Posted by

Posted on

January 27, 2016

Posted under

breast, fakeaways, persian, poultry, recipe card, syn free, travel

houmous coated chicken

If you’re here looking for houmous coated chicken then scroll down! This entry is all about our wonderful trip to Iceland’s famous Blue Lagoon. Enjoy!

twochubbycubs go to Iceland: part five

Our trip to The Blue Lagoon, then. The Blue Lagoon is possibly one of Iceland’s most recognisable places – a large man-made pool created from the water output from the nearby geothermal powerplant. They take super hot water from the ground, spin a few turbines with it and then let the rest pour into the lagoon, keeping it toasty warm. I admit I was surprised – I thought it was a natural pool thanks to all the tasteful photography and talk of ‘lagoon’, but then I suppose ‘come and have a swim in the run-off water from our power plant’ doesn’t sound quite so grand. I mean, I don’t worry about my fertility at the best of times, but I do like to know my snake tears could still do what they are supposed to do if the situation required it. Luckily, obviously, it’s not radioactive. They also completely replace the water every two days, meaning that even if someone sharts in the far corner of the pool, you’re unlikely to be bothered by it.

Let me start by saying that this quick tale will be bookended by two bus-woe stories, both equally vexing, but only one where Paul and I redeemed British folk for all the world.

We booked our trip well in advance and, yet again, were picked up at the hotel by a minibus and then shepherded to an idling coach early in the morning. This is pretty much the start of every single tour you’ll ever do in Iceland by all accounts. If you’re a fan of looking hopefully at the horizon, you’ll be in your element here. The buses are clean, comfortable and have free WiFi, which is handy if the endless beauty of Iceland holds no appeal for you and you’ve got Candy Crush to dribble over.

Like class swots, we took our seats at the front of the coach, only to have the two biggest, boring, most vacuous young ladies sit immediately behind us. They were lawyers from London and by god did you know about it by the time the bus had climbed into third gear. Every word was strained like they were running out of air, every sentence pronounced so loudly that I could have stayed in the hotel and still heard all about her stupid landlord who wouldn’t let Gareth (Guuur-raaaaaath) stay over. Everyone else feigned sleep – it was 8am after all – but no, this pair of braying donkeys kept up their schtick all the way to the Lagoon, a good forty-five minutes away. Paul and I were terribly British about the whole thing – coughing, giving side-eye, sighing like the oxygen on the bus was running out, but there was no stopping them. Never have I thought about crashing off a mountain road into an abyss with such longing.

The bus drops you off seemingly in the middle of nowhere (actually, a lava field in Grindavík – not active lava I needlessly add – there’s nothing especially relaxing about third degree burns), with a tiny visitor centre and a rock exclaiming that you’ve arrived. There’s very little to indicate that you need to walk further on, but, despite being spherical, we bravely continued, not letting the 400m walk to the entrance faze us. Heroes the both of us. We had booked our tickets in advance online and I’d heartily recommend you do the same – the queue, even at that time in the morning – was through the door. We chose the ‘Premium’ ticket online, which allows you to queue jump and gets you a free drink within the Lagoon. It’s worth it for not having to wait, plus you’re given a pair of slippers and a robe. Sadly, the Body Beautiful behind the counter looked at me and handed me an XL robe with a very ‘that won’t fit’ look. It was Paul in the Austrian mine all over again. For the record, the XL robe fitted perfectly, although it did say ‘FOR RENT ONLY’ in big letters on it. That took me back to my college days, I can tell you. You’re also given a wristband which acts as both your key for the locker and a card of sorts for any drinks or food you purchase. Handy. On we trotted.

Now, let me cover something off – you absolutely do need to change and shower with other people. In order to keep this facility clean and hygienic you’re expected to give yourself a good soaping. Fair enough, no-one likes to swim drinking in tagnuts, holehair and winnits. If you’re like me and couldn’t give the shiniest shite about what other people think of your body, you can whip everything out, have a blasting hot shower and be done in a few minutes. If you’re shy, though, that’s also accommodated for by way of little changing cubicles which you can hide your modesty behind, though it’s that frosted glass so if you have a particularly hairy growler people can still see it. I’m not a fan, I’m always worried my arse-cheeks will press up against the glass as I take my socks off and someone will think it’s a magic eye puzzle of a hot-air balloon disaster. There’s a handy chart on the wall showing the special areas you must wash – your face, armpits, fanny and arse, though presumably you’re not expecting to use the same cloth. Again, if you’re shy, you’ll face a wait for the privacy cubicles – so there’s another reason to get there nice and early.

Once you’re showered to the point where someone could eat their dinner off your bumhole (and they’d have a handy place to keep their napkin, certainly), you pop your clothes in the locker, use your wristband to secure the door and out you go, carefully dodging all the willies flapping about as others change. I pity the poor bastard who is given a locker closest to the ground because inevitably you’re going to look up from putting your shoes away and find yourself peering into someone’s arse-crack. Anyway. The lagoon is just at the bottom of some stairs and, being so early in the morning, was lit by soft blue lights under the twinkling stars. It was magic. You can wade in like you’re on a Lidl Baywatch, or, perhaps more sensibly, you can swim out into the lagoon from the building itself, getting yourself used to the water.

A few quick observations. It’s hot. Durr, I know, but it really threw me quite how hot it was. You know when you’re in a bath and you’re letting more hot water in with your toe, and you’re about five seconds away from it being too hot? It’s like that, in places, and even hotter still if you swim near to the vents where the hot water bubbles out. You’re not going to burn – they’re ‘rocked’ off – but expect everything to be soft and sagging when you get out. It’s the first and only time in my life where I’ve been able to scratch my balls with my big toe. The rest of the lagoon is around the same temperature as your body, but, being Iceland, you just need to stand up to cool off, given how cold the air is. It’s a wonderful feeling.

It’s also surprisingly large. Although it’s crowded at the entrance to the pool, you can swim out into the steam and lose yourself. I never felt like I was in anyone’s way, besides Paul, but that’s only because he wanted to cuddle in the water and I was alarmed that we might stick together like a cheese toastie in the heat. It’s not so deep you can’t stand up in it, but it’s deep enough to swim around should you desire. There’s a cave to swim through (where I naughtily found the switch to change the narrator from gentle, soothing English to booming German, much to the consternation of a few bathing Chinese ladies who were probably already confused by the apparent sight of two beluga whales swimming towards them. There’s also a waterfall which cascades lovely hot water all over your body with such force that my fat rolls started playing a disco beat from slapping against each other. I probably looked like an oil slick viewed through a heat haze. Don’t care. You can book a massage where you float on a pad in the water but we never got around to sorting this out. Of course, we both immediately regretted it when we saw the masseuse – a giant muscly mountain man who could have put us both over his shoulder and had his wicked way with us. We’ll put down the wistful tears in Paul’s eyes to a reaction with the sulphur, shall we.

Ah yes, the sulphur. Look, you can’t get away from the fact the place has a certain eggy smell to it. In places, it smells like a freshly cleaved poo. But it’s a natural smell, like when they spread muck on the fields or when the sewers overflow. You get used to it, which is handy, as you’ll be smelling of eggs for a good while afterwards. Dotted around the lagoon are pots of the silica mud that naturally forms on the bottom of the lagoon – it’s apparently an excellent face-mask. It’s also a brilliant white, leading to some frightening experiences when some of the more…aged folks in the pool come swirling out of the mists looking like Heath Ledger as the Joker. Paul and I covered ourselves in it and had a whale of a time. I swam up to the swim-up bar (well, it seemed like the right thing to do) and ordered us some drinks – I had a plastic pint of beer, Paul had a strawberry iced drink. Luckily I have the chest hair to carry off such manliness, even if I did scream when Paul accidentally spilt his slop down my back. Well, wouldn’t be the first time.

After an hour or so of floating about, we got out, had a sandwich and a sit down (it’s tiring being lazy) and then went back in for another hour or so. You don’t really need a full day here. Oh! One more observation. So many selfie sticks! But worse, so many unprotected phones being carried out in the water. Why?! If you drop that bloody phone in the water, it’s not coming out again working, let me tell you. You might get a final kamikaze shot of someone’s legs uploaded to your iCloud but that’s it. I don’t know how people hold their nerves, I get anxious brushing my teeth with my phone in my hand.

We got changed and walked back to the bus, stopping only for a couple more photos and a Calippo. Keeping it real. Vexingly, we had missed the hourly bus back by about thirty minutes, but we were happy enough to sit and wait.

Unlike the beast I’m going to call Sandra – for that was her name. Sandra and her very, VERY henpecked husband had missed the bus by only a minute or two, seemingly by the husband not sprinting ahead to stop it. She apparently would have ran herself but ‘what would have been the point, given how slow you were’. Let me tell you, the only time this woman was running anywhere was if a vending machine had been left unlocked. She was absolutely dreadful – she sat and very loudly explained to her husband all of his faults and why she could do better. My heart went out to him – I almost asked Paul if I should nip over and give him a blowjob just to lift his spirits. I rather got the impression she wouldn’t have done that either.

And, typically, with all the inevitability of day following night, when the bus did come, she sat behind us – and the forty five minute bus-ride from hell in the morning was nothing compared to this. She had this incredibly irritating way of trying to sound like she was better than everyone else, both Icelandic and English, and that, in her words:

“Iceland is shit because you have to get a bus everywhere” (you don’t, you can get a taxi, unless you can’t afford it but you want people to think you can)
“what’s the fackin’ point of Wifi if it doesn’t FACKIN’ WORK” (who’d have thought it? Wifi on a bus in the middle of nowhere being patchy!)
“...place would be so much better if it wasn’t for all the FACKIN’ tourists” (it would certainly be better without one of them)
“aren’t Icelandic houses shit” (because that two-up-two-down in some piss-pot village is the classier choice)
“who’d stay in a FACKIN’ shit ‘OTEL like this” (not you, my love, because you’re staying at a cheaper hotel down the road)

and so on and so forth. She was embarrassingly crass and vocal and all her husband could do was ‘yes dear’ and ‘no dear’. She was loud so EVERYONE could hear her. Here’s the fun part though. The bus, dropping everyone off in ‘random order’ (but clearly based on how luxurious the hotels were…i.e. the more expensive hotels got their passengers back first) and ours was second on the list. This pissed her off and on she ranted.

So, naturally, as we got off, I turned around on the steps of the bus and, loudly, called her a ‘common, classless tart‘ before proper dashing into the foyer in case the rancid old bag or her wispy husband followed suit. They didn’t. That split second I saw of her face avalanching in anger was more than enough for me and I’m not joking when I say that gives me a chuckle even now. Probably shouldn’t have said anything. Don’t care though.

Right, the recipe! This makes enough for four big breasts. So that’s two each. We served with mushrooms, new potatoes and some broccoli. Classy! You can mix this up by using one of our four houmous recipes found right here!

