Tag Archives: syn free

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January 31, 2015

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fakeaways, italian, noodles, pork, pork mince, quark, recipe card, savoury snacks, snacks, speciality ingredients, syn free, taster ideas

meatballs in a cheese sauce served in noodle nests

Ah now look at that – we haven’t had a quickpost this week, so tonight is the night – just the recipe today as I’m out and about! Normal service will resume tomorrow. And anyway, don’t be greedy – I did a big blog page earlier today on the ‘my favourite things’ post. Gimme a break damn it! WE’RE BUT TWO LADS!

meatballs and cheese sauce

This is another ‘use it or lose it’ meal where most of the ingredients are leftovers and/or stuff we haven’t got round to cooking. We’re trying to minimise leftovers, see? GO GREEN. We always keep a bag of frozen meatballs (made ourselves) in the freezer, the noodles were leftover from last night’s meal (sweet and sour pork – that’s coming online tomorrow, oooh a peek behind the curtain!) and the veg was what was left rolling around in amongst the vodka at the bottom of the fridge.

to make meatballs in a cheese sauce served in noodle nests, you’ll need:

ingredients: for the meatballs – pork mince, salt, pepper, dried sage – squash all together with your hands, shape into small balls and chill until needed. For the cheese sauce – 250g quark, 110g lightest philadelphia (HEA for me) and 30g of parmesan (HEA for Paul) and mustard powder. For the nests, use any leftover spaghetti or noodles. You’ll also need an egg and any old bollocks you have left in the veg drawer.

tip: make double the amount of meatballs, then freeze half. To freeze, put them on a flat plate not touching each other, freeze them, then pick them off the plate and put into a bag. That way they’ll stay separate and easier to work with.

to make meatballs in a cheese sauce served in noodle nests, you should:

recipe: start by making the cheese sauce, which is as easy as adding the quark, philadelphia and cheese into a pan and heating it slowly until it all comes together. Allow to cool. Then, get your noodles/spaghetti, coat them in about half of the sauce and include a beaten egg, and mix quickly. Get a muffin tray, do the frylight/oil thing (whichever you prefer!) so they don’t stick, and get a handful of spaghetti and put it in each muffin slot. Shape them so there is an indent in the middle. Hoy them in the oven for about 25 minutes and take out when golden – I took mine out a trifle too soon. Whilst they’re cooking, cook off your meatballs. If you’ve got a decent non-stick pan, have the confidence to let them get a good crust on them – they’ll take about 10 minutes on a reasonably high heat to brown off. Top tip – near the end, throw in a good glug of worcestershire sauce if you want – on a high heat, it’ll deglaze the pan and give your balls a nicer colour. Yes. Then, it’s just assembly – work your noodle nest out, put a dab of cheese sauce in the indent, top with a meatball. Serve your veg on the side with any leftover meatballs and cheese sauce. DELICIOUS.

extra-easy – yes, and syn free – the veg on the side is superfree, naturally. Try it!

Goodnight.

J

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January 28, 2015

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beef, beef mince, lunch, pasta, recipe card, savoury snacks, snacks, syn free, taster ideas

mini lasagne cups

Just a quick post tonight as I’ve been out for the evening to see Ex Machina – the latest film from Danny Boyle. Decent film, very sci-fi, but with an unexpected amount of muff on show. And I’m sorry, but there’s nothing more surprising than an unexpected muff. A muff you can plan for, fine, but no-one wants to be presented with a muff when you’ve got your guard down. To be honest, I just like typing that word. Muff. Ah.

I was going to be good and be one of those bores who go out for dinner and just order lettuce leaves dressed in the tears of a fat man, with a side order of smugness, but instead we went to Nandos. Now see I don’t see the fascination with Nandos – to me, it’s KFC but with wooden furniture and hipster beards. They do pleasant enough food and all, but raving over it? No! I did make a mistake of choosing a table right near the toilets mind – I’m such a classy guy. They have those awful open back chairs too – I (and I imagine a lot of other larger framed folks share this fear) spend an inordinate amount of time worrying that my shirt had ridden up, my trousers have sank down and that the crack of my arse was busy winking at the rest of the diners in the restaurant. The last thing I want is for someone to post a business card in there thinking they’d win a half chicken and chips. BAH. Anyway, I had the caesar salad followed by an oil-drum of popcorn in the cinema later, and I don’t care – syns are there to be used, after all. Remember, I’m all about maintaining this week. So, tonight’s recipe….

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Now, some people will probably consider the above to be a ‘tweak’ – tweaking is when you use something not for its ‘original use’ – i.e. grinding up couscous into flour to make a cake. The science being that you’ll stuff your face with a whole cake which might contain 500g of couscous, whereas if you tried to sit and eat that much couscous in one go you’d go pop. Well, balls to that. In the example below, I’m using lasagne sheets or ham to create a cup, but you’d eat the same amount if you were to have lasagne. So shut your hole.

