Category Archives: fakeaways

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 6, 2015

Posted under

beef, beef joints, british, fakeaways, low syn, recipe card, sauces

roast beef with french onion gravy

BEFORE I BEGIN. We have a major backlog of comments. I turned off notifications for the blog when I went away on holiday, forgot to turn them back on and just noticed I’ve got 78 comments to approve. Oops. If you have commented and you’re sitting there thinking what a rude fucker I am for not replying, I apologise profusely. I’ll work through them. OK? So calm down!

Gosh. Finally something to do with that slab of beef I’ve had chilling in the kitchen going a bit green. Yes, I set him to work cooking some roast beef for ma dinner. BOOM. He deserves to be put to work, anyway, for the cheeky crack he made about me in my new coat, which zips right up to under my chins. Upon seeing me (and remembering that I’m especially bearded at the moment) in my fancy new coat, he told me my ‘face looked like a seventies porno muff’. Nice!

I’m spending the evening looking at hotels and bits and bobs to do in Iceland. We’ve decided to give Air B&B a go. 

I know, I know. We’re asking for trouble. 

I’ve always wanted to stay at a B&B, because they’re usually somewhere beautiful and it doesn’t quite feel like you’re sleeping in the jizz-dust of 1,000 businessmen that have literally come before you. But I just can’t. For one, I have a shit poker face, and if I was shown into a room and I didn’t like it, the disappointment avalanching across my ashen face would immediately make me an enemy of the host and she’d spit in my breakfast. I can’t bear chintz and flimflam and unnecessary accessories (although that would make a good band name, no?) either, so unless it was a perfectly sterile room decorated in tiny nice things, I’d feel uncomfortable. Then there’s the small talk – I don’t want to be fussed over as I try not to die in my morning coffee or asked where I’m going / how I’m getting there or tutted at when I don’t take my boots off. I’d spend the entire time away agonising over any little offence I may have caused that I’d simply need another holiday afterwards to relax. 

That said, I did once see a B&B on Four in a Bed where about two hundred cats roamed the property and it was pretty much a guarantee that you’d end up in bed with a hairy Persian sitting on your face – and well, that sounds good to me.

Speaking of cats, we took ourselves off to Mog on the Tyne (what can I say, I’m a sucker for puns – I’d eat my dinner in a clap clinic if it was given a pun for a name…something like Spotted Dicks or The Leaky Bucket) a couple of weeks ago. Mog on the Tyne is Newcastle’s first cat café and, with a rare afternoon off, Paul and I decided to try it. 

It’s brilliant. The food is basic café food – paninis, quiche, brownies et al – but the focus lies squarely on the ten or so cats that mill around the place, fighting, purring or – as is always the case with me – showing their bumholes as you try to finish your brownie. The café is fitted out with all sorts of toys, climbing frames and beds and the cats seem perfectly content – of course they are, they’re getting made a fuss of. You have to pay a fiver each for entry (which is unusual, because in the Bigg Market, usually it only takes a Blue WKD and a ten-deck of Lambert and Butler to be guaranteed entry) (sorry) which pays towards the upkeep of the cats, and the food is reasonable quality. It was a charming way to spend an hour and I’d heartily recommend it if you’re a cat fan. Of course, if you’re not a cat fan, then you have other options available, such as having a quiet word with yourself regarding the direction your life has taken. Our favourite cat was seemingly everyone else’s – a beast of a pussy called Stan who had suffered a nasty road accident. Aye, he took the bend at Billy Mill roundabout at 50mph in a Ford Capri and lost control. 

No, he got run over and although he’s fine now, he’s unable to put his tongue in his mouth, meaning he has a permanently dopey expression. I’ve shamelessly stolen a picture from another blog because all of my photos look like I’ve taken them using a potato (credit to fragglerocking.com – click here to read their report).

stan-fraggle

Now then! You can find more details on Mog on the Tyne at their website – www.mogonthetyne.com – give them a go!

Of course, the bonus of visiting Mog on the Tyne was that as soon as we got back, our cats were all over us like flies on muck. I felt like a husband cheating on his missus, especially as the cats kept sniffing the end of my fingers and recoiling (which to be fair, I do myself). Awkward.

Right, tonight’s recipe.

roast beef with french onion gravy

to make roast beef with french onion gravy, you’re gonna need:

  • 1kg beef (silverside or topside) – tip if you’re a tightarse, scour the reduced sections in your supermarket on Monday morning, they’ll always be shifting beef
  • 8 small carrots or four large ones or two massive carrots or one carrot as big as your leg – chopped

Sorry, can I just jump in here and say how much I hate logging onto Slimming World’s website to check syns? It’s the ‘Log in and Love It’ slogan. Love what? Using a website that acts and feels like it was built back when geocities was a thing? Love typing ‘olive oil’ into the syns checker and getting nothing but typing ‘artisanal rice crackers’ and getting Tesco’s entire stock inventory? Fucks sake.

  • 1 celery stick, chopped
  • 170ml white wine (6 syns)
  • 600ml beef stock
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 500g brown onions
  • 1 tsp honey (1 syn)
  • 3 sprigs of thyme
  • 1 tbsp corn flour (1 syn)

Shit the bed! Eight syns! Yes, but the syns all belong in the gravy and unless you’re going to be drinking from the gravy boat, you’ll not get anywhere near eight syns. Hell, this serves 4 anyway. So calm down.

to make roast beef with french onion gravy, like a big bloody pansy, you should:

  • preheat the oven to 160 degrees and heat a large casserole dish
  • lube up your meat with a little oil and plenty of salt and pepper
  • pack your meat in the warm, waiting dish and return to the oven to brown for about ten minutes
  • meanwhile, spray a frying pan with a little Frylight and fry the carrots and celery for ten minutes, and it’s alright to spend five minutes shaking your fist at the sky at a cruel God who decided celery should be a thing
  • plop your meat out of the pan, and slap it to one side
  • pour the wine into the casserole dish and boil for two minutes over a high heat
  • pour in the stock, return the beef and add the carrots, celery and bay leaves – you’ll feel like such a posh fucker using bay leaves
  • cover and return to cook in the oven for two hours, turning the meat halfway – you don’t need to wait at the oven until exactly sixty minutes to turn it, this isn’t The Cube
  • meanwhile, thinly slice the onions and heat a little oil in a large frying pan
  • stir in the onions, thyme and seasoning to taste
  • cover and cook gently for twenty minutes on a low heat until the onions are soft but not coloured (racist)
  • remove the lid, increase the heat and add a little more oil and the honey and cook the onions until they caramelise, stirring often
  • remove the thyme sprigs, brush the cat’s teeth with them or something
  • when the beef is ready remove from the casserole dish and leave to rest
  • reheat the onion mixture, stir in the corn flour and cook for one minute
  • mix the onions into the casserole dish to make a thick gravy – you’ll want it thick enough that it runs down the side of your meat and makes your tatties sticky
  • slice the beef and pour the gravy over the top – now, if you’re not good at slicing meat, let someone competent do it – Paul cuts meat like he’s shaving a fucking ice-sculpture with a chainsaw – we only get two slices a pop from our sourdough
  • serve with a fabulous selection of superfree food, or, in our case, more roasties than ten decent people would eat

Get it down you!

J

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

October 5, 2015

Posted under

dips, fakeaways, fast food restaurants, indian, low syn, lunch, recipe card, salad, sandwiches, savoury snacks, snacks, taster ideas

curried chicken salad

Let’s see if we can actually do a quick post. No waffle. Tonight’s meal idea is actually good for a quick lunch, or for hoying onto a jacket tatty for a quick dinner. Not a fan of celery? Leave it out and put a bit of chopped onion in. Don’t like curried things? Well, tricky, but add paprika instead. Not a fan of me? Then simply kiss my arse. Doing well on the 85 recipes deal mind!

curried chicken salad

to make curried chicken salad, you’ll need:

  • 85g fat free natural yoghurt
  • 20g dried apricots, chopped
  • 3/4 tsp curry powder
  • juice from 1/2 lime
  • pinch of cayenne pepper
  • pinch of salt
  • 2 chicken breasts, cooked and chopped (we got 13 breasts in our box from Musclefood)
  • 2 celery sticks, chopped
  • 3 spring onions, chopped
  • 1/2 mango, chopped

A little tip – chop everything up nice and fine – small chunks are always better.

and to make curried chicken salad, simply:

  • mix together the yoghurt, apricots, curry powder, lime juice, cayenne pepper and salt in a small bowl and set aside
  • in a large bowl mix together the chicken, celery, spring onions and mango
  • pour the dressing mixture over the chicken and toss to coat
  • serve on whatever you like!

DONE. Still 200 words mind! 🙁

J

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

October 4, 2015

Posted under

breast, fakeaways, indian, kebab shop, poultry, recipe card, rice

tandoori chicken with roasted romanesco

Roasted Romanesco sounds like the title of a high-class porno, doesn’t it? Join sweet Romanesco as she joins college and gets more than her timetable filled.

Christ, I should write the next 50 Shades of Grey.

Anyway, only a quick entry tonight (see previous sentence) as we’re doing boring domestic things like ironing and re-messing-up our candle drawer, and I only wish that was a joke. 

We’ve spent the day being entirely middle-class and fussy. First we washed the car in what must have been the least erotic car-wash vista imagined – I can’t imagine the sight of Paul and I clad in bubbles and shrieking and screaming our way through cleaning the car with a jet washer would float anyone’s boat, although judging by the search terms people use to find the blog, maybe we’re in the wrong business. Afterwards, I made a tomato sauce from the glut of tomatoes that have fallen onto the greenhouse floor since we went away on holiday – I slide the door open and it’s like I’m on Fun House, slipping and sliding. Then, off to the garden centre where we bought some Christmas cards (!) and a trillion more candles. Finally, off to Alnwick for a drink in a pub whose atmosphere was so forgettable the name already escapes me. There were lots of people clacking dominos though. We ended the day in Barter Books, which is a giant secondhand bookshop in what used to be the old train station. It’s a great shop – all the books smell foisty and everyone looks like they’re on at least two registers, but we normally come away with a car load of books and a scent we can’t shift from our shirts.

Not today though. Gutted – I’m forever reading and I’m certainly not picky as to the content – I’ll cheerfully sit on the netty for a good twenty minutes reading the back of the bog cleaner, but nothing took our fancy. Bookshops are a swizz anyway, they’re full of people who all desperately want to look at the low-rent stuff like JK Rowling and Stephen King, but instead feel the need to stand there stroking their facepubes and nodding at a book about the sewing trends of 1900s’ Liechtenstein. I, hand-on-heart, heard a lass say to her boyfriend (using both of those syllables exceptionally generously) that ‘would he really want a cookbook with pictures?’. She spat out the ‘…with pictures’ bit like he’d picked up a book about how best to chargrill newborn babies. Oh fuck off. Fuck off with your look-at-me hair and the same ‘unique and individual’ tattoo style that I’ve seen on countless other mouthbreathers clattering out of Newcastle University. So pretentious. I almost spat out my organic lapsang souchong into the section on Armenian cooking.

Perhaps that was what put me in such a fettle that we left without any books. We cheered ourselves up by making a quick stopover on the way home to look close-up at the giant golfball up on the moors. This thing:

Cloudy_Crags_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1497819

We (my sister and I) used to ask my parents what it was every time we were taken on our bi-monthly trip to Seahouses to eat chips, have the back of our legs slapped and play in the arcade. We were never told, so it’s always been a mystery to me. To be fair, my parents were probably tired of us telling them to floor it down ‘the bumpy road’ (which Paul and I did – the DS3 was in the air so long someone came out of the boot with a trolley of cigarettes and perfume) or asking where we were going. Their reply to that question was always ‘there and back to see how far it is’. How infuriating. Anyway, it’s an RAF listening station or something. Naturally, being keen explorers, we managed to find a little road which, after many ignored signs, took us all the way to the entrance. However, naturally, being cowardly British people, we didn’t want to cause any fuss by asking the armed guard what the deal was, so we promptly span the car around and thundered back to the main road. And, remember, we’d just cleaned the car. BASTARDS.

