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Of course, all boundaries are meaningless and it’s also a rather outdated way of looking at things – being able to grow a beard and light a cigar without coughing your lungs up doesn’t make you more masculine, whereas knowing the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

kale, spinach, broccoli and pesto soup

Just a very quick post tonight as I’ve spent the evening trying to find the ‘right’ tie for Paul and being on Grannywatch. Parents away so someone needs to go over and make sure she’s not face-down in her knitting, bless her.

slimming world spinach kale soup

to make low syn kale, spinach, broccoli and pesto soup, you’ll need:

ingredients: a chopped onion, one large broccoli, one medium bag of chopped kale, one medium bag of spinach, one small potato, 600ml vegetable stock made from one stock cube and a jar of reduced fat pesto

to make low syn kale, spinach, broccoli and pesto soup, you should:

recipe: it’s soup. Fry the onion, cut everything else into medium pieces, chuck into pan, simmer until soft, chuck in three tablespoons of pesto and blend. Serve!

extra-easy: completely. Reduced fat pesto is 1.5 syns per tbsp – and this recipe made three big portions, so I went for 1.5 syns a portion. You could leave it out but it does add a nice note. Otherwise, a very healthy, superfree packed soup.

That’s all folks – I’m really very tired!

J

baked cod with samphire

What a lovely day! An hour spent bellowing at my nana – not out of malice you understand, but remember, she’s tone deaf so you end up repeating things in incremental degrees of volume until you’re screaming NO THANKS I DON’T NEED A METRIC TONNE OF MINT IMPERIALS I’M ON A DIET like you’re trying a hail a taxi from the moon. Bless her, it would be quicker and easier for me to have my side of the conversation tattooed onto my body and relayed back to her via sign language than it is to have a two-way conversation punctuated only by the sound of her hearing aid whirring away like an old 56k modem. Bless her though, I’d not change a bit about her. Even the answers in her Puzzler are hilarious – when she doesn’t know, she just adds random letters in like someone upending a Scrabble board.

But, before we went to my nana, we spent three hours walking dogs! It was BRILLIANT. I love dogs (not as much as cats – it’s my ambition in life (or rather death) that when I snuff it, I lie in a living room with eighty cats picking away at my carcass and eight pouches of Bite ‘n’ Chew in my birds nest hair) but we can’t have one in our house. It wouldn’t be fair, as we both work long hours and I’d spend all day worried that the dog was looking out the window with a doleful expression on its face, waiting for our DS3 to come bouncing over the speed-bump/her at Number 2 at the bottom of our street. So. How to get some body magic in and meet new dogs? Easy! We rang up a local cat and dog shelter (Brysons of Gateshead) (I’m not sure if that needs apostrophising and now I’m stressing, so if it does, I’m sorry) and asked if they needed people to walk their dogs – and they do, so we did!

After spending ten minutes doing my normal parking routine of driving into a parking space, leaving it, driving back in at one degree less than before, checking the lines, driving out, putting my wipers on instead of my indicators and then finally driving in another bay just up the road, we were there, and after handing over ID (lest we stole the dogs, I assume) we were given Max (a spaniel, I think) and Scout (a greyhound). Off we trotted, with the greyhound almost immediately pulling me over. I’m a big guy, but this bugger was strong! Paul had worn a shitty pair of old trainers so he was fine clarting around in the mud, but I’d inexplicably chose Chelsea boots to wear, and I pretty much skated my way through the mud along the Bowes Railway. We spent ages trotting along with the dogs who were wonderfully behaved, giving them a good walk (and us some great body magic) and generally enjoying ourselves. The dogs seemed happy to be made of a fuss of and getting some fresh air, even if my dog (Max) spent a horrendous amount of time picking absolutely every bit of rubbish up off the ground and trying to eat it, followed by me trying to stop him – I don’t think we’d be able to take dogs out again if I returned it with a Panda Pop bottle poking out of his bumhole.

Here they are!

