Posted by

Posted on

September 6, 2015

Posted under

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:

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.

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.

Posted by

chubbycubs

Posted on

August 31, 2015

Posted under

chinese, fakeaways, low syn, noodles, pork, pork mince, recipe card, rice, sauces

sweet and sour pork meatballs

James is busy trying to be all macho with his dad putting together our new utility room but there’s no manly way to hold a handheld Dyson or use a microfibre cloth. So tonight’s post comes from me (Paul). Sorry about that.

Blimey. What a day. I knew there was something the matter with us when we starting planning our day at IKEA. ON A BASTARD BANK HOLIDAY. IKEA is pure hell at the best of times – one of these places that makes you think you’re going to have a wonderful day bouncing about on sofa cushions and bean bags and being one big giggling family with a hot dog and an ice cream at the end, when the reality is actually you spending one floor staring intensely into the back of someone’s head because they’re walking far too slowly, and the second floor wanting to just die because you’re SICK OF THIS SHIT ALREADY. So, against our better judgement, that’s what we did today.

But with a difference.

After having the Ikea experience on multiple occasions for big projects (like the kitchen) we’ve eventually got this all down to a tee. So, down to the second, we had the whole day planned out that minimised any interaction with slow-walking, gormless members of the public, ordered a new living room set, refunded a dodgy kitchen door (that I accidentally drilled through – eeehwhatamilike) and threw in a breakfast for good measure. Well, you need that energy if you’re going to mutter ‘FUCKING MOVE’ under your breath every ten seconds.

We arrived on the dot, just as the revolving door started to move and slyly minced our way through all the shortcuts to get straight to the restaurant – the most important part of the day. Once James had wiped away his tears after noticing they’d gotten rid of the potato cake (NOOOOOOOOOOOO) we were straight to the BESTÅ stand to fuck around on some crappy little computer bunging cupboards on walls. If you’ve ever fancied having a sob into some KUNTÅ sidetable go ahead and try and plan your living room on their online planner. It’s what I imagine it’d be like to be Stephen Hawking on speed trying to describe the texture of Quark on that little Atari he’s got strapped to his chair. Stressful isn’t the word. You might as well etch your design it into your arm with a compass and present it the warehouse staff.

I’d fantasised about at least ten ways of dispatching multiple rough sorts on the way to the lighting section. I can never understand the mentality of people who think it’s perfectly acceptable to just stop in the middle of an aisle when there’s practically a stampede of guffawing Geordies rampaging towards you (not unlike that scene in the Lion King but with a lot more polyester and teenage pregnancies). I bet those people are also those that pull their trolley across in a supermarket like a barrier. I’m far too polite (cowardly) though to ever say anything. I just stare at them like I’m trying to burn through them with laser-beam eyes. James isn’t quite so composed and will just barge through shouting at people to ‘MOVE!’, like a hairy snow plough. He almost ran someone off the road simply for having the temerity of having a mauve car.

Fortunately though the whole day was a success, despite all the eejits and lack of an ice cream at the end and we got everything sorted. They even managed to refund us the drawer and door that I ballsed up without a receipt. God love ‘em. As a thank you I was sure to press the green smiley face button that measures people’s happiness as many times as I could. I’d like to think it made a difference.

One way we always make our IKEA experience a little more fun is to watch out for any couples that are eyeing up a particular piece of furniture. If either of them makes a muttering that they quite like it we’ll always come up behind them and then start slagging it off. ‘Oh that’s fucking gopping’, or, “Oh lord, I’ve never seen anything as tacky as THAT in my life’. They’ll soon walk off and have a tiff a little further on. Oh we’re such terrors.

But that’s enough yak. In the spirit all things IKEA we’ve managed to bring together a delicious meatball recipe that’ll cure any takeaway pangs you have… here’s our take on Sweet & Sour Pork Meatballs.

to make our sweet and sour pork meatballs, you’ll need:

for the meatballs:

500g pork mince
1 carrot, grated
2 spring onions, finely sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced
½ tsp black pepper
½ salt
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 egg, beaten
half a pineapple, cut into small chunks (0.25cm)

for the sweet and sour sauce:

1 red onion, finely sliced
2 cloves garlic minded
½ large red pepper, sliced
½ green pepper, sliced
3 large tomatoes, roughly chopped
half a pineapple, cut into chunks (halve again into two separate portions)
115g tomato puree
1 tbsp cornflour (1 syn)
1 tbsp cider vinegar
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp honey (5 syns)
½ tsp salt
½ tsp pepper

and this is how you make it:

preheat your oven to 180°c and line a baking sheet with greaseproof paper
heat a small saucepan over a medium heat and add a little oil
add the minced garlic and spring onions and cook for 4-5 minutes until softened and slightly browned. set aside
in a large bowl mix together the mince, carrot, peppers, egg, basil, salt, pepper, Worcestershire sauce, pineapple pieces and the spring onions
roll the mixture into even sized balls – squeezing out the liquid if you need to – don’t worry if it seems too wet (fnar), they’ll keep their shape if you squeeze enough liquid out (fnar)
place the meatballs onto the baking sheet and spray with a little Frylight
cook for about thirty minutes or until golden brown
whilst the meatballs are cooking you can make the fruity sauce
heat a large frying pan over a medium heat and add a little oil
add the sliced red onion and garlic and stir frequently until the onion is slightly caramelised
add the peppers one of the pineapple portions and cook for a few minutes until softened
add the tomatoes, salt and pepper and keep cooking, stirring frequently
using a sieve, crush down the other half of the pineapple chunks portion into a jug to get the juice
add the cornflour to the pineapple juice and stir until dissolved
add the tomato paste, honey, cider vinegar, lemon juice and 120ml water to the jug and mix well
pour this mixture into the frying pan, bring to a boil and simmer for about ten minutes until the mixture thickens
serve the meatballs and pour the sauce over the top

Please don’t be put off by the long ingredient list – you’ll probably have a lot of it already in your cupboards and if not, go get some! It’ll all be dead cheap and useful to you for future recipes. Also, don’t be put off by the syn values – yes, this uses honey and cornflour but divided by four this only comes in at 1.5 syns, which is nothing compared to a takeaway. And, it’ll finally give you a reason to use that pineapple you keep buying and leaving to rot on your windowsill…

Technically, because you’re squeezing the juice out of a quarter of a pineapple you could syn it if you’re anal about such things. We didn’t because we take a more common sense approach to tweaking. You can if you wish – I reckon it’d be about half a syn’s worth (if that).

