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March 14, 2015

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beef, beef mince, fakeaways, italian, kebab shop, low syn, one-pot, recipe card, syn free

cheesy meatball skillet

I am gutted that, yet again, we’re sending a load of dross to Eurovision! Have you heard it?

It sounds like the type of ditty that would play out over a Buy as you View advert. I’m not one of these tubthumpers who claim we’ll never win Eurovision because if we sent a decent act, pumped a lot of amyl nitrates into the air and actually spent some money on publicity, we’d do well! Paul and I will still be watching it, eating our Austrian food (that’ll be our European tour country for that week) and screaming at the telly, but just once I’d like to see us succeed. Still, it’ll be a good night in front of the TV regardless.

We don’t watch a lot of TV – at least, not British TV. We used to be well into Coronation Street (rock and roll lifestyle) but that went dull, fast – and Eastenders is only decent when something big is happening, otherwise I end up trying to cut my wrists with the butter knife by the time it’s over. We’ll take in the odd documentary and we do love a good drama (for good drama, I’m talking about stuff like Lost over crap like Broadchurch – if you want to see Olivia Colman cry, watch a film called Tyrannosaurus, she’s brilliant in that). If you like reality TV but with decent production values, download a programme called The Amazing Race – UK TV doesn’t show it because we’d sooner watch tone-deaf bumholes singing on a talent show. Doctor Who is a guilty pleasure as is popcorn fodder like 24. What we DO enjoy is a good quiz show, not least because we like shouting at thick people on TV.

That said, I’d be shit on that new show, 1000 Heartbeats, where your heartbeat is monitored as you answer questions and your clock counts down faster the quicker your heart beats – I’d be so out of breath climbing the three steps up to the podium that I’d only have four seconds to answer fourteen general knowledge questions whilst getting shouted at by besuited Yorkshire lamp-post Vernon Kaye. I’d love to have a go in The Cube, but I know for an absolute fact that when they did that swooshy camera movement where it spins 360 degrees around The Cube in slow-motion, my arse-crack would be hanging out of my George boxer shorts and I’d be pulling that cum-face I usually pull when I’m concentrating – tongue half out, brow furrowed like a crinkle-cut crisp. I’ve mentioned before that Paul and I would adore the chance to go on Coach Trip, and indeed we auditioned successfully for the show, but then they took it off air for three years, perhaps hoping our clogged-up arteries would kill us off before we had a chance to get on the bus, call someone a jumped up shitbag and get asked to leave Lithuania in an armoured car.

I’d have been absolutely top at The Crystal Maze though. I say that from the comfort of my living room, admittedly, but I would have been a guaranteed two-crystal winner and that weekend canoeing in Middlesex could have been mine. Of course, no sooner was I old enough to apply, they took it off the bloody air. There’s been talk of bringing it back time and time again, including, horrifically, the idea of having Amanda Holden present in the Richard O’Brian role. Amanda Holden! A woman so pointless and personality-free that you could put a privet hedge with a crow stuck in it where she sat on Britain’s Got Talent and people would be hard-pressed to tell the difference. That’s what ruins TV – ‘celebrities’ famous for fuck all (in her case, having the dubious honour of turning down Les Dennis’ cock in favour of the unfunny one from Men Behaving Badly) taking part in shows and quizzes in lieu of decent folk from Ordinary World. Even if they somehow resist the urge to throw celebrities into the mix at every opportunity, they try and turn the ordinary folk into celebrities instead – like the gay couple from Gogglebox for example. Yep, they’re funny, but why are they in an advert with Kevin Bacon for bloody mobile phone services? Actually, why the hell is Kevin bloody Bacon in an advert for a mobile phone service? Kev, I’ve seen Footloose, you’re worth so much more!

Gosh, that was a bit of a rant. See that’s probably why they didn’t come back to us re: Coach Trip.

Anyway, it’s just a little post today because I want to spend the day with Paul as I’ve seemingly been at work since Tuesday morning. But, because we care, here’s a recipe for cheesy meatball skillet. A quick google shows that a skillet is pretty much the same as a shallow frying pan, but we’ve actually got a proper cast-iron skillet so we used that. Whatever you use, make sure it can go under the grill. Something like this would be perfect, plus you could use it for frittatas and other nonsense!

This serves four.

We used the new Slimming World meatballs (syn-free) available at Iceland and do you know, they were actually pretty decent! Nothing like proper meatballs and I’ve got a syn-free recipe for those right here. Getting quite good at this cross-linking on my blog-posts!

Also, in my tomato sauce, I added 175ml of red wine (hence the syns) but that’s only because we had dregs left over in the fridge. You can easily leave this out, but it does add a nice note to the sauce.

to make cheesy meatball skillet, you’ll need:

ingredients: meatballs (either Iceland or home-made), two tins of tomatoes, one large red onion, garlic (powder or grated (especially if you use this fancy pants microplane grater), dash of worcestershire sauce, red wine (optional), big ball of reduced fat mozzarella (65g is one healthy extra which is more than enough, but because we’re decadent bitches, we’re using 130g – that’s fine for Paul and I as it is a healthy extra each, but if it’s just you, remember mozzarella is 5 syns for 50g if you’re synning any extra). You can decorate with chopped chives, if you’re feeling poncy.

to make cheesy meatball skillet, you should:

cook off your meatballs in the pan – if they’re homemade, great, as they’ll release oil that you can use in the next step, but if they’re not, just keep an eye on them to make sure they don’t catch. Once they’ve cooked through, set aside
chop up your onion nice and fine and add that into the pan (with a tiny bit of oil if the meatballs haven’t released any) and gently soften – then add garlic, and cook a little longer
whack the heat up, throw in the red wine, let it deglaze the bottom of the pan and simmer off for a couple of minutes, then add the tomatoes
pinch of salt and pepper
add the meatballs, put it on a medium heat and let it bubble down for a bit until the sauce has thickened
cut the mozzarella into discs and scatter them carelessly all over the pan
whack it under the grill for five minutes or so until the cheese has melted, bubbling and looks ready
SERVE.

Have a think about what you want to serve this with – spaghetti is fine, but this would also go well with any old pasta you’ve got knocking about, or even slimming world chips and a salad. Enjoy!

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chubbycubs

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March 13, 2015

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recipe card, travel

two chubby cubs go to germany – part five

I’m working overtime, again. It’ll be past midnight when I finish, and I’ve eaten rubbish all week – Dominos, sweets, creme eggs. Gutted about the inevitable weight gain but do you know, I needed sugar late at night to keep me from toppling over the balcony in a sleepy daze. I have no photos or recipe with me at work, so it’s sheer text pleasure for you all! So, here we go again – the next part of our blog post! You can see the last four entries here, here, here and here.

How’s this for a twist? After our day of sleeping and eating burgers, we both woke up around 11pm and decided on a whim to visit an underground salt mine in Austria, which was only a two hour train ride away. The tickets were booked and the alarms set before the half cows in our bellies started turning into poo.

