Category Archives: sausages

Sausages recipes

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September 7, 2016

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american, budget, fakeaways, low syn, one-pot, recipe card, sausages, syn free, travel

one pot sausages and boston beans

Do you ever cook something, expect it to be awful and then are blown away by how good it tastes? That’s this recipe for sausages and boston beans, and better yet, it genuinely is one the easiest dishes we’ve ever done on here. Of course, because this is a twochubbycubs recipe and I love the sound of the fat on my fingers slapping against the slightly tacky keys on my keyboard, you’re going to get a bit of nonsense first.

Tonight’s post the first of a two-parter about our long weekend to Peterborough. I love writing ‘travel’ entries because they’re usually full of fun places, wonderful food and trills of laughter. I’d like to caveat this entry by stressing: we went to Peterborough. Look, I even knocked together a wee graphic.

peterborough

Normally at this point I’d apologise for being cruel in anticipation of the angry emails and comments I’ll get about slagging off a town, but I’m not actually convinced Peterborough has electricity, nevermind the internet, so I shan’t bother.

It’s all Paul’s fault. His family are all from down South whereas my family are from The North. Thus, he sees a lot of my family and only rarely does he venture down South to see his. He hasn’t fallen out with them, you understand, but we’re talking about a man for whom turning over in the bath to wash himself is an effort – the thought of driving however many miles and spending a weekend nodding at nonsense is beyond him. It’s certainly beyond me and that’s why whenever Paul has previously slopped family-bound down the A1, I’ve stayed at home eating delicious food and idly masturbating. It’s what every single guy does when his partner leaves and if you’re sitting there thinking that your partner doesn’t, then you’re in for a very rude awakening when you find all the crusty hand smears down the side of the mattress.

Oops, I got diverted. It began a couple of weeks ago when Paul turned to me, ashen-faced, and told me it was time we both went to see his family. I’d have been less frightened, alarmed and upset if he had wrote me a letter explaining he was Patient Zero of that antibiotic-resistant gonorrhoea and I could expect a cock like a dripping nose within a week. However, because I’m a gentleman, I acquiesced – not least because Paul’s had ten years of trying to decipher my Dad’s Geordie accent and eight years of my nana force-feeding him butter sandwiches like he was a foie-gras duck, so me visiting his relatives seemed fair enough.

Just so you’re aware, I have visited Peterborough once before – we stayed at Orton Hall and visited the cathedral. It was mildly diverting in the same way a repeat episode of your third favourite TV show may hold your attention. We got drunk with a friend of his and ended up sat in a Vauxhall Nova in a McDonalds car park eating chips. I’ve literally never felt more street in my life. So we weren’t in a rush to repeat that and decided to book a nice hotel on the outskirts. Finding a decent hotel that wasn’t massively overpriced turned into such an insurmountable challenge that I threw a sulk once we reached Nottingham on the map and demanded that we just check into the first Premier Inn that came up on the map. We later found out that the Burghley Horse Trials were on and that explained – apparently – why all the hotels were booked up. Personally, I hope all the horses were found guilty.

We agreed that we’d drive down to Peterborough on the Saturday morning in our rented Ford Tedium and despite willing my liver to rupture, I was unable to get out of it. Actually, nevermind getting out of it, I could barely get into our rented car. Perhaps you’ve been in a Ford Fiesta – do you find the doors ridiculously small and low down? I had to fold myself like an accordion of chafed skin just to get inside. I haven’t quite reached the stage where I can’t physically fit into a car (probably a few pounds away) but this was a nightmare. I actually think I cracked a rib jumping in after I’d filled the bugger up.

The drive down was spectacularly uneventful – the usual parade of stopping to have a piss in amongst the poo-cloud of eight hundred harried dads and children, paying way over the odds for a cup of tea and moaning about it for ten minutes in the car, spending too much money on the fruit machines in the vain hope I’d win the jackpot and I could whisk Paul away somewhere exotic and full of promise, like Norwich. Nope. We arrived at his mother’s house at 11am.

I had a cup of tea. It was nice.

Twenty minutes later we agreed to take his brother out for lunch. I love Paul’s brother – he’s a proper gentle giant and really knows his stuff. He has severe autism which leads to moments of slight awkwardness when he blurts out to a waitress that she’s gorgeous and can share his milkshake. Or, memorably, when he whistled at a poor woman in Seahouses literally three inches from her face as he walked past. He just says what we’re all thinking. Anyway, a quick look at decent places to eat nearby turned up absolutely nothing and anyway, he wanted to go to a Bella Italia, so off we went to an industrial estate to have a meal that was about as Italian as I am a Calvin Klein model with a cock like a roll of wallpaper.

advert - summer-01

I’m not going to review the place in depth because well, it was a Bella Italia for goodness sake, but understand that it was a dismal meal in dismal surroundings for £90. Until that day I would never have thought a pizza could actually look bored but there we have it. We asked for a quiet table away from any noise and the prissy little manager who seated us looked like I’d personally walked into the kitchen and shat in the carbonara. When I first typed that I typoed walked as wanked – that also works, so pick one. He sat us next to the bar with a fetching giant cylinder of blue-roll to sit with. Perhaps he thought we could snack on that in the vain hunt for flavour.

Our starter was described on the menu as a ‘real taste of Italy’. Who knew that Italy tasted like a third of those continental sliced meat platters you get in ASDA sweated behind the radiator for an hour or so? It did come with shaved fennel and orange segments but there’s only so much excitement you can wring from such a lacklustre repast. Between the three of us we had it finished before the bubbles on my diet coke had come to the surface. Naturally, it cost £15.

We had a pizza each (at £15 a pop) which tasted like a carpet tile smeared with passata and shunned by society. At one point I nearly gave up and smeared the blue roll with tomato sauce to get my money’s worth. The sides consisted of six onion rings for £4. 66p an onion ring. I did want to enquire whether or not Gino d’Campo was slicing them personally with a diamond but Paul shook his head at me and said no. Oh and the drinks! The diet coke came in a glass that Thumbelina herself would have considered meagre and, as usual, was more ice than drink. They were £2.60 a time, non-refillable. From my vantage point I was afforded the sight of the barman preparing a ‘fresh apple juice’ by opening a carton of Tesco Value apple juice and pouring it into a tiny milk bottle. That cost £2.50, by the way.

Desserts were a little better. Paul’s brother wanted ice-cream but also wanted to pick the flavours – his treat, so why not. The waitress had the good grace not to vomit into her mouth when he ordered a mixture of rum and raisin, chocolate and bubblegum ice-cream all topped with limoncello sauce and crushed almond biscuits. Paul and I ordered a Mean Joe between us which is apparently:

“Nutty fudge brownies, vanilla and chocolate gelato, chocolate sauce, fresh cream, popping candy, dark chocolate tagliatelle and a wafer curl. He’s got it sorted!”

