Tag Archives: syn free

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November 8, 2014

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pork, pork chops, recipe card, syn free

pork seared in black tea

Haha! I really just wanted to outdo my last recipe title, hence the brassica. It’s really just the remainder of the sprouts from last week and sliced cauliflower. I can’t remember where I found the recipe for cooking pork in tea, but it works – and again, it’s something different!

Tea pork

to make pork seared in black tea you will need: 

pork chops with all their fat cut off (remember, better to buy two good chops than four cheap ones), sweet potato, normal potatoes, cauliflower, sprouts, black tea, an apple, salt and balsamic vinegar. A griddle pan and the ricer will make it so much easier!

to make pork seared in black tea you should: 

get the veg sorted first – cut the sprouts in half, pull the cauliflower apart and slice the florets (and the stalk) into good sized chunks. Coat with a good sprinkling of salt and balsamic vinegar and put them in the oven on 190 degrees for 30 mins, giving them a shake halfway through. For the mash, cut up the potato and sweet potato into chunks, don’t bother peeling, and after 25 mins boiling push them through the ricer (which will catch the skins and give you perfect, creamy mash) and put it to one side.

For the pork chops – add two strong tea-bags to about 100ml of water and leave to steep. After five minutes, take the bags out, add the apple (thinly sliced) and boil for ten minutes. Meanwhile, sear the pork in the griddle pan – 5 mins or so on each side should do it. Then tip the tea and apple into the griddle pan and cook on high for a good five minutes to reduce the glaze down and to coat the pork. Serve quickly. Tasty.

extra-easy: definitely – the addition of sprouts and cauliflower take care of your superfree third, but there’s also sweet potato in the mash. Some say you should syn the apple as you’re cooking it, but I don’t bother – it’s an apple, after all, and to me there’s no difference between cooking one apple or eating it. Fair enough if I was making apple sauce but…so – syn free all around!

top tips: this is another recipe with an unusual ingredient – tea. But it adds a lovely earthy flavour to the pork, and cooking it in the glaze keeps the meat moist, which can often be a problem. To me, this is the key to Slimming World – eat healthily and try new things. You’ll never be hungry, you’ll open your horizons and actually enjoy the food you’re eating.

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November 7, 2014

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bacon, pork, recipe card, syn free

gammon and egg potato rosti

LORD KNOWS why the recipe has come out all weird. I’ll fix that later.

I have made the fatal error of going to my car to type this recipe up on my lunch break, and it is absolutely chucking it down with rain. This means I need to dash, wobble and blunder my way back to the office upon which I will burst through the doors looking like a drowned fat cat. That’s the problem with being fat. Take a coat anywhere and you’ll end up too hot, but forget your coat and you end up looking like a harbour buoy that has washed in. Ah well.

Yesterday, with Paul away until late at a Young Marxist thing, I decided to fake it upon myself to make a fancy tea. See?

Swish! All this came about as I happened across a new recipe in the slimming world magazine, and thought I could give it a go. I went to Tesco with the intention of just buying some potatoes and ended up spending over £100 on vodka, pickled ginger, seaweed, shirts and a box of condoms. I’d love to know what the cashier thought I had planned for the evening. Nevertheless, this turned out to be one of the easiest recipes I’ve done so far, with very minimal skill needed bar some time management. So, without further delay….

I know that normally I break it down neatly in this section, but I am a bit pushed for time. The ingredients are simple enough:

 

to make gammon and egg potato rosti you will need:

two peeled potatoes, one onion, two gammon steaks, two eggs, spinach, asparagus, tomatoes and fry light.

