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Posted on

July 30, 2016

Posted under

chinese, fakeaways, low syn, lunch, pork, pork mince, recipe card, rice, sauces, taster ideas

sticky soy glazed ginger meatballs with dark fried rice

Look, we’ll get to the sticky soy glazed ginger meatballs with dark fried rice, but wait just a second.

Who has been buying my book?! It normally sells a few copies a day, but yesterday I sold 86 copies – have I been mentioned somewhere? Probably in a police report. Anyway, if you want to join the others, I won’t complain – you can find it right here.

As I type, there are four people who, given they look as though they’ve been carved out of milk we can safely assume have never been outside before, fussing around at the bottom of our garden with their phones. I think we can safely rule out them being paparazzi, though if a slot-shot appears on the Daily Mail side-bar of my hairy arse-crack taken as I put the bins out in my Luigi dressing gown, I’ll take the credit. No, I think they’re playing Pokemon Go, and good luck to them – anything that gets young’uns out into the fresh air and away from the TV can’t be a bad thing. It’s not for me, though. That’s not to say that the idea of coming across a Jigglypuff in the woods doesn’t appeal to me – hell, that was my Facebook status for a good two years – but the whole thing is just too active and sociable. I’d be terrified of having to make small talk with someone.

Plus, on an entirely shallow note, I went along to a ‘gamers’ meet-up many moons ago (I’m big into video games, thought it would be good to meet up with some fellow players) and I’m barely exaggerating when I say you could have chewed the BO that hung in the air. Perhaps it’s a lazy stereotype but good lord, waft a stick of Mum under your pits and fuck the fuck off. Oh and brush your bloody teeth – there’s no excuse for teeth that look as though they’ve been whittled from margarine. I didn’t so much beat a retreat as swim away through the waves of stink.

Maybe I’m just being miserable. Remember my elation at the fact we’ve managed to source a wonderful garden table after two years of trying to find one we liked that a) wasn’t made of plastic and b) could withstand a couple of years of our giant arses pressing down on it? Well, whoop-de-whoo, too good to be true. First it was delayed, then delayed again, then delivered with a chunk missing, then the replacement bits didn’t turn up on time. As melodramatic as it might seem, I’m so pissed off with it that I’m returning the lot and it’s back to the drawing board. It’s only because their customer service people were so pleasant to deal with that I’m not naming the company, but it’s such a bloody shame! Our neighbours are doubtless thankful that their summer isn’t going to be full of images of Paul and I reclining in the sun like butter on a crumpet, but hey.

Anyway, that’s quite enough negativity. Let’s have some positivity!

You may remember a while ago we visited Mog on the Tyne and had a lovely time, surrounded by cats whilst we had our lunch? Well, I recently discovered that there’s another café down on the Quayside, and a good friend suggested we go for lunch. Actually, that’s a fib, she made some terrible joke about eating out and pussy, and when she’d brought me around with the smelling salts, we both agreed to would be an excellent way to spend a lunch hour. Certainly better than trying to wrest a meal-deal sandwich from the hands of other office-workers in our local Sainsbury’s. I’d kick someone to death for taking the last brie and grape sandwich, just saying.

Well, it was wonderful. If you’re unfamiliar with the concept of a cat café, they’re small rooms filled with cat furniture, cat scratching posts and lots of dogs. Obviously not. No, cats. No good if you’ve got allergies but if that’s the case, have a Piriton and suck it up. Whilst the cats at Mog on the Tyne are all sorts of rescue cats and gorgeous kitties, Catpawcino has rare breeds and unusual looking delights. The food is typical little café fare but done well – paninis, sandwiches, cupcakes, that sort of thing. Let’s be honest though, no-one goes to these places to critique the sandwiches. It was all about the cats, and just look at the photos:

I mean, come on. If they don’t get you excited, then you’re clearly made of stone and/or pure evil.

One slight annoyance though, and something that is entirely not the fault of the café – parents with loud kids. Yes, I understand that your children are on holiday and it’s good to let them run around, but honestly, not everyone thinks they’re just darling. Our visit yesterday was marred a little by kids running around after the cats and the mothers sitting there with a smug look on their face. What can you say to that? It’s seemingly OK for little Crescendo and Wain-Bow to hurtle around getting in everyone’s way – I wanted to take a picture of a cat on a windowsill but some ‘adorable’ little charmer wouldn’t shift – apparently I’d be in the wrong if I picked her up and popped her in the litter tray, which I feel is a mite unfair

Anyway, that annoyance aside, it really was a lovely hour, and I’d definitely recommend both Catpawcino and Mog on the Tyne for a different lunchtime experience in the centre of Newcastle. Unless you don’t like cats. If that’s the case, stick to eating the souls of the undead, you cold-hearted monster.

OR, have a bash at our sticky soy glazed ginger meatballs instead, served on dark fried rice.

That reminds me, don’t forget we’ve got a meat sale on. You could use the meatballs from the below package in this recipe and still thoroughly enjoy yourself!

Mahaha. No I know, but look, it’s an excellent deal and clearly it’s doing well as we’ve had more sales than ever. So don’t miss out. Think of the children! This makes enough for twenty small meatballs, so I’m assuming split between four, that’s 6.5 syns or 1.5 syns each. I know technically it’s a fraction more but come on.

to make sticky soy glazed ginger meatballs with dark fried rice you will need:

200g rice, any old shite will do
500g minced pork
1″ piece of ginger
120g mushrooms, chopped
2 spring onions, sliced
1 courgette
170g sugar snap peas
2 separate tsps of sesame oil (4 syns)
2 tbsp soy sauce (low salt)
90ml soy sauce (low salt)
1 tbsp honey (2.5 syns)
salt
pepper

to make sticky soy glazed ginger meatballs with dark fried rice you should:

cook the rice according to the instructions on the packet
meanwhile, prepare all the ingredients – it makes it easier! have lots of little bowls nearby and pretend you’re Nigella
first: peel and grate the ginger (this is perfect for the job!)
slice the spring onions thinly
slice the courgette along it’s length, and then cut each section again so it’s quartered, then slice
chop of the ends of the sugar snap peas and peel off the stringy bit that runs along the seam, then chop thinly lengthwise
mix together the 90ml soy sauce with the honey and set aside
in a large bowl, mix together the minced pork, ginger, and half of the sesame oil with a pinch of salt and pepper and roll into about 20 meatballs
heat a large frying pan over a medium-high heat with whatever spray oil / frylight you use and add the meatballs, turn regularly until they are browned and cook through
remove from the pan and onto a plate
in the same pan, add the chopped mushrooms and cook for about 4-5 minutes, scraping up any bits in the pan
add half of the spring onions and the rest of the sesame oil and cook for another 1 minute
add the cooked rice, sugarsnap peas and courgette to the pan and stir, until the rice is browned and the courgette tender – this will take about 5 minutes
add 2 tbsp soy sauce and mix until well combined, then plate up
add the meatballs back to the pan and pour over the soy sauce and honey mixture – spoon the mixture over the meatballs regularly until the mix and reduced by half
serve the meatballs on top of the rice and spoon over any remaining glaze
sprinkle on the rest of the spring onions and eat!

