Just a quick recipe tonight for easy peasy spaghetti and meatballs as we’re on a date night – I’ve been to Waitrose and got some fancy food, Paul’s given his sausage a more extensive rinse then the usual ‘bit of Listerine and polish it on the face-towel’ and the cats have been shut away in the shed with the sound of fireworks to rock them gently to sleep (Christ I’m kidding, I really am – they’ve still got run of the house, I’m not daft).
Tonight’s recipe actually comes from The Hairy Bikers. One common thing we get in the comments is that people imagine us to be exactly like The Hairy Bikers. Pfft. The closest I’ve come to getting my leather-clad leg over a throbbing Harley was a good few years ago in London, and Paul’s wrists are too delicate for anything above a push-along lawnmower. So, without further ado…
to make easy peasy spaghetti and meatballs you will need:
400g beef mince
4 spring onions, finely chopped
4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
½ tsp chilli flakes
2 tins of cherry tomatoes (or chopped tomatoes)
400g spaghetti
1 tsp dried thyme
pinch of salt and pepper
to make easy peasy spaghetti and meatballs you should:
in a bowl mix together the spring onions, mince, thyme and salt and pepper
divide the mixture into twenty and roll into balls
add a little oil to a large frying pan and cook the meatballs over a medium-high heat until browned all over – this will take about 10 minutes or so
meanwhile, bring a large pan of salted water to the boil and cook the spaghetti according to the instructions
add a little oil to a saucepan and whack onto a medium-high heat
add the garlic and chilli flakes and cook for a minute or two
add the tomatoes to the saucepan, turn the heat to high and simmer for five minutes until the liquid has reduced, add a little salt and pepper if you like
drain the spaghetti and serve, top with the meatballs and spoon over the sauce
Looking for more recipes? More guff? You can find it all below!
Slow cooker beef keema, yeah, that’s right, slow cooker beef keema. You want it. We have it. You’ll find the recipe under all the following nonsense. Meanwhile, we’ve dropped Droptober because well, busy. Let’s embrace Homovember.
Hallowe’en has been and gone, and hopefully the only fright you’ve experienced is the site of your own toes as your gunt shrinks ever inwards.
For the first time in ten years since Paul and I got together, we decided to embrace Hallowe’en instead of spending the evening sat behind the sofa with the lights off, watching Coronation Street on the iPad with the brightness and volume turned right down. No, in the spirit (oh h oho) of taking part, we stuck up some perfunctory bits of tat from Poundland (probably getting lead poisoning whilst doing so) and put a pumpkin outside, shockingly not with the word C*NT carved in it. We’re getting better at this being social lark.
We wanted trick-or-treaters to knock on the door and take our chocolate. Perhaps that’s too far – we certainly had chocolate, but Paul had eyes like a kicked dog when I told him they were for any guests. That didn’t stop me eating three Freddos and a Fudge when he went to the bog, though. We didn’t dress up because apparently my suggestion of answering the door as Fred and Rose West was a little too “near-the-knuckle”. I’m not sure what Paul’s problem is, I’ve got a pair of my nan’s Blanche Hunt glasses that would have looked resplendent on him.
Best of all, we ever went to the trouble of setting up a light system for the house – all of our outdoor lighting is controllable by colour and timers so we had the house flickering like a fire with occasional bursts of white light like a lightning bolt. It was all very brilliant and took an hour of tinkering with our router and swearing incoherently at the iPad to get it all set up.
So, what did we get, perched as we are on a lovely corner of a cul-de-sac full of expensive houses all ripe for trick or treaters? Absolutely zip. Bugger all. Sweet fanny adams.
Actually, that’s not entirely true, we did get two teenage girls (very rough – they looked like they were on their third pregnancy of the year but only their first toothbrush) who stuck their hands out and said ‘trick or treat’ – a quick glance revealed that they hadn’t bothered with any sort of costume bar eight inches of poorly-applied foundation. We asked for trick and they kissed their teeth at us and tramped away over our lawn.
There were several children in groups who visited the streets but avoided our house altogether. I admit to being distraught. It was all I could do to choke down every last bit of chocolate and sour jellies that was left in our fruit-bowl.
Of course, like all things, Hallowe’en was a lot different when I was young. Because money was tight, my costume was a bin-liner (because nothing says BOO like ‘NO HOT ASHES’ spread across my arse) and my pumpkin was a turnip. Have you ever tried to carve a turnip? It’s like cutting a diamond with a butter knife. It’s why I associate Hallowe’en with carpal tunnel syndrome. My sister wore a bed-sheet with some red paint on it. Back in modern time, Paul and I couldn’t use our black bedsheets because people would think we’d come dressed as an badly tuned TV channel.
Most of the people in our village were knocking on 90 and thus, no sweets, fucks or hearing were given, but we always hit the jackpot when we visited the only footballer in our village, who gave us all a tub of Quality Street each. It’s tantamount to my obesity that this remains one of the fondest memories I have of growing up in Backwater, Northumberland.
Back in the now, I did find it interesting that after all the gash-crashing and naval-gazing that’s been happening over the ‘terror clowns’ ‘epidemic’ recently that so many parents thought it would be wise to dress their children up as frightening beasts to terrorise the neighbours, mind you. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander, after all.
I’d welcome a clown jumping out at me to give me a fright – I just don’t shock that way. They’d get an entirely non-plussed reaction and a shoulder-shrug. No, if you really want to scare me, dress up as my bank manager and tell me Paul’s spending on the First Direct card. You’d need to bring me around with salts. I’d love to have a flasher jump out of the bushes, too, if only so I could ask if he wanted me to blow it or smoke it. Nothing cuts a man down quicker than a jibe at his wee-willy-winky.
The idea of ghosts certainly don’t scare me because I don’t believe in such a thing. I think, once you die, that’s it, though I’ve already told Paul that if the afterlife does exist I’ll be haunting him relentlessly – whooing and booing every time he reaches for some consolation ice-cream or, worse, a new lover. I’ve told him to at least let the sheets cool first, though I don’t doubt he’ll be asking the funeral procession to pull into a layby on the A19 on the way to the crem to take care of a lorry driver.