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Gorgeous little buggers. Great way to get more exercise and to help out a local charity. They also need cat cuddlers but I don’t think my heart can take it. Here’s our two, beautiful as ever. You’ll note the cat beds hanging from the radiator, spoilt little buggers.

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Bowser is particularly pleased, as he managed to get a whole piece of cod for his tea. Cod from the recipe below, which was also our meal this evening…enjoy!

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to make baked cod with samphire, you’ll need:

ingredients: 250g of halved cherry tomatoes, 100g of pitted black olives, two tablespoons of capers, two tablespoons of mixed herbs (not the mixed herbs – use thyme, dill and oregano), four cod fillets (frozen), tablespoon of olive oil, two tablespoons of balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper and a packet of samphire.

and to make baked cod with samphire, you should:

recipe: place the tomatoes, capers, olives and fish in a pyrex dish – fish nestled amongst the other ingredients rather than sitting on top. Make a oil from the olive oil, balsamic vinegar and herbs and drizzle over the top. Add salt and pepper. Put into the oven for 20-25 minutes (if frozen, if you’re using fresh go for 15 minutes and check if it needs longer). Five minutes before the fish is ready, boil a pan of water, chuck in the samphire for two or three minutes and sieve. Put that on a plate, add a piece of fish and some of the capers/tomatoes/olives. Drizzle over some of the liquid that was released when the ingredients cooked, and bloody well enjoy!

extra-easy: perfectly. There are syns, but you’re supposed to use them, and again I’ve been fairly conservative with the syn value here – the dish serves four, and the two syns is per serving, but you could lower the amount of olives and adjust the syns accordingly. It’s really not high though, and the ingredients are beautifully simple. Samphire can be tricky to find, and if you’ve never had it, give it a go. It’s got a strong, salty taste, but is delicious – you can eat it raw, but I prefer it blanched for a moment or two just to take the edge off. It grows by the sea and really adds to the fish dish!

Enjoy. What a day!

J

syn free stuffed omelette

Now that we’ve got Christmas out of the way (and our anniversary, and Paul’s birthday…well no that’s Thursday, but ssh) we’re back on it.

Had a proper road rage moment driving home from some absolutely tiny man (seriously, I could just see the top of his male-pattern baldness peeking out over his steering wheel) in a BMW, who decided that because I was in front of him and doing the speed limit (actually, a shade over) that he had the right to get right up my arse and swear at me in the mirror. I have to admit, I love it, I can’t fathom why people get so apocalyptically angry when driving, especially when he had nowhere to go but maybe 100 yards in front of me. I put it down to the fact he was driving a BMW and was sick of always being the last person to realise when it’s raining. Actually, there seems to be a proper surfeit of arsehole drivers on the road at the moment – predominately those wankers who drive along on a clear night with their fog lights on and, in some cases, their side lights, full beam and the light off their phone lighting up the inside of the car. That’s quite possibly my biggest bugbear. The fact that your 0.8l shitwagon is illuminated like a dressing room mirror doesn’t add any points to your driving! I’m not irrational, but I can’t help but feel it would be best to find them on fire in a ditch somewhere later down the road.

Anyway enough whingeing, I’m pushed for time tonight, so here is tonight’s meal:

Omelette

to make a syn free stuffed omelette, you’ll need:

ingredients: for the omelette, three eggs, sliced ham, sliced onion, sliced peppers, sliced tomatoes, sliced mushrooms if you want them and crumble 45g of feta as your healthy extra if you want it cheesy! Salad is just any old bobbins you have in the fridge (for me, peppers, sweetcorn, carrot, rocket and lettuce) and the wedges are just a couple of sweet potatoes cut into thin wedges and put in the actifry (or do them on a tray in the oven – I don’t add any fat or oil, they cook nicely without).

to make a syn free stuffed omelette, you should:

recipe: prepare your salad and wedges and about ten minutes before the wedges are done, start your omelette.

