Category Archives: bacon

Bacon recipes

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January 16, 2016

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airfryer, bacon, pork, recipe card, sausages, syn free, travel

sausage stroganott

Yes, sausage stroganott. Not stroganoff. Why? Well read on!

I’m trying to get motivated to write about Iceland but I’m distracted by a row on Facebook, where some poor lass has posted a few outfits and invited constructive criticism from the wider group. Now, to me, we’re all adults, and if you’re asking for an opinion, you have to expect negative opinions as well as positive. Seems fair? Apparently not. Someone suggested that that her trousers were tight enough to lip-read with (i.e. the camel had both feet in the river) and gosh almighty, the arguments that it has started has been unbelievable. It’s like a text version of cats fighting in an alley, only with only 46% of the alphabet being used. Personally, I thought she looked pretty in all of the outfits, but then I dress like someone hiding from the police, so what do I know. Anyway, the terminally offended have been moaning on about ‘if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all’, and I’m about ready to grind my teeth to diamond. What a sickly, pointless saying – if you pull the logic out of it, you can only say that Hitler had a decent ‘tache and never comment on you know, the atrocities. Can we not take someone constructively saying that our clothes are a bit tight, our hair looks like a burst sofa cushion or we smell like a tramp’s foot? Are we not all adults? Seemingly not. Does my fucking nut in. 

ACTUALLY, whilst I’m having a rant, let me tell you something – I got an email the other day via Facebook Messenger from someone complaining that I ‘don’t post often enough’ – not because she wanted more of my “hilarious” banter but because she expected a daily recipe. Oh! Very good. I ignored her, but the flamin’ cheek. It was all very condescending and patronising, with a bit of ‘if you typed less and kept it succinct, you could post more recipes’ and ‘I signed up expecting a daily recipe’. Well yes, I could type less, but at the same time, if it’s just recipes you want, there’s a whole bloody world of them out there or you know, you could stop being a cheap fucker and buy a recipe book! Quite honestly, it wound me up enough to the point where I stood in the kitchen and moaned about it to Paul for a good ten minutes. Just to clarify, this is a personal blog and we will post when and where we can – but we’re both busy lads with full-time jobs and outside interests and well, four holidays a year. We posted over 200 recipes last year alone, all with narrative. Be thankful for what you get! Thank god 99.99% of you are wonderful people. That’s why I do it!

Oh ONE more thing – can we have a moratorium on people from England using the word haters? You’re not in Mean Girls, flower. 

Anyway, hush. Iceland. Missed part one? The cheek. It’s right here. Love our travel stories? They’re all in our new book, naturally! BUY COPY NOW.

twochubbycubs go to Iceland: part two

We awoke the next day nice and early – not out of any special keenness to make the most of the day…somehow, that never occurs to us, but rather because the breakfast buffet was open and we didn’t want to miss a single bloody crumb. We’re classy Brits, what can I say? I barely had enough time to do something about my bedhair and have my morning piss before Paul was pushing me into the lift and down into the lobby. We had a very pleasant surprise with the lady who ushered us through to the breakfast area, who, as I detected immediately underneath her posh ‘how do you do’ voice, was a fellow Geordie! You can always tell – the strangulated vowels and elongated syllables, the eight bottles of Dog clinking in her handbag, the fact that as soon as both our façades were dropped we were ‘NAAA NO MAN’-ing and ‘DIVVENT’ing away like the poshest remake of Auf Wiedersehen, Pet ever. Honestly, I wouldn’t have been surprised if Denise Welch herself had come tumbling down the stairs shouting on about cheap bathrooms and kitchen deals. Anyway, we stopped and had a pleasant chat about Iceland and then were allowed through.

Well, how lovely. Everything you could possibly want, and more, all steaming hot and plentiful. Good work, Grand Hotel. We immediately developed Buffet Anxiety – what to have, how much to slop onto a plate before people took us to one side for an intervention, where the hell the full fat milk was because god-damn-it I’m on holiday and I’m sick to death of eating my thimble of Puffed fucking Wheat with what looks and tastes exactly like Tesco Everyday Value White Emulsion. There was a wee glass of oil with a label in Icelandic (the Icelandic language is beautiful, but written down, it looks rather like how you’d spell out the noise the bath makes when it’s draining the last of the water). I filled up a tiny portion and took it to Paul as olive oil for his bread and cheeses. It was cod liver oil. He wasn’t happy, not least because he spat it out like it was curdled cum. Mahaha – that would be the second time I’d managed to get him to eat something awful, with my minor victory of getting him to eat a dog chew in the car on the drive up to Edinburgh only a day or so ago. I told him it was beef jerky. He finished it mind, so it can’t have been that bad, and it’s reassuring to know that if times get tight, I can put him on Pedigree Chum and crack on. Poor Paul. Let me say though – normally the things I do put in his mouth don’t taste like cod liver oil or dog food. Well, maybe cod liver. If it’s a warm day.

After breakfast, we nipped back to the room to review our options. We were booked on a bus tour later that day (the glamour!) but the morning was ours. It doesn’t get light until around 11am in December, but that suits us. Darkness flatters our faces. We spotted that the famous Iceland Phallological Museum was only a thirty minute walk from the hotel, so we decided to set out in search of all that knob. The website stated they opened at 10am so we had plenty of time to dawdle. One of our main concerns with Iceland is that we’d fall over on the ice and crack open our heads or split our trousers, so Paul had been dispatched a few days before to buy some suitable boots. I had my Dr Martens, so of course, I was fine – and effortlessly stylish.

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He came back with a pair of boots that looked exactly like something an old lady would wear to bingo so she didn’t tumble over outside when she was having a fag. They were awful. Square, boxy, 110% polyester. But he loved them. They worked, mind, though if you’re worrying about falling over on the ice, don’t be. The footpaths and roads are exceptionally well-gritted and Paul only went arse-over-tit once, right into a puddle. Which was hilarious. 

Central Reykjavík is a doddle to get around on foot, with long straight roads and well-marked streets, and we arrived at the Knob Museum (sorry, my wrists hurt and phallological is just too much) just as it was supposed to open, hanging back for a few minutes because well, it doesn’t do to look too keen for a museum about knobs to open. We waited nearby…waited…waited…no. No, turns out it wasn’t going to open that day because the owner needed a rest, presumably from cramming willies into glass jars and making carriers bags from foreskins (what a great idea though – if you rubbed them just right, they’d turn into bin liners!) We went back to the hotel.

On our way back, I remembered that we had asked for a deluxe room, and that our current room, although perfectly serviceable, didn’t quite marry up with the word deluxe. It was very standard. The view we were afforded was of the service entrance around the back and plus, we were only three floors up. This hotel had many more floors than that! I pitched up to the front desk and enquired whether, because see it’s our honeymoon (cough), we could have a nicer room.  Good old monobrow Aðalsteinunn behind the counter was having none of it and icily told us that we’d ‘already been upgraded’. I resisted the urge to ask whether we were originally going to be bedding down on a soiled mattress under the lifts, and pushed on politely. She crumpled a little and then offered us a room upgrade for a mere £100. Meh, fair enough. At this point I could see Paul’s ashen face and knew that his breakfast was already knocking on the escape hatch, and time was tight. I handed over my card, she disappeared for roughly five days, and came back with a new key for a room on the 10th floor. Marvellous! We rushed up, Paul left a goodbye skidder in the toilet only to find there wasn’t a brush to clean it away with, and off we went to our new room.

Well, let me tell you this – had I not physically pressed the button in the lift for a new floor, I would have bet the house that we were in the same room. Not a thing was different, bar the toilet pan no longer looking like the starting grid at Brand’s Hatch. Yes, they’d moved us up a few floors, but no difference to the room. BAH. We did, however, have a much nicer view, see:

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Nevermind. I didn’t dare go down and ask for another room in case housekeeping had visited our previous room and reported us, so we did what all young, happy couples do on holiday and had a quick nap. Our bus for the Golden Circle tour was due for 12.15, so we had plenty of time. 

The way most tours work in Iceland is simple – you book them in advance either online or through your hotel, and a small shuttle bus will come and pick you up from the hotel and take you to the bus depot, where you will board a waiting coach. It works brilliantly. We used Grey Line for all of our excursions and they were terrific. The Golden Circle tour (well, the small one) encompasses a visit to Thingvellir National Park, the Strokkur geyser and Gulfross waterfall. All very pleasant. We were pushed out of the way whilst boarding the coach by some frankly gargantuan American lady who was inadvisably wearing leggings and showing everyone her business, but aside from that it was all terribly civilised. The tour guide, Lorenzo (a good strong Icelandic name right there), gave an interesting commentary on Iceland between the three places and it was one of the very few occasions where I’ve been on a bus and not immediately started snoring in the ear of the person next to me. You do have to wear your seatbelt, mind – it’s the law, even if, as in my case, it pushes up your coat to give you the appearance of having a colossal rack. There’s not much point in me waxing lyrical about how beautiful Iceland is – you really need to see it for yourself, but know that it is so alien and snow-covered and different that it really will take your breath away.

