Category Archives: snacks

Snack recipes

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May 6, 2015

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breakfast, breast, desserts, low syn, lunch, poultry, quark, recipe card, salad, snacks, speciality ingredients, sweet snacks, syn free, taster ideas, vegan, vegetarian

chicken fattoush

Before we launch into day two, I’ve found a brilliant little feature hidden away in the background of my blog – I’ve got the ability to see what people search for to find my blog. It’s so I can tailor the pages in such a fashion to pick up google searches for SW recipes and the like. All very exciting to a data-nerd like me. But I thought I’d share some of the more…obscure searches that people have used to come across (literally, in some cases) my blog..

‘carrot cake overnight oats slimming world’

Excellent! One of my favourite recipes. Nice choice, google.

‘dont trust slimming world’

Oh no! What do they know that we don’t? Maybe it’s all a cult – that would explain all the fucking clapping, for sure. Maybe Mags herself is plotting to take over the world one watery curry at a time?

‘look at my chunky pussy’

Good lord. I like the fact that someone typed that into google too, like it was an instruction rather than a question…

‘1000 heartbeats shit’

I couldn’t agree more. Vernon tries his best, god love him, but you’re still essentially watching someone solve wordsearches during an echocardiogram.

‘miniature brown teapot with teapot and bread on’

I bet they were absolutely gutted when this appeared. For the record, I prefer my “teapots” colossal and without a “lid”, if you know what I mean. If you don’t, I’m talking about cocks again.

11062747_866129470127324_6319142510301069702_o

‘chocolate in rainbow world’

God knows.

‘stocky hairy men washing each other’

They’d be disappointed. I wash Paul with the extendable hose from outside. However if watching two fat blokes grappling over the ped-egg and yelling nonsense at the TV melts your butter, get in touch.

‘can dogs have baked cod’

Yes, but only if it’s their birthday. 

‘is semen classed as a syn on slimming world’

No, it isn’t – but remember, only sluts gargle. 

‘young chubby has two at once and loves it’

No denying this one. It was the best night I’ve had in a while. Four fingers at once. But that’s a Kitkat for you (11.5 syns).

And my personal favourite:

‘wat syns.cn u see wen sum is busy with evil’

Words fail me. Seems like a good time to start then…

BREAKFAST

day2break

Red berry fruit salad with sweetened Quark

Nothing to this other than it’s a medley of different red berries and, because it’s SP week and you’re not allowed a yoghurt if you’re sticking to it 100% otherwise your consultant will be around to fling a dog-turd off your window, we mixed quark with a little bit of milk and some sweetener. I fail to see the point or the logic to it but we’re fully invested. I can’t imagine my body is going to shut down like Titanic’s furnace the very second a Muller passes my lips but nevertheless. The Quark (P) tasted alright, but…we used frozen mixed berries (all of them (S) foods)on the bottom of the glass that had been allowed to thaw (but not cooked, because christ I can’t handle two moans about bloody tweaking in one post) and chopped strawberries (S) on the top. That masked the taste. Pomegranates aren’t speed though, surprisingly, but you could swap them out for raspberries if you were desperate.

LUNCH

daytwolunch

Chicken fattoush salad

Note: this can easily be syn-free – just omit the olive oil. But I like a bit of oil on my dressing. Up to you…OH and in our haste this morning to make this before work, we forgot to take a picture. But it looked like the one above, trust me.

to make chicken fattoush you will need:

½ cucumber (S), 1 green pepper (S), 3 medium tomatoes (S), 6 spring onions (S), 1-2 chicken breasts grilled and cut into strips (P), handful of chopped coriander, handful of chopped parsley, as much leafy salad as you like, 1 tbsp finely chopped mint, 40ml lemon juice, salt and pepper, 1 tbsp sumac.

to make chicken fattoush you should: 

  • chop the cucumber in half lengthways and scoop out the seeds (you don’t have to do this, but it stops it getting soggy)
  • chop the pepper, tomatoes and spring onions into chunks
  • mix all of the above with the salad leaves, herbs and chopped mint and chicken
  • in a separate small bowl, whisk together the sumac and lemon juice until well mixed. Add salt and pepper to taste.
  • pour the dressing over the salad, and eat!

For heaven’s sake though, have a mint after. All that onion!

DETOX WATER

daytwowater

Mint and cucumber

Someone posted a comment on a Facebook group I use about a ‘Sassy Water’ where, if you drink it, the nutrients and wonderful vitamins swimming around in your body would make you lose A POUND AN HOUR. Ridiculous right, and not least because Sassy Water sounds like a particularly ghetto-fabulous drag queen. But what made me more aghast – and I am a man who spends a good two hours of my day with my hand clasped theatrically to my lips with a ‘well fuck me’ expression – PEOPLE BELIEVED IT. People honest to God without theatrics believed it. How?! How do these people remember to breathe in AND breathe out? Imagine if losing weight was as easy as drinking a few glasses of water with the Tesco Reduced Items basket bobbing around in it like a turd in a pier? For goodness sake. Tell you what, maybe that searcher above was right and Slimming World is a big con after all, keeping us fat so we can keeps Mags in Bentleys and Montecristos. 

Just kidding, I love SW really. In the water today then:

  • mint from the garden, chopped up fine; and
  • enough cucumber to make a nun purse her lips.

Cucumber is good for the skin and mint is champion if your breath bleaches people’s hair as you talk. Still tasted like I was drinking a face-mask mind.

BODY MAGIC IDEA – WALKING

daytwobody

Today’s body magic was walking – into work and back again. I’ve mentioned before that walking into work is a chore (opens in a new window that one, so don’t worry, give it a read) but today was especially tiresome. At 5.00pm, I looked across Newcastle from my office and saw the sun bright in the sky, children playing happily and I could almost hear tinkly laughter from the street below. I got in the lift, travelled seven floors to the bottom, and went outside. It was like The Day After Tomorrow, with horizontal rain and hail. It felt like my face was being powersanded by God himself. Of course, I had a hoodie on, so I was fine, but Paul was immediately caught out by his cheap-o Tesco work shirt turning see-through so everyone could see his dirtypillows. It was an uncomfortable swim home. To top it off, the cows on the town moor thought it would be a jolly jape to start running together over the path with their shitclad tails swishing about, meaning we had to powermince to avoid them, slipping in the cowpats they’d skilfully and carefully left on the path whilst the rain and wind blew all around us. At one point I almost collapsed onto a bench and told Paul to go on without me. It was like Threads, and that shit’s real.

Of course, the rain, wind and bad weather stopped the very second I pressed the door-release on my car keys. 

God, if you’re up there, why do you hate me so? Is it the blasphemy? The sodomy? The fact I look better with a beard? Bah!

Anyway, in total, I walked 7.64 miles throughout the day (including a schlep around Tesco and my many walks to the photocopier) and burned 1308 calories. Paul managed a respectful 3.4 mile walk (into work and back – he forgot to leave his pedometer on). We definitely earned our dinner.

OH WHAT A SEGUE.

DINNER 

Well, this is embarrassing. It’s still in the oven! We’re having oven-baked meatballs but didn’t realise that they took over two hours to slowly cook. Great! I’ll post a picture tomorrow. Promise. Honest. But the recipe…:

ingredients: 2 large onions (S), 500g lean beef mince (P) (or pork, or turkey!), 2tsp dried oregano, 2 garlic cloves (crushed) (S), salt and pepper, 400g tin of chopped tomatoes (S), 400ml passata, 150ml vegetable stock, 2 medium courgettes (S), 1 medium aubergine (S).

recipe:

  • finely chop the two onions and put into a bowl with the mince, garlic, oregano, and salt and pepper
  • combine the mixture by hand and roll into twenty or so equal balls
  • titter at the word balls
  • place the meatballs into the fridge to chill, perhaps pipe a bit of Michael Buble in for them
  • trim and chop the courgettes and aubergine into chunks and mix together in a large roasting dish with the tomatoes, passata and vegetable stock
  • cover the dish with foil and cook for 50 minutes at 200 degrees celsius
  • add the meatballs to the dish, recover (the dish, not your dignity) and cook for another 40 minutes
  • serve!