There’s no real secret to this other than I use a big frying pan as opposed to those little omelette pans, because I like the egg to be thin and more like a wrap to contain the masses of stuff I stick in my omelette. A squirt of Frylight (I actually use olive oil, a tiny teaspoon – and I don’t syn it, never have, I don’t like frylight – but if you want to keep your syns down, strictly speaking, use frylight). Get it nice and hot. Whisk three eggs in a bowl – add some onion powder, or chilli, or in my case, peri-peri seasoning if you have some. I’m not a fan of ‘eggy’ omelette so flavour it!

Tip the egg into the pan and let it spread, and then as soon as it has a bit of a ‘skin’ on it, chuck your contents in the middle in a nice block. Let it sit for a minute or so, and then fold one side of the omelette over the top, followed by the other third. This should cover your filling easily.

Now listen – if it breaks, so what – it’ll still taste nice, so don’t be put off! I usually let it sit for another minute, and then slide it out onto the plate. It’s that easy! It really is just an omelette. Serve hot and enjoy!

extra-easy: definitely, everything on here fits the bill, and your salad and some of the contents of the omelette make up your superfree. If you’re doing EE-SP, as long as you omit the sweet potato and change the feta cheese to low-fat cottage cheese/quark – both of which work well – this would be a decent meal. I’m very new to EE-SP and I’ll talk about it more tomorrow, but I think this is right!

top tips: an omelette can be boring unless you absolutely stuff it full of bits and pieces you like. It’s a great way to sneak in some superfree too, and can be tweaked into an EE-SP meal. I think a lot of people are put off by the eggy taste, but just add any old shite you can find in the cupboard to make it taste decent!

Tomorrow’s chilli is already in the slow-cooker…

Goodnight!

campfire stew or cowboy stew

CRASS WARNING! CRASS WARNING! SKIP TO NEXT PARAGRAPH IF BROWN HUMOUR OFFENDS!

Well, that was bad planning. Having spent the last three days with a full-house and needing a flush thanks to the meat loaf, tuna and beef stew, I resorted to taking a Senokot Max thinking it might gently move things along at some point this evening. Half an hour later, I’m stuck on the thunderbox crying my life away as the world fell out of my bottom. So I’m not venturing far today, and I might spend the day ironing instead. That’s the main problem with Slimming World – you’re never quite sure whether you’ll be coming or going one day to the next.

OK YOU’RE SAFE.

I finally gave into Paul’s demands and purchased a tumble dryer. I think he was ashamed at having our George boxers sailing gaily around on the rotary dryer in the garden, with their stretched elastic and rubbed gussets. He still has a piece of underwear from when we first met, he claims they’re the most comfortable pair he’s ever owned and refuses to throw them out. I’m actually surprised they don’t walk out on their own. I railed against getting a tumble dryer for bloody ages because I thought we’d get damp in the house (we can’t have a vented one, there’s no space, so we’ve had to go for a condensing unit) but he won out when he promised me he’d tumble my socks and underwear in the morning before I got out the shower, meaning they’d be warm. Come on, that’s true love right there.

Today’s recipe, breaking with tradition and posting my lunch instead of the evening meal, is the WORLD FAMOUS (in Slimming World circles) campfire stew, given a far more Brokeback Mountain based hilarious name. This is syn-free, makes four servings, and is proper delicious. Also – incredibly easy to make if you have a slow-cooker.

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to make campfire stew or cowboy stew:

Well – no real need to break down the ingredients – they’re all above, and the recipe is simple – chop the onion and peppers, add everything into a slow cooker, cook on low for eight hours, pull apart with two forks and serve with chips. You will need to add some superfree on the side to make this exactly right, but as a one-off, I didn’t bother, and just had two satsumas on the side. I know, I’m a devil.

A tip though – don’t, for the love of God, put your gammon straight into the slow cooker from the shop. Prepare it a day before by putting it in a pan of cold water, leaving it to sit, and changing the water every six hours or so. This will draw the salt out – you can do the same by boiling it for a bit, but I think that’ll make it tough. Do the cold water rinse for 24 hours and then cook and it’ll taste so, so much better. If you don’t bother, be prepared for your stew to taste like you’ve rinsed it through the sea at Whitley Bay (only without a turd bobbing around in the slow cooker).

