Tag Archives: syn free

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July 25, 2015

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bacon, breast, lunch, pork, poultry, recipe card, salad, syn free

chicken chopped salad – and buying a bloody sofa

They say that moving house is one of the most stressful things a couple can do – well, that’s bullshit. Listen, we moved the entire contents of our flat to our new home in a Citreon C2. You’ve never lived until you’ve hurtled down the A1 with the threat of a chest of drawers tumbling off the roof of the car and littering the road with boxer shorts and buttplugs. 

No, moving house was easy. It’s decorating that’s really turning my teeth to dust as I grind them with impatience and anger. Today Paul and I went sofa shopping, see, and quite genuinely I’d rather spend the afternoon having various items of kitchenware roughly inserted into my anus in a display window in House of Fraser rather than repeat it. It was just awful, with each shop bringing a fresh horror.

We made the mistake of starting in DFS, where we were immediately accosted by someone fresh out of nappies and with more product in his hair than there is on our freshly plastered ceilings. I reckon he took longer on his hair that morning than I’ve spent cumulatively on mine my entire life. And I used to have long, luscious hair, like a fruity Meat Loaf. His opening gambit was ‘So are you thinking of buying a sofa?’. I resisted the urge to throw my hand to my mouth in mock surprise and go ‘Heavens no, I’ve come to have the car’s tyres realigned and my brake fluid changed, how DID I end up in here?’.

I can’t bear nonsense questions like that (and I’m never rude to shopworkers, mind, they’re just doing what they’re told) – I’m hardly going to be renting a sofa for a weekend, am I? We shuffled around the store until his Lynx Africa got too much for my sensitive nose and we bid him goodbye, promising to ‘come back later’. Honestly there’s more chance of Princess Diana ‘coming back later’ than me.

Next was Barker and Stonehouse, which is pretty much the antithesis of DFS in terms of ‘style’ but I found it ghastly, not least because I immediately felt incredibly out of place in my George jeans and painting hoodie. There are some beautiful pieces of furniture to be had, but it all felt a little bit overpriced, and the only assistance offered amounted to nothing more than such an angry glare from an bumptious oil-slick of a man that I actually thought I’d trod muck in on my shoes. Perhaps he was looking disdainfully at our B&M carrier bag full of hot chocolates, but what can I say, I like a bargain. I got a quick snipe in as I left that ‘perhaps if I was opening an upper-class brothel, I’d consider it’, but it fell a little flat.

The next shop was some ‘Sofa Warehouse’ or suchlike – the only thing I remember about it was that, when I enquired about leather sofas, he immediately showed us to this god-awful brown number that looked like the first turd after a bout of severe constipation…and had cupholders in it. I’m sorry but no, cupholders in a sofa is strictly the domain of people who put tomato ketchup on everything they eat and who breathe loudly through their mouth. I mean honestly, I don’t even have a tattoo of a loved one’s name in copperplate on my neck. I bet the same people who leave comments like ‘RESIPEE PLZ K THX HUN’ under my food pictures have cupholders. Is it so difficult to strain forward and pop your can of Monster down on a coffee table? We made our excuses there and then.

And so it went on. We visited almost ten different places and each one was absolutely rammed full of awful shapes, awful textures, awful colours and awful people. There was one settee that looked like it had been stitched together by Stevie Wonder at gunpoint – about eighty different textures and patterns all stretched horrendously over some cheap metal legs. It looked like a corrupted MPEG of a colonoscopy. Who buys stuff like that, seriously? I wouldn’t burn that in my garden.

We did eventually find a settee we like, but then being tight-arsed Geordies, we dashed home to see if we could find it cheaper online and via Quidco, which we’ve dutifully done, but no – it’s cheaper in store! So that means tomorrow we’re going to go back and haggle like we’ve never done before. The sales assistant looked hard-faced (although it was hard to tell under her fifteen inches of Max Factor – she sneezed at one point and I swear half her cheek fell onto her blazer) but I reckon I’ll be able to get £200 off the asking price and free delivery. That’s my goal.

Tell you what though, you couldn’t pay me to deal with the general public – we witnessed some appalling behaviour from families with children today, including one set of parents who let their litter tip a fucking settee over and ignored the somewhat plaintive cries of the poor assistant who clearly knew that a call to a claims solicitors was mere moments away. You also get arseholes coming in like me who fake-smile at you, take a free cup of coffee and then spend thirty minutes clumsily pawing their way through the fabric selection book before hurtling home to order it online and put a hammer in the nail of the coffin of your job security. In my defence: I’m always super-polite and I’m never, ever rude. Plus anyway, I’m going back tomorrow so she’ll be getting her commission.

Christ though, it’ll be ten weeks before delivery. Ten weeks! What are they doing, pulling it with their hair from Penzance? Bah! That leaves nearly no time at all for the cats to completely destroy it before Christmas comes and we have to host family. 

Anyway. That was my day. When we came back, we threw together whatever shite we could find in the fridge and the cupboard and fashioned together a ‘chicken chopped salad’ of sorts, made up of various bits of nonsense. It was tasty, but does it require a recipe? I’m not sure. I’ll give you a picture though, so be happy.

chicken chopped salad

our chicken chopped salad contains:

  • healthy extra amount of light mozzarella (65g each)
  • two chicken breasts, cooked on the grill and coated in lime juie
  • four boiled eggs, sliced
  • diced crunchy iceberg lettuce
  • two rashers of bacon which Paul dutifully turned into shoe-leather on the grill
  • sliced beef tomatoes
  • tin of black eyed beans
  • tin of sweetcorn
  • sliced red cabbage

You could make this veggie friendly by omitting the chicken and bacon and replacing it with peppers, mushrooms, sofa cushions, horse farts, anything. I don’t often cover salads but it did make for a nice photo and a quick dinner, so here we are. Enjoy! 

Oh dressing: we just mixed some fat free yoghurt with mint from the garden. Easy!

J

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July 19, 2015

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beef, beef mince, budget, fakeaways, italian, pasta, recipe card, syn free

baked spaghetti bolognese pie

Christ almighty. We’ve had the plasterers in (it’s like having the painters in, only I’m not getting all hysterical and crying into a box of Milk Tray) (I’m kidding, jeez) and the house is an absolute and utter bomb-site. He’s expertly taken all of the Artex off the ceiling and made it smoother than a silk worm’s diarrheah. Which is apt, given it’s an awful brown colour. However, the dust. Good LORD the dust. It’s literally everywhere imaginable. We’ve had the Dyson out all day – which is a feat in itself, given it’s one of those fancy digital cordless ones that powers down after twenty minutes – but I’m still finding pockets of orange dust everywhere. I swear I farted on the sofa earlier and it looked like a little firework going off behind me. Awful.

Just awful. Speaking of farts (as you know it’s one of our favourite topics), I need to confess something dreadful. See we had those chicken gyros on Friday night and all day yesterday, our farts smelt like a tramp’s sock boiled in death itself. They were dreadful – intensely potent and incredibly wide-ranging. Of course, being us, this was just hilarious, and we were farting and pooting and trumpeting all the way around Tesco, beside ourselves with laughter and merriment.

