Tag Archives: beef

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February 24, 2015

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american, beef, beef mince, pork, pork mince, recipe card, savoury snacks, snacks, syn free, taster ideas

rolled stuffed meatloaf

Only a little preamble tonight, because the recipe is a corker and I need my wordcount for that. BUT remember my Muller yoghurt letter? There’s a new (well, old) letter to read below…

I visited Poundland today – all I wanted was a money-tin, all I got is my eyes opened. I’ve said many times before that I’m not a snob but do you know, maybe I am. I’m snobbish about good manners, for one thing – asking me to do something without saying please is as bad in my eyes as taking my packed lunch and crapping in my salad roll. The reason I mention manners is the amount of people zombieing around Poundland, death-rattling and spluttering and sniffing was beyond the pale. Since when did it become acceptable to cough without covering your mouth, or sneeze right in someone’s face without attempting to cover it? At one point I went to pick up a pack of Haribo only for some wispy-chinned gasbag to cough the bottom of her lungs right across me and THEN keep on moving without so much as a backwards glance. Poundland? I almost pounded her head off a shelf full of knock-off Elsie and Anal Frozen figurines.

What makes Newcastle’s Poundland more interesting is that it is right next door to Waitrose, so you get people coming out of Waitrose, all full of puff and OH LOOK AT ME BUYING MY QUINOA AND DOLPHIN TEAR SALAD quickly nipping into Poundland to buy some cheap batteries, and people coming out of Poundland going into Waitrose to get a free coffee and finger all of the posh fruit. I’m not a huge fan of Waitrose, it’s absolutely rammed full of yah-yah-mummy students and people who think they’re the Big I Am. Have you tried any of Heston Bloominghell’s nonsense food from there? I can safely say I’ve tried most of it and thought it was all overpriced piss. Just because you can coat bacon in mushy pea puree and the hope of a orphan doesn’t mean you should.

Hey actually, speaking of Poundland, a few years ago I actually wrote to them – ironically, about a moneytin – and if you’re a fan of my fruity letters to organisations, you’ll enjoy this. Here:

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poundland-complaint_page_2

Oh young James, you should have known better. They replied with a proper arsey letter.

Anyway, what YOU should do is try this recipe, it was bloody delicous – and only the coleslaw is synned, so you could leave that out and have a syn-free dinner that looks a treat! It’s your normal meatloaf recipe, but with three ingredients in the middle – sweet potato, shaved sprouts and very finely chopped mushroom.

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to make the hot and spicy coleslaw you will need:

 100g of red cabbage, 100g of radishes, 100g of white cabbage, one carrot large enough to make your eyes water, 100g of fat free natural yoghurt, salt, pepper and 1tbsp of horseradish sauce (1 syn but it makes enough to feed six, so your choice but I’ll say syn free).

to make rolled stuffed meatloaf you will need:

900g of a mix of lean pork mince and lean beef mince, 1 large red onion, two garlic gloves (grated) PLEASE, get a microplane grater. Like this one on Amazon. It’ll make it so much easier! You’ll also need two large eggs, 2 tablespoons of parsley, 2 tbsp dried mustard powder, 1 tbsp of thyme (fresh or dried, see if I’m bothered), 1 tbsp coriander seeds crushed (can leave these out, I won’t tell), 1sp of onion powder, some salt and pepper, and a tiny bit of baking powder.

For the stuffing, you’ll need 3 sweet potatoes, half a bag of sprouts, half a pack of mushrooms and an onion.

to make hot and spicy coleslaw you should:

Finely grate your cabbage(s), radishes and carrot into a bowl. Add yoghurt, horseradish, salt and pepper and mix well. Put it in the fridge.

to make rolled stuffed meatloaf you should:

Then the meatloaf mix – combine the meat, chopped onion, garlic, eggs and all of the spices and seasoning and mix it in a bowl until you get one lovely lump. Too wet? Add breadcrumbs. One wholemeal roll is a healthy extra – blend and add as much as you think you need. You’re aiming for a well mixed lump. Put it in the fridge to cool.

