Category Archives: syn free

Syn free recipes

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January 14, 2015

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budget, fakeaways, italian, lunch, pasta, recipe card, syn free, vegetarian

garlic, lemon and parmesan linguine

Argh! My well-meaning neighbour has inadvertently vexed me, at the end of a rubbish day. Our general waste bin was missed by the council so we put it outside today and arranged for them to come and empty it. Great! Got home today to find the bin neatly stood next to the back door and a note saying ‘It’s not bin day so I brought your bin in’ – bah. He’s the nicest guy in the world though, so I can’t get too vexed.

I was told today that I have a lovely telephone voice, which was pleasant – although I was always under the impression that as soon as I pick up a phone, my voice actually deepens and goes a bit more Geordie than I’d like. Paul tells me that I have no discernible accent – which is lucky, as a strong Geordie accent (to an outsider) sounds like Brian Blessed yelling nuclear launch codes into a Toblerone tube. All went well when Paul first met my parents, aside from afterwards when he turned to me in the car, ashen-faced, and confessed that he’d spent the last two hours nodding politely at my dad and being completely unable to decipher the accent. My dad has a mild Geordie accent but the state of Paul’s confused face would suggest he sounded like a water-damaged cassette recording of Auf Wiedersehen, Pet.

Actually, I’ve enjoyed good luck with my voice throughout my life. I certainly didn’t go through the mandatory six months of sounding like failing car brakes when I was a teenager – I seemed to go to bed sounding like a Snowman-era Aled Jones and woke up again sounding like Madge out of Neighbours. In fact, puberty was great fun for me – whilst a lot of my peers were awash with spots and ‘taches like they’d stuck a few errant pubes on their top lip, I could grow a pretty manly beard right from the get-go. Clearly such high levels of testosterone (and it helped that my levels were kept regularly topped up, EH, AM I RIGHT, NUDGE NUDGE WINK WINK) didn’t lead to any especially manly pursuits, though I was fairly decent at rugby, presumably because I looked like someone had driven a minibus onto the pitch and stretched a Matalan jersey over the top of it. Ah well.

Tonight’s recipe is simplicity itself. but bloody impossible to take an interesting photo of…

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to make garlic, lemon and parmesan linguine, you’ll need:

PLEASE don’t dismiss this because it looks boring or if you don’t like mushrooms – it tastes fantastic and you can leave out the mushrooms and still enjoy (Paul did). Plus, it takes 5 minutes to make (as long as the linguine takes to cook) and uses only four ingredients (five if you add mushrooms). Give it a whirl!

ingredients: two/three cloves of garlic, one lemon (you’ll need three tablespoons of juice), packet of linguine (we used half a standard pack for two large servings) and a good parmesan (30g as a HEA per person but it’s only a syn per level tbsp if you want more) (i.e. you’re a greedy fucker like me). If you like mushrooms, buy a pack of nice mushrooms rather than button, fry them gently and add on the top at the end. But let’s presume you don’t like mushrooms and crack on, shall we? If I can stress one thing – buy good ingredients here. Decent linguine is better than spaghetti and costs next to nothing. A large, unwaxed lemon will yield plenty of juice. Better to have less parmesan than more cheddar, and a little goes a long way (plus you can save whatever is left in the freezer and blitz it into soups). A garlic clove will taste better than any powder! I’m not one to normally nag about ingredients but really, when there is so little on the go, make it count!

to make garlic, lemon and parmesan linguine, you should:

recipe: fill the biggest, meanest pan you’ve got about two thirds full with water, and chuck in salt with gay abandon. Get the linguine boiling. Whilst that’s cooking, you’ll want to get your lemon juice – so pop the lemon in the microwave first for fifteen seconds, then squeeze it out – three tablespoons worth. Microwaving will allow you to get a lot more juice from any citrus fruit, trust me! Next, grate your garlic and your parmesan. Now, you can do this with a bog standard grater but it won’t be quite fine enough. I use one of these microplane graters (click the link to be taken to Amazon) and it’s a godsend, not least because it’s sharp and makes it fine enough to mix in with the pasta. I use it for plenty of other things but mainly grating parmesan or chocolate. Drain your pasta, keeping half a cup of the cooking water to one side. Make sure it’s drained well, then chuck into a bowl and mix with the parmesan, lemon juice, garlic and keep adding enough of the cooking water to make it easy to mix. Stir together well, stir it a bit more, and when you’ve lost feeling in your left arm, man up and use the right one.

