Category Archives: fakeaways

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November 20, 2014

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budget, dressings, fakeaways, low syn, persian, pulses and grains, recipe card, savoury snacks, snacks, taster ideas, vegetarian

spicy couscous balls with tzatziki

I feel better! Thankfully. My ears are still full but don’t feel sloshy anymore, which is a good sign. Shitting bricks about an upcoming flight though, worried my head will explode Scanners-style as soon as the change in pressure hits. Well don’t worry – I’ve got a month’s worth of archived posts to activate in my absence. Paul often jokes about death (me less so, as I used to suffer from health anxiety and all it takes is a gentle nudge sometimes and I’m away worrying), and says that when I die he’ll keep me on ice until he shuffles off, and then have us entombed together, with his leg over the top of mine, forever making me too hot in the sweet embrace of death.

Speaking of death, I finished Stephen King’s newest book, Revival. Blimey. Worth a read but what an ending. I do think there’s an odd stigma about Stephen King – people perceive his books as a bit trashy or low-brow, but he’s a genuinely skilled writer with a fantastic imagination. Well, except for The Tommyknockers, that was bobbins.

Here’s a snack idea. I made it last Saturday and was going to stick it online, but then Sudafed took me away.

couscousballs

to make spicy couscous balls with tzatziki:

Not worth making a full recipe breakdown for this, because it’s so, so easy. I use two packets of Ainsley Harriott’s spicy sensations couscous, which come in at 1.5 syns per pack made up with water (so don’t be adding butter, you cheeky buggers). Add the appropriate level of water (whatever it says on the pack) and leave to absorb. Fluff with a fork. Beat an egg and mix it into the couscous, then squeeze as many balls as you can out of the mixture. Pop onto a tray and stick it in the oven on 150 degrees for an hour or so – you want to ‘dry’ them out. Cooked low and slow, you’ll be laughing. For a dip, make tzatziki – greek yoghurt (I use Tesco Finest 0% fat – no syns) mixed with cucumber cut into tiny cubes and mint. Stir, chill, eat.

These are perfect little snacks – they’re very filling and by using the flavoured couscous, they actually taste good. And so easy to make! You could easily double up the ingredients, make a giant batch and take some to work – or even serve with a side salad for a light lunch.

Hey, you know, I spend a fair bit of time trying to make the food look presentable and putting it into the twochubbycubs’ style before it comes online. Well, there was no saving this. It’s the Slimming World pork pie. I found the recipe – basically, take a tin of Pek Gold, wrap it in bread (healthy extra), brush with egg, put it in the oven. Voila. That’s a pork pie. Well no, it isn’t, it’s an eggy ham sandwich, but by god I wanted it.

I got this far:

porkpie

Eee, haway. At this point, I was so taken by the ridiculousness of it that I stopped taking pictures, but when it came out of the oven, it all fell apart and tasted exactly like hot pek with a bit of mustard on it. Even the cat turned his nose up, and he spends hours of the day licking his arsehole like he’s trying to put out a fire.

Someone more skilled made this – it doesn’t look too bad.

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Ah well, can’t win them all!

J

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November 16, 2014

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american, classics, lunch, pork, pork joints, recipe card, savoury snacks, slow cooker, snacks, syn free, taster ideas

campfire stew or cowboy stew

CRASS WARNING! CRASS WARNING! SKIP TO NEXT PARAGRAPH IF BROWN HUMOUR OFFENDS!

Well, that was bad planning. Having spent the last three days with a full-house and needing a flush thanks to the meat loaf, tuna and beef stew, I resorted to taking a Senokot Max thinking it might gently move things along at some point this evening. Half an hour later, I’m stuck on the thunderbox crying my life away as the world fell out of my bottom. So I’m not venturing far today, and I might spend the day ironing instead. That’s the main problem with Slimming World – you’re never quite sure whether you’ll be coming or going one day to the next.

OK YOU’RE SAFE.