We’re having ours with turnip and green beans because that’s the only thing left after we made sassy water.

DAY TWO DONE.

J

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May 5, 2015

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bacon, breakfast, breast, classics, fakeaways, indian, lunch, pork, poultry, recipe card, savoury snacks, snacks, syn free, vegan, vegetarian

leek, samphire, pea, mushroom and bacon frittata

Right, so remember we’re structuring the posts a little different this week – it’s pure diet. No sass. Oh fuck off, this is me, I can’t sign my name without a 500 word critique of someone’s hairy top lip and an anecdote about peas. I heard something I haven’t heard in years today: ‘Oh, you’ll know him, he’s gay too’. I mean, it’s a harmless enough comment and it was certainly meant with no malice, but it does tickle me. I like the idea of there being a gay psychic link that becomes activated the very second you turn to someone who shares the same approximate genitals as you (so to speak) and say, oh we’ll give it a go. A yellow pages but in lavender. I suppose it works on the same idea as ‘having a gaydar’ which I DO think there’s a grain of truth in. Paul and I can normally spot the other gay couples wandering around the garden centre or fingering the strawberries in Waitrose, but it never extends to anything more than a tiny smirk and a colossal leer at the cucumber in their trolley. Half the time I walk around like I’ve had a stroke because I’m trying not to wink at them.

In fact, this is what happens when you’re not looking. 

Anyway, hush. So how are we going to do this? Easy! I’m going to mark speed foods with a S and protein-rich foods with a P.

BREAKFAST

poached-eggs

Poached eggs on marmite toast with baked beans

Now come on, you don’t really need me to talk you through this, but it’s a HE of wholemeal bread (the small loaf, don’t be putting two eggs on a doorstep of bread and come crying to me next week) slathered with marmite, baked beans (P) and eggs (P). I can poach an egg properly no problem but time is always a factor, especially now I have to contend with the worry of not getting a reflection of my knob in the pictures (we’re always naked during breakfast, saves showering twice when I invariably spill my cornflakes into my chest hair). So we bought one of these egg-poachers – It’s the easy and lazy way to cook poached eggs in the microwave. £4.99 on Amazon, steal. You half fill each compartment, microwave for forty seconds, crack your egg in, microwave for another 30 seconds and you are done. Normally you get the runny yolk but I was sidetracked scratching Paul’s back this morning so forgot to take them out. Anyway, done!

Oh, be careful – whilst I’ve never experienced this, it can be slightly dangerous to microwave an egg. Perhaps prick the yolk. Up to you. If you happen to like goo blasting across your face in the morning, well then you’re my type of reader.

LUNCH

frittata SLIMMING WORLD

This makes enough for six servings, or if we’re being realistic about the type of people that we are, two servings and a bit leftover to pick at in tears whilst you hang that too-skinny pair of jeans back into the wardrobe. WE’LL GET THERE.

to make leek, samphire, pea, mushroom and bacon frittata you will need:

: one big bugger leek (sliced) (S), a handful of samphire (S), handful of sugarsnap peas (S), mushrooms (sliced) (S), salt and pepper, garlic, 30g of parmesan (optional – HEA choice but don’t forget this serves two/three) eight eggs and a frying pan that is a) non-stick and b) capable of going in the oven.

to make leek, samphire, pea, mushroom and bacon frittata you should:

  • slice and prepare your veg and chuck it all into a frying pan
  • cook off the bacon medallions under the grill (or normal bacon, but chuck away that fat) then chop and add
  • beat all the eggs into submission in a jug, adding a good sprinkle of salt, pepper and garlic (grated)
  • pour egg into the bacon and veg mix and give it a good shake and mix to let the egg soak through
  • pop onto a medium heat for around ten minutes or so until things start to firm up – the top will be runny though
  • add the grated parmesan here if you’re using it
  • whack it into the oven for ten minutes or so on around 180 degrees – you want it firm but not overcooked
  • leave to cool and then slice and serve with salad – it transports well so it’s good for lunch

top tip: you really can chuck any old shite into a frittata, it’s really very forgiving. Any flimflam you have sitting in the bottom of the fridge will easily taste delicious in a frittata. Get it done!

DETOX WATER

detox water 1

Full disclosure – I really think detox waters are a load of piss. Well, not immediately, but they’ll get there. Your body is a detoxing machine! However, that said, drinking water is always a wonderful thing. Click here for the Kilner water dispenser. You don’t need one. You really don’t. But it’s summer soon. Cheaper alternatives are available, by the way. This water contains:

  • two sliced limes (S) (can help prevent kidney stones)
  • one sliced lemon (S) (because you don’t want scurvy, your legs will bend when you get on the scales)
  • half a sliced grapefruit (S) (strengthens the immune system)
  • pineapple sage leaf.

Pineapple sage leaf? Totally unnecessary. But it’s amazing. You may recall I started a herb garden a few posts ago and this little bugger is growing merrily away – the leaves taste like sweet pineapple and smell amazing. You could brew it in a tea, if you’re the type of arty-farty person who thinks such a thing is a sensible idea. 

The water was refreshing and ‘clean’. But then what do you expect, we have plumbed in filtered water and an ice-dispenser. FAT MEN LIVING THE DREAM. Of course, I needed it after my body magic…

BODY MAGIC – GARDENING

garden

I had timetabled four miles of walking for the body magic today, but when we got up it was absolutely chucking it down. I would have been drier had I swam to work down the Tyne. Plus the cows are back on the Town Moor, and they terrify me with their cold, dead eyes and shitty tails. So instead, we spent a good hour or so gardening – from top to bottom:

  • repotted our baby leeks
  • potted out our tomatoes into their automatic watering beds
  • trimmed back our lettuce monster
  • FINALLY planted all the early potatoes!

Google tells me that gardening comes in at around 300 calories for an hour of medium graft. Personally, I reckon 295 of that calorie spend comes from me constantly yanking up my trousers to stop the neighbours over the road being able to see my bumhole everytime I planted a potato. I live in perpetual and unending fear of my top of my arse-crack being exposed.

Never gardened before? You’re missing out. I’m no Charlie Dimmock, despite having her tits and then some. Even if you’ve only got a tiny bit of land to potter in, you can grow your lettuce and herbs easy enough. Tomatoes are more of a fart-on but worth the effort. But start small. Nothing tastes better than something you’ve grown yourself. 

