Tag Archives: low syn

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November 14, 2014

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low syn, lunch, recipe card, seafood

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

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November 12, 2014

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

half a syn american meatloaf

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

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

meatloaf

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

SO shush man, meatloaf.

to make half a syn american meatloaf:

Meatloaf

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

J

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November 9, 2014

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low syn, lunch, pasta, recipe card, vegetarian

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

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October 31, 2014

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breast, low syn, lunch, pork, poultry, recipe card, salad

hiyusha chuka

A quick post tonight as I don’t want the glare of the computer screen to give away the fact Paul and I are in the house, lest any trick or treaters come to the door. Nah actually, I wouldn’t mind but there hasn’t been a single one, despite us buying delicious chocolate to hand out. I’m not sure if it’s because parents don’t want to take their children to the gay couple who live in Cubs Towers at the end of the street, there does seem something sinister about it. I took the afternoon off today in the vain hope that I could find a pumpkin as a nice surprise for Paul. Could I find one? Could I balls. I tried Tesco, ASDA, Morrisons – all to no avail. So naturally, I got the biggest potato I could find out of the shed, hollowed it out and cut the word ‘MINGE’ out of it and stuck a tealight in it. Popped it on the doorstep to make Paul clutch his sides with mirth when he got back, only for him to stand on it. Why do I bother.

ANYWAY. Tonight’s tea – something new – hiyashu chuka (or at least my bastardised version of it), which is cooked plain noodles with a soy and grated garlic/ginger dressing, together with various bits and bobs to mix in.

Hirushu chuka

No need for a recipe breakdown on this! I’ve given it a syn value of two syns but that’s being very, very strict – I only used a teaspoon of sesame oil for the dressing, plus 5tbsp of soy, 3tbsp of rice vinegar, bit of grated garlic and a bit of grated ginger. Everything the light touches on that plate is syn-free, and the peppers, cucumber, onion, tomatoes and (possibly) the beansprouts are syn free. Filling, tasty and delicious.

You’ll notice we’ve actually went out and bought some white plates because our old black plates made everything look so morbid and grim. We’re not quite at the stage where we’ll be buying a lighting rig, but I feel the photos are getting better.

Oh, and something for Hallowe’en – did you used to enjoy Sabrina the Teenage Witch and fat/thin Aunties? Well there’s been a reunion! Who’d ever think Sabrina would talk about her magic pussy? Gosh.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b858rOO21Fw]

Happy hallowe’en

J

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October 24, 2014

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bacon, breast, cured meats, italian, low syn, one-pot, pork, poultry, recipe card, rice

chicken and chorizo risotto

Evening folks!

Paul and I are having a romantic night in, he’s cooking a lovely Indian tea and I’m scratching his feet with a matchbox. For now, please accept this recipe card as a treat, but be warned, chorizo and cheese does add a few syns to the dish. YOU CAN MAKE IT SYN FREE! But, you have 105 to use every week, spend it on something good. I’ll fill out the recipe in full tomorrow and add a snack idea for you all. Goodnight! (now done, see below!)

UPDATE

Paul and I have slept for a good, reasonable twelve hours and had a Slimming World fry-up breakfast (see here for a previous post about that), so I’m back and fighting fit. I promised you a full recipe breakdown for the risotto – and an easy way to make it syn free.

ingredients: one chicken breast (diced), chorizo (optional, I use 6 syns for 60g if I chose a particularly non-fatty chorizo, and then split that between two servings), shallots, arborio rice, garlic, tomatoes, mushrooms, peashoots, philapdelphia lightest (I’ve always synned 75g of the lightest as a healthy extra A, but even then, I hardly ever use that much and it’s split between two), peppers sliced.