I finally gave into Paul’s demands and purchased a tumble dryer. I think he was ashamed at having our George boxers sailing gaily around on the rotary dryer in the garden, with their stretched elastic and rubbed gussets. He still has a piece of underwear from when we first met, he claims they’re the most comfortable pair he’s ever owned and refuses to throw them out. I’m actually surprised they don’t walk out on their own. I railed against getting a tumble dryer for bloody ages because I thought we’d get damp in the house (we can’t have a vented one, there’s no space, so we’ve had to go for a condensing unit) but he won out when he promised me he’d tumble my socks and underwear in the morning before I got out the shower, meaning they’d be warm. Come on, that’s true love right there.

Today’s recipe, breaking with tradition and posting my lunch instead of the evening meal, is the WORLD FAMOUS (in Slimming World circles) campfire stew, given a far more Brokeback Mountain based hilarious name. This is syn-free, makes four servings, and is proper delicious. Also – incredibly easy to make if you have a slow-cooker.

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to make campfire stew or cowboy stew:

Well – no real need to break down the ingredients – they’re all above, and the recipe is simple – chop the onion and peppers, add everything into a slow cooker, cook on low for eight hours, pull apart with two forks and serve with chips. You will need to add some superfree on the side to make this exactly right, but as a one-off, I didn’t bother, and just had two satsumas on the side. I know, I’m a devil.

A tip though – don’t, for the love of God, put your gammon straight into the slow cooker from the shop. Prepare it a day before by putting it in a pan of cold water, leaving it to sit, and changing the water every six hours or so. This will draw the salt out – you can do the same by boiling it for a bit, but I think that’ll make it tough. Do the cold water rinse for 24 hours and then cook and it’ll taste so, so much better. If you don’t bother, be prepared for your stew to taste like you’ve rinsed it through the sea at Whitley Bay (only without a turd bobbing around in the slow cooker).

Enjoy! I’m off to cry a bit more and put a loo roll in the fridge for later.

J

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November 12, 2014

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american, beef mince, low syn, pork, pork mince, recipe card, savoury snacks, snacks, taster ideas

half a syn american meatloaf

You know what I miss most from the last two decades or so? My hair. I used to have amazing hair. My friends, family and everyone in existence would doubtless think otherwise, but I don’t care. I grew my hair for a good three years or so, dyed it a myriad of different colours, and always had something fun to play with during those tricky times when having a wank just wasn’t appropriate behaviour, such as sitting on a bus or the funeral of a loved one. It was thick, luxurious, well-maintained – I loved being able to lie in the bath and swish it around in the water, I loved being able to tie knots in it, hell, I even straightened it once with a pair of straighteners and it was like the second coming. I do want to say though – at no point did I ever have one of those awful fringes which covered the eyes and necessitated that awful neck-throwing action that seems to be everywhere. I was never an Emo McGee. Too fat for it, for one thing, and I didn’t have the wherewithal to start putting shit poetry on Livejournal.

Of course, wistful recollection is a wonderful thing, but in reality, I probably looked like the abandoned child of Snape from Harry Potter and old ‘why use one voice when nineteen layered over the top of each other will do’ Enya. When I was thin, it fair suited me, but when I was a porky fella, I just looked like a hairy Christmas bauble. I remember going to France with a mate when I was eighteen, and during a daring bit of drunkenness, having all my hair removed – and we’re talking hair down to the middle of my back shaved off and my head left as smooth as a bowling ball. My mum walked straight past me at the airport and then spent the next twenty minutes shrieking and telling me I looked normal again. Cheers mum. For the first time in years, I felt a draft around my ears that even now makes me wince and long for the comfort of my Fructis-scented wonderhair. Ah well. Those days are definitely behind me, given that I’ve got hair like Steve McDonald now, and it’s easier just to cut it myself than see myself reflected in a barber’s mirror, light bouncing off the smooth, hairless front where so many beautiful hairs once lay. Sigh. The reason for this hair chatter by the way was the simple, indubitable truth that if I was to grow my hair again, I’d look like the time Heather from Eastenders dresSed up as Meat Loaf (hence the meat loaf recipe). See?

meatloaf

Anyway, come on, enough about times past. I went to see Interstellar last night, hence no post – apologies. However, I’ve got a corking recipe below for meatloaf which is perfect homely food for these cold nights. Interstellar, by the way, is absolute bobbins. It starts off promising enough, but then descends into look-at-me schtick and aren’t-I-clever writing. Plus, every time Anne Fucking Hathaway opened her mouth I started having internal flashbacks to her caterwauling through Les Misérables a couple of years ago and had to stop the shakes with my salted popcorn. I’m sorry, but I just don’t like her – and I think my friend summed it up best when she said that ‘the biggest black hole in the entire movie is when Anne opens her letterbox mouth’. Haha!

