Stir fry cucumber and pork? You are either doing one of two things:
experiencing confusing feelings in your nethers – you’re scared, but you want to try it; or
you’re quietly gipping into your sleeve.
But trust me, it’s delicious! Paul, who doesn’t like cucumber whether it’s sliced, diced or hidden somewhere it’s not nice to talk about, declared the dish one of the best he’s ever had – and it’s so cheap too.
Anyway: good news everyone: I’m feeling better. Not 100%, I still feel like someone has backed a transit van over my head and everything capable of producing liquid is working over-time, but at least I’m not dying. See? Always a positive. But I need to stay rested, so let’s go straight to the recipe!
Oh, this makes enough for four nice bowls of stir fry cucumber and pork.
to make stir fry cucumber and pork, you’ll need:
two big cucumbers (or buy three, you’ll have something to play with whilst the cucumber soaks)
salt (smoked salt is nice, but any salt will do)
500g of low-fat pork mince (you can use turkey mince too)
3 teaspoon of light soy sauce
1 tablespoon of rice wine (about 0.00000001 of a syn, so fuck it)
2 teaspoon of oil (4 syns) (I used sesame, it’s easier)
1 teaspoon of fish sauce (you can buy it from most supermarkets, it’s syn free and doesn’t taste fishy)
1 teaspoon of cornflour (quarter of a syn, see above)
a pinch of chilli flakes
two garlic cloves, minced
rice to serve
top tips stir fry cucumber and pork
absolute full credit goes to seriouseats.com for this one – we found it a while ago and thought it would be a load of bollocks, but we’re so glad we tried it – fair play!
quickly mince the garlic with a Microplane grater – you’ll wonder how you ever got on without one – or you can buy ready minced garlic in most supermarkets if you’re lazy
if you’re using turkey mince, I’d suggest adding another tablespoon of oil (6 syns) because turkey can be quite dry, like me
marinate your pork by mixing it with two teaspoons of soy sauce, the rice wine, one teaspoon of oil, the fish sauce and half a teaspoon of cornflour – really give it a good mix, and then set aside – the longer you leave it the better it will be
peel slices from your skin of your two cucumbers so you’re left with alternating stripes around the outside, cut in half along the horizontal, so you’re left with two long halves, cut each half into chunks and then put in a bowl, scatter a good couple of pinches of salt on top, shake and leave them to sit for an hour or so
once you’re ready to cook, in a small bowl mix two teaspoons of water, the other half teaspoon of cornflour, a teaspoon of sesame oil and a teaspoon of soy sauce – mix and set aside
wash your cucumber chunks through a sieve to get the salt off them, and then pat
heat up a frying pan with a few sprays of oil, get it nice and hot, then place the pork in almost like a big burger – allow to cook for thirty seconds or so exactly like that, then start breaking it up with a spatula, add the chilli flakes and garlic and cook until everything is golden brown
now add the cucumber chunks and cook high and quick – mix your sauce again and pour it in – there’s not a lot, but the idea is to make it a bit glossy – remember, cook quick and hot
serve with rice!
Guys, do you trust us at this point? Do we ever really post a duff recipe? No. This isn’t one of them, either. The cucumbers keep a bit of crunch but go more meaty than you would imagine. It tastes lovely and fresh and is a good, cheap alternative to a fakeaway. Give it a go!
A rare beast tonight! With The Governess still unwell and me struggling away at the helm, we’re going to go straight to the recipe without a moment of delay. Enjoy!
This makes enough sticky sesame chicken for four people. This is known as General Tso’s chicken in America, if you’re curious. You can leave off the sesame seeds at the end if you absolutely must but they add a nice crunch!
to make instant pot sticky sesame chicken you will need:
to make instant pot sticky sesame chicken you should:
cut the chicken into bitesized chunks
spray the bottom of the instant pot bowl with a little oil and press ‘Saute’
add the chicken and cook for 2-3 minutes, until the chicken is white all over (don’t worry if it isn’t cooked all the way through)
in a jug mix together the rice vinegar, soy sauce, garlic, ginger, chilli flakes, hoisin sauce and honey
pour the sauce over the chicken, put the lid on and switch to ‘Manual’ mode
programme the machine for ‘high pressure’ for ten minutes and leave to cook
once finished, use the quick release method
in a bowl mix together the cornflour with one tbsp cold water to get a thick sauce
switch the instant pot back to ‘saute’ mode and pour in the cornflour
stir gently until the mixture thickens, and serve
sprinkle over the spring onion and sesame seeds
If you don’t have a pressure cooker, don’t fret – you can make this on the hob by cooking off the chicken, adding the sauce and letting it bubble and take its time!
Want more Instant Pot or pressure cooker recipes? Natch!
Lemon chicken, if you don’t mind – but I do mind, because it’s my favourite dish and I want it now. James is still laid out with illness and, in between dabbing his fevered brow and attending to his every need *cough*, we still have to get a blog-post out. However, luckily, the other half writes out his holiday entries well in advance so when times are dry for things to write about, we can whack one of these up. To that end, if you’re here for the recipe and the recipe alone, click the button below to be whisked straight there. Or scroll until you see the food. I imagine that’ll pose no difficulties for most of you.
Thank goodness they’ve gone. I bet they own more television remotes than books, you know. Let’s go back to Stockholm!
Look, if we carry on at the rate we’re going, we’ll never leave Stockholm. We’ve got three more days there and frankly, if I keep spending 1000 words describing the type of coffee I enjoyed, we’ll never get anywhere. So let’s try something different: I’m going to write about the highlights of the trip in a loose, fudged-together timeline. If you’re like Rose and are displeased, I invite you to stop being such a surfitta-lit. Best not to google that one, though.
Skyview at the Ericsson Globe
First on the list was a trip on the Skyview – an external lift that goes up and over the Ericsson Globe arena down in the imaginatively named Stockholm Globe City district of Stockholm.
It’s like a Bond film without a budget!
