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January 4, 2018

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budget, low syn, lunch, panko, recipe card, savoury snacks, snacks, speciality ingredients, syn free, vegetarian

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creamy cheesy green veg medley

This creamy green veg medley is just the ticket if you’re looking to up your vegetable intake without incurring massive amounts of syns. You could easily spin it out into a cauliflower cheese but actually, we like it all jumbled up.

No chatter tonight – I’m keeping to my word of posting a few recipes nice and succinctly, so here we go! Don’t bitch on at me afterwards though! Fair warning: all of these steamed vegetables will make you fart like an absolute trooper. But hey!

We served our vegetables with a massive fat pork chop spread with two tablespoons of reduced fat red pesto (3 syns). We used our OptiGrill (press the chops button, away it goes) but you could just as cheerfully throw it under the grill.

veg medley

to make our creamy green veg medley, you’ll need:

a head of broccoli
a head of cauliflower
a handful of sprouts
a big fat leek
110g of Philadelphia Lightest (1 x HEA)
40g of light extra mature cheddar (1 x HEA)
optional: 25g of panko (dried breadcrumbs) – 4.5 syns

This makes enough for two people, hence the two healthy extras. Panko is dried breadcrumbs and you can buy it in most supermarkets, trust me – but feel free to use breadcrumbs from your healthy extra bun. I don’t care, I’m easy.

Slice your leeks with ease with a mandolin slicer. We ours a lot – it’s perfect for slicing onions, leeks, peppers, carrots – even cheese. It’s a tenner and you can have the job of veg prepping done in the time it takes one Enya song to play out. Who needs fingertips anyway?

to make our creamy green veg medley, you should:

to be honest, it feels almost insulting to do this – it’s that easy
chop up your broccoli and cauliflower into little bits
quarter your sprouts
thinly slice your leek
tip all of them into a big saucepan with a good splash of water and lightly steam them until they soften – you don’t want them denture-ready, just not crunchy
drain them off and pop them in an overproof dish – mix in the Philadelphia, pinch of salt and pepper, then the mature cheddar, keeping a bit for the top (and add breadcrumbs if using), then pop under the grill for about ten minutes until it’s done and crispy!

How easy is that? You could use any veg you like – spring greens, peas, turnip, all sorts!

Looking for more vegetarian ideas? Click the links, you saucy bugger!

Tell your veggie friends, won’t you? Their brittle wrists can’t stand up to typing ‘vegetarian recipes’ into google, you know.

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chubbycubs

Posted on

January 2, 2018

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american, beef, beef mince, burgers, fakeaways, fast food restaurants, recipe card, syn free

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goat cheese beefburger with baked cheesy courgette chips

Here for the goat cheese burger with courgette chips? Who could blame you – even I’ve got a semi-on just thinking about it. It’s lines like that which stop me getting a job in Good Housekeeping, isn’t it? Still, I’m doing better than the poor sod at Virgin Trains, but we’ll touch on that tomorrow. I didn’t know whether to post this as two separate recipes but hey, let’s live life on the edge today, and combine it as one. But first: shenanigans. Remember, scroll to the pictures of the food if you don’t want to read my waffle.

First day back at work today after about a billion weeks off. Does anyone else find it utterly infuriating having to work? You mustn’t get me wrong, I really do love my job and I work with some wonderful people (HR STATUS CHECKER: CLEAR) but by God it is such a battle not to steer my car straight into the central reservation every single morning at 8.20am. You know how some people are morning people who breeze out of bed at 5am with a cheery smile on their face and their day full of promise? Well they can piss off. The only time I ever get out of my bed that early is if I’ve shat in it.

What I can’t get my head around is where everyone else is going at that time in the morning. Logically, they’re all going to work just like me, or worse, dropping their crotchfruit off at school for a few hours, but emotionally, I feel like they’ve all climbed into their car just to get in my way. I try listening to music to gee me along and lift my spirits but my Spotify is broken and the recommended music keeps recommending Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s Yes Sir I Can Boogie on repeat. I mean, what fresh hell is that? I’d sooner listen to a drill-bit sloughing through my ear-drum.

It doesn’t help that nobody else can drive as well as I can. Naturally, I’m a patient, caring driver who lets people in and merges in turn. My hands wave politely even if my lips drip with malice. Everyone else pushes in. Everyone else spends entirely too much time worrying my back bumper. Everyone else does that annoying thing of slamming on the brakes if they see someone backing off their drive 312 miles away. Everyone else has garish cars and rubbish haircuts and annoying music and morning-coffee-breath and stupid bumper stickers and ugly children in the back seat. In an ideal world everyone would be forced to stay at home until I’ve arrived at work and only then could they push out onto the road, on the strict instruction that they have to be back at home and quietly watching Tipping Point by 4pm. That’ll teach ’em.

I take some consolation in the fact that I can look around in the luxurious forty minutes I spend stuck in traffic and see that everyone else has a face like a smacked arse too. Perhaps I’m not alone. Perhaps there are others – perhaps there is hope.

Anyway, as it happens, I was slightly more buoyant than normal this morning because I was wearing this fruity number to the office:

If that doesn’t leave you moister than an oyster, then I don’t know what will. It’s OK: I know I look silly. I look like John Goodman roleplaying as Jon Snow. Like a silverback gorilla caught in the process of mauling Brendan from Coach Trip. To be quite honest, it’s the type of coat I imagine our Fearless Leader might wear, pockets stuffed with half-smoked John Player Superkings and badly torn Bella coupons. My entrance into the office was well-received; me dropping it off poorly wrapped for return at the post office with a plaintive cry of ‘can I borrow some parcel tape’ less so.

As it happens, I only managed three hours at work before the darkness set in and I asked to take a half day’s holiday. This was granted and so it happens that I ended up at my parents. I can’t relax there: every proffered cup of tea is usually followed by eighty-seven questions about setting up iCloud, how does the Internet work and why my mum can’t connect the kettle up to the Wifi. I don’t think I’ve ever visited their house without having to reset at least four passwords. I’m painting them as technological luddites which is actually terribly unfair – my mother has just managed to keep her Tamagotchi alive for a three day streak and my dad has totally mastered Windows 98.

As a total aside, if you’ve ever wondered where I get my bawdy sense of humour from, it’s totally my parents. Whilst raiding through the cupboards in the utility room to see what would look better in my house, I spotted that my mother had scrawled ‘boobies’ on the calendar, accompanied with a 🙁 face. That was enough to set off my hypochondria/filial love/avarice and I demanded to know how long she had left and whether she’d arranged a will. Turns out it was just for a perfectly routine mammogram. Well, that was my mistake, calling it ‘routine’. You have to understand that my knowledge of boobs extends to twiddling Paul’s nipples like I’m trying to get the shipping forecast to bellow from his arse. She was very quick to put me right that it isn’t routine at all and that it actually bloody hurts having your boob squashed between two plates like someone plastering a ceiling. Then came the killer line:

“I wouldn’t mind, but after they’ve finished I could post my tits through a letterbox”

Ha. There’s an image that I could have certainly done without, although it did remind me to get the bacon out of the freezer when I got home.

