Tag Archives: beef

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October 21, 2015

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beef, beef joints, low syn, recipe card

bloody mary beef, discuss

Tonight’s recipe comes from a friend who recommended it to me with such gusto and fervency that I couldn’t refuse. She’s one of the three who hold the keys to my chains at work, so I couldn’t really say no – but as it happens, we had a chunk of beef the size of a Volkswagen Golf parked in our freezer that kept tumbling onto Paul’s toes whenever he reached for the frozen peas, so it was a decent opportunity to use that up. Right? It’s a Jamie Oliver recipe made suitable for Slimming World and it pretty much cooks itself overnight in a slow-cooker, so even you can do it. A lot of people don’t care for Jamie Oliver but I rather like the man – he’s got a good heart and seems to mean well. Fair enough, he might have a face not unlike an over-inflated tyre, but still. Nobody’s perfect.

I still feel rotten (worse!) – my head feels like someone has sucked out my brain and piped in a load of cotton wool. My joints ache and my jaw is throbbing, though that’s possibly from telling Paul over and over and over again how manky I’m feeling. So you’ll forgive me if I’m not here long. That said, I wanted to mention the most ridiculous argument I had last night with some absolute stream of arse-gravy who was trying to have a pop at me for explaining how to cook an omelette. Her ‘proposal’ was to find a zippable (?) sandwich bag, pour in four eggs, seal the bag, break the eggs up, open the bag, add all the toppings, seal it again, boil the bag in a pan full of water and then after a few minutes, out slides the “omelette’ like a bright orange poo full of undigested tomato. Apparently, this saves time.

For goodness sake. An omelette is one of the quickest meals you can make as long as you’re not so mentally deficient you don’t know how to crack an egg, and if that’s the case, you’d perhaps be better served colouring in and eating lead. Crack eggs into jug, beat the eggs, pour into pan, allow to stiffen, add toppings, fold over, finish under grill. If James Martin and some random bag of hormones from Hollyoaks can do it on Saturday Kitchen then so can anyone. I mentioned this and got “well we can’t all be fucking mastercheffs‘, followed by lots of huffing and unbecoming puffing and argument style which felt like I was getting sassed by Dizzee Rascal, which doesn’t quite suit a “full time mammy” from Surbiton. Ignoring the fact that she’d quite semi-literally over-egged the pudding with her ‘recipe’, I’d hardly call being able to make an omelette ‘highly-skilled’. I chose a decent deal in Subway this morning and saved £1.35, that doesn’t make me Lord bloody Sugar. Thank Christ, his earlobes terrify me. Why must we revel in ignorance? I exited the “conversation” when I realised she looked the double of H from Steps and I couldn’t write anything without shoehorning in a Steps reference. 

OK, I sneaked two in. I said it was a Tragedy that she was getting so upset, and that the conversation was Better Best Forgotten. What AM I like.

The recipe, then. You don’t need to use the vodka, but really, it evaporates off during cooking and anyway, it’s so few syns it’s not worth stressing about. Also, this makes so much (serves eight, easily) that you can save some of the meat and sauce and mix with spaghetti the day after for lunch.

bloody mary beef

so to make bloody mary beef, you’ll need:

  • 1kg beef – we used a roasting joint from Tesco
  • 3 stalks of celery, chopped into chunks
  • 4 small red onions, peeled and quartered
  • 700g passata
  • 1x bouquet garni bag
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 3cm piece of horseradish, finely grated OR 1 tbsp from a jar (1 syn)
  • 2 tbsp worcestershire sauce
  • few drops of Tabasco sauce
  • 3 tbsp vodka (6 syns, barely)
  • juice of half a lemon

so to make bloody mary beef, you should:

  • juice of half a lemon
  • instructions:
  • preheat the oven to 130 degrees celsius (gas mark 1/2)
  • heat a large casserole dish (we bought one of these a while back (click) and although expensive, we use it almost daily – well worth the money – also, reduced by £40!) on the hob over a medium heat and add a splash of oil
  • season the beef with salt and pepper and add to the hot pan and cook for about ten minutes, until it’s browned all over
  • add the chopped celery and onions to the pan, reduce the heat to low and cook for about 5-10 minutes until he veg has softened slightly
  • mix together the passata, horseradish, worcestershire and tabasco sauce, vodka and lemon juice in a jug with 250ml water, and pour into the pan. stir to mix
  • lob in the bouquet garni bag 
  • cut out some greaseproof paper to just larger than the casserole dish and place over the top, pushing the middle of the paper down onto the surface of the food – this helps create a better ‘seal’
  • cover with the lid and cook in the oven for five hours
  • when cooked, pull the beef apart with two forks and serve – in our case, we served with horseradish mash (make mash, add horseradish and boiled cabbage) and tenderstem broccoli

Delicious!

J

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October 19, 2015

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

date-wrecking asian garlic beef

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

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

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

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

Staff were lovely though.

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

asian garlic beef

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

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

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

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

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

Dead easy!

J

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October 16, 2015

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

slimming world moussaka

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

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

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

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

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

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

Casa_Julia_LowRes_Sept14_SH_02 (1)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

slimming world moussaka

to make slimming world moussaka you’ll need:

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

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

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

Coo, I’m knackered.

J

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October 6, 2015

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beef, beef joints, british, fakeaways, low syn, recipe card, sauces

roast beef with french onion gravy

BEFORE I BEGIN. We have a major backlog of comments. I turned off notifications for the blog when I went away on holiday, forgot to turn them back on and just noticed I’ve got 78 comments to approve. Oops. If you have commented and you’re sitting there thinking what a rude fucker I am for not replying, I apologise profusely. I’ll work through them. OK? So calm down!

Gosh. Finally something to do with that slab of beef I’ve had chilling in the kitchen going a bit green. Yes, I set him to work cooking some roast beef for ma dinner. BOOM. He deserves to be put to work, anyway, for the cheeky crack he made about me in my new coat, which zips right up to under my chins. Upon seeing me (and remembering that I’m especially bearded at the moment) in my fancy new coat, he told me my ‘face looked like a seventies porno muff’. Nice!

I’m spending the evening looking at hotels and bits and bobs to do in Iceland. We’ve decided to give Air B&B a go. 

I know, I know. We’re asking for trouble. 

I’ve always wanted to stay at a B&B, because they’re usually somewhere beautiful and it doesn’t quite feel like you’re sleeping in the jizz-dust of 1,000 businessmen that have literally come before you. But I just can’t. For one, I have a shit poker face, and if I was shown into a room and I didn’t like it, the disappointment avalanching across my ashen face would immediately make me an enemy of the host and she’d spit in my breakfast. I can’t bear chintz and flimflam and unnecessary accessories (although that would make a good band name, no?) either, so unless it was a perfectly sterile room decorated in tiny nice things, I’d feel uncomfortable. Then there’s the small talk – I don’t want to be fussed over as I try not to die in my morning coffee or asked where I’m going / how I’m getting there or tutted at when I don’t take my boots off. I’d spend the entire time away agonising over any little offence I may have caused that I’d simply need another holiday afterwards to relax. 

That said, I did once see a B&B on Four in a Bed where about two hundred cats roamed the property and it was pretty much a guarantee that you’d end up in bed with a hairy Persian sitting on your face – and well, that sounds good to me.

Speaking of cats, we took ourselves off to Mog on the Tyne (what can I say, I’m a sucker for puns – I’d eat my dinner in a clap clinic if it was given a pun for a name…something like Spotted Dicks or The Leaky Bucket) a couple of weeks ago. Mog on the Tyne is Newcastle’s first cat café and, with a rare afternoon off, Paul and I decided to try it. 

