Category Archives: low syn

Low syn recipes

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

January 24, 2015

Posted under

airfryer, beef, budget, cured meats, low syn, lunch, pork, poultry, recipe card, savoury snacks, snacks, taster ideas

square egg, snacks and injuries

Previous readers may recall that a few months ago, I had to go for an MRI scan on my heart. Exciting. I described it at the time like being sucked into a Polo-coloured sphincter. Well, after weeks and weeks of fitfully looking at the letterbox waiting for news, I finally got a letter from my doctor yesterday which said everything was OK, heart was beating as it should be and I had nothing to worry about, bar being too handsome for most people to deal with. Typical NHS restraint. I’ve actually (touching wood) been remarkably lucky with my health so far – found a lump in my boob a year or so ago but it turned out to be nothing exciting (I’m surprised it wasn’t an M&M, to be honest) and a couple of bouts of anxiety throughout the last few years. I don’t want to dwell on anxiety, but it’s a very funny thing – people who wouldn’t take the piss out of you if you had a broken leg or lost the sight on one eye feel quite chipper making snide comments about anxiety behind your back. I don’t see a mental illness as less important than a physical one, but the world has a long way to go before that status is reconciled.

Ah well.

The only injuries I’ve ever had of note both have typically me causes – I’ve got a scar on my forehead from a killing curse launched at me by the greatest Dark Wizard who ever lived cartwheeling into the side of a door. I remember going downstairs (the cartwheel having been done in my bedroom, which was surprising because it remains the only bedroom I’ve ever been in where I had to back out onto the landing to turn around) with a cartoon egg-shaped lump on my head only for my mum to hoy a big bag of peas on it and sat me down in front of Countdown until I stopped trying to make an 18 letter conundrum. The second time I tore my lip open and bent (but didn’t break) (I don’t think) my nose to the left by using my face as an impromptu braking device on my bike – forgot that my brakes didn’t work as I thundered down a hill the only way a fat lad on an old bike can, hit the front brakes, bike stopped immediately and I sailed through the air like a clay pigeon. Only I landed on my face. This time, I think I was knocked out, as my only memory is my sister running home to get my mother who took me home, wrapped a tea-towel from the side in the kitchen around my face (I can still taste I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter and strawberry jam if I lick the scar) and left it to sort itself out. I’ve got a big scar on my bottom lip which I can see if I push my lips flat against my teeth, but other than that I’m fine. Actually, reading all this back, it makes it sounds as though I grew up in Mr Bumble’s workhouse, but that’s far from the truth. My mum just didn’t want the nurses to question all the other bruises and marks on my body.

And that’s a joke too, before anyone tries to respectively put us on the register. I always received medical aid where necessary and my parents were – and are – very loving!

Speaking of very loving, how about this for an evening meal? Up here in Geordieland, we call an evening meal made up of lots of different little things (normally sandwiches, cakes, pork pies etc) a tea-tea, but I know there’s lots of others. Paul informs me he used to call it a picnic tea but I find that hard to believe because it conjures up a charming spread served on gingham tableclothes and bone china, whereas I know from his many tales that he never tasted food that didn’t have 4% Lambert and Butler ash in it until he moved up here.

snacks on slimming world

Like yesterday, with this being more of an ensemble dish, there’s little point in doing a recipe, so instead let me break down the various bits:

pickled onions – you can have most pickles for nothing on SW, so fill up – and try sauerkraut, it’s bloody delicious, although too much pickled cabbage will leave you with veritable knicker-stainers later. Open a window.

tomatoes – buy a variety to add colour and keep them out of the fridge – they’ll taste so much nicer.

pitta chips – you’re allowed one wholemeal pitta as a healthy extra – toast one, cut it up and serve with…

…sweet potato houmous – blend one large cooked sweet potato with four tablespoons of fat free yoghurt, one garlic clove, two tablespoons of lemon juice, salt and a 200g tin of chickpeas. Don’t blend it too smooth, it’s better with a few chunks. Just like the best of us.

roast potatoes – cut up some new potatoes, put them in the Actifry with an Oxo cube to cover them. Delicious.

pastrami wraps – make a sauce of four finely chopped gherkins, four tablespoons of fat free fromage frais and half a teaspoon of mustard powder. Smear onto a slice of pastrami, stuff it full of rocket and roll it up.

chicken wraps – nowt more fancy than a gherkin wrapped up in a slice of chicken!

square egg – they taste so much better than a normal egg but I’ve heard it makes the chicken walk funny. WELCOME TO MY WORLD, COCK.