Looking for more ideas for what to do with pork or other fakeaway takeaway suggestions? Well click that blasted buttons!

Enjoy! We’re off to watch Preacher. And Stranger Things. And Mr Robot. OR ARE WE?

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chubbycubs

Posted on

May 15, 2016

Posted under

airfryer, american, beef, beef mince, classics, dips, dressings, fakeaways, fast food restaurants, italian, low syn, lunch, panko, persian, pork mince, quark, recipe card, sandwiches, sauces, savoury snacks, snacks, speciality ingredients, syn free, taster ideas, thai, vegetarian

taster night ideas for Slimming World

Looking for taster night ideas? There’s SEVEN recipes down below. I’m not surprised you want inspiration, nothing seems to strike fear into slimmers at Slimming World more than ‘we’re having a party next week, bring something along‘. Well, perhaps the words ‘let’s split the room in half, someone keep points, we’re going to do group activities‘. God I hate that. I’m too antisocial at the best of times but being forced to come up with a witty team name and shout out speed foods makes my throat hitch. For those not in the Cult of Mags, a taster night is where everyone is expected to bring along some food to share with the rest of the class and usually results in about twenty quiches and a box of grapes bought from the Co-op over the road by the lady who forgot it was on.

I struggle with taster nights because, as previously mentioned, I don’t like eating food when I don’t know how clean the kitchen it’s coming from is. Luckily I’m in a class now with people who do look familiar with a bottle of Ajax, but Christ, some of the sights I’ve seen in other classes, well I wouldn’t eat what came out of their kitchens even if it contained the antidote to a life-threatening poison I’d accidentally ingested.

Oh! A quick word. When a buffet is served up in class, try and allow the meek amongst us access to the food. A couple of years ago, in a class in Wakefield no less, Paul and I didn’t get any food because half the class – not the better half – dashed forward as soon as the ‘party’ began and formed one giant body of impassable bulk. It was like the Berlin Wall, only smelling faintly of chips. I’ve never seen food shovelled and devoured with such ferocity and I’ve seen Sicilian wild boars being fed. All I wanted was a (nothing-like-a) Ferrero Rocher and a few ‘JUST LIKE DORITOS’ crisps that I could have planed a door with. I had my revenge anyway – the wasabi peas that I put on the table thinking they were syn-free were actually about eight syns a handful. What can I say? My knowledge of the Mandarin language is a little rusty.

So, with all the above in mind, we decided to do a post on snacks, also fuelled by the fact it was Eurovision last night and we like to have a trough of food to work through whilst we watch our entry get annihilated. Before anyone says the UK will never win because ‘it’s too political’ and ‘no-one votes for us because of the war’, that was relevant maybe ten years ago and certainly isn’t now. Russia almost won it and well, that Putin’s been a bit of a tinker this year, has he not? We don’t win because we send absolute shite – po-faced, dreary, period-pain music with insipid staging and crap tunes. No doubt that Aldi Jedward can sing a tune and strum a guitar but they lost a singing competition where literally tens of people voted for someone else to be a winner. Why would that translate to success in the Eurovision Song Contest? EH? We need to send something amazing, with a massive chorus and an uplifting melody, not a song that would barely make its way onto the second CD in the Now That’s What I Call White Noise 87 compilation.

Anyway come on now, let’s get to the recipes, shall we? This is the spread.

taster night ideas

Fancy, right? On view then:

Bánh Mì balls with a spicy dip
our teeny tiny teriyaki tasters
sandwiches filled with syn-free egg mayonnaise and tuna and cucumber
sweet potato crisps with four different types of houmous
baked new potatoes with cheese and bacon topping

Out of sight:

spicy couscous balls
gin and tonic lollies

Three caveats that I’m going to throw in before we begin:

TWEAK

some of these recipes are ‘tweaks’ in the truest sense of the word – especially the crisps – and it’s up to you whether you follow the rule of synning them or not – tweaks being when you use an ingredient in a way it isn’t intended to be used, such as slicing a sweet potato to make crisps. I will mention it where appropriate. My own view (which you can find here) is that it’s better to be eating something made from a healthy ingredient than a processed packet of crisps. It boils down to this – 100g of sweet potato is around 85 calories, 100g of Walkers crisps kicks in over 550 calories. I’ll be fucked if I’m synning sweet potato crisps at the same rate as normal crisps. If you feel the need to be all frothy and leave a comment castigating me for my temerity, please save yourself the finger strain, wipe the spittle from your lips and simply don’t bother – personal choice;
a couple of these recipes you’ll have seen before if you’re a long-time follower, but I thought it would be handy to put them all in one place; and
as usual, I’ve given syn values for a normal portion and I’ll mention when it uses up a HEA/HEB. If you’re eating the entire buffet, you’ll need to think about how many HEB/HEA’s you’re using! It’ll make sense as we go along. Basically, each recipe stands on its own. Right? Right.

taster night ideas #1: sweet potato crisps with four different types of houmous:

taster night ideas

to make the sweet potato crisps, you’ll need:

a couple of big sweet potatoes
spray oil – a few squirts of Filippo Berio’s olive oil is only half a syn, and that’s all you need
chinese five spice

to make the sweet potato crisps, you should:

to make the crisps, use a microwave, it’s much easier
get a big old sweet potato and cut it to uniform thin slices – this is where having a mandolin slicer comes in very handy, because it’ll take no time at all to do the slices – buy one here and never look back, not least because it makes your food look great when it’s all uniform
arrange the slices on a plate, squirt with some spray oil, dust with chinese five spice (or indeed, any flavouring you want) and rub it in
microwave on full power – it usually takes about six minutes, but keep checking every couple of minutes, and once they start to look dry, turn them over
keep a proper eye on them mind, because they can burn easily once they dry out
once done, take them off the plate, set aside, and do the next batch

to make the four way houmous, you’ll need:

a few small tins of chickpeas
garlic cloves
fat free cottage cheese
a lemon or two
sea salt

to make the four way houmous, you should:

the basic houmous recipe is simple enough – for enough to fill one of those little square bowls above, you’ll want to use one small tin of cooked chick peas (syn free), a nice round tablespoon of fat free cottage cheese, a garlic clove, pinch of sea salt and some lemon juice. Blend it together, adding a little more lemon juice if you like it runny or keeping some back if you prefer it chunky. It’s up to you. You will save yourself so much time if you get yourself one of these little express choppers that Delia Smith was always going on about between tumblers of Scotch – you can find one here – it’ll make houmous in no time
to make the different variations, you just add a few ingredients:
- lemon and garlic (add an extra couple of garlic gloves, a squidge more lemon juice and decorate with finely grated lemon peel) (don’t take the pith, literally, as that is very bitter – just the top layer, please)
- basil and parmesan (10 torn basil leaves, 10g of shaved parmesan, bit of salt) – up to you if you want to syn such a tiny portion of parmesan but bearing in mind you’ll be getting what, 2.5g of it, I wouldn’t bother
- pickled red cabbage (just a few chunks of pickled red cabbage and some of the pickling vinegar added to give it colour
- paprika and sun-dried tomato – I chucked in 1tbsp of sundried tomato paste (1.5 syns, but again, through the laws of dilution, it’s up to you if you syn it)

Easy! Of course, if you don’t want to fart on making the crisps, just chop up some peppers, carrots and cucumber and use them instead to dip into your houmous. If you want our little serving dish, you guessed it, it’s on Amazon!

taster night ideas #2: teeny tiny teriyaki tasters:

teeny tiny teriyaki tasters

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

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

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

to make teeny tiny teriyaki tasters, you should:

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

taster night ideas #3: Bánh Mì balls with a spicy dip:

taster night ideas

to make Bánh Mì balls with a spicy dip, you’ll need:

500g turkey mince
1 onion (grate half of it, chop the other half)
1 carrot, grated
3 spring onions, finely sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tsp fish sauce
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 tsp of sriracha, (1 syn) (you can use any old hot sauce)
1 egg
25g panko (4.5 syns) (or use breadcrumbs from your HEB allowance)
½ cucumber, thinly sliced
5 radishes, thinly sliced
1 tsp rice vinegar
100g quark

to make Bánh Mì balls with a spicy dip, you should:

Full disclosure: we got this recipe from the fabulous cookingforkeeps.com – her recipe can be found here and looks equally as delicious – we’ve tweaked ours for Slimming World!

preheat the oven to 200 degrees
in a bowl, mix together the turkey mince, onion (grated and chopped), carrot, spring opnions, garlic, fish sauce, soy sauce, 1 tsp of sriracha, egg and the panko until combined
roll into 1″ size balls and place on a baking sheet lined with greaseproof paper
cook in the oven for twenty minutes
meanwhile, in a small bowl, mix together 1 tsp rice vinegar, 1 tsp sriracha and the quark to make a dipping sauce
slice the radishes and cucumbers as thinly as you can and skewer one of each onto a cocktail stick with the meatball

taster night ideas #4: little sandwiches:

to make little sandwiches, you’ll need:

taster night ideas

No need for a full recipe here, really. Take whatever bread you want from your HEB – we use Kingsmill Crustless Wholemeal bread, which you can have three slices of. Cut nice circles out of them, remember you eat with your eyes.

for the egg salad, boil up four eggs, break them up with a fork, add a tablespoon of quark, lots of black pepper, a chopped tomato and some spring onions
for the tuna – well, we’re old school, we just like tuna mixed with vinegar and served with cucumber. You could splash out and add a bit of Quark to bind it, I suppose…

taster night ideas #5: baked new potatoes with a cheese and bacon topping:

taster night ideas

to make baked new potatoes, you’ll need:

1.5kg small salad-type potatoes
100g fat-free fromage frais
30g parmesan (1x HEA)
4 rashers of bacon, all visible fat removed
4 spring onions, sliced
chives

to make baked new potatoes, you should:

preheat the oven to 200 degrees (or an actifry with the paddle removed is just as good – Amazon are selling them for £125 at the moment too!)
prick the potatoes with a fork, spray with a little frylight and bake in the oven (or actifry) for about 45 minutes
grill or dry-fry the bacon until crispy and chop into small pieces
mix together the fromage frais, parmesan and spring onions and set aside
when the potatoes are cooked, leave to cool for about ten minutes
make a cross in the top of each potato and squeeze the bottoms to open them up
spoon in a little of the fromage frais mixture and top with bacon pieces and chives

taster night ideas #6: spicy couscous balls:

couscousballs

Please note: that’s an old photo, it’s actually now 4 syns for all the balls, but you’re not going to eat them all yourself anyway, surely? I’ll nip back in time and change the photo later.

Not worth making a full recipe breakdown for this, because it’s so, so easy. I use two packets of Ainsley Harriott’s spicy sensations couscous, which come in at 2 syns per pack made up with water (so don’t be adding butter, you cheeky buggers). Add the appropriate level of water (whatever it says on the pack) and leave to absorb. Fluff with a fork. Beat an egg and mix it into the couscous, then squeeze as many balls as you can out of the mixture. Pop onto a tray and stick it in the oven on 150 degrees for an hour or so – you want to ‘dry’ them out. Cooked low and slow, you’ll be laughing. For a dip, make tzatziki – greek yoghurt (I use Tesco Finest 0% fat – no syns) mixed with cucumber cut into tiny cubes and mint. Stir, chill, eat.

taster night ideas #7: gin and tonic ice lollies

taster night ideas

Again, no need for a full recipe. We mixed 25ml of gin with a glass of diet tonic, poured it into a cheapy ice-lolly mould like this £3 from Amazon and added a slice of cucumber. Between six, it’s half a syn each. Of course, it’s easy to customise this, put your pint of whisky in, add lime, add fruit, don’t add alcohol, do what you like!

OK, I hope that’s given you some inspiration. It’s certainly made my fingers ache!

Do me a favour though – share this page in as many facebook pages as you can, because taster recipes is one of the main things people need. Spread the love! Leave me your comments below!

Oh it’s worth noting, we did have a couple of drinks to get us through Eurovision, see…

taster night ideas

Posted by

chubbycubs

Posted on

February 21, 2016

Posted under

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

teeny tiny teriyaki tasters

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

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

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

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

So yes, today’s recipe is designed for all those people who spill their vowels down their front and ask us ‘WOT CAN I TAKE TO TASTA NITE‘. I’ll include some more links at the bottom for other snack suggestions, but seriously, if you take these bad boys to class, I’d be surprised if your consultant doesn’t give you Slimmer of the Year right there and fill your book with so many stickers it looks like a Panini 1998 World Cup album, only with Mags playing centre forward instead of Les Ferdinand. God I’d pay good money for that.