The recipe then! We’re trying to cut our carbs down – no particular reason other than it makes us bloat like a beachbound whale – hence the lack of bun. If you’re dribbling and twitching at the thought of a bunless burger, just use your healthy extra B bun and shut up. For the love of God, don’t do what I’ve seen other people doing and sandwich your burger in between two halves of a jacket potato. If you think that is anything other than an abomination then I invite you to look at your life and think hard about who hurt you so badly.

to make goats cheese burger you will need:

400g lean beef mince
120g soft goats cheese (4x HeA)
1 red onion
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
mixed salad leaves (whatever you like – we used rocket)
pinch of salt and pepper

to make goats cheese burger you should:

mix the mince together with the salt and pepper and divide into four
roll each ball into a burger shape – it doesn’t have to be anything fancy!
next, cook the burgers however you like. We used our OptiGrill so we could get them perfect and rare, but you can do it however you like – under a medium-high grill or in a frying pan, or on a George Foreman grill or whatever. They won’t take that long
whilst they’re cooking, add the onion to a small saucepan with just a wee bit of oil, and sauté over a medium-high heat until just starting to brown
add the red wine vinegar right at the end and give a good stir
serve the burger on top of the sliced onion, and top with a 30g slice of goats cheese (each)

to make courgette chips you will need

1 or 2 big courgettes
50g flour (4.5 syns)
60g parmesan (2x HeA) (use one of these to make it go further and use less!)
1 egg, beaten
½ tsp onion granules
½ garlic salt

to make courgette chips you should:

line a baking sheet with baking paper and preheat the oven to 200°c
slice the ends off the courgette, and then slice lengthways
discard the seeded bit in the middle
slice again until you get 2-3″ long chips
mix together the flour, parmesan, onion granules and garlic salt and tip into a shallow dish
tip the egg into another dish
gently roll the chips in the flour mix, then the egg, and then the flour again (tip: it helps to hold them by the ends of the chip so you don’t rub off the coating) and spray with a fine mist of oil
place onto the baking sheet and bake for 20-25 minutes

That fruity looking sauce is some really nice Tomato and Basil Quark from Tesco mixed in with a splash of milk to loosen it a bit. It’s lovely!

Looking for more burger ideas? Don’t worry. We’ve got loads!

Enjoy!

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December 13, 2017

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fakeaways, greek, lunch, pulses and grains, recipe card, salad, savoury snacks, snacks, syn free, taster ideas, vegetarian

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christmas clear out: fancy greek salad

Christmas clear-out continues with this fancy Greek salad! I have no idea why Paul has such a stiffy on for Greek food at the moment, but I’m not complaining as long as he tends to my every whim and fills my world with dolmades. I’d love to find a low-syn version of those but it’s tricky given they need to be soaked in oil.

Remember: our Christmas Clear Out is our wee break away, taking care of something personal and exciting. We’ll be back soon, but in the meantime, I hope you’re enjoying these recipes that we’re passing over. A lot of people ask us to put the recipes first on the blog and then follow it up with the nonsense afterwards. We’re thinking about it – what would you prefer?

Right: to the recipe. Dead simple this one and it makes for such a good lunch you’ll give yourself a wide-on just thinking about it. Serves two.

to make this fancy greek salad you will need:

80g quinoa, rinsed
90g reduced fat halloumi, thinly sliced (2 x HEA)
a few modest inches of cucumber, cut into chunks
16 black olives, sliced (3 syns)
8 tbsp couscous
250ml vegetable stock
16 cherry tomatoes, halved
handful fresh mint, chopped
two good handfuls of rocket
2 tbsp lemon juice
salt
ground black pepper

to make this fancy greek salad you should:

well, really: cook the quinoa and couscous as instructed using the hot vegetable stock
chop up your tomatoes and toss them with the lemon juice, olives and the rocket and a good pinch of salt and pepper
dry fry your halloumi in a pan – use a griddle pan if you’re going for the fancy griddle mark look
we added bacon after the photo was taken – we didn’t like the idea of having a meal that didn’t leave us looking anxiously at each other whilst clutching our left arms

This keeps very well for a lunch the next day, though I’d maybe hold back from tossing your rocket until you’re actually about to it. Trust me, if there’s one thing I’m an expert on, it’s tossing my rocket – been doing it since I was 12.

Oh we get asked a lot about what lunchboxes we use. Listen, we’re not fancy: get yourself a few Sistema boxes and crack yerself on. They’re dirty cheap on Amazon RIGHT NOW.

More recipes please? Certainly. Open wide…

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chubbycubs

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December 11, 2017

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airfryer, fakeaways, greek, lunch, recipe card, savoury snacks, snacks, syn free, taster ideas, vegetarian

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christmas clear out: greek potato hash

Here for the Greek potato hash? Christmas push continues as we throw out a few of the recipes we’ve had floating about – we’re taking a break at the moment, so this is just to tidy things up before Christmas! No time for chitter-chatter, let’s do this!

greek potato hash

to make greek potato hash you will need:

500g potatoes, cut into medium size chunks
½ red onion, thinly sliced (do it in seconds with one of these!)
2 cloves garlic, minced (save your fingers!)
2 tsp dried oregano
¼ tsp salt
¼ tsp pepper
130g reduced-fat feta (2x HeA)
zest of 1 lemon

to make greek potato hash you should:

if you have an Actifry you will save yourself a lot of faff. If you haven’t got one yet, get one here!

chuck the potatoes along with a spoon of oil into the Actifry, and cook until roasted
about five minutes towards the end, add the oregano and garlic
when finished, tip the potatoes into a bowl and sprinkle over the salt, pepper, zest and crumble in the feta
mix for a little bit, sprinkle over the lemon zest and then serve

If you haven’t got an Actifry, you can do these in a pan instead:

bring a pan of water to the boil and add the potatoes
boil for about 10-12 minutes until the potatoes are soft
drain the potatoes and pat dry
heat a large frying pan over a high heat and add a little oil
fry the potatoes for about 6-8 minutes, until browned
add the onion, garlic, salt, pepper and oregano to the pan and stir well
cook for a few more minutes and remove from the heat
crumble over the feta and sprinkle on the zest, and serve

Want some more? Just click one of the buttons below!

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December 10, 2017

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lunch, one-pot, recipe card, savoury snacks, snacks, soup, syn free, taster ideas, vegan, vegetarian

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christmas clear out: spicy red pepper and tomato soup

You’re going to think I’m taking the mick with this recipe for spicy red pepper and tomato soup, as it’s literally the laziest recipe you’ll ever make. But here’s the thing – we get asked all the time for truly simple recipes and well, it doesn’t get any easier than this. You’ll find everything you need either in your cupboard or down the supermarket, nothing fancy here! Plus it’s syn free and you don’t need to clart about peeling vegetables or feigning interest in someone else doing it for you.

Let’s get straight to the recipe – remember, this week, we’re away working on an exciting personal project and thus, no blog posts. But rather than leaving you hanging, we’re pumping out a few of our stragglers with hardly any guff at all! Don’t worry, normal service will, of course, resume soon!

to make spicy red pepper and tomato soup you will need:

270g cherry tomatoes, halved
1 jar roasted red peppers, drained
1 vegetable stock cube
100ml water
½ tsp chilli powder
½ tsp paprika
1 tsp dried chilli flakes

to make spicy red pepper and tomato soup you should:

blend all the ingredients together – we just used a stick blender (the one we use is only £8 at Amazon!)
pour into a saucepan and heat over a medium-high heat until hot
eat!

After more ideas? We’ve got you covered! We’ve got loads of soups:

Just click one of the buttons below to find more recipes!

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November 19, 2017

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american, breakfast, british, fakeaways, fast food restaurants, low syn, recipe card, sandwiches, sausages, savoury snacks, snacks, taster ideas, vegetarian

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sausage, egg and cheesy hash brown breakfast stacks

You’re here for the sausage, egg and cheesy hash brown breakfast stacks, aren’t you? Who could blame you – they’re quite something, though I feel bad luring you in for such a simple recipe.

But first (isn’t there an always a but first with us…actually, not always, sometimes I’ll start by working the balls) I wanted to follow up my last blog post, which dealt with the nasty side of the Internet and the disadvantages of giving chavs a keyboard that isn’t connected to a Speak ‘n’ Spell. No sooner had I put up a 1,500 word moan about the idiots kicking off at Tesco then something lovely happened. Allow me to explain, first with a wee picture…

I know, right? I ought to work for Saatchi and Saatchi, not least because think of all that delicious food Nigella would have cooked me over the years. I’m gayer than cum on a moustache but you better believe I’d happily spend my life with Ms Lawson. Any women who will cheerfully fry a sandwich in butter in her best dressing gown is a keeper, surely?

Can you remember last year when we asked you all to send us a Christmas card? Boy, did you come through for us – we received cards from all around the world and for once, the postman wasn’t being euphemistic when he came to our slot and emptied his bulging sack. Oh stop it: I know, it’s like Julian Clary is guest-writing the blog tonight. I think the grand total was over 1,500 and we read each and every one, not least because we thought you may have squirrelled away a fiver or two in there. It was great fun and we planned to do it again but, in a rare moment of genius, Paul suggested we raise money for our local cat and dog shelter, Bryson’s.