Serve hot and fresh, with a bit more parmesan on the top and plenty of black pepper. If you like mushrooms, chuck them on! And that’s it!

extra easy: yes, easily. Aside from the cheese that you can use a HEA for, it’s all good! Perhaps a note of caution – it doesn’t contain your third superfree that you’re supposed to have, but have a wee fruit salad on the side for after if you’re that keen!

Please give this one a go. Adjust the lemon, garlic or cheese to your liking but trust me, it’s a simple quick recipe that actually tastes decent.

Enjoy…

J

PS: who knew David Guetta looked like a down-on-her-luck Jennifer Aniston? Not me until just now…

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January 10, 2015

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beef, beef mince, burgers, chinese, classics, fakeaways, low syn, recipe card, syn free, taster ideas, vegetarian

slimming world spring rolls

Firstly, a big hello and welcome to all our new readers!

We’re spring-cleaning this weekend (hence the savings article is taking a while to write) and amongst other things, a good amount of time has been spent hoovering the cats, both of whom really quite enjoy having the nozzle from the hoover ran over them. When we first got them they were typical cats who reacted to us having the temerity to hoover by exploding into giant cat-form, clawing off our faces and shitting on the carpet, but two years of having a roomba trundling around during the day has desensitised them both to the point where they enjoy a good vacuum. Sola has picked up an annoying habit though – every time you go into the bathroom to use the netty, she climbs onto the sink and meows until you turn the tap on for her to drink from. Clearly the fact she has her own filtered water dispenser isn’t quite good enough, she’s got to ruin my ten minutes a day doing the puzzles in Take a Break surrounded by my own miasma.

Speaking of Take a Break – here’s a promise. I’m going to get a really naff tip published in Take a Break or one of the other housewife-bothering shitrags. I love those magazines – Chat, Pick Me Up, That’s Life – it’s like I’ve parked outside the smoking section at Mecca Bingo and I’m listening to all the gossip. I’m sure they used to be decent though – I quite enjoyed reading my mother’s Take a Break in the bath on a Thursday evening. I’m not sure of the tip I’m going to use, but it’ll have to work hard to beat my favourite scene where someone whose name on facebook invariably had ‘MUMMYOFTHREE’ sandwiched in the middle of it took an old beer fridge and affixed to it her bathroom wall. A fridge! In the fucking bathroom, acting as a medicine/toiletries cabinet! Because nothing says class like getting your tampons out of a glass cupboard with STELLA ARTOIS emblazoned on the front.

Whilst we’re on the subject of trashy literature (that’s two smooth segues in my writing today, I’m rather proud), I’m knocking together a food diary and plan to have it bound in February. I see all those food diaries people have where they dutifully write down everything they don’t mind the consultant seeing and they’re always the same, very cutesy-poo with inspirational quotes and fucking cupcakes (fucking not used as a verb, mind, I’d probably buy that book…) so I’m trying to build an antithesis of those. Let’s see how we get on. They’ll be nicely bound and printed mind, I don’t do half measures!

Now, we were going to have baked cod for tea tonight but frankly, we wanted something a bit more substantial, so we’re having burgers instead.

fatabstard

RETRO RECIPE TIME. Click here – it’s one of our very first recipes, way back when…

Oh young James! You were so innocent, so young those many, many…weeks ago. Actually give those burgers a try, they’re delicious. We added a fried egg with a soft yolk onto this burger and a bacon medallion under the burger. Heart attack in a bun but as long as you HEA your cheese and HEB your bread, it’ll be syn free apart from any sauces you add!

But in the spirit of a) being fat and b) being generous, here’s a second recipe for you lot. Syn free spring rolls!

SPRINGROLLS

to make slimming world spring rolls, you’ll need:

ingredients: eight lasagne sheets, one pack of Sainbury’s red pepper stir fry mix (or any other stir fry veg mix, but I like the crunchy peppers!), soy sauce plus any old bobbins that you have left over – in my case, I added a couple of cut up rashers of bacon and some mushrooms.

to make slimming world spring rolls, you should:

recipe: do your stir fry first – biggest pan you have, plus a tiny bit of oil (or boo hiss, Frylight) and a few drops of soy sauce. Get that pan hot! Chuck in your veg, meat if you have any, mushrooms and stir stir stir. Cook fast and cook hot. Once cooked through, put in a bowl by the side. Now, boil up a big pan of water, and when boiling excitedly, chuck in your lasagne sheets. Space them out by dropping them in one at a time otherwise I find they clump. After five minutes, they should be soft.

