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March 15, 2015

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budget, dips, fakeaways, lunch, persian, recipe card, savoury snacks, snacks, syn free, taster ideas, vegetarian

syn-free houmous four-ways

Only a small post today as it’s mother’s day (so I need to go visit Ripley) and I’m ‘on-call’ for work, with the expectation that I’ll be expected to work into the wee hours again. Fingers crossed this doesn’t happen but it’s not as if I could just turn my phone off…

I am very lucky to have a mum (and dad) like I do. They handled my being a back-door-deirdre with sensitivity and aplomb, which aren’t words you’d immediately associate with our family. I always felt incredibly supportive and they even put up with the various boyfriends that I brought up like a cat with a dying mouse without too much commentary. They even let my ‘friend’ stay for two weeks at a time during the summer holidays. Such a memorable summer. I know a few other gay lads who weren’t so lucky with their parents – I’ve mentioned on here before about the guy who, enthused about being gay since I broke him in, rushed home to tell his parents the good news only for his dad to throw him against a wall and hold a screwdriver to his throat. Good old religion! My parents came through then too – they let him stay at our house and ‘hid him away’ despite his parents turning up in the village where we lived and asking on doors if people had seen him! Crazy times. I think I’ve managed to grow up well-adjusted and happy in myself thanks to my parents and I love them very much for it.

Anyway, enough bloody treacle. In honour of dear old Mother, here’s a rare picture of me and the good lady on a night out. Don’t we look glam?

What a trooper. Still, better get in the car, nip to the graveyard to pick up a nice bunch of flowers for her, and be away. I can fudge away the ‘With Sympathies’ card easily enough, I’m sure.

Here’s a recipe to tide you over:

to make syn-free houmous four-ways:

I love how this looks in a photo, and all four varieties of houmous taste different and fresh in their own ways. All syn free too! They’re just variations of the same basic houmous recipe, below:

lemon and garlic (add an extra couple of garlic gloves, a squidge more lemon juice and decorate with finely grated lemon peel) (don’t take the pith, literally, as that is very bitter – just the top layer, please)
basil and parmesan (10 torn basil leaves, 10g of shaved parmesan, bit of salt) – up to you if you want to syn such a tiny portion of parmesan but bearing in mind you’ll be getting what, 2.5g of it, I wouldn’t bother)
pickled red cabbage (just a few chunks of pickled red cabbage and some of the pickling vinegar added to give it colour)
paprika and sun-dried tomato – I chucked in 1tbsp of sundried tomato paste (1.5 syns, but again, through the laws of dilution, it’s up to you if you syn it)

The basic houmous recipe is simple enough – for enough to fill one of those little square bowls above, you’ll want to use one small tin of cooked chick peas (syn free), a nice round tablespoon of fat free cottage cheese, a garlic clove, pinch of sea salt and some lemon juice. Blend it together, adding a little more lemon juice if you like it runny or keeping some back if you prefer it chunky. It’s up to you.

You may remember Delia Smith banging on about these when she wasn’t pissed off her nut. They’re genuinely amazing and it’ll make just the right amount of houmous to fill one of the bowls above. I use it all the time.

BUT OH NO:

Before the Tweak Police are on the phone to Margaret and she’s clambering into the back of a battered Ford Transit with a sock full of batteries to take me out, FAIR WARNING. This could technically be considered a tweak on the Slimming World diet. Is it? Is it bollocks. You’re not eating more chickpeas than you could reasonably eat, and this filled us up enough to skip our evening meal, so kiss it! I’ve done a whole article on tweaking which, if you’re new to this site, you’ll probably get a right good kick out of. It’s here.

Serve with pitta chips (one WW 50/50 pittas (branded as love fibre) is a HEB – toast it and cut it up) and all sorts of superfree slices – cucumber, red peppers, carrots, tomatoes. World is your oyster.

Happy mother’s day all.

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chubbycubs

Posted on

March 8, 2015

Posted under

budget, lunch, pasta, quark, recipe card, sausages, speciality ingredients, syn free

syn-free sausage and tomato bake

You’re not just getting a blog post tonight, you’re getting a whole new page and a recipe! Gosh we spoil you. You can find the new page by clicking here and unusually, I’d LOVE feedback – any possible questions, things I’ve got wrong, the usual guff. In the meantime, as a treat for us forgetting to post last week, here’s another recipe – it’s just a sausage and pasta bake but it’s the perfect vehicle for any old shite you have leftover in the fridge.

Firstly, a reassurance – if you DON’T have pasta that is shaped like giant, shaven, tidy vaginas then do not worry – you can use any pasta at all in this. Use a mixture, use the drags from the back of the cupboard with the weevils crawling on it for added protein, use spaghetti, noodles, the works! It’ll be syn free as long as you use your healthy extras for the cheese (70g reduced fat parmesan) and the bread bun.

to make syn-free sausage and tomato bake you’ll need:

ingredients: pasta, two tins of tomatoes, Slimming World sausages (syn-free, but if you want, get some very low-syn sausages and syn accordingly), an onion, garlic, reduced fat cheese, quark and a wholemeal bun whizzed up into breadcrubs.

to make syn-free sausage and tomato bake you should:

recipe: cook your pasta in water so salty it would be a sailor cry, drain and set aside. Meanwhile, chop your onion and garlic, fry it off gently in a drop of oil, add your tinned tomatoes and let it simmer down. Grill your sausages and cut into discs.