Finally…

chicken curry

Does anyone have Margaret’s number? Seriously, I feel like ringing up and congratulating her. I’ve FINALLY found a Slimming World curry recipe that doesn’t taste like someone’s sneezed a curry stock cube onto some chicken and wrung a dishcloth over it. It was tasty, though I made some adjustments! And SP friendly. So without a moment of hesitation…

to make easy chicken curry with spicy broccoli you will need:

one red onion (chopped) (S), 2 garlic cloves (grated) (S), one chicken breast (makes enough for two) (P), 1 tbsp of korma powder, 6tbsp of tomato puree, 200g of passata, a half teaspoon of turmeric, 400ml of chicken stock, chopped red pepper (S), spinach (S), bit of coriander so you can pretend you’re out somewhere dead fancy. For the broccoli you’ll need some tenderstem broccoli (S) and a 1tbsp of tandoori curry powder

to make easy chicken curry with spicy broccoli you should: 

  • gently cook the onion, chopped red pepper and garlic in a drop of oil or a few squirts of everyone’s favourite pan-ruiner, Frylight
  • chuck in the diced chicken and cook hard and fast until there’s not a squeak of pink chicken
  • add everything else – powder, puree, stock and passata, bring to the boil and then reduce to a low heat and cook for twenty minutes or so until the sauce has thickened, throwing in the spinach for five minutes near the end;
  • whilst that’s happening, throw your broccoli into boiling water and cook the very life out of it for 3 minutes or so – you still want it firm, if you have to gum it to enjoy it you’ve gone too far;
  • drain the broccoli and whilst it is still damp, sprinkle that tandoori powder all over it
  • heat up a griddle pan – again, tiny bit of oil or frylight, and griddle the hell out of that broccoli for a couple of minutes
  • serve up – add a dainty bit of coriander that’ll sit mournfully on the side of your plate until the cat eats it.

Phew! Enjoy that did we? I hope so!

SPEED FOODS USED TODAY: red pepper, spinach, leeks, broccoli, grapefruit, lime, lemon, garlic, onion, mushrooms, samphire, sugarsnap peas (12).

Before I go, there’s a competition running this week. I’ll announce it tomorrow (if I remember) but it’ll reward those with keen eyes…

Please do share this blog as far and as wide as you can.

J

 

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April 28, 2015

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breakfast, low syn, recipe card, savoury snacks, snacks, syn free, vegetarian

cheese and asparagus french toast dippers with soft boiled eggs

Firstly, let’s get this out of the way: what’s green and empty? Orville’s bumhole. Oh you. Paul’s going to write tonight’s entry, and I’ll butt in wherever my big sassy ass can fit. You’ll be able to spot my parts, they’re in italics. How decadent!

Technology really is marvellous, in’t it? I’m happy to say that in a little over seven months we’ve managed to attract (at the time of writing) 2209 subscribers to the website and 2704 to the Facebook group! And thank you to each and every one of you.

I absolutely love technology – any kind. I’m a complete geek when it comes to anything like that. I once dragged James around an old nuclear bunker from the Cold War just so I could crane my neck to have a look at what their printer was like (very beige, if you were wondering). His latest thing is Twitter – I can’t use the bloody thing, too complex for my liking (it just reminds me of someone mouthing off in the middle of a bus station hoping someone screams back – gah) and I recoil whenever I see a bloody hashtag so he’s looking after that side of things. I’ll stick with Facebook, thank you very much. It’s where all the drama happens.

A thought entered my mind today as I sat at my desk at work trying not to think about Galaxy Ripples. I remember the feeling of amazement and wonder I had when I was just a little lad whenever I saw computers. Back then they were just these little boxes whirring away in the corner of the classroom (but only if you were good for that week) that didn’t really do very much but were still fantastic and quite mystical. I also remember the excitement whenever I saw anything even vaguely computerish on the telly (I sat through an entire series of Bugs once. It was crap but it looked cool). I was always lucky enough to have a computer in the house. It started off with the Commodore 64 which unfortunately ended its life at the hands of an errant Lambert and Butler from mother. She used to be fixated with a game called ‘Split Personalities’ where you had to slide bits of a puzzle around to make a picture of a famous personality – mother, in the grips of a panic that only rearranging Elivs Costello’s face in 16-bit can create, must’ve clamped her thin lips down a little too harshly on that tab of hers because the tip fell off and burnt its way through the keyboard. Turns out you can’t load a tape without the use of the space bar.

Our first PC was smashing – a Packard Bell that we had to have the bedroom floor reinforced to stop it crashing through the ceiling. Well not quite, but you get the gist. I’ve never known a computer where you had to shovel coal in the back just to get Encarta 96 running at full speed. No internet at the time – just Solitaire, Rodent’s Revenge and then completely knacking everything up by installing After Dark screensavers (flying toasters!) and setting a boot-up password, then promptly forgetting it. We had to call someone who ‘knew computers’ to come and fix it whilst we stood slack-jawed at the Windows 95 splash screen. He also installed Quake on it but that was far too manly for me so I just spent my time playing Hover and Theme Hospital. No internet at that point see, so there were no long summer evenings spent flogging the dolphin. Anyway. Back to Paul.

From there we eventually moved up to a PC – we got some ‘glorious’ reconditioned box of crap from an iffy looking warehouse that disappeared the next week and where the workers had far too many gold earrings not to be up to something shifty. The only problem was that I used to love tinkering with it. As a curious twelve year old I loved nothing more than taking the case off and pulling wires out to see if I could remember where it went, or delete key files to see if I could fix it (I never could). I was able to get away with it by blaming the Millennium Bug until some smartarse actually pointed to the problems most likely being the massive amounts of smut I had hidden away on it. Eeh what am I like.

I soon got my comeuppance, though. Whilst fannying on too much I accidentally deleted the display driver meaning that it could only ever from that point on do things in sixteen colours. SIXTEEN. You’ve never seen complicated porn until you’ve watched it in only sixteen bloody colours. I didn’t realise a bumhole wasn’t an aurbergine colour until I saw one winking at me for real. Anyway, after a few weeks of aborted, frustrated attempts at having a wank I finally managed to sulk my way into getting another, nicer, newer one. It was still rubbish, mind, but at least I could finally crack one off in a few million different colours. It makes all the difference, believe me. The problem from then on though was that mother started to get her hands on it. No, not that (I know I’m from East Anglia, but come on) I mean the computer, and that’s when it all went terribly wrong. You wouldn’t trust a hamster with a bandsaw so whoever it was that decided a middle-aged woman that had only managed to figure out how to click a biro should be allowed access to a computer deserves a good kicking. There was no time for smut when I had to spend all my days uninstalling toolbars and iffy Bingo diallers and running up and down the stairs with a list of words to run through a thesaurus for her latest Puzzler. And when Bejewelled came along that really was the final straw and I decided to move out. I couldn’t bear another question about a bloody Java installer.

I want to interject here and continue my bit and agree that, for my formative teenager years, technology was amazing – in that technology could get me any amount of debauched filth at the click of a mouse and an installation of Realplayer. Truly, it was a wondrous time to be a teenage boy. When I finally managed to get the computer put in my bedroom rather than downstairs I don’t think I reappeared for a good two weeks, and even then I came out of my bedroom with a right arm like a Russian shot-putter and skin the colour of milk. You know when you were young and you used to slick your arm with PVA glue so that you could peel it off? That’s what my bedroom looked like – like a giant spider had made a nest. My parents were responsible enough to put parental controls on, but nothing stops a teenage boy getting at pornography, and if you’re sitting there reading this thinking little Oliver and Danrobért aren’t bypassing every restriction you’ve put on there, you’re so wrong. It’s a wonder I got any GSCE coursework done.

Hush, you. Fancy lowering the tone like that. Speaking of cheese, though:

cheese asparagus toast

I know right?

to make cheese and asparagus french toast dippers with soft boiled eggs you will need:

two slices of wholemeal bread – now this is where it gets tricky, syn wise. You could use a couple of slices of wholemeal bread (from a small loaf) as your healthy extra and look, that’s fine. It really is. Or, you could splash out a little and get this nice seeded bread, which I work out as 6.5 syns a slice – but see now you’re allowed 60g of wholemeal bread so I’m going to call it and say that it’s 3.5 syns for the bread. It might be a bit more, it might be less. I had it and lost 7lb on that week so either way it didn’t derail me. You’ll also need your healthy extra allowance of cheese – choose a good strong cheese, that way you can use less – 30g of gruyere is what I used), six eggs (two for each of you and two for the bread), a good bunch of asparagus and a strong coffee. Oh, and some spray oil – I use Filipo Berio. Or however you spell it.

to make cheese and asparagus french toast dippers with soft boiled eggs you should:

  • set four eggs away boiling merrily in boiling water – seven minutes is normally enough for a good dippy egg
  • cook your asparagus – little squirt of oil and just cook them in a griddle pan until they’re nicely browned – then chop into pieces, keeping the griddle pan hot
  • whisk the remaining two eggs, a dash of milk and some salt and pepper in a bowl
  • take your slices of bread and make a ‘sandwich’ – cheese and chopped asparagus
  • carefully dip your sandwich into the egg mixture and drop onto the griddle pan so it can toast and the cheese melts
  • serve sliced with the top of the egg removed and dip away! 

