Category Archives: lunch

Lunch ideas

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May 5, 2016

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beef, beef mince, fakeaways, low syn, lunch, mexican, quark, recipe card, savoury snacks, snacks, speciality ingredients, travel

twochubbycubs’ chilli stuffed easydillas

You have no idea how much I love a good pun, so chilli stuffed easydillas – as in a really easy version of a quesadilla, really tickled my hoop. If you’re looking for the recipe, just scroll that mouse-wheel or finger your screen and you’ll be there in no time. 

Have you been out and voted yet? If not, why not? It’s one of the most important things you can do. Even if you think there’s no point, do it anyway. You’ll never get rid of thrush unless you apply the cream, after all.

We’ve finally been back to weigh-in and after spending eight years waiting in the queue cursing under our breath, we’ve been weighed, shamed and course-corrected. Nowhere to go now but down…

…and speaking of going down, let’s discuss Cornwall, shall we? I’m going to do it a little differently – a series of different thoughts, rather than one big monologue – I need to give my poor fingers a rest and anyway, unusually, I didn’t keep notes. So bear with me…

twochubbycubs go to…cornwall – part one

Why Cornwall? Well, naturally, we were attracted to the endless walks, the wonderful surfing opportunity and the chance to lay on a beach and sizzle. Pfft, as if. Let’s get this clear – the only surfing I did was via my iPad to find out when the local Tesco planned to shut off our clotted cream supply. No, we always tend to holiday out of England when we stay in the United Kingdom, but we thought to hell with it, let’s try somewhere different.

And boy, was that a bloody struggle. Seriously – I’ve said it before, there is a massive market out there ready for milking for holiday cottages built for young, professional couples who don’t have sticky-fingered kids, moulting dogs or an extended family travelling with them like fleas on a cat. We spent hours looking for places to rent for a week away and probably found about four cottages that matched what we were looking for. Everywhere else looked like the type of place you’d see on TV in a documentary about someone who got eaten by their cats or drowned in newspapers. Who has ever looked at a room and thought ‘yes, this will do, but we must add more beige’? Eh? I want a cottage full of modern features, tasteful decoration, fun touches and unusual things. Not somewhere where I could see myself stumbling out into the garden to die of terminal boredom, face-down in a Chat magazine with taupe carpet fibres on my tea-stained jumper. 

This was the first cottage we considered.

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Admittedly, it looks dull as dishwater inside but heavens, look at the view. I could comfortably see Paul and I as masters of the lighthouse – let’s be honest, if there’s one thing we’re both good at it’s guiding seamen into a safe place – but sadly, they were booked up. Naturally. I’m sorry to be sore about it but I hope Jeremiah (venture capitalist, impotent), Lucinda (yahmy-mummy blog writer) and little Tarquinidad and Labia-Bell (conceived via a rough car mechanic called Trent) had an awful holiday with all those steps to climb. Mahaha.

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Our second option, pictured above, up at the other end of the land, was Croft 103 – take a look and tell me that doesn’t look gorgeous. Sadly, again, all booked up. By this point I was beginning to grind my teeth and make plans for a European break when Paul found Two Bare Feet via Google, a cottage down in sunny Cornwall. We booked via uniquehomestays.com – who were excellent, very efficient and a pleasure to deal with (25% off next booking please) and we were on our way. We’ll address the cottage in the next entry.

Now, Newcastle to Cornwall is a bloody long drive – just shy of 450 miles, fact fans. We could have flown, but it’s Newcastle remember – the only flights available that weren’t a vomit-express to Malaga didn’t leave on the days we needed. Plus, I needed to work on our day of departure, so we decided to drive halfway after work and stop in a Premier Inn somewhere in Bumhole, Birmingham. I might have made that name up.

What a drive though – the glamour of the A1, the majesty of the M6. We elected to take my car rather than Paul’s Smart car as we needed to take more than two lightly-folded t-shirts and a plimsoll, so his boot wouldn’t have worked. Paul, having driven an automatic now for many months, gave me such a start as he lurched out, over-revving and kangarooing and generally being over savage with my clutch, but luckily we escaped certain death once he didn’t have to slow down or be gentle. That’s unfair – I’m just as bad driving his Smart car. But that’s because I’m six foot of man pressed into a Quality Street tin sized car interior. It remains the only car I can simultaneously pop the bonnet with one knee and open the boot with the other. That’ll be me banished from ever driving it again. Imagine my distress.

There is something about long car journeys at night that I love – and it’s not that it usually ends up with me getting holes in the knees of my jeans in a layby somewhere, because that simply isn’t true. No, it reminds me of my childhood, when holidays involved my parents shepherding my sister and I into a battered Ford Escort at 3am in the morning in order to get a good start driving up into Scotland to “beat the traffic”, as though the A69 at Warwick Bridge was the equivalent of the roundabout at the Arc de Triomphe. Invariably it would be too cold to have the windows down so the first few hours of the drive would be spent coughing and spluttering whilst my parents hotboxed us to death via endless Lambert & Butlers. We’d get out for a desultory Olympic breakfast in a Little Chef on an industrial estate outside of Lockerbie with blue lips and a faint golden patina of nicotine. No wonder my sister and I always used to fight in the back of the car – my dad would barely have backed down the drive before punches were being thrown, ankles were being kicked and hair was being pulled – but see that was my sister all over, so I never hit her back.

Gosh, I might do a few blog posts about earlier holidays actually, I love reminiscing of times when I used to be a) skinny b) far less cynical and c) more easily impressed. Let’s get back into the fast-lane though and talk about our current excursion.

I’ve mentioned on previous occasions how much I love stopping at service stations. I find them exciting! Everyone is going somewhere – normally to the cash machine to get £20 out to pay for two coffees and a side of abysmal customer service – and everyone has a tale.  Travelling does something to my sphincter that invariably means I want to stop for a poo at every opportunity, so our short four hour drive took about six hours in the end. Our stops ended up costing us £260 because I was so taken with a Deal or no Deal fruit machine that, when I came home, I ordered one for the games room. I’ve told Paul it’ll help us save money and it will, not least because seeing Noel Edmonds face all lit-up in the corner of our games room will make me so nauseated I’ll not want takeaway. We did have a hairy moment when we turned into Trowell Services at midnight and unpacked our brie and grape baguettes only to have a procession of chavs in their acne-carriages turn up and start doing spins in the car-park. It was Fast & Furious 9: Roaccutane Rush. Listen mate, you’re not impressing anyone by sticking a ‘RIP Paul Walker’ sticker on your nana’s haemorrhage-purple 02-plate Micra. 

We left them to it, driving with a contemptuous sneer of our own which was somewhat diluted by the fact the Archers Omnibus theme-tune was playing through our car speakers as we glided past.  At least it wasn’t Yes Sir (I Can Boogie) which was the song of the holiday. Anyway, our moment of happiness turned into despair when, after a bit more driving, we were informed that the motorway was shut and that we had to find our way to the Premier Inn on our own steam. This was past midnight, remember, and I was tired – I hadn’t managed to finish my baguette either. Paul took control and used a new app on his phone that acts as a sat-nav. Brilliant!

NOT brilliant. No, somehow, those last 25 miles seemed to take an eternity, taking us down all sorts of country roads, private lanes, farm tracks and tiny B-roads. I was cursing the whole time (remember, I don’t trust Sat-Navs) but Paul was adamant we were going the right way. Because I wanted to listen to the end of Brain of Britain, I shut my hole, and carried on. It took us over an hour to reach our destination and it was only then Paul discovered he’d effectively selected the ‘scenic’ route option, avoiding major busy routes. My language was as blue as the bedspread was purple. Our Premier Inn receptionist booked us in, taking a moment to ask Paul ‘who are you?’ before realising that he was the ‘Mrs’ on my booking, and we sank into bed, top layer of skin burning and crisping nicely in the far-too-hot-bedroom. Ah, what a start.

