Posted by

Posted on

December 1, 2019

Posted under

mince pie porridge – because Christmas is coming!

Name: mice pie porridge - christmas breakfast awaits!
Cook time: 5 min
Total time: 5 min
Yield: 1 bowl
Cuisine: porridge
Ingredients: 50g of porridge oats (HEB); 150ml of skimmed milk (use some of your HEA) (or syn this at 2 syns); 1 level tablespoon of mincemeat (2 syns); half a shortbread finger (2 syns)

Mince pie porridge, because hot-damn if things aren’t getting Christmassy here at Chubby Towers. Cases in point:

Paul has yet to tire of me caterwauling my way through ‘Can’t Fight This Feeling’ from the John Lewis advert yet, even in spite of me constantly pointing out that thanks to his dry skin and always-fuming temper, he’s my very own Excitable Edgar
we’ve swapped out the candles for some frankincense oils – Paul wanted to try another Christmas oil, but I demyrrhed
- you can fuck right off – that’s the best Christmas joke you’ll see this year, especially on this sham of a cooking blog
our Christmas tree is up and, even better, we managed to put it up without arguments, recriminations or divorces AND without me repeating the time I managed to get a pine needle right down my mucktunnel placing a bauble on the top

See? Isn’t it pretty?

View this post on Instagram

Yep, we have our tree up!

A post shared by twochubbycubs (@twochubbycubs) on Nov 30, 2019 at 12:34pm PST

Those lights are from Amazon, by the way, and called Twinkly. You can set each colour, have them react to music and, more importantly, if you line them up just right (which we never do) you can spell out words. Unbelievably tempted to hang them in the window and autoscroll JC4PM to the neighbours. You can buy them here.

Anyway! We have some lovely Christmas recipes coming up this month, including this mince pie porridge, but more importantly:

OUR RUDDY BOOK IS OUT NEXT MONTH!

I can barely believe it myself. I’m skedaddling down to London this week to pre-sign some copies and I’ve told it looks absolutely glorious in print. But that’s obvious, because there’s a picture of me in it. It’ll keep the kids away from the swearing. And now, even better, I can present our trailer! Yes, we have a trailer. For some inexplicable reason they’ve added banjo music to make it a touch Deliverance but that’s OK, because these days I only squeal when he wipes himself off on my curtains afterwards.

View this post on Instagram

Watch Paul effortlessly deliver to camera! It's out, it's out! The trailer for our book is out – and as always, we deliver with our wits and charm.⁠ ⁠ If you follow the link, you'll get our FREE taster complete with three mouth-watering recipes. Share with someone who'd love to get their paws on this. Click on the preview video in our link in bio!⁠ ⁠ .⁠ .⁠ .⁠ #slimmingworldfood #slimmingworldfamily #slimming #sw #drivedeterminationdinner⁠ #slimmingworld #slimmingworlder #slimmingworlduk #slimmingworldfood #swuk #swmafia #swinsta #slimmingworldlife #slimmingworldmotivation #slimmingworldinspiration #slimmingworldfollowers #weightloss #foodblogger#slimmingfoodie #weightloss #healthy #healthyrecipes #food #foodie⁠ ⁠

A post shared by twochubbycubs (@twochubbycubs) on Nov 30, 2019 at 3:05am PST

So in light of the above, I thought I’d take the opportunity to answer a few questions about the book itself, so you know what to expect. If you’re only here for the mince pie porridge, then forgive my waffle!

What’s in the book?

100 recipes that we used to help us lose weight – all the proper flavourful meals that we’ve always done, easily cooked, no stupid ingredients – meals that you’d want to eat even if you weren’t on a diet. They’re not flash, they’re not fancy: just food to be enjoyed, not endured. Yes, that made my teeth itchy too. But seriously, we’ve always been about good food here at twochubbycubs, and we know that this carried across into our book.

We’re damn proud of it!

The recipes are a mix of breakfast, lunch and dinner ideas, together with sides, snacks and drinks. There’s a few dessert ideas thrown in and – our favourite – a few meals for when you can’t be arsed with dieting anymore and want a ‘blowout’ – indulgent meals that’ll not completely ruin your day but absolutely worth spending your calories on. We’re realists here: being on a diet 100% never happens. Better to have something to keep you going!

Where can we buy it and how much is it?

All good book shops, including Amazon, Waterstones and WH Smith. Thanks to strong sales Amazon have dropped the price to £10, as have the others, and we heartily encourage you to buy it now!

If you click on that banner, you’ll be taken to the Amazon page where you’ll also be able to download a wee Kindle version with three recipes, to give you an idea of what is coming up.

