Tag Archives: takeaway

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October 11, 2015

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chinese, fakeaways, low syn, noodles, recipe card, rice, taster ideas

lemon chicken, spring rolls and egg-fried rice

Spotify just dropped Celine Dion caterwauling her way through My Heart Will Go On into my recommended playlist. She still sounds like a car backing over a cat. How the hell did that song do so well, aside from the fact it gave a reason for Michelle from accounts to hitch up her knickers and scream her way through karaoke night at a Yates Wine Lodge? I love cheese – hell, I even quite like Celine Dion – but I think I’d rather listen to an uncaring doctor telling me I had five months to live.

Only a quick post tonight because I’m feeling a bit blue. Not blue in the ‘quick, go douche’ sense, but in a rather more melancholy way. My very dear, very deaf and well, very dead nana has been on my mind a bit lately. Partly because I found this rather mean photo we took on our iPad when I was demonstrating all the different functions…

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…she was amazed – this was a woman who thought the TV remote was something to scratch her foot with and for who turning off the chip pan was an optional extra. It’s also because when she was alive our Sunday would normally be spent trying to fit in a couple of hours to go and see her. We don’t need to do that now, but I do wish we did. The best part was that the hour or so we’d spend with her would always be the same, to the point where Paul would silently mouth her stories to me as she talked – the time that she had to jump off a bus into a snowdrift, the time she wanted to shave her dad’s beard off, something mysterious about a stolen boiler and that she ‘knew all of the secrets in the village’ like a lavender-scented Sherlock Holmes, only with a slightly better moustache.

We’d spend the hour fighting off offers of sandwiches that were more butter than bread or cakes that, though delicious, you could cut a pane of glass with. I also miss the ‘guess who has died’ game, where she’d gleefully keep that bit of gossip until we were settled in and then start us off rattling through villagers until we alighted upon the poor unfortunate old bugger who’d stroked off into the sun or clattered down a flight of stairs. For someone for whom death courted for many years but never committed, she did sure love talking about the end. My very last memory of her is a delightful one, her shrieking and grabbing Paul’s leg as I told her we were going to adopt six babies from the local ward, and, I had added darkly, one of them was from Africa. She never could abide not having a matching set of anything.

Ah well. Look, it doesn’t do to be too introspective. Everyone leaves the stage in the end. Does no harm to make the most of the moments before, though.

CHRIST that’s heavy. I can’t even segue into the recipe now because it’ll feel weird. Let me throw in a particularly charming slang term to lighten the mood:

“buttering the whiskered biscuit”

I’ll leave you to decide what it means. Give you a clue, only ladies can do it.

RIGHT, so we wanted a takeaway tonight, but I couldn’t face Mags getting furiously into her little Astra and making a scene on our front garden, so we made our own. Lemon chicken and egg-fried rice, served with spring rolls. The spring rolls recipe can be found on a previous post (click here for that) and the rice is simple enough – cook your plain rice, tip into a frying pan with a little cooked onion, get it nice and hot and crack an egg into the middle, then after just a moment or two, break the egg up and push it around the rice, so you have chunks of egg in there. We added some greens from a spring onion for good measure. So: the lemon chicken:

lemon chicken

to make lemon chicken, you’ll need:

  • four chicken breasts, plump and lovely like a dinner-lady
  • 3 tbsp of soy sauce
  • 2 tbsp of rice vinegar
  • just a pinch of salt and pepper
  • 175ml chicken stock
  • 75ml lemon juice
  • 2 tbsp of honey (5 syns)
  • 1 tbsp of cornflour (1 syn)
  • little knob of grated ginger, or use dried ginger, I’m not going to kick your arse either way

By gaw, chicken is expensive isn’t it? The good folk at Musclefood are doing a deal where you can buy 2.5kg for £9 (click here, you’ll need code SMALLCHICKEN) or 5kg for £19 (click here, you’ll need code BIGCHICKEN). I did try and get them to use ‘SMALLCOCK’ and ‘BIGCOCK’ but they wouldn’t bend! BOO. Very good chicken mind, not watery and smelly.

then to make your lemon chicken, you should:

  • chop up that chicken into chunks big enough to get in your gaping gob
  • chuck it into a bag with the soy and vinegar and toss it around for a bit until it’s well coated – then leave it to sit for as long as you dare to let the flavours soak in
  • when you’re ready to get the show on the road, heat a frying pan and drain then throw in the chicken until it is cooked through and you’re sure you’re not going to be sat on the toilet later with the world falling out of your arse – then set aside
  • in another bowl, whisk the chicken stock, lemon juice, honey, cornflour and ginger
  • pour this sauce into the same pan you just cooked the chicken in and let it bubble merrily away until it’s thick and gloopy
  • put the cooked chicken into the sauce and coat every last bit
  • serve – now you don’t need to serve it up in those awful takeaway cartons like we did, we were just being pretentious fuckers, you can serve it on your elbow or throw it on the ceiling for all I’m fussed!

