Category Archives: pasta

Pasta recipes

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March 8, 2015

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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.

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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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February 15, 2015

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fakeaways, greek, mince, pasta, poultry, recipe card, syn free

greek turkey meatballs

Surreal sight #477 in Tesco today. Well, no, just outside of Tesco, some biffa standing next to her bags with an inhaler in one hand and a cigarette in the other – she’d take a couple of drags on her cigarette and then a quick puff on the inhaler. Now THAT’S commitment. Even when you can physically feel yourself choking, you carry on – oxygen is for pussies, after all. It’s like opening an AA meeting with a swift half and a celebratory chaser. Takes all sorts. Anyway, there’s a rant coming, so batten down the hatches.

I’m going to write about tweaks today. Before I start, know that this isn’t exactly the official Slimming World position, but rather my own. Obviously.

To me, the ‘no tweaks’ rule is something Slimming World have put into place to stop you blending eighteen bananas into a smoothie for breakfast, or using two tubs of Smash and some Splenda to fashion a small motor car to take you to McDonalds. The logic is over-consuming is easy – you can drink a smoothie in moments but it would take an age to eat the fruit that goes into one, and you’d likely stop before you’d even had a third. You’d need to press a whole lot of apples to make a glass of fresh juice, but one apple would normally curb your hunger.

But people take it to ridiculous levels, and my carrot cake overnight oats from a week or so ago caused a bit of a stir because I said it was syn free despite it having a mashed banana in it. If you follow the Slimming World rule about fruit to its absolute base level, then yes, it should be synned. But, if you apply logic and reason, there’s no difference to me mashing the banana using my fancy-pants potato ricer than there is mashing it between my teeth. Using a masher isn’t going to coat the banana in Nutella, it isn’t going to ‘add sugars’ or ‘release the fibre content’ any different. Sugar doesn’t float about in the air like a midge, waiting to strike the very second you cut into a piece of fruit. Some try and say that you’d use up energy chewing your banana which you don’t do if you mash it in a bowl – perhaps, but I’m not a fucking snake, I don’t dislocate my jaw and swallow the bowl and its contents without chewing, for goodness sake. I have a banana every morning on top of my porridge, the only difference here is that it’s inside my porridge as opposed to sitting on top. It’s still going to be chewed, digested and turned into a gentleman’s egg a few hours later – and I’m not going to fucking syn it!

What irks me more is that there’s always a curious sanctimony applied with the rule, with some people delighting in pointing out ‘BUT THAT SHOULD BE SYNNED’ like they’ve got Margaret MB standing behind them, pointing a pistol at the back of their shaking heads. A rule is a rule, but common sense also needs to apply. I mean, you’re not exactly supposed to stop in the middle of a road, but you do if an ambulance needs to be past – you don’t sit there blocking it, sucking air through your teeth and going WELL THE HIGHWAY CODE SAYS OTHERWISE as some poor bugger has his chest pumped in the back. I’ve been told before that it could confuse new starters, well, perhaps so – but my nephew still craps his pants because he hasn’t got the hang on his potty quite yet, should I start wearing adult nappies so he doesn’t get a complex? Haway!

And finally, what really riles me about being told off about my tweaking is that the very same people will sit there and tut and huff about a cake made from chickpeas but will then make a brownie using a bollockload of artificial sweetener until their countertops look like the inside of Kerry Katona’s fucking nostril. At least I cook proper, healthy, nutritious food instead of manky, artificially-sweetened pap – even if I do have the temerity to use a mashed up banana. FORGIVE ME.

BAH. After that, I could murder a cigarette, but I don’t smoke, and I don’t know where my old salbutamol inhaler is. Anyway, after all that, here’s tonight’s recipe which is actually bloody delicious!

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to make greek turkey meatballs you will need:

300g of chopped frozen spinach (defrosted), 500g of turkey mince (very low in fat), 3 cloves of garlic chopped so finely, an egg, tsp of oregano, salt, pepper, 90g of crumbled feta (45g is your HEA, but this serves four) and you might, dependent on the quality of your mince, need some breadcrumbs – if so, chuck in 25g of dried breadcrumbs (4 syns – so 1 syn each) but we didn’t need them. For the sauce, a pot of passata, garlic, onion. Spaghetti, any.

to make greek turkey meatballs you should:

nothing more to it for the meatballs than combining everything together for the balls into one bowl, mixing and squeezing and really blending it with your hands and shaping it into 24 balls. Stick them onto a non-stick tray and pop them in the oven for twenty or so minutes on 180 until nicely browned. Meanwhile, cook your spaghetti. Make a simple tomato sauce by mixing passata, sauteed onions and garlic. Combine sauce with cooked spaghetti, put meatballs on top.

extra-easy: yup. plenty of spinach and tomatoes in this to make it a go-go-go. You could jazz up the sauce by adding peppers if you were so inclined but this’ll do nicely. The balls are tasty and cheesy, and it’s not often I say that.