This is a ‘use up your leftovers’ recipe – this time, you’re using up any old bolognese (and you can find our recipe for bolognese with sluts spaghetti here) or chilli. Serve with a side salad or some sweet potato wedges for an easy win.

to make mini lasagne cups, you’ll need:

ingredients: your old bolognese, a few cherry tomatoes, either 12 lasagne sheets or some wafer thin ham and some light philadelphia (75g HEA) and some rocket

to make mini lasagne cups, you should:

recipe: easy! cook your lasagne sheets, cut them into squares and place one into the cup in a muffin tray, with another one rotated 45 degrees so you have a nice star. Stuff the bottom with rocket, spoon the bolognese into the middle, top with philadelphia and a tomato, and pop in the oven for 20 minutes! If you can’t be arsed fannying about with lasagne sheets, you can use ham – see the picture. Don’t cook it for so long though, ten minutes at most, or you’ll end up with a burnt rim – and no-one wants that!

extra-easy: of course – syn-free. Better if your bolognese is stuffed with superfree nonsense, but if not, have a wee salad on the side. Easy peasy.

Cheers!

J

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January 24, 2015

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airfryer, beef, budget, cured meats, low syn, lunch, pork, poultry, recipe card, savoury snacks, snacks, taster ideas

square egg, snacks and injuries

Previous readers may recall that a few months ago, I had to go for an MRI scan on my heart. Exciting. I described it at the time like being sucked into a Polo-coloured sphincter. Well, after weeks and weeks of fitfully looking at the letterbox waiting for news, I finally got a letter from my doctor yesterday which said everything was OK, heart was beating as it should be and I had nothing to worry about, bar being too handsome for most people to deal with. Typical NHS restraint. I’ve actually (touching wood) been remarkably lucky with my health so far – found a lump in my boob a year or so ago but it turned out to be nothing exciting (I’m surprised it wasn’t an M&M, to be honest) and a couple of bouts of anxiety throughout the last few years. I don’t want to dwell on anxiety, but it’s a very funny thing – people who wouldn’t take the piss out of you if you had a broken leg or lost the sight on one eye feel quite chipper making snide comments about anxiety behind your back. I don’t see a mental illness as less important than a physical one, but the world has a long way to go before that status is reconciled.

Ah well.

The only injuries I’ve ever had of note both have typically me causes – I’ve got a scar on my forehead from a killing curse launched at me by the greatest Dark Wizard who ever lived cartwheeling into the side of a door. I remember going downstairs (the cartwheel having been done in my bedroom, which was surprising because it remains the only bedroom I’ve ever been in where I had to back out onto the landing to turn around) with a cartoon egg-shaped lump on my head only for my mum to hoy a big bag of peas on it and sat me down in front of Countdown until I stopped trying to make an 18 letter conundrum. The second time I tore my lip open and bent (but didn’t break) (I don’t think) my nose to the left by using my face as an impromptu braking device on my bike – forgot that my brakes didn’t work as I thundered down a hill the only way a fat lad on an old bike can, hit the front brakes, bike stopped immediately and I sailed through the air like a clay pigeon. Only I landed on my face. This time, I think I was knocked out, as my only memory is my sister running home to get my mother who took me home, wrapped a tea-towel from the side in the kitchen around my face (I can still taste I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter and strawberry jam if I lick the scar) and left it to sort itself out. I’ve got a big scar on my bottom lip which I can see if I push my lips flat against my teeth, but other than that I’m fine. Actually, reading all this back, it makes it sounds as though I grew up in Mr Bumble’s workhouse, but that’s far from the truth. My mum just didn’t want the nurses to question all the other bruises and marks on my body.

And that’s a joke too, before anyone tries to respectively put us on the register. I always received medical aid where necessary and my parents were – and are – very loving!

Speaking of very loving, how about this for an evening meal? Up here in Geordieland, we call an evening meal made up of lots of different little things (normally sandwiches, cakes, pork pies etc) a tea-tea, but I know there’s lots of others. Paul informs me he used to call it a picnic tea but I find that hard to believe because it conjures up a charming spread served on gingham tableclothes and bone china, whereas I know from his many tales that he never tasted food that didn’t have 4% Lambert and Butler ash in it until he moved up here.

snacks on slimming world

Like yesterday, with this being more of an ensemble dish, there’s little point in doing a recipe, so instead let me break down the various bits:

pickled onions – you can have most pickles for nothing on SW, so fill up – and try sauerkraut, it’s bloody delicious, although too much pickled cabbage will leave you with veritable knicker-stainers later. Open a window.

tomatoes – buy a variety to add colour and keep them out of the fridge – they’ll taste so much nicer.