You know why I don’t think ghosts exist? Simple. If you could bring comfort to the living by letting them know you’re in a better place, why wouldn’t you just do it? Why go through the rigmarole of knocking over vases or hooting in the night? Worse, why would you deliver your message through rancid vile grief-exploiters like Sally Morgan or other psychic mediums? I don’t know about you, but I’d want my comforting messages to be passed directly to the target rather than over the lips of some permatanned Liverpudlian on Living TV. I’d love to think my dear nana is giving us a sign – perhaps that whistling in my ears and high-pitched ringing isn’t tinnitus after all but rather the ghost of her 1980s NHS hearing aid coming over time and space? Doctor Eeee-No. Bless her.
Right, enough of this nonsense, let’s get to the recipe, shall we? It’s a bit of a cheap recipe in that, rather than using a delicate blend of spices measured out individually and carefully toasted, I went for a spice mix that had the name GEETA on it just so I could shout SANJAY across the aisles in Tesco. Plus, it’s 4 syns for the spice mix which split between four is only a syn. Obviously. Actually, we doubled this recipe up because we’ve bought a massive slow cooker to replace our small one and this made enough for eight big servings. The recipe below makes enough for four. The idea for the recipe came from a blog called Jam and Clotted Cream, found right here – I’ve spun it so it is more suitable for us chunkers.
One more thing. You could just chuck everything in the slow cooker at once, but browning the mince and softening the veg in a pan first makes it so much better. Don’t be lazy!
one packet of Geeta’s Tikka Paste (80g) (can buy these in most Tescos, but just swap for a different tikka paste if you want – check the syns though) (4 syns)
400g of chopped tomatoes – now listen here, use whatever you want, but slightly more expensive tomatoes always taste nicer, trust me
1 beef stock cube
200g of frozen peas (adjust if you want, but I love loads of peas)
to make slow cooker beef keema, you should:
Before we go, let me change your life:
Watch this video and you’ll never look back when it comes to chopping peppers. No more seeds splashed all over the counter, no more fannying about. Admittedly, if you chop your food like a complete div, this might not help you, but for anyone else…
finely chop your onions and peppers and sweat those bad-boys down in a pan – which makes sense, as you’d have a hell of a job sweating them down in a washing up bowl
once they’ve softened ever so, throw in the mince and cook it hard until there’s no pink, only brown – ‘no pink, only brown’ being the name of our fourth twochubbycubs book, incidentally)
add the minced garlic and ginger and stir
add the chopped tomatoes, beef stock cube and tikka mix, stir, then slop it all into your slow cooker and cook that for at least six hours on low
half an hour before you want to get eating, put all the peas in – you can put them in at the start but they’ll moosh right down
serve with rice and sides – we served ours with our onion rice from way back when
Bloody lovely. As someone common would say, ‘that’s right nice, that’. Here, was this not enough for you? Then get those glassy eyes cast over even more recipes by clicking on the big ole buttons below!
I’m almost loathe to post this recipe for sweet potato bread buns because I’ll invariably get a load of people messaging saying ‘but you can have an Aldi bun for a few syns more’ blah blah. Listen, I know that. But why buy a car when you’ve got two legs? Sometimes it’s nice to mix things up and with soup season just around the corner, these make a nice side dish for whatever slop you turn your veg into. Plus, I don’t know about you but we always seem to have three or four sweet potatoes rolling around in our drawers. It’s like being haunted by a vegan – but how would you even go about telling whether a vegan is a ghost? God knows they’re pale, wispy and whining in real-life. I’m kidding. Please don’t write me letters, save your strength.
Things are still grim in Chubby Towers. Paul’s been flirting with a cold for a good couple of weeks and now it has really got him in its snotty grip. He’s currently lying on the sofa sniffing and snorting like Kerry Katona on giro day. He’s coughing like a 200-a-day-smoker/his mother and I could toast marshmallows on the end of his nose. You know that bit in the movie Misery when Annie Wilkes gets walloped with an iron at the end of the movie? That’s Paul. He’s in a bad way. Now, traditionally, we’d rattle off a few jokes about man-flu but I’ve always thought that was reductionist and mean. He’s just a soft arse. I’m sore because as a result of him snoring like an idling bus all night and keeping me awake and I’m tired of running around getting drinks and decongestants and nasal sprays and tissues – oh CHRIST the tissues, it’s like I’m living in the bedroom of the type of blokes who get stung by online vigilantes – and I’m reaching the end of my goodwill. I’d make a shit nurse, I’m not going to lie. Anything more than applying a plaster and I’d be pressing a pillow into their face and turning off the alarm bells.
There was a brief shining glimmer of goodness in my day, however. I was given a free packet of crisps by someone in town today. Because I’m naturally cynical, I spent five minutes looking around for the hidden camera crew who would be recording me opening the packet only to get a face full of bees or something mean. Also, because I’m naturally morbidly obese and a greedy bastard, I spent another twenty five minutes going around and around to the various people until I had seven free bags. I know, what a cad. Paul and I were once in the Metrocentre (the glitz! the glamour – it never ends because it never fucking begins) and there was a team of 12 people handing out bags of those Milky Way Magic Stars. We sharp calculated that if we split up we could grab 24 bags. Even better, once I had removed my glasses I could grab another twelve and better yet, when Paul put my glasses on, he was able to get another 12, even if he could see through time whilst doing so. Then, swap coats to repeat the whole affair, then go and sit in McDonalds for half an hour and go around again. In total we ended up with about 150 bags of Milky Way Magic Stars. This was back when we didn’t drive so it meant an hour trip home on the bus with more chocolate than any fat bloke has a reason for having but we definitely won that day.
I can tell you now though – the allure of so much free chocolate is sharp lost after the 35th bag. We were eating those bloody stars for days and even now the sight of that four-eyed twat the Milky Bar kid fills me with absolute rage. I swear I was reclining in the bath when one of those damned stars floated out of my belly button.