Next, pierce and microwave your sweet potatoes for around 15 minutes. Once cooked and cooled, scoop out the flesh into a bowl and add salt. Eat the skins, they’re fucking tasty. Next, finely chop the mushroom and onion. I used my Kenwood chopper here. It does make things a lot easier, even Delia says so. Mind it does nothing that a sharp knife can’t do but you are looking for finely chopped. Put into a pan, cook for five minutes or so on a medium heat to draw out the moisture. Set aside. Next, very thinly slice your sprouts. You can again use a knife or if you’re a fan of speed and danger, use a mandolin. This is mine, and it’s only £11. Stick the sprouts in a microwave bowl, cook for two minutes so they soften just a little, and set aside after draining and getting as much liquid out as possible.

Now, assembly. Hoy the oven onto 180 degrees. Get a loaf tin and grease the sides. You’ll then need to get some parchment paper or greaseproof paper or anything but the Daily Mail and line the tin. Doesn’t have to be precise, you’re not on the Krypton Factor and I’m not Gordon Burns. Next, get a flat sheet (preferably a baking sheet, it’ll make it easier for you) and line that with greaseproof paper. You want to be able to form a rectangle of around 8″ by 13″. Here’s a tip, don’t let a man measure this for you – the amount of men I’ve met in my life who think 5.5″ is 8″ is surprising. Dump your meat into the middle and flatten down to create an even rectangle, nice and flat. Take your time.

Now, spread the sweet potato over the top, nice and thin – don’t worry if it’s a bit patchy, but take your time to keep it smooth. Add the sprouts, then the mushroom and onion.

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This is the tricky SOUNDING part, it’s actually quite easy.  You want to roll the meatloaf. Start by getting hold of the parchment paper at one of the short ends of the rectangle and slowly roll the meat over itself – tight, but not ridiculous. Peel off the paper as you go. It’ll make sense when you do it, trust me. Take your time, rolling and peeling, rolling and peeling, until you’re left with a lovely roll of meat. Oooer etc.

Next, lift carefully into your loaf tin – remember it must be lined. Place the meat seam side down. Decorate the top with tomatoes or bacon or whatever.

In the oven for fifty minutes, take it out, drain the excess liquid away carefully, put back in oven for fifteen minutes, then crack the door open and turn the heat off and let it sit for 15 minutes. Cut and serve with chips and coleslaw and a big fuck-off smile on your face. Well done!

J

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February 12, 2015

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bacon, beef, diced beef, low syn, pork, recipe card, slow cooker

beef bourguignon

For week two, we’re going to…FRANCE!

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But before we get started, I come bearing good news. I’m sorry, that never normally happens, I’ve been under pressure, it’s that time of the month, I’m just keen etc. No, remember our bathroom problem where Paul and I were down to one tiny bulb in our bathroom, turning every trip to brush our teeth or wipe our bum into a perilous adventure fraught with tension that we’d be plunged into absolute darkness mid-pinch? Well worry no more! Our wonderful, marvellous and above all else hella-manly plumber/electrician has saved the day! But mind it took something else breaking before we called him in. Our extractor fan has clearly become so affronted and overworked trying to waft away the smell of so many rich Slimming World infused motions that it went into overdrive and refused to turn off – not even using the switch would stop it – we had to take out the fuse for the lights throughout the house before it finally shut off. Which wasn’t ideal. A plea was made to the chap who originally did our bathroom and he has been this morning and not only replaced the fan, he’s only gone and replaced all the lightbulbs! Best part is, I wasn’t even there when he did it so I didn’t need to feel all emasculated and embarrassed that we had let ourselves down so badly.

One thing I’m a smidge alarmed about is that we’ve gone from one 30w bulb in the bathroom to six 50w beauties – if I happen to find an interesting magazine article whilst I’m on the netty I’ll probably come out with a tan. It’ll make brushing my teeth like being on a mediocre game-show – I’ll just need Dale Winton mincing around behind me explaining my brushing technique to an imagined audience. Perhaps I’ve thought too much about this. Let’s move on.