You’ll know the Globe, I bet: it’s hosted the Eurovision Song Contest at least twice (fun fact: for three days after these events they don’t actually need to power the lifts – they rise up on the fug of amyl nitrate of their own accord) (and mysteriously, all the previously stuck doors just ease open to allow easy access) and there’s been all manner of big stadium concerts in there. And Shania Twain. We learned this fact by having to bear witness to the same Shania Twain five-second advert on loop whilst we stood in the queue for ten minutes waiting for tickets to be the first to board. No man should ever have to endure that much Shania Twain – I felt like I was 14 again, listening to my sister play ‘That Don’t Impress Me Much’ for the eighty-seventh time. She’s a hard to please witch, isn’t she – Shania, not my sister: frankly, if there’s any rocket scientists out there with a car and fine hair, get in touch. I get impressed by a bloke who can eat his dinner without spilling a third of it on the carpet, much lower standards. We were second in the queue with only a wee Chinese grandma in front of us so we were guaranteed admission to the first pod and then we could be on our way.
Only, no; she bought tickets for 22, and out of the McDonalds over the road came a tour-bus of selfie-sticks, expensive winter wear and Marlboro Reds, pushing us back into the third pod. That meant twenty more minutes of Shania looping. If I close my eyes now I still see her fabulously-conditioned hair and Polo-mint-teeth burnt on my eyelids. Keeping things in perspective, I spent those twenty minutes staring at the suspension cable of their pod in the vain hope so much venom would melt the steel. It was our turn soon enough and I mean, it was good fun and affords you a pleasant enough view of the city, but nothing that the (much cheaper) TV tower earlier hadn’t done the day before. Plus, the clean freak in me wanted to open the pod and run a squeegee along the windows, they were absolutely hacky.
#inspirashunal #omgbabez
Twenty minutes is a long time to spend looking over the top of a mall and some distant buildings, though we were at least entertained by the three teenage girls who spent the entire twenty minutes posing in front of their phones. I swear, they couldn’t have looked out of the window once. Just how many shots do you need of:
sucking invisible spaghetti;
thousand yard stare;
oh my god spontaneous shot of me I promise but actually, it’s taken twelve minutes;
McDonalds eyebrows; and
GROUP OF GIRLS RIGHT hadehar
for your friggin’ Instagram? You know how I take photos of us? I point the camera somewhere north of our staircase of chins, and click take photo. Done. It’s that simple.
The ABBA museum
Next, the ABBA museum. Well, it had to be, didn’t it? We made our way via Sweden’s excellent underground rail system. First of all, they must have known I was coming because they put up some especially camp warning signs.
No mincing please
Secondly, our journey was greatly enlivened by the fact that a woman, clearly off her tits, stood up, started shouting in Swedish and then pissed herself at great length. Was it my aftershave? I don’t know, but we had to all get off at the next stop – her to clean herself up, me to wring the bottom of my jeans out. Poor lass pissed like a bloody racehorse. Luckily, we were close enough to walk to the Abba museum and it only took us ten minutes of sliding around on the ice to do so. Now, remember me telling you that Sweden is eye-wateringly expensive? I was in full gush when I paid for our tickets here: £44 for two. £44 to enter a museum! That’s not £44 for a sit down meal and a chance to try and talk Agnetha round, no no – just to give you access to the turntable. I mean, I know they’ve got to make their Money Money Money, but come on.
We paid up and went in and boom: something to make it all worthwhile. Who the hell knew that Benny was such a DILF back in the day? I mean now he looks like someone you’d see arguing with trees but back then, fuck me – lucky I hadn’t spotted him yesterday, or else it really would have been The Day Before You Came. I was quite taken – all sorts of shirtless photos and videos plastered the walls – at least I had somewhere to hang my multi-language headset, I suppose.
He’d be Benny, Paul and I would be the Jets
And actually, despite the shafting at the start, the museum was excellent – very thorough, detailed and interactive. Almost too interactive actually: there were booths you could nip into and do karaoke without people being able to hear you. We elected to give Mamma Mia a bash and thought we sounded great until we listened back later on via their website and it sounds like a livestream from a condemned abattoir. You know how you think you can sing in the shower? You can’t. I’m surprised they didn’t ask us to leave.
Make just one swap in this photo and it’ll match the thumbnail of at least two of our xtube videos. Just saying.
It only got worse – we rounded a corner to find the next exhibition was where you could get up on stage and sing along as the 5th member of ABBA whilst they superimposed the other four alongside us. FLABBA, if you prefer. I said we couldn’t, but the museum worker was very persuasive – she literally said you can dance, you can jive. I tried to explain that I dance like my feet are on fire and she replied ‘Dancing Queen’. I retorted by calling her a homophobic blonde bitch.
I jest, on we went – there was no-one about anyway bar her and I’m sure she’s seen two eighteen-stone Geordies pretending to be Abba before. Who hasn’t? I’m sure it was a storyline in an episode of Vera – if it wasn’t then it bloody should have been, because we absolutely murdered the song. Of course, no sooner had we started caterwauling and shuffling around like sad bears in a rubbish zoo than a gaggle of other gay men – all stylish and shrieking – came round the corner and started giving us bitchy appraising looks. Honestly, the collective effect of them pursing their lips at the same time pulled at my eyelashes. The curator had the good grace to at least shut the music off after a minute rather than making us do a full set. We slunk off stage like the fat national embarrassment that we were and we hadn’t even went through the exit doors before André, B’Michael, Brandonael and A’Joseph were belting out Does Your Mother Know.
The rest of the museum was awash with dresses, videos, quizzes and all sorts of memorabilia. Yes: far too expensive, but worth it. I mean, it’s Abba.
Putting at least one syllable into country singer
Eating and drinking
We spent more than a couple of lovely hours in the Ardbeg Embassy tasting all the various beers they had to offer. Listen, when a beard with a man hanging off it offers you a giant glass of ‘Just Don’t Call Me Brett’ or ‘Cellar Troll’, you just don’t say no.
Always wondered what happened to Casualty’s Clive Mantle, and now we know – he’s ordering a pint in Sweden
What started as a ‘quick drink’ became an elongated ‘work our way down the list’ until we were a) smashed and b) poor. Fifteen quid for two pints, remember.
Pished
Drunk and beholden to our empty stomachs, we ventured out to find food, only to stumble into the first place with an open door that we found – Sally’s, next door. It was delicious. You know how good food tastes when you’re steaming and hungry? That, but coupled with big doughy flatbreads and good cheese – you need to understand that I haven’t had bread for several months at this point and I’m not kidding when I say my side of the table lifted up a fair few inches when they brought it out. Almost spilled my wine.
I want this again.
Oh and because it was Christmas, I had the reindeer carpaccio for starters. They even stuck a little red tomato on the plate in what I thought was a rather cruel jibe at poor Rudolph. Christmas is cancelled and I’m turning it into poo.