Right, so clearly I can’t just write the odd thought, I do need to monologue. Sorry! I’ll get to Cornwall in the next entry! Let’s do the recipe! Here – this looks complicated and a fart-on to put together, but it really isn’t. So calm your knickers. The picture below shows two portions mind. If you want the lot, you greedy bugger, you’ll need to syn an extra wrap – 4.5 syns. But really, it was almost too much for us, and we’re very confirmed fatties.

chilli stuffed easydillas

to make chilli stuffed easydillas you will need:

for the spice mix:

  • 1½ tsp chili powder
  • 1 tsp cumin
  • 1 tsp chili flakes

for the sauce:

  • 300ml passata
  • 3 tbsp white vinegar
  • ½ tsp cumin
  • ½ tsp chili flakes

for everything else: 

  • 4 BFree Foods Multigrain Wrap, Wheat & Gluten Free (1x HeB per person) (don’t worry, they’ve left the taste in)
  • 400g minced beef (you get a fair few portions of 400g mince in our freezer filler deal with Musclefood, so why not take advantage? Eh? What’s your excuse? Click right here to take advantage of that before we change our deals!)
  • 1 onion, chopped
  • 1 red onion, chopped
  • 2 tomatoes, diced
  • 1½ tsp chili powder
  • 1 tsp cumin
  • ½ tsp salt
  • ½ tsp pepper
  • ¼ tsp chili flakes
  • 2 tbsp tomato puree
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • 2 tins mixed bean salad, drained
  • zest of half a lime
  • 1 tsp lime juice
  • 30g grated reduced-fat cheddar (HeA)
  • 25g sliced black olives (2 syns)
  • 4 tsp quark

to make chilli stuffed easydillas you should:

  • preheat the oven to 200 degrees
  • in a small bowl mix together the ingredients for the spice mix and set aside
  • in a small saucepan heat the ingredients for the sauce together over a medium heat and stir frequently until thickened (this will be towards the end)  
  • meanwhile, heat a large frying pan over a medium-high heat and spray with Frylight
  • cook the onions for a few minutes until soft
  • add the beef and cook until browned
  • add the tomato puree to the pan along with the garlic and the spice mixture and stir well, remove from the pan into a large bowl 
  • using the same pan, add the mixed bean salad and allow to cook for a few minutes until warmed through
  • mash roughly – you can add a tbsp of water if it looks too dry – then remove from pan from the heat and set aside
  • spray another large frying pan with frylight and place over a high heat
  • add one of the tortillas to the pan and cook for 30 seconds – flip over and cook for another 40 seconds, then flip over again and cook for another thirty seconds 
  • place on a wire rack to cook and repeat the process for the rest of the wraps
  • spread half the bean mixture onto one of the wrap and top with half of the meat mixture – leave about a centimetre gap around the edge so it doesn’t seep out – and place another wrap on top. do this again for the other one
  • spoon 2 tbsp of the sauce on top of each wrap and top with the diced red onion, diced tomatoes cheese and olives
  • bake in the oven for about 5 minutes or until the cheese has melted
  • add 2 tsp of quark to the top and serve

 

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April 3, 2016

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breast, budget, lunch, poultry, recipe card, rice, syn free, taster ideas, travel, whole

four meals from a chicken: sweet potato, chive and chicken risnotto

If you’re purely here for the recipe for sweet potato, chive and chicken risnotto, scroll to the bottom. It’s below the pictures. We’ve got a load of nonsense to get through first!

Firstly, I almost died today. Perhaps a slight exaggeration but I was busy eating my 28g³ of bran-flakes as per Mags’ orders and watching a particularly loud Jeremy Kyle when an errant bran flake shot down my wind-pipe and got stuck there. I immediately started spluttering and choking but Paul just looked at me with a ‘Oh I know, and look at their yellow teeth’ face, no help at all. It took almost thirty seconds of trying to dislodge this bran flake before it finally shot out and landed with a splat in his bowl of cereal – that’ll teach the unobservant fucker. My whole life flashed before my eyes – far more sitting in front of a computer trying to come up with fresh gags about fellatio for my liking – and let’s be honest, thirty seconds is a long time for a fat bloke to hold his breath, let alone one who smoked twenty a day for three years. Hell, it’s hard enough for me to not eat for thirty seconds, nevermind breathe. Plus, imagine having bran as your cause of death? You quite literally could not have a more boring reason for expiration, unless you were mumbled to death by someone with dried egg on his shirt.

Speaking of boring farts with dried egg on their shirts, we got a rather arsey message from someone “in charge” of a geocache that we visited last weekend, stating that because he couldn’t see that we had signed the log, he would delete our find. Well, you can imagine the devastation that caused in our household, can’t you? His message was so infuriatingly terse and snippy that it got my back up something rotten. Why would anyone lie about something so insignificant about finding a tiny container hidden in some nettles by the side of the A696? Goodness me. I explained that our pencil had broken and he went “away to consider the options”. I like to think he tossed and turned all night with his little GPS unit calling to him like The Tell-Tale Heart. I genuinely don’t think I’ll ever come across in my lifetime someone imbued with such a misguided amount of self-importance in relation to the tiny amount of power they’ve been granted. Honestly.

Anyway, it’s been a while since we revisited New York, hasn’t it? Why don’t we take a trip and chortle our way through another day of our holiday in The Big Apple. I hope I don’t get an email from you lot asking for proof that I actually visited New York, but if I do, I can show you a blurry photo of Paul’s arse-cheeks as he took a piss in Central Park. The glamour! Here’s a link for part one and part two. Enjoy!

twochubbycubs go to New York, part three

I can tell you one thing right from the off about New York – there’s hardly any fat people. It’s the most confusing thing.  It’s genuinely the only time in my life I’ve ever felt skinny. Paul and I remained the fattest of them all. Eh, who cares right? As long as our ankles don’t give out from under us, we’re good to go.

We started with breakfast, naturally, which I’m sure involved half a pig and some Smuckers, which I still think sounds like something your bumhole does when you’re got the skitters: “oooh, Elsie, put an Andrex in the freezer, my hoop is smuckering” or something. Our first destination was Times Square and after getting lost several times and ending up in the same K-Mart – twice – we finally found our way there. I’m not sure what we were expecting – yes, lots of big screens and people bustling about…but it really is just a meeting of streets. Am I missing something? 

We did spot an interactive screen by L’Oreal, which implored couples to stand on a spot and wait until one of the giant screens was filled with a live stream of them, then you were to pose kissing or cuddling and SHOW NEW YORK LOVE. Now, obviously, there was someone out of sight deciding which couple gets projected onto the massive screens, and when it was Paul and I standing there…well…they didn’t put on the big screen. Sob! Was it because we’re fat? Was it because we’re shirtlifters? Who knows. Paul was all for heading straight off and letting the beautiful people have their moment in the digital sun, but not me. Oh no. I stood there with Paul by my side for a good ten minutes until we were eventually projected to all of New York – we kissed, but sadly the photo was taken at such an angle that it looks like I’m gnawing on Paul’s head and he’s trying not to Smucker in his trousers. Nevermind, we still got our moment. We went back later and stole in front of a crowd of bemused Chinese folk and got a slightly better picture…see?

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Yes, I appreciate any British person passing was going to be thinking that French and Saunders had really let themselves go, but what can you do? Also, I seem to have morphed into Drew Carey. Paul’s been wearing that little Icelandic flag on his coat for a few months now and we got asked three times if we were secret service. Imagine us as secret service – we’re not exactly going to be chasing criminals down on foot. Best I could do is sass him to death in the interrogation room.

We spotted that a nearby museum was hosting an exhibition by Gunther von Hagens, the German anatomist who travels around with those stripped back skeletons and bodies that show the various muscles and whatnot. Hard to describe but hopefully you know what I mean. Fair warning, there’s a pretty grim picture coming up, so if you’re a sensitive Betty get scrolling! We’ve always wanted to see his ‘show’ but forever missed it, so this time we were at the front of the queue. Is it wrong to show such a fevered desire to see bodies and bones? It was like our arrival at the Icelandic Knob Museum all over again!

It was brilliant – all very scientific and tasteful and interesting, although let’s be honest everyone there was gagging to see how funny the knobs looked hanging down and stripped of skin – like weisswurst, since you ask. Around every corner was something of note – the tiny bones of a premature baby, the nervous system all laid out like a colossal piece of broccoli, four naked men sitting around playing cards with their bollocks hanging down like tiny church bells. As you’d expect, Paul and I tutted at the giggling school party who were shrieking into their sleeves and nudging each other at the sight of a lady’s vagina (well it wasn’t going to be a bloke’s vagina, after all) all laid bare like a broken oyster, then we proceeded to stifle our own giggles at the ‘sperm and egg’ portion of the show. I’m a man who loves his puns see, and it was all I could do to hold back from ‘…and THIS is what it’s come to’ or suchlike.  Museum fatigue set in for me before Paul, meaning my eyes had glazed over to the point where, had I not moved for a minute more, I could have passed as part of the exhibition.