It was only a short post yesterday as I was at the cinema seeing Kingsman: The Secret Service, with Phillipa who you may know from the poorly-spelled insults she occasionally leaves on the blog. Great film and heartily recommended – we laughed, we cried, she spilt her popcorn – the usual, and that was before we’d even sat down. Colin Firth plays an absolute blinder, really branching out from his upper-class-English-fop role that was all I associated him with. I admit to being distracted nearly all the way through by the girl in front of me and her shovel-faced boyfriend. She’d clearly come dressed for a bet but that’s by the by – it was her haircut which was distressing me. She’d tried to fashion it into a bun but instead ended up with this weird bowl, where, if I had been feeling bitchy enough, I could have easily have parked my 35-gallon-Diet Pepsi there to prove a point. It was upsetting purely because of my OCD – I hate things being messy. If I didn’t think I would have been either stabbed by a needle hidden in her hair or glassed by her dead-eyed lamp-post of a mate I would have reached over and tidied it up. To make things worse, the popcorn was disgusting – it tasted like they’d washed it alternately in Charlie Red and the North Sea. Didn’t stop either of us eating it though, though I had to stop once my lips started turning inside out like a slug. Luckily, Phillipa had her hunger satisfied by the ice-cream, pick and mix and salty popcorn and I wasn’t sent out to get a pig on a spit for afterwards. I do love going to the cinema and now that I can’t have my usual settee-cushion of popcorn and binbag of pick-and-mix, I don’t even need to fret about taking out a mortgage to cover it.

So: where are we on the Two Chubby Cubs European Tour, eh? Somewhere exotic, warm and unusual? No. We’re in France. I half-toyed with taking a picture of a crepe with a Gauloise stubbed out in the middle of it, but that’s not embracing our trip. It’s not like I don’t care for France, I’ve been many times and always enjoyed myself, but I once got ripped off outside the Eiffel Tower by a caricaturist and I’ve never quite forgiven the country for that. It wasn’t so much that I paid a ridiculous amount for the drawing, it was the fact that the drawing made me look like John Prescott examining his pores in a Christmas bauble. Nevertheless, here we go…

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This apparently serves four, but I’m not convinced. Admittedly we’re greedy fuckers, but there was barely enough to have seconds! Maybe factor that in when you cook…

to make beef bourguignon you will need:

100g of bacon medallions cut into strips, 400g small shallots, 700g stewing beef with all fat removed (although I used proper scrag-end beef that I found in the back of the freezer – beef you can pumice your feet with), three garlic cloves sliced thin and chopped finely, 150ml of red wine, 425ml beef stock, tomato puree, fresh rosemary and fresh thyme (use your herb garden or use dried, I’m not judging), 1 bay leaf, 50ml of vegetable stock, bit of nutmeg. I cooked this overnight in a slow cooker but you could easily do this in a casserole pot. Cook low and slow. I chucked in a few whole shallots and some pepper too because I’m just that random.

to make beef bourguignon you should:

fry off the shallots and bacon until they start going brown – chuck in the beef and get a bit of a seal on the meat. Add everything else bar the swede. Bring to the boil, then either tip it into a slow cooker and cook low and slow for eight hours or in a casserole pot in the oven for two hours. Really, the longer you leave it cooking, the more the flavours will develop and, especially if you use cheap meat, the more tender the meat will become. Mmm. Remove the bayleaf and serve with swede mash – use my singing swede method for that.

extra-easy: yes, if you serve it with the swede mash. Superfree and all that shite. Delicious!

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February 10, 2015

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beef, beef mince, fakeaways, italian, low syn, quark, recipe card, speciality ingredients

saucy cheeseburger gnocchi bake

I can’t believe it – 1000 followers! Well fuck me! No don’t, actually, I don’t fancy Paul coming at me to cut my knob off for being a hussy and feeding it to the cats. But seriously, 1000 followers is pretty intense. I write this blog because I love nothing more than rambling on about nothing and sharing what we’re eating, so the fact that 1000 of you cared enough to actually follow and have me come in your inbox every day is really quite something. Oh you flirt. A big thank you for that, and to celebrate, I’m uploading a cheese and meat wonder. Be ready.

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Let me tell you what I’m not ready for though – idiots. I saw something today which almost made my heart explode, it was simultaneously so sad and so telling of the future to come that I could barely register it. On an online newspaper article, an argument broke out between someone with the inevitable -MAMMYOVLILANGEL’ following her first name and some other painted idiot about spelling. Her reply? What broke my heart? ‘WEL U DNT NEED GRAMAR THS ISN’T A BUK’

I might have slightly paraphrased there, I was that aghast I couldn’t let it sink in. Since when did it become socially acceptable to be thick and fucking proud of it? I’m not some snob who expects everyone to type like Mavis Beacon and never make an error, but it’s just become ‘alright’ to be dense and not make any strides to fix the problem. I appreciate there are plenty of people out there who struggle, and that’s fair enough, but everyone else, make an effort – don’t revel in your stupidity like a dog rolling in fox shit. If I don’t know something, I learn it. I don’t have a go at the people who do know the answer. It’s the equivalent of me going onto The Chase and if the Chaser got a question right and I didn’t, launching myself up the table and calling poor Anne a FAT SLAHG WIV A SHIT HAREKUT. I find it repellent, and I make no apologies for it.