Enjoy! I’m off to cry a bit more and put a loo roll in the fridge for later.

J

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

seared tuna with carrot flowers

The meal this evening:

Tuna

Tonight was supposed to be a lovely romantic night, filled with Amazing Race and cosiness on the settee. I was going to take the lock off the central heating and allow Paul to put the heating on – well, it was icy on my car this morning, I think I’ve been entirely Geordie enough about the temperature thing. We’ve got one of those god-awful ‘why yes, I’m incontinent’ gas fires that the previous old couple had installed and I hate it. It hisses and smells, rather like Paul – and has equally dangerous levels of combustible gas. Anyway. That idea was quite literally put to bed as, after I made him the delicious dinner you see below, he went to ‘drop the kids off’ and fell asleep on the toilet. So he’s away for an early night (in bed, that is – he’s not still on the netty) and I’m left to do the cleaning up, accompanied only by the sound of his snoring, gasping for air and death-rattle farting. He’s lucky he’s so deliciously squishy.

Actually, I say it’s quiet, but I’m actually being tormented by Cat Number 2 (Sola), who is currently outside the house trying to get in. No problem, I’ll open the door. Except when I do, she sits there meowing and runs off as soon as I go to pick her up. Now she isn’t fucking Lassie, I know there’s no-one trapped down a well (and plus she’s an evil cat – she’d be at the top of the well having a shit over the rim rather than dashing for help), she’s just doing it to torment me. I sit down at the computer chair, and I hear the scratching at the front door begin. Then, she sticks her paw in a loose bit of fixture on the door and pulls it back just enough to make a tapping sound. Again and again and again. I put up with it, I curse at her, then I eventually get up, open the door, and off she flees. My own cat is playing Knocky-fucking-Nine Doors with me! It’s bad enough I wake up to the sight of her licking her pencil sharpener every single morning, now she’s bullying me at night too! Bag. I might see if I can take her to the vet and get her un-spayed, just because she was so hilariously grumpy for the few days after her last op. That’ll teach her.

to make seared tuna with carrot flowers:

Tuna2

No need for a recipe breakdown here, I don’t think – says it all above! The bit about balsamic pearls is just something extra, you absolutely don’t need to dick about doing that. It does look good though, even if the tuna in the photo looks like Vern from the leech scene in Stand by Me. Don’t judge, I only had a crappy sugar thermometer. Always good to learn new techniques though and it was the recipe here that I used. Give it a go!

Oh! One thing. You could easily make this a syn free meal by omitting the horseradish, but I find it adds a nice hit of heat to an otherwise plain, but delicious, dinner.

I’m trying hard to get into fish for an evening meal, with the old adage of ‘if it swims, it slims’ ringing in my ears. But so far, only tuna has passed muster, with everything else being deemed too fishy by my sensitive tastebuds. People always do the same thing when I mention I don’t like fish – have you tried swordfish, oysters, trout, blah blah – yes! I have! I’m not unadventurous when it comes to food – I’ll try anything and never say I don’t like something without trying it. So I’m working my way through more fish, but, you know if you were to put down a steak and a piece of fish, you’d be able to tell which was fish because of the taste? It’s THAT taste I don’t like. Not fishiness, just…non-meatiness!

