Category Archives: savoury snacks

Savoury snack recipes

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March 6, 2017

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fakeaways, low syn, lunch, pork, pork joints, pressure cooker, recipe card, sandwiches, savoury snacks, slow cooker, snacks

the best bbq pork sandwiches ever, I kid you not

Look at the sandwich. I mean, look at it. It’s amazing. Beautiful. I’d say epic but then I’d need to punch my own teeth down my throat because the word epic is shorthand for dickhead. But considering how easy it is to make and how tasty it is, you have no excuse NOT to make the best BBQ pork sandwiches ever. This is ‘junk food’ but done absolutely right.

But first, the always fragrant Chriss took up our challenge to write for the blog, and I include her entry below, not least because my wrists hurt from typing so much about France. Remember folks, if you want to write something for us, do get in touch – it’ll be your time to shine! Oh, for those in the South, a ‘mam’ is a mother.

times past by Chriss

I love reading the stories James tells about his childhood, mainly because they’re very similar to my memories of growing up in a little Northern town.

Some of my happiest memories are of time spent with family doing everyday stuff that I probably didn’t rate it at the time. Like walking down to the allotment my dad shared with my grandad and my uncles to ‘help’ with the weeding and play hide and seek with my cousins. My dad is one of 10 kids, so I had loads of cousins since each of dad’s siblings had 2,3 or 4 kids. Here’s an interesting fact for you; my mam met my dad when her sister married my dad’s brother!

My grandad was never short of ‘willing volunteers’ in the allotment on a Saturday afternoon. We would walk down there with my dad and if he had his homemade wheelbarrow (made from an old wooden pallet and some pram wheels) my 2 sisters would hitch a lift while me and my brother walked either side. When we got there we would sneak off and steal gooseberries or strawberries, or a nice stick of raw rhubarb while the ‘menfolk’ did all the hard work. I spent most of my time looking for ripe tomatoes in the greenhouse. My nanna and grandad were lovely. Grandad Pipe (my other grandad was Grandad Dredger) used to play trombone in a colliery band and was rode his pushbike to the allotment every day until he broke his ankle aged 82 and was told he had to give up his bike. He wasn’t happy about that. He had a really dry sense of humour, had time for everyone and never forgot our names even though there were dozens of us.

Nanna made the most amazing rhubarb and ginger jam. She always did a huge spread on Boxing Day for all the family which must have taken at least a week to prepare! On Saturday afternoons when we all descended on her house, she would send us down to the chippy at the bottom of the street for 4 bags of chips with scraps that she managed to share between us all, along with an endless supply of bread and butter for butties. It’s sad how families grow apart when they lose their central meeting point. I know we have to grow up and most of us are in contact through Facebook, but it’s not the same as the halcyon days at Nanna and Grandad’s house.

I enjoyed that trip down memory lane, not least because it’s unusual for me to have any sort of trip down any sort of lane without it ending with me bent over the bonnet of a Punto whilst a disinterested plumber tries to fluff himself to full-mast.

Thanks to Chriss for her contribution!

An unusually prescient entry too – I spent yesterday back in my old village where I grew up, wandering about and reminiscing myself. My mum always tells me off when I write about my childhood because I make it sound as though I grew up in a Dickensian workhouse, eating carpet lint and weeds to get by. WE WEREN’T THAT POOR, she cries, spluttering her words through the asbestosis she picked up working down t’pit.

If family are the ties that bind then surely the home is the anchor, keeping everyone together however far they drift away. Ties, whether familial, blood or friendly, link us to a past and give us a reason to return there, to indulge ourselves in some nostalgia and relive memories long since faded. Now, with my uncle dead as a doorpost, my very last link to the village disappears and I’m left with no other reason to go and visit a place I spent 17 years of my life.

Well, aside from needing a bit of fresh air.

So, with Paul at the gym and me not wanting to risk my see-sawing neckbones, I tramped around Horsley, the village where I grew up, for a good three hours. I started off following the path where I used to walk our useless dog – he’d run off if he heard a loud noise, and his idea of a loud noise was a gate crashing or a sheep baaing. See I must have walked that path about 700 times but I’d forgotten so much – the lovely view of the Tyne Valley, the fact you can’t put a foot down without stepping in some animal shit, the distressing reality that there were no less than three gates to climb over. Where I previously used to vault them with reasonable ease, now, with my considerable bulk and ageing joints, it was like someone trying to push a settee out of a second floor window. Elegant and graceful it was not. I pushed myself over and made to cross the A69.

Wandering down the lane back to the village brought memories anew – the time my sister and I, together with a friend who we cruelly nicknamed Beaky because of her overbite, got stuck in a treehouse because we were convinced there was a bull in the field below. We had another friend who we called Heinz and the fact I can’t explain the meaning on here should give you a slight indication as to how cruel the intent behind it was. Anyway, it wasn’t a bull and it wasn’t a treehouse – it was an old tent that we’d wrapped around a few branches so we could sit awkwardly for hours – and we were rescued by a farmer several hours later.

I know everything changes, but there’s comfort in familiarity, and seeing the two pubs standing relatively unchanged was pleasing. Until, at least, I realised that the top pub had been closed and was in the process of being turned into flats for busy-bee couples who would never know the thrill of asking what wine they had behind the bar and being met with a gruff reply of ‘WHITE OR RED’. My faint memory of the top pub involves cooking fresh and on-point back in 1957 and a carpet that looked like a magic-eye puzzle. The other pub offers fancy food, long drinks and, according to Tripadvisor at least, short shrift. Not my scene.

I took a moment to doubleback on myself and walked to the house where I grew up, but it didn’t look right. Different flowers in the garden, new paint on the walls. Where was the pond with the whirring pump that never worked properly, just occasionally spitting out water and/or going on fire? The log pile full of fuel for the coal fire that we had to light even in the height of summer if we wanted hot water (we had an immersion heater, but you’d think it ran on solid gold the way my parents reacted when they heard you flick it on) had gone too – replaced doubtless by fancy central heating. Yeah, instant heat is fine, but you can’t beat a proper coal fire – even if it does set the cat on fire when it sparks. I left when I spotted someone watching me with uncertainty from the top window. She had a cheek, that was MY bedroom, and I bet at least 80% of all available surface in that room still has my DNA splattered across it. Seriously, if she stood there ovulating for long enough, I’d become a father. I left, taking a moment to check if my buried treasure was still there.

Back in the car, with swollen ankles and heart pain that wasn’t completely related to exercise, I bootled off home. To my home, far away, with the certain knowledge that I’ll probably never step back into the village again. We quoted this when we talked about Peterborough and it remains a favourite of mine: “it is impossible to step into the same river twice”. How true.

Fuck me, that ended in an oddly melancholy way, didn’t it? LET’S TALK ABOUT PORK. Pork with sauce slathered on it and turned into the best bbq pork sandwiches you’ll ever bloody eat. Plus, the whole thing is a piece of piss to make.

We found this recipe at krumpli.co.uk and adapted it ever so slightly for our own tastes so all credit goes to them. They have some great recipes so go check them out!

best bbq pork sandwiches

to make the best bbq pork sandwiches ever you will need:

  • 1kg pork joint (all visible fat removed)
  • 1 red onion, sliced
  • a jar of sauerkraut
  • cocktail pickled onions
  • 1 cucumber
  • 4 wholemeal rolls (4x HeXB)

Now, confession, we used the mixed seed rolls from Lidl because frankly, they’re nicer in a picture and taste better. If you’re wanting to stick to SW, make sure you serve these sandwiches in whatever bun you can have as a HEB. The bread isn’t the star of the meal anyway!

There, I’m sure that’ll stop the smart-arses going OMG U UZED RONG BUNN U FATT FUKIN KENT.

for the meat rub

  • ½tbsp sea salt
  • 1 tsp ground coriander
  • ½tsp cumin
  • 2 tsp paprika
  • ½ tsp ground fennel seeds
  • 1 tbsp oregano
  • ½tbsp black pepper

Don’t fret if you don’t have everything here, it’s all about balance anyway.

for the sauce

  • 1 onion, finely diced
  • 2 garlic cloves, minced
  • 100ml passata
  • 1 tbsp worcestershire sauce
  • 1 tbsp tomato puree
  • 1 tbsp cider vinegar
  • 4 tbsp black treacle (8 syns)
  • 1 tbsp mustard (1½ syns)
  • ¼tsp tabasco sauce

I’m synning this at two syns per sandwich, given you don’t eat all the sauce AND it makes enough for four massive sandwiches with plenty left over.

to make the best bbq pork sandwiches ever you should:

  • mix together all of the meat rub ingredients and rub into the meat – get right in there
  • wrap up or cover and leave in the fridge for four hours
  • heat a saucepan over a medium heat and add a few squirts of oil
  • add the onions to the pan and cook for about ten minutes, until slightly brown
  • add the garlic and cook for another minute
  • add in the rest of the sauce ingredients and cook until reduced by about a third
  • remove from the heat and allow to cool
  • pour the sauce mix over the pork joint and allow to sit for another hour but NOT in the fridge (you might want to cover it)
  • when ready, lift the pork out of the sauce and set aside on a plate

Pick a route – Instantpot (pressure cooker) or slow cooker. I know it goes without saying but we can’t recommend our Instant Pot enough – this is the fifth time we’ve used it and we bloody love it. It’s currently cheap on Amazon. But if you’re wanting a more slow roast of your meat and want a slow cooker, there’s also a cracking deal on those. Have a look!

For the Instant Pot:

  • add 100ml water to the sauce, stir and pour into the InstantPot
  • sit the trivet in the pan and place the pork on top
  • cook for about 27 minutes at high pressure, with a 10 minute natural pressure release
  • meanwhile, preheat the oven to 230°c
  • when the InstantPot has finished cooking and the pressure has been released, lift the pork off the trivet, place in a dish and cook in the oven for about ten minutes to help brown off the sauce
  • meanwhile, set the InstantPot to saute and cook the sauce so it’s reduced by half and thickened

For a slow cooker:

  • cook the pork in the sauce for a good four hours or so on high – you want it cooked through but not pulled pork level – easy to slice is what you’re after

Then, either way:

  • spread sauerkraut on the bottom half of each roll
  • when the pork is cooked, slice into thick slices and dip into the sauce, shaking off any excess
  • make up the sandwich by layering the pork with sliced red onion, picked onions and cucumber

Enjoy! I can’t tell you how bloody amazing this was. I know it’s a daft thing to say but if you don’t like cucumber or onion or whatever, just leave it out. Also, this makes enough for four MASSIVE sandwiches – you could easily make six or even eight normal sized ones! But none of us got to where we are by using half measures, eh…

Looking for more ideas of what to do with your pork? Oh you filthy mare. Click the buttons!

porksmall     slowcookersmalltastersmallsoupsmallbbqsmallonepot

J

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February 19, 2017

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low syn, lunch, recipe card, savoury snacks, snacks, soup, taster ideas, vegan, vegetarian

pea and coconut soup: a perfect Slimming World lunch

Here for the pea and coconut soup? At least you’re not going to have to battle through paragraphs of my tut tonight, because it’s a quick post! Well, fairly quick. If the thought of pea and coconut soup makes you feel a bit unsettled, don’t worry: I felt the same, but this was one of the best soups I’ve ever tasted. But first…

Funny how a smell can take you back, isn’t it?