This was better than it looks.
The 3am graffiti
At some point we were tucked up in bed, doing our best to keep the hotel awake with our beer-smothered snoring, when I got up for a gypsy’s kiss and noticed that for the first time in the entire holiday, it was proper snowing. Not that stupid vicar’s dandruff sort of snow we get, but big thick flakes of it, all settling merrily on the ground. You need to understand that we went to Iceland, Switzerland and Copenhagen in winter and saw barely any snow so this was a big deal, so much so that I woke up Paul by throwing water in his face (accidentally, I knocked over his bedside glass in the excitement – I haven’t taken to waterboarding him in his sleep – yet) and got him out of bed. We dressed in all the fabulous winter attire we had brought and thought we wouldn’t need and dashed out to play in the snow like the two big kids we are. The city was asleep, we had to place to ourselves – I managed to sneak in some free advertising:
I was going to try and put other SW blogs on there but I didn’t have time to draw out the eight adverts necessary to go with it.
We made our way down into a small square that was absolutely pristine with snow – a complete blank canvas.
This IS…ART ATTACK!
It took less than a nanosecond before we were both studiously working on writing out the most offensive swearword we could in the biggest letters our legs would allow. Unhappily, I was only a third of the way through the ‘N’ when two police officers came over to see what all the gleeful screaming was about. You’ve never seen someone turn a nine foot capital ‘N’ into a ‘B’ and a tiny ‘S’ quicker than me that night – I was like Michael Flatley on ice. They asked what we were doing and I lied through my teeth to try and explain we were making a giant version of our logo – it was only when I showed them twochubbycubs on my phone that they understood.
Now in a normal situation both Paul and I would have been well-up with being bundled into the back of a van by two tattooed, bearded, uniformed men and roughly manhandled, indeed, we call it a successful night at Washington Services round here, but not that night – it was that cold that my testicles were rolling around in my scrotum like peas at the bottom of the freezer. Any ejaculate would have slid out like a Mini Milk, so even I didn’t bother making the ‘whatever can I do, officer’ fluttering eyes/arse at them.
A mite embarrassed, we returned to our beds.
Paul does have a chin – he has a collection, actually – it’s just the lighting
Seems like a good place to leave it!
REMEMBER FOLKS: we love feedback on the holiday entries! It makes my day! So please do leave a comment to gee us along!
Let’s do the lemon chicken recipe then. This makes enough for four large portions, and if there’s anyone who can handle a large portion, it’s YOU!
to make our best ever lemon chicken fakeaway, you’ll need:
four chicken breasts, big and fat, cut into chunks
3 tbsp of light soy sauce
2 tbsp of rice vinegar
pinch of salt and pepper
175ml chicken stock
75ml lemon juice (freshly squeezed)
2 tbsp of honey (5 syns)
1 tbsp of cornflour (1 syn)
top tips for our best ever lemon chicken fakeaway:
if you’re using fresh lemons – and you should – pierce them a couple of times, stick them in the microwave for fifteen seconds and then juice them – you’ll get so much more juice – we use one of these, but you can just use your hands – not posh!
serve with rice or whatever you like, and we can confirm this freezes well!
to make our best ever lemon chicken fakeaway, you should:
in a bowl, add the chicken chunks to the soy sauce and vinegar and make sure every piece is covered – longer you leave it, the better it will be
when you’re ready to cook, cook the chicken off in a pan until it is cooked through
mix together the chicken stock, lemon juice, honey and cornflour and then tip into the pan with the chicken and cook until it has all thickened up
serve with rice and finely grated lemon rind
mwah!
Easy peasy! We’ve done loads of fakeaways lately, take a look:
Now, you can have a mixed chow mein, or you can keep it simple with a plain chicken chow mein, but either way, this is possibly my favourite recipe that we have done in a while. Mixed chow mein is easily the one dish I order most from the Chinese takeaway – well, that and trapped wind – and so to make a perfect replica of it, well say no more fam. Or something. Scroll down for the recipe, or…
Indulge me for a moment. I had a right strop the other day about that stupid TUI advert with the silly woman hyperventilating through ‘Ain’t Nobody’ like an anxiety attack given a melody. Well, working from home on a Monday means that I have to run the gamut of daytime advertising – I like to have the TV on as background noise because a) it blocks out my tinnitus and b) daytime TV makes me feel better about my own life choices. For example, on a Jeremy Kyle catch-up this morning, they were arguing about whether someone had shat in a fridge.
Just let that sink in for a moment. I can’t conceive of any situation in my life that might end up with someone shitting in my fridge. Can you? I mean, we have one of those giant American fridges, you could take the shelves out and build a rudimentary portaloo, but even then I don’t know a single soul who, however drunk they got, would think that was a viable option for relieving themselves. So not only do you have a gaggle of inbred mouthbreathers with a shitty fridge, they think the best thing to do to clear it up (use Flash and warm water, surely) is to go on national TV to be soaked in indignant spittle and to show off your Thorntons Fudge Selection teeth to a judgemental nation. I could have a bomb up my arse and Jeremy Kyle could hold the defusing code and I’d still rather die than sit in the back with Graham awaiting my turn to bound on effing and jeffing. The mind boggles.
But anyway, this isn’t about Jeremy Kyle. I want to kvetch on about adverts again. Top of the list is the Nationwide adverts, and I don’t care that I bank with them, they can take all my money away if it means I’m never subjected to Toni Collette’s stand-in and Sharon Watt’s double singing their cutesy-poo wee ditties and playing the keyboard. Why? Some clever sort will doubtless say the advert works because I have remembered it but that’s like saying Anusol is wonderful because I once bought a tube of it back in 2008. It’s a negative memory: I don’t buy it now just for the nostalgia. This advert has done the opposite – it’s made me get off my fat arse and finally get around to switching banks over to First Direct who, although they overdo the ‘bants’ side of things, at least don’t have adverts that make me want to push my face into a thresher.
Next on the list: WHAT’S THAT? YOU HAVEN’T CLAIMED FOR YOUR MIS-SOLD PPI? You know the one, smarmy streak of piss in a shiny suit asking you whether you can afford to miss out on thooousands of pounds. Gladstone Brookes, I believe – you would think with all the money they’re raking in from charging a significant fee for something that people could easily do themselves that perhaps they’d fund a better advert, but no. I hate his incredulous tone and overacting and stupid beady eyes to the point where I’d like to kick a hole in my TV and send them the invoice. With knobhead protection insurance included, of course.