Smaklig måltid!

Posted by

chubbycubs

Posted on

August 28, 2015

Posted under

british, chip shop, fakeaways, low syn, recipe card, seafood

homemade fish fingers

There was a TV programme smeared on BBC One on Wednesday night, immediately following Bake Off, called Britain’s Spending Secrets? Did anyone catch it? It was presented by Anne Robinson, who, despite being only one facelift from having a second pair of lips to talk through, I rather like. She’s disarming yet dangerous – I always feel that if I was to talk to her I’d start off joking about boobs and end up confessing to being making super speed soup out of Shergar. I love how that sounds as a sentence. All those S’s. Ssss.

Anyway the reason I bring up Wednesday’s TV like it’s even slightly relevant is because of how angry it made me. The show itself was the usual bit of evening fluff where some people talk about having money, some talk about not having money, the presenter (attempts to) smiles her way through having to sit on someone’s Perfect Home settee and disguise the fact she wants to go home and boil wash her Etro blazer. And of course, being the BBC, it’s all done without the malice that would have accompanied it if the show had been on Channel 5, which seems to have morphed into the ‘Benefits’ channel, where even the most mundane activity has been turned into an excuse to film fat people struggling off the sofa whilst that fucking annoying pizzicato violin music plays.

Fact for you: it’s called Dance of the Woodland Pixies. Play the below and you’ll feel like Alex Polizzi, checking hotel toilets for pubes and looking disdainful.

Part of the show involved swapping two mothers over – one from a ‘buy buy buy’ family, the other from a ‘save save save’ lot. Predictable snipping. You can expect that. No, what made my blood turn to piss was the sight of the ‘rich’ family sneering at the ‘poor family’. The mother of the rich family made a big point about how she bought her daughters anything they wanted, that it is better to live for today and enjoy your money rather than worry what is coming (not completely untrue) and that labels made her happy. That’s fine, save for the fact she was instilling the same virtue in her daughter, who stood laughing at the ‘poor’ mother because she had the temerity to buy her stuff from a car boot sale. If I had been so openly disrespectful when I was little the skin on my arse would have looked like a slab of beef.

I could vaguely understand her reasoning if she had a gorgeous house and enough money in the bank to wipe her arse with £50 notes, but she actually had quite a run-down looking home, an average salary and a husband who walked behind her at all times. There was such an air of undeserved condescension about her that I almost bit clean through my cocoa cup. I can’t work my head around those who live their lives through what the label on their handbag says or what the tags on the back of their coats read. The only label I ever take notice of on a person is if they have ‘CAUTION: BITES’ pinned to their shirt. There’s no shame in having nice things but to use your shitty labels to pour scorn on others? Harumph.

Of course, if we’re going to be mean about the whole thing, she was prattling on in Debenhams (where all the well-to-do folk shop, naturally) about how she doesn’t blink twice about paying for a label because it’s the first thing people notice about her…well it wasn’t for Paul and me. We noticed her bad hair-dye job (sweetcorn yellow) and the fact that she thought a Radley handbag was the height of sophistication far quicker than we did notice her fanciness. Inner ugliness always shows, no matter how much ‘expensive’ make-up you trowel on.

Rest assured, if Paul and I had money, we wouldn’t be spending it on expensive clothes. I don’t see the point. Frankly, as long as my cock isn’t hanging out (which thanks to most of my jeans having a split in them, it normally is) and my tits aren’t on show, I’m fine and dandy in cheap clothes. Let’s all go to Tesco, where Jaymes buys his best clothes, la-la-la-la.

No, if we won the lottery, especially if we won one of those ridiculous figures where your brain really has to think to work out exactly what the zeroes mean, we’d spend it having a bloody great whale of a time. I don’t think I’d ever move again, for one thing. We’d have a chef, a driver, a decent PA, someone to come in and wash my belly-shelf. I’d like to think I’d be generous but I reckon we’d turn into evil rich people within approximately 30 minutes – paying Disney for the sole use of their parks and then sitting at the gates turning kids away, that kind of thing. I’d go round to all my exes with a car made of gold coins and jeer at them from the window. There’d be so many holidays that coming home would be having a rest.

Would I work? Would I fuckity. I must write my resignation letter in my head at least twice a week, and I actually enjoy my job, so if I had money behind me, I’d never work again. I can’t bear that, you know, when some yellow-eyed binman wins a few million and promises to carry on working. No! You don’t get to keep working, give your job to someone else and get yourself a new liver, you joyless bugger.

Ah, a boy can dream. Maybe this is why budget week didn’t quite work for us. But here, there’s a recipe we didn’t post which can be done on the cheap. This makes enough fish fingers to serve two with mushy peas and chips. I’m not a big fan of fishy fingers (seems apt), but these were lovely and a cheap recipe to make!

to make your fish fingers, you’ll need:

400g fish of your choice, defrosted (we used frozen cod)
17g corn flakes (3 syns)
2 slices of wholemeal bread (HEB)
one egg (beaten)
1 tbsp parsley
1 lemon
½ tsp pepper
mushy peas if you want them
chips if you want them

and then to make fish fingers, you should:

grate the zest from the lemon and then juice the fucker into submission (remember, if you’re pissing about grating on a box grater like a div, get a microplane grater, best gadget I own! Buy one here cheap cheap)
cut the fish into fingers and place in a shallow baking dish and cover with the lemon juice
meanwhile add the corn flakes, zest, bread, parsley and pepper to a food processor and blitz into a fairly fine powder, or if you’re lo-tech, hoy it all in a bag and bash it with a rolling pin
dip the fish fingers into the egg and roll gently in the breadcrumb mixture
heat a non-stick frying pan over a medium heat and add a little oil – or frylight – but make sure you use the best non-stick pan you’ve got
cook the fish fingers in a single layer for about 4-5 minutes each side until golden
serve with chips and peas!