 

to make gammon and egg potato rosti you should:

Grate the potatoes coarser and pop it into a tea towel and squeeze the moisture out. Really go at this, because the less liquid in your rosti, the tastier the end result. Mix with the grated onion and season well. Shape into circles and put on a roasting tray sprayed with a little frylight or olive oil. Cook for a good thirty minutes on 190 degrees until they are grown and crunchy. A little tip for you – you may remember me talking about a burger place that I bought from Lakeland a few recipes ago. You can use this to create perfectly round rosti too! Just squeeze, shape and press. After 20 minutes put your tomatoes in alongside the rostis to roast. Then, put your gammon onto the griddle pan and cook it to your satisfaction. Set aside to keep warm and using the same griddle pan place your asparagus onto the heat to char. The final thing to do is to put all of your spinach in a pan with a drop of water and steam until wilted down. Then press as much water as you can out of the spinach and set aside. Once you have everything ready it is just a case of assembling on the plate to your satisfaction and serving. If you feel the need to be a pretentious prick like me had a swell of balsamic vinegar as that makes everything look good…especially in the 90s…

This meal has no syns and if you spend a bit of time arranging on the plate to look nice you’ll enjoy all the more. I sometimes think that slimming world recipes can be a bit bland but this looks and tastes amazing. Hopefully there will not be too many errors in this post but I am dictating rather than typing so God knows what Apple make of my Geordie accent.

SIRI: its me aayes man! Ah cannut see man!

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November 4, 2014

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

super speedy “just like heinz” tomato soup

I was told by Paul, with no uncertain terms, that I had to have a recipe done, comic-booked and onto the blog before 11pm or there would be no mattress polka for anyone, given he’s tired. SO, imagine this done in the style of 24 – it’s going to be a quick post, and instead of Jack Bauer yelling at terrorists, you’ve got me accidentally tipping over a whole Magimix XL of cold soup with Roxette’s Dangerous playing in the background. Not QUITE the same high-stakes but well, that passes for drama in our house. I love Roxette, my old flatmate used to play her songs all the time. Mind she also used to leave her dirty knickers behind the radiator in her bedroom, which made the whole house smell of hot shredded wheat whenever the heating went on. I know your business, but I don’t know your name…

ANYWAY. I’ve seen plenty of people on facebook talking about this wonder soup – meant to taste EXACTLY like Heinz soup. I’m always so wary of this type of recipe – I’d rather have a bowl of Heinz rather than a knockoff, but actually…it’s pretty decent! Recipe card:

Tomato Soup

SYN FREE.

to make super speedy “just like heinz” tomato soup you will need:

two tins of beans, two tins of chopped tomatoes, two tins of carrots (with the water), a few pickled onions, a veg stock cube and worcestershire source.

to make super speedy “just like heinz” tomato soup you should:

Throw it all in the blender, pulse it until blended, heat and serve. It does taste creamy, oddly, but I’d maybe omit the carrot water as it makes it a bit starchy. BRILLIANT super-free meal though – onion, carrots and tomatoes all being cracking weight loss food, and baked beans are great for filling you up. There’s nothing more to it! It’ll do for a lunch, after all!

11pm now. Off to bed before Paul kicks off.

J

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November 2, 2014

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bacon, low syn, lunch, pork, recipe card, salad

shaved sprout salad

Christ I wanted to give my recipe today a pretentious restaurant title and I think I’ve succeeded. For all those people, like me, who don’t like a fussy title, don’t worry, it’s essentially just cooked sweet potato, sundried tomatoes and bacon mixed with sliced brussel sprouts.

Before we get to the recipe, I need to make an announcement that I’m really a terrible grandson. I had plans to visit my nana today (she only lives 30 miles away and it’s a nice drive), but I didn’t get round to it because I got caught up gardening and playing on the Xbox. It will probably do my diet the world of good anyway, as whenever Paul and I go and visit we get the same questions…’would you like a bit of quiche / eight kitkats / mince pie / mince and potato pie / sandwich / lovely bit of tongue (steady) / a Ferrari Racket chocolate from ALDI etc…’ which, when met with polite refusal and cries of ‘but no, we’re on a diet’ results in a look like you’ve taken a shit on the carpet and woes of ‘It’ll never get eaten, it’s just me in this house’ and ‘a quarter inch thick layer of butter on your sandwich will do you no harm’. Honestly! And mind that’s even if she hears your refusal, she’s so tone deaf you could fell a tree in the living room behind her chair and she’d smile bemused at you and say EH.