It’s brilliant. The food is basic café food – paninis, quiche, brownies et al – but the focus lies squarely on the ten or so cats that mill around the place, fighting, purring or – as is always the case with me – showing their bumholes as you try to finish your brownie. The café is fitted out with all sorts of toys, climbing frames and beds and the cats seem perfectly content – of course they are, they’re getting made a fuss of. You have to pay a fiver each for entry (which is unusual, because in the Bigg Market, usually it only takes a Blue WKD and a ten-deck of Lambert and Butler to be guaranteed entry) (sorry) which pays towards the upkeep of the cats, and the food is reasonable quality. It was a charming way to spend an hour and I’d heartily recommend it if you’re a cat fan. Of course, if you’re not a cat fan, then you have other options available, such as having a quiet word with yourself regarding the direction your life has taken. Our favourite cat was seemingly everyone else’s – a beast of a pussy called Stan who had suffered a nasty road accident. Aye, he took the bend at Billy Mill roundabout at 50mph in a Ford Capri and lost control. 

No, he got run over and although he’s fine now, he’s unable to put his tongue in his mouth, meaning he has a permanently dopey expression. I’ve shamelessly stolen a picture from another blog because all of my photos look like I’ve taken them using a potato (credit to fragglerocking.com – click here to read their report).

stan-fraggle

Now then! You can find more details on Mog on the Tyne at their website – www.mogonthetyne.com – give them a go!

Of course, the bonus of visiting Mog on the Tyne was that as soon as we got back, our cats were all over us like flies on muck. I felt like a husband cheating on his missus, especially as the cats kept sniffing the end of my fingers and recoiling (which to be fair, I do myself). Awkward.

Right, tonight’s recipe.

roast beef with french onion gravy

to make roast beef with french onion gravy, you’re gonna need:

  • 1kg beef (silverside or topside) – tip if you’re a tightarse, scour the reduced sections in your supermarket on Monday morning, they’ll always be shifting beef
  • 8 small carrots or four large ones or two massive carrots or one carrot as big as your leg – chopped

Sorry, can I just jump in here and say how much I hate logging onto Slimming World’s website to check syns? It’s the ‘Log in and Love It’ slogan. Love what? Using a website that acts and feels like it was built back when geocities was a thing? Love typing ‘olive oil’ into the syns checker and getting nothing but typing ‘artisanal rice crackers’ and getting Tesco’s entire stock inventory? Fucks sake.

  • 1 celery stick, chopped
  • 170ml white wine (6 syns)
  • 600ml beef stock
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 500g brown onions
  • 1 tsp honey (1 syn)
  • 3 sprigs of thyme
  • 1 tbsp corn flour (1 syn)

Shit the bed! Eight syns! Yes, but the syns all belong in the gravy and unless you’re going to be drinking from the gravy boat, you’ll not get anywhere near eight syns. Hell, this serves 4 anyway. So calm down.

to make roast beef with french onion gravy, like a big bloody pansy, you should:

  • preheat the oven to 160 degrees and heat a large casserole dish
  • lube up your meat with a little oil and plenty of salt and pepper
  • pack your meat in the warm, waiting dish and return to the oven to brown for about ten minutes
  • meanwhile, spray a frying pan with a little Frylight and fry the carrots and celery for ten minutes, and it’s alright to spend five minutes shaking your fist at the sky at a cruel God who decided celery should be a thing
  • plop your meat out of the pan, and slap it to one side
  • pour the wine into the casserole dish and boil for two minutes over a high heat
  • pour in the stock, return the beef and add the carrots, celery and bay leaves – you’ll feel like such a posh fucker using bay leaves
  • cover and return to cook in the oven for two hours, turning the meat halfway – you don’t need to wait at the oven until exactly sixty minutes to turn it, this isn’t The Cube
  • meanwhile, thinly slice the onions and heat a little oil in a large frying pan
  • stir in the onions, thyme and seasoning to taste
  • cover and cook gently for twenty minutes on a low heat until the onions are soft but not coloured (racist)
  • remove the lid, increase the heat and add a little more oil and the honey and cook the onions until they caramelise, stirring often
  • remove the thyme sprigs, brush the cat’s teeth with them or something
  • when the beef is ready remove from the casserole dish and leave to rest
  • reheat the onion mixture, stir in the corn flour and cook for one minute
  • mix the onions into the casserole dish to make a thick gravy – you’ll want it thick enough that it runs down the side of your meat and makes your tatties sticky
  • slice the beef and pour the gravy over the top – now, if you’re not good at slicing meat, let someone competent do it – Paul cuts meat like he’s shaving a fucking ice-sculpture with a chainsaw – we only get two slices a pop from our sourdough
  • serve with a fabulous selection of superfree food, or, in our case, more roasties than ten decent people would eat

Get it down you!

J

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October 1, 2015

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american, beef, beef mince, burgers, fakeaways, low syn, recipe card

let’s all go down the strand – have a cheeseburger sloppy joe bake

Paul’s done his back in thanks to a bit of adventurous moving around of our giant new sofa last night, so I’m free to type away with gay abandon tonight. We’re fretting that the new sofa is a smidge too big, given you could perfectly easily get a whole rugby team spread akimbo on there. Maybe that’s our plan, thank fuck we bought the leather guard. I’m going to tell you – the recipe tonight looks so dreadful but it tastes amazing. I say it looks dreadful – it looked BLOODY AMAZING, but so bad for you…

So, what to talk about? How about our trip to Corsica? You know I love a good tale and well, with Paul off his tits on tramadol and a bit of Murray Gold playing, now is the time. Oh, about that – we’ve kitted the house out in SONOS speakers and it is absolutely fucking amazing. They’re essentially very loud, very good, very connected speakers that allow you to play music in any room, all controlled by the iPad. The advertising shows a sophisticated couple listening to a spot of Debussy in their study before retiring to bed accompanied by Radio 4. The reality, in our house at least, is that Paul has to endure me caterwauling my way through Now That’s What I Call Period Pain 85 whilst sitting on the shitter. Mind, the flipside of that is that we get woken up by Meat Loaf blasting away inches from my face first thing in the morning. A boy can dream, though I mean, no, Meat Loaf is amazing but he has a face like a chewed toffee, so perhaps not. Bloody sidetracked again!

Why Corsica? The answer I’d like to give is that I saw it once in a Guardian travel section and fell in love with the beautiful scenery and tasteful architecture, but actually, the real reason was that a good friend of mine at work, who always travels to impeccably smart places, raved about it – and I’m incredibly easily led. Wherever she goes I end up perusing and following. I hope she doesn’t tell me when her next smear test is otherwise I’ll find myself at Wansbeck Hospital with my legs in the air and a Magic Tree hanging on my willy before you can say ‘I hardly think that’s appropriate’. Listen I don’t know how it all works. I honestly thought Corsica was a Greece island but no, it turns out that it’s a wee island off the coast of France, full of mountains, white sandy beaches and men who drive their cars like they’re in a video game. Take a moment to have a look. We booked it through Simpson Travel, another first for us because we normally like to plan and book the flights, villa and car hire ourselves. They were faultless – expensive, but you get what you pay for.

We decided to get the train down to London the day before our flight so we could “see the sights” and as a result, we found ourselves in a taxi at 5.30am trying awkwardly to make conversation with a man whose entire conversational skillset amounted to ‘money now’, ‘where you go’ and, presumably, ‘don’t scream and it’ll be quick’. I’ve mentioned before that I worry that as soon as we’ve minced off into the sunset with our tasteful matching Calvin Klein suitcases the taxi will nip back to the house and the driver will steal all our silver. So, to that end, I spent a good ten minutes airily declaring that I hoped the neighbours ‘didn’t set off our alarm’ and that ‘our flatmate would be back early’. I can’t act a jot, so god knows how we didn’t return to an empty shell of a house. I’m such a ham.

The train journey was exactly what you’d expect from a three hour early morning jaunt into London – full of people coughing gently, snoring and farting. Certainly Paul kept his side of the bargain up within ten minutes of boarding. We were in first class but really, what does that mean in the UK? You get a seat that reclines an extra inch and the steward throws you a croissant ten minutes after boarding. Clearly they decided that any decent person wouldn’t want more than one snack because the trolley never appeared again, despite me trying to catch the eye of the bustling steward who did nothing more than purse his lips at me. We did get several free cups of hot brown water from a kettle marked ‘coffee’ but as this tasted like enema run-off, I didn’t bother. Time passed slowly – I couldn’t very well fall asleep because I might have missed something free, plus I didn’t want my unattractive sleep face to end up on Buzzfeed as part of a ‘Sleep face or Cum face’ quiz. Such is life. 

