Category Archives: bacon

Bacon recipes

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February 14, 2015

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airfryer, bacon, breakfast, british, fakeaways, naughty, pork, recipe card, sausages

full english breakfast savoury oats

BUGGER: we thought oats were syn free! Not sure why – so we cooked the breakfast below without thinking and thoroughly enjoyed it, but it was only when an eagle-eyed reader (hello Lisa!) pointed out our mistake that we realised! So this comes out at 12 syns a portion. Good lord. Tasty mind…very rare we cock up but oops!

Oooh has there every been a more dramatic, more twist-filled, more suspenseful storyline than Eastender’s Who Killed Lucy plot? Yes, many times. Anyway, everyone knows she was killed by some livid fashion designer who grew tired of her wearing that awful grey bloody suit.

Paul broke The Rule today. We both agreed that we wouldn’t buy each other a Valentines gift because we’re saving up for something big, and for once in my life I decided to stick to it. Normally I roll my eyes and buy a gift anyway whenever people do that – my nana is a particular bugger for it – ‘OOOH DON’T MAKE A FUSS ETC’ but if you turned up on Christmas Day with a card, well-wishes and lack of present, she’d sit there like you’d swapped her sherbet lemons for hard-boiled piss. But no, this year I stuck to the rules, and Paul promptly presented me with a new bottle of Tom Ford’s Grey Vetiver – my favourite scent in the whole world. He’d done well, soaked in all my hints in the car journey on the way home from work, gone to John Lewis and promptly forgot the name and scent – managed to find it by describing it to the perfume lady and through scent alone! Normally I smell like chips and shame, so it’ll make a change to smell all classy like. In my defence, I did ask him whether he’d want a Vivienne Westwood necklace that I’d seen, but he replied by saying that it was a bit too gay. It’s as if the last eight years of sodomy and frotting never happened.

Nevertheless, I had a trick up my sleeve. I’ve secured a white t-shirt out of the wardrobe, hastily printed a picture of Barack Obama on it and turned it into my ‘YES, WE CAN’ shirt, meaning that if he asks me to do something, the answer will automatically be yes. It’s fun and it’s free – what price dignity? I’m glad we don’t own a pool though, a day like this can easily end up turning sour (the “Barrymore Effect”) and the last thing I want is to be found face-down in a swimming pool with a bumhole like a windsock and ‘anal trauma’ on my death certificate. So lord knows what I’ll end up doing today, but at least I’m not The Worst Husband in the World anymore.

Paul’s Valentines card to me was ace, though:

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And mine, in return, was equally as lovely:

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Mine’s printed on recycled ice-lolly sticks, meaning I’d already given Paul wood by the time we had got out of bed this morning, which I’m sure you’ll agree is incredibly efficient. I only noticed one of the whales had lipstick and mascara on when I got the card home, but that’s alright, we’re both confident young men who are at ease with our roles.

Speaking of roles, or rolls, you want to lose some – so here’s today’s breakfast recipe. I wanted to do something nice for breakfast that hasn’t been done yet, and this hits the target. If you’re a fan of overnight oats, give this a whirl – it’s a savoury use for the oats, and creates a thick, stodgy but delicious breakfast, using all the main bits of a full cooked breakfast!

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to make full english breakfast savoury oats you will need:

400g normal oats that you’d use for porridge but not ones with added sugar – you’re allowed 35g for a HEB, so I worked out that if everyone was using their HEB, that leaves 260g of oats, which is around forty five syns each – so for the sake of argument, that’s around 11.5 syns per portion, two stock cubes made into 800ml of stock with a tsp of soy sauce added, 2 onions very finely chopped, a pack of Weight Watchers Cumberland Sausages (4 syns per pack, this serves four, so these will be half a syn) – take four and take the skin off, crumble the sausagemeat into a bowl, and set the other four aside, two eggs, a handful of cherry tomatoes quartered, bacon medallions cut into thin strips, salt, pepper, chilli flakes.