I can’t tell you how nice this was. Something different for breakfast too! Yes, it involves using syns, but that’s what they are there for!

P and J

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April 15, 2015

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classics, desserts, low syn, quark, recipe card, snacks, speciality ingredients, sweet snacks

slimming world classics – slimming world roulade

James here – before Paul rambles on about exercise, just a quick note to say that this is the final recipe in the Slimming World Classics week, where we took on seven Slimming World classics and tried them out. I’ll say this – for the most part, they were pretty tasty, but as with anything to do with Slimming World, you need to cook the buggery out of the sauce to make it thicker and add more taste. Unless you happen to like your dinner to look like the kind of shite-on-wheels that Ronnie Corbett is selling these days. The theme week was fun to do and we’ve got a few more pencilled in – but for now at least, it’s back to business as usual – five posts a week and a weigh-in! Enjoy.

If you’ve missed the Slimming World classics, here’s some handy links, but do read on afterwards…

I’m actually doing overtime tonight so I’m handing over to Paul, who wants to drone on about exercise. Go him! I’ll pop my head (the top one) through at the end to sass you to sleep.

Paul now. Tonight I’m gonna be talking about that awful, awful thing that we probably all despise (otherwise we wouldn’t be in this position) – EXERCISE. I know, I know. I dry heaved a bit too. Don’t worry, it’ll pass.

Body Magic, the fancy-dan name that Slimming World gives it, is such an essential part of the programme but the one that is most overlooked for some reason, apart from a glistening sticker that gives waved momentarily under your nose now and again. This is something I never really understood. Exercise, alongside Food Optimising will surely yield even more impressive results – so why not make more of a song and dance about it? I suppose they probably know full well that our fatties balk at the idea of doing any kind of movement and like to shy away from it just so it doesn’t put us off. A shiny sticker now and again though helps keep that sweaty finger in that quark-filled pie.

I’ve always had a funny relationship with exercise. No, funny isn’t the right world. Negligent. Avoidant. Fearful. Even as a young lad (and I’ve pretty much always been big) I absolutely detested exercise of any form which wasn’t really that easy growing up in a farming town where all the stuff to do was hidden away in fields a mile or two from the house or up a tree or hay bale. I once told my (let’s admit it, dim) friend that there was a speed limit on the paths just so I could bike a bit slower and stop my chunky little thighs from chafing.

There have been certain sports over the years, surprisingly, that I actually have really bloody loved, even if it made my chest ache, and when I played them I couldn’t get enough and no amount of truffle-shufflin’ could get in my way. Shinty, for example (no it’s a real thing – I promise. It’s like a gayer version of hockey) I REALLY loved but after only a few lessons of it in school it buggered off and was replaced with ‘apparatus’.  It may also be because me and my bong eye managed to hurtle the ball through a pane of the caretakers greenhouse. Still the manliest thing I’ve ever done in my life). I had a brief fling with Rugby too which I also loved (some for obvious reasons) but various things, namely fags and laziness, stopped this in its track. So, apart from that I’ve never really been that into exercise.

We did join a gym last year though. A big, fancy one called David Lloyd. We paid for the whole year upfront with the thought that if we did so we’d be more inclined to use it (and because she gave us a giant custard cream). We went every day without fail for about five weeks and then never went back. A shame because we both really enjoyed going and I missed it when we didn’t go, and unfortunately the motivation to go back just hasn’t come either.

A few people at work play netball (I work with a lot of ladies) which I used to love as well, but again, too gay. But all of this got me thinking – exactly WHAT will get us motivated to exercise more? I can’t help but think that at some point we’ll need to start putting in some serious exercise to shift some weight – as men we tend to ‘plateau’ with our weight loss. A few things come into my mind – I’d like to start going to the gym again, but a nice, comfortable one. David Lloyd was fancy but it was full of ‘roided up chavs or posh folk that scoffed and sneered as us fatties shuffled into the room. It was like a Smell-o-Vision porno, except all the sexy action was next door and you were just left with the moist air and Piz Buin. Going back to rugby would be a good choice too but that’s something for the future – heaven knows I’ll have to shift a lot more tit if I don’t want to be confused for an advertising hoarding or the entire scrum every time I slow down to catch my breath. I bent down to tie my shoelaces the other day and someone stuck a ‘VOTE UKIP’ poster on my left arse-flank. Aaah.

Team sports I think are definitely the future for us. We aren’t the most sociable of people at the best of times (Bowser has more contact with the neighbours just by shitting in their flowerbeds) so it’ll definitely help with our socialising abilities. I quite fancy the idea of lawn bowls but James has completely put the kibosh on that, saying we’re too common and we’d only get asked to leave once we started carrying on and doing Janice Battersby impressions at each other at top volume. Spoilsport. A shame really as I’d already picked out a lovely cream cardigan for just the occasion.

So the hunt will go on. For now, we’ll probably continue with what we’re doing – doing a thirty minute or so walk to and from work in the mornings and evenings. Nice and gentle and easy is the ticket – I used to walk 6 miles a day to and from work which I could only sustain for a week at the time before either a hole was worn in the thigh of my tracksuit bottoms, my feet went on strike or I broke the shower tray in the cubicle at work (oops – my bad) so all of that was pretty self-defeating.

And so on that note, if exercise is the enemy of the fatty the antidote is the friend – CAAAKKE. Here, if you’ve ever wanted to be me, this is exactly what it sounds like when I call James from the supermarket and tell him I’ve used the Nectar points on a chocolate finger.

The remix overeggs the pudding a little but christ, James even looks like Brendan. SPEAKING OF OVER-EGGING THE PUDDING…

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James may have put a slight editorial bias on the picture. But, plot twist, it’s actually James typing now, so on we go.

to make slimming world roulade, you’ll need:

4 eggs, 1 tub of quark, 5 tbsp artificial sweetener, 1 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp vanilla essence, fruit (we used strawberries).

to make slimming world roulade, you should:

  • take all of your expectations of this being a taste sensation and put them in the nearest bin
  • oven onto 180°
  • seperate the yolks from the egg whites which is an absolute piece of piss with one of these egg separators!
  • whisk together the four egg yolks, half the tub of quark, four tablespoons of artificial sweetener, baking powder (hence half a syn) and vanilla essence, set aside
  • whisk together the egg whites until it’s stiff enough to satisfy – whisk half into the egg yolk slop and then fold in the rest – you need to be delicate here, you’re not trying to put out a burning tramp – you want to keep the air in, see
  • line a baking sheet with paper, pour the mixture in, spread it finely and bake for 15-20 minutes
  • use the time to think about your life and what the hell makes you think this is going to taste like anything other than a sweetened omelette with the consistency of a pump-filled cloud
  • once it’s done, allow to cool – you’ll not get the full effect of the flavour if you go in warm
  • mix the rest of the quark with the tablespoon of the sweetener and spread it over the cake, dot it with strawberries and roll it up like an eggy bifta
  • enjoy.