We arrived into Kings Cross exactly on time and immediately headed over to Left Luggage to hand over our holiday belongings and give the woman behind the counter plenty of time to rifle through our medications and hold our boxer shorts up to the light. I asked how much it would be to leave them for a few hours and when she replied, I honestly thought she’d misheard me and thought I’d requested that she buys them outright. Fucking hell London, you so expensive. Now we all know London is expensive and busy so I’ll try to avoid moaning about that too much, but rest assured dear readers that I spent a lot of time saying ‘HOW MUCH’ and ‘COME AGAIN’ and making jibes about needing to get out a mortgage just to pay the tube fare. Paul, to his credit, only rolled his eyes to the back of his head eighty seven times.

Our first stop was a quick ride on the cable car over the Thames. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, if I’m honest, but although it was fun being high up, I was too distracted by thoughts of tumbling into the murky brown Thames below to really enjoy it. I did enjoy the fact they market it as a round trip to ‘savour all the sights’ – presumably for those who can’t crane their necks in both directions. We nipped off and into the A380 experience, which was a tiny museum dedicated to Airbus planes. There was a chance to pose inside a cockpit but we had to wait fifteen minutes whilst someone who’d clearly been cultivating his body odour for seven months took a photo of himself from every direction. I noted his unkempt hair and dirty trousers and genuinely thought – for the first time in my life – that poor bloke needs someone to love him and tidy him up. That, and his internet activity carefully monitored. As soon as I was able to sit down in the captain’s chair (and remember I had to wait for his BO to disperse – I genuinely thought the oxygen masks might have dropped down, and this was a fake fucking plane) we started taking photos – Paul posing with the ‘FLAPS’ handle, me wearing a Captain’s hat and straddling the chair like a slutty stewardess. Thankfully none of these photos will be making their way onto here, though I don’t doubt we’re on a ‘Don’t Let These People Into The Exhibition’ poster in the staffroom, along with ole Vinegarpits.

We then furiously minced down to get a riverboat back into ‘central’ London, which was charming until the smell of the churned riverbanks hit me. Was London going to leave me with permanent wrinkles from all the time I spent trying not to gag? I’ve visited many, many times before and love the city, but I don’t know whether it was the heat or something but it stank. We alighted at Tower Bridge and made our way to The Shard, which was something I almost did in my boxers when they told me the price for two blokes to get in a lift and wander around high in the sky – £60! They sneakily hide the price until you get to the register so you can’t back out else you’d look like a tight-arse, but jesus, I can get the same feeling at work and I get bloody paid for the privilege. The lift was lovely but they let far too many people onto the viewing floor at once including a coach tour of elderly Welsh ladies – I feel like I spent £60 to glimpse tiny London through a mist of Steradent and blue-rinsed hair. We, sadly, left rather quickly. I always feel like this when I’m supposed to experience things – I know that I am supposed to be astonished by how wonderful the view is or high up we were, but I just end up angry by everyone else existing and how much the windows needed a bit of vinegar and newspaper. Bah.

We decided at this point to collect the luggage and head to our hotel instead for holiday bumfun and room service. I wish I could say that we chose a wonderful boutique hotel somewhere charming, but we actually spent the night at the Thistle Hotel at Heathrow Airport, which is very much a place where middle-aged stationery salesmen go to badly fuck their secretaries in a mist of regret and Joop. I’ve never been so underwhelmed by the exterior of a building, and you must remember that I spent a summer in Southend once. We chose this hotel for a reason, though, and it certainly wasn’t the architecture. No, see, it’s connected to Terminal 5 via the ‘Pod’ system, and that is AMAZING to us as two very geeky lads. It’s essentially a little taxi service but you get your own ‘Pod’ and it drives itself! GASP. Press a button, and a tiny robotic chamber comes beetling down the track and you climb inside. They’re sleek, purple and spacious, although it does feel a bit like you’re wheeling your suitcase into a portable toilet. Then it silently trundles along a track by itself and drops you off wherever you need to be. It’s the future! Of course, being the UK, we were immediately charged £5 each for having the temerity to take a driverless car to the hotel. What’s that charge for? I certainly didn’t see anyone behind the thing pushing it and humming. Bastards. 

We were shown to our room, and of course, it was very conveniently placed only a short flight away from the reception desk, and it was…perfunctory. It had a bed, it was clean, the TV boasted colour and at least six channels, so we went to sleep, woke only to order room service (£17 for a burger that I could have planed my feet with) and watch Doctor Who, and suddenly it was time to depart for our flight. That’s where we can leave it for now.

Tonight’s recipe is a perfect recipe for a family or a large group, but if you want to scale it down, feel free – just make less, or, as we do, make enough for six and eat it all greedily, using your shame tears to salt your chips. We know how you tick. You need to healthy extra your cheese and bun and it looks messy, but just go for it. You’ll use 4.5 syns for the whole dish, but serving six, it’s up to you if you count it. You could use less oil or not bother with the sesame seeds!

cheeseburger sloppy joe bake

to make cheeseburger sloppy joe bake, you’ll need:

  • 500g 5% minced beef (struggling to find cheap beef? BUY OUR BOX OF MEAT AND NEVER LOOK BACK)
  • 1 tsp each of salt, pepper, cumin and mustard powder
  • 1/2 tsp smoked papika
  • 1 onion, chopped
  • 3 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 tin of chopped tomatoes, drained
  • 6 slices of cheese
  • 6 wholemeal buns (one being a HEB, mind)
  • one egg
  • 1/2 tsp honey (0.5 syns)
  •  1.5 tbsp worcestershire sauce
  • 1 tbsp mustard (1 syn for dijon)
  • 1 tbsp sesame seeds (3 syns)

and to make cheeseburger sloppy joe bake, you should:

  • throw the oven up to 180 degrees, yeah I said throw, I’m cool and with it
  • fry the onion gently in a little oil or frylight (fools!) with your minced garlic
  • add the mince and get your meat brown, chuck the salt, pepper, cumin, mustard and paprika in, because why not
  • cooked through? add the tomatoes and simmer down until it’s thickened nicely
  • spray your little oven dish (big enough to hold six ‘burgers’ pressed together) with a drop of oil or frylight (why would you? WHY?) (YOU’RE A HEATHEN, HARRY)
  • slice the rolls into half and put the bottom halves into the dish, making sure they’re as snug as a bug in a rug
  • pour the beef mixture on top of the buns and top each ‘roll’ with a slice of cheese
  • put the tops on
  • mix together the egg, worcestershire sauce, honey and mustard and brush over the top of the buns (you’ll not use all of it, so reduce the syn value even more!)
  • sprinkle on the sesame seeds
  • bake in the oven for twenty minutes, making sure it doesn’t catch, then serve!

GOODNESS ME.

Don’t forget to serve it with speed food. Obviously.

J

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September 6, 2015

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

Mongolian beef

Firstly, big welcome to all the new subscribers! I’ve noticed one hell of a spike over the weekend – good to see you all! I hope you’re fans of knob gags and decent food, because that’s what you’ll be getting. Something I keep meaning to mention – if you leave a comment and I don’t reply or it doesn’t appear immediately, don’t worry, I’ve seen it – I’m just not at my desk to reply to it! But I always get around to it and because I’m an arrogant lover, I like hearing from you all. So, you know…

Here, can we all agree that the silly woman in that bloody Oral B advert can fuck right off with her ‘go pro with my toothpaste’ schtick? It’s been a long time since an advert annoyed me so. I can’t decide if it’s because of the way she delivers her lines like one of those gap-yah knobbers who inflect every syllable upwards like they’re asking questions, or whether it’s because we’re supposed to give the shiniest of shites about her dentist appointment? Perhaps it’s the fact SHE HAS NO FUCKING TOOTHPASTE ON HER BRUSH WHEN SHE’S BRUSHING HER TEETH. Plus the toothpaste must have one hell of an anaesthetic in it given she seems to paralyse one side of her face after brushing, the smug twatapotamus that she is. Anyway.