A perfect picky dinner. Now off to watch Before I Go To Sleep with Fattychops. 100th post coming soon!

I used this little gadget to make my egg cube, by the way!

J

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

January 23, 2015

Posted under

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

the sunday roast

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

10321597_824478984292373_8805796571333583561_o

to make the sunday roast, you should…

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

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

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

J

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

January 22, 2015

Posted under

low syn, lunch, recipe card, savoury snacks, snacks, soup, taster ideas

kale, spinach, broccoli and pesto soup

Just a very quick post tonight as I’ve spent the evening trying to find the ‘right’ tie for Paul and being on Grannywatch. Parents away so someone needs to go over and make sure she’s not face-down in her knitting, bless her.

slimming world spinach kale soup

to make low syn kale, spinach, broccoli and pesto soup, you’ll need:

ingredients: a chopped onion, one large broccoli, one medium bag of chopped kale, one medium bag of spinach, one small potato, 600ml vegetable stock made from one stock cube and a jar of reduced fat pesto

to make low syn kale, spinach, broccoli and pesto soup, you should:

recipe: it’s soup. Fry the onion, cut everything else into medium pieces, chuck into pan, simmer until soft, chuck in three tablespoons of pesto and blend. Serve!

extra-easy: completely. Reduced fat pesto is 1.5 syns per tbsp – and this recipe made three big portions, so I went for 1.5 syns a portion. You could leave it out but it does add a nice note. Otherwise, a very healthy, superfree packed soup.

That’s all folks – I’m really very tired!

J

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

January 21, 2015

Posted under

american, fakeaways, italian, low syn, lunch, pasta, recipe card, taster ideas, vegetarian

butternut squash macaroni cheese

It’s lucky I don’t have a gambling problem. Well no, it’s lucky I’m Geordie enough to be so tight I wouldn’t DARE have a gambling problem. TV is absolutely awash with ads for online gambling sites, and they’re such utter, utter bollocks. Invariably, they’ll have some drooling slab of beef watching some whizzy virtual reality site flash by, gambling with hilarity and a big shit-eating smile on his face, all the while chucking a few £1 bets on and watching the money roll in.

Well let me tell you this isn’t the case. I make quite a bit of pin money on the side by gambling for ‘free’. and I’ll come to that later, but a good part of that comes from having to play online bingo. Online bingo is the antithesis of fun. Put simply, you’re paying good money to watch a pen automatically dab off your numbers in the hope of winning a crap jackpot against thousands of others. However, there’s more – in the adverts you’ll see sprightly young ladies giggling away and typing supportive messages to one another in the chatrooms, whereas all I’ve ever seen is punters with one good set of teeth between them and usernames like ~~!!!PIXIE_DUST_ROFL~~!!! and TISHMAM4LIFE desperately trying to outdo each other’s bad spelling. Even the photos of the winners are invariably harsh – all slack-jawed, light-bendingly dense landmasses with terraced chins and poor taste in acrylic outerwear holding their cheques for £667 like they’ve won La Primitiva. Bleurgh. When even I can’t eke a little fun from reading people’s chatter, you know there’s a bad job.