Don’t forget, you get plenty of giant chicken breasts in our big old meat box! You can find the details for that right here!

to make houmous coated chicken you will need:

4 chicken breasts
1 tsp paprika
400g tin of chickpeas, drained
2 tbsp fat free cottage cheese
½ tsp cumin
fresh basil leaves, chopped

to make houmous coated chicken you should:

preheat the oven to 220ºc
spray a large baking dish with Frylight and place the chicken breasts in a single layer and set aside
to make the houmous, add the chickpeas, cottage cheese, cumin and paprika to a food processor and blend until smooth
spread the houmous mixture over each chicken breast using a spatula – you need need to ‘slap’ it on instead of spreading it. you’ll want a nice, thick amount on each one.
bake in the oven for about 20-25 minutes, until the chicken is well cooked
sprinkle on some chopped basil and serve

Easy! It might not look amazing but it tasted damn fine and it’s syn free. So suck it!

Oh! I should say. As usual, my shite photography let me down. But here’s what it looks like when the photo is taken by someone who has more dexterity and eye for detail than a potato.

Posted by

chubbycubs

Posted on

January 24, 2016

Posted under

british, fakeaways, recipe card, syn free, travel, vegetarian

lentil shepherd’s pie with cheesy mash

Looking for lentil shepherd’s pie? Scroll right down past all my guff if you don’t like chitter-chattter!

Just a boring bit of admin to get out of the way first before we get started. Apologies, I know some of you will have already seen this message, but just to make sure – we’re not an official Slimming World blog and we’re not consultants. We couldn’t be – I’d spend about five minutes asking people how much they’d lost and then fifty five minutes trying to crack jokes and farting. No, we’re just two members following the Slimming World plan the best we can – we work out the syns via the online calculator on Slimming World’s own website, but if you’re ever unsure, you should check them yourself.

Also, just a bit of clarification (partly because I got a snotty email yesterday from someone saying I didn’t need to write an essay before every recipe) – this is a personal blog, not a food recipe blog. I don’t itch during the day to rush home and type out a bloody roulade recipe, let me tell you. We’re just here as an excuse for me to write and to hopefully provide help for those who want it. Yes, we’re coarse and yes, we’re a bit blue and near-the-knuckle, but if you’re after a frilly fancypants fartyarse blog where someone spends two hours agonisingly describing every last boring step of their wonderful soup recipe, there’s plenty out there. We’re humans, not robots.

Remember, and this rather applies for all the Professionally Offended out there, you don’t need to read. That’s the joy of the internet!

So, that’s the admin out of the way. Being butch doesn’t really suit me, I’d look shit in a chest harness. Actually that’s a fib, I look great in leather. Like the last settee in the DFS sale.

twochubbycubs go to Iceland: part four

I wish I could tell you that we spent the day doing all sorts of thrilling things, but instead, we just mooched around the city, taking our time with food and nonsense. Listen, people who say they go on holiday and proceed to tell you they spent every waking moment doing activities, undertaking the local customs and enjoying the national food is an outright fibber. Sometimes you need to take it slowly, like a fibre-packed jobbie.

Having enjoyed ‘Escaping the Room’ once, we went back and tried the other two scenarios available – curing cancer and escaping a creepy haunted bedroom. I’ve never cured cancer, so of course we failed on that one, but we did manage to escape the bedroom, after somewhat embarrassing ourselves…

We walked from the hotel up to Reykjavik’s main shopping centre, Kringlan, partly because it was within stumbling distance and also because I needed to buy the most vile sweets I could find for the office. Not because I hate the people I work with, you understand, but simply because nothing says ‘GLAD TO BE BACK, LOL’ like salted liquorice balls that look, taste and smell like something you’d shovel out of a hamster cage.

Perhaps I’m spoiled by having the Metrocentre so near by (where retail goes to die), but it really wasn’t worth the trip. Perhaps due to the fact it’s an island, the ‘stock’ of stuff to buy seems to be very similar wherever you go. Once you’ve smiled politely at a stack of neon pigs or a collection of ashtrays, you’ve done your bit. We did find a shop called Minja which tickled us pink, though neither of us really fancied going in. We looked at it hard, but despite the many people entering it, we sloped off.

More interesting was the fact that Florence and Fred from Tesco seems to be rather big, where it is sold as a high-end range in a department store. They even had shirts in our sizes, which was surprising given we normally have to buy our shirts from garden centres, but the fact they wanted the equivalent of £55 for a shirt I can buy (and hide under my groceries) for a tenner at home was too much to bear #tightarsegeordie (ah my former gaydar name).

After a bite to eat where they gave me a sandwich and took half of my salary as payment, we were on our way back to the hotel and onto grander things – a Northern Lights bus-tour. The sky didn’t look promising – thick cloud and low visibility. I was reminded of the air directly above Paul’s mother’s chair when she starts on her knockoff Rothmans. The bus driver said we should give a try anyway, so on we went to a very comfortable coach accompanied by around fifteen or so other folks.

We had chosen the deluxe tour, meaning we were to receive snacks, hot chocolate, a footrub and a personal apology if the Northern Lights didn’t appear. Sadly, we hit an immediate problem. See, on our tour a couple of days earlier, there had been a somewhat overbearing woman – the double of that wailing banshee from Everything But The Girl – who sat near us with her mother, and every time we stopped anywhere she’d drift over and attempt to make conversation.

Listen, I’ve got time for anyone, I really have, but deep down, I’m incredibly antisocial. My face screams talk to me, my mind is saying please die. Perhaps I exaggerate. Anyway, every single sentence she said was a really poor joke – it was like making polite conversation with a box of crackers – and then she did this really weird, far too familiar ‘lean’ into our personal space, perhaps to check the volume of our forced laughter.

And, of course, here she was again. Luckily, we had had the wherewithal to dump our bags on the seat in front of us, so she sat in front of those – champion, no talking needed. No, but every single quip, gag, remark or gasp that the chap commentating the tour made was met with her turning around and pushing her face inbetween the two seats to see if we were laughing. We started off with the polite smile and a ‘can he say that’ shake of the head, but we weren’t even out of Reykjavik before that had downgraded into a ‘stare straight ahead, don’t even acknowledge her’, the type of stance you might take if you’d stumbled across a man wanking in a phonebox.

Perhaps this comes across as mean, it really wasn’t meant to, but I stopped babysitting in my teens, I didn’t need it on my holiday. She eventually got the message and stopped turning around, and we were able to concentrate on the fact the coach was busy barreling down a twisty, turny road in the snow and a very dramatic snow-storm. Excellent driving, absolutely, but I’m not going to claim my arse wasn’t busy unstitching the seat fabric through fear.

After an hour, we stopped off at this little restaurant in the middle of nowhere and were told that we’d be the first people to experience their new attraction, a quick movie about the aurora borealis. Bemused, we were shepherded into the arena where they usually put a live-action horse stunt show on and asked to take our seats – all twenty of us, in this little area that probably held 1,000.

The movie started, projected onto the back wall. And just didn’t finish. I love the Northern Lights as much as anyone, honestly, but it’s hard to maintain a rictus grin throughout half an hour of stolen footage from Youtube accompanied by Icelandic Enya caterwauling away in the background like she’s shitting out a pine-cone. I’m not exaggerating when I tell you it was almost twenty minutes too long, and every time the screen went black and we thought it was finished, up it would start again, leading to a few more taxing minutes of footage of a wispy green cloud. It wouldn’t have been too bad if we had been sitting in proper seats instead of on long wooden boards, at least then we would have been comfortable, but no. It’s a bad job when someone has to turn you to prevent pressure sores halfway through.

We eventually stumbled back to the coach and were on our way into the night. The commentator mentioned that there had been a sighting of the lights on the other coastline, so we were to head there. Absolute fair play to the tour company, they weren’t going to give up – and I had free WiFi and a fully charged phone to keep me occupied. Paul had gone to sleep almost the second his seatbelt clicked on. There wasn’t much to see out of the window – a black cloudy sky above a bleak desolate landscape outside.

After another hour or two, the bus slid into a tiny village and attempted to reverse down a very steep, ice-covered gradient to our restaurant. That was soon stopped, and we were told we had to walk / slide down ourselves. We had been promised a meal to fill our bellies so naturally Paul and I were the first ones off the bus, sliding down the hill to certain satisfaction. Sadly, our weird friend was immediately behind us, and of course, naturally, without any doubt, sat at our table with her mother.

What followed was two things – almost an hour of unbearably awkward, strained conversation, and something that was definitely not a filling meal. The waiter came down to take our order, insofar as he drifted down, put some bread on our table and told us we were having soup. No choice. Meh, I don’t mind soup, and well, it was a restaurant, so how wrong could it go?

Very wrong. The vegetable soup looked like something our cat sicked up when we had her fanny butchered by the vet. It had the consistency (and taste) of one instant tomato soup sachet, divided between twenty. I poked around with a spoon to see if I could find anything to tax my teeth with and happened across one tiny cube of swede. Naturally, Bus-Friend piped up to express her jealousy that I’d at least found some vegetables HA-HA-HA and how I’d need ROLLING BACK UP THE HILL I’M THAT FULL HO-HO-HO. Being the gentleman, I resisted the urge to put her and her Connie Clickit haircut into her tomato water, and grimaced on. I expected dessert, a mint, hell, they could have spread some jam on the tablecloth and I would have gobbled it up, but no, that was it.

I will admit to something terrible, though. And this is terrible, mind, so please don’t think any worse of me after reading. Before we all decamped to the bus, we all got a chance to use the restaurant’s facilities. Naturally, there was only one tiny cubicle, and Paul and I were 9^th and 10^th in the queue respectively. There was an exceptionally posh lady behind me. Everyone went in and did their business and by the time I went in, there was piddle all over the seat and floor, and, putting paid to my plan for a quick poo, no loo roll to be seen.

Again, ever the gentleman, I didn’t want the lady behind me to think I’d pissed on the floor and seat, so I grabbed a little tiny grey towel that was sitting near the sink to mop it all up with. I hadn’t factored in that the water on the floor wasn’t piss but rather, piss mixed with the melted snow from so many shoes, and as soon as I used the cloth, it was covered in brown streaks and yellow stains on one side. Was there a bin? Of COURSE not.

So, I did the only thing I could do, finished my piss and very gingerly folded the towel back up in such a way to hide the heavily streaked and piss-soaked side. And popped it back on the little radiator. There was literally nowhere else to put it other than down the toilet and well, I’m not a bastard, I didn’t want to block their toilet, not least because they’d have nothing to serve for dinner to the next unfortunate bastards who rocked up on the coach. I pity the poor madam who went to dab her lipstick or wash her face with that towel and got a load of pissy flannel in her face. I’m sorry, I really am. I’m not a monster.

I did cackle a tiny bit, I’m not going to lie.

With our hunger unsatisfied and our tummies rumbling, we headed back to the coach, drove on a bit and stopped in the middle of nowhere in a deserted carpark. Listen, I’ve been here enough times to know what was happening, but before I’d even had a chance to flash the reading light off and on and put my lip-balm on, we were off again, the driver sadly telling us there would be no chance of seeing the lights at this location. No, we needed to get higher.