Work quickly here. Take one sheet out at a time, otherwise the others will harden up whilst you roll your first roll. Pop the first sheet on a flat surface, add a bit of the stir fry, roll up and place ‘join’ down on a baking tray. Repeat seven more times. Little spritz of olive oil/Frylight over the top, stick in the oven for 20 mins on 180degrees or until they look cooked through.

Serve with soy sauce for dipping!

extra-easy: yep! and perfectly cheap too – just some old sheets and any old gubbins you have in the veg drawer. They actually taste decent too, as opposed to most ‘snacks’ based on tasty things turned into Slimming World joys…

Enjoy!

J

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January 7, 2015

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lunch, recipe card, savoury snacks, snacks, soup, syn free, taster ideas, vegetarian

tomato, fennel and feta soup

I got asked for five pounds by a tramp today.

Five pounds! Gone are the days when someone would come up to you and shakily ask for 25p because they were just shy on the metro fare home. When did it make the jump to a fiver? If it goes any higher it’ll be cheaper for me to jump in the car and nip over to Gateshead to buy the smack myself. Oooh think of the weight loss. Actually, I’d be a shite smack addict, I start shaking like a shitting dog the day before I have bloods taken. I’m not averse to giving to the homeless and unfortunate, but his sheer cheek put me right off – I didn’t even get to do my ‘pretend to pat my pockets for non-existent change’ dance, which never works anyway because I’m forever sticking all my change into one pocket so I’m jingling and jangling down the street like a friggin’ pearly queen. Plus, to cap it all off, what I thought was a little lip piercing from a distance was a howking great pus-filled sore on his upper lip which made me gag. I can’t BEAR anything like that, it really upsets me. I know that’s an incredibly superficial and shallow attitude but I don’t care who you are, everyone has a physical attribute that they can’t stand in others – mine is pus spots. I hardly think that’s irrational.

Newcastle has some great tramps as well as the usual chancers, mind. Paul and I actually managed to make an enemy out of one of Newcastle’s less fortunate citizens when we lived down on the Quayside, who we christened Rory just because that’s what he always did – roared. There was a little yellow bus which would take you into town from the Quayside and because he was mad, he used to spend all day travelling up and down along the route – it was only ten minutes long and never varied but nevertheless. He used to have eye-wateringly bad BO first thing in the morning and by the time he’d spent all day cooped up on a bus on a hot day, well, it was the only bus I knew where the driver lit a match when old Rory got off. Anyway, whenever Paul and I got on the bus, he’d roar (hence the name) TEAPOTS at us and stare at us with his googly-eyes and spittle-flecked beard. All the way into Newcastle. Occasionally blowing kisses. And we never, ever knew why – until we happened across him outside of the bus. He did his usual trick of shouting teapots, but this time bent over in his shit-crusted coat and made a spout motion with his arm and a handle motion with the other – then it clicked, he was taking the piss out of us for being gay and the teapot thing was his way of saying we were camp, like this:

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Well, we thought it was bloody hilarious. I mean honestly, I might be a friend of Dorothy but at least I can have a hot bath of the evening. Sadly, we moved away and we only see him now and again, although he still gives us the old swivel-eye if it clicks who we are.

Anyway, speaking of ripe old fruits, here’s tonight’s recipe – tomato, fennel and feta soup. Enjoy!

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to make tomato, fennel and feta soup, you’ll need:

Oh – you might be wondering where the old comic strip style recipes are. They’ll be coming back, but I’m a bit pushed for time in the evening at the moment and I’d sooner spend it writing rather than fussing about with layouts. I’ll use them when the recipe is more complicated…this one isn’t, so here goes.

ingredients: one bulb of fennel, reasonably large, one medium red onion, a whole bunch of cherry tomatoes (400g), a small potato, white wine vinegar (tablespoon), garlic clove chopped up, tomato puree. 50g of feta.