But then, when we got to IKEA, I topped them all. We were there to look at possible storage solutions for our fitted wardrobe (oh the decadence) when I had a faint rumbling in my nethers. I say a faint rumbling, it was like someone testing a speedboat engine. So, sensing an opportunity for mischief, I ducked around a corner, opened one of the doors on the showroom wardrobe, and let out a guff. It was tiny, like I’d startled a duck, but I knew it would be concentrated. I hastily shut the door and called Paul over, on the pretence that I wanted him to check what type of hinge it was on the bottom of the door. He came lumbering over in his own special way, knelt down and opened the door, only to be hit full in the face with the contained fart. I almost saw the skin on his nose blacken. Honestly, you could see the fugitive zephyr as it bounced around the interior. He immediately turned around and called me a filthy see-you-next-Tuesday and I almost broke my back bent over laughing.

Mind, at least we have fun. We might not have the most exciting lives but we’re always laughing. We came away from IKEA the same way we normally do, with absolutely nothing in our trolley but our pockets bulging with a quarter-tonne of IKEA pencils, ready to be shoved into the same kitchen drawer as the other 323,537 IKEA pencils we’ve stolen. Perhaps we should get a log burner after all, we could keep it going for a good few months on nicked stationery alone!

Because the plasterer was going to be in our house all day, we had to fill up the time ‘out of the house’, so we thought we’d spend a gay few hours tripping around the Metrocentre, which, if you’ve never heard of it, is the North’s answer to an American shopping mall from the nineties. It has everything! Closed clothes shops, closed food quarters, closed gadget shops, a plethora of e-cigarette and mobile phone cover stands AND any amount of imbecilic fuckknuckles walking around getting IN MY BLOODY WAY. I remember when the Metrocentre was worth going to – namely when it had Metroland, where the thrill of going on an indoor rollercoaster totally made-up for the risk of getting inappropriately touched-up behind the ferris wheel. It was a haven for nonces, apparently, though I never experienced that. Must have been my ungainly weight and C&A haircut that put them off.

We did spend half an hour in the Namco Games bit, which is full of those totally rigged but faintly fun arcade machines where you win tickets that you can redeem for lead-covered tat later on. We played a giant version of Monopoly, we did some virtual fishing and, I shit you not, I managed to win a proper licenced Flappy Bird toy from one of those claw machines that usually have all the grip of Jeremy Beadle. I couldn’t quite believe it. We did nip next door to the ‘adults only’ bit where the proper slot machines were but fucking hell, it’s just too depressing watching adults feed money into the slots at 10am in the morning. Nobody wins.

Anyway. This recipe is for a baked spaghetti bolognese pie, but it’s pretty much spaghetti Bolognese served in a different way – we couldn’t get a good picture of the meal when it was on the plate but understand that the cheesy spaghetti acts as a ‘crust’ to hold the meat in. Haha, meat.

baked spaghetti pie

to make baked spaghetti bolognese pie, you’ll need:

  • 500g lean beef mince
  • one onion, chopped
  • 8 tbsp tomato puree
  • 1 tin of chopped tomatoes
  • 1 tsp oregano
  • 1 tsp basil, chopped
  • ¼ tsp pepper
  • 170g spaghetti
  • 2 eggs
  • 25g grated parmesan (HexA)
  • 340g fat-free cottage cheese
  • 1 tbsp dried parsley
  • 1 reduced-fat mozzarella ball, torn into pieces (HexA)

and once you’ve got all that, you should:

  • preheat the oven to 180°C
  • cook the spaghetti according to the instructions, drain and set aside
  • stop your cat from eating any cooled spaghetti
  • on a large frying pan gently sweat the onion in a little oil (or Frylight) until softened
  • add the mince and cook until browned
  • add the chopped tomatoes, tomato puree, oregano, basil, salt  and pepper and mix well
  • simmer over a low heat for about 10 minutes
  • meanwhile, in a large bowl mix together cooked spaghetti, egg and parmesan
  • press the spaghetti mixture into a non-stick, deep 9″ tin
  • in another bowl whisk together the other egg, cottage cheese and parsley
  • add the cheese mixture to the tin, spreading evenly
  • next, add the meat mixture on top of the cheese; shake the tin gently to even the top out if necessary
  • place in the oven and cook for about twenty minutes
  • scatter the mozzarella onto the top and place under a medium-high grill for a few minutes until bubbling – the sauce that is, not yourself

Easy, right?

J

 

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July 15, 2015

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beef, british, classics, diced beef, fakeaways, fast food restaurants, lunch, recipe card, sandwiches, savoury snacks, snacks, steak, syn free, taster ideas

the steak bake

For most blokes, the idea of having a soaking wet bird angrily thrashing around on their face first thing in the morning would be an entirely wonderful way to wake up. Well, admittedly, we’re not “most blokes” but let me tell you, it’s not all that. Nevertheless, that’s how we started the day, with my cat bringing a bird in through our bedroom window and throwing it against my face. Normally we’re woken very gently by our fancy alarm clock that fades unnatural light into the room like a sunrise but clearly Bowser thought that was far too decadent and we needed a new alternative.

There was a LOT of screaming. I screamed, Paul screamed, the bird was screaming and the cat got such a fright at our apparently ungratefulness that he puffed up into Giant Cat Form, picked up his prey and took off with the bird in his teeth into the living room, leaving a lovely smear of blood across the floor from where it’s wing was hanging off. We spent the next ten minutes trying to remove Bowser from the room and rescue the bird and, after much flapping around (by all of us) and some judicious use of a tea-towel, I slingshotted the poor bugger out of the living room window. He survived for all of about ten seconds before Sola, our other cat, jumped from the roof (we live in a bungalow remember, she’s not THAT good) and tore his head off. In all, we’d gone from sleeping peacefully in our beds to watching a violent murder on our front lawn, with all the screaming and dramatics that entails, within fifteen minutes.

My heart was still racing as I backed the DS3 off the drive.

Of course, the fun didn’t stop there, as when Paul posted a dramatic recollection of the encounter on Facebook, he was immediately set about by someone telling him off for not taking the bird to an animal hospital. Paul was being terribly polite and British about the whole thing but I immediately weighed in on the argument to point out that ‘the Sparrow Ambulance was tied up attending to a coal tit with hurt feelings’ and that I lamented the fact I hadn’t had the foresight to fashion the poor bugger ‘a tiny sling from a spent match and a doll’s shoelace’.

I think we can agree that I won the argument.

Anyway, that’s America week over – what fun! To recap, we covered:

That’s a lot of decent dishes! Give one a try and report back. Our next theme will be budget week – we’re going to try and map out a whole week for around £40/£50, which is half our normal shopping budget for the week. That’ll be in a couple of weeks and I’ll break with tradition by putting a meal planner on here before it starts. You know, because I’m nice like that.