Musclefood burgers tomorrow! And in time…an offer…

Posted by

chubbycubs

Posted on

August 16, 2015

Posted under

budget, burgers, fakeaways, lunch, pulses and grains, recipe card, syn free, vegetarian

black bean and quinoa burgers

I managed to make a tit of myself today in a garden centre, and not just because I’m a 30 year old lad who’ll actively choose to go to a garden centre on a Sunday afternoon. What can I say, I like the variety – where else can you go and buy a new connector for a hosepipe, a double DVD box set of Das Boot and Last of the Summer Wine and a white chocolate florentine? Years ago I would have rather ran a power-sander over the tip of my cock than schlep around sniffing flowers and Yankee Candles, but I’m getting old now.

Can we take a moment to discuss Yankee Candles? Now, and this will come as no surprise to anyone, I don’t mind a scented candle, but can someone explain to me how they come up with the names for their ‘scents’? Red Raspberry I can understand, but who decides what a ‘Wedding Day’ smells like (disappointing sausage rolls and regretful sex?) or indeed, what the hell ‘New Born’ is? To me a ‘New Born’ candle should smell like placenta, chyme and the crushing realisation you’ll never have your life to yourself again, but the good folk at Yankee Candle seem to think it smells like a urinal cake. Ah well.

We were there trying to find some suitable garden furniture for the new patio we’ve had built in the back garden. This is proving tricky in itself. All we want is a decent hardwood table and chairs. There’s no point in getting anything that needs to be brought in over the winter because we’re simply far too lazy and it’ll just to be left to rot. We had three pairs of boxer shorts hanging on our rotary drier all though Christmas last year because we kept meaning to bring them in. It was only when a particularly strong January wind blew one pair onto next door’s greenhouse roof that we took action.

There’s no point in getting anything plastic either, because it looks absolutely awful, and you just know the very second our arse touches the seat it’ll splinter into individual atoms with a loud enough crack to blow the windows in over the road and rattan isn’t going to work either because it’ll give too much under our weight and end up looking like a knackered shopping bag after three or four lazy Sundays.

So yes: hardwood, oak preferably. The garden centre didn’t cater for such a ridiculous notion as decent garden furniture but it did have a very comfortable little fabric sun-lounger on show. Of course, me being me, I had to have a go, and I poured myself in like one might tip a jelly out of a mould. It was grand, save for the fact that, thanks to my weight, the fabric pretty much ensconced me like a venus-fly-trap and it soon became clear that I wasn’t going to be able to get back out unassisted. Bearing in mind it was fairly busy and Paul was busy in the candles bit trying to figure out what the fuck ‘A Child’s Wish’ smells like, I had to free myself using only my own steam, especially as I couldn’t swing my legs out as the crotch on the jeans I was wearing had split a few weeks ago and I wasn’t entirely confident I was wearing underwear that wouldn’t have shown my balls to the world.

So – turns out the easiest way is simply to swing to one side and tip the whole lounger over until I was wearing it on my back like a turtle and then throw it off. The whole process was over in less than ten seconds but my face was burning so brightly that I’m surprised Paul’s ‘Felching Remains’ Yankle Candle didn’t set itself away and take out his nosehair. We left immediately, hurtling out of the entrance hiding our faces like a disgraced politician entering court. So that was that.

I’ll need to crack on with the recipe now as the rest of the evening is going to be spent pulling up the god-awful carpet that haunts this house in anticipation of our fabulous new carpet that arrives tomorrow. I genuinely can’t wait. Words cannot describe how god-awful the current one is, it’s no wonder the previous occupant chose to die on the toilet in the bathroom rather than face-down in this shag, you’d never find a body.

So, black bean and quinoa burgers then…

to make the black bean and quinoa burgers you need (makes six burgers):

1 tin of black eyed beans (drained) (Tesco, 55p)
65g quinoa (£2.35 for 300g in Tesco, so I’m calling 50p)
½ red onion (7p)
½ wholemeal roll, made into breadcrumbs (use one from a pack of six and the remainder of the six to put your burgers (65p)
2 cloves of garlic, minced (10p from the bulb you’ve been using for the rest of the recipes)
50ml of lime juice (you can buy a 250ml bottle for 85 – 17p used)
1 egg, whisked
½ tsp cumin (if you’ve got it)
½ tsp chilli flakes (if you’ve got it)
¼ tsp black pepper (if you’ve got it)

34p a burger!

to make the black bean and quinoa burgers , you should:

add the quinoa and 250ml water to a small saucepan and cook over a medium heat for about fifteen minutes (or until nearly all the water is absorbed)
meanwhile, add a tsp of oil to a frying pan over a medium heat and gently sweat the chopped onion until softened
in a large bowl, mix together the quinoa, onion and black beans, egg, breadcrumbs, garlic, lime juice and seasonings
mix by hand, gently mashing the beans with your hands slightly
when mixed, divide the portion into six and shape into burgers – if it feels a little wet you can add more breadcrumbs (though watch the syns!)
heat a large pan over a medium-high heat and add one tbsp of olive oil or squirt your frylight like a boss
cook the burgers for about 4 minutes each side
assemble!

Syn-free as long as you HEB the breadbun. Up to you if you think half a bun between six for the breadcrumbs is worth synning but we’re talking half a syn at most.

to gussy it up:

de-vegetarian the meal – make it with chicken, bacon and dashed hopes
add rocket
add a range of tomatoes

to cheapen it further:

the spices add flavour, but you can make do with a bit of salt and pepper
hmmm…

Enjoy!

