Category Archives: syn free

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January 10, 2016

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beef, beef mince, fakeaways, italian, pasta, quark, recipe card, slow cooker, speciality ingredients, syn free

slow cooker lasagne

Do you know, I’m never comfortable typing lasagne. I dither for ages as to whether it’s lasagne or lasagna and whenever I type it into google my eyes glaze over through boredom and I give up. So, take your pick. 

Super quick post tonight as we’ve only just got back from returning the Smart Car. Paul loves it. I hate it with the passion of a thousand suns. Admittedly, it was surprisingly roomy (but not roomy enough for any backseat shenanigans…not least because it doesn’t have a backseat, unless you fancy singeing your arse cheeks on the engine and having the Mercedes logo branded above your nipsy) but it was so…I hate to use the word lame, I’m not in Mean Girls, but yes, lame. I’ve never heard a car wheeze before. Paul stepped on the accelerator and it ‘shot away’ from a junction like a stubborn poo round a u-bend – going, but just. It did give the neighbours something to look at however and turning around at the top of the street was great fun as it can seemingly turn on a penny, but no, no, we’re not getting one. Sorry Paul! I embarrassed him today by parking outside the Smart car dealership whilst he was inside handing back the keys and putting the Black Beauty theme on loud. 

Tonight’s recipe, then – slow cooker lasagne. This serves six and only uses one 400g portion of extra lean mince, the type that you can buy from our Musclefood deal by clicking here. Just saying! You can bulk this out as much as you like by adding carrots, courgette, peas – any old shite you happen to have floating around in the back of the freezer. Also, this can easily be made vegetarian by replacing the beef mince with Quorn or similar. But ew, right. I hope they’ve improved Quorn mince since the last time I tried it – it was like digesting loft insulation. This lasagne is pretty much the same method as a normal lasagne. The pasta cooks slowly and is so soft, it’s almost like another sauce. Sounds like I’m having a joke but honestly, it’s good. That’s why it is essential to make your mince sauce as tasty as possible, it carries the dish! 

We served ours with roast potatoes and some steamed broccoli. Oh how fancy. 

SLOW COOKER LASAGNE

Look at it bubbling away…

IMG_2348

Looking good! Right. So…

to make slow cooker lasagne, you’ll need:

  • 400g lean beef mince
  • 1 large onion, chopped
  • 2 garlic cloves, minced
  • tin of chopped tomatoes
  • 500ml passata
  • 2 tbsp tomato puree
  • 280g lasagne sheets (about 2/3rds of a box)
  • 340g fat-free cottage cheese
  • 250g quark
  • as much reduced fat mozzarella cut into chunks as you like – 65g is one person’s HEA, and this serves six
  • whatever speed food you have about

to make slow cooker lasagne, you should:

  • in a large frying pan heat a little oil/Frylight over a medium high heat, add the onions and sweat down
  • add the garlic and the mince and stir occasionally until no pink meat remains
  • add the chopped tomatoes, passata, tomato puree and any other speed veg you are using into the pan and stir well, cook for a few minutes
  • meanwhile, add all of the cheeses into a bowl and mix together
  • spoon a quarter of the meat mixture into the slow cooker, top with a few lasagne sheets (break them up if you need to) and then spread over the top a quarter of the cheese mixture – repeat this three more times to make layers
  • cook on a low heat for 5 hours with the lid on

This freezes well, you’ll be glad to know. We portioned some up, put it in the freezer and got them about again 15 minutes later to eat. That’s portion control for you!

J

Remember, if you’re a fan of our writing, we now have a book out! You can find that here!

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November 15, 2015

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recipe card, slow cooker, syn free, vegetarian

slow cooker: colourful mash

Please stop prefixing all of your sentences with the word ‘well’, people. No, come on. It makes it sound like everyone has been holding their breath waiting for the revelation that you’ve put the cat out or spent the afternoon with your feet up having a cheeky glass of Bellabrusco. It’s not needed.

Only a quick post tonight because a) we have ironing to do and b) my ear hurts. Really hurts. Clearly this is my punishment for having a bag of Revels at the drive-in cinema yesterday, but it was either that or a hotdog served up with a side of phlegm from the hairy lass on the food-stall, so I think I made the right choice. The drive-in itself was really quite fun too – not least because I spend most of a cinema trip in some discomfort from holding in a fart, whereas in my own car I could trump to my heart’s content and the people either side of us could do nothing about it other than wind their windows up and gag into their airbag. Inside Out was a bit of a bust mind, but that could be more to do with the fact we were watching it from a distance through the pouring rain. I felt like a peeping tom. I’d still recommend the experience, though.

Tonight’s meal is mash done in a slow cooker. Whilst trying desperately to find a recipe that didn’t involve pulled this or shredded that, I discovered you could do mash in the slow cooker. Do you need to? I’m not sure. But it does look pretty.

colourful mash

Can I just say, you have no idea how much work goes into using mirrored bowls and not accidentally reflecting my knob into the pictures.

to make slow cooker colourful mash, you’ll need:

  • however many potatoes you normally use for your mash
  • one red pepper
  • one yellow pepper
  • bunch of spring onions
  • handful of jalapeños
  • 50ml of chicken or vegetable stock – add more if you have ‘dry’ potatoes – just keep an eye on them and make sure they don’t boil dry
  • 30g of hard goats cheese (optional) (HEA)
  • splash of milk
  • salt and pepper

to make slow cooker colourful mash, you should:

  • chop up your potatoes into manageable chunks and drop into the slow cooker
  • chop up the peppers, onion and jalapeno into nice square chunks and place on the top
  • pour on the stock
  • cook on low for three hours
  • mash up in the pan – don’t aim for super-smooth, you want it looking like a bowl of GINO O GINO GINELLI TUTTI FRUTTI ICE CREAM ABBONDANZA 
  • grate in the cheese and add enough milk to loosen it
  • dunno, serve this with sausages or something, at least the kids will eat it

In fact, let me just leave this here:

Actually, it’s genuinely really good – comfort food! You could add bacon too, if you were feeling like a proper decadent slut.

J

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November 5, 2015

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beef, beef mince, british, budget, fakeaways, recipe card, syn free, taster ideas

mince and mash (not our porn names)

Sorry, been away – busy attending to a personal issue. All sorted. 

Fireworks night. Yak. I’m a right miserable sod, because I don’t enjoy fireworks night. It’s not that the colours don’t amaze me or the bangs excite me, it’s just I spend the whole time wincing and thinking ‘oooh but what could you have bought with that money?’. It’s the Geordie in me. Plus, everyone else’s fireworks displays are always a bit crap, aren’t they? They certainly are around here – the sky being full of Aldi bangers that pop apologetically 12ft off the ground with less bang and smoke than what my thighs make when I move quickly. We go to the Hexham display, and that’s alright, but I find it’s invariably full of children getting in the way and crying. Honestly, why people don’t just shut them away in a cupboard is beyond me. Perhaps that’s why I can’t have children (well, ethically I shouldn’t, but biologically I can – nothing wrong with my gentleman’s relish, thank you very much). Perhaps we’ve been spoilt – we’ve experienced the fireworks at Disney Orlando, where you experience such a visual and aural overload that you don’t even notice them dipping their hands in your pockets to make absolutely sure you have zero money left. It’s certainly the first and only time I’ve developed sunburn from a fireworks display.