My nana is amazing, mind, no doubt about that. She is totally accepting of the whole Paul and I being bummers situation, though she did once ask ‘which one was the woman’ which was slightly awkward, as I thought she meant which of us preferred an ‘unexpected item in the bagging area’ – but she was actually meaning who did the ironing/cooking etc (remember she’s in her late eighties). Ha! So I’ll go visit her on Tuesday with my usual refrain of ‘I DIDN’T LIKE TO CHANCE LEAVING IT TOO LONG NANA, IN CASE I NEED TO GET MY FUNERAL SUIT DRY-CLEANED’. God, I love her to bits.

Anyway, enough about nana – my absence at her house through gardening was a nice link to me talking about the surfeit of brussel sprouts that we suddenly have thanks to my green-fingered neighbour. So, I got to thinking what I could do with them, and with Paul ‘being the woman’ (ie doing the ironing) (not my actual view I hasten to add), I decided on this fruity number.

Sprout salad

RIGHT, before we start with the details, let me say two things: if you’re not a fan of sprouts, please still give this a go. Sprouts in Britain seem to be served boiled within an inch of their life and will leave your whole house smelling like a condemned nursing home. This doesn’t need to be. Sliced very thinly and dressed well, they’re a crunchy, tasty wonder. Second – yes, this meal is synned – you could make it syn free by omitting the dressing but remember, you have the syns to use, and why not make your evening meal that bit nicer simply by making a dressing to go with the salad? Even then, four syns is still a very excessive estimate – I reckon it would come in at two syns if you omitted the cheese at the end. OK…

to make shaved sprout salad you will need: 

sprouts, an egg, bacon medallions (or bacon with fat cut off), sundried tomatoes (replace with fresh tomatoes grilled if you want to lower the syns), sweet potato, parmesan shavings. For the dressing, honey, olive oil and lemon juice.

to make shaved sprout salad you should:

right, the dressing first. 4 tbsp of lemon juice, 1 tsp of honey (1 syn), 1 tbsp of olive oil (2 syns), some salt, some pepper. Put it in a jamjar and shake, shake, shake! Double up if you need two servings. Then, cube up the sweet potato (leave the skin on) into 1cm chunks, add a tiny bit of olive oil and shake them around to get them coated, add a bit of salt, roast in the oven until soft. Also, stick your bacon on the grill or at the top of the oven to cook. Meanwhile, get your sprouts and take off the outer leaves if they’re a bit muddy or torn. Then the tricky bit – slice the sprouts as thin as you can. You can use a knife, yes, but honestly, get a mandolin. They’re a tenner from Lakeland and you’ll use it for all sorts – coleslaw, sliced potatoes, fruit salad, sprouts. Order one here and never look back. But BE CAREFUL. The sprouts are small and the blade is sharp – just take your time. I used about 30 sprouts in all.

After you’ve shaved your sprouts, get your fingers in and lightly toss them off (haha) so they separate, but you don’t need to go crazy – different textures are what makes this a good salad. Slice your tomatoes and add them in. Add in your cubed sweet potato (cooked) and bacon (now sliced). Arrange on a plate nice and dainty like. Poach your egg (lots of ways to do this, but I go old-school – pan of simmering water, create a whirlpool, drop the egg in from a little glass, poach and serve). Fish it out with a slotted spoon, put on top of the salad, cut the yolk and you’re done. I’ve added a bit of parmesan because why not – hence the four syns.

extra-easy: definitely – this is a fantastic meal because it’s nearly all superfree food, bar the dressing. Sprouts, tomatoes and sweet potato make up the meal, with a bit of bacon and dressing and egg on top. Yes, you can omit the dressing or replace it with a vinaigrette if you want to save the syns – and omit the cheese. But come on, live a little! Heh.

top tips: normally I say you can add all sorts to this salad, but don’t – keep it nice and simple. It’s an excellent new way of trying sprouts and I guarantee you’ll never look back. I’d love to know what people think! But DO get a mandolin. It’ll save those pretty fingers of yours.