Now – for our bake, we added sliced peppers, half a bag of wilting rocket and some jalapenos that were floating around in the fridge. Add whatever you like!

Combine everything in a great big pan and stir it like crazy. Get it all mixed up. Chuck it into a pyrex dish. Add the quark on the top, followed by the cheese and breadcrumbs, and pop it in the oven for thirty minutes. Finish it under the grill for another five to get it crunchy. Serve!

This makes four massive portions and like I said, is perfect for using up any leftover veg or pasta. It’s a very cheap and filling dish and even if you left out the sausages, would still serve as a lovely midweek meal.

Syn free!

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chubbycubs

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February 13, 2015

Posted under

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

ploughman’s lunch

Gosh! Remember yesterday I was blathering on about my lights being fixed in the bathroom? Well, excitedly, I drove home like I’d spilt acid in my lap just to get home and try them out – and they’re great! Perhaps a bit too bright – I tried to read Bill Bryson in the bath but the top of the book started smoking after ten minutes. I could open a Stand ‘n’ Tan, although I don’t want old orange women with necks like crinkle-cut crisps stubbing out their rollies on my nice carpet. Still, at least I can see where I’ve dropped the soap after I’ve been singing ‘Just Call Me Angel In The Morning’ into it to get Paul out of bed.

Anyway, I’m a terrible person – I have a new enemy, and he’s a Big Issue seller.. He’s not the same tramp who hustled me for a fiver a few months ago, but instead he’s a Big Issue seller and I find him absolutely revolting. I know that makes me an awful person with a lack of compassion but I can’t help it – humans take an instant dislike to each other sometimes. Anyway, I see him whenever I’m mincing to Marks and Spencers in Newcastle – he stands in the middle of the path with his magazines and annoying face and jabs you with the magazine, all the while saying the same thing over and over in a voice that cuts me like a knife – BIG ISSUE PLEASE. Except it’s BAAAAG ISSHOOO PLEEEURGHASE. He doesn’t say the words, he throttles the fucking life out of them. When he’s not smoking and thrusting a magazine at you, he’s coughing up big old balls of phlegm and spitting them on the pavement, second only to seeing people smoke near babies, is something I loathe. And the noises! He doesn’t so much bring up his phlegm as fucking mine it. I know I should be sympathetic but as I said, I’m dubious of his intent and let’s not pretend we are all holier than thou, anyway.

Anyway, my new phleghnemy aside, I gave into considerable temptation today. Well yesterday, but I couldn’t post yesterday as some people from work read the blog and I didn’t want to give away the surprise. Part of my job at work is to think of events and ideas that’ll make everyone else happy, and it was my idea to buy everyone a £1 mix-up. Because everyone loves sweeties, right? So, I picked up £165 worth of pic-n-mix and had to spend an afternoon decanting them into colourful little bags and adding even more sweets from the leftover bit of budget. I’m sorry, being surrounded by that many sweets, I couldn’t help myself and the diet was forgotten – to be honest, everyone ought to be grateful they didn’t find me rolling around on the floor covered in jazzies and cola cubes, laughing hysterically from all the sugar. This week’s diet aim has switched to MAINTAIN, as opposed to LOSE. Don’t they look pretty, though?

I know what you’re thinking, what a glamourous office! I know – every day it feels like I’m walking into Prada. No just jesting – I was having to hide in a back room to keep the secret. Anyway, the sweets were dispatched to everyone today and I can write this day off for bad. It’s going to happen, after all, and at least I didn’t completely derail and order a Dominos pizza, which was totally due to my self-control and not because I’d left my wallet at work. Honest guv. See, this is what we had for our evening meal…Ploughman’s Lunch!

Paul made the scotch eggs by boiling an egg and wrapping it in the meat (well, sawdust and sage) of a Linda McCartney rosemary and red onion sausage. Cook in the oven and honest, it’ll be just like a real scotch egg, only not at all. Still tastes nice! Potato salad was new potatoes, fat free fromage frais, mustard and spring onion. Cheese is your normal HEA amount with some pickled onions, ham was syn-free from Tesco (I took the crust off after the picture) and then salad for the superfree. A lovely ‘picky’ tea. The syns come from the pickle – 1 syn per level tbsp, but you could leave that off if you were being Captain Fussytits.

Enjoy, have a good Valentines tomorrow…

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chubbycubs

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February 7, 2015

Posted under

breakfast, fakeaways, indian, lunch, recipe card, savoury snacks, snacks, syn free, taster ideas, vegetarian

spicy scrambled eggs that’ll take your ring off

I’ve had occasion to go into two places I’d never normally venture this week – a proper designer fashion shop and an expensive perfume place – normally places I avoid like the plague.