Buffets as a rule leave me cold, but these have put me in mind of a recent visit to a carvery. See, before we set off anew on this diet a few weeks ago, we had a little list of things to cram down our necks before we had to be strict again and exist on kale and misery (recipe for kale and misery stew will be online shortly, prep your tears now). They included something delicious from McDonalds (an abstract thought if ever there was one), all manner of beige nonsense from Iceland and a visit to a carvery – perhaps more precisely, a Toby Carvery. I’ve never been, but I feel I’ve been vicariously through all the frothy-mouthed praising I’ve seen people on the internet do. Apparently they’re delicious, the sort of place you would go for a final meal, a Sunday dinner done right at any time of the week – having seen the fervent delirium that swims over the eyes of their fans I was half expecting to be fellated under the table as I worked my way through my roast.

Well, that didn’t happen. We stumbled into the Kingston Park Toby Carvery and although the staff were pleasant, the food was awful and most of the customers were clearly determined to get the value out of their £5.99 and to hell with decency. Listen, I’m a fat bloke, but show a bit of restraint man – people were coming back to the table with plates piled so high with heat-lamp warm veg that their glazed-over eyes were barely visible over the top of them. I think it’s a very British thing, confusing quantity with quality, but it made me feel a bit queasy. Just because you can eat as much as you like, doesn’t mean you should. It’s not a challenge, you’re not on the Krypton Factor or up against a timer – they’ll still let you out if you’re capable of breathing under your own steam.

The food wasn’t all that, considering the rapturous praise it seems to elicit from various people online. The meat was so leathery and tough that I could have reheeled my shoes with it. The mash and roast potatoes were so dry that I almost asked for a bowl of those little silica gel balls for dessert just to grab a bit of moisture. Because the food is kept under heatlamps and customers are allowed to ‘help themselves’, everything ends up slightly mixed together so you get cauliflower cheese mixed in with the peas and queasy droplets of horseradish blobbing on the top of the gravy. Finally, their famous Yorkshire puddings? I could have sanded a brick wall with the buggers. Bah! The staff were lovely, mind.

I see the same thing when I walk down Stowell Street in Newcastle to my car, which is awash with all-you-can-eat Chinese restaurants with the same folk piling their plates high with all sorts of salty nonsense. I can put it away myself, don’t you worry, but I’ve never felt it necessary to combine starter, main and dessert on one plate, especially when you can go back up if you want more. It always ends up tasting the same and I can’t bear seeing people eat without actually tasting the food they’re pouring into their maw. They look like cows in a field chewing the cud, quite possibly with the same levels of methane barrelling out of their arses.

Admittedly, I’m being slightly hypocritical. I don’t mean to be. I’d love to make a pig of myself at a buffet but I suffer from buffet-anxiety, or premature mastication if you prefer. I’ll go up, fill my plate with about two thirds of the amount I actually want, and then cry inside at the sight of everyone else’s plate, which is normally full of the things I wanted but didn’t dare pick up in case some snotty cow yelled ‘SPOON OF MINIATURE TRIFLE EH? WITH YOUR TITS?’ or similar. We’ve all been there.

Moral of the story? Calm the fuck down at buffets.

Right, recipe!

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

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

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

to make teeny tiny teriyaki tasters, you should:

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

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

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

Posted by

chubbycubs

Posted on

October 26, 2015

Posted under

cured meats, fakeaways, fast food restaurants, greek, kebab shop, low syn, persian, pork, pork mince, recipe card

pork and chorizo kebabs

EMERGENCY RECIPE ACTIVATE (Paul and I are gallivanting!). This is super quick to make and a good way to use up pork mince – pork is a slightly drier mince so works well with the oily chorizo but beef could be used too.

to make pork and chorizo kebabs, you’ll need:

500g lean pork mince
75g chorizo, chopped (7.5 syns)
5 cloves of garlic, chopped finely
handful of chopped parsley

This makes enough for six ‘burgers’, which you can chop up and put into a kebab or indeed, have as a burger. I think that’s enough for three people. If you’re finding that there’s too much meat for you to handle and you’ve got a badly-packed kebab, just take a bit out and try again. You’ll get the hang of it and there’ll be thick yoghurt sauce everywhere in no time at all.

to make pork and chorizo kebabs, you should:

mix together all of the ingredients and season to taste
divide the mixture into six and press into burger shapes
heat a large frying pan over a medium-high heat and place the burgers in the pan
cook for about 6-7 minutes each side, making sure the burgers are fully cooked
serve in a pitta bread (make sure it’s suitable for your HEB) with salad and raita (mix fat free yoghurt with chopped mint and shredded cucumber)

So easy!

Posted by

chubbycubs

Posted on

August 31, 2015

Posted under

chinese, fakeaways, low syn, noodles, pork, pork mince, recipe card, rice, sauces

sweet and sour pork meatballs

James is busy trying to be all macho with his dad putting together our new utility room but there’s no manly way to hold a handheld Dyson or use a microfibre cloth. So tonight’s post comes from me (Paul). Sorry about that.

Blimey. What a day. I knew there was something the matter with us when we starting planning our day at IKEA. ON A BASTARD BANK HOLIDAY. IKEA is pure hell at the best of times – one of these places that makes you think you’re going to have a wonderful day bouncing about on sofa cushions and bean bags and being one big giggling family with a hot dog and an ice cream at the end, when the reality is actually you spending one floor staring intensely into the back of someone’s head because they’re walking far too slowly, and the second floor wanting to just die because you’re SICK OF THIS SHIT ALREADY. So, against our better judgement, that’s what we did today.

But with a difference.

After having the Ikea experience on multiple occasions for big projects (like the kitchen) we’ve eventually got this all down to a tee. So, down to the second, we had the whole day planned out that minimised any interaction with slow-walking, gormless members of the public, ordered a new living room set, refunded a dodgy kitchen door (that I accidentally drilled through – eeehwhatamilike) and threw in a breakfast for good measure. Well, you need that energy if you’re going to mutter ‘FUCKING MOVE’ under your breath every ten seconds.

We arrived on the dot, just as the revolving door started to move and slyly minced our way through all the shortcuts to get straight to the restaurant – the most important part of the day. Once James had wiped away his tears after noticing they’d gotten rid of the potato cake (NOOOOOOOOOOOO) we were straight to the BESTÅ stand to fuck around on some crappy little computer bunging cupboards on walls. If you’ve ever fancied having a sob into some KUNTÅ sidetable go ahead and try and plan your living room on their online planner. It’s what I imagine it’d be like to be Stephen Hawking on speed trying to describe the texture of Quark on that little Atari he’s got strapped to his chair. Stressful isn’t the word. You might as well etch your design it into your arm with a compass and present it the warehouse staff.