Posted by

chubbycubs

Posted on

August 14, 2015

Posted under

budget, lunch, mince, poultry, recipe card, syn free

budget week: sweet potato, turkey and leek bake

I’m in an awful mood because it took me ninety minutes to get home instead of the usual twenty-five, thanks to all the braying hoo-rays spilling out of Newcastle Racecourse and blocking the road with their shitty Audis. So, instead of my usual pleasantries, I’m going to rattle off a list of random things that piss me off. WARNING: COARSE LANGUAGE. Of course!

sour sweets – they’re never quite sour enough for me. Seriously – if I buy a packet of sour sweets, I want my mouth to resemble the arsehole of someone who’s trying to hold back a fart at a funeral. I want to wince and tremble every time I put one on my tongue, not crash my car because my eyes have rolled to the back of my head with disappointment. Take a note Haribo, you lying bastards;

hun – I know it’s an obvious one but it drives me up the fucking wall quicker than Princess Di’s driver. Out of all the facebook platitudes, this has to be the most vapid and inane – there’s simply no excuse;

hairflickers – I went four years with hair past my shoulderblades and at no point did I feel the need to swoosh my hair like a horse being bothered by a fly – it’s an affected, fey little move and I don’t think I’m especially irrational for hoping it snaps your spinal cord;

bingo websites – since I signed up to a few bingo sites a while back (read here for my guide to making some easy money from them), we have been inundated with shitty little pieces of junk-mail through our letterbox, and they’re all the same – horrible balloon font (the type of font you’d use for warning signs in a special school), some actress who was last seen in Crossroads with badly whitened teeth, a few rainbows and a shit name – rehabbingo.com, spunkgarglerbingo.com, punchmyclitbingo.com and so on;

mincers – that stupid affected little mince that certain ladies do on the way to the car at the supermarket, with their knock-off handbag in the crook of an elbow and a bunch of keys to the other. We get it, you can drive, but I’d bet my house you’ve got ‘SPEED BITCH’ on your bumper and think your indicators are for resting your ankles on during coitus;

scratchers – people who buy scratchcards and can’t even wait until they’re out of the shop before losing all dignity and going at them – there’s someone in our local newsagent who is a bugger for this – he’s got a permanently silver fingertip. Use a coin, you sweaty-faced titrash;

straight men – well, not all straight men, only those who think that because I love a bit of cock that I must want theirs. I don’t. And just as an aside, if you’re a straight man who enjoys a bit of lavender action behind your wife’s back, then YOU’RE NOT FUCKING 100% STRAIGHT. The whole thing about it ‘not being gay if you don’t push back’ definitely, absolutely does not apply. There’s a simple enough test for blokes: if you have a cock between your legs, that’s reasonable. But if you have one pistoning away between your bumcheeks, then you’re not straight – and that’s cool, everyone has different degrees of sexuality, but stop with the 100% bollocks;

readers – people who read communal newspapers and don’t put them back in any sensible order, instead leaving all the pages out of sync and the entire paper looking like it’s blown down the street by a force 9 gale;

Paul – that I can’t find a good word to describe Paul – I don’t like husband because it sounds like I’m trying to make a political point, I don’t like partner because it makes it sound like we’ve only been together for a few months and are just testing the water, I don’t like ‘boyfriend’ because I actually have hair on my arse and my voice is broken so it’s not relevant, I don’t like life partner because just fuck off, I don’t like other half because that’s how thick chancers on game shows refer to their wives and apparently referring to him as Fatty or Shitty McGee is insulting;

‘s – it’s Tesco, not Tescos. It’s ASDA, not ASDAs. It’s especially NOT Marks and fucking Spencers;

drawn on eyebrows – why lighten your hair and then shave off your eyebrows and then draw them on with a Midnight Black Crayola? It’s even worse when they use a tin of Impulse as a drawing guide and put those half-moon shapes on above their eyes, giving them the look of someone who’s just been shot right on the sphincter with a pellet gun;

my face – I don’t like being told to cheer up. Look, I’m a genuinely cheerful guy most of the time, it just so happens that years of being cripplingly obese has left my face looking like an elderly pug being given bad news. I appreciate the concern, but equally, fuck off; and

phantom shitters – I’m not coy about dropping the kids off as and when I need to, so public toilets hold no fear for me. That said, it absolutely boils my piss when I nip into the gents only to find someone has sand-blasted the bowl or left something that could resink the Titanic floating around for everyone to look at. It’s not that bloody hard to flush a toilet and, if you’ve left the pan looking like someone wearing heavy boots has stepped on a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup, fucking clean it up! The brush next to the toilet isn’t a bloody ornament.

CHRIST.

So yeah, the recipe! Look it looks like a proper school dinner. It’s not fancy-dan, but it’s stodge, syn-free and cheap to make (and you can make it even cheaper if you try). Give it a go! Syn-free if you use a spray olive oil and HEA the cheese easily between six.

to make the sweet potato, turkey and leek bake, you need:

1 large turkey fillet (£3 from Tesco)
200g mushrooms, chopped (Tesco Value – 45p)
2 leeks, sliced (40p)
2 celery stalks, chopped (69p, used 40p)
2 cloves of garlic, minced (use up some of the cloves from previous meals)
sprig of thyme (grown in the garden, or nick a sprig from the shop!)
300g fat free cottage cheese (Tesco Value, syn free – 64p)
2 large sweet potatoes, peeled and chopped (63p, Tesco)
1 ball of mozzarella, shredded (47p – Tesco Everyday Value mozzarella)

This serves six, so by my estimation, this costs around £1 a serving – if you’re on a budget, just use the rest of the pack of mushrooms you buy instead of turkey and sweat it down a bit longer – that reduces the cost per serving by 50p and makes it veggie friendly. That’ll put a smile on your grey, ashen, meat-deprived face. Just kidding, before you write your complaints…

to make the sweet potato, turkey and leek bake, you should:

place the sweet potato in a large pan of boiling water and cook until soft, mash and set aside
flatten the turkey (if needed) using a rolling pin so that it is about 2cm thick, just imagine it’s someone you hate and you’re trying to kill them;
using a pan with a lid, heat one teaspoon of oil over a medium heat and add the turkey (syn the oil if you’re feeling anal, but haway);
allow the turkey to cook for ten minutes with the lid on;
after ten minutes, turn off the heat – keep the lid on and allow it to continue cooking in the leftover heat;
remove the lid from the pan and leave for another 5-10 minutes just to cool down;
check the turkey is cooked throughout and there is no pink meat remaining – if there is, cook for another five minutes over a medium heat until you’ve really beaten your pink meat;
when the turkey is cooked, shred it using two forks to pull the meat apart and set aside;
heat a large saucepan over a medium-high heat and add another teaspoon of oil (or Frylight);
add the garlic and cook until it’s sizzling and lovely, stirring occasionally;
add the mushrooms, leek and celery and stir until softened and the creepy mushroom juice has reduced;
remove from the heat, add the cottage cheese and turkey, and mix well;
spoon the turkey mixture into a casserole dish, or individual dishes;
top with the sweet potato and shredded mozarella and bake in the oven at 190 until the cheese is browned
serve with a flourish, you big fairy.