What we got was four scoops of chocolate ice-cream, a brownie that could have been used to chock the tyres of a runaway bus and a shitty look. I’ve had more delightful desserts free from the Chinese takeaway. Paul’s brother gamely ate all of his ice-cream and we settled the bill. You know what stung the most? Our waitress was lovely and I couldn’t not tip her, so the meal actually ended up costing £100 in total. Imagine my delight. We bundled Paul’s brother back into the car and made our way back to his mother’s house to drop him off before the sugar kicked in.

I stroked a dog. It was nice. Paul had threatened in the car to make me laugh by pulling faces at me whilst his mother made conversation with me but that never happened.

We made our way to the Premier Inn, at least comforted by the fact we’d get a good night’s sleep, guaranteed. Things got off to a shaky start when Paul realised that the guy checking us in was his mortal enemy from school who had told everyone he was better than everyone else and was off to New York to pursue a music career. Seemingly the bus to the airport terminates at Junction 16 of the A1. Who knew? I had noticed that our welcome was a tad more frosty than normal but it was only when Paul explained in the corridor – and I had ascertained that he hadn’t actually sucked him off at some point (which, to be fair to me, seemingly applies to anything with testosterone within a 60 mile blast radius of Peterborough) that it all became clear.

The Premier Inn itself wasn’t bad, but meh. We were put into a weird extension bit which required trundling down an endless corridor of foist and extra-marital-sex-stink and our room eschewed curtains, instead sealing out the light with a huge set of sliding wooden doors. This mean the room was hot and tiny, the two worst things for two fat blokes. We freshened up (i.e. Paul immediately had a introductory thundering crap in the toilet like he does in EVERY SINGLE HOTEL ROOM WE EVER, EVER BOOK) and set out for his dad’s place, a little bit further down the A1.

Well, this was actually lovely. His dad and his partner are lovely, funny folk with witty conversation and big warm hearts. I’m not even being sarcastic (I know!) – we stayed for two hours and it felt like minutes. I’m actually quite a shy person and find making conversation tricky with people I don’t know but it was wonderfully easy and I was sad to leave. We did manage to subscribe them to the blog so, if you’re reading this Mrs A, take comfort in the fact that you both were a bright spot in an otherwise relentlessly grim weekend!

After leaving we did a cursory glance on Tripadvisor for a delicious place to eat, realised we’d have more marginally more success finding someone with a complete set of teeth and instead decamped to Tesco, where our Saturday night was made complete with a few packets of Cup-a-Soups and some crisps. We both fell asleep in front of the X-Factor, wishing for death.

Let’s leave this entry there, shall we? Bake Off starts soon and I want to watch Mary Berry gum and gurn her way through bread week. Tonight’s one-pot dinner genuinely couldn’t be easier. It’s probably a bit of cheek calling it boston beans but hey, if I put sausage and beans on the recipe, you might get misled. This makes enough for two.

Looking good!

Absolutely would smash.

to make one pot sausages and boston beans, you’ll need:

  • two tins of kidney beans in chilli sauce
  • two large white onions
  • one packet of sausages (your syns will vary depending on what you use – we use our Musclefood sausages from our giant mixed summer pack because they actually taste of meat and which come in at half a syn each – click here for that – enjoy)
  • one beef oxo cube
  • one garlic clove
  • splash of worcestershire sauce
  • two large jacket potatoes
  • pepper

to make one pot sausages and boston beans, you should:

  • stick your jacket potato in the oven
  • cook your sausages off until nice and brown and then take them out
  • slice your onions nice and thin and add them into the pan
  • add the minced garlic and cook off for a few moments
  • open the tins of kidney beans and put all the contents, including the gloopy water, into the pan
  • fill one of the tins halfway full with water and add that along with the worcestershire sauce, oxo cube and plenty of pepper
  • add the sausages and allow everything to simmer gently until the sauce is thick
  • serve with the potatoes – delicious!

We get asked a lot for recommendations for a decent one-pot pan. I can’t recommend Le Creuset enough. They’re expensive, oh yes, but we use ours daily. Invest in one right here and never look back. Cheaper alternatives are absolutely fine mind!

If you want more sausage recipes, plus some delicious beef, chicken, pork or fakeaway recipes, click on the buttons below!

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Hope you enjoy!

J

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August 4, 2016

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budget, low syn, lunch, pasta, recipe card, sausages

sausage, fennel and pesto pasta

Sausage, fennel and pesto pasta? Have we gone all posh here at the always unpretentious, classless twochubbycubs? No. Don’t worry. We’re not going to start asking you to sous-vide (I’m sure she works in our local chippy) your food or start using sweetener that you can only buy in an Axminster branch of Holland and Barrett. However, we were asked for more sausage recipes so that people had something to do with those Slimming World sausages other than open the box and pour them directly into the bin because they’re so bloody awful. To make Slimming World sausages palatable (why is the third ingredient – after the 79% meat – citrus peel? I want to eat a sausage, not a pork-flavoured Yankee Candle), you need to add lots of flavour, hence the fennel and pesto. Before we get to that, though, some business to attend to.

I went over to visit The Progenitors this evening to make sure that a) they’re still kicking about and b) to casually remind them that there really is no better time to make a will than right now, and yes, don’t worry I’ll share. They’re in rude health as ever, and although I got roundly admonished for proclaiming that ‘the iPad can’t sense through leather’ when my mum told me her iPad wasn’t recognising her fingerprint, all was well. However, my mother has two messages for the blog which I feel I must pass on, at the very least to ensure that the flow of newly-laid eggs keeps coming my way.

First: she’s taken umbrage with the fact that I like to portray my childhood as some kind of Catherine Cookson-esque, poverty-stricken wasteland of bland meals and stolen potatoes. Well, obviously that wasn’t the case. We didn’t have much money but my sister and I never went without – we always had good food in our bellies, clothes on our backs and all the second-hand Lambert and Butler smoke a child could want. I reckon I was on ten fags a day by proxy by the age of ten. I’ve certainly inherited my lack of worry from them – they’re both very down-to-earth, decent people – just because my mother can drink like a sailor and my dad uses flatulence like one might use a full-stop doesn’t change that.