pitta chips – you’re allowed one wholemeal pitta as a healthy extra – toast one, cut it up and serve with…

…sweet potato houmous – blend one large cooked sweet potato with four tablespoons of fat free yoghurt, one garlic clove, two tablespoons of lemon juice, salt and a 200g tin of chickpeas. Don’t blend it too smooth, it’s better with a few chunks. Just like the best of us.

roast potatoes – cut up some new potatoes, put them in the Actifry with an Oxo cube to cover them. Delicious.

pastrami wraps – make a sauce of four finely chopped gherkins, four tablespoons of fat free fromage frais and half a teaspoon of mustard powder. Smear onto a slice of pastrami, stuff it full of rocket and roll it up.

chicken wraps – nowt more fancy than a gherkin wrapped up in a slice of chicken!

square egg – they taste so much better than a normal egg but I’ve heard it makes the chicken walk funny. WELCOME TO MY WORLD, COCK.

A perfect picky dinner. Now off to watch Before I Go To Sleep with Fattychops. 100th post coming soon!

I used this little gadget to make my egg cube, by the way!

J

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January 23, 2015

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airfryer, beef, beef joints, classics, lamb, lamb joints, low syn, pork, pork joints, poultry, recipe card, syn free, whole

the sunday roast

Right – a heads up, which may be a bad choice of words for the little bit of explaining that I’m going to be doing – this blog post might be a little saucy. Oh my! Skip the next lot of paragraphs if you’d rather just get to the good bit.

You have to be super careful typing our blog name into google. Why? Because it can bring up a lot of filthy results if it is incorrectly spelled, just like one slip of the keys can make a weekend in Scunthorpe altogether less palatable. Thanks to the traffic we receive to the blog, we’re number one if you search for ‘chubby cubs’ but if you look down, there’s a fair few blogs that aren’t quite for vanilla eyes!

So let me explain the name of the blog – the two and the chubby bit is obvious, we’re a couple of gentleman of generous scale. But the cubs bit might be less obvious. See, in the gay world, aside from all the rainbows, magic dust and blistering fisting sessions, there’s a tendency to group male types by an animal name. Breaking them down, very very loosely, and tongue completely in (bum)cheek:

bear: a bear is a more masculine looking bloke – bearded, hairy, generally stocky or fat, normally has a wardrobe full of plaid shirts, fan of Kate Bush;

cub: a younger version of a bear, generally equally hairy, more stereotypically masculine in traits, might order a Guinness in a pub rather than a blue WKD and a fingering;

otter: more difficult – because not all bears are fat, stocky and of course you get people in all different shades, a thin hairy bear might be described as an otter. Presumably because he is generally ‘otter than most people under all that hirsuteness;

chicken – which became twink, I think – a young, attractive, usually slender or physically fit slip of a man. Again, very generally speaking, perhaps camper than most, more effeminate.

Of course, all boundaries are meaningless and it’s also a rather outdated way of looking at things – being able to grow a beard and light a cigar without coughing your lungs up doesn’t make you more masculine, whereas knowing the lyrics to every Alcazar song in Swedish and English doesn’t necessarily make you less of a man. Well…

Our problem is – we’re almost at the tipping point where we’d probably be classed as ‘bears’ rather than ‘cubs’ because we’re getting on, but frankly two chubby bears doesn’t scan right. Two Busomesque Bears? Two Beefy Butterballs? Actually, I quite like that one, but fuck me our porn warnings would skyrocket.

Oh, as an aside, those girls who seem to only have gay men as friends? Like my ex-flatmate who exclaimed we could go shopping together and sort each other’s hair out? She got short shrift. But they have many sarcastic terms too – fruit flies, fag hags, queer dears…

That’s enough of that, anyway. Speaking of beef, here’s dinner this evening – a proper roast dinner!

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to make the sunday roast, you should…

I don’t really need to break down a recipe, because it’s all a sum of its parts, but this is more to show you can have a big bloody dinner on SW and not lose out. Broken down:

  • roast beef – syn free joint from Tesco’s reduced bin – reduced from £9 to £2, and bloody lovely!
  • broccoli – steamed
  • peas – tinned
  • carrots and parsnips – done in the Actifry with a tiny tiny bit of oil
  • mash – sweet potato and normal potato mashed together
  • turnip – it’s the singing turnip from this recipe
  • roasties – we tried to do the Oxo roasties that everyone bangs on about and got it wrong, so we’re going to do them another time and post a recipe!

Now you could have gravy – 100ml is 1.5syns, which is bugger all, but don’t drown your dinner in gravy, it’s terribly common. Paul puts mint sauce on his beef and I end up wincing my way through the meal. But he cooked tonight’s tea so he’s let off with love.