SO shush man, meatloaf.

to make half a syn american meatloaf:

Meatloaf

ingredients: two stalks of celery, 1 medium carrot, an onion, small pepper, 3 mushrooms (I used shiitake because…well because they were all I had in the fridge, but I reckon they add a good strong taste, so roll with it), 500g of beef mince (remember, 5% fat or under), 500g of pork mince, three slices of breadcrumbs (though we only ended up using two slices worth – just gauge how wet your meat is before you pound it, haha), 2 large eggs, 1 tomato, seasonings. Ketchup or passata.

recipe: get that oven up to 190 degrees and lightly frylight a loaf tin. Actually, you know what, fair enough if you want to stay away from syns, but I can’t recommend frylight anymore. Do as I do and use a drop of olive oil and spread it around. It’ll be enough and you’re not having that mess of chemical water you get in frylight.

Use the food processor to blitz the bread into crumbs. Empty out. Cut the celery, carrot and onion up in the food processor. Add a clove of garlic if you like. Cook the chopped-up pepper and mushrooms until soft. Chuck everything into a bowl – all the meat, the two eggs, crumbs (don’t use all of them, keep some aside in case you need to add more if your mixture is too wet – it’s a lot easier to add something than try to balance it!), the cooked mushroom and peppers, the veg paste from the food processor and the chopped tomato. Add in a proper good glug of worcestershire sauce and salt and pepper. Season as much as you think, and then add a bit more. Really pound your meat and get everything mixed together, and then shape it so it looks like a loaf. Drop it into your tin and smear tomato ketchup on the top. If you want to save syns, use some passata, but the sugars from the ketchup finish the dish off.

You’ll need to cook this for a good while – we went for 90 minutes, but start using your common sense from about 75m in. LEAVE to cool and serve with your sides. We went for sweet potato and peas.

Now listen – this will easily make eight servings. It’s up to you how much you want to eat, but this can very easily be turned into leftovers the next day with some pasta, or even in a sandwich as long as you use your healthy extra for the bread.

extra-easy: yes, but make sure you make the sides of the meal nice and high in superfree food. You could do a salad, or cabbage, or anything – but the meatloaf itself won’t make up your 1/3 rule. Syn wise is negligible, to be fair. Tomato ketchup is 1 syn per level tablespoon – so two tablespoons of that to cover the top and then split into eight is quarter of a syn. If you’re going to be fussy, use passata, but haway, Two slices of wholemeal bread is a healthy extra (small loaf mind) and although I blended up three, I only needed two – and again, you’re splitting this into eight servings. So…up to you, but I didn’t syn the bread as I used it as a healthy extra!

top tips: this looks like quite an expensive meal to make, given the amount of meat, but you can nearly always buy the mince on a deal. I don’t recommend making it all from beef because it doesn’t have quite the same texture, but you could try it. You can freeze it too. Plus, this makes a BIG loaf. YOU’LL be making a big loaf afterwards, I can assure you. Enjoy!

J

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November 1, 2014

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bacon, budget, fakeaways, italian, lunch, pasta, pork, recipe card, syn free

simple spaghetti sauce

great song that, but not entirely descriptive of my garden, where the only thing that grows at the moment is a general feeling of disappointment and regret. However, we haven’t wasted the day, and spent most of the afternoon weeding and tidying up the back garden, which is, admittedly unusually, not a euphemism for anal sex.