Paul just chimed in from the sofa to add his best freebie story, so let me treat you to a wee bit more. Back when Paul was a nurse he, and a lot of his colleagues, were often treated to fun little freebies from drugs companies and other parasites. Mugs, laser pointers, chocolates and, somewhat inexplicably, a doorbell. Because nothing says ‘best treatment for a prolapsed arsehole’ like a doorbell. Anyway, he was super excited to be given a face towel roughly the same shape as a little pink pill. The gimmick being that you added water and the whole thing would rehydrate, unfurl and give you a charming, if somewhat moist, free towel to wipe your sweaty face with. So enchanted by this fabulously pointless gimmick that he saved this little towel-pill until he was at the gym and, with a proper flourish, rehydrated it in the changing room gym. Here’s the thing: it was a great towel, but it’s hard to look debonair and stylish when you’re wiping a towel with VAGISIL imprinted across it in pink Mistral font. No wonder he doesn’t bother with gyms now, the poor bugger is scarred.
Right, let’s get to the bread, eh?
to make sweet potato bread buns, you’ll need:
300g of sweet potato – either leftover mash or some that you’ve made especially – just peel, boil and mash it as smooth as possible
450g of plain flour (this makes enough for 18 buns – they’re not huge but they’re tasty – so this works out at 4 syns each)
1 packet of yeast (1 syn – but damn it if I’m splitting that between 18)
120ml of warm water
good pinch of salt and pepper
one egg
poppy seeds – if you want them, syn them, but you don’t need to add them onto the top
to make sweet potato bread buns, you should:
either in a big bowl or a stand mixer with a dough hook (we use our Kenwood Chef, we love it), add the flour, mashed sweet potato on one side, water on the other, yeast on another side and get bloody mixing
once it’s starting to come together, add the salt and pepper
you want to mix it until it’s all come together nicely – you want it smooth and elastic
drop it into a bowl and cover with clingfilm – then leave to double in size for about an hour in a warm room
take out, divide into 18 small balls, put onto a non-stick baking tray or two
cover with clingfilm and allow to double again for an hour
crack and beat the egg then smear the top of each bun with good old beaten egg
cook in a pre-heated oven for about 25 minutes on 180 degrees
serve – it’s just that easy!
Like I said, you could buy your own, of course, but if you’ve got leftovers, why not make these? EH? Click the buttons below for even more inspiration!
Cheers all!
Well, Droptober’s 31 recipes fell over, but hey, let’s at least try and aim for 20 eh? Shit or bust! Tonight’s recipe is greek garden omelette, but let’s dwell for a moment.
Ah, autumn. It’s finally arrived. You know how you know autumn has truly arrived? It’s really very simple – it’s not the leaves on the trees turning russet and golden, nor is the first icy chill in the air oh no, it’s when you first spot the first sharing of ‘MUSLIMS WANT 2 BAN THE POPEYE LIKE IF U THINK THIS ISA DISC RACE IGKNORR IF U H8 SIVILISASIEVEISEYELISAT EVRY1′ on facebook.
Just for the record, this is a disc race. The word you’re aiming for is a disgrace, as in ‘I am a disgrace to my peers for sharing this hateful nonsense’. Twat. I’ve had my first one already this year. Don’t share hatred!
Anyway, not sure where that little nugget of anger popped from, as I’m actually feeling quite laid back. Apologies that we stopped posting for a bit but well, we’re busy folk and plus, in all honesty, it’s hard to eke out 700 exciting words about doing very little thanks to ear infections, busy work and house problems. Some random thoughts, though.
Paul pointed out that I must have come across as a right unsympathetic arse with the guy who comes around and cleans my car, and not least because the poor sod has to sit in a mist of my farts, Haribo wrappers and chest hair whilst he scrubs away at my accellarator and that weird second pedal in the middle that I have no idea what purpose it solves. See, he was supposed to be at ours last weekend and failed to turn up, leaving me seething and sighing dramatically to the point where Paul diagnosed me with COPD and put me on an oxygen feed. He texted a few hours later to say his mother had been taken into hospital, hence no contact, and I said it was fine, no worries, we can re-arrange. See, I’m not a complete bastard.
If I was a bastard I’d have driven to the hospital, unplugged her life-support and plugged in the little handheld hoover so he could give my gearstick bag a good suck, but I digress.
He turned up yesterday full of unnecessary apologies and set to work. I asked if he wanted a coffee to keep him warm then promptly forgot about it and went about my business. It was only after spotting him looking forlorn across the garden that I remembered and hastened out with a piping cup of the Blue Mountain that we keep for guests. However, Paul pointed out afterwards that I’d served his coffee in one of our Modern Toss cups, namely the one that says “I don’t feel like turning up for work today, so fuck off”. I hope he doesn’t think I’m being passive aggressive and refuse to polish my rims. Just once I’d like a workman to leave this house and actually want to come back.
Ah! You know how people always say there’s never a policeman around when you need one? Well, after five years of driving, it finally happened for me – I was beetling along a dual carriageway in the right hand land, unable to pull over into the left lane as there was slower traffic, when some wankstain in a Vauxhall Insignia came so far up my arse that I almost unrolled a condom as force of habit. He was doing the usual – giant hand gestures, yelling incoherently, wanker signs – I’m not sure if he had realised that I literally couldn’t go anywhere as my DS3 was unlikely to squeeze into the passenger seat of the Fiat 500 to the left of me. Cock. I drove on, keeping to the speed limit and putting my hand on my chest and shaking my head ruefully in a very British ‘what am I like’ gesture, which only served to make him angrier.
However, once I could get over, I did move over, not least because his face had turned into a mewling over-ripe strawberry at that point and I didn’t want the fucker to stroke-out and need mouth to mouth by the side of the road. I rather expected his lips would taste of sweat, cheap cigars and Lynx Atlantis. He sped past, gesticulating all the while, and I promptly forgot about him, the very same way I imagine all his friends and family do at a social occasion. Five minutes later, at the end of the dual carriageway, there he was getting talked to by a very butch looking policeman. Ah, lovely. I made absolutely damn sure I slowed down as I went past but didn’t manage to catch his eye – however, he saw me on my fourth trip around the roundabout, and I was sure to give him the tinkliest, most coquettish little way as I trundled past.