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Thingvellir National Park

We stopped here for around half an hour to allow everyone to take pictures and gaze at the scenery. Paul and I managed to walk into around ten different family photos so that’s not a bad average – I always try to pull a face in the vain hope I’ll end up going viral on a South Korean You’ve Been Framed but it hasn’t happened yet. The main attraction, other than the view, is the giant crack (story of my life) where the tectonic plates are pulling apart. Paul and I walked down a fair way before realising that we’d need to walk back and endure the shame of gasping and spluttering our way onto the bus. We stopped in the gift shop to buy a ridiculously awful teddybear.

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Hmm!

The bus trundled on to Strokkur geyser, which is one of Iceland’s most visited hotspots. Literally. Essentially a bubbling pool most of the time, it’ll suddenly go off, spurting up to 40m into the air with an almighty splash. It’s great fun, until you remember the water is superheated and, because it contains so much sulphur, smells like death. Seriously, it’s one of the few tourist places I’ve ever been to where I can fart with gay abandon (is there any other kind) and actually improve the smell of the place. We took a video, as you’d expect, but it’s really just two minutes of me going ‘I reckon it’s going to blow, it’s gonna blow, any second now…’ followed by Paul going ‘FUCK ME IT’S AWAY’ at the top of his voice. It’s like our videos on xtube, really, only you don’t need to pay the Amateurs fee.  So, instead, here’s a video from Youtube. Ignore the wank music and the slightly hipster presentation.

OK maybe one photo from us. I’ve shrunk the quality.

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Canny, right? After we’d all have a good gawp and made sure to spend a billion trillion krona on a Kitkat, hot chocolate and surly attitude from the small onsite restuarant, we were back on the bus and heading into the dusk to Gulfross waterfall. Lorenzo kept us informed as to how Iceland grows vegetables (in greenhouses), warm their houses (heat from the ground) and er, how much unemployment benefit you get. It all sounds like a utopia. The roads were very icy in places, with the bus slewing around at the back, but it all felt very safe, albeit the loud look-at-me chuntering from the aforementioned American lady got a little grating. We arrived at Gulfross around an hour later.

CATASTROPHE. The bus parks about 500m away from the viewing platform, but that 500m is down what felt like 499m of rickety, wooden stairs with no room to go side by side. Now as fat blokes, stairs are fine when you’re going down them, although they did creak and bend alarmingly underfoot, but we knew that once we were down there, we’d need to climb back up. Agony. We braved it anyway and it was absolutely bloody beautiful. Again, photos can’t really do it justice – it was just getting dark and this colossal waterfall is cascading busily just in front of you, cutting its way through the Earth. We took some photos but again, they lacked style, so here’s a video. Again, I apologise for the music – it does indeed sound like something you’d hear playing in the lifts of a Dignitas clinic, but here, make do.

We did spot an opportunity for mischief and to get our own back on the brash, burly American lady who had pushed us out of the way at the beginning, however. See, she had come down behind us and we knew she would be just as weary going up the stairs as we were. So, naturally, we waited until she had seen that there was no-one else on the stairs going up and could therefore make her very slow ascent. She began, and we immediately started up behind her, meaning she had to do it all in one without stopping. The fact that her heavy, laboured breathing masked our own was a bonus, and let me tell you, climbing behind this lady and looking up made you sure as hell concentrate on looking down and finding your footing. We all made it, though, and how we chuckled to ourselves as she was taken away on oxygen. 

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The tour finished with everyone dozing lightly on the bus as it made its way back to the capital, and we were back at the hotel for around 7pm. We decided, given our feet looked like slabs of corned beef from all the walking, to have a gin and tonic in the bar downstairs and rest a litte, given it was “Happy Hour”.

I think they need to look carefully at their definition of Happy. The barman was obnoxious and disinterested. We asked him what he’d recommend and he replied by telling us what he drinks when he’s out for ‘real fun’ as opposed to ‘hotel fun’, but in an intensely condescending fashion. I’m always wary of people who have to big themselves up like that – I rather got the impression he’d be home away to bed with a hot Vimto and a cold wank. Nevertheless, we ordered two gin and tonics and my recollection is £36. £36! I hadn’t asked for a bottomless glass! It was nice gin, yes, but I’m fairly sure it was just Bombay Sapphire. Of course I couldn’t lose face so we paid up without comment, but fuck me, never again. For the rest of the holiday our interaction with the dour barman was limited to us trying to figure out who he looked like, until Paul got it in one with ‘Tyrone from Coronation Street after receiving a poor health diagnosis’. Mahah. We planned to go out in the evening but once we were back in the room, we were out like a light and didn’t wake up again until 1am. Thank god for room service!

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Anyway, speaking of meals. Here’s that recipe. WORST SEGUE EVER.

sausage stroganott

to cook sausage stroganott, you’ll need:

  • 6 lean pork sausages (maybe use the sausages from our Musclefood deal – syn free! Or, if you like chewing what tastes like a lemon squashed into a church doormat, try the delicious Slimming World sausages)
  • 1 onion, chopped finely
  • 4 bacon medallions, sliced (maybe use the bacon from our smaller Musclefood deal – syn free! Or, if you prefer cooking with what looks like a tired, anaemic slice of scrotum, buy the wonderful Weight Watchers bacon)
  • 500g mushrooms, sliced
  • 2 garlic cloves, chopped finely
  • 250ml beef stock
  • 4 tbsp tomato puree
  • 1 tsp smoked paprika

You can make this a bit more stroganoffy by adding some Quark, but frankly, it makes the sauce look like something you’d see slurping its merry way along a colonic irrigation hose, so…up to you.

to cook sausage stroganott, you should:

  • cook the sausages – you’ll get the best results in an Actifry, which, if you’re an Amazon Prime member, you can get for £99 by clicking here, just saying
  • slice the sausages into 4 pieces each and set aside
  • meanwhile, heat a large frying pan over a medium-high heat with a little oil and fry the onions until soft
  • and the bacon and garlic and continue frying until the bacon is cooked
  • add the mushrooms and continue to cook for another five minutes or so, or until the mushrooms have softened
  • add the stock, tomato puree and paprika, stir, and bring the mixture to simmer
  • add the sausages and continue to simmer for a couple of minutes and the sauce has thickened a little
  • serve!

We served ours with mash and peas – nothing fancy, but a decent warming dinner.

J

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January 12, 2016

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bacon, breakfast, pork, recipe card, savoury snacks, snacks, syn free, taster ideas, travel

speedy breakfast bake

I’ll come to the speedy breakfast bake in a moment, but first…you may recall we went to Iceland? And well look, you know me, I can’t go to the toilet to drown an otter without writing a 2,000 word article about it. So, here’s the first of our Iceland entries. If you’re just here for the recipes and the sound of my voice in your head makes your skin crawl, just skip down to the photo. Philistine.

twochubbycubs go to Iceland: part one

We decided on Iceland for three reasons:

  • Corsica taught us that two fat men in very hot climates equals rashes, sweating and uncomfortable levels of public nudity;
  • it looks fantastically ethereal and unlike anywhere we’ve ever been before; and (perhaps crucially);
  • we envisioned the place being full of hairy, mountain men who could club a polar bear to death with their willies.

We actually almost ended up in Iceland three years ago but we had to cancel the trip to fund the remodelling of our kitchen – it was certainly more important, the place looked like a museum exhibit, all foisty and fussy from the previous old biddy who shuffled around in there. Broke our heart though to cancel for something so mundane, even if I do have a fabulous cerise stand mixer like Lawson and a whole load of Le Creuset. Flash forward several years later and, after watching a ten minute video on Youtube, we had the whole holiday booked within ten minutes.

Fast forward to December, you know the drill. We shuttled our way up to Edinburgh and arrived at the hotel.

We ate a perfectly satisfactory (damning with faint praise) meal in the hotel bar, where we were served by an entirely lovely young waitress who baffled us with menu choices but steered us towards the money-saving options with aplomb. Clearly one look at our tattered shoes and my Donald Trump haircut elicited a sense of pity from her. She did respond to our chat about Iceland with a question we’d hear surprisingly often both before and after the holiday:

“Iceland…is it cold there?”

I mean the clue is in the name. I was faultlessly polite, resisting the urge to tell her that they only call it Iceland to lure unsuspecting penguins there to sell them timeshares, and demurred that it was indeed rather nippy. Perhaps she knew that as hard-bitten Geordies we only feel the cold when our heart stops and our fingers turn black.