Another simple recipe card this time:

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This is great for a quick lunch!

to make simple spaghetti sauce you will need: 

spaghetti, red peppers in a jar, bacon medallions, spring onions tomatoes, bit of parmesan, low low cheese spread, bit of mint, and yes, bloody fromage frais.

to make simple spagetti sauce you should:

 grill the bacon, cook the spaghetti, chop the tomatoes, peppers and onion. Add 114g (that’s two HEAs, because this serves two) of low low to 100g of fromage frais. Microwave the chopped tomatoes and peppers so they’re hot. Mix the whole kit and kaboodle together. Top with parmesan and a tiny bit of mint. Syn the parmesan if you must. I’m renegade so don’t bother…

extra-easy: yup – one third is superfree (tomatoes, peppers, onion) so you’re fine, though maybe have a tangerine or something afterwards.

top tips: buy the peppers in brine in a jar – they’re already grilled, syn-free and tasty. Much cheaper than buying sweet peppers fresh and they can be added to anything!

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October 30, 2014

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fakeaways, one-pot, pork, pork mince, recipe card, syn free, thai

pork pad thai

pad thai to say goodbye (and I choke)

try to walk away (apple crumble)

Sorry, but I thought of the title for this pork pad thai in the car and started chuckling merrily away at my own joke to the point that the chav in the car next to me thought I was laughing at his crapmobile and revved his engine. haha! hey, speaking of driving, I had to be a hero today and parallel park someone’s car. Space near our offices is a premium and there was this poor lass getting more and more frantic trying to park in the one available space. Because I stopped nearby to ‘check my phone’ (watch her judgmentally) she stopped her car, got out and asked me to park. I need to mention something though – there was almost space for two cars and she was driving a Mini (although you’d think it was a 70 seater coach the way she was going back and forth) – easiest parking ever! I feel those karma points will be banked for something nice at the end of the week.

I feel quite dreadful this week, because of working late and being under the kosh at work. I’ve eaten like an absolute pig, not stayed to plan and taken in all sorts of tasty, tasty shite. Really not good – and there’s no real excuse for it, because if you plan with SW, then you don’t need to eat crap. In my defense though, I’m not knowing day to day how long I’m going to be at work, or when my lunch break will be, if any, so it makes it a bit harder. Plus, I’ve been away from Paul since Monday morning  (when I get in, he’s asleep, and I only get a reassuring fart out of him as I climb into bed – it’s either that or air escaping from a fat-roll when I shift him), so maybe I’m just comfort eating.

ANYWAY look, never mind. I’m going to write the last few days off and get back on it. No more excuses! And lo, the Lord doth provide a recipe card:

Pad Thai

to make pork pad thai you will need: 

two pak choi, two carrots, packet of low fat pork mince, garlic, ginger, veg stock (not vag stock as I originally typed in the recipe card, leading to a last-minute switcheroo), beansprouts, onion, one egg, fish sauce and dried noodles. One red chilli and one lime to serve. Don’t bother with coriander, that’s Satan’s pubic hair.

to make pork pad thai you should: 

getting everything prepared before cooking is what takes up the most time with this one, but it’s worth it. chop up the pak choi, carrots, chilli, spring onions and grate the garlic and ginger (or do what we do and buy the stuff in a paste). Start by frying your mince in a mixture of soy, fish sauce and stock, quantities above. Put the chopped up spring onion whilst you do this – keeping it on a medium heat. Then add the carrots, beansprouts and pak choi and cook on a highish heat, giving it a good stir every now and then. Pak choi is a bit like spinach and will wilt down, but not to the same extent. After five or ten minutes, chuck in your egg, stir it through, and serve it hot by splashing a bit of lime and chucking on the chilli.

extra-easy: yes – syn free, though be careful with the noodles. Fresh noodles are synned, but dry noodles (unflavoured) are generally free – we’ve actually cheated in the above recipe and used fresh noodles (and built them into our food diary) but that’s something to keep an eye on. Otherwise, this is a genuinely lovely recipe and so easy to make – a great mixture of crunchy and soft, different flavours such as sour (lime) and sweet (the sauce) and unami (the soy). I’m a firm believer that if your food tastes good, you’ll not want to eat crap – as proven by my bingeing on shite this week.

top tips: making carrots and other veg into matchsticks is a pain in the arse with a knife, because it takes ages and I’ve got the dexterity of a ninety year old. We bought a julienne peeler which does the job for us. Only £4 or so, and you can find them in ASDA or order from Amazon if you can’t be bothered with fannying about by clicking here. Enjoy!

invest in fish sauce, even if you’re unsure. I don’t do seafood, not one bit, but fish sauce doesn’t taste fishy and it adds an extra base note to the flavours. This isn’t a stir-fry so don’t cook it like one, but it does come together quite quickly once you get going. If you matchstick a tonne of carrots, freeze a portion for next time. This recipe won’t freeze when cooked, mind. Oh no.