I only mention it because Paul bought some Citrus Fresh Head and Shoulders at Costco (so we’ve got enough shampoo now to see us through three nuclear winters – and I remind you, neither of us have hair) and the smell alone transported me back to a summer fifteen years ago. I was holidaying in Montreuil-sur-Mer with a good friend. It was boiling hot and I was having to shower in a shower block that looked like the origin site for whatever plague happened in The Walking Dead. You had to chew your way through the flies to get to the showers. Anyway, I happened across a shampoo in a Carrefour somewhere and never looked back.

You need to remember this was in the days when I had long, flowing black hair all the way down to the small of my back – it used to smell of farts, no-one understanding me and shit weed, though I always kept it in remarkable condition. This stuff was a bloody revelation – I came waltzing out of that shower block a new man. You know in the Herbal Essences advert when some liver-lipped strumpet fair creams her knickers when she washes her locks? Imagine that, but with Meat Loaf’s stunt double instead.

Anyway, having just washed my beard with it, it’s like I’d been transported back fifteen years back to that shower block. I could feel the verrucas forming on my feet like barnacles, my bowels rumbling with mild gastroenteritis. Ah, to be young again. I have the same smell-trip experience with Calvin Klein’s Crave, which reminds me of time spent in London with an ex, trying not to bring my Iceland ready meal up as his unwashed mother talked dirty down the phone to a punter. She was a sex-chat operator: thank God they were phoning, because if they’d seen her sitting there with a litre of Iceland Choc-Chip wedged in between her boobs clipping her toenails and talking about her fanny being ‘hot’, they’d sharp have lost their lob-on.

Ah, memories. Aside from that, it’s been a terribly uneventful weekend: we’ve had a joiner around building things, we’ve had the gardener around to trim the bushes and we’ve had an electrician in to fit another kitchen light. It’s been exhausting watching people work.

That said, I did manage to embarrass myself at Costco. See, we’re a big fan of Avex water bottles – they’re the only ones we’ve had that don’t leak – but we’ve managed to lose six of them. So, of course, we went to Costco to bulk-buy a new set. However: disaster!

When we got there we discovered that they’ve changed the design to include a weird rubber nipple to drink from. Awful. How did I embarrass myself? Because I loudly told Paul that ‘I didn’t want those ones, they’ve got a nip on’ just as the two Asian ladies who were handling and admiring them turned to look at me with complete disgust. I tried to explain what I meant but in the absence of the original bottles to show as comparison, what could I do? I dug myself a hole trying to apologise despite there being absolutely no racist intent behind my comment before Paul dragged me away and into the freezer section to cool down. Good lord.

Oh, as a final note, we managed to spend £270 in Costco. We went to buy water bottles. As a tight-arse Geordie this upsets me to no end, although we do now have 192 tins of Branston Beans, enough dishwasher tablets to dissolve a body on eco-boost mood, more tea than the SS Agamemnon and, inexplicably, an entire collection of Thomas the Tank Engine books. We can’t help it, it’s Costco, they have a way of making you think that actually you DO need to buy 96 toilet rolls at once, and it gets us every time.

Anyway, this was only supposed to be a quick post because I wanted to get this recipe up here – it’s absolutely bloody amazing. Considering it takes no time at all to make, it tastes divine and is very good for you. We got the recipe from Anna Jones’ new book, A Modern Way To Cook, which has been a bit of a revelation – veggie recipes you’d actually want to eat. Paul almost made me put it on the bonfire outside when he saw how insufferably smug a lot of the writing is, but the recipes themselves? Tip-top. I’d recommend: buy it here. This soup really does take no time at all. Let’s do this. This makes enough for four big bowls of soup. Oh: and it freezes, so perfect for portioning up.

to make pea and coconut soup, you’ll need:

  • a bunch of spring onions
  • 1kg of frozen peas
  • one decent veggie stock cube, or if you’re fancy like us, you’ll use bouillon powder – made into 850ml of stock
  • a good bunch of basil, coriander or both – and we used dry because we didn’t have fresh basil in – 1tsp of each
  • a lemon
  • 200ml of Blue Dragon coconut milk (7 syns)

to make pea and coconut soup, you should:

  • get a good heavy-bottomed pan (heavy-bottomed pans will spread the heat better but won’t allow things to catch) (and fat bottomed girls you make the rocking world go round!)
  • slice up your spring onions nice and fine
  • put the coconut (every fucking time I type coconut I type cocknut – god, that would be interesting as a soup ingredient, no?) milk into the pan on a medium heat and then tip the spring onion in
  • cook for a couple of minutes until the onion has softened a bit
  • tip in the 1kg of peas, add the stock and bring to the boil – then allow it to simmer for three minutes or so then remove from the heat
  • chuck in all your herbs and the juice of your lemon and then blend the bugger with a stick blender
  • serve up, adding a few fresh leaves on top, some black pepper and if you’re super fancy like us, a drop or two of basil oil, but that’s just being decadent

Enjoy! This falls between 1.5 syns and 2 syns – it’s seven syns overall and I’m not going to count that extra quarter syn per serving. If you want to, do it, but haway. Also, if you haven’t got a stick blender, don’t worry – get one, but don’t spend a lot of money on it. We’ve got a cheapy stick blender and it does the job perfectly. Only a tenner on Amazon, see?

I hope someone makes this and enjoys it – it’s a bloody revelation in our house! Paul made a joke about The Exorcist as I brought it in (it’s famously barfed up by little Linda Blair as she’s possessed by the Devil) and I think it’s worth mentioning, we can’t be held responsible if you summon the Devil in and/or start playing ‘Hide the Crucifix’. Fair warning.

More recipes? Of course. Click the buttons below!

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J

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February 12, 2017

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chinese, fakeaways, low syn, lunch, pork, pork chops, recipe card, savoury snacks, snacks, soup

hot and sour slimming soup – don’t be put off by the title!

Hot and sour slimming soup? But of course! However, I demand your attention for a minute more.

I mentioned previously about a family situation that was taking up our time – my uncle died yesterday after a long, brave fight with various issues. Now, I’m not mentioning that because I want people to send me messages wishing me well or that they’re thinking of me, which is sweet, but death is death, it comes to us all, and I’m dealing with it in my own way.

It’s been on the cards for a couple of years – we’ve had that many premature dashes to the hospital as ‘he won’t last an hour’ that I’ve actually been half-tempted to throw a blue light on top of the Smart Car and pick up patients on the way. Actually, the Smart Car would make for a shit ambulance, wouldn’t it? Unless it was a dwarf needing a corn plaster we’d be buggered.

No, the reason I mention it is because, like I’ve said so many times before, I wanted to praise the NHS. Every single person – with no exceptions – that I have dealt with (and I know the same goes for my mother) at Newcastle’s Royal Victoria Infirmary has been an absolute delight. Cleaners full of smiles and chatter at 2am in the morning, nurses rushed off their feet but never too busy for a smile, doctors making sure that the terminally ill shuffle off with comfort and compassion. For the last two weeks my uncle has been in the Critical Care or High Dependency Unit fighting for his life and not once has anyone shown us anything less than courtesy and good humour as we visited. Even my black-as-pitch jokes about nipping shut his oxygen tube to save the NHS’s strained budget were met with laughter, rather than cold looks and being asked to step outside by a stern consultant.

We are so, so, so lucky to have an NHS, and we’re luckier still that the folks serving the public – from the very top of the ladder to the very bottom – have their hearts open and pure dedication running through. They were tremendous when my nana died and they’ve been wonderful this time around as well. More praise is needed. And more money. Lots more money. To the folks that make the difference.

One day last week Paul and I were in that hospital on ‘dead alert’ (as it were) from 10am to 4am the next day. Let me tell you, that’s more than enough time to think about things. Hell, we spent long enough in the little room where they sit the relatives in case of ‘bad news’ that I can recreate it wholly in my head. You know when Sherlock Holmes (modern) visits his mind palace? I’m like that now, only with more leaflets about pressure sores and Alzheimers fluttering across my vision. That’s perhaps one thing they could improve – the waiting room has those awful pleather sofas that invariably make a big sucking farting noise when you hoist yourself up and everything is painted that slightly diseased yellow so favoured of the old NHS – weirdly, it’s the colour of the white ceiling immediately above Paul’s mother’s favourite chair. The ‘nicotine lacquer’ effect, I believe.

It was a very sad room made worse by the fact that we were joined, for what was the longest hour of my entire life, by a chap who just wouldn’t shut the fuck up. He entered the room just as I had laid down on the sofa to try and fall asleep on Paul’s lap (what can I say: I find the smell of chaffed thighs and knobs soporific). He exclaimed loudly and backed out the door, clearly thinking he’d interrupted me mid-blowjob. Because, yes, who doesn’t get aroused in the ‘is he dead yet’ room? Nothing gets me more rigid than posters urging me to think F-A-S-T in case of stroke. Anyway, once he was sure that we weren’t indulging in some grief-based fellatio, he took a seat. And that was very much that: no further chance of sleep.

I heard about his maladies, I heard about his travel to the hospital, I heard what was wrong with the NHS, I heard about his taxi driver friend who had just had a heart attack, I heard about the price of fuel and I can faithfully recount details of the last seventeen passengers he had picked up in his taxi. He didn’t pick up on my social cues – my polite but firm nodding, my glazed eyes, the fact that I’d stuffed my ears with pages from a 1997 copy of Take a Break from the reading rack. I did have a titter at someone’s answer to the arrow-word – (NAUTICAL TRANSPORT (9) was answered as M-O-T-E-R-B-I-K-E) – I rather thought it had to be one of my nana’s old issues where instead of thinking things through she’d just jam any old word in as long as it had roughly the right amount of letters. Even, sometimes, when it didn’t: MURDERERER was a favourite of mine. Anyway, sensing this chap was one of those dear fellows who could talk underweater if he had to, we moved downstairs.