Today’s been the first quiet day in a long while, hence you’re getting a blog post. Yesterday we had to have our electrician around as an emergency because the bathroom lights (installed three years ago) had been merrily trying to set the house on fire. Drama! That’s all fixed, but I could have done without him knocking on the door at 9am (instead of the agreed 10.30am) as it meant I had to go from fast-asleep to fresh-faced within twenty seconds. Those days are behind me – I look like I’ve fallen face-first into a fire for a good half hour in the morning until I’ve freshened up with a shower and four tankards of coffee.

Lucky I didn’t have morning glory, though I suppose could have given him somewhere to hang his cabling. He barrelled into the bathroom before I had a chance to check whether Paul had left one of his trademark ‘freshly-ploughed field’ skidders on the toilet, so I just went back to bed and left Paul to deal with any potential embarrassment. We’ve had top luck with all of our ‘tradespeople’ so far, luckily. Certainly no-one has felt they’ve needed to do the whole ‘TITS AND FOOTBALL’ chatter that never washes with us, although I did manage to embarrass myself with the joiner who has been fitting out our wardrobes by asking him if he had wood. I should have just committed and leered at him instead of letting the tops of my ears go red.

So today we’ve had a lie-in – well, Paul did, I got woken up by one of the cats who, yet again, decided that the very first thing I needed to see when I woke up was her puckered bumhole glaring at me as she fussed about on the duvet. It’s not fair, Paul would sleep through a gas explosion whereas I wake up if someone sighs in Darlington. I reckon Sola knows that and decided that 9am was when she wanted her food, so I needed to be up. Ah well. After two hours of me making increasingly loud noises in the kitchen, Paul rolled out of bed and we were on our way to the cat and dog shelter.

Regular readers will know that Paul and I regularly walk dogs at our local cat and dog shelter, Brysons. It’s an easy way to get a bit of body magic and the dogs bloody love it. Brysons do amazing work with so little funding so we’re happy to help, plus we had a bucketload of extra donated food that my work had put in for, so all was great. We were given this little beauty:

tansie

Aww. I’m not a fan of small dogs – especially yappy breeds – but she was adorable, even if I did pick her up for a photo only for her to lick so excitedly at my face that her tongue actually went into my mouth. I don’t know who came off worse in that situation frankly, but if the bitch doesn’t buy me some flowers and arrange a second date I’ll be fizzing.

After the dog was walked, we decided (against better judgement) to have a spin out in the car and go to Dalton Park, which is a local outlet centre. We apparently didn’t learn our lesson from our jaunt to Royal Quays, which was incredibly disappointing (link opens in a new window). We need some new shoes, shorts and shirts before we go to Corsica, and apparently there is a Cotton Traders there which is suitable for our vast frames.

Well, honestly. What a heap of shite. For one thing, it was absolutely rammed to the point where we were struggling to park – and this was at 3.30pm on a Sunday afternoon. Who the hell wakes up on a Sunday and decides that what they really want to do on their day off is look around an M&S outlet centre, buy a factory-seconds bag of Turkish Delight and enjoy a sun-warmed fly-buzzed potato in Spud-u-Like? I was immediately seething at the temerity of everyone else for bringing their bloody children along. Shopping should be a pleasurable experience and not feel like I’m on Total Wipeout trying to reach the tills with screaming children snottily orbiting my ankles. BAH. Still, I spotted a ‘The Works’.

I love The Works, it’s like someone created a load of nonsense books for a bet and put them out to see if they’d sell. Crotcheting the Norfolk Broads with Wincey Willis? The Better Sex Guide with the late Wendy Richards? Painting with Mist? Absolute tut! That said, we somehow managed to spend £50 on yet more cookbooks that will languish on our shelves unread and unloved until we have a fit and decide to donate them to charity. I swear we keep our local Scope exceptionally well-stocked for books, no wonder the lady who runs the shop drives a Mercedes and has a Radley bag which I BET someone donated. Scandal!

The lady behind the counter at The Works decided that no, putting eight hardback books into seperate bags was an entirely silly idea and really we would best be able to manage by putting all the books into one carrier bag and then quadruple-bagging it, meaning I had to struggle around the bloody shopping arcade like Sisyphus, trying desperately to mask my hard breathing and tomato face. Great fun. 

We did pop into Sports Direct for roughly fifteen seconds which was fourteen seconds longer than we needed to be reminded of why we never venture in there. It was awash – nay, it was crawling – with the slackjawed masses you see in the paper for shoplifting buying themselves new accessories to match their grey sweatpants.  Men shouldn’t be allowed to wear those grey sweatpants that hug every wrinkle and vein, it removes all the mystery for Paul and I as gay men, like knowing your Christmas present in advance. 

We ducked next door into the Adidas outlet and asked (well, no, interrupted the chat about football between him and a co-worker) the first member of staff we saw whether they had any size 12 trainers in stock. Well jesus, you’d think we’d asked him why sheep don’t shrink in the rain, he looked so dumbfounded. It’s not the most unusual of questions to ask in a fucking shoe-shop but hey, clearly when God was handing out brains he was off getting a second helping of mouth, so that was that. We gave up at this point and went home, stopping for a consolation McDonalds on the way home. I know I know, but if you won’t tell Margaret, nor will we.

Tell you what though, if you’re itching to tell Margaret anything, you could give her the recipe for this bloody lovely Mongolian beef.

mongolian beef

We served it on instant rice, for shame, with broccoli on the side, but the star of the show really is the beef – sticky, salty and delicious. 

to make Mongolian beef, you’ll need: 

  • 450g beef steak, sliced thinly – now you can buy decent enough stuff from Tesco, but remember, we’re big fans of Musclefood and you can buy stir fry strips of extra lean beef from there that are perfect for this dish by clicking here)
  • 25g corn flour (4.5 syns)
  • ½ tsp grated ginger (remember to put it in the bloody freezer after, don’t be buying new ginger every time!)
  • 3 garlic cloves, minced (use a microplane grater for your garlic and ginger and your fingers won’t smell so bad – buy one from Amazon for £9)
  • 120ml low sodium soy sauce (seriously now, use low sodium because otherwise it’s gonna be too salty and bad for your ticker)
  • 25g brown sugar (5 syns) (worth it – makes it sticky – this makes enough for four) (don’t bloody use sweetener, it won’t work)
  • ¾ tsp chilli pepper flakes
  • 3 spring onions, sliced (remember – leave an inch or so of root and then pot them into water – the onions will grow again!)

to make Mongolian beef, you oughta:

  • place the beef onto a clean, dry tea towel (or kitchen roll) in a single layer and pat dry – you want it drier than a nun’s gusset
  • add the meat to a bowl and sprinkle over the corn flour – toss (the flour) until evenly coated
  • heat a little oil / frylight in a large pan over a medium high heat
  • add the garlic and ginger and stir for a few minutes until it is nicely coloured
  • add the soy sauce, brown sugar, red pepper flakes and 120ml water to the pan and cook the mixture for about two minutes to thicken, then pour into a jug and set aside
  • heat the pan to high, add a little more frylight / oil  and cook the beef until browned on all sides
  • pour the sauce back into the pan and cook until the meat is thick, shiny and just waiting to be slid into your mouth
  • add the spring onions, reserving some to garnish, stir and serve on rice with a bit of onion on top

That’s Mongolian beef. IT’S JUST THAT EASY.

Until next time, lovers.