to make full english breakfast savoury oats you should:

get everything chopped and ready to go. You’ll need two frying pans here. In one, cook off the onion and bacon until nice and soft and cooked through, then chuck in the sausage meat. In the other pan, gently fry off the sausages (or you can use an Actifry for this). Let the sausages in both pans cook through, add the tomatoes to the onion and sausagemeat, still cook. Once the whole sausages are cooked, set aside and chop into discs when cool. To make the savoury porridge, tip the oats and soy/stock into a microwaveable bowl, cook for about two minutes until it goes nice and stodgy, then chuck the lot into the bacon and onion and tomato mix and cook off on a medium heat to dry it out a bit. Whilst that’s occuring, fry off two eggs in your other pan that had the sausages on. Assemble on a plate, add the sausage discs, fried egg and lots of black pepper and salt.

extra-easy: well, no – there’s not 1/3 superfree in there, but you could have a few pieces of fruit during the day to counter it. Let your hair down, it’s Valentines Day.

Listen, seriously now – try this. It was delicious – almost a bit haggis-like. You could add chilli sauce, use different sausages, add peppers, all sorts. It’s stodgy, filling and very tasty!

By the way, it was totally Abi who killed Lucy, with Max helping to cover it up. Cheers.

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February 12, 2015

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bacon, beef, diced beef, low syn, pork, recipe card, slow cooker

beef bourguignon

For week two, we’re going to…FRANCE!

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But before we get started, I come bearing good news. I’m sorry, that never normally happens, I’ve been under pressure, it’s that time of the month, I’m just keen etc. No, remember our bathroom problem where Paul and I were down to one tiny bulb in our bathroom, turning every trip to brush our teeth or wipe our bum into a perilous adventure fraught with tension that we’d be plunged into absolute darkness mid-pinch? Well worry no more! Our wonderful, marvellous and above all else hella-manly plumber/electrician has saved the day! But mind it took something else breaking before we called him in. Our extractor fan has clearly become so affronted and overworked trying to waft away the smell of so many rich Slimming World infused motions that it went into overdrive and refused to turn off – not even using the switch would stop it – we had to take out the fuse for the lights throughout the house before it finally shut off. Which wasn’t ideal. A plea was made to the chap who originally did our bathroom and he has been this morning and not only replaced the fan, he’s only gone and replaced all the lightbulbs! Best part is, I wasn’t even there when he did it so I didn’t need to feel all emasculated and embarrassed that we had let ourselves down so badly.

One thing I’m a smidge alarmed about is that we’ve gone from one 30w bulb in the bathroom to six 50w beauties – if I happen to find an interesting magazine article whilst I’m on the netty I’ll probably come out with a tan. It’ll make brushing my teeth like being on a mediocre game-show – I’ll just need Dale Winton mincing around behind me explaining my brushing technique to an imagined audience. Perhaps I’ve thought too much about this. Let’s move on.

It was only a short post yesterday as I was at the cinema seeing Kingsman: The Secret Service, with Phillipa who you may know from the poorly-spelled insults she occasionally leaves on the blog. Great film and heartily recommended – we laughed, we cried, she spilt her popcorn – the usual, and that was before we’d even sat down. Colin Firth plays an absolute blinder, really branching out from his upper-class-English-fop role that was all I associated him with. I admit to being distracted nearly all the way through by the girl in front of me and her shovel-faced boyfriend. She’d clearly come dressed for a bet but that’s by the by – it was her haircut which was distressing me. She’d tried to fashion it into a bun but instead ended up with this weird bowl, where, if I had been feeling bitchy enough, I could have easily have parked my 35-gallon-Diet Pepsi there to prove a point. It was upsetting purely because of my OCD – I hate things being messy. If I didn’t think I would have been either stabbed by a needle hidden in her hair or glassed by her dead-eyed lamp-post of a mate I would have reached over and tidied it up. To make things worse, the popcorn was disgusting – it tasted like they’d washed it alternately in Charlie Red and the North Sea. Didn’t stop either of us eating it though, though I had to stop once my lips started turning inside out like a slug. Luckily, Phillipa had her hunger satisfied by the ice-cream, pick and mix and salty popcorn and I wasn’t sent out to get a pig on a spit for afterwards. I do love going to the cinema and now that I can’t have my usual settee-cushion of popcorn and binbag of pick-and-mix, I don’t even need to fret about taking out a mortgage to cover it.