A&E at 1am in the morning is an interesting place, isn’t it? A waiting time of four hours and I reckon 70% of the people waiting were smashed out of their face. Lots of bloodied noses, black eyes, bust lips. How I pity folk having to deal with all that dross. I can’t bear being around drunk people when I’m sober, I’d be Harold Shipman-ing the lot of them before anyone could say ‘check for an air bubble’. We spent the rest of the evening drinking piss-poor tea and staring moodily at our phones. I played Super Mario Run until my already boss-eyes went awry. A very long night.

Ah well, it’s all over now. Like I said, no need for sympathy, we’re fine, it’s very sad but nowt that can be done. Life goes on. Well, mostly.

Right, let’s get to the hot and sour slimming soup. Why slimming? Dunno. Something to do with the vinegar! Can I make a plea with you? Don’t be put off by the appearance of this dish – give it a go, it’s a really tasty, quick soup full of nutrients and taste. This makes enough for four full bowls so although technically it should be 0.75 syns, you can bugger off if you think I’m including the quarter syn. Half syn per portion!

hot and sour slimming soup

to make hot and sour slimming soup, you need:

  • 6 shittake mushrooms, sliced
  • 2 chicken stock cubes
  • 1 tbsp soy sauce
  • 60g bamboo shoots, cut into matchsticks (that’s half of a small tuna-sized tin, drained)
  • 2 pork chops, all visible fat removed
  • 100g firm tofu, cut into matchsticks
  • ¼ tsp white pepper
  • 4 tbsp white vinegar
  • 3 tbsp cornflour, mixed with 4 tbsp water (3 syns)
  • 1 egg, beaten
  • 1 spring onion, chopped

to make hot and sour slimming soup, you simply must:

  • chop the pork chops into small strips about half an inch long, and quarter of an inch thick, and set aside
  • in a large saucepan, bring 1.2 litres of water to the boil, crumble in the stock cube and stir until dissolved, and then add the soy sauce
  • add the bamboo shoots, mushrooms and pork to the pan, reduce the heat, cover and simmer for about three minutes
  • add the tofu, pepper and vinegar to the pan and bring to the boil again
  • stir in the cornflour mixture and keep stirring until the soup has thickened a bit
  • turn off the heat and pour in the beaten egg, stirring gently but continuously so it doesn’t scramble into one big manky lump
  • pour into bowls, sprinkle on some spring onions and eat!

Looking for more soup ideas? More ideas on meat? Things to do with tofu – well, you’re shit out of luck, it’s the first time we’ve used it. Even so, click the buttons below!

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Enjoy!

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February 8, 2017

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british, fakeaways, low syn, lunch, pulses and grains, recipe card, sausages, savoury snacks, snacks, taster ideas, travel

easy to make Slimming World scotch eggs

I’m almost loathe to post a recipe for Slimming World scotch eggs in case I get eight hundred comments from people moaning about Porky Lights or whatever shite sausage is the current cause celebre amongst slimmers, but hey, let’s just do it anyway. It’ll be a nice simple recipe to type up and, as we’re currently tied up with a bit of an unhappy family situation at the moment, I’m pushed for time. Listen, though, we know how much you love our nonsense and frippery so I’m going to put a new holiday post up – not from Switzerland or our latest holiday, but instead, I’m tying up the loose ends of our Cornwall trip. You may remember last year our ‘lovely’ holiday to Cornwall, no? Refresh yourself with parts one, two and three, and then read on. Warning: I’m just not a fan.

twochubbycubs go to cornwall: part four

The last three entries of our Cornwall trip didn’t exactly make the heart sing with joy, did they? Fair warning, it doesn’t get much better. I don’t know what it was about Cornwall that disappointed me – it’s beautiful (in places) and I’m sure there’s lots to see and do if you’re not a curmudgeonly fatty whose sole exercise is leaning over to fart – but perhaps I’m spoiled. I live in what I reckon is the most beautiful county in England – Northumberland – and eye-watering beauty is never more than a twenty-minute drive away. Anyway, hush. It’s been so long since we went away that we’ll have to forgo a chronological narrative, so just assume that wherever there is a full-stop, it’s where Paul and I stopped the car to eat a pasty.

The Eden Project

Sitting in our cottage in Perranporth, with the unseasonable grey skies blowing around overhead, we decided to head for the Eden Project, a thirty or so minute drive away via relatively easy roads, according to our sassy in-car Sat-Nav. Nope. You may recall that I was stricken with a poor neck which meant I couldn’t look right and Paul was equally laid-out with a sore back that meant he couldn’t look left, so you can imagine how much fun driving a car was. Every junction was one step closer to divorce. Things became so tense that I actually just started pulling out of junctions blindly in the hope that a clotted cream tanker would crash into the side of the car, putting us both out of our misery. We’d die the way we lived: sitting down and covered in fat.

The sat-nav did indeed take us the most direct route but for some reason, confined us almost exclusively to single-track roads. I reckon if you counted up the miles we did in reverse it would actually work out that we never left the cottage in the first place. Why does every road in Cornwall need to be framed by an impenetrable hedge or crumbling wall? At one point we were stuck between a car coming towards us, eight walkers in rustling (is there any other kind) all-weather-ware, two cyclists and a lorry behind us tooting his horn. It was like playing Screwball Scramble, but in a DS3 littered with crumbs and sheer, blinding rage.

We arrived, filling the valley with swearing and Cher, and parked up in the lime car-park. Cheek, I’m a gay man, put me in the plantain park and I’ll be sure to back up correctly. We did think about waiting for the courtesy bus but we could see the entrance only a moment’s walk away and thought better of it. That’s a fib actually, there was a coach full of old folk gamely walking down the hill and putting us to shame so we couldn’t. Buggers.

Getting into the Eden Project cost us £50 between us. That, right there, tells you everything you need to know about it. Yes, it’s lovely and pleasant and the work they do is great, but £50? Kiss my arse. They temper this by allowing you to visit all year long but given that most of their visitors are tourists, that’s a bit of a pointless endeavour – it’s not like I could turn to Paul on a windy Sunday and ask if he fancied a nose round the gift-shop at Eden, and could he prepare the car for the 800-mile round trip. Pfft. I appreciate these places have to make money because gosh, who else is going to pay for all the wank, but haway.

You could have put what we both knew about the Eden Project before we visited on the back of a seed packet. Paul had a vague recollection that it was used in Die Another Day and I automatically assumed that those giant plastic zits were full of bees like in The X-Files movie, but we were both wrong. No, The Eden Project is a very worthwhile endeavour by lots of horticulturists (my favourite horticulturist? Brian Sewell – boom boom) to get as many tourists as possible in one place.

How we admired the many different ways that people could inconvenience us – one particularly (and quite literally) pushy mother gently nudged me out of the way whilst I was reading an enthralling information board on bamboo. She wanted to take a picture of her child, but I hazarded a guess that had I picked up said child and pitched her into the wilderness that I would have been asked to leave, and damn it, I wanted my £25 worth.

We wandered around the herb garden, we idled around the flower section, we sweated our tits off in the rainforest section. It was all very interesting – we’re not complete philistines, you understand – but the sheer amount of people similarly feigning interest in a sugarbush was hard to take. We climbed various stairs and gantries to get a picture of the waterfall only to find such a task impossible due to the sea of giant lenses and Mumsnetters that filled every conceivable space. Deflated, both from disappointment and the sweat wicking away from our body, we left the biomes and staggered outside, where a fine mist (either rain or aerated sweat) greeted us. That, at least, was pleasant.

Now, look here. We’re just as capable of enjoying a garden centre as the best of them. You’ll often find us at Heighley Gate on a Sunday afternoon fingering the dahlias or cooing over the roses. We’ve had lengthy and earnest conversations about the merits of various composts: I prefer to buy in, Paul’s rustic and would spread his own if I let him shit in the garden. But something about The Eden Project left us both cold. Ho-hum.

We stopped for something to eat, thinking we could at least salvage some of the entrance fee by having something delightful in the onsite restaurants, but even these were overpriced and understaffed. Everywhere was noise: children screaming, old people clacking their teeth, parents sighing and braying. The food was what you’d expect from a place like this plus a 20% tedium surcharge. We went outside where, thanks to the rain, we were relatively alone. We ordered a small pasty and a coke (I say coke, I’m sure at least three varieties of dandelion were pressed into it along with a shock of hipster beard hair) and sat down in the drizzle. The pasty was drier than a popcorn fart and the coke was flat. Ho-hum, again.

We made to make our way back to the lime car-park and spotted that this would involve a walk at a level significantly more than horizontal. Panic set in until we spotted that a little tractor with a trailer on the back was trundling around picking up visitors. We hastened over and climbed aboard with barely enough time to wipe the pastry crumbs away from my shirt (I was worried that they’d burst into flames if they rubbed together given how fucking dry the thing was). We were joined in the carriage by another couple – a cheery man with the strongest Geordie accent I’ve ever heard (and bear in mind my dad’s accent is so strong that Paul didn’t understand a word of it for six months, becoming the only person in existence to form a familial relationship on nothing more than polite nods and ‘ee-I-knows’) and a woman on an oxygen tank.

We had spotted them earlier gamely making their way around the biomes and they spent a good five minutes chatting with us, which was lovely. At one point she took off her oxygen mask and told us they were only getting the tractor because she couldn’t manage hills with her failing lungs and we felt terrible: not just for her, but also because we were clearly only getting the tractor because our fat ankles were bowing under the weight of four days of constant and committed pasty consumption. We bid them goodbye (well, I did, Paul was struggling to understand – to him it probably sounded like me and the other gentlemen were arguing in Icelandic) and made our way back to the car.

Just like Land’s End, I drove out of the car park in an absolute fury. The whole exercise just annoys me, you know. People say to holiday in the UK but every god-damn tourist attraction is out to extract just as much money as they can get away with short of employing urchins to root through your pockets for change whilst you go for a piss. I appreciate that places need money to stay afloat but for goodness sake, calm the fuck down.