Mind, not that I’d see much now – my eyesight is dreadful. Don’t get me wrong, I can still see Paul if he so much as ventures anywhere near my wallet, even when I’m at work and he’s at home* – but I’ve been finding that my eyes are just getting worse. Nothing exciting, don’t worry, I just use a computer a lot and I’ve been putting off going for an eye-test for ages. See, any kind of test is a minefield when you have health anxiety because an anxious person makes all kind of crazy medical leaps. Eyesight getting worse? That’s because there’s a tumour the size of a rugby ball pressing my eyes flat. Tickly cough? That’ll be polycystic ovaries. Since I’ve adopted a mantra of ‘only worry if it gets worse’, I’ve put off the eye-test for long enough. 

* funny fact for you. I have a lovely picture of Paul and I lying on a bed together when we first started ‘going out’ (oh how I hate that term, but see it’s more polite than putting ‘rutting like dying pigs’). We both look content. My eyes are fixed on the camera I’m holding in front of us. Paul’s eyes are very pointedly and determinedly staring at my wallet, just on show on the table. How I tease him about this even now – if he married me for the money then he’s really done quite poorly. 

Anyway, on Monday, I bit the bullet. I actually went for an eye-test. That might not seem like a lot, but you have to remember how much I hate eye-tests because I’ve had nothing but terrible experiences with them. Take my last one at Boots Opticians, where the whole test was done almost in silence save for the sound of the skin on my cheek blistering under the assault of the opthamologist’s stinky breath. I’m sorry, but if I had a job that routinely involved me getting so close to people that I could give them stubble burn, I’d make damn sure my breath didn’t smell like an sewage outlet. Hell, it’s one thing I’m genuinely paranoid about – I hate the thought of having the type of breath that makes people audibly wince when I yawn or ask me if I had enjoyed the faeces I’d clearly had for dinner. If I know I’m going to the dentist or for an eye-test I spend a good three days beforehand brushing my teeth, swishing mouthwash and sucking menthol mints until it gets to the point where I can’t have a glass of water without my breath freezing it solid like that shrill tart from Frozen.

I have to say though, for once, it was altogether very pleasant, with the good staff at The Big Opticians in Byker putting me at ease. Can’t recommend them enough, and not just because I told the lovely lady serving me all about the blog. I’ve come away with a new pair of Paul Smith that are slightly more rounder than normal (I asked what was suitable for a “fat face”, and such bluntness seems to have worked wonders) and I’m not half as poor as I thought I’d be. Excellent. I asked Paul what he thought and he said I looked like Dame Edna, then immediately backtracked and said they were lovely. That was lucky, because how I would have been chuckling over the divorce papers later on. So that’s my eyes sorted, now I just need to do my hair.

I’m at that difficult stage now where I have to either commit to shaving off all my hair or going for a haircut. And I hate haircuts. It amazes me that they can actually cut my hair given I retreat my head back below my shoulders like a shy tortoise. I can’t stand people touching me, I can’t stand small-talk and I have as much style as a troubling fart, so going to a hairdressers is just awful. I’d sooner get a colonic in the middle of Boots with a group of students grading the look of my bumhole. I get asked what I want ‘doing with my hair’ and I struggle to reply with anything other than ‘cut’. It doesn’t help that I always look great when they whip off the blanket and show me the back of my head, then I blink and my hair immediately looks like something someone’s used to shift a particularly difficult scuff mark off a strip of lino. But I do need to do something with it, given I’ve been told I look like Donald Trump. From a loved one, no less. I know someone who’s not getting anal for at least two weeks. I sometimes wish I had that slightly stereotypical gay trait of being able to look good in any old outfit, but honestly, the only thing that looks put-together and stylish in my wardrobe are the built-in shelves. 

Sigh. Ah well. Tonight’s recipe is a little different. I’m calling it Paul’s Very Special First Meal because it’s a slightly more refined version of the very first meal he ever cooked – mince and mash. Apparently it’s a delicacy where he’s from (Peterborough, not, as you might think, the Eastern Bloc) and his mum used to make it often, though hopefully his version contains less Benson and Hedges ash and more meat. When Paul originally made this for me, it consisted of mash made from potatoes (and not a jot more) served with cooked mince and onion. With nothing else. It looked like something you’d get served for misbehaving in a Turkish prison. Still, I married him, and he’s the one who does most of the cooking now, so it all balanced nicely. This is a dinner that can be infinitely customised – add any old veg you like. We use it to go through all the scabby tins of peas and carrots that we buy on a whim. 

Incidentally, if you were looking for a nickname for the two of us, and twochubbycubs doesn’t quite cut it, ‘Mince and Mash’ should do the trick.

mince and mash

to make mince and mash, you’ll need:

for the mince:

for the mash:

  • however many potatoes you usually use for your mash, but choose a good, buttery potato – or use sweet potato, or use carrots, or use a mixture, or even chuck in some broccoli with your mash – but don’t bloody skin the potatoes
  • a tiny dash of milk
  • lots and lots of pepper

and to make mince and mash, you should:

  • finely dice the onion and garlic and sweat it down in a couple of squirts of spray oil – proper stuff mind, not bloody Frylight (though I mean, use Frylight if you want, but why would you when you don’t need to?)
  • chuck in the mince and cook it quickly until your meat is browned
  • add in the chopped tomatoes, peas, carrots, green beans, cat, TV Times, anything at all – crumble in the stock cube, bit of Worcestershire sauce if you fancy, and leave to simmer away merrily while you make the mash
  • I say make, all you need to do is boil your veg and then mash it roughly, so you get nice chunks and bits of potato peel – you’re lining your stomach with it, not plastering a ceiling, so lumpy is good

Paul prefers his mince watery, I like mine thick enough to leave my spoon standing up straight. Paul also likes to eat this dish with a teaspoon for god-knows-why, although it really just means he spills it down his front and I can’t eat my dinner for tutting and clucking.

Listen, I know it looks like a proper rubbish dinner, but it’s delicious and warming. Having typed it up, I realise I’ve just made a shepherd’s pie, only with the two layers side to side. BLOODY PETERBOROUGH.

Before I go, good news. We’re going to be doing a slow-cooker week starting next Sunday (I think). So, if your slow-cooker is sitting at the back of the cupboard collecting dust, dig it out. If you’re a fan of your whole house smelling like someone’s been farting non-stop for eight solid hours, or you like your dinner almost pre-chewed, you’ll be in your element.