BORING SENSIBLE BIT HERE

Anyway, the free gambling thing. I use Quidco, which is a cashback site, so if you’re doing online shopping you would go through Quidco, it tracks your purchase and offers you a small amount of cashback which gets deposited back into your bank account at the end of the month. You pay £5 a year and it’s very safe. There seems to be a intrinsic distrust of these sort of websites, which is fair enough, but this is a massive site used by thousands and I’ve never had a problem with it. Even old motormouth Martin Lewis recommends in. So – on Quidco are lots of offers for new customers on gambling sites, and they normally have a higher return than investment. Looking on there right now, William Hill Bingo is offering £30 back for new customers who spend £10. Obviously they want you to spend more than £10 but don’t. If you go for the offer and only spend £10, you’ll eventually get £30 back from Quidco, and you’ve made £20 right there. It takes a few weeks for things to track but there you go.

Of course, if when you spend the £10 on William Hill, you actually manage to win some money, that’s even more profit right there, but DON’T accept any of the introductory bonuses or little catches – just play with your own money, and stop the very second you’ve gambled whatever it is they ask you to gamble on Quidco. Remember, this only works if you:

  • you are controlled and never bet more than the minimum requirement set by Quidco
  • you ensure the cashback is more than the amount spent
  • you meet all the requirements set by Quidco, though they’re never especially onerous
  • stop, especially if you lose your money – remember to spend only what you have to!

If you want to join Quidco, feel free to go via my referral link!

BORING SENSIBLE BIT ENDS HERE

ANYWAY enough about that shite. Here’s tonight’s recipe – bloody lovely macaroni cheese!

macaroni cheese

to make butternut squash macaroni cheese, you’ll need:

ingredients: 1300g butternut squash, 300ml chicken stock, 250ml almond milk (1 syn or HEA). 200g macaroni, 
2 teaspoons garlic salt, 1 teaspoon Worcestershire Sauce, 115g grated cheddar cheese (4.5 syns or HEA – remember this serves four). 

to make butternut squash macaroni cheese, you should:

recipe: cut up the butternut squash into cubes, add the stock and almond milk into a nice big pan, and chuck the squash in. Bring it to a boil and then reduce to a simmer under the squash is tender (about fifteen minutes). Blend this mixture in a decent processor or use a stick blender and really go at it – the smoother the better. Add the garlic salt and Worcestershire sauce. Add the cheese to the sauce and put it back onto the heat on a medium heat. Now you have a choice – you can cook the macaroni in a separate pan, drain and add to the sauce, or just chuck the macaroni into the sauce and cook it all in the same pan – this will help thicken the sauce because of all that tasty starch! Once the sauce is thickened, serve hot!

extra-easy: yep! here, you’re either using your cheese or your milk as your HEA on your serving. All that butternut squash makes this VERY high in superfree food and it just tastes wonderful, trust me. You can use up the rest of your HEA allowance (if you chose milk) throughout the day, you can have a fair bit on EE!

TASTY.

J

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

January 20, 2015

Posted under

fakeaways, low syn, pizza, pork, pork joints, recipe card, slow cooker

pulled pork, sauteed leeks and mature cheese pizza

It’s time for my weekly hello and welcome to our new readers (and old) (well not old, various ages) (shush) – hope you enjoy the blog! Comments always take a while to be approved as I have the age-old problem of working during the day but I’ll always get to them in the end. Anyway, as welcoming as I’m being, I’m in a foul mood. Why? Well…

I know I’ve twittered on about driving a lot lately but it does cause ever so much of the rage I have swirling around in me like violent, piss-coloured clouds. For example, every day I join the A1, and every single day I conscientiously allow someone in front of me at the congested slip-road at Seaton Burn, exactly like you’re supposed to. Almost every bloody day the driver in front never acknowledges the fact I’ve slowed to let them in, and most of the time, you can see their oily face illuminated by their phone as they merge whilst checking Facebook. I wish they’d amend the Highway Code to make it legal to carry cement blocks in the passenger seat, and for me to launch said brick through their back window and stot it off the back of their heads. It really makes me fizz!