J

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January 18, 2015

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

rainbow quiche and octogenarian shenanigans

Well, that was an exciting afternoon. The parents have decided to spend a bit more of my inheritance and have buggered off to the Gambia for a week or two, leaving Nana Dearest in the care of me and my sister. She’s very independent but it’s good to check in on her every day just to make sure she hasn’t rolled a seven and shuffled off the mortal coil. So, fatty and I piled into the car today at half one and drove the thirty miles over to her house – in the ice and snow – to see that she was up and about and dutifully forgetting to take her tablets. Got there to find her curtains still shut in the bedroom and the door locked. At 2pm, and us without a key. The dog was scratching on the other side of the door. No amount of knocking and shouting got a reply. Naturally, we raised the alarm buggered off to do our weekly shop at Tesco with a view to coming back and trying again at half three. Still no reply. I had no key, remember. How do you attract the attentions of an eighty eight year old woman whose hearing aid would merely register a muffled bump if a plane crashed in her garden?

Well, here’s how – you get a clothes prop from the garden. For those of you who aren’t living in the 1940s, a clothes prop is a very long, very thin bit of wood that Geordies use to hoist their clothes line high up in the air so that villagers in another parish altogether can cast disdainful looks at the skidders on your knickers. It looks like this:

clothes prop

Of course, it would be altogether too easy for my gran’s prop to be a strong, metal affair like the one pictures – no, hers was a manky old bit of wood that had been sitting in the snowy mud since the Battle of the Somme and was dangerously rotten. Nevertheless I pressed on and hoisting the bendy, rotten, 14ft prop into the air like a fucking pole vaulter and standing on the tops of my boots, I rapped it smartly against her window, tap tap tap, whilst Paul brayed on the front door, with each ‘tap’ of the stick leading another muddy print against her window. After ten bloody minutes, a wispy bit of white hair appears followed by a bemused face, then the window opens and she tells me off for leaving mud all over her window frame. Turns out she had gone to bed the night before and only just woken up at 4pm, which frankly sounds like my idea of heaven. Pills dispensed and a cup of tea later, she turns to me sagely and says ‘You could have just rang the doorbell, you know’. I almost turned the one hobnob (well, Aldi equivalent of a hobnob – a notnob?) (3.5syns) I’d allowed myself to dust in my balled up fists. She’s a dear, an absolute dear, but unless I had rung the doorbell with the front of my fucking car she really, really wouldn’t have heard.

Still, how Paul and I laughed as we made our way back home, our shopping defrosting merrily in the boot. I’d do it all again though.

The shopping I just mentioned will be turned into the following meals for the week ahead:

  • pulled pork, leek and mature cheese pizza;
  • spinach, basil, broccoli and kale soup;
  • macaroni cheese – with a twist;
  • roast beef dinner;
  • beef and broccoli;
  • spaghetti and hotdogs; and
  • chicken, beans and rice.

All healthy, all tasty. All low syns. I’m going to make a bit more of an effort to create rollover recipes – recipes which use the leftovers from another one I’ve done in the week. I thought it might help those trying to keep costs down. So in that vein, tonight’s recipe is a very quick one using up the remainder of the veg that we didn’t use on our Judy Garland Special Pizza (thank you Ms Savage!). The joy of a slimming world quiche is that you can chuck any old shite in it and it’ll taste good. Here it is – I left it in the oven ten minutes too long because I was too busy outside scratching my foot on the brick wall of my herb garden. It’s so satisfying!

slimming world rainbow quiche

No need for a full recipe for this rainbow quiche – this really is just all the leftover veg we chopped up, combined with four eggs and 300g of cottage cheese, lots of salt and pepper and chucked in the oven. Syn free of course and absolutely stuffed with superfree food, so it would be perfect for a work snack. Well, a slice or two – you don’t need to eat the whole bloody thing at once for goodness sake.

Finally, as a special treat, here’s a picture of Bowser a split second before he yawns. He looks so…speshul.

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Goodnight!

J

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January 15, 2015

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bacon, budget, classics, lunch, one-pot, pork, recipe card, savoury snacks, snacks, soup, syn free, taster ideas

syn free pea and ham soup

I swear to God – Old Man River put my bin back for the second time today! Why did he think I’d put it again? Does he think I’m giving him a cardio workout or something? Ah he’s so bloody nice it’s impossible to be mad but I fear that the rough-hewn men at the council will be foaming – three times now they’ve had that bin lorry backed up our street and three times the bin hasn’t been out. Oops. That’ll be them putting Bowser into the rubbish compacter tomorrow.

So, today. I was unlucky enough to be caught behind a cluster of office workers waiting to cross the road today, all puffing away on their e-cigarettes. That said, it did afford me the opportunity to mince through the strawberry-scented fog like I was coming out of the doors on Stars In Their Eyes when the light changed. I’m not keen on those e-cigarette thingies – I’m of the belief that if you want to smoke, then man up and bloody smoke – it should be Capston Full Strength tabs or bust. Admittedly it’s far nicer seeing someone misting away like a boiling kettle than it is seeing them bent double chucking their lungbutter all over the pavement but still. Plus the e-cigarettes always look so ungainly, like you’re sucking nicotine from a nosehair trimmer, and it does attract a lot of quite smug people who say they are harmless – perhaps, but society thought thalidomide was ‘armless once.