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October 28, 2015

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breast, fakeaways, kebab shop, poultry, recipe card, syn free

chicken parmesan with bubble’n’squeak rostis

So you may, or indeed may not, remember me prattling on about having a sore shoulder a while back which was resulting in a numb face and a painful neck. At first, I put it down to the extravagant swimming I pulled off in Corsica, or my particularly deft way of dragging a suitcase behind me with ne’ry a thought for my posture or the shins of passer-bys. I even had to go for an x-ray which was terribly exciting. Though not as exciting as the time I went for an MRI. Anyway, after the usual battling through a phone menu last revised back in the eighties and waiting the customary seven and a half years to get a doctor’s appointment (on the basis I’m not 89, and thus unable to get up at 5am to queue up outside the surgery), I went in for my results. I didn’t get my usual doctor. Instead, I got the doctor who I always try to avoid. 

Now, let me say this. She’s a brilliant doctor, exceptionally knowledgeable and concise, and I’d (luckily) trust her with my life. But I don’t feel comfortable talking to her because she’s very aloof. I like a doctor who I can crack a joke with to relieve the tension and who will patiently explain all of the difficult terminology to me, such as spondylosis or stenosis or irreversible anal trauma or leg. I once, at the very peak of my anxiety, asked whether or not my erratic heartbeat was to be the end of me, only to be told by a jolly doctor with a nose the colour of a postbox that ‘I would still get the ladies to fit you up for a Christmas suit as opposed to a bodybag‘, before launching into a paroxysm of phlegm-filled chuckles.  He was great, though I believe he’s dead now, so who got the last laugh?

No, this doctor speaks to me in a very clipped, matter-of-fact tone. Very professional, which is probably why I don’t get along. If I was a doctor I’d spend the entire time bringing out the giant arse thermometer with a wince on my face, only to poke it rudely in my patient’s side with an ‘only joking, no, seriously now, it’s terminal’. I sat down in the chair and I was given a look that almost set my ears on fire – the results were discussed over…ooh, seven seconds, and I was told I had spondylosis and that was that. To me, spondylosis sounds like a Eurovision entry from one of the wildcard countries, like Azerbaijan. Or perhaps a packet of Belgian sweets. When I asked for a mite more information, she signed like I’d punctured her lung and explained it was a form of ‘arthritis and a result of getting old’.

Getting old! I would understand if I was in my sixties but I’m only 30 – and whilst I’ve doubtless weathered my body disgustingly by years of smoking, drinking, casual sex and hilarious-obesity (well it’s better than morbid obesity) – I don’t think I’m ‘getting old’ just yet. Granted, I do make a noise like the air-brakes on a bus when I finally settle into my chair at the end of a working day, and I find myself picking up trinkets in garden centres and thinking ‘well now isn’t that just the ticket, a little foam pad for my knees when I’m weeding’, but come on. There’s a few years left in me yet, I hope. Actually, the fact that I put down in writing how often I’m in a garden centre is worrying – they were always the domain of ladies who smelled damp and men with cumulatively more hair sprouting out of their nose and ears than on their scalp – but then there I am on a Sunday, fingering the seed packets and worrying endlessly about my car being scratched. Hmm.

I courted her opinion on whether I should see a chiropractor and her reply was that she couldn’t comment – I resisted to urge to ask whether she was being held against her will or if a rogue chiropractor was holding her children hostage. She referred me to have my bloods taken, which I’m beginning to think is just a ruse to build up supplies because I have a rare blood type and they’re forever taking my blood. I swear, I go in for an ingrown toenail and they’ve got a needle in my arm before I’m so much as sat down in the reception flicking through a Home and Country. That’s a fib. There’s no Home and Country in our surgery. There’s a few dog-eared OK magazines – ‘It’s true love for Anthea Turner!‘ and ‘Happy future ahead for Princess Di‘ and a copy of Puzzler which I swear has been there since the centre was built – it’s probably a load-bearing magazine – and will remain there evermore. Out of little more than spite, I’ve arranged an appointment with a chiropractor regardless. If anything, it’ll give me something to twist my face about down the line. I do wish there was a way of discreetly asking whether or not their investigation table can stand up to twenty stone of fat slithered on top like cooling lava but no.

Anyway, enough about my day. It’s hurting to type, so I’ll need to hurry. I don’t like having a neck pose that makes me look permanently inquisitive. I’m actually frightened that I’m going to end up like all of those silly people on facebook who cast their head to one side and pout into the camera in the misguided belief that it’s hiding their chins, which are smartly avalanching into a fleshy heap under their right ear. So without a moment more of hesitation, here’s tonight’s recipe.

baked chicken parmesan

The chicken is delicious, all crispy and flavoursome, and don’t forget you can get your hands on a decent selection of breasts just by clicking on our Musclefood deal. Musclefood’s chicken doesn’t seem to shrink away to nothing in the oven, which is a bonus, and it actually tastes of something other than a farmer’s fart and a short life filled with disappointment and ennui. Give it a go. The accompanying sides are a piece of piss to make, but don’t they look good? You can serve this dish to loved ones and bask in their oohs and aaahs. Aaah, not arse. No-one wants to bask in my arse, sadly. I’ll divide this into two recipes, because I love you so much.

to make baked chicken parmesan, you’ll need:

  • 4 chicken breasts
  • 60g parmesan (30g is a HEA)
  • 1 wholemeal roll, made into breadcrumbs (HEB)
  • 2 tsp garlic powder
  • 1 tsp dried basil
  • 1/4 tsp black pepper

It’s worth noting at this point that you’ll not use anywhere near all of the ‘covering’, so I wouldn’t worry too much about any syns and HEB. Up to you, though – this makes enough to coat four breasts.

to make baked chicken parmesan, you should:

  • preheat the oven to 180 degrees celsius
  • in a shallow bowl, mix together the garlic powder, breadcrumbs, parmesan, basil and pepper
  • spray the chicken breasts with a little spray oil and roll in the breadcrumbs so they are well coated – use a little more frylight on patches where the mixture won’t stick
  • place onto a non-stick baking tray and bake for about thirty minutes, checking that the chicken is cooked through so you’re not shitting through the eye of a needle later on

to make sticky-leek topped bubble and squeak rostis, you’ll need:

  • 700g of potatoes, chopped, don’t bother peeling
  • 300g of broccoli
  • a chicken stock cube
  • any other veg you want to add in
  • a pack of two leeks
  • pinch of thyme
  • pinch of salt

to make sticky-leek topped bubble and squeak rostis, you should:

  • slice the leeks thinly – this is where a mandolin comes in really handy – and you can find one here. Take care though, don’t circumcise your fingers. You can just use a knife mind, but it’s faffy and the more uniform they look, the better
  • pop these into a pan with a drop or two of oil, a teaspoon of oil and a pinch of thyme and salt – then put the lid on and shake shake shake, breaking the leeks up – then keep the lid on and put them on a low heat for as long as you dare, they’ll reduce down and get sticky
  • meanwhile, cut up your potatoes and broccoli and boil for however long it takes to go soft
  • allow to cool and then roughly mash – you don’t want baby food, so just give it a cursory mix – and add in the stock cube – if you have any parmesan left over from the chicken, chuck it in here
  • shape into discs – now, we use one of these rings and presses – it makes things much easier, and costs less than a tenner – just use a dab of oil on the sides and you’ll get perfectly uniform, lovely shaped discs – but, you can use a scone ring or something circular!
  • top with the sauteed leeks
  • pop into the bottom of the oven when the chicken goes in
  • serve with gravy if you like!