Paul thinks it tastes ‘OK’. I think it tastes exactly like what it is – an eggy, hyper-sweet TURD. 

If you’re short on time, there’s a far quicker recipe:

  • nip to ASDA and buy a pack of these:

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  • smear a Muller-fucking-Light on the top
  • enjoy whilst crying tears of shame.

Look – Slimming World has syns, use them on a slice of bloody cake and enjoy it. Fair enough, choking this down might get you your Body Magic award, but COME ON.

I think I’ve managed to hide my disdain well.

J & P

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April 14, 2015

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drinks, low syn, recipe card, snacks, sweet snacks, vegetarian

a thick, meaty guide to Options on Slimming World

We’re out and about tonight so no real post, but I made this for you guys and girls – it’s a guide to Options.

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My good friend Phillipa, knowing my kitchen is awash with volcanic red Le Creuset and other expensive frippery, decided I needed a cup with a handle made from a cock with a skidder down the side of it. I’m not going to lie, I totally love it, and it’ll sit proudly on my windowsill so ole Vinegartits over the road can get her gusset damp over it! Options aren’t a bad option on Slimming World, especially if you’re like us and you find yourself craving chocolate last thing at night and it’s a toss-up between getting a McFlurry or having some angry sex.

There was also a penis cake, but that’s an entry all on it’s own. I had to bring it home because I’m not convinced I could have got away with putting it next to my desk at work and offering it out. I mean if I can’t do that with my own penis I can hardly see a cake version winning. Another friend of mine once made a cake where it was basically a vagina with a baby coming out. Who on Earth thinks that’s a good idea? I felt so guilty cutting through the baby’s head that I could barely go back for thirds. Man I miss baking.

…long entry tomorrow, fnar fnar, starring…cake!

J

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April 11, 2015

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recipe card, savoury snacks, snacks, syn free, taster ideas, travel, vegetarian

cheesy smash scones

Gosh, I love a Saturday – the traffic to the blog spikes like crazy and we always get a swell of new people joining. Hello one and all, don’t forget to tell your friends. That was the deal. Don’t make me Princess Di you, I’ve got access to a Fiat Uno. You’ll find a link to all the recipes at the top of the page, together with an FAQ for new members of Slimming World and some other flim-flam.  Tonight’s recipe is for slimming world smash scones, and tomorrow’s Slimming World Classic is salt and pepper chicken, but we’ve jazzed it up just a smidge. The recipe that we found out was ‘fry chicken, add salt, add pepper’ which isn’t a recipe at all. Their other recipes included ‘elegant tannin slurp’ (boil kettle, add milk, add tea-bag). Knobbers. Maybe I made that bit up, you’re not the boss here.

Anyway, back to Ireland, where you may remember we were spending an awful amount of time driving around and being snotty about craft shops? Well rest assured that this continued unabated. But first, an observation. See, Paul and I have the type of marriage where we can openly discuss other good-looking men without one of us throwing a paddy and waving a pair of blunt scissors at the other’s cock, and as a result we were looking forward to seeing plenty of rough-hewn Irish farmer types with bushy beards and big soft eyes strutting around. Well, pfft. For a start, everyone was about 2ft tall. Seriously, they’d have blinded themselves if they’d pulled their socks up. Plus, weedy – apparently despite only having shops that sell Daniel O’Donnell tat and Guinness fiddle-faddle the men have found somewhere that sells those bloody awful Abercrombie and Fitch hoodies and tiny pin-leg jeans. THAT’S NOT MANLY. I even saw a man-bun (and you may remember how I feel about that) on someone serving diesel in the last petrol station before civilisation ended. I bet if we go back in a year there will be burgers in brioche buns and someone drinking out of a watering can. Pissheads. Scotland has the best blokes – then England, then Wales, then Ireland.

 MV68ILE

That’s what we were expecting…

Studio portrait of young man

That’s what we got. GOD-DAMN IT IRELAND.

We visited a chocolate factory. I say visited, Paul barely had time to register the words coming up on the turn-off sign before I had swerved the car across the road and into the car-park. I swear I was inside at the tasting station before he’d even unsuckered the sat-nav from the windscreen. MIND. It was a bit of a stretch to call it a chocolate factory, given it seemed to consist of a few lovely Irish ladies melting chocolate nips and scattering orange peel into it. That said, we still stocked up, ostensibly on gifts for our co-workers, but I’m not exaggerating when I tell you that we had one of the giant chocolate slabs open before we’d even pulled out of the car park. We rationalised it by thinking that, as we’d seemingly shored up Ireland’s deficit by buying so much chocolate, the decent thing to do would be to enjoy it. Plus, they’d been a bit stingy with the ‘free tasting’ considering the amount of money we’d spent – I can remember even now seeing Paul’s watery eyes and downturned mouth when she went to put away the tray of free chocolate.

We also visited the “Most Beautiful Cliffs in Kerry” – which I personally think lived right up to the name. It’s a strong, bold claim and we almost didn’t get to see it. Not because of bad weather, or the access being closed…no, because we were so full of chocolate that we drove straight past when we saw ‘only a five minute walk from the car-park’ on the side.  Isn’t that mortifyingly lazy? But I’ve been each and every person reading this has done something similar. I mean, it was just so warm in the car, and a cliff is a bloody cliff…right? We drove on for another ten minutes before we had to turn back around and go see the bloody cliffs, so ashamed were we by our own bloody laziness. Actually – glad we did, because look…

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Isn’t that amazing? Despite the two minute walk being more like a ten minute gentle stroll up a gradient that a marble would struggle picking up speed rolling down, it was more than worth it, even if Paul did struggle with the defibrillator at the end. My sense of injustice was piqued by the gypsy (genuinely, I’m not just being racist) who charged me €4 to park the car and gave us a ticket to view the cliffs, but I didn’t fancy arguing with someone who had colour-ordinated his brown change purse with his nicotine-lacquered teeth.

We visited an immeasurable number of beaches, and by god I’ll never forget them, not least because I’m still pouring out a good half of them onto my living room carpet at the end of the day. One afforded us the chance, thanks to a stern warning that we simply mustn’t go on the rocks (which we immediately did), to reinact that bit where old Jelly Belly Harold Bishop fell into the sea and Madge was left shouting HAAAAARULD at the crashing waves after she found his glasses in a rockpool. Remember that? Twochubbycubs do.

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Seriously, every day with us is full of nonsense like this. If we’re not re-enacting famous soap deaths – I’ve done Jim Robinson before, complete with quacks and a rolling orange, we’re yelling Titanic quotes at each other. Plus, we left behind some free advertising.

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Subtle, right? Here, one final thing. The cottage had an amazing cottage but clearly attracted the sort of people who were braggarts and fancydans when it came to their wine, to the point where each person staying had placed an empty bottle of their best wine on top of the kitchen cupboards (quite a task, given how high up they were – I had to really stretch and I’m tall enough to be continued). And oh lord, people had signed them too – and the names read like a Vegan’s Anonymous meeting, all Cressy and Johnathanial and suchlike. So, in the sense of causing mischief, we added our own. Can you spot it?

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Haha, I’ve never drank blue WKD in my life, I don’t think. It’s like wearing Lynx, once you’ve actually had sex, it should be beneath you. Anyway. I tell you what’s below me? My feet. My feet which aren’t cheesy. But I tell you what IS cheesy? These Smash scones! Yeah alright, that was a shit link, so sue me, it’s late. LOOK AT THEM.

scones

Before I get started, let me just put this in here.