That’s a faintly true stereotype – take a look out in Newcastle on a Friday night in winter and you’ll see plenty of bubbling and rippling masses wearing less material than I use to wipe my bum. Only when both sets of lips turn blue does the cough Prosecco get put down. Anyway, yes, we were asked many times if Iceland was cold to the point I developed a tic in my eye from inwardly wincing so much.

I wish I could say there was anything eventful to write about from finishing our meal through to getting on the plane, but no – it was the usual perfect Premier Inn service. I should be on bloody commission, I tell everyone about Premier Inn. Just saying, if you’re reading this PI, a free night in a London hotel wouldn’t go amiss. We don’t mind if Lenny Henry is in there, he looks like he’d be a cuddler. We did, however, manage to deviate from our normal practice of turning up at the airport eight days early ‘just in case’ by instead spending the day shopping in the salubrious Livingston Centre. I say shopping, we minced in, fannied about in the Le Creuset shop, bought a salt pig and a honey pot and then walked around looking at all the shops that cater for people of less corpulent frames than us. We decided to have a game of mini-golf in Paradise Island. Paradise Island? More like Hepatitis Inlet. No I’m sorry, I’ve been to America and I’ve seen how they do mini-golf over there – carefully crafted courses, erupting volcanoes. What do we get? A shoddy animatronic of Paul’s mother appearing out of a crate of MDF, a vinyl recording of a door creaking and some torn artificial grass. I felt like I was having a round of golf in an abandoned IKEA. We plodded around with all the enthusiasm of the terminally bored, finished under par and didn’t dare have a pop at the ‘WIN A FREE GAME’ final hole in case we were actually victorious.

Unusually, we did manage to get lost on the way to the airport carpark – we normally have an excellent sense of direction, but somehow we missed the giant planes swarming around over our head. I pulled over to ask someone for directions and I’ve genuinely never stared into such an empty face. I asked for directions to the airport and he gazed at me like I was speaking tongues. My exasperated eyes met his watery eyes for a moment or two, then, realising he was clearly as thick as the shite that killed Elvis, we barrelled away in the car. He was still stooped over ‘looking at the car’ as we turned a corner 100 yards away, somewhat ironically onto the right roundabout for the airport. Ah well. It’ll have given him something to use his brain for other than absorbing the wind.

Having parked the car in a car-park that looked exactly like the type of place you’d see on Watchdog where they tear your cars up and down the country, touching everything with oily hands and merrily hacking up phlegm into the secret camera, we were on our way. I told Paul to ‘remember where we had parked’ and he replied with ‘Berwick upon Tweed’. He does come out with the jokes occasionally you know. Edinburgh Airport remains as charmless as ever, with the only place to eat that didn’t necessitate filling out a loan application being the little Wetherspoons up by the gate. I had four gins and a tonic, Paul had a beer and after only an hour or so, we were boarding the plane. I’ve typed many words about the way people board planes so I won’t bother you with them now, but for goodness sake, the pilot isn’t going to set away early, you don’t need to crowd on like they’re giving out blowjobs and cocaine. Bastards.

The flight was uneventful but packed – the mass wearing of winter clothes meant everyone took up slightly more room than normal and the air was soon steamy with sweat. To squeeze past someone in the aisle involved so much personal intimacy that I automatically lubed myself up. Lovely. I can handle flying but struggle with feeling boxed in, so I just shut my eyes and dozed for the two hours it takes to travel from Edinburgh to Reykjavik. Being the caring sort I also kept hold of the iPad just in case, but it did mean poor Paul had nothing to do other than gaze at the cornflakes of dandruff gently falling off the scalp of the slumbering mass in front. I’m a sod, I know.

Oh, there was a moment of interest when the overhead cabin across from us starting leaking something at quite an alarming rate, necessitating the decampment of the passenger immediately below the leak into the only spare seat available on the plane. Seems sensible? No. The woman (who was somewhat…large) next to the vacant seat kicked up such a stink that the stewardess had kick up a stink in return, and a veritable hiss-off occurred – too much make-up vs too much circumference. How selfish can you be, though, to make someone sit under a dripping leak for two hours? I feel guilty just making Paul sleep in the cuddle puddle after sex. Don’t think us gays have a wet patch? You’re wrong, though ours is mainly lube to be fair. Still, makes getting up for an early-morning piss that much easier when you can just slide to the bathroom like Fred in the Flintstone’s opening credits.

Also, I’m no expert on aircraft, despite all my many hours of sitting slackjawed in front of Air Crash Investigation watching reconstructions of plane crashes brought to vivid life via the graphics card of a Nintendo 64, but is a major leak not worrisome? Surely water sloshing around amongst the electrics is a VERY BAD THING. The stewardess opened the locker, moved around a couple of the many bags crammed in there then decreed the leak to be a mystery. A mystery! That helped my anxiety – I had visions of it being hydraulic fluid or jet fuel and us being mere moments away from landing via someone’s front room on the Shetland Isles. I still don’t like getting up for a piss on the plane because I’m worried I’ll upset the balance. A rational mind I do not have. We landed safely, obviously, and the leak was plugged by about 1000 blue paper towels. Keep it classy, Easyjet.

Let’s be fair, actually – easyJet continue to be fantastic to fly with. I have no problems with a company that will fly me around Europe for less money than I pay for my weekly parking ticket in Newcastle. Everyone from their check-in staff to the onboard team always seem to be smiling, and as a nervous passenger, that really helps. Their planes are comfy, although I noted with alarm that I wasn’t too far off needing a seatbelt extension. Not that there’s any shame in that, but I’d sooner be strapped onto the roof and flown that way than ask across a crowded cabin for a bungee-cord sized seatbelt. I’m shy!

We touched down into Keflavík Airport in the early evening and, yes, it was cold. Bloody cold – minus one or two degrees. The airport is small as it only serves a few flights a day in winter, and we were through security and bag-drop in no time. You know the drill by now – I had to wait ten minutes whilst Paul dashed into a toilet and released his Christmas log. Any airport, any time. I think the air pressure changes associated with flying does something to his bowels – I can genuinely count the seconds from getting our bag off the conveyor to Paul turning to me with an ashen face clutching his stomach and bemoaning that he needs to go for a crap. Some people tie fancy socks to their suitcase or have a favourite towel to take on holiday as tradition – my holiday tradition is looking furiously at the closed door of a gents toilet.

As Keflavík Airport is around thirty miles from the centre of Reykjavic, you’ll need to take a bus or hire a car. I didn’t fancy crashing my way through the icy roads, so we opted for the bus. It’s all terribly simple and you don’t need to book in advance, rather just bustle your way to the ticket office, purchase a ticket and step aboard the idling bus, which then takes you to your hotel. It’s all exceptionally civilised. One of the many good things about Iceland is that it doesn’t seem to attract the SKOL-ashtray-and-red-shoulders brigade, so you’re not stuck on a bus hearing fifty different English accents bellow about lager and tits for an hour. Good. 

We were dropped off at the Grand Hotel first, and as it was pitch-black outside, we decided to stay in the room to drain our swollen feet and order room service. I tried to order something Icelandic but the closest we could see was a SKYR cheesecake. Oh imagine the pains. I did my usual hotel trick of hiding in the bathroom when they bring all the trays of food in so that Paul looks like a giant fatty, though I was fairly restrained this time – I didn’t make my usual ‘straining’ noises from behind the door.

Stuffed full of food and tired from all the sitting down, we were off to sleep in no time, accompanied by the only English channel we could find – Sky News. 

Gosh now look at that. All that writing and we’re not even out in Iceland proper yet. That’ll come in the next entry. Anyway, tonight’s recipe. Those who are lost in mirth and reverie, get yourself together. 

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This speedy breakfast bake is easy enough to make – actually, ridiculously so. Not going to lie, this isn’t our recipe, it’s actually taken from another blog, found here. We were so taken by it that we adapted it slightly for Slimming World. If you’ve got a spiraliser, you’ve FINALLY got a bloody use for it. Mind, if you don’t have a spiraliser (and you can buy a cheap one RIGHT HERE), don’t shit the bed, you can just grate the sweet potato instead. This sits well – take some the next day for work.

speedy breakfast bake

to make speedy breakfast bake, you’ll need:

  • 1 large sweet potato, peeled and grated finely – use a spiraliser if you have one, it makes it easier – just have it on a fine setting
  • 12 egg whites (see tip below – you don’t need to clart about seperating eggs)
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
  • 120ml of skimmed milk (take it from your HEA allowance or syn it – 100ml is two syns)
  • 80g of extra mature but reduced fat cheddar cheese (two HEA choices, remember this easily serves four)
  • as much spinach as you like, but aim for two big handfuls at the least
  • a few bacon medallions (I have an idea: use the bacon from our Musclefood deal! It’s good value and cheap as chips)

Right, the eggs – that’s a lot of eggs and you’re going to have a lot of yolk – we bought these instead from Tesco:

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Much easier! Used about 4/5 of it, and chucked the rest into a pan for an omelette the next day.

and to make speedy breakfast bake, you should:

  • preheat the oven up to 180 degrees and line a decent square tin (or any tin, I’m not going to write a letter to the council about you) with greaseproof paper or a squirt or two of frylight
  • dry fry off the bacon and chop it up
  • mix everything together in a big old bowl, tip into the tin and cook for around an hour (check it doesn’t burn) until it’s completely cooked through
  • leave to stand for ten minutes just to cool off and firm up
  • slice and serve! 