Anyway, tonight’s recipe is interesting and tasty, if you’re a fan of cat-food pressed into a bit of fake-bread. This isn’t one of our own recipes – we’ll gingerly call it a Slimming World classic – but people have been foaming at the gash over these “steak bakes” which tastes “just like the ones from Greggs”. Well, really. The only thing I get from Greggs is overcome with static electricity from all the bustling masses of polyester leisure suits. Remember, I’m from Newcastle – we’ve got more Greggs than we do bus-stops. A romantic day out here is a sausage roll from Greggs and a quick fingering in the cinema. Nevertheless, it’s the new ‘in thing’ amongst all the big groups so you know, I thought we’d take our foot off the gas and relax a little, and let someone else do the thinking. So this isn’t our recipe, no no, but you might enjoy it.

steak bake

Mmm. Appetising. Paul enjoyed it, but it felt like mush in my mouth – like someone had already had a bash at eating it. Look, I’m not fussy about what goes in my mouth (fact: I don’t have a gag reflex, and god knows many have tried to find it), but the meat in this stewing steak had all the structural integrity of a licked stamp. Plus the pattern on the thins reminds me of pitted keratolysis. Did it fill me up? Perhaps, but we served them with new potatoes out of the garden and peas, so I reckon it was probably those that filled me with goodness.

for a steak bake then, you’re going to need:

  • a tin of ASDA stewed steak (syn free, but you can find plenty others that are low in syns)
  • Kingsmill wholemeal thins (one ‘sandwich’ is a HEB)
  • an onion
  • an egg
  • tip: add worcestershire or chilli sauce

and you’ll need to:

  • warm through the delicious looking tin of Whiskas stewed steak
  • add in the chopped onion (cooked if you prefer)
  • spread over the thins
  • press down and secure the edges by pressing with your finger
  • wash the top with a bit of beaten egg
  • cook for around fifteen minutes.

Enjoy. It’s free for one. That’s one thin, not one packet of thins. Or: alternatively, go cook something…healthy. I dunno. I’m not your Master.

J

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July 14, 2015

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bacon, beef, beef mince, burgers, fakeaways, fast food restaurants, low syn, pork, recipe card

the reuben burger and perfect chips

Bah! Off to a great start with having work done – having left work early, powerminced to my car and drove like a loon to get home in time to clean the skidders off the toilet and to file away the cats before the gas-man turned up…he just didn’t bother to turn up. All he had to do was come over, take away our god-awful fireplace, disconnect the gas and bugger off.

But no. No, he turned off his phone and when I called him this morning, he informed me that ‘he was stuck on a big job’. I resisted the urge to tell him to eat more fibre and fuck off, so I told him primly that his services were no longer needed. He’s a fool, because, given we’re naïve and foolish with money, he could have totally taken advantage, told us we needed to demolish the front of the house to take the fire out, and we would have hurled notes of money at him until he disappeared in his little van. Urgh.

It’s only a very quick post tonight of the recipe as we’re starting to move furniture around ahead of our plasterer coming to sandblast the Artex, so I won’t even push my book. BUT PLEASE BUY IT. PLEASE. I know American week has rumbled on a bit, but damn…the food is so good! These Reuben burgers are delicious – just a few different toppings make a world of difference.


reuben burger

reuben burgers – you’ll need:

  • your healthy extra bread bun choice
  • chopped cooked ham
  • two slices of swiss cheese (Leerdammer lighter – two slices is a HEA)
  • lettuce
  • burger sauce (which you can find the recipe for here)
  • sauerkraut (you can leave these off, but why would you)
  • 5% beef mince (500g)
  • pepper, salt

and it’s as easy as this:

  • shape the mince into four decent size burgers
  • mix in some salt and pepper
  • grill until cooked
  • assemble the burger by toasting the bun, smearing the sauce on the bread, adding lettuce, a burger, cheese, a burger, cheese, ham, sauerkraut and the top of the bun.

Easy!

We served ours with chips:

IMG_1782

  • use a decent, ‘wet’ potato, like a Maris Piper
  • don’t use oil if you’re putting them in an actifry, just use worcestershire sauce
  • crumble on an Oxo cube
  • COOK

Heaven! Get an Actifry man, you’ll never look back and you’re a long time dead. What you waiting for? The big one is currently reduced from £250 to £140 on Amazon. Nice.

J

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July 6, 2015

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budget, recipe card, savoury snacks, snacks, syn free, taster ideas, vegetarian

creamy spinach dip

Just a quick post tonight as we’re feverishly cleaning the house up ahead of yet more people arriving plus making dinner plus trying to get an early night. We’re always full of good intentions but yet somehow always end up going to bed about 1am, then chatting and screaming for a good half hour, meaning we roll out of bed in the morning looking like a bag of shite and being knackered all day. But listen here, I did manage to do something constructive today. Well, two things.

Firstly, at work, part of my job is to edit and distribute the company internal newsletter. Because I work for a totally “rad and happening” firm, it’s always full of stuff like running groups and bake sales and other such activities, most of which I get out of breath just typing out. They’ve set up a walking group at lunch where people who don’t expend enough energy during the working day can go for a walk at lunch and burn off calories running away from muggers and doing the ‘Can yuz lend uz 20p flower’ Gauntlet outside of the building. All wholesome fun. They walked through a small petting zoo or something last week and so I got to put the (paraphrased) line in of ‘We even happened across a monkey on our travels’. All fine yes? Well apparently my next sentence of ‘That’s nothing – I came across a bear in the bushes in Leazes Park‘ would not have been appropriate for wider viewing. See? I’m learning moderation. M-O-O-N that spells moderation!

The other EXCITING thing is that I’ve gone and booked another holiday – this time we’re off for a week in Corsica. The villa we’ve hired is built for six people and is high up in the forest overlooking the sea. It’s genuinely beautiful, look:

Casa_Julia_LowRes_Sept14_SH_17 (1)

 

Doesn’t the thought of my hairy arse climbing in and out of that pool just add to the luxury feel? We can’t wait, and you’ll be glad to know there will doubtless be shenanigans to write about.

Speaking of writing, today’s excerpt from my trip to America book is a long one, detailing the day we went to Epcot…remember, you can buy my book here. The recipe is below this post so keep on scrolling!

Day Four: Segway? WAAAAY! (Epcot)

I need to get something off my chest – and it isn’t the remnants of Pringles caught in my chest hair that I sometimes save for the morning after (it’s where I put the bean dip that I can’t write about). Something is very wrong with this holiday. Every morning, whilst I brush my teeth and Paul ped-eggs his feet (something to sprinkle over our nachos later), we have the news playing. Now, as you all know, American news is awash with low-budget adverts, and the last two times we have been to America there has been one advert that gets under your skin. The Bob Dance adverts. They feature some booming fat guy and the most precocious, annoying, apple-cheeked little girl (Grace) ever committed to film. I could deal with that but the advert used to sign off with Grace mooing ‘BOB DANCE WHERE EV-VA-BAH-DEE RIDES’ in some bizarre off-key manner.

Today, Epcot, land of terrifying accents, loud shirts and a surprisingly fun kids adventure. But first, Segway! As a surprise, I had booked the Segway Around The World tour a while ago, and it was something we had both been looking forward to for ages.