Mind, there’s one thing worse than that and that’s arseholes who don’t indicate, which I know everyone moans about, but it makes me grind my teeth into an enamel mist. If I’m tootling along merrily overtaking people and some barely functioning addlepate – almost exclusively in a spotlessly clean white Range Rover, company-paid-for Vauxhall Insignia or a spunk coloured Seat Mii driven recklessly – pulls in front of me, I can actually feel my eyes push my glasses down my nose as they’re bulging so much. Of course I immediately spend 10 minutes doing highly theatrical hand gestures like I’m guiding a plane to an airport gate in the pitch black, but it never soothes me. Someone actually shrugged their shoulders and did a ‘BUT WHAT CAN I DO’ expression with their hands. At a time like that, the only rational thing would be to accelerate my car through their back window, but sadly, the law is against me.

I feel better for typing that, actually – even though I had to restart halfway through as Sola climbed onto my keyboard to show me her teats and hit the backspace key, moving my page back. Bitch – I reckon it’s another one of her classic passive-aggressive moves, like licking my face in the morning until I wake up and then immediately turning around and showing me her pencil-sharpener blinking in the dawn sunlight.

Anyway, enough talk about my cat’s bumhole. Here is the true star of the show – pulled pork, leek and cheese pizza. You know you want it, you filthy bugger.

cheese, pulled pork and leek pizza

leftovers recipe! oh how exciting, I’ve never used that tag before. Remember me waffling on about rollover meals – where you can make another meal from the leftovers of another? Well this little beauty can be made from any leftover pulled pork from this recipe and any leftover dough from this recipe. In fact, that’s something you could get in the habit of doing – making double the amount of dough and freezing half, and keeping some pork frozen in the freezer for just this occasion!

to make pulled pork, sauteed leeks and mature cheese pizza, you’ll need:

ingredients: assuming you have the dough and the pork, you only need your healthy extra portion of mature cheese and a leek! Oh and tomato puree. Obviously.

to make pulled pork, sauteed leeks and mature cheese pizza, you should:

recipe: slice up your leeks. I use this mandolin slicer (Amazon) which stops my poor fingers getting shredded (and you can use it for other things too, and it’s reduced to under a tenner). Put in a pan, tiny bit of water and salt, put lid on, and steam them until they’re softer than your first stool. Yum, right? Slap that dough down on the work surface, stretch it, add the puree, add the pulled pork, add the leeks, add the cheese and then add heat for fifteen minutes. Serve with chips and that smug feeling that you’ve saved some money.

I’m not kidding when I say this has to be one of the nicest fucking pizzas I’ve ever made. To hell with the syns. The picture doesn’t do it justice but if I zoomed in any more it looks like a scabby knee.

extra-easy: yep! The base is 22 syns. Don’t be put off by having to spend your syns, this looks amazing and tastes great. Remember – if the food looks good, it’s half the battle. I know I always say it but listen damnit.

J

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

January 17, 2015

Posted under

fakeaways, low syn, lunch, pizza, recipe card, taster ideas, vegetarian

rainbow pizza: well, I promised you something camp!

Anyone heard of Nightowls, the local radio talk show in the North East?

I’ve listened to it on and off for the last eighteen years, thinking I was dead hard staying up to midnight listening on my tiny radio when I was twelve and using it as a sleeping aid even now at 29. Alan remains great, but the show itself has turned to arse because it’s filled with simpletons ringing in. There’s still a couple of regular callers worth listening out for but the rest is bobbins – mainly people calling in because they’ve had their photos developed, seen blue cigarette smoke wisping around from under the camera and declaring they’ve seen a ghost. If it’s not that, it’s people ringing up singing in one key only or octogenerians discussing their various health maladies ‘EEE ALAN IT WER POURIN’ OUT LIKE OXTAIL SOUP EEE ALAN YES ALAN’ and the like.

Weirdly though, he really did used to be must-listen radio, and he’d spend a good fifteen minutes with each caller chatting through proper issues to do with the North East and politics and the like. Even I called up a few times, and he gave me the nickname Jittery James because I stuttered the first time I was on. Bastard. He was that ‘big’ in the local area that he used to hold roadshows during the day – a few of us back in the day went along to a local one to see what free stuff we could get and he threw a signed Toploader CD at me which stotted off the middle of my forehead. I mean, I fucking hate Toploader at the best of time, but that sealed the deal. Luckily, no scar, because if I’d had Dancing in the Moonlight scarred onto my face I’d have topped myself.