Surely the king of irritation – an almost superhuman level of advertising thrush, if you will – is the friggin’ Shpock advert though. For a start, shpock is a shite name for a company – the fact I had to google it to work out how to spell it says enough. What kind of word is shpock anyway? It sounds like something that would be forming in a drip on the end of a diseased penis – look at that, you’ve left a smear of shpock all over our bedspread, for example. According to their advert, it’s like having a boot sale in your pocket. Well whoopity-doo. The last time we went to a car-boot sale it was dreadful – people selling used ashtrays and dirty clothes and urgh. If you go by their advert the app will be full of fancy bikes, cars, beautiful people and distressed furniture. I loaded it up to try and shift my giant shirts and found it awash with such levels of illiteracy that I thought I’d somehow switched my language settings to Russian. There wasn’t a thing on there I would even entertain having in my house, and that’s just the sellers. It was deleted quicker than the time I accidentally downloaded Snapchat. I mean, I’m not a 14 year old girl.
OK one final gripe. Gambling adverts. Why are these allowed? Have you tried watching ITV2 or Challenge or Sky Sports in the evening? You can’t move for flashy adverts advertising betting or bingo sites and frankly, you’d be absolutely buggered if you had a gambling problem. They don’t allow adverts for cigarettes, so why something as addictive as gambling? And it’s always such a bullshit advert – sexy people playing in glamorous virtual casinos, all sultry stares and coquettish laughter and massive wins. I’d admire any company that portrayed the grim reality of someone sat in yesterday’s clothes, unshaved, unwashed, desperately clicking the spin button over and over and over in the hope of winning back a tenth of what they’ve been encouraged to gamble away if only so they can keep the wolves away from the door for another few days. They say that ‘when the fun stops, stop’, and then they play their adverts over and over and over. How does that work then?
In fact, I’d go as far to say that these are the worst adverts of all. They have the power to absolutely destroy lives, and they’re sandwiched repeatedly between bloody Love Island repeats. As if that shower of shits wasn’t bad enough.
I feel better for that! Right, let’s do this mixed chow mein. Remember, you can use whatever meat you want – we used leftover pieces from all the fakeaway recipes we’ve been cooking lately, and of course you could use prawns but why would you? They’re bloody awful. It’s as simple as that. This makes enough for four massive portions – we portioned it up (for once) and put some in the freezer.
Have no fear though, we took it back out again ten minutes later and ate it. I mean, we’re not called twochubbycubs for nothing, you know. Let’s do this. Don’t be tempted to leave out the oil – between four, it’s 1.5 syns each – think how many syns your normal takeaway would be. It’s worth it for the taste. It looks like a lot of ingredients, but it really isn’t!
to make a mixed chow mein, you’ll need:
whatever meat you want – we used scraps of beef, some char sui pork and two chicken breasts, but honestly, there’s no rhyme or reason – if it’s already cooked, you’ll just need to warm it through in the instructions below, but if it is raw, make sure you cook it well
two or three nests of dried noodles
two cloves of garlic, minced
one large onion, chopped
1 bag of beansprouts
one bunch of spring onions – sliced thinly
1 teaspoon of sugar (1 syn)
1 teaspoon of white pepper
1 tablespoon of sesame oil (6 syns)
one large red pepper, sliced thinly
2 tablespoons of dark soy sauce
4 tablespoons of light soy sauce
5 tablespoons of oyster sauce (free – yes, I was surprised too – and it doesn’t taste fishy, don’t worry)
1 teaspoon of cornflour (1 syn)
So in total that makes eight syns: 2 syns each for a giant portion!
top tips for a mixed chow mein:
track down sesame oil – it’s worth it as it adds a lot of nutty taste
change the vegetables or meat as much as you like
a Microplane grater makes easy work of that garlic – get yours here!
mix the cornflour with 1 tablespoon of the dark soy sauce, 1 tablespoon of the light soy sauce, 2 tablespoon of the oyster sauce and pour over whatever meat you’re using to marinate for a few hours
cook your noodles according to the instructions and then when cooked, run under cold water to stop them sticking
heat the oil in your pan and either heat your cooked meat or cook off your raw meat
take the meat out and throw in the onion, minced garlic, pepper spring onion, pepper and beansprouts and cook high and hard to soften everything
add the meat back in with the remainder of the wet ingredients (and the marinade you have left over, if you’ve kept it) and then add the noodles – stir everything through until the noodles are piping hot, then serve
want it saucier? Don’t we all – just add more oyster sauce!
How good does that look, honestly? Want more fakeaway recipes? Hit the links below!
A posh burger? Yes: after our recent run of geet-common-as-owt fakeaways, we’re making the place all classy like by introducing a fakeaway burger you’d be proud to take home and show to your parents. I was proud to show Paul off when we first got together: he looked relatively normal, see. My exes beforehand had either been freakishly tall, hilariously fat, curiously-long-armed or particularly fat-lipped. It was nice to finally be dating someone who didn’t look like the reflection in a fun-house mirror.
But before we get to the burger, just a quick note. It came to our attention today that someone has been printing out our recipes, putting them in a file and selling it online to unsuspecting slimmers. Once we found out about it, down came the hammer and the problem was solved quickly, with a cheerful extra donation to our cat and dog shelter fund. Here’s the thing: we are decent, honest lads and we don’t mind helping anyone. If you want to print off one of our recipes to keep in your kitchen, you go right ahead.
(unlike Other food Blogs who tell you not to print off the recipes ‘because they get updated so often’ – but it’s actually because they don’t want to lose the ad revenue from you nipping back to check, just sayin’)
But don’t take the piss. We do this for free because we want everyone to have access to decent, proper food recipes with a side of laughs as an accompaniment. We own the literary works on our blog, including the heavily stylised writings of our recipes and as such, unauthorised copying (especially to make a profit) of our literary work and failure to identify us as the author infringe our copyright and moral rights. We will absolutely, 100% come after you for it if we find out you’re doing it, it’s as simple as that. It doesn’t matter if you’ve got “good intentions” because “not everyone wants to read on a website” – I can’t ring up JK Rowling and tell her I’m going to stick the Harry Potter books on some bog-roll because people might want to wipe their shittoris on it, after all. Our recipes, content, images and style belong entirely to us. That wee (c) on our photos doesn’t just stand for (c)littyboomboom, you know.