I gave up smoking two years ago using Allen Carr’s Easy Way to Stop Smoking (clicking takes you to his book), and it was a revelation. I was panicked thinking the cravings would be hell on Earth but I finished his book, put out my cigarette and hardly even thought about smoking again. He teaches you to examine what exactly you’re doing when you smoke, and explains why you want to keep smoking, and then breaks down each reason/excuse that you use to rationalise your smoking. It’s great – cost £6 and never looked back, and I was on a good 20 smokes a day.

Mind you, that’s not to say I’ve become one of those fervent anti-smokers who cough that tinkly little cough if someone has the temerity to light up near them. That I absolutely can’t stand, it’s such an oddly British passive action to take – either ask them to put it out or fuck off – you wouldn’t sit in a burning building sneezing at the fire, you’d take immediate action! Fair enough you might end up with a Richmond Blue smouldering in your eye-socket but you would have the comfort of not being a passive-aggressive tosser to soothe it.

Speaking of soothing, here’s the soup recipe for this week – and fuck me, look at that, I definitely need to get a trim on my worktop.

PEAHAM

to make syn free pea and ham soup, you’ll need:

ingredients: tiny drop of olive oil, or some frylight, 200g chopped bacon medallions, an onion, one leek, 2 cloves of garlic, 500g frozen peas, 700ml chicken stock, 1tsp dried thyme and salt.

to make syn free pea and ham soup, you should:

recipe: I made this in my soup-maker, but to cook in a pan is just as easy – fry the bacon and onion off so there’s a bit of colour, add the sliced leek, sweat a bit more (the onion, not you, but I understand it’s a hot kitchen). Crush the garlic and add, together with the frozen peas, chicken stock, thyme and salt. Simmer for forty minutes and blend.

extra easy: yes, easily- all those peas, you’re really cooking on gas. It’s a lovely soup on its own but I added a poached egg, a couple of tiny drops of truffle oil (syn those) (1 syn) and some chilli flakes to pep it up. Make some, have it as a starter, take the rest to work in the morning! Done!

Oh and before I forget, my mate Phillipa challenged me to use the word enunciate in my blog today.

J

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January 14, 2015

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budget, fakeaways, italian, lunch, pasta, recipe card, syn free, vegetarian

garlic, lemon and parmesan linguine

Argh! My well-meaning neighbour has inadvertently vexed me, at the end of a rubbish day. Our general waste bin was missed by the council so we put it outside today and arranged for them to come and empty it. Great! Got home today to find the bin neatly stood next to the back door and a note saying ‘It’s not bin day so I brought your bin in’ – bah. He’s the nicest guy in the world though, so I can’t get too vexed.

I was told today that I have a lovely telephone voice, which was pleasant – although I was always under the impression that as soon as I pick up a phone, my voice actually deepens and goes a bit more Geordie than I’d like. Paul tells me that I have no discernible accent – which is lucky, as a strong Geordie accent (to an outsider) sounds like Brian Blessed yelling nuclear launch codes into a Toblerone tube. All went well when Paul first met my parents, aside from afterwards when he turned to me in the car, ashen-faced, and confessed that he’d spent the last two hours nodding politely at my dad and being completely unable to decipher the accent. My dad has a mild Geordie accent but the state of Paul’s confused face would suggest he sounded like a water-damaged cassette recording of Auf Wiedersehen, Pet.

Actually, I’ve enjoyed good luck with my voice throughout my life. I certainly didn’t go through the mandatory six months of sounding like failing car brakes when I was a teenager – I seemed to go to bed sounding like a Snowman-era Aled Jones and woke up again sounding like Madge out of Neighbours. In fact, puberty was great fun for me – whilst a lot of my peers were awash with spots and ‘taches like they’d stuck a few errant pubes on their top lip, I could grow a pretty manly beard right from the get-go. Clearly such high levels of testosterone (and it helped that my levels were kept regularly topped up, EH, AM I RIGHT, NUDGE NUDGE WINK WINK) didn’t lead to any especially manly pursuits, though I was fairly decent at rugby, presumably because I looked like someone had driven a minibus onto the pitch and stretched a Matalan jersey over the top of it. Ah well.