Finally, it’s been a while since we discussed the neighbours and that’s for a good reason – all bar one have turned into decent human beings. We still have the one who won’t talk to us unless he’s blowing spittle in our face and complaining about our cats, but then he’s also the one who bemoaned to our other neighbours that having two gay men on the street would bring the house prices down, so you can imagine how much we value his opinion. Everyone knows that having a gay couple only improves the house prices because there’s no screaming children kicking about and well, we’re hardly likely to put a trampoline on our immaculate lawn, are we? The stupid fart.
Anyway, the reason I mention the neighbours is that we’re coming up to Christmas cards buying time (sorry!) and we still haven’t solved the problem from last year – we realised that we have a couple called Pat and Les on the street but no fucking clue which is which. I know it doesn’t matter but I hate not knowing, not least because they’re decent people and always make a point of saying ‘morning James, you’re looking slim’ or “sorry Paul, can you come and retrieve your car, a slight gust has blown it into our lobelia”, to which I can only stutter and say ‘howdo…my love’ or similar. Is it Patrick and Lesley? Patricia and Les? Bah. At least we know what to call the homophobic neighbour, although, as he’s deaf, he’s must be mystified as to why we call him a Count as he walks past scowling at our cats.
Speaking of gardens, let’s get to the greek garden omelette I promised you earlier!
to make greek garden omelette you will need:
10 eggs
1 large red onion, cut into wedges
3-4 tomatoes, cut into large chunks
130g reduced-fat feta cheese (2x HeA)
handful of black olives (about 20-ish – 4 syns), sliced in half
handful of rocket leaves
pinch of salt and pepper
The joy of an omelette is that you can customise it however you want – throw in some sliced sausages, ham, mushrooms, cigarettes or a small motor car. It’s YOUR dinner. This makes enough for four. You will need a pan that can go into the oven – we use this, but you can get cheaper!
to make greek garden omelette you should:
in a big bowl, whisk together the eggs with the salt and pepper
chuck in the onions and fry for a bit until softened and beginning to brown
add the olives, rocket and tomatoes and cook for a few minutes more until softened
reduce the heat to medium and pour in the eggs – stir frequently whilst they’re still runny and until the mixture is half-set – this will only take a couple of minutes
sprinkle over the feta cheese and put the pan under grill and cook for 5-6 minutes until puffy and golden
Enjoy! For more ideas, click any of the buttons below!
Fish cakes, chips and peas WITH lemon and caper mayonnaise on the side, might I add? I know right – what decadent bitches! Don’t worry, we still ate our dinner from our laps whilst watching television like the slatterns that we really are. I can barely press the buttons on our old Sky remote because there’s so much gravy smeared across the buttons. In a way, I’ve got entirely the same problem with my Mac keyboard, although that’s an entirely different sort of gravy, if you know what I mean. Jism.
Remember ages and ages ago I mentioned that I have an enemy in the form of a shrewish looking harridan who effs and jeffs at me every time I park my car in ‘her’ spot in the muti-storey car park? If not, I’ll summarise briefly – she always parks in the exact same spot every day, unless I get there first and make a point of parking there. It’s a good spot see, no chance of anyone bumping the car on either side, and anyway, there’s loads of spaces free for her to park her motor in. Anyway, if she spots me parked up, she revs her engine as she drives past, makes a massive show of slamming the car door and stomps to the lift like the heels of her shoes are on fire. Naturally, I sit in the car smirking at her to wind her up and occasionally playing the Friends theme tune if I’m feeling particularly cruel.
WELL, today, awkwardness ensued – I was running five minutes late so no time for shenanigans and as I parked up and hurtled to the lift, so did she. Our first time face to face. Naturally, we were both incredibly British about the whole thing and I let her into the lift first (when really, in keeping with tradition, I should have nipped past her, tumbled her down the stairs and took the lift cackling and jeering). Never has nine floors felt so long but let me tell you something that will justify, forever, my hijinks and mischief: she sneezed and DIDN’T cover her fucking mouth. I was so aghast (and cowardly) that I didn’t say anything and she fair skipped out of the lift when we got to the ground floor. Skipping as much as her cankles allowed, anyway.
What sort of ill-mannered beldam doesn’t stop the spray from her sneeze? We were in a lift, not a fucking wind-tunnel, there was literally no place for her spittle and disease to go, and I swear I was still wiping a froth of slaver and Charlie Red off my glasses at lunchtime. I knew we were at war, but I thought it was always agreed that biological weapons are a no-no. I tell you now, if she ever leaves her window down, even just a crack, I’m going to make sure I push my sphincter through like a grandma’s kiss and fill her shitmobile with the foulest smelling flatus I can muster. And boy, can I muster it: I’m on Slimming World, remember.
Ah well. Revenge will come and it won’t be disappointing. Speaking of disappointment, did anyone catch the one-off special of The Crystal Maze last night? You have no idea how long I’ve hoped for a TV comeback for this show – it was truly my favourite viewing experience back when I was young. Well, that and trying to pause the telly on the brief flashes of cock featured on Eurotrash, something which Paul just confirmed he used to do as well. Ha. I once fell asleep with Eurotrash paused on my little portable CRT telly which created an unfortunate screen-burn when I remembered and unpaused it in the morning. It’s hard to concentrate on Fun House when there’s a few pixels of a Frenchman’s withered cock dangling under Martina’s chin, I can tell you.
Anyway, it was always my dream to go on The Crystal Maze, but they never answered my letters when I applied for the children’s special and then cancelled it before I became an adult, which is something I’m still furious about to this day. I would have even had a crack at it when that Ed Tudor-Pole guy was presenting, I’m not fussy. I know that there’s a Crystal Maze experience opening in Manchester (London is just too far) but I don’t think it’ll be the same as a 31 year old man, unless they’ve replaced the Aztec zone with the Sofa Zone and one of the games is a three-minute sit down to catch my breath and ease my stitch.