We awoke bright and breezy – well, as bright and breeze as you can be getting woken up at 4.45am by eight separate alarms. I feel bad for our room neighbours, they probably thought the sky was falling in although, if the apocalypse comes, I don’t think it’ll be heralded by a calypso version of Ode to Joy. After a quick ride on the U-Bahn, we were at the München Hauptbahnhof by six just ahead of our early train to Salzburg. Munich, so early in the morning, was gorgeous, but there was no time to admire it as we were whisked to our first class seats where there is nothing more eventful to report other than we slept most of the way, with me only waking up whenever I heard the buffet trolley coming. I swear I can hear a Kitkat being snapped from over 300 yards – I was like the world’s most corpulent meerkat peering over the seats. I like to get the full benefit any time I travel first class – if there’s a little lamp, I’ll flick it on and off, if there’s a doily on the back of the seat I’ll be sure to rub my forehead with it. Although, given how excellent standard class is in Germany, first class was an unnecessary frippery. Still, it did extend me the chance to say ‘Well, it doesn’t look any bigger than the Mauritania’ when I stepped aboard. The train sped us into Austria and we were in Salzburg in no time at all.

Our first impressions? Not great. Salzburg had a curious bland square when you stepped off the train, full of people begging for money and smoking cigarettes that smelt like burning hair. We slipped into a McDonalds (so cultural – but it was the only place open) for a bit of breakfast and I thoroughly enjoyed my crappy croissant – the stress of having my wallet stolen and my pockets pinched only adding to the flavour. We decamped to the bus-stop to wait forty minutes before the bus to the salt mines rolled in. I barely had enough time to admire the fact someone had taken a shit into a tuna can and left it on the bus-stop seat. Disgusting, but I couldn’t help but admire his technical prowess. It’s the little things you remember.

The bus ride was just lovely – rolling forest hills on one side, crystal clear blue streams on the other. It felt like I was in an advert for aftershave. The illusion was only spoiled by a little old lady next to me who seemed to have packed enough food and snacks for a bus journey to Krakatoa. She just didn’t stop eating, smacking her lips together and fishing around in her endless bag of treats – she was like Mary Poppins but with saturated fats. First there were sandwiches, then biscuits, then crisps, then boiled sweets, then a banana – it was a shame we had to get off the bus when we did because I was sure she was about to pull out a pan and a cylinder of Calor gas and rustle up some bacon sandwiches. Ah well.

Naturally, being us, we managed to get to the salt-mine precisely one hour before it opened, and, being in the middle of Nowhere, Austria, there was nothing to do or look at. Indeed, the only movement was me doing the hop-back-and-forth piss dance. Paul is like a feral cat, he’ll happily piss anywhere and everywhere, but I’m very British and like to do things properly. Alas, with the sound of the babbling brook and Paul’s impressions of a waterfall ringing in my ears, I could hold it in no longer and had to nip to the side of a service road for a tinkle. Of course, no sooner had I got my cock out than a coach full of French school-children came barrelling around the corner like the bus from Speed. I almost re-circumcised myself in my haste to put it away and not be arrested for indecent exposure. I wish I knew what the French for Gary Glitter is. Well actually, it would be Gary Scintillement, and that sounds quite charming and non-threatening to children.

The hour passed by in no time at all – nothing makes time pass quicker than being surrounded by a litter of French schoolchildren, all screaming and shouting in French and smoking Gauloises. Thankfully, the doors crashed open at 11am and we were in. First task? Change into the type of jumpsuit last seen on Sue, Computer Analyst from Burton-on-Trent on The Crystal Maze. Thankfully, I was given the correct size and was straight into it, but Paul was handed an M. There are no conceivable circumstances where Paul could be considered an M unless that M stood for ‘Muffintopped’. He had to go back to the stern, moustachioed lady on the front desk and explain, with him speaking no German and her speaking no English, that he was altogether too fat for an M. She gave him an L and a sneer. It was still like trying to stuff a settee into a bin-liner so, exasperated, he went back and she finally threw an XL at him with a loud ‘Mmmff’ sound. Bless him, it was tight, but he managed to get in, even through the denim was see-through across his arse where it was stretched so tight. She was horrible – awfully judgemental for someone who was keeping the backs of her knees warm using her tits.

Dressed to depress, we were herded up into a group by a very stern looking man and taken to a tiny train (it looked like something you’d see in the Borrowers) for our trip into the side of the mountain and into the mine itself. It was brilliant! Despite feeling like I was going to be decapatitated at any given moment by a low beam, the train chugged along in almost pitch black until we were around a mile into the Earth. There, we were given translating tools which we promptly pocketed and forgot about. The leader was the very personification of dourness but he did try to make things interesting. We ignored him entirely and spent the first part of the tour looking around the mine. It was brilliant – but it gets better.

To get to the next part of the tour, we had to descend eight stories. You were given a choice – either walk down a twisty turning path for about ten minutes or slide down on a proper wooden slide! Well look – we’re two gay lads, we’re not going to turn down a slide down a shaft on a decent sized bit of wood, are we? Oooh nasty!

Now deep into the mine, we spent a while looking at mining equipment and following the story of salt, before the next amazing part – crossing the underground lake which they called a ‘mirror’ lake, because the water is so clear and undisturbed that it creates a perfect reflection of the ceiling above. Of course, being British and cynical, I spent a good ten minutes telling Paul that it wasn’t a lake at all, it was just polished glass and a special effect, until he got tired of my cynicism and splashed his hand in the water. Well honestly. What do you get in terms of special effects here in the UK at outdoor attractions? Impending bankruptcy and Hepatitis B. I was enthralled. As we crossed the lake, they played a tasteful laser show (the first time in history that the word laser has ever been prefixed by ‘tasteful’ I reckon) and some music. Without wanting to sound cheesy, it was magical. There was a bit more chat and then we were in a funicular back to the surface in no time at all. I can say, with all honesty, no-one has ever had more fun deep underground in Austria since Josef Fritzl got himself a Screwfix catalogue and a tape measure.

You have no idea how long I’ve been itching to bust that gag out.

Now, I wish I could tell you that after the mine we spent a merry afternoon exploring Salzburg, but we didn’t. We’re not a fan of Mozart, we’re not a fan of being asked for change and the whole town is on a gentle slope, so we were back on the train to Munich quicker than you can say Siebentausendzweihundertvierundfünfzig, which is the German word for 7,254. Obviously. Back in Munich, we were off to bed to sleep off the excitement and ahead of a lovely day exploring Munich the next day…

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chubbycubs

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March 11, 2015

Posted under

beef, chinese, diced beef, fakeaways, low syn, noodles, recipe card, rice, travel

takeaway style beef and broccoli

Yet again I find myself working late with nothing but a Wagamama menu to look at. I’m lucky to have a fairly interesting job and I do enjoy working in the city centre, but it’s an absolute ballache if I have to work late as the only places near me that deliver are Wagamama and Pizza Express. I mean, I COULD walk further, but I’m a lazy, lazy man. So – as I’m busy working – I’m pressing the button on a ‘saved’ blog-post – my fourth chapter on our visit to Germany. You can read the previous instalments here, here and here. Because we’re amazing, there’s also a recipe for takeaway style beef and broccoli at the end which is genuinely delicious. Enjoy! Normally skip holiday posts? Give this a whirl – feedback welcomed!