Tonight’s recipe is simplicity itself. but bloody impossible to take an interesting photo of…

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to make garlic, lemon and parmesan linguine, you’ll need:

PLEASE don’t dismiss this because it looks boring or if you don’t like mushrooms – it tastes fantastic and you can leave out the mushrooms and still enjoy (Paul did). Plus, it takes 5 minutes to make (as long as the linguine takes to cook) and uses only four ingredients (five if you add mushrooms). Give it a whirl!

ingredients: two/three cloves of garlic, one lemon (you’ll need three tablespoons of juice), packet of linguine (we used half a standard pack for two large servings) and a good parmesan (30g as a HEA per person but it’s only a syn per level tbsp if you want more) (i.e. you’re a greedy fucker like me). If you like mushrooms, buy a pack of nice mushrooms rather than button, fry them gently and add on the top at the end. But let’s presume you don’t like mushrooms and crack on, shall we? If I can stress one thing – buy good ingredients here. Decent linguine is better than spaghetti and costs next to nothing. A large, unwaxed lemon will yield plenty of juice. Better to have less parmesan than more cheddar, and a little goes a long way (plus you can save whatever is left in the freezer and blitz it into soups). A garlic clove will taste better than any powder! I’m not one to normally nag about ingredients but really, when there is so little on the go, make it count!

to make garlic, lemon and parmesan linguine, you should:

recipe: fill the biggest, meanest pan you’ve got about two thirds full with water, and chuck in salt with gay abandon. Get the linguine boiling. Whilst that’s cooking, you’ll want to get your lemon juice – so pop the lemon in the microwave first for fifteen seconds, then squeeze it out – three tablespoons worth. Microwaving will allow you to get a lot more juice from any citrus fruit, trust me! Next, grate your garlic and your parmesan. Now, you can do this with a bog standard grater but it won’t be quite fine enough. I use one of these microplane graters (click the link to be taken to Amazon) and it’s a godsend, not least because it’s sharp and makes it fine enough to mix in with the pasta. I use it for plenty of other things but mainly grating parmesan or chocolate. Drain your pasta, keeping half a cup of the cooking water to one side. Make sure it’s drained well, then chuck into a bowl and mix with the parmesan, lemon juice, garlic and keep adding enough of the cooking water to make it easy to mix. Stir together well, stir it a bit more, and when you’ve lost feeling in your left arm, man up and use the right one.

Serve hot and fresh, with a bit more parmesan on the top and plenty of black pepper. If you like mushrooms, chuck them on! And that’s it!

extra easy: yes, easily. Aside from the cheese that you can use a HEA for, it’s all good! Perhaps a note of caution – it doesn’t contain your third superfree that you’re supposed to have, but have a wee fruit salad on the side for after if you’re that keen!

Please give this one a go. Adjust the lemon, garlic or cheese to your liking but trust me, it’s a simple quick recipe that actually tastes decent.

Enjoy…

J

PS: who knew David Guetta looked like a down-on-her-luck Jennifer Aniston? Not me until just now…

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January 10, 2015

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beef, beef mince, burgers, chinese, classics, fakeaways, low syn, recipe card, syn free, taster ideas, vegetarian

slimming world spring rolls

Firstly, a big hello and welcome to all our new readers!

We’re spring-cleaning this weekend (hence the savings article is taking a while to write) and amongst other things, a good amount of time has been spent hoovering the cats, both of whom really quite enjoy having the nozzle from the hoover ran over them. When we first got them they were typical cats who reacted to us having the temerity to hoover by exploding into giant cat-form, clawing off our faces and shitting on the carpet, but two years of having a roomba trundling around during the day has desensitised them both to the point where they enjoy a good vacuum. Sola has picked up an annoying habit though – every time you go into the bathroom to use the netty, she climbs onto the sink and meows until you turn the tap on for her to drink from. Clearly the fact she has her own filtered water dispenser isn’t quite good enough, she’s got to ruin my ten minutes a day doing the puzzles in Take a Break surrounded by my own miasma.

Speaking of Take a Break – here’s a promise. I’m going to get a really naff tip published in Take a Break or one of the other housewife-bothering shitrags. I love those magazines – Chat, Pick Me Up, That’s Life – it’s like I’ve parked outside the smoking section at Mecca Bingo and I’m listening to all the gossip. I’m sure they used to be decent though – I quite enjoyed reading my mother’s Take a Break in the bath on a Thursday evening. I’m not sure of the tip I’m going to use, but it’ll have to work hard to beat my favourite scene where someone whose name on facebook invariably had ‘MUMMYOFTHREE’ sandwiched in the middle of it took an old beer fridge and affixed to it her bathroom wall. A fridge! In the fucking bathroom, acting as a medicine/toiletries cabinet! Because nothing says class like getting your tampons out of a glass cupboard with STELLA ARTOIS emblazoned on the front.