A quick hop on the monorail to the TTC and another to Epcot, and we were at the park in plenty of time to er…visit the restrooms, take pictures of the golf-ball and try and spot the gayest looking legends ever. Not really the most fun way to kill an hour but in no time at all, we were being greeted by our trainer, an acerbic old lady from New Jersey was who brilliant – no Disney treacle and a good sense of humour.

Now, I have to confess – the weight limit for the Segway is 250lb and I’m not entirely convinced that I’m not about twenty pounds over that limit. So, whilst she was telling us all about how to steer, I’m sitting there imagining that as soon as I step on the Segway, it was going to beep, buckle and shriek out in a Johnny-5-like voice ‘No coach parties please’. However, I needn’t have worried, as there was no such issues. Either I’ve lost weight or they set the bar a lot lower than the machine can cope with. SO – if you fancy the Segway tour but are just above the weight limit, don’t fret. I feel I should warn you that there isn’t a tray to rest your pastries on, mind.

Handling a Segway could not be easier, as the machine does most of the balancing for you. You lean forward slightly to go forward, same going back, and turn left and right by tilting slightly. You do not feel as if you’re out of control, or that you’re going to fall, and it’s genuinely safe. Unless you’re the creator of the Segway, who decided to test its flying capability. It doesn’t fly. You start off navigating around some cones and a small hill in the Innovations Centre – there are no crowds watching and the instructor makes a game of it, so there’s no pressure or worries about what you look like. Once the handling is sorted, you’re off, across the park and into the World Showcase.

For both Paul and I, this was easily the best part, getting to go around the different countries before they fill up with crowds, because, and I’m a little ashamed to admit this, the last two times we have been to Epcot we have walked around the front of the World Showcase not realising all the little streets, rides and shops behind the main buildings at the front.

We wrapped up the tour at 11am, wheeling back into Innovations and getting to do the Segway parade where you wave at slack-jawed folks on the way past. I have to confess – I felt like the Bionic Man – shame I actually looked like the gay robot from Lost in Space. As a neat touch, you receive a special pin for taking part in the tour, which I can’t wait to get home and display.

On eBay. We were also told our Just Married badges would bring a few pounds on eBay these days, which is good news. No room for sentimentality!

After the tour, we planned to take it easy, with a few rides and a leisurely walk around the WS. We managed to get Test Track out of the way, which I remain undecided on. Part of me thinks it’s a great ride with superb theming, the other part of thinks it could have been so much more, much like Soarin’. Oh, speaking of Soarin’, I got to play the big macho husband for once. We were waiting in the queue when this swarm of Portuguese visitors started to push past Paul. This is my one massive bugbear with Florida – not tour groups as such, but the fact they always play ignorant and just try and squeeze past without so much as an excuse me. Anyway, I could see there was about twenty or so behind us trying to join the four in front of us. WELL. Not having that, so I stood my ground, and pushed right past the ones who had overtaken us. Of course, the tour guide starts up saying the ones behind us are with her group and that it wouldn’t harm to let them past.

I came back with ‘Then you four can go behind us, problem solved’. She didn’t like that one bit, but given me and Paul are the size of two hot water tanks, once we had spread out there was no getting past. With a resigned look on her face, she slunk behind us, and we got to claim a small moral victory. I would like to say at this point that I’m not normally that bothered about queue-jumpers, but I get sick of the lack of bloody manners involved, plus her Kevin Webster moustache didn’t help matters. So, I’m glad I stood my ground. Let’s move on.

We decided to take in the sights of the showcase, starting in Canada. But yet, how gutting is this – having made our minds up to get some lunch, we chanced Le Cellier to see if they had any free tables, only for the couple immediately in the queue ahead of us to ask the same question. And the response – to them? ‘Oh you’re so lucky, we do have a table, and this normally never happens’. Typical. Once I had finished grinding my teeth to dust and secretly cursing the old biddies in front of us, I tried, and got a snotty no. Ah well. Couldn’t get more disappointing, no? Only, have you SEEN ‘O CANADA’, the Canadian presentation presented by Martin Short? Bloody hell. Boredom she wrote. Once Paul had brought me back to life and packed away the defibrillator, we went outside only to find our first storm of the holiday was busy emptying all over Epcot. Of course, being British, we stepped out regardless whereas the Americans scattered about as if it was acid rain. Bah! Balls to that. We noticed the Kim Possible station and decided to give it a go.

Now, I am so glad we did – it’s excellent! I think it is geared more towards children but given Paul and I are big kids at heart, we loved it. You get a tricked-out (get me) mobile phone and are sent assignments to complete, such as finding codes or smoking out a villain. For example – caution, spoilers (hello sweetie) – in the UK, you get issued a little golf-ball that rolls out of a fake telephone box which everyone else passes straight by. Pop the ball in a tankard on display in one of the gift shops, and you get told to go behind the shop, where the window floods with water. It’s extremely well done and (I imagine) a good way of getting younger kids who would otherwise be bored by the World Showcase to have a good look around.

After we ousted the United Kingdom villain, we set off to France for our next mission, but decided to catch some lunch at Chef de France. I’ve heard some snotty comments about this restaurant but the food was lovely – onion soup, quiche and gateaux for me and Paul chose a croque monsieur.  With our bellies full, we waddled all the way around the park to get to Ellen’s Energy Adventure, which Paul had been clamouring to see all day long. Well. Frankly, I would have had a better time if Ellen herself had come down and tried to turn us both straight, because I’ve genuinely laughed more at a funeral.

I should probably explain that. When one of my ancient Aunties died, bless her, her husband decided he couldn’t live without her and threw himself in the Tyne, only for his body to be caught in the water intake station down the river, which was both beautiful and tragic at the same time. Anyway, when they did the service at the crematorium, they had her coffin on the proper conveyor belt but, in an unusual touch, they had his coffin on a decorating table just in front. Now, given I have a nervous laugh, I was already on edge, and coupled with the two thoughts that a) the table might give out and send the coffin cascading down the aisle and b) the body in the Tyne getting stuck just like the pig in The Simpsons where Lisa becomes a vegetarian being shot out of the dam outlet pipe. I know it’s macabre but I’m a firm believer in laughing at death, and I burst out laughing during the prayers. I blamed it on hysteria. I know, I’m going to Hell, but the sodomy most likely made sure of that. Anyway yes – Ellen – just don’t bother. I’ve had funnier bowel movements.

Tired and emotional, we made our way back to the Polynesian. We had the Wave booked for our evening meal at the Contemporary, but couldn’t face it, so we ended the evening watching the Electrical Water Pageant (and its absolutely amazing music) bustling its way around the lagoon from the safety of our hammocks on the beach, after watching the fireworks at the Magic Kingdom from the beach. All in all, a fabulous day – loved the Segway tour, plus seeing plenty of Epcot which was new to us, and gaining a new appreciation for life after nearly dying of boredom with Ellen.

So, all together now, what’s the bottom line Grace?

AAARGH!