So: where are we on the Two Chubby Cubs European Tour, eh? Somewhere exotic, warm and unusual? No. We’re in France. I half-toyed with taking a picture of a crepe with a Gauloise stubbed out in the middle of it, but that’s not embracing our trip. It’s not like I don’t care for France, I’ve been many times and always enjoyed myself, but I once got ripped off outside the Eiffel Tower by a caricaturist and I’ve never quite forgiven the country for that. It wasn’t so much that I paid a ridiculous amount for the drawing, it was the fact that the drawing made me look like John Prescott examining his pores in a Christmas bauble. Nevertheless, here we go…

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This apparently serves four, but I’m not convinced. Admittedly we’re greedy fuckers, but there was barely enough to have seconds! Maybe factor that in when you cook…

to make beef bourguignon you will need:

100g of bacon medallions cut into strips, 400g small shallots, 700g stewing beef with all fat removed (although I used proper scrag-end beef that I found in the back of the freezer – beef you can pumice your feet with), three garlic cloves sliced thin and chopped finely, 150ml of red wine, 425ml beef stock, tomato puree, fresh rosemary and fresh thyme (use your herb garden or use dried, I’m not judging), 1 bay leaf, 50ml of vegetable stock, bit of nutmeg. I cooked this overnight in a slow cooker but you could easily do this in a casserole pot. Cook low and slow. I chucked in a few whole shallots and some pepper too because I’m just that random.

to make beef bourguignon you should:

fry off the shallots and bacon until they start going brown – chuck in the beef and get a bit of a seal on the meat. Add everything else bar the swede. Bring to the boil, then either tip it into a slow cooker and cook low and slow for eight hours or in a casserole pot in the oven for two hours. Really, the longer you leave it cooking, the more the flavours will develop and, especially if you use cheap meat, the more tender the meat will become. Mmm. Remove the bayleaf and serve with swede mash – use my singing swede method for that.

extra-easy: yes, if you serve it with the swede mash. Superfree and all that shite. Delicious!

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February 4, 2015

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bacon, low syn, pork, recipe card

cheese and bacon soufflé

Tonight is the only night this week where both Paul and I are in the house together for the evening, so I’m going to dash off this recipe and be on my way. See readers, even when I’m on a promise, I’ll give you something…

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I have to say – it came out the oven like a air-filled cloud, but I spent that long fannying around trying to take a picture that it went ‘foooooooooootpth’ and deflated. Still tasted fine.

to make cheese and bacon soufflé, you’ll need:

ingredients: drop of olive oil, 100g lean bacon cut into chunks, chopped chilli, eight spring onions diced very finely, six eggs (separated into yolk and white), 6tbsp of chives and dill, 100g parmesan cheese, 1/2tsp mustard powder, lots of salt and pepper – and serve with wedges and salad.

tip: to seperate the eggs, you’ll need to crack them into your hand, let the white fall through your fingers and hope that the two don’t mix. Get one of these little buggers. You crack the egg into a bowl, pop this little rubber man over the yolk, squeeze him and he’ll suck the yolk into himself and drop it wherever you want it. It’s absolutely amazing. No yolk. Haha.

to make cheese and bacon soufflé, you should:

recipe: let’s do this quickly. You’ll need four ramekins. Heat the oven to 180 degrees. Prepare a bain-marie by filling a roasting pan a third full and put it into the oven. Oil the ramekins gently. Fry off the onion, bacon and chilli in a pan until cooked through and dry – and pay it dry. Then hairdryer it. YOU WANT IT DRY. Set aside. Hoy the egg whites into a mixer (or use a hand mixer but you’ll be absolutely buggered) and whisk whisk whisk until they’re stiff. In the other bowl, beat the egg yolks, add the bacon and onion and three quarters of the cheese. Then – tip the whisked egg white into the yolks and fold it gently with a metal spoon – nice and gently, keep the air in, until fully incorporated. Spoon into ramekins almost to the top, add the rest of the cheese and then cook for twenty minutes. Serve with chips and salad.

extra-easy: 3.5 syns a serving. Serve with superfree salad and you’re laughing.