Can’t be arsed to read all that? Let me sum it up:
planning on ripping off our work for profit – don’t, we’ll get you in the end;
fatty fatty jiggly boobs looking for recipes – you’ll find them all on here, free. You never have to pay to use us, and that’s doubly important if you’re a big brutish man
Done.
Right then, the burger!
to make a posh burger, you’ll need:
500g lean minced beef
3 large onions, sliced
60ml balsamic vinegar
4x wholemeal rolls (4x HeB)
160g soft goats cheese (4x HeA)
2 tbsp red cooking wine (1 syn)
salad leaves (lettuce, rocket, spinach – whatever you fancy)
2 large tomatoes, sliced
½ tsp salt
½ tsp pepper
top tips for a posh burger:
don’t like goats cheese? swap it for any cheese that you like – or leave it out entirely! It’s up to you!
slice the onions in double-quick time with one of these – just watch your fingers if you’re a clumsy twat
can’t be bothered with caramelising your own onions? use the premade stuff instead, a tablespoon of caramelised onion chutney will set you back 1 syn
red cooking wine doesn’t contain any alcohol and is a great, cheap way to get the same flavour, but you can use proper red wine if you want – just remember to syn it!
we used an Optigrill to cook our burger and it did the job brilliantly – just press the ‘Burger’ button. A George Foreman will also do the job, or you can cook this in a pan or under the grill
we won’t lie – we used a brioche bun because wholemeal rolls always look crap in photos. You shouldn’t!
as you know, we think Frylight is rank! We use this instead and it’s never let us down! This is great for misting the onions in this recipe
spray a saucepan with oil and place over a medium heat
add the onions to the pan and spray over a little bit more oil
leave the onions to cook in the pan, stirring only when they start to go a bit brown, and make sure to scrape up any bits on the bottom
add the balsamic vinegar and wine and leave to cook until most of it has evaporated off – this won’t take that long – you’ll be left with tasty caramelised onions
let them cool for a bit, and then mix half of it into the mince along with the salt and pepper – save the other half for later on
divide the mixture into four balls and squash (or press) into burgers
cook the burgers to however you like them – in a pan, under the grill or in a fancy Optigrill like we did – whichever way you prefer!
meanwhile, start to assemble your burger
place the salad leaves on the bottom along with the sliced tomato, then add the burger, remaining caramelised onions and top with the goats cheese
Love nowt more than stuffing yourself full of meat? We hear you gurl. Check out some of our other recipes! We’ve also got a few veggie ones!
One syn cheesy garlic sauce and chips – building on yesterday’s fakeaway recipe, here’s our take on Paul’s favourite drunken snack (aside from whichever taxi driver happens to give him the keen-eye in the rank – and it’s not hard to catch Paul’s eye, given it swivels around like Mad Eye Moody on E). It’s not going to win any awards for classiness, presentation or nutritional value but if you’re at the end of a long, crap day and you want something to satisfy your hole (and indeed, you’re all out of the eighteen D batteries needed to power your robocock), this is the one for you.
Eee, what a sentence.
But first, I want to respond to something that’s been bugging me – I spotted this on Twitter:
I appreciate the first clue that this wasn’t going to be a reasoned, erudite debate should have come from the fact it was Good Morning Britain and as such it was meant as a light-hearted piece to get people talking, but it really annoyed me. They wouldn’t be allowed (and rightly so) to put ‘Are pensioners ALWAYS stinkin’ of piss’ or ‘Toddlers: they’re shite at tennis, so let’s throw them in the sea‘, so why is such an asinine point allowed when it’s about the so-called millennial? Someone then made a similar point and linked to a particularly vile Daily Mail article (I can imagine that you’re clutching your chest as we speak with the shock) about how young people are especially pointless and stupid because they can’t wire plugs, darn a sock or heaven-forbid bleed a radiator.
Now, I don’t know if I’m a millennial. I don’t think I am – I’m possibly too old.
Actually: according to Wikipedia, I am. Woohoo! And yet I’ve never even smashed an avocado.
I’m a millennial then, and here’s the thing: we don’t need to know these things. We live in a world where if a radiator needs bleeding, a quick two second type on our phones will bring up a video explaining exactly how to do it in more highly-defined pixels than could ever be counted. A further ten seconds would probably bring up a plumber’s number if things got super risky. Actually, on my phone I have several plumbers, though they’re never coming over to tighten my u-bend up. Is that a bad thing? No! It’s the way of the world, and it’s great!
Now some will doubtless say that we’re losing the skills of old but that isn’t true – they’re just transferring. Yes, we can’t darn a sock, but why would you darn a sock when you can order a pack of seven pairs delivered to your door within two hours with Amazon Prime? Why would you need to know off the top of your head how to make a white sauce when there’s millions of recipes online or in books that will show you how? The world has changed: instant information is here and it’s embraced by anyone with half an ounce of grey matter in their head.
You know what the worst thing is about all of this? They never mention how it works in reverse. Stereotyping massively, have you ever tried showing someone in their 80s how to use a television? My nana had a four channel TV and I spent nearly three hours explaining the various wee buttons on the remote. Even in the few days before she died she was waving that remote around like she was performing the Flight Simulator round on The Krypton Factor, with the TV blaring so loud that if I sit in a silent room even now I can still hear echoes of The Weakest Link. My mother is a beautiful, clever and astonishing woman but the first time she handled a computer mouse she picked it up and held it to her ear. Paul recounts of a similar tale with his mother who, upon receiving this errors back in the day of Windows 95:
went and drew the curtains so the police would think she was out. It’s easy to snicker at what we can’t do, but what about stuff we’ve mastered that would cause many an aged brow to wrinkle. For example: could you run a blog? Could you face countless years ahead of rack and ruin as automation steals your job and politicians steal your hope? Could you draw a penis out of the foam on the top of a latte? Exactly!
Anyway, it’s not like it fucking matters that a millennial can’t bleed a radiator: you’d need a house for your radiator first of all, and we all know exactly how great that situation currently is, eh?
Bloody old people with their wide-sweeping generalisations.
(I’M BEING SARCASTIC)
Eee, on that note, shall we do the recipe? Of course we should. One recipe for syn-free cheesy garlic sauce and chips coming right up, flower. Listen, I’d give you scraps but my boss will have my bollocks off if I give away any more freebies.