Now, I’m going to be honest, I lost my page of notes for the last day of what we did in Berlin, so I can’t go into any great detail – good riddance I hear you cry, this’ll be a short entry. Nope…

We woke on our last day in Berlin with a heavy heart, and only a small part of that was down to the amount of cholesterol and fats we had taken on during our short stay. Berlin was amazing – something happening on every corner, history all over the place, fantastic mix of people. Having all of the Christmas markets on only added to the atmosphere and neither of us would hesitate in going back. Heartily recommend. Nevertheless, we traipsed down to the checkout, gave our luggage to some hipster fucknugget who had left his little afro-comb in his afro (argh!) and wandered out to kill the time before we were to get our overnight train to Munich.

One last look at the view…

First, Checkpoint Charlie, which took us about forty minutes to find. It shouldn’t have – if we’d just turned left instead of right as we breathlessly climbed out of the underground station, we’d have been there, but instead we walked for forever in a massive circle until we found it. Meh. I know it’s historically very important but I felt its impact was lessened somewhat by the McDonalds just to the side of it. Plus, they had a really ropey statue of a soldier with a bit of tinsel on his head. How respectful!

Afterwards, we spotted the Ritter chocolate museum on a map, and headed there. Again our sense of direction failed us, and we wandered and wandered and wandered, all passive-aggressive sighing and bitchy looks at everyone else who were clearly going exactly where they wanted to go and knew exactly how to get there. The smug twats. After gradually turning our feet to corned-beef in our shoes, and with the blood pouring out over the top of our socks, we FINALLY found Ritter World. Well, honestly, I was expecting Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, I got Billy Vanker’s Chocolate Camp. It was full of tourists and fat children jiggling about with sticky hands and gleeful expressions.

Paul immediately managed to cause international offence by declaring loudly ‘well you’d know all about that’ in response to young slave workers picking cocoa beans along the chocolate highway – he was actually talking to me in response to eating chocolate but the young Puerto-Rican couple in front of us looked pretty crestfallen. I’m surprised he manages to brush his teeth in the morning – whenever he opens his mouth his boot automatically falls in. We loaded ourselves up with 24 bars of Ritter chocolate, ostensibly to give to co-workers – we had the box open by the time I’d put my wallet back in my pocket.

A trip to an experimental computer art-gallery followed next – yet again our normally faultless navigation failing us, leading us into a proper run-down sink estate where I started my ‘protect everything in my pockets’ Macarena dance that I mentioned in a previous entry. In our defence, the art-gallery was tucked away down a side street full of chavs smoking weed. I felt like I was in a Paddy Considine movie.

Oh! We did spot this. Goodness me.

The art gallery was, as you may expect, full of experimental videogames and controllers, and we had a whale of a time geeking out. It was smashing but the best part was the virtual reality headset at the end. Paul normally can’t manage anything like virtual reality – he gets dizzy looking at a magic eye puzzle due to his boss-eyes. Ah bless. He’s got lovely blue eyes – one blew to the East, one blew to the West. Kaboomtish.

We did stop for one of these. My reflex action already had me on my knees until Paul pointed out it meant garlic bread.

Anyway, you think me writing about videogames is exciting? Well you haven’t heard anything yet, because after the videogame museum came the…font museum! That’s right! We saw this on tripadvisor and thought it would be right up our street, and indeed it was, being only a mile or so mince from the videogame museum. We’re sticklers for the right font – it really makes my face itch when I see screenshots that people have put on from their phone and they’ve chosen to use Comic Sans as their display font. Comics Sans should only be used in care homes to illustrate which tap is hot and which is cold, and nothing more. The museum was full of ‘letters’ – random letters from hotel signs, train stations, massive installations – some old, some new, some neon, some metal – it was really quite interesting! I don’t know if I’d pay the amount we paid to go around but I still got to crack a joke as I left and they shook the ‘suggested donations’ box at me – I said ‘Are you taking the P’. Well, as you can well imagine, how we all laughed – we were still chuckling and shaking our heads whimsically as Paul pulled me out by my fagbag. Spoilsport.

By this time the night was cutting in, so we wandered back to the hotel, picked up our suitcases and nipped into the closest restaurant for a last-minute meal before we got on the train. Well fuck me. We couldn’t have picked a more German looking place, it was like being in a themed restaurant. The waitress was wearing lederhosen, there was oompah-oompah music playing, the menu was full of words longer than this bloody blog post…you get the picture. I ordered something that sounded like a bad hand at Scrabble and received a pile of meat and potatoes which was absolutely bloody delicious. I washed it all down with a bathtub sized glass of German beer and suddenly the restaurant seemed like the finest on Earth. Paul had duck and a fizzy water, the great big puff. We settled the bill and waddled, clutching our stomachs full of fermenting beast, to the train station.

We were planning on driving to Munich but I’ve always fancied an overnight train journey, and it was around £200 for the both of us to have a private cabin. That makes it sound infinitely more grand than it was, but it was surprisingly roomy, with two bunkbeds, your own netty, a table to rest at and even a shower! A shower! On a train! The only time I’ve ever managed to get wet on a train is when I’m sitting next to the toilet on a Pendolino and it lurches around a particularly sharp corner.. Once the train pulled in, we were escorted to our ‘room’ by the train conductor, yet another officious looking man with a face full of woe who looked as though he’d push you under the train if you asked him anything. He assured us he’d ‘look after us through the night’ like some creepy fez-wearing Harold Shipman. I was left more than a little terrified. He shut the door and Paul immediately dashed to the toilet ‘to try it out’. I optimistically hoped that this meant testing out the flush or, at a push, having a tinkle, but no, it meant hearing the world fall out of his arse, punctuated by ‘OOOH THAT’LL BE THE CURRYWURST’ and ‘I’M NEVER HAVING SAUERKRAUT AGAIN’. Just once I’d like to be able to relax in a new environment for longer than ten minutes without having to hear my other half straining out a poo. It’s not too much to ask. Course, it gets worse – no sooner had he pressed ‘flush’ then the train conductor clicked the door open and asked whether or not we wanted food. Fuck food, all I wanted was a tank of oxygen, and he totally knew what Paul had just done because I saw his nose wrinkle. Frankly, I’m surprised his nose didn’t burn up like a dry leaf in a bushfire. He didn’t come back until the morning.