Pardon me a moment.

Ah that’s better – our cat decided to be sick all over our living room carpet as a thank you for us letting her into the house and popping her bed near the fire to warm her up. Bitch. I wouldn’t care but she could have gone outside to be sick but decided that right in the middle of the living room was truly the best place. It doesn’t help that our living room carpet looks like a magic-eye drawing of a kaleidoscope pattern, so as soon as she was sick we immediately lost it amongst the pattern. It truly is a carpet that you’d expect an insane lorry driver to keep behind his cab to wrap his prostitute corpses in. Stare hard enough and you’ll not only see patterns, you’ll lose your fucking mind. We’re too tight to have it replaced though because it’s really quite decent carpet to walk on – easily the best shag this house ever had before us young bucks moved in, am I right?

OK, this recipe – the picture may not make it look like much, but it was delicious – combining cheese, meat, gnocchi and veg. Make it for a weigh-in night treat, although the syns are low low low anyway!

slimming world cheeseburger gnocchi

to make saucy cheeseburger gnocchi bake, you’ll need:

ingredients (this serves four): handful of button mushrooms (sliced), a thinly sliced red pepper and a thinly sliced green pepper, a small onion (diced), 400g of gnocchi (1.5 syns per 100g), 500g of lean mince, salt and pepper, 250g of quark, garlic, splash of worcestershire sauce, dijon mustard, a beef stock cube, 280g of light mozzarella, grated. (4 x HEA). Adjust accordingly if you want to make less but for gods sake INDULGE.

to make saucy cheeseburger gnocchi bake, you should:

recipe: cook your gnocchi, which is nothing more than throwing them in boiling water and letting them float to the top. Set aside. Chuck your onions and peppers and garlic into a heavy bottomed pan (suitable for SW) and sweat down, then add your mince and fry it off. You want it fairly dry, so go at it. Crumble a stock cube in for a bit of extra taste. In another bowl, combine the quark, mustard (1syn per tsp, I only added one), worcestershire sauce and salt. Mix it into the beef and veg, chuck in the gnocchi, even it out. Top with all that grated cheese. Into the oven for 15 minutes or so at 180 degrees, then under the grill until you get the top all golden and delicious. Serve. YUM.

extra-easy – well, you’d need to serve it with a salad, as it only has superfree peppers in it. But considering it is so full of goodness, it’s low in syns and tasty! Give it a go. You could up the stakes by using garlic philadelphia (20 syns per tub so only five syns each), but then you’d be a decadent tart.

Enjoy.

J

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January 23, 2015

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airfryer, beef, beef joints, classics, lamb, lamb joints, low syn, pork, pork joints, poultry, recipe card, syn free, whole

the sunday roast

Right – a heads up, which may be a bad choice of words for the little bit of explaining that I’m going to be doing – this blog post might be a little saucy. Oh my! Skip the next lot of paragraphs if you’d rather just get to the good bit.

You have to be super careful typing our blog name into google. Why? Because it can bring up a lot of filthy results if it is incorrectly spelled, just like one slip of the keys can make a weekend in Scunthorpe altogether less palatable. Thanks to the traffic we receive to the blog, we’re number one if you search for ‘chubby cubs’ but if you look down, there’s a fair few blogs that aren’t quite for vanilla eyes!

So let me explain the name of the blog – the two and the chubby bit is obvious, we’re a couple of gentleman of generous scale. But the cubs bit might be less obvious. See, in the gay world, aside from all the rainbows, magic dust and blistering fisting sessions, there’s a tendency to group male types by an animal name. Breaking them down, very very loosely, and tongue completely in (bum)cheek:

bear: a bear is a more masculine looking bloke – bearded, hairy, generally stocky or fat, normally has a wardrobe full of plaid shirts, fan of Kate Bush;

cub: a younger version of a bear, generally equally hairy, more stereotypically masculine in traits, might order a Guinness in a pub rather than a blue WKD and a fingering;

otter: more difficult – because not all bears are fat, stocky and of course you get people in all different shades, a thin hairy bear might be described as an otter. Presumably because he is generally ‘otter than most people under all that hirsuteness;

chicken – which became twink, I think – a young, attractive, usually slender or physically fit slip of a man. Again, very generally speaking, perhaps camper than most, more effeminate.