Fish does remind me of a favourite memory, though. I used to go on holiday to Montreuil-sur-Mer with a very good mate, and despite us both being common as muck, we decided to see if we could get a table at the poshest restaurant in the area, the Château de Montreuil, a ridiculously uptight fine-dining affair, not quite our level. Well no, nowhere near our level. We managed to bluff our way through the million courses until we were served a tiny blini with what I imagine was very good caviar atop. At the precise moment my friend put it into his mouth, I made a snide comment about one of the waiters and, of course with me being so deliciously cutting, he promptly burst out laughing, with the barely digested blini and caviar arcing gracefully across the table and landing in my doubtless very-expensive glass of white wine. Well, that was it for me, I was beyond help, in veritable paroxysms of laughter, but he was momentarily ashen. What to do? All manner of French lemon-mouthed hoity-toitys had turned to look at us. So, cool as a chinese cucumber, he reaches across the table, lifts my glass and downs the lot – wine, caviar and blini – in one full gulp and crashes the glass down on the table with a loud exclamation of ‘DEE-LICIOUS’.

Good heavens.

It’s no wonder other nations think we’re such an uncultured bunch. Ah he’s brilliant.

I’m off to try and rouse Paul and salvage the last of our evening. I want my bloody one-syn chocolate orange for one thing! I’ve mulled over the best way to wake him up, and I’ve settled on playing Les Dennis doing his Mavis impression on loop through the wireless speaker in our bedroom. Ain’t I a stinker…

Goodnight,

J

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

roasted aubergine persian pasta

Today has been an exhilarating day, given we slept in until twelve (at least we were silent at 11am, though Paul probably let one go in the silence as he did have roasted aubergine pasta last night) (we did pay our respects properly, later, privately) and then fannied about ironing and cleaning until we realised it was almost 3pm and we hadn’t planned our meals for the week ahead or done the big-shop. Seriously, inside our fridge at 3pm was a limp leek and a can of Tab, and no amount of fromage bloody frais was going to make that into an interesting meal. So, clothes hurtled on, recipes dug out and a list planned and we were in the car within 15 minutes. Good work.

I have to say, we stopped going to Tesco about a year ago because we found the produce to be poor and the prices to be high, but we’ve recently been pleasantly surprised – the Tesco in Kingston Park has been done out and seems a lot fresher, although who the fuck would eat at the newly opened Giraffe restaurant opened in the supermarket? Who, in this county of wonderful country pubs and fantastic eateries thinks that what they really need with their microwaved pasta dish is the soothing sounds of sunday shoppers, bellowing and mooing their way to the whoops aisle, red-faced shitty-arsed children bawling away in the trolleys and a Metro thundering past every ten minutes in a streak of electrical fire? EH? Answer me that.

Aubergine pasta

Firstly, CRIME FRAICHE? For heaven’s sake. I apologise profusely. My iPad autocorrecting me into madness again.

I can’t actually remember where I found this recipe, only that it’s been in my notebook for a while to try out. I know it’s a Yotam Ottolenghi recipe and I could find the source if I looked, but I’m a lazy lazy man. This is part of our ongoing mission to not get bogged down in the ‘same old’ recipes – trying something new at least four times a week.

to make roasted aubergine Persian pasta you will need: 

spaghetti, three big aubergines, 0% greek yoghurt, weight watchers creme fraiche, lemon juice, dried mint, saffron (optional), garlic, cumin, salt and pepper.

to make roasted aubergine Persian pasta you should: 

first the aubergine – prick them all over and pop them into the oven for 1 hour. After this, take them out, leave to cool, scoop out the flesh inside and discard the skin. Pop the flesh into a colander and give it a push around with a spoon just to break it up and drain the liquid. Put to one side and leave to cool.

If you’re using the saffron, pop a couple of strands in a cup with two tablespoons of warm water to infuse.

Next, put your spaghetti on to cook – assuming it’ll take about fifteen minutes – but feel free to stagger these stages if you’re a little wary of doing too many things at once in the kitchen. I know I am. Pop the creme fraiche (I synned 2 syns for 50g) and the parmesan (50g of grated parmasan – again I synned two syns – based on using up my healthy extra on the cheese and then 4 syns for 25g extra, which is being strict) in and whisk on a medium heat until it is smooth. Allow to cool for a moment, and add the yoghurt, and keep on whisking but this time on a low heat – if the mixture is too hot and you’re not whisking, it’ll separate and that’s it, you’ll need to start again. Once smooth, set aside.