Right, off to prepare. Anyone seen an industrial oil drum of KY jelly lying around?

J

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January 15, 2015

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bacon, budget, classics, lunch, one-pot, pork, recipe card, savoury snacks, snacks, soup, syn free, taster ideas

syn free pea and ham soup

I swear to God – Old Man River put my bin back for the second time today! Why did he think I’d put it again? Does he think I’m giving him a cardio workout or something? Ah he’s so bloody nice it’s impossible to be mad but I fear that the rough-hewn men at the council will be foaming – three times now they’ve had that bin lorry backed up our street and three times the bin hasn’t been out. Oops. That’ll be them putting Bowser into the rubbish compacter tomorrow.

So, today. I was unlucky enough to be caught behind a cluster of office workers waiting to cross the road today, all puffing away on their e-cigarettes. That said, it did afford me the opportunity to mince through the strawberry-scented fog like I was coming out of the doors on Stars In Their Eyes when the light changed. I’m not keen on those e-cigarette thingies – I’m of the belief that if you want to smoke, then man up and bloody smoke – it should be Capston Full Strength tabs or bust. Admittedly it’s far nicer seeing someone misting away like a boiling kettle than it is seeing them bent double chucking their lungbutter all over the pavement but still. Plus the e-cigarettes always look so ungainly, like you’re sucking nicotine from a nosehair trimmer, and it does attract a lot of quite smug people who say they are harmless – perhaps, but society thought thalidomide was ‘armless once.

I gave up smoking two years ago using Allen Carr’s Easy Way to Stop Smoking (clicking takes you to his book), and it was a revelation. I was panicked thinking the cravings would be hell on Earth but I finished his book, put out my cigarette and hardly even thought about smoking again. He teaches you to examine what exactly you’re doing when you smoke, and explains why you want to keep smoking, and then breaks down each reason/excuse that you use to rationalise your smoking. It’s great – cost £6 and never looked back, and I was on a good 20 smokes a day.

Mind you, that’s not to say I’ve become one of those fervent anti-smokers who cough that tinkly little cough if someone has the temerity to light up near them. That I absolutely can’t stand, it’s such an oddly British passive action to take – either ask them to put it out or fuck off – you wouldn’t sit in a burning building sneezing at the fire, you’d take immediate action! Fair enough you might end up with a Richmond Blue smouldering in your eye-socket but you would have the comfort of not being a passive-aggressive tosser to soothe it.

Speaking of soothing, here’s the soup recipe for this week – and fuck me, look at that, I definitely need to get a trim on my worktop.

PEAHAM

to make syn free pea and ham soup, you’ll need:

ingredients: tiny drop of olive oil, or some frylight, 200g chopped bacon medallions, an onion, one leek, 2 cloves of garlic, 500g frozen peas, 700ml chicken stock, 1tsp dried thyme and salt.

to make syn free pea and ham soup, you should:

recipe: I made this in my soup-maker, but to cook in a pan is just as easy – fry the bacon and onion off so there’s a bit of colour, add the sliced leek, sweat a bit more (the onion, not you, but I understand it’s a hot kitchen). Crush the garlic and add, together with the frozen peas, chicken stock, thyme and salt. Simmer for forty minutes and blend.

extra easy: yes, easily- all those peas, you’re really cooking on gas. It’s a lovely soup on its own but I added a poached egg, a couple of tiny drops of truffle oil (syn those) (1 syn) and some chilli flakes to pep it up. Make some, have it as a starter, take the rest to work in the morning! Done!

Oh and before I forget, my mate Phillipa challenged me to use the word enunciate in my blog today.

J

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January 13, 2015

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bacon, breast, low syn, lunch, pork, poultry, recipe card, slow cooker

slow-cooked chicken, bacon and cheese

If there was one thing I took away from my trips to America, aside from the desire to use a mobility scooter (with built-in cup holder) to go any distance further than 400m and a propensity for being slightly brash but oh-so-sweet, it was a taste for ranch dressing. On our last trip, after three weeks of constant theme parks, our bodies were crying out for anything that wasn’t in burger form or didn’t leave grease all over our beards. Hard to find in Disney! I remember seeing all those giant folks walking around chewing on what looked like a burnt leg. I had to get one, despite reading they were emu legs – they’re not, they’re from male turkeys, fact fans – but even I couldn’t finish it, and I’m used to packing a lot of hot meat into my mouth – I’ve been doing it for years!