How could I resist? So we stuck our donation request online and within 36 hours, we’d managed to raise £1,300 – it now stands at £1,500! Pretty incredible and we couldn’t be more chuffed. Bryson’s are an amazing little shelter up in Gateshead who take in all manner of waifs and strays and never put a well animal to sleep – if they can’t find a home for them, it doesn’t matter, they’ll stay at Bryson’s until the end. Their staff was dedicated, kind volunteers and look, we can’t say enough about them: anyone who lets us two come in and cuddle their cats can’t be anything but amazing. You can read up on what they do here

Now – if you can, we would love it forever if you could help us. If things are tight then of course don’t worry, but if you’ve enjoyed our recipe, nonsense, videos, posters and other flimflam throughout the year, could we beg the tiniest favour and ask for a donation? We’ve stuck £100 in from the two of us – we’d absolutely love to get it up to £2,000 – and maybe more! We just think this will make a difference more than Christmas cards ever could. If you don’t want to donate, no problem – please don’t think less of us for asking – but if you do, here’s the link (it’ll open in a new window!):

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/twochubbycubs

How lovely! Remember, we’re not asking you to donate loads – just what you can, the cost of a Christmas card!

Now, to sweeten the deal a bit, we’ve done a rare video for you. It’s a recipe for syn-free brownies – you won’t believe how easy they are to make with just a few small substitutions and swaps. Naturally, we’ve put our spin on things. Enjoy!

Ha! Now, finally, let’s do the recipe, such as it is…this makes enough for two ‘stacks’.

cheesy hash brown

to make sausage, egg and cheesy hash brown breakfast stacks, you’ll need:

Kingsmill wholemeal bread thins (1 x HEB per thin)
two good eggs
a potato
Quorn sausage patties (0.5 syn each), or cook some pork sausages and slice in half lengthways
60g of mature cheese (2 x HEA)
1 tablespoon of oil (we used chilli oil because we like it hot!) (makes about five, so let’s call it a syn each)

I know there’ll be folks out there now not bothering with the recipe because it uses six syns of oil (1 tablespoon) – reconsider. The oil binds the potato and makes it like a proper hash brown. You could make your own vibrator from filling a cigar tube with bees, doesn’t mean you should. Spend the syns!

to make sausage, egg and cheesy hash brown breakfast stacks, you should:

hashbrowns are a doodle – grate your potato and then squeeze the living hell out of it – you want the shredded potato to be as dry as an old bajingo – then mix in the tablespoon of oil and the grated cheese, add a tonne of black pepper and a bit of salt, then press into yorkshire pudding or muffin trays – really pack it in mind you – then bung them in the oven for about 30 minutes to crisp up and brown – this actually ended up making about 5 hash-browns so keep any spare for eating later
it’s OK – I laughed at the concept of spare food too
then…well, really not sure what there is to say for the rest – grill your sausage patties and fry the eggs
we use a chef’s ring (he doesn’t mind, we buy him a drink after) to keep the eggs nice and round but really, you don’t need to do so
we use the same ring to cut a circle out of the thins but you know, why waste the extra bread? Just whack it in
serve with a disc on the bottom, hash brown, sausage and egg, then disc on top

If you’re one of these people who can’t fry an egg, worry not – it’s easy. Hot pan, few sprays of olive oil, crack the egg in and shape it a bit with a spatula – pop the lid on the pan once everything has started to firm up and it’ll cook nicely in the steam. Fresh eggs help. We get our eggs from my mother – you’d think she would have stopped laying them now she’s approaching 94 but hey.

Want more breakfast ideas? But of course you do. Click the buttons below.

Enjoy! And please, give what you can – we really will love you forever.

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October 29, 2017

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

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curried pumpkin soup with toasted seeds

Curried pumpkin soup with toasted seeds – just in time for Hallowe’en. I wasn’t going to do a blog entry tonight, but see, Paul turned to me yesterday, in the seventh hour of our Stranger Things 2 binge (it’s brilliant, have no fear), and confessed that he’d never had a proper pumpkin. It then hit me – nor have I! My mother used to send us out the door in the most highly-flammable sheet she could find, carrying a sooty turnip in one hand and a Netto carrier bag in the other for trick or treating. We were told to hand back any Skittles or chocolate we were given and to ask for a twenty-deck of Lambert and Butler and a crate of Red Stripe. Good times.

Anyway, being a kind and merciful sort, I agreed that we ought to get a pumpkin and carve it – and here’s the final result. You’ll note that I’ve added a sensitivity filter for the easily offended:

Great, isn’t it? I love Scunthorpe so much I made a pumpkin in tribute. Cheers Will. And look guys, you mustn’t worry, we’re not going to put this on display when kids come to the door to terrorise us. We’ll be doing the very British thing of turning up Coronation Street and telling them to bugger off. I wouldn’t mind if they made an effort with the costumes, but when you’ve got someone turning up who looks as though he’s just finished a three year BTEC in bricklaying demanding chocolate, well, that crosses the line. Actually, who am I kidding, if that sort turned up, he’d definitely be allowed to put the willies up us.

Speaking of cheap thrills, we also went to see Jigsaw on Friday night. How was it? As good as you’d expect the eighth film in a gore franchise to be, and then a wee bit better. Perfect popcorn fodder. But you know what was the best bit? We had the entire cinema to ourselves – not another soul came in to watch people being eviscerated on a 60ft screen. Pussies. There’s lots of benefits to having the cinema to yourselves – no people using their phones on nuclear holocaust levels of brightness, no people rustling around in bags for the loudest possible sweets they can find, no having to theatrically sigh and huff when the people in front of you so much as move. When we’re millionaires we shall buy a cinema, install two seats and employ only two people: one to bring us drinks and another to wake Paul when he inevitably falls asleep. I’m sure if we were younger men we would have used the solitude for a bit of illicit hanky-panky but I mean, we’ve been together ten years now – our idea of adventure is cracking open the After Eight mints at half seven.

Being the only ones in the cinema does rather shed a spotlight on your companion’s foibles, mind. Paul was breathing so loudly through his noise that it was only the popcorn bucket staying still on his lap that assured me he wasn’t wanking. Plus, every scene was punctuated with him scratting about in the popcorn in the vain hope of finding anything edible, as opposed to the shavings of fire-retardant foam that they’d put in there. Seriously, I think they’d kept the popcorn aside from the first Saw movie. I’m sure if we flipped this he’d complain about me constantly farting (how often can you fart in a cinema without having to wait for a loud action part to mask the sound?) and nudging him to say ‘he’s the killer, it’s him, definitely him, no it’s her, no it’s him, no look it’s all taking place in the past, no look, it’s her again‘. Going to the cinema with me is like when you accidentally flip the Audio Description settings on when watching TV, only with more ‘Where do we know him from? Is it 24? Paul? Was he in 24? Remember?’. I imagine by the end of it we were both silently wondering whether we could get away with putting the other into a Saw style trap. I wouldn’t need to make much effort – Paul’s idea of torture is to be sat on the settee with the TV remote just out of reach. You’ve never seen such pained eyes, trust me. But shush, this was meant to be a quick entry, so let’s get back to the food.