This makes enough sauce for four people very, very easily. It freezes well though!
to make one syn cheesy garlic sauce and chips, you’ll need:
as many slimming world chips as you want
80g of whatever cheese you like – I like to use Red Leicester for a bit of colour (2x HEA) (grated)
220g of Philadelphia Lightest (2 x HEA)
one bulb of garlic
chilli sauce – if you like – we use Flying Goose Sriracha Hot Chilli Sauce for only 1tbsp for a syn
top tips for making one syn cheesy garlic sauce and chips:
to make one syn cheesy garlic sauce and chips, you should:
make the sauce first!
to make the sauce, cut your garlic bulb in half horizontally, so you’re cutting through the cloves inside
spray with a wee bit of oil and pop in the oven on a low heat for an hour or so
once it has roasted, simply slide the softened garlic – as much as you like – out of each clove and into a bowl and mash
heat a small pan up with the Philadelphia and garlic inside to loosen it a little – add a splash of milk if you need to
add 60g of the cheese into the hot Philadelphia and stir it, don’t let it set – you want the cheese to be absorbed into the Philadelphia
add some salt and pepper if you like
pour over hot chips with the remainder of the cheese (we actually mixed it up and put some grated mature cheddar on too, because we’re filthy)
top with chilli sauce if you like
I know, right?
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Caramelised red onion houmous! Just a quickie today (ooh I say) but y’see, we’ve got shit to do. We’ve got a tasty recipe for an Indian spiced caramelised red onion houmous! below which’ll tickle your tastebuds and maybe a bit more if you’re lucky. We’ve been busy little bees today cooking all sorts of recipes which will start to filter through over the next couple of days – and they’re all absolute corkers. Seriously, clear your diary and your fridge, send your husband away, pack the kids off somewhere – you won’t want to share them.
Isn’t it a pain though doing anything on a Sunday? All I wanted to do today was sleep until lunchtime and then pray that How Clean Is Your House was recommissioned during the night and their first task was my house. But of course it wasn’t to be so from 10am I just had James poking his head around the bedroom door every 9 minutes, whinging at me to get out of bed like some sort of mincing, squealing snooze button.
So once all the necessaries were done it was on to cooking. We’d already written a list of everything we needed and were sure we’d got them all but of course there’s always one pissing things that missing, meaning you’ve gotta swoosh out the door to go on the hunt for some obscure spice before everything closes. And then you’ve gotta deal with Sunday drivers clogging up every dual carriageway going at 30 miles an hour. It’s like the Gauntlet from Gladiators but instead of hunks in lycra you’ve got piss-stained Daewoo Matiz’s.
And there’s fuck all on telly.
But anyway, that feels better. Here’s a nice snack to help cool you down.
to make Indian spiced caramelised red onion houmous you will need:
1 tin of chickpeas, drained and rinsed (you can use the liquid to make our Peppermint Meringues!)
1 red onion, thinly sliced
1 tsp cumin seeds (or ½ tsp ground)
1 tsp coriander seeds (or ¾ tsp ground coriander)
½ tsp fennel seeds
juice of half a lemon
1 tsp sesame oil (2½ syns)
top tips to make Indian spiced caramelised red onion houmous:
you can use ground cumin and coriander instead of seeds if you like, but you’ll get more flavour out of the seeds
we used a mandoline slicer to slice our onions and it does the job in seconds. Use the guard!
a NutriBullet does the job perfectly for nice, smooth houmous! Get yours here!
to make Indian spiced caramelised red onion houmous, you should:
spray a large frying pan with a bit of oil and plonk over a medium-high heat
add the sliced onion and cook until lightly browned – keep some aside to put on top later to make it look fancy
remove from the heat and set aside
add the cumin, coriander and fennel seeds into another pan and toast for a couple of minutes over a low heat, then grind into a powder using a pestle and mortar (if you’re using ground stuff you can leave this step)
then, chuck all the ingredients together into a food processor and blitz until smooth
Love houmous? So do we! Check out some of our other recipes below:
Sometimes we have recipes that don’t really warrant a post of their own – usually they’re simple side dishes – so tonight I’m bundling two for the price of one into the same post. You might worry that your inbox can’t handle two at once but I’m sure if you bear down and push out, everything will be tickety-boo. The macho peas recipe is a variant on the Nandos staple and the orange carrot mash was found in a BBC Good Food magazine that I found in the dentist. I’m not saying the magazine was out of date, but when they kept referring to getting in the carrots before the Luftwaffe wrecked the carrot fields, well…
OH: IF YOU’RE READING THIS ON THURSDAY 25 JANUARY 2018, and you want something worth £50 on Amazon – click here and use the code BIGTHANKS to knock a tenner off. Better than a slap in the face with a big wet willy!
So not farting about: straight to the recipes. Both recipes make enough for two large sides. Obviously the orange carrot mash doesn’t refer to orange carrots, but rather the fresh orange juice you use in the recipe! First, macho peas!
to make macho peas, you’ll need:
three big handfuls of frozen peas – or fresh, if you’re fancy
one finely chopped onion
a nice big red chilli pepper or a teaspoon of chilli flakes
a good bunch of fresh mint (hell, use mint sauce if you want) (but it won’t taste so good)
for the first time in my life, I recommend a little knob – of SALTED BUTTER! AND THE CROWD GOES WILD! 10g of salted butter will make all the difference – 3.5 syns, and what’s that between friends? You could leave it out but I remind you: it’s two bloody syns each
to make macho peas, you should:
get a pan of water bubbling and throw in your peas – cook until softened slightly but not mush
pop your onion – finely chopped mind – into a pan, pop it on medium and sweat them down
whilst they’re cooking, chop up your mint nice and fine together with the chilli if not using flakes
drain your peas, mash them slightly stir in the butter, onion, chopped mint and chopped chilli
serve!
See? Gorgeous! And now…
to make orange and carrot mash, you’ll need:
500g of fresh carrots
250ml of fresh orange juice (we use Tropicana 50/50 – 1 syn per 100g – 2.5 syns)
500ml of vegetable stock
chopped parsley
1 tsp of fennel seeds
1 tablespoon of fat free greek yoghurt
to make orange and carrot mash, you’ll need:
peel your carrots and then thinly slice them
spray some oil into a decent pan, heat it up and then pop the fennel seeds in until they pop
chuck in the carrot slices
add the orange juice and vegetable stock and bring to the boil
allow to simmer for thirty minutes until most of the liquid has disappeared and the carrots are soft
mash those carrots with lots of black pepper and a spoonful of fat free greek yoghurt
top tips for your orange carrot mash:
use a bloody mandolin slicer to slice your carrots quickly and uniformly – but please watch those fingers! Only £12 on Amazon!