My first task was to buy some jewellery for my boss who was leaving – so in I minced to Vivienne Westwood, expecting to be immediately shooed back outside by some harridan with a broom with exclamations of ‘WE DON’T WANT YOUR SORT IN HERE’ like a stray cat in a butchers. I don’t do high-end fashion. Hell, I don’t do fashion at all – I buy most of my clothes from Tesco because I couldn’t care less what I look like as long as I’m clean and warm. Now the interesting thing was that my preconceptions about the designer shop were entirely wrong – the assistant behind the counter could not have been more friendly, warm or welcoming, despite me standing there in my Florence and Fred shirt and elastic trousers. Actually, I did have expensive shoes on, if that helps. Us fat men can’t spend money on normal clothes but by gaw can we put it away on bags and shoes if we need it. She asked me what tone my friend was, I had no idea, whether she liked silver or gold, I had no idea, whether she was classic or modern, I had no idea. She masked her exasperation impeccably. I did almost want to tip her over the edge by asking if they had shirts in my size – looking at the offerings on the rails the only way I could wear a Vivienne Westwood shirt is if I folded it in two and used it as a handkerchief. One jacket that I thought would have been suitable for my two year old nephew was hastily put back when I realised it was an Adult M. Nevertheless, after a fashion, we managed to pick out a tasteful piece of jewellery and whilst I cold-sweated my way through paying for it, I engaged in a polite chitchat with the assistant, until she told me that the rug I was standing on was worth £9,000 and all I could think is that I’d covered it in cat-hair from where I had set my rucksack down. The cats use my rucksack as a sleeping bag, see, and no, I don’t have a fag-bag or a murse. So…

The next stop was a fancy-dan perfume shop for a different gift for a different friend. I hate these places at the best of times, because walking through a perfume department is like being pepper-sprayed by eighteen old ladies at once. I find most perfumes repellent and as a general rule, if you walk near me and it smells like you’ve had a bath in Charlie Red, things aren’t going to end well. It didn’t help that the lady behind the counter was clearly only flying with one engine because she kept repeating the last three words back to me like a parrot – I was asking for some advice on perfumes and it was like I was in an echoey tunnel. ‘LIKE SOME PERFUME?’ followed by ‘DON’T KNOW MUCH’ and then ‘PAYING BY CARD’ and ‘FOR YOUR ASSISTANCE’ got real vexing, real quickly. Plus, I know it’s par for the course when you work on a make-up counter, but I swear she’d put her make-up on with an emulsion roller – it was on so heavy I felt like I was undergoing rorschach testing, I nearly shouted out throbbing cock when she bent down to check my card. You shouldn’t be able to remove 90% of your face with a damp wet-wipe and to be honest, I’m yet to see someone who doesn’t look 100% prettier when they don’t have half of Superdrug on their face. Says he, the fucking oil painting. Ah but see, I MIGHT have a face like a bucket of burnt Lego*, but I’m not bothered.

Because I’m early posting today, here’s a picture of breakfast from this morning. I think Slimming World can be quite challenging when it comes to breakfast because the portion of cereal you’re allowed wouldn’t fill me up – I normally use a ladle when I’m having my coco-pops (as an aside, I had originally typed cock-pops there, and only spotted the error when I was proof-reading – wouldn’t that be a nauseating cereal, though the box-art would be amazing) and there’s little else to have in a rush in the morning. Understand this – I’d sooner spend another ten minutes doing the snooze-sleep-shuffle than get up and fry an egg. I usually just eat a tin of beans with an egg stirred in, but that’s frightfully common. But today I thought I’d try something new, and after a quick flick through my recipe books (I must get those pages laminated) I found an Indian recipe for egg bhurji – spicy scrambled eggs, which I immediately set about cooking with my usual culturally insensitive bastardisations. Tell you what though, it was absolutely delicious – I ate the lot. Give it a go and never look back. Syn free and absolutely rammed with superfree foods too!

to make spicy scrambled eggs (egg bhurji), you’ll need:

ingredients: cumin seeds, a tiny bit of olive or frylight if you must, chopped onion, chopped pepper (I used an old red and yellow pepper I had), garlic, chopped ginger, three eggs, frozen peas, a tin of chopped tomatoes and a chicken stock cube. You’ll also need a chopped chilli or some chilli flakes and garam masala – though I couldn’t find any so I used some curry powder.

to make spicy scrambled eggs (egg bhurji), you should:

recipe: it’s a one pot delight! First, put your oil into the pan and put the cumin seeds in there on a reasonably high heat until they snap, crackle and pop. Chuck in the ginger and chilli, saute for a moment or two. Then the onions for two minutes. Now, the pepper for another two minutes. Cook high and fast. Tip in the chopped tomatoes and the peas, and cook for another two minutes. Next in goes the curry powder/garam masala and salt, mix, and keep bubbling away – you don’t want lots of liquid. I added a stock cube at this point just because I like the taste – if you do that, don’t add more salt. Now crack your eggs into a bowl, beat them up, pour into pan and keep stirring. Remember to keep the heat high but keep stirring so nothing catches – you want the liquid to evaporate off. Serve quickly with coriander. I hate coriander, and I think you’re morally reprehensible for using it.

extra-easy: yep – syn free too, though if you’re absolutely anal you should syn the oil. But come on. Lots of superfree food in this and certainly more than you’d normally get in a breakfast.