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Well HELLO SAILOR. See, weisswurst!

weisswurst-1

Exhibition over, we decided we both needed to say goodbye to our breakfasts, which led to the next awkward toilet encounter. Remember in my last post I complained about the fact that American toilets have that weird gap under the door and a huge crack (especially when I’m in it) between the door and the wall of the cubicle next to it, meaning every hastily taken shit is a lesson in trying desperately not to meet someone’s eye as you crimp off a loaf? Well, no sooner had we both settled down (in adjacent cubicles, we’re not that close) and preparing to drop anchor when in walks a janitor who proceeds to start mopping the floor. Fair enough, in the UK someone would have knocked on the door, waited outside and given you a filthy look as you leave and they walk into your arse-cloud, but no, this cheeky chappie starts whistling merrily and going about his business. That wouldn’t have been so bad if he hadn’t then stuck his grimy mop under the friggin’ toilet door and sloshed it over our shoes. NOTHING makes the shutters close quicker than something like that happening, and Paul immediately whatsapped me to say ‘he couldn’t go’ and that ‘we should leave’. The janitor gave us a proper smirk as we left too. He totally knew what he was doing.

As soon as we left the Body Works museum I immediately got a nosebleed. Smashing! I have a really fragile nose and go through spells of heavy but entirely non-serious nosebleeds, and boom, here we were. Well goodness me, you’ve never seen so many tourists swerve out of someone’s way then that day, in the rain, when I came shuffling towards them with a face full of blood. N0-one offered to help, of course, so Paul dashed as fast as his swollen feet allowed him into Walgreens, where a security guard, after a LOT of persuasion, tore me off a piece of fucking parcel paper to wipe my face with. I’d have been more bloody comfortable wiping my face with a square of 1200 grit sandpaper. I muttered my thanks and sent Paul back in to try and find some tissues, only for him to disappear for ten minutes and reappear having been forced a packet of $8 aloe-fucking-vera face-wipes. Luckily, my inbuilt Geordie tight-arse came out and the outrage at having to pay so much to stop myself passing out distracted my brain from pouring my life out of my nose and we were soon sorted. I left a charming puddle of blood around the back of a donut shop, which I like to think will have confused the police for a few hours at least.

I can’t help but feel that had the janitor at the Body Works exhibition allowed me to have a dump, the pressure in my body would have settled and there would have been no nosebleed. I should have nipped back and dripped all over his urinals.

So, unexpected epistaxis aside, we made our way to M&M World, where we treated ourselves to a few bits of tat and quite possibly the most awkward photo we’ve ever had taken. I’m not posting it. A tiny lady in a massive red M&M costume came tottering out of a door to entertain the waiting children when we asked if we could have a photo. Well, I’ve never seen a costumed figure with a six foot wide smile manage to look so dejected and uncomfortable but by God, the photo doesn’t lie. It doesn’t help that Paul, in his effort to get his hands around her to make it look like he’s hugging the ‘giant M&M’, just looks like he’s trying to fingerbang her through the felt. We made a sharp exit, stopping only to buy a glass ‘Big Apple’ with chocolate M&Ms inside, which I am genuinely proud to tell you we still have and haven’t smashed open in a fit of hunger. It’s only the thought of swallowing glass that puts me off mind, rather than any sense of decency.

For reasons still unknown to both of us, we decided to visit Ripley’s Believe It Or Not (well, it was chucking it down and we didn’t want to walk far). The first believe it or not came when she charged us $65 for entry. I told her that, actually, I didn’t believe it (ho ho) but clearly she had suffered a long, miserable life of gags like that and fixed me with a stare that nearly set my nose away again. These places are what you make of them. Go in expecting a load of frippery and nonsense and you’ll thoroughly enjoy yourself. Where else can you put your head down amongst thousands of skittering cockroaches (aside from a Travelodge bed) or ‘enjoy’ medieval, ancient equipment designed to torture and maim (aside from a Travelodge bed)? We had a whale of a time until the bit at the end where you reach a ‘dizziness machine’ and have to walk along a platform whilst a curtain of paint-splattered material rotates wildly around you. Yikes. I get dizzy unscrewing the lid off a bottle of Coke. I closed my eyes, walked through, straight into Paul who was taking a picture and sent him tumbling. Calamity Anne strikes again.

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Paul’s mother dropped in to say hello (Jackie, I jest, there isn’t a smouldering Richmond Blue in her fingers nor Bejewelled 3 barely loading on a Upple Y-Pad).

Once Paul’s concussion had wore off, we wandered down to Grand Central Station, where, like the boring old farts that we are, we elected to take an audio tour. Well, what a revelation! Aside from having to wear headphones last used to guide Apollo 13 back to Earth, that is. The tour took us all around the various nooks and crannies of the station and was absolutely worth doing. There’s nothing much funny that you can write about an audio tour of a train station so let me just strongly recommend it and move on. We bought a set of metal subway signs to go above all the bedroom doors in our hallway – well, the ‘Next customer please’ sign was getting a little faded and the bulb in the red light had gone. We stopped at Starbucks (which wasn’t hard, given how many Starbucks stores there were – I half-expected to be offered a venti mocha frappucino when I went for a piss in the night. I was restrained, I have a peach iced tea, but Paul went all out for a drink that looked like someone had emptied a sheep dip into a bucket and topped it with enough whipped cream and syrup to make Mags’ buttocks clench in horror. The barista *cough* managed to misspell Paul as Pawl but it’s OK, we were able to identify his drink due to them having to move chairs and tables out of the way to bring it through.

Now I wish I could tell you we spent the rest of the day flitting from each wonderful thing to the next, but we actually did something terrible – we found a bar that served all sorts of wonderful beers and spent the rest of the day and most of the evening in there getting absolutely sozzled. We only popped in for one. Flight 151 in Chelsea, if you’re curious. It was brilliant – I’m a large fan of this ‘beer flight’ idea where you get several small beers to try on a fancy ladder. I was such a fan that I had four flights and Paul had to stop me when I made to put Conchita Wurst on the jukebox.

We spotted that they served ‘British’ beers and ordered a Newcastle Brown Ale and a Guinness each. Both seemed fine but Paul immediately made sure that we couldn’t possibly go back to that bar by checking in on Facebook on their page and saying ‘Wonderful bar but can’t pour a Guinness’. Once I spotted what he’d done, I shooed us out of the door. He’s very skilled at making friends and influencing people.

Can we talk for a moment about tipping? I find it hilariously awkward and even more so in a bar. We were sitting at the bar and every round of drinks, I was leaving two or three dollars on the bar when they passed me the change. I did try to give him a tip directly but he waved it away – odd – so the dollars just sat in the beer foam crinkling up. He eventually swept them up with a flourish and a thank you but did I miss something? I tried telling him to keep a couple of dollars back from my change but that got ignored…ah it’s so stressful. I know why people tip in America (wages for waiting staff and bar-folk are abysmal) but as a Brit, don’t put me in such a socially awkward situation! Take as much money as you like, just don’t make me cringe with the awkwardness of what to bloody do with the tip!

We staggered back a fair distance to our hotel, stopping only to stumble through the doors of a closed post office in the vain hope of finding a lavatory (nope) and fell asleep in our clothes. When we woke the next day all was well, save for the fact that at some forgotten point in the evening we had bought this:

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Go figure.

At least we didn’t buy this, though:

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An anal lubricant called Boy Butter. Haway, who is going to say that during an impassioned moment? ‘Oooo ‘eck – I’m not sure the car is going to get into the garage, throw me the friggin’ Boy Butter’…gosh.