The glamour! Look at that size of that toilet – now imagine how small the shower is, to the immediate right of the loo – then read on…

Mind you, it wasn’t just Paul causing embarrassment – about half an hour into the journey I remembered that we had a shower in the tiny bathroom and immediately undressed. The shower cubicle was approximately 80% the size of me but by gaw, I was determined. Through the human equivalent of pushing a beachball into a postbox, we managed to get me in, but I literally didn’t have space to move, so it was a case of standing there letting the water pool around my shoulders as Paul lathered shampoo into my scalp. Finally, there was a loud sucking noise and the water found a way through the dam of my back fat and down my bumcrack and disappeared. I win again! After ten minutes, Paul pulled me back out of the shower and back into the little living room area. Now this is where it gets embarrassing – in all the excitement of working the shower, we hadn’t realised that the train had stopped at a rural passenger station and was obviously taking on a few more people – us looking out the window could barely make anything out because our room was bright and it was night outside. This situation wouldn’t have been so bad had I been dressed, but I’m ashamed to say that at least six good, honest German folk on the platform opposite were treated to the sight of Paul changing into his nightwear and my hairy arse pressed up against the glass like two paint-filled balloons. We only realised our error as the train pulled away – probably ahead of schedule to save my blushes. Wars have started over less than my arse in a window, trust me.

The rest of the journey passed without incident, although I had trouble sleeping through the rocking of the train. Paul was out like a light, but I remained fitful on the bottom bunk, sure that every creak and groan of the metal bed above was a sure sign that he was going to come crashing down on top of me and that I’d be smeared up the side of the train like a fly on a windscreen. I kept myself amused by writing up the first few days of the holiday and looking wistfully out of the window as the night turned black. Oh, saying as I indulged in some toilet talk before, I’ll add a bit more – the combination of good, rich German food and the rocking of the train meant that we were both full of wind – and when one wasn’t farting, wafting and laughing, the other one was taking up position. The poor bastards in the room next door must have thought a brass band was tuning up before a key performance. When we awoke in the morning, the air was so thick I almost swam to the toilet. Even putting on my glasses didn’t remove my blurred vision. I’m only thankful it was a no-smoking train else it would have been like the Paddington Rail Disaster all over again. At six there was a sharp little tap on the door and the conductor, barely hiding his wince, set down a tray of breakfast goodies on the table. It was the usual German fare – apple juice, jams, bread (the bread was fresh when brought in but after two minutes in the fetid air of our room, had gone a lovely toasted colour) and minced animal. They love their indistinct pâté, that’s for sure. Still, it was free food and I couldn’t waste a crumb, so I didn’t, and it was delicious.

The train pulled into Munich at around seven and we were unceremoniously dumped on the platform as the train hastened away, probably to be burnt to ashes thanks to our almost inhuman farting. We jumped onto the underground and after a short ride, we were at our hotel. The guy checking us in clearly thought we were checking him out, and he was posing and fluttering his eyes and being all coquettish. He didn’t have a fucking chance, he had more make-up on than Dame Barbara Cartland for one thing, and he gave us a proper ‘knowing’ leer when he realised that we were a married couple with a king-sized bed. I really hate that! He might as well offered us an upgrade, rimjob or felch for the amount of subtlety he was displaying. We gave him fairly short shrift and were allowed up to our room, where I’m disappointed to say we stayed for the rest of the day. Actually – disappointed is the wrong word, a holiday is for resting, and we had a lovely day in the room, ordering room service, watching the German version of Air Crash Investigation and sleeping. No word of a lie – we pretty much slept from 8am to 8am the next day. The room service was extortionate – €60 for two burgers, although they were the size of footballs and delivered with the usual German élan (i.e. no care at all – they crashed the tray down like they were delivering a verdict on England itself).

Mind you, that’s not surprising, given our hotel room probably smelled like the countryside of England did when we had the foot and mouth crisis and all the cows were being burnt. Fact: the foot and mouth outbreak started less than a mile from my house. I still blame my mother for feeding the dog Aldi stewing steak and starting it all off.

I’ll write more about Germany tomorrow, but in the meantime, speaking of well-cooked beef…

This recipe is dead easy to make and only takes about fifteen minutes or so. It might be helpful to have all your ingredients prepared beforehand. Having the beef cut into smaller chunks means it goes further, and cooks faster.

This serves six people.

to make takeaway style beef and broccoli, you’ll need:

ingredients: 500g diced beef, 1 tbsp cornstarch, 2 tbsp + 60ml light soy sauce, 1 large onion, 5 cloves of garlic, 2.5cm cube of root ginger (grated/minced), 250g broccoli florets, few pinches of red chili flakes, 250ml beef stock

to make takeaway style beef and broccoli, you should:

recipe: in a bowl drizzle 2 tbsp of soy sauce over the diced beef and mix until it’s coated. Heat a large non-stick pan on a high heat, add Frylight (or use a drop of oil, like sensible folk) and add the beef in one layer for one minute, and then flip over for another minute. Put the beef to one side on a plate.

In the same pan and still on a high heat, add more Frylight (see above) and saute the onion, garlic and ginger for three minutes. Add the broccoli and two pinches of the red chili flakes and sauté for another three minutes.

In a bowl mix together beef stock, 1 tbsp of corn starch and 60ml soy sauce. When mixed and there are no lumps pour this over the broccoli mixture and mix to combine and cook for a further three minutes. Add the beef back into the pan, mix, and serve immediately over rice.

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chubbycubs

Posted on

March 10, 2015

Posted under

recipe card

weigh in week eight – the results are in!

woohoo! week eight and we’ve lost:

james: 3.5lb off

paul: 3.5lb off

bringing our total weight loss to 39lb! We’re both pretty chuffed with that – remember, we’re both aiming to lose slowly – no rush to look like a melted candle! So we’re on target and doing well. You certainly can’t argue that we’re eating the same old shite – at least five new recipes every week? If that’s not a reason to spread the word and put the twochubbycubs.com everywhere I don’t know what is! And look what I got…

Too sugary for you? Why not post this instead, as a counter to all of those god-awful inspiration quotes you see dotted around on various facebook pages – I made it myself!

Haha. Sorry but I caught a page on another weight-loss blog that was absolutely littered with nonsense like the below, and I reckon it’s where most of my weight loss came from – the inability to eat thanks to my teeth rotted away because of the patronising, fake sentiment. At least you don’t get any of that bollocks with us!

We tried a new class tonight – felt like I was cheating on my old one. I almost bought a second mobile just for the consultant’s number. I’ve never seen a class so big – if there wasn’t 150 people there, I’d be amazed. We didn’t stop because I was hungry but we’re going to stay next week, and I’ll report back. I reckon it’ll be quite unusual! I know the consultant well though and she’s brilliant and funny enough to keep the class going. That said, if it gets to 10pm and I’m still hearing clapping, I’m topping myself.

Off to celebrate our weight loss with a good bit of beef. Recipe tomorrow!

We love you all. Aw.