Enjoy it. It’s not quite the same as getting a takeaway but it came pretty damn close. Oh, and if anyone gets a cob on because I’ve tweaked the diet to make spring rolls, I refer you to my charming bum, which you can promptly kiss. We sprinkled on some sesame seeds, remember to syn them if you want them. A tablespoon is three syns.

LOVE YOU

J

 

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April 8, 2015

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american, breast, classics, fakeaways, fast food restaurants, poultry, recipe card, savoury snacks, snacks, syn free, taster ideas, travel

KFC-style chicken

Classics Week continues with a recipe for KFC chicken – I’m not a fan of KFC, something about sticking my bone in a greasy box doesn’t appeal. But, nevertheless, it’s a recipe that seems to be doing the rounds on the various SW facebook sites so we thought we should give it a go. Recipe near the bottom, but first, MORE CHUNTERING ABOUT IRELAND.

You left us yesterday as we pulled up outside the cottage, and going forward, I’m not going to talk day to day as a lot of the days were the same (pootle about in the car, eat, eat some more, pootle a bit further, eat, stock up on ice-cream and nip back to the cottage in time for Tipping Point) – instead, I’ll just rattle off some incidents, high points and thoughts.

First, we managed to cause major offence within twenty four hours. Frankly, if you’re of a nervous disposition or candid talk of sex makes you green, just skip ahead a couple of paragraphs.

See, the cottage came with a hot-tub, and we decided to enjoy dusk in the hot-tub completely nude – pity the poor filters having to work overtime to drain out our back-hair and toenails.  But, it was incredibly romantic and we were incredibly isolated, with not a soul around us (to the point where, at night, we could look across the valley and see only one solitary light for miles around), and being young, virile young men, we immediately got up to dickens. Well, it was my birthday after all.

Picture the scene – the bubbling of the steamy water, music playing through the iPad, the rhymthic sound of the jets, the twilit light bouncing off Paul’s wobbling buttocks (it would look like the Mitchell brothers were hiding just under the water), me playing a mean tune on the old ham trumpet – perfectly romantic for a married couple. Well yes, until a honking big tractor appeared at the end of the garden less than thirty foot away. How we had missed it was understandable – Paul was facing the other way and I was always told not to talk with my mouth full – but how the hell the farmer didn’t see until he was parked up I have no clue. Looking back, there would have been a hedge blocking his view until about 40 foot away, and then he probably just thought he was committed.

Good lord. You’ve never seen two people spring back as quick as we did – it was like someone had dropped a toaster in the water. Half the water in the hot-tub sloshed over the side exposing even more of our milky-white frames. Mind, he was no better – he looked like your very personification of a hard-bitten farmer – tattered cloth cap, wax jacket from the eighties, face like a drained field, and he ambled over with his hand pulling the brow of his cap over his eyes like he was Icarus approaching the sun. When really, it was the FULL MOON he should have been worried about. He spluttered something about the oil heating and asked if everything was alright – I assume, anyway, because we couldn’t hear or understand a word of what he said and I certainly wasn’t going to engage him in any chatter whilst my boobs blew around in the hot-tub jets. He sharp got back in his tractor and almost did a donut on the gravel drive way trying to get away.

So that killed the mood. To be honest, I’m not a massive fan of the hot-tub, it’s what people with bad taste buy when they win the lottery. What might look glamorous on the deck of a gorgeous chalet in the Alps doesn’t look quite so alluring pressed up beside a mouldy shed and the frame of a B&Q value trampoline in a shitpit in Southend. Nothing quite says class like drinking Bellabrusco from a plastic beaker as multi-coloured LEDs illuminate your bumhole. Anyway, that didn’t stop us, and despite it being a proper fan-on, we used that hot-tub several more times throughout the holiday.

However, I’m not convinced the filter was working correctly, because towards the end of the holiday, the water became murkier and murkier and started to smell. Not that such trifling matter stopped us – here, we’re Geordie, divven’t ya knaa – but I don’t think you should have to crack the top of the water like a crème brûlée before you get in.

