Here for the cutely named chicken piglets? Scroll down to the picture, the recipe is there. But wait, there’s more…
Can I just start by saying that I’m glad that I didn’t have a piss in my car the other day as I previously mentioned, as we now have a strapping young man giving both of our cars a deep clean.I’m just glad he turned up – his message to me was that he’d be here for dinner time. Now to me as a Geordie dinner means 12-2pm and tea is 6-8pm. However, I was fretting that he might be like Paul (i.e. a big Southern shandy-drinking nancy) and believe that dinner is an evening meal and he’ll rock up at 6pm after I’ve spent six hours looking mournfully out of the window like James Stewart in Rear Window. I do feel sorry for him – Paul’s been farting so much in his tiny little Smart car that when you open the door it hisses like the door on The Crystal Dome. I might go and check he’s not face-down on his industrial pressure washer after I’ve typed this.
Nah, he’s fine. My angst at having people I don’t know touching my things or being in my house has been well-documented, but I’m just about managing to cope without blurting at him whether he’d like a tup of key or a handjob instead of hand-gel. I did notice that my car seat has an unfortunate white stain right where my crotch is and I don’t feel I know him well enough for him to believe me when I tell him it was a dollop of McFlurry and not jism. One look at me and you’d know I’d never miss a mouthful of McFlurry. Then again, one look at me and you’d know I’d never miss a mouthful of…and we’ll stop right there, thank you.
Anyway, today is to be spent out in the garden, walking around, occasionally picking up a spade, putting it down again and ringing the gardener. This probably sounds like the height of laziness but listen, I feel like life is too short to be clarting about hoeing and weeding and strimming. We’ve got all the tools – we inherited a fantastic shed full of manly things (which we naturally turned into a cat-house and a place to store our many, many tins of beans) when we were given our house – but I can’t find the inclination. That said, I do like growing vegetables and this year’s theme is weird and wonderful – unusual colours and types of vegetables, including black tomatoes and rainbow carrots. Our neighbour (one of the decent ones) came over this morning to give me five tomato plants so I’m sure that’ll keep me busy. See, if I buy them myself and forget about them, I’ve let no-one down, but because he’s given the plants to me I feel duty-bound to be out at all hours watering and tending to their every whim. It is worth it, everything tastes nicer when you grow and nurture it yourself (except, say, vaginal thrush), but I find it all very stressful making sure everything is watered and happy. I only need to spend fifteen minutes extra in bed on a Saturday for everything to turn yellow and die off in a huff.
We did go and get weighed on Thursday and although we both put on (2lb each!) that’s more than fair enough – we’ve had my birthday, Easter, two meals out, drinks and the Bank Holiday to contend with. I admit that we’re struggling to fit Slimming World into our life at the moment – we’re eating healthily when we can but I can’t go out to a restaurant and be that guy who orders a salad with a pot of dressing on the side and eight hankies to wipe my tears away with, plus, let’s be honest, a night out isn’t the same unless you’re on the hard stuff and finishing off with something slopped from a takeaway van that practically walks on its own steam. I’ve got our end of year party at work next week followed by a Fizzy Friday after that, Paul’s going down to Peterborough to see friends and to wash the sheen of nicotine off his mother and then we’ve got a holiday booked for the last week in April! How am I supposed to diet around that lot? I bought Slimming World’s magazine for tips and inspiration but it made all my teeth rot away with the sugariness of it all. Actually, I suppose that does help. I did enjoy how one of the few pages dedicated to men was about looking after your prostate. Very important indeed, but the guide made it sound like it was a Tamagotchi from the nineties and well, just like the plants, I killed all of my Tamagotchis through sheer idleness. You’ve never known terror until someone has told you to look after their tamagotchi whilst they’re away and you check and find two piles of poo and a skull icon. Oops!
So, aside from that, just a lazy weekend ahead. That’s the joy of having no children or commitments see, it’s perfectly acceptable to stay in your dressing gown watching Netflix, only moving to put some coffee on or to open a window. I often ask what people are doing at the weekend and it’s invariably full of a list of wholesome children activities that make my eyes glaze over – taking them swimming, taking them to parties, taking them to soft-play, driving them to a friend’s house. That’s why I couldn’t have children, far too much of a constraint on my time. If only they came with batteries that you could remove and bundle them into a cupboard so you could do all of the exciting things like take them to Disneyworld or have an amazing Christmas without dealing with all the poos and strops and tantrums, I’d have several, possibly in a range of different shapes and sizes. But until that day, it’s just me, Paul and the cats, and even they are playing up lately, with the cat who likes being spanked getting way out of hand. I half expect to see her pressing her nipsy up against a hot radiator and meowing ‘OOOH I’M A FILTHY SLAG’ in cat-speak. She won’t stop mewing and showing off her minnie-moo, she even did it when the car-wash man came to the door earlier. She’s lucky he didn’t use her to hold his chamois.
This makes enough for four – one each!
to make chicken piglets, you’ll need:
4 chicken breasts
120g of lighter mature cheddar (this amounts of 3 x HEA choices, or 1 per breast, so the fourth person doesn’t even need to use their HEA, oh good!)
6 tbsp of chopped jalapenos
1 clove garlic, minced
4 tbsp quark
12 rashers of back bacon (12 syns) (see note below)
herb/rub combination of your choice – we just use some dried chilli as we like the heat
Can we quickly chat about chicken breasts? Because we forgot to get our Musclefood chicken out of the freezer, we went and bought four breasts from Aldi. They looked decent but when cooked, shrivelled right down. This is why I’m not a fan of supermarket chicken, it’s neither here nor there in the taste department and full of water. We do get commission from Musclefood but even if we didn’t, I’d genuinely recommend it. The breasts are big, firm and bouncy, just like my own, and they cook well and taste decent. You get 5kg of chicken breasts in our £50 delivered Musclefood deal and there’s mince, bacon and beef in there too – it’s really a very good deal! Click here for that. Oh, and we’re running a competition to win one of our £50 hampers –click here and enter!
You can use bacon medallions for this and make it syn-free, but here’s the thing – 1 rasher of back bacon is normally about a syn according to Slimming World’s online syn checker. For this recipe, I’d suggest using the back bacon because it’s easier to wrap it around the chicken and the fat keeps everything moist. Urgh, moist, I know. Once everything is cooked you don’t actually need to eat the rind (although I’d call you a fool, as it’s the best bit) so the syns drop again. Up to you though, that’s the beauty of this diet! You can also leave out the jalapenos if you don’t like the eat – replace it with a few chopped sundried tomatoes for example, but make sure you count the syns. Finally, you could use ham – wafer thin or parma, but again, check the syns. You don’t want your consultant cussing you out unnecessarily.
to make chicken piglets, you should:
preheat the oven to 190 degrees
cut the chicken breasts through the middle, opening them up like a book (don’t cut all the way through)
in a bowl mix together the jalapenos, garlic and quark and spread into the middle of the chicken breasts
top with slices of cheese
close together carefully and wrap three rashers of bacon around each breasts to secure them, overlapping slightly – gently rub your herbs on the top if you want to use them
place on a baking sheet and bake in the oven for 35-40 minutes
Easy as that! We served ours with Actifried chips and, genuinely, a big green salad full of speed foods. Easy!
Before I sign off I’m going to point something out though. I’m going to hide it in white text so you’ll need to highlight it to see – I don’t want to put anyone off! So…
Yes, the chicken piglet looks nice, but don’t you think that those two bacon rashers in the picture really look like a very pink shaved scrotum? Is it just me? Mahaha, well, I’ve had worse things in my gob.
Our third recipe using up the leftover scraps of chicken to make a chicken, ham and leek pie – this time, scrape every last bit of meat you can from the bones. It’s all a bit Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but really, don’t waste any. If you’re running short, just up the amount of ham and leek and no-one will notice. Keep the carcass mind! We’re going to boil it up tomorrow. Quick post tonight.
OH! We have a competition! Win yourself a free Musclefood freezer filler courtesy of your favourite blog, right here
Speaking of pie, I was going to post a lovely recipe for apple and persimmon tart, but see Rob came home and I burnt the custard and er, stabbed him in the back. Well obviously not, but does anyone else listen to The Archers? I don’t, as a rule, but I catch the odd episode as I drive home maybe once a fortnight, and feel like I keep up-to-date with the storylines just fine. Goodness, I nearly drove into a ditch as I listened to the last episode. I haven’t been this moved by the radio since poor Heather-Pet died.
Mind, anyone who thinks The Archers is indicative of country living is completely wrong – well, they got one syllable of that right – there’s nowhere near enough of pointing slackjawed at aeroplanes, showing into holes in the ground and bumming behind hay-bales, for one. Anyway, hush, let’s rush to the recipe!
to make four lots of chicken, ham and leek pie you’ll need:
every last scrap of leftover chicken or turkey, or, two chicken breasts cut into small chunks – perhaps use two breasts from the many, many breasts you get as part of our freezer filler box from Musclefood (£80 of meat for £50, all pure meats, no fanciness)
440g of Philadelphia lightest (440g being 4 x HEA, and as this makes enough for four pies, it’s one each – otherwise, syn 440g of Philadelphia as 5.5 syns per pie)
500g of cottage cheese or Quark – if it’s cottage cheese, you’ll need to make sure you get a syn-free version like Tesco’s Healthy Living
100g of Jus-Rol light puff pastry, divided into four – that’s 4 syns each (4.25 syns really but come on)
an egg
a bit of milk to loosen it might be needed
TOP TIP: you can make this syn free if you make a bubble and squeak rosti from leftover Sunday veg and use that as a lid instead – you can find the recipe for that right here
to make four lots of chicken, ham and leek pie you should:
slice up the shallots, leeks, water thin ham, mince the garlic and add in the chicken and sweat it all down in a pan
slowly stir in the Philadelphia with plenty of black pepper
slowly stir in the Quark or, if you’re using cottage cheese, blend that first and then pour it in
let everything simmer very gentle for maybe half an hour, if it is too thic, loosen it off with a splash of milk
when you’re ready to cook, pour the mixture into four seperate pie dishes or one big Pyrex dish
stretch out your pastry to cover the top – if you’re struggling, why not just cut out a shape like a star using a cookie cutter (like our post right here) and put that on instead?
brush with egg and use any leftover pastry to write an obscene word on the top
bake in the oven until the pie is golden and serve with veg
easy!
Enjoy! Remember if you’re being a tight-arse with syns you should replace the pastry with the rosti lid – just as nice and a bit more speed too. Oh if you need them, the individual pie dishes can be found here.