That said, the remake on TV wasn’t too bad, as it happens. Stephen Merchant, a man I’ve always disliked simply because of his proximity to Ricky Gervais, made a decent fist of presenting and we both actually laughed out loud a few times at his quips. However, it suffered from what most decent shows on TV suffer with these days – celebrity. What value do producers think it adds to have Rio Ferdinand fumbling about trying to wire up a battery for three minutes? A man so seemingly thick that if he forgets just one more fact they’ll need to start watering him three times a week.
Part of the charm of the old show was watching Sue, a Clinton’s Cards sorter from Colchester, try to arrange coloured dominos in an arbitrary fashion or obtaining a grade two concussion from stotting her head off a balance beam. Michelle Keegan hanging up pub signs or Sara Cox dodging lasers holds far less appeal. The best thing they could do with The Crystal Maze is to inject genuine peril into it – make those lasers into 2000mW jobbies that slice your foot off whilst you cartwheel your way to the crystal, or make someone solve a Rubik’s cube whilst a crowd of their family hurl drawing pins at their eyes. Film it all with those awful GoPro cameras and have Adele fart out the theme tune and it would be an instant, guaranteed success. NOW Channel 4 will answer my letters, I’m sure.
Speaking of instant successes, let’s take a look at tonight’s recipe – fish cakes, chips and peas. I’m not going to provide a recipe for our chips because it’s as simple as cutting potatoes and putting them in an Actifry with a teaspoon of oil (2 syns) and a teaspoon of worcestershire sauce. Perfect every time. Amazon (at the time of writing) have the new model for only £99, so why not treat yourself? The peas are from the Tesco Value vintage and are artfully cooked in an old jug in the microwave. I know, where’s that Michelin star when you deserve it? Let’s get to the fish cakes, shall we? Fish cakes aren’t usually something I’d go for at the chippy – I like a haggis and a large chips with curry sauce, thanks. I like to know at least something has died in order to feed me.
to make fish cakes, chips and peas you will need
250g cod or haddock (frozen is fine – it’s what we used, just make sure it’s defrosted)
2 medium-sized potatoes
1 egg, beaten
1 tsp dijon mustard
2 spring onions, finely sliced
50g panko (9 syns)
1x 60g wholemeal roll, blitzed (1x HeB)
This makes four big fishcakes, feel free to make eight instead and syn them down accordingly.
optional: for the lemon and caper mayonnaise
6 tbsp extra-light mayonnaise (Morrison’s NuMe range is only 1 syn per tbsp)
zest of half a lemon
2 tsp lemon juice
1 tbsp capers
By the way, you don’t need to serve it on a board like a pretentious twat like we did, just use a plate and be done.
to make fish cakes, chips and peas you should:
peel and quarter the potatoes and bring a pan of water to the boil
simmer for about 15 minutes, until tender, and then drain and mash
meanwhile, heat a large frying pan over a medium-high heat, and a bit of oil and cook the fish fillets for about 4 minutes each side
remove the fish from the heat, flake with a fork and add to the mash
add the beaten egg, spring onions and mustard to the fish and potato mix and stir well
divide the mixture into four and press into four burger shapes
in a shallow dish, mix together the panko and bread roll crumbs
gently dab the fish cakes into the panko, making sure each one is well coated
clean out the frying pan and add a few more sprays of oil over a medium high heat
gently add each cake to the pan and cook on each side until golden brown
to make the lemon and caper mayonnaise, just mix all the ingredients together
serve on a plate, put it into your mouth, chew, swallow and start turning into poo – it’s really this simple
Is your head battered from following these simple instructions? You ain’t seen nothing yet.
Enjoy! I know that you can make fish cakes syn free if you try but look, this is crunchy, tasty and filling – use your syns for a decent meal. It can’t all go on Bellabrusco, you know.
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Very quick post tonight, folks – one-pot pork and rice, just another one pot meal that we had left over! James is cooking so unusually, you’ve got the other Cub coming on your screen. Lucky!
I’m dead excited today because they’re putting up the Christmas decorations in our town – I mean, they look shite but it’s a sure sign that Christmas is on it’s way and it’s my favourite time of year! I love it all and there is literally no limit to how much Quality Street I can eat. Seriously, I try to warn people but they don’t listen and then bitch on when it’s just fudge left in the tub.
We’ve promised ourselves this year to put up some lights on the outside of our house (I know, the pinnacle of class) because it’s something I have ALWAYS wanted to do. And, because I know that the super-bright LEDs you can now buy with super-epilepsy mode is sure to piss off Nos. 1-5 on our street. Christmas is always a lovely affair here at The Sticky Patch, we never skimp on our trees and despite our complete lack of design skill we actually do a pretty good job of it. It’s certainly a step-up from what it was like when we were younger, with the cheapest possible tree from the Freemans catalogue sitting in the corner of the room doing a fantastic impression of an impending bonfire with its three sets of lights wired into the same plug. Mother would be eggwashing some frozen sausage rolls in the kitchen with a light dusting of fag ash and my sister and I would be sent away with an Argos catalogue and a strict limit – we had to write down exactly what we wanted, price, page number and catalogue number and a running sub-total. If it weren’t in that catalogue you couldn’t get it. Magical times.
What you can get, however, is this simple recipe for one-pot pork and rice. Serves four optimistically, two realistically. Listen, it looks like shite, I know, but it tastes good, I promise!
squeeze the meat out the sausage casing so you get about 4 ‘balls’ from each sausage and roll into a perfect ball
heat a large casserole dish over a medium-high heat, spray with oil (save your pans and get one of these) and cook the balls until they’re done, then remove from the pan and set aside
add the onion and garlic to the pan and cook for a further five minutes, until softened
add the cumin, coriander and rice to the pan and stir well
pour in the vegetable stock and the chopped tomatoes and scrape up any bits on the bottom of the pan
simmer for ten minutes until the rice is done
gently stir the meatballs into the rice, and serve
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Yeah yeah, spinach and feta stuffed meatloaf will follow, but see, I am FURIOUS. Well, maybe furious is over-selling it, I’m a bit peeved – we were doing so well with the old Droptober business and then oops, technical problems abound, and we missed a day. Ah well. If you’re out there sobbing into your fifth cheesecake of the day and barely able to breathe due to the Rolos stuffed up your nose, you can blame me. Or the good folks at WordPress. I’ll post two recipes tomorrow to make up for it, and, if that doesn’t cut the mustard, I’ll strip off and whip my back with a few Curly-Wurlys melted together. I’m like Jesus Christ but in elasticated Cotton Trader trousers.