Seriously – give this one a go. It’s just scrambled eggs but tastier, and it’s something different. Keeping things mixed up is the way forward.

just kidding, I’m fucking beautiful. No matter what they say. Words can’t bring me oh fuck off.

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chubbycubs

Posted on

February 5, 2015

Posted under

breast, lunch, one-pot, pasta, poultry, recipe card, rice, syn free

chicken and lentil one-pot dinner

Honestly, today has been a great day. My work allow us to take two days off a year to spend ~~at home masturbating and watching Jeremy Kyle, though not at the same time~~ volunteering at local charities, so today I took them up on it and went along to the cat and dog shelter to volunteer. Dressed in my most fabulous tracksuit, I was given the job of walking Lulu, a tiny angry-looking staffie (and I normally say no thanks I prefer bigger to them, oh wait, a STAFFIE) which I set about with great gusto.

It was a great walk, but fuck me Britain, learn to take your litter home. Cans of Rockstar and spent johnnies I can sort of understand (because nothing says ‘I right fancy a shag’ like having to reposition yourself mid-thrust amongst the dogturds and needles) but some of the other litter was perplexing. Dumping an armchair down a back lane is one thing, but carrying it across a farmer’s field and dumping it in the middle of a bridlepath? Bewildering. Even odder, there was around 20 ‘Happy birthday Brother-in-Law’ cards blowing around in the hedges, all of different designs. Who not only buys these cards but then packs them into their bag and absent-mindedly loses them in the middle of absolute nowhere? They were all sealed too. Perhaps I could have sold them in my own little niche card shop – but then I’d need twenty people who wanted to wish their brother in law good wishes, but not enough of a good wish to give them a card that wasn’t streaked with dog-piss and armchair tassles. Ah well. I walked far too far before reminding myself I needed to turn back, and even poor Lulu looked pissed off with me as we began the long, long, LONG, uphill walk back. Nevertheless, she was dropped off at the centre, puffing and panting.

The next job was washing out all the cat litter trays and cuddling the cats. This was fucking amazing. Well not the cat litter, that was literally shit, but cuddling the cats? Amazing. Each one was more grateful than the last – all purrs and clawing and rubbing. Their homes were warm, clean and full of toys, and that made me incredibly happy and rather grateful. I knew that had I gone there and the cats looked as though they were feral Fukushima cats, I’d have taken them all home. And well, I don’t have good experience with cats in cars.

The first time we took Bowser to the vets he immediately retaliated by clawing his way out of his cat-carrier (it had a dodgy door) and set about hurtling around the inside of the car like a motorbike in a wall of death. Let me tell you, it’s hard to drive along a motorway with a black and white angry blur running horizontally around the interior of the car, simultaneously hissing in your ear and trying to remove your eyelids with its claws. Anyway.

The next job was even better – I had to spend half an hour socialising with one of the kittens who had to live alone. Only temporarily – he was brought back because someone had adopted him and then returned him because he has stomach problems meaning he has diarrheah. Frustrating that someone returned a cat just because it has the skitters – they’re testing him but apparently it’ll fix itself. I wanted to take him home – we’ve got plenty of experience with cats going to the toilet in odd places too. For example, our old cat (Luma – who went to live with my neighbour) used to go to the toilet not because she needed to but because she spotted an opportunity to piss us off – she pissed on our sky box, she pissed on the top of our hob, she had a crap in the plughole in our bath which we only spotted when we turned the shower on and the water didn’t drain away due to the little cat-poo floating around our feet. She remains the only cat I know who could turn Whiskas Bite and Chew into a weapon of mass destruction. Cow. Anyway, Starshine the Shitty Kitty (as I tactfully named him) spent half an hour climbing all over me, chewing my face, clawing my top, purring in my ear. He was amazing.

After helping tidy up a bit, I was asked to take another dog for a walk – this time it was Rascal, another staffie but this time she’d been treated for ringworm, meaning she came out of the kennel looking like a threadbare doormat. Naturally, despite having the freedom to shit away to her heart’s content in his cage, she waited until I was five steps out of the door before curling one out that even made my eye’s water. I didn’t know whether to call back in and tell them she’d had a puppy. Anyway, I took this patchy little wonder for a walk down under the A1 and back (oh the glamour) before accidentally stumbling across the place where my ex and I had our first date. He wasn’t out at the time (unsurprisingly, as when he did come out his parents held a screwdriver to his throat and told him they’d get the gay out of him, poor bugger) so we had to go for a walk in the country. Bless him. I thought he was shivering with cold, but he was just scratching away at the eczema on his elbows. I’m so grateful she was a staffie mind, because she quite literally pulled me back up the hill, me clutching at my chest and panting dramatically. See had it just been me and Paul, we would have stopped twice climbing up that steep hill to ‘check the view’ – actually a ruse to cover our panting and heart arrhythmias. I’m still out of breath now.