Cheers now,

J

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February 5, 2015

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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:

lentil chicken lemon rice

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.

J

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January 29, 2015

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american, budget, low syn, one-pot, pasta, recipe card, sausages, savoury snacks, snacks, taster ideas

hot dog threaded spaghetti

We briefly flirted with having a cleaner last year. See, we are both generally out of the house from 7am to 7pm, and by the time we’ve got home, found a recipe, cooked it and done a blog post, we’re knackered. The idea of pushing a hoover around (bad example, we’ve got a Roomba which makes sad little beep-boops every now and then – probably because it’s clogged up with three cats worth of cat hair) or cleaning the bath fills us with dismay. So, we tried to get a cleaner. The first two turned up once and then never came back, which was mysterious – we actually live in a very clean house – it was just the ‘bigger’ tasks that needed doing. It’s not a ‘wipe your feet as you leave’ sort of house – even the toilet is surprisingly free of skidders given two burly blokes live here. The third (and last) cleaner used to come, do a half-arsed job and go, but then charge us the full amount. We were too ‘nice’ to pull her up on it and she’s been texting every now and then asking when to come back. Frankly, it was terrifying – all I could imagine her doing was rummaging through our drawers and criticising my choice of underwear / spices / sex toys. Because that’s EXACTLY what I’d do.

I’m reminded of a friend who always liked to inspect the medicines cabinet of whoever she was visiting, until she managed to accidentally wrench the whole cabinet off the wall onto the floor after one particularly exciting snoop. How do you cover that up? Nonchalantly state you were looking for a tampon or diarrhoea relief? Or just admit to being nosy? You’d be disappointed if you looked in our bathroom cabinet, it’s full of old shaving foam, heartburn tablets and smart-price netty paper. So yes – every time I knew she was in the house, I’d spend my time panicking I’d be tagged in some off-colour facebook post with her holding up a bottle of lube or our bank statements for all the world to see. We have managed to get rid of her with lots of ‘Oh we can’t afford you anymore’ gubbins, but I bet she’s had a neb at our bank statements so she probably knows that isn’t true anyway. Not that we have a lot of money I hasten to add, we don’t, but we’re incredibly tight so she knows we don’t spend a lot.

We also used to have an ironing lady, because neither of us can iron worth a damn and good lord, I’d sooner iron my own face than work our way through our ironing pile – we both work in an office, so there’s ten formal shirts and six pairs of trousers just from work alone. Remember, we’re somewhat elephantine, so it takes the two of us standing at opposite ends of the garden just to fold our underwear. Plus, we’re both used to one another’s gentle musk – the last thing we need is some hairy-chinned old dear passing out from the fumes released from our boxers as she tries to press in a crease.

One concession we do have is a gardener – when we were given the house, we were completely new to the concept of looking after a garden – and there’s a massive lawn at the front and another big bugger at the back. Paul had a few valiant months of trying to mow the lawn before we accepted defeat and brought in a gardener. He’s smashing, but not too good at following instructions. For example, there’s a little flower bed in the middle of the lawn – tiny, but it holds a heather bush. That heather bush was planted by the mum of the guy who gave us the house (who himself lives up the street) and we always agreed we’d let it flower. Well, WE did. The gardener didn’t – he ran the bloody lawnmower right over the top of it, scattering memories and heather all over the lawn. He claimed he didn’t see it. We were too cowardly to ‘tell him off’ because he had a pair of shears in his hands when we noticed and he’s built like a brick shithouse. So, it was a quick trip to the garden centre to replace the bush. I just hope her ashes weren’t under there. If they are, they’d be in my green recycling bin. No wonder she haunts the house.