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chubbycubs

Posted on

March 9, 2015

Posted under

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

spiderweb eggs and Paul’s random stream of nonsense

So, we finally managed to track down an Iceland in the local area today that still had some ready meals in stock. I went to the one in Gateshead which fortunately was stocked all the way to the top, even though someone who looked like a post-menstrual imagining of Pauline Quirke was circling nearby like a stinking,shuffling Belgrano. Not a bad selection either, so I got plenty of sausages and meatballs and a few tikka masalas. In a strange coincidence, James did exactly the same thing and flounced into the Cramlington one on his way home, so now our freezer is dangerously overstocked and I daren’t open the door because it feels like I’m stuck in a hall of mirrors with Wor Margaret.

But anyway, I digress. Tonight – Tikka Masala and Rice. I’m rather looking forward to it, I don’t mind a good curry and the spicier the better. I was going to make a ‘Grecian Pizza’ – I called it Grecian because it had Feta and Olives on it and that’s all I know about Greek cuisine. It was going to be the ‘ring’ pizza you see in the Fakeaways book with a fancy salad in the middle, but could I hell get it to roll right. I tried everything but it was just wasn’t going to happen. A shame, really, because I was an absolute natural when I worked at Domino’s Pizza in my teen years (best job in the world. No, really) and could whip up a thick, thirteen incher in seconds (still can on a good day and with a good breeze behind me). But because I was in a huff I just rolled out a misshapen slab and flung it into the bin when I couldn’t get the shape right.

I absolutely love Greek cuisine, and anything Mediterranean. I’m trying hard to convince James that we need a holiday around there, just so I can vacuum up my own bodyweight in Feta. Travelling is one thing that we absolutely love doing. It’s only really been in the last few years that we’ve gone anywhere that exciting, mostly due to a lack of money or something coming along that is more important (we had to cancel a trip to Iceland to buy a new kitchen instead. Booo!) so a holiday in the sun is well overdue. I still get like a giddy schoolboy at holiday time. I’m sure James slipped me a wobbly egg or two (a la Shannon Matthews) when we went to Germany because I just couldn’t stop flapping my hands like a kid with ADHD. I always had crap holidays as a kid. We once went to Benidorm in the early 90’s which was absolutely fantastic but since then they were just dreadful. You know it’s bad when a few wet weekends at Butlin’s Skegness is a highlight.

The worse one though was to Ireland. No rolling hills, leprechauns or culture for us. Oh no. We went to stay with my then stepfather’s family in a run-down part of Downpatrick where the spirit of The Troubles was still well and truly alive. There were no fewer than eight of us crammed into a tiny two bedroomed house, and the kids were all bundled two-a-piece into three-storey bunkbeds made from pallets and chickenwire. You think I’m joking – I’m really not. The house was wall-to-wall Virgin Mary and that bloody awful picture of Jesus doing a Goatse to his chest. You know the one I mean. I was handed a rosary by an elderly woman and had no idea what to do with it, so I wore it round my neck for the whole weekend. I thought I looked fabulous, personally and never resisted an opportunity to strut around with it.

In the evenings we had to secure the house against the IRA (or was it the Police? I can’t remember what side they were on). It meant some elaborate traps had to be set by the front door in case it was kicked in. It looked like a fancy laser matrix but out of skipping rope. I got a smack across the head from someone who earlier had pissed against the bedroom wall because when I went to get some squash during the night I set off some trap that meant a radio fell into the hallway and set some picture frames cascading down the stairs like a paramilitarian game of Mouse Trap. It was all so surreal! Fortunately we never went back. I think if it had been suggested I would have seriously considered putting myself into care.

The worst part of the whole time we were there was the food – not that it was that bad, but because we were only fed once a day. ONCE. And it was at some weird time like 3pm. Not quite lunch, not quite dinner, but far too far away from what would be breakfast. A nightmare for a fatty like me. Give me waterboarding any day over that absolute horror.

And, for some reason, I came away with ABBA Gold on tape.

I’m glad to say that was a definite low point and they only ever got better since then. To be honest I don’t think I could have tolerated anything worse without doing some sort of spazz-out on the whole lot of them and that most certainly wouldn’t be pretty.

One place I’d really love to go though is the Far East. I’d love it! I love the whole culture and Western mysticism about it all. China, Japan, Singapore – I’d do all of it, and chow down every last crumb of chow mein I could find. I’d probably whinge that it wasn’t like a ‘proper Chinese’ you get from some foul-smelling grotty shop in Blyth like I’m used to. Top of the list is North Korea but the food there is shit so I might not bother unless I can get away with smuggling in a Matheson’s sausage.

TONIGHT’S RECIPE – Chinese tea eggs. No I don’t know either, but James thought they looked cool and who I am to deny my baby his pleasures? I half wondered whether I’d heard him wrong and he was going to fire them out of his bottom like a Taiwanese hooker, but no. They are pretty. He’s called them spiderweb eggs because he’s feeling deliciously random.

to make spiderweb eggs, you should:

recipe – nice easy one this! These eggs are lovely for a snack or putting into a salad – they take on the taste of the sauce around them and so easy to do. Fill a pan with enough water to boil six eggs and a tsp of salt and boil for two minutes. Keeping the hot water to one side, plunge them into cold water for three minutes and then, when they are cold, crack them all over with a teaspoon. Don’t hit them with the spoon like a nun hitting an erect willy – you want them to crack but not shatter. Doesn’t matter if a bit of shell comes off.

Add into the hot water two black tea bags, four star anise, black pepper, salt, a cinnamon stick (or powder) and a big old glug of dark soy sauce. Pop the eggs back in once they’ve been cracked, and simmer very gently for three hours. After this, all you need to do is put the eggs, still in the sauce, in the fridge for 24 hours. Then shell and eat!

I know it sounds like a clart on but this can all be done in one pan and the effect is lovely – perfect for something different! Just like us, right?

Posted by

chubbycubs

Posted on

March 8, 2015

Posted under

budget, lunch, pasta, quark, recipe card, sausages, speciality ingredients, syn free

syn-free sausage and tomato bake

You’re not just getting a blog post tonight, you’re getting a whole new page and a recipe! Gosh we spoil you. You can find the new page by clicking here and unusually, I’d LOVE feedback – any possible questions, things I’ve got wrong, the usual guff. In the meantime, as a treat for us forgetting to post last week, here’s another recipe – it’s just a sausage and pasta bake but it’s the perfect vehicle for any old shite you have leftover in the fridge.

Firstly, a reassurance – if you DON’T have pasta that is shaped like giant, shaven, tidy vaginas then do not worry – you can use any pasta at all in this. Use a mixture, use the drags from the back of the cupboard with the weevils crawling on it for added protein, use spaghetti, noodles, the works! It’ll be syn free as long as you use your healthy extras for the cheese (70g reduced fat parmesan) and the bread bun.

to make syn-free sausage and tomato bake you’ll need:

ingredients: pasta, two tins of tomatoes, Slimming World sausages (syn-free, but if you want, get some very low-syn sausages and syn accordingly), an onion, garlic, reduced fat cheese, quark and a wholemeal bun whizzed up into breadcrubs.

to make syn-free sausage and tomato bake you should:

recipe: cook your pasta in water so salty it would be a sailor cry, drain and set aside. Meanwhile, chop your onion and garlic, fry it off gently in a drop of oil, add your tinned tomatoes and let it simmer down. Grill your sausages and cut into discs.