to gussy it up:

use chicken (we did, but turkey is cheaper)
add bacon (fat off, mind)
pipe your sweet potato on so it looks prettier – Paul flung the mash on ours with all the grace of a distressed chimp in a zoo flinging his faeces around

to reduce the cost:

take out the meat and replace with mushrooms
take out the leeks and use bog standard onion
go to ALDI or t’market
seriously, if you need thyme, you could just break off a bit as you schlep around the supermarket. Naughty…or, leave it out, it adds a nice flavour but it could sit without it just as well.

One thing: Tesco Everyday Value low-fat cottage cheese is syn-free and a lot cheaper than their healthy living cottage cheese. So there’s that.

Eee, I’m sorry for the rant before…it’s just not like me!

Posted by

chubbycubs

Posted on

August 12, 2015

Posted under

budget, low syn, lunch, pasta, recipe card, vegetarian

budget week: dressed spaghetti with eggs

Only a quick post tonight as we’re out shopping, so I’m reposting a particularly relevant part of the blog that I typed out a while back – seems perfect for budget week! Enjoy. The recipe could not be simpler, it’s just dressed spaghetti with fried eggs. Sounds dull, but really, the combinations of flavours combined with a runny yolk makes it almost like a meatless carbonara, and it’s worth giving it a go. Without further delay then…

Bulk buy the staples

Long time readers may remember The Cat Hotel – we cleared out our shed, fitted shelving and use it to store bulk purchases of anything that is either on a considerable discount or cheaper to buy in bulk. So to this end we always have masses and masses of Slimming World staples – chopped tomatoes, beans, pasta, spaghetti, chickpeas, tinned veg, stock cubes, salt, vinegar, sauces, rice. We generally buy these in bulk from Costco – to give you an example of savings here, you can pick up 24 tins of excellent quality chopped tomatoes for around £7, or 28p a tin. Yes, you can buy them cheaper in Tesco if you go down to the ‘Aren’t I a cheapskate’ range, but you’re getting red piss in a tin with a tomato crust. There would be more tomato flavour if you sucked the tomato on the tin wrapper. Bulk buying nearly always pays for itself in the end plus you’ve always got something in – many a time Paul and I will just have a tin of beans for dinner because we’re too busy illegally downloading TV shows and living the life of Riley. By the way, our cats don’t bother with it, and why would they? Yes it’s warm, safe and dry, but they’d much rather crap in my flowerbeds and track their muddy paws across our white tiles.

Cook twice, freeze once!

Most of our recipes can easily be doubled or halved – but if I say it serves four, then cook for four and freeze two portions – or serve three portions and take one for lunch the next day as we normally do. You’re cooking the meal anyway so it’s no hardship at all to freeze a bit up.

ALDI/LIDL

You can save money in these shops, but I don’t like them. I have tried, I swear I have. We went to an Aldi once and it was just too stressful – I don’t like a shop that puts garden shears next to petit pois tins and tumble drier balls next to the Daily Malk chocolate. I find it too confusing, with all the off-brand rip-offs and impossible layout – it’s like an Escher puzzle of abject poverty. Plus when you go to pay for your items the cashier throws them through the checkout like she’s going for gold for Great Britain’s curling team. I like small talk and chit-chat, not fucking carpet burns from a pack of floor wipes swishing past my hand at the speed of light. If you can deal with the above, all the very best to you, you’ll definitely save – but if not…

Don’t be afraid to scrabble in the bargain bin

Listen, I used to avoid the bargain bin like the best of them, but since I discovered that my local Tesco actually do decent meat reductions, I’ll happily get in there and elbow an old biddy in the face for £2 off a pork shoulder. You’ve got to be savvy though – get what you need, rather than what you think is a decent deal. If you weren’t going to buy that six pack of yoghurt reduced to 8p because the fork-lift ran over it and a fox shagged the strawberry crunch, it’s not a bargain. But the flipside of this is – don’t be one of those fucking awful people who grab items as soon as the poor supermarket worker has stuck the reduced sticker on it. Have a touch of class. Yes, you might have a trolley so full of reduced bread that you could use it to stop a raging river, but what price dignity? I’ve mentioned before that I’ve seen people actually fighting and nothing is worth that.

Get yourself a countdown

Clearly not a countdown as in the game-show for the piss-flow challenged, but rather where you bulk buy Slimming World entry costs and get 12 weeks for the cost of ten, plus if you time it right you’ll normally get given a free book that you can immediately ~~sell on ebay for further profit~~ read and enjoy. Mind, this is good for two reasons – yes, you’ll save money, but if you’re as tight as a tick’s bumhole like I am, the idea of wasting already spent money will make you go to class! WIN WIN.

for dressed spaghetti with eggs, you’ll need (serves 6)…

500g of spaghetti – 500g is only 20p at Tesco, so go mad – you don’t need expensive spaghetti
1 tablespoon of olive oil – 6 syns – £1.20 for 200ml so let’s say 6p for a tbsp
8 large cloves of garlic, peeled and minced, not hard for a mincer like me – 30p at Tesco
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes – £1.99 in Tesco but they’ll last you an age, so I’m going to say 6p here
3 tablespoons freshly chopped parsley, more for garnish if desired (£1.25 for a plant in Tesco, you use 10p worth, see my note below)
juice of half a lemon (30p, 15p used)
optional – use parmesan on the top (30g HEA for one person) (block I use is £4 a pop, but you don’t need to use it – I reckon around 40p used here)
4 tablespoons of the pasta water
fried eggs dry-fried (2 eggs each, 12 eggs in total – £1.75)
salt, naturally

to make dressed spaghetti with eggs, you should…

cook the spaghetti in boiling water until cooked, then drain – keeping aside a small cup of the pasta water
finely mince your garlic and sweat it down in the oil on a nice hot pan (save about a sixth to add later)
cooked slowly, the garlic will golden nicely
once the garlic is golden, add the chopped parsley, chilli flakes, pasta water and the lemon juice together with a pinch of salt and allow to mingle together like awkward teens at a disco
mix it through the cooked spaghetti, adding a little extra water to loosen it
whilst this is happening, cook your eggs – don’t let the yolk set, as you want to pop the yolk when the eggs are on top of your pasta!
serve the pasta with eggs on top and parmesan if you fancy