If you’re purely here for the recipe for sweet potato, chive and chicken risnotto, scroll to the bottom. It’s below the pictures. We’ve got a load of nonsense to get through first!
Firstly, I almost died today. Perhaps a slight exaggeration but I was busy eating my 28g³ of bran-flakes as per Mags’ orders and watching a particularly loud Jeremy Kyle when an errant bran flake shot down my wind-pipe and got stuck there. I immediately started spluttering and choking but Paul just looked at me with a ‘Oh I know, and look at their yellow teeth’ face, no help at all. It took almost thirty seconds of trying to dislodge this bran flake before it finally shot out and landed with a splat in his bowl of cereal – that’ll teach the unobservant fucker. My whole life flashed before my eyes – far more sitting in front of a computer trying to come up with fresh gags about fellatio for my liking – and let’s be honest, thirty seconds is a long time for a fat bloke to hold his breath, let alone one who smoked twenty a day for three years. Hell, it’s hard enough for me to not eat for thirty seconds, nevermind breathe. Plus, imagine having bran as your cause of death? You quite literally could not have a more boring reason for expiration, unless you were mumbled to death by someone with dried egg on his shirt.
Speaking of boring farts with dried egg on their shirts, we got a rather arsey message from someone “in charge” of a geocache that we visited last weekend, stating that because he couldn’t see that we had signed the log, he would delete our find. Well, you can imagine the devastation that caused in our household, can’t you? His message was so infuriatingly terse and snippy that it got my back up something rotten. Why would anyone lie about something so insignificant about finding a tiny container hidden in some nettles by the side of the A696? Goodness me. I explained that our pencil had broken and he went “away to consider the options”. I like to think he tossed and turned all night with his little GPS unit calling to him like The Tell-Tale Heart. I genuinely don’t think I’ll ever come across in my lifetime someone imbued with such a misguided amount of self-importance in relation to the tiny amount of power they’ve been granted. Honestly.
Anyway, it’s been a while since we revisited New York, hasn’t it? Why don’t we take a trip and chortle our way through another day of our holiday in The Big Apple. I hope I don’t get an email from you lot asking for proof that I actually visited New York, but if I do, I can show you a blurry photo of Paul’s arse-cheeks as he took a piss in Central Park. The glamour! Here’s a link for part oneand part two. Enjoy!
twochubbycubs go to New York, part three
I can tell you one thing right from the off about New York – there’s hardly any fat people. It’s the most confusing thing. It’s genuinely the only time in my life I’ve ever felt skinny. Paul and I remained the fattest of them all. Eh, who cares right? As long as our ankles don’t give out from under us, we’re good to go.
We started with breakfast, naturally, which I’m sure involved half a pig and some Smuckers, which I still think sounds like something your bumhole does when you’re got the skitters: “oooh, Elsie, put an Andrex in the freezer, my hoop is smuckering” or something. Our first destination was Times Square and after getting lost several times and ending up in the same K-Mart – twice – we finally found our way there. I’m not sure what we were expecting – yes, lots of big screens and people bustling about…but it really is just a meeting of streets. Am I missing something?
We did spot an interactive screen by L’Oreal, which implored couples to stand on a spot and wait until one of the giant screens was filled with a live stream of them, then you were to pose kissing or cuddling and SHOW NEW YORK LOVE. Now, obviously, there was someone out of sight deciding which couple gets projected onto the massive screens, and when it was Paul and I standing there…well…they didn’t put on the big screen. Sob! Was it because we’re fat? Was it because we’re shirtlifters? Who knows. Paul was all for heading straight off and letting the beautiful people have their moment in the digital sun, but not me. Oh no. I stood there with Paul by my side for a good ten minutes until we were eventually projected to all of New York – we kissed, but sadly the photo was taken at such an angle that it looks like I’m gnawing on Paul’s head and he’s trying not to Smucker in his trousers. Nevermind, we still got our moment. We went back later and stole in front of a crowd of bemused Chinese folk and got a slightly better picture…see?
Yes, I appreciate any British person passing was going to be thinking that French and Saunders had really let themselves go, but what can you do? Also, I seem to have morphed into Drew Carey. Paul’s been wearing that little Icelandic flag on his coat for a few months now and we got asked three times if we were secret service. Imagine us as secret service – we’re not exactly going to be chasing criminals down on foot. Best I could do is sass him to death in the interrogation room.
We spotted that a nearby museum was hosting an exhibition by Gunther von Hagens, the German anatomist who travels around with those stripped back skeletons and bodies that show the various muscles and whatnot. Hard to describe but hopefully you know what I mean. Fair warning, there’s a pretty grim picture coming up, so if you’re a sensitive Betty get scrolling! We’ve always wanted to see his ‘show’ but forever missed it, so this time we were at the front of the queue. Is it wrong to show such a fevered desire to see bodies and bones? It was like our arrival at the Icelandic Knob Museum all over again!
It was brilliant – all very scientific and tasteful and interesting, although let’s be honest everyone there was gagging to see how funny the knobs looked hanging down and stripped of skin – like weisswurst, since you ask. Around every corner was something of note – the tiny bones of a premature baby, the nervous system all laid out like a colossal piece of broccoli, four naked men sitting around playing cards with their bollocks hanging down like tiny church bells. As you’d expect, Paul and I tutted at the giggling school party who were shrieking into their sleeves and nudging each other at the sight of a lady’s vagina (well it wasn’t going to be a bloke’s vagina, after all) all laid bare like a broken oyster, then we proceeded to stifle our own giggles at the ‘sperm and egg’ portion of the show. I’m a man who loves his puns see, and it was all I could do to hold back from ‘…and THIS is what it’s come to’ or suchlike. Museum fatigue set in for me before Paul, meaning my eyes had glazed over to the point where, had I not moved for a minute more, I could have passed as part of the exhibition.
Well HELLO SAILOR. See, weisswurst!
Exhibition over, we decided we both needed to say goodbye to our breakfasts, which led to the next awkward toilet encounter. Remember in my last post I complained about the fact that American toilets have that weird gap under the door and a huge crack (especially when I’m in it) between the door and the wall of the cubicle next to it, meaning every hastily taken shit is a lesson in trying desperately not to meet someone’s eye as you crimp off a loaf? Well, no sooner had we both settled down (in adjacent cubicles, we’re not that close) and preparing to drop anchor when in walks a janitor who proceeds to start mopping the floor. Fair enough, in the UK someone would have knocked on the door, waited outside and given you a filthy look as you leave and they walk into your arse-cloud, but no, this cheeky chappie starts whistling merrily and going about his business. That wouldn’t have been so bad if he hadn’t then stuck his grimy mop under the friggin’ toilet door and sloshed it over our shoes. NOTHING makes the shutters close quicker than something like that happening, and Paul immediately whatsapped me to say ‘he couldn’t go’ and that ‘we should leave’. The janitor gave us a proper smirk as we left too. He totally knew what he was doing.
As soon as we left the Body Works museum I immediately got a nosebleed. Smashing! I have a really fragile nose and go through spells of heavy but entirely non-serious nosebleeds, and boom, here we were. Well goodness me, you’ve never seen so many tourists swerve out of someone’s way then that day, in the rain, when I came shuffling towards them with a face full of blood. N0-one offered to help, of course, so Paul dashed as fast as his swollen feet allowed him into Walgreens, where a security guard, after a LOT of persuasion, tore me off a piece of fucking parcel paper to wipe my face with. I’d have been more bloody comfortable wiping my face with a square of 1200 grit sandpaper. I muttered my thanks and sent Paul back in to try and find some tissues, only for him to disappear for ten minutes and reappear having been forced a packet of $8 aloe-fucking-vera face-wipes. Luckily, my inbuilt Geordie tight-arse came out and the outrage at having to pay so much to stop myself passing out distracted my brain from pouring my life out of my nose and we were soon sorted. I left a charming puddle of blood around the back of a donut shop, which I like to think will have confused the police for a few hours at least.
I can’t help but feel that had the janitor at the Body Works exhibition allowed me to have a dump, the pressure in my body would have settled and there would have been no nosebleed. I should have nipped back and dripped all over his urinals.
So, unexpected epistaxis aside, we made our way to M&M World, where we treated ourselves to a few bits of tat and quite possibly the most awkward photo we’ve ever had taken. I’m not posting it. A tiny lady in a massive red M&M costume came tottering out of a door to entertain the waiting children when we asked if we could have a photo. Well, I’ve never seen a costumed figure with a six foot wide smile manage to look so dejected and uncomfortable but by God, the photo doesn’t lie. It doesn’t help that Paul, in his effort to get his hands around her to make it look like he’s hugging the ‘giant M&M’, just looks like he’s trying to fingerbang her through the felt. We made a sharp exit, stopping only to buy a glass ‘Big Apple’ with chocolate M&Ms inside, which I am genuinely proud to tell you we still have and haven’t smashed open in a fit of hunger. It’s only the thought of swallowing glass that puts me off mind, rather than any sense of decency.
For reasons still unknown to both of us, we decided to visit Ripley’s Believe It Or Not (well, it was chucking it down and we didn’t want to walk far). The first believe it or not came when she charged us $65 for entry. I told her that, actually, I didn’t believe it (ho ho) but clearly she had suffered a long, miserable life of gags like that and fixed me with a stare that nearly set my nose away again. These places are what you make of them. Go in expecting a load of frippery and nonsense and you’ll thoroughly enjoy yourself. Where else can you put your head down amongst thousands of skittering cockroaches (aside from a Travelodge bed) or ‘enjoy’ medieval, ancient equipment designed to torture and maim (aside from a Travelodge bed)? We had a whale of a time until the bit at the end where you reach a ‘dizziness machine’ and have to walk along a platform whilst a curtain of paint-splattered material rotates wildly around you. Yikes. I get dizzy unscrewing the lid off a bottle of Coke. I closed my eyes, walked through, straight into Paul who was taking a picture and sent him tumbling. Calamity Anne strikes again.
Paul’s mother dropped in to say hello (Jackie, I jest, there isn’t a smouldering Richmond Blue in her fingers nor Bejewelled 3 barely loading on a Upple Y-Pad).