J

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October 25, 2015

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beef, recipe card, sauces, steak, syn free

steak au poivre

No point in fibbing, we used neither a proper steak or a double cream based sauce for this, but well, we’re on Slimming World and something needs to counter the massive packet of Pinballs that somehow got eaten on the drive home from the cat and dog shelter today. We’ll come to the recipe a wee bit later but first, a couple of things.

Really, just a gentle reminder to all that we’re completely unofficial, and what we write is entirely our own opinion. I like to think we’re genuinely nice people and what we post is all in good humour, but please remember, this is ultimately a personal blog and we’re allowed to let our opinions slip through. Same goes for our Facebook group/page. We’ve experienced a bit of a ‘problem’ user who took great umbrage to me asking, perfectly innocently, where she got her serving platter from and that I thought it was pretty. She inexplicably took this as me suggesting she ate like a pig (which she didn’t, and I wasn’t) and then went onto one of the big facebook groups making out like there had been a whole campaign against her and I was planning on taking out an advert in The Times calling her a fatty-boom-boom. Maybe I exaggerate but, like crabs, exaggeration is catching. What did annoy me – and so little does, honestly – was her making out like I was a bully. I’ve never bullied anyone in my life – I’m too soft-hearted, despite all the puff and bluster. I’d be absolutely and utterly mortified to have caused genuine upset, but what I think happened was that she wildly misconstrued the original comment and then couldn’t quite calm down. An over-reaction against a slight that never happened – that’s the Internet for you. I did explain, over and over and over, but…ah well. If you’ve come to the page expecting Hitler in an XXL Cotton Traders t-shirt fatshaming women all over, you must be sorely disappointed. If you’re here wanting diet advice and a few laughs and pictures of cats, you’ve definitely come to the right place. Take a look over the last year’s worth of posts, pictures and recipes, and then decide if I’m a bully. 

No need to leave a comment re: the above!

We’re struggling more and more not to buy a dog. Personally, I think it would be a little mean given we’re out all day, but then, dog-sitters exist…every time we come away from the cat and dog shelter I almost have to drag Paul to the car weeping and wailing over some cute bundle of fur that he’s seen. It’s like Sophie’s Choice every fucking Sunday. We’d be absolutely excellent ‘parents’ but I don’t know. I mean, we’ve just had that lovely sofa delivered. I’d prefer another cat, but given our two alternate between tearing lumps out of one another and spending an hour or so licking each other’s arsehole in front of our TV, maybe it’s not the best time to introduce another. There’s a cat there called Malcolm with beautiful tiger stripes and big green eyes and I know, I just know, he’s going to end up being put into our car at some point. It’s funny, back in the day when we had three cats (before we gave one away to a lonely friend), when we introduced Cat 3, Cat 1’s reaction was to piss on everything we owned. She pissed on our skybox, she pissed on Paul’s slippers, she even climbed up onto the hob and pissed all over that. She even left us a few hot links in the shower for good measure. She seemed content enough but for ages our tea had a faint scent of ammonia about it. I just wish I was rich, then I’d give them all a home.

Finally, we went to B&M today which is always a mistake because I end up getting so wound up. Who out there is buying those bits of wood with messages like ‘MEMORIES LIVE FOREVER, DREAMS FADE’ and ‘BITCH OF THE KITCHEN’ on them? Because whoever you are, please stop it immediately. I swear I walked through an aisle so full of motivational slogans and ‘PRINCESS’ tags that I came out the other end with diabetes and an hour to live. Though, I did chuckle to note that the second ‘S’ from a big lump of shite with ‘Princess’ emblazoned on it had fallen to the floor, leaving it looking like a motivational plank for a tin of corned beef. To my “delight” they had put out all the Christmas decorations, meaning I got a good early look at all the tat I’m going to be driving past and tutting at. Again – tell me – who buys those awful ‘snow scenes’ with the tiny people whirring around on sledges? Who wants what looks like a lump of asbestos knocked out of a wall and painted by a lunatic sitting atop their mantle? But I think, really, the very worst thing I saw was a toilet seat cover with Santa’s cheery face on it. Because nothing says ‘IT’S CHRIIIIIIIISTMAS’ like having to look at Santa’s twinkling eyes whilst you’re touching cloth? I think there’s something deeply troubling about having to lift up Santa’s face to curl one out – it’s like you’re shitting on Christmas itself. Still, a bargain at £1.99.

That said, we didn’t come away completely empty-handed. We caved and bought a few bits of shite for our props cupboard – that’s the random stuff you’ll sometimes see in photos, such as the hot-dog wrappers and the popcorn stand. That’s the problem with running a food blog, your kitchen becomes awash with absolute nonsense items bought for one photo and consigned to the back of the cupboard. Remember the little machine I bought that turns eggs into neat squares? It’s fun, but it’s been stopping our little drawer under the oven from closing properly for about six months now. Ditto the popcorn machine. Ditto the lollipop moulds…and so on. OH MIDDLE CLASS PROBLEMS RIGHT?

steak au poivre

to make steak au poivre you’ll need:

  • 2 hache steaks – we used the two from Musclefood that come with our box – details here – but if you want to buy them on their own, they’re right here! They’re a decent, cheap alternative and according to the syns calculator, they come out as syn free. NICE. They’re like a really thick, tasty burger. Also, you can use any steak of course!
  • 75ml worcestershire sauce
  • 10-20 peppercorns
  • 75ml fat free fromage frais
  • ½ chicken stock cube

to make hasselback potatoes you’ll need:

  • 1kg of charlotte potatoes (or similar)
  • Filippo Berio spray oil (7 sprays is ½ syn)
  • 2 tbsp parmesan, grated (2 syns)

to make crispy kale you’ll need:

  • as much kale as you’d like
  • Filippo Berio spray oil (7 sprays is ½ syn)
  • pinch of five spice seasoning

 

to make steak au poivre you should:

  • pour the worcestershire sauce into a small saucepan
  • heat the saucepan over a medium high heat until it starts to boil and reduced by about half, leaving a thick syrup
  • remove from the heat and allow to cool for about 5-10 minutes – this is very important so that the mixture doesn’t split – and don’t worry if it goes sticky, that’s fine
  • when cooled slightly, add the fromage frais and mix to combine, it should end up a caramel colour. use a silicon spatula to scrape the syrup up from the pan if you need to
  • crumble the stock into the mixture and stir
  • place the pan back on the hob on the lowest possible setting and keep stirring, keeping a careful eye on it to make sure it doesn’t split
  • next, add the peppercorns and stir – the more you use, the hotter it’ll be (we used all 20 and it was lovely)
  • meanwhile, heat a large saucepan over a medium-high heat with a little oil
  • add the hache steaks to the pan and cook to your liking
  • serve, pouring the sauce over the steak

to make hasselback potatoes, you should:

  • preheat the oven to 200°c
  • place the potato into the bowl of a wooden spoon – this stops you from cutting all the way through
  • cut into the potato at a sharp angle until you hit the spoon edge
  • do this every 3mm or so and complete for each of the potatoes
  • place all of the potatoes onto a baking sheet and spray with the oil
  • sprinkle over some salt and the parmesan
  • bake in the oven for about 45-50 minutes

to make the crispy kale you should:

 

  • spread the kale out onto a baking sheet
  • spray with only a couple of pumps of oil
  • sprinkle over some five spice
  • bake in the oven at 210°c for about 10 minutes

Phew!

J

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October 22, 2015

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bacon, breast, fakeaways, italian, lunch, pasta, pork, poultry, recipe card, syn free

garlic, bacon and chicken pasta

We’re both feeling quite melancholy as we witnessed something pretty awful today – a bloke having a massive seizure in the middle of IKEA and then screaming and thrashing as he came around. We’re both first-aid trained but when we got there, the staff were doing everything right and were bloody marvellous. What annoyed us more than anything, though, was the table full of old people practically snapping their necks to get a good look at the poor prone man on the floor. Not affording him any dignity or discretion, it was like they were waiting for the last number on their bingo cards. Vultures the bloody lot of them. Hopefully they were found face-down amongst the ANÖOS toys later on. Why are people so shitty?

So it brings me to two things, two pleas, really. And yes, it’s not the usual fun and games and piss-take that we normally bust out, but it’s so important. First – learn basic first aid. Take an hour to watch a few Youtube videos – you’ll find a whole raft of videos by the marvellous St John’s Ambulance right here. No-one is expecting you to give someone a tracheotomy or put in a catheter, but basic first aid makes all the difference. Would you genuinely know what to do if that bloke had been in a room with you and you alone and he had started having a seizure? What if a baby started choking or a kid came to you with a broken arm? We’re lucky – we’ve both been trained because of our jobs – but it’s such a frightening position to be in that I’d hate to have to do it without the facts. If you’re in employment, why not ask your HR if they’ll get you on a training course? You just don’t know when you’ll need it. As a moment of sweet relief, here’s a post about the last time James went for first aid training.

Second short plea? Get yourself on the organ donation register. If you’ve got strong, sensible views against it then all the best to you and we’ll say no more – it’s personal choice. But if you’re not on it as an oversight or because you haven’t got round to doing it, here, sign up now. It’s odd – the issue has come to our attention via the same disease – cystic fibrosis, with a friend of mine losing a good friend to it and one of our lovely lasses in our group posting on behalf of her friend who is slowly losing her lungs. I’d love to think that when I die, they take whatever they need from me. My eyes are fucked, so there’s no point there. Heart is probably shot and doesn’t beat so well, and lungs have been blackened by years of parents who thought nicotine was a suitable replacement for fresh air (I kid. Sometimes they used to wind the window down in the car). My skin is good, though, so graft away, and my brain – assuming it’s not being turned to sponge by some dastardly CJD prions (I ate a lot of cheap beef back in the day), is fairly sharp. They could take my balls if they wanted, they’re in decent shape, and hell if you want my willy, it’s there, though years of growing up alone in the country with nothing to do means it’s like a well-worn tyre now. I jest I jest. Trying to inject some levity. Go on. Sign up on the register. I promise you that if I die before you, and given my calorie intake and sloth levels of exercise, it’ll probably happen, you can take what you want.

OK. So let’s do the recipe.

chicken and bacon pasta

 

to make the garlic, bacon and chicken pasta, you’ll need:

  • 400g pasta of your choice
  • 1 red onion, finely chopped
  • 4 bacon medallions
  • 2 chicken breasts
  • 6 cloves of garlic, chopped
  • 50oml passata
  • ½ tsp paprika

 

to make the garlic, bacon and chicken pasta, you should:

  • cook the pasta according to the instructions – drain and rinse with cold water and set aside (this is a trick I learnt recently – works a treat!)
  • in a large frying pan heat some oil over a medium-high heat, add the onions and cook until softened, stirring frequently
  • meanwhile, chop the bacon and chicken into small pieces and add to the pan, reduce the heat slightly and cook until they meat is browned all over
  • add the paprika and garlic to the pan and cook for about thirty seconds, stirring constantly
  • add the passata to the pan, stir and cook for about fifteen minutes until the mixture has thickened
  • add the pasta back to the pan, stir through and heat for about three minutes
  • serve!
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October 19, 2015

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beef, chinese, diced beef, fakeaways, noodles, recipe card, rice, steak, syn free

date-wrecking asian garlic beef

Quick post tonight as we’re both knackered after our poor stay at the glamorous, salubrious Village Hotel just outside of Whitley Bay. We decided to spend a night there on the basis that “it can’t be that bad”, which is never a good reason to stay in a hotel. Now let me say this, I’m sure it’s lovely for weddings or it has rooms that blow the mind, but we were given a room that resembled Barbara Cartland’s bathroom, all bright colours and furnishings. The bed was that uncomfortable that we actually went for a drive at midnight as opposed to trying to sleep with the jizz-rusted springs digging into our back. We had a meal delivered by room service that was so forgettable I went for a bath halfway through my burger. It was very ‘god bless, they’ve had a try at least.’ I did feel bad for the room service people though – as soon as Paul ordered our meal I spent a good twenty minutes generously farting away under the duvet, with the effect that as soon as they knocked on the door and I barrelled to the bathroom, a veritable mushroom-cloud of trump went off in the bedroom. Paul tells me that the poor lass delivering our food physically blanched upon smelling, and I’m sure I heard her gagging away in the hallway.