TWEAK

Yes, this is definitely a tweak. If you don’t tweak, just skip on. If you’re comfortable tweaking, crack on! These are delicious and perfect to make as a snack. Not sure what tweaking is? My previous rant explains it…click here for that (lots of people seem to really enjoy that article…!)

to make cheesy smash scones, you’ll need:

100g of plain Smash, 2 eggs, 300g of low-fat cottage cheese (make sure you get the syn free cottage cheese, I use the Tesco low fat version), 30g of hard extra strong cheese, chopped chives (we have them growing in the garden – for goodness sake, get yourself a pot, bit of compost and one of the growing pots from Tesco for a quid, they almost grow themselves), paprika for the top, garlic salt.

to make cheesy smash scones, you should:

nothing to this one – you blend the egg and cottage cheese together with a hand-blender, add the Smash, cheese, chives and garlic and shape into a dough. It should feel dry and not very sticky, you can always work a bit more Smash in. You don’t actually need to blend the egg and cottage cheese first, but I like it smooth. Shape it into whatever shape you want, drop them into a frylighted oven tray, sprinkle with paprika and cook for 25 minutes on 190 degrees (check on them after 15 minutes).

Done!

ENJOY.

J

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April 8, 2015

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american, breast, classics, fakeaways, fast food restaurants, poultry, recipe card, savoury snacks, snacks, syn free, taster ideas, travel

KFC-style chicken

Classics Week continues with a recipe for KFC chicken – I’m not a fan of KFC, something about sticking my bone in a greasy box doesn’t appeal. But, nevertheless, it’s a recipe that seems to be doing the rounds on the various SW facebook sites so we thought we should give it a go. Recipe near the bottom, but first, MORE CHUNTERING ABOUT IRELAND.

You left us yesterday as we pulled up outside the cottage, and going forward, I’m not going to talk day to day as a lot of the days were the same (pootle about in the car, eat, eat some more, pootle a bit further, eat, stock up on ice-cream and nip back to the cottage in time for Tipping Point) – instead, I’ll just rattle off some incidents, high points and thoughts.

First, we managed to cause major offence within twenty four hours. Frankly, if you’re of a nervous disposition or candid talk of sex makes you green, just skip ahead a couple of paragraphs.

See, the cottage came with a hot-tub, and we decided to enjoy dusk in the hot-tub completely nude – pity the poor filters having to work overtime to drain out our back-hair and toenails.  But, it was incredibly romantic and we were incredibly isolated, with not a soul around us (to the point where, at night, we could look across the valley and see only one solitary light for miles around), and being young, virile young men, we immediately got up to dickens. Well, it was my birthday after all.

Picture the scene – the bubbling of the steamy water, music playing through the iPad, the rhymthic sound of the jets, the twilit light bouncing off Paul’s wobbling buttocks (it would look like the Mitchell brothers were hiding just under the water), me playing a mean tune on the old ham trumpet – perfectly romantic for a married couple. Well yes, until a honking big tractor appeared at the end of the garden less than thirty foot away. How we had missed it was understandable – Paul was facing the other way and I was always told not to talk with my mouth full – but how the hell the farmer didn’t see until he was parked up I have no clue. Looking back, there would have been a hedge blocking his view until about 40 foot away, and then he probably just thought he was committed.

Good lord. You’ve never seen two people spring back as quick as we did – it was like someone had dropped a toaster in the water. Half the water in the hot-tub sloshed over the side exposing even more of our milky-white frames. Mind, he was no better – he looked like your very personification of a hard-bitten farmer – tattered cloth cap, wax jacket from the eighties, face like a drained field, and he ambled over with his hand pulling the brow of his cap over his eyes like he was Icarus approaching the sun. When really, it was the FULL MOON he should have been worried about. He spluttered something about the oil heating and asked if everything was alright – I assume, anyway, because we couldn’t hear or understand a word of what he said and I certainly wasn’t going to engage him in any chatter whilst my boobs blew around in the hot-tub jets. He sharp got back in his tractor and almost did a donut on the gravel drive way trying to get away.

So that killed the mood. To be honest, I’m not a massive fan of the hot-tub, it’s what people with bad taste buy when they win the lottery. What might look glamorous on the deck of a gorgeous chalet in the Alps doesn’t look quite so alluring pressed up beside a mouldy shed and the frame of a B&Q value trampoline in a shitpit in Southend. Nothing quite says class like drinking Bellabrusco from a plastic beaker as multi-coloured LEDs illuminate your bumhole. Anyway, that didn’t stop us, and despite it being a proper fan-on, we used that hot-tub several more times throughout the holiday.

However, I’m not convinced the filter was working correctly, because towards the end of the holiday, the water became murkier and murkier and started to smell. Not that such trifling matter stopped us – here, we’re Geordie, divven’t ya knaa – but I don’t think you should have to crack the top of the water like a crème brûlée before you get in.

Actually, that’s not even the end of the hot-tub tale, and nor was it the only time we were surprised by an unwelcome visitor. See, on one of the nights that we spent in the hot-tub under the stars, the local horse made an appearance, looming out of the dark about 5 foot away from Paul’s head and promptly did that noise that horses make when they blow air through their noses. Paul shit himself – no wonder the filters didn’t work – but soon calmed down when he realised what it was. All was well until the horse bit him on the head – at that point we called it a night. Ah, nature.

Well now look at that – see this is why I couldn’t write for a living, I’ve spent eight paragraphs talking about hot-tubs! So let’s put Ireland to bed for an evening whilst I mull over whether to categorise this post as x-rated or not.

KFC chicken!

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Now, we used one wholemeal bun and it made more than enough ‘crumb’ for the two of us – one wholemeal breadbun being one person’s healthy extra. If you want to syn it, you’ll need 6 syns – 3 syns each. You can use smash and make it syn free but ew.

to make KFC style chicken, you’ll need:

ingredients: two chicken breasts (cut into strips), one breadbun, 1tsp of dried oregano, 1tsp of garlic salt, 3tsp of paprika, black pepper, a bit of salt, a tiny pinch of ground ginger and one big old bugger of an egg.

to make KFC style chicken, you should:

recipe:

  • honestly, if you struggle making this, you need to pop yourself into a nursing home now
  • blitz the breadcrumbs and the various powders together in a food processor – you don’t want it like dust, but just fine crumbs
  • beat your egg in a little bowl
  • take a strip of chicken, drop it in the egg, make sure it is covered, put it into the bread/spice mix, cover well, and place on a baking sheet.  If you have cheap trays that stick, either grease them a smidge or use non-stick lining
  • into the oven they go – twenty minutes on one side, turn them, and fifteen minutes on the other on a 200degree heat
  • take them out if they burn, obviously
  • serve with BBQ beans (we added a drop of chipotle rub into our beans before cooking), fries (We use this little potato chipper to make decent shaped fries in a jiffy! Only £7), corn if you want and coleslaw if you can be bothered to make your own (syn-free coleslaw recipe here)

Enjoy!

Quick note – if you love this blog, please share share share! Tell your friends! Tell a neighbour! Tell that fat lassie you don’t care for! Leave a note in someone’s lunchbox. Tell your group about us. Share it on FB. Spread the word – where else can you get gay sex, snobbery, KFC chicken and sassiness all in one post?

J

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March 21, 2015

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budget, lunch, one-pot, recipe card, savoury snacks, snacks, soup, syn free, vegan, vegetarian

carrot, swede and potato soup

Because that’s when good neighbours become good friends!

I can’t quite believe Neighbours is still going, let alone celebrating 30 years on the air. I was always a Home and Away man myself, partly because as a fat child I couldn’t be bothered getting up to turn the channel over after Fun House. I remember the great disasters like it was yesterday – the big flood, the earthquake, Evil Ailsa, telling my mum she looked like Irene who used to run the diner. Good times! I spotted the 30th anniversary trailer for Neighbours before on TV and I’m happy to confirm that yes, I DO still look like Harold. Mind, that would make Paul Madge, so that really quite tickles me.