recipe: get everything prepared – slice the onion, peppers, mushrooms and tomatoes to roughly the same size and thickness. Dry fry gently in a good non-stick casserole pot (this is important, because you try to make this risotto in a ‘sticky’ pan it’ll burn) until everything is nice and soft. Add the chicken and chorizo and continue cooking on a medium heat until the chicken is cooked through. Once you’ve done this, add the 250g of arborio rice and coat the rice in the liquid. Stir just once, chuck in your 1l of stock and big handful of garden peas. ONE stir. Then pop the lid on the pan, keep it on a medium heat (we use 6, but we’ve got a fancy induction hob so just stick to medium) and leave for exactly 20 minutes. You can peek at it just to make sure the liquid hasn’t disappeared, but maybe just once or twice – every time you let the steam out, god kills a kitten. After 20 minutes, check the rice -it’s always spot on for me but individual hobs may vary, so let it simmer a little bit longer if there is still a lot of liquid and/or the rice is a bit crunchy. Spoon in a dollop of the soft cheese and serve it on a bed of pea-shoots. I use pea-shoots because it adds another layer of flavour, but rocket will do. Don’t be common and use lettuce though. Twist of pepper and a couple of shavings of Parmesan and you’re done.

extra-easy: yes – though I syn the recipe exactly how I do it at 4 syns, just to take on board the chorizo and cheese. You can make it syn free though – replace the chorizo with chopped bacon (with no fat), and use the cheese as your healthy extra. But I like the taste the chorizo imparts to the rice and chicken and chorizo go together so well! Plenty of superfree – fresh peas, pea shoots, peppers, mushrooms, shallots…

top tips: Paul, because he’s a pleb who was brought up on sweet and sour chicken from his local Rainbow mixed with fag ash and a general feeling of malaise, adds a big old dollop of wholegrain mustard and mixes it in, which completely overpowers any other flavour. He says that he can still enjoy it through the sound of me tutting and sucking air in through my teeth.

Enjoy it!

J

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October 18, 2014

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classics, fakeaways, indian, low syn, recipe card, vegan, vegetarian

vegetable curry

I’ve done a bit of rejigging on the blog as I realised it was getting difficult to find all the recipes – so now if you’re looking for them, just click the category on the right and voila, all the badly realised comic-style recipes you can manage! 

Paul’s actually off down in London at the ‘Give Britain a Payrise’ rally. I work in the private sector so my eyes tend to glaze over when he goes on about rallies and protests, but fair play to the bugger for campaigning. Last time I told him to try and keep a low profile, and he ended up headlining the 1pm news with a soundbite about pensions. Even worse, the last time his place of work went on strike, he threw himself in front of someone’s car and called her a scab, without realising it was the Chief Executive inside. Oops. Anyway, he’s coming back home now and the latest text I got was ‘Missing you, dying for a shit’, which I don’t really know how to take but I’ll assume it was meant as a compliment.

I spent all morning lying in bed and willing myself to get up, but I didn’t quite manage it until 1pm. Which sounds lazy, but I’ve had a very long week and our bed is super comfortable. Actually, that’s a bit of a fib as I got up once and managed to moon someone putting a leaflet through our front door at the same time. I should explain. I got up for a wee and noticed the postman had been. We sleep naked, but the curtains were drawn so I went to the front door and bent down, completely naked, at the same time someone pushed a takeaway leaflet through the letterbox. Luckily our front door has that weird frosted glass in it, but I’m still fairly sure he got a damn good view of my tea-towel holder winking at him as I scrabbled to pick up the post. Ah well. This afternoon I decided to take it upon myself to go to B&M to find an elusive curry mix that Slimming World members go on about which is low in syns. Now, I’ve never been in B&M before, and well, goodness me.

Let me caveat the following by saying that I’m no snob, I don’t mind cheap shops and I don’t care how much something costs. But honest to god, I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many polyester-mix fleeces hung in one place. I’m lucky I didn’t come out of there sparking and jolting like Electro from Spiderman. I did, however, get the elusive curry mix – Mayflower Curry Sauce Mix, at 8 syns for 56g (which makes more than enough sauce for two people to have a curry). With this in my hot sweaty hands, and the smell of chip-pans and sour milk a mere memory, I set about making tonight’s meal – a vegetable curry.