No, look, I do jest, and I do like to make gags about growing up, but I couldn’t have wished for better parents and when I listen to them now, bickering on at each other and twisting their faces, there’s still so much love there, it’s marvellous. They’ve been married for absolutely bloody ages and it’s quite inspiring to think you can make small-talk with the same person over dinner for thirty years and not want to stab them in the eye. It’s all I can do not to set myself on fire if I pass the same person on the stairs twice in one day. I think the anniversary gift for 30 years is pearl, and I’m definitely not going to mention that to my parents because, Christ, if you think I’m bad for smut and innuendo, you haven’t seen anything yet…

The second public service announcement from Mother Cub is a new gadget. See, since buying hens she has been awash with more eggs than she knows what to do with. My poor dad has had fried eggs, cubed eggs, boiled eggs, poached eggs, eggs eleven, eggy-eggs, eggy-bread and god knows what else. Anyway, my mum has found this on Amazon and it filled her with so much excitement it was the third thing she said to me after I stepped through her door (after DON’T GO STRAIGHT TO THE FRIDGE and CAN YOU JUST HAVE A LOOK AT SOMETHING ON THE COMPUTER FOR ME).

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It’s a three way egg-slicer. For when cutting with a knife won’t do, but then, nor will boring old slices. This one makes perfectly chunked egg mayo, wonderfully measured egg slices and, for that decadent touch, egg quarters. Whilst admittedly it’s quite literally the only time I ever want to hear about my mother having a three-way in the kitchen, it’s a gadget too much for me. I’ll say this though – the egg mayo sandwich that she made me was terrific. I’ve never had such uniform egg-based texture.

This makes enough for two big fatties to shovel in as dinner. So, just enough for me and Paul. So let’s say three syns per serving, but remember, it’s a giant bloody serving. I do like how the Amazon picture above already has the nicotine mottled-effect that most things in my parent’s house have. I’m joking again, just to be clear. Anyway, it’s on Amazon for only a few quid, so if you’re looking for a slicer that will blow your mind, go for it!

Anyway, that’s quite enough from Eva Braun, this is my blog, damn it.

Before we get to the sausage, fennel and pesto pasta, I have a quick question. I listen to The Archers. Love it. Don’t care that it’s a fuddy-duddy programme, I like how relaxing it all is. I’ve probably been listening for a year now – I tuned in when Rob Bastard started terrorising poor Helen and she stabbed him over the burst custard. But three questions:

  • am I ever going to get to the point where I recognise who is talking and who is related to who – I’m currently treating it like a white noise machine but I reckon I’d get more out of it if I actually understood the characters. But see, I go onto the Radio 4 website, read up on them, and then instantly forget everything I read, like my brain is trying to save me from premature old age;
  • is that young Johnny fella ever going to boff that other one (Josh?) – I feel like they’ve been building to A Beautiful Thing, but maybe that’s just me; and
  • am I wrong for getting teary-eyed over poor Scruff? SOB.

Now, you might be scoffing and tittering into your hand about my love of The Archers at the age of 31, but you know what, I don’t care. Not after poor Scruff’s death! LIFE’S TOO SHORT.

Right, let’s do the recipe.

sausage, fennel and pesto pasta

to make sausage, fennel and pesto pasta you will need:

  • 500g pasta
  • 6 sausages, skins removed (have you tried the sausages in our special Musclefood deals? They’re only ½ a syn each! Plus they have the added bonus of not tasting like you’re chewing a draught excluder – click here to order!)
  • ½ tsp fennel seeds
  • ½ tsp black pepper
  • 1 red onion, sliced
  • 2 tbsp reduced fat green pesto (3 syns)advert - summer-01

to make sausage, fennel and pesto pasta you should:

  • cook the pasta according to the instructions, towards the end of the cooking time take half-a-mugful of the pasta water for later on
  • meanwhile, heat a large frying pan over a medium high heat, sling in some oil and chuck in the fennel seeds, cook for about 30 seconds
  • add the onion and saute until it softens, about 5 minutes or so
  • mash the sausages the best you can with a fork and chuck into the pan, stir quickly to make sure it stays as broken up as possible – it doesn’t hurt to get a potato masher and smash things up a bit
  • add the black pepper, reduce the heat and keep stirring every now and again – don’t worry if bits stick to the bottom of the pan – that’s good
  • stir the pesto into the mug of pasta water and add to the pan and use it to scrape off any bits on the bottom of the pan
  • add the drained pasta to the pan and stir so it’s coated evenly in the pesto sauce and the sausage is mixed in
  • serve

Easy, right? If you’re looking for more sausage or pasta recipes, you’ll do well to click on the buttons below. We’ve got loads!

pastasmallsausagessmall

Enjoy, won’t you?

J

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July 22, 2016

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american, barbecue, dips, drinks, fakeaways, fast food restaurants, low syn, recipe card, sausages, savoury snacks, snacks, syn free, vegetarian

slimming world BBQ: perfect rainbow coleslaw, onion jam, hotdogs and frozen margaritas!

The next part of our series on what to put on a Slimming World BBQ is right here. For once, you’re not going to have to wade through all of my guff to get to it because well, time’s a factor. Paul and I have decided to have a day off together, partly because we had the idea that our garden furniture was going to arrive today. That didn’t happen, but ah well, could be worse, could be dead. We hopped into the car and shot off to see Ghostbusters and you know, it was great! Well-acted, fun, colourful – hit of all my buttons!

It’s a shame that Leslie Jones has been getting  shit thrown at her on Twitter as a result of being in the movie. She’s been called all sorts of vile things for simply putting herself forward and making people laugh. It’s depressing, and it’s not as though the world isn’t depressing enough as it is. It’s getting to the point where I could open my curtains in the morning and notice a mushroom cloud billowing towards me and I’d shrug and meh and go back to watching whatever atrocity is blazing across the TV.

That’s the problem with the Internet, it gives a voice to all those gimps with no self-confidence and no tact. I should know, I’ve made a healthy sideline from it. You see the most vile of comments left on the most innocuous of posts and articles – I’ve seen someone wish another woman a miscarriage because they disagreed over how much sweetener to put in a recipe, for goodness sake – and the answer to that one, by the way, is none at all. You have people who wouldn’t say boo to a goose blurting out vile rhetoric and for what? No other reason than to wound and upset. I genuinely don’t understand the mentality, and I love a sly dig every now and then – but I couldn’t take pleasure in actually breaking someone’s spirit.