Right – enjoy! I’m off to make up for lost time with Paul’s high fat pork mince. Yup.

J

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October 24, 2014

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bacon, breast, cured meats, italian, low syn, one-pot, pork, poultry, recipe card, rice

chicken and chorizo risotto

Evening folks!

Paul and I are having a romantic night in, he’s cooking a lovely Indian tea and I’m scratching his feet with a matchbox. For now, please accept this recipe card as a treat, but be warned, chorizo and cheese does add a few syns to the dish. YOU CAN MAKE IT SYN FREE! But, you have 105 to use every week, spend it on something good. I’ll fill out the recipe in full tomorrow and add a snack idea for you all. Goodnight! (now done, see below!)

UPDATE

Paul and I have slept for a good, reasonable twelve hours and had a Slimming World fry-up breakfast (see here for a previous post about that), so I’m back and fighting fit. I promised you a full recipe breakdown for the risotto – and an easy way to make it syn free.

ingredients: one chicken breast (diced), chorizo (optional, I use 6 syns for 60g if I chose a particularly non-fatty chorizo, and then split that between two servings), shallots, arborio rice, garlic, tomatoes, mushrooms, peashoots, philapdelphia lightest (I’ve always synned 75g of the lightest as a healthy extra A, but even then, I hardly ever use that much and it’s split between two), peppers sliced.

recipe: get everything prepared – slice the onion, peppers, mushrooms and tomatoes to roughly the same size and thickness. Dry fry gently in a good non-stick casserole pot (this is important, because you try to make this risotto in a ‘sticky’ pan it’ll burn) until everything is nice and soft. Add the chicken and chorizo and continue cooking on a medium heat until the chicken is cooked through. Once you’ve done this, add the 250g of arborio rice and coat the rice in the liquid. Stir just once, chuck in your 1l of stock and big handful of garden peas. ONE stir. Then pop the lid on the pan, keep it on a medium heat (we use 6, but we’ve got a fancy induction hob so just stick to medium) and leave for exactly 20 minutes. You can peek at it just to make sure the liquid hasn’t disappeared, but maybe just once or twice – every time you let the steam out, god kills a kitten. After 20 minutes, check the rice -it’s always spot on for me but individual hobs may vary, so let it simmer a little bit longer if there is still a lot of liquid and/or the rice is a bit crunchy. Spoon in a dollop of the soft cheese and serve it on a bed of pea-shoots. I use pea-shoots because it adds another layer of flavour, but rocket will do. Don’t be common and use lettuce though. Twist of pepper and a couple of shavings of Parmesan and you’re done.

extra-easy: yes – though I syn the recipe exactly how I do it at 4 syns, just to take on board the chorizo and cheese. You can make it syn free though – replace the chorizo with chopped bacon (with no fat), and use the cheese as your healthy extra. But I like the taste the chorizo imparts to the rice and chicken and chorizo go together so well! Plenty of superfree – fresh peas, pea shoots, peppers, mushrooms, shallots…

top tips: Paul, because he’s a pleb who was brought up on sweet and sour chicken from his local Rainbow mixed with fag ash and a general feeling of malaise, adds a big old dollop of wholegrain mustard and mixes it in, which completely overpowers any other flavour. He says that he can still enjoy it through the sound of me tutting and sucking air in through my teeth.

Enjoy it!

J

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October 22, 2014

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

well burger me, it’s burger in a bowl time

When I heard that this dish tasted just like Big Mack, I thought of an ambulance driver I once knew. Except he tasted like an anchovy.

