7777 week day three: looking the biz with Liz!

So yes, sorry about yesterday and all, but we got sidetracked by the election, and anyway you got a competition so hush your gums. How do I feel about the election? Pretty annoyed, in all honesty, not least because it means I have to look at that smug, oily-faced knobber everytime I open the newspaper. I liked Ed Miliband but he had all the leadership potential of a carrier bag blowing in the wind, but he didn’t deserve that. Ah well. No politics chat. Five more years is plenty time for the United Kingdom to rue their decision. So yes, that’s that.

I keep receiving phone calls from various ‘Claims Management’ companies who have somehow got my number and are adamant that I’ve had an accident and must claim now. I’m not one of these people who get hysterical about it, ultimately people are just doing their jobs, but they are parasitic vultures and I do enjoy wasting their time. The amount of different scenarios I’ve had for my fictional accident is beyond belief. I had some cheery chap on the phone the other day for fifteen minutes asking me about my accident – I told him I was driving a car ferry down the A1 and hit a bridge. His response? He asked me for the registration plate of the ferry. I told him I couldn’t recall the registration plate and that I couldn’t check because one of my eyes had fallen out on impact.

Today’s call was a little shorter, I told him I’d hit a pollard. Admittedly, I’m not convinced English was his first accent, but I have a clear voice and clearly said pollard. He asked me to repeat. I said pollard. He asked again. Pollard. ‘Bollard Sir? You hit a bollard?’ – to which my reply was no, I’d hit eighties television star Su Pollard, who had strayed in front of my car whilst lighting a cigarette after turning on Durham’s Christmas lights. I mentioned that I felt her trademark glasses crack under my tyre and I couldn’t sleep for knowing there was so many Hi-De-Hi fans who’d never be happy again.

He hung up. No staying power at all, these cold callers.

BREAKFAST

Breakfast loaf

I confess, this has to be singularly the most unappetising dish I’ve made yet. It tasted nice, but it looked like a foot that had fallen in the sea. In fact, that’s all I can see now. It’s 4 syns for the whole lot and it made enough for breakfast for the two of us and a few slices for snacking. Is it healthy? Christ no. To be frank, if I stop and think about it, it’s bloody revolting the amount of meat being used here…

ingredients: 8 Be-Good-To-Yourself sausages (1/2 syn each) (you might need more, I did, but I have a big loaf tin), four eggs, a chopped onion, around twelve rashers of bacon. You’ll also need a loaf tin.

recipe:

• set your eggs away boiling – after eight minutes, take out, run under cold water and peel them
• using your fingers, squeeze the sausage-meat out of their casing – you might want to really concentrate carefully at how this looks as you’re doing it because trust me, with this veritable mountain of meat, you won’t be experiencing this action for a few days – and into a bowl
• gently fry off the onion in a dab of oil or frylight and set aside
• line the loaf tin with the rashers of bacon, leaving some dangling over the top of the sides which you’ll then fold over the sausagemeat – make sure you cover the bottom of the tin too
• spoon half of the sausagemeat into the bottom of the tin
• place the four boiled eggs into the loaf tin on their sides
• spoon over the cooked onion
• get the rest of the sausagemeat and pack it into the tin, then fold the bacon over the top
• you want your meat packed really quite tight – you’re creating a bacon wrapped parcel of goodness
• cook in the oven for around forty minutes or until it is cooked through – you might need to drain a little liquid off
• leave to cool, then slice and serve

You’ll also need to know this basic hands-only CPR:

• place the heel of your hand on the breastbone at the centre of the person’s chest. Place your other hand on top of your first hand and interlock your fingers
• position yourself with your shoulders above your hands
• using your body weight (not just your arms), press straight down by 5–6cm on their chest
• repeat this until an ambulance arrives

That bit about the using all your weight bit makes me titter. If I used all of my weight on someone’s chest they’d be taking the corpse into hospital in a fucking gravy boat.

LUNCH

this one’s easy.

ingredients: one egg, 2 slices of ham, 2 tomatoes, 40g reduced-fat cheddar, cucumber, handful of pickled onions, two slices of wholemeal bread (healthy extra), 2 tbsp fat free cottage cheese, one chicken breast

recipe: well now, really. This one practically makes itself. We George Foreman’ed the chicken breast. That is, we grilled it, not became so proud of it that we put our name on it. Have you seen my full name? It wouldn’t fit on a cucumber.