Once Paul’s concussion had wore off, we wandered down to Grand Central Station, where, like the boring old farts that we are, we elected to take an audio tour. Well, what a revelation! Aside from having to wear headphones last used to guide Apollo 13 back to Earth, that is. The tour took us all around the various nooks and crannies of the station and was absolutely worth doing. There’s nothing much funny that you can write about an audio tour of a train station so let me just strongly recommend it and move on. We bought a set of metal subway signs to go above all the bedroom doors in our hallway – well, the ‘Next customer please’ sign was getting a little faded and the bulb in the red light had gone. We stopped at Starbucks (which wasn’t hard, given how many Starbucks stores there were – I half-expected to be offered a venti mocha frappucino when I went for a piss in the night. I was restrained, I have a peach iced tea, but Paul went all out for a drink that looked like someone had emptied a sheep dip into a bucket and topped it with enough whipped cream and syrup to make Mags’ buttocks clench in horror. The barista *cough* managed to misspell Paul as Pawl but it’s OK, we were able to identify his drink due to them having to move chairs and tables out of the way to bring it through.
Now I wish I could tell you we spent the rest of the day flitting from each wonderful thing to the next, but we actually did something terrible – we found a bar that served all sorts of wonderful beers and spent the rest of the day and most of the evening in there getting absolutely sozzled. We only popped in for one. Flight 151 in Chelsea, if you’re curious. It was brilliant – I’m a large fan of this ‘beer flight’ idea where you get several small beers to try on a fancy ladder. I was such a fan that I had four flights and Paul had to stop me when I made to put Conchita Wurst on the jukebox.
We spotted that they served ‘British’ beers and ordered a Newcastle Brown Ale and a Guinness each. Both seemed fine but Paul immediately made sure that we couldn’t possibly go back to that bar by checking in on Facebook on their page and saying ‘Wonderful bar but can’t pour a Guinness’. Once I spotted what he’d done, I shooed us out of the door. He’s very skilled at making friends and influencing people.
Can we talk for a moment about tipping? I find it hilariously awkward and even more so in a bar. We were sitting at the bar and every round of drinks, I was leaving two or three dollars on the bar when they passed me the change. I did try to give him a tip directly but he waved it away – odd – so the dollars just sat in the beer foam crinkling up. He eventually swept them up with a flourish and a thank you but did I miss something? I tried telling him to keep a couple of dollars back from my change but that got ignored…ah it’s so stressful. I know why people tip in America (wages for waiting staff and bar-folk are abysmal) but as a Brit, don’t put me in such a socially awkward situation! Take as much money as you like, just don’t make me cringe with the awkwardness of what to bloody do with the tip!
We staggered back a fair distance to our hotel, stopping only to stumble through the doors of a closed post office in the vain hope of finding a lavatory (nope) and fell asleep in our clothes. When we woke the next day all was well, save for the fact that at some forgotten point in the evening we had bought this:
Go figure.
At least we didn’t buy this, though:
An anal lubricant called Boy Butter. Haway, who is going to say that during an impassioned moment? ‘Oooo ‘eck – I’m not sure the car is going to get into the garage, throw me the friggin’ Boy Butter’…gosh.
Anyway, let’s crack on with the recipe, shall we? It’s another one of our risnottos – a risotto that you can just leave alone to cook itself rather than having to clart about adding stock and stirring.
to make sweet potato, chive and chicken risnotto, you’ll need:
to make sweet potato, chive and chicken risnotto, you should:
cube your sweet potato into 1cm cubes (I mean, no need to bust out a ruler, just approximate size), squirt with some spray oil, bit of salt, bit of pepper and put in the oven on a low heat (around 160 degrees) for thirty minutes or so, until they soften and go a bit sticky
whilst they’re cooking, soften your onion and garlic on a medium heat until the garlic is golden
chuck in the chicken leftovers
throw in the rice, stir it once to get the juice of the onions and garlic on it, then add the stock
put the lid on your pan and leave alone on a medium heat for around 18 minutes – check every minute or so towards the end to make sure it hasn’t boiled dry
get the sweet potato cubes out of the oven and tip the into the rice – don’t worry if they stick a bit to the roasting tray, that’s good, just scrape them off and add to the mix – it’s nice to have extra textures
chop the chives and stir them through
serve with extra chives and some parmesan from your HEA.
Yes, we’ll get to the breaded chicken in a basil cream sauce in a second. Maybe more than a second. Listen you know the rules, scroll on down to the picture if you don’t want my flowery guff beforehand.
I seem to have acquired a new enemy. I say enemy, rather just someone who clearly doesn’t like me and would cheerfully see me plummet to my death from the car-park like a slightly less camp Julie Martin from Neighbours. See, every day I park in the same spot on the same floor in the multi-storey near where I work. Not because I have to, just force of habit. Anyway, the last couple of weeks someone has got there before me, so I’ve started parking in another bay which has slightly better angles and less change of your car being smacked by some inconsiderate mouth-breather in a Saxo. Easy, no problems. However, it would seem that I’ve taken the space that someone else always used to park in. Oops. They aren’t allocate, I hasten to add. The first time I spotted there was a problem was the other day when another car was driving right up my arse as I trundled up the floors in the multi-storey car park. My first thought was “goodness me, Keavy from B*witched seems to be in a frightful hurry” but all became clear when, as I pulled into “my” spot, she went absolutely apocalyptic in my rear-view mirror, effing and jeffing and waving her arms around like she was interpreting a Russian argument for the deaf. Naturally I did a wry chuckle to myself and parked up primly and professionally.
Since then, if I beat her to “her spot”, I’m treated to the sight of her slamming her door, stalking across the car-park muttering and swearing to herself, before furiously click-clacking her way down the stairs. I’d understand if there was a shortage of spaces but it’s literally me and her on this floor alone. I’m not driving a coach either, there’s plenty of space even if she wanted to park right next to me. Her anger doesn’t seem to be subsiding either. Probably didn’t help that the other morning I cracked my window open a fraction and played ‘Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life’ as she stormed past, a vision of pure rage. I might borrow Paul’s Smart car and park that in the bay instead, just so she can’t see it until the last minute. That’ll really piss on her chips. Mahaha. Listen, if I’m found in a pool of blood in the stairwell of the multi-storey in Newcastle with a Primark umbrella embedded in my skull, you’ll know who did it.
I do wonder who else is filled with rage whenever they see my moon face appear on the horizon. Certainly there’s a guy near where I work who must finish at the same time as I do. Whenever I see him, I can’t help but smirk. Let me explain. A couple of years ago I was walking to my car when I spotted a man with singularly the worst haircut I’ve ever seen. It was exceptionally styled and colourful and would have looked lovely on a runway model but it was on a bloke who looks just like me but if I’d fallen on hard times. Imagine me with a peacock at full plume on my head. It was such an absurd juxtaposition that I laughed and had to cover it with a cough. He didn’t see me, which is good because I’m not a total bastard and wouldn’t like to think I caused any distress. Anyway, since then, without fail, whenever I see him I have to suppress a laugh purely because of instinct, so every time he sees me he must wonder what I’m chuckling at and/or if I have really bad wind pains. I know, I’m a terrible person, but it’s become like blinking. Perhaps if he didn’t purse his lips at me that might help. I wonder if there’s a blog parallel to this one where he’s writing about the fat gopper in his oversized coat who comes mincing out with a face that looks permanently like I’m about to come.
Ah well, let’s get this recipe out of the way, eh?
to make breaded chicken in a basil cream sauce, you’ll need:
50g panko (9 syns) (panko is a Japanese breadcrumb, gives a delicious crispy crunch – you can find it in most big supermarkets, just look! If not, use a breadbun from your HEB)
1 egg
handful of fresh basil, chopped
1/2 tsp paprika
2 tsp oil (4 syns)
2 tbsp plain flour (4 syns)
125ml skimmed milk (take from your HEA of 350ml)
180ml chicken stock
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
Remember, this serves four, so although the above comes in at 17 syns, it’s 4 syns each. 4 and a quarter I suppose, but if you’re going to get in a strop about a quarter syn, then have a word with yourself and re-examine your life choices.
place half the grated potato in a sieve and rinse well – this takes out all the starch so the hash browns go crispy
place in a bowl and rinse the other half of the mixture
to make sure you’ve done it right – rinse it all again!
lay out a clean tea towel and plop the grated potato onto it
lay another tea towel on top and squeeze down to remove as much water as you can and put the potato into a large bowl – I like to imagine that if my car-park woman was doing this, she’d see my face bulging in her mind’s eye
mix together the salt, pepper, chilli and garlic powder and parmesan and stir into the potato
line a baking sheet with some greaseproof paper and tip out the potato – spreading it out as evenly as possible and give a good pump of spray oil
place the baking sheet in the lowest rack in the oven and let them bake for about 20 minutes. After twenty minutes, move them to the top of the oven and cook for another 15 minutes – this helps crisp them up
serve
Easy. It sounds complicated but honestly, aside from the time spent wringing out the tatties, this is easy to make and well worth it. Don’t be put off by the 4 syns, that’s nothing and well, it’s worth it for a decent meal, surely?
You’re here for the popcorn chicken – of course you are. Quite right too, because it’s bloody delicious and has the benefit of not using bloody Smash. But before we get to that, there’s the little problem of getting a New York entry in. As you know, my holiday trip reports are always fairly long, so you might wear out the scroller on your mouse if you’re desperate for the popcorn chicken. Ah well. Send the bill to the good folk at Cry Me A River Inc. and crack on. You’ll find part one of our trip and, if you buy our book, all of our previous holiday reports are there in one place, including Corsica, Ireland and Germany, where I exposed my arse to a whole platform of waiting train passengers. Yes! You can buy that here. By the way – if you’ve already bought the book and enjoyed it, please leave us a review on Amazon – you have no idea how happy that makes me. Not as happy as you buying several copies and giving them out electronically to friends but you know, let’s make do. Let’s head back to New York, then…
twochubbycubs go to New York, part two
After landing at JFK and undergoing the most intimidating entry interview I’ve ever faced (normally I’m not asked many questions prior to anyone admitting me entry, rather just a plea to be gentle and to call them after) (pfft!) (or rather whoooooooo….) (work that out) (jeez, this is a lot of bracketed thoughts), we were on our way. We decided that, rather than paying a billion dollars for a taxi to our hotel, we’d be savvy and streetwise and take the subway, not least because the subway is famous and exciting. I say exciting, there was a TV playing in the station whose main headline was ‘SEVENTH SLEEPING SOUL SLASHED IN SUBWAY’. Now, I’m all for alliteration and sharp headlines, but knife attacks aren’t usually an enticement to travel. Nevertheless, we ploughed on, trying to figure out what ticket we needed to buy for the week to get us from JFK and then afford us travel throughout the network all week. God knows what we bought – I was hustled into buying something in a newsagent by a strident sounding lady who was more weave than woman. The tickets worked in the barrier (after much ‘PUT IT THAT WAY, YOU’VE GOT IT THE WRONG WAY, NO YOU NEED IT PARALLEL TO THE Y-AXIS, YOU STUPID ASSHOLE!) and we were on our way. Hooray! At the risk of sounding like a hipster twat, I like to take the subway rather than taxis because I feel it adds to the experience.