Anyway christ man, I said a quick entry, and I’ve spent 700 words telling you about a trip to a bookshop. I’m such a tart.

Tonight’s recipe is tandoori chicken, served with onion rice and roasted romanesco. Romanesco is that pretty vegetable that looks like a crazy science experiment but you can swap it out easily enough for broccoli or cauliflower. Roasting any veg in spices makes it tasty. FACT.

tandoori chicken slimming world

to make tandoori chicken, you’ll need:

  • juice of 1 lemon
  • 2 tsp paprika
  • 1/2 red onion, chopped
  • 2 chicken breasts (remember, you can get loads of chicken as part of our meat deal! CLICK HERE)
  • 150g fat-free greek style yoghurt
  • 1/2 inch piece of ginger, grated
  • 2 garlic cloves, crushed
  • 1/3 tsp garam masala
  • 1/3 tsp ground cumin
  • 1/4 tsp chilli powder
  • pinch of turmeric

for the rice:

  • the other half of the red onion
  • enough basmati rice to fill your belly
  • handful of frozen peas
  • pinch of turmeric

for the romanesco:

  • one large romanesco
  • pinch of mustard seeds, cumin, salt, pepper, garam masala
  • thumb sized knob of ginger
  • few squirts of olive oil spray

to make tandoori chicken, then:

  • FOR THE RICE: cook the onion, throw the peas into the same pan and add a bit of turmeric – cook your rice at the same time, then mix it all together
  • FOR THE ROMANESCO: chop it up into little florets, put on an oven tray, squirt with a bit of oil (syn it if you want, but we’re talking less than a syn), cover with spices, shake, and bake in the oven for thirty minutes or so at 180 degrees
  • FOR THE TANDOORI CHICKEN: mix together the lemon juice and paprika
  • cut three slashes into each chicken breast and place in a large, shallow dish
  • pour the juice mixture over the chicken, add the chopped onion and toss well to combine, and set aside
  • meanwhile, mix together the yoghurt, ginger, garlic, garam masala, cumin, chilli powder and turmeric
  • mix together the mixture with the chicken and toss well to coat, leave to marinade for at least an hour, but as we all know, the longer the better
  • when you’re ready to roll, preheat the grill to medium high and cook the chicken until charred and no pink meat remains, turning halfway through

Done! I’m going to have to really work on this ‘quick post’ business, aren’t I?

J

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

October 3, 2015

Posted under

breast, chinese, fakeaways, low syn, noodles, panko, poultry, recipe card, rice, speciality ingredients

bang bang chicken – sort of

Just a recipe post tonight (remember we promised you eighty five recipes before Christmas, and I’ll be fucked if I’m going to let you down) (can’t you have comfort eating and blaming me, can we?). Doctor Who is already waiting to be watched, though I’ve managed to pause the TV on an especially filthy moment from Strictly Come Dancing. Here’s a wee fact for you – I’ve never seen more than five minutes of that show. I can’t bear dancing – either dancing myself or watching others – and the idea of watching someone who was a market inspector in Eastenders in the nineties cha-cha-chaing doesn’t set my blood pumping. Strictly Come Dancing? Strictly Fuck Off. 

So, slimming world style bang bang chicken then. Ours didn’t turn out exactly right – it’s supposed to be more of a glaze as opposed to the gonorrheah-esque ‘sauce’ that appears in the photo below. It’s tasty, though.

bang bang chicken

to make slimming world bang bang chicken, you’ll need:

and to make slimming world bang bang chicken, you should:

  • in a small bowl, mix together the yoghurt, sriracha, rice vinegar, paprika and onion powder with 2 tbsp of water (the water is needed to thin the sauce so it makes a shiny glaze rather than a creamy mixture – as ours did!) and set aside
  • in another bowl, mix together the egg and milk
  • in yet another shallow dish, mix together the flour, breadcrumbs, salt, pepper, garlic and basil
  • spread the chicken out onto a clean tea towel and pat dry
  • in small batches dip the chicken into the egg mixture and then the breadcrumbs, and set aside on a plate
  • heat a large saucepan over a medium high heat and spray with a little firelight
  • cook the chicken until golden
  • place the cooked chicken into a large bowl and pour the sauce mixture over the top – toss well to coat
  • serve with rice and peas and sprinkle some spring onions on top – oh how classy!

Easy. I know 97% of you won’t share this but the 3% of those with a heart will!!!!111111

J

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

October 2, 2015

Posted under

fakeaways, low syn, mince, poultry, quark, recipe card, speciality ingredients

slimming world ikea meatballs and gravy

Not going to lie – these were bloody amazing! My favourite bit about going to IKEA, other than causing arguments amongst other couples and farting in cupboards, is getting a plate full of meatballs and chips. I don’t care that the meatballs are probably made from reindeer anus and chipboard, they taste delicious and I’d cheerfully bathe in the gravy. Even the addition of that shitty bit of parsley doesn’t ruin my meal like it normally does, now that I know it serves a purpose (the size of the parsley sprig is used to signify whether you have a large, medium or small portion of meatballs, so that the cashier doesn’t have to count how many meatballs you’ve got!). So Paul was tasked with doing a bit of research and we’ve managed to find a recipe and tailor it so it is possible on Slimming World. Nevermind a platinum Body Magic sticker, I frankly think we should be given an OBE each. Scroll down for the recipe, but if you want, stick around for a bit beforehand – I’ve got more to tell you about our trip to Corsica…

…when I last signed off, we were asleep with a puck of beef resting in our stomach. I reckon it’s still in there. We woke ridiculously early to give us enough time to walk the 27 miles to the Pod, only to have to walk back and get a code from reception before they’d open the gates. Nothing says ‘home comforts’ like a prison gate to get out of your hotel. The Pod remained amazing and we were in Terminal 5 in moments. I’ve never flown from Heathrow despite having done a fair bit of travelling, so it was all very new and exciting. Ah wait no, sorry, it was dull and tedious. I know airports are never the most exciting of places, but I get the impression that unless you were minted, the terminal wasn’t really for you. It’s still better than Newcastle Airport mind, but that’s more due to the fact Newcastle Airport consists of a couple of bars, a duty free shop and some toilets that haven’t been cleaned since the days of me being an early teenager and buying condoms from the machine on the wall because my then-f’buddy was too worried. Ha! Plus it’s invariably full of at least 2,000 pissed up Geordies who think they’re sophisticated because they’ve got a Stella Artois moustache at 4.30am in the morning. Oh honestly you know I’m right.