So yes, Paul and I finally found a place called Ruby Tuesday’s, with a giant, fresh salad bar…and they had this dressing – ranch – and I’d never tried it before, but honest to God if I’m ever (god forbid) terminally ill and in a hospice, I want Make a Wish to come along and order the doctors to do a blood/ranch transfusion. I can’t get enough of the bloody stuff but it’s so high in fat, being made with buttermilk or sour cream as it is, so usually it’s a no-no Nanette on SW. That said, as a weigh in treat, we’ve used in the recipe below and spent a few syns on it, and I fully recommend you do too – it was a delicious meal, and for crying out loud, it combines cheese, chicken, bacon and potatoes – what more do you want? Note our token attempt at making it healthy on the side there with our salad.

Oh! Before I do the recipe, just a quick comment – thank you all so much for your lovely comments, it really means a lot to us! You might not see them appear right away as I need to moderate out all the porn links and spam we get sent (honestly, I wish my exes would just GET OVER ME haha), but I’ll always get to you! I do fret about appearing rude.

Recipe then, without any further delay:

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to make slow-cooked chicken, bacon and cheese, you’ll need:

This is a slow cooker recipe – if you don’t have one, you could create a foil parcel and hoy it in the oven on very, very low for a while, but I don’t know the timings…

ingredients: potatoes – we used rainbow potatoes from Tesco, with a mix of different colours, cut up into thumb sized chunks (use your own measurements for the amount of potatoes you’d like, but we used 1.5kg and that made enough for four servings, two chicken breasts, six bacon medallions or rashers with the fat off, reduced fat cheese, ranch dressing (Newman’s Own), spring onions – and whatever you want on the side in your salad.

to make slow-cooked chicken, bacon and cheese, you should:

recipe: line your slow cooker with foil – you’re going to create a parcel of everything and cook it inside the parcel, so work that out. Actually, that’s a shite way of putting it, sorry! Cut up your chicken breast and bacon into chunks. Then it’s as simple as layering – potatoes, chicken, bacon, grated cheese, slices of spring onion, hoy it all together and add four tablespoons of ranch dressing. Cook on low for eight hours. Serve!

extra-easy: the syns come from the ranch dressing – Newman’s Own for 3 syns per level tablespoon. Now that’s LEVEL, not balanced on the spoon like dressing based Jenga. The cheese – you can have 40g of reduced fat cheese as HEA. I used 100g of cheese – again, split between four that’s nowhere near the HEA amount, so worry not!

Right – enjoy!

J

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November 7, 2014

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bacon, pork, recipe card, syn free

gammon and egg potato rosti

LORD KNOWS why the recipe has come out all weird. I’ll fix that later.

I have made the fatal error of going to my car to type this recipe up on my lunch break, and it is absolutely chucking it down with rain. This means I need to dash, wobble and blunder my way back to the office upon which I will burst through the doors looking like a drowned fat cat. That’s the problem with being fat. Take a coat anywhere and you’ll end up too hot, but forget your coat and you end up looking like a harbour buoy that has washed in. Ah well.

Yesterday, with Paul away until late at a Young Marxist thing, I decided to fake it upon myself to make a fancy tea. See?

Swish! All this came about as I happened across a new recipe in the slimming world magazine, and thought I could give it a go. I went to Tesco with the intention of just buying some potatoes and ended up spending over £100 on vodka, pickled ginger, seaweed, shirts and a box of condoms. I’d love to know what the cashier thought I had planned for the evening. Nevertheless, this turned out to be one of the easiest recipes I’ve done so far, with very minimal skill needed bar some time management. So, without further delay….