I’d fantasised about at least ten ways of dispatching multiple rough sorts on the way to the lighting section. I can never understand the mentality of people who think it’s perfectly acceptable to just stop in the middle of an aisle when there’s practically a stampede of guffawing Geordies rampaging towards you (not unlike that scene in the Lion King but with a lot more polyester and teenage pregnancies). I bet those people are also those that pull their trolley across in a supermarket like a barrier. I’m far too polite (cowardly) though to ever say anything. I just stare at them like I’m trying to burn through them with laser-beam eyes. James isn’t quite so composed and will just barge through shouting at people to ‘MOVE!’, like a hairy snow plough. He almost ran someone off the road simply for having the temerity of having a mauve car.

Fortunately though the whole day was a success, despite all the eejits and lack of an ice cream at the end and we got everything sorted. They even managed to refund us the drawer and door that I ballsed up without a receipt. God love ‘em. As a thank you I was sure to press the green smiley face button that measures people’s happiness as many times as I could. I’d like to think it made a difference.

One way we always make our IKEA experience a little more fun is to watch out for any couples that are eyeing up a particular piece of furniture. If either of them makes a muttering that they quite like it we’ll always come up behind them and then start slagging it off. ‘Oh that’s fucking gopping’, or, “Oh lord, I’ve never seen anything as tacky as THAT in my life’. They’ll soon walk off and have a tiff a little further on. Oh we’re such terrors.

But that’s enough yak. In the spirit all things IKEA we’ve managed to bring together a delicious meatball recipe that’ll cure any takeaway pangs you have… here’s our take on Sweet & Sour Pork Meatballs.

to make our sweet and sour pork meatballs, you’ll need:

for the meatballs:

500g pork mince
1 carrot, grated
2 spring onions, finely sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced
½ tsp black pepper
½ salt
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 egg, beaten
half a pineapple, cut into small chunks (0.25cm)

for the sweet and sour sauce:

1 red onion, finely sliced
2 cloves garlic minded
½ large red pepper, sliced
½ green pepper, sliced
3 large tomatoes, roughly chopped
half a pineapple, cut into chunks (halve again into two separate portions)
115g tomato puree
1 tbsp cornflour (1 syn)
1 tbsp cider vinegar
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp honey (5 syns)
½ tsp salt
½ tsp pepper

and this is how you make it:

preheat your oven to 180°c and line a baking sheet with greaseproof paper
heat a small saucepan over a medium heat and add a little oil
add the minced garlic and spring onions and cook for 4-5 minutes until softened and slightly browned. set aside
in a large bowl mix together the mince, carrot, peppers, egg, basil, salt, pepper, Worcestershire sauce, pineapple pieces and the spring onions
roll the mixture into even sized balls – squeezing out the liquid if you need to – don’t worry if it seems too wet (fnar), they’ll keep their shape if you squeeze enough liquid out (fnar)
place the meatballs onto the baking sheet and spray with a little Frylight
cook for about thirty minutes or until golden brown
whilst the meatballs are cooking you can make the fruity sauce
heat a large frying pan over a medium heat and add a little oil
add the sliced red onion and garlic and stir frequently until the onion is slightly caramelised
add the peppers one of the pineapple portions and cook for a few minutes until softened
add the tomatoes, salt and pepper and keep cooking, stirring frequently
using a sieve, crush down the other half of the pineapple chunks portion into a jug to get the juice
add the cornflour to the pineapple juice and stir until dissolved
add the tomato paste, honey, cider vinegar, lemon juice and 120ml water to the jug and mix well
pour this mixture into the frying pan, bring to a boil and simmer for about ten minutes until the mixture thickens
serve the meatballs and pour the sauce over the top

Please don’t be put off by the long ingredient list – you’ll probably have a lot of it already in your cupboards and if not, go get some! It’ll all be dead cheap and useful to you for future recipes. Also, don’t be put off by the syn values – yes, this uses honey and cornflour but divided by four this only comes in at 1.5 syns, which is nothing compared to a takeaway. And, it’ll finally give you a reason to use that pineapple you keep buying and leaving to rot on your windowsill…

Technically, because you’re squeezing the juice out of a quarter of a pineapple you could syn it if you’re anal about such things. We didn’t because we take a more common sense approach to tweaking. You can if you wish – I reckon it’d be about half a syn’s worth (if that).

Smaklig måltid!

Posted by

chubbycubs

Posted on

April 26, 2015

Posted under

lunch, pork, pork mince, recipe card, rice, syn free

cabbage rolls

First of all, today’s recipe is cabbage rolls, which couldn’t sound less appetising if they tried. Plus, I tried to take a decent photo of them, but they invariably look like something you’d see hanging off a tramp’s foot in the summer. They tasted wonderful though and, well, it’s something different! And here, it’s a Romanian recipe so that gives us an excuse to dust off the old flagmaker, rattle off this banner and declare twochubbycubs’ European Tour back on. OK so it may not be weekly but we’re only two men.

But first, today. We’re mulling over whether or not to move house. I know, the people in the street would be bereft not seeing my knob hanging out of the front of my boxers as I absent-mindedly put the bins out on a Monday, but since we had some strange lads in our back passage a few days ago (not invited through Grindr, either, unusually) it’s made us a bit unsettled. We don’t think they were trying to break in, because there was an open window into our bedroom (though admittedly the flashing neon red light was turned off at the time) and they didn’t do anything…but still. It makes you feel uneasy. Though saying that, had they climbed in through the bedroom window, they would have fallen onto our bed – and all I’m saying is I wouldn’t have needed Tony Martin’s shotgun to make them bleed from behind. The little smackrats. This is a nice part of the world!

So yes, we bundled into the car and decided to go have a look at some of the new estates that are being build, and to take the opportunity to view the showhomes. Well, they were awful. It didn’t help that the chap on the front desk took one look at us – physically looked us up and down, mind you, taking in our dog-walking trainers, shaved heads and George jeans – and clearly decided we were there to steal the copper wiring and good silver. His opening gambit was that ‘these houses are very difficult to get’ and that we’d need excellent credit to get an appropriate mortgage. The cheeky, oily little oik – we own our house outright with no mortgage and I’ve got better credit than the Queen. Paul hasn’t, because he bought a stereo from Kays catalogue on tick and then forgot all about it over ten years ago, but there you go. Always trust a Geordie with money. We spent ten minutes looking around and then left with a disdainful look at Captain Acne behind the desk and told him it was far too small and there were altogether too many Audis on the estate.