10661928_766277763445829_8794636429764574992_o

This was supposed to be a chicken curry, but fate put the kibosh on that. I defrosted the chicken, had the audacity to leave the room for a minute to have a slash, only to find upon my return Bowser (our cat) munching his way through it, having dragged it out of the kitchen, across the living room and into his cat house. I was gone less than a minute, and the chicken was steaming hot. He must have been like bloody lightning, so I let him have the chicken and decided to ‘superfree’ the curry instead. He got a stern look and as a punishment, I won’t be turning on his water fountain tonight and he’ll just have to quench his thirst like a normal cat. I’m kidding, I’m far too in love with his button nose to do that.

ingredients: all the veg you see above, and really, anything you have spare. Pack it out with whatever you have left in the freezer, or tins, or fresh – we tend to buy a lot of stuff on the off-chance we’ll use it and then chuck it out, but don’t – throw it all in the curry. It’s a fantastic way of getting your superfree food quota, and this meal is easily over your 1/3 portion size rule. Serve with rice, or chips, or even on its own as a warming treat. It’ll certainly warm you again in eight hours or so.

recipe: cut up all your veg, add a dash of water, steam it until soft but not mush. The mushier the veg, the less nutrients, plus it’ll feel like you’re eating your dinner in a nursing home. To make the curry sauce, add 56g of powder to cold water, and start whisking. Turn the heat up to get the liquid to boiling, then whack it right back down to a very low heat. It’ll thicken in no time at all, but if you stop whisking, it’ll end up lumpy. Mix it up with the veg and serve with your side.

extra-easy: yes – though not syn free. the sauce is 8 syns for 56g of powder but then divided down into portion size, I reckon about 2 syns. This recipe would easily serve four. You’ve got more superfree food in here than you could shake a water-retaining finger at. Best of all, it really DOES taste like takeaway curry.

top tips: this would be made a lot more ‘takeaway’ by taking away a lot of the veg, and remaking it with cooked chicken, garden peas and chunks of onion. It could be made even more takeaway by flicking some fag ash and a few chest hairs in there, and having the ‘chicken’ squeak when you bite into it.

OK, anyway – enjoy. I’m off to shave off my beard. Sob!

J

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October 17, 2014

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breast, low syn, recipe card

chicken kiev, slimming world style

Before we get started tonight, can I explain one of my irrational dislikes? I’m a big quiz-show fan, so I’ll often pull a 15-to-1 or Countdown out of the Sky planner to watch when I’m bored. I know I know, but we all have quirks. My annoyance stems from Countdown, and in particular, the precocious ‘youngsters’ they occasionally have on. I get that they are geniuses, but the sight of all their weird ‘never-left-the-house’ tics and pallid skin makes my skin crawl. They nearly always look like in ten years time they’re going to be talked to by the police for masturbating into the coat of a lady in front of them on an escalator. Still, that’s easy for me to say, I don’t have the balls to go on, even though I’m pretty decent at anagrams. It’s easier to sit at the computer and be a TOTLACNUT about people.

Actually, that’s a fib. Paul and I did apply to go on Coach Trip and got put on the waiting list, but never got any further. Probably for the best, Paul has a potty mouth and I reckon the bus would barely have a chance to back out of the car-park before we’d be booted off and Channel 4 shut down. I find Brendan hysterical though – he’s exactly what I imagine Paul will look like in twenty years, perhaps minus the tight shirts.

Tonight’s recipe is the good old chicken kiev. It was tasty enough, but it did miss the ‘ooziness’ of a traditional chicken kiev, and every time we step on a duck it smells like someone has died behind the radiator, However, a decent chicken kiev will set you back around 12 syns (which will be the butter and breadcrumbs) so this is a good cheat – and served with fancy sides, will fill your hole. Recipe card then:

15559134805_4cae6c5cc7_o

ingredients: two decent chicken breasts, no skimping- you want ginger spice, not posh spice, when it comes to breasts, the ubiquitous fromage frais, garlic, frylight, egg, golden breadcrumbs, bit of hard cheese.

recipe: piece of piss, to be honest. Cut open a big gash in the chicken breast, and spoon mixed up fromage frais, garlic and a tiny bit of hard cheese into it. Coat in beaten egg and dust with breadcrumbs. Secure with cocktail sticks (last thing you want in life is your gash leaking when it heats up) and hoy it in the oven for 30 mins. We had cheesy mash with it (boil sweet potato, carrots and potatoes together, when soft throw it through a ricer, et voila. We added a knob of Primula to ours (2 syns a squeeze) because we’re decadent sluts, but if you rice it so it’s super smooth but not starchy, it’ll be just fine without. Chuck on some broccoli for good measure.