She’d certainly haunt this house if she saw what we had for dinner tonight – it was bloody lovely! Simple, only 3 syns, and fun to eat. It’s hot dog threaded spaghetti, see.

hot dog threaded spaghetti slimming world

Firstly, if you happen to have any leftover bolognese left over from the spaghetti bolognese from the other day, and the lasagne cups from yesterday, then serve it with this dish. If you don’t, knock up a quick sauce from celery, tomatoes, peppers, onion and carrot. This is the ultimate leftover meal – I’ve spread one core ingredient over three meals – this would do for a lunch!

to make hot dog threaded spaghetti, you’ll need:

ingredients: your leftover bolognese, spaghetti and a tin of giant Ye Olde Oak hot dogs. They’re 2 syns each and you get six in a tin, more than enough – I say three each. If you use another brand of hotdog, make sure you check the syns – minced up arseholes and eyelids can be surprisingly high in syns!

to make hot dog threaded spaghetti, you should:

recipe: there’s nothing more to this than slicing up the hot dog into little discs, pushing the uncooked spaghetti through it however you like, and cooking the spaghetti. Serve with the bolognese and your HEA cheese! As I said, perfect for a lunchbox. Easy!

extra-easy: as long as your bolognese is stuffed with superfree, you’ll be fine with this.

Haha – jesus. I told Paul I was going to do a quick blog post and that I’d be done in ten minutes. And here we are, forty minutes later. Oops. I just like the sound of my own typing, I guess!

Enjoy the recipe – remember to share!

J

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January 28, 2015

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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….

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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!

J

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January 21, 2015

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

butternut squash macaroni cheese

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

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

BORING SENSIBLE BIT HERE

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

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

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

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

BORING SENSIBLE BIT ENDS HERE

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

macaroni cheese

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

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

to make butternut squash macaroni cheese, you should:

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

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

TASTY.

J

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January 14, 2015

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budget, fakeaways, italian, lunch, pasta, recipe card, syn free, vegetarian

garlic, lemon and parmesan linguine

Argh! My well-meaning neighbour has inadvertently vexed me, at the end of a rubbish day. Our general waste bin was missed by the council so we put it outside today and arranged for them to come and empty it. Great! Got home today to find the bin neatly stood next to the back door and a note saying ‘It’s not bin day so I brought your bin in’ – bah. He’s the nicest guy in the world though, so I can’t get too vexed.

I was told today that I have a lovely telephone voice, which was pleasant – although I was always under the impression that as soon as I pick up a phone, my voice actually deepens and goes a bit more Geordie than I’d like. Paul tells me that I have no discernible accent – which is lucky, as a strong Geordie accent (to an outsider) sounds like Brian Blessed yelling nuclear launch codes into a Toblerone tube. All went well when Paul first met my parents, aside from afterwards when he turned to me in the car, ashen-faced, and confessed that he’d spent the last two hours nodding politely at my dad and being completely unable to decipher the accent. My dad has a mild Geordie accent but the state of Paul’s confused face would suggest he sounded like a water-damaged cassette recording of Auf Wiedersehen, Pet.

Actually, I’ve enjoyed good luck with my voice throughout my life. I certainly didn’t go through the mandatory six months of sounding like failing car brakes when I was a teenager – I seemed to go to bed sounding like a Snowman-era Aled Jones and woke up again sounding like Madge out of Neighbours. In fact, puberty was great fun for me – whilst a lot of my peers were awash with spots and ‘taches like they’d stuck a few errant pubes on their top lip, I could grow a pretty manly beard right from the get-go. Clearly such high levels of testosterone (and it helped that my levels were kept regularly topped up, EH, AM I RIGHT, NUDGE NUDGE WINK WINK) didn’t lead to any especially manly pursuits, though I was fairly decent at rugby, presumably because I looked like someone had driven a minibus onto the pitch and stretched a Matalan jersey over the top of it. Ah well.

Tonight’s recipe is simplicity itself. but bloody impossible to take an interesting photo of…

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to make garlic, lemon and parmesan linguine, you’ll need:

PLEASE don’t dismiss this because it looks boring or if you don’t like mushrooms – it tastes fantastic and you can leave out the mushrooms and still enjoy (Paul did). Plus, it takes 5 minutes to make (as long as the linguine takes to cook) and uses only four ingredients (five if you add mushrooms). Give it a whirl!

ingredients: two/three cloves of garlic, one lemon (you’ll need three tablespoons of juice), packet of linguine (we used half a standard pack for two large servings) and a good parmesan (30g as a HEA per person but it’s only a syn per level tbsp if you want more) (i.e. you’re a greedy fucker like me). If you like mushrooms, buy a pack of nice mushrooms rather than button, fry them gently and add on the top at the end. But let’s presume you don’t like mushrooms and crack on, shall we? If I can stress one thing – buy good ingredients here. Decent linguine is better than spaghetti and costs next to nothing. A large, unwaxed lemon will yield plenty of juice. Better to have less parmesan than more cheddar, and a little goes a long way (plus you can save whatever is left in the freezer and blitz it into soups). A garlic clove will taste better than any powder! I’m not one to normally nag about ingredients but really, when there is so little on the go, make it count!