We took our time driving back to the cottage and decided to stop at a charming little pub that we’d spotted on the way to Eden. It was in a fantastic location – beer garden looking out over lush green fields with a bit of twinkling sea just off on the horizon. The weather had lightened up and, after some energetic singing and maybe, just maybe, a cheer-up-for-fuck’s-sake-blowjob from Paul, all was well. We fair cantered (Paul more so than me – I had to do that discreet unsticking of James Junior from my leg that all men know) out of the car hoping we’d at least get some ale (just a half for me) and food. What could go wrong?

YET AGAIN: EVERYTHING. You know in comedy sketches they occasionally do a joke where a stranger walks into a bar and the whole place falls silent? That’s exactly what happened to us. It was like someone turned off my hearing as soon as we stepped over the threshold. Admittedly there were only a few chaps in there at 3pm in the afternoon but they all looked at us silently and furiously. If it hadn’t been for the disembodied electronic voice of Noel Edmonds shrieking at me to hold my nudges blaring out of the fruit machine I would have sworn I had gone deaf. Paul pushed me from behind (lucky me, normally takes him a good couple of hours and a nap) and we made our way to the bar.

The bar man had one of those faces that told me he’d last smiled in 1977, perhaps when a barn-fire had killed his more handsome brother. There was no hello, how are you, what would you like – just an impassive stare like I was some unwelcome intruder on this otherwise jumping social vista. It felt like I was trying to order from a grazing cow. I asked for two drinks with equal solemnity, paid for them and moved away, all in the continued silence of the bar. We sat outside and had no sooner taken our first pull from the all-head-no-beer drinks when Mr Chatty came outside and started moving tables around, ostensibly because they were expecting a wedding party. I decided against asking if he was doing the best man’s speech as I didn’t fancy driving home with a pint glass sticking out of my face. I haven’t felt as unwelcome in a drinking establishment since I got caught giving my then-boyfriend a blowjob in a Yates Wine Lodge.

Listen, I know, I’m ashamed of that too. I mean come on, a Yates Wine Lodge? What was I thinking?

We didn’t bother finishing our drinks. We didn’t bother looking at the food menu (I presumed that the food would be served with the same kind of panache as the witty raillery from the barman). No, yet again, we drove furiously out of the car park and went back to the cottage, where actually, we spent a very pleasant night getting drunk and smoking cigars the size of shot-putters’ arms in the garden. I only hope that some of that thick smoke made its way across the valley and right up the nostrils of that miserable arse of a barman. I hope his sinuses throbbed and ached and the wedding ended in disaster.

Pfft: Cornwall. You’re really on a roll…

I wish I could say it gets better, but my mother always told me never to lie and well, she could still take me in a fight so who am I to argue? Never argue with a lass who can grow a better moustache, that’s what I say. So this scotch eggs recipe then. Look: the syns depend mostly on the sausages you use. If you use sausages that come in white bags of 46 and have the word animal in speech marks in the ingredients list, they’ll be high in syns. But if you choose good quality sausages with a high meat content, they ought to be low in syns. To be safe, though, use Porky Lights, Musclefood sausages or any other low-syn variety. Sssh, but here’s a secret, we actually used chicken sausages for these, which in turn created a weird feeling of eating a chicken containing an egg. Oo-er. Let’s pretend I used pork sausages and say no more, eh?

slimming world scotch eggs

to make Slimming World scotch eggs, you’re gonna need:

  • eight sausages of your choice
  • one packet of quail eggs (or use normal eggs and just make bigger scotch eggs, I don’t care)
  • lots of black pepper (low syn sausages usually have the taste profile of asbestos, so this adds flavour)
  • 100g plain cous cous (if you’re feeling like a decadent hussy, use flavoured couscous, but watch the syns)
  • one beef stock cube and lots of worcestershire sauce
  • a non-boiled egg

Generally, each sausage will make one scotch egg, so I’m (because I used Porky Lights) putting these at half a syn each.

to make Slimming World scotch eggs, why y’oughta:

  • boil your eggs – if you’re using quail eggs, you’re looking at a couple of minutes (check the packet) in boiling water, for bigger eggs you’ll need to boil for about ten minutes or so – you don’t want them like ping pong balls, after all
  • meanwhile, squeeze your meat by fingering your sausage – you want it all coming out of the end, see – you’ll get sticky fingers doing this but that’s alright. You don’t need to wear protection just as long as you wipe them on your trousers afterwards – you flirt
  • hoy a load of black pepper in there – you want to get your lips tingling, after all, no?
  • cook your couscous according to the packet – but cook it in the beef stock and add worcestershire sauce to add taste
  • then see, it’s all about assembly – wrap the peeled boiled eggs in sausagemeat, and then roll it in cooked couscous – I like to squeeze the couscous into the sausage meat first, then roll in egg, and do a second coating of the couscous
  • bake in the oven for about 30 minutes on 190 degrees until cooked through – you’ll know it’s cooked when the juices stop dripping – when that happens, pop a towel down and enjoy your dinner!

Want more snack ideas? Then click the buttons. Yeah. Like that.

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Cheers big ears!

J

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February 3, 2017

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taster night tiny tropical towers – twochubbycubs

Taster night looming? Can’t face another quiche that tastes like a discarded shoe? Then this post of taster night tiny tropical towers is for you! But first…

In what world, in what grey, dystopian, horrendously bleak outlook, does a fucking breadbun rolled in sweetener and stuffed with a hotel breakfast portion of jam become a doughnut? Well? It’s no more a bloody doughnut than I am a red-blooded heterosexual who could confidently annotate a diagram of the vagina. It’s a friggin’ jam sandwich at best only with the added advantage of making your teeth retract so far into your body through the sweetness that you’ll be eating out of your own arsehole.

Gah! Christ, if there is one thing that really boils up my piss about this diet, it’s stuff like this. That isn’t healthy. It isn’t going to be a ‘sweet treat’, it isn’t going to ‘taste just like a doughnut’ and you really WILL be able to ‘taste the difference’. A proper doughnut tastes so good because it’s a) full of butter b) full of sugar c) full of flour d) fried in enough oil to make a Deepwater Horizon sequel and e) because you can actually feel your heart strain and protest as you eat it. A bloody breadbun with a period of seedless Hartleys isn’t going to do the same thing! I understand people are desperate to find recipes that allow them to eat how they used to eat but you’re already on one – Slimming World! Just use your syns, have a proper bit of what you fancy and jog the fuck on.

I should totally write the opening guff for Slimming World magazine, shouldn’t I? I’d be the first person in history whose asterisk key on his keyboard crumbled to dust through overuse.

Anyway, what a diversion. I wasn’t even going to post a recipe tonight because Paul’s had an awful day but to hell with him, I’ve put him to bed already and now I have an hour to myself. Don’t worry, I’l wake him up later with a Dominos delivery, so he’s really not doing too bad. To be fair, I’ve actually had the whole day to myself because I now work from home on a Friday – the excitement! No but it is exciting for me, not least because it is one less day that I have to spend screaming myself hoarse at some shovel-faced cacafuego in an Audi who inevitably cuts me up because he’s such a big deal. I love my job but the seventy minute commute (which takes twenty minutes during half-term) does my nut in. I’ve had to fit a roof-rack just to hold my fucking blood pressure, it’s that high.

I did have anxiety about whether I’d be able to focus on work, being by myself, but what a joy it’s been. Again, I love my job and I like the cut and thrust of working in a modern office, but there’s something to be said about doing the same work in your worst underwear whilst Jeremy Kyle plays quietly in the background. My writing desk looks out onto the street and I’ve been able to watch the comings and goings of various folk. Weirdly, for a cul-de-sac holding twenty or so houses, we’ve had two ambulance visits. We nearly had another visit when I strained my neck from being too nosy but I put one of those heat cushions on and we’re tickety-boo.

Another positive about working from home is that I was able to have visitors – today, a sparkie and a delivery man. Not in an Irina Palm way, you understand, but simple honest reasons – we need a quote for moving a light switch six inches along the wall and some new lighting for the food photos. Our previous electrician seems to have disappeared off the face of the Earth – there’s literally no record of him or his business anywhere on the Internet now and I’m beginning to think we had all of our lights installed by a particularly industrious ghost. Actually, I remember the last time he was here he did such a rotten fart climbing up the loft ladder that there’s no way he could have been fiction – we still get a whiff of burnt eggs every time I flick that loft light on. Anyway, the new chap came highly recommended, turned up on time and didn’t so much as flinch when he saw the awful Venture Photography special photo of me and Paul perched on the bookcase. It’s awful – a nasty studio photo with the cheesiest pose you can imagine because they made us tickle each other in front of the camera so we had natural smiles. Pfft. It doesn’t help that I’m dressed like an office worker from a 1980’s fire safety video and Paul’s sweating like a whore on Sunday under the studio lamps.

We only bought it out of courtesy for the poor lass who had tried to touch the photo up the best she could. We use it now to keep our nephew away from our drawer of sin.

The other chap was delivering a new kitchen gadget from Amazon – a pressure cooker. This is how easily I’m persuaded by advertising – I had seen a link to some pressure cooker recipes on Facebook and without even opening the page I’d ordered one from Amazon. I’m the worst. It’s the size of Sputnik II and has more buttons on it than a 7XL shirt. Of course, having a delivery means you have to be on high alert all day because you don’t want to miss it and have to fart about with redelivery, which in turn meant I was scared to leave my computer. Naturally, he didn’t turn up to 4.45pm, at which point I’d given up and gone for a shower. No sooner had I squirted a blob of Molton Brown on my boobs when I hear a knock at the door. He was lucky, I hadn’t started singing yet. I hurtle out, throw a dressing gown on and then promptly manage to wrest one of our internal doors clean off its hinges by virtue of my dressing gown cord snagging on the door handle, resulting in me bellowing ‘OH YOU FUCKING C*NT’ at the stricken door, which I’m sure the poor delivery bloke heard. As if the sight of me answering the door, beetroot-faced, barely holding my dressing gown together whilst dragging a door behind me wasn’t entertaining enough.

