrumbs is worth synning but we’re talking half a syn at most.

to gussy it up:

de-vegetarian the meal – make it with chicken, bacon and dashed hopes
add rocket
add a range of tomatoes

to cheapen it further:

the spices add flavour, but you can make do with a bit of salt and pepper
hmmm…

Enjoy!

Posted by

chubbycubs

Posted on

July 14, 2015

Posted under

bacon, beef, beef mince, burgers, fakeaways, fast food restaurants, low syn, pork, recipe card

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5 Comments

the reuben burger and perfect chips

Bah! Off to a great start with having work done – having left work early, powerminced to my car and drove like a loon to get home in time to clean the skidders off the toilet and to file away the cats before the gas-man turned up…he just didn’t bother to turn up. All he had to do was come over, take away our god-awful fireplace, disconnect the gas and bugger off.

But no. No, he turned off his phone and when I called him this morning, he informed me that ‘he was stuck on a big job’. I resisted the urge to tell him to eat more fibre and fuck off, so I told him primly that his services were no longer needed. He’s a fool, because, given we’re naïve and foolish with money, he could have totally taken advantage, told us we needed to demolish the front of the house to take the fire out, and we would have hurled notes of money at him until he disappeared in his little van. Urgh.

It’s only a very quick post tonight of the recipe as we’re starting to move furniture around ahead of our plasterer coming to sandblast the Artex, so I won’t even push my book. BUT PLEASE BUY IT. PLEASE. I know American week has rumbled on a bit, but damn…the food is so good! These Reuben burgers are delicious – just a few different toppings make a world of difference.

reuben burger

reuben burgers – you’ll need:

your healthy extra bread bun choice
chopped cooked ham
two slices of swiss cheese (Leerdammer lighter – two slices is a HEA)
lettuce
burger sauce (which you can find the recipe for here)
sauerkraut (you can leave these off, but why would you)
5% beef mince (500g)
pepper, salt

and it’s as easy as this:

shape the mince into four decent size burgers
mix in some salt and pepper
grill until cooked
assemble the burger by toasting the bun, smearing the sauce on the bread, adding lettuce, a burger, cheese, a burger, cheese, ham, sauerkraut and the top of the bun.

Easy!

We served ours with chips:

use a decent, ‘wet’ potato, like a Maris Piper
don’t use oil if you’re putting them in an actifry, just use worcestershire sauce
crumble on an Oxo cube
COOK

Heaven! Get an Actifry man, you’ll never look back and you’re a long time dead. What you waiting for? The big one is currently reduced from £250 to £140 on Amazon. Nice.

Posted by

chubbycubs

Posted on

May 9, 2015

Posted under

bacon, breakfast, burgers, dressings, low syn, lunch, mince, pork, poultry, recipe card, salad, syn free, vegan, vegetarian

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11 Comments

BLTE bap, hot tuna salad and larb burger

So here’s the thing. I get a lot of people telling me to write a book, and I’ve always wanted to, but never really had the right idea or the inclination to do research and gain the appropriate knowledge. Then, as it happens, Paul decided to stroke my ego in the car today (and we weren’t pulled over in a layby flashing our interior lights at lorry drivers, which is normally what we’re doing in the car together – honestly, I hope Eddie Stobart’s drivers aren’t epileptic, it looks like an Eighties disco in our car) and told me I really should get on with it. Well, I love writing, I adore writing this blog (for the most part) and because I’m massively egocentric, what better topic to write about than what is happening in our lives? That would be great for me – but boring(ish) for you.

Here’s my idea: I am going to write a book – it’s going to be in the same format as what we’re doing now with the blog posts, but with fictional stuff interwoven amongst the nonsense. It won’t be a slimming book, simply because I don’t want Margaret coming after me with her Lynda la Plante weave all awry and her gang of Slimming World lawyers straining on the leash to do me in for copyright law. But I’ll put a few of my favourite recipes in there too. It’ll be like Bridget Jones Diary, only massively less successful. Renee Zellweger could totally play me though, if she put 180lb on and fell face-first into a fire. Naturally the blog remains at the forefront of my writing, and this side project will be something I’ll be tinkering on with for the next few months. In the meantime, if you fancy reading more of our writing, don’t forget we have a book on Amazon which is an account of our four weeks in Orlando: read about how I spent the first two days of the holiday tinted blue thanks to cheap sunscreen, or how I exposed my not unsubstantial arse to a crowd in a waterpark. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and by paying only £1.20, you’ll keep Paul and I in replacement ped-eggs. That can be found here.