Anyway, I had no trouble getting off to sleep last night, and that’s possibly because I was knackered making this…!

10916355_820574848016120_8830675813243900726_o

10904544_820574694682802_3682955527309068220_o

Yup – the campest pizza in the world (which totally needs a better name). Depending on where you sit with veggies, it might not look too appetising, but it was bloody lovely – the dough makes a pizza big enough for eight slices, and weighs in at a very reasonable 3 syns a slice. Plus, look at all that superfree…

to make a rainbow pizza, you’ll need:

ingredients: for the dough – 125g strong white bread flour, 7g sachet of yeast, 75ml of warm water and a teaspoon of salt. Sauce is tomato puree with mixed herbs added in. 65g of reduced fat grated mozzarella cheese (HEA). For the topping:

  • red – sliced cooked red peppers from a jar (in brine) or just cut up a red pepper;
  • orange – rapture cherry tomatoes from Tesco, but you can find orange tomatoes all over – cut into quarters;
  • yellow – yellow pepper, cut into cubes;
  • green – brocolli florets cut tiny and boiled for a minute to soften – don’t overboil though, they’ll lose their colour;
  • purple – pickled red cabbage (syn-free) drained and shook to dry it out
  • black – olives – eight black olives is a syn, but you’ll use that on the entire pizza

You could easily add ham as the red layer if you wanted meat but actually, the mix of veg works so, so well you don’t need to bother!

to make a rainbow pizza, you should:

recipe: dough – if you’re using a stand mixer with a dough hook like us,  this bit is really easy. Put the flour into the middle, yeast on one side, salt on the other, make a well in the middle and add the water. Mix on medium until it all comes together in a ball and starts slapping the sides. Remove the bowl, cover in cling film and leave to prove in the bowl somewhere warm for an hour or so. If you don’t have a mixer, do the mixing by hand, and feel good about yourself because that’s pure body magic right there.

Spend the hour prepping your veg and then once the dough has doubled (although if it doesn’t double, don’t worry, ours didn’t and still tasted good) roll it out on the side (you might want to flour your worktop or use polenta – top tip) (but count the syns – 4 and a half syns for the polenta if you use 25g, but you won’t, so maybe add one an extra syn for the entire pizza), spread with the puree, chuck the cheese on top (if there is two of you, double up the cheese, you get 65g each!) and then layer the veg on. Don’t worry about how it looks but, like most of us, the prettier the better! Cook for twenty minutes (check after fifteen) on 180degrees and when cooked and crunchy, serve up! We served ours with actifry chips. Tasty!

extra-easy: yep! The base is 22 syns – but makes a pizza big enough for eight slices, which by the time you’ve added on the olives and a tiny bit of polenta, I reckon comes to 24 syns – three syns a slice, and it’s absolutely worth it. Don’t be put off by having to spend your syns, this looks amazing and tastes great. If your kids won’t eat vegetables and caning their arse hasn’t worked, try this! Remember – if the food looks good, it’s half the battle.

Enjoy – I’m off to walk dogs!

Note: this recipe originally said 175g of flour thanks to a slip of my fat fingers – it should, of course, read 125g. Amended! Thanks to Gavin for the tip!

J

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

January 13, 2015

Posted under

bacon, breast, low syn, lunch, pork, poultry, recipe card, slow cooker

slow-cooked chicken, bacon and cheese

If there was one thing I took away from my trips to America, aside from the desire to use a mobility scooter (with built-in cup holder) to go any distance further than 400m and a propensity for being slightly brash but oh-so-sweet, it was a taste for ranch dressing. On our last trip, after three weeks of constant theme parks, our bodies were crying out for anything that wasn’t in burger form or didn’t leave grease all over our beards. Hard to find in Disney! I remember seeing all those giant folks walking around chewing on what looked like a burnt leg. I had to get one, despite reading they were emu legs – they’re not, they’re from male turkeys, fact fans – but even I couldn’t finish it, and I’m used to packing a lot of hot meat into my mouth – I’ve been doing it for years!