Of course, if you want a signed copy (also £10!) you can buy one from Waterstones! I promise not to write anything too rude in there.

If you’ve been reading us for many years, it really would mean a lot for you to buy our book and have us in your kitchen. The fact that we even have a book at all is beyond my comprehension – people actually going out and buying it blows my bloody mind.

Does it have the twochubbycubs’ humour?

There’s meant to be humour on this blog? Christ almighty, that’s where we’ve been going wrong. No, of course it does – each recipe is accompanied by a little tiny bit of blog or new writing which made us laugh as we go along. There’s some mild swearing, of course, but nothing that would require you to get on your knees in front of a holy man. Like you’d need an excuse.

Does it cater for vegetarians?

Yes: the paper in the pages can be chewed up and washed down with a glass of warm water, although that does create the terrifying idea of a photo of me emerging somewhere unpleasant. I jest: the recipes includes more than a few vegetarian ideas, and where meat is used, you can easily swap it out. Mind, you’ll struggle with the beer-bottom chicken, but use your imagination.

What about syns?

There’s no syn information in the book – quite right too, we’re not Slimming World, and syns are their intellectual property. Slimming World have always been excellent to us and we will continue to respect their decisions! That said, you’ll find that all of the recipes, bar a few ‘blow-out’ recipes, will slot nicely into any diet plan.

We have also included calories per serving, if you need it to work out!

Will the recipes make their way onto the blog?

Nope – the new recipes in the book will stay in the book, but we will continue publishing on here too. Like anything is going to shut me up.

Anything else coming up?

Yes, we can announce that French and Saunders will be playing us at the Edinburgh Wellbeing Festival at the start of February, as evidenced by this lovely photo below.

Actually, that’s not a bad picture, though fun fact, I had to stand three hundred meters behind Paul just to make sure the scale was correct and my giant five-head got into shot. Also, listen, I was tired, hence looking like I’d been stung by wasps. WASPS. ALWAYS WITH THE WASPS.

Listen – if you’re in Edinburgh, we would love you to come along and hear us gab and speak about writing a cookbook, keeping a blog going and how to enjoy your food whilst ostensibly dieting. We’ll also give tips on how to satisfy your partner and the best way to raise a cat. I mean I’m assuming we’re giving a talk, they might have just accidentally booked us to come push the hoover around, but who knows? Find out more here!

Oh and we absolutely will sign your rack if you get them out.

As for other stuff? Some excellent things coming up! Watch this space, at least before Paul’s gelatinous frame fills it.

Right, that’s enough nonsense and flimflam. Let’s get to the recipe!

See! That’s a bowl of Christmas right there: mince pie porridge for a cold hearted moo!

mice pie porridge - christmas breakfast awaits!

Cook 5 mins

Total 5 mins

Author twochubbycubs

Yield 1 bowl

Look, you try making a bowl of porridge look exciting - you can't. But that said, this is warming, low syn and tastes so Christmas you'll be papping out tinsel afterwards. You don't need to add the shortbread on the top if you're feeling really tight with the old syns, but I like it - it adds an extra layer of taste and mouth experience.

Urgh, mouth experience. Even I winced.

Ingredients

50g of porridge oats (HEB)
150ml of skimmed milk (use some of your HEA) (or syn this at 2 syns)
1 level tablespoon of mincemeat (2 syns)
half a shortbread finger (2 syns)

Haha, finger.

Instructions

I mean, it's porridge, what do you want?
but let me help
before you add the milk into the pan, toast very gently your oats - gives it a much better flavour
add the milk and cook til the porridge is done
add the mincemeat and stir through, topping with crumbled shortbread

Notes

Remember!

Amazon have dropped the price of the book to £10, as have the others, and we heartily encourage you to buy it now!

Courses breakfast

Cuisine porridge

Enjoy your mince pie porridge!

You want MORE ideas for breakfast? Sigh. A boy can only do so much, you know…

Enjoy!

Posted by

chubbycubs

Posted on

March 1, 2018

Posted under

breakfast, desserts, low syn, one-pot, recipe card, snacks, sweet snacks, taster ideas, vegetarian

chocolate and cherry porridge – breakfast done right

It’s Britney, bitch.

We’re back, and with chocolate and cherry porridge! Have you ever heard the likes? We needed a break, you know. It wasn’t you, it was us: we were a bit burned down – we wanted to see if we could do a streak of 50 recipes in 50 days, and boy, did we manage it. But when you’re trying to type with blood-soaked fingers worn down to a nub, you know it’s time to stop.