Actually, that’s not even the end of the hot-tub tale, and nor was it the only time we were surprised by an unwelcome visitor. See, on one of the nights that we spent in the hot-tub under the stars, the local horse made an appearance, looming out of the dark about 5 foot away from Paul’s head and promptly did that noise that horses make when they blow air through their noses. Paul shit himself – no wonder the filters didn’t work – but soon calmed down when he realised what it was. All was well until the horse bit him on the head – at that point we called it a night. Ah, nature.

Well now look at that – see this is why I couldn’t write for a living, I’ve spent eight paragraphs talking about hot-tubs! So let’s put Ireland to bed for an evening whilst I mull over whether to categorise this post as x-rated or not.

KFC chicken!

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Now, we used one wholemeal bun and it made more than enough ‘crumb’ for the two of us – one wholemeal breadbun being one person’s healthy extra. If you want to syn it, you’ll need 6 syns – 3 syns each. You can use smash and make it syn free but ew.

to make KFC style chicken, you’ll need:

ingredients: two chicken breasts (cut into strips), one breadbun, 1tsp of dried oregano, 1tsp of garlic salt, 3tsp of paprika, black pepper, a bit of salt, a tiny pinch of ground ginger and one big old bugger of an egg.

to make KFC style chicken, you should:

recipe:

  • honestly, if you struggle making this, you need to pop yourself into a nursing home now
  • blitz the breadcrumbs and the various powders together in a food processor – you don’t want it like dust, but just fine crumbs
  • beat your egg in a little bowl
  • take a strip of chicken, drop it in the egg, make sure it is covered, put it into the bread/spice mix, cover well, and place on a baking sheet.  If you have cheap trays that stick, either grease them a smidge or use non-stick lining
  • into the oven they go – twenty minutes on one side, turn them, and fifteen minutes on the other on a 200degree heat
  • take them out if they burn, obviously
  • serve with BBQ beans (we added a drop of chipotle rub into our beans before cooking), fries (We use this little potato chipper to make decent shaped fries in a jiffy! Only £7), corn if you want and coleslaw if you can be bothered to make your own (syn-free coleslaw recipe here)

Enjoy!

Quick note – if you love this blog, please share share share! Tell your friends! Tell a neighbour! Tell that fat lassie you don’t care for! Leave a note in someone’s lunchbox. Tell your group about us. Share it on FB. Spread the word – where else can you get gay sex, snobbery, KFC chicken and sassiness all in one post?

J

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March 11, 2015

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beef, chinese, diced beef, fakeaways, low syn, noodles, recipe card, rice, travel

takeaway style beef and broccoli

Yet again I find myself working late with nothing but a Wagamama menu to look at. I’m lucky to have a fairly interesting job and I do enjoy working in the city centre, but it’s an absolute ballache if I have to work late as the only places near me that deliver are Wagamama and Pizza Express. I mean, I COULD walk further, but I’m a lazy, lazy man. So – as I’m busy working – I’m pressing the button on a ‘saved’ blog-post – my fourth chapter on our visit to Germany. You can read the previous instalments here, here and here. Because we’re amazing, there’s also a recipe for takeaway style beef and broccoli at the end which is genuinely delicious. Enjoy! Normally skip holiday posts? Give this a whirl – feedback welcomed!

Now, I’m going to be honest, I lost my page of notes for the last day of what we did in Berlin, so I can’t go into any great detail – good riddance I hear you cry, this’ll be a short entry. Nope…

We woke on our last day in Berlin with a heavy heart, and only a small part of that was down to the amount of cholesterol and fats we had taken on during our short stay. Berlin was amazing – something happening on every corner, history all over the place, fantastic mix of people. Having all of the Christmas markets on only added to the atmosphere and neither of us would hesitate in going back. Heartily recommend. Nevertheless, we traipsed down to the checkout, gave our luggage to some hipster fucknugget who had left his little afro-comb in his afro (argh!) and wandered out to kill the time before we were to get our overnight train to Munich.

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One last look at the view…

First, Checkpoint Charlie, which took us about forty minutes to find. It shouldn’t have – if we’d just turned left instead of right as we breathlessly climbed out of the underground station, we’d have been there, but instead we walked for forever in a massive circle until we found it. Meh. I know it’s historically very important but I felt its impact was lessened somewhat by the McDonalds just to the side of it. Plus, they had a really ropey statue of a soldier with a bit of tinsel on his head. How respectful!