FINALLY, my fortnightly call – if you’re enjoying this blog, please tell people on facebook and share it far and wide. I love new readers, comments, fuss – anything at all! I’d be very grateful and I’ll dance at your wedding if you do.

J

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November 1, 2014

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bacon, budget, fakeaways, italian, lunch, pasta, pork, recipe card, syn free

simple spaghetti sauce

great song that, but not entirely descriptive of my garden, where the only thing that grows at the moment is a general feeling of disappointment and regret. However, we haven’t wasted the day, and spent most of the afternoon weeding and tidying up the back garden, which is, admittedly unusually, not a euphemism for anal sex.

Another simple recipe card this time:

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This is great for a quick lunch!

to make simple spaghetti sauce you will need: 

spaghetti, red peppers in a jar, bacon medallions, spring onions tomatoes, bit of parmesan, low low cheese spread, bit of mint, and yes, bloody fromage frais.

to make simple spagetti sauce you should:

 grill the bacon, cook the spaghetti, chop the tomatoes, peppers and onion. Add 114g (that’s two HEAs, because this serves two) of low low to 100g of fromage frais. Microwave the chopped tomatoes and peppers so they’re hot. Mix the whole kit and kaboodle together. Top with parmesan and a tiny bit of mint. Syn the parmesan if you must. I’m renegade so don’t bother…

extra-easy: yup – one third is superfree (tomatoes, peppers, onion) so you’re fine, though maybe have a tangerine or something afterwards.

top tips: buy the peppers in brine in a jar – they’re already grilled, syn-free and tasty. Much cheaper than buying sweet peppers fresh and they can be added to anything!

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October 30, 2014

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fakeaways, one-pot, pork, pork mince, recipe card, syn free, thai

pork pad thai

pad thai to say goodbye (and I choke)

try to walk away (apple crumble)

Sorry, but I thought of the title for this pork pad thai in the car and started chuckling merrily away at my own joke to the point that the chav in the car next to me thought I was laughing at his crapmobile and revved his engine. haha! hey, speaking of driving, I had to be a hero today and parallel park someone’s car. Space near our offices is a premium and there was this poor lass getting more and more frantic trying to park in the one available space. Because I stopped nearby to ‘check my phone’ (watch her judgmentally) she stopped her car, got out and asked me to park. I need to mention something though – there was almost space for two cars and she was driving a Mini (although you’d think it was a 70 seater coach the way she was going back and forth) – easiest parking ever! I feel those karma points will be banked for something nice at the end of the week.

I feel quite dreadful this week, because of working late and being under the kosh at work. I’ve eaten like an absolute pig, not stayed to plan and taken in all sorts of tasty, tasty shite. Really not good – and there’s no real excuse for it, because if you plan with SW, then you don’t need to eat crap. In my defense though, I’m not knowing day to day how long I’m going to be at work, or when my lunch break will be, if any, so it makes it a bit harder. Plus, I’ve been away from Paul since Monday morning  (when I get in, he’s asleep, and I only get a reassuring fart out of him as I climb into bed – it’s either that or air escaping from a fat-roll when I shift him), so maybe I’m just comfort eating.