You know what pisses me off though? The various ways they rip you off or let you down in places like this. For example, for £20, we could have been upgraded to ‘Upper Deck’ where such luxuries as Sky Movies and Starbucks coffee awaited. Choose not to upgrade, and your TV (I kid you not) picks up BBC1, BBC2, ITV, Channel 4, True Movies and Nickelodeon. Perfect if I want to watch the lass out of Cheers getting slapped about or Songs of Praise, but otherwise, fucking pointless. Not to mention the picture broadcast was so poor that I wasn’t entirely sure there wasn’t a tiny man behind the screen hastily drawing an approximation of what should have been on the screen at any given time. Why not just give us the normal TV channels rather than going out of your way to give a shit service? We had a drink in the bar – £13.50 for a gin (unbranded) and tonic (ditto) and a cider. I’m a tight Geordie, yes, but for that price I expect a hairy orchard-worker to come and squeeze my apples himself. Our room service cost £7 to be delivered (had they come in a taxi?) because we had two trays – fair enough, save for the fact that one of the trays held a tiny plate of cheesecake and could have easily been buried on the other tray. I’m surprised that they didn’t have the lift shake the coins out of our pockets as we checked out.

It’s foolish because all it does is create a shit impression – pay extra on top of your hotel stay and you’ll get what you paid for originally. It’s no surprise the hotel trade is dying on its arse with the likes of AirBnB chasing them – I’d sooner pay a flat rate and get everything than pay through the nose and then get asked for more.

Oh, and the coffee. I’d have got more taste and flavour if I’d pissed the bed and sucked it through the mattress.

Staff were lovely though.

So: recipe. I’m calling this date-wrecking because cor, it has a lot of garlic. Very mellow tastes though and it’s a good way to use up the beef strips like you get in, oh I dunno, our fantastic bloody deal with Musclefood? Remember? Forty quid of meat that you can enjoy all sorts of recipes with? Here, take a gander.

asian garlic beef

to make date-wrecking asian garlic beef, you’ll need:

  • 2 tbsp soy sauce
  • 2 tbsp lime juice
  • 1 tbsp fish sauce
  • 5 cloves of garlic, crushed (or even better, use a little mincer – no, not Paul, one of these)
  • salt and pepper
  • 500g of beef strips (or any beef, cut into strips)
  • 1 onion, thickly sliced
  • 1 pack of mushrooms – any you like, we used those exotic mushroom packs you get in Tesco
  • 2 spring onions, sliced

and then to make date-wrecking asian garlic beef, you should:

  • in a bowl, mix together the sauces and lime juice
  • in another bowl, mix together the garlic and 1 tsp pepper
  • season the beef with some salt and pepper, spray a large frying pan with oil/frylight, and heat to medium high
  • add the beef and mushrooms (FINALLY I UPDATED IT) and cook until browned, for about 1-2 minutes and then set aside on a plate
  • in the same pan, spray with a little more frylight or oil and cook the onion for about 2-3 minutes, stirring frequently
  • add the garlic and pepper paste and stir constantly for about thirty seconds – add a splash of water if it begins to ‘catch’
  • return the beef to the pan and stir well to combine
  • add the soy sauce mixture to the pan and stir until well combined
  • serve and top with the spring onions

We served this with greens, the recipe for which is coming tomorrow. What a tease!

Dead easy!

J

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October 18, 2015

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bacon, breakfast, budget, classics, lunch, pork, recipe card, savoury snacks, snacks, syn free, taster ideas, vegetarian

slimming world breakfast muffins

No, sadly not breakfast muffins that are full of blueberries or chocolate that you already slick around your mouth, causing embarrassment. Honestly, have a word. These breakfast muffins are savoury and apparently perfect for breakfast on the go. That’s an alien concept to me, not least because I’d hate to get into the lift at work with parmesan in my beard and four eggs on my breath. It’s one thing I’m always paranoid about – being smelly. There’s so little excuse to honk of BO or to have breath that can bleach hair, and I’m always going to great lengths to avoid that. I’ve got mouthwash in the car for example so after lunch, I give myself a quick rinse and let everyone on the office think I’m a secret alcoholic. But, if perhaps you’ve got your breakfast routine down pat, you’ll enjoy these muffins.

Posting very early today as we’re about to go out and deliver leaflets, after I somewhat rashly promised my consultant that we’d deliver 400, forgetting that on a weekend the amount of exercise Paul and I do amounts to exactly diddily-fucking-squat. I only said I’d deliver them because a) I like my consultant and b) I absolutely love nebbing in people’s windows and gardens. I drove past our old house in Gosforth just a couple of days ago and I was pleased to see that the shit landlord had yet to fix the drainpipe that hung over the window or even taken the space invader that we stencilled onto the front door. To be fair, we got revenge for his absolutely abysmal upkeep of the property and taking advantage of two young, naïve lads – we always used to put our cigarettes down the drain by the back window. By my calculations, given we were both on twenty a day, I reckon that’s at least four thousand little Swan filters blocking his pipes and tainting the water supply. No wonder the water used to run brown. I’ve given up now, mind. What-am-I-like. Don’t feel too bad for him, he was an absolute monster and a fibber who didn’t look after his properties. I had never seen load-bearing black mould until then.

So yes, the recipe!

slimming world breakfast muffins

to make breakfast muffins, you’ll need:

  • four large eggs
  • your HEA of any cheese you like, but the stronger the better
  • 300g of fat-free cottage cheese
  • good pinch of salt and pepper

That will make the basic muffin mixture – it’s not an exact science, either, just combine a bit more cottage cheese if it’s looking slack or crack another egg into it. You can chuck anything into these, so just use what you have – I added:

  • chopped baby leeks
  • chopped peppers
  • chopped bacon (leave out for veggie)
  • chopped tomatoes (if you’re using tomatoes, squeeze out the seeds first – just use the flesh)
  • chopped enokitake mushrooms

Really though, this is a good opportunity to use up all that shite cluttering the bottom of the fridge. I can’t really do a recipe because it’s genuinely just mix everything into a bowl, put into muffin cases and cook until they’re nice and firm and brown. I often find that with Slimming World muffins/quiches they come out as though someone’s cooked them in the sea – over-salted and wetter than Jordan checking into a Premier Inn with a footballer. If you cook off anything with a lot of moisture, like mushrooms or leeks, you’ll be OK. I cooked mine for around forty minutes on 180 degrees, just keep an eye on them to make sure they don’t catch. Also, if you’re using muffin cases, you’ll need to give them a spray first with Frylight or olive oil. If the egg leaks, it’ll dry like cement. They’ll cheerfully keep for a couple of days and they freeze well.

Enjoy! And if you’re in the Gosforth area, keep an eye open for two smartly-dressed fat blokes nosing around your garden and tutting at your poor choice of hallway wallpaper. 