Sadly, I was stabbed in the lung and spent the rest of the holiday in an American hospital being shook from my ankles until the coins fell out of my pocket.
I jest. After a couple of transfers and a brief interlude to watch a genuinely crazy man shouting and bawling into a litter-bin, we arrived at 34th Street – Penn Station. I don’t know what had caused the shouting man such ire but by God that bin had infuriated him. I find it remarkable that Paul and I can find our way around any foreign subway system given all we have to practice on up here is the Tyne and Wear Metro, which consists entirely of two lines and spends more time being apologised for than actually going anywhere. I used it briefly for about two months but eventually made it to my destination. Anyway, I digress. We climbed a set of stairs, exited the station and goodness me, what a shock. Everything is so tall. That may seem ridiculous to you, I don’t know, but I hadn’t realised almost every building in the streets would be so many storeys – it creates the illusion of feeling a bit bunkered down – but not claustrophobic. I was expecting the streets to be busy, and they were, but I never felt as though I was in the way – which when you consider that combined Paul and I take up as much room as a modern housing development, is quite something.
Our hotel, the Wyndham New Yorker, was over the road, and we hastened across, taking care to observe the flashing white man (who wouldn’t?) to permitted us to cross. Given my experience with the officers upon entry I didn’t fancy getting banged up for jaywalking, though it didn’t stop anyone else. The crossing was absolutely filled with cars coming from all directions, pedestrians, suitcases, people asking for money and a horse. Not people asking for a horse, rather, just a horse. Naturally. We had picked the New Yorker on a whim – it looked pleasant enough and the location was perfect, but that was the limit of our research. Well, it was delightful. It’s an art-deco hotel, opened in 1930 and not modernised too much – the lifts are grand, the lobby massive, the staff all well-to-do and pleasant and the plumbing clearly hasn’t been touched since the first brick was put down. I’ll touch on that in a moment. We checked in and were directed to our room on the 27th floor. I was sure that meant a penthouse or a decent suite but that was soon dispelled when we got into the lift and realised there were 43 floors. Boooo! We had sent ahead and mentioned it was our anniversary and I’d gone so far to book the room as Professor J Surname rather than plain old Mr, but nope. Ah well. Our room was perfunctory – pleasant, but nothing you’d write home about. You’d have a hard job given there was no writing desk or pens. The TV was small and the bed was so lumpy that I had to check we weren’t lying on top of the previous guests, but it was clean and warm and had an excellent view. We bravely set about emptying our suitcases into the tiny wardrobe (with four coat-hangers – we had to call down for more, I felt so stereotypical) and then immediately shoving everything we could possibly lift into the suitcase. It’s just the done thing to do.
They did do this to the bed though. D’aww. Don’t worry, the romance didn’t last – the sheets looked like a Jackson Pollock within 10 minutes.
I wish I could tell you that we spent the evening out in the glitz and glamour of New York, but, somewhat jet-lagged, we opted to stay in the room watching Wheel of Fortune and eating Jolly Ranchers. We both feel asleep almost immediately and didn’t wake again until 6am the next morning, where I was alarmed to find a half-sucked blue raspberry Jolly Rancher had tumbled out of my sleep-open mouth and into my hair. I’m a classy guy.
So, at 6am in the city that never sleeps, where do you go? I’m ashamed to say we spent a lot of our holiday time doing the really obvious sites, but listen, you can’t go to New York and not take in the obvious. To that end, this whole trip report will be a series of ticks off the list. We started the day right by nipping into the Tick Tock Diner right next to the hotel for a breakfast – I showed British restraint, having only three eggs, corned beef hash, sausages, bacon (it’s not bloody bacon, it looks like grilled hangnails, but nevermind) and toast on the side. My eggs came covered in cheese which should tell you everything you need to know about breakfasting in New York. It was AMAZING. Paul had pancakes – great big lumps of dough and syrup which he seemed remarkably content with. His eyes glazed over, but I reckon that could have been the maple syrup pushing through from the back like shampoo on a sponge. We finished our meal, paid the bill with a slight grimace (I had forgotten it was obligatory to tip over in America – I nearly always do anyway, even in England, but I do so hate how I’m forced to tip) and we were on our way.
First stop – the Statue of Liberty, which immediately set Paul off going ‘I THINKA CAN SEE THE STACHOO OF LIBERTAAY AL-A-READY‘ like that tiny Italian man from Titanic. There were a lot of Titanic quotes on this day. A good friend of mine had recommended I book everything well in advance, so we had tickets booked for Statue Cruises which set off from Battery Park. Once on the island we had a choice of going up to her crown, just into the general minge level or walking around the outside. We had opted for the minge option (I think they call it Pedestal Level) and were very much looking forward to it, so much so that we arrived an hour early. Oops. I entertained myself by going for a poo in the park toilets, which is always a terrifying experience in America as they like to leave a giant gap down the side of the doors plus make the door itself the size of a postage stamp. This is just awful – you end up desperately trying not to make any eye-contact with passing folks as you’re busy pushing brown. I get that it’s to stop cottaging and drug-taking but come on, people like a bit of privacy whilst they poop. Just look!
Actually, that doesn’t quite convey the creepiness. One sec.
Brrr. After a poo each and a good cup of coffee, we noticed our boat was coming in and so made our way through the security check, removing our belt for what would be the first of many, many times throughout this holiday, and dealing with customer service people who hated their jobs and everyone involved in it. I wear this necklace:
and the charming woman on security held it up for everyone to look at and asked me ‘it’s meaning’. I almost said OOHO IT’S A BIT OF VIV WESTWOOD LOVE’ but didn’t. I wear it because I like it, and it’s quite literally the only piece of designer anything I own. I’m too fat for designer clothes and too poor for designer furniture, so I can only have nice jewellery and shoes. And I buy my shoes from the same place I buy my toilet roll, so, you know. I wasn’t expecting to have to justify it to someone who had clearly only just remembered to have a shave that morning. She waved us through. Paul never gets any bother with security and he’s got half a bloody Meccano set keeping his arm together since he gashed it open on a discarded shopping trolley half-submerged in a ditch in Peterborough, or as they like to call it, a ‘child’s play area’. Our boat docked and about ten thousand people appeared from nowhere to disembark, pitching the boat at a perilous angle where I genuinely thought it was going over. Of course it wasn’t, but what’s life without melodrama. We boarded and were on our way in no time at all.
The cruise, such as it is, takes fifteen minutes, which afforded Paul enough time to discover a snack shop and buy us a cup of coffee that had seemingly come fresh from the sun. My lips blistered just taking the lid off the cup. Let me save you some money – if you’re going to New York, unless you’re massively fussed about seeing the statue up close and finding out more about it in the museum, you don’t need to visit the old bird. Take the Staten Island ferry and see it from the water – it’ll cost you next to nothing and you won’t have to push children overboard indulge in a scrum to get on and off the boat. We love a good nosey around a museum though so we were champion, cooing and oohing our way around various cases and replicas of her giant toes. She certainly didn’t have a problem with an ingrown toenail – oh how I envied her. If you’re squeamish, skip the next paragraph. In fact, I’m going to hide the next paragraph so it’s only visible if you highlight it!
I remember once holidaying in France with an ingrown toenail so bad that my toe actually exploded in my trainer on a hot day, showering my sock with pus and a dead nail. The relief I felt though – no sex has ever come close to that feeling. Not quite grossed out enough? I used to let the family dog clean my toe because I was told a dog’s tongue has antiseptic qualities and he seemed to enjoy it! Eee, that’ll be me straight to hell now. Still, he did a great job until he died of advanced sepsis two months later.
I know, gross right? I’m so sorry. Poor Oscar.
We bought a tiny replica of the statue, took a few upskirt pictures of the old bird and then fannied about with the telescopes for a bit. It was a lovely day – warm but springlike and fresh, perfect for the massive wool coat I was wearing. At least I had my magma-esque coffee to cool me off. Then, back onto the boat for a short hop over to Ellis Island, an optional freebie excursion where you can see the famous Immigrant Inspection Station and the housing and suchlike. It was all very interesting indeed but at this point our crippling obesity was beginning to play havoc with our ankles and we needed a good old fashioned sit-down, so we went into the little restuarant and seemingly emptied my wallet in exchange for two club sandwiches the size of my arm. We sat down and immediately regretted it as we had a talker immediately to our left, an octogenarian with a lot to say. We couldn’t ignore him because he seemed lonely. ‘So where you guys from’ was his opening gambit, and when I replied with ‘Newcastle, England’ he took such a gasp of air that I almost gave him his last rites, thinking perhaps an errant crisp had lodged in his windpipe. No, it was just genuine surprise which didn’t subside when I explained it really wasn’t that far and we didn’t row across the Atlantic. He then kept us at the table for a good half hour, clutching my arm every time we made to leave. To be fair, he was actually very interesting and my ability to make small-talk never failed me, so the time flew by, but we did miss our boat back, meaning we had to spend another hour on the tiny island, trying to keep out of view of this old chap. I felt like I was sneaking into America myself.
After Ellis Island we got the boat back over to Battery Park and decided to take a walk over to where the Twin Towers used to be and where the new One World Trade Centre tower now stood. Let me say this – although it is easier to walk to places in New York rather than fannying about on their labyrithine subway system, make sure you gauge the distances before you set off. We ended up with feet like corned beef by the end of the holiday. It’s more interesting though, seeing a city on foot. That’s what I told Paul as he poured blood out of his shoes.
Nothing can be said on the Twin Towers disaster that hasn’t already been said, but I’ll add my own thoughts. It’s always been something abstract – images on the TV or in the papers – and whilst utterly horrific and downright barbaric, I’ve never been able to actually get my head around it. Standing there then in the shadow of the new tower, with the two massive memorial pools in front of us, it actually hit home. Imagining not one but two of these towers falling into the street and the absolute mayhem and terror that would bring, well, we both actually got emotional. You need to understand – the only time I think I’ve seen Paul cry was when I hid his selection box at Christmas or when I clipped a peg onto his bumhair and accidentally nicked his sphincter. You stand at the bottom of this tower and look up and you can’t see the top. Imagine that the other way around and knowing you had to jump down to your death or burn. Horrendous.