I know that normally I break it down neatly in this section, but I am a bit pushed for time. The ingredients are simple enough:

 

to make gammon and egg potato rosti you will need:

two peeled potatoes, one onion, two gammon steaks, two eggs, spinach, asparagus, tomatoes and fry light.

 

to make gammon and egg potato rosti you should:

Grate the potatoes coarser and pop it into a tea towel and squeeze the moisture out. Really go at this, because the less liquid in your rosti, the tastier the end result. Mix with the grated onion and season well. Shape into circles and put on a roasting tray sprayed with a little frylight or olive oil. Cook for a good thirty minutes on 190 degrees until they are grown and crunchy. A little tip for you – you may remember me talking about a burger place that I bought from Lakeland a few recipes ago. You can use this to create perfectly round rosti too! Just squeeze, shape and press. After 20 minutes put your tomatoes in alongside the rostis to roast. Then, put your gammon onto the griddle pan and cook it to your satisfaction. Set aside to keep warm and using the same griddle pan place your asparagus onto the heat to char. The final thing to do is to put all of your spinach in a pan with a drop of water and steam until wilted down. Then press as much water as you can out of the spinach and set aside. Once you have everything ready it is just a case of assembling on the plate to your satisfaction and serving. If you feel the need to be a pretentious prick like me had a swell of balsamic vinegar as that makes everything look good…especially in the 90s…

This meal has no syns and if you spend a bit of time arranging on the plate to look nice you’ll enjoy all the more. I sometimes think that slimming world recipes can be a bit bland but this looks and tastes amazing. Hopefully there will not be too many errors in this post but I am dictating rather than typing so God knows what Apple make of my Geordie accent.

SIRI: its me aayes man! Ah cannut see man!

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November 2, 2014

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bacon, low syn, lunch, pork, recipe card, salad

shaved sprout salad

Christ I wanted to give my recipe today a pretentious restaurant title and I think I’ve succeeded. For all those people, like me, who don’t like a fussy title, don’t worry, it’s essentially just cooked sweet potato, sundried tomatoes and bacon mixed with sliced brussel sprouts.

Before we get to the recipe, I need to make an announcement that I’m really a terrible grandson. I had plans to visit my nana today (she only lives 30 miles away and it’s a nice drive), but I didn’t get round to it because I got caught up gardening and playing on the Xbox. It will probably do my diet the world of good anyway, as whenever Paul and I go and visit we get the same questions…’would you like a bit of quiche / eight kitkats / mince pie / mince and potato pie / sandwich / lovely bit of tongue (steady) / a Ferrari Racket chocolate from ALDI etc…’ which, when met with polite refusal and cries of ‘but no, we’re on a diet’ results in a look like you’ve taken a shit on the carpet and woes of ‘It’ll never get eaten, it’s just me in this house’ and ‘a quarter inch thick layer of butter on your sandwich will do you no harm’. Honestly! And mind that’s even if she hears your refusal, she’s so tone deaf you could fell a tree in the living room behind her chair and she’d smile bemused at you and say EH.

My nana is amazing, mind, no doubt about that. She is totally accepting of the whole Paul and I being bummers situation, though she did once ask ‘which one was the woman’ which was slightly awkward, as I thought she meant which of us preferred an ‘unexpected item in the bagging area’ – but she was actually meaning who did the ironing/cooking etc (remember she’s in her late eighties). Ha! So I’ll go visit her on Tuesday with my usual refrain of ‘I DIDN’T LIKE TO CHANCE LEAVING IT TOO LONG NANA, IN CASE I NEED TO GET MY FUNERAL SUIT DRY-CLEANED’. God, I love her to bits.

Anyway, enough about nana – my absence at her house through gardening was a nice link to me talking about the surfeit of brussel sprouts that we suddenly have thanks to my green-fingered neighbour. So, I got to thinking what I could do with them, and with Paul ‘being the woman’ (ie doing the ironing) (not my actual view I hasten to add), I decided on this fruity number.