Oh, speaking of being tickled, I’ve had a great ten minutes. See, we use something called Spotify which allows you to listen to thousands and thousands of different music tracks. All very exciting. We’ve got Premium which means you can access your playlists on the move and Paul’s phone syncs his music through his car. However, I’ve learned that I can log in from home and change the music playing in his car whilst he’s out and about. Anyway, he’s out driving people to a young Marxist meeting, and I’ve been making all sorts play in the car (Heaven Must Be Missing An Angel by Tavares, Lovin’ You by Minnie Ripperton and my personal favourite, Can You Feel The Love Tonight from The Lion King). His response was a smidge curt:

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Eee, I hope he doesn’t kiss his mother with that mouth. Although that would explain his stubble burn.

Anyway, yes, Neighbours – or indeed neighbours, was what has been on my mind.

When Paul and I first started shagging ‘going steady’, we moved into a flat on Newcastle’s Quayside, seduced by the fabulous views of a concrete factory and the Millennium bridge. It was lovely but the entire block of flats were taken up by the kind of pretentious, rah-rah-rah knobheads who we both loathe with a passion. We had a homeless man living in the bin store, shitting everywhere, and someone set up a ‘collection point’ for him. Now, I’m a liberal guy, I really am, but I don’t want to tread in human shit every time I put my bins out. It’s not a lot to ask. Our neighbour downstairs used to have cracking arguments with his girlfriend mind which provided much hilarity until we thought he had belted her and so we called the police. They never talked to us again after that. Well, briefly – Paul had been drying some boxer shorts on the balcony when the wind caught a particularly well-worn pair and blew them over the edge and sadly, because the girlfriend of the lad downstairs was out smoking on her balcony, they landed right on the top of her head. She thought we had done it deliberately and launched an absolute torrent of abuse, we probably didn’t help by shutting the balcony door and screaming with laughter. Oh dear. We only lasted two years there before moving out, with the prevalent memory of the place being the black suede headboard in the master bedroom. Well, it wasn’t black when we left, let me tell you. It looked like a Jackson Pollock painting – what can I say, we were young and keen in those days, and who the fuck chooses black suede as a headboard? Frankly, we needed something laminated.

We then moved to Gosforth into a Tyneside flat, which was slightly less salubrious but a lot more homely. The only problem was our neighbour upstairs, who came down for a vodka when we moved in and then turned completely mad. She was the type who’d happily clatter around on her cheap lino in her best Primarni heels when she rolled in at 3am with that night’s bus-stop encounter gelling on her thigh, but would hammer on the floor and yell about the noise if I so much as yawned. For a good few weeks we crept about underneath like the fucking Borrowers, which was incredibly difficult for two twenty stone blokes to do, before realising that we weren’t being unreasonably noisy, she was, and that we should really get our revenge. Lucky, that was fairly easy.

In our bedroom was a grand, open fireplace which had been somewhat shoddily sealed off by someone putting a slab of stone just above the grate. Her bedroom, immediately above ours, shared the same chimney. Sound was usually muffled thanks to the stone but, after we moved it slightly, we were able to get up to all sorts of mischief. We’d wait until we knew she was in bed, move the stone a tiny bit, and fart up the chimney. As I said before, we are big blokes, and frankly, we fart like bulls at the best of times, but we used to store them up to the point of stomach pains just so we could blow them up the chimney. It must have sounded like someone was practicising the tuba in the chimney stack, especially given how the sound would amplify. We’d also make off-putting sex noises if she had anyone round and, in what I think was the most inspired move, we played a load of Roy Walker sound-clips (like Chris Moyles’ Car Park Catchphrase) when she had her mother around. She moved out about a month afterwards and silence fell. When she left, we felt able to tidy up the patch outside the house, and planted lots of nice flowers which was grand until the snooty moo to the left of us came downstairs and criticised our cheap pots. Cheap! We were on a budget back then, and anyway, it was the rougher end of Gosforth, not bloody somewhere posh. Our retalliation was swift – we went to Poundland, bought all manner of garish gnomes, plastic frogs, tatty windmills and other such flimflam until our garden looks like a roadside memorial to a boy-racer. She never talked to us after that, although I drove past the flat the other day and there’s still a god-awful, sun-bleached frog in the front garden so whoever has the house now must have THE worst taste ever.

Finally, we moved to our current house, and it’s perfect – why? Because we’re a detached bungalow!

Speaking of perfect blends, here’s a soup recipe. YES! YES I DID A GOOD SEGUE FOR ONCE!

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Look, there’s no way to make that look alluring or inviting, but it tasted good and couldn’t have been simpler to make. No really, it couldn’t. I bought a prepared soup veg mix from Tesco, where the carrot, swede, potato and onion were all cut up. I threw it all in my soup maker with 600ml of chicken (you could use vegetable) stock, some garlic, salt and pepper, pressed a button, came here to type out the bit above and I’d barely stopped chuckling and clutching my sides when it beeped ready. A quick blend – in the same machine – and we were done. Served! You can buy the same soupmaker as the one I use right here. Somewhat annoyingly, it’s reduced from £140 to £90. Worth getting? I think so. It took less than one minute to prepare the soup, 30 minutes to cook and a moment to blend. Plenty of superfree in there too. Very rare that I think a kitchen gadget is worth the money but I would actually recommend a soup maker. If you get one, why don’t you try tomato, fennel and feta soup, super speedy ‘just like Heinz’ tomato soup, super speed soup, cabbage, kidney bean and sausage soup, kale, spinach and broccoli and pesto soup or onion soup.

Enjoy all!

J

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March 18, 2015

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fakeaways, italian, kebab shop, low syn, pizza, recipe card, savoury snacks, snacks, taster ideas, vegetarian

syn free cheesy garlic bread

I can’t begin to describe the absolute cuntnugget that I happened across yesterday. I was queued up in Subway awaiting my usual lunchtime trough of food (plain chicken, all the salad bar onion, double gherkin, double pickle, honey and mustard, no drink, cheers yes, haha) when in walks some twat wearing a top-hat. In Newcastle, in Subway, with a waxed pointy moustache to boot. It gets worse – when he got to the counter, he actually came out with ‘So how on Earth does this work, then’. I was filled with irrational hatred. All I could think about was dashing back to the counter, pushing his face through the glass sneeze-guard and holding his head down in the pickles container until he stopped struggling for life and the police arrived to take me away. He was singularly the most achingly try-hard hipster twat that I’ve ever had the absolute displeasure to orbit.

It is, without doubt, the worst ‘subculture’ that exists right now. Zip backwards fifteen years ago and it was easy (at our school at least) – you had normal kids, then on either side of those you had chavs or Goths. And mind, these Goths were the starter Goths – none of this professional goth/emo whatever you see around town. They all had knock-off coats like Neo from the Matrix and a Livejournal account for photos of their self-harming. I had long, black hair for a good portion of my later school years but I was never a goth, not least because I was too fat – there’s nowt worse than a tiny muffin-top popping out over a pair of New-Rock boots. One of my exes told me he was a goth before we met up but that only extended to have long hair – I’m not sure how gothic giving someone Enya’s A Box Of Dreams on a first date is.

Chavs on the other hand are less tolerable but I just put most of that down to being thick. It was the time of coke-can fringes and Kappa tracksuit and for the most part, given it was a fairly posh school I went to, we’d only really see them out and about in the wild, their tracksuits rustling in the breeze. As I get older I find myself growing more contemptuous of a subculture that seems to revel in stupidity and an ability not to throw a trampoline on any square of dog-shit littered grass bigger than a postage stamp, but that’s by the by – it’s hipster that draws my true ire.