We decided on a light breakfast in The Pilot’s Lounge, so-called because I went up-a-height when I saw the price. The waitress – a smile wearing a tabard and sensible shoes – forgot to give me my pot of tea, my toast and my hash-brown. It’s alright though, I forgot to give her a tip, so that balances things. You know how I can’t go anywhere without immediately discovering a new enemy? I’d barely buttered Paul’s toast when I overheard an American chap behind me LOUDLY telling everyone south of Manchester how ‘TERRABUL’ the coffee was in England. Oh it was just ‘AWFUL’ (though he was strangling every vowel as he spoke). I couldn’t eat my breakfast because my teeth were grinding so hard diamonds were falling out of my nose. I’m a proper moaner, don’t get me wrong, but I’m awfully British about it – I’ll twist my face to Paul about something that has upset me, but I’ll wait six months and bring it up in the bath or something. He went on – it was all I could do not to hurl Paul’s tea in his oily face. Listen, I’ve been to America and I’ve had what passes for coffee there – it looks, smells and tastes like what I’ve bled out of my radiators. When he wasn’t moaning he was hacking away, coughing up phlegm like it was jet-fuel. No discreet coughs into a hanky for this chap, no, he preferred to let us listen to his chest echo and rattle. No wonder the coffee didn’t taste good, chum, it has to sink through eight yards of lungbutter to get to your stomach. Fucker. 

Having finished breakfast and realised to our absolute horror that there wasn’t so much as an arcade for me to throw a month’s wage into, we settled down for the two hours before our flight. Thankfully, I had my new phone, old phone and iPad to entertain me, so I just sat on one of the departure lounge chairs with them spread out in front of me like I was on the lowest budget version of 24 you could imagine. Paul ate a Toblerone. OF COURSE, though, the horsefucker from the restaurant was on our flight. Of course! So we had two hours of boredom punctuated by him mining for phlegm. Lovely. My sigh of relief when they opened the gate almost blew the Newcastle to London Cityjet service over. The good thing about flying British Airways is the allocated seating – I can’t bear the undignified scramble for seats you get with the likes of easyJet and Ryanair. I don’t understand it – it’s not as if the flight attendants are going to auction off the spare seats if you’re not jammed in the bloody doorway one minute after the gate opens. 

We promptly boarded the plane and, as expected, immediately brought the average age of the passengers on board down by around thirty years – everyone, to an absolute fault, was ancient. I wouldn’t have been surprised if British Airways had removed the back toilet and fitted an onboard crematorium. Normally I watch the safety demonstration like my life depends on it (boom boom) but I didn’t bother – it was clear from the amount of creaking hips and whistling hearing aids that if the engine had caught fire and we needed to evacuate post-haste, both Paul and I would perish in the flames whilst Elsie in 22A blocked the aisle putting her good teeth in and trying to get the inflatable slide to come out of the toilet door. We did have a chuckle when the exceptionally posh older chap sitting behind us dropped something on the floor and burst out with the loudest ‘FUCK’ I’ve ever heard. My ears were still rippling as we flew over Nice. I love it when posh folk swear with gusto. 

The pilot came on the radio (you’d think that would make it hard to grip) and announced that it would be a smooth flight all the way to Corsica and that it was gorgeous and sunny. Excellent! I like to hear the hairs on my leg crinkle when I get off the plane when I’m on holiday. Go hot or go home, or something like that. I don’t know the hip sayings, I’m in my thirties now. Oh fuck I’m old.

As usual when I fly, I spent the entire time on the runway thinking about how it would feel if my face was burned off when the fuel tank exploded or what sound the bones in my leg would make as they were concertinaed by the crumpling metal of a crashing 737, but as soon as we were airborne I was fine and only concerned with making sure I didn’t miss out on the onboard snack, which turned out to be a croissant I could have shaved with and a plastic cup of orange water. Delicious! I still ate every last crumb whilst moaning about it to Paul. Our flight attendant was charming but looked like Missy from Doctor Who, which was a little alarming, because I did expect her to wrest the controls from the pilot and ditch us into the sea. 

The flight itself was uneventful, bar for a tiny bout of turbulence as we flew over the bottom of France which shook a few pair of dentures loose, and we disembarked in Figari after only two hours. Figari Airport is absolutely tiny and only seems to appear once the plane is low enough for me to look for a four-leaf clover amongst the grass. It was in no time at all that we were off the plane and through what was ostensibly called security but actually amounted to nothing more than a very handsome Frenchman saying bonjour to me and oppressing his smirk at my bong-eyed passport photo. Paul held us up with his pressing need to have a poo as soon as we arrive anywhere new (I touched on this when I wrote about our visit to Germany – it’s like a nervous tic he has) and we were forced to wait behind M. Physema in the AVIS car hire queue.

The car hire process was unpleasant, not least because I had to listen to the guy in front churning his lungs for a good thirty minutes before we got anywhere. The unpleasant shrew behind the counter barked at me in what I’m not even sure was French, hurled a set of paperwork at me like I’d murdered her child and then spat in the general direction of a trillion parked cars and sent me on my way. I don’t think I managed one word other than a cheery bonjour which might have caused her ire. We trundled our suitcases down to the little garage only for someone else to shout inexplicably at us. At this point, we were a little deflated, and when someone finally drove a car around to us my spirits didn’t lift. It was a Peugeot 208. A new one, yes, but I’ve had farts with better acceleration. Plus, Paul and I are big guys and a tiny car doesn’t quite suit our ample frames – I’ve never had to pour myself into a car like a glob of wax in a lava-lamp. Nevermind. They clearly hadn’t cleaned the car either given there was someone’s chewed off fingernail sitting on the dash. I made a mental note to leave a skidmark on the back seat and cracked on.