Right, so with that announcement over, let’s start with day four of SP! Tomorrow I’m going to explain SP in a bit more detail and also tell you exactly what I think of it. I’ll give you a clue: I think it’s a load of horse’s arse. And I’m not even going to mark that as a protein, either.

BREAKFAST

BLTE

The E stands for egg (P), obviously. Plus lettuce (S) and tomato (S). There’s not an awful lot to say about this, other than:

we totally didn’t have two each *cough/splutter*
I got Paul out of bed to make this (because I was hungry) by setting off the smoke alarm and then hiding in the kitchen – he came dashing in completely nude like the world’s cuddliest fireman and then proceeded to tell me off for about five minutes, the whole while I’m standing there agreeing solemnly with everything he said and pushing the packet of bacon closer and closer to him. I know one day our actifry is going to burst into flame through overuse and we’ll both perish in the fire because we’ve played too many pranks with the smoke alarm. I bet Paul manages to die with a pious ‘see I told you’ expression on his face
there’s a certain type of wholemeal bread roll you’re allowed – I think it’s a Weight Watchers one – but we only had these little buns in the freezer and after waking Paul up by tricking him into thinking he was in The Towering Inferno, I didn’t have the temerity to tell him to go to the shop…so we just used these. They’re about the same size.

LUNCH

Hot, hot tuna salad

So good I named it twice, see. No, it’s hot in both senses of the word – hot because of the added chilli and also, served hot. Usually tuna salad is served cold and, to someone who doesn’t like fish, isn’t especially appetising. Hell, I’ll make Paul wash Little Paul in the bathroom sink before he gets his birthday gobble.

Christ can I say as an aside I realise that this post is making it sound like Paul has an awful life, like some hairy Little Mo to my Trevor. Honestly, it’s not that bad, no-one needs to call Relate for us just yet. The only time he’s raised an iron in anger is when our ironing lady was off for two weeks having something done with her ovaries. Having them out I think, not wallpapered.

Anyway, yes, tuna salad:

to make hot, hot tuna salad you will need:

several big fuck-off lettuce leaves (S) – I grow mine in the greenhouse and honest to God, it’s like Day of the Triffids in there at the moment. I’m lucky I have a retractable hose-pipe – if I get lost amongst the lettuce, I just pull myself free. Yep. You’ll also need two tins of tuna (P), two large sweet peppers cut into chunks (S), three shallots sliced thinly (S), two tomatoes cut into chunks (S), 1 tsp of black pepper, 1 tsp of garlic salt, 1 tsp of chilli flakes, 1/4 tsp of salt and a bit of oil.

to make hot, hot tuna salad you should:

mix the tuna together with all the spices and salt and set aside
fry the onion and pepper in a dab of oil or some frylight until soft
chuck the tuna in and heat through – why not add a bit of chilli sauce if you like your hoop to look like a deflated liferaft
serve up on the giant lettuce leaves
to eat, fold the lettuce into neat parcels and chew

DETOX WATER

Mandarin

My favourite water so far! It tasted like sunshine in a glass. Well no, not quite, but it’s just one ingredient:

mandarin – which is excellent for vitamin C, which is handy for preventing skin wrinkling.

Don’t forget, if you want a gloriously ostentatious way of serving up your water (and don’t think for a second that come Eurovision night that isn’t going to be full of punch) you can buy one from Amazon. I will say this, we’ve certainly consumed a lot more water since we bought it, but that’s more because I’m such a tight-arse that I’m determined not to lose face and see it consigned to the back of the cupboard along with the lollipop maker and the ravioli crimper.

Haha, crimper.

BODY MAGIC IDEA – GEOCACHING

geocachingday42

Ah geocaching. I’ve rumbled on about geocaching before – it’s essentially a giant treasure hunt where no-one wins. But you don’t need to win a prize to enjoy it, it’s fantastic fun if you’re GIANT NERDS like us. People have hidden containers all over the world (and I’d bet my savings there’s probably at least five within easy walking distance from your house right now) and you use your GPS or an app on your smartphone to find them. Then you sign the book and put it back. It’s a great way of:

livening up a charming walk out in the country; and
making the British public think you’re loitering in the bushes with your knob out ready to strike.