We have a local paper up here called the Evening Chronicle, and it really is the go-to paper if you want to know who someone from Geordie Shore had up her snatch the previous day or perhaps a picture of a local councillor pointing furiously at some potholes with a face like he’s trying desperately not to shit himself on camera It’s entirely pointless but generally harmless, although they’re not averse to strumming up a bit of racial tension to get their comments counter overflowing. Anyway, they posted a story about some poor bugger who had climbed up an electricity pylon and was threatening to hurl himself onto the live wires. He was suicidal and as a result, the power folks had to turn off the juice. The story was full of comments like ‘shocking behaviour’ and ‘I hope he was charged’, which, whilst crass and insensitive, is harmless enough. We’re all guilty of a bit of black humour. However, topping off the comments was ‘So glad it didn’t hit my area i’f be raging if I’d missed the soaps!!’. For fucks sake. We’re not talking about someone nicking a bit of copper wire, we’re talking about someone being so fucked in the head that they think the best option is the pain of burning alive, and this claybrained footlicker is more concerned about missing Eastenders.

I despair. Not in a sanctimonious oh-aren’t-I-wonderful way but just as a human, how can you lack the compassion? Also, as an adult, how the fuck do you not know that it is I’d not i’f – and that’s after editing her comments. Urgh. Listen, I’m depressing myself now, so let’s just jump to the recipes. Bit of a hard segue to make though…so let’s chuck in a bit about our Musclefood deal first – so tasteful!

Before we get to the recipe, it would be churlish of me not to mention our LIMITED EDITION Musclefood deal – we’ve upgraded our freezer filler to add in some BBQ friendly products. Same price as before – £50 – but this comes with free delivery, 24 chicken breasts, 6 half a syn sausages, 2 fat steak burgers (1 syn), 2 fat rump steaks, 2 hickory bbq chicken steaks (syn free), 400g of spicy chicken drumsticks (syn free when skin removed), 400g of diced turkey, huge pack of bacon medallions, 12 giant meatballs (half a syn each) and 1 pack of seasoning (2 syns). It’s only for a couple of weeks whilst the weather is hot and I thought it would be a good change to add in some BBQ foods! Click here to order and use the code TCCSUMMER to get the deal!

We used the sausages in the above pack to make the hotdogs – you can buy syn-free sausages but they taste like someone stuffed an old sock full of shredded carpet and whatever’s been swept up off the floor at the Schwartz factory. I’ve tasted other people’s burps that I’ve enjoyed more than the Slimming World sausages, plus these Musclefood sausages don’t look like pickled willies when they’re cooked, so there’s that. Slimming World do a lot of tasty food don’t get me wrong, but I prefer a sausage I can eat rather than one I can shave with. Whack them in your healthy extra bun allowance and they are only half a syn. We haven’t used healthy extra buns in the picture but hell, it’s the summer and a hotdog isn’t the same in a wholemeal bun. The buns in the pictures are six syns each – Tesco finger buns – and well, I’ve always preferred a couple of fingers over a nice pair of baps. Boom boom.

No, the recipe is for onion jam and perfect coleslaw, two little additions for the side of the BBQ that will make everything taste that much better…

slimming world bbq

to make slimming world BBQ: onion jam and perfect rainbow coleslaw, you’ll need:

  • for the onion jam:
    • 250g of red onions
    • 50ml of balsamic vinegar
    • 75ml of apple / cider vinegar
    • a clove of garlic
    • salt and pepper
    • 1 tsp of sweetener if you want it syn free, but I use a teaspoon of honey which is technically a syn but meh…
  • for the coleslaw
    • a butternut squash
    • one large carrot
    • a bunch of spring onions
    • small white cabbage and a small purple cabbage
    • 200g (1 syn) of greek yoghurt, fat free
    • lots of black pepper
    • pinch of salt

to make slimming world BBQ: onion jam and perfect rainbow coleslaw, you should:

  • for the onion jam:
    • cut up your onions nice and small and uniform
    • finely mince your garlic using one of these so you’re not known as Stinky Fingers McGee (again)
    • throw everything into a pan on a low heat
    • cover and allow to simmer for ages – you want it to reduce slowly into a nice sticky sauce
    • easy!
  • for the perfect rainbow coleslaw
    • shred your cabbage nice and fine – whether you use a grater or, as we do, one of these fancy gadgets
    • don’t grate your carrot or butternut squash – use a potato peeler to cut small ribbons instead – you want nice chunks, not miles of the stuff
    • if you have leftover butternut squash, make my butternut squash macaroni and never look back
    • finely dice your onion
    • mix it all together with the yoghurt, pinch of salt and lots of pepper
    • the key is to make the different vegetables roughly the same size (bar the onion) so you get plenty of crunch and taste – it makes everything go a bit further
    • we were actually cheeky and grated one HEA of Parmesan into ours – gives it a bit extra kick but fine to leave out

That makes enough for four, so it’s 0.25 syns. If you want to syn that, shoot for the moon.

Now, the accompanying cocktail in our series on drinks that may use a few syns but last bloody ages and get you pissed is a frozen margarita. You’ll need a blender but this is amazing on a hot day, trust me. This makes enough for two BIG glasses – not going to lie and say we didn’t double the shots for our own version, but we like them strong. It puts hairs on your arse, this.

slimming world bbq

to make a tasty frozen margarita:

  • chuck a load of ice, 60ml of freshly squeezed lime juice, 50ml of tequila (6 syns)  and 25ml of triple sec (4 syns) into a blender. Blend like your life is on the line. Tip into chilled martini glasses and serve – it’s strong, but it’ll last for ages and tastes gorgeous – don’t be frightened to spend the syns!

Easy! Enjoy. If you want more recipes for sausages or snacks, hit the buttons below!

sausagessmallsnackssmall

Done!

J

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July 11, 2016

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low syn, lunch, pasta, recipe card, sausages

sun-dried tomato and sausage pasta

Here for the sundried tomato and sausage pasta? Well, you’ll have to wait. Adults are talking.

Actually, I’m not so much talking as effing and jeffing angrily under my breath. I’m fizzing with anger! Remember we traded in the tiny Micra way back in March for an even smaller Smart car (next year we’re trading the Smart car in for a Little Tikes Cozy Coupe and some magic beans)? Well, we did all of the paperwork to switch the ownership of the Micra only to receive a stern letter from the DVLA telling us that we were breaking the law because GASP the Micra was uninsured despite a) us not owning it anymore and b) I’m fairly sure it’s a fucking cube of metal the size of a box of Swan Vestas by now.

I had the joy of speaking to someone so thick she’d struggle to look through a ladder who, after much umming, aahing and dribbling into the microphone so it sounded like she was in a washing machine, told me to send a letter in proving we had indeed sold the car. I did this promptly, without delay, and with only minimum amount of swearing. Hell, I even used my full name on the letter because it sounds lovely and posh. Then I, comfortable in the knowledge that the good folk at the DVLA were sorting it, immediately forgot about it and moved on with my life, which has recently consisted of looking at and ruling out garden furniture for 23 hours a day.