Afterwards, we spotted the Ritter chocolate museum on a map, and headed there. Again our sense of direction failed us, and we wandered and wandered and wandered, all passive-aggressive sighing and bitchy looks at everyone else who were clearly going exactly where they wanted to go and knew exactly how to get there. The smug twats. After gradually turning our feet to corned-beef in our shoes, and with the blood pouring out over the top of our socks, we FINALLY found Ritter World. Well, honestly, I was expecting Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, I got Billy Vanker’s Chocolate Camp. It was full of tourists and fat children jiggling about with sticky hands and gleeful expressions.

Paul immediately managed to cause international offence by declaring loudly ‘well you’d know all about that’ in response to young slave workers picking cocoa beans along the chocolate highway – he was actually talking to me in response to eating chocolate but the young Puerto-Rican couple in front of us looked pretty crestfallen. I’m surprised he manages to brush his teeth in the morning – whenever he opens his mouth his boot automatically falls in. We loaded ourselves up with 24 bars of Ritter chocolate, ostensibly to give to co-workers – we had the box open by the time I’d put my wallet back in my pocket.

A trip to an experimental computer art-gallery followed next – yet again our normally faultless navigation failing us, leading us into a proper run-down sink estate where I started my ‘protect everything in my pockets’ Macarena dance that I mentioned in a previous entry. In our defence, the art-gallery was tucked away down a side street full of chavs smoking weed. I felt like I was in a Paddy Considine movie.

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Oh! We did spot this. Goodness me.

The art gallery was, as you may expect, full of experimental videogames and controllers, and we had a whale of a time geeking out. It was smashing but the best part was the virtual reality headset at the end. Paul normally can’t manage anything like virtual reality – he gets dizzy looking at a magic eye puzzle due to his boss-eyes. Ah bless. He’s got lovely blue eyes – one blew to the East, one blew to the West. Kaboomtish.

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We did stop for one of these. My reflex action already had me on my knees until Paul pointed out it meant garlic bread.

Anyway, you think me writing about videogames is exciting? Well you haven’t heard anything yet, because after the videogame museum came the…font museum! That’s right! We saw this on tripadvisor and thought it would be right up our street, and indeed it was, being only a mile or so mince from the videogame museum. We’re sticklers for the right font – it really makes my face itch when I see screenshots that people have put on from their phone and they’ve chosen to use Comic Sans as their display font. Comics Sans should only be used in care homes to illustrate which tap is hot and which is cold, and nothing more. The museum was full of ‘letters’ – random letters from hotel signs, train stations, massive installations – some old, some new, some neon, some metal – it was really quite interesting! I don’t know if I’d pay the amount we paid to go around but I still got to crack a joke as I left and they shook the ‘suggested donations’ box at me – I said ‘Are you taking the P’. Well, as you can well imagine, how we all laughed – we were still chuckling and shaking our heads whimsically as Paul pulled me out by my fagbag. Spoilsport.

By this time the night was cutting in, so we wandered back to the hotel, picked up our suitcases and nipped into the closest restaurant for a last-minute meal before we got on the train. Well fuck me. We couldn’t have picked a more German looking place, it was like being in a themed restaurant. The waitress was wearing lederhosen, there was oompah-oompah music playing, the menu was full of words longer than this bloody blog post…you get the picture. I ordered something that sounded like a bad hand at Scrabble and received a pile of meat and potatoes which was absolutely bloody delicious. I washed it all down with a bathtub sized glass of German beer and suddenly the restaurant seemed like the finest on Earth. Paul had duck and a fizzy water, the great big puff. We settled the bill and waddled, clutching our stomachs full of fermenting beast, to the train station.

We were planning on driving to Munich but I’ve always fancied an overnight train journey, and it was around £200 for the both of us to have a private cabin. That makes it sound infinitely more grand than it was, but it was surprisingly roomy, with two bunkbeds, your own netty, a table to rest at and even a shower! A shower! On a train! The only time I’ve ever managed to get wet on a train is when I’m sitting next to the toilet on a Pendolino and it lurches around a particularly sharp corner.. Once the train pulled in, we were escorted to our ‘room’ by the train conductor, yet another officious looking man with a face full of woe who looked as though he’d push you under the train if you asked him anything. He assured us he’d ‘look after us through the night’ like some creepy fez-wearing Harold Shipman. I was left more than a little terrified. He shut the door and Paul immediately dashed to the toilet ‘to try it out’. I optimistically hoped that this meant testing out the flush or, at a push, having a tinkle, but no, it meant hearing the world fall out of his arse, punctuated by ‘OOOH THAT’LL BE THE CURRYWURST’ and ‘I’M NEVER HAVING SAUERKRAUT AGAIN’. Just once I’d like to be able to relax in a new environment for longer than ten minutes without having to hear my other half straining out a poo. It’s not too much to ask. Course, it gets worse – no sooner had he pressed ‘flush’ then the train conductor clicked the door open and asked whether or not we wanted food. Fuck food, all I wanted was a tank of oxygen, and he totally knew what Paul had just done because I saw his nose wrinkle. Frankly, I’m surprised his nose didn’t burn up like a dry leaf in a bushfire. He didn’t come back until the morning.