We entered the new tower and boarded the lift up to the 102nd floor which was an experience all in itself – 102 floors in less than 60 seconds, with the lifts being made from a 360 degree set of TV screens which model New York in front of you. I’ve done a shit job of explaining that, so here, take a look:
Come on now, that was something special. After leaving the lift, you’re taken to a row of cardboard cut-outs of skyscrapers in a darkened room, upon which a cheesy video about New York was projected. Naturally, being a cynic, I was about to moan to Paul that we’d paid $100 to watch a movie when suddenly everything in front of us rose out of view and was replaced with floor to ceiling glass windows, affording us the most incredible view. My flabber could not have been more gasted. It’s initially very disorientating as you forget you’re so high up until New York is revealed before you like a magician’s trick, but it’s genuinely wonderful. We spent an age walking around taking pictures that we’ll never look at again, like everyone else, before nipping up to the bar for a cocktail.
Are you sitting down? Our two cocktails cost $58. Yes, you could get a glass of tap water but fuck it, we were on holiday and it was money well-spent, although such very strong alcohol combined with the natural swaying of the building leads to a slightly unsettling experience. Here’s a couple of pictures.
The lift down was as fun as the lift going up and let me tell you, we were genuinely impressed with the whole experience. There was no gung-ho over-the-top patriotism like we expected, we weren’t forced to pay extra for stuff time and time again, and the views made it completely worthwhile. I’d recommend this in a heartbeat. We spent half an hour looking around the memorial pools and that’s another thing that seems odd – it’s so quiet. No-one is shouting or running around, just quietly paying respects. Roses are left pushed into people’s names that have been etched into the shiny black marble that surrounds the pools. It’s tasteful and thought-provoking. Not so much for a couple of very prissy knobheads who decided to treat the experience like a fashion show, lying across the memorials, draping their scarves on one another, squealing and clapping and generally being obnoxious dicks (and hell, that’s my job on holiday, surely?). We ruined a good number of their photographs as a petty revenge, walking behind them and into shot with stupid expressions on our faces, until I tired of the game and whispered loudly as we walked past that ‘they should show some fucking respect and stop being selfish boys’. I may not have used the word boys. I might have said something that rhymed with punts. The photographer of the two went squealing over to the other and they stalked off in a huff. Way man. A bit of respect, that’s all.
OK goodness me, we’ve hit the 3000 word mark. Let’s stop there! Popcorn chicken, then…this makes enough for two.
1 tsp of onion powder which you can buy in most supermarkets, trust me
2 tbsp of flour (4 syns)
1 tsp of cajun seasoning or paprika
pinch of salt and pepper
to make baked popcorn chicken, you should:
stick the oven onto 170 degrees and get it warm
cook the quinoa by tipping it into a pan with the stock, bringing to the boil and then covering and simmering for around 15 minutes until the liquid is absorbed – keep an eye on it mind
meanwhile, prepare a sandwich bag with your flour, onion powder, salt and pepper inside, beat your egg in a bowl and cut up your chicken into tiny bites
once the quinoa is done, let it cool for five minutes and then fluff the fuck out of it with a fork
then, begin the assembly – dip the chicken in the egg, then the flour and spice mix, then the quinoa, mashing it onto the chicken
place all your coated chicken pieces on a grease-proof paper lined tray (or frylight it) and bake for fifteen minutes or so
serve with sides of your choice – we went with BBQ beans and chips
if you’re wondering where we got the fancy little chip basket, it was on Amazon – click here!
YES. You could make this with Smash but so what? You could build a house using dildoes and toothpaste, doesn’t mean you should. Follow the recipe and enjoy!
Ah, hello there. Come for the chicken souvlakia recipe? Then please, wait a moment. I’ll get to it. But first, it’s weigh in day, and well, goodness me…
Whilst I’m here, I forgot to post last week’s cockometer too!
I shall make a page of them all on. I find myself thinking of new themes for each knob.
Hooray! 32lb over eight weeks, including the time we put 11lb back on in New York, is good enough for me! Our aim has always been to lose 2lb a week. I get so frustrated when I read comments online where people kvetch and moan about only losing a couple of pounds – that’s the healthy way to do it – slowly and sensibly. I sometimes think Slimming World puts a bit too much emphasis on big losses (like Slimmer of the Week) as it is and it creates disappointment. Mind, my frustration soon builds to sheer eye-popping rage when I see people saying that they’re stuck for ideas on what to cook. You’re using the Internet, the world’s biggest cookbook – it isn’t just used for watching jizz vids and bloody asos.com, you know. I do sometimes think it boils down to laziness – people can’t be arsed to cook but that in itself is a shame, because so many of our recipes for example cook in no time at all. Anyway, no time for soapbox, dinner is almost ready, and I need to post the bloody recipe.
It’s a chicken recipe to celebrate our brilliant new Musclefood deal – I’m going to talk about it in full over the weekend, but we now have a decent, plain deal – around 25 chicken breasts (and each one is huge and doesn’t shrink!), 2kg of extra lean beef mince, 2 big packs of fat fee bacon medallions and two packs of beef strips. For £50, delivered. And mind it’s not delivered the usual online way, where it gets stuffed into a jiffy bag, driven across the country by a lorry driver who has only had three hours sleep, then chucked in your wheelie bin as a “safe place”. Nope, this is a trackable, chilled delivery. Normally £80, haggled it down to £50. We all it our freezer filler, partly because they wouldn’t let me call it a box-stretcher. Click here for this deal and our fancy new Musclefood page!
So, chicken souvlakia!
Just look at it, it’s tasty, juicy and actually, so easy to make. Let’s go. This makes enough for four if you use four chicken breasts. And fuck me, if you needed that explaining, perhaps you’d be better off with a packet of crisps and a sit-down.
James here. I have some devastating news to get to before we dish out the recipe for spicy orange chicken that you’re all after. After weeks of ‘it will be so much cheaper to run‘, ‘they go fast, honest’ and ‘well I’m not letting you slide that up there until you get me a Smart car’, I’ve folded like a cheap suit, prised open the wallet and given in. Paul now has a Smart car. I maintain my dislike of them – we’re two large fat men, it’s the equivalent of trying to squeeze a roast chicken into a travel kettle, but nevertheless, Paul deserves a car that doesn’t sound like it’s just finished the Dakar Rally. I’m not a petrolhead and I’m certainly not one of those people who need a massive car to try and compensate for their flea-bite willies, I can assure you – my favourite car so far was a crummy, rusty Citroen C2. As a parallel, there were so, so, so many middle-aged knobheads buying giant cars in the Mercedes showroom – don’t worry, you’ll see them soon in blisteringly high detail, beetroot-faced and gesticulating wildly in your rear-view mirror. But no, the Smart car just isn’t for me. It’s all about Paul. So on that note, let’s hand over to him for a wee bit. Oh! This is why we haven’t weighed in this week, we were at the car place on Thursday. Don’t worry, the Knobometer will be back next week. So yeah, Paul…
Hooray! Lots of excitement and excuses to run over the Londis over here at The Sticky Patch because the new car has arrived! Well, it’s half-arrived – they can’t actually find the car we’ve ordered, only that it is somewhere in Zebrugge. Ah well, it’s not that terrible as they have let me have the exact same car but in different colours to use until they manage to track the other one down so it all sorted itself out. Of course, I’m totally gonna milk it so that I get a fancy free gift out of their accessories cabinet. There’s a trolley coin and fancy ice scraper in there with my name written all over it.
Of course, this happy event is tinged with sadness as it also means a (probably long overdue) tearful farewell to Betty the Micra, who I will always have a soft spot for as it was my first car. The wing mirror was hanging off and the boot went through a period of not opening aside from random intervals when the car was travelling over 70mph, giving the driver behind a fright as twelve bags of Tesco shopping would start cascading out. She absolutely reeked of several years of accumulated farts that no amount of Yankee Candle knock-offs from Aldi could put a dint in. But I loved her, warts and all.
The Smart is a fantastically fun car to drive – I still maintain that it doesn’t feel like a teeny tiny car when you’re in it (except over speed bumps when both ends of the car seem to go over it at the same time – I still can’t get used to it) and it’s a doddle to park, even with my glyphy eye. Plus, people really, REALLY hate being behind a Smart car so will aggressively overtake which then gives James a chance to practice his more colourful language. He’s not an aggressive driver, just a descriptive one. It’s pleasant that we now that we have two decent cars instead of one nice and one shit one. The neighbours have been unusually quiet today so I fully expect they’re all out now updating their own cars – they can’t be getting outdone by ‘the poofs’ (and I’m not even joking – they really will be).
I love driving, I really do. It’s especially fun up where we live because there are plenty of winding, hilly roads to throw yourself about on, and only a handful lead to dogging spots. In fact, I only passed my test two years ago because to be honest I didn’t really need to drive when I was younger – I preferred to spend my minimum wage wages on fags and cider. I’m from a chronically dull place near Peterborough where fun doesn’t exist and where the roads are just long, straight parkways leading to other long, straight parkways, plus the nearest glory hole was only a fifteen minute walk away so I didn’t ever really feel the need to pass my test anyway. Not that I could have afforded it, I’m terminally underpaid. My childhood experiences of cars was never that exciting either – mother’s Megane had the Celine Dion album she owned on a permanent loop despite being so scratched it sounded like she was rapping her way through My Heart Will Go On. Add to that the fact I couldn’t see out the windows for all the fag smoke that filled the car from her coughing lips – even now I can’t recognise Peterborough without applying a blue smoke filter over the top. Getting out of the smoke-filled car was like coming through the doors of Stars in your Eyes, only I was coughing and spluttering rather than singing Marti Pellow. Ah good times. No wonder I like having my own car now.
Anyway, enough reminiscing. It’s back to James for the recipe. This orange chicken isn’t too spicy and a perfect substitute for a takeaway dinner.
to make spicy orange chicken you will need:
This serves four, by the way.
4 chicken breasts, cut into small chunks (of course, you can use the fabulous chicken breasts that we sell in our fantastic Musclefood deal – in which case, you’ll probably only need two to serve four – click here for those!)