J

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July 23, 2015

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

beef in a honey and black pepper sauce

Remember me twittering on about our fancy lights? We’ve went and bought a new gadget – it’s a NEST smoke alarm. We need a new smoke alarm – we’ve been using our old one to prop the dishwasher up, and given the amount of vodka and aftershave in our house, it’s too risky not to have a working system. Now, this isn’t just a smoke alarm. It’s fancy. Real fancy. Our house is becoming the gadget city we always wanted, see. This smoke alarm hooks into my WiFi and will alert me if the batteries are low or if it detects smoke. And how does it do this? IT BLOODY WELL TALKS. Admittedly it’s in a plummy ‘don’t be scared, but you’re about to be cremated’ voice, whereas if I’m about to die, I want a fucking air-raid siren, not Joanna Lumley whispering me to the grave. If I’m honest, we only bought it because it a) works with our thermostat (it’ll thoughtfully turn the boiler off if it’s pumping out more poisonous smoke than the shelter outside a Mecca Bingo at the interlude) and b) it glows. It will momentarily glow green when you shut all the lights off so you know it works. It’ll glow red if you’re on fire. It’ll even glow white for 20 seconds in the hallway if you get up for a piss, which is handy if you’re like us and your bathroom lights are so intense that your helmet blisters as you urinate. 

Speaking of bright, they say you should always look on the bright side of life. I generally do. My days aren’t often filled with wonder and drama but they’re always littered with tiny moments of joy or laughter, and that’s a nice way to live. For example, I take great solace in, every day at one attosecond past five’o’clock, I hurtle out of my work office, straight to my car on the 11th floor of the car-park, throw ‘The Final Countdown’ onto Spotify and hurtle down the ramps as fast I can so that as my car pulls out of the car-park, ‘IT’S THE FINAL COUNTDOWN’ plays. There’s just enough time to do it as long as no-one gets in my way. That said, more often than enough, I’ll get stuck behind someone who’s as thick as a submarine door and is trying to operate the barrier by inserting her Boots Advantage card and calling for help on a box of Lillets. But it’s still good fun – a simple pleasure, but a pleasure none the less. I mean, that happiness normally dissipates a second later as I’m stuck behind some numpty in a BMW who thinks the indicator stalks are somewhere to rest her ankles when she’s got a client in the back-seat.

The reason I mentioned happiness is because I actually got myself upset earlier – and you need to realise, I have a heart of solid black granite. The only time I get upset is when Paul eats more than half of the Ben and Jerry’s. GOD-DAMN IT. No, I was reading an article on the BBC News (link) about a young Iraqi gay lad who was forced to leave his country simply because he was gay. His own dad told him that he would be happy for ISIS to chuck him off a tall building to his death, or burn him alive, simply because of his biological leanings. I couldn’t comprehend it. Men are being sent into the desert with their arseholes glued shut so that they die an incredibly painful death just because they like a bit of cock. All very distressing and we shouldn’t linger on the details.

What it did make me think though was how bloody lucky I am / we are to live in a country where being gay just isn’t a problem. Not really, not on the scale it once was. The fact that I can live with my husband in the middle of Menopauseville, Northumberland and no-one really bats an eye is testament to how far we’ve come. My nana, god bless her, told all the old wrinklies at the WI about my wedding and challenged anyone who had a problem with it. She literally took all comments on her whiskery chin. I can’t personally remember the last time I experienced any sort of homophobia.

Sure, there’s the well-meant but incredibly offensive comments – I was told once by a colleague that ‘my religion doesn’t agree with gays, but don’t worry, I can tolerate you’ – like I was a bad smell, or an ingrown toenail. I resisted the urge to snip back that I don’t agree with grown men in frocks putting their holy willies into little boy’s bottoms, but what’s the use. You also get a lot of people asking ‘how it works’, like there is a hidden user guide (a gayde?) that explains all the mechanics (when he pushes, so do you), but that’s fair enough. I don’t mind answering questions as long as you’re comfortable with vivid descriptions and use of the term santorum. It’s a given now that if I’m filling out a form, I’ll be able to choose ‘Civil Partnered’ or ‘Married’ as opposed to ‘Living with Partner’, which was simply a euphemism for being a chutney-ferret.

Actually, the most devastating thing about filling out forms these days is that I’ve gone up an age-bracket – I now fall into the 30-34 category. Sniff. Might as well order myself some piss-knickers now. Sigh.

iPad running slowly now, clearly don’t feel with my sass. So let me chuck you a recipe like the decadent bitch that I am.

beef in honey and black pepper sauce

you’ll need these (serves two fatties):

  • 2 tbsp honey (5 syns)
  • 3 tbsp soy sauce
  • 1 tbsp fish sauce
  • 2 tbsp mirin
  • 1 tsp coarsely ground black pepper
  • 600g dried noodles
  • 1 onion, finely chopped
  • 400g diced beef
  • 1 broccoli, cut into florets
  • half a cabbage head, chopped

 

and you’ll need to do this

  • soak/cook the noodles according to the instructions
  • put a pan of water on and boil the broccoli and cabbage for about 5 minutes, drain and set aside.
  • honey,  soy sauce, fish sauce, mirin and black pepper gets whisked together next, and set aside
  • into a pan goes a little oil or Frylight and heat until it starts to smoke
  • next, add the onion and reduce the heat immediately to medium-high
  • cook for about a minute
  • throw in the beef and cook it however you like it (we always prefer a bit of pink meat…)
  • empty the pan of the beef and onion and set aside
  • return the pan to the heat
  • final stage now – add the sauce mixture to the pan and thicken into a syrup
  • add the broccoli and cabbage to the pan, and stir
  • chuck in the noodles and the beef to the pan and mix well
  • enjoy!

Mmmm!

J

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July 19, 2015

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

baked spaghetti bolognese pie

Christ almighty. We’ve had the plasterers in (it’s like having the painters in, only I’m not getting all hysterical and crying into a box of Milk Tray) (I’m kidding, jeez) and the house is an absolute and utter bomb-site. He’s expertly taken all of the Artex off the ceiling and made it smoother than a silk worm’s diarrheah. Which is apt, given it’s an awful brown colour. However, the dust. Good LORD the dust. It’s literally everywhere imaginable. We’ve had the Dyson out all day – which is a feat in itself, given it’s one of those fancy digital cordless ones that powers down after twenty minutes – but I’m still finding pockets of orange dust everywhere. I swear I farted on the sofa earlier and it looked like a little firework going off behind me. Awful.

Just awful. Speaking of farts (as you know it’s one of our favourite topics), I need to confess something dreadful. See we had those chicken gyros on Friday night and all day yesterday, our farts smelt like a tramp’s sock boiled in death itself. They were dreadful – intensely potent and incredibly wide-ranging. Of course, being us, this was just hilarious, and we were farting and pooting and trumpeting all the way around Tesco, beside ourselves with laughter and merriment.

But then, when we got to IKEA, I topped them all. We were there to look at possible storage solutions for our fitted wardrobe (oh the decadence) when I had a faint rumbling in my nethers. I say a faint rumbling, it was like someone testing a speedboat engine. So, sensing an opportunity for mischief, I ducked around a corner, opened one of the doors on the showroom wardrobe, and let out a guff. It was tiny, like I’d startled a duck, but I knew it would be concentrated. I hastily shut the door and called Paul over, on the pretence that I wanted him to check what type of hinge it was on the bottom of the door. He came lumbering over in his own special way, knelt down and opened the door, only to be hit full in the face with the contained fart. I almost saw the skin on his nose blacken. Honestly, you could see the fugitive zephyr as it bounced around the interior. He immediately turned around and called me a filthy see-you-next-Tuesday and I almost broke my back bent over laughing.

Mind, at least we have fun. We might not have the most exciting lives but we’re always laughing. We came away from IKEA the same way we normally do, with absolutely nothing in our trolley but our pockets bulging with a quarter-tonne of IKEA pencils, ready to be shoved into the same kitchen drawer as the other 323,537 IKEA pencils we’ve stolen. Perhaps we should get a log burner after all, we could keep it going for a good few months on nicked stationery alone!