We didn’t have the language skills to argue or beg a better car, plus I got the impression that had I gone back to the rental desk and complained, my face would have been taken off by the tongue of the angry pickled Nana Mouskouri lookalike behind the desk. So we set off, slowly. Oh so slowly. The road away from Figari airport takes you up a fairly steep hill and clearly I overstretched the car because it stalled on the first hill. Superb! Thankfully I was so distracted by trying to master driving this shitbox that I forgot all my worries about driving on the right, which was a relief given I’d built it up into being a terrifying experience in my mind.

Actually, a serious note. If you’re nervous about driving on the other side of the road, don’t be. It comes very naturally – the only thing of concern were the roundabouts, of which there are many, and the fact that absolutely no fucker indicates. Not one! Joining a roundabout becomes a terrifying guessing game of intentions and given the average Corsican drives like the interior of their car is on fire and they’ve got a mouthful of petrol, you really do just need to take your time.

Yes, the driving leaves a lot to be desired (or, another view, they all know the roads so well that they know where they can afford to take chances) – quite often on a mountain pass you’ll be faced with someone hurtling towards you in a little Renault, fag in one hand, phone in the other, steering the car with their blanket of chest hair, leaving you with the choice of a solid wall on one side of the road and nothing but air on the other. Best of all is the look of absolute astonishment that they’ve found someone coming towards them on the opposite side of the road. I’m not a religious man but there were more than a few times I just shut my eyes and prayed for the best. It’s not uncommon for someone to overtake you on a blind corner or on the crest of a hill and to blur alongside the car shouting something terrible. I finally discovered what it must feel like to have me driving up behind you effing and jeffing. What am I like. Our villa awaited, but my fingers are bleeding now, so I’ll stop for the night. Here’s the recipe!

IKEA meatballs

Note that we served this with mashed potatoes, rainbow carrots and tenderstem broccoli. We’re making a bit of an effort with our 1/3 speed rule and if we come up with a fancy recipe for anything like that, I’ll be sure to include it.

to make IKEA meatballs and gravy, you’ll need:

  • 500g turkey mince
  • ½ tsp nutmeg
  • 1 tsp each of oregano, paprika and rosemary
  • 1 clove of garlic, minced
  • 1 tbsp parsley, chopped
  • 2 tbsp quark
  • 450ml stock (made with 2 beef stock cubes)
  • salt
  • pepper
  • 1 tbsp of cornflour (4.5 syns)
  • 1 tsp mustard powder
  • 1 tbsp worcestershire sauce

Don’t sweat it too much regarding the herbs. Go for fresh, always better, but dried is fine! I’m going to call it 1 syn – you don’t use all of the gravy, but it’s up to you.

to make IKEA meatballs and gravy, you should:

  • sort out your sides – potatoes, broccoli, the gayest carrots in the world, whatever you like
  • in a bowl mix together the mince, half the nutmeg, rosemary, oregano, paprika, garlic, salt, pepper and half the parsley then divide the mixture and roll to make about thirty meatballs
  • spray a large frying pan with a little Frylight and cook the meatballs until cooked through and browned – better to cook them nice and hot to get a brown crust – urgh, crust
  • transfer the meatballs to a plate to rest and let the meatballs pan cool a little…then…
  • add the quark and 2 tbsp of the stock
  • mix well until the quark is softened and melted
  • add the mustard powder, worcestershire sauce, the rest of the nutmeg and cornflour
  • mix well until you have a smooth, thick paste
  • add the rest of the stock and cook over a low heat, stirring continuously, until it thickens (you can gradually increase the heat if you wish to speed the process up, but be a kind and gentle lover and watch for signs of the mixture splitting)
  • transfer the meatballs to the pan to warm through
  • serve!

If you feel the need to have a hot-dog for dessert to complete the IKEA experience, I won’t judge.

Though, I’m always judging.

J

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

September 30, 2015

Posted under

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

sundried tomato and cheesy spinach pasta

Well, I did promise you a competition, didn’t I? Admittedly, you’re not going to drive away with a brand new car whose axles you could grind to dust, or a supermarket dash around Aldi (where after five minutes, you could easily pull together £12.75 worth of produce) – instead I’m giving you a chance  to fill your freezer with syn-free meat. Well, maybe not fill, but it certainly touch the sides. I can’t be held responsible if you’re a bit gappy. A smidge welly-top, if you will.

MEATCOMPETITION

So, how does this work? Easy! First, click the image above. You’ll be taken to our facebook page, where all you need to do is like the image (like the page first if you’re not already a fan, and if that’s the case, shame on you!), share it with friends or via a group, and leave a comment with your favourite twochubbycubs recipe – simple as that! In two weeks time we’ll pick a random name and make contact, and we’ll get a lovely box of meat delivered to you just as quick as you like. You remember our deal? All the meat above for £40, a perfect bargain! You can find recipes to use with every bit of meat by clicking here and you can order a box yourself by clicking here! EASY.

Right, that’s quite enough of that.

Today has been a weirdly emotional day with various odds and sods. Not emotional for me because I have all the depth and emotional range of a postbox, but certainly dealing with others. I’m no good at dealing with people who are upset, especially when they’re people I actually like, so I’ve most of the day with a face like I’m shitting out pinecones and avoiding making conversation. I watch other people who seem to know exactly the right thing to say to console people, and I do try my best, but I always end up putting my foot in it, saying something awful or making it worse. It’s like when someone brings in a baby and everyone descends to coo and go ‘oooh, isn’t he/she lovely’. I don’t like babies and because I’ve got the empathy of an introverted rock, I just go and hide in the toilets. So not only do people think I’m coldhearted but that I’ve also got the skitters. At least they stay away.