So yes, Paul and I finally found a place called Ruby Tuesday’s, with a giant, fresh salad bar…and they had this dressing – ranch – and I’d never tried it before, but honest to God if I’m ever (god forbid) terminally ill and in a hospice, I want Make a Wish to come along and order the doctors to do a blood/ranch transfusion. I can’t get enough of the bloody stuff but it’s so high in fat, being made with buttermilk or sour cream as it is, so usually it’s a no-no Nanette on SW. That said, as a weigh in treat, we’ve used in the recipe below and spent a few syns on it, and I fully recommend you do too – it was a delicious meal, and for crying out loud, it combines cheese, chicken, bacon and potatoes – what more do you want? Note our token attempt at making it healthy on the side there with our salad.

Oh! Before I do the recipe, just a quick comment – thank you all so much for your lovely comments, it really means a lot to us! You might not see them appear right away as I need to moderate out all the porn links and spam we get sent (honestly, I wish my exes would just GET OVER ME haha), but I’ll always get to you! I do fret about appearing rude.

Recipe then, without any further delay:

10929039_819131131493825_9145530992430566377_o

to make slow-cooked chicken, bacon and cheese, you’ll need:

This is a slow cooker recipe – if you don’t have one, you could create a foil parcel and hoy it in the oven on very, very low for a while, but I don’t know the timings…

ingredients: potatoes – we used rainbow potatoes from Tesco, with a mix of different colours, cut up into thumb sized chunks (use your own measurements for the amount of potatoes you’d like, but we used 1.5kg and that made enough for four servings, two chicken breasts, six bacon medallions or rashers with the fat off, reduced fat cheese, ranch dressing (Newman’s Own), spring onions – and whatever you want on the side in your salad.

to make slow-cooked chicken, bacon and cheese, you should:

recipe: line your slow cooker with foil – you’re going to create a parcel of everything and cook it inside the parcel, so work that out. Actually, that’s a shite way of putting it, sorry! Cut up your chicken breast and bacon into chunks. Then it’s as simple as layering – potatoes, chicken, bacon, grated cheese, slices of spring onion, hoy it all together and add four tablespoons of ranch dressing. Cook on low for eight hours. Serve!

extra-easy: the syns come from the ranch dressing – Newman’s Own for 3 syns per level tablespoon. Now that’s LEVEL, not balanced on the spoon like dressing based Jenga. The cheese – you can have 40g of reduced fat cheese as HEA. I used 100g of cheese – again, split between four that’s nowhere near the HEA amount, so worry not!

Right – enjoy!

J

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

January 11, 2015

Posted under

low syn, recipe card, seafood

baked cod with samphire

What a lovely day! An hour spent bellowing at my nana – not out of malice you understand, but remember, she’s tone deaf so you end up repeating things in incremental degrees of volume until you’re screaming NO THANKS I DON’T NEED A METRIC TONNE OF MINT IMPERIALS I’M ON A DIET like you’re trying a hail a taxi from the moon. Bless her, it would be quicker and easier for me to have my side of the conversation tattooed onto my body and relayed back to her via sign language than it is to have a two-way conversation punctuated only by the sound of her hearing aid whirring away like an old 56k modem. Bless her though, I’d not change a bit about her. Even the answers in her Puzzler are hilarious – when she doesn’t know, she just adds random letters in like someone upending a Scrabble board.

But, before we went to my nana, we spent three hours walking dogs! It was BRILLIANT. I love dogs (not as much as cats – it’s my ambition in life (or rather death) that when I snuff it, I lie in a living room with eighty cats picking away at my carcass and eight pouches of Bite ‘n’ Chew in my birds nest hair) but we can’t have one in our house. It wouldn’t be fair, as we both work long hours and I’d spend all day worried that the dog was looking out the window with a doleful expression on its face, waiting for our DS3 to come bouncing over the speed-bump/her at Number 2 at the bottom of our street. So. How to get some body magic in and meet new dogs? Easy! We rang up a local cat and dog shelter (Brysons of Gateshead) (I’m not sure if that needs apostrophising and now I’m stressing, so if it does, I’m sorry) and asked if they needed people to walk their dogs – and they do, so we did!