Whilst we’re on the subject of trashy literature (that’s two smooth segues in my writing today, I’m rather proud), I’m knocking together a food diary and plan to have it bound in February. I see all those food diaries people have where they dutifully write down everything they don’t mind the consultant seeing and they’re always the same, very cutesy-poo with inspirational quotes and fucking cupcakes (fucking not used as a verb, mind, I’d probably buy that book…) so I’m trying to build an antithesis of those. Let’s see how we get on. They’ll be nicely bound and printed mind, I don’t do half measures!

Now, we were going to have baked cod for tea tonight but frankly, we wanted something a bit more substantial, so we’re having burgers instead.

fatabstard

RETRO RECIPE TIME. Click here – it’s one of our very first recipes, way back when…

Oh young James! You were so innocent, so young those many, many…weeks ago. Actually give those burgers a try, they’re delicious. We added a fried egg with a soft yolk onto this burger and a bacon medallion under the burger. Heart attack in a bun but as long as you HEA your cheese and HEB your bread, it’ll be syn free apart from any sauces you add!

But in the spirit of a) being fat and b) being generous, here’s a second recipe for you lot. Syn free spring rolls!

SPRINGROLLS

to make slimming world spring rolls, you’ll need:

ingredients: eight lasagne sheets, one pack of Sainbury’s red pepper stir fry mix (or any other stir fry veg mix, but I like the crunchy peppers!), soy sauce plus any old bobbins that you have left over – in my case, I added a couple of cut up rashers of bacon and some mushrooms.

to make slimming world spring rolls, you should:

recipe: do your stir fry first – biggest pan you have, plus a tiny bit of oil (or boo hiss, Frylight) and a few drops of soy sauce. Get that pan hot! Chuck in your veg, meat if you have any, mushrooms and stir stir stir. Cook fast and cook hot. Once cooked through, put in a bowl by the side. Now, boil up a big pan of water, and when boiling excitedly, chuck in your lasagne sheets. Space them out by dropping them in one at a time otherwise I find they clump. After five minutes, they should be soft.

Work quickly here. Take one sheet out at a time, otherwise the others will harden up whilst you roll your first roll. Pop the first sheet on a flat surface, add a bit of the stir fry, roll up and place ‘join’ down on a baking tray. Repeat seven more times. Little spritz of olive oil/Frylight over the top, stick in the oven for 20 mins on 180degrees or until they look cooked through.

Serve with soy sauce for dipping!

extra-easy: yep! and perfectly cheap too – just some old sheets and any old gubbins you have in the veg drawer. They actually taste decent too, as opposed to most ‘snacks’ based on tasty things turned into Slimming World joys…

Enjoy!

J

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January 7, 2015

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lunch, recipe card, savoury snacks, snacks, soup, syn free, taster ideas, vegetarian

tomato, fennel and feta soup

I got asked for five pounds by a tramp today.

Five pounds! Gone are the days when someone would come up to you and shakily ask for 25p because they were just shy on the metro fare home. When did it make the jump to a fiver? If it goes any higher it’ll be cheaper for me to jump in the car and nip over to Gateshead to buy the smack myself. Oooh think of the weight loss. Actually, I’d be a shite smack addict, I start shaking like a shitting dog the day before I have bloods taken. I’m not averse to giving to the homeless and unfortunate, but his sheer cheek put me right off – I didn’t even get to do my ‘pretend to pat my pockets for non-existent change’ dance, which never works anyway because I’m forever sticking all my change into one pocket so I’m jingling and jangling down the street like a friggin’ pearly queen. Plus, to cap it all off, what I thought was a little lip piercing from a distance was a howking great pus-filled sore on his upper lip which made me gag. I can’t BEAR anything like that, it really upsets me. I know that’s an incredibly superficial and shallow attitude but I don’t care who you are, everyone has a physical attribute that they can’t stand in others – mine is pus spots. I hardly think that’s irrational.

Newcastle has some great tramps as well as the usual chancers, mind. Paul and I actually managed to make an enemy out of one of Newcastle’s less fortunate citizens when we lived down on the Quayside, who we christened Rory just because that’s what he always did – roared. There was a little yellow bus which would take you into town from the Quayside and because he was mad, he used to spend all day travelling up and down along the route – it was only ten minutes long and never varied but nevertheless. He used to have eye-wateringly bad BO first thing in the morning and by the time he’d spent all day cooped up on a bus on a hot day, well, it was the only bus I knew where the driver lit a match when old Rory got off. Anyway, whenever Paul and I got on the bus, he’d roar (hence the name) TEAPOTS at us and stare at us with his googly-eyes and spittle-flecked beard. All the way into Newcastle. Occasionally blowing kisses. And we never, ever knew why – until we happened across him outside of the bus. He did his usual trick of shouting teapots, but this time bent over in his shit-crusted coat and made a spout motion with his arm and a handle motion with the other – then it clicked, he was taking the piss out of us for being gay and the teapot thing was his way of saying we were camp, like this:

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Well, we thought it was bloody hilarious. I mean honestly, I might be a friend of Dorothy but at least I can have a hot bath of the evening. Sadly, we moved away and we only see him now and again, although he still gives us the old swivel-eye if it clicks who we are.