Look, I know this looks bland, but the pasta is delicious and the eggs add a nice creaminess. Plus, it takes about fifteen minutes from looking at the freezer crying to getting it on the plate.

a note about herbs

Fresh herbs always, always taste better. You’re better off buying a couple of those living plants from the supermarket and looking after them – we’ve got a basil and a parsley plant in the kitchen on the windowsill that’s been going strong since May, despite Paul’s attempts to kill them with his toxic farts. We simply popped the plant, still inside its plantpot, inside an old loaf tin, which we top up with water every now and then. Easy! It takes the water it needs and keep you going for ages!

to gussy it up

add bacon strips
more cheese!

to cheapen the deal

switch to Frylight (you’ll save syns too)
one egg each rather than two

Easy!

Posted by

chubbycubs

Posted on

August 11, 2015

Posted under

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

budget week: tuna frittata with a boob of couscous

Who doesn’t love a boob of couscous? Eh? I’ve normally got some degree of couscous caught up in my chest hair since we’ve taken to buying the industrial-sized catering tubs from Costco and eating couscous for every meal where we can’t be arsed to cook. Seriously, it’s hard work being so hairy.

Mild hysteria yesterday when, after both getting in from work and GASP, discovering the TV was covered in a dust blanket (which would have needed oooh…around 3 seconds to remove, but we were tired), we went straight to bed for a lie-down. As you do. I was winding Paul up by putting my finger in his belly button whilst he dozed only to pull out a finger covered in soft, brown, lumpy matter. I genuinely fell off the bed in horror thinking it was faeces. How and why didn’t cross my mind. Paul woke up with a start (he tends to when I start shrieking, I’m like the campest alarm clock you could think of), saw the mess and looked equally confused.

Turns out it was a big old chunk of chocolate muffin that had spilled down his shirt whilst he wolfed it down in the car on the way home so I wouldn’t know he’d cheated on his diet. See? Some people find out their husband is having an affair through errant text messages or boxer shorts that look like a painter’s radio – I find out Paul has been cheating on his diet because his belly-button filled with chocolate. The poor bastard never gets a break, does he?

I managed to mortify him in Homebase yesterday when I told the woman behind the counter that the scented candle she proffered me ‘smelled like my nana’s house, and she’s been dead for four months’, then wandered off chuckling whilst Paul fished about for the Nectar card. I do that a lot, make comments and roll out of shot – we were once in ASDA behind someone describing (I think) a car crash by saying ‘first he thrashed it over to the left, then the right, then it span out of control and four people got hurt’, when I jokingly said ‘Sounds like one hell of a smear test that’ and disappeared into the magazine aisle. Paul’s still got the burns from the glare he got off the poor lady. Ah well. It’s all fun until someone gets punched on the tit.

Our house is still an absolute bombsite but at least, thanks to our excellent painter, all the painting is finally done. Excellent. Our cats decided to celebrate by dragging a bird through our cat-flap and splattering blood all over our hallway wall (Dulux Urban Obsession, since you ask). They’re kind like that. How I chuckled and clutched at my sides as I pushed them back out the cat-flap with the toe of my Dr Martens and put the lock on. I think they knew they had upset me, they spent the next thirty minutes silently meowing at the living room window before giving up and resuming licking their arses with their back legs stuck up like a big fuck-you-finger to common decency.

The other bit of good news is that my absolute legend of a dad has finished building us our lovely patio outside in the back garden. Whilst that’s smashing news for us as it means we can lounge about on our fabulous oak outdoor furniture, it’s bad news for anyone walking down the street as it means we can lounge about on our fabulous oak outdoor furniture, and they’ll be sick with jealousy. Well, perhaps not jealousy, perhaps nausea. What kind of noise does a sweaty back peeling away from wood make? Like pulling the last rasher of bacon out of the packet I imagine. They’ve got that to look forward to.

Anyway, that’s quite enough nonsense, I’m getting a pain from my back from typing this on the computer whilst sitting on a set of decorating ladders. The things I do for you lot. Tonight’s recipe comes with a warning: it looks absolutely bloody revolting going into the oven. I thought Paul had taken up regurgitating my food for me and good lord, the smell. But persevere, because it actually made a tasty little dish with plenty left over for the morning! So, tuna frittata – this serves six easily!

to make tuna frittata, you’ll need:

1 tin of tuna in water (62p from Tesco) (added benefit of being pole and line caught)
2 shredded large carrots (Tesco Everyday Value bagged carrots – 53p – worked out about 10p)
1 chopped onion (9p from Tesco)
2 minced garlic cloves (30p for a whole bulb from Tesco, two cloves, let’s say 4p)
100ml of 1% milk (5p – 2l from Tesco being a quid)
two wholemeal breadbuns (12 for £1 in Tesco, so 16p)
8 eggs (12 free-range eggs are £1.75, so £1.15)
1 chicken stock cube (everyone has stock cubes)
salt and pepper to taste (ditto)
parmesan cheese – now, here’s something you don’t necessarily need but let me tell you something – you’re better off buying a block of it and using it sparingly rather than chucking it on with gay abandon – so we’re going to call it 50p, given the block I buy is normally around £4 and lasts forever
optional extras: served with two packets of Ainsley Harriott’s couscous (nearly always £1 for two) and a big bag of rocket (£1.50) (add an extra 45p for the sides or come up with something else)