Today was actually my first full day back, too. I’m lucky in that I enjoy my job, I really do, and the people are for the most part charming and lovely, but I’d still (like everyone else, I imagine) sooner be sunning my back-hair on a nice beach somewhere. You always imagine that a holiday will result in you coming back to the office refreshed and full of vim, whereas I actually find myself sulking for a good two weeks about ‘what could have been’.

sundried tomato and cheesy spinach pasta

Tonight’s recipe is unusual in that we didn’t manage to take a photo because we tucked in too quick, story of our lives. You’ll have to imagine what it looks like – a tomatoey, creamy pasta with all the taste and wonder you come to expect from our recipes. It serves four and works out at half a syn per portion, thanks to the dried sundried tomatoes. Dried tomatoes are cracking – just bring them back to life by chucking them in some boiling water for ten minutes or so. Because there’s no picture, I’ll just park this picture here instead. I’ve just got no idea what it is. Yep.

xehwgLr

you’re going to be needing this:

  • 250g dried tagliatelle
  • 5 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
  • 28g sun dried tomatoes, chopped
  • 1 tin of chopped tomatoes
  • 3 tbsp tomato puree
  • 120g 0% fat natural yoghurt
  • 50g fromage frais
  • 50g baby spinach
  • dried chilli flakes

got that? fabulous – you should then do this:

  • bring a large pan of water to the boil and add the tagliatelle and cook that motherfucker until it’s superbly al-dente (don’t cook it until it’s Al Murray mind), then drain and keep aside 250ml of the pasta water
  • in a bowl mix together the yoghurt and fromage frais and set aside
  • in a small pan heat a little oil or pffffrylight and add the garlic and sundried tomatoes (up to you if you want to bring them back to life in some boiling water beforehand) and cook for about two minutes
  • reduce the heat to low and add the chopped tomatoes and puree and mix well
  • remove from the heat, leave to cool for a few minutes and add the yoghurt and fromage frais in small amounts until well mixed. If you add the yoghurt in whilst it is still really warm, it’ll split. It will taste fine, yes, but it will look like the contents of a pair of knickers wedged behind the toilet in a Yates Wine Lodge
  • cook the tomato mixture over a low heat for a few minutes until warmed through
  • add salt and pepper to taste and the spinach and gently cook until wilted
  • add the mixture to the cooked pasta, add the reserved water slowly to your own preference and mix well
  • serve and top with the red chilli flakes

This is pretty much just cook the pasta, cook everything else, and mix together. It’s not a flash harry dinner, but you know, it tastes good and it hits the spot, so what more do you want from me? BLOOD? Screw you!

J

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

September 6, 2015

Posted under

beef, chinese, diced beef, fakeaways, low syn, noodles, recipe card, rice, steak

Mongolian beef

Firstly, big welcome to all the new subscribers! I’ve noticed one hell of a spike over the weekend – good to see you all! I hope you’re fans of knob gags and decent food, because that’s what you’ll be getting. Something I keep meaning to mention – if you leave a comment and I don’t reply or it doesn’t appear immediately, don’t worry, I’ve seen it – I’m just not at my desk to reply to it! But I always get around to it and because I’m an arrogant lover, I like hearing from you all. So, you know…

Here, can we all agree that the silly woman in that bloody Oral B advert can fuck right off with her ‘go pro with my toothpaste’ schtick? It’s been a long time since an advert annoyed me so. I can’t decide if it’s because of the way she delivers her lines like one of those gap-yah knobbers who inflect every syllable upwards like they’re asking questions, or whether it’s because we’re supposed to give the shiniest of shites about her dentist appointment? Perhaps it’s the fact SHE HAS NO FUCKING TOOTHPASTE ON HER BRUSH WHEN SHE’S BRUSHING HER TEETH. Plus the toothpaste must have one hell of an anaesthetic in it given she seems to paralyse one side of her face after brushing, the smug twatapotamus that she is. Anyway.

Today’s been the first quiet day in a long while, hence you’re getting a blog post. Yesterday we had to have our electrician around as an emergency because the bathroom lights (installed three years ago) had been merrily trying to set the house on fire. Drama! That’s all fixed, but I could have done without him knocking on the door at 9am (instead of the agreed 10.30am) as it meant I had to go from fast-asleep to fresh-faced within twenty seconds. Those days are behind me – I look like I’ve fallen face-first into a fire for a good half hour in the morning until I’ve freshened up with a shower and four tankards of coffee.

Lucky I didn’t have morning glory, though I suppose could have given him somewhere to hang his cabling. He barrelled into the bathroom before I had a chance to check whether Paul had left one of his trademark ‘freshly-ploughed field’ skidders on the toilet, so I just went back to bed and left Paul to deal with any potential embarrassment. We’ve had top luck with all of our ‘tradespeople’ so far, luckily. Certainly no-one has felt they’ve needed to do the whole ‘TITS AND FOOTBALL’ chatter that never washes with us, although I did manage to embarrass myself with the joiner who has been fitting out our wardrobes by asking him if he had wood. I should have just committed and leered at him instead of letting the tops of my ears go red.

So today we’ve had a lie-in – well, Paul did, I got woken up by one of the cats who, yet again, decided that the very first thing I needed to see when I woke up was her puckered bumhole glaring at me as she fussed about on the duvet. It’s not fair, Paul would sleep through a gas explosion whereas I wake up if someone sighs in Darlington. I reckon Sola knows that and decided that 9am was when she wanted her food, so I needed to be up. Ah well. After two hours of me making increasingly loud noises in the kitchen, Paul rolled out of bed and we were on our way to the cat and dog shelter.