Now – for our bake, we added sliced peppers, half a bag of wilting rocket and some jalapenos that were floating around in the fridge. Add whatever you like!

Combine everything in a great big pan and stir it like crazy. Get it all mixed up. Chuck it into a pyrex dish. Add the quark on the top, followed by the cheese and breadcrumbs, and pop it in the oven for thirty minutes. Finish it under the grill for another five to get it crunchy. Serve!

This makes four massive portions and like I said, is perfect for using up any leftover veg or pasta. It’s a very cheap and filling dish and even if you left out the sausages, would still serve as a lovely midweek meal.

Syn free!

Posted by

chubbycubs

Posted on

March 7, 2015

Posted under

bacon, breakfast, pork, recipe card, sausages, savoury snacks, snacks, syn free

dirty breakfast baps

I’m absolutely gutted, you know. I had a 3000 word (usual length only 1000, but it’s not the size of the post, it’s how many tears it brings to your eyes) post, I thought I’d clicked save, and nope. Disappeared. All those witticisms (it was the fourth part of our trip to Germany, which I forgot to finish) vanished into the digital ether, scattered to the wind like posts about Big Brother 5 and Connie Clickit. Bah! So, a quick improvised post about shoes.

I’m sure Paul would tell people that if I dropped a pound, it would land on the back of my neck as I bent down to pick it up. That’s unfair. I just hate spending money when I don’t need to, and my shoes illustrate this perfectly. I use the same Chelsea boots for everything – walking across the town moor, gardening, walking dogs, office wear, hammering in nails, scratching my back, smoothing icing – and they’ve finally given up the ghost, with the back heel actually falling off halfway through my trot into Newcastle last week, meaning I had to spend the day listing to one side like a badly loaded ferry. I was gutted – not just because I loved those shoes, but because it meant buying more, and that money could always be better spent on a nice bowl or a videogame. However, thriftiness saved the day, as I just took Paul’s old work shoes that we had wedged under our bed to stop the cats getting into the drawers. Obviously. Comfortable, didn’t smell like death like his shoes usually do – I was set for a good day. Until about 2pm when, obviously inspired by the break for freedom that my boots made, the entire sole of the shoe came away. Brilliant! Two years of Paul’s pitted keratolysis (and for fuck’s sake don’t google that – if you don’t know what it is, you’re better off) had clearly acted like an acid wash and ruined the fuckers, meaning I had to schlep around the office looking like Barry Tramp for the afternoon.

Anyway, if anyone reading this was PERHAPS STUCK FOR SOMETHING TO BUY ME FOR MY BIRTHDAY:

Men’s Dr Martens’ Congress, Size 11. Cheers. Gosh they’re on ebay and EVERYTHING. And yes, that is the right size!

Anyway, whilst I’ve got you all here, Paul and I have been chatting and we have some news. We’re going to make a couple of small changes to the blog just to give it a bit of structure – we currently struggle to post every day just because of work commitments and other boring nonsense. So we’re committing to five posts a week, all five of which will have a new SW recipe. The aim is for 1 weigh-in post (Tuesday), 1 quick-post (which is usually just where I post a recipe but I always end up gabbing on anyway) and 3 regular posts where you get plenty of sassy writing and anecdotes. To be quite honest, I’ll more than likely end up posting every day anyway, but I might be posting shorter updates occasionally. Both Paul and I work full-time in front of computers, and sometimes the last thing I want to be doing when I come home is typing out my usual flimflam! Plus, it takes time to prepare the photos and type out the recipe. It’s gotten to a point where I feel bad if I have a night off from writing and that’s a trifle silly.

I tell you what isn’t silly, though…these!

LOOK AT MY DIRTY BREAKFAST BAPS!

Syn-free breakfast! Using the SW syn-free sausages (alright if you hide them in a bun), bacon medallion, mushroom, well fried egg and grilled tomato. Healthy extra the bun, beans on the side, you’re laughing!

Posted by

chubbycubs

Posted on

March 5, 2015

Posted under

recipe card

that Paul has done a post

Just a quickie for tonight (oh aye) – James is stuck in his fancy office doing work and will be ’til the early hours. He’ll be like a hairier Quasimodo hanging from the town clock pining for a bit of quark come two o’clock. I’ve just come home from a meeting too so an unproductive evening on the website front, so apologies for that. Tomorrow though a spanking new recipe, I promise!

Hopefully you’ll enjoy reading the next part of my story. Please do feel free to leave feedback! This follows on from my earlier post here about my foray into cooking (or not)…

Not long after that I landed in Portsmouth. Despite living in a gorgeous house it was also stuffed with two 60-year old, orgy-loving, dungeon dwelling S&M queens (really gross, believe me), it was handily located on top of a massive hill which meant that every day I had to walk up the bastard thing to get home from the train station (getting down was alright, I just rolled). Couple that with having even less money to spend on food meant that I was pretty quickly shedding weight and lost nearly half of it in all the time I was there. I even skirted XL at one point. My diet though was still pretty bad – the first meal I made James when he came to see me was a cheese sandwich made on stale bread and stale cheese (y’know, when it looks like a cracked heel) and a stolen Petit Filous yoghurt from my housemate Fabian. He still wolfed it down though, the little trooper. It was the exercise, though, and the fact I HAD to do it (I couldn’t afford a bus!) that meant the weight had no choice really but to go down. It was quite nice at times. The hill was still knackering but it did become easier, and I was still eating all the things I loved. I started to notice though that I’d get very dizzy and when I played around with the blood glucose meter at work it was always a little too high for my liking. I tried to eat more healthily although I didn’t really know how to cook anything, but I could never last long because I just didn’t have the money in the first place to buy healthy things, nor have the foresight to actually plan things in advance to see things through the whole month (I was still having to buy food at the first opportunity, before my money went on debts!).

And so it pretty much just carried on like that until we finally moved in together Oop North. Our financial situation was much better meaning we could buy stuff that wasn’t convenience or just pure crap, and James was quite adept at throwing together a few different meals. We managed quite well, losing a little bit of weight here and there, before we finally joined Slimming World a few years later and wanted to do things properly. I started giving a few simple recipes a go, like the good ol’ Mince ‘n’ Mash (with real round potatoes!) and branching out into other things. I still remember the feeling of pride I had when I made my first ever spaghetti bolognese and served it up to an equally impressed James. I started experimenting even more with different things, still keeping it simple though, and relying on the Slimming World books like the One Pot ones and the ‘Extra Easy Express’ that nearly always meant that quick equalled easy.