 

So, tonight’s recipe. I thought that due to the fact we’ve had a lot of cheesy meat dishes recently, we’d go vegetarian with one of our fond memories of the trip – spinach dip. Cheesy spinach dip, obviously. Now in America we’d be eating this with a bin-liner of Doritos and a debillirator on stand-by, not least because it’s made with cream and proper cheese. Our lighter version still tastes great and by serving it with a lot of freshly chopped veg, you’re going to really up your speed food intake.

creamy spinach dip

 

you’ll need these to make creamy spinach dip

  • 600g of frozen chopped spinach
  • 500g of 0% fat-free greek style yoghurt (syn-free – check!)
  • a vegetable stock cube
  • a bunch of spring onions
  • your HEA of parmesan cheese
  • a tin of water-chestnuts (optional, because they’re BLOODY disgusting)

then…

  • cook your frozen spinach until it’s thawed
  • drain the liquid from the pan
  • squeeze the spinach to try and get as much water out as possible
  • squeeze it again, and put some bloody effort in
  • finished squeezing? NO. Keep bloody squeezing;
  • OK, now your spinach is KEEP SQUEEZING MAN, DON’T STOP, YOU’RE SO CLOSE
  • once the spinach is bone-dry, allow to cool
  • mix in the yoghurt, chopped spring onions, water chestnuts if you like them, your cheese and stir
  • stir in some black pepper if you like and put it in the fridge for a wee bit
  • serve with chopped speed vegetables

Delicious!

J

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July 5, 2015

Posted under

airfryer, american, beef, beef mince, fakeaways, recipe card, syn free, taster ideas

syn free dippy cheesy sloppy tater tots

 

The recipe tonight is a mix-up of two American junk foods – the sloppy joe and tater tots. Tater tots are traditionally mashed potato shaped into little cylinders and deep-fried and they taste amazing, but Margaret would be choking on her Blue Nun if she thought I was deep-frying. So naturally we’ve made a few switches and tweaks and let me tell you, this is genuinely one of the best recipes we’ve done so far. Scroll down and enjoy! OH and it’s syn-free!

Anyway, today’s American diary entry, from our book available here, is from the day we went to Wet and Wild, which isn’t some kind of golden-showers den of sin, but rather a scrappy but beloved waterpark at the arse-end of International Drive. I’ve since heard it’s shutting down, which is a shame, but given we probably left indelible skidmarks on some of the scarier rides it’s probably for the best.

 

Day 26 – Jaymes needs a Chute (Wet and Wild)

Finally – Wet ‘n’ Wild. The concrete and fag-end cuckolded sibling of the rather more salubrious Aquatica, held out of our reach for so long by either weather-based closures or burrito-based bum trouble. A prompt early morning call revealed the park to be open, so after fitting a good eight hundred pastries down our chops, we taxied over to have some splish-splash fun. Before entering, we paid our respects to the Metropolitan Express (the very first hotel we ever stayed in when visiting Orlando back in 2008) by nipping over the road and well, wandering past the reception and down into the corridors.

A little bit about the Metropolitan Express before I come to the meat of the day. It’s grim. Proper grim. We chose the hotel because we were on a budget and didn’t know any better – those were the days when we went to Orlando for ten days, didn’t stay at Disney and had a budget of $1000 for the entire holiday, seems unreal now. The staff are well-meaning and very helpful, but security left a lot to be desired – and this clearly hadn’t improved by the fact that we just sauntered into the hotel past reception and helped ourselves to the free coffee laid out for hotel guests. Sorry, but you shouldn’t be able to do that considering it’s at the rougher end of International Drive. If anyone has the place booked, reconsider. Always pay what you can afford rather than trying to save a few pounds here and there. You may think that we were only able to get back into the hotel because we had made such a fabulous impression on the reception staff that they considered us old friends – but this can’t be the case. I’ll tell you why. On the last day of our first stay back in 2008, we decided to er…make whoopy (we were young then) before leaving. What we hadn’t realised was that I had stashed an open packet of Cheesits under the duvet of the ‘spare’ bed in the room, and we proceeded, entirely by accident, to squash the entire packet, and its radioactive orange contents, into the blankets, under the duvet and up the pillowcases. After we had er…finished, we realised our error, and left hastily, the orange stain refusing to shift from the sheets. Heaven knows what Monique thought when she came to clean the room, but considering we had strategically left a Pringle right in the middle of the carpet for four days to see whether housekeeping were doing their job and it remained there right until the last day, I don’t think the housekeeping was up to much anyway. Oh, and the place stank of cheap weed, too. Not that I know what expensive weed smells like, I hasten to add. I did think I had inhaled rather too much second-hand toke once I had seen the carpets in the hallway mind. It was like someone had trodden a quiche into the carpet. Anyway! Back to 2011, back to Wet and Wild.

Remember our snappy fat/wet suits from earlier in the holiday, purchased in Aquatica in a pique of self-consciousness? Well, we were soon back in those, our jiggly bits cocooned safely in bulging lycra, meaning that we looked to all the world rather like two extra large condoms stuffed with cottage cheese. No matter – as long as no-one laughed at me, I didn’t care. We were straight into the lazy river to ‘acclimatise’ to the water temperature. I got sassed by a lifeguard for not diving in, but to be fair, I practically had to smash my way through the ice-crust it was that bloody cold. The lazy river here leaves a lot to be desired, doesn’t it? Admittedly, it doesn’t have the ped-egg flooring that Disney prefers, but still, give us something to look at other than impossibly sculpted lifeguard bodies.

Most of the day was spent doing slide after slide, and incurring injury after injury. The Storm – the natty slide that shoots you down a steep drop and deposits you like many a poo into what looks like a giant toilet bowl was awesome, as ever, even if I did have to sacrifice my Robin Williams back-hair, which was lightly flayed off under my lycra by the rivets on the slide. Brain Wash is as good as ever, and thankfully they’ve set up an automatic lift so you don’t have to carry those colossal rubber-rings up the winding staircase. Paul and I aren’t especially fit, and anything that reduces the need to break a sweat is good for us. Still, it’s a steep climb, and we’re clearly fitter than last time as we didn’t have to set up base-camp halfway up the tower. I love Brain Wash – try and take a second whilst you’re shooting up and down the tube to look up – they play a nifty ‘subliminal message’ video on the ceiling. All good fun. I banged my head – my own fault – on the side as I was too busy pulling a stupid face at Paul as we were flushed out. So that’s injury two.

With a sore head and a flayed back, we took some time to people-watch, milkshake in hand, under the nice umbrellas by the wavepool. And good lord, we didn’t half see some sights. I know I’m a judgemental sod and hypocritical as I don’t like people taking the mick out of me, but I’ll make no apologies for biting my bottom lip and going ‘Ooooh, look at ‘er’ to Paul for a good half hour. Wet ‘n’ Wild seems to attract a more…hmm…Brighthouse crowd, if you see what I mean. For example, one of the sun-loungers was occupied by someone reading Inside Soap. Now who on Earth goes to the trouble of packing a magazine about English bloody soap operas as reading material on a holiday? Bet she orders Egg and Chips in every restaurant. Also – surprising amount of bad tattoos, especially on necks. I can’t abide it. Frankly, if you have to have the name of your child inked onto your lobster-red neck just so you don’t forget their name and birthday then you shouldn’t be bloody breeding in the first place. Still, it doesn’t beat the worst tattoo I’ve ever seen (some years back, in a rough pub in Newcastle) (Raffertys, if anyone is wondering) – the poor bloke had ‘ENGLUND FOREVER’ inked on his hand. See, if that had been me, I would have asked the tattooist to tattoo a wavy red line under ENGLUND and make out like I was being terribly hip and ironic.