So, once one has gutted a pumpkin, what do you do with the flesh? It’s very easy, you call Paul in to cut it up and make it into soup whilst you fart about on Mario Odyssey. I’m glad, I can’t bear wasting food – I get anxious when Paul throws out his toenails – and all that lovely pumpkin should be turned into something half decent. So here you have it, a bonus pumpkin soup recipe!

to make curried pumpkin soup you will need:

1 pumpkin, as big as you dare (cut in half and scoop out the seeds and the flesh – keep the seeds to toast (see below))
1 onion, finely diced
3 garlic cloves, minced (save your fingers with one of these! It’ll work with the ginger too!)
1 tbsp ginger, minced
1 tsp curry powder
¾ tsp ground coriander
½ tsp cumin
¼ tsp clove powder
800ml vegetable stock
125ml light coconut milk (5½ syns)
dollop of fat-free greek yoghurt

to make toasted pumpkin seeds you should:

preheat the oven to 150°c
separate the seeds from the fleshy bits and give a good rinse in a colander, then shake dry
spray the seeds with a little oil and a load ofand spread out onto a baking sheet
cook in the oven for about 45 minutes

All in, less than 1.5 syns. You’re allowed 20g of seeds for a healthy extra but hey, a few won’t harm…or will it?

to make curried pumpkin soup you should:

preheat the oven to 180°c
spray the fleshy bits with a little oil and give it a good rub (an oil sprayer is perfect for this recipe – get the one we recommend most!)
place each half onto a baking sheet, fleshy side down and roast for 45 minutes
leave to cool for a few minutes, and then scoop out the flesh and set aside
next, heat a large saucepan over a medium heat and add a little oil
add the onion to the pan and give a good stir, cook for a few minutes until it starts to go slightly brown
next, add the ginger and garlic to the pan and stir
cook for 1-2 minutes
add the curry powder, coriander, cumin and clove powder to the pan and give another good stir
add the stock and the coconut milk and bring to the boil
remove the pan from the heat and add the pumpkin flesh to the pan
use a stick blender (or a proper blender if you’re fancy) until the mixture is nice and smooth
put back over a medium-high heat and bring to a simmer to warm through
serve in bowls with a dollop of greek yoghurt, and sprinkle over some toasted pumpkin seeds

Leftover coconut milk? Make carrot and coconut soup, or pea and coconut soup. It’s that easy!

Got you going yet? Don’t worry – we’ve got plenty more! Just click one of the buttons below!

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chubbycubs

Posted on

October 18, 2017

Posted under

dips, fakeaways, lunch, persian, recipe card, savoury snacks, snacks, syn free, taster ideas, travel, vegan, vegetarian

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double-dip special: baba ganoush and minty beetroot raita

Raita? I barely knew ‘er! Oh I know, but listen, it’s been so long. Forgive a fat man his nonsense. Here for the two dips? Quite rightly, they’re stunning. A big complaint of Slimming World is that it’s hard to find a decent dip or snack – now that we’ve discovered Broghies we’re snacking for England. The recipes are right down below the holiday entry but, as I’m feeling generous, if you want the food with none of my nonsense, just click the shortcut button below. Yes: just click on the SCALY OLD TROUT and you’re good to go.

Thank god they’ve left. All fur coat and no knickers, that one. For the rest of you, take my sweaty hand and we’ll skip back to Benidorm…

click here for part one | click here for part two | click here for part three | click here for part four | click here for part five

Not doing well with this ‘just the important bits’, am I? Ah well. We walked along the seafront and despaired at the sight of so many bright blue sun-loungers with bright pink English folk perched on them, merrily burning away. You couldn’t have set down a handkerchief amongst the people, let alone a beach towel, and oh god, the noise. It’s a bad job when you can’t hear the crashing sea over the sound of 5,000 disparate accents all bellowing at their triple-named snaggletoothed crotch-fruit to GET OUTTA FAAAACKIN’ SUN. It would be more relaxing trying to sunbathe on the wing of a crashing jumbo jet. We moved on.

I felt like James Cook gazing upon the unspoilt sands of Australia.

Eventually we reached what I think was the Old Town – lots of quaint streets to tumble about in, some interesting shops, some reasonable places to eat. We did spend a pleasant couple of hours here, not quite managing to fall in love enough to spend any money, when we decided to go for tapas. We’d have a couple of places recommended so off we trotted.

The first place we chose was charming on the outside. We were promptly seated by a pleasant looking waiter who was the double of Super Mario and had the water poured and the bread basket on the table before I’d even had a chance to look at the menu, tuck the tablecloth into my trousers and scatter the salt around. When the menu did arrive we were aghast. Now, before you all think we’re uncultured swines who don’t try local food or unusual tastes, just google what a rimjob is and come back to me. However, this menu was full of all sorts of horrendous sounding dishes, all of which sounded like the outcome of blending the Saw franchise with Watership Down. So many severed bits of animal served up like the top prize on Bullseye. Paul actually turned green, which at least made for a pleasant contrast against his reddened neck. We had to think fast (well, one of us certainly did – I’m not saying Paul’s slow but in his mind he was still coming through passport control back at the airport) so I told Paul to start fanning his face theatrically as if to feign feeling faint.

Of course, he goes full ham, giving it his all, rolling his eyes in his head, slack jaw opened, wafting his face with the menu, looking all the while like a Victorian maid who has stumbled across a passionate bout of illicit sex. If we’d had a few minutes more I’m sure he’d have slumped to the floor with a collapsed lung and started frothing at the mouth. I kicked him under the table to calm himself down when the waiter came back for our order. Me, in a language closer to Gujarati than A-level Spanish, explained that my partner was feeling unwell and we’d need to move on. The waiter, to his credit and my shame, couldn’t have been lovelier, his big brown eyes full of concern. I slipped him a ten euro note to pay for the water and we sloped off, Paul inexplicably limping. I told him round the corner that I was aiming for dicky-belly as opposed to a full debilitating haemorrhagic stroke.

Now, what to do? We were still hungry – this wouldn’t normally have been a problem but the second place on our list was nearby – literally over the other side of the wee square the first restaurant was one. We’d been told by all and sundry that this was the place to get heavenly tapas, couldn’t miss it, best in the country, blah blah blah. Being easily led, we had to go there, which immediately set us off on a game of having to sneak into another restaurant without the kind-eyed waiter from the previous debacle seeing us and knowing Paul’s illness was a sham. I couldn’t bear to see the hurt crack across his face when he realised our cruel deception.

This second place seemed a lot more informal and was clearly very popular, meaning we were forced to sit outside. I positioned Paul in the shadows in such a way that had the waiter from over the square glanced over, he might have reasonably assumed I was eating lunch with the ghost of Israel Kamakawiwoʻole. To make up for his shite acting I sent him in to order for us. He came back with two diet cokes and a beaming smile – he’d managed to order us tapas without any problems at all. Attaboy.

No sooner had he sat down with a ‘fat man sigh’ than the waiter came out – yet another bronzed god whose eyes screamed sex but his face screamed ‘ripped off for a Visa story in Take a Break’. Hmm. There must be a factory where these Spanish studmuffins are pumped out on a conveyor belt – if anyone has the address, please let me know so I can volunteer myself as a loading dock. Anyway, he popped a wee plate in front of us with two tiny discs of bread and a bit of grey meat on it. An excellent, if unidentifiable start. Down the hatch it went – couldn’t tell you what meat it was but it was juicy enough. Paul enjoyed his morsel very much and we were looking forward to a tasty range of tapas brought to us one by one to sample. You know where this is going, don’t you?

Yes, we sat there for a full thirty minutes, sipping our flat coke and staring sadly into the kitchen, where no-one met our gaze. Turns out Paul hadn’t actually ordered us tapas, as such, but rather, just one. A tapa, if you will. When we eventually gave up I asked him if he’d paid and he confirmed that he had indeed done so and how remarkably cheap it had been – less than five euros, including drinks! You know when you look at someone with such incredulity that your furrowed brows almost come off your head? That was me. In an hour we’d managed a disc of bread, a gulp of water and one cube of mystery meat. We gave up, trundled off back down the streets, but not before the first waiter gave us a proper look of ‘told you so, you limey bastards’.

We moved on. I can’t remember where we did end up eating – apologies – but it was very good and we had more than enough to fill us, leaving plates and boards and crumbs strewn extravagantly over our table. The rest of the afternoon was spent mooching about – we headed towards where the gay bear bar was, but they’d shut up shop. Probably seen how much food we’d put away and pulled the shutters down lest we came in and snapped their sling. Bastards. By god there were some rough hotels around this area, mind – I especially liked this hotel with a pair of shitty drawers strewn over their welcome sign…

Classy!