We then moved into our current, gorgeous house, Cubs Towers and with it came a new kitchen that we were able to design (with the help of the Ikea man, natch) that we could make our own, and weed out those little annoyances we’d had in our old places, like no worktop space or a sink that was too small. We stuffed it full of no-end of gadgets (like the ones here and a load of books so that cooking could actually be fun. Armed with some pretty decent equipment (for once!) and no end of room I really started to branch out and develop my skills, something which I’m still doing even now! I still struggle with anything too complex but at least now I’ll give it a go and most of the time it works out alright. And that’s probably the best bit of advice I could give anyone – just try it! If you take the time and able to learn from your mistakes, just try it. Nothing bad can really happen if you get it wrong (except setting yourself on fire and getting salmonella, I suppose…) and if you get it right it means that you’ll become even more confident and competent. Looking back over some of the recipes I’ve cooked I really am quite surprised at how they’ve come out, given that a few years ago I couldn’t work a George Foreman grill.

Next, I’d really like to take a catering course. Not that I see myself becoming a professional chef in the future (Christ no, I couldn’t contain myself) but really just for fun and to develop my skills even more. Who knows, maybe we’ll end up on the telly. Hopefully thinner and more photogenic by that point, mind. And I wouldn’t mind more hair. Perhaps a boob lift too. Oh the possibilities are endless!

And there we have it. G’neet!

Posted by

chubbycubs

Posted on

March 4, 2015

Posted under

low syn, recipe card

croatian horse stew with gnocchi

For week five, we’re going to Croatia!

And be warned, today’s stew contains a stable ingredient. Literally, because I’m using horse. When Paul told me I’d be getting my lips around a black beauty, I thought my birthday had come early, but he merely meant this tasty horse-based stew from Croatia. Now listen – you can swap beef in if you’re a big fan of the whinnying little buggers, but I’m not, so into my belly it goes.

Speaking of horses, I’m handing over the reins tonight to my other half, who I’ve blackmailed into writing a blog post to give my fingers a rest. He’s out of beta, and releasing on time! Enjoy!

A bit of an unusual one for today – and not just for the choice of meat but because I (Paul!) am writing today’s post, instead of James!

I’m usually the ‘behind the scenes’, younger, more handsome (James edit: he’s not) half of Two Chubby Cubs – I tend to cook the meals whilst James works his magic on them fancy words in the posts. I don’t mind, I quite enjoy cooking (though I’m still very much an amateur) and I can never be arsed after a day typing at work to then do the same at home. And, it lets me catch up on my boring programmes that James whinges about (look, Korean war bunkers ARE interesting. I don’t care what everyone says) (James edit: they’re not).

I’ve had a bit of a backward route into cookery, it has to be said. At school I can remember making shortbread and rolls, and the rest of the time was spent gossiping and trying to stealthily hit the ‘Emergency Stop’ button for the electric ovens so we didn’t have to do anything (90%+ success rate, btw) and could go back to yakking. It’s only really been in the last few years that I’ve had a stab at anything other than the plastic film on a ready meal and bunging into the microwave.

I suppose I can blame my mother for that, mealtimes at home at their most exotic never ventured past a jar of Uncle Ben’s Sweet and Sour Sauce poured over a pack of slightly-frosty Kwik-Save Chicken Wings in a Pyrex dish. She did dally with switching to BBQ Sauce somewhere in the mid-90’s but realised the error of her ways and went back to the lesser of the two evils. The chicken was never pre-cooked and whilst I’m not sure if that mattered it always had a slight pink hue and a chewy texture that made you feel like you had a corner of a baby wipe in your mouth. To this day I still can’t eat chicken that has any bones. For the only time in my life I’m solely a breast man.

One thing I did like though was Mince ‘n’ Mash which I still love, though is essentially a pack of mince boiled in the water of tinned carrots and chopped tomato juice. I love it. James can only digest it if it has half a jar of Bisto poured in and half a pack of couscous so the actual meal itself is so diluted he can’t taste it. He just doesn’t appreciate a bit of povo-grub.

It was during my mid-teens that I learnt that too much of a good thing can actually start to get on your wick. Ma offered me once a ‘Freschetta’ pizza that was on offer at the local Spar – you remember it – the four cheese (and it was only ever the four-cheese one I was given. Pepperoni was 10p more) – where the crust rose in the oven. It was DELICIOUS. But, of course, once I said that it was like a red rag to a lazy bull. The very next day I counted and I swear this is all completely true) SIX of the bloody things piled on top of each other, a pile that never, ever seemed to go down no matter how hard I tried (and by God, did I try). To begin with I was in absolute heaven – I even managed to figure out the best way to eat it – use the crust to squeeze out the sauce from under the cheese and mop it up, so that it doesn’t spoil the true heaven that is frozen four-cheese gooiness on a frozen yeasty-floury slab. Lahhhvely. Soon though I started to miss actually going to the bog and the Freschetta love affair was over. “But you said you liked ‘em!”, she said, dodgy tab hanging off her bottom lip that she bought from some gypo at Whittlesey market. “I did! But after three weeks I could really do with some bloody vitamins!”. My protestations fell on deaf ears and I had to wait until the offer at Spar ended before I could once again actually have a crap and eat something else. A similar crisis of the bowel nearly erupted a few weeks later when a delivery of water-damaged Findus Crispy Pancakes filled up the freezer but I knew I had to act fast and feigned an allergic reaction to the breadcrumbs. I cried in relief when I saw those yellow fingers reach into a plastic bag and put that jar of “Uncle Den’s” (times were hard) into the cupboard and calm was restored.

That’s probably why I got so fat. Not that I was ever that skinny before the pizzas came along, heavens no, but I certainly didn’t learn how to eat anything remote healthy. Couple all of that along with some knock-off sweets (Twax, Bouncy, Sprinters…) and it was a recipe for juvenile diabetes and a future shopping for clothes in the ‘husky’ sections at out-of-town garden centres.

This sort of thing pretty much carried on into my late-teens and didn’t end even after I left home. I soon went off to University and my bad eating habits carried on there. This time, however, with even less cooking as I realised my mother’s ability to switch the oven past 180 degrees made her look like Raymond Blanc next to my paltry skills and inability to even know how to chop an onion. I also had to get by on a paltry budget – £400 a month was my bursary and a good £370 of that was earmarked for fags, Lambrini and the monthly mince along to the Dot Cotton club (a gem on an otherwise clap-riddled, drab East Anglian gay scene. RIP Dot!). I also had to buy all my shopping in one go (immediately after that payment went into my account) before I pissed it all up the wall at the on-site Burger King, so it almost entirely went on crisps, chocolate and Diet Coke (gotta watch that figure, after all!) and for some reason no end of sauces. I remember coming home with bags and bags but having nothing that I could throw together into a proper meal, but you could have an absolute fiesta if you came to Room 231 armed with a battalion of breadsticks. This carried on and on and on and eventually I reached the whopping weight of 28 stone. There’s a picture of me somewhere where I’m standing against a wall, but my head is miles away from the wall itself. It’s awful. A combination of bad food and bad habits meant that any sort of weight-loss was going to be impossible (not that I was even trying). I became responsible mostly too for preparing the meals at the place I worked (hospital) which meant easy access to an endless supply of biscuits and other tidbits. I once ate 12 individual cherry cheesecakes that were destined for the patients’ table in one shift (sorry about that) and I routinely had a pint of whole milk and a packet of chocolate bourbons stashed out the back to get me through the day. I was also drinking loads in the evenings which would have meant even more calories bunged on top of stolen NHS produce. No end was in sight, but, I was young and I didn’t really care and I never really felt that ‘fat’ so had no intention of stopping.