I was all for that, though it’s been a while since I’ve skinned up anything more exciting than a social cigarette for a co-worker, but no, he meant going higher into the mountains. Bearing in mind it was pitch black, icy and knocking on past 10pm at this point, everyone reacted in quite a subdued manner. Bus-friend let out such a huge sigh that Paul and I deliberately voiced loudly our desire to go on. Hell, you’re only on holiday once. Or four times a year, in our case. On we went.

The next stop, knocking on at around midnight, was another carpark in the middle of nowhere. We got out, braced ourselves against the absolutely bitter and very strong wind, looked hopefully at the sky, but sadly, the clouds never quite parted. I did see a faint green ethereal glow in the distance, but it turned out to be the driver’s e-cigarette. The commentator opened up the side of the bus and, god bless him, pulled out the world’s flimsiest trestle table and a giant urn of hot water, announcing hot drinks were now available.

Crikey, what a comedy of errors. The wind was so strong that whatever he picked up, be it a paper cup, a sachet of whatever the Icelandic for Options is or the sugar, it either blew out of his hands or he spilt it. We watched from a distance before approaching. For giggles, I asked for a grande mocha frappucino with no cream, mint syrup and could he use soya, I’m lacto-tolerant. He looked like he was about to stick me in the tea-urn so I immediately gave him a gracious ‘BRITS ABROAD EH’ face and got back on the bus. Hmm. Paul eventually brought me a coffee and tutted at me.

Once everyone was on board and had been treated for their second-degree burns, it seemed inevitable that they’d call it a night…but no – one more roll of the dice. He knew a church with excellent viewing possibilities…on a clear night. I looked out of the window into the abyss and dozed for an hour, having drained my battery streaming fail videos on Youtube.

This is the bit where I tell you the bus pulled up, we got out and saw the best god-damn Northern Lights we’d ever seen.

Nope.

But we DID see them, for almost five minutes, albeit through the faint wisps of clouds barreling all over. It was like God, noticing our bus parked outside of the church (and er, if he existed), parted the clouds as best he could to make our almost seven hour journey worth it. It was. Not much can be said about the lights that you can’t imagine yourself, other than what will be obvious to you but didn’t occur to me until I saw them myself. They’re huge, and they’re silent. I was expecting a whoosh or a flutter, but nothing, although the wind would have covered anything. You can’t just look at them because they’re all around you, above you, and they’re magical. Worth seven hours on the bus with a cup of watery coffee and some instant soup? Yep. Worth dealing with a socially awkward lady? Yep. Recommended? Wholeheartedly. It’s something to tick off the list, for sure.

Once the clouds covered them up again, I went for a quick piss around the side of the bus. Sadly, thanks to the wind, it was like that moment in Apollo 13 where he vents his piss into outer space in a giant cloud. I’m a classy guy, what can I say.

The bus took us back to the hotel, with both Paul and I succumbing to the sweet caress of sleep on the journey home, which in turn meant no-one else would get a moment of rest thanks to the cacophonous snoring coming from the back. I’m surprised the driver didn’t pull over to see if he had a reindeer stuck under his tyres. We were back at the hotel for around 2.30am and straight to bed.

Listen – this might have come across as an awful experience, but it wasn’t, it was hilarious, and nothing but top marks to the tour company for so much effort in getting us to see the lights. Yes, the food was pap and the movie abysmal, but we’d do it all over again. There’s something genuinely romantic and exciting about chugging through the darkness in the hope of seeing something so wonderful!

Enjoy our travel stories? You don’t know how happy it would make me if you were to purchase our book, which contains our blog entries from Ireland, Corsica and Germany! Click here, it’ll open in a new window!

That’s enough for tonight. That really was a long one, I’m sorry! If you’re here for the recipe, welcome back! We adapted and made SW friendly a recipe from an old cookbook for this – Rose Elliot. We noticed we don’t have many vegetarian recipes on here, so this is a nice easy one that actually tastes really bloody good. It’s heavy-going to eat, so you don’t need a great lot. The recipe serves four.

to make lentil shepherd’s pie you will need:

1kg potatoes, cut into even sized chunks
2 onions, chopped
1 tin of chopped tomatoes
2 garlic cloves, crushed
410g tin of green lentils, drained
50g moon-blush tomatoes (we’ve made them before on a previous recipe, or, just use some dried sundried tomatoes brought back to life in hot water)
1 tbsp tomato puree
160g mature or smoked reduced fat cheese, grated (that’s four HEAs – these make enough for four, easily, so one HEA each)
salt and pepper
if you’re after the individual Pyrex dishes, we bought them from Amazon, right here

to make lentil shepherd’s pie you should:

preheat the oven to 200 degrees celsius
cook the potato in a large pan of boiling water until tender, keep aside a mug of the water, drain and set aside
heat a large pan over a medium heat and add a little oil
add the onions to the pan, stir and cover – cook for fifteen minutes and then remove from the heat
add the garlic, tomatoes, lentils, moon-blush tomatoes, tomato puree and salt and pepper to taste and stir well
mash the potatoes to your preferred consistency, loosening with a little of the reserved water and add most of the grated cheese, saving enough to scatter on the top
pour the lentil mixture into a shallow casserole dish and spread the mashed potato on top
scatter the remaining cheese over the top and bake in the oven for 40 minutes

We served it with kale, Satan’s bumhair.

Posted by

chubbycubs

Posted on

January 21, 2016

Posted under

beef, classics, diced beef, fakeaways, italian, recipe card, rice, syn free

easy peasy beef curry – weigh in week two!

Normally I’d just shove the old cock thermometer onto a post but you know what, we’ve had so many lovely comments from you lot that we’re actually putting a recipe on too. But no chat. What is this, a knitting group? I read about a knitting group in America called Stitches and Bitches and do you know, I almost took up knitting just so I can set up the same. I’m forever thinking of names for businesses that Paul and I could establish – a gay wine bar called Bottoms Up, a café of Slimming World meals called Guntbusters, a cigar shop called Buttsuckers…list goes on. It’s how I entertain myself in between screaming wildly at Audi drivers on the A1 (I smile, with murder on my mind) and dreaming about a double page spread in Pick Me Up with my giant trousers held aloft.

Before I get to weigh-in, a curious thing. A couple of weeks ago I was walking to my car along Stowell Street in Newcastle when I noticed what looked like a binliner just chucked on the pavement. Once I was closer and my boss eyes has focussed, it turned out to be a young lad, lying on his back, eyes rolling to the back of his head. Of course, me being first aid trained, I immediately set about dithering and flapping and fussing, asking him what was wrong, no response, turning him over, no response, then calling for an ambulance. No sooner had I asked to speak to the ambulance service then he leapt to his feet and ran off, albeit somewhat shakily. Odd. Perhaps it was the thought of my bristly top lip brushing the top off his coldsores during mouth to mouth that managed to ‘revive’ him. Who knows. But see, I received an email a few months ago warning me (and others, I’m not that important) about a fella who would pretend to be unconscious up until the point he heard you call an ambulance, then he’d fuck off like Usain Bolt. No attempt at nicking your stuff, no rudeness or threatening behaviour, just lying prone, pretending to be unwell, then shooting off. I didn’t think anything more of it until it happened personally to me.

The reason I mention this is because it happened again today. Sort of. As I was walking back to the car, I noticed someone lying on the ground. Everyone walking past him – probably a good twenty or so people, despite him lying right in their way. I actually had to umm and aah a moment before I went to help, but luckily, someone got there ahead of me. They wrapped him up in a coat, and I took my leave. I’d be interested to know whether it was just another scam. What I can’t understand is the people who walked past. Now look, I’m a realist, I know some people are out to scam and others are unpredictable and wild, but for goodness sake, surely we’re not at the point where we can’t give a prone body lying in the street the benefit of the doubt? I actually saw two people step over his legs like he was rubbish. Maybe he’s done it to them before, maybe they’d been warned, or maybe it was some poor sod taking a bad reaction to god knows what. Made me feel a bit sad, though. Still a human being.

Eeeh well. I feel better for getting that off my chest.

Speaking of my chest, it’s looking a bit smaller than ever…

twochubbycubs

Ah yes! Considering we were aiming to lose 2lb a week, we’re quite happy with how this is going, thank you very much. Unusually, Paul lost more than me, but I put that down to the fact I had two pints of Guinness yesterday. Tsk. Paul got his half stone award, I’m 2lb away from a stone award. We’re doing well – that cock thermometer will be spurting in no time!

Tonight’s recipe, then – easy peasy beef curry. We had a pack of the beef chunks left over from our Musclefood box and this seemed like an appropriate place to use them. I do love a curry, but if you don’t like it super spicy, don’t worry – just leave out the chilli pepper and use the mildest chilli powder you can find. Or even leave it out, give that a try. This serves four, very easily.

easy peasy beef curry

to make easy peasy beef curry you will need:

1kg diced beef (why not use some beef from our big box? You know that’ll leave you satisfied and smiling. Click here for a look at our excellent meat deal!)
250ml beef stock
2 tbsp tomato puree
2 tbsp ground coriander
1 tsp ground cumin and one of turmeric
2 tsp grated ginger (not ground!)
3 garlic cloves, minced (for both the garlic and ginger, you can use your fabulous microplane grater, oh what fun! Seriously though, one of the best things you can get for the kitchen – click here)
2½ tsp lemon juice
½ tsp ground pepper
1 tsp chilli powder
1 chilli pepper (optional)
1 big old beefy tomato (optional)
1 handful of rocket or spinach (optional)

to make easy peasy beef curry you should:

in a small bowl, mix together all the dry spices and the lemon juice into a paste and set aside
heat a large pan over a high heat and add a little oil (GASP) or frylight (BOO)
add the beef, stir and cook until brown (you might need to do this in two batches) (for once, browning your meat is a good thing)
remove the beef from the pan, turn the heat down to medium, let it cool a little, add the spice paste and stir around the bottom of the pan for about half a minute
return the beef back to the pan and stir for about a minute so that it’s well coated with the paste
add the tomato puree, beef stock and chilli pepper (if you’re using it), bring to the boil, then reduce the heat to low and cover
cook for 1 hour and 45 minutes
optional: about fifteen minutes before the end, cut your tomato into chunks and chuck that in, with however much rocket or spinach as you dare
remove the lid and cook for another fifteen minutes to thicken

We served ours with brown rice and peas – cook the rice, but chuck peas in at the same time. Couldn’t be easier!

Here’s to week three! Don’t forget, we have a book! I’ll dance at your wedding if you buy a copy from here!

Posted by

chubbycubs

Posted on

January 16, 2016

Posted under

airfryer, bacon, pork, recipe card, sausages, syn free, travel

sausage stroganott

Yes, sausage stroganott. Not stroganoff. Why? Well read on!