We served ours with a side salad, but the fact that this has spinach in it already makes it a super healthy breakfast or dinner.

Enjoy!

J

Remember, if you’re a fan of our writing, and if you want to read our travel tales from Germany, Corsica and Ireland, you can find them all in our new book! 

 

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October 22, 2015

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bacon, breast, fakeaways, italian, lunch, pasta, pork, poultry, recipe card, syn free

garlic, bacon and chicken pasta

We’re both feeling quite melancholy as we witnessed something pretty awful today – a bloke having a massive seizure in the middle of IKEA and then screaming and thrashing as he came around. We’re both first-aid trained but when we got there, the staff were doing everything right and were bloody marvellous. What annoyed us more than anything, though, was the table full of old people practically snapping their necks to get a good look at the poor prone man on the floor. Not affording him any dignity or discretion, it was like they were waiting for the last number on their bingo cards. Vultures the bloody lot of them. Hopefully they were found face-down amongst the ANÖOS toys later on. Why are people so shitty?

So it brings me to two things, two pleas, really. And yes, it’s not the usual fun and games and piss-take that we normally bust out, but it’s so important. First – learn basic first aid. Take an hour to watch a few Youtube videos – you’ll find a whole raft of videos by the marvellous St John’s Ambulance right here. No-one is expecting you to give someone a tracheotomy or put in a catheter, but basic first aid makes all the difference. Would you genuinely know what to do if that bloke had been in a room with you and you alone and he had started having a seizure? What if a baby started choking or a kid came to you with a broken arm? We’re lucky – we’ve both been trained because of our jobs – but it’s such a frightening position to be in that I’d hate to have to do it without the facts. If you’re in employment, why not ask your HR if they’ll get you on a training course? You just don’t know when you’ll need it. As a moment of sweet relief, here’s a post about the last time James went for first aid training.

Second short plea? Get yourself on the organ donation register. If you’ve got strong, sensible views against it then all the best to you and we’ll say no more – it’s personal choice. But if you’re not on it as an oversight or because you haven’t got round to doing it, here, sign up now. It’s odd – the issue has come to our attention via the same disease – cystic fibrosis, with a friend of mine losing a good friend to it and one of our lovely lasses in our group posting on behalf of her friend who is slowly losing her lungs. I’d love to think that when I die, they take whatever they need from me. My eyes are fucked, so there’s no point there. Heart is probably shot and doesn’t beat so well, and lungs have been blackened by years of parents who thought nicotine was a suitable replacement for fresh air (I kid. Sometimes they used to wind the window down in the car). My skin is good, though, so graft away, and my brain – assuming it’s not being turned to sponge by some dastardly CJD prions (I ate a lot of cheap beef back in the day), is fairly sharp. They could take my balls if they wanted, they’re in decent shape, and hell if you want my willy, it’s there, though years of growing up alone in the country with nothing to do means it’s like a well-worn tyre now. I jest I jest. Trying to inject some levity. Go on. Sign up on the register. I promise you that if I die before you, and given my calorie intake and sloth levels of exercise, it’ll probably happen, you can take what you want.

OK. So let’s do the recipe.

chicken and bacon pasta

 

to make the garlic, bacon and chicken pasta, you’ll need:

  • 400g pasta of your choice
  • 1 red onion, finely chopped
  • 4 bacon medallions
  • 2 chicken breasts
  • 6 cloves of garlic, chopped
  • 50oml passata
  • ½ tsp paprika

 

to make the garlic, bacon and chicken pasta, you should:

  • cook the pasta according to the instructions – drain and rinse with cold water and set aside (this is a trick I learnt recently – works a treat!)
  • in a large frying pan heat some oil over a medium-high heat, add the onions and cook until softened, stirring frequently
  • meanwhile, chop the bacon and chicken into small pieces and add to the pan, reduce the heat slightly and cook until they meat is browned all over
  • add the paprika and garlic to the pan and cook for about thirty seconds, stirring constantly
  • add the passata to the pan, stir and cook for about fifteen minutes until the mixture has thickened
  • add the pasta back to the pan, stir through and heat for about three minutes
  • serve!
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October 18, 2015

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bacon, breakfast, budget, classics, lunch, pork, recipe card, savoury snacks, snacks, syn free, taster ideas, vegetarian

slimming world breakfast muffins

No, sadly not breakfast muffins that are full of blueberries or chocolate that you already slick around your mouth, causing embarrassment. Honestly, have a word. These breakfast muffins are savoury and apparently perfect for breakfast on the go. That’s an alien concept to me, not least because I’d hate to get into the lift at work with parmesan in my beard and four eggs on my breath. It’s one thing I’m always paranoid about – being smelly. There’s so little excuse to honk of BO or to have breath that can bleach hair, and I’m always going to great lengths to avoid that. I’ve got mouthwash in the car for example so after lunch, I give myself a quick rinse and let everyone on the office think I’m a secret alcoholic. But, if perhaps you’ve got your breakfast routine down pat, you’ll enjoy these muffins.

Posting very early today as we’re about to go out and deliver leaflets, after I somewhat rashly promised my consultant that we’d deliver 400, forgetting that on a weekend the amount of exercise Paul and I do amounts to exactly diddily-fucking-squat. I only said I’d deliver them because a) I like my consultant and b) I absolutely love nebbing in people’s windows and gardens. I drove past our old house in Gosforth just a couple of days ago and I was pleased to see that the shit landlord had yet to fix the drainpipe that hung over the window or even taken the space invader that we stencilled onto the front door. To be fair, we got revenge for his absolutely abysmal upkeep of the property and taking advantage of two young, naïve lads – we always used to put our cigarettes down the drain by the back window. By my calculations, given we were both on twenty a day, I reckon that’s at least four thousand little Swan filters blocking his pipes and tainting the water supply. No wonder the water used to run brown. I’ve given up now, mind. What-am-I-like. Don’t feel too bad for him, he was an absolute monster and a fibber who didn’t look after his properties. I had never seen load-bearing black mould until then.

So yes, the recipe!

slimming world breakfast muffins

to make breakfast muffins, you’ll need:

  • four large eggs
  • your HEA of any cheese you like, but the stronger the better
  • 300g of fat-free cottage cheese
  • good pinch of salt and pepper

That will make the basic muffin mixture – it’s not an exact science, either, just combine a bit more cottage cheese if it’s looking slack or crack another egg into it. You can chuck anything into these, so just use what you have – I added:

  • chopped baby leeks
  • chopped peppers
  • chopped bacon (leave out for veggie)
  • chopped tomatoes (if you’re using tomatoes, squeeze out the seeds first – just use the flesh)
  • chopped enokitake mushrooms

Really though, this is a good opportunity to use up all that shite cluttering the bottom of the fridge. I can’t really do a recipe because it’s genuinely just mix everything into a bowl, put into muffin cases and cook until they’re nice and firm and brown. I often find that with Slimming World muffins/quiches they come out as though someone’s cooked them in the sea – over-salted and wetter than Jordan checking into a Premier Inn with a footballer. If you cook off anything with a lot of moisture, like mushrooms or leeks, you’ll be OK. I cooked mine for around forty minutes on 180 degrees, just keep an eye on them to make sure they don’t catch. Also, if you’re using muffin cases, you’ll need to give them a spray first with Frylight or olive oil. If the egg leaks, it’ll dry like cement. They’ll cheerfully keep for a couple of days and they freeze well.

Enjoy! And if you’re in the Gosforth area, keep an eye open for two smartly-dressed fat blokes nosing around your garden and tutting at your poor choice of hallway wallpaper. 