Until today when lo and behold I get a fucking penalty in the post for having an uninsured bloody car! Great! I’d understand if the penalty was for reasons of bad taste because we bought an orange Smart car that looks like we’re driving around in a Fruitella but no! AARGH man. Now I’ve got to send another letter with further proof and I’ve been told, via another wonderful customer service adviser who was also knitting with one needle, that I’ll still need to pay the fine regardless. Honestly, I almost did a proper Jeremy Kyle punch through the wall, though knowing my current luck this would result in a penalty from More Than for unauthorised household alterations.

Why are these things so difficult? We live in a world where, if I wanted to, I could nip onto the Internet and show my button off in glorious 1080p to some pervy old masochist in Canberra, but we seemingly can’t invent a system where we can submit our documents online in a safe and secure fashion. No, I have to leave important financial documentation to the idiosyncrasies of the Royal Bloody Mail, who currently have a 0% success rate with me. Perhaps I had a dyslexic postman who thought I meant VLAD instead of DVLA and is currently hiking his way through deepest Transylvania with a furrowed brow and a garlic necklace. Who knows.

Samsung was another experience – product still in warranty, had to call six times before I got through to someone who dared break the script in front of them and even then, still got absolutely nowhere until I complained via Twitter and got you lovely folks to chip in. In the end we had our hob fixed for free and the chap dealing with it was lovely but why make me jump through so many hoops? I mean COME ON I’m morbidly obese, jumping through hoops makes my ankles splinter. PAH. Nevermind.

Just as an update on the garden furniture situation – because I know you lot will have been gasping awake in the night with fret and worry about whether we’ve got somewhere to bronze our bitch-titties this summer – we found the table we want only to discover we’d need to hire a bloody crane to get it into the garden. Paul and I both agreed that this would be fine only on the basis that the fat builder from the moneysupermarket adverts was the crane operator, and oopsy-daisy-let-me-get-that-wet-hi-vis-off-you-oh-goodness-me-my-cock-fell-out, but they couldn’t guarantee this., the unreasonable swines. So we’re back to square one.  Great!

Now, before I get to the sundried tomato and sausage pasta, a quick favour. Just a tiny one, I promise. It’s two clicks. A friend of mine has entered his dog in a competition. When I say entered his dog, I don’t mean it in perhaps the way you think, you dirty moo. She’s (hopefully) to be the star of all of the vet’s correspondence from ‘Spot needs his anal-glands draining‘ (don’t we all) to ‘Oops we’ve put Rex down LOL #YOLO‘ and she’s currently being beaten. And well, if you don’t help, that means you enjoy seeing animals being beaten and that makes you worse than Hitler. So, for the love of all things chubby, click here (it’ll open in a new window) and vote for Pearl. Let’s make her a star!

OK. Enough chitter chatter. To the recipe…

sundried tomato and sausage pasta

to make sundried tomato and sausage pasta you will need:

  • 250g pasta (we used farfalle) (because we’re just FARFALLE people, boom boom)
  • 4 sausages, fat free or low in fat then syn appropriately (why not use the ones in our Musclefood deal?)
  • 1 tin of cannellini beans, drained
  • 5 sundried tomatoes (use the dried kind, not the one in oil! and steep them in hot water for 30 minutes beforehand to plump them back up and chop finely) (2 syns, apparently)
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced (come on, you know it’s coming, but haway, buy one of these, it’s genuinely brilliant!
  • ¼ tsp salt
  • ¼ tsp pepper
  • ¼ tsp chilli flakes
  • 3 handfuls of baby spinach
  • 2 handfuls of rocket
  • little bit of grated parmesan

to make sundried tomato and sausage pasta you should:

  • cook the pasta according to the instructions, drain (reserve 125ml of the water for use later) and set aside
  • meanwhile, heat a large, deep pan over a medium-high heat and add a little oil or frylight, listen, be your own person, make your own rules here
  • cook the sausages until brown on all sides and add the tin of beans, tomatoes, salt, pepper, garlic and chilli flakes, and cook for about a minute – stirring frequently
  • add the pasta to the pan along with the spinach and rocket and stir well
  • cook for about 30 seconds or so, until the leaves have wilted, and add a little of the reserved pasta water if it starts to look too dry
  • serve and sprinkle over the parmesan

Enjoy. Tell everyone about it. If you’re looking for MORE recipes, you greedy slattern, you’ll find more sausage recipes and more pasta recipes right here by clicking the buttons!

sausagessmall pastasmall

Done. Now I’m off to attach a notice of new ownership to a carrier pigeon and hurl it at Wales.

J

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January 16, 2016

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

sausage stroganott

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

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

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

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

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

twochubbycubs go to Iceland: part two

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Thingvellir National Park

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

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Hmm!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

sausage stroganott

to cook sausage stroganott, you’ll need:

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

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

to cook sausage stroganott, you should:

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

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

J

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January 6, 2016

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airfryer, british, fakeaways, low syn, quark, recipe card, sausages, speciality ingredients

sticky sausages with cheesy sweet potato kale mash

Did you miss us? I did mention we were going to take some time off, and well, listen, I’ve seen some of the things people search for to find this blog. I didn’t want them knowing the house was empty and we were out of the country. I just couldn’t bear it if someone had broken in and judged my skittered-toilet or the Lindt Chocolate Wrapper Mountain. So – we took some time off and here we are. We would have been back a bit sooner but our blog fell over from so many new people joining! OOPS.This post is going to be a bit of a house-keeping post just to get everyone up to speed, but, because we’re just THAT kind, we’ll chuck in a recipe for sticky sausages.

FIRST: my exciting news! We have a proper book out! Well, it’s a Kindle book, but it’s a colossal collection of all the articles and funny bits from our blog – a year’s worth coming in at over 100,000 words, condensed into neat little topics covering activities such as having a colonic irrigation to our various calamities in Corsica, Ireland and Germany. I’m told it’s a good read and if you’re a fan of our writing or if you want to support us, please give it a purchase! If you’re a long time reader and want to make my day, please do! It’s the same price as a SW class, only you’ll not get a sloshing bowl of fruit with each purchase.

You can buy it here – and I’d love you forever!