Meanwhile, just a little entry tonight. Ahem. This recipe is the infamous Slimming World burger in a bowl, or big-mac in a bowl, where the individual components of a big-mac are layered in a bowl with a ‘special sauce’ (not that kind). It’s actually surprisingly tasty and only 1 syn a serving! Just a quick post and I’ll fill it out tomorrow as Apprentice is on and I want to see it. I can’t tear myself away from Alan Sugar.

to make burger in a bowl

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ingredients: 500g extra-lean mince, finely chopped onion (though I think Paul used a butter knife to chop the onions, judging by the pictures), 2 garlic cloves, 1/2 iceberg lettuce, 8 gherkins, 1 small red onion, 2 tomatoes. For the sauce: 3 level tbsp extra-light mayo, 5 tbsp fat free fromage frais (seriously, every recipe I do uses fromage frais, can we not start taken it as a given?), 1 level tbsp of American style mustard, 2 tbsp tomato puree and 2tsp white wine vinegar. Add 1/2tsp of garlic salt and 1/4 onion granules. Pinch of smoked paprika.

recipe: bit of an assembly job this one, but fairly self-explanatory. Prepare the base – slice the gherkins, tomatoes, the lettuce and the red onion. Prepare the mince by frying the onion, mince and garlic until cooked through. Mix all the sauce ingredients together. Put the mince onto the salad and the sauce onto the mince and, if you’re feeling especially flatitious, hoy your healthy extra A cheese on top (30g).

extra-easy: yes – and only a syn per portion. Haha, portion. The gherkins, onion, tomatoes and lettuce are all superfree so that’s your 1/3 hit right there. REJOICE.

top tips: this is a good, filling meal that does oddly taste like a big-mac, if only for the special sauce. Using a good strong, mature cheddar gives it a bit of a kick and means you don’t have to spread your syns. Enjoy!

J

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October 19, 2014

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bacon, fakeaways, italian, pork, recipe card, syn free

new potato gnocchi

Just a quick post from me tonight as we’re about to sit down and watch a movie with Fattychops. This is gnocchi, Slimming World style. Now, it’s tasty yes, and syn-freeish as long as you use the cheese as healthy extra, but a bloody gnocchi it most certainly is not. It’s potato, egg, ham, tomatoes and cheese, and nothing more to be said about it!

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to make new potato gnocchi you will need: 

cooked gammon, eggs, tinned tomatoes, small potatoes boiled until nearly soft, cheese, bit of garlic.

to make new potato gnocchi you should: 

put tomatoes on the bottom, potatoes on those, ham mixed in, two eggs cracked on top, add cheese. cook until it looks like the above.

extra-easy: yes – and syn free, as long as you use your healthy extra choice for the cheese. 

top tips: this could be jazzed up a lot – use the strongest cheddar you can find, or add curry powder to the tomatoes, or even a tin of beans.

Right, apologies for the short post, but our movie awaits!

J

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October 18, 2014

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classics, fakeaways, indian, low syn, recipe card, vegan, vegetarian

vegetable curry

I’ve done a bit of rejigging on the blog as I realised it was getting difficult to find all the recipes – so now if you’re looking for them, just click the category on the right and voila, all the badly realised comic-style recipes you can manage! 

Paul’s actually off down in London at the ‘Give Britain a Payrise’ rally. I work in the private sector so my eyes tend to glaze over when he goes on about rallies and protests, but fair play to the bugger for campaigning. Last time I told him to try and keep a low profile, and he ended up headlining the 1pm news with a soundbite about pensions. Even worse, the last time his place of work went on strike, he threw himself in front of someone’s car and called her a scab, without realising it was the Chief Executive inside. Oops. Anyway, he’s coming back home now and the latest text I got was ‘Missing you, dying for a shit’, which I don’t really know how to take but I’ll assume it was meant as a compliment.

I spent all morning lying in bed and willing myself to get up, but I didn’t quite manage it until 1pm. Which sounds lazy, but I’ve had a very long week and our bed is super comfortable. Actually, that’s a bit of a fib as I got up once and managed to moon someone putting a leaflet through our front door at the same time. I should explain. I got up for a wee and noticed the postman had been. We sleep naked, but the curtains were drawn so I went to the front door and bent down, completely naked, at the same time someone pushed a takeaway leaflet through the letterbox. Luckily our front door has that weird frosted glass in it, but I’m still fairly sure he got a damn good view of my tea-towel holder winking at him as I scrabbled to pick up the post. Ah well. This afternoon I decided to take it upon myself to go to B&M to find an elusive curry mix that Slimming World members go on about which is low in syns. Now, I’ve never been in B&M before, and well, goodness me.