J

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October 17, 2015

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bacon, classics, fakeaways, italian, lunch, pasta, pork, quark, recipe card, speciality ingredients, syn free, taster ideas

quick carbonara (sort of)

Going to rattle off a quick lunch for you today – it’s carbonara, but without the double cream and lovely cheese and egg – instead, using a bit of Quark and egg yolk to mix it through. Before I get to that, and I’ll need to be quick as I’ve got a Doctor Who appointment in fifteen minutes, I confess myself disappointed. See we’ve been furiously buying new books to populate our massive bookcase and I thought, you know, let’s have a trip down Memory Lane. It can’t all be Nigella Lawson and Bill Bryson books. So I nipped onto Amazon to buy the two books I used to love as a nipper – Martin’s Mice by Dick King Smith and My Best Fiend by Sheila Lavelle. Well, honestly. I appreciate I’m viewing them with the jaundiced eye of an adult, but they’re bobbins. I’d finished both books in the time it took to fill my bath. 

And that saddens me. Obviously there are things we experience as a child that we don’t want to feel again as an adult – getting your bottom wiped, or the gentle caress of a whispering vicar, but wouldn’t it have been nice to have at least enjoyed a book that used to bring me so much joy. It also means I’m stuck on new books to buy, because I can’t face having my heart broken again by some insipid story or turgid bit of fiction. Paul’s easy enough – he buys intellectual books full of big words and covers that look like they’d give chartered accountants an erection. To demonstrate, I looked at the last two books we bought from Amazon: I shelled out for a second-hand copy of Delia’s How To Be Frugal, Paul spent his hard-earned money on ‘Concretopia: A Journey Around the Rebuilding of Postwar Britain’, a book that frankly sounds so boring that I drifted off halfway through reading out the title and started thinking about cats. Put another way, we have two magazine subscriptions that get delivered here – one is Viz magazine, the other is Private Eye. Tsk. Snob. I have everything Stephen King has ever published, Paul has a book on tunnels. I suppose they say opposites attract.

Anyway enough of that – tonight’s recipe:

sorta carbonara

to make cheat’s carbonara, you will need:

  • 200g pasta (we used tagliatelle)
  • 6 bacon medallions chopped neatly (you can use up your bacon from our meat box deal with Musclefood – click here for that!)
  • three tablespoons of Quark
  • 30g parmesan
  • 2 tablespoons of fromage frais
  • bit of cheddar
  • two egg yolks

to make cheat’s carbonara, you should:

  • boil the pasta and cook the bacon off
  • mix together everything else
  • then mix EVERYTHING together

I know, simple, but still…!

J

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July 25, 2015

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bacon, breast, lunch, pork, poultry, recipe card, salad, syn free

chicken chopped salad – and buying a bloody sofa

They say that moving house is one of the most stressful things a couple can do – well, that’s bullshit. Listen, we moved the entire contents of our flat to our new home in a Citreon C2. You’ve never lived until you’ve hurtled down the A1 with the threat of a chest of drawers tumbling off the roof of the car and littering the road with boxer shorts and buttplugs. 

No, moving house was easy. It’s decorating that’s really turning my teeth to dust as I grind them with impatience and anger. Today Paul and I went sofa shopping, see, and quite genuinely I’d rather spend the afternoon having various items of kitchenware roughly inserted into my anus in a display window in House of Fraser rather than repeat it. It was just awful, with each shop bringing a fresh horror.

We made the mistake of starting in DFS, where we were immediately accosted by someone fresh out of nappies and with more product in his hair than there is on our freshly plastered ceilings. I reckon he took longer on his hair that morning than I’ve spent cumulatively on mine my entire life. And I used to have long, luscious hair, like a fruity Meat Loaf. His opening gambit was ‘So are you thinking of buying a sofa?’. I resisted the urge to throw my hand to my mouth in mock surprise and go ‘Heavens no, I’ve come to have the car’s tyres realigned and my brake fluid changed, how DID I end up in here?’.

I can’t bear nonsense questions like that (and I’m never rude to shopworkers, mind, they’re just doing what they’re told) – I’m hardly going to be renting a sofa for a weekend, am I? We shuffled around the store until his Lynx Africa got too much for my sensitive nose and we bid him goodbye, promising to ‘come back later’. Honestly there’s more chance of Princess Diana ‘coming back later’ than me.

Next was Barker and Stonehouse, which is pretty much the antithesis of DFS in terms of ‘style’ but I found it ghastly, not least because I immediately felt incredibly out of place in my George jeans and painting hoodie. There are some beautiful pieces of furniture to be had, but it all felt a little bit overpriced, and the only assistance offered amounted to nothing more than such an angry glare from an bumptious oil-slick of a man that I actually thought I’d trod muck in on my shoes. Perhaps he was looking disdainfully at our B&M carrier bag full of hot chocolates, but what can I say, I like a bargain. I got a quick snipe in as I left that ‘perhaps if I was opening an upper-class brothel, I’d consider it’, but it fell a little flat.

The next shop was some ‘Sofa Warehouse’ or suchlike – the only thing I remember about it was that, when I enquired about leather sofas, he immediately showed us to this god-awful brown number that looked like the first turd after a bout of severe constipation…and had cupholders in it. I’m sorry but no, cupholders in a sofa is strictly the domain of people who put tomato ketchup on everything they eat and who breathe loudly through their mouth. I mean honestly, I don’t even have a tattoo of a loved one’s name in copperplate on my neck. I bet the same people who leave comments like ‘RESIPEE PLZ K THX HUN’ under my food pictures have cupholders. Is it so difficult to strain forward and pop your can of Monster down on a coffee table? We made our excuses there and then.

And so it went on. We visited almost ten different places and each one was absolutely rammed full of awful shapes, awful textures, awful colours and awful people. There was one settee that looked like it had been stitched together by Stevie Wonder at gunpoint – about eighty different textures and patterns all stretched horrendously over some cheap metal legs. It looked like a corrupted MPEG of a colonoscopy. Who buys stuff like that, seriously? I wouldn’t burn that in my garden.

We did eventually find a settee we like, but then being tight-arsed Geordies, we dashed home to see if we could find it cheaper online and via Quidco, which we’ve dutifully done, but no – it’s cheaper in store! So that means tomorrow we’re going to go back and haggle like we’ve never done before. The sales assistant looked hard-faced (although it was hard to tell under her fifteen inches of Max Factor – she sneezed at one point and I swear half her cheek fell onto her blazer) but I reckon I’ll be able to get £200 off the asking price and free delivery. That’s my goal.

Tell you what though, you couldn’t pay me to deal with the general public – we witnessed some appalling behaviour from families with children today, including one set of parents who let their litter tip a fucking settee over and ignored the somewhat plaintive cries of the poor assistant who clearly knew that a call to a claims solicitors was mere moments away. You also get arseholes coming in like me who fake-smile at you, take a free cup of coffee and then spend thirty minutes clumsily pawing their way through the fabric selection book before hurtling home to order it online and put a hammer in the nail of the coffin of your job security. In my defence: I’m always super-polite and I’m never, ever rude. Plus anyway, I’m going back tomorrow so she’ll be getting her commission.

Christ though, it’ll be ten weeks before delivery. Ten weeks! What are they doing, pulling it with their hair from Penzance? Bah! That leaves nearly no time at all for the cats to completely destroy it before Christmas comes and we have to host family. 

Anyway. That was my day. When we came back, we threw together whatever shite we could find in the fridge and the cupboard and fashioned together a ‘chicken chopped salad’ of sorts, made up of various bits of nonsense. It was tasty, but does it require a recipe? I’m not sure. I’ll give you a picture though, so be happy.

chicken chopped salad

our chicken chopped salad contains:

  • healthy extra amount of light mozzarella (65g each)
  • two chicken breasts, cooked on the grill and coated in lime juie
  • four boiled eggs, sliced
  • diced crunchy iceberg lettuce
  • two rashers of bacon which Paul dutifully turned into shoe-leather on the grill
  • sliced beef tomatoes
  • tin of black eyed beans
  • tin of sweetcorn
  • sliced red cabbage

You could make this veggie friendly by omitting the chicken and bacon and replacing it with peppers, mushrooms, sofa cushions, horse farts, anything. I don’t often cover salads but it did make for a nice photo and a quick dinner, so here we are. Enjoy! 

Oh dressing: we just mixed some fat free yoghurt with mint from the garden. Easy!

J

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July 14, 2015

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bacon, beef, beef mince, burgers, fakeaways, fast food restaurants, low syn, pork, recipe card

the reuben burger and perfect chips

Bah! Off to a great start with having work done – having left work early, powerminced to my car and drove like a loon to get home in time to clean the skidders off the toilet and to file away the cats before the gas-man turned up…he just didn’t bother to turn up. All he had to do was come over, take away our god-awful fireplace, disconnect the gas and bugger off.

But no. No, he turned off his phone and when I called him this morning, he informed me that ‘he was stuck on a big job’. I resisted the urge to tell him to eat more fibre and fuck off, so I told him primly that his services were no longer needed. He’s a fool, because, given we’re naïve and foolish with money, he could have totally taken advantage, told us we needed to demolish the front of the house to take the fire out, and we would have hurled notes of money at him until he disappeared in his little van. Urgh.