Still, pressure cooker, eh – recipes coming soon for that, I’m sure. But first, a new taster night idea, if you’re feeling generous and kind. If not, make them for yourself like we did and you get the added bonus of not being shouldered in the tit by someone desperate to scoop every last ‘JAM DOUGHNUT’ into their gob.

taster night tiny tropical towers

taster night tiny tropical towers

to make taster night tiny tropical towers you will need:

  • 8 small wholemeal buns (Sainsbury’s sell them – they’re really tiny!)
  • 500g lean beef mince
  • 4 bacon medallions (or 4 rashers of bacon, all fat removed)
  • 2 fresh pineapple rings (watch the syns if using tinned)
  • 8 tsp of any sauce that tickles your fancy (we used our own syn-free tomato ketchup, recipe here, or you could syn the tiniest wee blob if you want)
  • 1 mini-gem lettuce, chopped
  • 160g reduced fat cheddar, cut into small squares
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp pepper

This makes 16 wee little towers – the bread on each is roughly 20g or so and 10g of cheese – a tiny portion of your HEA and HEB. You could have three for no syns!

Looking for good, decent, less than 5% mince? Then let Musclefood help you. We’ve got a banging deal – you’ll wonder if you can take all the meat but if you just relax, you’ll be fine. Have a look at our deals, don’t worry, it’ll open in a new window.

to make taster night tiny tropical towers, you should:

  • preheat the oven to 240 degrees celsius
  • heat a large frying pan over a medium-high heat and spray in a little oil
  • pat dry the pineapple slices and place in the pan, and leave to caramelise for about 5-6 minutes
  • flip over and do again for the other side
  • when the pineapple is cooked, remove from the pan then cut into eighths
  • in the same pan, add the bacon and cook until crispy, and then remove and cut into quarters
  • meanwhile, in a large bowl mix together the minced beef, salt and pepper
  • divide the mince mixture into 16 and roll into small balls, and flatten into a mini burger shape
  • plop all of the burgers onto a wire rack over a baking tray and pop in the oven to cook for 3-4 minutes
  • turn over and cook for another 3 minutes
  • top the burgers with the cheese squares and cook for another minute until melted
  • remove from the oven
  • spread a little sauce over each of the bun halves, add a bit of lettuce, then top with a mini-burger, slice of bacon and a pineapple wedge
  • if you’re after our fancy moustache spikes, they’re from Tiger but also available on Amazon, see here

These are lovely cold so fine to take to class!

After more fakeaway recipes or taster night ideas? Then look no further, my friends. Look no further. Buttons will lead the way.

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J

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January 26, 2017

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airfryer, low syn, lunch, pork, pork joints, recipe card, savoury snacks, snacks, syn free, vegetarian

ham, pease pudding, roasties and er…rumbledethumps

Yes, rumbledethumps. It sounds like a coy euphemism for getting nasty but actually, it’s a very pleasant side dish of cabbage and potatoes. If anything, having cabbage tends to exclude any possibility of having nookie-noo later thanks to all the resulting flatus. But give it a go!

Just a very quick recipe tonight thanks to Paul and his big fat arse. No, let me finish. See, for about four months now, our computer chair has been slowly breaking under our combined weight/bouncing/spinning/wanking. One of the arms snapped off a few weeks ago but that’s alright, as long as you hold yourself stiff (and god knows I’ve got plenty of experience keeping myself stiff in front of the Internet) you can still type. But about a fortnight ago the hydraulics started failing and we would end up sinking, ever so slowly, closer to the floor as we typed. That’s fine until you realise you’re typing with your eye-line just over the top of the keyboard and your neck sounds like a cement mixer.

Things came to a head last night when Paul leaned back in the chair to contemplate my offerings of Chinese or Indian when there was a tremendous crack and the entire back of the chair came away, sending him hilariously to the floor, rolling on his back like a stuck turtle. Paul falling over anything always cracks me up and I spent a good five minutes clutching the settee and laughing until my vision went blurry and I had to sit down. I think it’s because he makes a proper comedy fat-person noise when he tumbles – the sort of noise a bouncy castle would make if you drove a car into it. I’m a terrible husband, aren’t I?

So yes, picture me now, sat here, legs bowed under me, no back support, the gentle hiss of air escaping as I’m lowered further and further to the floor, and you’ll understand why I must hasten to the recipe! On we go…

rumbledethumps

To be honest, this meal is just a collection of nice things so although I’ll cover the other three bits, rumbledethumps is what I’ll focus on. It’s a lovely side of potato, cabbage, onion and cheese, and let’s be honest, everything is better when covered in cheese. Nearly everything. No-one like a brie lollipop, just sayin’

ham

Nothing more fancy than Waitrose’s Pulled Ham Hock (I think Paul did that yesterday when he fell out of his chair) pressed into a nice shape with a ring-press (think he did that too) (you can buy a mould here) and topped with a tablespoon of piccalilli. The ham is syn free and piccalilli is half a syn per tablesspoon but I never syn it because I’m a frightful slut.

pease pudding

We buy our pease pudding from a lovely local business called Pete’s Puddin’ – it comes in bog standard flavour, Newcastle Brown Ale flavour, Cheese and Pickle flavour and best of all for someone like me who would happily main-line the stuff straight into my veins, Marmite flavour. I bought the stuff because I was so taken with his puns (and also they were selling it in Sausology, another local business) and never looked back. It’s amazing – you can find buy it yourself here: http://www.petespuddin.com/ 

I know pease pudding isn’t for everyone but we bloody love it and the flavoured versions are almost guaranteed to give you the proper fanny gallops if you try them. I’m not recommending this product because we’re getting a kickback or money or half an hour with a rough-handed lorry driver in a pool of pease pudding, no, I’m recommending because it’s bloody delicious. Plus, it’s good to support a local industry, and you cannot get any more local than buying pease pudding from the market in the centre of Newcastle. Well, unless Denise Welch was stottin’ a stottie offa Cheryl Cuuurl’s heed next to you, haway man pet etc. No, you haven’t tuned into Vera.

Oh, and it’s syn free.

roasties

We often have these tiny roasties – if you’ve got an Actifry, and if not, why not, just cut your potatoes up nice and small, whack on some worcestershire sauce and two oxo cubes and set them away. If you don’t have an actifry, cut the potatoes up, make a thickish liquid with two oxo cubes and a splash of water, tumble the potatoes around in it and cook in the oven until scrummy-yummy. Scrummy-yummy? Yes, I vomited into my mouth on typing it too.

rumbledethumps

Best to use leftovers for this but let’s just say, for the sake of argument, you can’t be arsed and/or you’re too fat to leave leftovers. That’s us. This makes enough for four people as a side, so you know what, I’m going to use butter again! I’m using a few odds leftover from the rosti so hopefully you’ll have everything in. So you will need:

  • 750g of potato, peel them if you’re fancy – or use a mixture of potato and cubed turnip, chop into cubes
  • 500g of cabbage, any old cabbage will do, but we used savoy, sliced super thinly
  • 25g of reduced fat butter (7 syns)
  • two fat onions, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G, sliced thinly
  • 120g of strong mature cheddar (4 x HEA)
  • a good handful of chopped chives
  • lots of black pepper and salt

If you’re wanting to make this quick, use a mandolin slicer to cut the onions and cabbage – it’ll be done in less than a minute. The one we use is here! Only a tenner, too!

To make rumbledethumps you should:

  • boil your potato or tatty and turnip mix for about twenty minutes until soft and then mash – don’t mash it too finely, just give it a quick going over – a knee-trembler, if you will
  • meanwhile, melt that delicious butter and gently cook the onions and cabbage, oh so slowly now, until everything is soft and cooked – takes about the same amount of time as the potatoes and don’t be shy of adding a drop of water if things start to stick
  • tip the butter, cabbage and onion into the mash mixture and stir like a bugger, adding two thirds of the cheese and a good few twists of salt and pepper
  • drop the lot into a wee oven dish and top with the rest of the cheese and some chives
  • cook for about fifteen minutes or so and then plop it onto your plates with everything else!

Eeee, what a handy way to use up spare veg. Cabbage and turnip are always in the bargain bins at tesco so help yourself!

Looking for more veg ideas? Meat ideas? Anything at all? Click the buttons!

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Enjoy!

J

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January 23, 2017

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low syn, lunch, recipe card, savoury snacks, snacks, taster ideas, vegetarian

swiss potato and gooey cheese rosti

This swiss potato and gooey cheese rosti is the mutts-bloody-nuts, I don’t mind telling you. Someone might need to slide you along the kitchen floor like a snail after your dinner – it’s that tasty. Easy to make. But, like the big pricktease that I am, I’m going to make you wait for a moment whilst I waffle on about my usual flim-flam.

See, I was going to talk about the whole pushchair v wheelchair legal case last week when it was y’know, relevant. Have you heard of it? Let me summarise. A chap took FirstGroup to the Supreme Court on the grounds of discrimination after he was unable to board a bus due to the disabled space being occupied by a pushchair. Frankly, I’d like to take bus companies to court based on the fact that I’ve never alighted from a bus without the smell of foist, BO and stale fags soaked into every fibre of my clothing, but that’s by the by. The ruling means that drivers have to do more to help accommodate disabled folk. Good.

Why am I mentioning it? Because I’m astounded that it even had to go to court. Surely good, common decency tells you that you move your pushchair and baby out of the way so that someone who has fuck-all choice as to where they sit can actually travel? Is that not blindingly bloody obvious? And yet when I read online discussion forums about the story they were awash with people saying ‘you can’t wake a sleeping baby’ and ‘it’s not fair expecting a parent to move, they might be tired’! What the hell is all that about, is the baby made from aged nitroglycerine? I know that every baby is special to their parents but the Earth span before the baby and it’ll sure as hell continue afterwards. Perhaps if the pushchair wasn’t the size and build of a Russian Army tank you’d have less of an issue. Buy a smaller pushchair. Put the baby in a sling. Carry it in a papoose. Stuff him safely overhead in the overhead locker bins but be careful as contents may have shifted during transit. If you choose to wheel around a pushchair bigger than Paul’s smart car then be prepared to fold it away if you need to.

Before I get people complaining, just to be clear, if the child has difficulties or it’s a special needs wheelchair then of-bloody-course they should stay on.

There were cries of ‘if disabled people want to be treated equally, why should we make exceptions for them’, which makes me steam at the ears. We’re not talking about laying on a special bus full of blowjobs and cocaine, we’re talking about letting someone ride public transport exactly like everyone else. That’s not an ‘exception’, that’s bloody right! I’d hazard a strong guess that the absolute majority of wheelchair users use their wheelchairs because they have to, not because they fancied being eye-level with everyone’s arses for the day. It’s not like it’s a fairground ride, for goodness sake.