Now listen, it wouldn’t be terrifically exciting to describe the fact we wandered around shopping, then went back to the hotel to splash about in the pool and watch Tipping Point. I know what you’re thinking: the glamour – it never ends! You’re quite right.

The plan for the evening was to head out to try and locate Sticky Vicky – well, we had to, didn’t we? For those unfamiliar, you lucky bastards. You know that scene in Mary Poppins pulls the lips of her bag apart and pulls out all manner of odd things – a birdcage, an umbrella, a lamp? It’s pretty much that act, but rather than a carpet bag she uses her fanny. Sorry, how crass: her grot-slot. She uses her blart like one might use an overnight bag or a drawer in a utility room. A quick glance (through my fingers) at videos online showing her pulling batteries, light-bulbs, razor blades and fruit from her snatch. Even the man from Del Monte would say no to that. Her wiki entry (not a euphemism) describes her as a ‘vaginal magic show’. A vaginal magic show? Please. David Blaine’s a vaginal magic show, and that’s because he’s a c*nt.

Mother, if you’re reading this, I’m so sorry.

Anyway, bless, it’s not the original Sticky Vicky as she has sadly contracted uterine cancer – but she handed over the act to her daughter. What are the odds that both mother and daughter would have a liver-sock like a closing-down sale at Wickes? She was quite the legal eagle too, you know – she successfully sued someone for stealing her act and trademarked the name Sticky Vicky. I can’t imagine that a moron in a hurry would confuse her pulling half a rack of lamb and an aga out of her gammon-flaps for anything else, but hey. We researched online to see where she would be only to be met with the disappointing/thank God news – they’d both stepped down. There’s a rash (that’s what’ll happen when you’re yanking breeze blocks out of your chomper) of people doing similar acts now, so although we couldn’t see the original, we decided that if we headed out we’d most likely bump into someone pulling something out of/putting something in their blurter – even if it was just replacing their fannynanny in the street. I mean, it is Benidorm.

So, again, out we tottered, drinking at various establishments along the way – I’d be more specific, but god knows the plastic chairs and burnt skin tends to run into one another, especially as you consume far too much alcohol. We had somewhere in our minds that we ought to go watch the Meat Loaf tribute act down at Jokers bar. I was reluctant at first: I was furious with the act for missing his golden opportunity at the best possible pun name he could have had. Seriously, if you’re an overweight Meat Loaf tribute act performing in Spain, why the fuck would you not call yourself:

‘Fat out of El’

I mean honestly. Nevertheless, the thought of someone belting out some classic Meat Loaf was inviting enough to win me round. First some food – the usual problem of trying to find somewhere to eat that looked faintly decent. We looked everywhere but nothing came up and after a good hour of walking around, we settled for a classic Spanish spread in the er…Clay Oven Indian restaurant. Of course! Listen, we tried, we really did, but the only other place that looked remotely inviting was packed to the rafters with a sea of lightly wobbling elderly folks. It looked as though there was a tiny earthquake taking place. Anyway, the Clay Oven wasn’t bad at all, save for the fact it took us two hours to complete our meal, 40 minutes of which was waiting for the waiter to bring us the bill. He disappeared with the promise of getting the card machine and never came back. I presume he’d left the machine back in their sister restaurant in Bangalore. The food was delicious mind – for reasons we can’t go into it’s been a long while since we’ve had a good rich calorie-laden meal and this really scratched the itch, although the onions, spices and sauces were almost immediately playing havoc with my belly. We paid up and moved on, finally seeing Jokers looming large on the horizon. In we went.

It was rammed. Absolutely rammed. Clearly a lot of people want to see a bit of Meat Loaf, and who could blame them? The bar was shaped like a horseshoe with the stage in the middle and it was standing room only, even right at the back. We bought drinks and found a space where we might glance the top of his head. That’s fine – live acts are like casual sex – doesn’t really matter what they look like, you’re more concerned with the noises they’re making.

This was the only way I could get a shot of him!

But, oh no. We had trouble.

Trouble in the shape of a miserable, moaning, sour-faced old bag who was sat RIGHT AT THE BACK of the venue and was complaining that because we’d stood in front of her, she couldn’t see. You need to understand that immediately in front of us was a stag party, also stood up, so the very best she could see before us was a row of arses clad in George at Asda jeans. I could hear her mumbling away, getting louder and louder, saying to her husband that she’d been sat there three hours (WELL SIT AT THE FUCKING FRONT THEN, YOU SAGGY, DEATH-DODGING HUSK) and now the night was ruined because of ‘those fat men’. Fat! I mean, she’s right – when Paul and I stand next to each other it’s the equivalent of someone parking a small lorry in the bar – but still!

You better believe then that we spent almost an hour of Meat Loaf’s tribute act on our tip-toes, waving our arms around, shrieking and wolf-whistling. Anything to block her view just that bit further. She was muttering away like a stuck budgie but I cared not. Had she asked us to move – despite it making no difference to what she could see – we would have gladly done so because we’re not arseholes. But because she was rude she was granted no mercy at all. Oh, and we had one final trick up our sleeve – or rather, up my arse. Remember all that rich, spicy Indian food I’d put away a couple of hours earlier and washed it down with lots of beer? It was making a dramatic gassy re-appearance round the back, meaning she got the full force of a good spicy after-dinner-hint in her general direction every 30 seconds or so. I know, I’m rotten. By the time we decided to leave she had a big brown streak in her grey hair, though at least it went swimmingly with her nicotine fringe.

Have to admit, it was difficult to get out of the venue, what with the team of paramedics trying to bring her round.

Anyway – the rest of the night descended into more drinking, more stumbling about and, somewhat embarrassingly, I set my moustache on fire with a flaming shot from some knockabout bar. I was gutted: I’ve been trying to grow a neat beard for so long, and poof, gone – a big chunk missing from the top of my lip. With the smell of burning in my nostrils, the sound of Paul retching in my ears and nearly all the money we went out with still in my wallet (seriously, it’s so hard to spend money in Benidorm – everything is so cheap), we went to bed. Oh and for those who think I’m mean to poor Paul, let me tell you this – I actually got up in the night to put a load of furniture in front of the balcony doors as I was so terrified that Paul would get an idea to jump out of the balcony in his heavily drunken state. What can I say: I’m a love. Actually, it’s more because I didn’t want breakfast to be cancelled the next morning as they scraped Paul-jam off every conceivable surface. Trust me, I know what that’s like…

Anyway. Until we meet again.

REMEMBER, leave us some feedback on the holiday entries!

Double dip time! Both are delicious and here’s the thing – I don’t like aubergine and I don’t like beetroot. But I like both of these…you couldn’t write the script! Or something. Either way, these dips are perfect with chunks of Broghies. Remember us twattling on about these the other day? They’re one syn each, big enough to break into six good chunks and are great for dips. They’re not bursting with flavour so it’s important you have a good dip for them – but they are satisfying our crisp itch like nothing before. You can find them in Iceland or, even better, contact them via here (it’ll open in a new window!) and let them know you want them! Both are dead easy to make.

baba ganoush

to make baba ganoush, you’ll need:

four big aubergines – get big buggers mind, you want ones that demand you buy a copy of Razzle just to hide them under in case the neighbours see
one tablespoon of good olive oil (6 syns)
salt and pepper
one lemon
three garlic cloves
one tablespoon of tahini (5 syns)
chopped parsley

to make baba ganoush, you should:

if you have gas and a lot of time, have yourself a good fart and then get ready – you want to cook the aubergines nice and hot so the skin blisters, so yes, if you have gas, you can prick them with a fork and then hold them over the naked flame of your hob until they’re cooked through and blackened
but who the fuck has time for that, honestly – do what I do, prick them all over and stick them under the grill for twenty minutes, turning halfway through
mash up your olive oil, tahini, lemon juice and a good pinch of salt and pepper in a pestle and mortar (or just mush it with your hands)
cut the aubergines in half, get the flesh into a bowl, mix it with your oil mixture from above, and scatter with chopped parsley
enjoy!