See, part of geocaching is that you have to be subtle – some of the containers are hidden in plain sight, so you have to try and swipe them without people seeing, which can be difficult when you’re stumbling around in the trees like a flannel-shirted rapist. We had a lovely walk around a nature reserve and ended up on one of Northumberland’s fantastic beaches. Just look at that scene above. See, the North is so much more than child-beating and whippets. That picture of the rock at the top – that’s called a disco cache, where the logbook is hidden inside a container designed to look like something completely different. They’re extra hard – I’ve hid caches myself inside golf balls, birds nest and even a fake blob of chewing gum. It’s all free of charge and hey, if you’ve got kids, get them involved too.

Everyone I ever explain geocaching to wrinkles their nose and asks me what is the point, but it’s great fun. You’ll end up enjoying yourself, trust me. Visit www.geocaching.com, pop in your postcode and go and find the closest one to you.

DINNER

Larb burgers

Told you I was getting the use out of my lettuce! Note: I used a carrot and ginger dressing from Tesco on this which works out at almost a syn for two tablespoons. But you can use fat-free vinaigrette if you dare not sacrifice a syn.

to make larb burgers you will need:

500g of turkey mince or three chicken breasts (if you’re using breasts, then you’ll need a mincer – and how often as a gay man do I get to say that?), 3 shallots (S) (one thickly sliced, the other two thinly), 3 cloves of garlic (S), a few lime leaves (get them from Tesco’s world food bit), 1 small stalk of lemongrass, a dash of fish sauce, a bit of ginger (you only need a little knob to really taste it – and how often as a gay man do I get to say that), a lime (S), pickled cabbage (S I think) and the ubiquitous giant lettuce leaves (S).

to make larb burgers you should:

get your food processor or blender or what have you on the go
throw in the thickly cut shallot, garlic, lime leaves, lemongrass, ginger, fish sauce and a pinch of salt and pulse to a paste
add the meat and pulse so it’s nicely mixed up with the spices
shape into six burgers
heat a griddle pan with a drop of oil or some Frylight and get it medium hot
add the burgers and cook hard – you want to get some sear lines into the burger for that classy bitches look
turn over and repeat on the other side – we cooked them for seven minutes each side to really cook them through – always be careful with chicken
if they look a bit dry, throw some lime juice into the pan
in the same griddle pan, put the finely sliced shallots in to fry off in the juice of the meat and lime
once cooked through, assemble onto the lettuce leaves, add some pickled cabbage and the shallots, and serve (you can add dressing if you want, I found it wasn’t necessary.

Enjoy! Oooh it’s like you in a tropical paradise, right?

DAY FOUR DONE.

Posted by

chubbycubs

Posted on

April 23, 2015

Posted under

airfryer, burgers, fakeaways, recipe card, syn free

Comments

4 Comments

kangaroo burger with fries

Only a teensy tiny post tonight as Paul is out gallivanting and I’m stuck at work – so I’m activating a saved post! Enjoy!

Actually, not much to say about this recipe aside from the burger – we bought it from www.musclefood.com where we previously got a big old box of chicken. Delivery was quick and the meat really has been second to none. The kangaroo burger has languished at the back of the freezer and we thought, well why not? Let me tell you – it was very tasty! You could hoy a beefburger in here just as easy. It’s syn free, very lean meat and chucked in a bun with tomato, onion, rocket and a slice of cheese it made for a good tea. Cook it under the grill for around fifteen minutes until the juices run clear. If Musclefood float your boat, order using this link and you’ll get four free chicken breasts. Goodness! Remember, HEB for the bun, HEA for the cheese.

The fries were easier still – just cut them thin, drop of oil, a bit of salt and into the Actifry. Same effect could be made from doing them in the oven!

Finally, if you’re a fan of the snazzy little (wanky) chip pan, you can pick up a pack of four here. All you need to complete the gastropub experience is a giant plate with a tiny bit of crackling and a tiny period of cranberry sauce on it. Yum!