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The glamour! Look at that size of that toilet – now imagine how small the shower is, to the immediate right of the loo – then read on…

Mind you, it wasn’t just Paul causing embarrassment – about half an hour into the journey I remembered that we had a shower in the tiny bathroom and immediately undressed. The shower cubicle was approximately 80% the size of me but by gaw, I was determined. Through the human equivalent of pushing a beachball into a postbox, we managed to get me in, but I literally didn’t have space to move, so it was a case of standing there letting the water pool around my shoulders as Paul lathered shampoo into my scalp. Finally, there was a loud sucking noise and the water found a way through the dam of my back fat and down my bumcrack and disappeared. I win again! After ten minutes, Paul pulled me back out of the shower and back into the little living room area. Now this is where it gets embarrassing – in all the excitement of working the shower, we hadn’t realised that the train had stopped at a rural passenger station and was obviously taking on a few more people – us looking out the window could barely make anything out because our room was bright and it was night outside. This situation wouldn’t have been so bad had I been dressed, but I’m ashamed to say that at least six good, honest German folk on the platform opposite were treated to the sight of Paul changing into his nightwear and my hairy arse pressed up against the glass like two paint-filled balloons. We only realised our error as the train pulled away – probably ahead of schedule to save my blushes. Wars have started over less than my arse in a window, trust me.

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The rest of the journey passed without incident, although I had trouble sleeping through the rocking of the train. Paul was out like a light, but I remained fitful on the bottom bunk, sure that every creak and groan of the metal bed above was a sure sign that he was going to come crashing down on top of me and that I’d be smeared up the side of the train like a fly on a windscreen. I kept myself amused by writing up the first few days of the holiday and looking wistfully out of the window as the night turned black. Oh, saying as I indulged in some toilet talk before, I’ll add a bit more – the combination of good, rich German food and the rocking of the train meant that we were both full of wind – and when one wasn’t farting, wafting and laughing, the other one was taking up position. The poor bastards in the room next door must have thought a brass band was tuning up before a key performance. When we awoke in the morning, the air was so thick I almost swam to the toilet. Even putting on my glasses didn’t remove my blurred vision. I’m only thankful it was a no-smoking train else it would have been like the Paddington Rail Disaster all over again. At six there was a sharp little tap on the door and the conductor, barely hiding his wince, set down a tray of breakfast goodies on the table. It was the usual German fare – apple juice, jams, bread (the bread was fresh when brought in but after two minutes in the fetid air of our room, had gone a lovely toasted colour) and minced animal. They love their indistinct pâté, that’s for sure. Still, it was free food and I couldn’t waste a crumb, so I didn’t, and it was delicious.

The train pulled into Munich at around seven and we were unceremoniously dumped on the platform as the train hastened away, probably to be burnt to ashes thanks to our almost inhuman farting. We jumped onto the underground and after a short ride, we were at our hotel. The guy checking us in clearly thought we were checking him out, and he was posing and fluttering his eyes and being all coquettish. He didn’t have a fucking chance, he had more make-up on than Dame Barbara Cartland for one thing, and he gave us a proper ‘knowing’ leer when he realised that we were a married couple with a king-sized bed. I really hate that! He might as well offered us an upgrade, rimjob or felch for the amount of subtlety he was displaying. We gave him fairly short shrift and were allowed up to our room, where I’m disappointed to say we stayed for the rest of the day. Actually – disappointed is the wrong word, a holiday is for resting, and we had a lovely day in the room, ordering room service, watching the German version of Air Crash Investigation and sleeping. No word of a lie – we pretty much slept from 8am to 8am the next day. The room service was extortionate – €60 for two burgers, although they were the size of footballs and delivered with the usual German élan (i.e. no care at all – they crashed the tray down like they were delivering a verdict on England itself).