Two lovely sides for you to consider. Want more veggie recipes? Of course!
Warm and spicy shepherd’s pie on the menu tonight. Two things: it really ought to be a cottage pie because we’re using beef mince and secondly, should it be shepherd’s or shepherds’ pie? Oh it confuses me, but at least you guys aren’t getting the blog delivered in text speak. So shush. For tonight’s story you’re coming back with us to Stockholm but listen, we’re not going to stay too long – it’s just I’ve had this ‘typed up’ in my head all day and I want to spurt it out. It’s only one memory – a two hour trip, in fact – but because it was great fun, here it is. As ever, if you’re here just for the food, click the button below to be whisked straight to it.
Do you know, even though I’ve included that button and made it super clear how to get to the recipe, I’ll still get emails from people saying luklushun were recipea plz. I think I could cheerfully nip over to their house, cook their meal and then press their faces into the gravy and they’d still look blank-eyed and slack-jawed, mouthing the words carent c it sorry over and over. But I digress. Enjoy my mini holiday entry, those of you with some dignity.
I’m actually going to cheat and jump forward to the next day – we spent most of the evening before just wandering around drinking before retiring for an early night, and as this isn’t an Ibsen play, I don’t think you need that level of blisteringly boring deal. So, power-mince through time with me ’til the next morning when, having applied for a small loan in order to buy a coffee and a pastry, we wandered out into the streets.
What joys awaited us then? Of course: a museum dedicated to what life is like if you’re a blind person. Admit it: that was your second guess. We had seen the Invisible Exhibition advertised in the inflight magazine on the flight over and despite the scant details, we knew we had to give it a go, and so it was that we were found heading towards the Osynlig Utställning at 10.30am in the morning.
Our journey on the bus was marred a little by having some chap stare at us the whole way – every time I looked up from cooing out the window at how pretty the city was I’d meet his fixed, cold gaze. This went on for a good twenty minutes and he didn’t return my smile or respond to my scowling. Even when I started doing that thing where you stick your middle finger up and slide it over your cheek in a subtle ‘fuck off’ fashion he didn’t stop staring. Very disconcerting, and, of course, when it came to our stop he jumped up and made his way smartly off the bus in front of us, though thankfully he disappeared in the opposite direction as went off to find a coffee that wouldn’t immediately bankrupt us.
That took altogether longer than expected: turns out there’s not a great amount of cafés open down at the docks on a Sunday morning, though we managed to finally locate a watery attempt at coffee by walking into a gym and standing looking at the receptionist for ten minutes whilst she dithered about with her paperclips as though we didn’t exist. Here, I know we’re fat and thus about as welcome in your fancy spa-gym as a verruca outbreak, but pay us some heed. Sulking but caffeinated, we made our way to the exhibition.
The premise then: experience life without sight. The first shock was the price of admission – they definitely saw us coming. Or rather, they didn’t. Actually the entrance fee was very reasonable – I just wanted to set up that laborious joke. We were the only ones there and had to stow our coats, watches and indeed, anything with a light, into a locker. I joked that ‘but I light up a room just by being there!’ but they must have been a deaf-mute because they didn’t immediately fall to the floor clutching their sides. The tour began with a kindly chap showing us how to use a Braille keyboard which, of course, I grasped straight away and typed out my name – it came out as Jimas, and rather than admit my error I just took that name and ran with it for the rest of the tour, feigning some vague Arabic origin story. Paul mastered it effortlessly, of course, but see he’s got a terribly boring first name which is hard to get wrong. If his name was a colour it would be the shade of piss-weak tea.
Our young host left us at this point and we sat at the table until a cry of ‘Jimas and Paul’ bellowed out from across the reception. Part two of our tour was ready: forty minutes being led around a pitch black room stumbling around various ‘scenarios’ to see how you would come without sight. Our guide arrived and OF COURSE it was the bloke from the bus who I thought had been staring wildly at me but had actually just been looking at me without seeing me. The relief I felt when he explained in his opening speech that he was totally blind was immense. He hadn’t seen me mouthing ‘fuck off’ to him for half the bus journey. Or had he? Was this a ruse? Was he going to trip me up in the darkness? Paranoid!
He led us in. What followed was a genuinely bizarre but, no pun intended, eye-opening experience – lots of different rooms to be led around in the blackness, guided only by his excellent instruction. Stuff like sniffing spice jars in the dark to season a meal (at first I thought he was giving me poppers – what can I say, when in a dark room…), operating the taps in a bathroom, putting on music. There was a room where we were encouraged to feel various statues to identify them – The Thinker by Rodin, Atlas holding up a globe and then, with much shrieking from Paul, he identified that he was in the throes of giving Michelangelo’s David a rusty trombone. Later rooms involved crossing a ‘busy street’, walking through a forest at night (♬ you gotta have faith-a-faith-a-faith ♬) and sitting down in a café where you were able to order drinks and snacks from the guide. I was all for a glass of tap water and getting the hell out but, because Paul is hilariously obese, he ordered a tube of Pringles. He could not have ordered a noisier bloody snack if he tried. Have you ever had to sit in the pitch black, all senses bar your sight heightened, listening to your partner crunch his Pringles, smack his lips and make awkward small talk with a guide who was probably itching to get out? I have. I took to making ‘wanker’ signs at Paul and mouthing ‘c*nt’ at him whilst he chewed.
It occured to me as we left the ‘room’ that there’s bound to be an infra-red camera up in the eaves watching us in case of someone falling over or a fire breaking out, meaning that me being horrible to my other half in the dark will all be documented and put on the staff newsletter. However, as we left, Paul confessed that whenever the guide had been talking, Paul had been pulling faces and spreading his arse cheeks at me. Classic Jimas and Paul, right? Once we’d settled up the bill for the Pringles and said a thanks to the guide, we scuttled out.
Let me say this on a genuine note: it was great. No pun intended, it was eye-opening – so disorientating being in the dark but interesting in all of the different ways life can be made easier for blind folk. The guides were charming and the exhibition really well set out – if you’re ever in Stockholm, and in the mood for something entirely different, give it a go!