The rest of Paul’s story will come tomorrow! Don’t want to spoil you all, after all, it’s late and I want my hot chocolate. Tonight’s recipe:

To be fair, I think I’ve managed to bastardise two separate recipes here, but it stays fairly close to a Croatian staple – a stew from the Dalmatia area of Croatia. It’s normally served with gnocchi with parmesan, hence I’ve put them on above. It’s not the best picture, sorry.

A note on the horse. Horse is a very lean, very slimming meat and very good if you’re on a diet and don’t have any qualms about eating the poor buggers. I bought mine from www.musclefood.com but you can very easily swap it for beef, though try and get something nice and lean. I’ll say neigh more about it except to tell you it tasted like good lean meat!

The syns come from red wine (worked out at 2.5 syns per serving) and the gnocchi (1.5 syns). You could have it with mash and save the syns right there, and perhaps make a gravy with one of those red wine stock pots then I think it would be free. But honestly.

to make croatian horse stew with gnocchi, you’ll need:

ingredients: 750g of horse steak or beef with no fat, cut into chunks, two large red onions, rosemary, 1/2 cup of red wine vinegar, two cloves of garlic peeled, a drop or two of oil or if you must, Frylight, two carrots, a celeriac, a bay leaf, two cloves, salt, pepper and paprika. You’ll also need a beef stock cube and some water. Oh, and around 300ml of red wine. I know fuck all about wine, go for something decent but remember it’s going to just evaporate off so…

to make croatian horse stew with gnocchi, you should:

recipe: slice your onions (Remember, use a mandolin. Quick and easy, just like the author) and chuck them in a pan with a bit of oil and salt to saute down. Add your horse/beef and brown it off. Now, cut up your carrot and celeriac and chuck them in, just for a moment or two, and chuck the red wine after it, high heat, let it boil off a bit. Finally, put everything into the slow cooker with all the spices and bay and seasoning, put on low, and cook until you really want it. Cook gnocchi by hoying it into boiling water and when it floats, serve up with the stew. You can have 70g of light parmesan if you want, but you don’t need that much!

I actually did something a bit different – I cut the horse and onions up the night before and marinated them in the red wine overnight before the night they were slow-cooked. You could do this, but it’s not that necessary.

Enjoy!

J, and for one night only (and well, tomorrow), P!

Posted by

chubbycubs

Posted on

March 3, 2015

Posted under

american, bacon, beef, beef mince, fakeaways, italian, low syn, pizza, pork, recipe card, taster ideas

bacon cheeseburger pizza

I very nearly became a Slimming World consultant, you know.

I say very nearly, it was as near as most of my other fleeting fancies, but I made the effort to make contact, drop in my details, attempt to find out more. I had plenty of cold hard cash ready to be handed over gladly to Magic Margaret and her Synning Sisters but alas, despite chasing three times, I got one phone call which was rearranged and then totally ignored. Ah well. Part of me remains disappointed because I think I’ve got the sassy people skills to really get a group moving. But most of me thinks that my money (well, our money) is better off in my pocket and that’s that.

I’ve been going to Slimming World classes on and off for over ten years now, and they’ve never changed. Which is clearly a good thing, because the results speak for themselves and I’ve been lucky – I’ve never been to a bad class. Actually, tell a fib, yes I have – I had to sit through twenty minutes where the class gave advice to someone with piles – what best to eat for soft poo. Plus, if you get a boring consultant, the class drags something chronic, although I haven’t had one of those in a long, long time. I did have some great ideas – Paul stepping in as my Debbie McGee in a glittery bikini on the payment counter, a wheel of fortune to win something decent other than a banana that fell off the side of the ark and a Mugshot, interactive recipes…the works. But it wasn’t to be.

The reason I’m bumbling on about classes is because of our recent decision to move to a different class – it’s primarily so that we can stay to class as I feel we get a lot more out of it, not least because I get to blabber on about recipes and make smutty jokes. When we get weighed and go out the door, we almost lose a sense of responsibility – that although we are following the diet, we’re only paying lip service to it. So, we needed to find a class that works for us in terms of times, and although ironically we have managed to miss tonight’s because of a late finish at work, Tuesday evening will be our new weigh-in.

Finally, as an aside, I made a post in a FB SW group about people not being able to say please or thank you. It’s always the same – some blurry, off-brand yoghurt thrust too far to the lens on their phone with a comment like ‘HOW MANI SINS’ and it does my nut in. I’ll personally help anyone if I have the time, but I can’t bear bad manners. Thankfully, and somewhat reassuringly, most people have weighed in with complete agreement, with only the odd little dolt kicking up a stink at someone having the temerity to ask for manners. Well. The day I take criticism who has Inside Soap listed as a ‘favourite book’ on their facebook page is the day I shut my bollocks in a car-door. MANNERS MAKETH THE MAN.

Tell you what else maketh the man? Meat. And pizza. And cheeseburger. Well, look at this for goodness sake. You might as well jog on if you’re one of those people who won’t use syns on their dinner, despite THAT BEING EXACTLY what they are for…!

so, to make bacon cheeseburger pizza:

This is six syns for a quarter, but it makes a big pizza, and served with chips will fill the hole nicely. Put it this way, if you were to have a big pizza from Dominos, you’d be racking up syns in the sixties and seventies. Treat this as a treat…

ingredients for the crust: 125g of strong white bread flour, a packet of yeast (7g), 75ml of lukewarm water and a pinch of salt

ingredients for the topping: use a HEA for each of you – so 65g of mozzarella is one HEA, and 40g of grated light cheddar is the other. You’ll also need lean mince (5% or under), gherkin slices and a few medallions of bacon. Hoy some chilli flakes on too.

recipe (which I’m going to split into bullet points from now on for this blog – step by step):

make the crust – put the flour into a mixing bowl or a stand mixer, add yeast on one side, salt on the other, water in the middle and knead it together using your hands (wash them first, I know where they’ve been) or a dough hook (infinitely easier). When you have a big lump, stop, cover the bowl in cling film and leave it to prove for an hour or so;
prepare the toppings – grate your cheese, fry off your mince in a tiny drop of oil and some onion powder, fry off your bacon and cut into strips, cut your gherkins, do a little dance, make a little love, get down tonight;
stretch your dough, hoy some tomato puree over it, add cheese, add mince, gherkins, tomatoes if you want them, bit more cheese, bacon;
cook in the oven for twenty minutes and serve with chips.

Tasty!