Next (or at the same time, if you’re quick at chopping onions like me), dice your onion into tiny pieces, and saute in a pan with the cumin seeds (say a teaspoon) – hot enough to get the oil out of the seeds, mind. Knock the heat down when the onions are golden, add the aubergine flesh, two tablespoons of lemon juice, a bit of garlic, plenty of salt and a few good twists of black pepper. Cook for ten minutes or so.

Once your spaghetti is cooked to your liking (and for gods sake, cook it properly, don’t cook it to death – you should be able to slurp the spaghetti, not sieve it through your teeth), chuck it back in the empty pan, pour some dried mint (or if you’re feeling decadent, a teaspoon of olive oil with dried mint infused in it – 6 syns) through it and plate up. Add the aubergine mixture on top, then the creamy sauce, then some more mint and salt on top. If you’ve made saffron water, put a few drops on the top – it adds a very discreet flavour but it’s worth it.

extra-easy: yup – easily one third of the dish is the roasted aubergine, so worry ye not. Syn free on green too, but not a red recipe. But let’s not overegg the pudding anyway, I’m definitely an extra easy guy.

top tips: you don’t have to do this, but I think it is worth the extra three syns to use olive oil in your spaghetti – especially with the mint infused within it. It just adds an extra layer, but I can understand why people are relunctant. But if you use a good oil, you’re laughing. Oh, and don’t buy the aubergines that are bagged up, you want to get the loose ones – much cheaper. Look for aubergines about as big as your hand, as the bigger the aubergine, the more bitter it’ll be (if that’s not a link to us fatties I don’t know what it is).

Please don’t be put off by the fact you have to use a few syns – I say this every single time, but this diet isn’t about being super-strict, it’s about enjoying your food and making more of an effort to find new things and eat well. This tastes delicious and has an unusual mix of flavours. Worth a go!

J

pork seared in black tea

Haha! I really just wanted to outdo my last recipe title, hence the brassica. It’s really just the remainder of the sprouts from last week and sliced cauliflower. I can’t remember where I found the recipe for cooking pork in tea, but it works – and again, it’s something different!

Tea pork

to make pork seared in black tea you will need: 

pork chops with all their fat cut off (remember, better to buy two good chops than four cheap ones), sweet potato, normal potatoes, cauliflower, sprouts, black tea, an apple, salt and balsamic vinegar. A griddle pan and the ricer will make it so much easier!

to make pork seared in black tea you should: 

get the veg sorted first – cut the sprouts in half, pull the cauliflower apart and slice the florets (and the stalk) into good sized chunks. Coat with a good sprinkling of salt and balsamic vinegar and put them in the oven on 190 degrees for 30 mins, giving them a shake halfway through. For the mash, cut up the potato and sweet potato into chunks, don’t bother peeling, and after 25 mins boiling push them through the ricer (which will catch the skins and give you perfect, creamy mash) and put it to one side.

For the pork chops – add two strong tea-bags to about 100ml of water and leave to steep. After five minutes, take the bags out, add the apple (thinly sliced) and boil for ten minutes. Meanwhile, sear the pork in the griddle pan – 5 mins or so on each side should do it. Then tip the tea and apple into the griddle pan and cook on high for a good five minutes to reduce the glaze down and to coat the pork. Serve quickly. Tasty.

extra-easy: definitely – the addition of sprouts and cauliflower take care of your superfree third, but there’s also sweet potato in the mash. Some say you should syn the apple as you’re cooking it, but I don’t bother – it’s an apple, after all, and to me there’s no difference between cooking one apple or eating it. Fair enough if I was making apple sauce but…so – syn free all around!

top tipsthis is another recipe with an unusual ingredient – tea. But it adds a lovely earthy flavour to the pork, and cooking it in the glaze keeps the meat moist, which can often be a problem. To me, this is the key to Slimming World – eat healthily and try new things. You’ll never be hungry, you’ll open your horizons and actually enjoy the food you’re eating.