to make garlic, lemon and parmesan linguine, you should:

recipe: fill the biggest, meanest pan you’ve got about two thirds full with water, and chuck in salt with gay abandon. Get the linguine boiling. Whilst that’s cooking, you’ll want to get your lemon juice – so pop the lemon in the microwave first for fifteen seconds, then squeeze it out – three tablespoons worth. Microwaving will allow you to get a lot more juice from any citrus fruit, trust me! Next, grate your garlic and your parmesan. Now, you can do this with a bog standard grater but it won’t be quite fine enough. I use one of these microplane graters (click the link to be taken to Amazon) and it’s a godsend, not least because it’s sharp and makes it fine enough to mix in with the pasta. I use it for plenty of other things but mainly grating parmesan or chocolate. Drain your pasta, keeping half a cup of the cooking water to one side. Make sure it’s drained well, then chuck into a bowl and mix with the parmesan, lemon juice, garlic and keep adding enough of the cooking water to make it easy to mix. Stir together well, stir it a bit more, and when you’ve lost feeling in your left arm, man up and use the right one.

Serve hot and fresh, with a bit more parmesan on the top and plenty of black pepper. If you like mushrooms, chuck them on! And that’s it!

extra easy: yes, easily. Aside from the cheese that you can use a HEA for, it’s all good! Perhaps a note of caution – it doesn’t contain your third superfree that you’re supposed to have, but have a wee fruit salad on the side for after if you’re that keen!

Please give this one a go. Adjust the lemon, garlic or cheese to your liking but trust me, it’s a simple quick recipe that actually tastes decent.

Enjoy…

J

PS: who knew David Guetta looked like a down-on-her-luck Jennifer Aniston? Not me until just now…

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November 29, 2014

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beef, beef mince, budget, classics, fakeaways, italian, pasta, recipe card, syn free

syn free spaghetti bolognese

I can’t be the only one who finds eye tests incredibly stressful experiences, can I? I spend an hour or so beforehand obsessively chewing gum and using mouthwash because I know someone is going to be right up in the face and I don’t want them laughing gaily in the Vision Express staffroom at my smelly breath and dry skin. I have a massive anxiety with people being too close to me so sitting there whilst someone leans over me tutting about my answers and adjusting my lenses is a major nono.

It all stems from my first eye test which I shamefully waited until I was 23 to have, after I spent the first two years of our relationship thinking Paul was actually Japanese. Well maybe it wasn’t that bad but I really was blind. I had a very old, lovely but very fat optician who spent about thirty minutes actually pressed up against my chair peering into my eyes with that little light of hers. If I moved my head up, I’d have gotten stubble rash from her chin, and if I had turned my face in either direction I’d have nuzzled right into her boobs. I’ve never had someone be that close to me and not buy me a drink first. She also, bless her, had clearly been eating poo or something beforehand because her breath was bleaching my hair every time she exhaled. Since that arduous half hour, I’ve really worried about eye tests ever since. But I look so much better in glasses so it’s a hard choice…

so to make syn free spaghetti bolognese:

slutspaghetti recipe

Easy recipe this! Follow the instructions above. To my mind, this is a syn free dinner and you could easily make enough for four and freeze two portions of the mince to have with a jacket potato!

The reason it is called sluts spaghetti escapes me, except I know it came from Nigella Lawson and she normally adds butter and marmite. Well, she knows her stuff, but I can’t get away with having such volumptious curves, so I skip the butter.

 

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November 9, 2014

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low syn, lunch, pasta, recipe card, vegetarian

roasted aubergine persian pasta

Today has been an exhilarating day, given we slept in until twelve (at least we were silent at 11am, though Paul probably let one go in the silence as he did have roasted aubergine pasta last night) (we did pay our respects properly, later, privately) and then fannied about ironing and cleaning until we realised it was almost 3pm and we hadn’t planned our meals for the week ahead or done the big-shop. Seriously, inside our fridge at 3pm was a limp leek and a can of Tab, and no amount of fromage bloody frais was going to make that into an interesting meal. So, clothes hurtled on, recipes dug out and a list planned and we were in the car within 15 minutes. Good work.