You see it with mother and baby parking spaces too. I can see the merit in them – I absolutely can – but I’ve seen several times over people trying to justify parking in disabled spots because the mother and baby spots were full. Why? If your child is disabled, absolutely fair enough, but if not, park in a normal bay away from other cars and crack on. People managed to get out of cars before without much difficulty. My mother used to haul me and my sister out of our battered old Ford Escort with one hand, the other hand being preoccupied with lighting a Lambert and Butler or smacking our arses for fighting / shouting / breathing noisily. Didn’t do me any harm, and she managed to do it without leaving the car next to her looking like it had been used for a drag race. My arse cheeks did, but that’s beside the point.

I understand the point about ‘not wanting to walk with children across a car park’ but haway, it’s a two minute trundle across Tesco car park – you’re not walking the Hindu Kush. Keep your children smartly to your side and you’ll find it a breeze.

Ah, what do I know, I don’t have children. If I did they’d be raised like Jane and Michael Banks from Mary Poppins and they’d say spit-spot all the time and smoke pipes. And, let me tell you this – if I had them in a pushchair and someone in a wheelchair came aboard the bus, I’d cheerfully strap my children in their pram to the back of the bus and let them ride like the Beverley Hillbillies. It’s just time people stopped being so precious.

Bah. Right, if you feel the need to send me angry words, don’t worry, you needn’t rush to do so.

Oh and as an aside, hasn’t The Archers been delicious recently? Hearing Rob fall apart has been wonderful! Let’s get to the recipe though, eh? I was inspired to make this from something gorgeous that I put in my mouth in Switzerland. He was a potato farmer called Luca and he smelled of Gruyere. Boom boom. This makes one giant rosti which will serve four – I put a quarter on a plate with some sausages and sauerkraut. You know what the best part about this rosti is? It uses butter! Proper butter. Yeah, it adds syns, but not much at all! Plus it’s so easy. Even you could do it! You will need to plan ahead though because step one of this recipe involves doing something the night before!

swiss potato and gooey cheese rosti

to make a swiss potato and gooey cheese rosti you will need:

  • 900g of good floury potatoes, like Maris Piper
  • salt and pepper
  • 25g of reduced fat butter (7 syns)
  • 120g of Gruyere cheese (or cheddar or whatever you like) (4 x HEA) (this serves four, see)
  • a bunch of chives, chopped finely
  • two teaspoons of olive oil (4 syns)

You’ll also need a good pan, about nine inches. If you find nine inches a bit of a struggle, you can use a slightly smaller pan, and just tell people it’s nine inches. It will need to be ovenproof, mind.

to make a swiss potato and gooey cheese rosti you should:

  • this is the key bit – boil your unpeeled whole potatoes for ten minutes in boiling water and then leave to cool overnight until they’re absolutely cold and dry
  • coarsely grate your potatoes – peel them first if you like, but I didn’t bother – I just grated them with the peel on. Now, grating potato is a ballache but we used our Magimix and were done in less than a minute – and look, it’s so pretty!
  • mix the grated potato with a good few crunches of salt and pepper – I really went overboard with the pepper as I don’t think you can have too much, and add the chopped chives for good measure
  • heat your pan on a medium heat with one teaspoon of oil – I use a little wee pastry brush to make sure the whole pan is coated in the oil
  • add half the potatoes and press them down with a spatula, making sure it’s pressed down tight and right to the edges
  • take half of the butter and cut it into tiny slivers, poking these slivers down the sides of the rosti around the pan – leave the rosti to cook for about 5 minutes or so until nice and golden underneath
  • spread the cheese over the top of the rosti, keeping about an inch away from the edges, then cover with the rest of the potato – think of it like making a cheese sandwich – press everything down
  • now the tricky part – how to turn the rosti. You might want to get someone to help you if you’re a clumsy fucker like me but it’s actually not too hard
  • get a flat plate and place it over the top of the frying pan and then quickly flip the pan and plate over, so you’re left with the rosti now the cooked-side up on the plate
  • add the rest of the oil into the pan and gently, oh god so gently, slide the rosti back into the heated pan
  • repeat the butter trick with the rest of the butter and cook for five minutes or so until golden whilst you preheat the oven to 190 degrees
  • transfer the pan into the oven and cook for about fifteen minutes just to finish off the colour then, once it has cooked, take it out and cut into quarters
  • serve with whatever you like – buttery, cheesy rosti goodness awaits!

Now see, I know I’ll get people not trying this because it uses syns, but it’s not many and it’s bloody worth it. You could use frylight, but then you could just eat the foam out of your cushions too. Get it made!

Looking for more inspiration? Click the buttons and get buttering your muffin!

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J

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January 21, 2017

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chinese, fakeaways, low syn, lunch, recipe card, salad, savoury snacks, snacks, taster ideas, vegan, vegetarian

carrot, mint and ginger salad – a quick and easy Slimming World lunch

Here for the carrot, mint and ginger salad? Can’t wait to get chomping? Well, haud yer wheesht, because as ever, we have some flimflam.

You know what I hate? Facebook’s Timehop service. Those whose internet experience amounts of replying positively to Nigerian Kings and typing ‘dancing jesus website lolz’ into google may be unfamiliar with it, so let me explain, as it’s very simple. Every other day Facebook will find a photo of you from many years ago and show you it in the vain hope you’ll go AAAH HOW LOVELY and post it. Not me. No, all I see is my youthful looks staring back at me accusatorially, demanding to know what Present James has done with his life to warrant wrecking Past James so horrifically. Occasionally the brightness of the iPad is bright enough that I can see my own current face reflected back on my young previous face and I feel like Dorian looking ashen-faced into his portrait in the attic. I know we all change (“We all change, when you think about it, we’re all different people; all through our lives, and that’s okay, that’s good, you’ve gotta keep moving, so long as you remember all the people that you used to be“) we all age, but I swear I’m not ageing so much as I am melting into a hairy, gelatinous landslide of fat. It’s like the slowest Doctor Who regeneration ever – only I’m turning from James van der Beek into Chewbacca’s stunt double. Paul would be Billie Piper, he has the three-cock-gob. So yeah, Timehop can fuck right off.

I did something yesterday which I haven’t had to do for a long time – no, it wasn’t fumbling my way around a vagina and nor was it paying my driving test examiner to pass me despite the blood congealing on my frontbumper – no, I had to learn something. See, I’ve plodded on in my job for many years (and thoroughly enjoy it, mind you) (that one’s for HR) but recently they’ve very kindly agreed that I can broaden my responsibilities and have sent me for training. This means lots of revision and travelling and attending training. Fine for most people, but I struggle to concentrate – I get distracted and tired mid-piss, for goodness sake.

Nevertheless, I gamely headed to London yesterday, making sure I get in as many people’s way as possible as I farted about trying to find my way to Canary Wharf. Unusually for me, I managed to get there without much difficulty or upset, and I took my chair as the lecture began. I’d bought myself a nice new notebook and Paul’s Christmas present to me, a fancy fountain pen. I can’t write in Biro because we were forced to use ‘proper pens’ at school – you can imagine how difficult that was for me as a left-handed eejit. Every essay I wrote was a collection of smudges, stains and wrist-stamps. I had that much black ink on the side of my hand that my doctor thought I had frostbite. I’ve mastered the art now and as long as I take my time and don’t over-excite myself, I can write coherently.

The one thing I didn’t have was a wee desk. This made the whole thing quite difficult – try writing notes whilst you’re balancing a slides handout, A4 notebook and colour examples on your knee, especially when you have to write all cack-handed anyway due to being all sinistra (did you know that was the latin root of sinister, so, left-handed people are evil? Makes sense, I had no compunction about breaking wind on the escalators on the Tube yesterday). On top of that I have the anxiety of not wanting to write too much but also not missing anything, and every time I set my pen down, the lady next to me immediately started writing. It was like that duelling banjos scene from Deliverance, only with a far less troubling outcome. In the end I managed to pay attention and have six beautiful pages of notes to coo over. After the lectures, the worst part of all: networking.

I can’t network to save my life. I know it’s an acquired skill but, despite the three years of this blog, I hate talking about myself and have a bit of an inferiority complex when it comes to talking about what I do. I had it in my mind that I’d make up a bewildering, breath-taking back-story, but instead I spluttered my tea and stumbled my words. I must have looked like a simpleton. It didn’t help that whilst I was talking to the vert first victim I’d picked to talk to, I dunked my cookie into my tea only for it to fall in, meanly I had to gamely drink my tea with floating crumbs bobbing around on top whilst they chatted about what they do. Next time I’ll just pick up a cookie and go hide in the toilets like everyone else.

Ah well. I might as well be remembered as the cookie guy as opposed to the heavy-breathing-notes-taking man, I suppose. Networking finished, I realised that I had three bloody hours to kill at Kings Cross before my train, thanks to my penny-pinching ways of buying a non-transferrable ticket. I couldn’t even get into the First Class lounge as you’re only allowed in there two hours before your journey. It was rush hour, there wasn’t a single place to sit anywhere in the station, my bag was too heavy to go anywhere exciting, so I just sat outside and people watched.

I know it’s an unoriginal thought, but Christ, London is so busy. Where do all these people, scurrying about like ants on a sugar pile, live? Where do they work? I like to imagine all the threads of their lives crossing over this way and that, all in one giant tangle, and then my head starts hurting so I move my thoughts back to thinking about chips. I spent 30p to have a pee, which I still think is outrageous even now – if I have to pay to piss, then surely I should have the option of saving my money and being allowed just to piss on the tracks instead? Bastards.

After an hour or so I attempted to make my way to the First Class lounge only to be caught up in a giant mass of people all thundering for a train whose platform had just been announced. You know in old cartoons when they’d start fighting and disappear into a comedy smoke bubble with flailing limbs popping out? It was like that, only with a lot more cheap aftershave and hooraying. I was deposited out five minutes later all dazed and confused and, after a brief interlude where I was pushed around Little Waitrose by a heaving queue of focaccia buyers, stumbled into the First Class lounge.