Anyway, let’s crack on with the recipe, shall we? It’s another one of our risnottos – a risotto that you can just leave alone to cook itself rather than having to clart about adding stock and stirring.

sweet potato, chive and chicken risnotto

to make sweet potato, chive and chicken risnotto, you’ll need:

to make sweet potato, chive and chicken risnotto, you should:

  • cube your sweet potato into 1cm cubes (I mean, no need to bust out a ruler, just approximate size), squirt with some spray oil, bit of salt, bit of pepper and put in the oven on a low heat (around 160 degrees) for thirty minutes or so, until they soften and go a bit sticky
  • whilst they’re cooking, soften your onion and garlic on a medium heat until the garlic is golden
  • chuck in the chicken leftovers
  • throw in the rice, stir it once to get the juice of the onions and garlic on it, then add the stock
  • put the lid on your pan and leave alone on a medium heat for around 18 minutes – check every minute or so towards the end to make sure it hasn’t boiled dry
  • get the sweet potato cubes out of the oven and tip the into the rice – don’t worry if they stick a bit to the roasting tray, that’s good, just scrape them off and add to the mix – it’s nice to have extra textures
  • chop the chives and stir them through
  • serve with extra chives and some parmesan from your HEA.

Enjoy!

J

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March 23, 2016

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bacon, lunch, panko, pork, recipe card, speciality ingredients, syn free, taster ideas

savoury porridge with asparagus, sprouts and bacon

Oh I know, haven’t I gone all posh with the savoury porridge with asparagus, sprouts and bacon? We even chuck an egg on there. That’s a wee bit below.

Apologies that I forgot to post the last couple of days but well, I’ve been busy with work. For the first time in so long I’m actually learning something new and it’s great fun. If you knew what it was I was learning you’d probably think it was deathly dull but honestly, it’s nice to use my mind for something other than fart-gags and thinking about Paul’s willy what to cook for dinner (not Paul’s willy).

I’ve never been the best learner mind. I did very well at school despite my very best efforts not to and although I didn’t go to university (a decision I don’t regret), my grades have steered me where I want to go. I always wanted to be one of those people who could make snappy little flash cards and a schedule for revisions but my exam preparation happened to coincide with the arrival of broadband in our sleepy village, and let’s just say it wasn’t the books I was bashing. It’s lucky I only use my left hand for writing otherwise I’d have really been fucked in my English literature exam.

I’ve just asked Paul what his favourite lesson was and he replied ‘science’, which seems like a bit of a catch-all. Personally, I never had much truck with science – my physics teacher had a voice like a dying bee and made everything sound dull and our biology teacher made us watch a video of a baby being born which I think may have at least strengthened, if not concreted, my homosexuality. Chemistry was fun only because we had a teacher who looked like Professor Weetos and who you could genuinely imagine blowing a crater into the Earth. He once set the ceiling on fire during an experiment and given it was a) a bit of a run-down school and b) just before health and safety kicked in, the resulting toxic plastic smoke was rather spectacular. If I cough hard enough now I still get polystyrene flecks.

No, my favourite lesson was English (hence all the writing I do now, I suppose) but that’s mainly due to the succession of genuinely excellent teachers I had. My AS level teacher was also a friend of Dorothy and I used to try and shoehorn in as many references to me being gay in an unproductive attempt to be ‘asked to stay behind’. He was ever the professional. All those hormones. He could have split my complex sentence at any time. 

I’ve already talked about the time I ran out of the PE changing rooms shouting ‘I’VE GOT DIARRHOEA’ thinking it would get me out of cross-country only for the sadist teacher (and mind, he was both) to order me back and tell me ‘IT’LL MAKE YOU RUN FASTER’. He wasn’t wrong. Nothing gets you around the back of Newcastle Airport like the threat of filling your Diadora Borgs with yesterday’s school dinner. He once threw a blackboard eraser at someone so hard that it cracked a chunk of plaster (probably asbestos, actually) out of the wall behind. How he kept his job I do not know, although I’m sure the same school’s headteacher got fired for putting the naughty children UNDER THE STAGE when Ofsted came around, so I’m sure there’s a reason there.

I, rather disappointedly, only remember getting four detentions. One was for carrying a knife around school, which of course makes me sound all hard and dangerous until you realise it wasn’t a knife, it was a tiny gouging tool used to make a pattern in cork tiles during art class, and I only had that with me because I snapped the blade and didn’t want to get wrong off the teacher because he used to whistle through his teeth when he talked and it made it difficult not to laugh in his face. Well fuck me, you’d think I was walking round the school like the Zodiac Killer the way I was yelled at and threatened with permanent expulsion. It’s a bit hard to shank someone with a tool you could barely use to clean behind your nails with. 

Another detention – very unjust – was for suggesting a condom was a sensible thing to take on a survival course. My reasoning (which I learned from my little SAS Survival Book) was that it can carry up to two litres of water. Why, incidentally? Unless you’re rolling it onto a bull, why does it need to hold that much? Anyway, the home economics teacher (who I might add was the wife of the PE teacher, and clearly used the same razor he did to shave her top lip) threw me out for being vulgar. It wasn’t like I offered to put one on to demonstrate.

Detention number three was another injustice – I dropped a three-tier, full size wooden xylophone down two flights of stairs in a genuine accident. Of course Mrs Jinks didn’t believe me, put me in detention and didn’t even get me a credit for the fabulous melody it made as it clattered down the stairs and turned to matchsticks. Of course nowaways I’d be given a badge for displaying artistic integrity, which is certainly more than the xylophone did.

Finally, detention number four was a doozy – we used to have big jugs of fresh water on the table during lunch see, to help take away the taste of the horse arseholes they put in the stew. Anyway, someone stole my Pogs and put them in the water jug. My measured reaction was to turn around and punch him on the jaw, shaking a tooth loose. I wouldn’t care, but they were my duplicate Pogs and a shit slammer to boot, so really I suppose that detention was fair enough. Still, never disturb a fat man when he’s eating, it’s like poking a sleeping dog. Funny what writing this blog does – for years I’ve been confidently saying I’ve only ever been in one fight (and even that was over nothing – someone stood deliberately on my ankle during rugby, so I stood deliberately on his head) but now I can add this one to the mix. What larks.

Here, how the hell did we get to 1000 words just writing about school? I can’t even remember how I got onto the subject. Shall we get to the recipe?

IMG_2609

to make savoury porridge with asparagus, sprouts and bacon, you’ll need:

to make savoury porridge with asparagus, sprouts and bacon, you should:

  • preheat the oven to 220 degrees
  • spray a large pan with a few squirts of spray olive oil, add the onions and cook until softened
  • add the porridge oats and stir
  • add the stock and bring the mixture to the boil, then reduce to a simmer for about twenty minutes, adding salt and pepper to however you like it
  • while the porridge is cooking, spray another pan with a few squirts of oil and add the sliced brussels sprouts and cook for about five minutes over a medium-high heat, stirring frequently, until softened and slightly browned
  • add the garlic and stir through, then keep warm and set aside
  • in another pan, fry the bacon pieces over a high heat until crispy and yes, set aside
  • in a large, shallow bowl beat TWO of the eggs
  • dip the asparagus spears into the egg mixture and then roll in the panko – they just need a little bit – don’t go mad, you’re not covering up a murder
  • place on a baking sheet and bake in the oven for about 10 minutes
  • towards the end, cook an egg for each plate however you like it – we dry fry ours, but then we do have good pans
  • once everything is complete, serve and enjoy.

Of course, you can make this vegetarian friendly by omitting the bacon and replacing it with a giant mushroom and a faint smell of foist.

EASY. 