Let me caveat the following by saying that I’m no snob, I don’t mind cheap shops and I don’t care how much something costs. But honest to god, I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many polyester-mix fleeces hung in one place. I’m lucky I didn’t come out of there sparking and jolting like Electro from Spiderman. I did, however, get the elusive curry mix – Mayflower Curry Sauce Mix, at 8 syns for 56g (which makes more than enough sauce for two people to have a curry). With this in my hot sweaty hands, and the smell of chip-pans and sour milk a mere memory, I set about making tonight’s meal – a vegetable curry.

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This was supposed to be a chicken curry, but fate put the kibosh on that. I defrosted the chicken, had the audacity to leave the room for a minute to have a slash, only to find upon my return Bowser (our cat) munching his way through it, having dragged it out of the kitchen, across the living room and into his cat house. I was gone less than a minute, and the chicken was steaming hot. He must have been like bloody lightning, so I let him have the chicken and decided to ‘superfree’ the curry instead. He got a stern look and as a punishment, I won’t be turning on his water fountain tonight and he’ll just have to quench his thirst like a normal cat. I’m kidding, I’m far too in love with his button nose to do that.

ingredients: all the veg you see above, and really, anything you have spare. Pack it out with whatever you have left in the freezer, or tins, or fresh – we tend to buy a lot of stuff on the off-chance we’ll use it and then chuck it out, but don’t – throw it all in the curry. It’s a fantastic way of getting your superfree food quota, and this meal is easily over your 1/3 portion size rule. Serve with rice, or chips, or even on its own as a warming treat. It’ll certainly warm you again in eight hours or so.

recipe: cut up all your veg, add a dash of water, steam it until soft but not mush. The mushier the veg, the less nutrients, plus it’ll feel like you’re eating your dinner in a nursing home. To make the curry sauce, add 56g of powder to cold water, and start whisking. Turn the heat up to get the liquid to boiling, then whack it right back down to a very low heat. It’ll thicken in no time at all, but if you stop whisking, it’ll end up lumpy. Mix it up with the veg and serve with your side.

extra-easy: yes – though not syn free. the sauce is 8 syns for 56g of powder but then divided down into portion size, I reckon about 2 syns. This recipe would easily serve four. You’ve got more superfree food in here than you could shake a water-retaining finger at. Best of all, it really DOES taste like takeaway curry.

top tips: this would be made a lot more ‘takeaway’ by taking away a lot of the veg, and remaking it with cooked chicken, garden peas and chunks of onion. It could be made even more takeaway by flicking some fag ash and a few chest hairs in there, and having the ‘chicken’ squeak when you bite into it.

OK, anyway – enjoy. I’m off to shave off my beard. Sob!

J

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October 5, 2014

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burgers, fakeaways, fast food restaurants, low syn, recipe card, seafood

a fisherman’s burger

Tonight’s recipe is Fisherman’s Burger – basically a breaded cod fillet in a bun with homemade tartare sauce. I’m not kidding – I’m not a massive fan of fish, but this was just tremendous! And so easy to make, give it a go. Here’s a recipe card:

fishy

ingredients: cod fillets, skinless and boneless, lettuce, gherkins, two small wholemeal buns, four small slices of wholemeal bread, extra light mayo, fat free fromage frais, dill, parsley, salt and pepper, garlic, onion and gherkins.

recipe: easy! blitz the sliced bread, garlic, parsley and dill to make crumbs, dip the fish in egg, then into the crumbs. Pop it in the oven for fifteen minutes until crunchy. Whack it into a bun with crunchy lettuce and tartare sauce as made above. Serve with chips, mushy peas and lemon.

extra-easy: it’s three and a half syns per burger, and you’ll need to use your healthy extra B for the bun. If you’re having two, syn the second bun for 6.5 syns. It’s worth it though! You could make a salad to go with the bun to up your superfree though. I think (and I may be wrong) that the syns come from the crumbs, but most of that stays in the tray so I’d actually say it was 1.5 syn per burger. Bloody go for it! Fish is an excellent food – if it swims, it slims.

Enjoy 🙂