Sprout salad

RIGHT, before we start with the details, let me say two things: if you’re not a fan of sprouts, please still give this a go. Sprouts in Britain seem to be served boiled within an inch of their life and will leave your whole house smelling like a condemned nursing home. This doesn’t need to be. Sliced very thinly and dressed well, they’re a crunchy, tasty wonder. Second – yes, this meal is synned – you could make it syn free by omitting the dressing but remember, you have the syns to use, and why not make your evening meal that bit nicer simply by making a dressing to go with the salad? Even then, four syns is still a very excessive estimate – I reckon it would come in at two syns if you omitted the cheese at the end. OK…

to make shaved sprout salad you will need: 

sprouts, an egg, bacon medallions (or bacon with fat cut off), sundried tomatoes (replace with fresh tomatoes grilled if you want to lower the syns), sweet potato, parmesan shavings. For the dressing, honey, olive oil and lemon juice.

to make shaved sprout salad you should:

right, the dressing first. 4 tbsp of lemon juice, 1 tsp of honey (1 syn), 1 tbsp of olive oil (2 syns), some salt, some pepper. Put it in a jamjar and shake, shake, shake! Double up if you need two servings. Then, cube up the sweet potato (leave the skin on) into 1cm chunks, add a tiny bit of olive oil and shake them around to get them coated, add a bit of salt, roast in the oven until soft. Also, stick your bacon on the grill or at the top of the oven to cook. Meanwhile, get your sprouts and take off the outer leaves if they’re a bit muddy or torn. Then the tricky bit – slice the sprouts as thin as you can. You can use a knife, yes, but honestly, get a mandolin. They’re a tenner from Lakeland and you’ll use it for all sorts – coleslaw, sliced potatoes, fruit salad, sprouts. Order one here and never look back. But BE CAREFUL. The sprouts are small and the blade is sharp – just take your time. I used about 30 sprouts in all.

After you’ve shaved your sprouts, get your fingers in and lightly toss them off (haha) so they separate, but you don’t need to go crazy – different textures are what makes this a good salad. Slice your tomatoes and add them in. Add in your cubed sweet potato (cooked) and bacon (now sliced). Arrange on a plate nice and dainty like. Poach your egg (lots of ways to do this, but I go old-school – pan of simmering water, create a whirlpool, drop the egg in from a little glass, poach and serve). Fish it out with a slotted spoon, put on top of the salad, cut the yolk and you’re done. I’ve added a bit of parmesan because why not – hence the four syns.

extra-easy: definitely – this is a fantastic meal because it’s nearly all superfree food, bar the dressing. Sprouts, tomatoes and sweet potato make up the meal, with a bit of bacon and dressing and egg on top. Yes, you can omit the dressing or replace it with a vinaigrette if you want to save the syns – and omit the cheese. But come on, live a little! Heh.

top tips: normally I say you can add all sorts to this salad, but don’t – keep it nice and simple. It’s an excellent new way of trying sprouts and I guarantee you’ll never look back. I’d love to know what people think! But DO get a mandolin. It’ll save those pretty fingers of yours.

FINALLY, my fortnightly call – if you’re enjoying this blog, please tell people on facebook and share it far and wide. I love new readers, comments, fuss – anything at all! I’d be very grateful and I’ll dance at your wedding if you do.

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!

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October 26, 2014

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

superfree quiche

Syn free this one, or maybe one syn if you’re anal. Hahaha, anal. Does anyone over the age of 18 not stop for a single beat whenever they type that word in its correct usage? Not only is it hilarious, it’s also delightfully smutty.

I have to say, for all the talk of Body Magic and moving our arses, Paul and I have done spectacularly little this weekend. No, really. I’m surprised I haven’t turned into one of those people who are grafted to their armchairs and have to have a group of men come in and wash me. Not that I’d turn my nose up at that. Our neighbours would love that. My mum once popped around in her police uniform (she’s a legit policewoman, not a stripper) and I’m not kidding, the sound of necks cracking as they craned round net curtains sounded like a giant rolling in bubble wrap.

Between Forza Horizon 2 and The Amazing Race, we’ve had very little reason to shift. Bowser seems reluctant to become a helping-cat, too, which doesn’t help. Our grand ideal of having the cat answer the phone, bring us the TV remote and cook us a three course meal seems entirely unreasonable to him. Anyway, short entry tonight as I’m off to work soon.