J

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October 17, 2015

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bacon, classics, fakeaways, italian, lunch, pasta, pork, quark, recipe card, speciality ingredients, syn free, taster ideas

quick carbonara (sort of)

Going to rattle off a quick lunch for you today – it’s carbonara, but without the double cream and lovely cheese and egg – instead, using a bit of Quark and egg yolk to mix it through. Before I get to that, and I’ll need to be quick as I’ve got a Doctor Who appointment in fifteen minutes, I confess myself disappointed. See we’ve been furiously buying new books to populate our massive bookcase and I thought, you know, let’s have a trip down Memory Lane. It can’t all be Nigella Lawson and Bill Bryson books. So I nipped onto Amazon to buy the two books I used to love as a nipper – Martin’s Mice by Dick King Smith and My Best Fiend by Sheila Lavelle. Well, honestly. I appreciate I’m viewing them with the jaundiced eye of an adult, but they’re bobbins. I’d finished both books in the time it took to fill my bath. 

And that saddens me. Obviously there are things we experience as a child that we don’t want to feel again as an adult – getting your bottom wiped, or the gentle caress of a whispering vicar, but wouldn’t it have been nice to have at least enjoyed a book that used to bring me so much joy. It also means I’m stuck on new books to buy, because I can’t face having my heart broken again by some insipid story or turgid bit of fiction. Paul’s easy enough – he buys intellectual books full of big words and covers that look like they’d give chartered accountants an erection. To demonstrate, I looked at the last two books we bought from Amazon: I shelled out for a second-hand copy of Delia’s How To Be Frugal, Paul spent his hard-earned money on ‘Concretopia: A Journey Around the Rebuilding of Postwar Britain’, a book that frankly sounds so boring that I drifted off halfway through reading out the title and started thinking about cats. Put another way, we have two magazine subscriptions that get delivered here – one is Viz magazine, the other is Private Eye. Tsk. Snob. I have everything Stephen King has ever published, Paul has a book on tunnels. I suppose they say opposites attract.

Anyway enough of that – tonight’s recipe:

sorta carbonara

to make cheat’s carbonara, you will need:

  • 200g pasta (we used tagliatelle)
  • 6 bacon medallions chopped neatly (you can use up your bacon from our meat box deal with Musclefood – click here for that!)
  • three tablespoons of Quark
  • 30g parmesan
  • 2 tablespoons of fromage frais
  • bit of cheddar
  • two egg yolks

to make cheat’s carbonara, you should:

  • boil the pasta and cook the bacon off
  • mix together everything else
  • then mix EVERYTHING together

I know, simple, but still…!

J

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October 16, 2015

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classics, fakeaways, greek, lamb, lamb mince, quark, recipe card, speciality ingredients, syn free, travel

slimming world moussaka

Good evening. Hey, it’s been a while since we chatted, just you and me. Well, that’ll have to wait – The Returned is back on TV tonight and I can’t wait to get a glimpse of that Frenchman’s knob lose myself in the mysterious world of the returning dead and impossibly pretty girls saying ‘Poob’. Ah yes. Paul is making moussaka, so I’m simply going to write until either a) it’s 9pm or b) my shoulders hurt or c) Paul forgets to bring me my hourly coffee and I have to set about his face with a claw hammer. He’s in good spirits today because he’s left his job – don’t get me wrong, he loved it, but it’s a new adventure see? I’ll touch on that another time because tonight I want to chunter on about our holiday. Can I remember the details? Of CORSICAN. It’s exactly that level of shit-hot humour you bloody love.

The last time I wittered on about Corsica, I told you about how lovely the villa was, how appalling my French was and how I managed to make a complete tit of myself in the middle of a French supermarket only to be shouted at and admonished by a merrily-whiskered lady behind the till. I’m not going to write chronologically about what we did going forward because frankly, we spent an awful amount of time sitting around doing nothing other than eating bread and relaxing in the sun.

That was my first downfall. See, I managed to burn myself in the sun. I’m always so careful to protect myself against the sun (health anxiety, remember), and despite previous times when I’ve turned myself blue by applying too much sun-screen, I slicked it on with gay abandon. Listen, I’m a Geordie – we don’t do bronzed and golden, we do either Philip Schofield’s hair white or alarming-boil-red. There’s no middle ground. I’m a big guy and I take a lot of sunscreen to cover me (I did think it would be quicker to use one of those hoses so dramatically employed in decontamination chambers) but I thought I had it licked. Nope. After three hours of merrily splashing around in the pool and sizzling gently on the sun-lounger, I noticed that my right buttock was a trifle sore.

This isn’t uncommon – I use my bum-cheeks most of the day, so a little tenderness can be expected. Normally Paul just needs to tilt me to relieve the pressure. But no, this was a more serious pain – I had managed to half of my arse a charming post-box red. You genuinely don’t realise how much your arse touches something until it feels like it’s been pressed against the door of an industrial kiln for a few moments. Every sit was uncomfortable, every walk a mixture of chaffing and sadness. Plus, in my mind, my arse now resembled a block of Neapolitan ice-cream, only far less delicious. Paul had to spend five minutes gently kneading my buttocks with after-sun to bring comfort – it may have looked slightly erotic if it wasn’t for me yelling that he was catching my arse-hair in the metal clasps of his watch.

Now now, don’t get preachy, most men have a hairy button, it’s just a fact of life. Paul was once climbing naked into the shower when I ran into the bathroom and clipped a clothes peg to his bum-hair for a laugh. I managed to just nip his sphincter in the peg mechanism. Well, honestly. I’ve never heard him scream so loud – there would have been a less dramatic response had I shot his foot off with a sawn-off shotgun. He didn’t speak to me for the rest of the day and it was only after I bought him a 1kg bar of Dairy Milk from Amazon and allowed him to delete all my favourite programmes from the Sky Planner that his frostiness melted. 

That was me injured. Paul’s turn now. Dotted around the pool were three metal ‘hammocks’ which were shaped like open metal balls suspended from a frame. You can see them here:

Casa_Julia_LowRes_Sept14_SH_02 (1)

Lovely yes? I declined to get into them as I was worried the chain would snap under my weight and well, I hate to hear metal scream, but Paul is lighter and more daring so flung himself into one with gay abandon. As if we could manage any other kind of abandon, dearie me. He swung around for a bit until he realised he was going to struggle to get out, given he’s only got little legs and the ball shape didn’t lend itself to an easy exit. I watched as he valiantly declared he’d found a way off only to swing the entire frame over and land, quite literally, flat on his face, with the frame of the hammock smacking his on the back of the head a moment later. I couldn’t tell if the loud ‘ooof’ came from me, his mouth or the air escaping from his fat, but it was hilarious. Me being a conscientious, kind-hearted husband couldn’t do a jot for laughing – indeed, I laughed so much from the deep-end of the pool that I almost drowned myself (that’ll teach me) and he lay for a good few seconds before laughing and moving. I’d be a shit paramedic – anything faintly slapstick and they’d be declaring death whilst I stood around slapping my knees with merriment. Perhaps it was karma from when something similar happened to me in Dobbies – we just don’t do well with hammocks.