It’s only a very quick post tonight of the recipe as we’re starting to move furniture around ahead of our plasterer coming to sandblast the Artex, so I won’t even push my book. BUT PLEASE BUY IT. PLEASE. I know American week has rumbled on a bit, but damn…the food is so good! These Reuben burgers are delicious – just a few different toppings make a world of difference.


reuben burger

reuben burgers – you’ll need:

  • your healthy extra bread bun choice
  • chopped cooked ham
  • two slices of swiss cheese (Leerdammer lighter – two slices is a HEA)
  • lettuce
  • burger sauce (which you can find the recipe for here)
  • sauerkraut (you can leave these off, but why would you)
  • 5% beef mince (500g)
  • pepper, salt

and it’s as easy as this:

  • shape the mince into four decent size burgers
  • mix in some salt and pepper
  • grill until cooked
  • assemble the burger by toasting the bun, smearing the sauce on the bread, adding lettuce, a burger, cheese, a burger, cheese, ham, sauerkraut and the top of the bun.

Easy!

We served ours with chips:

IMG_1782

  • use a decent, ‘wet’ potato, like a Maris Piper
  • don’t use oil if you’re putting them in an actifry, just use worcestershire sauce
  • crumble on an Oxo cube
  • COOK

Heaven! Get an Actifry man, you’ll never look back and you’re a long time dead. What you waiting for? The big one is currently reduced from £250 to £140 on Amazon. Nice.

J

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July 8, 2015

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american, bacon, fakeaways, fast food restaurants, low syn, lunch, pasta, pork, quark, recipe card, sausages, speciality ingredients

pimped macaroni cheese

Boo! I had to work late and do overtime tonight so it’s a very quick post from me – just to put today’s American entry where we went to Discovery Cove and we swam with dolphins. Poor bastards. There’s also a wonderful recipe for seriously loaded mac and cheese – nice and American! Of course we had to jazz it up by adding chives, sausages and bacon. Just scroll down.

Hilariously, my book has climbed to #1 in the Amazon’s Gay & Lesbian Travel section. I can’t imagine the competition is especially stiff but still! I KNEW I should have called it ‘Cruising with Gays’. If you haven’t bought it yet, give it a go, it’s a couple of quid and it pays for Paul and I to buy ridiculous nonsense like Thwomp cushions and giant spoons. If you want it, you can buy it here. If not, scroll to get the recipe!

 

day ten – Discovery Cove and swimming with dolphins

Ah, Discovery Cove day. Booked a long time ago, was I looking forward to it? Not really. I know this is almost blasphemy, but dolphins leave me cold. I think it’s because my sister went through a dolphin phase during the 90s, like most girls, and everything was covered in dolphins. I continued the theme in my teenage bedroom, where everything was covered in seamen. Kaboomtish. That, coupled with having to get my baps out, meant I was a little apprehensive. Nevertheless, we got a taxi and were there in good time, turning up a good half hour early. We had read online that it was worth getting there early to get a good dolphin swim slot in the morning, meaning you could relax for the rest of the day. This done, we were booked for the swim at 10.45.

Breakfast first, then. A good choice, but my buffet-shyness prevented me from getting the full amount I wanted. There’s a cooked breakfast option available but the lady behind the counter looked pretty stern, so I didn’t dare ask for me. There’s also the requisite pastries and cereal if you prefer. We took our time before heading over to the lockers. You are given a little net bag which includes a snorkel, good goggles and suncream – as you’re not allowed to use your own suncream lest it pollutes the water. Then, the tough bit. The wetsuit. Men can either choose from a full wet-suit or a lycra ‘top’, which clings to everything. We did try on the top but it pushed my moobs up in such a fashion that I could no longer see my feet. Ditto Paul. We decided to change into a wetsuit. Jesus. Have you ever tried getting into one of these things, particularly if you’re somewhat rubenesque like Paul and I? It’s like to push water through a cheese-grater. However, ten minutes later, once they had greased us up, we were fine, and dare I say it, the wetsuit was actually the far better choice as it compresses everything in. Clearly the fat was being squeezed somewhere else but I didn’t have any especially big lumps appearing, so it was all good!

Now – time for a serious thought. I read a lot of posts on here about people feeling shy about being fat and not wanting to plod about with it all on show. I’m the same, despite my cool and sexy exterior – quite shy about my jiggly bits. But if you take anything from my trip reports aside from a slight queasiness, know this – you don’t need to worry. I have seen some proper gargantuan heifers over here and no-one ever comments. People might think things in their head but let’s be honest, we all do it. Just remember that you’re never going to see these people again and let it all swing out. Life, and your holiday, is too short to worry about what you look like. But – that said – don’t be setting up a chip pan on the beach, that’s just common.

We spent an hour just drifting around in the lazy river, using our snorkels. The river itself gets to about 8ft in places, but as long as you make sure you can snorkel, you’ll be fine even if you’re a weak swimmer. Paul got the hang of it fairly quickly, but I can’t say I helped him out by sticking my finger in his snorkel-hole. Well, it is a honeymoon. The worst part about being able to breathe and see underwater? Well, you know in programmes like Fat Families or other diet shows, they always show the fat person swimming and all their fat is rippling underwater like an epileptic lava-lamp? That was Paul and I. People didn’t need to throw fish at us whilst we basked, mind.

The river is lovely, full of…stones. Yep, I do think they could gee it up a bit by sticking some little nooks and crannies and things to look at under the water, but it was still a wonderful way to relax. Then – it was time for the dolphin swim. You’re taken into a little tent with your other swimmers, made to sign a disclaimer form to say that any damage or penetration is not Discovery Cove’s problem and then, oh my, the cheesiest video about dolphins ever. It was in this tent that we realised that we were getting proper stink-eye from a woman. She would not let up. I can only assume one of two things:

  • she was jealous because her short, bald husband was not nearly as attractive as mine; or
  • she had finally realised that she was the absolute double of the lampshade-haired cow from those insufferably smug BT adverts – and I really hate those adverts.

Naturally, as Paul and I can’t get through a day without making an enemy, she became ours, and we spent the rest of the day pulling faces at her whenever she passed. Cow. We were led to our dolphin – Calypso – and our trainer. We stroked the dolphin’s belly, avoided her bajingo which was clearly on show, had flapped at and learnt all about the dolphin. It was a fun half-hour, but as we were alongside a family, most of the attention was spent on the little girls getting to stroke the dolphin and what have you. Which is fair enough, I guess. It didn’t help that their father was a proper knob though, he kept asking really smart-arse questions of the trainer and then correcting her! I can’t bear that kind of attitude, there’s no need for it. Thankfully, our British reserve won through, and we were exceptionally polite. My only lament – I didn’t get to throw a fish in its mouth. But to be honest, I get enough of that at home throwing Skittles at Paul to get him to move. After 20 minutes of tricks and chat, it was time for Calypso to pull us back to shore. You swim out about 50ft into deep water, and the dolphin pulls you back in. It was good fun, and Calypso managed valiantly with both Paul and I, though she did have to be put on oxygen afterwards.

After the swim, you’re ushered into another tent to view photos of the happy day. It’s not hard sell as such, but I do feel it could have been done more subtly, especially given the price of the photos. If you have kids, perhaps it would be best to leave them outside at this point so you don’t feel pressured – as I was with Paul, I had no such luck, and we ended up buying four photos. They’re really good as it happens, so it’s fair enough. After our swim, an early lunch. The food is terrific mind, very healthy and fresh. I had a Cobb salad, purely so I could say to Paul that I had a cob on, little realising the size and scale of the salad. In England, I remember when a salad was thick sliced tomato, cucumber, iceberg lettuce and loads of vinegar. Over here, you need to set aside forty minutes just to plow your way through. Delicious mind.

The other two draws for Discovery Cove are the snorkelling bay, where you can swim around with loads of tropical fish and spotted rays underneath you, and the ray pool, where rays swim around your feet. They’re both excellent, save for the fact that Paul got slapped across the arm by an angry ray, which apparently really hurt. Whilst I was laughing, the ray got me too – and it DOES hurt! We got out of there because we could see it was kicking off. There’s plenty of photos we took with an underwater camera, but I can’t stick them online. They’re all very blurry and blue anyway. I did notice some show-offs with fancy underwater cameras. I admit to being jealous of their superior technology, so next time I’m going to navigate the fish pool in an underwater sub. Might mince a few fish whilst I’m doing it, but ah well.