DETOX WATER

Lemon and ginger

I’m not a huge fan of ginger, unless we’re talking about mega-titted Geri Halliwell, who was my favourite Spice Girl. I always pretend to Paul that I’m too cool for that type of music but then he’ll catch me doing all the voices to Spice Up My Life whilst pottering around in the shed and the game is up. Tell you what, this detox water is playing havoc with my sleeping pattern – I’m waking up to strain the potatoes a good four times a night. I’m like the secret lemonade drinker, only the lemonade is cucumber scented and I’m spraying it all over the bathroom tiles in my sleep-addled state. So yes, enjoy that…this mixture is simple:

• lemon – apparently very good for digestion, which is a good idea when you’re eating all this meat (honestly, if you’re not suffering with a logjam on the River Brown by the end of this SP week, I’d be amazed. I’m a whisker away from calling in those chaps who blow up old cooling towers).
• ginger – good for motion sickness, which is handy to stop your head spinning from trying to get your head around this bloody SP malarkey.

BODY MAGIC IDEA – LOOKING THE BIZ WITH LIZ MCDONALD

Well, this was absolutely disastrous. We had originally planned to give a ‘fitness DVD’ a go and had settled on trying to find that Charlotte Crosby’s DVD. She lost so much weight on her diet, but frankly, I don’t know if I can exist on a diet of jizz and cocaine, so we put that on the backburner. Then I remembered – my old flatmate bought me Beverley Callard’s Rapid Results from a Scope shop so many moon ago, and I’ve always kept it because it looks hilarious to see her tiny face peeping out next to the boxsets of 24 and Lost. I’m not fibbing either – you really can lose weight with Liz McDonald! 

We got about five minutes in and gave up. Why? Because it was ridiculous! For a start, we don’t have the level of fitness required to keep up with the lovely Bev, and secondly, neither of us could concentrate on the TV because of the fear of seeing some eye-watering camel toe. There’s something intensely troubling about trying to keep up with the squats with the Queen of the Rovers Return, especially as she was going through her ‘Kevin Keegan’ haircut stage at the time of filming.

Plus, I couldn’t take it seriously. I kept yelling ‘LIZ YA WHOOOOOREEE’ at Paul in my best Jim McDonald voice, together with ‘Catch yerself on, Elizabeth’ and ‘What about ye Paul’ even before the exercise started. See this is why we can’t go along to classes. Ah well. At least we tried! Imagine what it must have looked like to see two big fat benders yelling corrie quotes at each other whilst Roly from Eastenders did lunges on the telly.

BTW, I can’t begin to tell you how often Jim McDonald impressions get made in our house. The other Corrie impression that comes out all the time is Paul shouting LEEEEES like Janice Battersby used to. It’s like the last ten years never happened!

DINNER 

Pizza topped chicken

ingredients (makes two): 1 small red onion (chopped finely), 1 red pepper (chopped), 2 small cloves of garlic (crushed), 2 tbsp stock, 1 tin of chopped tomatoes, 2 tsp tomato puree, 1 tsp oregano, two chicken breasts, 65g reduced fat mozzarella, few leaves of basil (finely chopped)

recipe: 

• slice the chicken breast in half horizontally, making sure not to slice through the entire breast, then fold open to make a butterfly shape and repeat for the other breast.
• spray a large pan with Frylight (or add a teaspoon of olive oil for 2 syn) and fry the breasts over a medium-high heat until slightly browned and repeat on both sides.
• place the breasts onto a baking sheet and cook in the oven for 20 minutes at 200 degrees.
• meanwhile, in a saucepan, mix together the onions, garlic and stock and simmer for a few minutes until the onion is slightly softened
• add the tomatoes, tomato puree and oregano and stir, remove from the heat
• when the chicken breasts are cooked, spread a tablespoon or more of the tomato mixture onto each breast
• add the mozzarella and cook in the oven for a further 5 minutes
• sprinkle with the chopped basil and eat!

DAY THREE DONE.

J