Right, let’s do this recipe eh? We were looking for a more unusual, warming take on the shepherd’s pie and this recipe came through! You might be feeling a bit unsure about adding spice to such a classic but trust me when I tell you it’s bloody amazing. This makes enough for four massive portions – could very easily serve 6, but we’re fat and greedy. We didn’t get here by eating salad, after all!
to make a warm and spicy shepherd’s pie, you’ll need:
800g potatoes, diced into 1cm cubes
500g lean lamb mince (or beef)
1 onion, chopped
2 carrots, peeled and diced
2 tbsp garam masala
400ml lamb (or beef) stock
1 tbsp gravy granules (2½ syns)
200g frozen peas
1 tsp turmeric
juice of half a lemon
top tips for making warm and spicy shepherd’s pie:
Rice and beans! Gosh, those words take me back. Absolutely no messing about tonight, straight to the recipe – I had plans to sit and type out the next part of our Stockholm adventures (one a week) but like all best laid plans, they were unravelled by the introduction of a wildcard third party, this time in the form of my parents. We received a phonecall at 2pm to inform us that they’d broken down (the car, not their personalities) in Blyth (for those that don’t know, Blyth is a verruca on the model’s foot that is the Northumbrian coast) and could we possibly get them a pack of batteries as they thought the immobiliser key was at fault. Meh, fair enough: should be easy, no? You’d think so, only they didn’t know the size of the battery. Or where to go. I rang Halfords who were about as much help as a glass hammer, Maplins who didn’t bother to answer and Homebase who put me on hold until time immemorial to ‘check the stock’. I don’t know if anyone is missing a pleasant-voiced nana in the North East area, but I assume she’s trapped somewhere in the back of Homebase under a load of decking. We schlepped around the shops – in the snow, no less – and managed to secure one of those cards of tiny batteries from B&M of all places. I hate B&M – it’s all a bit shellsuit, isn’t it – but at least they had what we needed.
A nice 15 mph crawl back to Blyth (stuck behind someone who was driving as though the lightly falling snow were greasy ball bearings) revealed the next part of the fun – none of the batteries were the right size. Oh good! Helpfully, neither parent had brought along their glasses meaning they couldn’t read the tiny make and model of the battery, but luckily Paul’s eager eyes spotted it. Off we went, once more, into the snow, car swerving merrily on the slick roads. If I asked you where to get a PX28A battery at 3pm on a Sunday – with only an hour to go until the shops shut – what would you do? We took a gamble on a mad dash to another Halfords a few miles away. Paul rang ahead to check and salvation lay within: they had six of what we needed. Driving altogether too quickly for safety and adding in an alarming drift around a roundabout, we arrived with minutes to spare. I sent Paul in for what should have been a quick purchase and out, but five minutes passed and still he hadn’t reappeared. A text came through from him to say he was “stuck behind some chavvy c*nt with liquorice teeth arguing about baby seats”. I went to investigate and he was spot on – one of those vile arrogant-without-a-good-reason bucket-boxed trollops giving it the Big I-Am because she’s got an bottom-end Audi on extensive finance and who thinks she’s Anita Roddick because she’s a green level Younique seller. She was doing that awful thing of repeating what she was complaining about over and over and louder and louder (with a foul mouth) without listening for a reply. To her absolute credit, the cashier managed to shut her down in the end and turned to serve us with broken eyes. We bought those batteries with two minutes left on the clock.
I don’t like to be cruel, but I do hope that Audi span into a river on the way home.
Anyway, a sharp drive back to Blyth was met with sarcastic replies about timekeeping from my parents and much shivering. The battery was hastily replaced, the key was turned…and the battery was flat. Repeated attempts to start the battery had left it as flat as a witch’s tit. We tried to jump start it using my car but a combination of me being a total fanny about anything mechanical and us all being unable to get to my engine meant we had to rope someone else in – and then it turned out that wasn’t the issue either. Finally: time for my parents to bite the bullet and phone a bloody breakdown service. We then had to sit all huddled in my car for an hour or so, which was fine, but the car park we were in is a notorious dogging spot and so it was altogether exceptionally awkward. To pour salt in the wound, we were dispatched to get a McDonalds for our nephew meaning my car now smells delicious and we had to watch all sorts of lovely food being chowed down by folks who don’t know they’re born. Bastards. Ah well. We got home at 7pm and whaddya know, the local newsagents just doesn’t sell the green beans nor veal that we needed for tonight’s tea.
I’m thinking about having them put in a home prematurely.
Anyway listen, let’s not procrastinate. I said I would get straight to the recipe and I failed you wildly. I apologise. Let’s do the rice and beans – to me, this makes more than enough for a proper meal (veggie too) but if you want to bulk it out, grill some chicken breasts with peri-peri sauce and feel like you’re in Nandos, only without having to pretend that the chicken and chips you’ve massively overpaid for isn’t a bit shit, actually. I hate Nandos: it’s a cesspit of first dates, crap chicken and folks who think they’re too good for KFC.
I’m sure this recipe is entirely inauthentic but I don’t care, it was tasty! Serves four-ish. I found the recipe on stripedspatula.com and adapted it only slightly to make it SW friendly – full credit to them!
to make gallo pinto (rice and beans) you’ll need:
one large red pepper
one large white onion
two cloves of garlic
a tin of black beans – you can find them in most major supermarkets, sometimes in the ‘World Foods’ bit, but if not, use kidney beans)
8 tbsp of salsa (2 syns – the salsa we use is from ASDA and comes in a Hot and Spicy edition) (but most salsa kicks in about the 1/2 syn for a tbsp mark)
a good glug of worcestershire sauce (or tamari)
200ml of beef or chicken stock (or veggie)
chopped coriander for the top
400g of cooked rice – much better to use day-old leftover rice, but MAKE SURE THE DISH IS COOKED THROUGH GOOD AND HOT
if you can’t be arsed with leftover rice, cook some fresh and allow to cool.
top tips for gallo pinto (rice and beans):
if you don’t like coriander, don’t worry – that’s perfectly sensible – just swap it for chopped spring onions
tip everything else in bar the coriander and give everything a stir and allow to bubble quickly for a few minutes until the stock has almost boiled off and the rice is steaming hot
top with the coriander and serve!
Easy peasy – and a great side dish! Want more random ideas? Click any of the buttons below to be whisked away on on adventure through time and eating!