ANYWAY look, never mind. I’m going to write the last few days off and get back on it. No more excuses! And lo, the Lord doth provide a recipe card:

Pad Thai

to make pork pad thai you will need: 

two pak choi, two carrots, packet of low fat pork mince, garlic, ginger, veg stock (not vag stock as I originally typed in the recipe card, leading to a last-minute switcheroo), beansprouts, onion, one egg, fish sauce and dried noodles. One red chilli and one lime to serve. Don’t bother with coriander, that’s Satan’s pubic hair.

to make pork pad thai you should: 

getting everything prepared before cooking is what takes up the most time with this one, but it’s worth it. chop up the pak choi, carrots, chilli, spring onions and grate the garlic and ginger (or do what we do and buy the stuff in a paste). Start by frying your mince in a mixture of soy, fish sauce and stock, quantities above. Put the chopped up spring onion whilst you do this – keeping it on a medium heat. Then add the carrots, beansprouts and pak choi and cook on a highish heat, giving it a good stir every now and then. Pak choi is a bit like spinach and will wilt down, but not to the same extent. After five or ten minutes, chuck in your egg, stir it through, and serve it hot by splashing a bit of lime and chucking on the chilli.

extra-easy: yes – syn free, though be careful with the noodles. Fresh noodles are synned, but dry noodles (unflavoured) are generally free – we’ve actually cheated in the above recipe and used fresh noodles (and built them into our food diary) but that’s something to keep an eye on. Otherwise, this is a genuinely lovely recipe and so easy to make – a great mixture of crunchy and soft, different flavours such as sour (lime) and sweet (the sauce) and unami (the soy). I’m a firm believer that if your food tastes good, you’ll not want to eat crap – as proven by my bingeing on shite this week.

top tips: making carrots and other veg into matchsticks is a pain in the arse with a knife, because it takes ages and I’ve got the dexterity of a ninety year old. We bought a julienne peeler which does the job for us. Only £4 or so, and you can find them in ASDA or order from Amazon if you can’t be bothered with fannying about by clicking here. Enjoy!

invest in fish sauce, even if you’re unsure. I don’t do seafood, not one bit, but fish sauce doesn’t taste fishy and it adds an extra base note to the flavours. This isn’t a stir-fry so don’t cook it like one, but it does come together quite quickly once you get going. If you matchstick a tonne of carrots, freeze a portion for next time. This recipe won’t freeze when cooked, mind. Oh no.

Right – enjoy! I’m off to make up for lost time with Paul’s high fat pork mince. Yup.

J

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October 26, 2014

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bacon, budget, classics, cured meats, lunch, pork, recipe card, savoury snacks, snacks, syn free, taster ideas

superfree quiche

Syn free this one, or maybe one syn if you’re anal. Hahaha, anal. Does anyone over the age of 18 not stop for a single beat whenever they type that word in its correct usage? Not only is it hilarious, it’s also delightfully smutty.

I have to say, for all the talk of Body Magic and moving our arses, Paul and I have done spectacularly little this weekend. No, really. I’m surprised I haven’t turned into one of those people who are grafted to their armchairs and have to have a group of men come in and wash me. Not that I’d turn my nose up at that. Our neighbours would love that. My mum once popped around in her police uniform (she’s a legit policewoman, not a stripper) and I’m not kidding, the sound of necks cracking as they craned round net curtains sounded like a giant rolling in bubble wrap.

Between Forza Horizon 2 and The Amazing Race, we’ve had very little reason to shift. Bowser seems reluctant to become a helping-cat, too, which doesn’t help. Our grand ideal of having the cat answer the phone, bring us the TV remote and cook us a three course meal seems entirely unreasonable to him. Anyway, short entry tonight as I’m off to work soon.

Tonight’s little recipe is what I suggestively call ‘Any Old Shite Superfree Quiche’ because frankly, that’s what I put in it.

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I’m not sure we actually need a full recipe here – it’s all on the card. The only thing worth thinking about is synning the little bit of parmesan that I used, but it was such a small amount between four servings that I can’t be bothered. The rest is a case of chucking anything you have going spare / on the turn into a quiche tin, chopped up to reasonably similar sizes. Beat three eggs into 250g of fat-free cottage cheese, mix it all together, put in oven, and keep an eye on it. It might take a little longer as our oven is a fancypants one, but really you can tell when its cooked. Serve with a side salad or excellent for taking into work for lunch.