SECOND: I can’t believe how out of control this blog and our facebook group has become. We’ve gone from kicking over around 30,000 – 40,000 views a day to well over 140,000. Keep sharing! We have many social streams you can throw yourself into:

  • a Facebook group –  (for chat, odd postings from us, other nonsense – but mind, don’t join if you’re a Professionally Offended Person, because I can’t be fussed on with that – and it is NOT a HOW MANNY SINZ PLEAS group, so none of that muck or I’ll smack your arse
  • a Facebook page –  if you like this, whenever we post a recipe it’ll appear in your facebook feed – no spam
  • a Twitter account – same deal as before, but with less characters

I am flirting with Instagram but I’m just terrified of installing it on my phone and having forty shots of Paul’s bumhole uploaded into the cloud with the hashtag #darkmeat.

THIRD: we have renewed our deal with Musclefood for the two offers we have:

We do get a small amount for recommending Musclefood but honestly, if something was shite, I’d tell you. We find the meat tasty and affordable – other meat suppliers are available. If you’re a vegetarian, there are plenty of recipes to be found scattered on our blog. We’re very tasteful and inclusive, it comes from years of being confirmed manhole-inspectors.

FOURTH: we’ve got a massive queue of comments to filter through – we will get to them, I promise.

FIFTH: we are absolutely and utterly not an official Slimming World blog. We are unofficial – meaning we follow the diet and work the syns out ourselves, like every other blog, but we’re not employed by Slimming World. Listen, they wouldn’t have us. We swear like shipyard workers, we fart all the time and our classes would be 55 minutes of hilarity and 5 minutes of ‘HOW MUCH YOU LOST HUN’. We believe Slimming World works, we really do, but we just can’t bear to be another blog which is cloying and sweet. If you’re not a fan of swearing, rude comments and frank discussions, then please just enjoy the recipes or move on. We’ve received a few personal messages from people telling us how we should write our blog – that’s not how it works. You take us as you find us, great big hairy man-tits as well.

We’ve got some excellent stuff coming up – we’re back on it from the very second we get weighed on a Thursday night, and you’re going to see a slightly different, more determined attitude from us going forward. But listen, don’t worry, if you’re here purely to learn some new filthy euphemisms, there will be plenty of that too.

We’ve got Iceland to talk about for one thing – five days spent shuffling around in the cold, biting wilderness eating fermented shark, buying penises (yes) and even parting with money in a Minge. It’s been all go. There’s also been trips to the hairdresser, a Christmas party, a new wedding and a massage to talk about in excruciating detail.

Ah yes, with dear old Nana being turned into polyester and lavender ash and scattered to the wind this year, Christmas was a little different. Not least because I didn’t leave with my ears bleeding from having to yell THANKS FOR MY SLIPPERS eighty-seven times whilst she cricked her neck at me and smiled unknowingly like a bemused sparrow. We spent Christmas Day together, just Paul and I, and then Boxing Day with the family. Paul created a wonderful Christmas dinner – naturally I did my bit by lying prostrate on the couch wailing for more gin, more ice, more lemons, more attention. I’m a heartless bugger.

We are so ready to get back to eating properly, mind. We’ve had so much rich, dense food that I haven’t been on the usual Slimming World plan shitcycle of forty craps a day. Every fart I do sounds like the opening trumpet solo from Carnaval de Paris. I’m surprised we haven’t had officials from Northumbrian Water knocking on the door out of concern.

Right, so let’s get to it! Sticky sausages await!

sticky sausages

Just to explain that wee warning on the bottom of the photo. Please feel free to share our images and recipe, but do not remove our name from them. The photograph, text and recipe remain our work. 

to make sticky sausages in onion gravy you will need:

  • 6 syn-free sausages (or low syn, or 100 syns, listen, I’m not the boss here, you have whatever you want my love, I won’t tell a soul)
  • 3 onions, peeled and sliced
  • 1 tsp honey (1 syn)
  • 1 tsp dried or fresh thyme (not essential, so don’t shit the bed if you haven’t got it)
  • 1 tbsp worcestershire sauce
  • 400ml beef stock

to make sticky sausages in onion gravy you should: 

  • cook the sausages however you like (we use an Actifry because we’re decadent bitches) and keep aside – you’ll want to do the rest whilst they’re cooking
  • heat a large saucepan over a medium-high heat and add a little oil
  • add the onions and stir well, like it’s a juicy bit of gossip about someone you hate at work
  • cover the pan and reduce the heat to medium and cook for 10 minutes until softened and mushy
  • remove the lid, add the honey and worcestershire sauce and stir well
  • cook for another 15-20 minutes, stirring frequently until the onions have softened and turned golden
  • increase the heat to medium-high and gradually add the stock, stirring frequently
  • add the thyme and stir
  • allow the gravy to thicken until it’s sticky and wonderful and pour over the sausages

Now just listen here, you’ve probably seen that great big orange and green mass on the side of the plate…well, that’s our attempt at getting some speed food on the plate in the form of cheesy sweet potato and kale mash. Don’t worry, we’re not going to become professional kale-botherers, but it’s actually quite a tasty addition.

to make kale and sweet potato cheesy mash you will need: 

  • 150g kale, chopped
  • 2 large sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 2cm cubes
  • 1 large potato, peeled and cut into 2cm cubes
  • 220g quark
  • 1 garlic clove, minced (and really, you could do worse than use one of these, our favourite gadget)
  • 1 tsp dried dill and 1 tsp of parsley
  • 1/2 tsp dried basil and same again of thyme
  • 50ml milk taken from your milk allowance

If you don’t have the herbs, just make do with what you’ve got or leave them out – not a dealbreaker!

to make kale and sweet potato cheesy mash you should:

  • bring a large pan of water to the boil
  • add the potatoes and boil for about 10-15 minutes until soft to the touch, then drain
  • in the now empty pan, add the milk, quark, herbs, garlic and kale and stir over a medium heat until the kale has wilted and reduced
  • add the potatoes back to the pan and mash like buggery

ENJOY OUR STICKY SAUSAGES! We’re back!

J and P

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December 3, 2015

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fakeaways, italian, low syn, lunch, one-pot, quark, recipe card, sausages, speciality ingredients

one-pot sausage gnocchi bake

Recipe for sausage gnocchi bake below. You’re going to love it.

OK, so only a quick one tonight – and I’m not entirely sure we haven’t already posted this. But look, it doesn’t matter. It was wonderful, and frankly you can forgive me any old shite when I’ve covered it in melted cheese. Half of  our dishes come out of the oven looking like a burnt knee, but through the wonders of careful photography and judicious cropping, you just never know. Perhaps if I presented it on one of those fancy Slimming World plates you can buy, where someone has scribbled all over a nice white plate with some felt-tips to show ‘what you should eat’ – a concept immediately defeated when you then proceed to cover the plate with your dinner, I presume. I don’t understand the concept of drawing out ‘what I should eat’ on my plate. It’s the foodie equivalent to scratching the TV guide into the glass of your television screen.