to make tomato, fennel and feta soup, you should:

recipe: cut your tomatoes in half and pack them together, cut side up, in a tray – drop a bit of salt on there and stick them in the oven to roast for forty minutes on a lowish heat. Then, chop up the onion and thinly slice the fennel, keeping aside a few fronds for decoration. Dice the potato. Pop a tiny bit of oil (or bloody Frylight) into a heavy-bottom pan, add the onion, 40g of fennel, crushed garlic and a tablespoon of tomato puree. I add a tiny bit of water just to keep things steamy, cover, and let the onion and fennel cook gently for ten minutes or so, being careful not to let it catch. Add the roasted tomatoes, rest of the fennel, bit of salt and 500ml of water. Leave to cook gently for 40 minutes, and then blend. Add 50g of diced feta, and blend again. Dish it up into bowls (sieve it through a fine sieve if you don’t like lumps – but really, that’s the best bit!) and serve with a bread roll if you fancy synning it. Easy!

extra-easy: yep! Plus you’re only using 25g of feta per serving when you’re allowed 45g, so you could add a little bit extra cheese and be cooking on gas. Tomato and fennel are both speed foods, as is the onion, so there’s really nothing much in here that isn’t fantastic on EE. In fact, looking at it, you could easily adapt it for EE:SP by leaving out the bread and using the cheese as your HEA choice. Delicious!

Enjoy!

J

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January 6, 2015

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fakeaways, indian, lunch, one-pot, recipe card, savoury snacks, slow cooker, snacks, syn free, vegan, vegetarian

flicked bean overnight chilli

I find parking an inherently stressful experience. How I envy those who can smoothly glide into a bay like a well-oiled plop round a u-bend. I’m a very confident driver, and I’ll always have a go, but I’m always left wracked with anxiety that someone is either going to scratch my car or judge me remorselessly for being slightly bent – story of my life. Paul will sit and tut and do asthmatic sighs as I back out of the bay, move back in, reverse, slightly to the left, slightly to the right – but I like to be dead centre, damn it. I can reverse into a bay like an old pro but as soon as I’m in there, I’m fidgeting and fussing. If anyone has somewhere I can park in the centre of Newcastle for free or at least £5, and won’t put a picture of my car on those awful parking blogs, get in touch. Only a quick blog entry tonight because we didn’t get to sleep until 2am last night and I’m dead on my feet. So without further delay – tonight’s tea was flicked bean chilli with cauliflower rice.

cauliflower

to make flicked bean overnight chilli, you’ll need:

Firstly, I apologise for the awful colour filter. I use a bit of software called Layout and it creates awful auto-corrections on my images. Hence it looks like every other food picture that every tit with a beard and sperm-strangling skinny trousers might have.

ingredients: for the cauliflower rice – one big cauliflower and some frozen peas. For the flicked bean chilli, I just tipped two tins of barlotti beans, one tin of black eyed peas, one tin of baked beans, one tin of tomatoes, bunch of dried chilli, chopped garlic, kidney beans, two oxo cubes and half a cup of boiling water. For the meat, you could use mince (brown it off in a pan first) or, in this case, use Quorn mince – it’s perfect for EE:SP but will also boost the weight loss.

to make flicked bean overnight chilli you should:

recipe: this is what makes it so easy – chuck all the chilli bits into a slow cooker and leave it on overnight, where it’ll thicken and simmer nicely. For the cauliflower rice, just blitz the whole cauliflower in a food processor, chuck in some frozen peas – and then pop it in a frying pan without oil and cook it through. Near the end, I chuck an egg in just to bind it a little. Lots of salt and pepper. Tasty and very, very low in calories. Add a sprinkling of cheese from your HEA allowance if you like.

extra-easy: definitely, and I think it’s decent for an EE:SP day but don’t take me at my word. It’s certainly syn free and all those beans will really get your bum working!

Enjoy. So easy to make…in the meantime, I’m going to go to bed early. LIVING THE DREAM.

J

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November 29, 2014

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beef, beef mince, budget, classics, fakeaways, italian, pasta, recipe card, syn free

syn free spaghetti bolognese

I can’t be the only one who finds eye tests incredibly stressful experiences, can I? I spend an hour or so beforehand obsessively chewing gum and using mouthwash because I know someone is going to be right up in the face and I don’t want them laughing gaily in the Vision Express staffroom at my smelly breath and dry skin. I have a massive anxiety with people being too close to me so sitting there whilst someone leans over me tutting about my answers and adjusting my lenses is a major nono.