Because the plasterer was going to be in our house all day, we had to fill up the time ‘out of the house’, so we thought we’d spend a gay few hours tripping around the Metrocentre, which, if you’ve never heard of it, is the North’s answer to an American shopping mall from the nineties. It has everything! Closed clothes shops, closed food quarters, closed gadget shops, a plethora of e-cigarette and mobile phone cover stands AND any amount of imbecilic fuckknuckles walking around getting IN MY BLOODY WAY. I remember when the Metrocentre was worth going to – namely when it had Metroland, where the thrill of going on an indoor rollercoaster totally made-up for the risk of getting inappropriately touched-up behind the ferris wheel. It was a haven for nonces, apparently, though I never experienced that. Must have been my ungainly weight and C&A haircut that put them off.

We did spend half an hour in the Namco Games bit, which is full of those totally rigged but faintly fun arcade machines where you win tickets that you can redeem for lead-covered tat later on. We played a giant version of Monopoly, we did some virtual fishing and, I shit you not, I managed to win a proper licenced Flappy Bird toy from one of those claw machines that usually have all the grip of Jeremy Beadle. I couldn’t quite believe it. We did nip next door to the ‘adults only’ bit where the proper slot machines were but fucking hell, it’s just too depressing watching adults feed money into the slots at 10am in the morning. Nobody wins.

Anyway. This recipe is for a baked spaghetti bolognese pie, but it’s pretty much spaghetti Bolognese served in a different way – we couldn’t get a good picture of the meal when it was on the plate but understand that the cheesy spaghetti acts as a ‘crust’ to hold the meat in. Haha, meat.

baked spaghetti pie

to make baked spaghetti bolognese pie, you’ll need:

  • 500g lean beef mince
  • one onion, chopped
  • 8 tbsp tomato puree
  • 1 tin of chopped tomatoes
  • 1 tsp oregano
  • 1 tsp basil, chopped
  • ¼ tsp pepper
  • 170g spaghetti
  • 2 eggs
  • 25g grated parmesan (HexA)
  • 340g fat-free cottage cheese
  • 1 tbsp dried parsley
  • 1 reduced-fat mozzarella ball, torn into pieces (HexA)

and once you’ve got all that, you should:

  • preheat the oven to 180°C
  • cook the spaghetti according to the instructions, drain and set aside
  • stop your cat from eating any cooled spaghetti
  • on a large frying pan gently sweat the onion in a little oil (or Frylight) until softened
  • add the mince and cook until browned
  • add the chopped tomatoes, tomato puree, oregano, basil, salt  and pepper and mix well
  • simmer over a low heat for about 10 minutes
  • meanwhile, in a large bowl mix together cooked spaghetti, egg and parmesan
  • press the spaghetti mixture into a non-stick, deep 9″ tin
  • in another bowl whisk together the other egg, cottage cheese and parsley
  • add the cheese mixture to the tin, spreading evenly
  • next, add the meat mixture on top of the cheese; shake the tin gently to even the top out if necessary
  • place in the oven and cook for about twenty minutes
  • scatter the mozzarella onto the top and place under a medium-high grill for a few minutes until bubbling – the sauce that is, not yourself

Easy, right?

J

 

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July 15, 2015

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beef, british, classics, diced beef, fakeaways, fast food restaurants, lunch, recipe card, sandwiches, savoury snacks, snacks, steak, syn free, taster ideas

the steak bake

For most blokes, the idea of having a soaking wet bird angrily thrashing around on their face first thing in the morning would be an entirely wonderful way to wake up. Well, admittedly, we’re not “most blokes” but let me tell you, it’s not all that. Nevertheless, that’s how we started the day, with my cat bringing a bird in through our bedroom window and throwing it against my face. Normally we’re woken very gently by our fancy alarm clock that fades unnatural light into the room like a sunrise but clearly Bowser thought that was far too decadent and we needed a new alternative.

There was a LOT of screaming. I screamed, Paul screamed, the bird was screaming and the cat got such a fright at our apparently ungratefulness that he puffed up into Giant Cat Form, picked up his prey and took off with the bird in his teeth into the living room, leaving a lovely smear of blood across the floor from where it’s wing was hanging off. We spent the next ten minutes trying to remove Bowser from the room and rescue the bird and, after much flapping around (by all of us) and some judicious use of a tea-towel, I slingshotted the poor bugger out of the living room window. He survived for all of about ten seconds before Sola, our other cat, jumped from the roof (we live in a bungalow remember, she’s not THAT good) and tore his head off. In all, we’d gone from sleeping peacefully in our beds to watching a violent murder on our front lawn, with all the screaming and dramatics that entails, within fifteen minutes.

My heart was still racing as I backed the DS3 off the drive.

Of course, the fun didn’t stop there, as when Paul posted a dramatic recollection of the encounter on Facebook, he was immediately set about by someone telling him off for not taking the bird to an animal hospital. Paul was being terribly polite and British about the whole thing but I immediately weighed in on the argument to point out that ‘the Sparrow Ambulance was tied up attending to a coal tit with hurt feelings’ and that I lamented the fact I hadn’t had the foresight to fashion the poor bugger ‘a tiny sling from a spent match and a doll’s shoelace’.

I think we can agree that I won the argument.

Anyway, that’s America week over – what fun! To recap, we covered:

That’s a lot of decent dishes! Give one a try and report back. Our next theme will be budget week – we’re going to try and map out a whole week for around £40/£50, which is half our normal shopping budget for the week. That’ll be in a couple of weeks and I’ll break with tradition by putting a meal planner on here before it starts. You know, because I’m nice like that.

Anyway, tonight’s recipe is interesting and tasty, if you’re a fan of cat-food pressed into a bit of fake-bread. This isn’t one of our own recipes – we’ll gingerly call it a Slimming World classic – but people have been foaming at the gash over these “steak bakes” which tastes “just like the ones from Greggs”. Well, really. The only thing I get from Greggs is overcome with static electricity from all the bustling masses of polyester leisure suits. Remember, I’m from Newcastle – we’ve got more Greggs than we do bus-stops. A romantic day out here is a sausage roll from Greggs and a quick fingering in the cinema. Nevertheless, it’s the new ‘in thing’ amongst all the big groups so you know, I thought we’d take our foot off the gas and relax a little, and let someone else do the thinking. So this isn’t our recipe, no no, but you might enjoy it.

steak bake

Mmm. Appetising. Paul enjoyed it, but it felt like mush in my mouth – like someone had already had a bash at eating it. Look, I’m not fussy about what goes in my mouth (fact: I don’t have a gag reflex, and god knows many have tried to find it), but the meat in this stewing steak had all the structural integrity of a licked stamp. Plus the pattern on the thins reminds me of pitted keratolysis. Did it fill me up? Perhaps, but we served them with new potatoes out of the garden and peas, so I reckon it was probably those that filled me with goodness.

for a steak bake then, you’re going to need:

  • a tin of ASDA stewed steak (syn free, but you can find plenty others that are low in syns)
  • Kingsmill wholemeal thins (one ‘sandwich’ is a HEB)
  • an onion
  • an egg
  • tip: add worcestershire or chilli sauce

and you’ll need to:

  • warm through the delicious looking tin of Whiskas stewed steak
  • add in the chopped onion (cooked if you prefer)
  • spread over the thins
  • press down and secure the edges by pressing with your finger
  • wash the top with a bit of beaten egg
  • cook for around fifteen minutes.

Enjoy. It’s free for one. That’s one thin, not one packet of thins. Or: alternatively, go cook something…healthy. I dunno. I’m not your Master.

J

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July 10, 2015

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beef, fakeaways, fast food restaurants, lunch, recipe card, rice, steak, syn free

philly cheesesteak stuffed peppers

Sorry sorry, don’t worry, we’re extending American week for a few days to make up for the gaps. See I went to see Terminator Genisys last night after a cheeky Nandos. IT WASN’T CHEEKY. IT WASN’T COCK-A-DOODIE CHEEKY AT ALL. Sorry but I can’t abide the use of the word cheeky. Having a glass of warm prosecco in a beer garden surrounded by people with red shoulders is not cheeky. An ice-cream amongst the dog turds on the beach isn’t cheeky. Jack Whitehall is cheeky. My arse is literally cheeky. STOP FUCKING SAYING CHEEKY AAAAAAAAAAAAARGH MAN.