We can thank Paul Hollywood for this. Aubergines have plenty of moisture in them but if you want, add another tablespoon of tahini for 5 more syns. I won’t tell Margaret. Can’t find tahini? You’re not looking hard enough – most supermarkets sell it and it’s not expensive to buy. Worth tracking it down! Don’t want to spend syns? Fine, make this beetroot raita instead! I found this in Meera Sodha’s vegetarian Indian recipe book, which I love more than I can possibly tell you. There’s not a thing in there I don’t adore. Have a look – it’ll open in a new window. I’ve tinkered with the recipe to make it even easier.

minty beetroot raita

to make minty beetroot raita, you’ll need:

a pack of cooked beetroot globes – we bought ours in Tesco, the ones that are vacuum-packed – tasty
two garlic cloves
a nice big lemon
1 tbsp mint sauce
salt and pepper
fat-free natural yoghurt (if you want it syn-free) or a decent natural/Greek yoghurt if you’re only concerned about taste!
optional: Broghies, raw veg or whatever you want for dipping!

to make minty beetroot raita, you should:

grate your beetroot – I think you can buy grated beetroot actually, but if not, whizz it through a food processor with the grater blade on – it’ll make sharp work of it – we’ve got the Magimix and there’s nothing more satisfying than watching it destroy stuff
mince your garlic (use one of these bad boys – you’ll save your fingers and you don’t need to fart about peeling the garlic)
squeeze yer lemon and save the juice
take your grated beetroot, minced garlic, mint sauce and lemon juice and pop it into a frying pan – you want to cook the beetroot a little just to ‘dry’ it out a bit, using lemon juice to stop it sticking
add a good pinch of salt and lots of black pepper
allow it to cool and then mix with the natural yoghurt until it’s the consistency you want – don’t do it when the beetroot is hot though otherwise the yoghurt will split!
serve with raw veg or a delicious Broghie!

Want some more recipe ideas? Just click the buttons below! You’ll love it, I promise.

Enjoy!

Posted by

chubbycubs

Posted on

October 10, 2017

Posted under

fakeaways, indian, lunch, pulses and grains, recipe card, salad, savoury snacks, snacks, syn free, taster ideas, travel, vegan, vegetarian

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roasted rainbow aloo gobi – syn free and amazing

Roasted rainbow aloo gobi if you please, and syn free to boot! You know sometimes you make a vegetarian dish and it’s OK but you’re left craving meat like a sex-starved nun? This wasn’t the case with this – in fact, it was so tasty and colourful we ended up making it again the next day. Then had the leftovers the day after. By that point the neighbours were banging on the window sure, so fetid and thick was the fart-air billowing from under our door, that someone had died. So, make it, but be warned: your leather cheerio will turn black and die.

You know, it’s a wonder I don’t get asked to write the recipes for Woman’s Weekly. Anyway, before we get to the pure sex that is the aloo gobi, you’re going to have to endure a night out with us, as it’s part four of our Benidorm trip. We’ve even got videos for you! Don’t want to read all our shite? That’s fine. I’ve put in a shortcut button. yes, for this one, you just need to click on the OLD MONA WHO’LL LET ANYONE CHUCK THEIR PAINT ON HER FACE below:

Possibly the classiest photo we’ve ever had on here and I’ve used it to make a spunk joke. Eee, what am I like. Shall we continue?

click here for part one | click here for part two | click here for part three

When you last left us we had endured a breakfast buffet, met our doubles and sizzled by the pool for far longer than could be considered reasonable for a travel blog. Remember that time, we had hope in our eyes.

We used the day to plan for the night ahead, with an eye to having a bit of dinner somewhere local to the hotel and then heading out to a place we’d heard excellent reviews about – the Showboat, just up the road. Dinner was so awful that I can’t remember where we went, only that it was exactly like the slop you get in lay-bys from people who’ve used their food hygiene certificate to wipe their arse with. I’ve been told you can eat well in Benidorm and it’s undoubtedly true, but every single place we looked at within about half a mile’s mince from the hotel were full to the brim with people pointing at pictures of egg and chips on the laminated menu. If my memory serves me correctly, Paul had a hot-dog and I had a club sandwich. Presumably the Club the sandwich referred to was the Cavern Club because this sandwich tasted like it was made back in the sixties – I’ve never had to dip a sandwich in my pint before to moisten it.

Showboat, then. I’m not too sure how to couch my experience of the place, really – not least because we drank 11 pints each over the course of the entire evening. People in our facebook group were treated to some wonderfully awful videos, I can assure you. Let me say that the staff were lovely, the venue was clean and the toilet, far from the Trainspotting homage I expected, was spotless. We’d shuffled in at 8pm and had the place to ourselves – the entertainment such as it was started at 9pm so we decided on a game of pool. There was one pool cue and well, the lines on the table weren’t especially clear.

Like playing at The Crucible!

I won, because I always do when it comes to pool – Paul’s flipper-arms make holding the cue difficult – and then it was time to get a round in and enjoy the first act: a Tina Turner impersonation. Here’s the thing: when your opening gambit is a declaration that despite appearances, you’re not actually a man in drag, then it rather sets the tone. She (and she was a she, I could see no Nutbush City Limits under her straining skirt) was really good! She belted out a few of the classics, though I did feel sorry for her when she tried to get the audience up on stage – the front two rows looked like they couldn’t manage to breathe unassisted let alone jive through Proud Mary. She gamely pressed on.

We don’t need another hero. We just need someone to call a nurse.

Things reached a pinnacle when it came to River Deep Mountain High – one of my favourite songs. You know it – it has a great lead-in and then straight into Tina singing. I was all ready to stand up and clap and throw my knickers on the stage (the size of the fuckers meant they’d probably come back down in someone’s tapas in Valencia) but there was a problem – she uttered the first line and then stopped. Completely forgotten the words. I was devastated: I was itching to see her strut/stumble through my favourite, and it wasn’t to be. I yelled out that she must leave Ike before he did any more serious damage and, taking this on board, she carried on and saw it through to the end. Towards the closing notes I saw our doppelgängers arrive and take seats near the front. We exchanged glances. Tina shuffled off. More drinks for everyone.

Then came Stella Artois. A drag act. I’m going to hold my hands up here and say outright, I’m not a huge fan of drag unless it’s done superbly well. This guy wasn’t. Actually no, let’s rewrite that a bit: I don’t mind drag acts, but I don’t like the fact that some people seem to think it gives them a licence to be an abrasive, nasty arsehole. Stella was absolutely in this second category. They opened with a few gags which actually did make me laugh (and listen, I’m not a hard person to please, I’m probably the only person in Britain who’ll happily sit through You’ve Been Framed) and then boy oh boy did that show degenerate quickly. It’s pretty bad when you’re hearing material stolen from Peter Kay’s early work, it’s even worse when it’s from Bob bloody Monkhouse. I think if the crowd hadn’t been (barely) lapping it up he’d have started a Vera Lynn singalong.

That’s when things just got worse and worse. I’m all for a coarse gag – as evidenced in nearly every single post on here – but make it funny. I thought we’d reached a low point when he was talking about his arsehole but then the racist stuff followed. We’re not just talking like the naff racist gags you expect in a flat-roof social club but just vile shit about blowing up mosques and *clutch my sides* not seeing a white face in Birmingham. Jim and Saul were slapping their knees and sloshing their campari all over their shoes at the ‘humour’ whereas I was hoping to find blood in my urine just to cheer myself up. The show lasted an hour during which we anaesthetised ourselves with a lot more booze and making videos for the group. Not going to lie, we were thankful when they tottered off the stage, though I admit I was fretful about whether or not she would get back to Peterborough in time to put tea on for Paul’s brother.

I’m kidding, he looked nowt like Paul’s mother. She’s got a much more pronounced beard.

Anyway, Stella fucked off, and I thought the entertainment was over the night but then, WHAM! On came a George Michael tribute act. He was so much better! He looked more like George Osborne than George Michael but he could belt out a tune and that’s all that matters. He did all the classics: Fast Love, Careless Whisper, Faith, shot his load up the cubicle door in the gents, the lot. It was great fun. At one point he asked the crowd for their favourites – I, buoyed by more alcohol units than is sensible for a man of my obesity, shouted LAST CHRISTMAS. He immediately sniped back that that was a stupid suggestion because it was September, to which I shouted back that he was supposed to be dead, so all bets were off. He sang Freedom with a proper sulk on.