Mind you, that’s not surprising, given our hotel room probably smelled like the countryside of England did when we had the foot and mouth crisis and all the cows were being burnt. Fact: the foot and mouth outbreak started less than a mile from my house. I still blame my mother for feeding the dog Aldi stewing steak and starting it all off.

I’ll write more about Germany tomorrow, but in the meantime, speaking of well-cooked beef…

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This recipe is dead easy to make and only takes about fifteen minutes or so. It might be helpful to have all your ingredients prepared beforehand. Having the beef cut into smaller chunks means it goes further, and cooks faster.

This serves six people.

to make takeaway style beef and broccoli, you’ll need:

ingredients: 500g diced beef, 1 tbsp cornstarch, 2 tbsp + 60ml light soy sauce, 1 large onion, 5 cloves of garlic, 2.5cm cube of root ginger (grated/minced), 250g broccoli florets, few pinches of red chili flakes, 250ml beef stock

to make takeaway style beef and broccoli, you should:

recipe: in a bowl drizzle 2 tbsp of soy sauce over the diced beef and mix until it’s coated. Heat a large non-stick pan on a high heat, add Frylight (or use a drop of oil, like sensible folk) and add the beef in one layer for one minute, and then flip over for another minute. Put the beef to one side on a plate.

In the same pan and still on a high heat, add more Frylight (see above) and saute the onion, garlic and ginger for three minutes. Add the broccoli and two pinches of the red chili flakes and sauté for another three minutes.

In a bowl mix together beef stock, 1 tbsp of corn starch and 60ml soy sauce. When mixed and there are no lumps pour this over the broccoli mixture and mix to combine and cook for a further three minutes. Add the beef back into the pan, mix, and serve immediately over rice.

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February 1, 2015

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chinese, diced pork, fakeaways, low syn, noodles, pork, recipe card, rice

one syn sweet and sour pork

Look, here’s the deal. Come hell or high water, by the end of today we are going to have new curtains installed in our bedroom. It needs to happen. See a while ago I took our blinds apart so that I could paint the little bit of wall behind them, then promptly lost the chain that holds them together so that now, every tiny gust of wind and they splay around in all directions, rattling and bumping into each other. That wouldn’t be so bad, except we have to leave our windows open in our bedroom at night – how else could the cats deliberately go outside, get wet and then get under our duvet at 3am and press their tiny wet noses against our bumcheeks? We can’t build a cat-flap into our doors as they’re the wrong type. So given how windy and cold it is, our bedroom at night is always a) freezing and b) like sleeping through a particularly budget production of Stomp. It’s lucky that we’re both the type of person who likes to be entangled up in each other when we’re asleep – I reckon one morning we’ll just wake up as one person, melded together like the wax in a lava lamp. Fuck me, that would make typing this blog difficult.

Plus, god knows what our neighbours must think – our windows being open all night and us being in a bungalow means every fart, mumble, snore and sleep-cough echoes around the street. No kidding, I once finished an overtime shift at work and upon getting out the car at 3am I couldn’t understand what the strange rattling noise coming from the engine was until I realised it was Paul’s snoring from over 100 yards away. Worse still is that I’m forever talking and laughing in my sleep – Paul’s recorded me merrily singing Cerys Matthew’s bits from The Ballad of Tom Jones whilst deep in slumber. Plus, we’re always talking incoherently to each other, normally burbling away merrily about being too hot, too cold or ‘don’t fart, the cat’s in the bed and you’ll gas the fucker’.

So, whilst the neighbours would still be treated to the cacophony of noise from our bedroom, we can solve the blinds rattling – and that’s today’s project. You may recall that we’re both equally shit at DIY (remember our current bathroom situation?) so I can only assume this will end up with one of us in A&E and our home left a burnt out shell. We have to be the only couple out there who has a £200 drill and exactly 0 clues about how to use it. Ah well, wish us luck.

Today’s recipe – posted nice and early because then you can go out and get the ingredients, is sweet and sour pork – and for once, this is a recipe we’ve dug out from a Slimming World book instead of either making up ourselves or adapting another recipe. So if it’s shit, blame Margaret. Ahaha no, it’s tasty, trust me.

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to make one syn sweet and sour pork, you’ll need:

ingredients: 500g of pork, fat off, cut into chunks. One large onion and one large red pepper, deseeded and cut into strips. Two large carrots, peeled and cut into matchsticks. Sugarsnap peas, just cut into chunks. Garlic cloves, finely chopped. You’ll also need 1/4tsp of chinese five-spice, 1 level tbsp of cornflour, 4tbsp of tomato puree, 1 tbsp of white wine vinegar, 4tbsp light soy sauce, 150ml of chicken stock and some dried egg noodles. You’ll also need a pineapple (RETCH), cut into smallish chunks.