We didn’t manage to leave quietly though as I managed to back the car over a child’s football that had been discarded in the middle of the road, resulting in an surprisingly loud bang echoing around the estate which probably sounded like the car backfiring, which I suppose didn’t help our image. We trundled over to The Parents and spent half an hour oohing and aahing at how well my nephew is coming along (I make him sound like a tomato plant) – without so much as a cup of tea mind, mother – and the highlight of that being when he pointed at Paul and called him Uncle Fatty. The kid has style!

After my parents came IKEA, and good lord IKEA is stressful at the best of times but even more so when you’re breaking the rules and going anti-clockwise with seemingly all of Gateshead’s unwashed masses bearing down on you, it’s hell on Earth. Especially because when the weather is warm enough not to leave an icicle on your tit, everyone decides to throw on a scraggy t-shirt exposing their Neapolitan-ice-cream skin to the sun – blistered red from being out under a SKOL umbrella all afternoon, yellow from nicotine and jaundice, streaky brown wherever the Poundstretcher Fake-Bake took hold.

And the stopping! I know everyone needs a moment to sniff their eighty-dozen orange-scented KLIT tea-lights but for goodness sake, do it to the side. I genuinely think there should be two lanes in places like this – one of those who can glide with purpose and one for those dolts who walk like they have a ball-bearing stuck in their socks. I’m being glib, I appreciate that people have disabilities and of course, they’re exempt, but if you can’t move quickly simply because you’re too much of a clot to remember to put one foot in front of the other in a reasonably rhythmic pattern, then just do everyone a favour and stay at home and have someone else pick up your ÖRGI bookshelf. Bastards. I didn’t even get a bloody hot-dog at the end because I couldn’t bear the thought of having my face stripped by someone’s eye-watering B.O for ten minutes in the queue whilst I had nothing to do than count the skin tags on their neck.

Hark listen to me, you’d think I was Adonis. But Paul says I am, so there.

Costco next – and if you think IKEA is bad, then Costco is even worse. Here the aforementioned numpties are armed with a trolley big enough to fit a hot-tub and enough baked beans to keep a Toby Carvery going for a financial quarter. Oh and it gets worse – it was bloody tasting day, which meant crowds of people all pushing and pulling at one another with their 4×4 trolleys in a nugatory attempt to get their cracked hands on a postage stamp of lasagne or a bit of brioche you could start a fire with. We bought our usual forty tins of tomato puree, sack of pasta and catering jar of gherkins, which were crashed through the till by the cashier with all the care and panache you’d expect from someone who had tattooed her eyelashes on, and we were on our way to the final test – Tesco at 3.40pm on a Sunday afternoon.

Which, remarkably, was a fairly sedate experience, despite me shrieking at Paul ‘STOP PLAYING WITH YOURSELF THERE ARE KIDS ABOUT’ when he was adjusting his belt in the reductions aisle. I’m surprised he had room, the usual ballaches were waiting to tackle the poor Tesco lackey to the floor for their 35p breadbuns. I genuinely can’t stand greed of this sort – but I’ve rambled on about these shitgibbons before who fill their trolley because they can, not because they need to. Nobody needs fifteen discount cauliflowers at 4pm on a Sunday. Take one, and fuck off.

So that was today. Goodness me.

Today’s recipe then: cabbage rolls!

to make cabbage rolls you will need:

1 medium white cabbage, 160g cooked rice, 1 egg (beaten), 60ml skimmed milk, half an onion (chopped), 500g pork mince, ½ tsp pepper, 4 cloves of garlic, 500ml passata, 1 tin of chopped tomatoes, 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce, 1 tbsp lemon juice, ½ tsp black pepper, a good dollop of sauerkraut (optional but delicious but by gaw it’ll make your bum windy)

to make cabbage rolls you should:

preheat the oven to 180 degrees celsius (gas mark 4)
remove the core from the head of the cabbage
boil the whole head of cabbage for ten minutes
drain the cabbage and leave to cool
in a large bowl mix together the cooked rice, mince egg, milk, chopped onion, crushed garlic and pepper
peel away 12 or so leaves from the cabbage – they need to be a good size but the smaller ones will still be okay, just use less for the next step. Shake off any excess water, nobody loves a moist cabbage
scoop roughly two-tablespoons worth of the mince and rice mixture and plop into the centre of a cabbage leaf
fold the bottom ends up and the sides to make a small parcel
place roll seam-side down into a baking dish that has been sprayed with a little FryLight if you’re a tasteless buffoon or a drop of oil if you’re sensible
in a separate bowl mix together the passata, tinned tomatoes, lemon juice and Worcestershire sauce. Pour over the cabbage rolls
cover the dish with tin foil and bake for an hour
serve with anything you like, but we had new potatoes because they were the easiest thing to grab

Enjoy!

Posted by

chubbycubs

Posted on

March 20, 2015

Posted under

pork, pork mince, recipe card, rice, syn free, taster ideas

cock, fights, pork chilli

We’ve been looking at holidays and have discovered that Thomson have a specialised ‘side business’ selling ‘gay holidays’, called Freedom Holidays. It seems like a load of patronising guff but they’re well-meaning so I’ll forgive them. Being gay is becoming less and less of an ‘issue’ now. Indeed, Newcastle is such a liberal, progressive city that I actually forget how lucky I am sometimes. I’d feel comfortable walking around holding hands with Paul, or buying rings together, or discussing frotting and cottaging over a frothy cappuccino on The Green. I don’t even think about it. I’m sure that’s partly because of the thriving and varied gay scene. which is littered with lots of different bars catering to all sorts of happy, cheerful people whose only common thread is that they enjoy a bit of cock. Or indeed, a bit of quim if they’re a lady. That said, we tend not to venture out on the scene – not least because we both feel old and our knees hurt and neither of us can dance. Camp shrieking is heavy on the ears and well, music isn’t what it used to be. That said, back in my youth (fucking hell you’d think I was 70, not coming up to thirty) I had some good times on there, dancing (well, more ‘fitting’ in tune to the music) and trying to hide my man-tits.