I have to say, we stopped going to Tesco about a year ago because we found the produce to be poor and the prices to be high, but we’ve recently been pleasantly surprised – the Tesco in Kingston Park has been done out and seems a lot fresher, although who the fuck would eat at the newly opened Giraffe restaurant opened in the supermarket? Who, in this county of wonderful country pubs and fantastic eateries thinks that what they really need with their microwaved pasta dish is the soothing sounds of sunday shoppers, bellowing and mooing their way to the whoops aisle, red-faced shitty-arsed children bawling away in the trolleys and a Metro thundering past every ten minutes in a streak of electrical fire? EH? Answer me that.

Aubergine pasta

Firstly, CRIME FRAICHE? For heaven’s sake. I apologise profusely. My iPad autocorrecting me into madness again.

I can’t actually remember where I found this recipe, only that it’s been in my notebook for a while to try out. I know it’s a Yotam Ottolenghi recipe and I could find the source if I looked, but I’m a lazy lazy man. This is part of our ongoing mission to not get bogged down in the ‘same old’ recipes – trying something new at least four times a week.

to make roasted aubergine Persian pasta you will need: 

spaghetti, three big aubergines, 0% greek yoghurt, weight watchers creme fraiche, lemon juice, dried mint, saffron (optional), garlic, cumin, salt and pepper.

to make roasted aubergine Persian pasta you should: 

first the aubergine – prick them all over and pop them into the oven for 1 hour. After this, take them out, leave to cool, scoop out the flesh inside and discard the skin. Pop the flesh into a colander and give it a push around with a spoon just to break it up and drain the liquid. Put to one side and leave to cool.

If you’re using the saffron, pop a couple of strands in a cup with two tablespoons of warm water to infuse.

Next, put your spaghetti on to cook – assuming it’ll take about fifteen minutes – but feel free to stagger these stages if you’re a little wary of doing too many things at once in the kitchen. I know I am. Pop the creme fraiche (I synned 2 syns for 50g) and the parmesan (50g of grated parmasan – again I synned two syns – based on using up my healthy extra on the cheese and then 4 syns for 25g extra, which is being strict) in and whisk on a medium heat until it is smooth. Allow to cool for a moment, and add the yoghurt, and keep on whisking but this time on a low heat – if the mixture is too hot and you’re not whisking, it’ll separate and that’s it, you’ll need to start again. Once smooth, set aside.

Next (or at the same time, if you’re quick at chopping onions like me), dice your onion into tiny pieces, and saute in a pan with the cumin seeds (say a teaspoon) – hot enough to get the oil out of the seeds, mind. Knock the heat down when the onions are golden, add the aubergine flesh, two tablespoons of lemon juice, a bit of garlic, plenty of salt and a few good twists of black pepper. Cook for ten minutes or so.

Once your spaghetti is cooked to your liking (and for gods sake, cook it properly, don’t cook it to death – you should be able to slurp the spaghetti, not sieve it through your teeth), chuck it back in the empty pan, pour some dried mint (or if you’re feeling decadent, a teaspoon of olive oil with dried mint infused in it – 6 syns) through it and plate up. Add the aubergine mixture on top, then the creamy sauce, then some more mint and salt on top. If you’ve made saffron water, put a few drops on the top – it adds a very discreet flavour but it’s worth it.

extra-easy: yup – easily one third of the dish is the roasted aubergine, so worry ye not. Syn free on green too, but not a red recipe. But let’s not overegg the pudding anyway, I’m definitely an extra easy guy.

top tips: you don’t have to do this, but I think it is worth the extra three syns to use olive oil in your spaghetti – especially with the mint infused within it. It just adds an extra layer, but I can understand why people are relunctant. But if you use a good oil, you’re laughing. Oh, and don’t buy the aubergines that are bagged up, you want to get the loose ones – much cheaper. Look for aubergines about as big as your hand, as the bigger the aubergine, the more bitter it’ll be (if that’s not a link to us fatties I don’t know what it is).

Please don’t be put off by the fact you have to use a few syns – I say this every single time, but this diet isn’t about being super-strict, it’s about enjoying your food and making more of an effort to find new things and eat well. This tastes delicious and has an unusual mix of flavours. Worth a go!

J

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November 1, 2014

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

simple spaghetti sauce

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

Another simple recipe card this time:

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This is great for a quick lunch!

to make simple spaghetti sauce you will need: 

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

to make simple spagetti sauce you should:

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

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

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