I absolutely fucking detest pineapple (BOKE),  can I just make that clear. Whenever I’m prescribed anything at the doctors and the allergy notice comes up, mine actually says pineapple (OOH NASTY). Which is a bitch when it comes to my fruit-punch flavoured suppositories, I have to say.

I know that’s quite the list of ingredients, but you’ll use only a small amount of each of those, and the rest can be put away in the cupboard and used for different recipes, or to feed the weevils, whichever is more appropriate.

to make one syn sweet and sour pork, you should:

recipe: sear the pork in a hot pan. SW say spray it with Frylight, but urgh, don’t, use a bit of olive oil. You’ll not die. Hot pan, nice crust on the pork – chuck in a bit of salt and pepper. Take the pork out and replace it with all the chopped veg. Stir fry for a few minutes, chuck in the pork, and keep it all stirring. Hot and fast, just the way you like it. Meanwhile in a bowl mix 2 tbsp water with the chinese 5 spice, garlic, cornflour, tomato purée, white wine vinegar, soy sauce and stock. Add the mixture to the pan, stir and reduce the heat to low. Cook for 3-4 minutes until thickened. Whilst this is taking place, you’ll want to use your other two arms to cook and drain your noodles. Pop the pineapple (BLEURGH) into the pork and veg and stir. Serve.

top tip: as I always, always say on this blog – if you’re wanting uniform matchsticks, or you’re just too lazy to fanny about cutting up carrots with a knife, buy a julienne peeler. It’ll do the job in seconds. You can buy them from Lakeland or on Amazon – and here’s a handy link. You don’t need one, mind, a knife will do the same thing.

extra-easy – only one syn per serving, and that comes from the cornflour. You’ll need it to thicken the sauce off, but really, think how many syns this would be from the local takeaway. Best part? If you cook too many noodles, you can use them to make noodle cups to go with my cheese and meatballs recipe from yesterday? What, you don’t remember it? IT’S RIGHT HERE AND BLOODY DELICIOUS. Oh me oh my.

OK. I’m off to try and figure out the curtains. £20 that we’ll both give up after ten minutes of looking online and end up playing on the Wii U instead.

Don’t forget to share and tell everyone about this blog – it’s really growing!

J

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January 27, 2015

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breast, chinese, fakeaways, low syn, lunch, noodles, poultry, recipe card

peanut butter chicken noodles

There was some discussion with colleagues today about babies and we often get asked the same thing – would we like to adopt? Well no, not there and then obviously, I don’t have a car seat – but could we be one of those gay couples who have a child?

The answer is an emphatic no. Or an astounding nope. Or a camp NOOOOOO-WAY-HUNAAAAAAAY. I genuinely can’t think of something I want less in my life than a baby. Paul is fine with them, cooing and marvelling over their ruddy cheeks, but I’m not – all I see is a red-faced, spewing, bawling bundle of energy that would leave me terrified and exhausted, the human equivalent of turning on the light in a gas-filled room. I seem to lack that warm, friendly gene that can look at a baby and think ‘aw how sweet’ – I just see about 1000 different ways that I’m going to accidentally damage the poor bugger – immediately drop it on the floor when I try to cuddle it, or rest my chin on their soft skull and make their skulls look like an ashtray, or suddenly develop a violent tremor and immediately end up in a Louise Woodward situation, or I’ll sneeze and deafen the poor bugger. It’s just awful, and to that end, I’ve spent my entire life avoiding babies – I’ll go sit in the toilet at work if someone brings their child in because I’m terrified that my lack of emotion will shine through. People must think I have a hair-trigger bladder the way I dash to the gents as soon as I hear a Mama and Papas hatchback pushchair being wrestled with in the lobby. I think babies sense this unease because they just start crying as soon as they see my face, the same way doctors, close friends, family, beggars and other men do. My nephew, who admittedly is a gorgeous, funny little tyke, cried his eyes out at me for almost eighteen months, finally thawing at Christmas when I had shaved off my sex-offender beard and brought gifts.