So yes, Terminator. It was excellent, in a ‘pop your brain in your bag and enjoy the show’ sort of way. Lots of explosions, people melting, ridiculous action scenes and Arnold Schwarzenegger still looking like a varnished lamp-post with mumps. I really like him as an actor, he doesn’t give a shit and we can all respect that. If you read the snotty “official” reviews you’d think it was about as much fun as watching a beloved dog being put down in front of a crying child, but as long as you don’t go in expecting Peer bloody Gynt you’ll be tickety boo.

I also managed to swizz an extra scoop of Ben & Jerry’s (SYNNED) by telling the charming lady behind the till it was my birthday. I don’t think she fell for it, but rather just wanted me to move away from the counter and stop going ‘aaaah’ and ‘uuuum’ like an old inkjet printer.

Anyway that’s quite enough from me tonight. Remember this week is my time off! Today’s American entry is super long and the recipe is RIGHT at the bottom, so scroll scroll scroll. I’d apologise, but a gay man never apologies for length. If you want to buy the rest of the book. I’m still #1, woohoo, it’s right here. Go! 

 

Day 21 and 22 – lots of bits and pieces

OK, I’m going to cheat a little on these days. I didn’t take any notes and we didn’t go anywhere ‘special’, just mopped up the activities on International Drive and lazed about in the hotel. Remember, we’d been going non-stop for a good twenty days – we needed to rest! To make things easier for me, I’m going to write it as ‘one day’ where we travelled from one activity to the next. We did this, just spread over two days with lots of sleeping and honeymoon-happiness in between. So, this is going to be a long one… cue wavy lines of retrospective…

Breakfast first, and Sizzler here we come. You can’t fault somewhere where you can get an all-you-can-eat heart attack and all the British Fury (in the form of the Daily Mail) you could ever need for less than $10 a head. We should confess – if something is all you can eat, it’s all we can do not to push ourselves past the point of no return. I think it’s because I’m so tight with money that I like to feel I’m getting my money’s worth. That said, it still repulses me to see all the American land-cows loading their plate with chunks of brownies, rashers of bacon and those tiny twiglet-like sausages all in one go. I mean, at least separate the items that simply don’t belong together. I’ve seen people come back from the buffet with plates piled high like a Frank Gehry building, walking slowly lest a stray bit of food drops to the floor. There’s no need! Mind you, I’m up on my soapbox, I’m still the one who smuggles a few pastries out under my moobs to snack on later.

Go-Karting next. There’s a go-karting er…track up by Wet ‘n’ Wild, and we had passed it many a time thinking we would never be able to squeeze our voluptuous rears into the karts. This time round, we didn’t care, and in no time at all were squashed into the kart with ne’ry a seatbelt and a strong smell of petrol in our nostrils. The man in charge was the double of Kenan from Kenan and Kel and this led to me being late off the starting line whilst I wildly gesticulated to Paul to try and point this out. Ah well. I still managed to lap him. Tell you what mind, the amount of blue smoke that must have been pouring out the back of the karts as they chugged Paul and I up the hills must have been terrific. I remember being on holiday in Ayia Napa (before it went all WKD) with my family about ten years ago  – my parents hired two scooters to take us all over the island. My sister and mother jumped on one scooter and zipped merrily right up the steep hill to the hotel, whereas the scooter holding me and my dad struggled for about ten minutes at 2mph, pumping out more blue smoke than the smoking shelter outside Mecca Bingo. Bless. I’ve never been lithe.

Go-karting is good fun though for a few minutes, so might be worth a look. One of the things I want to do when I return is to learn to drive – if this is a benchmark of my driving then bring it on! We moved on, over the road to Tiki Volcano Golf Course, or whatever the devil it is called.

When we first came to Orlando, this was all we would do of an evening – crazy golf, eat, sleep. We remembered this course being amazing but I reckon it’s more down to rose-coloured nostalgia as it was…crap. Everything was chipped, sodden or broken. We still enjoyed the challenging holes (story of my life) but the volcano never went off, even when I cheated at the end and used Paul to distract the attendant whilst I reached through the netting and stuck my ball in the hole for the ‘Free Game and Volcano Erupt’. Damn it! Perhaps it was karma for me slicing my ball into the car-park with an overzealous swing…I rather thought the ball was making a bid for freedom but hey. I bet the course isn’t there when we go back in 2013, though. I won, and we left.

We had lunch at Dennys, which was fun. Our waiter was a pleasant enough chap but super-mega-fat, and he had a distractingly sweaty forehead, to the point where I didn’t bother adding salt to my fries because I was sure enough he’d manage to drench them for me wobbling his way from the kitchen to our table. The food wasn’t great, but you don’t go to Dennys expecting to have your mouth blown off with flavour, after all. It’s another one of those ‘meals’ we can cross off our list.

Now, what can two young lads do on International Drive with bulging wallets and a keen eye for history? That’s right! Titanic: The Experience. A wee bit of background – we love Titanic (the movie), it’s so wonderfully cheesy and after both of us suffering it everytime there was a ‘rainy day’ at school, we can quote big old chunks of the movie at each other. For example, on the plane to Orlando, we managed to shoehorn in a ‘Typical, the first class passengers bring their dogs down here to take a shite’ reference when we descended down the mystical stairs from the bubble to look at those wedged into economy. So yes! We love Titanic. In we went.

For those who don’t know, Titanic: The Experience offers visitors an interactive tour around artefacts from the Titanic and tells the story of the doomed ship through a mixture of actors and props. We were given tickets detailing our new job on Titanic and we were told we could find out whether we lived or died at the end. Drama! Everyone knows that fat people survive maritime disasters – we simply bob in the water until we’re hoisted out, our bulbous ankles kicking in the wind. Either that or we beach ourselves and need to be hosed down with gravy. We were greeted by Danny Devito in a smoking jacket who spent the next twenty minutes telling us about the dimensions of the ship and all those who perished then started the tour. In and out of various rooms we went to be shown artefacts not from Titanic but rather her sister ship. Not sure I get the point of this. I understand it is a bit of a swim down to the Titanic but you can’t advertise saying you’ll ‘see bits of Titanic’ then get them in from another ship! Good lord. Half of the tour seemed to enjoy the tour – but – ‘not the better half’. Arf!

Towards the end, things got surreal – you are led into a room to find out whether you lived or died (we both lived – told you!) and then watched a short movie comprising of all the dramatic bits from the movie, all accompanied by O Fortuna (the music used when the judges slither out on The X-Factor). It’s so crass! The only thing missing was Celine Dion warbling away through her 50p-shaped face.

Two minor diversions. As we were bored and a little disappointed by the whole thing, we decided on a bit of mischief, and upon finding the air-conditioning panel hidden away behind a wall, we dropped the building temperature down to a chilly 10 degrees. What can I say? I wanted to do my bit to add to the realism and I’m simply too buxom to carry off a Molly Brown outfit. The other diversion? Redneck fighting. Yep, in a museum devoted to the many victims of Titanic, a fattychops on a mobility scooter started arguing with his equally well-furnished wife about how bored they were. Awesome. They got wheeled out, to a chorus of our tuts and ‘Well I Never’ – missing out on the chance to ‘feel the chill of a real iceberg’.

Yeah – the chill. The final part of this thrilling experience was the chance to experience a real-life iceberg. Exciting! However, all was not what it seemed. We were shepherded into a room to find the iceberg, which was a slab of ice stuck to a box. Disappointment was etched on everyone’s face. I could have stayed at home and opened our freezer door to replicate this experience – granted there wasn’t a box of Crispy Pancakes wedged in the Orlando version, but we would have got the jist. Bah!  All in all, we did not love Titanic: The Experience. I can only assume they’re using ‘Experience’ in the sense that having a smear test is an experience. Not pleasurable and (I imagine) quite cold.  To be honest, if I wanted to spend an hour wandering around a museum devoted to an old wreck full of seamen, I’d break into Katie Price’s house. Yep, I went there.