Of course, all boundaries are meaningless and it’s also a rather outdated way of looking at things – being able to grow a beard and light a cigar without coughing your lungs up doesn’t make you more masculine, whereas knowing the lyrics to every Alcazar song in Swedish and English doesn’t necessarily make you less of a man. Well…

Our problem is – we’re almost at the tipping point where we’d probably be classed as ‘bears’ rather than ‘cubs’ because we’re getting on, but frankly two chubby bears doesn’t scan right. Two Busomesque Bears? Two Beefy Butterballs? Actually, I quite like that one, but fuck me our porn warnings would skyrocket.

Oh, as an aside, those girls who seem to only have gay men as friends? Like my ex-flatmate who exclaimed we could go shopping together and sort each other’s hair out? She got short shrift. But they have many sarcastic terms too – fruit flies, fag hags, queer dears…

That’s enough of that, anyway. Speaking of beef, here’s dinner this evening – a proper roast dinner!

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to make the sunday roast, you should…

I don’t really need to break down a recipe, because it’s all a sum of its parts, but this is more to show you can have a big bloody dinner on SW and not lose out. Broken down:

  • roast beef – syn free joint from Tesco’s reduced bin – reduced from £9 to £2, and bloody lovely!
  • broccoli – steamed
  • peas – tinned
  • carrots and parsnips – done in the Actifry with a tiny tiny bit of oil
  • mash – sweet potato and normal potato mashed together
  • turnip – it’s the singing turnip from this recipe
  • roasties – we tried to do the Oxo roasties that everyone bangs on about and got it wrong, so we’re going to do them another time and post a recipe!

Now you could have gravy – 100ml is 1.5syns, which is bugger all, but don’t drown your dinner in gravy, it’s terribly common. Paul puts mint sauce on his beef and I end up wincing my way through the meal. But he cooked tonight’s tea so he’s let off with love.

J

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November 29, 2014

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

syn free spaghetti bolognese

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

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

so to make syn free spaghetti bolognese:

slutspaghetti recipe

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

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

 

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November 25, 2014

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american, barbecue, beef, beef mince, breast, burgers, fakeaways, low syn, mince, pork, pork joints, poultry, recipe card

introducing the beastburger!

I’m at a difficult stage in my life. The hour long commute from my home to work has to be done in a car (well no, I could take the bus, but so do so many smelly people and I can’t be done inhaling someone else’s body odour for an hour whilst I try to prevent my cankles brushing theirs) and I’m having trouble selecting a radio station. See, I used to enjoy Radio 1, and I admit that I think Nick Grimshaw is fantastic in the morning, but oh god lord the music. Occasionally there will be a song I enjoy, but most of the time I’m wailing at the radio because of the standard of music. For example, they play Lorde all the god-damn time, and her heaby breathing and straining of every single syllable makes it sound like she’s singing for gold in a COPD clinic talent show. So, I end up stabbing at the buttons and switching to Radio 2.

Radio 2 is alright.

What’s left? I’m not intellectual enough for Radio 4, I’m sick of hearing the same eight pieces of music on Classic FM and, as I’m not a taxi offender, Smooth FM is out of the window. BBC Radio Newcastle consists of people ringing up talking about their ingrown toenails and Metro Radio, which used to be grand back in the day, is fronted by two thick people and a sound effects machine. Bah. I generally end up getting in a huff with myself and singing instead. I could put on a podcast or my own music but I’m too lazy to figure out how the bluetooth works on my car. Ah well.

Anyway, that’s enough from me – here’s the real star of the show today – the beastburger!

beastburger

I wasn’t sure how to go about giving this a title – I was going to go with “I’ve never had so much meat pressed between my brown buns” but even I blanched at that. But look at it! It’s a thing of beauty.

Now I know, it’s ridiculous. Ridiculously tasty! The syns come from the Heck burger (1 syn) (swap for a chicken breast for a syn-free alternative) and the cheese (Low Low Slices – 2 syns each) which you could very easily leave off, making this giant behemoth syn free! Use your breadbun as a healthy extra. Served with sweet potato chips if you’re feeling especially piggy, this will really fill a hole.