I’m trying to get motivated to write about Iceland but I’m distracted by a row on Facebook, where some poor lass has posted a few outfits and invited constructive criticism from the wider group. Now, to me, we’re all adults, and if you’re asking for an opinion, you have to expect negative opinions as well as positive. Seems fair? Apparently not. Someone suggested that that her trousers were tight enough to lip-read with (i.e. the camel had both feet in the river) and gosh almighty, the arguments that it has started has been unbelievable. It’s like a text version of cats fighting in an alley, only with only 46% of the alphabet being used. Personally, I thought she looked pretty in all of the outfits, but then I dress like someone hiding from the police, so what do I know. Anyway, the terminally offended have been moaning on about ‘if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all’, and I’m about ready to grind my teeth to diamond. What a sickly, pointless saying – if you pull the logic out of it, you can only say that Hitler had a decent ‘tache and never comment on you know, the atrocities. Can we not take someone constructively saying that our clothes are a bit tight, our hair looks like a burst sofa cushion or we smell like a tramp’s foot? Are we not all adults? Seemingly not. Does my fucking nut in.

ACTUALLY, whilst I’m having a rant, let me tell you something – I got an email the other day via Facebook Messenger from someone complaining that I ‘don’t post often enough’ – not because she wanted more of my “hilarious” banter but because she expected a daily recipe. Oh! Very good. I ignored her, but the flamin’ cheek. It was all very condescending and patronising, with a bit of ‘if you typed less and kept it succinct, you could post more recipes’ and ‘I signed up expecting a daily recipe’. Well yes, I could type less, but at the same time, if it’s just recipes you want, there’s a whole bloody world of them out there or you know, you could stop being a cheap fucker and buy a recipe book! Quite honestly, it wound me up enough to the point where I stood in the kitchen and moaned about it to Paul for a good ten minutes. Just to clarify, this is a personal blog and we will post when and where we can – but we’re both busy lads with full-time jobs and outside interests and well, four holidays a year. We posted over 200 recipes last year alone, all with narrative. Be thankful for what you get! Thank god 99.99% of you are wonderful people. That’s why I do it!

Oh ONE more thing – can we have a moratorium on people from England using the word haters? You’re not in Mean Girls, flower.

Anyway, hush. Iceland. Missed part one? The cheek. It’s right here. Love our travel stories? They’re all in our new book, naturally! BUY COPY NOW.

twochubbycubs go to Iceland: part two

We awoke the next day nice and early – not out of any special keenness to make the most of the day…somehow, that never occurs to us, but rather because the breakfast buffet was open and we didn’t want to miss a single bloody crumb. We’re classy Brits, what can I say? I barely had enough time to do something about my bedhair and have my morning piss before Paul was pushing me into the lift and down into the lobby. We had a very pleasant surprise with the lady who ushered us through to the breakfast area, who, as I detected immediately underneath her posh ‘how do you do’ voice, was a fellow Geordie! You can always tell – the strangulated vowels and elongated syllables, the eight bottles of Dog clinking in her handbag, the fact that as soon as both our façades were dropped we were ‘NAAA NO MAN’-ing and ‘DIVVENT’ing away like the poshest remake of Auf Wiedersehen, Pet ever. Honestly, I wouldn’t have been surprised if Denise Welch herself had come tumbling down the stairs shouting on about cheap bathrooms and kitchen deals. Anyway, we stopped and had a pleasant chat about Iceland and then were allowed through.

Well, how lovely. Everything you could possibly want, and more, all steaming hot and plentiful. Good work, Grand Hotel. We immediately developed Buffet Anxiety – what to have, how much to slop onto a plate before people took us to one side for an intervention, where the hell the full fat milk was because god-damn-it I’m on holiday and I’m sick to death of eating my thimble of Puffed fucking Wheat with what looks and tastes exactly like Tesco Everyday Value White Emulsion. There was a wee glass of oil with a label in Icelandic (the Icelandic language is beautiful, but written down, it looks rather like how you’d spell out the noise the bath makes when it’s draining the last of the water). I filled up a tiny portion and took it to Paul as olive oil for his bread and cheeses. It was cod liver oil. He wasn’t happy, not least because he spat it out like it was curdled cum. Mahaha – that would be the second time I’d managed to get him to eat something awful, with my minor victory of getting him to eat a dog chew in the car on the drive up to Edinburgh only a day or so ago. I told him it was beef jerky. He finished it mind, so it can’t have been that bad, and it’s reassuring to know that if times get tight, I can put him on Pedigree Chum and crack on. Poor Paul. Let me say though – normally the things I do put in his mouth don’t taste like cod liver oil or dog food. Well, maybe cod liver. If it’s a warm day.

After breakfast, we nipped back to the room to review our options. We were booked on a bus tour later that day (the glamour!) but the morning was ours. It doesn’t get light until around 11am in December, but that suits us. Darkness flatters our faces. We spotted that the famous Iceland Phallological Museum was only a thirty minute walk from the hotel, so we decided to set out in search of all that knob. The website stated they opened at 10am so we had plenty of time to dawdle. One of our main concerns with Iceland is that we’d fall over on the ice and crack open our heads or split our trousers, so Paul had been dispatched a few days before to buy some suitable boots. I had my Dr Martens, so of course, I was fine – and effortlessly stylish.

12439263_1011135665626703_888920672025810606_n

He came back with a pair of boots that looked exactly like something an old lady would wear to bingo so she didn’t tumble over outside when she was having a fag. They were awful. Square, boxy, 110% polyester. But he loved them. They worked, mind, though if you’re worrying about falling over on the ice, don’t be. The footpaths and roads are exceptionally well-gritted and Paul only went arse-over-tit once, right into a puddle. Which was hilarious.

Central Reykjavík is a doddle to get around on foot, with long straight roads and well-marked streets, and we arrived at the Knob Museum (sorry, my wrists hurt and phallological is just too much) just as it was supposed to open, hanging back for a few minutes because well, it doesn’t do to look too keen for a museum about knobs to open. We waited nearby…waited…waited…no. No, turns out it wasn’t going to open that day because the owner needed a rest, presumably from cramming willies into glass jars and making carriers bags from foreskins (what a great idea though – if you rubbed them just right, they’d turn into bin liners!) We went back to the hotel.

On our way back, I remembered that we had asked for a deluxe room, and that our current room, although perfectly serviceable, didn’t quite marry up with the word deluxe. It was very standard. The view we were afforded was of the service entrance around the back and plus, we were only three floors up. This hotel had many more floors than that! I pitched up to the front desk and enquired whether, because see it’s our honeymoon (cough), we could have a nicer room. Good old monobrow Aðalsteinunn behind the counter was having none of it and icily told us that we’d ‘already been upgraded’. I resisted the urge to ask whether we were originally going to be bedding down on a soiled mattress under the lifts, and pushed on politely. She crumpled a little and then offered us a room upgrade for a mere £100. Meh, fair enough. At this point I could see Paul’s ashen face and knew that his breakfast was already knocking on the escape hatch, and time was tight. I handed over my card, she disappeared for roughly five days, and came back with a new key for a room on the 10th floor. Marvellous! We rushed up, Paul left a goodbye skidder in the toilet only to find there wasn’t a brush to clean it away with, and off we went to our new room.

Well, let me tell you this – had I not physically pressed the button in the lift for a new floor, I would have bet the house that we were in the same room. Not a thing was different, bar the toilet pan no longer looking like the starting grid at Brand’s Hatch. Yes, they’d moved us up a few floors, but no difference to the room. BAH. We did, however, have a much nicer view, see:

12471367_1011135625626707_4244171263357653982_o

Nevermind. I didn’t dare go down and ask for another room in case housekeeping had visited our previous room and reported us, so we did what all young, happy couples do on holiday and had a quick nap. Our bus for the Golden Circle tour was due for 12.15, so we had plenty of time.

The way most tours work in Iceland is simple – you book them in advance either online or through your hotel, and a small shuttle bus will come and pick you up from the hotel and take you to the bus depot, where you will board a waiting coach. It works brilliantly. We used Grey Line for all of our excursions and they were terrific. The Golden Circle tour (well, the small one) encompasses a visit to Thingvellir National Park, the Strokkur geyser and Gulfross waterfall. All very pleasant. We were pushed out of the way whilst boarding the coach by some frankly gargantuan American lady who was inadvisably wearing leggings and showing everyone her business, but aside from that it was all terribly civilised. The tour guide, Lorenzo (a good strong Icelandic name right there), gave an interesting commentary on Iceland between the three places and it was one of the very few occasions where I’ve been on a bus and not immediately started snoring in the ear of the person next to me. You do have to wear your seatbelt, mind – it’s the law, even if, as in my case, it pushes up your coat to give you the appearance of having a colossal rack. There’s not much point in me waxing lyrical about how beautiful Iceland is – you really need to see it for yourself, but know that it is so alien and snow-covered and different that it really will take your breath away.

12553086_1011135685626701_8916720071983702597_n

Thingvellir National Park

We stopped here for around half an hour to allow everyone to take pictures and gaze at the scenery. Paul and I managed to walk into around ten different family photos so that’s not a bad average – I always try to pull a face in the vain hope I’ll end up going viral on a South Korean You’ve Been Framed but it hasn’t happened yet. The main attraction, other than the view, is the giant crack (story of my life) where the tectonic plates are pulling apart. Paul and I walked down a fair way before realising that we’d need to walk back and endure the shame of gasping and spluttering our way onto the bus. We stopped in the gift shop to buy a ridiculously awful teddybear.

11201891_992002634206673_4784977320151508055_n

Hmm!

The bus trundled on to Strokkur geyser, which is one of Iceland’s most visited hotspots. Literally. Essentially a bubbling pool most of the time, it’ll suddenly go off, spurting up to 40m into the air with an almighty splash. It’s great fun, until you remember the water is superheated and, because it contains so much sulphur, smells like death. Seriously, it’s one of the few tourist places I’ve ever been to where I can fart with gay abandon (is there any other kind) and actually improve the smell of the place. We took a video, as you’d expect, but it’s really just two minutes of me going ‘I reckon it’s going to blow, it’s gonna blow, any second now…’ followed by Paul going ‘FUCK ME IT’S AWAY’ at the top of his voice. It’s like our videos on xtube, really, only you don’t need to pay the Amateurs fee. So, instead, here’s a video from Youtube. Ignore the wank music and the slightly hipster presentation.

OK maybe one photo from us. I’ve shrunk the quality.

12507175_1011135745626695_8543484267031460641_n

Canny, right? After we’d all have a good gawp and made sure to spend a billion trillion krona on a Kitkat, hot chocolate and surly attitude from the small onsite restuarant, we were back on the bus and heading into the dusk to Gulfross waterfall. Lorenzo kept us informed as to how Iceland grows vegetables (in greenhouses), warm their houses (heat from the ground) and er, how much unemployment benefit you get. It all sounds like a utopia. The roads were very icy in places, with the bus slewing around at the back, but it all felt very safe, albeit the loud look-at-me chuntering from the aforementioned American lady got a little grating. We arrived at Gulfross around an hour later.

CATASTROPHE. The bus parks about 500m away from the viewing platform, but that 500m is down what felt like 499m of rickety, wooden stairs with no room to go side by side. Now as fat blokes, stairs are fine when you’re going down them, although they did creak and bend alarmingly underfoot, but we knew that once we were down there, we’d need to climb back up. Agony. We braved it anyway and it was absolutely bloody beautiful. Again, photos can’t really do it justice – it was just getting dark and this colossal waterfall is cascading busily just in front of you, cutting its way through the Earth. We took some photos but again, they lacked style, so here’s a video. Again, I apologise for the music – it does indeed sound like something you’d hear playing in the lifts of a Dignitas clinic, but here, make do.