Upon returning poor Rascal, it was four o clock and time to go, but they had saved a special treat for me. They know I love cats and they let me into a back room where there was a mother nursing her four tiny, newborn kittens. Well, born a week ago. It was wonderful – they were tiny, whimpering and clicky-purring, suckling away on the mother cat who looked so content. She only moved to get a face-rub from me, and then she immediately lay back down on top of her cats. Wouldn’t that just have been my luck to have four poor kitties killed on my watch? After ten minutes, I left them to it. Aw.

On a serious note – if you’re looking for something to do, please volunteer at your local cat and dog shelter. The one I go to is amazingly well run but they’re always looking for help, and the exercise can’t help but improve my weight loss. Do some research and give it a go.

Now, tonight’s recipe:

to make chicken and lentil one-pot dinner, you’ll need:

ingredients: a tiny bit of oil, or frylight if you must. But you shouldn’t, so don’t. It’s my recipe, damnit. 2 chicken breasts, 1 small onion, crushed garlic, 1tsp made up of dried thyme and oregano, 1 tin of green lentils (rinsed), 200g of orzo rice, 1 litre of chicken stock and the juice and rind of one lemon. Plus a nice heavy pot. Not to piss in, to cook with, obvs.

to make chicken and lentil one-pot dinner, you should:

recipe: sweat the onion for a good ten minutes, slowly, slowly. Add the garlic and herbs, stir, sweat a bit more. Cooking’s hard, huh. Add the chicken, whack the heat up, cook it through. Chuck in the rice, lentils, stock, lemon juice, rind, bit of salt and leave it to cook slowly on a lowish heat (6 on our induction hob) for 25 minutes or so until the rice has cooked through. Chuck in the frozen peas, leave to sit for a moment or two, then dish up. Add a bit of parmesan to the top if you’re feeling fabulous.

top tip: I say it every time – if you’re grating garlic and lemon, use one of these microplane graters. This one right here. Quicker and better results. You don’t need one (you never need anything fancy for my recipes), but you’ll want one. Also, Orzo is a type of pasta – if you can’t find it (or can’t be arsed) just use rice.

extra-easy: well, it’s syn free. Is it full of superfree? No. But then nor is chocolate, so really I’m saving you from yourself. So have a fruit salad or just get on with things. I won’t tell anyone, OK? Jeez.

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chubbycubs

Posted on

February 3, 2015

Posted under

lunch, pulses and grains, recipe card, savoury snacks, snacks, syn free, taster ideas, vegan, vegetarian

syn free tomato bulgar salad

For week one, we’re going to…ARMENIA…

Ar-bloody-menia indeed. We put all 50 countries into a randomiser and that’s the first bloody one it spits out. We know nothing about Armenia! In fact, most of our European knowledge comes from Eurovision – for example, I did know that Armenia did very well last year, and a quick gaze at Wiki reveals they came in fourth. We don’t mind admitting that we love Eurovision – the spectacle, the nonsense, the screaming gay men – and that’s just us in our living room. We’d love to go, but the desire to go to Eurovision is always tempered by a slight hint of embarrassment and the fear of being broadcast in full HD on BBC One wobbling about in the crowd with our bumholes blaring from all the amyl nitrates in the air. Plus, I can’t dance. I really can’t. I was going to come up with a funny euphemism for my dancing but in all honesty, it’s been described as a fat bloke trying to dance – all tilting and grand shifts of weight. Just awful. It’s like my body is sponsored by Mathmos. I’m like the Herald of Free Enterprise leaving dock. Oh I managed to get my euphemisms in after all!

A little tale that made me titter yesterday – my parents have been in The Gambia building schools and granting wishes and introducing the good Gambian folks to the joys of Lambert and his Butler, and it just so happens that my dad’s (Chris) birthday fell when they were over there. My mum arranged for a cake to be made and iced and it was brought out to much fanfare and stifled hilarity – iced on the top of the cake was HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHRIST. Now my dad HAS had a few nails put through his hand but that’s through lapses of judgement during DIY, not out of Christian malice. Parents did say it was absolutely amazing seeing people with so very little being happy. I’m sure there is a moral lesson in there, but as I’m a bourgeois pig, I don’t see it. Anyway…

Tonight’s recipe is Armenian Bulgar Salad – and I never know how to pronounce bulgar so I always have to whisper it in hushed tones in the supermarket lest people think I’m being tasteless. It’s delicious, like a tomatoey variant on my tabbouleh recipe from a while back, and would do lovely for a lunch. As long as you don’t mind your breath smelling like a hot fart later on.

to make syn free tomato bulgar salad, you’ll need:

ingredients: simple. A tiny drop or two of olive oil, a large chopped red onion, 1 tbsp of tomato paste, 1/2tsp of cumin, 1tbsp of chilli sauce, tin of chopped tomatoes, 250g of bulgar wheat and a bit of salt. I also added spring onions because I’m crazy-mad. Parsley for sprinkling.