extra-easy: yes – though not syn free. the breadcrumbs are synned – 28g of golden breadcrumbs for 2 syns – but that’s more than enough for two big breasts, I reckon you could easily do for. Bulk out the dinner with superfree veg – we were a bit short here, but the mash had carrots and sweet potato in, and broccoli on the side. We served with gravy with I’ve always synned at 1 syn per teaspoon and will continue to do so until the day I die, god-damn it. Other than that, we’re all good.

top tips: I keep mentioning a ricer for the mash – they look like this:

You can buy the one we use here – they’re great. Cheaper ones are available but when it comes to kitchen stuff, buy cheap, buy twice – you want a good heavy duty bugger to handle anything you throw at it. They’re brilliant if you eat a lot of mash – as they create incredibly smooth mash that tastes creamy as anything, thus reducing the need to add fattening things like cream, milk or lard. Though here’s another tip – crack an egg in your mash and then stir like buggery – it’s called ‘enriched mash’ and you won’t taste the egg, but you’ll get a lovely flavour without needing to add syns.

That’s it for the evening!

If anyone is reading this, I’d be incredibly obliged of a favour if you’re enjoying it – spread it out a bit! Facebook, talking or just plain old shares. The blog is getting a good readership and I’ve been impressed by how many people seem to want to read my daily taradiddle, but I can always use more! That would be grand!

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October 10, 2014

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desserts, low syn, recipe card, sweet snacks, taster ideas

low syn chocolate mousse

desserts! The tricky stage of any meal on a diet. Normally, Paul and I would keep it restrained, with maybe just a tub of Ben & Jerry’s each to slobber down as we shriek our way through some reality TV in our knickers. 500g of B&J Cherry Garcia is 37 and a half syns, which actually, isn’t TOO bad if you’re craving a massive sweet treat. But this low syn chocolate mousse also hits the spot.

Now, I’ve had a bad day today – full of sweets, and I was given my flu jab yesterday by someone who I’m not entirely convinced wasn’t trying to kill me and who might as well have used a fucking bayonet, so my arm hurts. Paul however came to the rescue and made me chocolate mousse Slimming World style. I’ve marked it as 4 syns for the lot but it’s not even really that, as the recipe makes four servings with one option and a bit of cream, so you could fudge the numbers and go for 2 syns. But then, why cheat yourself when you can treat yourself? Christ, I just vommed.

to make low syn chocolate mousse, then:

15495838491_2e7fa119e0_o

Two easy treats! If you’re being very good, the jelly is the way forward, and so easy to make. We buy bags and bags of the frozen fruits from Sainsburys – it’s a great way of upping your superfree for an easy finish! The chocolate mousse is equally as easy. You don’t need to fanny about putting it in a piping bag, but I think Paul wanted to use my fancy piping bag stand from Lakeland. Any excuse to ratch about in my baking cupboard! With thanks to Emma on the comments, the jelly is actually 1.5 syns a sachet, but divided between four pots means less than half a syn a jelly – so go for it!

Final question – does anyone know why cats go so mental if you place a strand of cooked spaghetti on their backs? Sola goes tearing around the house like she’s in riding around a wall of death. Mind, we’re having a bit of bother with both cats – Bowser keeps trying to get his end away but we cut off his space-hoppers when he was young, and Sola is having nothing of it and insists on trying to claw his eyes. But then we found them both snuggled up in an old shoebox this morning without a care in the world. They’re the Contrary Marys of our street.

Anyway! Enjoy.