Regular readers will know that Paul and I regularly walk dogs at our local cat and dog shelter, Brysons. It’s an easy way to get a bit of body magic and the dogs bloody love it. Brysons do amazing work with so little funding so we’re happy to help, plus we had a bucketload of extra donated food that my work had put in for, so all was great. We were given this little beauty:

tansie

Aww. I’m not a fan of small dogs – especially yappy breeds – but she was adorable, even if I did pick her up for a photo only for her to lick so excitedly at my face that her tongue actually went into my mouth. I don’t know who came off worse in that situation frankly, but if the bitch doesn’t buy me some flowers and arrange a second date I’ll be fizzing.

After the dog was walked, we decided (against better judgement) to have a spin out in the car and go to Dalton Park, which is a local outlet centre. We apparently didn’t learn our lesson from our jaunt to Royal Quays, which was incredibly disappointing (link opens in a new window). We need some new shoes, shorts and shirts before we go to Corsica, and apparently there is a Cotton Traders there which is suitable for our vast frames.

Well, honestly. What a heap of shite. For one thing, it was absolutely rammed to the point where we were struggling to park – and this was at 3.30pm on a Sunday afternoon. Who the hell wakes up on a Sunday and decides that what they really want to do on their day off is look around an M&S outlet centre, buy a factory-seconds bag of Turkish Delight and enjoy a sun-warmed fly-buzzed potato in Spud-u-Like? I was immediately seething at the temerity of everyone else for bringing their bloody children along. Shopping should be a pleasurable experience and not feel like I’m on Total Wipeout trying to reach the tills with screaming children snottily orbiting my ankles. BAH. Still, I spotted a ‘The Works’.

I love The Works, it’s like someone created a load of nonsense books for a bet and put them out to see if they’d sell. Crotcheting the Norfolk Broads with Wincey Willis? The Better Sex Guide with the late Wendy Richards? Painting with Mist? Absolute tut! That said, we somehow managed to spend £50 on yet more cookbooks that will languish on our shelves unread and unloved until we have a fit and decide to donate them to charity. I swear we keep our local Scope exceptionally well-stocked for books, no wonder the lady who runs the shop drives a Mercedes and has a Radley bag which I BET someone donated. Scandal!

The lady behind the counter at The Works decided that no, putting eight hardback books into seperate bags was an entirely silly idea and really we would best be able to manage by putting all the books into one carrier bag and then quadruple-bagging it, meaning I had to struggle around the bloody shopping arcade like Sisyphus, trying desperately to mask my hard breathing and tomato face. Great fun. 

We did pop into Sports Direct for roughly fifteen seconds which was fourteen seconds longer than we needed to be reminded of why we never venture in there. It was awash – nay, it was crawling – with the slackjawed masses you see in the paper for shoplifting buying themselves new accessories to match their grey sweatpants.  Men shouldn’t be allowed to wear those grey sweatpants that hug every wrinkle and vein, it removes all the mystery for Paul and I as gay men, like knowing your Christmas present in advance. 

We ducked next door into the Adidas outlet and asked (well, no, interrupted the chat about football between him and a co-worker) the first member of staff we saw whether they had any size 12 trainers in stock. Well jesus, you’d think we’d asked him why sheep don’t shrink in the rain, he looked so dumbfounded. It’s not the most unusual of questions to ask in a fucking shoe-shop but hey, clearly when God was handing out brains he was off getting a second helping of mouth, so that was that. We gave up at this point and went home, stopping for a consolation McDonalds on the way home. I know I know, but if you won’t tell Margaret, nor will we.

Tell you what though, if you’re itching to tell Margaret anything, you could give her the recipe for this bloody lovely Mongolian beef.

mongolian beef

We served it on instant rice, for shame, with broccoli on the side, but the star of the show really is the beef – sticky, salty and delicious. 

to make Mongolian beef, you’ll need: 

  • 450g beef steak, sliced thinly – now you can buy decent enough stuff from Tesco, but remember, we’re big fans of Musclefood and you can buy stir fry strips of extra lean beef from there that are perfect for this dish by clicking here)
  • 25g corn flour (4.5 syns)
  • ½ tsp grated ginger (remember to put it in the bloody freezer after, don’t be buying new ginger every time!)
  • 3 garlic cloves, minced (use a microplane grater for your garlic and ginger and your fingers won’t smell so bad – buy one from Amazon for £9)
  • 120ml low sodium soy sauce (seriously now, use low sodium because otherwise it’s gonna be too salty and bad for your ticker)
  • 25g brown sugar (5 syns) (worth it – makes it sticky – this makes enough for four) (don’t bloody use sweetener, it won’t work)
  • ¾ tsp chilli pepper flakes
  • 3 spring onions, sliced (remember – leave an inch or so of root and then pot them into water – the onions will grow again!)

to make Mongolian beef, you oughta:

  • place the beef onto a clean, dry tea towel (or kitchen roll) in a single layer and pat dry – you want it drier than a nun’s gusset
  • add the meat to a bowl and sprinkle over the corn flour – toss (the flour) until evenly coated
  • heat a little oil / frylight in a large pan over a medium high heat
  • add the garlic and ginger and stir for a few minutes until it is nicely coloured
  • add the soy sauce, brown sugar, red pepper flakes and 120ml water to the pan and cook the mixture for about two minutes to thicken, then pour into a jug and set aside
  • heat the pan to high, add a little more frylight / oil  and cook the beef until browned on all sides
  • pour the sauce back into the pan and cook until the meat is thick, shiny and just waiting to be slid into your mouth
  • add the spring onions, reserving some to garnish, stir and serve on rice with a bit of onion on top

That’s Mongolian beef. IT’S JUST THAT EASY.

Until next time, lovers.

J

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

September 2, 2015

Posted under

airfryer, british, budget, chip shop, fakeaways, low syn, poultry, recipe card, sausages

sausagefest: musclefood sausages v slimming world sausages

Now look here. I wasn’t going to do a post tonight because my eyes hurt and I’m too busy putting together a lamp (so manly) but the word sausagefest came into my mind and I just had to use it. So, with that in mind, I’m going to dash off a very quick review of Slimming World sausages and Musclefood’s chicken sausages. We’re working with Musclefood to sort out a deal for you lot and I’ll post that nearer the time.