We left, though I took a moment to step on my double’s foot as I walked past. I like to think my weight on his foot dislodged a fragment of his doubtless infected toenail which shot straight to his heart, leading to a full cardiac arrest later in the holiday. Fucker shouldn’t have stolen my beans and/or looked like me. After a long stumble down the street, we were in bed, snoring and farting the rest of the night away.

Anyway, we made a supercut of the night for your viewing pleasure. You have no idea how long it took to make this faintly appropriate for the blog – the amount of bits we had to cut out just so we didn’t get shut down / put on the front pages of the tabloids, well, you’ll never know.

Oh and if you’re wondering how we were feeling the next morning…

I know, imagine waking up next to that breathing at you from across the pillows. To be honest, you’ve got the far better view out of the two available to you at that point.

Part five will surely come, but first, we really ought to crack on with the aloo gobi, yes? Before I go – all of that above and the sentence I’m most pleased with is the WHAM remark. I chuckled away to myself with that one.

REMEMBER, leave us some feedback on the holiday entries!

This makes enough for easily four people, whether as a side or a full main. You could chuck some red peppers in to increase the colour still further. I got the basic idea from my absolute favourite Indian cookery book, Made in India by Meera Sodha. There’s not a recipe I’ve made yet that hasn’t been absolutely gorgeous, so hats off to her. You can buy the book dirt cheap on Amazon! She recommends making this as a light salad and serving in a poppadom with crushed peanuts, but as I can almost hear Mags clutching her Facebook-raffle-prize pearls from here, I’ve slimmed it down a little.

rainbow aloo gobi

to make roasted rainbow aloo gobi, you’ll need:

500g of new potatoes – if you get Jersey potatoes or similar, they’ll be nice and yellow
600g of cauliflower – to make it rainbow, buy rainbow cauliflowers – Marks and Spencers sell them – they come in yellow, white and purple
two large red onions
one big bastard bag of spinach
1 tin of chickpeas
three cloves of garlic, minced (use one of these bad boys – you’ll save your fingers and you don’t need to fart about peeling the garlic)
1 tsp of cumin seeds or half a teaspoon of ground cumin
1 teaspoon of chilli flakes
salt and black pepper
spray oil, but not Frylight, because you’re so much better than that muck
red pepper optional

Let’s quickly talk about oil, for those that haven’t been with us since the beginning. Here’s the thing: we don’t like Frylight. It’s pushed too hard in a lot of recipes and it tastes like poo. We prefer to use a good olive oil (and if we’re absolutely honest, we don’t syn it – never have) but for the sake of you lot, we always factor the syns in. Most of the time for blog recipes we recommend using a spray oil – you’ll get enough from 10 sprays and that’s 1 syn according to the calculator. Divided between four, up to you if you syn such a negligible amount. We use one of these filled up with olive oil but listen, you can buy spray oil in the shops. Just look for the Frylight, knock them over, choose something decent. It’s your body – why eat plastic crap if you don’t have to do so?

to make roasted rainbow aloo gobi, you should:

preheat the oven to 180 degrees
chop your new potatoes into similar sized chunks
pick the cauliflower apart into chunky little florets
arrange them both on a baking tray, spritz them with a few sprays of oil, scatter over the garlic, chilli, cumin/cumin seeds and then season with a lot of salt and black pepper
into the oven they go for thirty minutes or so, turning them every now and then
meanwhile, thinly slice your onion and pepper if using, then gently sweat them in a few sprays of oil – cook them slowly mind, let them sweat and golden and caramelise
add the chickpeas (drained, obviously) then the spinach so it wilts down
mix in the potatoes and cauliflower and serve!

Super tasty and easy to make.

Want more ideas? You greedy bugger!

Enjoy!

Posted by

chubbycubs

Posted on

September 30, 2017

Posted under

fakeaways, greek, low syn, lunch, persian, recipe card, savoury snacks, snacks, taster ideas, travel, vegetarian

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cheese and spinach stuffed aubergine rolls

Cheese and spinach stuffed aubergine rolls awaits you, but before we get there, we have a small diversion to take via Benidorm. Buckle up folks, it’ll be a bumpy ride. Not interested in our holiday stories? Click the LEATHERY OLD SLAPPER just below to be whisked straight to the recipe.

Pfft, like we wanted her to stay anyway, eh? Let’s do this.

I know that technically that’s not the Spanish flag but honestly, saying as I think I heard one sentence of Spanish in the entire holiday, I thought it was fitting to overlay the United Kingdom flag behind it.

Let me start by reminding everyone that these our own views and that your experience may differ. Whilst I’ll play up our snobbiness for the blog, we don’t really think that bad of folk. Hell there were some sights to be seen for sure, but for the most part it was a decent holiday. Before you light your rolled-up copies of That’s Life and march on my doorstep, remember: shut up.

So, why Benidorm? Why, on the Earth full of beautiful places, interesting cultures and wonderful sights, did we settle on five days in a concrete wasteland full of boggle-eyed Brits shouting at waiters for DOS BEE-URS POR FAV-WHORE? Easy. Paul. The problem I have is that I’m very easily led – work hard enough on me and I can be persuaded to do pretty much anything. Anything, just saying. I once drove home behind a bus with an advert for ladies private healthcare on the back and had to be stopped from booking myself in for a full cervical screen and a hysterectomy. Paul takes advantage of my suggestibility an awful lot, which is why I have a Smart car on the drive and a bumhole like the end of an exploding joke cigar. He had seen me slumped in my chair on the plane back from Portugal, working my way through a rum and diazepam on ice, and suggested we go to Benidorm. He’d watched a programme on Channel 5 and thought it would be hilarious. I was too busy seeing individual moments of time fragment before my eyes to argue, and so it was that we’d no sooner landed, got home and fed the cats than he had the flights and hotel booked.

Great! I spent the next three weeks moaning to all and sundry that it wasn’t my idea of a good holiday place, and, as a result, I could barely get excited for it. If I want to see port-coloured Brits wearing full football kits and kicking in the locals, I need only nip down the road and book myself into a hostel in Whitley Bay, possibly the only place in the UK where the beach is more dog shit than sand. Nevertheless, time rolled on, and here it was the night before our flight and I had to pack. Paul had one job – wash our work clothes so we didn’t have to blunder about when we came back. Easy, yes?

No! He did indeed manage to wash them and hell, they even ended up in the tumble drier right on schedule – but he neglected to check the pockets, meaning our debit cards were treated to a full hot wash and tumble. They were wavy, and completely unable to fit inside a cash machine. This meant that for the entire holiday we had to withdraw money via our credit card which, because banks are bastards, ended up costing more (roughly) than the hotel. Pfft. Imagine the kind words that were exchanged between us. Actually, I just look into those protuberant, wobbling, bloodshot eyes (or try to, one is usually swivelling around like Mad Eye Moody sitting on a washing machine) and all is forgiven. I can’t stay angry with that wee face.

Our flight in the morning was an altogether reasonable 9am, but Paul does love to be at the airport in plenty of time, so usually we end up setting off the previous Christmas to ensure we make the ten miles to the airport without incident. I always mock him for this but for once, he was actually right to tip me groaning out of bed, into the shower, wash me under my boobs and get me dressed because – catastrophe – my car had a flat tyre. Although I didn’t admit it at the time, I later confessed that I thought I’d damaged the tyre when I was making the car bump and groove to Girls Just Wanna Have Fun as I drove home the day before. Taking his car was a no no because we were carrying more than a leaflet with us and thus, there wasn’t room.

