Reasons to be cheerful...

I am a big fat bastard. Here are the best reasons why:

Pork Pies

Malted Milk biscuits with a glass of milk

Dominoes Pepporoni Passion pizza with BBQ sauce, pineapple and sweetcorn

Dime Bars

Mashed potato

Bootylace's spaghetti bolognese

My homemade banoffee pie

Marzipan

Corned Beef

Praline

Cashew nuts

Culinary exploits

Can't really be bothered to follow this through now, so basically I've taken these points away from the weekend:

Wagamama's is awesome - always have the Chicken Katsu curry with Negima Yakitori skewers.
Never ever pass up an opportunity to go to a Tony Roma's.
Vegetarian restaurants can be good, but if you don't like aubergine you're fucked.

Home-made Coke Zero

Coca-Cola have recently launched their answer to Pepsi Max, Coke Zero. Presumably named as it contains no sugar, and almost zero calories and flavour.

For those of you who wish to decrease their sugar intake, while saving cash and still enjoying the great taste and cancer-granting properties of Coke Zero, I have developed my own recipe for home-made Coke Zero.

Take one bottle of sparkling water.

Add some black food colouring.

If you want cancer-free Diet Coke stop now and drink.

Now, add two soluble aspirin.

You now have your own home-made Coke Zero.

Oh, and don't forget to irradiate your colon.

Caesar Salad (five portions)

I don't really see the point of salad, so when I found out I would be making this I wasn't exactly thrilled. Salad to me is a nothing food, something restaurants use to fill up a sparsely populated plate. The idea of serving it alone is simply ludicrous. I also HATE mustard which is used in this recipe. You should already be aware of my aversion to all things piscine, so I was not best pleased at the inclusion of anchovies. The only person I can think of who actually likes anchovies is the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Michelangelo, and he is a fictional radioactive chenolian. If I was forced at gunpoint to eat a salad, however, I would probably plump for either a Ranch or a Caesar.

Dressing

Ingredients
2 egg yolks
1/2 clove garlic (soul removed)
1/2 tpsn Dijon mustard
50g parmegianno parmesan
2 tspn Worcestershire sauce
75ml virgin olive oil
Juice from half a lemon
6 fresh anchovies
Cracked black pepper

Method
I had never heard of removing the "soul" from the garlic before. If you peel a clove and cut it in half, you should see a thin stalk running through the centre. This is sometimes green, dependant on freshness. This can easily be flicked out with a knife. Apparently, removing this section reduces the chance of "garlic breath" and will allow you to use more garlic in your recipes.

Place the egg yolks, garlic, Worcester sauce, lemon juice, Dijon mustard and anchovies into a blender and liquidise. This could also be done with a stick blender. If you are worried about salmonella, be aware of the raw egg!

Slowly add in the olive oil in stages until the mixture thickens enough to cling to the salad leaves. Strangely enough, the more oil you add, the thicker the mixture becomes. If you add too much, you can thin it out with water.

Add the black pepper and parmesan.

Salad

Ingredients

Cos or Romaine lettuce
Fresh anchovy fillets
Good quality parmesan shavings
Small stick of French bread
Olive oil
1/2 clove garlic
5 eggs
Any clear vinegar

Method
To make croutons thinly slice the bread, allowing two pieces per person. Toast, then rub with garlic and add a splash of oil.

Wash the salad, place in a bowl and evenly coat the leaves with the dressing.

Place the salad in your presentation bowl, sprinkle with the anchovies and parmesan and add the croutons.

Now poach your eggs. If you have a gas hob, I learned an excellent way to do this. If you own an all electric cooker, forget it - try another method. Try to use the freshest eggs possible as these will work much better. The eggs need to be poached one at a time in a small pan. Fill the pan 2/3 full of water and bring to a rolling boil. Add in a splash of vinegar. This will help the ablumen adhere to the yolk. Quickly turn down the hob to a simmering temperature (this is why electric hobs are no good) and give the water a brisk stir. When the water is revolving round the pan nicely, crack in the egg. There will be a worrying moment, but the white soon should wrap around the yolk taking on the shape of a slighty flattened rugby ball. You may need to later trim a few strands of white to make it look perfect. Extract the egg with a slotted spoon and place into a bowl of cold water. This will stop the egg cooking and remove the flavour of the vinegar. Add the egg to the salad and serve.

The Verdict
This is bloody marvellous. When you stick your fork into the egg, it erupts yellow lava which cascades lavishly through the salad. The salad itself is zingingly tasty, but more extraordinary than that - satisfying! I ate absolutely everything, anchovies included. This shows that salad can be brilliant, but to be honest it rarely is; the key here, as always is the quality of the ingredients. I would definitely eat this again, although I doubt if I could be bothered to go to this much effort for a starter or lunch.