Plus, we’re entirely too selfish as a couple to even think about having a baby. We struggle to remember to wash and clean ourselves, let alone something pink and squashy and full of off-colour poo. At least the cats know enough to go outside for their craps and if they meow and rub along our feet often enough, the occasional pouch of Felix will be dropped in their bowls from on high. One of the many benefits of being gay, aside from all the cock and being able to wear each other’s clothes, is the fact you don’t have to spend money on anything but yourself. There’s no school uniform to buy, there’s no school trips to pay for – every penny can go on hobbies and fetishwear. It’s just great, and I know I’d immediately resent something that I had to pay out for on a regular basis – I still shoot mean looks at my car for taking all our money. BAH. Finally, there’s the biology of it all – the thought of having to yankee-doodle into a paper cup and mixing it with Paul’s like some sort of bleach-smelling watercolour set puts me right off.

So no – no children. Cubs Towers will remain forever more a two-man tent. And quite bloody right too.

Anyway, if I had a baby to look after, I wouldn’t have the time to type these recipes and Paul would be too tired to cook them, so you’d be fucked, too. So hooray for homosexuality, and onto tonight’s recipe, which is the delightful (and synned) chicken and vegetable peanut-dressed noodles.

peanut butter chicken noodles

You know what I’m going to say, don’t you? USE YOUR SYNS. Please, for the love of Slimming World, don’t see the syns and think you’re not going to bother. It’s your main meal of the day, spend the syns and bloody well enjoy it. This serves 2.

to make peanut butter chicken noodles, you’ll need:

ingredients: 2tbsp tesco reduced fat peanut butter (4 syns per tbsp), 300g dried noodles (we use the chilli ones from Sainsbury’s – 1 syn per 150g), 300g of frozen veg (or indeed, anything you want – peppers, fresh veg, sweetcorn, go nuts!), a diced onion, one minced garlic clove, 1/4tsp of ginger, 1/4tsp of salt, 1tbsp of water, 2tbsp of teriyaki marinade (you’ll find it in the world foods aisle, especially in the Japanese section – ours is by Kikkoman and is syn free).

to make peanut butter chicken noodles, you should:

recipe: make your sauce first by combining the teriyaki, peanut butter and water. Set aside. Then cook the noodles, drain and set aside. heat a large pan, fry off your onion in a smidge of oil and chuck in your veg, together with the ginger and garlic and salt and cook it through quickly. Add the noodles and the peanut sauce, stir fry for a moment longer until everything is hot and delicious and coated, then sit back and feel smug.

extra-easy: always. 5 syns a portion, but that’s fuck all in the grand scheme of things and all that superfree veg make it a perfect little dinner.

enjoy – I’m off to NOT feed, wipe, bathe or care for any little sprogs. Good job, right…

J

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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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September 25, 2014

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fakeaways, fast food restaurants, low syn, lunch, recipe card, syn free

Slimming World subway

One of my constant challenges with any diet (actually, even when I’m not dieting) is what to have for lunch. I work in a job which often requires me to be at my desk even through my lunch (boo) and I’m too fat and lazy to make my lunch the night before. Luckily, there’s a Subway right next door. Fun fact: I once got thrown out of a Subway for drunkenly demanding a ‘chicken tickilicki’ and passing out on the floor. Mind, that’s nothing compared to why I was once chucked out of a Yates Wine Lodge – let’s just say THAT wasn’t a syn-free mouthful of pork – classy.

Now, you might associate Subway with sandwiches and whatnot, and you’d be a fool to go waltzing in expecting to fill your maw with bread and get away with it. Simply put, you can’t. Well you can, but it will cost you in syns big-time, with the wheat, Italian or ‘hearty Italian’ ringing in at 9 syns a pop for a six incher. Blimey. No, they also do salad bowls, and this is what I have:

Subway salad

Admittedly, it kinda looks like I’ve got so excited about the prospect of eating a salad that I’ve spaffed all over it, but I can assure you that I haven’t – that’s honey and mustard dressing. My Subway salad consists of tomatoes, plain chicken, jalapeno, green pepper, lettuce, olives, gherkins and cucumber. I count 1 syn for the smattering of sliced olives (but you could miss them out) and 2 syns for the sauce, which is their lowest calorie option. You could always make your own dressing or buy a syn-free version (vinegar based fat-free dressings are usually free, certainly the Kraft fat-free french dressing is, but always double check) to add, but I can’t be faffed on carrying around a bottle of dressing! Remember: syns are to be used, and it’s about fitting Slimming World into your life, not your life into Slimming World. CLIMB EVERY MOUNTAIN BABY.

The key thing to remember here is that everything in that salad, bar the olives and chicken, is a superfree food, so you’re really going to speed up your weight loss – and best of all, it’s only £3.29. A decent option for a town lunch.