This sounds like stereotypical fiction but I can assure you, on the life of my poor old nana, that it’s true – I once got in a fight with a lesbian over whose turn it was to use the pool table. It gets better – there was previous bad blood between us because I interrupted her Anastasia marathon to put the Grease megamix on the ‘Choose Your Own Music’ jukebox. The whole situation couldn’t have been more stereotypical unless I had thrown my campari over her and she’d come at me with a powertool and dungarees before we settled it with a dance-off. Along very similar lines, my ex-boyfriend once had a chair thrown at him by a raging lady who (genuinely mistakenly) thought he was taking a picture of her across the pub. He was actually taking a picture of me trying to carry drinks whilst pissed, not her – he didn’t have his wide angle lens for one thing.

The Eagle is about the only bar where we’d be welcomed with something other than a pair of pursed lips and a snide comment about our attire, but it’s not really for us. Admittedly, we both go for the more ‘manly’ type (hence we found each other) (because I’m so masculine it hurts, naturally) and we’d be in our element in a bar like that, but of course, because it’s a manly bar, it’s instantly all about sex and it is incredibly seedy. There’s a gloryhole in the gents, for goodness sake. For those unfamiliar with what a gloryhole is, it’s essentially a hole drilled into the side of a cubicle wall where someone might pop their dingaling through in the vain hope of satisfaction. Well honestly. The only thing I want popping into my peripheral vision when I’m using the lavatory is a fresh, cooled roll of Quilted Velvet for my nipsy, not some angry looking willy with its owner hidden from sight. I’d be tempted to stick the toilet roll on it and use it as a dispenser. Still, each to their own. There was a tale that used to go round that some vengeful ex took a knife in there and sliced off his partner’s schlong as he popped it through. It all goes on!

Tell you what else goes on? This pork chilli! Onto your fork! Well that was a shit segue but you get the idea.

We used pork but there’s no reason you couldn’t be a decadent whore and go for chicken, turkey or beef mince.

This’ll serve 4.

to make pork chilli, you’ll need:

500g pork mince, two tins of chopped tomatoes, one tin of kidney beans, two tins of Pinto beans, 400ml chicken stock, one chopped onion, one diced yellow pepper, 4 cloves of garlic, ½ tsp salt, ½ tsp pepper, 1tsp paprika, 2 tbsp chilli powder, ½ tsp oregano, ½ tsp cumin

to make pork chilli, you should:

spray a large pan with Frylight (use Frylight if you must, but I always think it’s better to use a tiny drop of oil and syn it, unless you want your pans to look like Jodie Marsh’s cervix), and add the mince over a medium-high heat until nicely browned. Add the onion, diced pepper, salt, garlic and black pepper, and cook for a further five minutes. Then add the chilli powder, paprika, oregano and cumin, stir well and cook for another minute. To the same pot, add tomatoes and chicken stock with the tin of drained kidney beans and one can of drained Pinto beans. Bring the mixture to a boil, put the lid on and reduce it to a simmer. In a small bowl, drain the remaining tin of Pinto beans and mash with a fork – this can be done a bit sloppily if you like, it doesn’t have to be perfect. Add this to the chilli and stir well, and then re-cover. Cook for about thirty minutes or until it’s at the desired consistency. Remove from the heat, and serve! For a bit of ‘coolness’ you could add a blob of fromage frais or yoghurt to the top. We didn’t because we were so hungry the thought didn’t occur to us.

Enjoy!

Posted by

chubbycubs

Posted on

February 24, 2015

Posted under

american, beef, beef mince, pork, pork mince, recipe card, savoury snacks, snacks, syn free, taster ideas

rolled stuffed meatloaf

Only a little preamble tonight, because the recipe is a corker and I need my wordcount for that. BUT remember my Muller yoghurt letter? There’s a new (well, old) letter to read below…

I visited Poundland today – all I wanted was a money-tin, all I got is my eyes opened. I’ve said many times before that I’m not a snob but do you know, maybe I am. I’m snobbish about good manners, for one thing – asking me to do something without saying please is as bad in my eyes as taking my packed lunch and crapping in my salad roll. The reason I mention manners is the amount of people zombieing around Poundland, death-rattling and spluttering and sniffing was beyond the pale. Since when did it become acceptable to cough without covering your mouth, or sneeze right in someone’s face without attempting to cover it? At one point I went to pick up a pack of Haribo only for some wispy-chinned gasbag to cough the bottom of her lungs right across me and THEN keep on moving without so much as a backwards glance. Poundland? I almost pounded her head off a shelf full of knock-off Elsie and Anal Frozen figurines.

What makes Newcastle’s Poundland more interesting is that it is right next door to Waitrose, so you get people coming out of Waitrose, all full of puff and OH LOOK AT ME BUYING MY QUINOA AND DOLPHIN TEAR SALAD quickly nipping into Poundland to buy some cheap batteries, and people coming out of Poundland going into Waitrose to get a free coffee and finger all of the posh fruit. I’m not a huge fan of Waitrose, it’s absolutely rammed full of yah-yah-mummy students and people who think they’re the Big I Am. Have you tried any of Heston Bloominghell’s nonsense food from there? I can safely say I’ve tried most of it and thought it was all overpriced piss. Just because you can coat bacon in mushy pea puree and the hope of a orphan doesn’t mean you should.

Hey actually, speaking of Poundland, a few years ago I actually wrote to them – ironically, about a moneytin – and if you’re a fan of my fruity letters to organisations, you’ll enjoy this. Here:

poundland-complaint_page_1

Oh young James, you should have known better. They replied with a proper arsey letter.

Anyway, what YOU should do is try this recipe, it was bloody delicous – and only the coleslaw is synned, so you could leave that out and have a syn-free dinner that looks a treat! It’s your normal meatloaf recipe, but with three ingredients in the middle – sweet potato, shaved sprouts and very finely chopped mushroom.

to make the hot and spicy coleslaw you will need:

100g of red cabbage, 100g of radishes, 100g of white cabbage, one carrot large enough to make your eyes water, 100g of fat free natural yoghurt, salt, pepper and 1tbsp of horseradish sauce (1 syn but it makes enough to feed six, so your choice but I’ll say syn free).

to make rolled stuffed meatloaf you will need:

900g of a mix of lean pork mince and lean beef mince, 1 large red onion, two garlic gloves (grated) PLEASE, get a microplane grater. Like this one on Amazon. It’ll make it so much easier! You’ll also need two large eggs, 2 tablespoons of parsley, 2 tbsp dried mustard powder, 1 tbsp of thyme (fresh or dried, see if I’m bothered), 1 tbsp coriander seeds crushed (can leave these out, I won’t tell), 1sp of onion powder, some salt and pepper, and a tiny bit of baking powder.