This dish uses the HEB of two people for the bun and a portion of someone’s HEA for the milk and a HEA for the cheese, but really, split between six, it’s nothing. Up to you if you count it. No syns though!

and so…

stick the oven onto 190 degrees
sweat the onion like a bad-ass, then chop the garlic up and add into the onions
in a bowl, tear apart the breadbuns and soak them in the milk
after five minutes, add the onion, salt, pepper, chicken stock cube and eggs into the bowl and whisk everything together using a hand-whisk or just good old elbow grease
throw in the tuna and grated carrot and mix mix mix
grease a pyrex dish of your choosing and slop your dinner into it, then grate 30g of Parmesan on the top
try to see through your tears at the smell and look and put it in the oven to cook for around 50 minutes – keep an eye on it mind
take it out to cool and make up your sides – I cook the couscous simply by pouring boiling water on, no butter, putting it into a bowl and tipping it out – hence the boob!
enjoy

to gussy it up:

add frozen peas
more cheese
top the top with tomatoes
buy better tuna, though actually, the cheap tuna from Tesco is decent and fairly caught

to save even more:

spend a bit of money and buy a friggin’ microplane grater – it’ll make your garlic and parmesan go so much further, trust me. Get one here!
buy cheaper eggs – no guilt from me for suggesting this one – free range eggs are better, absolutely, but if you’re on the bones of your arse, meh. Free range doesn’t mean much these days, sadly;
more carrots to bulk it out!

Posted by

chubbycubs

Posted on

July 29, 2015

Posted under

chinese, fakeaways, mince, noodles, poultry, recipe card, syn free, thai

thai basil turkey mince with glass noodles

Apologies for the lack of entries, but I did warn you all that the next few weeks are going to be a bit light on content as I have various men coming up my back passage to wield their tools and suck air through their teeth. Pfft, I wish it was that exciting, it really isn’t. I had a thirty minute conversation with a locksmith earlier in the week where I swear he said the same sentence eighty-seven times over. There’s only so much enthusiastic nodding and ‘oh never’ one can muster before giving up. The bones in my neck sound like a cement mixer turning over.

You’ll be glad and delighted to know that we did indeed return to Sofa Hell on Sunday and managed to haggle a cool £700 off the price of our sofa. Paul refuses to haggle – he always pays the first price they say, regardless of how obviously overpriced their initial offer is, and even then I always have to stop him handing over an extra ten percent as a tip or a ‘bit extra for their trouble’. I have no problem tipping but he’d put £2 into a £1 parking meter if you’d let him. I, on the other hand, am entirely unabashed when it comes to haggling and I have no shame in trying my luck.

That said, I actually didn’t think we were going to succeed on the old haggling front as the lady serving us seemed exceptionally strict – she had the air of someone who’d cackle maniacally if she hit a child with her car – but shy bairns get nowt, and after an hour of ‘I’ll go upstairs and talk to my manager’ (and then glowering at us over the railings) we got her down by £700. I tried to crack a joke when she mentioned ‘male and female connections’ (regarding the way our modular sofa fits together) – I said ‘OOOH THERE’S NONE OF THAT IN OUR HOUSE’ but she just nodded primly and disappeared in a cloud of Elnett. Just before I signed the contract I asked if she could throw in one of the show-cushions and her lips went so thin her entire mouth disappeared. Ah well.

Of course, being Britain, my sofa is due to arrive in November 2027, so that’s something to look forward to. The cats are already sharpening their claws in anticipation. I also haggled £150 off the cost of our new carpet which is so thick and luxurious that we’ll probably lose a cat or two. That haggling was so much easier – he gave a price, I gave a price, he accepted. No fuss, and I didn’t even need to chuck in a ‘persuading’ handjob. Everyone’s a winner!

One thing I wanted to touch on before I post the recipe – this blog isn’t meant to be a cutesy-poo diet blog full of hearts and flowers and false, insincere guff and inspirational quotes. That isn’t our style and it never will be – one thing I’ve found whilst dieting is that there is an absolute rash of these type of blogs out there – some very successful, and all the very best of luck to people who go down that route. I’m not sincere enough for it. No, twochubbycubs is meant to be an honest look at dieting, with decent food made with good ingredients. We started out just posting recipes but as our readership has grown, most of you tell us you like all the piss and vinegar that comes before the recipe, hence that side of things has extended. Plus I’m a vainglorious bastard who likes writing about himself. This ethos extends to our Facebook and Twitter accounts. We welcome all, but please, if you’re sensitive to a bit of ribald humour or tasteless comments, then exercise caution, because that’s all our group is full of – we have a laugh and don’t things too seriously. Laugh yourself slim, that’s our motto.

Right, that’s better. As we’re having to cook quickly at the moment, you’ll notice a slight increase of ‘quick dinners’, and it doesn’t get any quicker than this basil and turkey mince, which I hastily cribbed from a Nigella Lawson recipe. Oddly, it didn’t contain the usual eight kilos of butter that most of her recipes require, though I did have to keep deliberately pushing my tits into shot as I cooked. Oh Nigella.

to make thai basil turkey mince

three cloves of garlic
a thumb sized piece of ginger
500g of turkey mince (we buy ours from Tesco)
60g of basil leaves
one red chilli
one decent sized onion
two tablespoons of fish sauce
chinese vermicelli noodles (also known as glass noodles, but you can use any dried noodles)

then you should:

finely chop the onion and fry it off in a little oil or some Frylight
get your little mincer ready – he’ll need to get you a microplane grater out of the dishwasher so you can mince your garlic cloves and ginger into a nice paste
yep – it’s time for my usual BUY A BLOODY MICROPLANE GRATER moment – look, seriously, chopping up garlic and ginger is a faff and fart on. Buy one of these bad-boys and you’ll be done in no time at all, plus they’re dirt cheap and you can grate lemon rind and parmesan cheese on it and make things go that bit further. It’s probably the tool we use the most in the kitchen. You can pick one up on sale for less than £9 here!
cut your chilli up very finely and wash your hands – don’t do what I did and absent-mindedly scratch your balls (or, ladies, if I may put this delicately, your grot-slot), because it’ll hurt like buggery;
chuck the chilli, garlic and chilli in with the onions and cook for a couple of minutes
boil a pan of water and cook off your noodles and set aside whilst everything is cooking – our glass noodles only take four minutes to soften
pop the turkey mince in and whack the heat up a bit to fry it off, breaking it up with a wooden spoon as you go, and drop in a couple of tablespoons of fish sauce whilst it cooks
finally, finely chop up your basil and once the turkey is cooked, stir it through
serve hot on a bed of noodles and enjoy!