2 garlic cloves (minced)
1 tsp fresh ginger, grated
for the orange sauce:
325ml chicken stock
250ml Tropicana Trop50 Orange Juice (2.5 syns)
150ml white vinegar
125ml soy sauce
zest of 1 large orange
1 garlic clove (minced)
2 tbsp sriracha (1 syn)
½ tsp freshly grated ginger
¼ tsp white pepper
½ tsp salt
2 tbsp honey (5 syns)
2 tbsp cornflour (2 syns)
1 tsp chilli flakes
to make spicy orange chicken you should:
in a bowl mix together all of the orange sauce ingredients
in another bowl, add 150ml of the orange sauce to the diced chicken, cover and allow to marinade for twenty minutes
meanwhile, heat the rest of the sauce mixture in a saucepan and bring to the boil
keep stirring until it begins to thicken a little, reduce the heat but keep it on medium and keep stirring
remove the chicken from the marinade and discard the sauce
heat a large pan over a medium-high heat and add a little oil
add the minced ginger and garlic and stir for about 1 minute
add the chicken and fry until cooked
pour half the sauce mixture over the chicken and stir well to coat
serve with rice and pour over the remainder of the sauce
Looking for buffalo chicken loaded potatoes and don’t want any of my nonsense? Then scroll down to the picture, enjoy the recipe and all the best of luck to you.
Have they gone? GOOD. Didn’t they smell of foist and Muller yoghurts? Booooo! Anyway, with it being Valentines Day, are you expecting a romance filled, warm-hearted gaze at our love-life? Well, you’re shit out of luck! No, although we’ve had a lovely day (where I may have accidentally ruined someone’s marriage proposal – oops) (more on that another time), tonight’s entry is going to be the last post about Iceland, just to tie it off neatly. See, every time we’ve gone on holiday, I always forget to write up the last day for ages and then end up looking screw-eyed at my notes trying to remember what we did. That’s more difficult than you can imagine, because usually I’m in such a sulk about having to come home that my notes consist of ‘EATING BREAKFAST’ ‘MIGHT AS WELL BE DEAD’ and ‘PAUL’S BEING A KNOB’. Bless him, he’s never a knob. Aside from when we’re engaging in gland to gland combat. Let’s get started then!
OK, confession. At this point, our holiday was lots of little snippets of activities, so I’ll cover them off briefly. I can’t remember the chronology but look, I don’t claim to be a travel writer, so don’t bust your buns getting in a flap about it.
First, the Phallological Museum. We made it on our second visit and it was…interesting. Essentially a few rooms filled with all sorts of knobs, from tiny little mouse knobs to big old American knobs holding giant cameras who think that they are the only ones interested in taking photos. Silly man, you’ll find the c*nt museum is next door. Yes, I’m asterisking that, because I can’t bear the thought of Mags clutching her pearls and choking on her pint of Gordons.
It’s no secret that Paul and I are both committed fans of the penis, but even so, there’s only so many you can see in one place before they all start blending into one. There’s precious little in the way of human willies, although there is a fine metal casting of all of the knobs of the Icelandic ice hockey team, covering everything from the goalie to the puck, who seemingly had enough foreskin for the rest of the team. The whole display would make for a unique present for a lady to hang her necklaces, that’s for sure. We learned that the biggest penis in all of the world belongs to the blue whale, measuring over 16ft long. Gosh! The biggest cock I’ve ever seen was 6ft 3″, but I stopped dating him after a couple of weeks. Boom boom. After twenty minutes of stroking our chins and various wooden willies, we hastened to the gift shop where, out of a mixture of British politeness and a love of tat, we bought an wooden ashtray shaped like a giant willy. We don’t even smoke. It’s currently sat in our games room, where doubtless when our house burns down it’ll be dragged from the rubble and held aloft for the papers as a sign of our deviant lifestyle.
Second, we went out drinking one night, which was great fun though FUCK ME was it expensive. I’m by no means an expensive date but hell, we ended up emptying my wallet twice over and all we were drinking was their local beer and vodka. We found a bar which gave us flights of beer, essentially four different third-pints and a shot of vodka in order to “try them out”. Well, we were absolutely wankered in no time at all. At some point in the evening we ended up in a sports bar hollering at the TV with all of the locals at some sport of the TV that even now, with a sober mind, I can’t tell you what they were playing. We bumped into another couple of blokes who recognised us from the hotel (presumably we flashed up on their radar as the fat fuckers who kept eating all the bread at breakfast), immediately agreed we’d join in with their pub-crawl, and then almost as immediately Paul and I buggered off around the corner and lost them. We stopped for a crêpe from one of the many food trucks scattered around (because, let’s be honest, adding cream, eggs and chocolate onto a belly full of dark beer and vodka is always a clever idea) and Paul asked to use her toilet. It took almost five minutes of her explaining that there was no toilet in her tiny food-truck before Paul stopped looking at her owlishly and staggered off to find one of the many loos scattered around the streets, a big chocolate smear halfway up his face. I apologised for us, called us typical Brits, and hastened off after him.
After many more drinks we decided to stagger back to the hotel along the seafront (a 50 minute walk when sober) and, on the way, spotted a Dominos pizza. Well, we had to try an Icelandic Dominos, surely, so in we went, ordering two large pizzas with the strict instruction that they couldn’t deliver back to the hotel until after forty minutes had passed, giving us enough time to saunter back cool and collected. Nope. No, realising that the walk was altogether much further than we had anticipated (not least because we were both careering around drunk), we had to really pick up the pace, and that’s how the good folk of Reykjavik were treated to the sight of two large, fat blokes, drunk as all outdoors, staggering, sliding and powermincing along the icy roads. I tumbled into a grass verge at one point and Paul might have been sick in a bin. What can I say, we ooze class. Once we stumbled into the hotel lobby, the pizza guy was waiting with a scowl – clearly the sight of us wheezing and lolling about didn’t amuse him. Poor sport. I slipped some notes into his pocket like he was a ten-quid prossie, apologised profusely in that earnest drunken voice that we all hate, and retrieved Paul from the concierge office, which he’d mistaken for a lift.
Oh, and those two pizzas? Cost us £70 by the time we’d tipped the poor bloke standing in the lobby. But they tasted delicious.
We spent our final day shopping, eating chips, walking around and just soaking in the place. It’s truly remarkable. A slightly bizarre moment in a tiny little coffee shop where I witnessed a young, buxom lady having a coffee with what I presumed to be her father until she stood up, almost straddled him and gave him the wettest, longest, most committed French kiss I’ve ever seen. I’m not sure if she had a real thing for the taste of Steradent but it was so unexpected and bizarre that I barely had time to pull my phone out. Good on the old chap for getting some, I suppose, but it sounded like someone had pulled a plug out of a bath filled with wet hair. We made a swift exit and carried on. Paul fell on his arse again into a large puddle and I knocked over a shop’s display of stuffed puffins (accidentally, naturally) but in no time at all it was time to walk back to the hotel to catch our bus to the airport. Naturally, we immediately got lost, and went on possibly the most convoluted trip ever, taking in their central motorway, what I’m sure was a red-light district, a park that looked like something out of Dangerous Minds and a car dealership. It took us almost three hours – with flat phones, no less – to get back to the hotel, twenty minutes before the bus departed. We did ask the one old man who didn’t look like he’d knife us as soon as look at us for directions, but he spoke no English (quite right) and we spoke no Icelandic, though I reckon if I’d started choking on a Strepsil at that very second he might have made sense of it.
It was with a heavy heart that we boarded our bus back to the airport, after a minor panic after we were told that the front desk staff at the hotel hadn’t actually organised our transfer. They sorted it out after much raising of eyebrows and strangling sounds. Naturally, we both immediately fell asleep on the bus, but well, it’s only got one destination so you can’t go too wrong. Did have a moment of despair when I spotted that there were almost 50 wee Scottish schoolchildren ahead of us in the queue to check-in, but actually, they were very well behaved and a credit to their school. I was disappointed, I had a perfect 140-character passive aggressive tweet all set ready to go to their school when landing in the UK. Bah. There’s fuck all to do in the airport other than lose your passports and buy alcohol, although we did manage to cobble together two year’s worth of annual salary between us which allowed us to buy a burger that, if needed, could have been used as a landing wheel for our approaching plane. Who knew moisture was optional?
The flight itself was uneventful, save for the captain coming on to say that if we were lucky, we’d see the Northern Lights through the window, which caused the wheezing behemoth in front of me to pitch her seat back pretty much into my lap. Apparently this afforded her a better view of the inky blackness and the engine lights, for she didn’t shift an inch for the rest of the flight. No, honestly, what I really want to look at for the duration of my flight are your split-ends and cheap home hair-dye job, you inconsiderate cow.
We landed smoothly, picked up our car and made our way through the night back to Newcastle. It was a lovely drive, punctuated only by a midnight stop at McDonalds for sustenance and a hurried crap about forty minutes later to dispatch aforementioned McDonalds into the murky brown yonder. Now, let us take a quick dirty diversion here. Those of a prudish disposition might want to alight for a couple of paragraphs and join us later.
Toilets, namely public toilets, I don’t understand the sexual appeal. We stopped at some toilets in the middle of Fuck-All, Nowhere and every conceivable surface was covered in the type of graffiti that made even me blush. But this toilet wasn’t some plush outbuilding with comfortable ledges and a decent hand-drier for blowing the last drips off, no, this looked like something out of a Saw movie. There was more piss on the floor than there was in the sewer below, most of the lights were burnt out and three out of the four traps contained toilets that looked like someone had drawn an intricate map of the local A and B roads using faeces. Dirty doesn’t begin to describe them! So who is willingly getting down on their knees in a place like that? It doesn’t bear thinking about. For long. Brrr.
However, our practical reason for visiting these toilets couldn’t be avoided and I risked death and urine burns to ‘drop the kids off’, as quickly and as delicately as I could. Whilst hovering above the pan like I was riding an invisible magic carpet, a peculiar bit of graffiti caught my eye – a bold (admittedly in very nice handwriting) statement declaring that a gloryhole could be found in the ladies toilet. Hmm.
Anyway, I once heard of a chap who had his knob sliced with a knife when he put it through a gloryhole, like the world’s most budget circumcision, and another who had a cigarette put out on it. If I ever find myself in a lavatory and a knob that isn’t my own suddenly appears, I’ll be using it to hang the toilet roll on.
OK, prudish folk, come on back.
We made it home for around 3am, made a fuss out of our cats who, of course, totally ignored us and acted like we’d betrayed them in the worst possible way by daring to go away, and went straight to bed. Iceland done. Let’s sum up.