J

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March 20, 2016

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breakfast, budget, cured meats, lunch, pork, recipe card, savoury snacks, snacks, syn free, taster ideas

ham and egg breakfast bites

Another breakfast recipe in the form of ham and egg breakfast bites – these couldn’t be simpler to make and the recipe will take no time at all to type, so let me rattle something else off. I was in the bath earlier (what can I say, I thought I’d make an effort for work tomorrow and, after hours of hard gardening, my bollock-consommé was particularly strong) when I happened across a chapter in Bill Bryson’s newest book where he listed ten of his irrational dislikes. First thought? The cheeky faced bearded bugger had clearly read my previous blog entry and nicked the idea. Second thought? As if a wonder like Bill Bryson would read my blog. I love Bill – my favourite author in the world. If I can get to 60 and be as witty and verbose as him, I’ll be a happy, better-bearded man. My previous irrational dislikes can be found here, but here’s a few more…

spitting in public

Spitting should never happen. It’s a vile process – unless you’ve ingested some kind of poison, there’s no reason to blow great chunks of lungbutter out onto the street. You’ll see people walking along spitting away merrily like they’ve got a mouthful of cat hair and it’s all I can do not to reach across and set their face on fire. Apparently I’m the one in the wrong if I do that. Pfft. I’m tempted to add spitting in private onto the list but I can think of at least one situation where someone may prefer to spit rather than swallow. Amateurs. I gargle.

baby on board stickers

The most pointless, self-indulgent little sticker known to man, other than the picture of Alan Shearer grinning his big smug smile in the 1997 football sticker album. I can’t bear Alan Shearer – I’ve met him, and he’s a boring, self-aggrandising arse. Anyway, what’s the point of these baby on board stickers? Do you think I was planning to drive onto your backseat and through your headrests until I saw your pink Comic Sans sticker of shite and decided against it? Some say it’s for the fire brigade to know immediately in a crash that there’s a baby somewhere in the crushed metal. I dare say that if an accident was so severe that the fire brigade couldn’t spot your baby mewling away in the back then chances are no-one is walking away from it anyway. 

mothers using their pushchairs to stop traffic

Oddly specific one this. I drive to work down the same street every day, which coincides with when the parents are taking their adorable children to school. I say adorable children like one might say adorable terminal illness or adorable mass genocide. More often than not, some vacant-looking, red-eyed pyjama-clad monstrosity will, instead of crossing at the many safe crossing points, just push her pushchair into the road to try and cross. Nevermind teaching your kid how to cross the road safely, nevermind almost causing an accident because you’re too selfish to cross in the right place, you just get out there. Bah!

self-appointed traffic wardens who wear cameras

This is a difficult one. I absolutely understand why cyclists and cars have those cameras which record the road in front of you – there’s that many bell-ends on the road to justify it. But what makes me seethe is when you overtake a cyclist, leave plenty of room, indicate back in and they STILL tap their helmet and wag their fingers like I’m a dog who has shat on the carpet. You know that if you watch it back on Youtube later it’ll be accompanied by someone’s thin reedy voice reading out your registration and the sticky noise of someone masturbating furiously.

dings

I swear, everything in my house dings and dongs and bleeps at me. Put something on the fancy induction hob? It’ll do a little chirrup. Our smoke alarm system occasionally decides to launch a test with a brash American woman saying ‘THIS IS JUST A TEST’ – presumably a test to see how much blood can pour from my ears before I dismantle her. Our fridge beeps if we leave the door open for more than a second and it blares if the ice-dispenser gets too full or if the freezer is too full. The washing machine beeps each time it reaches a new stage in the cycle. My Wii U flashes when there’s a new notification and my Mac beeps whenever someone leaves us a facebook comment, or an email, or every time Siri has a shite. TwoChubbyCubs Towers is beginning to look and sound like a NASA control room and it vexes me.

people who stir their hot drink like they’re whisking eggs

There’s no need! Just give it a couple of stirs with your spoon and sit the fuck down. It makes my teeth rattle and my blood boil when they go at it like they’re trying to squeeze every last molecule of tea or take the finish off the cup, not least because I have decent Le Creuset cups and I don’t want bloody scratches on them.

stupid comments

Look, 99.9% of comments we get via the blog and facebook are wonderful, funny or useful, but we get some proper humdingers too. No: we won’t explain every facet of the plan to you, we’re not paid and we’re not consultants. Also, don’t have a pop at us if your Tesco in Wolverhampton didn’t have any 5% mince, it’s not our ruddy fault. And if you’re the lady with sand in her vag because I mentioned having to get up constantly in a cinema to let someone nip outside to the toilet and you took that as a full-scale assault on the incontinent, well, kiss my boobs. I knew the person I was getting up for and she’s only verbally incontinent.

takeaway menus

Whenever we are on a diet, three things happen: Dominos have their 50% off week, Ben & Jerry’s ice-cream goes to £2 a tub and we start getting a tsunami of takeaway leaflets through the door – all with the same dodgy photos of their food downloaded from google images, all with the same balloon fonts and all with the worst spelling mistakes. I like my nan (or rather I did, bless her, she’s dead now) but the thought of a free hot and spicy nan with my korma puts me right off. These will be the same type of places where you get a) tins of pop rather than cans of coke and b) roughly fingered for a free kebab.

air-fresheners

I might have touched on this before with my many moans about scented bloody candles and their pointless bloody names (A Child’s Fucking Wish, am I right?) but hell, it bears repeating. I’m yet to smell an air-freshener that doesn’t make my nose crinkle. They’re universally awful. Fair enough, if you spend decent money you can buy a decent candle with a reasonable smell (something like The White Company) but otherwise, open a bloody window. Those little hissy air-fresheners in public loos that smell ostensibly of pine? A load of bollocks! I’m not transported to a crisp and verdant forest with a tiny hiss, no, instead it smells like I’ve shit in a grass-clippings bin.

That’s 10, I could go on. But let’s call it a day. Ham and egg breakfast bites, then:

ham and egg breakfast bites

to make ham and egg breakfast bites, you’ll need (making enough for twelve, just scale back down if you want less)

  • a pack of decent wafer thin ham
  • 12 large eggs
  • a tin of baked beans
  • salt and pepper
  • a muffin tin greased with a few squirts of olive oil or some Frylight

to make ham and egg breakfast bites, you should:

  • layer a few slices of ham over each hole of the muffin tin and push in, so a ‘cup’ forms in each hole
  • put a small spoonful of beans in there
  • gently, crack an egg over the top – you might find it easier to crack an egg into a glass and pour it on, othewise you’re going to leave slimy residue all over the worktop and your partner will think you’ve been paying lip service to yourself in the kitchen, you filthy bugger
  • crack a bit of pepper on top if you like and put in the oven
  • cook for around 25 minutes, though you might like to let them cook a bit longer to firm them up
  • once they’re done, let them cool – they’ll keep in a sealed box in the fridge for a couple of days
  • enjoy!

Phew!

J

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March 17, 2016

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beef, lunch, noodles, recipe card, salad, savoury snacks, steak, syn free, taster ideas, vegan, vegetarian

sizzling rainbow salad, roasted garlic chickpeas and weigh in

Yes yes, the sizzling rainbow salad will follow.

Long title for what will be a very quick post because damnit, my tea is ready, I have two recipes to post and a weigh-in to report. So let’s wheel out the old knob and see how we’ve done this week…

twochubbycubs

Oh how cosmopolitan! Classy Paul sent me a text to say ‘Only lost half a pound, but got three pounds of last night’s tea pulling out of the depot as we speak’. It’s always a joy living in this house. We weighed in separately tonight as Paul had to dash home (as much as someone the approximate shape of Saturn can dash) and let the electrician in to fit an outside light in our back garden. See (barely), our local council has taken it upon themselves to tear down the old orange streetlights in our street and replace them with these AWFUL little white LED lamps, which, given how faint and pointless they are, must all be running off the same watch battery. It’s so dark I can look out of the window and see when next door’s TV goes off standby. Actually, that’s a fib, we don’t have immediate neighbours…

…which is lucky, because fuck me is the new light bright. He flicked it on and I half expected Paul to be standing at the fence shaking and bursting into flame like Sarah Connor in Terminator 2. Even the cat put a layer of Piz-Buin on before nipping out to shit in the flowerbed – that wasn’t steam coming off her turd, it was smoke. He advised me that we could adjust it if we wanted to but nah, I like to know that if I stumbled home in the dark and lost a contact lens amongst my tomatoes, I could find it in quite literally the blink of an eye. We’ve also had a couple of outdoor sockets fitted, which will just the thing for us to look at occasionally and think about pressure washing the paving stones. 

Anyway, the recipes. Let’s start with sizzling rainbow salad, which is really just a colourful salad but with all the goodness and virtue of eating greens taken out and replaced with juicy, delicious cow. If you want to keep it vegetarian that’s fine, but please ask someone to chop for you least your cockle-esque muscles give out. I’m kidding I’m kidding. Please don’t write to me, I won’t read it. I’ll be too busy wiping the cow juice off my chin and cackling wildly. Until I get CJD and Paul has to take me around the back of the house, my legs disco-dancing independently of each other, and push me into a burning pit with a tractor.