Anyway, speaking of ripe old fruits, here’s tonight’s recipe – tomato, fennel and feta soup. Enjoy!

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to make tomato, fennel and feta soup, you’ll need:

Oh – you might be wondering where the old comic strip style recipes are. They’ll be coming back, but I’m a bit pushed for time in the evening at the moment and I’d sooner spend it writing rather than fussing about with layouts. I’ll use them when the recipe is more complicated…this one isn’t, so here goes.

ingredients: one bulb of fennel, reasonably large, one medium red onion, a whole bunch of cherry tomatoes (400g), a small potato, white wine vinegar (tablespoon), garlic clove chopped up, tomato puree. 50g of feta.

to make tomato, fennel and feta soup, you should:

recipe: cut your tomatoes in half and pack them together, cut side up, in a tray – drop a bit of salt on there and stick them in the oven to roast for forty minutes on a lowish heat. Then, chop up the onion and thinly slice the fennel, keeping aside a few fronds for decoration. Dice the potato. Pop a tiny bit of oil (or bloody Frylight) into a heavy-bottom pan, add the onion, 40g of fennel, crushed garlic and a tablespoon of tomato puree. I add a tiny bit of water just to keep things steamy, cover, and let the onion and fennel cook gently for ten minutes or so, being careful not to let it catch. Add the roasted tomatoes, rest of the fennel, bit of salt and 500ml of water. Leave to cook gently for 40 minutes, and then blend. Add 50g of diced feta, and blend again. Dish it up into bowls (sieve it through a fine sieve if you don’t like lumps – but really, that’s the best bit!) and serve with a bread roll if you fancy synning it. Easy!

extra-easy: yep! Plus you’re only using 25g of feta per serving when you’re allowed 45g, so you could add a little bit extra cheese and be cooking on gas. Tomato and fennel are both speed foods, as is the onion, so there’s really nothing much in here that isn’t fantastic on EE. In fact, looking at it, you could easily adapt it for EE:SP by leaving out the bread and using the cheese as your HEA choice. Delicious!

Enjoy!

J

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January 6, 2015

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fakeaways, indian, lunch, one-pot, recipe card, savoury snacks, slow cooker, snacks, syn free, vegan, vegetarian

flicked bean overnight chilli

I find parking an inherently stressful experience. How I envy those who can smoothly glide into a bay like a well-oiled plop round a u-bend. I’m a very confident driver, and I’ll always have a go, but I’m always left wracked with anxiety that someone is either going to scratch my car or judge me remorselessly for being slightly bent – story of my life. Paul will sit and tut and do asthmatic sighs as I back out of the bay, move back in, reverse, slightly to the left, slightly to the right – but I like to be dead centre, damn it. I can reverse into a bay like an old pro but as soon as I’m in there, I’m fidgeting and fussing. If anyone has somewhere I can park in the centre of Newcastle for free or at least £5, and won’t put a picture of my car on those awful parking blogs, get in touch. Only a quick blog entry tonight because we didn’t get to sleep until 2am last night and I’m dead on my feet. So without further delay – tonight’s tea was flicked bean chilli with cauliflower rice.

cauliflower

to make flicked bean overnight chilli, you’ll need:

Firstly, I apologise for the awful colour filter. I use a bit of software called Layout and it creates awful auto-corrections on my images. Hence it looks like every other food picture that every tit with a beard and sperm-strangling skinny trousers might have.

ingredients: for the cauliflower rice – one big cauliflower and some frozen peas. For the flicked bean chilli, I just tipped two tins of barlotti beans, one tin of black eyed peas, one tin of baked beans, one tin of tomatoes, bunch of dried chilli, chopped garlic, kidney beans, two oxo cubes and half a cup of boiling water. For the meat, you could use mince (brown it off in a pan first) or, in this case, use Quorn mince – it’s perfect for EE:SP but will also boost the weight loss.

to make flicked bean overnight chilli you should:

recipe: this is what makes it so easy – chuck all the chilli bits into a slow cooker and leave it on overnight, where it’ll thicken and simmer nicely. For the cauliflower rice, just blitz the whole cauliflower in a food processor, chuck in some frozen peas – and then pop it in a frying pan without oil and cook it through. Near the end, I chuck an egg in just to bind it a little. Lots of salt and pepper. Tasty and very, very low in calories. Add a sprinkling of cheese from your HEA allowance if you like.

extra-easy: definitely, and I think it’s decent for an EE:SP day but don’t take me at my word. It’s certainly syn free and all those beans will really get your bum working!

Enjoy. So easy to make…in the meantime, I’m going to go to bed early. LIVING THE DREAM.

J