We did spot an opportunity for mischief and to get our own back on the brash, burly American lady who had pushed us out of the way at the beginning, however. See, she had come down behind us and we knew she would be just as weary going up the stairs as we were. So, naturally, we waited until she had seen that there was no-one else on the stairs going up and could therefore make her very slow ascent. She began, and we immediately started up behind her, meaning she had to do it all in one without stopping. The fact that her heavy, laboured breathing masked our own was a bonus, and let me tell you, climbing behind this lady and looking up made you sure as hell concentrate on looking down and finding your footing. We all made it, though, and how we chuckled to ourselves as she was taken away on oxygen.

12523201_1011135792293357_522053437595126436_n

The tour finished with everyone dozing lightly on the bus as it made its way back to the capital, and we were back at the hotel for around 7pm. We decided, given our feet looked like slabs of corned beef from all the walking, to have a gin and tonic in the bar downstairs and rest a litte, given it was “Happy Hour”.

I think they need to look carefully at their definition of Happy. The barman was obnoxious and disinterested. We asked him what he’d recommend and he replied by telling us what he drinks when he’s out for ‘real fun’ as opposed to ‘hotel fun’, but in an intensely condescending fashion. I’m always wary of people who have to big themselves up like that – I rather got the impression he’d be home away to bed with a hot Vimto and a cold wank. Nevertheless, we ordered two gin and tonics and my recollection is £36. £36! I hadn’t asked for a bottomless glass! It was nice gin, yes, but I’m fairly sure it was just Bombay Sapphire. Of course I couldn’t lose face so we paid up without comment, but fuck me, never again. For the rest of the holiday our interaction with the dour barman was limited to us trying to figure out who he looked like, until Paul got it in one with ‘Tyrone from Coronation Street after receiving a poor health diagnosis’. Mahah. We planned to go out in the evening but once we were back in the room, we were out like a light and didn’t wake up again until 1am. Thank god for room service!

Anyway, speaking of meals. Here’s that recipe. WORST SEGUE EVER.

sausage stroganott

to cook sausage stroganott, you’ll need:

6 lean pork sausages (maybe use the sausages from our Musclefood deal – syn free! Or, if you like chewing what tastes like a lemon squashed into a church doormat, try the delicious Slimming World sausages)
1 onion, chopped finely
4 bacon medallions, sliced (maybe use the bacon from our smaller Musclefood deal – syn free! Or, if you prefer cooking with what looks like a tired, anaemic slice of scrotum, buy the wonderful Weight Watchers bacon)
500g mushrooms, sliced
2 garlic cloves, chopped finely
250ml beef stock
4 tbsp tomato puree
1 tsp smoked paprika

You can make this a bit more stroganoffy by adding some Quark, but frankly, it makes the sauce look like something you’d see slurping its merry way along a colonic irrigation hose, so…up to you.

to cook sausage stroganott, you should:

cook the sausages – you’ll get the best results in an Actifry, which, if you’re an Amazon Prime member, you can get for £99 by clicking here, just saying
slice the sausages into 4 pieces each and set aside
meanwhile, heat a large frying pan over a medium-high heat with a little oil and fry the onions until soft
and the bacon and garlic and continue frying until the bacon is cooked
add the mushrooms and continue to cook for another five minutes or so, or until the mushrooms have softened
add the stock, tomato puree and paprika, stir, and bring the mixture to simmer
add the sausages and continue to simmer for a couple of minutes and the sauce has thickened a little
serve!

We served ours with mash and peas – nothing fancy, but a decent warming dinner.

Posted by

chubbycubs

Posted on

January 12, 2016

Posted under

bacon, breakfast, pork, recipe card, savoury snacks, snacks, syn free, taster ideas, travel

speedy breakfast bake

I’ll come to the speedy breakfast bake in a moment, but first…you may recall we went to Iceland? And well look, you know me, I can’t go to the toilet to drown an otter without writing a 2,000 word article about it. So, here’s the first of our Iceland entries. If you’re just here for the recipes and the sound of my voice in your head makes your skin crawl, just skip down to the photo. Philistine.

twochubbycubs go to Iceland: part one

We decided on Iceland for three reasons:

Corsica taught us that two fat men in very hot climates equals rashes, sweating and uncomfortable levels of public nudity;
it looks fantastically ethereal and unlike anywhere we’ve ever been before; and (perhaps crucially);
we envisioned the place being full of hairy, mountain men who could club a polar bear to death with their willies.

We actually almost ended up in Iceland three years ago but we had to cancel the trip to fund the remodelling of our kitchen – it was certainly more important, the place looked like a museum exhibit, all foisty and fussy from the previous old biddy who shuffled around in there. Broke our heart though to cancel for something so mundane, even if I do have a fabulous cerise stand mixer like Lawson and a whole load of Le Creuset. Flash forward several years later and, after watching a ten minute video on Youtube, we had the whole holiday booked within ten minutes.

Fast forward to December, you know the drill. We shuttled our way up to Edinburgh and arrived at the hotel.

We ate a perfectly satisfactory (damning with faint praise) meal in the hotel bar, where we were served by an entirely lovely young waitress who baffled us with menu choices but steered us towards the money-saving options with aplomb. Clearly one look at our tattered shoes and my Donald Trump haircut elicited a sense of pity from her. She did respond to our chat about Iceland with a question we’d hear surprisingly often both before and after the holiday:

“Iceland…is it cold there?”

I mean the clue is in the name. I was faultlessly polite, resisting the urge to tell her that they only call it Iceland to lure unsuspecting penguins there to sell them timeshares, and demurred that it was indeed rather nippy. Perhaps she knew that as hard-bitten Geordies we only feel the cold when our heart stops and our fingers turn black.

That’s a faintly true stereotype – take a look out in Newcastle on a Friday night in winter and you’ll see plenty of bubbling and rippling masses wearing less material than I use to wipe my bum. Only when both sets of lips turn blue does the cough Prosecco get put down. Anyway, yes, we were asked many times if Iceland was cold to the point I developed a tic in my eye from inwardly wincing so much.

I wish I could say there was anything eventful to write about from finishing our meal through to getting on the plane, but no – it was the usual perfect Premier Inn service. I should be on bloody commission, I tell everyone about Premier Inn. Just saying, if you’re reading this PI, a free night in a London hotel wouldn’t go amiss. We don’t mind if Lenny Henry is in there, he looks like he’d be a cuddler. We did, however, manage to deviate from our normal practice of turning up at the airport eight days early ‘just in case’ by instead spending the day shopping in the salubrious Livingston Centre. I say shopping, we minced in, fannied about in the Le Creuset shop, bought a salt pig and a honey pot and then walked around looking at all the shops that cater for people of less corpulent frames than us. We decided to have a game of mini-golf in Paradise Island. Paradise Island? More like Hepatitis Inlet. No I’m sorry, I’ve been to America and I’ve seen how they do mini-golf over there – carefully crafted courses, erupting volcanoes. What do we get? A shoddy animatronic of Paul’s mother appearing out of a crate of MDF, a vinyl recording of a door creaking and some torn artificial grass. I felt like I was having a round of golf in an abandoned IKEA. We plodded around with all the enthusiasm of the terminally bored, finished under par and didn’t dare have a pop at the ‘WIN A FREE GAME’ final hole in case we were actually victorious.

Unusually, we did manage to get lost on the way to the airport carpark – we normally have an excellent sense of direction, but somehow we missed the giant planes swarming around over our head. I pulled over to ask someone for directions and I’ve genuinely never stared into such an empty face. I asked for directions to the airport and he gazed at me like I was speaking tongues. My exasperated eyes met his watery eyes for a moment or two, then, realising he was clearly as thick as the shite that killed Elvis, we barrelled away in the car. He was still stooped over ‘looking at the car’ as we turned a corner 100 yards away, somewhat ironically onto the right roundabout for the airport. Ah well. It’ll have given him something to use his brain for other than absorbing the wind.

Having parked the car in a car-park that looked exactly like the type of place you’d see on Watchdog where they tear your cars up and down the country, touching everything with oily hands and merrily hacking up phlegm into the secret camera, we were on our way. I told Paul to ‘remember where we had parked’ and he replied with ‘Berwick upon Tweed’. He does come out with the jokes occasionally you know. Edinburgh Airport remains as charmless as ever, with the only place to eat that didn’t necessitate filling out a loan application being the little Wetherspoons up by the gate. I had four gins and a tonic, Paul had a beer and after only an hour or so, we were boarding the plane. I’ve typed many words about the way people board planes so I won’t bother you with them now, but for goodness sake, the pilot isn’t going to set away early, you don’t need to crowd on like they’re giving out blowjobs and cocaine. Bastards.

The flight was uneventful but packed – the mass wearing of winter clothes meant everyone took up slightly more room than normal and the air was soon steamy with sweat. To squeeze past someone in the aisle involved so much personal intimacy that I automatically lubed myself up. Lovely. I can handle flying but struggle with feeling boxed in, so I just shut my eyes and dozed for the two hours it takes to travel from Edinburgh to Reykjavik. Being the caring sort I also kept hold of the iPad just in case, but it did mean poor Paul had nothing to do other than gaze at the cornflakes of dandruff gently falling off the scalp of the slumbering mass in front. I’m a sod, I know.

Oh, there was a moment of interest when the overhead cabin across from us starting leaking something at quite an alarming rate, necessitating the decampment of the passenger immediately below the leak into the only spare seat available on the plane. Seems sensible? No. The woman (who was somewhat…large) next to the vacant seat kicked up such a stink that the stewardess had kick up a stink in return, and a veritable hiss-off occurred – too much make-up vs too much circumference. How selfish can you be, though, to make someone sit under a dripping leak for two hours? I feel guilty just making Paul sleep in the cuddle puddle after sex. Don’t think us gays have a wet patch? You’re wrong, though ours is mainly lube to be fair. Still, makes getting up for an early-morning piss that much easier when you can just slide to the bathroom like Fred in the Flintstone’s opening credits.

Also, I’m no expert on aircraft, despite all my many hours of sitting slackjawed in front of Air Crash Investigation watching reconstructions of plane crashes brought to vivid life via the graphics card of a Nintendo 64, but is a major leak not worrisome? Surely water sloshing around amongst the electrics is a VERY BAD THING. The stewardess opened the locker, moved around a couple of the many bags crammed in there then decreed the leak to be a mystery. A mystery! That helped my anxiety – I had visions of it being hydraulic fluid or jet fuel and us being mere moments away from landing via someone’s front room on the Shetland Isles. I still don’t like getting up for a piss on the plane because I’m worried I’ll upset the balance. A rational mind I do not have. We landed safely, obviously, and the leak was plugged by about 1000 blue paper towels. Keep it classy, Easyjet.