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to make sizzling rainbow salad, you’ll need:

  • any steak you like – fillet steak, frying steak, rib-eye steak, miss-steak, Mis-Teeq or Stakeford, I don’t care, as long as it mooed and had children (ouch)
  • any syn-free noodles
  • a cucumber, one that if it was a penis, you’d perhaps reach for a dab more Durex Play than you’re used to
  • a carrot, see above
  • a few radishes
  • if you can get them, a candy beetroot and a golden beetroot, if not, regular beetroot
  • two red chilli peppers
  • a lime
  • spring onions
  • crunchy lettuce of any sort you like
  • chickpeas from the below recipe

to make sizzling rainbow salad, you should:

  • cook your noodles
  • peel and slice the cucumber and carrots into thin ribbons using a potato peeler
  • very thinly slice the beetroot – I eat it raw, I like the crunch – and I use one of these mandolins for perfect uniform slices (plus it protects your fingers, you don’t want your piano career ruined by circumcised fingers)
  • do the same with the radishes
  • chop the spring onion and chillis
  • cook your steak however you like and slice it into thin strips – we just used bog-standard steak like this – remember you can add stuff like this on if you buy our freezer-filler-wonder-offer from Musclefood, just add whatever you want as extras into the basket – we cook our steak by getting a pan roaring hot, using worcestershire sauce and pepper instead of oil, quickly cooking it off and serving
  • assemble in a bowl – noodles, crunchy lettuce, sliced veg, steak, squirt a bit of lime juice over for taste
  • if you’re making the chickpeas below, scatter them on too for extra crunch
  • very healthy, I’m sure you will agree

OK, onwards. BEFORE WE START.

TWEAK

We explain what tweaking is right here. Our policy is that it’s better to eat something like this than it is to eat a tube of Pringles. Well no, it’s not better, but it’ll keep the scales happy. Hopefully. Up to you to decide what you want to do. To me, chickpeas are syn free, garlic is syn free, you don’t use enough sprays of the oil to be worth synning it, so I’ll be damned if I’m going to be told off for it. GO.

to make roasted garlic chickpeas, you’ll need:

  • a bulb of garlic
  • two big tins of chickpeas
  • a few squirts of olive oil (which might add up to a syn if you’re lucky, plus I’d hope you’re not going to eat them all)

 chickpeas 

to make roasted garlic chickpeas, you’ll need:

  • cut the garlic bulb right through the middle (horizontally left to right rather than straight down the middle) – don’t worry about peeling
  • sprinkle with a touch of salt
  • put in a low temperature oven for around half an hour, just to soften the garlic flesh, then scoop out (I just scrunch up the bulb with my hand)
  • rinse your chickpeas
  • put them into a bowl with a few squirts of oil, salt, pepper and the softened sticky flesh of the garlic
  • roll those chickpeas around each other – gently, you’re not panning for bloody gold – but enough to get them coated in some garlic, seasoning and oil
  • tip out onto a baking tray and bake in a medium oven for around 30-45 minutes, but do keep checking, they can catch quite quickly
  • eat as a snack or tumbled into salad. Tumbled?! Oh behave James.

Enjoy!

J

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March 10, 2016

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breast, budget, dips, dressings, fakeaways, kebab shop, lunch, persian, poultry, recipe card, salad, savoury snacks, snacks, syn free, taster ideas

chicken souvlakia, plus weigh in week eight

Ah, hello there. Come for the chicken souvlakia recipe? Then please, wait a moment. I’ll get to it. But first, it’s weigh in day, and well, goodness me…

week8

Whilst I’m here, I forgot to post last week’s cockometer too!

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I shall make a page of them all on. I find myself thinking of new themes for each knob.

Hooray! 32lb over eight weeks, including the time we put 11lb back on in New York, is good enough for me! Our aim has always been to lose 2lb a week. I get so frustrated when I read comments online where people kvetch and moan about only losing a couple of pounds – that’s the healthy way to do it – slowly and sensibly. I sometimes think Slimming World puts a bit too much emphasis on big losses (like Slimmer of the Week) as it is and it creates disappointment. Mind, my frustration soon builds to sheer eye-popping rage when I see people saying that they’re stuck for ideas on what to cook. You’re using the Internet, the world’s biggest cookbook – it isn’t just used for watching jizz vids and bloody asos.com, you know. I do sometimes think it boils down to laziness – people can’t be arsed to cook but that in itself is a shame, because so many of our recipes for example cook in no time at all. Anyway, no time for soapbox, dinner is almost ready, and I need to post the bloody recipe.

It’s a chicken recipe to celebrate our brilliant new Musclefood deal – I’m going to talk about it in full over the weekend, but we now have a decent, plain deal – around 25 chicken breasts (and each one is huge and doesn’t shrink!), 2kg of extra lean beef mince, 2 big packs of fat fee bacon medallions and two packs of beef strips. For £50, delivered. And mind it’s not delivered the usual online way, where it gets stuffed into a jiffy bag, driven across the country by a lorry driver who has only had three hours sleep, then chucked in your wheelie bin as a “safe place”. Nope, this is a trackable, chilled delivery. Normally £80, haggled it down to £50. We all it our freezer filler, partly because they wouldn’t let me call it a box-stretcher. Click here for this deal and our fancy new Musclefood page!

So, chicken souvlakia!

chicken souvlakia

Just look at it, it’s tasty, juicy and actually, so easy to make. Let’s go. This makes enough for four if you use four chicken breasts. And fuck me, if you needed that explaining, perhaps you’d be better off with a packet of crisps and a sit-down. 

to make chicken souvlakia you will need: 

for the souvlaki:

for the sauce:

  • 250ml fat free greek yoghurt
  • half a cucumber, peeled with the flesh grated
  • salt and pepper
  • 2 tbsp chopped parsley

for the salad:

  • half an onion, chopped finely
  • half a cucumber
  • 2 tbsp lemon juice
  • handful of cherry tomatoes, quartered
  • salt and pepper

for the houmous:

to make chicken souvlakia you should:

  • mix together the garlic, salt, pepper, oregano and lemon juice with the chicken and leave to marinade for about thirty minutes
  • meanwhile – prepare the sauce by mixing together all of the sauce ingredients and prepare the salad by chopping everything into neat chunks 
  • when ready, thread the chicken onto the skewers and grill for about ten minutes each side under a hot grill
  • serve with toasted pitta triangles from your HEB and a great big smile because you’ve done ever so well, haven’t you?

J

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March 6, 2016

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bacon, italian, lunch, one-pot, pork, recipe card, rice, syn free, taster ideas

brussels sprout and bacon risnotto

Ah yes, good old brussels sprout and bacon risnotto – it’s our way of making risotto without having to stand over your pan stirring furiously and blinking back hot tears of lament over what your life has become. For me, life is just too short to stir stock. Who else is going to sit simmering with rage at another advert with a twee vocal cover version of a song? Bloody Battersea Dogs’ Home and their I Only Want To Be With You shite. Bah!

No time for length tonight as it’s been a long day sorting out presents for Old Mother Hubbard. 

Actually, my poor mother gets a lot of stick on here, but she’s really quite wonderful. Helpful, pleasant, decent haircut – all words that she’s used to describe me at times. We’re not one of those families that sit around over dinner every Sunday laughing gaily and talking about the neighbours, but we’re close and I couldn’t do without either of them. So: mother, I’ll put this on here because you’re too tight to buy your son’s book – happy mother’s day. Enjoy it, and remember to smile, for it is I who chooses the care-home.

Tonight’s meal uses a much-maligned vegetable – the sprout. It’s a shame these little balls of farts don’t get more love – they’re great for you, cheap to buy and very versatile. Yes, they smell like a church cushion when they’re cooked and admittedly, they look like the Jolly Green Giant’s haemorrhoids, but still, make do. If you’re not a fan still give this dish a go – it doesn’t taste like sprouts, but their nutty flavour seeps into the dish. 