From one chilling experience to another – the Ice Bar. We had walked past this place many times and always said ‘let’s give it a try’ but when you’ve got theme parks and wonder to take in, the prospect of spending thirty minutes in a freezer with hooray-henrys didn’t rank up there amongst the must-does. Ah well – with time on our hands, we paid the six million dollar entry fee and we given a charming insulated jacket to wear. They don’t suit fatties – I ended up looking like a hot water tank. Nevermind – in we went. Let me say one thing – don’t bloody bother. Yes, it looks good – everything is truly made from ice, from the bar to the chairs, but that’s it. There’s no atmosphere, no excitement, no music (I think) and the ‘fire’ is a collection of twinkly Christmas tree lights. You’re given a free shot of vodka which was nice enough, but I’m Geordie – frozen wastelands don’t excite me, I have to drive past Gateshead every other day. If you want an extra drink, it’s a case of sawing off an arm and a leg to pay for it. Whilst this is doubtless easier as you’re numb from the cold, it isn’t worth it. I don’t think we stayed for our allotted thirty minutes, and we were out of there before we were brayed to death by the chortling poshos. That made me laugh actually – the place was full of people hooting and neighing thinking they were somewhere special, but come on love, you’re in an air-conditioner unit at the back end of International Drive.

Over the road from the Ice Bar is another thing that we have always wanted to do, but always ruled out on safety grounds – the I-Ride Helicopter Tours. I’d love to go in a helicopter but there’s something about the way these guys seem to throw their helicopters to the ground that worries me – like they get rid of one party, chuck another one and away they go – where are the safety checks! The rational side of me knows that a pilot wouldn’t take the risk but still. Or maybe this is all a smokescreen because I was terrified we’d get on board and a light would light up on the dashboard saying ‘Maximum Weight Threshold Reached’ and we’d have to wobble out, shamefaced. Next time we’ll do a proper tour from Disney, methinks. Once I’m slender.

As an aside, I make a lot of jokes about our weight, but we’re not actually that fat. I WAS hugely fat at one point – that, coupled with my long hair, meant I looked like Meat Loaf. I decided to cut my hair (well, I set fire to it lighting a cigarette off a gas hob, which may have accelerated my decision) and lose some weight by joining Slimming World. I lost over seven stone and was in the running for Slimming World: Man of the Year too! However, I lost out when I was asked how I had lost the weight and replied ‘Heroin’. That answer, plus the fact that one of my competitors had a sob-story about being too fat to get onto an operating table, meant I didn’t win. The sods! Since those days, we’ve always been chunky rather than out-and-out fat, and I don’t take my weight seriously. So ignore our self-deprecation, we’ve happy really.

Another golf course – this time, Congo River Golf again. Told you this was our favourite, and despite having done it not so long since, we had to do it again as we hadn’t completed the mini-task of finding things that they offer. We had the course pretty much to ourselves, which led to a few glamorous photos being taken, including a recreation of our famous picture (in our house) where Paul looks bloody horrible – sat staring into the camera with a scrunched up face and smoke billowing out of his nostrils. I think he looks like Albert Steptoe. Undeterred, I got the original photo blown up and framed and I put it in the hallway everytime I know we have an engineer or a gasman coming round. To be fair, Paul counters this by putting up a framed picture of me in a wheelchair at Disney with a scabby leg. I didn’t need the wheelchair, but I was being lazy and wanted to try it out for an hour. I know I know, but we’ve all thought about it. If it makes it better, I didn’t use it to get onto any rides. We thought about stopping at the George and Dragon again just to ram home our dislike of it, but it seemed busy (I think there was a match on) and I hadn’t had my hepatitis vaccinations, we decided against it, and wandered a little further up International Drive in search of somewhere to eat.

We went back to Sweet Tomatoes for our evening meal. I know, we had such a crap experience in there the first time but we went for two reasons – one, we needed some more vitamins, and two, if Andre the Giant (Bumhole) was there, we were hoping he might say something. Sadly, he wasn’t, and we actually had a lovely meal. As I spent most of the last time frothing at the gob and moaning, we could actually enjoy the meal this time around, and I can’t recommend it enough to those who want something other than deep-fried animal and potatoes. Would a Sweet Tomatoes franchise work in the UK I wonder? A salad buffet is a simple idea and all we have over here is the lacklustre fare given at the likes of Pizza Hut where their idea of salad dressing is to sneeze on the lettuce. I guess we don’t have the weather for it. Anyway – we had a good mixed salad (with raw broccoli – oh my yes!), some black bean soup, and an oil-drum full of ice-cream. Delicious! This time around we left a good tip and came away happy.

The final evening at the Four Points was spent washing and ironing all of our clothes, looking out the window at the derelict lots over the road and watching lots of nonsense on the TV. We were tinged by sadness a little – after all, this was now the last leg of the holiday, and the prospect of going home was coming ever closer. That said, we were to finish on a high – Harry Potter, the Universal parks and best of all – Hard Rock Hotel!

A quick review of the Four Points – we thought it was terrific. It’s an unusual hotel which seems to attract an eclectic mix of people – the amount of ‘dashing’ pilots coming through reception would be enough to warrant taking an extra HRT pill amongst the older women, whereas the amount of rich Mexicans coming back with their Mall at Millenia bags may mean you’ll need ear-plugs. The rooms are large, the hallways well-appointed, and the whole hotel polished and clean. It would have been nicer to get a room higher up for the views but as it stood, we could still watch Rip Ride Rockit barrel around at Universal from our room, which helped build the anticipation. The only downsides that I can think of? The pool is TINY. Yes – if you’re a family, I’d think twice about this if you have water-babies, as it really is only big enough for about 10 people. Perhaps I’m biased as the last time I took a swim in it, I was getting eyed up (and that’s not me being arrogant, she was making it blatant) by this well..alright, I’ll be mean, facially-challenged porker. To be fair to her, I’m not sure she was eyeing me up in retrospect – she did have one eye going to the shop and one eye coming back with the change, so who knows. The other downer was the tiny laundry facilities but who comes on holiday to worry about laundry? Not this mincer! Anyway. Phew. I’m knackered. That’s all folks! Universal love tomorrow!

philly cheesesteak stuffed peppers

to make philli cheesesteak stuffed peppers, you’ll need

  • 600g beef steak
  • 2 tsp salt
  • 1 clove of garlic
  • 1 tsp onion powder
  • ¼ tsp black pepper
  • 4 peppers
  • 100g brown rice
  • 1 onion, finely chopped
  • 80g reduced fat mozarella (65g is one HEA)
  • handful of chopped chives

and you’ll need to do this:

  • rinse the rice under cold water to get all dust off
  • bring 325ml cold water to the boil in a small pan
  • add the rice to the boiling water, reduce heat, cover the pan and simmer for 45 minutes (keep an eye, but this is brown rice so it’s got to be boiled in magma until your soul departs)
  • with about 20 minutes left on the rice, rub the beef with the garlic, onion powder and black pepper and cook the beef steak to however you like it – generally with beef we just wipe its arse and wave a match over it and it’s done
  • leave the meat to rest for five minutes
  • preheat the oven to 190 degrees
  • slice the meat into thin, bitesize chunks and place in a bowl to rest a little more
  • cut the top off the peppers and scoop out the seeds
  • heat a large frying pan over a medium-high heat and cook the onions in a little oil until golden brown and translucent
  • add the onions to the same bowl as the steak
  • using a sieve squeeze as much water as you can out of the rice
  • add the rice to the bowl with the steak and onions
  • tear up the mozarella into small pieces and mix half into the steak mixture, keeping the other half aside
  • place the four peppers into a baking dish and spoon the mixture evenly into each one
  • top with the remaining mozzarella
  • bake in the oven for about 20 minutes
  • top with the chopped chives

We served with tenderstem broccoli. This makes enough mixture easily for four big peppers and then plenty left over, so I reckon you could make six or seven.

J