I wish I could say there was respite to be had but no. It was busy, as you’d expect, but that meant it was full of the type of businessmen who need you to know how important they are by bellowing loudly into their phones. On top of this, I kept getting icy stares and extremely loud sighs and harrumphs from an older lady who seemed to take great offence to the fact I’d sat next to her in the only spare seat in the lounge. I didn’t let her know that I took great offence to the fact she’d seemingly put her make-up on four times over, so why was she giving me such cold looks? She soon stopped when I stared right back. I was tempted to do that thing of putting two fingers on my lips and flapping my tongue through but I didn’t want to be bundled out before I’d managed to secrete as many free bags of crisps as I could into my bag. As it happens, I decided to leave soon after I came in as it was all so very stuffy. I people watched for a while longer, made my way through the 5kg of Corkers crisps I had in my bag, and then got the train. Aside from having someone who was clearly unwell jibbering away across the aisle and the train being delayed thanks to ‘problems with the tension’ (I presumed it was sexual tension from seeing me dashing aboard in my Jacamo coat and sensible shoes), it was an entirely uneventful ride home. Job done. Until the next time…

Final thought – Paul has been raving at me about an online internet station that plays all the old nineties music we like without any crappy DJ linking the songs together. I mean, seriously, he hasn’t shut up about it, but I kept dismissing his bold claims because his Spotify playlist consists of Tracy Chapman, more Tracy Chapman and Now That’s What I Call Amyl Nitrates. However, he left the SONOS player open and I stuck on the previously played tracks – and they’re all brilliant. I mean, haway, the song that is playing right now is Ain’t No Doubt by Jimmy Nail, a man who is nothing more than a steel-capped workboot given a tongue and lips. The station is Pride Radio 90s. Yes, the rainbow face made my eyes bleed too, but we can overlook the trivialities, can’t we.

Proper final thought – can you lot calm the fuck down over these Fiber One bars? Jesus Christ man. I’ve seen so many fights and arguments with grown women calling each other worse than child-murderers for having the temerity to buy a few boxes of these in the supermarket. Why? They taste shite, they’re tiny, they’re full of chemicals and you’d get more flavour sucking on the doormat. I swear it’s very much a Slimming World thing – something gets ‘recommended’ on facebook by a couple of people and then hundreds of adults start storming the supermarkets like the boxes came with half an hour of cunnilingus by Tom Hardy. I’ve seen photos where people have bought 30 or 40 boxes and I just think, Christ, have some bloody dignity. It’s not about ‘saving some for other people’, you have as much right to buy them as anyone else, but you’re only buying them because you’ve seen others doing the same. Don’t be a bloody sheep, especially not one who is brawling in ASDA and calling others ‘fukin greedee slags’ all for the sake of a shit bloody brownie.

BAH!

Right, with all that out of the way, let’s get this recipe done, eh? You might be thinking that a carrot salad is boring, but if you’re a fan of carrots, I can guarantee it’s worth a go. I made this for a lunch but you could easily use it as a side on one of our dishes that don’t have the third speed in it. You could add cooked noodles into this to bulk it out, if you wished. You know how Slimming World have launched those little salads in Iceland that you can have for your lunch? Think of this like those, only fresher as you’re making them yourself. Yes, it has a couple of syns, but absolutely worth it. We used two packs of Marks and Spencers rainbow carrots (£3 for two packs) but you can use bog standard carrots if you want. We won’t tell. This makes enough for three hearty portions.

carrot, mint and ginger salad

to make carrot, mint and ginger salad, you’ll need:

  • around 400g of carrots, baby ones are better, peeled
  • two shallots
  • fresh mint (or dried, but fresh always better)
  • a little knob of ginger (about half an inch), peeled and grated
  • tablespoon of mustard seeds
  • juice of half a lime
  • tablespoon of olive oil (6 syns) (you could use lemon flavoured oil here, be lovely)
  • good pinch of salt and black pepper

to make carrot, mint and ginger salad, you should:

  • chop your carrots into strips or, even better and far quicker, julienne them using one of these – much easier and you’ll get nice uniform strips
  • thinly slice the shallots
  • it’s much nicer if you toast off your mustard seeds – chuck them in a dry pan on a medium heat for a minute or two, just until you get the scent of them, and then take off the heat
  • grate your ginger nice and fine (yep, I know, predictable, but please, buy a mincer for your ginger, then just freeze a big lump of ginger and grate it as and when you need it straight from frozen!
  • mix everything together in a bowl and top with fresh mint and give everything a good tumble with your fingers

This can go a bit watery if left after a while, that’s fine – just dress it when you want to eat it. You could add sliced peppers and noodles, remember. This would work very well as an accompaniment to curries!

Right, that’s all done. If you want more veggie dishes, lunch ideas or other such nonsense, click the buttons below! You know you want to.

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J

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January 15, 2017

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breakfast, low syn, lunch, quark, recipe card, savoury snacks, snacks, speciality ingredients, sweet snacks, taster ideas, vegetarian

low syn goats cheese and honeyed blackberries on toast

Goats cheese and honeyed blackberries on toast? Yes, I know. Fancy! But look, I’m sick of looking at overnight oats and oats recipes and overnight baked wonder-oats and bloody Fibre One bars.

Remember when Paul managed to cause us much embarrassment when he accidentally posted a pulsing sphincter onto our facebook page which resulted in us getting banned from facebook for a week? Well, that was mortifying, but he’s managed to shame us yet again. See, I was driving us to the supermarket when I stopped to let a dad and his young boy cross the road in front of us. The lad was clearly learning to ride a bike and he had an adorable Union Jack helmet on and I was feeling generous, plus I wanted a chance to put the windows down because Paul’s car reeks of those bloody awful Yankee Candle air-fresheners – he has about eight dangling from his wing mirror, which given he drives a Smart car, reduces the interior by 45%.

Anyway, Paul hadn’t noticed why I’d stopped until I explained that I was stopping to let ‘that little boy with his lovely little helmet’ cross the road. Paul’s reaction? Why, it was to shout ‘UUUUUURGH YOU DOOOORTY PEEEEE-DO‘ to me at the top of his voice for a ‘joke’. The dad looked furiously at me but hey, it’s not as though we were driving an easily-identified, tangerine-coloured car in a town full of beige Range Rovers. The kid hadn’t heard, just to be clear, he was cycling away merrily into oncoming traffic (I’m kidding, he was on the path). I fully expect to have my windows put through later this evening and have Dark Justice ambushing me as I leave work. Good work Paul, what a love!

Can I ask a question which I may have touched on before – is there anyone else out there who loves nothing more than a lazy Sunday? I always feel like we should be out doing something but see, once we’ve dragged ourselves out of bed at 11am and had our 2pm nap, there’s really not enough time to go out. I know I’m super lazy but meh, I’m happy. When you watch the TV and see all those adverts with zippy young people flying about and being exciting it makes me feel momentarily bad, but I find that feeling goes away if I just shut my eyes or concentrate on opening the Ben & Jerry’s. I did manage to resubmit my application to go on The Chase though which I’ve been meaning to do for a couple of months – I don’t know why, I’ll be uniformly terrible because I can’t cope with pressure – put me up against the clock and someone could ask me what my name was and I’d still blurt out pass and then fall over. Ah well.

Been doing a lot of boring admin on the blog today – updating the recipe list, removing some Christmas stuff and upgrading our servers behind the scenes – you should notice it is loading nice and quickly. Phew, right? We were mulling over adding more adverts but have decided to leave it for another year. To me, there’s nothing worse than loading a food blog only to have 47 adverts load up, then a read more button, then a subscribe button, then a load of tracking adverts running in the background. You’re here for recipes and hopefully a laugh, not to have us fingering through your pockets clamouring for every spare penny. Do let us know if we haven’t got the balance right, though – we’re here for you!

We’ve added a new category into our recipe page for lunches, too.

lunchsmall

See? Most of our meals can be made in bulk and taken to work the next day, but hopefully this list will identify the stuff you can easily make the night before and portion up. Hope this helps! If we make a recipe going forward that is easily portable, you’ll see this button.

Oh! Another new thing, before we get to the recipe. We thought, for nothing more than shits and giggles, to do a short video review of the new Mullerlight blackurrant and liquorice yoghurt. Give it a whirl, at least you’ll get to hear what one of us sounds like.

I know, it’s like Brendan from Coach Trip had an illicit pump-and-dump with Denise Welch and I was the resulting lovechild. Ah well.

Anyway, let’s get to the recipe, but first…

warning

It’s not even science, to be fair, but the old tweak warning banner didn’t go with the rest of the site! Here’s the thing. This recipe, which makes enough for one (but you know, scale up if there’s more than one of you), uses 100g of blackberries, but, gasp, I heat them up first in a pan. Following Slimming World’s rules to their strictest form, you ought to syn these blackberries at 1 syn. In my eyes, there’s absolutely bot-all difference between 100g of uncoooked blackberries and 100g of cooked blackberries, but I’m not here to question Slimming World’s logic – it’s up to you to make a choice here. I’ll probably get a load of people trying to explain ‘why’ this should be synned – some blah about if you chew it with your mouth you use up more energy but haway, we’re talking about blackberries here, not bloody allen keys – it’s not like you’ve got to writhe on with your mouth to burst it through. Plus, you know, we’re not making jam here.

So yes: depending on how you view the hot-button topic of tweaking (and you can read more about our views here), the blackberries ought to be synned at zero or one.

goat cheese and honeyed blackberries on toast

to make goats cheese and honeyed blackberries on toast, you’ll need:

  • your healthy extra B of bread – I don’t mind what you use – use three slices if you wish or trip the light fantastic and have a bagel or something, just syn it
  • 100g of blackberries
  • 40g of soft goat cheese (a HEA – now, if you prefer, you can use maybe 10g of goats cheese and save the rest of your HEA for something else, but that’s too complicated for us)
  • quark (now I know, it tastes of fuck-all and then nothing, but we are using it with the goats cheese to bulk it out – you may not need this if you want a full on goat cheese experience
  • 1 tsp of honey (1 syn)
  • a drop or two of vanilla extract
  • chopped mint

to make goats cheese and honeyed blackberries on toast, you should:

  • toast your bread, whether under the grill, in a toaster or placed behind a farting arse – whatever gets the job done. Is this a good chance to show off our fabulous toaster? I’m going to. No shame. It’s so pretty. I mean, look at it! Plus, just like Paul, it has an extra wide slot – though, unlike Paul, you can change how brown your slice is when you pull it out – boom boom
  • I am so sorry for the above, I ought to be ashamed
  • to make the blackberries all lovely, put them in a small pan on medium heat with about two tablespoons of water, the teaspoon of honey and the vanilla – cook for about five minutes, keeping an eye to make sure they don’t catch, and crushing them ever so delicately with a fork to let the juice out – you want the berries warmed through and nice and soft, with a little bit of berry liquor left over
  • liquor? Why officer, I barely knew her!
  • mix the goats cheese with however much quark you want – none at all if you prefer a nice strong taste – then spread on your toast
  • top with the warm blackberries and mint and enjoy!