It all stems from my first eye test which I shamefully waited until I was 23 to have, after I spent the first two years of our relationship thinking Paul was actually Japanese. Well maybe it wasn’t that bad but I really was blind. I had a very old, lovely but very fat optician who spent about thirty minutes actually pressed up against my chair peering into my eyes with that little light of hers. If I moved my head up, I’d have gotten stubble rash from her chin, and if I had turned my face in either direction I’d have nuzzled right into her boobs. I’ve never had someone be that close to me and not buy me a drink first. She also, bless her, had clearly been eating poo or something beforehand because her breath was bleaching my hair every time she exhaled. Since that arduous half hour, I’ve really worried about eye tests ever since. But I look so much better in glasses so it’s a hard choice…

so to make syn free spaghetti bolognese:

slutspaghetti recipe

Easy recipe this! Follow the instructions above. To my mind, this is a syn free dinner and you could easily make enough for four and freeze two portions of the mince to have with a jacket potato!

The reason it is called sluts spaghetti escapes me, except I know it came from Nigella Lawson and she normally adds butter and marmite. Well, she knows her stuff, but I can’t get away with having such volumptious curves, so I skip the butter.

 

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November 26, 2014

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lunch, recipe card, savoury snacks, snacks, syn free, taster ideas

slimming world syn-free frittata

do you know, there’s lots of things I enjoy about staying in an airport hotel – not just the excitement, cramping belly and visits to the can that flying the next day induces in me, oh no. I like having my soap in a handy dispenser in the shower, plus the added novelty (occasionally) of having a seat in the shower – the glamour of being able to soap myself down with absolute minimal effort.

But what we really love is Rabbit Gay TV. We don’t get this channel at home because it’s on Freeview and we suckle merrily on Sky’s teat, so whenever we stay at a budget hotel we delight in the wares of the channels at the end of the Freeview EPG. Rabbit Gay TV is just the best. It’s essentially a scrolling list of those adverts you get in lonely heart columns, only with pictures.

Paul and I once decided to text a reply to someone on there to see what would happen, and I’m not exaggerating when I say that within five text messages, he was asking whether we liked “playing with dogs”. Which sorta summarises exactly the type of person on there. Mind you, Paul used to know a lad who was paid by an old geezer to come round to his flat, eat beans and fart in the man’s face. Now as someone who enjoys money, likes beans and loves a good fart, that sounds like my ideal job, though perhaps not for the poor victim. One of my toxic bumtrumpets near his face would leave him looking like Harvey Dent from the Batman series when he had half of his face burnt off. In fact, it would look like the top of a well cooked frittata, which is a lovely segue into…

frittatapic

Delicious, right? Here’s the full recipe.

to make slimming world syn-free frittata:

FRITTATA RECIPE

I’m on holiday at the moment so hopefully the details above will be enough!

Enjoy!

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November 24, 2014

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breakfast, budget, classics, desserts, overnight oats, recipe card, snacks, sweet snacks, syn free, taster ideas, vegetarian

sowing my overnight oats

christ, that’s a revolting image!

Weigh in post coming tomorrow because my photoshop isn’t working for some reason and I can’t make a banner, but because I’m all about the bass style I want to do it properly. I was going to have a night off tonight but Paul, being a darling husband, has just nipped to ASDA to get me some milk and to make me a hot chocolate, so, I feel I should return the goodwill by posting a quick recipe on here. Remember: this post was never meant to be, hence being short! It’s overnight oats time!

how to make overnight oats:

overnight

Put simply – measure out the oats, place in the bottom of the jar, top up with yoghurt and then lots of syn free berries. The oats absorb the yoghurt and the fruit juices and creates a lovely little porridge. You can mix it up with other fruits and yoghurt, just make sure you’re choosing syn-free options or synning accordingly!

Handy thing to make before bed to save time in the morning.

One last thing – Paul actually farted me awake last night. How classy is that – it wasn’t the pitch or volume, just the sheer overwhelming stench. He’s the only one who can take a fragrant thai green curry and make it smell like a cat shit drying in the sun.

Isn’t life a joy…

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November 16, 2014

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american, classics, lunch, pork, pork joints, recipe card, savoury snacks, slow cooker, snacks, syn free, taster ideas

campfire stew or cowboy stew

CRASS WARNING! CRASS WARNING! SKIP TO NEXT PARAGRAPH IF BROWN HUMOUR OFFENDS!