If I can give you any tips – adding a lot of tomatoes will make it quite wet

I realise that actually, our leftovers sound a bit lah-de-dah, but well, such is life. Our fridge has its own vodka shelf so that’s where we’re at.

J

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October 21, 2014

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budget, classics, lunch, one-pot, recipe card, savoury snacks, snacks, soup, syn free

slimming world super speed soup

If you’re a fan of dropping something you can’t pick up, or perhaps you like to lie in bed with your partner tormenting them by sounding the fanfare for the Brown King, or even if you’re a fan of air biscuits, this is the soup for you. You’ll be cutting the cheese in no time at all, and trouser coughs will resonate right through the house. You might even end up singeing your knickers with an inverted burp. Luckily, hopefully, you’ll be too busy exclaiming over your weight loss to complain about popping a fluffy.

FARTS

to make slimming world super speed soup:

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This soup is so easy it doesn’t need a whole breakdown. The key is – stuff a load of superfree veg into a pan, top it up with stock, tin of tomatoes, baked beans, lentils, anything – cook it slowly and softly until everything is nicely cooked. Leave to cool and blend it in the Magimix or with a stick blender, but for heaven’s sake LET IT COOL first. Even if the top is cold, it’ll still be packing heat for ages.

I used all the veg I had sitting in the fridge, and it worked really well with a load of chilli added. It does make a genuinely nice soup and a lot of members swear by it. I’ve added it into my lunch this week, so we’ll see.

It is very, very filling and freezes well, too. We’re off to watch The Amazing Race, goodnight!

J

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October 19, 2014

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bacon, fakeaways, italian, pork, recipe card, syn free

new potato gnocchi

Just a quick post from me tonight as we’re about to sit down and watch a movie with Fattychops. This is gnocchi, Slimming World style. Now, it’s tasty yes, and syn-freeish as long as you use the cheese as healthy extra, but a bloody gnocchi it most certainly is not. It’s potato, egg, ham, tomatoes and cheese, and nothing more to be said about it!

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to make new potato gnocchi you will need: 

cooked gammon, eggs, tinned tomatoes, small potatoes boiled until nearly soft, cheese, bit of garlic.

to make new potato gnocchi you should: 

put tomatoes on the bottom, potatoes on those, ham mixed in, two eggs cracked on top, add cheese. cook until it looks like the above.

extra-easy: yes – and syn free, as long as you use your healthy extra choice for the cheese. 

top tips: this could be jazzed up a lot – use the strongest cheddar you can find, or add curry powder to the tomatoes, or even a tin of beans.

Right, apologies for the short post, but our movie awaits!

J

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October 16, 2014

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breast, classics, low syn, recipe card

mustard chicken

apologies for not updating yesterday, but I sat down at my computer chair at 8am and didn’t it until 1am today. Bit tired. I bet I end up being one of the unlucky fuckers who end up getting DVT from working on the sixth floor. My office is absolutely littered with sweets – Haribo on one desk, Celebrations on the other. One of my colleagues seems to be systemically buying out the sweets counter at the Sainsbury’s next door. Not that I mind, she’s a very kind soul and I’m a proper greedy sod.

So, because it’s late, let’s have a simple recipe for mustard chicken:

image

At first look, it looks boring as hell. It isn’t! The key is microwaving the turnip/swede. Cut a little hole in the top, and stick it in the microwave for 15 minutes. After a while, it’ll start whistling. Take it out, spoon out the flesh, mash it and mash it hard. Chicken was just fromage frais and a tiny dollop of mustard. Maybe a syn for the mustard but come on.

Now – I’ve got to cut a dash. It’s a night off, I want to watch Alan Sugar fire people, and Paul has bought me a new Pedegg after I wore the last one out. Eeep.

J