With meat.

To make the pulled pork, use my old recipe here and for the beef burgers, one of the very first recipes I ever made, right here. Easy!

Enjoy!

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November 15, 2014

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beef, diced beef, low syn, recipe card

beef and butterbean stew

Tonight, for our evening meal, we have:

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This diet is definitely working- I tried a new shirt on (well an old one, actually, with super bright multi-coloured stripes – I look like an ice-cream seller) and it fits! I resisted the urge to come mincing out the bedroom singing ‘I look handsome I look smart I’m a walking work of art’ and jazzhanding at Paul, but only just.

Do you know, I’ve never heard anything back from The Chase about my recent application. I’m secretly a bit gutted. All I want is for my star to shine on TV – first I narrowly missed getting on the bus with Coach Trip, now even Bradley Walsh is turning me down. I’d quite like a stab at Gogglebox too, if I’m honest, although I don’t think Channel 4 could cope with Paul and I sitting on our pleather settee in our knickers with pastry crumbs cascading down our chests whilst we slag off all and sundry. Plus I do spend an impressive amount of time scratching my feet with a Ped-Egg and I can imagine that would look especially unsavoury in HD, with my cheesy foot snow billowing about every time we fart. I’ve been trying to persuade Paul to play with me on New Super Mario World on the Wii U but because he’s got eyes that can see both ends of a wedding buffet at the same time (he never looks forward to anything), he can’t handle 3D games. But then I can’t handle discussing the political implications of the North Korea situation like he can, so we balance each other out. UNLIKE HIS EYES.

Eee what a cow. Here’s the recipe.

to make beef and butterbean stew:

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ingredients: three red onions, cut nice and small, light jus-rol pastry, chopped tomatoes, 400ml of beef stock, cornflour, smoked paprika, garlic, lean beef casserole, butter beans and an egg

recipe: pop the hob onto a medium-high heat and get your casserole pot out (preferably one you can bung in the oven). A splash of olive oil on the bottom or frylight if you’re syn-free. Roll your meat around in a teaspoon of cornflour and smoked paprika. You can skip this bit if you like – I didn’t, because the flour helps it not to stick, but as this serves four, I didn’t syn it – if you want to be super-careful it’ll be 1 syn at most. Fry the meat for three minutes to get a good seal on it. Take the meat out, put the onion in to saute, and then add everything into the pot.

Now your choice is simple. Hob for two hours on medium or oven for three. I prefer the oven, because it takes longer and the flavours develop. The meat I got from Sainsbury’s was as tough as old boots – I actually went onto their facebook and left a message:

‘By ‘eck Sainsburys. I’ve had some tasteless, flabby portions of meat in my mouth in my time but never have I had the displeasure I’ve just felt trying to chew my way through your ‘diced lean casserole beaf steak’ pack that you recommend for your beef and butter bean pie. Tasteless, tough meat that I could probably bounce on the floor as it was so rubbery. Felt like I was eating calamari. I feel I’d have enjoyed more flavour, and certainly more succulence, if I’d ripped up a floor tile from your Cramlington store and made that into a casserole. Even my cat, who isn’t picky, turned her nose up at it, and she licks her own bottom all day long.’

I actually salvaged the dinner by cooking it for three hours – I think two hours on the hob won’t cut it if you use cheaper meat. Your call!

If you want the stars, syn them at 4 syns (and again, that’s being generous). Easy enough, unroll the pastry and cut them out with a cutter. I’ve actually got a penis-shaped cutter, but I thought that would look ungainly. Brush with egg and put them in a hot oven for fifteen minutes, or until they’re golden brown.

We had the usual sweet potato mash – chop potatoes, rice them, add a drop of horseradish and the remainder of the egg you’ll use to glaze the stars. Mix, and serve. Broccoli on the side.

extra-easy: yes, 0 syns if you omit the pastry stars and the cornflour, but again, remember you’re eating to be happy, not punishing yourself. Get out of the mindset of being scared to use your syns and spend them on making your food that little bit better. THAT said, if you didn’t have pastry, you could throw the mash on top and have a sort of shepherds pie. If you’re INSANE. To work out the syns, well here’s a copy of the post I made explaining it!