I’m going to tell you a quick story about Paul which has been on my mind all day. I can’t recall mentioning it on the blog when it happened but see, he’s switched to a new employer and a new job and thus I feel we can get away with mentioning it without him getting into mischief. See, he used to work in a very serious area of social care and part of that meant attending very important, very serious meetings with doctors, the police, social workers, judges and lawyers all sat around a table. Due to the nature of what they were discussing it was mandatory for the meeting and everything that was said to be video-recorded, and this was done by several small cameras on the desk which would automatically pivot to whoever was talking. All terrifically serious and no jokes allowed.
Naturally, Paul managed to make an absolute tit of himself. See, he dropped his papers. That’s fine, but Paul spends about 96% of his working time tucking his shirt back into his trousers so no-one sees the top of his arse. He’d forgotten to do that, meaning he had to awkwardly crouch down to get his papers rather than mooning all the very ashen-faced folk around the table. And, because he was tense and trying to bend awkwardly, he let loose with a fart that didn’t so much echo around the room as fucking gallop around the table. That in itself wasn’t so bad, but the whole moment of crushing embarrassment was punctuated by the sudden and accusatory whirr of all the cameras immediately spinning and pointing at the cause of the sound. His cheeks weren’t red, they were slightly browned and smelling faintly of last night’s Mongolian beef.
At this point, had everyone collapsed into giggles and chortles (though, more likely spluttering and choking, with people flinging themselves at the glass windows in the hope of sweet escape), the tension would have been relieved, but no. No, everyone shuffled their papers, cleared their throats and cracked on, leaving Paul to burn away merrily with shame and anguish. His boss did ask on the drive back to the office whether ‘anyone had heard an unusual noise’, bless, but everyone knew it was him. I blame myself – the beef was two days out of date.
Luckily, I’ve never had to endure such acute embarrassment, though I’m prone to making a tit of myself, it’s always low-level stuff. For example, I can’t make small-talk with male cashiers without it sounding like I’m leading them on or being plain weird. There’s a young guy in our local Tesco who, bless his heart, could see both ends of a bus coming as it came round the corner. He’s absolutely not my type. It doesn’t stop me feeling I have to be ‘nice’ when he’s helping me in the self-scan – last time I was there I asked who did his tattooes as they ‘looked really nice’, which instantly gave the impression I’ve been leering lasciviously at this bloke. He went pink, I went red and he forgot all about the security check and pushed my trolley through. Perhaps that’s the key to shoplifting – as soon as you approach the Scan ‘n’ Shop bit just wink at the guy standing looking serious, paw at his arse and go ‘OOOOH CUT ME OFF A SLICE OF THAT’. Or, don’t.
I’m forever mis-spelling words in emails (signing off with kind retards, asking accunts to sort out expenses) to the point where I can’t send an email without triple-checking things now, which is unfortunate when someone needs an answer straight away and I have to check to make sure I haven’t slipped bumfucker into my ‘next steps’ paragraph. Oh, there was one time I managed to embarrass myself to the point where the air in my throat chokes me even now as I think about it – way back in high school my lovely form tutor sat us all down at the start of the year and told us she had some important news – her husband had hung himself over the summer holidays. Awful, of course, absolutely awful. But see, I just can’t handle solemn silences, I get so anxious and stressed that it manifests itself into giggles and tics. Of course, I laughed, and I swear to God, I’ve never apologised to anyone more in my life since that moment. I remember masking it as a coughing fit but that just made it worse.
I’m not a complete bastard, please don’t judge me. It’s 100% involuntary and since that moment I’ve gone out of my way to remove myself from situations where people tell me sad news. Hell, I’ve only been to three funerals in my life and even at my nana’s I almost burst out laughing because I imagined her hearing aid still whistling away in the coffin like a distant fax machine. My aunt and uncle died at the same time when I was a teenager and I was probably the only person in that church simultaneously crying and balling my fist into my mouth to stop the laughter – to be fair, they brought out the second coffin and set it down on a trestle table with very wobbly legs, giving me visions of the whole thing giving away and tumbling his corpse down the aisle. What can I say, I love a bit of slapstick.
Anyway, I can barely type because I’m cringing so much I’m getting neck-ache. Let’s deal with dinner, shall we? This makes enough for four and you’ll need a smallish loaf fin!
to make spinach and feta stuffed meatloaf, you’re going to need:
one 500g pack of turkey mince – normally 2% fat, so syn-free
130g of reduced fat feta – two people’s worth of a HEA
one HEB breadbun – 60g
25 of Tesco Ingredients sundried tomatoes – these are dried ones rather than done in oil – you simply hydrate them in water beforehand – or use sundried tomato puree, or leave it out, hey, listen, you don’t need me telling you what to do
that’s a fib, you totally do, should we agree a safeword?
two big red onions
four cloves of garlic
one or even two large bags of spinach, depends how much spinach you like – I like loads and you’ll note that when you boil down two large bags of spinach, it’ll wilt down to approximately the volume of a postage stamp
one large egg
one egg white from another large egg
pinches of salt, pepper, basil if you have it, oregano if you have it
any name-brand passata, let’s not be fussy
to make spinach and feta stuffed meatloaf, you should:
chop the onions nice and finely and gently cook them off in a pan with a few sprays of oil
remove the onions into a bowl
add the spinach into the pan and let it wilt right down
once wilted, take the spinach and squeeze every drop of water you can out of it
add it back into the pan, just off the heat, add the minced garlic, crumbled feta, sundried tomato and the egg-white and stir to mix it all up with a load of black pepper
put that to one side and let’s start building the meatloaf – stick the oven onto 170 degrees
tip the turkey mince into the same bowl as the onions – add the breadcrumbs, egg, pepper, bit of salt, basil, oregano and then really go to town mixing it all up – don’t be shy, pound away at it, get it all mixed up
if it is still a bit wet, add more breadcrumbs, but remember to syn them – I didn’t need extra breadcrumbs though
pop a few sprays of oil into a loaf tin and then shape the mince along the bottom and up the sides, saving some on the side to make a lid
spoon the spinach and cheese mix into the middle and then form a top over the spinach to create a full seal
hoy it in the oven – after thirty minutes, add a glaze over the top of some passata, then cook for another forty minutes or so until the meat is cooked
turn it out, leave to cool, slice it after ten minutes and serve with your sides
done!