So yes, with my head better and my back crisping up nicely, we decided to do Mach 5. I’m not a huge fan of this ride, because I always manage to lose my dignity somehow – either I come off the mat halfway down or, right at the start, mis-time my bellyflop onto the mat so that I whizz down the slide on my belly whilst the mat cheerfully leads the way ahead of me, just out of reach. Paul’s a genius at stuff like this and never misses, so to humour him, I went on. I didn’t miss the mat. I didn’t come off the mat. Nope, I managed to stay on but, having jumped eagerly, managed to land almost squarely on my clackers, which became pretty much sandwiched between the mat and my lycra-clad body. So – the entire ride was spent having my fertility smacked out of me and I was a very, very interesting shade of puce at the end. Not good. Thank Christ I don’t have to worry about my sperm quality. Paul was sympathetic in that he only guffawed at my predicament rather than fell into hysteria. The tinker. Mind you – he didn’t seem too well either.

Yep, turned out that his ear was playing up again. Ever the trooper, we spent another couple of hours barrelling down the slides and splashing in the water before retreating to the Room of Shame to get changed. We decided to head down to Walgreens to visit their instore doctor, all the while I was silently mouthing my words so Paul felt even more deaf. Mind you, clearly his ear wasn’t too bad – he decided that the sensible thing to do whilst suffering from a balance problem was to have a go on the Slingshot. Yes – that giant tower that you see at the top of International Drive, where those who have been dropped on their heads as children strap themselves into a ball and get slung 200ft into the air, stopped only by two elastic bands. Well, I’m sorry, I’ll do any rides, but I wasn’t going to do that. I don’t trust any ride that looks as though it’s been pieced together by whatever was left over at the Meccano factory. However, being a proper black widow, I ushered Paul onto the ride, and bravely took photos. I wish they had come out well, but it just looks like someone has smeared a blur onto the photo he was going that fast.

 

Apparently, it was brilliant, ear problems or not. Having got that out of his system, we arrived at Walgreens with a minute to spare.

Now, the doctor was fantastic. She performed all sorts of little tests on Paul, and after 40 minutes of clucking her tongue and checking her charts, she diagnosed that the poor bugger had a perforated ear-drum. Of course, I immediately start hyperventilating knowing that we were flying in a few days time, but she reassured us that he would be OK to fly as long as he took the drops she was about to prescribe.

Then, she told us the price. $245 (nearabouts) – $180 of which was for one tiny dropper bottle of antibiotics. Luckily, I managed to floor her with the first punch and Paul ran out with the bottle. I wish. No, we paid up, and I almost perforated his other eardrum whinging about having to pay for something I seem to get routinely prescribed at home like Smarties. Seriously – I could go into my doctors with a missing face and he’d send me on my way with a crate of amoxicillin and a flea in my ear. Thank Christ for travel insurance. We made a tonne of calls later that evening and actually ended up getting nowhere, just one big circle of call centres and idiots who couldn’t tell us what to do. Worst yet – that ended up costing us about $400 in phone call charges from the Hard Rock! Bah. Next time he damages his ear, I’ll just fill it full of cotton wool and use sign language. Only really need to know ‘Feed Me’ ‘Have you douched?’ and ‘Go to sleep’ to get by.

Before turning in for the night, we wandered down to Olive Garden for our evening meal. Absolutely delicious. I don’t remember an awful lot of it save for three facts. First – I was getting eyed up by a splinter-thin River-Island-clad pipe-cleaner of a man who followed me to the loo, only to turn around and leave in disgust when I went into a cubicle and deliberately trumpeted as loudly as possible. Second – the food was scrummy, and the cocktails even better. Third – we gave our server a $100 tip on a $60 meal, because she dealt with us with such aplomb whilst having to serve a table of twelve boorish Americans all waving their hands in the air. See – I’m flying the flag for Britain!

All in all then, a mixed day. We love Wet and Wild – yeah it’s rough and it needs polishing up, and it has nowhere near the level of class that the likes of Aquatica or Typhoon Lagoon have, but if you want fast rides and easy living, it’s the one to go for. Plus – remember my tip for an early morning pick-me-up: free coffee at the Metropolitan Express. But stay there…not on my experience.

So here we go…!

tater tots slimming world friendly

serves 4

you’ll need these:

  • 900g potatoes, cut into cubes
  • 750g lean beef mince
  • 1 onion, finely chopped
  • 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
  • 1 medium carrot, finely diced
  • 1 red pepper, finely diced
  • 2 celery sticks, finely diced
  • 500g passata
  • 1 tsp mustard powder
  • ¾ tbsp cider vinegar
  • ¾ tsp chilli powder
  • salt and pepper
  • 1 tbsp Frank’s Red Hot Buffalo Sauce (optional)
  • 40g reduced fat mozarella, grated (one HEA choice, this serves four!0
  • 4 spring onions, sliced

and you’ll need to do this:

  • cook the cubed potatoes in a spoonful of worcestershire sauce in your Actifry, or alternatively place on a baking sheet and bake at 190 degrees until browned, remembering to turn frequently
  • meanwhile, heat a little oil in a pan over a medium high heat and add the onions, stirring frequently until they start to turn translucent
  • add the mince and cook until brown
  • next add the passata, carrots, garlic, red pepper and celery and stir well
  • mix together the mustard powder, chilli powder, cider vinegar and a tablespoon of water and add to the mixture
  • stir again, cover the pan over a medium-low heat and cook for 20-30 minutes until nicely thickened
  • in a grill-safe pan (or baking dish) layer the mince mixture with potatoes, add the grated cheese and spring onions (just slice up the green part) and grill until the cheese has turned golden brown
  • drizzle over with the buffalo sauce and serve

It’s up to you what sides you serve this with to make up the third-speed-food-rule on your plate, but I’m not going to pretend that we didn’t just eat our quarter and immediately go back for more, with the roasted broccoli still in the oven…oops!

I’ll say this – if you cook only one of our recipes, ever, cook this. It makes a pan full of absolute bloody wonder!

TOP TIP: don’t chuck away the white part of the spring onions, put them root-first into a glass of water, and they’ll grow again! Easy.

J

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July 3, 2015

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beef, diced beef, fakeaways, fast food restaurants, quark, recipe card, speciality ingredients, steak, syn free

enchilada fries and a ginger nut

Gosh, it’s been five years since Raoul Moat, our local angry-faced ginger peanut, went on the rampage, shot a policeman and then spent four days shitting in a ditch in Rothbury, until the police came along and cut his hair with a shotgun.