to make syn free tomato bulgar salad, you should:

recipe: saute the onion until it’s nice and soft. Take your time here. Add the cumin, puree and hot sauce and stir. Add the tomatoes and salt, then stir for three minutes on a simmer. Try the sauce – if it needs a bit more acidity, chuck in some lemon juice. Now take it off the heat, throw in the bulger wheat, stir, add chopped spring onions and then put the lid on. After 30 minutes it’ll have swollen and dried a little – and trust me, it’s bloody delicious. Serve it with chops if you like but it works just as a lunch.

tip: this freezes very well – stick it in a freezer bag portioned out and then take it out when you need it. Or, more realistically, you’ll put it in there and forget about it forever.

extra-easy: well – no, not on its own, but if you served it with a salad of superfree food you’d be alright. Mind it does have tomatoes and onions in there…

Off to bed!

Posted by

chubbycubs

Posted on

January 30, 2015

Posted under

low syn, lunch, one-pot, recipe card, sausages, savoury snacks, snacks, soup, taster ideas

cabbage, sausage and kidney bean soup

Can we get something right straight off the bat? Man-buns. There’s a simple test – if you are male, and you’ve tied up your locks like some weird hairy sphincter on top of your head, you’re a cock. And not a nice cock, mind – we’re talking a fishy old schlong. In fact no – if you had a sphincter in the middle of your head, that would actually make you an arse. I can’t bear it. It doesn’t so much as make my skin crawl as force it inside-out through cringing. Back when I had long hair, the only ‘style’ I succumbed to was brushing it, and that was only when I felt there might be a boiled sweet in amongst the tangles. There’s an advert on TV now for Trivago which ends with a supposedly-dreamy shot of a woman asleep in a man’s arms as he carries her down a hotel corridor to bed. He wouldn’t be bad looking, but because of the man bun, you know that night is going to end with her face-down on a pillow and him accidentally calling her Patrick at the height of climax. There’s no masculinity, no ruggedness – a weak, effete affectation which should only end up one way – in an acid bath. Too far? I say not far enough!

Tonight’s been a bit of a wash-out – I was originally supposed to be out for dinner with work colleagues to say goodbye, good luck and thanks for all the laughs to one of the partners I work for, but thanks to the incompetence of Northumberland Council and their inability to fit a bloody toilet correctly that didn’t happen, as I was summoned to my gran’s house. Water was leaking through the ceiling again where they incorrectly fitted the toilet. Well they didn’t fit the toilet on the ceiling, obviously. Anyway, it turns out it had been leaking since Wednesday and she had been patiently waiting for the council to come out, completely unable to use her upstairs loo, and having to totter down the stairs and to the outside loo (it’s a really old house, we’re not that Northern) every time she needed a tinkle in the dead of night. I mean for fucks sake, she’s a very slow mover – she can go upstairs with a fiver in her purse and by the time she’s made it back downstairs it’s only worth £4.50. So this was a crap situation, and after my sister and I spent a bit of time bellowing at the council, they remedied it. Bloody ridiculous. I had an image in my head of her sat on the outside toilet, Puzzler in hand, frozen in time like Jack Torrance at the end of The Shining. Thankfully that didn’t happen, although…

Haha. We did get to spend some more time with my sister and lovely nephew though. I stand by everything I said earlier about children being red-faced poo-factories with all the charm of an ingrown toenail, but my nephew is the exception to prove the rule. Although, that said, the first thing he did when he heard we were on the way was immediately void his bowels – but then Paul does the same thing when I tell him we’re out of Muller Lights so isn’t life a rich tapestry.

Paul and I were chatting away in bed last night before sleep, discussing what we could do with the blog next. Our next idea that we’re going to build into the recipes is to have one recipe a week from a European country. Easy to begin with – we have Armenia first on the randomised list, but Kosovo is the third. Going to be a steep learning curve but well, our Slimming World journey is all about new flavours and learning to cook – so look forward to that!

Tonight’s recipe doesn’t look all that. In fact, if I’m being searingly honest, it sorta looks like something you might happen across in the pan of a public toilet after a heavy night. I know. But it tasted really good, and it’s our soup of the week – cabbage, kidney bean and sausage broth!

Mmm. How inviting! Look, you try making cabbage soup look appealing. If Roald fucking Dahl couldn’t manage it, I sure as hell can’t. So stop being so judgemental, sheesh.

to make cabbage, sausage and kidney bean soup, you’ll need:

ingredients: 1.5l of chicken stock, half a big white cabbage sliced thinly (see tip below), eight grilled weight-watchers cumberland sausages (1/2 syn each) cut up into chunks, three tablespoons of tomato puree, two garlic cloves very finely grated, 1 shallot sliced, 1 teaspoon of dried basil, 1 teaspoon of celery seeds (or use fennel seeds) (or omit altogether, I’m not your keeper) and 1/2tsp of dried thyme – you’ll also need a tin of kidney beans.

tip: I bang on about this all the time, but if you’re a clumsy oaf like me in the kitchen, get yourself a decent mandolin. They’ll slice things perfectly for you, and you just need to be a bit careful not to slice off your fingertips. I bought mine for £10 from Amazon and the link is here – you’ll never look back. Honest, you’ll thank me for it. Along similar lines, I use a microplane grater for the garlic (and it can be used for parmesan too) and you can find that for less than a tenner on Amazon, here. You can do the job with a knife too, you don’t need fancy equipment for Slimming World – but they do make things easier!

to make cabbage, sausage and kidney bean soup, you should:

recipe: saute the garlic and the shallots for a few moments on a high heat – don’t burn it though. Then, tip everything in bar the sausage and beans, bring to the boil and then reduce to a simmer. Add a bit of salt, your ticker can handle it. Chuck in the sausage and beans, and cook until the cabbage is soft and cooked. Done!