See, how simple was that? To get all wank for a moment, it is a lovely breakfast because there’s so many flavours and textures going on. Absolutely worth a try. You could make it syn free by using sweetener instead of honey but for goodness sake, why do that to yourself? Enjoy flavour rather than a sight of a zero on your syns count, that’s what I say!

Not a fan of goat’s cheese? Use ricotta. You can have 90g of it as a HEA, you know.

Want more breakfast ideas? This one not buttering your muffin? Click the buttons and live like a Queen!

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Hope you all had a lovely weekend, gallivanting and adventuring around like you’re in an 1980s tampon advert!

J

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January 8, 2017

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american, bacon, breast, fakeaways, lunch, pork, poultry, recipe card, sandwiches, savoury snacks, snacks, syn free, taster ideas

two chubby club sandwiches

The recipe for two chubby club sandwiches is coming, but first, oh god…

I swear, on my nana’s little blue dolphin ornament, if I read one more bloody word about these ASDA Slimzone meals, I’m going to burst into flame. And I’m severely obese, I’ll go up like a fucking chip pan fire hurled into a swimming pool. What a ruddy hoo-hah! You’d think ASDA were adding lard to the country’s water supply the way people are foaming and revolting. I’ve seen so many armchair lawyers stating that SW will sue (for what?) and it’s false advertising (it isn’t) and ‘ASDA should be ashamed’ – pfft! If ASDA launched a new ice-cream tomorrow that had zero syns all these naysayers would be thundering down the aisles before you could say ‘but please, a bit of restraint’. I said the same when Slimming World launched their ready-meals in Iceland: they are there if you need them. Frankly, having tried each one, I wouldn’t feed them to a rabid dog to distract him from chewing on my throat, but that’s just me. Wait and see what SW syn them at and then plan them into your diet accordingly. It’s that simple. It isn’t the End of Days. Competition is good. We know the SW diet works and this just gives us more choice. Things could have been handled better on all sides but it is what it is and I encourage each and all to stop crashing their gashes over it.

Fuck me, we need a palate cleanser now, don’t we? Well, the good news is: it’s Paul’s birthday. Yes, the French to my Saunders, the Canestan to my cystitis, the Myra to my Ian, has turned 31. Years, not stone, just to be clear. He still looks young and fresh-faced to me, though: those crinkling wrinkles around his eyes are the result for laughing so hard at all my many jokes and witty observations, I’m sure, either that or I’m not putting enough lube on when I’m round the back doing delivering the milk. To celebrate, I’m posting a rare picture of him in his true form.

I LEFT MY IRON AWN

I LEFT MY IRON AWN

Just stunning!

Before I get to the meat of the story, I want to tell you what I bought him: a box of silliness. Paul is impossible to buy for because a) we buy what we want during the year and b) the rules this year were no food, clothes, smelly stuff, books, DVDs, days out or anything flash. I was tempted to fart in a box and wrap that up but I didn’t want to be mean. So instead I bought a lovely box from John Lewis and filled it with nonsense like a large horn, a tiny suitcase, sweets and other flim-flam. He loved it. To get to his present though he had to solve the giant treasure hunt that I’d set up for him because I’m a vexing sod. At least I kept this one to the house, unlike the first hunt I ever did.

That was a bloody corker. We used to live in the centre of Newcastle so I made the clues start around our flat and then fan out across the city. Want some ideas that I used? I wrote a clue in giant letters over the walls of our airing cupboard in UV paint, meaning he had to shut himself into the cupboard so it was pitch black and then use the little UV light on his keyring to find the clue. I froze a tiny clue the size of a match in a giant block of ice in the freezer. I wrote a clue on the bottom of a tin of peaches and put it back on the shelves in the co-op. My favourite though? I sealed a clue in a test-tube, corked it off, tied a ridiculously long length of fishing wire to the test-tube, tied that to the pillars on the quayside and then threw the tube in the water. His clue? ‘Go fishing’. Mahaha! Similarly, I stuck a clue to a helium balloon and then tied it with a 30m piece of fishing line to the railing on our balcony with the clue “Up”.

It took him three weeks to finish but we got there in the end. Anyway, back to now.

We celebrated the way we always do – spent the morning in bed farting and snoring then went out for the day. I told Paul that we could do anything he wanted to do for his birthday – he chose to go to a coal museum. Not quite the going down a shaft that I had in mind for the day, but hey, lady’s choice.

It actually wasn’t bad at all. See, Northumberland is very much a mining county, though far less so now. The earth underfoot was more pockmarked and scarred than a teenage boy’s face. The place where I live was a mining village until Margaret Thatcher came in and started being a slut. There’s more to it than that I’m sure but this isn’t the right place for political discussion. Anyway, we have a museum dedicated to coal mining not a kick off the arse from us, so away we went. Here’s an unusual thing: we weren’t robbed blind for entry and it was interesting, thoughtfully put together and maintained well. Good work Woodhorn!

We had the place to ourselves save for a braying foursome of hoorayers in Hunters Wellies who were loudly rah-rah-ing their way around the place. I inadvertently upset one of them when I told Paul to ‘hold back from the next exhibition as those toothy dickheads are still in there’, only for one of them to immediately appear in the doorway in front of me. I brazened it out and nothing was said. Listen, we were in a memorial to young lads who died in a pit explosion and they were carrying on like Jigsaw had just announced an Everything Must Go sale. Pfft.

We spent twenty minutes listening to two local old men describing their old mining roles, with me translating for Paul what they were saying as by God the Geordie accent was strong. I felt like the wee woman signing away in the corner of the telly during the night only I was mouthing ‘ROAD’ (ruuuurd) and ‘JOB’ (juuurb) and ‘BIT OF A POOR SPORT’ (haway y’fuckin’ radgie fucka) and ‘PRIME MINISTER MARAGARET THATCHER’ (eeee worra fuckin’ wuuurky ticket). He still looked bemused. I got my money’s worth out of the facilities by spending fifteen minutes sobbing and clutching my belly in the lavatories (we’d ordered Indian takeaway the night before, and by god was I seeing it again today) and then we made our way back to the car to head home.

Well, not quite. We spotted a little ramshackle narrow-guage railway just by the car park and, as luck would have it, a little train was just chugging its way into the station. There was no throng of people waiting to board so we thought why not and, after buying a ticket for a return (£2: can’t get vexed) journey, we climbed aboard. I saw the driver look at us and wince and well, they didn’t need to make such a big show of coupling another engine to the back of the train, you know? I jest.

Well – if I was reviewing this on TripAdvisor – I’d file it under ‘God bless them, they tried’. I’m sure it was meant for children, not two twenty-stone blokes with hairy arses and bad attitudes, but there’s only so much fun to be had from spluttering your way half a mile around a lake in the rain.

Oh, look, I’m being mean. It was exactly what you’d expect a £2 train ride to be, and I’m being churlish to moan about it. Good on them for a) not making it all tatty and themed and b) not ripping people off. Give it a go! The driver enjoyed it so much he had to tell all of his friends, which explained why he was looking at his phone the whole way. We crested a hill and saw that our destination was the other side of the lake where a Brewer’s Fayre pub awaited. Brewer’s Fayre is bad enough but on a Sunday? I’d have enjoyed it more if the train had derailed into the lake. We stayed on-board and made our way back through the forest, this time waving gaily at all the little children who the train was clearly designed for. We tried to Facebook Live the whole experience but Paul forgot to press record, so that’s that.

As we approached the car park for the second time I asked Paul what he fancied next and he said a club sandwich. He knows how to party, our kid. Anyway, knowing that ice-queen Margaret Brambles wouldn’t give a shiny shite whether it was his birthday or not, I set about trying to make a decent syn-free version, and here we are. As I’m a huge fan of word-play, I’ve called it two chubby clubs because it makes TWO FAT CLUB SANDWICHES! I know, right? I should be on the telly! Let’s do this. The recipe below is for one big sandwich, scale up as appropriate.

two chubby club sandwiches

two chubby club sandwiches

to make two chubby club sandwiches, you’ll need:

  • bread of your choice – we used seeded bread because it’s Paul’s birthday and we don’t care, but to keep it SW friendly you’ll need to use three slices of Kingsmill Wholemeal Crusts Away bread as your HEB
  • one big fat juicy tomato
  • three bacon medallions with the fat cut off
  • nice green lettuce
  • one bouncy and juicy chicken breast
  • one large egg
  • greek yoghurt (get the 0% fat version, keep it syn free)
  • any kind of hot sauce – optional – we used sriracha which is half a syn per tablespoon – we actually should have synned that I suppose, but it makes enough ‘sauce’ for two sandwiches, so quarter of a syn? Up to you!

You can get bacon and chicken from our massive Musclefood deal, just saying. Click here and relax, it’ll open in a new window. Plus the chicken isn’t full of water and nonsense and the bacon medallions cook well! Come on, let the Cubs fill your box once and for all!

to make two chubby club sandwiches, you should:

  • way really, it’s just a case of assembling your sandwich – I included a picture above so you can see what I mean, but here’s what is on each slice – read the recipe through first and then get everything on the go at once
  • make up some sauce by combining greek yoghurt with the hot sauce – or you know, syn some mayonnaise like a normal folk
  • toast your bread and keep it to one side
  • spread some sauce on one slice and top with freshly cut tomatoes
  • grill your bacon and put it on top of the lettuce and a bit of sauce on the second slice
  • you’re BACON me crazy, right?
  • boil up your egg and mush it up in a bowl with a tiny bit of greek yoghurt and lots of black pepper
  • for the chicken, I butterfly the breast (cut through horizontally most of the way through but don’t go all the way, baby – then fry it off in a good non-stick pan but instead of using oil, use lemon juice – make sure it doesn’t stick though. If you’re feeling all classy then you could use a griddle pan, hark at you
  • assemble

We served ours with chips because we’re fat and can handle all the carbs. You can leave stuff out if you don’t like it, add stuff in – it’s a veritable hokey-cokey of sandwiches.

Looking for more snacks? Sandwiches? Drink? Food? Click on the buttons and gorge yourself silly on our words!

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I’m sure you’ll all join in wishing Fattychops a happy birthday!

J