Well, that was bad planning. Having spent the last three days with a full-house and needing a flush thanks to the meat loaf, tuna and beef stew, I resorted to taking a Senokot Max thinking it might gently move things along at some point this evening. Half an hour later, I’m stuck on the thunderbox crying my life away as the world fell out of my bottom. So I’m not venturing far today, and I might spend the day ironing instead. That’s the main problem with Slimming World – you’re never quite sure whether you’ll be coming or going one day to the next.

OK YOU’RE SAFE.

I finally gave into Paul’s demands and purchased a tumble dryer. I think he was ashamed at having our George boxers sailing gaily around on the rotary dryer in the garden, with their stretched elastic and rubbed gussets. He still has a piece of underwear from when we first met, he claims they’re the most comfortable pair he’s ever owned and refuses to throw them out. I’m actually surprised they don’t walk out on their own. I railed against getting a tumble dryer for bloody ages because I thought we’d get damp in the house (we can’t have a vented one, there’s no space, so we’ve had to go for a condensing unit) but he won out when he promised me he’d tumble my socks and underwear in the morning before I got out the shower, meaning they’d be warm. Come on, that’s true love right there.

Today’s recipe, breaking with tradition and posting my lunch instead of the evening meal, is the WORLD FAMOUS (in Slimming World circles) campfire stew, given a far more Brokeback Mountain based hilarious name. This is syn-free, makes four servings, and is proper delicious. Also – incredibly easy to make if you have a slow-cooker.

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to make campfire stew or cowboy stew:

Well – no real need to break down the ingredients – they’re all above, and the recipe is simple – chop the onion and peppers, add everything into a slow cooker, cook on low for eight hours, pull apart with two forks and serve with chips. You will need to add some superfree on the side to make this exactly right, but as a one-off, I didn’t bother, and just had two satsumas on the side. I know, I’m a devil.

A tip though – don’t, for the love of God, put your gammon straight into the slow cooker from the shop. Prepare it a day before by putting it in a pan of cold water, leaving it to sit, and changing the water every six hours or so. This will draw the salt out – you can do the same by boiling it for a bit, but I think that’ll make it tough. Do the cold water rinse for 24 hours and then cook and it’ll taste so, so much better. If you don’t bother, be prepared for your stew to taste like you’ve rinsed it through the sea at Whitley Bay (only without a turd bobbing around in the slow cooker).

Enjoy! I’m off to cry a bit more and put a loo roll in the fridge for later.

J

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November 8, 2014

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pork, pork chops, recipe card, syn free

pork seared in black tea

Haha! I really just wanted to outdo my last recipe title, hence the brassica. It’s really just the remainder of the sprouts from last week and sliced cauliflower. I can’t remember where I found the recipe for cooking pork in tea, but it works – and again, it’s something different!

Tea pork

to make pork seared in black tea you will need: 

pork chops with all their fat cut off (remember, better to buy two good chops than four cheap ones), sweet potato, normal potatoes, cauliflower, sprouts, black tea, an apple, salt and balsamic vinegar. A griddle pan and the ricer will make it so much easier!

to make pork seared in black tea you should: 

get the veg sorted first – cut the sprouts in half, pull the cauliflower apart and slice the florets (and the stalk) into good sized chunks. Coat with a good sprinkling of salt and balsamic vinegar and put them in the oven on 190 degrees for 30 mins, giving them a shake halfway through. For the mash, cut up the potato and sweet potato into chunks, don’t bother peeling, and after 25 mins boiling push them through the ricer (which will catch the skins and give you perfect, creamy mash) and put it to one side.

For the pork chops – add two strong tea-bags to about 100ml of water and leave to steep. After five minutes, take the bags out, add the apple (thinly sliced) and boil for ten minutes. Meanwhile, sear the pork in the griddle pan – 5 mins or so on each side should do it. Then tip the tea and apple into the griddle pan and cook on high for a good five minutes to reduce the glaze down and to coat the pork. Serve quickly. Tasty.

extra-easy: definitely – the addition of sprouts and cauliflower take care of your superfree third, but there’s also sweet potato in the mash. Some say you should syn the apple as you’re cooking it, but I don’t bother – it’s an apple, after all, and to me there’s no difference between cooking one apple or eating it. Fair enough if I was making apple sauce but…so – syn free all around!

top tips: this is another recipe with an unusual ingredient – tea. But it adds a lovely earthy flavour to the pork, and cooking it in the glaze keeps the meat moist, which can often be a problem. To me, this is the key to Slimming World – eat healthily and try new things. You’ll never be hungry, you’ll open your horizons and actually enjoy the food you’re eating.