After spending ten minutes doing my normal parking routine of driving into a parking space, leaving it, driving back in at one degree less than before, checking the lines, driving out, putting my wipers on instead of my indicators and then finally driving in another bay just up the road, we were there, and after handing over ID (lest we stole the dogs, I assume) we were given Max (a spaniel, I think) and Scout (a greyhound). Off we trotted, with the greyhound almost immediately pulling me over. I’m a big guy, but this bugger was strong! Paul had worn a shitty pair of old trainers so he was fine clarting around in the mud, but I’d inexplicably chose Chelsea boots to wear, and I pretty much skated my way through the mud along the Bowes Railway. We spent ages trotting along with the dogs who were wonderfully behaved, giving them a good walk (and us some great body magic) and generally enjoying ourselves. The dogs seemed happy to be made of a fuss of and getting some fresh air, even if my dog (Max) spent a horrendous amount of time picking absolutely every bit of rubbish up off the ground and trying to eat it, followed by me trying to stop him – I don’t think we’d be able to take dogs out again if I returned it with a Panda Pop bottle poking out of his bumhole.

Here they are!

10930922_818267104913561_7591684378568734011_o

Gorgeous little buggers. Great way to get more exercise and to help out a local charity. They also need cat cuddlers but I don’t think my heart can take it. Here’s our two, beautiful as ever. You’ll note the cat beds hanging from the radiator, spoilt little buggers.

1597678_818279244912347_1825807227126410355_o

Bowser is particularly pleased, as he managed to get a whole piece of cod for his tea. Cod from the recipe below, which was also our meal this evening…enjoy!

10917803_818239264916345_816973578010867350_o

to make baked cod with samphire, you’ll need:

ingredients: 250g of halved cherry tomatoes, 100g of pitted black olives, two tablespoons of capers, two tablespoons of mixed herbs (not the mixed herbs – use thyme, dill and oregano), four cod fillets (frozen), tablespoon of olive oil, two tablespoons of balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper and a packet of samphire.

and to make baked cod with samphire, you should:

recipe: place the tomatoes, capers, olives and fish in a pyrex dish – fish nestled amongst the other ingredients rather than sitting on top. Make a oil from the olive oil, balsamic vinegar and herbs and drizzle over the top. Add salt and pepper. Put into the oven for 20-25 minutes (if frozen, if you’re using fresh go for 15 minutes and check if it needs longer). Five minutes before the fish is ready, boil a pan of water, chuck in the samphire for two or three minutes and sieve. Put that on a plate, add a piece of fish and some of the capers/tomatoes/olives. Drizzle over some of the liquid that was released when the ingredients cooked, and bloody well enjoy!

extra-easy: perfectly. There are syns, but you’re supposed to use them, and again I’ve been fairly conservative with the syn value here – the dish serves four, and the two syns is per serving, but you could lower the amount of olives and adjust the syns accordingly. It’s really not high though, and the ingredients are beautifully simple. Samphire can be tricky to find, and if you’ve never had it, give it a go. It’s got a strong, salty taste, but is delicious – you can eat it raw, but I prefer it blanched for a moment or two just to take the edge off. It grows by the sea and really adds to the fish dish!

Enjoy. What a day!

J

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

January 10, 2015

Posted under

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

slimming world spring rolls

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

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

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

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

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

fatabstard

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

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

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

SPRINGROLLS

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

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

to make slimming world spring rolls, you should:

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

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

Serve with soy sauce for dipping!

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

Enjoy!

J

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

January 9, 2015

Posted under

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

simple chicken curry and rice

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

10914838_817324781674460_4645332591634865224_o

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

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

and to make chicken curry and rice, you should:

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

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

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

J