This recipe very easily serves four. You’ll need a decent pot to cook it in though, or at least a good non-stick pan. I’m telling you, buy a Le Creuset casserole pot. Yes, they’re expensive but we use ours every single day and it remains entirely non-stick and wonderful to cook with. Plus, lifetime guarantee AND you get to be a Barry Big Bollocks when anyone comes around. What price can you put on that? Actually, £110, reduced from £170, right here at the time of writing. It’s quite honestly the best thing in our kitchen.


brussels sprout and bacon risnotto

to make brussels sprout and bacon risnotto, you’ll need:

  • 250g of peeled brussels sprouts (we just buy them ready done from Tesco, oh the extravagance!)
  • eight medallions of bacon (did you know you get fabulous, lovely bacon in our Musclefood deal? Why not have a look? No seriously, come on, look!)
  • one large white onion
  • one minced garlic clove
  • as many peas as you dare
  • 350g of risotto/arborio rice
  • 900ml of chicken or vegetable stock
  • pepper and parmesan (taken from your healthy extra at the end)

to make brussels sprout and bacon risnotto, you should:

  • prepare the sprouts by slicing them thinly, whether you use a knife, mandolin slicer or a food processor
  • slice the onion and bacon into small chunks
  • tip the onion, bacon, sprouts and garlic into a good, solid non-stick pan and put on a medium heat, allowing everything to cook and sweat nicely
  • once your onions are golden and the bacon is cooked, tip in the peas and the rice
  • stir the rice through the juice of the onions and bacon, but don’t over-stir, you’re mixing delicate flavours and good wishes, not cement
  • pour in the stock and immediately cover the pan – cook for twenty minutes on a medium heat (8 on our induction hob, which goes to 15) – don’t lift the lid to peek, don’t cheat
  • after twenty minutes take a look – if you feel it needs a bit longer, go for it, but remember it’ll cook away for a bit without any heat
  • serve with pepper and parmesan
  • if we’re feeling particularly filthy, we’ll stir in our HEA allowance of soft cheese or a good dollop of mustard

Have a good evening, all,

J

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February 29, 2016

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dressings, low syn, lunch, recipe card, salad, taster ideas, vegetarian

sweet and sour cucumber salad

Coming for the sweet and sour cucumber salad? Well, it’s not exciting, so calm down.

Now see, I wasn’t going to post tonight because I’ve come home to an empty house (Paul is out at a rally or on a Raleigh or is just rally, rally tired or something), the cat has left another half-rat on the kitchen floor and I want to do some baking. But, this is a recipe blog, is it not, and who am I to deny you such simple pleasures? We both always struggle with lunches and I see a lot of people asking for ideas, so here is a cheap and easy idea. I’m writing the New York entries up, by the way, and they’ll be online fairly soon, which has to be good news if you’re a fan of our holiday reports. Someone certainly is, we’ve sold an insane amount of our book lately – just saying, but feel free to join them by clicking here!

I’m not sure we’re going to have any more holidays this year because we’re saving up for a six week jaunt to America in 2017, travelling around in a decent car like the aching hipsters that we are. I know I know. We did watch a TV show about how to do Benidorm on the cheap the other night, which included such gems like get your water from a mountain spring and spend your day at a timeshare sales pitch in order to get a few packets of crisps, a cold meat platter and presumably, devastating dysentery. Benidorm, though. Listen, I’m not a snob, sometimes I’ll shop at Aldi and not take my Waitrose bags with me after all, but I just can’t imagine enjoying myself in Benidorm.

Before you all start, I know there are decent places in Benidorm and of course there is, but in order to persuade me to go someone suggested looking up an act called Sticky Vicky. Let me state that, as a practicing homosexual (fuck that, actually, I’ve mastered in cockology), there couldn’t have been a less inviting prospect.  Sticky Vicky’s whole act seems to be that she puts things up her twaddle-dandy that REALLY shouldn’t be in there. You name it, she’s coated it in a dull patina and pulled it from her box – lightbulbs, streamers, razor blades. BLOODY RAZOR BLADES. Well not bloody in the sense that they’ve cut her, she’s clearly very talented, but for goodness sake. I’m quite possibly the polar opposite of a prude, but even I draw the line at watching a sexagenerian slopping the contents of a First Aid box out of her minnie whilst I sip warm Stella Artois and smile wanly. And hey, before you all start writing hate mail, I went to Ayia Napa once – even the flight there was so rough the oxygen masks came down.

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Now, you can use a spiraliser like we did to get the pretty ribbons, or you can use a grater. Hell, you can go at your cucumber with a samurai sword for all the shits I give. It’s your life. If you want a spiraliser, I can recommend the one we use. At the time of writing, that’s £30 instead of £70. Is it worth it? Depends how cylindrical you like your dinners. This will make enough for four normal folk or two big bertha lunches.

to make sweet and sour cucumber salad, you’ll need:

  • for the salad:
  • one cucumber so big that when you scan it through the self-service checkout even the computer calls you a slut
  • or you know, two normal sized ones
  • or three tiny ones, but yeah, size doesn’t matter (cough: it does)
  • one chunky carrot
  • a few thinly sliced spring onions

 

  • for the dressing:
  • 1 tablespoon of olive oil (6 syns)
  • half a teaspoon of dill – dried is fine
  • 3 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar, or any fancy vinegar you have
  • 1 tablespoon of honey (2.5 syns, or put a bit of sweetener in and save the syns, but let’s be honest, a bit of honey is so much nicer than the scrapings off a scientist’s shoe)
  • 1 clove of garlic, minced finely, and yes, I know a bloody good mincer right here
  • a pinch of chilli flakes
  • a good grind of salt and a good grind of pepper

and to make sweet and sour cucumber salad, you should:

  • run the carrot and the cucumber(s) through the spiraliser, grater or Ken Dodd’s teeth 
  • put in a bowl with the finely chopped onion
  • put the dressing contents in a bowl, whisk like mad, pour over the top, and give everything a nice coating
  • serve

Although I’ve pitched this at 2 syns, it’ll actually work out less if you’re dividing between four because a lot of the sauce sits at the bottom of the bowl once the cucumber noodles are dressed. Recipe adapted from a somewhat more sugary Simply So Healthy recipe. SEE, ALWAYS LOOKING OUT FOR YOU.

J

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February 28, 2016

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bacon, low syn, lunch, pork, recipe card, salad, savoury snacks, snacks, taster ideas

avocado devilled eggs – an excellent snack idea

NEW SNACK IDEA: avocado devilled eggs. In a rush today so only a little post, but after the success of those teeny tiny teriyaki tasters that we suggested for taster nights a few days ago, I’ve decided to make a new snack idea recipe. Gotta be worth a go! It vexes me that avocado is so ridiculously high in syns – I appreciate it is ‘fats’ but haway, it’s so much better for you than ten Muller Lights. That’s another Slimming World mystery I suppose. There’s quite a few of those around. My favourite is the speed food conundrum. People get themselves in such a froth in the race to tell people THEY MUST HAVE SPEED FOOD on their plate, and I can’t really understand why. It’s there as a suggestion, not a rule. We’ll always try and have speed food on the side but it isn’t because Mags is holding a gun to our heads, but rather, eating more vegetables can’t be a bad thing. I do wonder though why speed foods became such a necessity – I remember back in the hazy days of red and green days and speed food was never suggested. Suppose that’s because the diet was different, but hmm. Nevermind. I’m still sore about losing out on Man of the Year 2004 to some bugger with a black foot and a lot of wheezing.

For our recipes, we’ll more often than not incorporate speed food into the ‘main dish’ so although it may not look like we’ve hit our speed quota, we normally have. We’ll never lecture you on whether or not you need it. If you have any concerns, feel free to hoy some broccoli or a tin of carrots on the side. 