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Just a recipe post for oompa poompa one-pot tonight folks because your poor writer has hurt his arm – I say I, no, Paul decided that what I needed was for him to lie on my arm all night long. Paul’s a big guy and whilst I’ve got strong arms, it really bloody hurts. Don’t worry, I took the liberty of pulling out a couple of individual bum hairs of his to make up for the pain. Oh I’m a stinker. Plus, Bake-Off. I’ve got a nice article queued up for tomorrow so no need to shit the bed just yet.
I’m calling this oompa-poompa-one-pot because Christ almighty, you’ll be oompa-poomparing all night long. It involves sauerkraut, a sort of pickled cabbage, and although that might sound disgusting and you might shriek into your hands at the very thought, it actually adds a lovely note of flavour. Leave it out if you want – you’ll still be shouting ‘…HOLD ON MR BROWN, WE’RE SENDING HELP’ long into the night. This makes two big bowls of loveliness.
heat a large casserole dish over a medium-high heat, spray in some oil (use this – it’s cheaper and better than Frylight!) and cook the sausages until done – then remove from the pan, leave to cool a bit and slice into discs)
in the same pan, add a little more oil and then the onion, garlic and carrot and cook until softened
add the salt, pepper and oregano to the pan and give it a stir
next, add the stock, rice and chopped tomato to the pan and give another stir
cover and cook over a low heat until the liquid has evaporated and the rice is cooked – about 10-12 minutes or so
remove from the heat and stir in the sauerkraut, allowing it to heat through and bubble off some of the vinegar in it
serve and enjoy immediately!
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Just a recipe for peanut butter and caramelised banana toast tonight as we’re too busy putting our Musclefood box away and farting on with our new TV. See, this would be one of those days when we just wouldn’t post but because we’ve committed to this Droptober thingy, I feel like I can’t let you down! Breakfasts on Slimming World are either oaty affairs, a bit of fruit or that bloody fry-up picture which has been haunting the lifeline journal since time immemorial. Peanut butter is one of those things which sounds like it should be full of syns and, fair enough, it’s not syn-free, but as long as you’re sensible and don’t slap it on like Jordan slaps Canestan on her minnie-moo, you’ll be fine. 1 level tablespoon is 4 syns which you can easily spread between the two tiny Shreddies-sized slices of bread that Slimming World allows as your HEB.
to make peanut butter and caramelised banana toast, you’ll need:
well I mean, it’s pretty obvious, no?
one banana
one tablespoon of peanut butter
whatever toast or thin you want to use
pinch of cinnamon if you dare
to make peanut butter and caramelised banana toast, you should:
toast your bread and get your peanut butter on it whilst it is hot – the heat will make it spread further
Christ, it’s a bad job when we’re having to eke out our peanut butter like we’re working from a ration book, isn’t it?
slice your banana and drop the slices into a hot, non-stick pan to toast them off and give them a bit of colour
top the toast
Just saying, but if you were feeling daring, you could totally add a drop or two of honey to the whole affair and really get going. If you’re going to be Lieutenant Anal about the whole syn thing, you should ‘technically’ syn the banana according to SW rules as it is cooked. However, it’s syn-free if you eat it uncooked and as you can see from the above, you’re doing nothing more than toasting it. If it makes you feel better, don’t toast the banana, just keep glaring at it until it toasts of its own accord. THAT WAY NO SYNS AM I RIGHT. Jeez.
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I bet you’re all clammy with the thought of a rainbow superfood salad, aren’t you? Who could blame you? Let’s be honest, none of us got to where we are by eating edamame beans and rare grains, did we? Not unless they were deep-fried and served as a garnish on a kebab. If that’s the case, what type of bloody kebab shop are you going to, you fancy fucker? Our local is Kebabylon and a meal isn’t complete unless you’ve pulled enough of the cook’s back-hair out of your dinner to make a tiny brillo pad to scrub the grease off your chins. But er, yes, the recipe will follow, but first some unimaginable nonsense.
Today has me sat in the house waiting for our Sky engineer to come and fit us a new Sky Q box. Why this requires a) an engineer visit and b) me to take a day off work is an absolute mystery. I do have someone coming to finger my guttering at some point in the afternoon but really, when don’t I? I semi-dilate when anyone with rough hands and a beard drives past the house. Paul sent me a text message ten minutes after leaving the house this morning to say “no need to suck the engineer off, we’ve already arranged a sizeable discount on the Ultra HD package”, which I think is a bit below the belt. I mean, he’s got a point – I’m a cheap bastard and I’d do full unprotected anal if it meant free fibre broadband for a year, but still. Give me some credit. Oh and speaking of Sky, it’s lucky I checked the ‘before we visit’ letter which mentions the need to know our Wifi password. Our Wifi password, as it turns out, was WELOVEBIGCOCKS8669! – I’ve just changed it to something entirely innocent – fancyafelchyouhunkybucketofspunk apparently didn’t meet the security requirements. Who knew? I did toy with leaving it unchanged for a laugh but felt that it would look like a clumsy attempt at a come-on – long-time readers must recall that this is one of my fears with having workmen in the house, that every sentence sounds like I’m trying to set away some cheesy porn-style scenario. I’m such a clutz, I can barely pass over a cup of tea without putting my cock in it. Aaaah well. We’ll see what time he turns up.