Pros
absolutely beautiful – now I know that almost goes without saying, but honestly, it’s so alien and unusual and unlike anywhere we’ve been before that we’d recommend it just for that experience alone;
so much to do – and even as two fat blokes, we never struggled with any of the activities, it’s all very accessible
tonnes of history, even if their museums are a smidge dry
amazing food, especially all of their snack stations and tiny little places to eat
the Northern Lights, I mean, come on
not rammed full of either trashy British tourists or massive touring groups
Cons
incredibly expensive, and it’s not even easy to get around this – snacks and drinks are expensive, meals and nights out even more so – be prepared to spend
if you’re not a fan of sitting on buses to get to places, you’ll struggle, but even then the buses are comfortable, WiFi enabled and warm, so it’s a hard one to ‘con’
the occasional standoffishness, but hell, you’re going to get that anywhere
Go. We can’t recommend it enough! If you don’t love it, we’ll be amazed!
We travelled with easyJet from Edinburgh to Reykjavik, landing early in the evening. We stayed at the Edinburgh Airport (Newbridge) Premier Inn the night before and then the Grand Hotel in Reykjavik. We organised all of our excursions directly with Grey Line Excursions or Reykjavik Excursions, including our airport transfers. All wonderful to deal with!
Right. So you lot want a recipe for buffalo chicken loaded potatoes, eh? Then shall we begin? This recipe makes enough for four large potatoes cut in half, with a person having two halves. Easy! Also, these sit well to eat the day after for a lunch and I can’t see any reason why they couldn’t be frozen, so get on that.
to make buffalo chicken loaded potatoes, you’ll need:
15g reduced-fat feta cheese (optional for sprinkling – it’s up to you if you syn this, it really is a tiny amount)
Really, this is actually quarter of a syn for each serving of two potato halves, but we added on that extra quarter syn for the tiny bit of reduced fat feta. You can leave it off. Look, either way, you’re not going to be Ten Tonne Tessie from eating these, OK? These could be made syn free if you omitted the sauce, and indeed, if you’re not a fan of having an arsehole like the Japanese flag, why not try leaving it out?
to make buffalo chicken loaded potatoes, you should:
cook the potatoes as you would for a jacket potato
in a small jug, mix together the Buffalo sauce, white vinegar and tabasco sauce and set aside
cook the chicken breasts until done – under the grill, in the oven, in a pan, using the acid breath of a hated relative…however you prefer
when cooked, pull the chicken apart using two forks
when the potatoes are cooked, cut in half, allow to cool a little and scoop out all of the flesh into a separate bowl
add the chicken, cheddar cheese and Buffalo sauce mix to the potato flesh and mash until well combined
scoop the potato flesh back into the potato skins
cook under a hot grill for a few minutes until nicely browned
sprinkle on the feta (if you’re using) and enjoy!
It’s up to you if you want to serve this with some speed food or just beans like we did. I’m not the boss!
If you’re here looking for houmous coated chicken then scroll down! This entry is all about our wonderful trip to Iceland’s famous Blue Lagoon. Enjoy!
twochubbycubs go to Iceland: part five
Our trip to The Blue Lagoon, then. The Blue Lagoon is possibly one of Iceland’s most recognisable places – a large man-made pool created from the water output from the nearby geothermal powerplant. They take super hot water from the ground, spin a few turbines with it and then let the rest pour into the lagoon, keeping it toasty warm. I admit I was surprised – I thought it was a natural pool thanks to all the tasteful photography and talk of ‘lagoon’, but then I suppose ‘come and have a swim in the run-off water from our power plant’ doesn’t sound quite so grand. I mean, I don’t worry about my fertility at the best of times, but I do like to know my snake tears could still do what they are supposed to do if the situation required it. Luckily, obviously, it’s not radioactive. They also completely replace the water every two days, meaning that even if someone sharts in the far corner of the pool, you’re unlikely to be bothered by it.
Let me start by saying that this quick tale will be bookended by two bus-woe stories, both equally vexing, but only one where Paul and I redeemed British folk for all the world.
We booked our trip well in advance and, yet again, were picked up at the hotel by a minibus and then shepherded to an idling coach early in the morning. This is pretty much the start of every single tour you’ll ever do in Iceland by all accounts. If you’re a fan of looking hopefully at the horizon, you’ll be in your element here. The buses are clean, comfortable and have free WiFi, which is handy if the endless beauty of Iceland holds no appeal for you and you’ve got Candy Crush to dribble over.
Like class swots, we took our seats at the front of the coach, only to have the two biggest, boring, most vacuous young ladies sit immediately behind us. They were lawyers from London and by god did you know about it by the time the bus had climbed into third gear. Every word was strained like they were running out of air, every sentence pronounced so loudly that I could have stayed in the hotel and still heard all about her stupid landlord who wouldn’t let Gareth (Guuur-raaaaaath) stay over. Everyone else feigned sleep – it was 8am after all – but no, this pair of braying donkeys kept up their schtick all the way to the Lagoon, a good forty-five minutes away. Paul and I were terribly British about the whole thing – coughing, giving side-eye, sighing like the oxygen on the bus was running out, but there was no stopping them. Never have I thought about crashing off a mountain road into an abyss with such longing.
The bus drops you off seemingly in the middle of nowhere (actually, a lava field in Grindavík – not active lava I needlessly add – there’s nothing especially relaxing about third degree burns), with a tiny visitor centre and a rock exclaiming that you’ve arrived. There’s very little to indicate that you need to walk further on, but, despite being spherical, we bravely continued, not letting the 400m walk to the entrance faze us. Heroes the both of us. We had booked our tickets in advance online and I’d heartily recommend you do the same – the queue, even at that time in the morning – was through the door. We chose the ‘Premium’ ticket online, which allows you to queue jump and gets you a free drink within the Lagoon. It’s worth it for not having to wait, plus you’re given a pair of slippers and a robe. Sadly, the Body Beautiful behind the counter looked at me and handed me an XL robe with a very ‘that won’t fit’ look. It was Paul in the Austrian mine all over again. For the record, the XL robe fitted perfectly, although it did say ‘FOR RENT ONLY’ in big letters on it. That took me back to my college days, I can tell you. You’re also given a wristband which acts as both your key for the locker and a card of sorts for any drinks or food you purchase. Handy. On we trotted.
Now, let me cover something off – you absolutely do need to change and shower with other people. In order to keep this facility clean and hygienic you’re expected to give yourself a good soaping. Fair enough, no-one likes to swim drinking in tagnuts, holehair and winnits. If you’re like me and couldn’t give the shiniest shite about what other people think of your body, you can whip everything out, have a blasting hot shower and be done in a few minutes. If you’re shy, though, that’s also accommodated for by way of little changing cubicles which you can hide your modesty behind, though it’s that frosted glass so if you have a particularly hairy growler people can still see it. I’m not a fan, I’m always worried my arse-cheeks will press up against the glass as I take my socks off and someone will think it’s a magic eye puzzle of a hot-air balloon disaster. There’s a handy chart on the wall showing the special areas you must wash – your face, armpits, fanny and arse, though presumably you’re not expecting to use the same cloth. Again, if you’re shy, you’ll face a wait for the privacy cubicles – so there’s another reason to get there nice and early.
Once you’re showered to the point where someone could eat their dinner off your bumhole (and they’d have a handy place to keep their napkin, certainly), you pop your clothes in the locker, use your wristband to secure the door and out you go, carefully dodging all the willies flapping about as others change. I pity the poor bastard who is given a locker closest to the ground because inevitably you’re going to look up from putting your shoes away and find yourself peering into someone’s arse-crack. Anyway. The lagoon is just at the bottom of some stairs and, being so early in the morning, was lit by soft blue lights under the twinkling stars. It was magic. You can wade in like you’re on a Lidl Baywatch, or, perhaps more sensibly, you can swim out into the lagoon from the building itself, getting yourself used to the water.
A few quick observations. It’s hot. Durr, I know, but it really threw me quite how hot it was. You know when you’re in a bath and you’re letting more hot water in with your toe, and you’re about five seconds away from it being too hot? It’s like that, in places, and even hotter still if you swim near to the vents where the hot water bubbles out. You’re not going to burn – they’re ‘rocked’ off – but expect everything to be soft and sagging when you get out. It’s the first and only time in my life where I’ve been able to scratch my balls with my big toe. The rest of the lagoon is around the same temperature as your body, but, being Iceland, you just need to stand up to cool off, given how cold the air is. It’s a wonderful feeling.
It’s also surprisingly large. Although it’s crowded at the entrance to the pool, you can swim out into the steam and lose yourself. I never felt like I was in anyone’s way, besides Paul, but that’s only because he wanted to cuddle in the water and I was alarmed that we might stick together like a cheese toastie in the heat. It’s not so deep you can’t stand up in it, but it’s deep enough to swim around should you desire. There’s a cave to swim through (where I naughtily found the switch to change the narrator from gentle, soothing English to booming German, much to the consternation of a few bathing Chinese ladies who were probably already confused by the apparent sight of two beluga whales swimming towards them. There’s also a waterfall which cascades lovely hot water all over your body with such force that my fat rolls started playing a disco beat from slapping against each other. I probably looked like an oil slick viewed through a heat haze. Don’t care. You can book a massage where you float on a pad in the water but we never got around to sorting this out. Of course, we both immediately regretted it when we saw the masseuse – a giant muscly mountain man who could have put us both over his shoulder and had his wicked way with us. We’ll put down the wistful tears in Paul’s eyes to a reaction with the sulphur, shall we.
Ah yes, the sulphur. Look, you can’t get away from the fact the place has a certain eggy smell to it. In places, it smells like a freshly cleaved poo. But it’s a natural smell, like when they spread muck on the fields or when the sewers overflow. You get used to it, which is handy, as you’ll be smelling of eggs for a good while afterwards. Dotted around the lagoon are pots of the silica mud that naturally forms on the bottom of the lagoon – it’s apparently an excellent face-mask. It’s also a brilliant white, leading to some frightening experiences when some of the more…aged folks in the pool come swirling out of the mists looking like Heath Ledger as the Joker. Paul and I covered ourselves in it and had a whale of a time. I swam up to the swim-up bar (well, it seemed like the right thing to do) and ordered us some drinks – I had a plastic pint of beer, Paul had a strawberry iced drink. Luckily I have the chest hair to carry off such manliness, even if I did scream when Paul accidentally spilt his slop down my back. Well, wouldn’t be the first time.