That is how the remainder of the day passed – swimming, sunbathing, getting lots of free ice-cream and beer, and snorkelling about. There isn’t too much to write about because it was just all relaxing, no being dramas or the like. The only notable event was at the end of the day, when we were getting changed – when I pulled the wetsuit from my body it made a massive, loud, wet fart sound, to which Paul – to his credit, stealing a Phoenix Nights joke, shouted ‘And I’ll name that tune in one’ from the shower cubicle next door. Good lad. Shuttle to Seaworld and then onto the I-Ride trolley back to the Four Points, where the night was spent watching Unstoppable on the PPV TV. Good film that. Day over! 

Over and out.

pimped macaroni cheese

serves 4 (generously)

to make pimped macaroni cheese, you’ll need:

  • 250g macaroni (or any type of pasta – we used spirali)
  • 1 brown onion
  • 6 Slimming World sausages, defrosted, skins removed
  • 5 rashers of back bacon, fat removed and chopped into small chunks
  • 1 tsp oregano
  • 1 tsp paprika
  • 2 garlic cloves, minced
  • 400ml skimmed milk (6 syns)
  • 200ml chicken stock
  • 160g reduced fat cheddar cheese, grated (4x HexA)
  • 125g quark
  • 1 wholemeal brown roll, blitzed into breadcrumbs
  • bunch of chives
  • salt and pepper

and when you’ve got all that, you’d better

  • cook the pasta according to instructions, drain and set aside
  • heat a large pan over a medium high heat and cook the onion until softened
  • add the bacon and sausage meat, stirring frequently to stop the sausage meat from clumping – I used a potato masher to keep the mixture loose
  • add the oregano, paprika and garlic, stir well and remove from the heat
  • in a separate pan add the milk, stock cheese and quark and cook over a medium-low heat, whisking continuously until the mixture is smooth – don’t be tempted to increase the heat – it needs to be quite low
  • add salt and pepper to taste
  • combine all of the ingredients together, mix well and pour into a large baking dish
  • sprinkle the top with breadcrumbs and chopped chives
  • cook at 190 degrees for about 20-30 minutes

Serve! 

If you want to save syns, we made a macaroni cheese where the creamy sauce came from butternut squash which was equally as delicious – you can find it here!

J

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July 4, 2015

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american, bacon, fakeaways, fast food restaurants, low syn, pork, quark, recipe card, sausages, savoury snacks, snacks, speciality ingredients, syn free

american week: bacon wrapped hotdogs

I feel I should warn you – this is a long one. But if you relax, grit your teeth and just persevere, you’ll enjoy it all the way to the end.

Wah-hey! It’s American week, we’ve got our fancy new banner, and you’re actually getting two recipes today, both of which are easy to make. Before we get started though, just something quick. I found a vest in the reduced bin at Tesco today for £2. I don’t wear vests because I don’t have fabulous arms and I feel the world can do without seeing my milky white, hairy shoulders catching the sun. Nevertheless, it’s good for dossing around the house, but the very moment Paul saw me in it he said I looked like Onslow from Keeping up Appearances. So that’s nice, bearing Onslow was a man in his late fifties who had yellow teeth and a very ‘lived in’ face.

The recipes are at the bottom of this page!

American week means I get to step back from writing and rest my fingers for a bit – so in the meantime, I’m going to post seven days from my honeymoon book. We travelled to Florida for four weeks and it was amazing, and I kept a diary because I didn’t want to forget any of it. I know, mushy. If you enjoy it, please do consider buying it – it means a few extra pennies for our Iceland jar see. And it’s only £2. Click here! So, this is day zero…

 

Day 0 – our wedding and travelling to Florida

Given I’m going to prattle on about Paul and I for oooh…about 50000 words, it seems prudent to introduce us properly, and what better way to illustrate who we are then to talk you through the day I accepted Paul’s ring. Yes, the wedding. We’re not exactly Wills and Kate, though I do have a fabulous arse, but it was a lovely day full of smiles and the perfect start to our honeymoon full of sin, sarcasm and blue sunscreen.

Way back in 2009, also at Disney, I proposed to my stout little barrel of a man and he gleefully accepted. I think it was the fact we were in the middle of a lake and I’d be watching an awful lot of Dead Calm recently that hastened his positive reply. We got honked at by a passing Disney ferry whose inhabitants thought I was down on my knees doing something other than proposing. The nerve. I mean, it wasn’t Christmas! Zip forward to 3 January 2011 and the day before our wedding. Well, the glamour started right from the off with one of the cats deciding to do a dirty protest in the car whilst we ferried him over to my sister to look after. You’ve never seen someone wind a window down quicker than us that day, and because the cat is fearless and would have jumped, he stayed in his messy box all the way to my sisters. It was with tears in our eyes (and Vicks under our nose) to see our pooey little furball depart, but there you have it.

We spent the evening before the wedding in our first treat, a room at the Hotel du Vin in Newcastle. You may think Newcastle is purely the land of bust noses, bare flesh and broken hymens, but we’re more than capable of bringing the class, and this is one of the nicest hotels in the area. I mean, it has a cigar bar attached, for heaven’s sake. Our very first surprise of the honeymoon? We were upgraded to the best suite in the hotel, the Dom Pérignon suite. It was bloody beautiful. It’s the honeymoon suite and I was overjoyed, especially as I had only paid £68 for the room through my shrewd discount plans. A massive thank you to the staff of the beautiful Hotel du Vin, that’s for sure. The room had two bathtubs in the living room, and I think we were in the room for a grand total of two minutes before they were full of bubbles and we were laid in them watching Deal or no Deal on the giant TV and feeling like kings. The bed was wonderful too – it felt like it was 9ft wide – I could lie in it, stretch myself out and STILL not touch the sides. Sometimes I wonder why Paul married me.

After a meal on the Quayside and a romantic stroll back to our room, we settled down to sleep – our last night as bachelors! Here’s a sweet fact for you – in all the time we’ve been together, we’ve never had a night apart. A good start to the marriage methinks! And so…to the wedding!

We had decided a couple of months previously not to have a big do at all, and just a small registry office affair followed by a good dinner. I wish I could say it was for any other reason than the fact we’re both terribly selfish and Northern and thus the idea of spending money to facilitate other people having a good time appals us. Plus, I wanted to avoid the three horrid old clichés of a civil partnership:

  1. non-Scottish men wearing kilts. We know you’re a Mary but let’s not wear a skirt, eh;
  2. rainbow decorations absolutely anywhere. Paul may be the height of a leprechaun but he doesn’t have the cheeky disposition; and
  3. bloody cupcake towers. Nothing cloys my blood faster than this fad for cupcakes. I’m not Polly bloody Pocket. If I had my way, there would only be two cakes allowed – fruit and urinal.

Bah! I’m not casting aspersions on anyone else’s wedding but it suited us to have a small, tidy, manly do. So we did. Well, we did toy with the idea of dressing up like the sisters from Shakespeare’s Sister’ Stay video but we were talked out of it. We became Husband and Husband in Newcastle Registry Office, presided over by an official who was the spit of Annie Lennox, and watched over by our immediate family and good friends. As an aside, my gran was there, and she’s brilliant – despite being 87, she’s thoroughly accepting of our relationship and is always asking after Paul when I call up. I mean, there are limits to her acceptance – I didn’t dare explain what fisting was when she asked me one day after seeing the word on my phone (I might add, someone had texted it in a joke to me, I’m not that FILTHY). It still felt a little bit too formal for me, as I’m not used to someone addressing a suit-clad Paul without adding ‘the defendant’ afterwards. We decamped to SIX, the faffy little restaurant on top of the Baltic. It’s very posh. NOW, we’re not a posh lot, and class McCains as a ‘fancy potato style’ but you have to let your hair down once and a while, even if (as is the case in all the males at the table) you don’t have any.

So, a suitably lovely meal was had, only enhanced by the snotty waiter looking down his nose at us and rolling his eyes when I ordered a couple of bottles of reasonably-priced champagne. Well, reasonably priced for them – paying £65 for a bottle of fizzy cat pee gave me such a cold sweat that I had to excuse myself to the bathroom to calm my shakes. My nana, bless her, didn’t really fancy anything on the menu (I can’t blame her, I’ve never heard two bits of chard, a sliced tomato and a bloody drizzle of balsamic vinegar described as a French Salad before) but they were very good and cooked her up her own individual meal. I stopped short of asking them to put a glass of Banana Complan on ice, though.

After the meal, we went to the pub for an hour, then everyone dearly departed, and our honeymoon officially started. Yes! Back to the flat to really put the bed through its paces by er…putting the suitcases on it and tipping our wardrobe into them. I have to say, it wasn’t the first type of packing that I had planned for the wedding night. We slept, butterflies in our stomach (SIX would call them an amuse bouché) and in no time at all, we were in a taxi being bellowed at by a rather brusque taxi driver who wanted to know the far end of a fart and when it came from. Honestly. I spent the entire trip to the train station trying to hide the fact I was attempting to take a photo of his face on my phone so I would be able to identify who had burgled our house when we were away. Thankfully, that didn’t arise.

