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

Before I launch into the recipe, an update on our neighbours. It’s the dried up old husk at Number 2 who has been giving us trouble, with her post-post-post-post menopausal ranting about us parking in our own parking spot (which she wants for herself, despite not owning it). Anyway, it sounds like the HRT Hot(flush)line has been in action because Number 1 and Number 3 have also stopped speaking to us in apparent solidarity. I found this out as I gave Number 1 a cheery hello yesterday and got stonewalled in response. To say I’m devastated is an understatement. I mean, Paul and I will almost certainly not get an invite to their New Year cheese and wine party now. Pity. Frankly if I’m not welcoming in the New Year whilst smiling politely and dying inside whilst some rancid old bore in an Arran jumper and garden centre corduroys spits barely-veiled racist views on immigrants at me over some Lidl cheddar, then is life even worth living?

All this has done is crystallised in my mind how best to wind the buggers up. Number 2 sits in her bat-chair which looks directly across our garden at our living room all evening. We’re going to buy the brightest, tackiest LED Christmas lights we can find on 1 December, stick them all over the window (though Paul has advised me not to spell out the word WANKERS with them) and set them to the most obnoxious flashing pattern we can find. We’ve got nice heavy curtains, so we can just pull them across and not notice the flashing, but from her chair it’ll look like the runway approach to Heathrow, flashing and blinking all night long. Her cheap nets, so good for peering around, will be no match for that. I’m almost tempted to stick a massive SANTA STOP HERE sign in the garden. Perhaps an inflatable Santa on the roof…oh the possibilities are endless. Miserable old vinegartits.

ON THAT NOTE, haha, here’s the recipe for syn free pork! Broke down at the end for absolute clarity!

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

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

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

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

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

Now, if you will excuse me, I’ve got to show my neighbour my arse as I clean the kitchen. That’ll teach her for being nosey…