Before that, because you know I can’t go a day without some toe-curling moment of embarrassment, well, as I’ve documented a couple of times before, we spend a lot of time hiding away all the sex paraphrenalia in our house whenever a tradesperson comes to visit. I fear there is something off-putting about trying to do some plastering whilst a big black plastic willy winks away at you in the corner like a worm having a stroke. Well see the downside of doing this is that you invariably forget where you’ve put stuff and then it appears at a dramatic moment. Like today, with our alarm man (who was lovely and very charming) who opened our rarely-opened alarm cupboard, took the latch off the alarm case (which doesn’t work, so we just use it to hide stuff) only to be confronted by a black prostate tickler that we had squirreled away many moons ago.

Now he had the good grace not to say anything but given I have a slight ping-ding about the fact he might be travelling on the same bus as Paul and I, he totally knew what it was. What could I do? I couldn’t reach across him, grab it and pretend it was a novelty cigarette lighter, because knowing my luck he’d have been a smoker, asked for a light and I’d have to spend five minutes flicking the ‘hook’ end and lightly buzzing the end of his Silk Cut Ultra. 

So that’s that. Anyway, back to sausages. We’re massive fans of sausages (and I’m not even using sausage as a euphemism for a cock there, because if I WAS trying to come up with a euphemism for a penis, I’d of course use Spurt Reynolds) but they are tricky little things. Most of the low-fat sausages have as much taste as a roll of loft insulation, and anything with a bit of moisture is normally so bad for you that Margaret’s blue WKD bottle would shatter in her clenched fist if she so much as heard them sizzle in your pan. So we’ll cover two: Slimming World sausages and Musclefood’s chicken sausages.

Quorn sausages are a bust as they look and taste like something that’s been shat out of a poorly cat, so I’m not even going to mention them. I’d get more taste and enjoyment from sucking my thumb and hell, I know where my thumb has been. No wonder my nails are always filthy. 

We cook our sausages in an Actifry. If you’re on the fence about one of these, bloody get one. You’ll never look back, seriously. Above everything else, it’s the thing we love most in the kitchen. 

You can buy an Actifry from Amazon right here. They’ve lopped £70 off the bigger Actifry too. It’s in grey, but well, you don’t look at the cooker when you’re heating your sausage.

Slimming World sausages

Firstly, apologies for the lack of picture, but I rather thought that six sausages on a plate wouldn’t exactly set the blogosphere alight. I was right. These sausages are £3 from Iceland so they immediately lose a point for the fact you have to fight your way through masses of prawn rings, candied kangaroo mist and Peter fucking Andre. I remember when Iceland launched their Slimming World range and there were groups of people cracking the pavement camping outside the shop, like the answer to all of their prayers in life lay in some watery tomato sauce. Anyway, by the by. These are syn free so perfect for the diet.

They cook well enough – we chuck ours into the Actifry on top of chips and let the mouse’s tear sized bit of fat in them coat the chips. We tried grilling them but they came out looking like a dead dog’s dick, all wrinkly and misshapen. Not good. 

However, they’re tasty enough, with a bit of herb coming through after around forty minutes of chewing. They’re very tough, almost like they’ve been encased in the rubber ring from the bottom of a condom rather than a normal sausage casing, but they do taste good. Yes, they’re not quite sausage like, but they’ll certainly do well for a quick meal and chopped into a pasta salad, they’d hit the spot. They’re also very, very dry (how dry you say? Drier than a popcorn fart), but again, like any good sausage, once you coat them in a bit of sauce you’ll find they’ll fill your hole much easier.

Musclefood chicken sausages

IMG_1946

DISCLAIMER: we received these for free to try from Musclefood, but that’s not going to twist our review. Nope. 

A chicken sausage, you say? Paul balked at the very idea, until I reminded him he used to exist on Smart Price sausages in tomato sauce, and if they’re not made out of homeless people, disappointment and the ash leftover from the Foot and Mouth crisis I’ll eat my fucking hat. It’d certainly taste better. Somewhat relunctanctly, he agreed, and we tried them last night, again putting them into the Actifry on top of the chips so everything cooked together, removing the need for me to bend down in the kitchen to load the dishwasher, which is always a good thing because I invariably end up smacking myself in my face with my own titty. MUST LOSE WEIGHT.

Facts, then. Musclefood’s chicken sausages come in at half a syn each, which is nowt in the grand scheme of things but more than Slimming World’s. They’re also a bit pricier, coming in at £4 for a pack of six. However, it’s only chicken breasts and the various odds and sods you find in sausages, as opposed to the mysterious ‘pork’ you find on SW’s variety. 

These look much better when cooked – you could almost believe they were ‘proper’ sausages, although the sausages we tend to buy when we’re being naughty normally have an oil derrick poking out the top they’re that greasy. Plus neither sausage sizzles, which is sad – you can’t beat the sound of a sizzling sausage.

How do they taste? Good! Again though, so bloody firm – I’ve never had to soak a sausage overnight before I ate it (well, I have, sort of)…no they’re not that bad, but I reckon it must be a theme with ‘healthy’ sausages that they must bounce. The chicken meat comes through and they’re a lot more filling than other sausages – they certainly fared better on their own than other sausages. They’re also a decent size – I mean, you wouldn’t be dashing to the bedroom to put it to a better use, but they’re certainly big enough to satisfy us. 

They’d be good in our breakfast wrap found here or in a sausage casserole. I reckon they’re the better out of the two – they certainly sit better on the belly, and they look appetising. If the cost puts you off, fair enough, but don’t let the syn value be the decider – it’s worth spending your syns on decent food. Remember to live, people.

You can buy Musclefood’s chicken sausages right here. You all know how I feel about Musclefood – they do brilliant meat at excellent prices with decent delivery. Can’t get vexed at that. But you can also buy syn free sausages at Iceland, as long as you’re prepared to come out looking like Electro from Spiderman firing electricity from your hands thanks to all the polyester swishing about.

Enjoy. One day I’ll get the hang of posting a ‘quick’ post!

J