Be Excellent To Each Other

I like it for the umami hit in casseroles and the like, and I cook a lot of fried mushrooms. A punnet of mushrooms, sliced and fried in butter with a tablespoon of mushroom ketchup is a majestic thing. It also makes in interesting glaze for grilling meats.

I've never put it in fried mushrooms.

I've wasted my life.

I imagine it achieves something quite similar to when I use the dried porcini soaking liquid.

It's been out for a while, I replaced my old one last month or something. Maybe it's was only in one chain before and now it's gone to all of them?

Since having chicken wings with the Idiot Sauce at Atomic Pizza the other week I've had a bit of a hankering for both the sauce (not dishwasher-hot though) and wings. Since Papa Johns were doing "any pizza/size 9.99" and I had £5 of vouchers to go on top I got their "hot" buffalo wings as well and they were... not great, particularly the salty, vinegary, wet sauce, but it only made me want wings more.

I need to know how to do great wings.

We *really* need to get a house with land so I can have a smoker/barbecue/grill/hot plate/wood-fired-oven. I want to build my own all-in-one multi-contraption, obviously. Seems silly to do them all separate when with appropriate design the wood-fired oven could drive all the others easily.

Interesting. I love Papa John's buffalo sauce (the stuff in the pot). It's meant to be vinegary.

Incredibly salty though - I got the buffalo sauce on the side (I got the jalapeno popper combo with wings and two dips). The sauce on the hot buffalo wings was stupidly vinegary and maybe less salty. Different colour too.

Maybe the difference between heated in the pot versus being sat in foil with the hot, fatty wings?

Everything from the one in Sale has been increasingly salty though, starting a year or so ago. Even just eating some pizza with soft drinks means waking up with horrible dry, sticky mouth. Never used to be like that. First they swapped the gorgeous garlic butter dip for chemicals (years ago, when I was still in South Liverpool), then the pickled chillis vanished (still in Liverpool), and then massive salt content (after I moved to Sale).

Got some incredibly dodgy potatoes today. Those Albert Bartlett Rooster ones. They're usually good. Boiled some for mash - about 15 minutes as usual and they disintegrated. Mash was dry and powdery as a result. I did notice that when I was peeling them they were a bit brown beneath the skin, but I peeled that off as well and they seemed normal below that. Bought them today and they were well within the use by date.

Rooster were by far the most successful of the ones we grew this year - I was genuinely surprised, given it's a US brand and advertised as a do-all spud. I'd say they've been stored wrong or too long.

Easy way to fix it. Olive oil and butter.


No, more.



More.




More. And some salt.

Oh I rescued it with plenty butter! But still, not as good as usual.

MOAR BUTTAR!

Don't write the Rooster off because of this batch though - ours have been seriously good, lovely and waxy and tasty. I doubt that's just because we grew them from seed spuds ourselves.

Oh I won't! I always get the Roosters!

Good!

Did my words about Manchester help, by the way? Or is that another weekend? I won't be offended if they didn't; my needs from the city centre differ from most peoples, I think.

Next weekend, but I'm not sure I noticed them! Was it in Bits and Bobs I asked? I shall investigate!

It's good that you found something to do next weekend. Something that isn't, y'know, coming to the cottage. I HATE YOU.

I don't have a choice! I'm a "groomsman". I can't skip the stag do!

Really not a clue! I just tapped out words.

Also, I really REALLY need to stop watching Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives on Food Network, because I currently want to give up software engineering to open a barbecue restaurant.

Fieri's a bit of an arse, but he's at least a likeable arse - and he's obvously pretty passionate about his food.
I'm thinking more about a brunch place myself. In fact, I'm genuinely thinking of going back to college and doing a chef's course.

Also: I went out for lunch to a new place today and had their pulled pork sandwich. After a couple of bites I genuinely wanted to go, kick the kitchen door down and bellow "DO YOU WANT ME TO SHOW YOU HOW TO DO A REAL PULLED PORK SANDWICH, YOU USELESS CUNTS!"

I appear to have become quite passionate about pulled pork.

I think going to school would actually be a terrible thing, because they'd beat any inventiveness out of you - and that's where all the best stuff seems to come from. Not just on telly, I'm almost entirely self-taught and the stupid ideas I act on are often the best things and I'm sure would horrify a classically-trained chef.