Actually, I saw one of these plates advertised on a facebook group the other day and asked what she meant by ‘for show only’, given I was envisioning someone having it on their mantlepiece like a decorative clock or one of those god-awful ‘jumping dolphins rendered in plaster of paris’ statues that everyone had in the nineties. She advised me that it meant it couldn’t be washed or indeed, eaten off. To me, that breaks the two fundamental rules of a plate. It’s definitely not something you’d keep for best. 

Before anyone starts, I’m not knocking the lass for being entrepreneurial and flogging a few plates – all the very best and good luck to her! Nothing but chipperness for those who make their own way in the world.

But honestly, Paul, if you’re reading this, I’m telling you now: if I get a decorated plate, bloody chalk-heart board or a food diary with a cupcake and twattish inspirational message on the front for Christmas, I’m going to bite your cock off and set it on fire.

Speaking of nonsense items that I’d sooner throw into the sun than have in my house, we seem to be locked in a battle of wills with our local Kleeneze distributor. Every few weeks he pushes a tatalogue of nonsense through our door with the passive aggressive note that he’ll be back within a few days to pick it up. We immediately put it somewhere out of sight so we don’t succumb to temptation and end up buying all manner of plastic shite for the kitchen or a portable urinal. A portable urinal for men. Haway. The WORLD is a portable urinal when you’re a guy. Fair enough a shewee allows a lady to have a dainty tinkle instead of grunting around a ditch squatting like a shitting rhino, but a male version? I once, in my more athletic and skinny days, pissed out of a moving car because we were late for a ferry. Don’t worry, we weren’t boarding the ferry at the time. And I wasn’t driving. Dangerous when I think about it – an errant branch whipping into my knob at seventy miles an hour could have really changed how my life turned out. 

Anyway, he always ends up knocking on the door and asking for his tatalogue back, and thus begins a hunt for the offending item and a request that he doesn’t deliver to us anymore. But he never listens. Each time we spend a bit longer looking for it, but he still doesn’t get the message. I’m not enough of a bastard to rip the catalogue up (plus our shredder is on the blink – I wonder if Kleeneze sell those awful scissors with four blades that ‘replace a shredder…maybe I should look…just once) – after all, it’s someone’s business, but I’m telling you now, if it continues, I’ll be putting a VERY passive aggressive terse note on their facebook page. It’s the very British thing to do. He needs to be careful – remember we’re always naked in this house (seriously, it’s like the video for Sweet Harmony by The Beloved viewed through a heat shimmer), next time he does it I’m going to put the offending tatalogue in my bumcrack and poke it around the door.

 

Ah well. Listen, here’s tonight’s recipe, before I get carried away. This makes enough for four if you’re serving it with a side, or two geet big fatties like us.

sausage gnocchi bake

to make sausage gnocchi bake you’ll need:

  • 6 sausages, casings removed (you can use the Slimming World sausages if you MUST, but why not save them for what they’re really for – sucking every last bit of moisture from the air and summoning evil? Bloody awful things. GO TO MUSCLEFOOD INSTEAD MAN)
  • 400g gnocchi (6 syns, so between four, 1.5 syns)
  • 1 garlic clove, minced
  • tin of chopped tomatoes
  • 1 tsp mixed herbs
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp pepper
  • 75g Quark
  • 140g light mozarella ball (HexA x 2)

to make sausage gnocchi bake you will need:

  • heat a large non-stick frying pan over a medium-high heat, using a bit of oil or your Frylight
  • add the gnocchi and fry gently until the sides are golden – keep them moving though, they can catch easily. This will take about eight minutes or so, then remove from the pan and set aside 
  • in the same pan, add the garlic and the sausage meat and cook until browned – remember to keep breaking it up (a masher works well for this) and then remove from the pan and set aside – I like to put it in the same bowl/plate as the gnocchi to keep it warm
  • in the same pan again add the diced tomatoes, mixed herbs, salt and pepper and cook for about seven minutes, stirring occasionally until it’s thickened down
  • reduce the heat and add the quark to the pan, as well as the gnocchi and sausage meat and stir well to mix
  • scatter the mozzarella over the top and keep on the heat until it has melted – you can also put it under the grill for a little bit if your pan can handle it to get it nicely browned and bubbling
  • serve

DONE. If you’re a fan of gnocchi and you’re as surprised as we were that you can have it on Slimming World, why not give our amazing ham, cheese and pea gnocchi dish a go? OH YES.

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October 10, 2015

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airfryer, lunch, recipe card, salad, sausages, syn free, taster ideas

sausage and potato salad – oh my

Very quick post tonight – no fussing about. I’ve spent almost two hours picking tomatoes from the greenhouse and all I want to do is recline on the sofa with the Doctor and an IV drip of vodka. This recipe isn’t our own – it belongs to Nigel Slater, but we’ve bastardised it a bit for Slimming World. It contains big portions of both sauerkraut and mushrooms – but don’t let that put you off. Sauerkraut might hold the unique title of smelling better coming out of your body than it does going in, but nevertheless, persevere – the mix of flavours here makes for a lovely Autumnal dish.

sausage and potato salad

to make sausage and potato salad, you’ll need:

  • 200g sausages (we used the sausages from our Musclefood deal, but you can use any as long as you’re sure they are syn free)
  • 350g potatoes
  • 1 brown onion, finely chopped
  • 200g mushrooms, sliced
  • 200g sauerkraut
  • 2 tbsp chopped dill
  • 2 tbsp fat-free fromage frais

to make sausage and potato salad then, you should:

 

  • cut the potatoes into large chunks and place in a large saucepan of boiling water – boil until just tender, drain, and slice thickly
  • cook the sausages according to the instructions – (ours always come out beautifully in an Actifry)
  • when the sausages are cooked, slice and set aside
  • meanwhile, add a little Frylight to a large saucepan, place over a medium heat and cook the onions for about five minutes
  • add the mushrooms and cook until they start to turn a little golden, adding a little more Frylight if necessary
  • add the sausages to the pan with the sliced potato – crush the potatoes with the back of the spoon a little bit as you add them to the pan
  • add the sauerkraut to the pan and mix well
  • remove from the heat and serve
  • add a tbsp of fromage frais to each plate and sprinkle on the dill
  • enjoy!
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September 2, 2015

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airfryer, british, budget, chip shop, fakeaways, low syn, poultry, recipe card, sausages

sausagefest: musclefood sausages v slimming world sausages

Now look here. I wasn’t going to do a post tonight because my eyes hurt and I’m too busy putting together a lamp (so manly) but the word sausagefest came into my mind and I just had to use it. So, with that in mind, I’m going to dash off a very quick review of Slimming World sausages and Musclefood’s chicken sausages. We’re working with Musclefood to sort out a deal for you lot and I’ll post that nearer the time.