Straight onto the train, into the first class carriage (where you too can travel in style with an extra doily and a few crappy biscuits) and we were disappearing over the Queen Elizabeth bridge, saying goodbye to Newcastle from the bridge. Now here’s a tip for you. If you’re coming into Newcastle (or indeed leaving) from the South on the train, don’t look slackjawed to the right and admire all the bridges, but instead, look on the other side of the river, up the Tyne. As you cross the bridge, there’s a little wasteground, and it’s always full of men out ‘badger-hunting’. Yep – whereas most people are taken by the beauty of the moment, Paul and I spent the first minute of our honeymoon journey playing ‘Count the Cruiser’. What larks!

In no time at all, we were in London, our seedy capital. Kings Cross is lovely, yes, but in no time at all we had tubed our way to Victoria and onto the Gatwick Express, heading for the giddy heights of the Gatwick Hilton. What a place! After spending seven years navigating to the hotel from the train station (seriously, we spent so much time walking there that I almost gave up and set up base for the night), we were checked in by a clearly-couldn’t-care-less-customer-divvy and in our room. Grim. I’m not a hotel snob but after spending the night in the Hotel du Vin only two nights ago, the Hilton’s tired brown sheets and tiny bathroom didn’t exactly enamour the soul. After spending only a moment admiring the view (car-parks are just SO fantastic to gaze at), we trekked back to the airport and checked in super-early (is it still Twilight Check-in if it is during the day?) with Virgin Atlantic. We had pre-booked our seats in the bubble but no sooner had we dumped our bags than the lady behind the counter told us we had been moved. Argh! I was too busy trying to work out the best way to hide her body to take in what she was saying, but when I was back at the hotel I checked online and we were RIGHT at the front of the bubble. Get in! Not only do I get to look down at the cattle-class, but I was going to be on first-name terms with the pilot. OK, maybe not THAT close. And we don’t look down our noses at anyone…well…not much.

We spent the evening in the hotel, watching a home movie entitled ‘Britain’s Fattest Man’ starring Timothy Spall. It was very good, even if we didn’t feel a shred of shame stuffing a pork-pie into our gob the very moment he had his fat chopped off. A good nights sleep was had, and we were ready for day 1…introduction over!

 

Oh how we laughed! So the first recipe is for a berry medley breakfast – we were served something very similar at the Polynesian at Disney, so why not replicate it here?

berry medley

There doesn’t really need to be a guide on what to do, really – I just scooped out a giant watermelon and put all that disgusting, rancid watermelon into the bin. That’s really the most important part, because no-one in their right mind can enjoy watermelon – it’s like sucking on a dishcloth. I’ve had farts with more structure, seriously. Then, fill up the hollow with a selection of berries – in this case I used strawberries, raspeberries, blackberries, a Mary Berry, pomegranate seeds, melon balls and blueberries. I then whizzed some raspberries together with the juice of one lime, mixed the whole lot together, and served with chopped mint. This EASILY serves four and is so rammed with superfree food it brings a tear to my eye. Next…

hotdogs

We had loaded hotdogs at Universal Studios – here we have wrapped the hotdog in bacon but you could easily load it with chilli or tonnes of softened onion. Just do it!

to make bacon wrapped hotdogs, you’ll need:

  • a hotdog bun (now look – dig out wholemeal hotdog rolls, ASDA sell them, but we used a white bun because it looked better for the photo – GASP. The hotdog bun was 38g so I’m calling it a HEB. If you don’t want to do that, that’s OK, just swap out the hotdog bun for a normal HEB breadbun and you’ll be laughing)
  • wasn’t that a lot of bold text? Well I’m a bold guy
  • some cocktail sticks
  • 6 rashers of bacon – now you’ll want decent bacon here, not something that looks like the bottom of a flipflop – you want plenty of meat, fat removed
  • an onion
  • hotdogs or sausages – we used Ye Olde Oake hotdogs jumbo, which work out at 2 syns each, but you could use Slimming World sausages instead, think of ALL THAT FLAVOUR
  • 100g of quark
  • your Heathly Extra allowance of strong cheese (we used Red Leicester and only 35g)
  • whatever side you want, we just did ours with chips because we had so much speed food earlier)

then just do this:

  • cut the bacon into inch long strips and wrap gently around the hotdog or sausage (if you’re using sausages, cook them first – don’t incinerate them but get them to ‘almost done’) – secure the bacon with cocktail sticks
  • pop under the grill for ten minutes or so until bacon is lovely and cooked
  • meanwhile, cut your onion up into small bits and gently saute in a drop of oil or Frylight
  • add chopped bacon from your scrappy bits left over, don’t be adding chunks of fat mind or I’ll slap your legs
  • to make the cheese sauce, carefully heat the Quark through and stir in your cheese – you might need to thin it with a drop or two of milk
  • assemble!

Easy. We had two – an extra finger roll being 6.5 syns, but really it was heavy going, so just have one and fill up on sides! If you use ketchup and mustard, you’re looking at a syn extra per tablespoon or so.

Enjoy! WE’RE OFF!

J

 

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June 28, 2015

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airfryer, bacon, pork, pork joints, recipe card, syn free

bacon wrapped tenderloin with a balsamic and strawberry dressing

Just a quick post tonight as we’re busy sorting out Cubs Towers ahead of the Summer of Works. Exciting.

We had a glut of strawberries to use up, I wanted a salad, Paul wanted a roast dinner, so this was the happy compromise. You might wrinkle your nose at the thought of using strawberry but it pairs nicely with pork – think plum sauce with duck and you’ve got the right idea. We served it with roast potatoes which were PERFECT. In fact, let’s cover off how we did our roasties.

roast potatoes

you’ll be needing

  • enough potatoes to fill that echoing belly of yours, cut up into decent chunks
  • Frylight or oil – just a drop or two
  • a lamb Oxo cube
  • an Actifry (if you don’t have one, don’t shit the bed, you can do it in the oven and I’ll cover that in a second

then…

  • squirt the chopped potato with a spritz of spray or a drop of oil
  • chuck in the actifry
  • cook for twenty minutes
  • crumble a lamb Oxo cube on there and splash a good tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce on them
  • cook for another twenty minutes or until they look just right
  • serve!

The Actifry is possibly the best thing we’ve bought since joining Slimming World – not least because it does make genuinely proper tasty chips. You can get others like it but they’re not quite as good (the Airfryer, for example). It’s expensive, but we fry off our meatballs, sausages, chips and potatoes in it with little to no oil. If you’re on the fence about one, take it from us that you won’t regret the expense. You can buy it on Amazon by clicking here. Why not treat yourself?

Too tight for an actifry? Don’t worry. Just put them in the oven for 20 minutes, take them out, shake them, splash them and crumble that cube on the top, and cook again. The key is letting them sit for a few minutes before they cook for the second time.

I’ve seen a lot of people gobble on about those Oxo potatoes where you cook them half submerged in stock…well yes, but then you end up getting potatoes that look like athletes foot, all soft and crinkled and mushy. If that works for you, champion, but I’m not quite at the stage in my life where I need to gum my food. Try the above! 

Anyway, the main event:

sliced pork tenderloin wrapped in bacon

you’ll be needing this (this serves 4):

  • pork tenderloin – with fat removed, ours was around 1kg
  • eight slices of bacon with fat removed (if only it was that easy!)
  • 300g of strawberries, nicely ripe, sliced
  • 125ml of balsamic vinegar
  • three cloves of garlic
  • bag of rocket

and then, once you’ve finished being all hysterical, do this:

  • wrap the tenderloin in bacon – use cocktail sticks to secure if you want
  • put it into the oven on 200 degrees for 30 minutes, then take it out and turn it over and cook for another thirty minutes
  • meanwhile, finely chop (remember: buy a mini chopper, easier, and no stinkin’ fingers) the garlic and pop in a pan over a medium high heat with a drop of oil or a squirt of Frylight
  • cook for around two minutes until slightly golden
  • add the balsamic vinegar and half of the strawberries
  • bring to a boil and then allow to simmer for ten minutes – your kitchen will smell lovely at this point
  • once the second half of the pork is done, take it out, baste it with a few tablespoons of the balsamic strawberries and whack it under the grill for about two minutes to colour it
  • throw the other half of the sliced strawberries into the balsamic pan just so you get a nice difference in texture 
  • remove the pork, cut into thick slices, serve on the rocket with a drizzle of the balsamic and strawberry sauce
  • enjoy, you posh bastard.

Here, I was GOING to call it a reduction, because I suppose it is, but that’s just too wank, even for me!

ENJOY.

J