It’s also a very sad day in our house. For years we’ve been saying we need to buy a Roomba to replace the old Roomba that broke and went beetling into our garage, never to return, when we moved house. But they start at £400, we’ve got a fancy Dyson Digital vacuum anyway AND we have a cleaner, so we couldn’t really justify it. Until last Thursday night when we were pissed out of our nut on Waldhimbeergeist and lemonade (I don’t know either: it was a random bottle of something from Lild – could have been industrial bleach for all we knew, but it tasted nice and had a raspberry on the front so we rolled the dice and got smashed). It’s amazing how alcohol changes your justification for spending money and as a result, we had a Roomba delivered by the good folks from Amazon on Saturday morning. How we gazed admiringly at it, knowing it would scoot about during the day time terrorising the cats and pulling the odd bit of hair and crushed cat treat from our carpet. We could finally relax with the gentle hum of the robotic whirring to sing us to sleep.
Nope.
Turns out Roombas can’t function on black carpet. Our house, bar the kitchen, is either black carpet or black tile (don’t worry, it goes tastefully with the Misty Mountain grey on the walls: may I remind you we are homosexual) and as a result, the Roomba senses these black patches as ‘cliffs’, throws a bit of a strop, spins a bit and then beeps forlornly. Putting him down on the living room carpet must feel like, to him, being hurled into a black hole of no escape. We placed him into the kitchen for a laugh (our kitchen floor being black and white square tiles – our kitchen has an American diner theme, it’s very fancy) and it was hilarious – I’ve never seen a robot actually have a fit but the poor fucker was jitterbugging and stuttering all over the place. I had to put a small pile of ground Diazepam down on the white tile just to calm him the fuck down. Anyway, back into the box and returned to Amazon with a naturally furious email about there being no mention of the Roomba’s sense of existential dread.
Perhaps it’s a good thing. Our house is too connected. One of my colleagues expressed some reservations about our ‘House of Connected Things’, citing concern about security and the ability for folks to hack our home. Really, I know it’s more a pressing worry that I’m not going to turn up at work of a morning because I’ve been killed in my sleep by Amazon Alexa instructing a rogue Roomba to come and hoover all of the oxygen out of my lungs whilst I sleep. We buy our gadgets and nonsense because we don’t have children to spoil and they’re great, but I did think to myself as I walked into the house, said clearly “Alexa, please turn on the lights” only for her to turn one light on and start playing Bill Bryson, how much time are we actually saving here? It’s a novelty being able to turn our heating on from the sofa by telling Nest to ‘turn the hallway down to 9 degrees’ but again, it’s no hardship at all to get up and turn the thermostat down. Actually, that bit is a lie – we get these things because we’re bone-bloody-idle, so anything that minimises our movements is no bad thing.
I have discovered one excellent thing about Amazon Echo though – I can say “Alexa, play The Archers” whilst I’m having a crap and it’ll start playing the latest episode through the house speakers. An episode of The Archers is just the right length to enjoy when you have a shaggy brown dog scratching at the back door. However, as we don’t have a speaker in the bathroom, I have to “Alexa: turn it up” about eight times until it gets loud enough for me to satisfactorily hear it from the bathroom. The downside to this is that the Alexa gets so loud that once I’ve finished my business and moved back to the living room it is playing too loud to hear me shouting “Alexa: shut the fuck up” at it, meaning I get locked in an increasingly loud, shrill and vicious circle trying to make myself heard over the sound of POOR OLD HELEN ARCHER fussing about her joint bank account. I can’t imagine, in the entire history of The Archers being on air, anyone ever seeming to react so violently to Rob being slow-clapped off the cricket team. My poor neighbours must think I have the most exciting time paying my sewer-tax with all the yelling and middle-class braying that goes on.
Ah well. On that classy note, let’s sign off for the day. I’ve just discovered that you can play the original Rollercoaster Tycoon on the Mac so I thoroughly expect to be hearing this for the next eight hours. Does this take anyone else back?
Now let’s take a look at today’s recipe, shall we? Rainbow superfood salad. It’s a salad idea for lunch. These usually go down like a shit in a lift but please, give it a go – it’s easy enough to make and, for a salad, tastes bloody good. The dressing is syn free, as you’d expect, and the whole bowl is full of crunch and goodness. As with all of our recipes, do mix it up – if there’s stuff in here you don’t like, just swap it for something else. Can’t be arsed finding farro? Don’t blame you (though it’ll be wherever the quinoa or couscous is in your supermarket), swap it for another grain or leave it out entirely. Not a fan of feta? Then you’re a sick bastard and you should be ashamed: feta is lovely! Pfft. This recipe is a hybrid of one that I found here and a Marks and Spencers superfood salad which I had to stop buying because each visit to the supermarket at lunchtime was becoming more dangerous: I was one shuffling old biddy fumbling about the meal-deals away from mass genocide. Enjoy!
to make a rainbow superfood salad, you’ll need:
100g of farro (before you all send me messages saying what’s farro: it’s like quinoa’s fatter cousin and can be found in the same place in the supermarket – feel free to swap for couscous)
one small red onion
one red pepper and one yellow pepper
half a box of edamame beans (you can buy these in Tesco’s fruit and veg bit – or swap them out for chickpeas)
half a small red cabbage chopped up nice and fine
pomegranate seeds (either from a fresh pomegranate – which I really struggle with as I’m mildly trypophobic, or buy them from the supermarket in a little pot)
45g of feta (which is one HEA)
for the dressing, just mix some mint sauce into natural fat free yoghurt – I know, we’re not fancy here
to make a rainbow superfood salad, you should:
cook the farro according to the instructions on the packet – but you don’t want to cook it to mush and you definitely want to make sure you’ve washed it well afterwards so it doesn’t go all starchy
I cook my farro in chicken stock because I’m a cruel, murdering meat-eating bastard, but feel free to use veggie stock – it just adds another note of flavour
chop everything up into small chunks and then scatter through the cooked farro
season with salt and pepper if you so desire
see above for the dressing
this will keep cheerfully in the fridge for up to three days, but only as long as you don’t dress it – once it has been dressed, get it eaten
Done! I’d love to think this rainbow superfood salad wasn’t dismissed out of hand because it’s a bloody gorgeous lunch – don’t be put off by the ingredients, just swap them out for stuff you don’t like, but if you’ve never tried edamame, pomegranate, cabbage or farro in a salad, give it a whirl! For more ideas on what to put in your mouth, click the buttons below!
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