For the stuffing, you’ll need 3 sweet potatoes, half a bag of sprouts, half a pack of mushrooms and an onion.

to make hot and spicy coleslaw you should:

Finely grate your cabbage(s), radishes and carrot into a bowl. Add yoghurt, horseradish, salt and pepper and mix well. Put it in the fridge.

to make rolled stuffed meatloaf you should:

Then the meatloaf mix – combine the meat, chopped onion, garlic, eggs and all of the spices and seasoning and mix it in a bowl until you get one lovely lump. Too wet? Add breadcrumbs. One wholemeal roll is a healthy extra – blend and add as much as you think you need. You’re aiming for a well mixed lump. Put it in the fridge to cool.

Next, pierce and microwave your sweet potatoes for around 15 minutes. Once cooked and cooled, scoop out the flesh into a bowl and add salt. Eat the skins, they’re fucking tasty. Next, finely chop the mushroom and onion. I used my Kenwood chopper here. It does make things a lot easier, even Delia says so. Mind it does nothing that a sharp knife can’t do but you are looking for finely chopped. Put into a pan, cook for five minutes or so on a medium heat to draw out the moisture. Set aside. Next, very thinly slice your sprouts. You can again use a knife or if you’re a fan of speed and danger, use a mandolin. This is mine, and it’s only £11. Stick the sprouts in a microwave bowl, cook for two minutes so they soften just a little, and set aside after draining and getting as much liquid out as possible.

Now, assembly. Hoy the oven onto 180 degrees. Get a loaf tin and grease the sides. You’ll then need to get some parchment paper or greaseproof paper or anything but the Daily Mail and line the tin. Doesn’t have to be precise, you’re not on the Krypton Factor and I’m not Gordon Burns. Next, get a flat sheet (preferably a baking sheet, it’ll make it easier for you) and line that with greaseproof paper. You want to be able to form a rectangle of around 8″ by 13″. Here’s a tip, don’t let a man measure this for you – the amount of men I’ve met in my life who think 5.5″ is 8″ is surprising. Dump your meat into the middle and flatten down to create an even rectangle, nice and flat. Take your time.

Now, spread the sweet potato over the top, nice and thin – don’t worry if it’s a bit patchy, but take your time to keep it smooth. Add the sprouts, then the mushroom and onion.

This is the tricky SOUNDING part, it’s actually quite easy. You want to roll the meatloaf. Start by getting hold of the parchment paper at one of the short ends of the rectangle and slowly roll the meat over itself – tight, but not ridiculous. Peel off the paper as you go. It’ll make sense when you do it, trust me. Take your time, rolling and peeling, rolling and peeling, until you’re left with a lovely roll of meat. Oooer etc.

Next, lift carefully into your loaf tin – remember it must be lined. Place the meat seam side down. Decorate the top with tomatoes or bacon or whatever.

In the oven for fifty minutes, take it out, drain the excess liquid away carefully, put back in oven for fifteen minutes, then crack the door open and turn the heat off and let it sit for 15 minutes. Cut and serve with chips and coleslaw and a big fuck-off smile on your face. Well done!

Posted by

chubbycubs

Posted on

January 31, 2015

Posted under

fakeaways, italian, noodles, pork, pork mince, quark, recipe card, savoury snacks, snacks, speciality ingredients, syn free, taster ideas

meatballs in a cheese sauce served in noodle nests

Ah now look at that – we haven’t had a quickpost this week, so tonight is the night – just the recipe today as I’m out and about! Normal service will resume tomorrow. And anyway, don’t be greedy – I did a big blog page earlier today on the ‘my favourite things’ post. Gimme a break damn it! WE’RE BUT TWO LADS!

This is another ‘use it or lose it’ meal where most of the ingredients are leftovers and/or stuff we haven’t got round to cooking. We’re trying to minimise leftovers, see? GO GREEN. We always keep a bag of frozen meatballs (made ourselves) in the freezer, the noodles were leftover from last night’s meal (sweet and sour pork – that’s coming online tomorrow, oooh a peek behind the curtain!) and the veg was what was left rolling around in amongst the vodka at the bottom of the fridge.

to make meatballs in a cheese sauce served in noodle nests, you’ll need:

ingredients: for the meatballs – pork mince, salt, pepper, dried sage – squash all together with your hands, shape into small balls and chill until needed. For the cheese sauce – 250g quark, 110g lightest philadelphia (HEA for me) and 30g of parmesan (HEA for Paul) and mustard powder. For the nests, use any leftover spaghetti or noodles. You’ll also need an egg and any old bollocks you have left in the veg drawer.

tip: make double the amount of meatballs, then freeze half. To freeze, put them on a flat plate not touching each other, freeze them, then pick them off the plate and put into a bag. That way they’ll stay separate and easier to work with.

to make meatballs in a cheese sauce served in noodle nests, you should:

recipe: start by making the cheese sauce, which is as easy as adding the quark, philadelphia and cheese into a pan and heating it slowly until it all comes together. Allow to cool. Then, get your noodles/spaghetti, coat them in about half of the sauce and include a beaten egg, and mix quickly. Get a muffin tray, do the frylight/oil thing (whichever you prefer!) so they don’t stick, and get a handful of spaghetti and put it in each muffin slot. Shape them so there is an indent in the middle. Hoy them in the oven for about 25 minutes and take out when golden – I took mine out a trifle too soon. Whilst they’re cooking, cook off your meatballs. If you’ve got a decent non-stick pan, have the confidence to let them get a good crust on them – they’ll take about 10 minutes on a reasonably high heat to brown off. Top tip – near the end, throw in a good glug of worcestershire sauce if you want – on a high heat, it’ll deglaze the pan and give your balls a nicer colour. Yes. Then, it’s just assembly – work your noodle nest out, put a dab of cheese sauce in the indent, top with a meatball. Serve your veg on the side with any leftover meatballs and cheese sauce. DELICIOUS.

extra-easy – yes, and syn free – the veg on the side is superfree, naturally. Try it!

Goodnight.

Posted by

chubbycubs

Posted on

November 22, 2014

Posted under

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

meatloaf cupcakes

Only a very quick update today as we’re rattling around visiting and shopping – but I wanted to share this little photo of the meal Paul made for lunch. He took leftover meatloaf (syn free) from here, squished it down into muffin tins and made an icing from mustard mash. I ignored the fact he’s made my piping nozzle smell of potatoes because it was just so hilarious!

meatloaf cupcakes

The site traffic for this blog generally sits around 1000 visitors a day these days, which suits me – but yesterday it almost hit 3500 views when I posted the fudge recipe! Heh. I only need a couple more followers to reach 400 lucky buggers who get my words thrown at them once a day. Feel free to share, like, tell your friends, post online, put an advert in the newspaper. That’ll make me happy!