It’s more of a brothy soup – lots of liquid, but tastes good. If you like your soup so thick you could artex a ceiling with it, you’re out of luck – but if that’s what you like, try my super-speedy soup.

extra-easy – yes, and only one syn! Cabbage is a superfree food and a much maligned vegetable – don’t rule it out! It serves four, and the sausages are the syns – but what’s one syn between friends?

Enjoy, enjoy.

Posted by

chubbycubs

Posted on

January 28, 2015

Posted under

beef, beef mince, lunch, pasta, recipe card, savoury snacks, snacks, syn free, taster ideas

mini lasagne cups

Just a quick post tonight as I’ve been out for the evening to see Ex Machina – the latest film from Danny Boyle. Decent film, very sci-fi, but with an unexpected amount of muff on show. And I’m sorry, but there’s nothing more surprising than an unexpected muff. A muff you can plan for, fine, but no-one wants to be presented with a muff when you’ve got your guard down. To be honest, I just like typing that word. Muff. Ah.

I was going to be good and be one of those bores who go out for dinner and just order lettuce leaves dressed in the tears of a fat man, with a side order of smugness, but instead we went to Nandos. Now see I don’t see the fascination with Nandos – to me, it’s KFC but with wooden furniture and hipster beards. They do pleasant enough food and all, but raving over it? No! I did make a mistake of choosing a table right near the toilets mind – I’m such a classy guy. They have those awful open back chairs too – I (and I imagine a lot of other larger framed folks share this fear) spend an inordinate amount of time worrying that my shirt had ridden up, my trousers have sank down and that the crack of my arse was busy winking at the rest of the diners in the restaurant. The last thing I want is for someone to post a business card in there thinking they’d win a half chicken and chips. BAH. Anyway, I had the caesar salad followed by an oil-drum of popcorn in the cinema later, and I don’t care – syns are there to be used, after all. Remember, I’m all about maintaining this week. So, tonight’s recipe….

Now, some people will probably consider the above to be a ‘tweak’ – tweaking is when you use something not for its ‘original use’ – i.e. grinding up couscous into flour to make a cake. The science being that you’ll stuff your face with a whole cake which might contain 500g of couscous, whereas if you tried to sit and eat that much couscous in one go you’d go pop. Well, balls to that. In the example below, I’m using lasagne sheets or ham to create a cup, but you’d eat the same amount if you were to have lasagne. So shut your hole.

This is a ‘use up your leftovers’ recipe – this time, you’re using up any old bolognese (and you can find our recipe for bolognese with sluts spaghetti here) or chilli. Serve with a side salad or some sweet potato wedges for an easy win.

to make mini lasagne cups, you’ll need:

ingredients: your old bolognese, a few cherry tomatoes, either 12 lasagne sheets or some wafer thin ham and some light philadelphia (75g HEA) and some rocket

to make mini lasagne cups, you should:

recipe: easy! cook your lasagne sheets, cut them into squares and place one into the cup in a muffin tray, with another one rotated 45 degrees so you have a nice star. Stuff the bottom with rocket, spoon the bolognese into the middle, top with philadelphia and a tomato, and pop in the oven for 20 minutes! If you can’t be arsed fannying about with lasagne sheets, you can use ham – see the picture. Don’t cook it for so long though, ten minutes at most, or you’ll end up with a burnt rim – and no-one wants that!

extra-easy: of course – syn-free. Better if your bolognese is stuffed with superfree nonsense, but if not, have a wee salad on the side. Easy peasy.

Cheers!

Posted by

chubbycubs

Posted on

January 27, 2015

Posted under

breast, chinese, fakeaways, low syn, lunch, noodles, poultry, recipe card

peanut butter chicken noodles

There was some discussion with colleagues today about babies and we often get asked the same thing – would we like to adopt? Well no, not there and then obviously, I don’t have a car seat – but could we be one of those gay couples who have a child?