J

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October 9, 2014

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breast, cured meats, low syn, pork, poultry, recipe card

stuffed chicken breast

OK, if the first thing that comes to mind when you hear cabbage is the tasteless, rubbery mush that you used to get served at school by someone with nicotine teeth and varicose veins like an AA road-map, then you really need to give this a go. Creating crunchy cabbage discs is as easy as slicing a cabbage into 1″ slices, basting it with a vinegar and thyme solution, and roasting in the oven. Roasting does wonders for everything – potatoes, peppers, drunken lays in a Premier Inn bedroom, all sorts. It creates a crunchy, sweet tasting vegetable that is miles apart from what you’re used to! Recipe card…

to make stuffed chicken breast, you’ll need:

cabbage

I did have a close-up picture of the chicken oozing cheese, but it looked like something you’d get shown on Embarrassing Bodies when that doctor with the nose goes poking around in someone’s blurter.

ingredients: two decent chicken breasts, no skimping. better to buy two great quality chicken breasts from a butcher than two slabs of pink water from ASDA, parma ham (1/2 syn a slice, I use three per breast), sundried tomatoes in oil (3 syns for 28g but I only use one tomato chopped very finely), low low mature cheese spread, sweet potatoes, cabbage, frylight, balsamic vinegar (bog standard stuff), salt and pepper.

recipe: couldn’t be easier! Oven on to 180 degrees. Cut open chicken, stuff with tomato and cheese (57g for HEA). Wrap it in the ham and put ‘seal’ side down on a tray. Whack it in the oven. Same time, cut your cabbage into discs, baste them with the vinegar, thyme and salt and pepper mix. Put everything in together, after 10 or so minutes, stick another coating onto the cabbage. After 25 mins or so, take everything out and serve with sweet potato chips.

extra-easy: yes – very much so, but this is a synned recipe – the syns come from the tomato and the ham – you could skip the tomatoes, but they do add a richness to the stuffing. You could put slivers of fresh garlic in there instead though, and you’d be cooking on gas. You’d have a tough time replacing the parma ham, though I suppose you could use wafer thin ham, but again, haway, Spend those syns!

top tips: cabbage is a superfree food, so a couple of those tasty discs will really help you along. But you could make a nice coleslaw to go with the chicken, or a decent salad.

warning (crass): for gods sake, make sure you cook your chicken until there isn’t a hint of pink. I made myself very ill taking a chance with undercooked chicken and I was shitting like a lawn sprinkler for a good three days. Lost a tonne of weight but I can’t see Margaret Miles-Bramwell putting quote that on the front cover of the next magazine.

As an aside, how annoying are students these days? I know that makes me sound like an old fart but I had to get some cash from a cashpoint last night and I was stuck behind eight or so braying rah-rah students. I’m quite a calm person, but I’d have happily seen them put in a woodchipper and made into syn-free sausages.

Finally, anyone know at what point a beard is classed as ‘unkempt’? I haven’t shaved for two weeks and I’m beginning to look like one of those people who live in a library and have dried egg on their jumper and hair growing out their ears. I want to keep growing it though…

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October 5, 2014

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burgers, fakeaways, fast food restaurants, low syn, recipe card, seafood

a fisherman’s burger

Tonight’s recipe is Fisherman’s Burger – basically a breaded cod fillet in a bun with homemade tartare sauce. I’m not kidding – I’m not a massive fan of fish, but this was just tremendous! And so easy to make, give it a go. Here’s a recipe card:

fishy

ingredients: cod fillets, skinless and boneless, lettuce, gherkins, two small wholemeal buns, four small slices of wholemeal bread, extra light mayo, fat free fromage frais, dill, parsley, salt and pepper, garlic, onion and gherkins.

recipe: easy! blitz the sliced bread, garlic, parsley and dill to make crumbs, dip the fish in egg, then into the crumbs. Pop it in the oven for fifteen minutes until crunchy. Whack it into a bun with crunchy lettuce and tartare sauce as made above. Serve with chips, mushy peas and lemon.

extra-easy: it’s three and a half syns per burger, and you’ll need to use your healthy extra B for the bun. If you’re having two, syn the second bun for 6.5 syns. It’s worth it though! You could make a salad to go with the bun to up your superfree though. I think (and I may be wrong) that the syns come from the crumbs, but most of that stays in the tray so I’d actually say it was 1.5 syn per burger. Bloody go for it! Fish is an excellent food – if it swims, it slims.

Enjoy 🙂