For me, it'd be "this is what worked when the HSE rules didn't apply; how do I make it HSE-compliant or GTFO"

Stuff like the hilarious "I added flour so it's a Roux" (though that's more on 'Guy's Big Bite') just make it all more endearing.

For boring reasons, I want to try eating dinner that is high in carbs, and has no (or next to no) protien in it.

What the fuck could I eat that won't be dull as sin?

Pasta. Cheese pizza. Vegetable curries.

Baked potato with baked beans.

Beans are high in protein. Actually, so is cheese.

Vegetable pasta. Roast onions, peppers, courgettes, aubergine, tomatoes, etc, then stir through boiled pasta.

Mmmmm...

Sounds delicious!

Really? Oh. I thought they were mostly starchy sugars.

Pasta with extra virgin olive oil and fresh basil.

It is…


…if you add enough cheese.

So "pesto without the good bits"?

It'd be dead nice, if it's all good stuff and fresh. Throw through some halved cherry tomatoes if you like.

Or, ooh, chopped sun-dried tomatoes!

I just took fusion cooking to the next level; smoked salmon and biryani kedgeree. Oh yeah!

Surely every kedgeree is a biryani kedgeree?

So what's kedgeree chum?

I thought biryani was a specific spice mix

What Gaywood feeds his dogs.

Huh, would you look at that.

• We made an octopus stew in which I fucked up reading the instructions for a Knorr stock pot*, making it unbearably salty - into the freezer.
• I made a spicy veg sauce which I fucked up adding chillis to, making it unbearably spicy - into the freezer.
• I made a lamb "phindaloo" which was lovely - leftovers into the freezer.

Mixing them 2:3:1 has resulted in something magnificent and which should feed me nicely for the rest of the week if I avoid continuing to buy all the takeaways in the world while Helen's in SA.

But it is Papa John's "Two for Tuesday."


* I know, right?

As Craster is coming for dinner on Thursday, I HAVE STARTED MAKING MAN CHILLI.

This time I am MIXING IT UP by adding THINGS WHAT I THINK TASTE NICE.

So far that consists of frying the onions in a bucket of garlic butter, then adding chocolate and beer.

BEHOLD, MAN CHILLI REDUX - HAIRY CHEST EDITION

This can't end well.

It's just going to be a big pot of bacon.

Chocolate (dark) and beer are good. also recommended: bay leaves, cinnamon sticks, and using.lamb shoulder instead of beef.

I just spent some time looking at meat slicers.

Shit.

...


...





ACCEPTABLE.

It already looks well nice.

How would that not be ending well?

I see your point.

Get on it Grim...

Pulled pork, coleslaw and cheese on a bun is lovely, yes.

Not as lovely, though, as pulled pork, coleslaw, cheese and tomato/aubergine chutney on an oven bottom muffin.

Cheese? CHEESE?!

Not strictly necessary, I admit.

I wish I had more pulled pork to try with chutney without cheese now. The last tub is still in the freezer though.

Nan bread heated up, topped with a big scoop of tomato/aubergine chutney, a big scoop of coleslaw and a good dash of Franks Red Hot Xtra Hit then rolled up and ET! NOMS!

All the tomatoes and chillis harvested - all green, so lots of preserving to do.

2 kilos of toms made 10 jars of hot and sour pickle. Whoops. Still, there are another 3 kilos of toms and 2.5kg of chillis left to do.

KitchenAid or MagiMix? At the moment I'm tending heavily towards KitchenAid. And oh, the attachments! Dough hook! Buhbye bread machine! Mincer! Buhbye pre-packed mince! Beater! Buhbye tired arms! Grater! Helloooo infinite parmesan! Pasta thing! Buhbye Helen's manual one that is in a huge box that never gets used!

I am totally middle-aged (and possibly Victorian housewife) here, aren't I?

What exactly are you after? A processor that does a little bit of mixing, or a mixer that does a bit of processing?

We have one of these http://www.amazon.co.uk/Kenwood-Titaniu ... 026&sr=8-5 and it is awesome.

We probably do want quite a lot of chopping, mincing and pureeing and some mixing. KitchenAids are way cool though.

They're the good Aids.