It’s just so loathsome, so affected, so nonsensical. Every year – including going backwards and forward through time, no doubt – it’s the same. Newcastle becomes awash with students all trying to outdo each other on the poncy twat stage. Instead of the booming Geordie dialect ricocheting around the streets of the city centre, you’ll hear trust-fund rah-rah knobheads, whose idea of living dangerously is a quinoa salad on a terrace in Jesmond, stumbling around in their lollipop trousers and 1920s make-up. We have bars opening up all over the town catering to such predilections, all copying the ‘trends’ that London washed its hands off three years earlier – a drink served in a jam-jar? Oh outrageous. And I fucking hate it.

I don’t hate garlic bread, mind, but being a fat twat means I can’t have it. Sniff. But I can have this…

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This photo doesn’t really do it justice, I must say. I had to hurry through the kitchen like Electra from the Starlight Express whilst Paul juggled three separate courses at the same time. This tastes almost exactly like cheesy garlic breadsticks you get from the takeaway, with the exception that it’s healthy!

This will make about eight breadsticks – enough for two.

to make syn free cheesy garlic bread you’ll need:

one cauliflower (or 600g-ish defrosted cauliflower florets), one egg white, 2 cloves of garlic, 40g grated cheese (2x HexA), salt, pepper, oregano

to make syn free cheesy garlic bread you should:

preheat the oven to 190 degrees (gas mark 5). Cut the cauliflower into florets and bung into a large food processor. Blitz until it has a ‘rice’ texture with a few bigger chunks. Spread out onto a baking tray or Pyrex dish and bake in the oven for about 20 minutes. Allow to cool for about five minutes. Tip the mixture into a dry, clean tea towel and pull the corners together. Squeeze the ball of mixture as much as you can (if it’s still too hot, let it cool down for a bit more). This will take about ten minutes of squeezing, until it has quite a dry, crumbly texture. In a bowl, add garlic and egg whites to the cauliflower with 10g of grated cheese and mix well. Tip onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and shape until it’s about half a centimetre thick. Top with the remaining cheese and bake in the oven for about twenty minutes, and grill for about three. Cut, and enjoy!

Don’t be put off by the cauliflower – yes, it does taste a little like cauliflower but if you’re not a fan of you really won’t mind – it gives a great ‘doughy’ texture. Make sure it’s nice and firm when it’s cooked so it’ll hold it’s shape for dipping. If it sags a little, bake for a few minutes more.

On a final note…

TWEAK

This uses half a cauliflower each as a base. Some might consider it a tweak and therefore requires synning, but given that half a cauliflower isn’t an extravagant amount of veg to have in one go and you haven’t magically deep-fried it in lard as you moved it from the oven to the tea-towel I haven’t bothered. You can if you wish.

Buon appetito or summat.

J

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March 16, 2015

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desserts, low syn, quark, recipe card, snacks, speciality ingredients, sweet snacks, vegetarian

tiramisu – 1 syn, 5 syns, take your pick!

James (doing overtime again) says two things: people will never know the trauma of trying to diet with over 200 chocolate eggs surrounding you, and damn – a disappointing new song from Muse. Ah well. Over to Rose West…

Do you know what gets on my wick? And I mean really gets on my wick? Staff tuck shops. You know the ones I mean – some enterprising colleague decides to clear out a filing cabinet drawer and stuff it to the brim with chocolate and crisps and all sorts of delicious treats. These are also the ones that probably send around 30 CC’d emails around the office every other day for some Cake Sale event that going around. Comic Relief. Sports Relief. Colon Relief. That last one was made up, but equally as satisfying, believe me.

Now, I know my anger with this one is misplaced. I’m not angry with the drawer (it’s a very pretty, sleek affair) or with what’s in it – oh no. A slightly-undersized Snickers at hand provides a national service on-par with the NHS in my book. And the cost is entirely reasonable, especially when the menstrual vending machine wants to charge three-times that amount on a battered, broken Twirl. No, my anger on this issue is placed solely at the type of people that do it. Wholly pleasant people, naturally, but they’re always tiny, or skinny. The one in my office is completely lean, not an inch of fat on him and it was the same in my old office. How do they do it?! I can only assume they have complete self-control, something probably unnatural inside them that stops them from diving headfirst into it like Scrooge McDuck does into his pile of money which is exactly what I would do if I didn’t think I’d get stink-eye from the typists.

I managed to stay away from our drawer at work for a whole 14 MONTHS (I refused to be allowed to be told where exactly it was) before succumbing to a 40p can of Diet Coke and since then it’s like an aluminium Mermaid, sending out a siren song, enticing me to just drop a few coins for a roll of Rolo’s with the label in Turkish. Gah, it drives me mad. I try my best to instruct everyone around it to form some sort of Transformers-style Berlin Wall whenever I hoist myself off my orthopaedic chair but it never works. So the fault is entirely theirs that I’m so fat. Yup.

Keeping a mental note of what sweet treats have syn values can be a right fanny-on. I always like to save a copy of those pictures you often see fly around Facebook that has syn values printed over various bars of chocolate. I have to suck air through my teeth as I notice the 5 different notification bars at the top and the MS Word red-squiggly line under some words (one day the world will know how to do these things properly. And I will be happy) but on the whole they’re very useful.

And this got me thinking – how exactly can you enjoy a sweet treat on Slimming World? I’m sure you’d agree with me that desserts are by far the most neglected part of any diet. Dessert for me is the absolute highlight of a meal. I always position myself as close as possible to pregnant ladies on meals out because I know they’ll never let me down and I can at least half-pretend to have a pudding in solidarity. After I’ve spent a week telling them of course that the baby would want a dessert, and have you seen the dessert list? And oooh, you must be craving crumble by now. Never fails. It’s almost worth the effort knocking them all up.

Where was I? Oh yes. Dessert. Or Pudding if you’re rough (just kidding). Like me you’ll probably balk at the idea of a bowl of sliced fruit with a spoon of Splenda slung money-shot style over the top of it, or a bowl of Quark with an Options stirred in. These aren’t all bad, but they always seem to lack that indulgent factor that makes a dessert a dessert. That’s why, with this baby, I’m sure you’ll be pleased. Slimming World Tiramisu! The Cilla Black of the dessert world, granted, but this really was delicious. Just healthy enough to keep you on track, and indulgent enough to make you giggle like a horny housewife at a meter reader. A few elements of this are the standing Slimming World fare– quark, Options, sweetener, but to add a bit of depth to it I’ve added a spoonful of Baileys – one – for a bit of creaminess, two – for a boozy taste that you need for Tiramisu, and three – for a bit of boldness to the flavour. We like to use the mantra that a few syns are good for you – it’s those that keep you on track. A syn-free diet will only lead to ruin. This is great for a weigh-in night treat.

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Here’s the recipe, and this will serve up two big portions, or four small ones.

to make tiramisu, you’ll need:

Tub of Quark (I’d use the Golden Acre or any ‘thicker’ style of Quark – a ‘spoonable’ one won’t quite give you the right texture, unless you put the whole thing in the freezer for an hour or so, so it firms up, two Cappucino Mullerlights, 1tsp sweetener, 2tsp of Camp (one syn), 50ml Bailey’s (eight syns), pinch of sea salt and a pinch of cocoa

to make tiramisu, you should:

Throw the lot together and mix. I used a stand mixer and it was done in less than a minute. Stick a sponge finger at the end and pretend you didn’t eat the rest of the pack whilst it was mixing. 5 syns a portion, or 2.5 if you’re having a smaller one. You could reduce the syn value to just 1 if you’re feeling virtuous if you left out the Bailey’s, but I think it gives it a kick. As always, please give it a go, and let us know what you think!