I used a teaspoon of cornflour, most of which was left in the bottom of the bowl – so split between four, is almost nothing (I did say this in the blog to make sure mind!). I’ve never synned the garlic – but looking at it, if you use the paste, it’s a syn per tablespoon – so I generally use the powdered stuff. As for the pastry – 100g which made enough stars for four servings, it’s 53 syns (!) for 320 – so I worked it out as 4 syns for the stars!

top tips: The scraps of the Jus-Rol could easily be made into those cinnamon swirl things you see dotted around various groups. But that’s just pastry, cinnamon and sweetener – and we’re talking a LOT of sweetener, and it isn’t very good for the body. Your call mind, I’m not lecturing! If you wanted, just cut out strips, sprinkle sweetener and cinnamon, and roll them up into a wheel shape. Mmm! 2 syns each. Just have a bloody Freddo and get on with it!

J

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November 12, 2014

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american, beef mince, low syn, pork, pork mince, recipe card, savoury snacks, snacks, taster ideas

half a syn american meatloaf

You know what I miss most from the last two decades or so? My hair. I used to have amazing hair. My friends, family and everyone in existence would doubtless think otherwise, but I don’t care. I grew my hair for a good three years or so, dyed it a myriad of different colours, and always had something fun to play with during those tricky times when having a wank just wasn’t appropriate behaviour, such as sitting on a bus or the funeral of a loved one. It was thick, luxurious, well-maintained – I loved being able to lie in the bath and swish it around in the water, I loved being able to tie knots in it, hell, I even straightened it once with a pair of straighteners and it was like the second coming. I do want to say though – at no point did I ever have one of those awful fringes which covered the eyes and necessitated that awful neck-throwing action that seems to be everywhere. I was never an Emo McGee. Too fat for it, for one thing, and I didn’t have the wherewithal to start putting shit poetry on Livejournal.

Of course, wistful recollection is a wonderful thing, but in reality, I probably looked like the abandoned child of Snape from Harry Potter and old ‘why use one voice when nineteen layered over the top of each other will do’ Enya. When I was thin, it fair suited me, but when I was a porky fella, I just looked like a hairy Christmas bauble. I remember going to France with a mate when I was eighteen, and during a daring bit of drunkenness, having all my hair removed – and we’re talking hair down to the middle of my back shaved off and my head left as smooth as a bowling ball. My mum walked straight past me at the airport and then spent the next twenty minutes shrieking and telling me I looked normal again. Cheers mum. For the first time in years, I felt a draft around my ears that even now makes me wince and long for the comfort of my Fructis-scented wonderhair. Ah well. Those days are definitely behind me, given that I’ve got hair like Steve McDonald now, and it’s easier just to cut it myself than see myself reflected in a barber’s mirror, light bouncing off the smooth, hairless front where so many beautiful hairs once lay. Sigh. The reason for this hair chatter by the way was the simple, indubitable truth that if I was to grow my hair again, I’d look like the time Heather from Eastenders dresSed up as Meat Loaf (hence the meat loaf recipe). See?

meatloaf

Anyway, come on, enough about times past. I went to see Interstellar last night, hence no post – apologies. However, I’ve got a corking recipe below for meatloaf which is perfect homely food for these cold nights. Interstellar, by the way, is absolute bobbins. It starts off promising enough, but then descends into look-at-me schtick and aren’t-I-clever writing. Plus, every time Anne Fucking Hathaway opened her mouth I started having internal flashbacks to her caterwauling through Les Misérables a couple of years ago and had to stop the shakes with my salted popcorn. I’m sorry, but I just don’t like her – and I think my friend summed it up best when she said that ‘the biggest black hole in the entire movie is when Anne opens her letterbox mouth’. Haha!

SO shush man, meatloaf.

to make half a syn american meatloaf:

Meatloaf

ingredients: two stalks of celery, 1 medium carrot, an onion, small pepper, 3 mushrooms (I used shiitake because…well because they were all I had in the fridge, but I reckon they add a good strong taste, so roll with it), 500g of beef mince (remember, 5% fat or under), 500g of pork mince, three slices of breadcrumbs (though we only ended up using two slices worth – just gauge how wet your meat is before you pound it, haha), 2 large eggs, 1 tomato, seasonings. Ketchup or passata.

recipe: get that oven up to 190 degrees and lightly frylight a loaf tin. Actually, you know what, fair enough if you want to stay away from syns, but I can’t recommend frylight anymore. Do as I do and use a drop of olive oil and spread it around. It’ll be enough and you’re not having that mess of chemical water you get in frylight.