Anyway, the recipe:

avocado devilled eggs

to make avocado devilled eggs, you’ll need:

  • 8 eggs
  • 1 avocado – now, 100g of avocado flesh is a ridiculous 9.5 syns, and I used a 100g avocado, but minus the weight of the skin and the stone, I reckoned about 80g of flesh, so 8 syns
  • 4 rashers of bacon with the fat cut off, or some of our fabulous bacon from the twochubbycubs musclefood deal, cooked and cut into tiny chunks
  • rocket
  • one tomato, chopped finely
  • black pepper and a pinch of salt

to make avocado devilled eggs, you should:

  • boil your eggs – I always go for around fourteen minutes because you want everything to be nice and solid
  • plunge them straight into icy cold water and then peel the buggers, but don’t go all hamfisted with it, nice and gentle
  • cut your avocado open, get rid of the stone, and scoop that juicy flesh into a bowl
  • mix in the chopped bacon and chopped tomatoes, saving a little of each for the top
  • add a pinch of salt and a pinch of pepper
  • cut your eggs in half, drop the yolks into the avocado bow, and then mix the whole lot like buggery
  • using a teaspoon, put the mixture into the empty eggs where their yolks used to be
  • decorate with the leftover bacon and tomato and another twist of pepper

Enjoy! Note, if you’re making these for a taster session, the avocado will discolour a little if you leave it for too long. For the best taste, make them nice and fresh or add a bit of lemon juice into the mix!

J

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February 21, 2016

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beef, beef mince, fakeaways, italian, low syn, lunch, pork, pork mince, recipe card, savoury snacks, snacks, taster ideas

teeny tiny teriyaki tasters

Here for the teeny tiny teriyaki tasters which are perfect for those awful taster nights where everyone brings in food? You’ll find them just below the picture. But naturally, because it’s us, there’s going to be a bit of guff before we get to that point.

Firstly, this is important: you know how we have our fabulous deal with Musclefood, where you can choose from our meat-filled big box or a smaller, still meaty, freezer filler? This one? They’re currently out of stock at the moment though. Booo! Well, they’re also running a deal right now where you get 5kg of their marvellous chicken breasts for £18 instead of £32.85. You’ll need to click here, add it to your basket and use the code GREATCHICK in the promo codes bit in your basket. The chicken breasts are colossal – we usually use one where two supermarket chicken breasts would do. Tasty too.

Usual guff applies, the minimum order is £25 and delivery is £3.95, but if you fill out your order with the usual staples of extra lean beef mince you’ll be fine. Enjoy!

Right, secondly, couple of boring admin things – we get asked a lot how many servings our meals will do – unless we say otherwise, assume four. We’re very big eaters, always have been, and our meals could comfortably serve four unless we go out of our way to say it’ll be six or two or whatever. I’ve got no time for tiny portions whether during mealtimes or sex. Also, we’ve got so many lovely, warm comments in our comment queue, we’re going to try and get through them today. Please don’t be disenheartened that it takes such an age to clear them – we read each one as it comes in and it touches us right in our special no-no places. To give you an idea how much admin that is, there’s 156 comments waiting for us to approve and comment on, and I only cleared the queue before we went to New York! Goodness me!

So yes, today’s recipe is designed for all those people who spill their vowels down their front and ask us ‘WOT CAN I TAKE TO TASTA NITE‘. I’ll include some more links at the bottom for other snack suggestions, but seriously, if you take these bad boys to class, I’d be surprised if your consultant doesn’t give you Slimmer of the Year right there and fill your book with so many stickers it looks like a Panini 1998 World Cup album, only with Mags playing centre forward instead of Les Ferdinand. God I’d pay good money for that.
Buffets as a rule leave me cold, but these have put me in mind of a recent visit to a carvery. See, before we set off anew on this diet a few weeks ago, we had a little list of things to cram down our necks before we had to be strict again and exist on kale and misery (recipe for kale and misery stew will be online shortly, prep your tears now). They included something delicious from McDonalds (an abstract thought if ever there was one), all manner of beige nonsense from Iceland and a visit to a carvery – perhaps more precisely, a Toby Carvery. I’ve never been, but I feel I’ve been vicariously through all the frothy-mouthed praising I’ve seen people on the internet do. Apparently they’re delicious, the sort of place you would go for a final meal, a Sunday dinner done right at any time of the week – having seen the fervent delirium that swims over the eyes of their fans I was half expecting to be fellated under the table as I worked my way through my roast.
 
Well, that didn’t happen. We stumbled into the Kingston Park Toby Carvery and although the staff were pleasant, the food was awful and most of the customers were clearly determined to get the value out of their £5.99 and to hell with decency. Listen, I’m a fat bloke, but show a bit of restraint man – people were coming back to the table with plates piled so high with heat-lamp warm veg that their glazed-over eyes were barely visible over the top of them. I think it’s a very British thing, confusing quantity with quality, but it made me feel a bit queasy. Just because you can eat as much as you like, doesn’t mean you should. It’s not a challenge, you’re not on the Krypton Factor or up against a timer – they’ll still let you out if you’re capable of breathing under your own steam.
 
The food wasn’t all that, considering the rapturous praise it seems to elicit from various people online. The meat was so leathery and tough that I could have reheeled my shoes with it. The mash and roast potatoes were so dry that I almost asked for a bowl of those little silica gel balls for dessert just to grab a bit of moisture. Because the food is kept under heatlamps and customers are allowed to ‘help themselves’, everything ends up slightly mixed together so you get cauliflower cheese mixed in with the peas and queasy droplets of horseradish blobbing on the top of the gravy. Finally, their famous Yorkshire puddings? I could have sanded a brick wall with the buggers. Bah! The staff were lovely, mind.
 
I see the same thing when I walk down Stowell Street in Newcastle to my car, which is awash with all-you-can-eat Chinese restaurants with the same folk piling their plates high with all sorts of salty nonsense. I can put it away myself, don’t you worry, but I’ve never felt it necessary to combine starter, main and dessert on one plate, especially when you can go back up if you want more. It always ends up tasting the same and I can’t bear seeing people eat without actually tasting the food they’re pouring into their maw. They look like cows in a field chewing the cud, quite possibly with the same levels of methane barrelling out of their arses.
 
Admittedly, I’m being slightly hypocritical. I don’t mean to be. I’d love to make a pig of myself at a buffet but I suffer from buffet-anxiety, or premature mastication if you prefer. I’ll go up, fill my plate with about two thirds of the amount I actually want, and then cry inside at the sight of everyone else’s plate, which is normally full of the things I wanted but didn’t dare pick up in case some snotty cow yelled ‘SPOON OF MINIATURE TRIFLE EH? WITH YOUR TITS?’ or similar. We’ve all been there.
Moral of the story? Calm the fuck down at buffets.
Right, recipe!

teeny tiny teriyaki tasters

This makes enough for 36 sticky teeny tiny teriyaki tasters (fnar fnar), if you make them bigger, adjust the syns per ball. There’s 12 syns in the overall recipe.

to make teeny tiny teriyaki tasters, you’ll need:

  • 500g lean pork mince
  • 250g lean beef mince
  • 1 egg yolk
  • 60ml light soy sauce
  • 60ml white wine (2 syns)
  • 2 tbsp sherry (1.5 syns)
  • 1 tbsp honey (2.5 syns)
  • 2 tsp freshly grated ginger
  • 15g of a mix of black and white sesame seeds (6 syns, as 25g is 8 syns – and to be honest, you’ll not use all of these because a lot will end up on the chopping board, but let’s err on the side of caution)

to make teeny tiny teriyaki tasters, you should:

  • in a large bowl mix together the pork and the beef mince with the egg yolk
  • using a tablespoon, scoop out a spoon-size ball and roll into meatballs – do this for all of the mixture (you’ll need about 36 – if you want, you could weigh out each ball at around 27g each…but life’s too short)
  • heat a large pan over a medium high heat and add a couple of squirts of spray oil or, urgh, Frylight, bleurgh
  • cook the meatballs until browned all over and cooked right through – you WILL need to do them in batches
  • place cooked meatballs onto a baking sheet and place in the oven to keep warm whilst you cook the rest
  • when done, mix together the soy sauce, white wine, sherry, honey and ginger in a small jug and pour into the same pan you used to cook the meatballs and reduce the heat to medium
  • cook for a few minutes until the sauce has reduced and thickened
  • add the meatballs back into the pan and stir carefully to coat – I find it easier to tumble the meatballs in and then pick up the pan and gently slosh them around rather than trying to stir with a spoon
  • serve on cocktail sticks and sprinkle over the seeds – don’t sweat it if you can’t find these, you could easily leave them off and that brings the syn count to 1 syn for six – even better – but they look so pretty with the seeds on

Get used to people going OOOOOH and slapping you on the back. Hell, you’ve earned it.

Enjoyed our tale? Remember: we have a book with all of our stories in one place, and you’ll be keeping us in gin if you buy it!

J