Before that, because you know I can’t go a day without some toe-curling moment of embarrassment, well, as I’ve documented a couple of times before, we spend a lot of time hiding away all the sex paraphrenalia in our house whenever a tradesperson comes to visit. I fear there is something off-putting about trying to do some plastering whilst a big black plastic willy winks away at you in the corner like a worm having a stroke. Well see the downside of doing this is that you invariably forget where you’ve put stuff and then it appears at a dramatic moment. Like today, with our alarm man (who was lovely and very charming) who opened our rarely-opened alarm cupboard, took the latch off the alarm case (which doesn’t work, so we just use it to hide stuff) only to be confronted by a black prostate tickler that we had squirreled away many moons ago.

Now he had the good grace not to say anything but given I have a slight ping-ding about the fact he might be travelling on the same bus as Paul and I, he totally knew what it was. What could I do? I couldn’t reach across him, grab it and pretend it was a novelty cigarette lighter, because knowing my luck he’d have been a smoker, asked for a light and I’d have to spend five minutes flicking the ‘hook’ end and lightly buzzing the end of his Silk Cut Ultra. 

So that’s that. Anyway, back to sausages. We’re massive fans of sausages (and I’m not even using sausage as a euphemism for a cock there, because if I WAS trying to come up with a euphemism for a penis, I’d of course use Spurt Reynolds) but they are tricky little things. Most of the low-fat sausages have as much taste as a roll of loft insulation, and anything with a bit of moisture is normally so bad for you that Margaret’s blue WKD bottle would shatter in her clenched fist if she so much as heard them sizzle in your pan. So we’ll cover two: Slimming World sausages and Musclefood’s chicken sausages.

Quorn sausages are a bust as they look and taste like something that’s been shat out of a poorly cat, so I’m not even going to mention them. I’d get more taste and enjoyment from sucking my thumb and hell, I know where my thumb has been. No wonder my nails are always filthy. 

We cook our sausages in an Actifry. If you’re on the fence about one of these, bloody get one. You’ll never look back, seriously. Above everything else, it’s the thing we love most in the kitchen. 

You can buy an Actifry from Amazon right here. They’ve lopped £70 off the bigger Actifry too. It’s in grey, but well, you don’t look at the cooker when you’re heating your sausage.

Slimming World sausages

Firstly, apologies for the lack of picture, but I rather thought that six sausages on a plate wouldn’t exactly set the blogosphere alight. I was right. These sausages are £3 from Iceland so they immediately lose a point for the fact you have to fight your way through masses of prawn rings, candied kangaroo mist and Peter fucking Andre. I remember when Iceland launched their Slimming World range and there were groups of people cracking the pavement camping outside the shop, like the answer to all of their prayers in life lay in some watery tomato sauce. Anyway, by the by. These are syn free so perfect for the diet.

They cook well enough – we chuck ours into the Actifry on top of chips and let the mouse’s tear sized bit of fat in them coat the chips. We tried grilling them but they came out looking like a dead dog’s dick, all wrinkly and misshapen. Not good. 

However, they’re tasty enough, with a bit of herb coming through after around forty minutes of chewing. They’re very tough, almost like they’ve been encased in the rubber ring from the bottom of a condom rather than a normal sausage casing, but they do taste good. Yes, they’re not quite sausage like, but they’ll certainly do well for a quick meal and chopped into a pasta salad, they’d hit the spot. They’re also very, very dry (how dry you say? Drier than a popcorn fart), but again, like any good sausage, once you coat them in a bit of sauce you’ll find they’ll fill your hole much easier.

Musclefood chicken sausages

IMG_1946

DISCLAIMER: we received these for free to try from Musclefood, but that’s not going to twist our review. Nope. 

A chicken sausage, you say? Paul balked at the very idea, until I reminded him he used to exist on Smart Price sausages in tomato sauce, and if they’re not made out of homeless people, disappointment and the ash leftover from the Foot and Mouth crisis I’ll eat my fucking hat. It’d certainly taste better. Somewhat relunctanctly, he agreed, and we tried them last night, again putting them into the Actifry on top of the chips so everything cooked together, removing the need for me to bend down in the kitchen to load the dishwasher, which is always a good thing because I invariably end up smacking myself in my face with my own titty. MUST LOSE WEIGHT.

Facts, then. Musclefood’s chicken sausages come in at half a syn each, which is nowt in the grand scheme of things but more than Slimming World’s. They’re also a bit pricier, coming in at £4 for a pack of six. However, it’s only chicken breasts and the various odds and sods you find in sausages, as opposed to the mysterious ‘pork’ you find on SW’s variety. 

These look much better when cooked – you could almost believe they were ‘proper’ sausages, although the sausages we tend to buy when we’re being naughty normally have an oil derrick poking out the top they’re that greasy. Plus neither sausage sizzles, which is sad – you can’t beat the sound of a sizzling sausage.

How do they taste? Good! Again though, so bloody firm – I’ve never had to soak a sausage overnight before I ate it (well, I have, sort of)…no they’re not that bad, but I reckon it must be a theme with ‘healthy’ sausages that they must bounce. The chicken meat comes through and they’re a lot more filling than other sausages – they certainly fared better on their own than other sausages. They’re also a decent size – I mean, you wouldn’t be dashing to the bedroom to put it to a better use, but they’re certainly big enough to satisfy us. 

They’d be good in our breakfast wrap found here or in a sausage casserole. I reckon they’re the better out of the two – they certainly sit better on the belly, and they look appetising. If the cost puts you off, fair enough, but don’t let the syn value be the decider – it’s worth spending your syns on decent food. Remember to live, people.

You can buy Musclefood’s chicken sausages right here. You all know how I feel about Musclefood – they do brilliant meat at excellent prices with decent delivery. Can’t get vexed at that. But you can also buy syn free sausages at Iceland, as long as you’re prepared to come out looking like Electro from Spiderman firing electricity from your hands thanks to all the polyester swishing about.

Enjoy. One day I’ll get the hang of posting a ‘quick’ post!

J

 

 

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July 8, 2015

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

pimped macaroni cheese

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

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

 

day ten – Discovery Cove and swimming with dolphins

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Over and out.

pimped macaroni cheese

serves 4 (generously)

to make pimped macaroni cheese, you’ll need:

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

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

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

Serve! 

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

J