Use the food processor to blitz the bread into crumbs. Empty out. Cut the celery, carrot and onion up in the food processor. Add a clove of garlic if you like. Cook the chopped-up pepper and mushrooms until soft. Chuck everything into a bowl – all the meat, the two eggs, crumbs (don’t use all of them, keep some aside in case you need to add more if your mixture is too wet – it’s a lot easier to add something than try to balance it!), the cooked mushroom and peppers, the veg paste from the food processor and the chopped tomato. Add in a proper good glug of worcestershire sauce and salt and pepper. Season as much as you think, and then add a bit more. Really pound your meat and get everything mixed together, and then shape it so it looks like a loaf. Drop it into your tin and smear tomato ketchup on the top. If you want to save syns, use some passata, but the sugars from the ketchup finish the dish off.

You’ll need to cook this for a good while – we went for 90 minutes, but start using your common sense from about 75m in. LEAVE to cool and serve with your sides. We went for sweet potato and peas.

Now listen – this will easily make eight servings. It’s up to you how much you want to eat, but this can very easily be turned into leftovers the next day with some pasta, or even in a sandwich as long as you use your healthy extra for the bread.

extra-easy: yes, but make sure you make the sides of the meal nice and high in superfree food. You could do a salad, or cabbage, or anything – but the meatloaf itself won’t make up your 1/3 rule. Syn wise is negligible, to be fair. Tomato ketchup is 1 syn per level tablespoon – so two tablespoons of that to cover the top and then split into eight is quarter of a syn. If you’re going to be fussy, use passata, but haway, Two slices of wholemeal bread is a healthy extra (small loaf mind) and although I blended up three, I only needed two – and again, you’re splitting this into eight servings. So…up to you, but I didn’t syn the bread as I used it as a healthy extra!

top tips: this looks like quite an expensive meal to make, given the amount of meat, but you can nearly always buy the mince on a deal. I don’t recommend making it all from beef because it doesn’t have quite the same texture, but you could try it. You can freeze it too. Plus, this makes a BIG loaf. YOU’LL be making a big loaf afterwards, I can assure you. Enjoy!

J

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October 22, 2014

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beef, beef mince, burgers, classics, fakeaways, fast food restaurants, low syn, recipe card

well burger me, it’s burger in a bowl time

When I heard that this dish tasted just like Big Mack, I thought of an ambulance driver I once knew. Except he tasted like an anchovy.

Meanwhile, just a little entry tonight. Ahem. This recipe is the infamous Slimming World burger in a bowl, or big-mac in a bowl, where the individual components of a big-mac are layered in a bowl with a ‘special sauce’ (not that kind). It’s actually surprisingly tasty and only 1 syn a serving! Just a quick post and I’ll fill it out tomorrow as Apprentice is on and I want to see it. I can’t tear myself away from Alan Sugar.

to make burger in a bowl

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ingredients: 500g extra-lean mince, finely chopped onion (though I think Paul used a butter knife to chop the onions, judging by the pictures), 2 garlic cloves, 1/2 iceberg lettuce, 8 gherkins, 1 small red onion, 2 tomatoes. For the sauce: 3 level tbsp extra-light mayo, 5 tbsp fat free fromage frais (seriously, every recipe I do uses fromage frais, can we not start taken it as a given?), 1 level tbsp of American style mustard, 2 tbsp tomato puree and 2tsp white wine vinegar. Add 1/2tsp of garlic salt and 1/4 onion granules. Pinch of smoked paprika.

recipe: bit of an assembly job this one, but fairly self-explanatory. Prepare the base – slice the gherkins, tomatoes, the lettuce and the red onion. Prepare the mince by frying the onion, mince and garlic until cooked through. Mix all the sauce ingredients together. Put the mince onto the salad and the sauce onto the mince and, if you’re feeling especially flatitious, hoy your healthy extra A cheese on top (30g).

extra-easy: yes – and only a syn per portion. Haha, portion. The gherkins, onion, tomatoes and lettuce are all superfree so that’s your 1/3 hit right there. REJOICE.

top tips: this is a good, filling meal that does oddly taste like a big-mac, if only for the special sauce. Using a good strong, mature cheddar gives it a bit of a kick and means you don’t have to spread your syns. Enjoy!

J