Let’s be fair, actually – easyJet continue to be fantastic to fly with. I have no problems with a company that will fly me around Europe for less money than I pay for my weekly parking ticket in Newcastle. Everyone from their check-in staff to the onboard team always seem to be smiling, and as a nervous passenger, that really helps. Their planes are comfy, although I noted with alarm that I wasn’t too far off needing a seatbelt extension. Not that there’s any shame in that, but I’d sooner be strapped onto the roof and flown that way than ask across a crowded cabin for a bungee-cord sized seatbelt. I’m shy!

We touched down into Keflavík Airport in the early evening and, yes, it was cold. Bloody cold – minus one or two degrees. The airport is small as it only serves a few flights a day in winter, and we were through security and bag-drop in no time. You know the drill by now – I had to wait ten minutes whilst Paul dashed into a toilet and released his Christmas log. Any airport, any time. I think the air pressure changes associated with flying does something to his bowels – I can genuinely count the seconds from getting our bag off the conveyor to Paul turning to me with an ashen face clutching his stomach and bemoaning that he needs to go for a crap. Some people tie fancy socks to their suitcase or have a favourite towel to take on holiday as tradition – my holiday tradition is looking furiously at the closed door of a gents toilet.

As Keflavík Airport is around thirty miles from the centre of Reykjavic, you’ll need to take a bus or hire a car. I didn’t fancy crashing my way through the icy roads, so we opted for the bus. It’s all terribly simple and you don’t need to book in advance, rather just bustle your way to the ticket office, purchase a ticket and step aboard the idling bus, which then takes you to your hotel. It’s all exceptionally civilised. One of the many good things about Iceland is that it doesn’t seem to attract the SKOL-ashtray-and-red-shoulders brigade, so you’re not stuck on a bus hearing fifty different English accents bellow about lager and tits for an hour. Good.

We were dropped off at the Grand Hotel first, and as it was pitch-black outside, we decided to stay in the room to drain our swollen feet and order room service. I tried to order something Icelandic but the closest we could see was a SKYR cheesecake. Oh imagine the pains. I did my usual hotel trick of hiding in the bathroom when they bring all the trays of food in so that Paul looks like a giant fatty, though I was fairly restrained this time – I didn’t make my usual ‘straining’ noises from behind the door.

Stuffed full of food and tired from all the sitting down, we were off to sleep in no time, accompanied by the only English channel we could find – Sky News.

Gosh now look at that. All that writing and we’re not even out in Iceland proper yet. That’ll come in the next entry. Anyway, tonight’s recipe. Those who are lost in mirth and reverie, get yourself together.

This speedy breakfast bake is easy enough to make – actually, ridiculously so. Not going to lie, this isn’t our recipe, it’s actually taken from another blog, found here. We were so taken by it that we adapted it slightly for Slimming World. If you’ve got a spiraliser, you’ve FINALLY got a bloody use for it. Mind, if you don’t have a spiraliser (and you can buy a cheap one RIGHT HERE), don’t shit the bed, you can just grate the sweet potato instead. This sits well – take some the next day for work.

speedy breakfast bake

to make speedy breakfast bake, you’ll need:

1 large sweet potato, peeled and grated finely – use a spiraliser if you have one, it makes it easier – just have it on a fine setting
12 egg whites (see tip below – you don’t need to clart about seperating eggs)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
120ml of skimmed milk (take it from your HEA allowance or syn it – 100ml is two syns)
80g of extra mature but reduced fat cheddar cheese (two HEA choices, remember this easily serves four)
as much spinach as you like, but aim for two big handfuls at the least
a few bacon medallions (I have an idea: use the bacon from our Musclefood deal! It’s good value and cheap as chips)

Right, the eggs – that’s a lot of eggs and you’re going to have a lot of yolk – we bought these instead from Tesco:

download

Much easier! Used about 4/5 of it, and chucked the rest into a pan for an omelette the next day.

and to make speedy breakfast bake, you should:

preheat the oven up to 180 degrees and line a decent square tin (or any tin, I’m not going to write a letter to the council about you) with greaseproof paper or a squirt or two of frylight
dry fry off the bacon and chop it up
mix everything together in a big old bowl, tip into the tin and cook for around an hour (check it doesn’t burn) until it’s completely cooked through
leave to stand for ten minutes just to cool off and firm up
slice and serve!

We served ours with a side salad, but the fact that this has spinach in it already makes it a super healthy breakfast or dinner.

Enjoy!

Remember, if you’re a fan of our writing, and if you want to read our travel tales from Germany, Corsica and Ireland, you can find them all in our new book!

Posted by

chubbycubs

Posted on

November 15, 2015

Posted under

recipe card, slow cooker, syn free, vegetarian

slow cooker: colourful mash

Please stop prefixing all of your sentences with the word ‘well’, people. No, come on. It makes it sound like everyone has been holding their breath waiting for the revelation that you’ve put the cat out or spent the afternoon with your feet up having a cheeky glass of Bellabrusco. It’s not needed.

Only a quick post tonight because a) we have ironing to do and b) my ear hurts. Really hurts. Clearly this is my punishment for having a bag of Revels at the drive-in cinema yesterday, but it was either that or a hotdog served up with a side of phlegm from the hairy lass on the food-stall, so I think I made the right choice. The drive-in itself was really quite fun too – not least because I spend most of a cinema trip in some discomfort from holding in a fart, whereas in my own car I could trump to my heart’s content and the people either side of us could do nothing about it other than wind their windows up and gag into their airbag. Inside Out was a bit of a bust mind, but that could be more to do with the fact we were watching it from a distance through the pouring rain. I felt like a peeping tom. I’d still recommend the experience, though.

Tonight’s meal is mash done in a slow cooker. Whilst trying desperately to find a recipe that didn’t involve pulled this or shredded that, I discovered you could do mash in the slow cooker. Do you need to? I’m not sure. But it does look pretty.

Can I just say, you have no idea how much work goes into using mirrored bowls and not accidentally reflecting my knob into the pictures.

to make slow cooker colourful mash, you’ll need:

however many potatoes you normally use for your mash
one red pepper
one yellow pepper
bunch of spring onions
handful of jalapeños
50ml of chicken or vegetable stock – add more if you have ‘dry’ potatoes – just keep an eye on them and make sure they don’t boil dry
30g of hard goats cheese (optional) (HEA)
splash of milk
salt and pepper

to make slow cooker colourful mash, you should:

chop up your potatoes into manageable chunks and drop into the slow cooker
chop up the peppers, onion and jalapeno into nice square chunks and place on the top
pour on the stock
cook on low for three hours
mash up in the pan – don’t aim for super-smooth, you want it looking like a bowl of GINO O GINO GINELLI TUTTI FRUTTI ICE CREAM ABBONDANZA
grate in the cheese and add enough milk to loosen it
dunno, serve this with sausages or something, at least the kids will eat it

In fact, let me just leave this here:

Actually, it’s genuinely really good – comfort food! You could add bacon too, if you were feeling like a proper decadent slut.

Posted by

chubbycubs

Posted on

November 5, 2015

Posted under

beef, beef mince, british, budget, fakeaways, recipe card, syn free, taster ideas

mince and mash (not our porn names)

Sorry, been away – busy attending to a personal issue. All sorted.

Fireworks night. Yak. I’m a right miserable sod, because I don’t enjoy fireworks night. It’s not that the colours don’t amaze me or the bangs excite me, it’s just I spend the whole time wincing and thinking ‘oooh but what could you have bought with that money?’. It’s the Geordie in me. Plus, everyone else’s fireworks displays are always a bit crap, aren’t they? They certainly are around here – the sky being full of Aldi bangers that pop apologetically 12ft off the ground with less bang and smoke than what my thighs make when I move quickly. We go to the Hexham display, and that’s alright, but I find it’s invariably full of children getting in the way and crying. Honestly, why people don’t just shut them away in a cupboard is beyond me. Perhaps that’s why I can’t have children (well, ethically I shouldn’t, but biologically I can – nothing wrong with my gentleman’s relish, thank you very much). Perhaps we’ve been spoilt – we’ve experienced the fireworks at Disney Orlando, where you experience such a visual and aural overload that you don’t even notice them dipping their hands in your pockets to make absolutely sure you have zero money left. It’s certainly the first and only time I’ve developed sunburn from a fireworks display.

Mind, not that I’d see much now – my eyesight is dreadful. Don’t get me wrong, I can still see Paul if he so much as ventures anywhere near my wallet, even when I’m at work and he’s at home* – but I’ve been finding that my eyes are just getting worse. Nothing exciting, don’t worry, I just use a computer a lot and I’ve been putting off going for an eye-test for ages. See, any kind of test is a minefield when you have health anxiety because an anxious person makes all kind of crazy medical leaps. Eyesight getting worse? That’s because there’s a tumour the size of a rugby ball pressing my eyes flat. Tickly cough? That’ll be polycystic ovaries. Since I’ve adopted a mantra of ‘only worry if it gets worse’, I’ve put off the eye-test for long enough.

* funny fact for you. I have a lovely picture of Paul and I lying on a bed together when we first started ‘going out’ (oh how I hate that term, but see it’s more polite than putting ‘rutting like dying pigs’). We both look content. My eyes are fixed on the camera I’m holding in front of us. Paul’s eyes are very pointedly and determinedly staring at my wallet, just on show on the table. How I tease him about this even now – if he married me for the money then he’s really done quite poorly.

Anyway, on Monday, I bit the bullet. I actually went for an eye-test. That might not seem like a lot, but you have to remember how much I hate eye-tests because I’ve had nothing but terrible experiences with them. Take my last one at Boots Opticians, where the whole test was done almost in silence save for the sound of the skin on my cheek blistering under the assault of the opthamologist’s stinky breath. I’m sorry, but if I had a job that routinely involved me getting so close to people that I could give them stubble burn, I’d make damn sure my breath didn’t smell like an sewage outlet. Hell, it’s one thing I’m genuinely paranoid about – I hate the thought of having the type of breath that makes people audibly wince when I yawn or ask me if I had enjoyed the faeces I’d clearly had for dinner. If I know I’m going to the dentist or for an eye-test I spend a good three days beforehand brushing my teeth, swishing mouthwash and sucking menthol mints until it gets to the point where I can’t have a glass of water without my breath freezing it solid like that shrill tart from Frozen.

I have to say though, for once, it was altogether very pleasant, with the good staff at The Big Opticians in Byker putting me at ease. Can’t recommend them enough, and not just because I told the lovely lady serving me all about the blog. I’ve come away with a new pair of Paul Smith that are slightly more rounder than normal (I asked what was suitable for a “fat face”, and such bluntness seems to have worked wonders) and I’m not half as poor as I thought I’d be. Excellent. I asked Paul what he thought and he said I looked like Dame Edna, then immediately backtracked and said they were lovely. That was lucky, because how I would have been chuckling over the divorce papers later on. So that’s my eyes sorted, now I just need to do my hair.