Moules Mariniere

First of all, I don't generally eat any sort of seafood, so jumping straight in with molluscs was not the most appealing start. Mussels seem somewhat extravagant to us in the UK, but I was surprised how easy this cheap and impressive meal was to knock together.

Ingredients
1Kg mussels
25g chopped shallots
1/4 pt white wine
Chopped parsley
Double cream (optional)

Method
De-beard the shells and remove any barnacles with a knife. Whack them in a bowl of cold water. (Shit, I think I sound like Jamie Oliver!)

I knew that closed mussels should be discarded after cooking, however, one tip I picked up was that prior to cooking you should give open mussels a tap. Any that don't close are dead and therefore no good. Throw them away.

Get a heavy based pan onto a high flame. Add the shallots, white wine and mussels. When it comes to the wine, the simple rule is if you won't drink it, don't cook with it. Cover with a lid.

When the mussels have opened they should be ready. They generally need only 4-5 minutes, any longer and they will turn rubbery. That said, The Waist of Shoelace takes no responsibility for any deaths/illnesses incurred as a result of eating undercooked seafood.

If not using cream, sprinkle in the parsley and spoon over the liquor. Otherwise, remove the mussels from the pan and reduce the cooking liquor by half before adding the cream. Re-boil to thicken slightly, then add the parsley and a squeeze of lemon.

Pour over the mussels, then serve with crusty bread, a nice dry white and a fingerbowl. Awesome to stick on a big platter between a load of mates.

The Verdict
I still can't say I'm totally sold on mussels, but I gave them a try, and ending up eating two or three. They are quite meaty, not really fishy at all, and not anywhere near as slimy as you might expect. I found them to have a similar texture to cheese curds. I particularly enjoyed dipping the bread into the tasty sauce. Although I'm not a complete mollusc convert, what I am attracted to is the adventure surrounding the meal. Everyone gathers round and gets stuck in, and after you've withdrawn your first morsel, you can swill out the shell in your fingerbowl and use as tongs for further extraction. I would certainly serve these up as an appetiser I wouldn't mind missing out on while preparing something else. I'm sure they would go down a treat with any seafood lovers.

Boning Chickens!

Muma Lace and I attend the Gastro! cookery course at The Ashburton Cookery School yesterday, and a thoroughly enjoyable experience it was too, although I thought the exclaimation mark was unwarranted.

Those of you who have read my previous blog will know that I don't like to eat any kind of seafood. To be honest most of the reasons given there were absolute bollocks; the real reason is I don't like the taste. People say that different fish taste different. This is also absolute bollocks, there are just different degrees of fishyness. The quality of the food however, was such that I did sample and enjoy all the fish dishes of the day, as well as other dishes containing ingredients I would normally avoid.

One of the things I wanted to do with this sublog was to list some of my own recipes here. Although they aren't mine, they are so class, I thought it was worth posting them with my own spin. Most of the dishes from the course were extremely versatile, and could be easily adapted to preference. I'm going to be posting some of them here soon.

Mother's Day

So, down in Devon for Mother's day. There we all were; myself, Little Boy Wheeler, Muma and Nana Lace as well as Nana's "gentlemen friend" Old Ron. As the occasion included Nana this inevitably involved a meal at The King's Arms in Tedburn St Mary. That's not to say Nana Lace only ever goes to that one place, sometimes, when she's feeling adventurous, she'll go to The Red Lion over the road.

Old Ron offered to buy us all drinks, but sadly I was designated driver. Usually when in Devon I like to do as the Devonians do. By this I mean drinking copious amounts of cider, in case you might of thought I was referring to sleeping with a cousin. As it was, I had to settle for something non-alcoholic, so I asked Old Ron for a J20. I may as well have asked for a cybergenic particle splitter.
"A what?" The elderly gent puzzled.
"A J20." I responded loudly, taking the octogenarian to be deaf.
"I don't know what that is, you'll have to come with me and ask."
"It's fruit juice. Just ask for a Jay-too-0h"
"I don't know about these things, you'll have to come with me.

I think Old Ron is something of a man's man and, quite understandably, rather old fashioned. You should have seen his face when my spinach and ricotta canelloni arrived as he was tucking into his sunday roast.

Cock and Balls Crisp

While tucking into a packet of Walker's Thai Sweet Chilli Sensations, I came across this little gem. I might send it into the Fortean Times for their simulacrum page.