I only mention it because he’s all over our local news again today, which makes a change from pissy-knickered biddies whingeing on about wind turbines. I remember it well – Paul and I were in our Quayside flat and we were out on the balcony, looking fitfully at the bushes below because we were sure that a rampaging murderer would be itching for a riverside view. Our local newspaper Facebook feed is awash with windowlickers saying ‘U CAN’T JUJE HIM HES A HERO’ and ‘U DONT KNOW HOLE STOREY’ and other shite. The walnut-muscled knob shot a fucking defenceless man in the face and the simpletons are making out like he’s misunderstood. Pfft. The human capacity for stupidity knows no bounds.

Hey, tomorrow our week long American week starts. We love a theme week here at twochubbycubs and it seems fitting, being July 4 tomorrow, to have a nice American-themed week. Admittedly we’re bound to cause international eye-rolling with our stereotyping but we’re basing it on our experiences when we were in Florida, where we quite literally had to actively seek out vegetables because the chest pains were getting too much. 

To go alongside this (and to give us a week off from writing) I’m going to post 7 days worth from our honeymoon book as we go along, so if you’ve already been a star and read it, I apologise. If not, buy it now, and keep us in pennies! It can be found here. If you’re a fan of my writing, you should hopefully enjoy it…

We’ve also picked and made contact with the winner of the competition to find all the famous faces – thank you to all who entered and your names gave me a good giggle. God knows where you think I’d hidden Thomas the Tank Engine mind. There will be another competition soon, and just for shits and giggles, I’ve hidden a famous face in tonight’s entry – it’s subtle, see if you can spot her. So here we go, because it’s getting late. These are enchilada fries and really it’s just an even fancier, syn-free version of burger in a bowl, with the added bonus that – unlike burger in a bowl – this doesn’t look like someone’s shot their bolt across a plate of mince and iceberg lettuce.

 

you’ll need these:

for the chips:

  • 900g potatoes

for the guacamole:

  • 180g frozen peas (defrosted)
  • 1 red chilli, chopped
  • 1 clove garlic, minced
  • handful of coriander leaves
  • 1 tbsp tomato puree
  • 2 tsp quark
  • juice of 1 lime

for the tomato salad:

  • 3 tomatoes, diced
  • 4 spring onions, sliced
  • juice of half a lime

for the sour cream:

  • 250g fat-free natural yoghurt
  • salt and pepper
  • pinch of paprika
  • 1/2 tsp cajun seasoning
  • 1/2 tsp chilli pepper flakes

for the steak:

  • half a tin of chopped tomatoes
  • 800g beef (in whatever form you like – we chose diced)
  • 1 tbsp tomato puree
  • 80g grated reduced-fat cheddar

and you’ll need to do this:

for the chips

  • oh, come on now

for the guacamole:

  • add all the ingredients into a food processor, and blend until smooth

for the tomato salad:

  • mix all of the chopped ingredients together and season to taste

for the sour cream:

  • stir all of the ingredients together

for the steak:

  • heat the chopped tomatoes and puree in a sauce pan over a medium-high heat
  • when the mixture begins to simmer remove from the heat and stir in the beef
  • drain off the excess liquid and cook the beef over a medium-high heat to your preference
  • layer all of the ingredients onto a plate and enjoy!

J

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July 2, 2015

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pulses and grains, recipe card, salad, savoury snacks, snacks, syn free, taster ideas, vegan, vegetarian

bulgur wheat salad with superfree veg

Just a quick post tonight because, frankly, we’re pooped. James started screeching at half-one this morning about a plinky-plonky noise coming from the guttering and a bright light (it was either the thunderstorm outside or he was having a stroke) and I just couldn’t settle after that. To be fair, normally it’s me who keeps us awake with my excessive flatus or the fact I can’t sleep without pouring half of my fat over James like the world’s sweatiest blanket. He loves it.

So – just a quick ‘un and tonight it’s a rather nice summer delight – lots of bright colours and perfect for the hot weather. It’s also very filling and piss easy to make. Not going to lie, this only came about because the packet of bulgur wheat left over from the other week kept falling out of the cupboard and we were too lazy to transfer it into a Kilner jar.

This salad would be handy to take in for a working lunch (if you’re a working girl) (haha) as it keeps the flavour very well indeed, but, I think it would be best served alongside something with a bit of sauce – why not use it to mop up that “delicious” Slimming World curry that Iceland do? Anyway.

Here’s what to do:


bulgur wheat superfree

you’ll need this

  • 340g bulgur wheat (or quinoa if you’re a ponce, but we can’t get away with quinoa since James said they look like tiny bleached bumholes)
  • 1 large onion, finely chopped
  • 1 jalapeno pepper, chopped
  • 1″ piece of ginger, peeled and grated
  • 1 carrot, chopped into tiny cubes
  • 1 red/orange pepper, chopped
  • handful of frozen peas
  • 100g mushrooms, chopped
  • salt

and you’ll need to do this:

  • rinse the bulgur wheat (or quinoa) in a sieve and add to a pan of cold water
  • bring to a boil, chuck in either a veg stock cube or a chicken stock cube, then cover and reduce the heat and simmer for fifteen minutes (or until cooked)
  • in a separate pan gently cook the chopped onion in a little oil over a medium heat until slightly golden
  • add the ginger and stir gently for about thirty seconds
  • add the chopped mushroom to the pan and cook until softened
  • add the peas and carrots along with a pinch of salt, stirring frequently
  • add the peppers to the pan and continue to stir
  • once everything has softened add the drained bulgur wheat (or quinoa) and mix well
  • serve with some mint to garnish

Enjoy!

P

 

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June 28, 2015

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airfryer, bacon, pork, pork joints, recipe card, syn free

bacon wrapped tenderloin with a balsamic and strawberry dressing

Just a quick post tonight as we’re busy sorting out Cubs Towers ahead of the Summer of Works. Exciting.

We had a glut of strawberries to use up, I wanted a salad, Paul wanted a roast dinner, so this was the happy compromise. You might wrinkle your nose at the thought of using strawberry but it pairs nicely with pork – think plum sauce with duck and you’ve got the right idea. We served it with roast potatoes which were PERFECT. In fact, let’s cover off how we did our roasties.

roast potatoes

you’ll be needing

  • enough potatoes to fill that echoing belly of yours, cut up into decent chunks
  • Frylight or oil – just a drop or two
  • a lamb Oxo cube
  • an Actifry (if you don’t have one, don’t shit the bed, you can do it in the oven and I’ll cover that in a second

then…

  • squirt the chopped potato with a spritz of spray or a drop of oil
  • chuck in the actifry
  • cook for twenty minutes
  • crumble a lamb Oxo cube on there and splash a good tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce on them
  • cook for another twenty minutes or until they look just right
  • serve!