I’m at that difficult stage now where I have to either commit to shaving off all my hair or going for a haircut. And I hate haircuts. It amazes me that they can actually cut my hair given I retreat my head back below my shoulders like a shy tortoise. I can’t stand people touching me, I can’t stand small-talk and I have as much style as a troubling fart, so going to a hairdressers is just awful. I’d sooner get a colonic in the middle of Boots with a group of students grading the look of my bumhole. I get asked what I want ‘doing with my hair’ and I struggle to reply with anything other than ‘cut’. It doesn’t help that I always look great when they whip off the blanket and show me the back of my head, then I blink and my hair immediately looks like something someone’s used to shift a particularly difficult scuff mark off a strip of lino. But I do need to do something with it, given I’ve been told I look like Donald Trump. From a loved one, no less. I know someone who’s not getting anal for at least two weeks. I sometimes wish I had that slightly stereotypical gay trait of being able to look good in any old outfit, but honestly, the only thing that looks put-together and stylish in my wardrobe are the built-in shelves.

Sigh. Ah well. Tonight’s recipe is a little different. I’m calling it Paul’s Very Special First Meal because it’s a slightly more refined version of the very first meal he ever cooked – mince and mash. Apparently it’s a delicacy where he’s from (Peterborough, not, as you might think, the Eastern Bloc) and his mum used to make it often, though hopefully his version contains less Benson and Hedges ash and more meat. When Paul originally made this for me, it consisted of mash made from potatoes (and not a jot more) served with cooked mince and onion. With nothing else. It looked like something you’d get served for misbehaving in a Turkish prison. Still, I married him, and he’s the one who does most of the cooking now, so it all balanced nicely. This is a dinner that can be infinitely customised – add any old veg you like. We use it to go through all the scabby tins of peas and carrots that we buy on a whim.

Incidentally, if you were looking for a nickname for the two of us, and twochubbycubs doesn’t quite cut it, ‘Mince and Mash’ should do the trick.

to make mince and mash, you’ll need:

for the mince:

one tin of chopped tomatoes
two strong onions
500g of beef mince (5%, else Mags will have a fit of the vapours – and yeah I know I know, but our musclefood deal comes with three 400g parcels of beef mince, and it’s actually very good! SEE?)
a couple of garlic cloves
a beef stock cube
a tin of peas
a tin of carrots
a tin of green beans
honestly, any old shite you want to put in – butter beans, baked beans, sweetcorn if you like looking at your dinner in exactly the same way it went in twelve hours later…

for the mash:

however many potatoes you usually use for your mash, but choose a good, buttery potato – or use sweet potato, or use carrots, or use a mixture, or even chuck in some broccoli with your mash – but don’t bloody skin the potatoes
a tiny dash of milk
lots and lots of pepper

and to make mince and mash, you should:

finely dice the onion and garlic and sweat it down in a couple of squirts of spray oil – proper stuff mind, not bloody Frylight (though I mean, use Frylight if you want, but why would you when you don’t need to?)
chuck in the mince and cook it quickly until your meat is browned
add in the chopped tomatoes, peas, carrots, green beans, cat, TV Times, anything at all – crumble in the stock cube, bit of Worcestershire sauce if you fancy, and leave to simmer away merrily while you make the mash
I say make, all you need to do is boil your veg and then mash it roughly, so you get nice chunks and bits of potato peel – you’re lining your stomach with it, not plastering a ceiling, so lumpy is good

Paul prefers his mince watery, I like mine thick enough to leave my spoon standing up straight. Paul also likes to eat this dish with a teaspoon for god-knows-why, although it really just means he spills it down his front and I can’t eat my dinner for tutting and clucking.

Listen, I know it looks like a proper rubbish dinner, but it’s delicious and warming. Having typed it up, I realise I’ve just made a shepherd’s pie, only with the two layers side to side. BLOODY PETERBOROUGH.

Before I go, good news. We’re going to be doing a slow-cooker week starting next Sunday (I think). So, if your slow-cooker is sitting at the back of the cupboard collecting dust, dig it out. If you’re a fan of your whole house smelling like someone’s been farting non-stop for eight solid hours, or you like your dinner almost pre-chewed, you’ll be in your element.

Posted by

chubbycubs

Posted on

October 28, 2015

Posted under

breast, fakeaways, kebab shop, poultry, recipe card, syn free

chicken parmesan with bubble’n’squeak rostis

So you may, or indeed may not, remember me prattling on about having a sore shoulder a while back which was resulting in a numb face and a painful neck. At first, I put it down to the extravagant swimming I pulled off in Corsica, or my particularly deft way of dragging a suitcase behind me with ne’ry a thought for my posture or the shins of passer-bys. I even had to go for an x-ray which was terribly exciting. Though not as exciting as the time I went for an MRI. Anyway, after the usual battling through a phone menu last revised back in the eighties and waiting the customary seven and a half years to get a doctor’s appointment (on the basis I’m not 89, and thus unable to get up at 5am to queue up outside the surgery), I went in for my results. I didn’t get my usual doctor. Instead, I got the doctor who I always try to avoid.

Now, let me say this. She’s a brilliant doctor, exceptionally knowledgeable and concise, and I’d (luckily) trust her with my life. But I don’t feel comfortable talking to her because she’s very aloof. I like a doctor who I can crack a joke with to relieve the tension and who will patiently explain all of the difficult terminology to me, such as spondylosis or stenosis or irreversible anal trauma or leg. I once, at the very peak of my anxiety, asked whether or not my erratic heartbeat was to be the end of me, only to be told by a jolly doctor with a nose the colour of a postbox that ‘I would still get the ladies to fit you up for a Christmas suit as opposed to a bodybag‘, before launching into a paroxysm of phlegm-filled chuckles. He was great, though I believe he’s dead now, so who got the last laugh?

No, this doctor speaks to me in a very clipped, matter-of-fact tone. Very professional, which is probably why I don’t get along. If I was a doctor I’d spend the entire time bringing out the giant arse thermometer with a wince on my face, only to poke it rudely in my patient’s side with an ‘only joking, no, seriously now, it’s terminal’. I sat down in the chair and I was given a look that almost set my ears on fire – the results were discussed over…ooh, seven seconds, and I was told I had spondylosis and that was that. To me, spondylosis sounds like a Eurovision entry from one of the wildcard countries, like Azerbaijan. Or perhaps a packet of Belgian sweets. When I asked for a mite more information, she signed like I’d punctured her lung and explained it was a form of ‘arthritis and a result of getting old’.

Getting old! I would understand if I was in my sixties but I’m only 30 – and whilst I’ve doubtless weathered my body disgustingly by years of smoking, drinking, casual sex and hilarious-obesity (well it’s better than morbid obesity) – I don’t think I’m ‘getting old’ just yet. Granted, I do make a noise like the air-brakes on a bus when I finally settle into my chair at the end of a working day, and I find myself picking up trinkets in garden centres and thinking ‘well now isn’t that just the ticket, a little foam pad for my knees when I’m weeding’, but come on. There’s a few years left in me yet, I hope. Actually, the fact that I put down in writing how often I’m in a garden centre is worrying – they were always the domain of ladies who smelled damp and men with cumulatively more hair sprouting out of their nose and ears than on their scalp – but then there I am on a Sunday, fingering the seed packets and worrying endlessly about my car being scratched. Hmm.

I courted her opinion on whether I should see a chiropractor and her reply was that she couldn’t comment – I resisted to urge to ask whether she was being held against her will or if a rogue chiropractor was holding her children hostage. She referred me to have my bloods taken, which I’m beginning to think is just a ruse to build up supplies because I have a rare blood type and they’re forever taking my blood. I swear, I go in for an ingrown toenail and they’ve got a needle in my arm before I’m so much as sat down in the reception flicking through a Home and Country. That’s a fib. There’s no Home and Country in our surgery. There’s a few dog-eared OK magazines – ‘It’s true love for Anthea Turner!‘ and ‘Happy future ahead for Princess Di‘ and a copy of Puzzler which I swear has been there since the centre was built – it’s probably a load-bearing magazine – and will remain there evermore. Out of little more than spite, I’ve arranged an appointment with a chiropractor regardless. If anything, it’ll give me something to twist my face about down the line. I do wish there was a way of discreetly asking whether or not their investigation table can stand up to twenty stone of fat slithered on top like cooling lava but no.

Anyway, enough about my day. It’s hurting to type, so I’ll need to hurry. I don’t like having a neck pose that makes me look permanently inquisitive. I’m actually frightened that I’m going to end up like all of those silly people on facebook who cast their head to one side and pout into the camera in the misguided belief that it’s hiding their chins, which are smartly avalanching into a fleshy heap under their right ear. So without a moment more of hesitation, here’s tonight’s recipe.

The chicken is delicious, all crispy and flavoursome, and don’t forget you can get your hands on a decent selection of breasts just by clicking on our Musclefood deal. Musclefood’s chicken doesn’t seem to shrink away to nothing in the oven, which is a bonus, and it actually tastes of something other than a farmer’s fart and a short life filled with disappointment and ennui. Give it a go. The accompanying sides are a piece of piss to make, but don’t they look good? You can serve this dish to loved ones and bask in their oohs and aaahs. Aaah, not arse. No-one wants to bask in my arse, sadly. I’ll divide this into two recipes, because I love you so much.

to make baked chicken parmesan, you’ll need:

4 chicken breasts
60g parmesan (30g is a HEA)
1 wholemeal roll, made into breadcrumbs (HEB)
2 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp dried basil
1/4 tsp black pepper

It’s worth noting at this point that you’ll not use anywhere near all of the ‘covering’, so I wouldn’t worry too much about any syns and HEB. Up to you, though – this makes enough to coat four breasts.

to make baked chicken parmesan, you should:

preheat the oven to 180 degrees celsius
in a shallow bowl, mix together the garlic powder, breadcrumbs, parmesan, basil and pepper
spray the chicken breasts with a little spray oil and roll in the breadcrumbs so they are well coated – use a little more frylight on patches where the mixture won’t stick
place onto a non-stick baking tray and bake for about thirty minutes, checking that the chicken is cooked through so you’re not shitting through the eye of a needle later on

to make sticky-leek topped bubble and squeak rostis, you’ll need:

700g of potatoes, chopped, don’t bother peeling
300g of broccoli
a chicken stock cube
any other veg you want to add in
a pack of two leeks
pinch of thyme
pinch of salt

to make sticky-leek topped bubble and squeak rostis, you should:

slice the leeks thinly – this is where a mandolin comes in really handy – and you can find one here. Take care though, don’t circumcise your fingers. You can just use a knife mind, but it’s faffy and the more uniform they look, the better
pop these into a pan with a drop or two of oil, a teaspoon of oil and a pinch of thyme and salt – then put the lid on and shake shake shake, breaking the leeks up – then keep the lid on and put them on a low heat for as long as you dare, they’ll reduce down and get sticky
meanwhile, cut up your potatoes and broccoli and boil for however long it takes to go soft
allow to cool and then roughly mash – you don’t want baby food, so just give it a cursory mix – and add in the stock cube – if you have any parmesan left over from the chicken, chuck it in here
shape into discs – now, we use one of these rings and presses – it makes things much easier, and costs less than a tenner – just use a dab of oil on the sides and you’ll get perfectly uniform, lovely shaped discs – but, you can use a scone ring or something circular!
top with the sauteed leeks
pop into the bottom of the oven when the chicken goes in
serve with gravy if you like!