Tonight’s little recipe is what I suggestively call ‘Any Old Shite Superfree Quiche’ because frankly, that’s what I put in it.

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I’m not sure we actually need a full recipe here – it’s all on the card. The only thing worth thinking about is synning the little bit of parmesan that I used, but it was such a small amount between four servings that I can’t be bothered. The rest is a case of chucking anything you have going spare / on the turn into a quiche tin, chopped up to reasonably similar sizes. Beat three eggs into 250g of fat-free cottage cheese, mix it all together, put in oven, and keep an eye on it. It might take a little longer as our oven is a fancypants one, but really you can tell when its cooked. Serve with a side salad or excellent for taking into work for lunch.

If I can give you any tips – adding a lot of tomatoes will make it quite wet

I realise that actually, our leftovers sound a bit lah-de-dah, but well, such is life. Our fridge has its own vodka shelf so that’s where we’re at.

J

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October 24, 2014

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bacon, breast, cured meats, italian, low syn, one-pot, pork, poultry, recipe card, rice

chicken and chorizo risotto

Evening folks!

Paul and I are having a romantic night in, he’s cooking a lovely Indian tea and I’m scratching his feet with a matchbox. For now, please accept this recipe card as a treat, but be warned, chorizo and cheese does add a few syns to the dish. YOU CAN MAKE IT SYN FREE! But, you have 105 to use every week, spend it on something good. I’ll fill out the recipe in full tomorrow and add a snack idea for you all. Goodnight! (now done, see below!)

UPDATE

Paul and I have slept for a good, reasonable twelve hours and had a Slimming World fry-up breakfast (see here for a previous post about that), so I’m back and fighting fit. I promised you a full recipe breakdown for the risotto – and an easy way to make it syn free.

ingredients: one chicken breast (diced), chorizo (optional, I use 6 syns for 60g if I chose a particularly non-fatty chorizo, and then split that between two servings), shallots, arborio rice, garlic, tomatoes, mushrooms, peashoots, philapdelphia lightest (I’ve always synned 75g of the lightest as a healthy extra A, but even then, I hardly ever use that much and it’s split between two), peppers sliced.

recipe: get everything prepared – slice the onion, peppers, mushrooms and tomatoes to roughly the same size and thickness. Dry fry gently in a good non-stick casserole pot (this is important, because you try to make this risotto in a ‘sticky’ pan it’ll burn) until everything is nice and soft. Add the chicken and chorizo and continue cooking on a medium heat until the chicken is cooked through. Once you’ve done this, add the 250g of arborio rice and coat the rice in the liquid. Stir just once, chuck in your 1l of stock and big handful of garden peas. ONE stir. Then pop the lid on the pan, keep it on a medium heat (we use 6, but we’ve got a fancy induction hob so just stick to medium) and leave for exactly 20 minutes. You can peek at it just to make sure the liquid hasn’t disappeared, but maybe just once or twice – every time you let the steam out, god kills a kitten. After 20 minutes, check the rice -it’s always spot on for me but individual hobs may vary, so let it simmer a little bit longer if there is still a lot of liquid and/or the rice is a bit crunchy. Spoon in a dollop of the soft cheese and serve it on a bed of pea-shoots. I use pea-shoots because it adds another layer of flavour, but rocket will do. Don’t be common and use lettuce though. Twist of pepper and a couple of shavings of Parmesan and you’re done.

extra-easy: yes – though I syn the recipe exactly how I do it at 4 syns, just to take on board the chorizo and cheese. You can make it syn free though – replace the chorizo with chopped bacon (with no fat), and use the cheese as your healthy extra. But I like the taste the chorizo imparts to the rice and chicken and chorizo go together so well! Plenty of superfree – fresh peas, pea shoots, peppers, mushrooms, shallots…

top tips: Paul, because he’s a pleb who was brought up on sweet and sour chicken from his local Rainbow mixed with fag ash and a general feeling of malaise, adds a big old dollop of wholegrain mustard and mixes it in, which completely overpowers any other flavour. He says that he can still enjoy it through the sound of me tutting and sucking air in through my teeth.

Enjoy it!

J