The Actifry is possibly the best thing we’ve bought since joining Slimming World – not least because it does make genuinely proper tasty chips. You can get others like it but they’re not quite as good (the Airfryer, for example). It’s expensive, but we fry off our meatballs, sausages, chips and potatoes in it with little to no oil. If you’re on the fence about one, take it from us that you won’t regret the expense. You can buy it on Amazon by clicking here. Why not treat yourself?

Too tight for an actifry? Don’t worry. Just put them in the oven for 20 minutes, take them out, shake them, splash them and crumble that cube on the top, and cook again. The key is letting them sit for a few minutes before they cook for the second time.

I’ve seen a lot of people gobble on about those Oxo potatoes where you cook them half submerged in stock…well yes, but then you end up getting potatoes that look like athletes foot, all soft and crinkled and mushy. If that works for you, champion, but I’m not quite at the stage in my life where I need to gum my food. Try the above! 

Anyway, the main event:

sliced pork tenderloin wrapped in bacon

you’ll be needing this (this serves 4):

  • pork tenderloin – with fat removed, ours was around 1kg
  • eight slices of bacon with fat removed (if only it was that easy!)
  • 300g of strawberries, nicely ripe, sliced
  • 125ml of balsamic vinegar
  • three cloves of garlic
  • bag of rocket

and then, once you’ve finished being all hysterical, do this:

  • wrap the tenderloin in bacon – use cocktail sticks to secure if you want
  • put it into the oven on 200 degrees for 30 minutes, then take it out and turn it over and cook for another thirty minutes
  • meanwhile, finely chop (remember: buy a mini chopper, easier, and no stinkin’ fingers) the garlic and pop in a pan over a medium high heat with a drop of oil or a squirt of Frylight
  • cook for around two minutes until slightly golden
  • add the balsamic vinegar and half of the strawberries
  • bring to a boil and then allow to simmer for ten minutes – your kitchen will smell lovely at this point
  • once the second half of the pork is done, take it out, baste it with a few tablespoons of the balsamic strawberries and whack it under the grill for about two minutes to colour it
  • throw the other half of the sliced strawberries into the balsamic pan just so you get a nice difference in texture 
  • remove the pork, cut into thick slices, serve on the rocket with a drizzle of the balsamic and strawberry sauce
  • enjoy, you posh bastard.

Here, I was GOING to call it a reduction, because I suppose it is, but that’s just too wank, even for me!

ENJOY.

J

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June 19, 2015

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fakeaways, indian, recipe card, syn free, taster ideas, vegetarian

don’t light a match, it’s egg curry time!

Yep.

Egg curry. Curry, boiled eggs and sweated-down onions and garlic.

You can rather guess the effect it’s had on the both of us, can’t you? Yep. A colossal, vile, dramatic rise in the amount, pungency and volume of our after-dinner hints.

Every time I field a benchwarmer, I’m taking another layer of skin off my buttocks. I’m raw, I’m not kidding, and each time Paul steams his knickers I feel my face tighten. It’s awful – quite genuinely the worst smell that’s ever barrelled out of us. Now I’m no prude, I love a good taint-stainer, and other people’s seam-splitters make me howl, but this is too much, even for me. We can barely type for gagging and even the cat has been licking his own chutney-locker for twenty minutes just to give his nose a break. I’ve never seen a cat cry until tonight.

Listen, I’ve talked about puckered-chuckles before and I’m not going to go into too much depth here, but everyone – I don’t care how hoity-toity and prim you are – has been proud of one of their farts before. My favourite? I once broke wind on the London Eye, in the height of summer, in a full capsule. Imagine that, the heat blaring down, everyone panicking but being terribly polite about the whole affair. In my defence, I didn’t think it would smell and I was more preoccupied with making sure it wasn’t a full-on cheek-rattler that I didn’t think about the consequences. I bet there’s still fingernails scratched into the emergency exit of capsule 19. 

Paul disagrees though, stating that my best pump was early on morning as I dozed in bed and he got ready for work. He asked me a question and in my slumber I let loose the loudest, squeakiest arse-moo he’d ever heard, to the point where I woke myself up thinking it was the bedside alarm. He had to get back into bed for laughing so hard and he still chuckles about it now. We’re a classy pair.

Here, my favourite old fart joke. It probably only makes sense if you’re of an era when Emmerdale used to be Emmerdale Farm and Jimmy Saville was just a cheeky tinker.

 A bloke goes into a bar and asks for a pint of bitter with a head on it. He gets one from the barman, and then asks him to keep an eye on the pint whilst he nips to the bog. Barman agrees.

Bloke comes back from the netty only to find the pint is still there but the head is missing.

“What happened to the head on my pint?!” he asks the barman, to which the barman replies, “well, see that large athletic looking lady over there? While you were in the gents she came over and farted on your pint and blew the head off it“.

“Right” says the angry customer, “I’m going to have a word with her!”.

He storms over to the lady and asks, “Excuse me, fart in my Whitbread?“

and she says…wait for it wait for it…

…..

….

…

..

.

“No I’m Tessa Sanderson”

Tessa Sanderson right?!

 

 

Oh screw you. Here’s your stinking recipe!

syn free sw egg curry

This serves four.

We served it with saag aloo from a previous recipe (opens in a new window) and boring old rice. This is a great way of getting a load of superfree into your mush. So…

to make egg curry, you’ll need:

  • 6 hard boiled eggs (shell removed)
  • 2 medium onions 
  • 3 medium tomatoes
  • 1 tsp grated ginger
  • 1 tsp crushed garlic
  • 1 green chilli (sliced)
  • handful of coriander leaves (chopped)
  • 2½ tsp ground coriander
  • ½ tsp tumeric
  • ½ tsp paprika
  • ½ tsp garam masala
  • ½ ground cumin
  • salt

For the love of God, buy one of these. YES IT’S A MICROPLANE GRATER but you can do your garlic and ginger so quick. Plus Parmesan and lemon. Hell you could even try getting your feet sorted out with it, which is handy if your feet look like a drought relief map. 

to make egg curry, you’ll need to do this:

  • finely chop the onions
  • spray a large saucepan with Frylight OR a drop or two of oil and place over a medium heat
  • gently fry the onions for about 5 minutes or until translucent and golden
  • add the crushed garlic, ginger and sliced chili to the pan and stir it like a piece of playground gossip
  • chop the tomatoes roughly, add to the pan and stir well
  • cook for about five minutes, until the mixture is quite mushy
  • meanwhile, in a small bowl mix together the corianer, turmeric, paprika, garam masala and cumin powder with two tablespoons of water until smooth, you want it looking like an Orlistat side-effect
  • add the spice mixture to the pan and mix well
  • add the chopped coriander leaves to the pan and continue to cook the mixture for another three minutes or so 
  • add 325ml water to the pan, cover and cook for fifteen minutes, or until it’s really thickened up
  • meanwhile, boil six eggs for 10 minutes. peel under running water
  • remove the curry from the heat and stir well 
  • slice the eggs in half and place in the curry.

Look, this isn’t the most razzmatazz of recipes, but it’s fun and unusual. That’s what Slimming Would should be about. SHOULD.

Now excuse me, I have to go FART LIKE A BREWERY HORSE.

PRAY FOR JAMES