Posted by

chubbycubs

Posted on

October 25, 2015

Posted under

beef, recipe card, sauces, steak, syn free

steak au poivre

No point in fibbing, we used neither a proper steak or a double cream based sauce for this, but well, we’re on Slimming World and something needs to counter the massive packet of Pinballs that somehow got eaten on the drive home from the cat and dog shelter today. We’ll come to the recipe a wee bit later but first, a couple of things.

Really, just a gentle reminder to all that we’re completely unofficial, and what we write is entirely our own opinion. I like to think we’re genuinely nice people and what we post is all in good humour, but please remember, this is ultimately a personal blog and we’re allowed to let our opinions slip through. Same goes for our Facebook group/page. We’ve experienced a bit of a ‘problem’ user who took great umbrage to me asking, perfectly innocently, where she got her serving platter from and that I thought it was pretty. She inexplicably took this as me suggesting she ate like a pig (which she didn’t, and I wasn’t) and then went onto one of the big facebook groups making out like there had been a whole campaign against her and I was planning on taking out an advert in The Times calling her a fatty-boom-boom. Maybe I exaggerate but, like crabs, exaggeration is catching. What did annoy me – and so little does, honestly – was her making out like I was a bully. I’ve never bullied anyone in my life – I’m too soft-hearted, despite all the puff and bluster. I’d be absolutely and utterly mortified to have caused genuine upset, but what I think happened was that she wildly misconstrued the original comment and then couldn’t quite calm down. An over-reaction against a slight that never happened – that’s the Internet for you. I did explain, over and over and over, but…ah well. If you’ve come to the page expecting Hitler in an XXL Cotton Traders t-shirt fatshaming women all over, you must be sorely disappointed. If you’re here wanting diet advice and a few laughs and pictures of cats, you’ve definitely come to the right place. Take a look over the last year’s worth of posts, pictures and recipes, and then decide if I’m a bully.

No need to leave a comment re: the above!

We’re struggling more and more not to buy a dog. Personally, I think it would be a little mean given we’re out all day, but then, dog-sitters exist…every time we come away from the cat and dog shelter I almost have to drag Paul to the car weeping and wailing over some cute bundle of fur that he’s seen. It’s like Sophie’s Choice every fucking Sunday. We’d be absolutely excellent ‘parents’ but I don’t know. I mean, we’ve just had that lovely sofa delivered. I’d prefer another cat, but given our two alternate between tearing lumps out of one another and spending an hour or so licking each other’s arsehole in front of our TV, maybe it’s not the best time to introduce another. There’s a cat there called Malcolm with beautiful tiger stripes and big green eyes and I know, I just know, he’s going to end up being put into our car at some point. It’s funny, back in the day when we had three cats (before we gave one away to a lonely friend), when we introduced Cat 3, Cat 1’s reaction was to piss on everything we owned. She pissed on our skybox, she pissed on Paul’s slippers, she even climbed up onto the hob and pissed all over that. She even left us a few hot links in the shower for good measure. She seemed content enough but for ages our tea had a faint scent of ammonia about it. I just wish I was rich, then I’d give them all a home.

Finally, we went to B&M today which is always a mistake because I end up getting so wound up. Who out there is buying those bits of wood with messages like ‘MEMORIES LIVE FOREVER, DREAMS FADE’ and ‘BITCH OF THE KITCHEN’ on them? Because whoever you are, please stop it immediately. I swear I walked through an aisle so full of motivational slogans and ‘PRINCESS’ tags that I came out the other end with diabetes and an hour to live. Though, I did chuckle to note that the second ‘S’ from a big lump of shite with ‘Princess’ emblazoned on it had fallen to the floor, leaving it looking like a motivational plank for a tin of corned beef. To my “delight” they had put out all the Christmas decorations, meaning I got a good early look at all the tat I’m going to be driving past and tutting at. Again – tell me – who buys those awful ‘snow scenes’ with the tiny people whirring around on sledges? Who wants what looks like a lump of asbestos knocked out of a wall and painted by a lunatic sitting atop their mantle? But I think, really, the very worst thing I saw was a toilet seat cover with Santa’s cheery face on it. Because nothing says ‘IT’S CHRIIIIIIIISTMAS’ like having to look at Santa’s twinkling eyes whilst you’re touching cloth? I think there’s something deeply troubling about having to lift up Santa’s face to curl one out – it’s like you’re shitting on Christmas itself. Still, a bargain at £1.99.

That said, we didn’t come away completely empty-handed. We caved and bought a few bits of shite for our props cupboard – that’s the random stuff you’ll sometimes see in photos, such as the hot-dog wrappers and the popcorn stand. That’s the problem with running a food blog, your kitchen becomes awash with absolute nonsense items bought for one photo and consigned to the back of the cupboard. Remember the little machine I bought that turns eggs into neat squares? It’s fun, but it’s been stopping our little drawer under the oven from closing properly for about six months now. Ditto the popcorn machine. Ditto the lollipop moulds…and so on. OH MIDDLE CLASS PROBLEMS RIGHT?

to make steak au poivre you’ll need:

2 hache steaks – we used the two from Musclefood that come with our box – details here – but if you want to buy them on their own, they’re right here! They’re a decent, cheap alternative and according to the syns calculator, they come out as syn free. NICE. They’re like a really thick, tasty burger. Also, you can use any steak of course!
75ml worcestershire sauce
10-20 peppercorns
75ml fat free fromage frais
½ chicken stock cube

to make hasselback potatoes you’ll need:

1kg of charlotte potatoes (or similar)
Filippo Berio spray oil (7 sprays is ½ syn)
2 tbsp parmesan, grated (2 syns)

to make crispy kale you’ll need:

as much kale as you’d like
Filippo Berio spray oil (7 sprays is ½ syn)
pinch of five spice seasoning

to make steak au poivre you should:

pour the worcestershire sauce into a small saucepan
heat the saucepan over a medium high heat until it starts to boil and reduced by about half, leaving a thick syrup
remove from the heat and allow to cool for about 5-10 minutes – this is very important so that the mixture doesn’t split – and don’t worry if it goes sticky, that’s fine
when cooled slightly, add the fromage frais and mix to combine, it should end up a caramel colour. use a silicon spatula to scrape the syrup up from the pan if you need to
crumble the stock into the mixture and stir
place the pan back on the hob on the lowest possible setting and keep stirring, keeping a careful eye on it to make sure it doesn’t split
next, add the peppercorns and stir – the more you use, the hotter it’ll be (we used all 20 and it was lovely)
meanwhile, heat a large saucepan over a medium-high heat with a little oil
add the hache steaks to the pan and cook to your liking
serve, pouring the sauce over the steak

to make hasselback potatoes, you should:

preheat the oven to 200°c
place the potato into the bowl of a wooden spoon – this stops you from cutting all the way through
cut into the potato at a sharp angle until you hit the spoon edge
do this every 3mm or so and complete for each of the potatoes
place all of the potatoes onto a baking sheet and spray with the oil
sprinkle over some salt and the parmesan
bake in the oven for about 45-50 minutes

to make the crispy kale you should:

spread the kale out onto a baking sheet
spray with only a couple of pumps of oil
sprinkle over some five spice
bake in the oven at 210°c for about 10 minutes

Phew!

Posted by

chubbycubs

Posted on

October 22, 2015

Posted under

bacon, breast, fakeaways, italian, lunch, pasta, pork, poultry, recipe card, syn free

garlic, bacon and chicken pasta

We’re both feeling quite melancholy as we witnessed something pretty awful today – a bloke having a massive seizure in the middle of IKEA and then screaming and thrashing as he came around. We’re both first-aid trained but when we got there, the staff were doing everything right and were bloody marvellous. What annoyed us more than anything, though, was the table full of old people practically snapping their necks to get a good look at the poor prone man on the floor. Not affording him any dignity or discretion, it was like they were waiting for the last number on their bingo cards. Vultures the bloody lot of them. Hopefully they were found face-down amongst the ANÖOS toys later on. Why are people so shitty?

So it brings me to two things, two pleas, really. And yes, it’s not the usual fun and games and piss-take that we normally bust out, but it’s so important. First – learn basic first aid. Take an hour to watch a few Youtube videos – you’ll find a whole raft of videos by the marvellous St John’s Ambulance right here. No-one is expecting you to give someone a tracheotomy or put in a catheter, but basic first aid makes all the difference. Would you genuinely know what to do if that bloke had been in a room with you and you alone and he had started having a seizure? What if a baby started choking or a kid came to you with a broken arm? We’re lucky – we’ve both been trained because of our jobs – but it’s such a frightening position to be in that I’d hate to have to do it without the facts. If you’re in employment, why not ask your HR if they’ll get you on a training course? You just don’t know when you’ll need it. As a moment of sweet relief, here’s a post about the last time James went for first aid training.

Second short plea? Get yourself on the organ donation register. If you’ve got strong, sensible views against it then all the best to you and we’ll say no more – it’s personal choice. But if you’re not on it as an oversight or because you haven’t got round to doing it, here, sign up now. It’s odd – the issue has come to our attention via the same disease – cystic fibrosis, with a friend of mine losing a good friend to it and one of our lovely lasses in our group posting on behalf of her friend who is slowly losing her lungs. I’d love to think that when I die, they take whatever they need from me. My eyes are fucked, so there’s no point there. Heart is probably shot and doesn’t beat so well, and lungs have been blackened by years of parents who thought nicotine was a suitable replacement for fresh air (I kid. Sometimes they used to wind the window down in the car). My skin is good, though, so graft away, and my brain – assuming it’s not being turned to sponge by some dastardly CJD prions (I ate a lot of cheap beef back in the day), is fairly sharp. They could take my balls if they wanted, they’re in decent shape, and hell if you want my willy, it’s there, though years of growing up alone in the country with nothing to do means it’s like a well-worn tyre now. I jest I jest. Trying to inject some levity. Go on. Sign up on the register. I promise you that if I die before you, and given my calorie intake and sloth levels of exercise, it’ll probably happen, you can take what you want.

OK. So let’s do the recipe.

to make the garlic, bacon and chicken pasta, you’ll need:

400g pasta of your choice
1 red onion, finely chopped
4 bacon medallions
2 chicken breasts
6 cloves of garlic, chopped
50oml passata
½ tsp paprika

to make the garlic, bacon and chicken pasta, you should:

cook the pasta according to the instructions – drain and rinse with cold water and set aside (this is a trick I learnt recently – works a treat!)
in a large frying pan heat some oil over a medium-high heat, add the onions and cook until softened, stirring frequently
meanwhile, chop the bacon and chicken into small pieces and add to the pan, reduce the heat slightly and cook until they meat is browned all over
add the paprika and garlic to the pan and cook for about thirty seconds, stirring constantly
add the passata to the pan, stir and cook for about fifteen minutes until the mixture has thickened
add the pasta back to the pan, stir through and heat for about three minutes
serve!