Bit brisk, isn’t it? I’m a Geordie so this minus ten weather and eight foot of snow is nothing – I might elect to put on an extra t-shirt later, but that’s about it. The country is going to shit though: you’d think it was anthrax falling from the sky, not bits of frozen water. I say that entirely shamelessly from the warm comfort of my own home – work have let me stay at home for the last two days as I can do everything I’d normally do in the office from home and they don’t have to listen to me shallow-breathing to boot. I can’t drive in snow, it frightens me – not that Paul cares. Let me set you a scene.

Tuesday night and the roads are awash with snow. We live out in the country and as a result, the approach to gritting the roads extends to one of our elderly neighbours nipping out with a tub of Saxo and scattering it about with trembling hands. I wouldn’t mind but she hasn’t even bothered with that this year – in fact, she hasn’t even thought to bring her milk in, there’s over 10 bottles on her doorstep. It’s just lazy.

Anyway, with the snow pelting down and a genuine blizzard swirling, Paul decides that no, we really ought to go to the gym and that the weather wouldn’t be that bad, oh no. The roads would be absolutely fine once we were on them, for sure. Just our estate that is bad, despite the view from the window looking as though they had been smeared with Trex. We couldn’t take my car – more powerful, bigger, doesn’t run on AAA batteries – no, we had to take his Smart car because it was already defrosted and deiced and delightful.

He took my moans of protest as little more than excuses for not going to the gym and fair shepherded me into my gym kit and out into the car. We managed to drive – slowly, sliding everywhere – about a mile before he agreed that yes, it was rather troubling out on the roads and that, like Jack and Kate, we had to go back. This wouldn’t have been such a problem if he had decided this before we had slid to the bottom of one of the many banks that surround us, but I knew there was absolutely no way this tiny, rubbish car was getting back up the hill.

Well, Paul is nothing if not stubborn, so he turned the car around (surprisingly easy to do in a Smart car – you can turn a full 180 degrees on a circle the size of a Lego steering wheel) and off we set up the hill. We crawled about two meters before the car couldn’t get a grip and we were skidding on the ice, unable to go forwards or backwards. On a dual carriageway, mind you, with traffic coming. The air was as blue as my lips – bearing in mind the windchill was easily -6 degrees or so – but I was dispatched to push.

I don’t know if you’ve ever tried pushing a car with a big fat bastard in it on an ice-covered gradient whilst wearing Sports Direct trainers with about as much grip as Jeremy Beadle’s right hand, but it’s a frigging chore, I can assure you. We weren’t moving. No bastard would stop to help. Thankfully, after ten minutes, a gritter truck appeared on the horizon and, God love them, moved in front of the car and barrelled a load of salt down in front of the car, finally enabling Paul to get some traction and to pull away. Of course, with me standing behind the car pushing, my face, arms and bare legs were treated to shards of salt being blasted against them. The joy!

Sidepoint: it’s certainly not the first time that a rough lad in a hi-vis has sprayed salty muck across my face, causing Paul to quickly pull himself off with great relief, but that’s by the by.

I wish I could tell you the story ends there, dear readers, but no. Paul, so buoyed with the excitement of finally being able to move again, pulled away – and didn’t stop. There was a brief moment or two when I tried to run after the car on the ice which ended abruptly when I fell over and skinned my already frozen knees. In the salt. Apparently, if you nip down any alleyway within a radius of five miles where I fell, you can still hear my loud expletive bouncing around off the walls…uuuunt-uuuunt-uuunt-uuunt…

I walked home that night with ice on my flesh and frost in my heart, I promise you. A mile in gym kit in what was the coldest night of recent memory, all the while Paul had made it home and poured himself a lovely cup of tea. I asked our Facebook group what I could rightly expect as recompense and most people suggested full anal (by the way, what’s partial anal – when you have the discussion about doucheing but then just go to sleep?) but unless said anal was with the entire Newcastle Falcons team entirely at my leisure, that wouldn’t be enough.

I did leave him a clue about how angry I was via our front door CCTV mind. Click on the cute kittens below to be shown what I did, and fair warning, it’s very, very, very adult. Don’t you complain!

If you’re wondering who CLINT is. I suggest you get your eyes checked.

It took a good few hours of rubbing my feet, making pained faces of apology at me and bringing me enough cups of tea to my make my stomach sloosh before he was forgiven. In fact, my knees have not pained me for almost nineteen hours.

All is well.

Shall we do the chocolate and cherry porridge then, such as it is? It’s not much of a recipe, but you know sometimes you want something other than eggs or two Rice Krispies and a thimble of milk for your breakfast? Well, this will scratch that itch. The other itch you might want to get a doctor to look at. Also, we’re starting to redesign the site over the next few weeks – bear with us!