After an hour or so of floating about, we got out, had a sandwich and a sit down (it’s tiring being lazy) and then went back in for another hour or so. You don’t really need a full day here. Oh! One more observation. So many selfie sticks! But worse, so many unprotected phones being carried out in the water. Why?! If you drop that bloody phone in the water, it’s not coming out again working, let me tell you. You might get a final kamikaze shot of someone’s legs uploaded to your iCloud but that’s it. I don’t know how people hold their nerves, I get anxious brushing my teeth with my phone in my hand.
We got changed and walked back to the bus, stopping only for a couple more photos and a Calippo. Keeping it real. Vexingly, we had missed the hourly bus back by about thirty minutes, but we were happy enough to sit and wait.
Unlike the beast I’m going to call Sandra – for that was her name. Sandra and her very, VERY henpecked husband had missed the bus by only a minute or two, seemingly by the husband not sprinting ahead to stop it. She apparently would have ran herself but ‘what would have been the point, given how slow you were’. Let me tell you, the only time this woman was running anywhere was if a vending machine had been left unlocked. She was absolutely dreadful – she sat and very loudly explained to her husband all of his faults and why she could do better. My heart went out to him – I almost asked Paul if I should nip over and give him a blowjob just to lift his spirits. I rather got the impression she wouldn’t have done that either.
And, typically, with all the inevitability of day following night, when the bus did come, she sat behind us – and the forty five minute bus-ride from hell in the morning was nothing compared to this. She had this incredibly irritating way of trying to sound like she was better than everyone else, both Icelandic and English, and that, in her words:
“Iceland is shit because you have to get a bus everywhere” (you don’t, you can get a taxi, unless you can’t afford it but you want people to think you can)
“what’s the fackin’ point of Wifi if it doesn’t FACKIN’ WORK” (who’d have thought it? Wifi on a bus in the middle of nowhere being patchy!)
“...place would be so much better if it wasn’t for all the FACKIN’ tourists” (it would certainly be better without one of them)
“aren’t Icelandic houses shit” (because that two-up-two-down in some piss-pot village is the classier choice)
“who’d stay in a FACKIN’ shit ‘OTEL like this” (not you, my love, because you’re staying at a cheaper hotel down the road)
and so on and so forth. She was embarrassingly crass and vocal and all her husband could do was ‘yes dear’ and ‘no dear’. She was loud so EVERYONE could hear her. Here’s the fun part though. The bus, dropping everyone off in ‘random order’ (but clearly based on how luxurious the hotels were…i.e. the more expensive hotels got their passengers back first) and ours was second on the list. This pissed her off and on she ranted.
So, naturally, as we got off, I turned around on the steps of the bus and, loudly, called her a ‘common, classless tart‘ before proper dashing into the foyer in case the rancid old bag or her wispy husband followed suit. They didn’t. That split second I saw of her face avalanching in anger was more than enough for me and I’m not joking when I say that gives me a chuckle even now. Probably shouldn’t have said anything. Don’t care though.
Right, the recipe! This makes enough for four big breasts. So that’s two each. We served with mushrooms, new potatoes and some broccoli. Classy! You can mix this up by using one of our four houmous recipes found right here!
spray a large baking dish with Frylight and place the chicken breasts in a single layer and set aside
to make the houmous, add the chickpeas, cottage cheese, cumin and paprika to a food processor and blend until smooth
spread the houmous mixture over each chicken breast using a spatula – you need need to ‘slap’ it on instead of spreading it. you’ll want a nice, thick amount on each one.
bake in the oven for about 20-25 minutes, until the chicken is well cooked
sprinkle on some chopped basil and serve
Easy! It might not look amazing but it tasted damn fine and it’s syn free. So suck it!
Oh! I should say. As usual, my shite photography let me down. But here’s what it looks like when the photo is taken by someone who has more dexterity and eye for detail than a potato.
Fair warning, today’s recipe for crunchy honey and garlic chicken is also served with garlic green beans, so if you’re planning on getting fresh with someone after, better take a packet of Smints or a beaker of hydrochloric acid. You can leave off the green beans if you like, we’re just trying to increase the amount of speed food on our plate because there’s been a fair few foamy comments from the resident gashcrashers lately about not following the plan. Remember, we leave it up to you to decide what works for you.
You do, however, need to get used to seeing this.
Classy right? We’re going to post it every Thursday with an update of our weight loss. I want you lot to see our diet as it goes through the year, with the aim of losing 150lb throughout 2016. Sounds like a lot, but if we lose 2lb a week every week for 37 or so weeks, we’ll be done by October, just in time to put it all back on and start copying and pasting this article back for 2017. I know so many of us are starting a New Year / New Me routine – so all the very best to you.
See, whilst we’ve been eating healthy dinners, we let ourselves down with all the little extras, like the odd chocolate bar or taking November and December off in their entirety to gorge. At some point all that eating becomes less about ‘bulking up for the winter months’ and more about being a big fat chubby bummer. If I may be serious for a moment, we’re both terribly sick of being so out of shape. I get up in the morning and I’m making old/fat noises right from the beginning – I audibly OOOH when I sit down in a chair and it’s not just air escaping from my rolls.I’d certainly enjoy getting on a plane without everyone with a spare seat next to them wincing and sighing dramatically as I approach. My knees hurt sometimes – I’m not surprised, they’re probably around 75% dust these days from having to shift my corpulent frame around. I’ve always described myself as hilariously obese because well, there’s lots of funny things to do with being fat. For example, it’s difficult not to titter when you get out of a drained bath and there’s a loud suction noise like a big fart. It’s chucklesome watching checkout staff battling to fold a shirt without having to draft someone else in to assist. I’ve had to come up with more and more outlandish excuses to get the lift two stories up in our workplace rather than take the steps. But, it can’t continue.
Realistically, if I carry on ignoring the weight, I’ll end up dead, and frankly, that doesn’t sit too well with me. Paul’s promised that if I do die suddenly, he’ll see out his days wearing black and wailing into a hanky, though I know that’s bollocks – he’ll be on Grindr as ‘free4evabigcoxwanted‘ before they’ve even called time of death. Fat fucker. Not that he’s any better – I know he misses being able to see his feet, for example. He would also like to get through a working day without having to spend 67% of it pulling up his trousers and hoiking his boxers out of his arse-crack. We both find it genuinely confusing that the fatter we get, the less our clothes seem to fit properly. On that topic, we’re sick of having to get our clothes from online marquee specialists, Jacamo, however fabulous their customer service is. I’d like to get through at least one bout of anal sex without being troubled by wondering how much it would cost to have a home defibrillator fitted. And so on. There was a far crasser comment, but I deleted it on grounds of decency. What’s happening to me?
For the blog, nowt changes! We’ll post as many recipes as we can – we always feel so guilty when we can’t give you a load of guff before the recipe, but look, if it means we post more food, we’ll do our best. Please – share the blog, the group, the book – whatever you like, spread the word. If you make a recipe from here, take a photo of it and share a link! If we can help in any way, just get in touch. We might be slow in replying but we always get there eventually. Wish us luck then!
Oh, before I go. We’re spending the afternoon doing something I’d never thought I would do in a million years – turning down cock, giving money to people, being pleasant, driving a Smart car. A bloody Smart car! Paul’s been itching for one ever since his sister used to work in a dealership and he saw one in action. I…hate them. Bloody hate them! I can see their merits, absolutely, but it’s not a bloody car. It’s a joke on wheels. I’m 6ft 1″ (possibly horizontally as well as vertically) and Paul, whilst much shorter, is approximately the size of a rain-soaked settee. We look bloody ridiculous climbing out of a Smart car, like that old circus trope with the clowns piling out of the Mini. I’m surprised the horn doesn’t play calliope music instead of a toot. Also, the clip of it driving along. I can’t shake the feeling that if I ran my hand over the roof I’d feel a giant electric connector like a dodgem car. A dodgem car at least has a purpose, even if that purpose is to be kicked around by someone with one eyebrow and a name like someone sneezed some consonants into a hankie. A friend of mine once got fingered and then stabbed behind a dodgems, which in Newcastle is considered an extended courtship. She didn’t even get a highly-flammable teddy of Bart Simpson in the wrong colour shirt afterwards. Fun times. If you see a pair of fat men squeezed like the last two Tetris pieces into a car on the A1 tonight, give us a wave. You’ll know it’s us because of the cloud of blue smoke pouring out the back whilst the engine overheats trying to shift forty stone (combined, I hasten to add) of Jacamo-clad love muscle up a slight incline.
Anyway, that’s quite enough of all this silliness. Tonight’s recipe of crunchy honey and garlic chicken can be made syn-free if you don’t fart on with the sauce. This makes enough for two.
to make crunchy honey and garlic chicken you will need:
2 chicken breasts
25g panko (5 syns)
1 tsp black pepper
0.5 tsp each salt, nutmeg, ginger, thyme, sage and paprika (if you leave out anything, sage and thyme are the ones to get rid of)
pinch of cayenne pepper
2 tsp dried garlic
2 eggs
3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
3 tbsp low-sodium soy sauce
1 tbsp honey (2.5 syns)
God I almost dread posting anything with panko in it these days because I get so many people asking what panko is. IT’S BREADCRUMBS. You can buy it from Tesco or other supermarkets. You could get rid of it and use a blitzed up breadbun if you prefer. But please, that’s what bloody panko is.
to make crunchy honey and garlic chicken you should:
if you’re using chicken from our Musclefood deal or the butcher (i.e. if you have big, steamy, pouting breasts instead of chicken breasts that look like someone’s took an arm off an octopus) – you can make it go twice as far by cutting the chicken into halves horizontally – if you’re using chicken from the supermarket, wrap it in cling film and pound the meat using a rolling pin until it’s about 1cm thick (this helps to ensure it cooks evenly) – there’s really nowt better than beating your meat in the kitchen
mix together the panko, peppers, salt, herbs and garlic in a bowl
in another bowl, crack the two eggs and add 4 tbsp of water and whisk together like you’re going out of business
meanwhile, stick the oven up to 220 degrees making sure your baking sheet is in there – having a hot sheet helps to crisp up the chicken and make it crunchy
when the oven is hot enough, dip each chicken breast into the egg mixture and then into the breadcrumbs – coating evenly
place onto the hot baking sheet and spray with frylight
bake in the oven for about 15 minutes – don’t open the door!
to make the sauce (optional!)
spray a small frying pan with a little frylight over a medium-high heat
add the chopped garlic and stir constantly for about a minute
add the soy sauce and honey and reduce the heat to a simmer, and stir occasionally for 1-2 minutes
We served it with a few roasties done in the Actifry and green beans, which we just cooked off with some more minced garlic and chilli flakes in the pan that we cooked the sauce with. Simple! J