What a to-do! I’m sure folks out there more manly or competent than us wouldn’t have spent ten minutes looking at the jack in the boot of the car, wondering whether 6am was too early to wake a neighbour to come and be butch for us or discussing whether to chance a ride to the airport with a flat tyre. In the end, we caved and ordered a taxi. We were told it would be here within ten minutes – it actually took forty, and the unshaven, brutish oik of a driver didn’t so much as apologise. We did spend the entire car ride nodding politely at his stream of racist comments. Paul had to hold me back when he started banging on about the work standards of immigants (sic) – I looked around at his filthy taxi, stinking of smoke as it did despite the no smoking sign, looked at the footwell full of litter and the clock which showed we were thirty minutes behind schedule, and all I wanted to do was to say that if this was the benchmark upon which to compare work ethics, well, the quicker Krzysztof arrived here in the back of a lorry the better.

We didn’t tip.

Newcastle Airport remains a disappointment. It has a few shops but I mean, come on, which joker thought Sports Direct was a good idea? There’s also a kebab house, a Greggs and a poky WH Smith for good measure. I nipped in there to buy some chewing gum and was asked to show my boarding card. For a packet of chewing gum. I think he knew from how loudly I rolled my eyes that it wasn’t going to happen. We went to the only place that wasn’t full of stags and hens – so, so many hens shrieking and cackling – indeed, the only place that looked halfway decent. We ended up paying over £16 for two coffees and two bowls of yoghurt and muesli. I mean, get fucked.

Oh and to top it off, Paul was upset by some braying skidmark in a cheap suit who, when asked to move out of the way as he was blocking the entrance, told him to fuck off. Pfft! Because we’re British and hate direct confrontation, it was only later when I was able to respond in kind – we were stood behind him waiting to pay for our breakfast when I loudly wondered out loud if ‘when your nose hair gets to such an extensive level, do you not consider a combover’. The guy knew we were talking about him because he touched his nose as he left. Let’s hope he develops a complex and ends up old, alone and covered in matted nosehair.

I hate airports – it just feels like everything is designed to piss you off in some way. Security is a ballache – a necessary one, absolutely, but for goodness sake crack a smile, tell a joke, lighten the mood a little – if you’re going to be groping my cock to see if I’m carrying on an extra 20ml of Tom Ford at least be gracious about it. You go into shops and it’s the same shite for sale as everywhere else, only with fake reductions on it, and everyone gets in your way. You get corralled into tiny ‘gates’ where there’s enough seating for the five people on your full flight and then when they call you to the plane, they don’t let you board, preferring instead to keep you penned together at the bottom of a flight of stairs, sweating and collectively tutting away. I know you can pay extra to get into the airport lounges but Newcastle’s lounge is an absolute joke – if you like piss-weak flat prosecco and scrapping over lukewarm Costco muffins with a Grouponed-gaggle of hens, maybe it’s for you. Frankly, I’d be more relaxed if I board the plane freefalling from 35,000ft in the air.

Perhaps I’m just being grumpy. But see, I had two other concerns. Firstly, we were flying Ryanair, and it was just at the time when they had started announcing flight cancellations and all sorts of problems with the schedules. The relief when I glanced outside our gate window and saw they had actually sent a plane rather than a cardboard cut-out to fool us was immeasurable. But the fact that the plane was there at all created another worry – we’d never flown Ryanair but have heard all sorts of horror stories about how they gouge you at every opportunity. I was that ready to be shafted that I’d lubed myself up in the toilets and soaked my boarding pass in amyl nitrates. To top it off, they charge you to sit together – actually actively go out of their way to pull you apart to force you to pay more – and so, out of protest, Paul had ignored this, meaning we weren’t sitting together for the flight out!

Great! I’m not scared of flying but I do like to have Paul next to me so that, if the plane was plummeting towards the earth in a ball of fire and wrenching metal, I could push him in front of me to act as a crude take on an airbag, even if that airbag is full of air that smells of pure, concentrated death. We had speedy boarding so we were the first to be released from the holding pen and we took our seats.

Thoughts? Awful. Listen, Ryanair is very much ‘what it says it is’, but for goodness sake, there’s not even a seat pocket in front of you to put your stuff in, meaning you have to balance your iPad, phone, headphones, water and headphones on your lap. By the end of the flight I was a grade four juggler. Actually, that’s a fib, but I was technically deaf. I’ve never been on such a loud flight. There were no groups of stags or hens – thank God – but everyone was speaking at about twenty decibels more than necessary. I tried listening to a podcast but it’s difficult to concentrate on Sheila Dillon when you’re sat in the middle of a People’s Postcode Lottery advert. People who, rather than get up and walk down the aisle to talk to a family member, preferred to yell down the plane like they were hijacking the flight.

Oh and christ almighty, the coughing. It was like being on a last-chance flight to Lourdes. At one point I was actually thankful for the lack of seat pockets because they’d be full of blackened lung. I hoped for a small fire just to get the oxygen masks to deploy and give their lungs a break. We’re not talking delicately coughing into a tissue here like Satine in Moulin Rouge, but rather, huge rasping barks where you can hear the air-sacs ripping. Half of the time there wasn’t so much as a hand in front of their mouths, meaning the air in that cabin was probably 80% lungbutter particles. I couldn’t bear it and I could sense from the shade of Paul’s ears a few rows in front that he felt the same. Folks, if smoking means you can’t get through a three hour flight without sounding like you’ve just escaped a house fire, give it up! For goodness sake!

Aside from the volume and coughing, the flight passed smoothly – it was canny of Ryanair to make sure we didn’t get a moment’s rest by coming onto the intercom every five minutes to sell us sandwiches, drinks, duty free, scratchcards, perfumes, a 15 minute turn in the cockpit and the odds on the plane having enough jet fuel to land safely. They should have came round with a trolley full of Strepsils, they’d have turned enough profit to pay John Travolta to fly all of those cancelled flights.

We landed safely, if somewhat abruptly, and cleared passport control in mere moments, which was lovely. I was still hoping that someone had slipped a kilo of coke up my arse at this point and we’d be sent home but no, no such luck. We had arrived – for better or for worse. Let’s leave it there and do the recipe though, eh?

This makes about twelve rolls, more if you’re stingy, and make for a nice little tapas style dinner!

to make cheese and spinach stuffed aubergine rolls, you’ll need:

two aubergines, as big and thick and as phallic as you dare – if you’re not worried about the neighbours seeing them tumble out of your car, they’re not big enough
200g of ricotta (two HEA)
80g of soft goat cheese (two HEA)
25g of breadcrumbs (just use ready made, 4.5 syns – or you could clit about with your healthy extra but zzz)
200g of wilted spinach
1 tablespoon of olive oil (6 syns)
salt and pepper

In total then, if this makes 12 rolls, you can have three rolls for 2.5 syns and a HEA. You’ll need a griddle pan for the best looking rolls, an Optigrill, or hell, even a frying pan will do it but you’ll not get the fancy griddle marks.

to make cheese and spinach stuffed aubergine rolls, you should:

thinly slice your aubergine, lay them out flat and rub salt into each slice – leave for thirty minutes to pull some of the bitterness out of the slices
pop your oven onto 180 degrees
meanwhile, wilt your spinach – not a euphemism, don’t give yourself a strum in the kitchen – once it’s wilted, chop it fine
want a tip? put your spinach on a plate and put a plate on top and squeeze – it’ll get all the water out
mix the spinach, ricotta, goat cheese, breadcrumbs, salt and pepper into a bowl
when you’re ready to cook, take each slice, pat it down to get rid of the water, and brush each slice with the oil – you only need a little bit of oil per slice so don’t go mad here, I did make the tablespoon last!
time to grill your slices:
- if using an Optigrill, whack the heat sensor up to red and let it get up to temperature – I sprayed the plates a couple of times with spray oil (not Fryshite) – when up to temperature, lay your slices on and cook them until the griddle marks are nice and clear – done!
- if using the griddle pan or frying pan, same as above – get it out, cook for a few minutes, remembering to turn and take off the heat when the marks appear
take each slice, put a teaspoon of the filling at one end, and then roll up
pop them all into an ovenproof dish and whack it in the oven for fifteen minutes
done!

Easy! Looking for more ideas for quick dinners? Here’s a random collection of buttons that’ll see you right!