Once we’d wiped the tears from our eyes (mine tears of laughter, his tears of blood and ocular fluid) we took a moment to decide what to do and decided on a spot of lunch. I was clearly so upset and fraught with the worry that Paul’s skull was filling with blood from his massive internal injury that it was really all I could do to take myself off for a long shower whilst Paul set about cutting up cheese and putting rocket in a bowl – well, it makes it easier to scrape into the bin later on. It was just as Paul was bending down (naked, remember) to get something from the crisper drawer when our rep appeared at the open living room door with a loud ‘HELLO’. Paul, mortified, spun around on his heel and clutched a tea-towel to his genitals (the same tea-towel I later saw him cleaning my wine glass with – which explains why I wondered if we were having Brie with our sauvignon blanc later on). Paul doesn’t do exhibitionism (even though he should, because he’s lovely), unlike me. I’m not fussed when I’m on holiday, I’ll cheerfully flop it out if it saves me carrying my swimming knickers to the beach.

I don’t swear ‘swimming knickers’ I hasten to add, I just like how that sounds in my head’.

What followed (I had taken a moment to stop murdering Cher’s greatest hits in the shower in order to gleefully listen) was a toe-curling exchange where Paul, frozen behind a breakfast bar with only a tea-towel and a packet of Pringles to hide his modesty, had to exchange polite conversation about how to turn off the pool alarm and where to leave the towels whilst the rep looked absolutely everywhere but his body. The rep was lovely mind, don’t get me wrong, and he had the good grace not to shout ‘YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO LET CATTLE IN’ to me as I came out of the shower towelled and pleasant. He then explained that as a gay nudist he had seen it all before, as though Paul was some spectacle designed to be peeped at through a hole in the door. In another world it may have been the beginning of a raunchy Xtube video but not ours – Paul was so shocked and frightened that he had to have half of my sandwich just to calm down. 

I appreciate that this reads like some campy seventies farce but, as Mags is my witness, it’s the truth. Worst part of it all? Paul was so distracted by not accidentally showing the rep his lid that he paid no attention as to how to turn off the pool alarm, and MAN was that alarm sensitive. Each morning we’d be woken by it screeching away if a leaf tumbled in or a water-molecule split. I swear I sighed once in bed at the other end of the villa and it was away, wailing and blaring like a rape alarm. Our poor neighbours. Whilst we couldn’t see anyone nearby – it was forest that surrounded us – we knew there were people close-by by the laughter and sound of cars crunching over gravel. Knowing us, we were probably perched at the end of a housing estate or a nursing home and several dozen Corsican families were being treated daily to the sight of our naked buttocks (mine a fetching red) as we climbed in the pool. Ah well. Not like we’ll ever see them again. 

Final tale before I sign off for the night. We did a very British thing indeed. Perhaps not British, actually, but rather the domain of the bone-idle. We decided halfway through the holiday to have a trip along the island to the port town of Bastia, a good three hour drive away (taking into account Paul’s need to stop every thirty minutes for a dump as we entered somewhere new). We planned the route the night before, made a couple of sandwiches for the car, set the alarm – all ready. We were in the car and making excellent time by around 8am. We’d researched local museums and excellent restaurants to try on our day out, oh what a lovely day. Hmm. The reality of it was that we drove for three hours and then couldn’t find a parking space. Not one. The French seem to park their cars like they’re dashing into maternity wards and haven’t a moment to lose. Every side street is an obstacle course of Corsican Corsas, with cars parked parallel, flush and across the road. I couldn’t understand it and the rage built up in me to such an extent that I yelled ‘WELL FUCK THIS’, did a 76 point turn in the middle of a one-way street and immediately revved the hell out of Bastia. Bastia? More like BASTARD. 

It might have been a lovely town full of curios and wonder, but all we saw of it was the back of a tour bus and the interior of a very large supermarket where we stopped for a calming round of bread and cheese. We’d managed the equivalent of driving to Durham from London, stopping at a Tesco Extra, buying a loaf of bread and driving home. The drive home was fairly silent – Paul slept, and I spent most of the time with my eye twitching and a renewed dislike of the world.  I did switch the radio on but frankly it sounded like I’d tuned into a cockfight so that was snapped off in anger too. 

I was at least reassured that when recounting this tale to a friend that she had done exactly the same, right down to the stopping at the supermarket on the way back. Phew.

We’ll leave it there. French Zombies are here. Before I go, tonight’s recipe is a Slimming World friendly moussaka. You’ll enjoy it! Bit of a clart on making it, no fib, but it’ll be tasty. Serves 4. You could make it with beef mince – lucky we chuck in three big bags of extra lean in our Musclefood deal, found RIGHT HERE (and don’t worry, it opens in a tidy new window so you won’t lose me forever).

slimming world moussaka

to make slimming world moussaka you’ll need:

  • 500g of extra lean minced lamb if you can find it – our butcher does lean lamb and we use that, but they also sell it in Tesco
  • 60g of extra mature cheddar, grated (2 x HEA)
  • 500g pasatta
  • 2 medium aubergines, cut into slices and dipped into lemon juice to stop them going brown
  • a couple of large potatoes
  • 1 bog standard carrot, diced finely
  • tin of tomatoes
  • 1 courgette, diced finely
  • 1 white onion, finely chopped
  • 2 fat cloves of garlic, crushed and minced (yep: USE ONE OF THESE MAN, YOU’LL SAVE SO MUCH)
  • 1/2 tsp of ground chilli, 1/2 of cinnamon, 1/2 of rosemary if you can find it, 1 tsp of oregano and 1 tsp of thyme
  • pinch of salt and pepper
  • beef stock made from a decent stock cube
  • half a tub of bloody Quark
  • 2 tbsp of fromage frais (make sure syn free else Maggie May will be livid)
  • bit more cheese, just to make it nice

and then to make slimming world moussaka you should (deep breath):

  • actually, look, it isn’t so bad, so get on with it
  • peel, slice and par-boil the potatoes until they are soft with a hint of rigidity, like a randy old bloke’s schlong;
  • take your slices of aubergine and stick them up yer arse and grill them in a fancy griddle pan or normal pan until they’re charred
  • hoy a bit of salt on them
  • cook your onions in another pan until soft, then add everything else in – mince, spices, garlic, courgette, stock etc – and cook for thirty minutes low and slow until it’s really thick;
  • whilst doing that, beat together the Quark, fromage frais, some cheese, salt and pepper and the yolk of an egg into a thick pale yellow sauce
  • assemble – mince mixture, then aubergine, potato, bit of white sauce (fnar fnar) rinse and repeat – you might not get many layers if you have a big dish, but so what? Just do what you can
  • throw cheese on the top and put in the oven for around half an hour, making sure it doesn’t burn
  • add more cheese at regular intervals until you’re satisfied and smiling
  • serve!

Coo, I’m knackered.

J