So there you go – it’s a quick, tasty, flavourful dinner which is syn free!

Yum.

Posted by

chubbycubs

Posted on

July 19, 2015

Posted under

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.

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?

Posted by

chubbycubs

Posted on

July 17, 2015

Posted under

breast, fakeaways, greek, lunch, poultry, recipe card, salad, savoury snacks, snacks, syn free

gyros and roasted veg

‘ello ‘ello.

No post last night because I was quizzing it again with the rabble – after deciding that ‘Bender and the Jets‘ was a cursed name, we switched it up and called ourselves ‘Puff and Bluster‘. We came mid-table, which wasn’t very nice for the barmaid to clean up. Use a dab of bleach love, it’ll thin it out. The best name of the night goes to ‘Quizlamic State‘ followed by ‘The Mad Twatters‘.

Next week we’ll be ‘Bruce Jenner-talia’ (of course) and then the ‘Menstrual Cycle Display Team’. Apparently calling ourselves ‘I wish this microphone was a big throbbing cock’ isn’t allowed as it would make the Quizmaster blush when he was reading out the scores. He’s a poor sport, not least because he doesn’t get dressed up like the Quizmaster from Sabrina.

Damn, I miss Sabrina. We had a black cat when I was growing up called Salem, who managed to sleep through being on fire. We had a coal fire and it would spit out sparks all the time – one such spark landed in his fur as he dozed in front of the fire, and we only realised what had happened when a flame appeared on his back and the air was thick with the smell of burning cat. We hastily threw a cup of tea (warm) at him, dabbed him out, and he just went back to sleep happy as larry. Not quite as dramatic as the time I threw a packet of cheap cigarette lighters on ‘to see what happened’ – let me tell you, it was like Hiroshima. He went on to live a long, uneventful life save for when he went missing for three months and returned with his hair so matted around his arse that we had to use a set of hair-clippers to get rid of his shitty tagnuts. We threw out the clippers afterwards. Hey it was unending glamour in our household!

Remember me waffling on a while ago that we’re active members of the Reddit Gift Exchange, where you send a random stranger (well not entirely random, they sign up for the service) a themed gift and another random stranger sends you something? It’s like a global secret santa and it’s GREAT fun. Hell, even I’m happy to take part, and I’m tighter than a astronaut’s arsehole. Anyway, this month’s theme was cookbooks, and we sent some nice Thai cookbooks off to a lovely lady down in Dorset and today we came back home to find a nice parcel waiting on the side. I say on the side, the cat had clearly decided the best place for it was on the kitchen floor so he could sleep on it. Which he did.

Turns out not only did we receive a charming Ching Chinese cookbook (her name, not me being all Bernard Manning) and a guide to Mexican food, but also – and I really think this is brilliant – a load of personal recipes that our Gifter had typed out and put in a binder for us! A mix of Scandinavian recipes that they’d found and even better, a collection of their own personal recipes! On top of that, a handwritten note saying how much they loved our blog (oh you!). I genuinely adore it – you all know how cynical I am – someone could give me a bunch of flowers and a cuddle and I’d be thinking is that they were trying to set off my hay-fever and/or bugger me – but this really touched me! IN MY SPECIAL PLACE. Thank you – massively – Jenny and Fox! We’re going to plan a Scandinavian themed week using your recipes as a thanks! 😀

GASP I’m all emotional. Let’s get some bloody dinner down wor pie-holes shall we. We were going to make pizza pies just to continue the theme of trying out what every fucker else is making but after the ‘sumptious’ steak bakes I really can’t be persuaded to try it. Perhaps I’m a little jaundiced by seeing 856 badly-focused photos of the bloody cheesy crusty things littering my facebook feed. Seriously my wall looks like a Google Streetview-tour of a burns unit.

So, Paul’s made gyros and roasted veg!

you’ll need these (makes easily chicken gyros enough for four)…

chicken gyros

1kg diced chicken
3 garlic cloves, crushed
3 tsp white wine vinegar
3 tbsp lemon juice
3 tbsp fat free greek yoghurt
1½ tbsp oregano
1 tsp salt
½ pepper
4 BFree Multi-grain gluten-free wraps (HexB for one)

roasted mediterranean vegetables

800g potatoes, cut into chunks
1 aubergine, sliced and quartered
1 red pepper and 1 orange pepper, deseeded and cut into chunks
1 red onion, cut into chunks
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 tsp mixed herbs
4 garlic cloves, finely chopped

tzatziki

½ cucumber
250g fat-free natural yoghurt
1 tsp white wine vinegar
2 tsp lemon juice
½ tsp salt
pinch of black pepper

salad

3 tomatoes, diced
1 cucumber, diced
1 red onion, diced
handful of mint leaves, chopped

and you’ll need to do this…

firstly combine all of the ingredients for the gyros (minus the wraps) into a large bowl
cover and leave to marinate for at least two hours
next, prepare the tzatziki – cut the cucumber in half lengthways and scoop out the seeds
grate the flesh into a bowl and discard the skin
add the rest of the ingredients and leave to rest for at least twenty minutes
next, prepare the mediterranean vegetables by mixing together all of the ingredients
spread out onto a single layer in a roasting tray, spray with a bit of oil and place in the oven at 190 degrees for around forty-five minutes
whilst that’s cooking, mix together the salad ingredients and set aside
when you’re ready, spread out the chicken onto a single layer and cook under a medium-high grill until well cooked, turning regularly
finally, assemble your gyros by spreading the chicken, tzatziki and salad onto a wrap and roll

SEE IT’S THAT EASY.