The answer is an emphatic no. Or an astounding nope. Or a camp NOOOOOO-WAY-HUNAAAAAAAY. I genuinely can’t think of something I want less in my life than a baby. Paul is fine with them, cooing and marvelling over their ruddy cheeks, but I’m not – all I see is a red-faced, spewing, bawling bundle of energy that would leave me terrified and exhausted, the human equivalent of turning on the light in a gas-filled room. I seem to lack that warm, friendly gene that can look at a baby and think ‘aw how sweet’ – I just see about 1000 different ways that I’m going to accidentally damage the poor bugger – immediately drop it on the floor when I try to cuddle it, or rest my chin on their soft skull and make their skulls look like an ashtray, or suddenly develop a violent tremor and immediately end up in a Louise Woodward situation, or I’ll sneeze and deafen the poor bugger. It’s just awful, and to that end, I’ve spent my entire life avoiding babies – I’ll go sit in the toilet at work if someone brings their child in because I’m terrified that my lack of emotion will shine through. People must think I have a hair-trigger bladder the way I dash to the gents as soon as I hear a Mama and Papas ~~hatchback~~ pushchair being wrestled with in the lobby. I think babies sense this unease because they just start crying as soon as they see my face, the same way doctors, close friends, family, beggars and other men do. My nephew, who admittedly is a gorgeous, funny little tyke, cried his eyes out at me for almost eighteen months, finally thawing at Christmas when I had shaved off my sex-offender beard and brought gifts.

Plus, we’re entirely too selfish as a couple to even think about having a baby. We struggle to remember to wash and clean ourselves, let alone something pink and squashy and full of off-colour poo. At least the cats know enough to go outside for their craps and if they meow and rub along our feet often enough, the occasional pouch of Felix will be dropped in their bowls from on high. One of the many benefits of being gay, aside from all the cock and being able to wear each other’s clothes, is the fact you don’t have to spend money on anything but yourself. There’s no school uniform to buy, there’s no school trips to pay for – every penny can go on hobbies and fetishwear. It’s just great, and I know I’d immediately resent something that I had to pay out for on a regular basis – I still shoot mean looks at my car for taking all our money. BAH. Finally, there’s the biology of it all – the thought of having to yankee-doodle into a paper cup and mixing it with Paul’s like some sort of bleach-smelling watercolour set puts me right off.

So no – no children. Cubs Towers will remain forever more a two-man tent. And quite bloody right too.

Anyway, if I had a baby to look after, I wouldn’t have the time to type these recipes and Paul would be too tired to cook them, so you’d be fucked, too. So hooray for homosexuality, and onto tonight’s recipe, which is the delightful (and synned) chicken and vegetable peanut-dressed noodles.

You know what I’m going to say, don’t you? USE YOUR SYNS. Please, for the love of Slimming World, don’t see the syns and think you’re not going to bother. It’s your main meal of the day, spend the syns and bloody well enjoy it. This serves 2.

to make peanut butter chicken noodles, you’ll need:

ingredients: 2tbsp tesco reduced fat peanut butter (4 syns per tbsp), 300g dried noodles (we use the chilli ones from Sainsbury’s – 1 syn per 150g), 300g of frozen veg (or indeed, anything you want – peppers, fresh veg, sweetcorn, go nuts!), a diced onion, one minced garlic clove, 1/4tsp of ginger, 1/4tsp of salt, 1tbsp of water, 2tbsp of teriyaki marinade (you’ll find it in the world foods aisle, especially in the Japanese section – ours is by Kikkoman and is syn free).

to make peanut butter chicken noodles, you should:

recipe: make your sauce first by combining the teriyaki, peanut butter and water. Set aside. Then cook the noodles, drain and set aside. heat a large pan, fry off your onion in a smidge of oil and chuck in your veg, together with the ginger and garlic and salt and cook it through quickly. Add the noodles and the peanut sauce, stir fry for a moment longer until everything is hot and delicious and coated, then sit back and feel smug.

extra-easy: always. 5 syns a portion, but that’s fuck all in the grand scheme of things and all that superfree veg make it a perfect little dinner.

enjoy – I’m off to NOT feed, wipe, bathe or care for any little sprogs. Good job, right…

Posted by

chubbycubs

Posted on

January 24, 2015

Posted under

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

square egg, snacks and injuries

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

Ah well.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

twochubbycubs

slimming, sassy recipes

Category Archives: lunch

syn-free houmous four-ways

to make syn-free houmous four-ways:

syn-free sausage and tomato bake

to make syn-free sausage and tomato bake you’ll need:

to make syn-free sausage and tomato bake you should:

ploughman’s lunch

spicy scrambled eggs that’ll take your ring off

to make spicy scrambled eggs (egg bhurji), you’ll need:

to make spicy scrambled eggs (egg bhurji), you should:

chicken and lentil one-pot dinner

to make chicken and lentil one-pot dinner, you’ll need:

to make chicken and lentil one-pot dinner, you should:

syn free tomato bulgar salad

to make syn free tomato bulgar salad, you’ll need:

to make syn free tomato bulgar salad, you should:

cabbage, sausage and kidney bean soup

to make cabbage, sausage and kidney bean soup, you’ll need:

to make cabbage, sausage and kidney bean soup, you should:

mini lasagne cups

to make mini lasagne cups, you’ll need:

to make mini lasagne cups, you should:

peanut butter chicken noodles

to make peanut butter chicken noodles, you’ll need:

to make peanut butter chicken noodles, you should:

square egg, snacks and injuries